Chapter 17 - Callum

My head is fucking throbbing. My ears are ringing. My brain is fuzzy. When I try to lift my head, pain shoots through my neck and down my spine.

I groan.

My entire body is heavy and weighed down.

And tied down.

My shoulders are stiff, my arms pulled behind me. I try to move them, to lift my hands, and that’s when I feel the rope digging into my wrists. The moment I open my eyes, whatever light there is is like a burst of sun rays burning my corneas. I quickly shut them and groan again.

“Give me a reason, Callum.”

I know that voice.

It’s deeper than usual, a little shaky, almost wrecked. Full of agony.

Nearly as much as what’s coursing through my whole body.

It feels as though I took a dozen pucks to the head.

I try to open my eyes again, blinking slowly. It takes several seconds to adjust to the light, which is actually pretty dim once I’m not as sensitive to it.

As my vision comes into focus, I realize I have no idea where I am. It looks like a living room, but it’s not the one I was spying into before everything went dark. The light comes from a floor lamp in the corner. There’s a nice navy sectional, a flat screen TV hung on the opposite wall, and a gun lying on the otherwise empty coffee table. I’m sitting in a wooden chair, my hands tied behind my back and more rope wrapped tightly around my ankles that are bound to the front chair legs.

“Give me a fucking reason not to do this.”

Stone’s voice reaches me a little clearer this time, past the haze and the pain. It pulls my attention to the left where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter, his back to me. His knuckles are white where he grips the edge of the countertop. The muscles in his back ripple beneath his shirt with each heaving breath.

He stands straight, picking something up off the counter.

“I’m begging you,” he says as he slowly turns around, the tip of the knife in his hand scraping across the laminate. As he faces me, I see his eyes are rimmed red.

Something clicks into place.

I peer down and notice for the first time that there are plastic sheets laid out over the vinyl flooring all around me.

For the blood.

I swallow hard, and my breaths immediately change from easy and steady to gasping and erratic. My eyes fly back to Stone as he takes a step toward me. It’s instinct to struggle against the binds holding me down, my wildly beating heart pleading with me to find an escape.

Hasn’t it learned by now?

There’s no escaping Stone.

He continues his advance, the plastic crinkling under his feet until he’s standing in front of me. My gaze moves from his reddened eyes to the blade at his side and then back again. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I can’t speak.

Then he’s moving again, straddling me and sitting on top of my thighs. He brings the knife up, resting the flat of it on my left shoulder.

I swallow again.

“It was you who saw something you weren’t supposed to this time. Please. Give me a reason.”

I open my mouth again. I want to give him a reason. Don’t I? So then why are words failing me?

His brows furrow so deep that I want to reach out and smooth the crease between them, but I can’t because my hands are tied behind me. I watch his Adam’s apple bob as it’s his turn to swallow hard. His hand shakes around the handle of the knife. His other comes up, softly carding his fingers through my hair.

Then he’s gripping it, tipping my head back.

I’ve become familiar with the waves of calm that wash over me while I’m staring into his eyes or watching him kill, but I’m not prepared for it this time.

However, it’s a little different now.

It’s not that I’m happy about him killing me. He doesn’t look like he’ll enjoy it either, not like he enjoyed the two I’ve witnessed. Shadows have fallen over the forests in his eyes, the fog turning misty.

I didn’t think I wanted to die, but, now , being faced with it, it doesn’t seem so bad.

It’ll finally be over.

No more nightmares.

No more memories.

Just…nothing.

“I’m sorry, Callum.”

His voice trembles worse than before as his blade leaves my shoulder and is pressed against my throat instead. This time, it’s not the flat edge.

He pauses again, inhaling a shuddering breath.

The sharp edge of the knife glides across my neck. Slowly.

There’s a bite. A sting.

Stone blinks, and a tear tracks down his cheek.

“Wait.”

It’s entirely possible that time is a construct my brain can’t comprehend right now, but I swear the blade left my skin a split second before I got the word out. I don’t know if it was the pain or the sight of Stone’s single tear, but…

“Wait,” I say again. “Just…look in my bag.”

