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My fingers curled around the leather handle, and I lifted it out of the bag, glinting the steel in the garage light.
The knife. The same fucking knife, its steel not-so-stainless right now, considering the fact that it was covered in dried maroon.
My gut settled into a pit, and I knew, without a doubt, that this was the same knife I’d stabbed Ray with, the knife Ray had used against Will and Declan. This knife held a lot of history, and as I stared at the dried blood on it, I couldn’t help but feel my anger start to grow.
Ray had hurt the people I cared about. He’d tried to kill Will, and he hurt Declan as a warning. I wasn’t going to let it happen again. Ray needed to learn there were consequences to every action, even his own.
I closed the car door and returned to the house. I threw the hoodie near the front door and walked into the kitchen, setting the stained, serrated knife on the countertop. If this was a test, I wasn’t going to fail it. I wasn’t going to run, and I sure as fuck wasn’t going to pass. No, for this particular test, I would do the one thing Ray never thought I would.
A gamble, what I had in mind, but a necessary one. Sometimes to beat a monster, you had to play dirty.
Chapter Six – Ash
There was no way I’d be able to take Ray on one-on-one. He was a lot stronger than me, and he’d had years of practice, kidnapping and killing girls. This dark game was new to me, but if he wanted to play, I would show him exactly what I showed Sawyer when I started at Hillcrest months ago.
I was no one’s pawn. I wasn’t even on the board. I might get weak sometimes, I might make the wrong move on occasion, but I was the player, and only I could say when I wanted to play and when I didn’t. No one could make me do anything I didn’t want to do.
This…this was a mistake. A mistake because I’d lost myself. Ray’s return had frightened me, startled me, shocked me into oblivion, and what happened in the basement, whether or not I killed Brooklyn, not to mention seeing Sawyer with Kelsey, it was all too much. Too much for my brain to handle, so I shut down.
Well, guess what? I booted back up. My brain was back, and even though more mistakes were made in this house, even though I did things I’d regret until the day I died, I wasn’t going to let Ray have the final say in where my life went.
No, that honor was mine and only mine. He would not tell me what to do, not again. Not anymore. I was my own person, and even though Ray made me wonder about myself, I was going to show him just how much of a bitch I was.
To fight fire, you had to come at it with something that would smother it, something that would stop the fire from being a fire. Fighting fire with fire only stoked the flames. No, you had to think, you had to plan. With no oxygen, there could be no fire. And so to beat this monster, I would take away what this monster desired most.
Me.
I’d take away me.
Without me, Ray would have nothing. Without me, Ray would be lost.
I sat in the kitchen, the stained knife less than a foot away from me. I couldn’t see the front door from where I sat, but he’d walk in and see me after a few moments. He’d see the knife. I wondered if Ray ever thought this was a possibility.
I couldn’t kill him, so killing myself, while it wasn’t the best option, was really the next logical step. The police had already shown they were not capable of handling Ray and his crimes. The police were useless. This was up to me, and how Ray reacted would decide whether or not I made it out of this house alive.
I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t depressed or suicidal. I knew life had its ups and downs—recently a whole lot of downs for me—but that it always had the chance to get better. I was going to Hillcrest, and I’d get a kickass job afterward that paid out of the ass. I would help support my mom so she didn’t have to worry about money. Whether or not any of the guys were still in my life at that point was up for debate, but one thing at a time.
That said, if I had to die in this house, I was prepared to. I knew this was of my own doing, and I was prepared to face the consequences. Of course, I’d miss my life and the people in it. I knew my mom would be terribly shocked and sad to hear what happened. And Kelsey, she’d probably never forgive herself for doing what she did, but that was her own issue. I didn’t have to deal with her regret. Only mine.
Theguys…oh, I’d miss them the most, I think. They’d each come to reside in a separate place in my heart, filling me up in a way no other boy—or man, for that matter—had done before. Declan was sweet, if a little fiery at times, and he was gentle and kind even when he was trying to push you away. Will was the protective older brother who would sacrifice his own feelings so his younger brother could be happy. Travis was both like Ray and not like him; I didn’t know quite what to make of him, but I knew I believed him when he told me he wouldn’t hurt me, even though he’d chained me up in his room. I also believed him when he said he didn’t kill Sabrina, even though that journal painted him in an awful light.
Sawyer…well, the jury was out on that bitch. Who the hell knew why I felt for him the way I did. If I could change my feelings for him, I would. Alas, that wasn’t how feelings worked. Things would be a lot simpler if they did, but that was not the way of the world, of the heart. I’d learned that the hard way.
The moment I heard Ray enter the house, I knew this was it. This was the final showdown, the final countdown, whatever. The be-all, end-all. The line in the sand that we would either cross or die on.
“Amorcito?” Ray called out for me, and it sounded as if he half-expected me to be gone. This was a test. I fucking knew it.
“In here,” I called out, not moving a muscle. My hands were folded on top of the table, and the moment Ray rounded the corner into the kitchen, goosebumps rose on my bare legs. I really wished I would’ve been able to find my clothes, because wearing a slip with nothing under it wasn’t that fun when you were preparing yourself for the worst.
“Ah,” he spoke with a smile. “I was worried…” His happy tone halted the moment he saw the knife resting beside me, and I watched his feet stop. He stood ten feet away from me, which was good. Any closer and I might not have enough time to grab it and do what I needed to. “I see you searched the garage. Find anything else interesting?”
The bodies. He meant the bodies, the sick motherfucker.
“The knife is what interests me the most,” I said, pushing out the thought of that innocent couple and the horrific fate they met simply because Ray needed a home base while stalking me. “It’s the same one, isn’t it?” I didn’t know why I had to ask, because I already knew.
A smile grew on Ray’s face. “It is.”
“And am I right in assuming you used this knife to hurt Will and Declan?”
