Epilogue

one year later

My girl staresin the mirror. Blonde hair. Black roots. A jagged nose and a scar on her eyebrow, both of which I gave to her. The same night she gave me a black eye.

I don't have a matching scar, but sometimes, my ocular nerves twitch, and it's like she's got her finger wrapped around my insides.

She squints at me, then smirks.

"Will you ever stop watching me?" she asks. This isn't the first time she's asked this question, and it won't be the last. It's a thing we say together, a routine of ours. I don't care where she is or what she's doing; if she's going to shit or eat or breathe, it'll be with me. I like fucking with her too much.

"No," I say.

She rolls her eyes, then leans over the sink, applying more eyeliner. A shadow casts over her nose, like a rock in the middle of a smooth sidewalk.

A lot can happen in a year. I told her I'd pay for her to get plastic surgery. Even doctors are susceptible to cash offers—that's how I was able to stay in Pahrump for as long as I had without anyone connecting me to Roderick Galloway—but Rae had wanted me to break her nose.

It's fucked up, but it's real,she had said. Besides, I took your fingers.

I lick my lips, a sense of smugness warming me as I marvel at her bumped nose. I'd honestly let her cut off a lot more than two fingers just to see what she did with my extra parts.

"Put that shit away," I say, pulling her away from the mirror. "You don't need it."

She huffs, slightly annoyed. "It's not about needing it. It's about looking like someone else."

"Little girl, you don't look a thing like you once did."

She studies her reflection. Sometimes, we don't recognize ourselves. With my shaved head, amped-up workout regime, and new tattoos, I'm not Roderick or Michael or even Crave anymore.

My normal mask doesn't matter to me, but I want to see what she does with this next version of ourselves. With each and every night, my girl gets a little more unpredictable. It's entertaining.

"Do you still find me attractive? Even after everything?" she asks.

My eyes glaze over her body. She's got scars now. Scars to prove where she's been and to hint at where we're going. Right now, we're Carl and Julie, and in six months, we'll have new names again. Simple names for fucked-up people.

But one thing stays the same. When we're alone, she calls me Daddy, and I call her my little girl.

A ring is placed on her wedding finger, an ugly pink stone on a silver band, an act to make strangers trust us. But there's a funny story behind it: my girl insisted on getting my fingers shipped to some artisan who put my bone fragments into a ring. She wears my ashes like jewelry every day. You would think it's a wedding ring, but my girl isn't like that. She wears my bones like a trophy, proud of what she's done to me. To her, it's a promise that I'll literally be wrapped around her finger until the day we die.

And my promise is the scar she wears on her face. She'll never be able to look in the mirror and hide from my control over her again.

A woman in a sundress opens the bathroom door, gawking at me—god forbid, a man in the woman's bathroom—and I wink at her. She scurries to a stall.

My girl pulls me out of the bathroom. "Come on," she whispers. "Let's go."

Outside, the tropical resort is bustling with people. Tan and sunburned skin. A mix of slender and thick bodies washed in a bright palette of bathing suit colors. Palm trees sway along the borders, and hibiscus flowers bloom. The scent of roasting meat floats in the air. A typical paradise for normal people; not the usual place for us.

"What are we doing here?" my little girl whispers. "This isn't like us."

"Trust me," I say.

She scans me, but something over my shoulder catches her eye.

A woman with white-blonde hair. Watery eyes. Subtle wrinkles on her skin. A cocktail in her hand.

I push my girl forward.

"Are you kidding me?" she asks, her eyes welling up with tears. "My mother?"

"She's not your mother," I say. "Not anymore."

My girl's eyes trace me. Neither of us has to say a word. Even if it doesn't make sense, my girl never liked that I didn't kill her mother. She can't help her jealousy—this idea that I was saving her mother's life.

Letting Samantha Sinclair live wasn't about loving Samantha or even being interested in her. It was about our daughter. I couldn't kill her mother without destroying our daughter's potential, and I wanted to see what would happen if our daughter grew up away from me. If she would still turn out like me.

