Page 65 of Love You To Pieces

“I need you to decide right now what you want,” he continues finally, with a steely sort of flatness in his voice. “You want to be here with us, or you don’t. I know you still have the key from Mom’s bedroom.”

Well, that answers a question I’ve had for days.

“I won’t make you give it to me. You can leave right now. You should leave right now, if you’re going to spend the next however many days or weeks skulking around and making half-assed escape attempts.” He bites off the words, disapproval clear in them.

“I don’t want⁠—”

“I’m not done,” he says, cutting me off smoothly. “Sadie, I don’t think you realize what I’m saying. If you stay, you’re all in. Well”—that guilty smile twitches at his lips again—“you’ve been all in for a few days now without realizing it, but you need to make a choice.”

I’ve…what?

At my confusion, Deacon steps into the room, kneeling in front of me. In a surprisingly affectionate gesture, he reaches out to cup the side of my face in one warm hand. “You didn’t have to eat the meat to still be one of us,” he tells me, leaning in until his lips are so close to mine I can feel the brush of them.

“What?” I swear my heart pauses, waiting for his next words. Please, I think, unsure of who or what I’m begging. Please don’t say⁠—

“Waste not want not, Sadie-Rae. Meat’s not the only thing you get when you butcher something. Or someone. Ever heard of cooking things in fat? It’s way better than oil.”

My stomach lurches. My heart slams against my ribs and I stare up at Deacon in horror as realization settles over me. “You…you didn’t tell me,” I whisper, and I don’t miss the way his guilt becomes a little wicked, his expression showing a little satisfaction. “You lied to me. Are you saying you made me eat—” My stomach rolls and I sit back on my ass, jerking backwards to create some distance between us.

“Yeah.” Deacon chuckles and rises to his feet. He steps forward and reaches out slowly, giving me all the time to jerk away, before running his fingers through my hair that’s still damp from my shower. “Yeah, I fed you what you’ve been so afraid of, pretty girl. And guess what?” His fingers curl, gripping lightly. “You lived. And you liked it. Next time, though? It’ll be intentional on your part. I won’t need to trick you again, if you stay.”

With that, he just…leaves. Deacon turns and walks out of the room, not closing the door behind him. I hear him whistling, that same stupid song that Fox is always humming, and when he gets to the end of the hallway, I can hear him open the door to his and Fox’s bedroom.

But I don’t move. I don’t think I can move, truthfully. I’m nailed to the floor in this bedroom a foot away from a snoring Rottweiler who has people-remains staining her muzzle, and I’ve just found out that she and I share the same diet, to an extent.

I should vomit. I should want to vomit. My mind remembers every bite, every chew. Every swallow of the vegetables I deemed safe because I was just so goddamn hungry after everything. But even now, even when I’m forcing myself to try to make it an issue like it should be, my body refuses to rise to the occasion.

There’s no nausea. No shuddering or saliva pooling on my tongue to signal I’m about to puke up what little is actually in my stomach.

Had I known? The thought isn’t a very comforting one. Did I suspect, somehow, that I was getting pushed into something that my mind couldn’t accept, but my body could? Some part of me had been sure that if I ate that in any form, I’d be spewing chunks. That my body couldn’t accept ingesting another of my species because that’s morally, socially, and ethically wrong.

My fingers curl and uncurl against my new-borrowed sweatpants and I find myself getting to my feet. I make it to the bed, where I sit and reach under the pillow to wrap my fingers around the cold brass of the key marked back gate.

For a few moments, I only stare at it. Turning it over and over in my fingers, studying the way the light finds the small grooves and bounces back at me. I could leave.

Deacon told me to leave if that’s what I wanted. He didn’t try to take the key from me, or demand to know where it was, though I wouldn’t have been able to stop him if he wanted to take it back.

I could leave, I think to myself again, with fingers shaking. I should leave and vomit up any remains of the other night’s food into the toilet.

I should want to do that.

Pushing to my feet, I stand and waver, my head spinning from exhaustion and the pure lack of adrenaline coursing through me. For a moment, my fingers curl around the key, but then I gently set it back on the end table, right in front of the old digital clock that’s glaring up at me.

5:07 a.m

God, it’s been a long fucking night. Part of me wants to sink back down onto the bed, curl up, and sleep for the next eight years. Or at least seven days and seven nights, which seems like a reasonable ask. But instead my steps take me down the hallway, and I manage not to make any noise on the wooden floor.

Murmured words meet my ears when I’m a few feet in front of the half-open door of their bedroom, causing me to pause and stand there, unwilling to intrude.

“I told her, Fox.” Deacon is sighing inside. “She’s going to fuckin’ bolt. Sorry, lover.” He scoffs quietly. “But there’s no way she stays now that she knows.” He sighs loudly, sounding exhausted himself. “She’s not what you think, I’m afraid.”

Something inside me hurts. Guilt stabs through my chest, along with a frustration that wells up from under the emotional wound. I want to prove him wrong, and it’s killing me to consider that I no longer want to run away.

My mouth opens, but the witty retort that I want to have doesn’t come. I don’t have anything to say, so I just push the door open, causing it to creak and making Deacon’s eyes flick up to mine.

I’ve never actually seen him surprised before, I realize. But I do now. It’s subtle, but it’s there—the way his eyes widen very slightly and his lips part a little. I think I see a small smile twitch at his lips, like an actual smile, but then he looks back down at where Fox is snoozing on the bed. “Did you come to try to threaten me with a knife too?” he drawls, though I hear the deflection for what it is.

“No,” I murmur. “Though I sort of want to stab you, just a little, for feeding me—” I swallow hard. “It wasn’t one of my friends.” Right? The question part goes unspoken, but it’s there in the way I’m looking at him, eyes pleading and wide.