“We’re not playing house,” I snap. “It’s not like that. I’m just trying to make things better, that’s all.”
“How does this make anything better?” she sobs. “There’s no way out of this. Not once you get close. You think there’s any way to take the poison out of a man who kills his own mother? No. It rots everything. It started way before he was born, and it will end way after him when it seeps into that little boy of his. Then it’ll get its teeth into you. It never stops.”
She hasn’t even offered me that second glass of wine. How odd. All the world seems odd today, fading in and out with her rasping voice. Every time I open my mouth, I have to wade through so many secrets that I tie my tongue in knots. Who is this person, and what, if I recall correctly, do they know?
“Don’t go out,” she begs. “Don’t go to him, honey. We’ll watch a movie, I’ll cook something…”
“I need to talk to him about Tuija,” I say quietly. Firmly. I sound so cold.
She holds her hand out. Expects me to take it. “You’re shivering.”
“I’ve had a rough couple of days.”
“This is my fault. I know that. I can’t help the past, but you can still get away. Before…”
Before he kills you. Before you’re next.
I force myself to give her an icy little smile. “I’m going be fine. It’ll all be fine.”
“You think you’re safer living in his pocket? Is that what this is?”
“I am safer.” The world makes sense with Aeron. He doesn’t give it any other choice; it bends to his command. It’s easy if you know the right logic, the right words. “It’s like magic. He just does what he wants.”
“You sound crazy. Are you on drugs?” She’s still holding her hand out, almost defiantly. “Come here. Let me see your eyes.”
“I’m not crazy, Mum.” I step backward very slowly, toward the door. “I have to go now. I promise, everything’s going to be fine.”
“Please.”
“I’ll call when I’m done.”
“Done what?” she calls after me. “Done what? Where are you going?”
I’m going to make magic.
“Leo! It never stops. It never stops.”
Poof.
Bang.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Leo
Mindfuck (noun): unexpected violation of the senses
We ran away to the edge of the world, but the truth has followed us. And it will shove us off.
Aeron has been pacing since Gwen left. The floorboards of the water villa creak beneath his feet, muffled each time he passes over a woven rug.
“There’s a fault in the program. Has to be,” he keeps repeating, clawing at his sweat-damp hair.
You know it’s bad when the freaking sociopath is in denial.
“It’s not a fault. We need to explore the options.” On top of everything else I’ve been trying to forget. I’d bury my head too, but even though we’re on an island, I doubt there’s enough sand to go around.
Aeron stops dead beside the couch and pulls his arms across his chest in one jagged movement. “I’ve got an option for you: who the fuck is Dean Horowitz?”
I recoil into the couch. “I told you—my old neighbor.”
“That all?” He jabs a finger toward the print outs on the floor. “He says in his little sound bites there that you had a thing. A thing.”
“I slept with him once. There’s no need to be jealous.”
“The last person you slept with who crawled out of the woodwork happened to shoot herself in my fucking lobby. Just FYI.”
I put my face in my hands. “I think we both know that was different.”
“Why, because this one has a penis?”
“No, because you ruined the last one’s life!”
He turns away from me, glaring. “How did he know about Rachel?”
“There was…look. Rachel got drunk one night and tagged us both in some coupley picture on Facebook. It was only up there for a second, and I don’t think many people saw, or thought much of it…I was at college, I was nineteen…but Dean had a thing for me. A weird thing.” I cringe just remembering. “He used to watch me through the windows. Our bedrooms were close.”