His brows draw even tighter together, a frown marring his beautiful face, his chest trembling worse than mine.

“Please, Stone.” My voice comes out soft, like I’m trying to comfort him . “Look in my bag.”

It takes him nearly a minute to move. He looks like he’s about to fall apart. His body trembles as violently as an earthquake, his eyes wide, red, and wet.

Finally, he lifts himself off of me and practically stumbles over to the couch where he crashes down onto the end of the chaise. He has to give himself another minute, as though nearly murdering me just exhausted his very soul.

I don’t know if it makes me even more fucked up than I already am that I feel bad for not speaking sooner.

He places the knife on the coffee table and reaches for my bag off the floor. Opening it, he digs inside and pulls out the only thing in there—my sketchbook. He holds it up and gives me a questioning look. I nod.

Flipping the cover over, he looks down at the first sketch. There are a lot of loose pages in that book, the first of which is the very first drawing I did of my stepdad. I have it memorized by now. The charcoal is badly smudged, crease lines running all through it from how many times it’s been folded. But the image is still recognizable.

“What’s this?” Stone croaks as he eyes me incredulously.

“My stepdad,” I answer easily. The rest comes much easier than I expected too. “I didn’t call the cops right away after I found him like I told them I did. I sat at the bottom of the stairs and drew that.”

“Why?”

“Because it was beautiful.”

His expression shifts like he can’t fathom the words coming out of my mouth, looking at me as though I’ve grown two extra heads. It makes me grin.

“Something happened to me that night. Or maybe it was in me all along. I don’t know. It was the first time I ever felt truly…at peace.”

It’s my greatest secret, and telling Stone now isn’t as difficult as I thought it’d be. It’s easy . He’s the only one who’s ever seen parts of me I kept hidden. Now I’m stepping out of the shadows, letting him see even more. It’s not scary or daunting.

I don’t want to hide anymore.

Not from him.

Let him see.

“Turn the page.”

He does, flipping through several more drawings similar to the first, his hand shaking. I know the moment he gets to the one I was waiting for because his hand stills on the page, his body going stiff.

With his eyes still cast down, he says, “Is this…”

“You. On the dock in Massachusetts last weekend.”

He’s holding his breath as his eyes fly across the page. I wish I could read his mind right now.

“I followed you that night too. And…fuck, Stone. You were so fucking beautiful.”

His gaze snaps to mine, and all the air comes rushing out of his lungs. He blinks several times as though he’s seeing me for the first time. He opens his mouth, and I can almost see the words lodged in his throat. He swallows them back and tries again. “What are you saying, Callum?”

Instead of answering, I counter his question with another. “What is it about killing that you enjoy? Because I can tell you do. You fucking bask in it.”

He takes a deep breath, and when he releases it, his shoulders slump with the release of tension. Like he’s about to share his greatest secret with me too.

“The power.” His voice is still low and gravelly, but he pushes on. “Holding a life in my hands, controlling it. Taking it away.”

I smile.

His frown deepens. “What?”

“I think you just made me realize why I’ve never tried to do it myself. I don’t think I’d like that part. For me, it’s…the feeling of being around death. Not the killing. It’s the sight, the smell. But more than that, it’s as though I can sense a fading life in the air. One that’s not mine. Everything just goes quiet. Calm. Tranquil.”

I don’t know if Stone is having a difficult time understanding or if he simply can’t believe what he’s hearing.

I guess it’s a pretty big coincidence that the boy who’s obsessed with death, one who can’t bring himself to murder another person, would find himself a serial killer.

“I’ve considered trying to recreate that feeling myself,” I continue. Because he either won’t or can’t speak. I’m still bound to the chair, but it’s insignificant right now. “But I just don’t think I have it in me. When I watched you that night on the dock…for the first time in five years, everything felt right . I followed you tonight because I wanted to feel that again.”