Turns out nothing can stop evil from blooming inside of a fucked-up soul. All it needs is a little nudge from its creator.

My girl takes a deep breath. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"What do you want to do?" I respond.

Her eyes flick across mine, but her decision is instant. She squeezes my hands, then she trots toward the bar. She sits beside her mother. I sit on the other side of my girl.

"What are you drinking?" my girl asks. "It looks good."

"Just a Hurricane," Samantha says. She pauses to scrutinize my girl's face. She briefly scans me too, but turns back to the woman beside her, the one she shares blood with. There must be an instinct there—a primal reaction to that shared connection, years of nurturing, betrayal, and loss.

A world has passed between them. Samantha thinks her daughter is dead, but she's looking at her. If you consider the timing—about a year since her daughter "died"—this vacation could be a way for the mother to grieve for her late daughter.

"Do I—" the mother starts. She shakes her head. "I'm sorry," she mumbles. "You just remind me of someone."

The smile fades from my girl's lips. "I get that a lot."

My girl orders the same thing as Samantha, using that as an excuse to make small talk. Warmth crawls over my skin, watching my girl in action. You would think that the woman who raised her would anticipate the tricks coming to the surface, but the mother takes shots with my girl like they're best friends.

A while later, we leave the mother at the bar. My girl and I stroll the beach, our bare feet dragging in the white sand.

"What did you see in her?" my girl finally asks.

"A warm hole," I answer.

She snickers. "Then what do you see in me?"

"An entertaining warm hole."

She punches me in the arm. I grin, then pull her into my embrace. I take in every part of her. The crooked nose. The scar on her brow. The bleach-blonde hair, with the roots of her natural color. Her brown eyes, so much like mine.

"I see my possession," I say. "My blood." I pull her chin up until she's staring into my eyes. "I see me."

There were twenty-five years where neither of us spoke a word to each other, where I kept my distance so that she could grow into the person she was meant to be, and yet every day feels like we've always been this way. Me and her. Daddy and his little girl. Two fucked-up people from the same bloodline.

My girl could have been good, like her mother. Instead, she chose a life like mine. Being like me—selfish, manipulative, and dark—was always her decision.

"You said you didn't want kids," my girl says. "Didn't."

"Do you want kids?" I ask.

She glances back at her mother, sitting at the bar, the resort towering behind her, so much like the Galloway House. You can protect yourself from nature's destruction inside of a building, but you're never really safe. The people inside, living right next to you, are the ones you have to fear the most. You never know who you're sitting next to, who may share your blood, who may want you dead.

"No," my girl says. "But you need to explain yourself. You said that you didn't want kids. Did something change?"

My girl looks up at me, demanding answers. I know exactly what this is: she wants confirmation that I want her now.

We're not the kind of couple that says that we love each other. Love isn't what we have. But the fact that we've spared each other, that she wears my cremated flesh on her wedding finger, that she has my scar marking her face, that's our dedication to each other. We're selfish beyond desire. We own each other.

And one day, her violent hunger will reach new heights. That's when she'll finally kill me. I can't fucking wait.

"I'm never letting you go," I say. "You know that."

She nods, satisfied with my answer. Then she twirls her hair. "I still don't understand why you haven't killed her."

"You've got that poison, don't you?" I ask.

She opens her purse, showing me a small perfume bottle. It twinkles in the sunset. All it would take is going back to that beach bar and putting a few drops into her mother's drink. Her mother would never notice. It would seem like an allergic reaction.

"You want me to do it," she says.

"I like watching you."

"You sick little freak."

She grabs the back of my head, kissing me feverishly. I force my tongue down her throat and clutch her neck, digging my fingers into her flesh. She moans into my mouth.

Tonight, we'll bring her mother to the hotel room. If my girl wants it, we'll fuck her mother together. After that, my girl will kill her mother.

And then it'll just be us.