even as my heartbeat quickens. Not like this was going to work out. “Next—”
“What did they do?” Her voice rings like a bell in the quiet. “What were they doing when you killed them? The two you just said, who were somewhere together.”
“They were kicking someone’s ass.” My brother’s. Really hurt him. He was in the hospital for nine days—his only crime behaving differently than other kids at community college.
“The next three were fucking liars. We were” —I clamp my molars on the inside of my cheek— “making an exchange.” That was some H—the first time I was in the role Alesso fills now: overseeing. I remember it was cold that morning down at the warehouses. Dark night. Right near Valentine’s Day. They were thinking they could fuck me over. Figured I was just some new guy, didn’t know which way was up. “Anyway, that was the last of them. I didn’t want to do it that time, but I also wasn’t gonna die.”
I turn toward her. It’s the best time, because I feel numb now. “Should I keep going?” I ask. She looks perfectly impassive.
“Of course.” Her voice is reedy, but she squares her shoulders. “I don’t ask questions I don’t want people to answer.”
I shrug, trying to focus on something that’s not her face. Like the bed’s headboard. There’s a nick in the wood, this one little pale spot.
“Shitheads always move in packs. The next two were in a car. They robbed someone…I cared for deeply. Beat him till he fucking died.” I try to swallow, but it’s hard to think of this shit, even now. That was Luigi. I tracked those fuckers down and used a knife. It was my first and last close-range encounter. Still have dreams about how warm the blood was. “I can never regret that.”
I look at her again, sitting cross-legged at the foot of the bed. She’s wrapped a blanket around herself, so I can’t see her body.
“Another dude broke into my house—while I was in there. Looking for drugs. Startled me awake, which was a bad move. All the other ones were pimps and smugglers, liars, people fucking over other people. People who hurt people I knew. In almost every case, I didn’t have to kill them. But some people are like spiders. You don’t kill them, you just take them to the yard instead, and they keep coming back in. Every time you open the door, fuckers will just walk in, right over the threshold like they own the place.”
“How do you know that?” she asks quietly. “About spiders?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Do you…capture them, and take them outside? In bowls or cups? You know if you put a bowl or cup over them, then you slip a few pieces of paper under it and put your hand on top…”
“That’s not a good idea.” I lift a brow. “Some spiders bite.”
“Do you do it, though? Do you take them outside…if you catch them?”
I blow a breath out, run a hand back into my hair. “So what if I don’t like to kill a spider? It’s pragmatic. Frogs and lizards eat them.”
“So you do it for the frogs?” Her face is calm now. I’ve got no clue what’s in her head.
“If I did it, I would do it because I don’t want to see their guts squished on my wall. Because I don’t like the guts. And I don’t like to see their broken spider legs or wonder if the other spiders miss them. That doesn’t mean shit. What would you tell little Elise? Stick with this one?” I laugh—this weird, strangled, faux chuckle.
“Well we’ll never know that, will we? You stole that choice.”
“Yes, that’s right. I didn’t give you one.”
“Why not?” she whispers.
“I was farther down than you were in the tunnel. I could see the light at the end, and I knew it was a fucking train. And you know what? I don’t regret it.” I’m pacing around because I can’t stay still for this shit, can’t look at her face as I tell her the truth. “You know why I really came to your party? To your D.A. victory party? I came because I wanted to see the payoff—for what I did. I wanted to see it, hear it, get a good look at it. I got caught and taken under, on the tracks, but you got out. That’s how it was always gonna to be. You were from the family. My dad was a fucking narc. Management’s kids don’t get