“I know life is important to you.”
I turned to look at him, my brow furrowed. “Why are you talking to me? You never do it willfully. I’m always poking and prodding, so why now?”
He stood next to the bed, arms at his side, looking almost confused. “Because you’re upset.”
“And? With all the times that you’ve hurt me, how is this one different?”
His jaw ticked, and he looked away.
“That’s what I thought.” I turned back to my wall.
He stood there for another minute, then moved to the bathroom.
The anger at him letting Seven kill her tore at me. I knew he couldn’t stop it, and there was relief that it wasn’t him who killed her, but deep inside, I wished he’d let her go.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
I knew it wasn’t a possibility. They were absolute.
Except me.
Six had kept me alive for over two months.
The sound of the toilet flushing filled the room as he stepped out of the bathroom. There was a rustling of clothes and then a dip in the bed, the awful springs bouncing.
I wanted to tell him to sleep on the couch, but he wasn’t my boyfriend.
He was my captor.
Six was an unfeeling machine of death, not a lover.
All the times we had sex held no emotional ties. They were fucking and nothing more. Just as he said—the purpose was pleasure.
Like a stupid, crazy ass girl, I began to think maybe it meant more.
When his arm wrapped around my waist, I jumped. But just as with every night, I melted into his bare chest. Molded my body to his.
Yes, he made it obvious in more than one way that night that he didn’t want to kill me yet, but that didn’t equate to emotional ties. I was alive because I was of use. Nothing more.
“Just because I’m a sociopath doesn’t mean I don’t know what love is,” he whispered.
I froze as I tried to decipher his words. “Can you love?”
There was a pause, then close to my ear a very distinct. “Yes.”
The breath left me as tears filled my eyes again. A heat spread through me.
What was wrong with me?
The love of a sociopath, a killing machine—was that really what I wanted?
As a tear slipped down my cheek, I knew the answer. An answer that not only scared me but made me question myself.
Yes.
I sat in a daze the next morning.
No snarky remarks. Not even many words.
There was blackness and a fracture and a huge ass identity crisis happening within me.
The death Six and the Killing Corps dealt was real. It was rivers of blood and piles of bodies.
And I was a part of it.
I’d added a drop to the bucket that overflowed with red.
Lacey was a different person from Paisley, and the lines between them were no longer blurred by obscurity. It was hard and absolute, and cracked, because I cracked. Because I saw for the first time what I had become. The difference between Lacey and Paisley.
Lacey was a role I played, not the real me, but somehow I’d forgotten. Nothing of the last two months had been my life. The way I looked, the clothes I wore, the way I traveled, or the company I kept.
I, Paisley, had killed people.
They were people who were trying to kill me, so it was self-defense, but I couldn’t forget the high and the way I fucked Six after.
“We’ve been here too long,” Six said as he began packing up his bag.
I shook my head.
He stopped and stared at me. “You have to let it go.”
“How?”
“Turn it off.”
I clenched my jaw, trying to keep the tears away. “And what? Start thinking of people as nothing but cattle? I’m not fucked up like you!”
“Are you done?” It wasn’t a question of if I was done ranting. He was asking if I was ready for my bullet.
I shook my head, and my face scrunched up as the tears fell.
“Then get your ass up and start packing. We need to get moving.”
Anger, sadness, confusion—I was a mess of emotions. I couldn’t seem to get myself together. The chaos made me want to lash out.
“Why do you care so much more about your life and the lives of the Killing Corps than people? Do you have family?”
“I have a mother and a brother.”
The shock that he gave me something so personal wasn’t enough to stop me.
“And would you shoot them, kill them?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said with that blank face and even tone of his.
I stared at him. Really?
“So, you don’t love anyone enough to die for them?”
“No.”
And there it was. Even if he did love me in some way, it would never be enough to give his life for mine.
“Why do you assume that just because I have family that I love them?”
I balked at him. “You don’t?”
“By your reaction, I should.”
“Then getting back to a long ago question—have you ever been in love?” I asked, needing to know the answer. “Or even to last night. If you can love, is there anyone you love?”
He didn’t flinch, didn’t break, his expression as blank as before. “I’ve loved and I’ve lost, but it doesn’t change who I am.”