Slowly, Stone closes my book, sets it on the couch behind him, and rises to his feet. He picks his knife back up and crosses the space between us. If I’m supposed to be afraid, then that’s just another thing I don’t feel that I should.

Still, I stare up at him and say, “I’d never turn you in, Stone.”

His voice is at least a little more steady when he speaks. “I believe you.”

Leaning over, he cuts through the rope around my ankles, and they fall off. Then his legs come over mine, and he’s sitting on my lap again. He rests the knife on his thigh between us and reaches up, lightly running his fingers down my temple. I wince, and that’s when I feel a slight tug against my skin where I assume blood has dried. My head still kills.

“I’m so fucking sorry I hurt you.” He’s back to trembling, quaking with each breath. I wish I could reach out and soothe him, but he hasn’t freed my hands yet. “I never wanted to hurt you, Callum.”

“I know. You don’t like to see me hurt. I realized that’s why you looked at me the way you did five years ago. I thought it was because you thought I was weak.”

Once the secrets start coming, they all start pouring out.

Stone shakes his head. “I’ve never thought you were weak.”

And that is something I’ve needed to hear.

“Was it him?” he asks, his words tense. “Your stepdad who did that to you?”

I can only nod because my throat is suddenly tight.

As he trails his fingers down the side of my face, his eyes tracking the movement, I watch him carefully. Sometime between that night on the dock and now, I’ve wondered about the possibility that it was him who murdered my stepfather. While it makes sense as far as Stone being a killer goes, the rest of it doesn’t. Lewis had enemies. A lot of them. I wasn’t surprised one of them had decided to take him out. Besides, Stone and I hardly knew each other back then.

Why would he kill for me?

It’s a romantic thought—is that the right thing to call it?—but I won’t let myself hope it’s true.

And I won’t ask.

There’s conflict brewing in Stone’s eyes, and just for a second, I wonder again.

But then he asks, “Is that all he did?”

Fuck. Those shadows. They’re reaching for me. Their ghostly fingers are wrapping around my throat, turning solid one by one. Squeezing. Dragging me down.

“Callum?”

Stone’s voice pulls me back enough for me to realize my gaze had drifted away, out of focus. I bring my eyes back to his. The ones I used to hate seeing me, the ones I now need to see me. The ones that have saved me from different shadows, that can maybe save me from these too. The ones that bring me a sense of calm nearly as much as death does.

Even though they’re more than rain-washed right now, a fucking wreckage in a storm, there’s still something there that helps to ground me.

Slowly, I shake my head.

He moves his hand away from my face and down to my shoulder where he makes a fist, catching the fabric of my shirt in his grip. Clinging to me.

Despite my hands being tied behind my back, I’m clinging to him too.

“What did he do?” His voice is unsteady again, shattered.

“You can probably guess.”

If Lewis wasn’t already dead, I have no doubt Stone would be fixing that. There’s murder written all over his face. Judging by that alone, he already knows.

“Tell me?”

Again, the truth comes out, this time only a little easier than I would’ve expected. It’s still fucking hard. It still fucking hurts. I’ll still have nightmares and shadows. It still feels as though the words slice their way up my throat like razor blades.

“My mom died when I was eight. He started raping me when I was nine.”

A tortured noise escapes him. I’m surprised it didn’t come from me.

I’ve never spoken about this. Never.

I’m tied to a chair with a murderer perched on my lap, and I’ve never felt safer. Like he’ll catch me if the shadows pull me down too deep. He’ll drag me back.

Because I’m his.

Now the pained noise is my own.

I’m not ready for that.

I don’t think.

“Around the time I was thirteen or fourteen, he switched to beating me. I guess…” My stomach roils. Churning violently. I have to swallow down the saliva gathering in my mouth. Speaking it out loud for the first time just might make me sick. “I guess I got to be too old for him.”

And his friends that don’t have faces.

But Stone looks like he’s about two seconds away from picking up his gun and firing it at something, so I leave that out.

“I swear I’ll never let anyone hurt you ever again,” he says, voice deep and full of what should be a scary kind of promise.

