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Whoever it was chuckled, and with the voice changer, it sounded weirder than fuck. So weird it even creepedmeout—and I’d fucking skinned people. “All in due time. Soon, Charlie, soon. But for now, I wanted to leave you with this warning: you’re mine, Charlie Mulanie. Any man who thinks they can steal you from me will meet the same fate as poor little Zak. I’d think about ditching that boyfriend if I were you… unless you want more blood on your hands.”
He hung up after that, and Charlie crawled off me to set her phone on her nightstand. Her small shoulders hunched over, making her appear even smaller in the darkness of her room. I sat up with her and pulled her onto my lap.
“That fucker is taking credit for it,” I hissed out, my arms circling around Charlie and holding her close.
“What?”
“Zak. He didn’t say it, but he implied it. He wants us to break up, but that’s not going to happen.”
Charlie was quiet for a while, and I wished I could peek into her head to hear her thoughts. When she did speak, she was hesitant, “It’s not like you’re really my boyfriend. He doesn’t know this is fake.”
“Hey.” I spun her around so that she could lean her face against my chest. “Don’t do this. Separating us is what he wants. He wants you alone, Charlie, for obvious reasons.”
“But it’s true. This is all fake. This isn’t real.” This is the same shit she pulled after we were together in the treehouse; she’d tried to put distance between us, told me to leave, and I’d stupidly left because I’d thought that’s what was best for us both.
I wasn’t going to let her push me away again.
“Maybe it ain’t real for you, but it’s real for me,” I spoke into her hair, leaning my head against hers. “It’s all real for me, Charlie. I tried my best not to let you worm yourself inside, but you managed to anyway, and now I’ll be fucking damned if I let you or that asshole separate us. You’re mine, Charlie, not that dick’s. Mine, do you understand?”
My hand smoothed down her hair as I went on, “Everything about you is mine. Your brown eyes, your pouts, your glares. Those rare laughs of yours. Everything, including your grandma sweaters. It’s all mine.”
She started off tense, but the more I talked, the more she relaxed. Eventually, she sighed against me and whispered, “I don’t have grandma sweaters. They’re just sweaters—”
“That you stole off the backs of old ladies, sure.”
Charlie picked her head up off me, angling it so she could stare up at me. “You’re impossible, you know that? You make me crazy—and I don’t mean that in the good way.” She might’ve wanted to say more, but she stopped when my hand swept through her hair and cradled the back of her head.
“Stop lying. No more lies,” I whispered, and then I brought my mouth down to hers. Mostly to shut her up, but also to kiss her, because it was always time to kiss Charlie. Those lips of hers might not be the fullest, but they were so damned soft.
She surrendered to the kiss, but only for a few seconds, because then she started to speak while our lips were still locked: “This means it’s not Zak.”
I pulled my mouth off hers with a sigh and said, “I realize that.”
“That means I was right and you were wrong,” she told me. “And you killed him for no reason.”
“Not for no reason,” I was quick to refute her. “He wasn’t good for you.” And I might’ve been a little jealous that he knew Charlie in ways that I didn’t—dating someone for years tended to do that. Not to mention they’d had sex, and call me a psycho, but I didn’t like the thought of someone else being buried between Charlie’s legs.
“And you are?”
Charlie’s question caught me off-guard. I wasn’t expecting that to come out of her mouth, so it took a while for me to process it. “I…” I wanted to argue with her. That was my immediate response.
Of course I was good for her. I could protect her. I could be there for her in ways other men never could, let alone boys like Zak.
But the reality was I was still a wanted man. Yes, newscasts weren’t plastered with my face anymore—things had moved beyond the crimes that had taken place in Eastcreek all those weeks ago—but if someone recognized me, it’d be over. And if law enforcement ever thought Charlie had helped me, they’d take her down, too.
It was a good thing I was selfish and could never take the high road.Oh, I’m no good for you, so instead of sticking around I’ll just leave. You’ll be better off without me.Blah, blah, all that shit, blah.
I could never do that. Nope. Sorry, but I’d go down with this ship, no matter how things turned out. Sure, I’d do my part to protect Charlie, but anything that involved me walking away from her was out of the fucking question.
Charlie answered her own question when it became clear to her I wasn’t saying anything more, “I know you aren’t. I’d have to be stupid to think you’re good for me, but… I don’t care. Maybe that means I’m a bad person, but I don’t care. I’m not happy with you for what you did to Zak, but it doesn’t change how I feel. I… I feel safe with you, Brett, and that’s more than I can say about a lot of people.”
Fuck. She sounded so… sad. That sadness laced with every word, and I didn’t know how other people couldn’t hear it. Or see it. Or even feel it. It was like when it came to Charlie, nobody paid attention. They might care about her, but she skirted under the radar.
As Charlie and I lay back in the bed, I whispered, “You know, if you get me a list of everyone who’s ever hurt you, I can take them out one by one.”
She sighed against me, nuzzling her nose against the side of my chest. “Brett, I’m only asking you for one kill, not to kill everybody I’ve ever met.”
“Hey, I didn’t offer that. Do you know how much time something like that would take? It’d be impossible, logistically speaking. But anyone who’s ever hurt you? That I could do. I could find this Amelia and take care of her, just like I took care of Zak.”
