Page 109 of Midnight Curfew

But the son of a bitch actually laughs as if this is all so fun and he doesn’t already have bruises forming on his cheeks. “I’m taking it to the grave,” he teases.

I pause, the word choice hitting me as odd. Grave…

He thrashes, throwing me over, and I topple to the floor. Hurrying to my feet, I see him jump to his, and I charge him.

He falls back to the bed, and I feel the sweat trickle down my back as I grasp for his arms.

“I already bought it, you know?” he tells me, shoving my hands away. “My grave?”

I grapple, going for his throat, and it takes a moment to register what he’s saying.

He’s arranged his burial?

Already?

I don’t know if I finally get a hold of him or if he just stops fighting me, but before I realize it, my fingers are on his neck. He clutches my arm with both hands but doesn’t shove me away.

I don’t squeeze.

He’s chosen his own grave site? Why would he do that?

How could he do that? He knows for certain he’ll never leave Sanoa Bay? Never have someone he wants to rest next to?

Never have children who will alter his life?

As if he’s already decided how everything will end.

I can’t swallow, my throat too thick.

“Guys like me just turn into pathetic old fucks,” he whispers. “You don’t think I know that I won’t live to be a man?”

What the fuck is he talking about?

And the idea that he thinks he isn’t a man at twenty-five…

At least he’s aware of his faults.

He goes on, “Maybe I’ll get drunk on the boat one day out fishing, fall in, and drown.” His Adam’s apple moves up and down under my hand. “Maybe it’ll be a motorcycle accident. Maybe I’ll sleep with the wrong woman and get shot by her husband.”

My lungs constrict a little, getting less air. All of those sound entirely too plausible. They could happen tomorrow, because he’s so fucking careless.

“I’ve never seen myself with a home or family of my own,” he whispers.

Neither have I. Men like him don’t raise kids.

He looks up at me. “But you’re wrong about one thing, you know?”

I narrow my eyes.

“I don’t gorge to save myself from being like her,” he tells me. “I gorge to feel like shit just like her.”

My stomach knots, remembering how he was left alone in the house with her the day she did it. Why would he want to feel bad?

The green in his eyes shimmers with all the shit in his head.

“Someone has to witness her,” he whispers.

Just like Sophia. I don’t want to go into the Den. I have to, though.