“Fuck,” he clipped then bit out, “You’re dreaming that shit.”
My hands drove into either side of his hair and held tight. “I knew them. I brought them beers while they watched games on Richard’s huge ass TV.”
“They’re out of your life, Sylvie.”
“I knew them.”
“Baby, they’re gone.”
“I knew them!” I shrieked, Creed stilled then he rolled, sitting up, forcing me to straddle him but his arms clamped tight around me.
“Calm down, Sylvie,” he ordered firmly.
“I can’t, Creed.”
“You gotta try, baby.”
“I can’t, Creed. It’s hideous.”
I stopped speaking, shook my head and struggled in his lap. I had too much energy. I had to move. Pace. Run. Sprint. Stand up and scream.
Creed held firm and wouldn’t let me, so I gave up and kept talking.
“I can’t believe they did that. I can’t believe they taped your eyes open and made you watch. I can’t believe they found someone who looked like me and hurt her like that. Just because she was unlucky enough to look like me and they needed to make a point, hurt her in a way she’d never get over. Alter her life forever and you didn’t even know who she was. They probably didn’t know who she was!”
“I know who she was.”
That made me go still.
“You knew her?” I asked quietly.
“Not then,” he answered. “After. When I got into the business. When I had the resources. A few years later, I tracked her. She was from a county over. She was the girl in the picture with Dixon who I was too f**ked up to note really wasn’t you.”
“Is she okay?”
Creed didn’t answer.
“Is she okay, Creed?”
Swiftly, like pulling off a Band-Aid, he gave it to me.
“She committed suicide two days after they released her and me.”
I closed my eyes and, not able to hold it up, my head fell forward and slammed into his collarbone.
“Maybe the best thing for her, baby,” he whispered. “She went home.”
“You don’t believe that,” I replied.
Creed said nothing.
I was right. He didn’t believe that. He was just spouting that shit to make me feel better.
“God, if they weren’t dead, I’d kill them,” I told his collarbone then lifted my head. “Or, in Richard’s case, I’d kill him again. Though this time, I’d find a better way to do it.”
“When you told me what went down, Sylvie, and while you were deciding whether or not to listen to me, got a buddy who has a buddy back home. I made a call and he made a call and his buddy looked into that shit. You hit Scott’s jugular. Report says he bled out in minutes. Seems you found the best way to do it.”
“Right then, I’ll amend. If I knew he was even more of a heartless sociopath than I already knew he was, I would have made it last a whole lot longer.”