Empathizing with Dean: his feelings toward his father, what staring at that girl’s corpse must have done to him—I couldn’t tuck that away in a separate section of my psyche. I could feel it bleeding over into my own thoughts. Right now, Dean was almost certainly thinking about the fact that he had a killer’s blood in his veins. And I had Locke’s in mine. Maybe Lia was right. Maybe I couldn’t really understand what Dean was going through—but being a profiler meant I couldn’t stop trying to. I couldn’t keep from feeling his pain and recognizing in it an echo of my own.
After dinner, I meant to go upstairs, but my feet carried me toward the garage. I stopped, just outside the door. I could hear the muted sound of flesh hitting something—over and over, again and again. I brought my hand up to the doorknob, then pulled it back.
He doesn’t want you here, I reminded myself. But at the same time, I couldn’t keep from thinking that maybe shutting the rest of us out was less about what Dean wanted and more about what he wouldn’t let himself want. There was a chance—a good one—that Dean didn’t need to be alone so much as he thought being alone was what he deserved.
Of its own volition, my hand reached out again. This time, I turned the knob. The door opened a crack, and the sound of heavy breathing added itself to the rhythmic thwack thwack thwack I’d heard before. A breath hitching in my throat, I pushed the door open. Dean didn’t see me.
His blond hair was beaded with sweat and stuck to his forehead. A thin white undershirt clung to his torso, soaked and nearly transparent. I could make out the lines of his stomach, his chest. His shoulders were bare, the muscles so tense that I thought they might snap like rubber bands or fight their way out from underneath his tanned skin.
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.
His fists collided with a punching bag. It came back at him, and he fought harder. The rhythm of hits was getting faster, and with each punch, he put more and more of his body into it. His fists were bare.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, watching him. There was something animal about the motions, something feral and vicious. My profiler’s eye saw each punch layered with meaning. Losing control, controlled. Punishment, release. He’d welcome the pain in his knuckles. He wouldn’t be able to stop.
I took a few steps closer, but stayed out of range. This time, I didn’t make the mistake of trying to touch him. His eyes were locked on the bag, unseeing. I wasn’t sure who he was striking out at—his father or himself. All I knew was that if he didn’t stop, something was going to give—the bag, his hands, his body, his mind.
He had to snap out of it.
“I kissed you.” I wasn’t sure what possessed me to say that, but I had to say something. I could see the moment the words broke through to him. His movements became slightly more measured; I could feel him regaining awareness of the world around him.
“It doesn’t matter.” He continued punching the bag. “It was just a game.”
Truth or Dare. He was right. It was just a game. So why did I feel like someone had slapped me?
Dean finally stopped punching the bag. He was breathing heavily, his whole body moving with each breath. Casting a sideways glance at me, he spoke again. “You deserve better.”
“Better than a game?” I asked. Or better than you?
Dean didn’t reply. I knew, then, that this wasn’t really about me. Dean wasn’t seeing me. This was about some make-believe, idealized Cassie he’d built up in his head, something to torment himself with. A girl who deserved things. A girl he could never deserve. I hated that he was putting me up on a glass pedestal, fragile and out of reach. Like I didn’t get a say in the matter at all.
“I have a tube of lipstick.” I threw the words at him. “Locke gave it to me. I tell myself that I keep it as a reminder, but it’s not that simple.” He didn’t reply, so I just kept going. “Locke thought I could be like her.” That had been the whole point of her little game. “She wanted it so badly, Dean. I know she was a monster. I know that I should hate her. But sometimes, I wake up in the morning and for just a second, I forget. And for that second, before I remember what she did, I miss her. I didn’t even know we were related, but…”
I trailed off, and my throat tightened, because I couldn’t stop thinking that I should have known. I should have known that she was my last connection to my mother. I should have known that she wasn’t what she seemed. I should have known, and I didn’t, and people had gotten hurt.
“Don’t make yourself say these things because I need to hear them,” Dean said hoarsely. “You’re nothing like Locke.” He wiped his palms on his jeans, and I heard the words he wasn’t saying.
You’re nothing like me.
“Maybe,” I said softly, “to do what you and I do, we have to have a little bit of the monster in us.”
A breath caught in Dean’s throat, and for the longest time, the two of us stood there in silence: breathing in, breathing out, breathing through the truth I’d just uttered.
“Your hands are bleeding,” I said finally, my voice as hoarse as his had been a moment before. “You’re hurt.”
“No, I’m…” Dean looked down, caught sight of his bleeding knuckles, and swallowed the rest of his argument.