“We play hockey, Stone.” The corner of my mouth lifts in a small grin. “That’s not an oath you can keep.”

“Fine.” His jaw ticks. “Then I swear to make anyone who hurts you pay.” He releases his hold on my shirt and picks his knife back up. “Including me.”

My eyes go wide as I watch him bring the blade to his neck.

I struggle against the ropes binding my wrists, but they have no give. “Stone—”

The knife glides across the soft flesh at the side of his throat in the same spot where he cut me, carving a crimson line. Beads of dark red blood drip down his smooth skin. He doesn’t even wince.

I frown as he lays the knife back on his thigh. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I did. But it’s still not enough.” His fingers are brushing through my hair again, a gentle touch that hypnotizes me nearly as much as the blood dripping down the column of his throat. “Tell me what you want, Cal. I’ll fucking give you anything.”

“Anything?” I echo.

He leans forward, pressing his forehead against mine, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Anything, baby.”

Baby?

Why do I love that so much?

I become very aware of my breathing as his woodsy scent fills my lungs. I should probably ask him to untie my hands, but I don’t think that’s what I want most right now.

If it’s the night of truths and secrets…

“I’ve never kissed anyone before,” I admit, the quiet words teasing the space between our mouths.

He moves back just enough to break the connection of our skin to replace it with another. His thumb comes up, lightly tracing my bottom lip with a caress so delicate it sends shivers down my spine. His eyes zero in on it.

“I want to kiss you so fucking badly.”

“Please,” I whisper breathlessly.

“Tell me one thing.”

I almost groan, but I rein it in. “What?”

He drops his hand, and I immediately miss his touch. His eyes darken. “Why did you hesitate?”

My brows draw together, reminding me of the pain still pounding away in my head. “What do you mean?”

“I begged you to give me a reason.” With that, I’m reminded of his pain too. “You had one, and you hesitated. Why the fuck would you do that to me?”

“I guess…only for a moment…I thought…” I have to swallow back my shame. “I thought it wouldn’t be so bad to die.”

His face falls. His body trembles. He’s about to crumble all over again.

“I changed my mind,” I add quickly.

“Good,” he lets out on a relieved breath. “Because you wouldn’t have gotten what you wanted anyway.”

All of this confusion he’s making me feel is only causing my head to hurt worse.

“There’s no way I could’ve killed you, Callum. Not even in my worst nightmares. I panicked when I did this.” His fingertips brush over my temple. “And this was desperation.”

His fingers move to my throat. When he pulls them back, there’s a dab of blood on his forefinger. He places it to his lips and licks it off. My cock twitches.

“I was trying to scare you because I was desperate. I thought I could bleed a reason out of you. I didn’t want to go to prison, but I’d rather go to prison than kill you. I’d leave my mom and my sister to fend for themselves. I’d give up everything for you.”

My chest fills with something I don’t recognize. Whatever it is fills me so completely, expanding into every empty hole inside of me, every crevice, pushing down those shadows into the deepest pits of their abyss.

“Stone, please.”

I’m not even embarrassed when it comes out as a whimper. I want to feel his lips on mine.

I need his kiss.

Even if it’s poison.

“Besides,” he says as he brings his thumb back to my bottom lip. My breaths come in pants beneath the tender brushing of skin on skin. “It would’ve been a tragedy to kill you before you could have your first kiss.”

When it comes, it’s nothing like how I imagined it’d be.

He drops his thumb to my chin and presses his lips to mine. The lightest touch. It’s the sweetest, warmest, most agonizing feeling. The contact is electric. The pressure of his lips against mine has a desperate moan getting caught in my throat.

Any tension that had been left in my body vanishes. I don’t even register the numbness in my hands anymore, nor do I care that they’re bound. That I can’t reach out and grab onto him, touch him. Every bit of my being, my soul, exists only where his lips connect with mine.

The world has stopped spinning, and time will remember only this kiss.

It’s not at all how I imagined kissing Stone would be. It’s soft and delicate, his lips like silk.

Stone has given me more than anyone else ever has.

And now I want more.