Kill Switch (Devil's Night, #3)

by Penelope Douglas

There is a reason that all things are as they are. —Bram Stoker, Dracula

“Now . . .” my sister’s new husband whispered in my ear. “Now you belong to me.”

He made himself the cure, which wouldn’t have been necessary if he hadn’t also created the disease.

You may not be the happiest wife, Arion, but I’m told this is why God invented Saks and Xanax.”

Life felt like hell because we expected it to feel like heaven. The quote I read years ago went something like that, but I never understood it. When you’re in the thick all your life, living in ways you eventually figure out no one else is, you learn to sleep well in heat and eat fire. Until one day it’s all you need.

Will, Michael, and Kai were my friends, and I’d walk through fire for any one of them. Will was the only one, though, who I was sure would walk through fire for me.

People assumed I behaved strictly on impulse, when actually, it required quite a bit of strategy to be this fucked up.

I turned my head to Rika as I unwrapped a new pack. “I want to play chess with you someday,” I teased. “Haven’t you been?” I turned to the cabinet, smiling to myself. Having her as an opponent would be a real challenge, but I thought I preferred her on my side.

“Because pain in the body quiets the pain in the head. It feels good, like a kill switch for your brain.

“Acting like that time with her wasn’t the only fucking time I didn’t hate fucking.”

“Well done today,” my father said. “I thought for sure I was going to have to strangle you at some point.” I took a drag and set the cigarette in an ashtray as I blew out the smoke. “I’m sure it would’ve been difficult.” “Yes, I don’t really want to kill you,” he added. “You’re my only son, after all.” “No, I mean I’m not eleven anymore.” I grabbed a clean T-shirt and hoodie out of my duffel bag and kicked the door closed again. “I’ll be more difficult to strangle now.” Prick.

“You teach your daughter to hide in everyone else’s world,” I shot back, “and I’ll teach mine everyone else exists in hers. Go fuck yourself, and leave the kid alone.”

No. The boy didn’t hurt me. Not yet, anyway. In fact, he was kind of an angel at the end. An angel with really black bat wings. Psycho.

I watched her leave the auditorium, looking a little less unsure than she had when I walked in. She didn’t trust me, and she might not choose me. But she was still with me. Even just a bit. That was something.

“Let’s go,” he said, taking my hand. “Where?” I climbed out, following him. “To see black.”

“Don’t let go,” he ordered me. Yeah, like, duh.

“Can you show me red?” I asked. I didn’t want the night to end. He paused for a moment and then whispered over his shoulder. “Someday.” “Are you still going to hurt me?” I joked. But he paused again, his whisper barely audible. “Someday,” he said.

They all avoided me. Even though two of my friends went to prison with me, I was the only real criminal here. I was the rapist. The sexual deviant. The sick one. Lock up your daughters, wives, sisters, and moms. Hell, lock up Grandma, too.

I shook my head, wishing I was deaf instead. They were fighting. While they were having sex. It was weird.

“And you will not hurt him or involve him—or anyone else—any further,” I stated rather than questioned. “Mr. Torrance would say you’re the one to answer that question, ma’am.” Oh, I’m sure he would.

I closed my eyes, feeling my pulse thunder inside as everything else was so quiet. I feel you. I feel you everywhere. The cloves on his clothes, the fountain on his skin. The words on his tongue, the breath on his lips. The hand on my neck, the sharp in his silence. Down the hall. Sitting in the study. Outside in the rain. At the open bathroom door. Or right in the corner of the room. Right here. Watching me. He was always coming. Or . . . Maybe I never left. His words came back to me. When he was in prison, he was here. When I wanted to want other men, he was here. When I danced, when I cried, whenever I was alone, and when I was quiet in a room full of people and thinking about him, he was here. The truth was, I’d had what Michael and Rika had. I thought I had anyway. Those days were when I was the happiest. Even though it was a lie, it was the best I’d ever felt. Damon.

He watched me. Did he like it?

I stare at myself and letting all the emotions rip through me. Anger. Shame. Fear. Violence. Pain. Sadness. Helplessness. They float through, jumbling together until I can’t identify one from the other, and it’s not even me in the reflection anymore. Everything in my brain leaves, my mind turns off, and my hands stop shaking. I’m just a body. This is me. I am me.

Reaching under the groove of the bowl above us, I dig out the silver barrette with pink crystals I hide there and wrap my fist around it, remembering Winter Ashby’s words from so long ago in that fountain. Your body can only feel one pain at a time. She was right. I’ve found that to be true. But instead of hurting myself to mask pain with more pain, tonight I learned something else. Hurting others is just as effective.

“You will not force her,” she ordered her terms. “You will not threaten, torture, or coerce her into your bed. You will not touch her.” I shot out my hands, planting them on the pool table and leaning over it to look her in the eye. “And if she wants me to touch her?” “It’s good to dream big, Damon.” I almost snorted, but I couldn’t contain my smile. “God, you’re like a female version of me,” I said. “It’s turning me on.” “Makes sense. You love yourself best.” I stood upright again, brushing off my hands. She was exquisite, and if she weren’t working against me, I’d think she was brilliant. Smart. Tough. Clever. And cold when she needed to be. Cold.

She pulled out a knife from somewhere and pressed the side of the blade into my neck. Jesus. She must be fun in bed. I grinned. “You won’t hurt me.” “And why not?” “Because we’re friends.” “You don’t know the meaning of the word!” she snapped. “You don’t care about me!” “I would kill for you,” I shot back, getting in her face. The incredulous look on her face, like she didn’t know if she should be touched or laughing, mimicked exactly what was happening in my head right now. Yes. It kind of just came out, but I thought it was true. At one time, I would’ve killed for Michael, Kai, and Will. I might still. But I’d definitely kill for Erika and Banks. They might not like me a whole lot, but they understood me.

She sat up, and I watched her stare at the drive as she fingered the scar on her neck. The one she got when she was thirteen, in the car accident that killed her father because his brakes had been cut. Gabriel and Evans didn’t expect her to be in the car that day, but thank goodness she lived. Because I needed her and we had shit to do.

“What are you doing?” she asked, probably worried I’d be caught. But I just shook my head, keeping my voice low in case her parents were still awake. “I don’t know, baby,” I told her. “Just don’t let me go, okay?”

“The less special I make this, the less you’ll be hurt,” I offered. I knew she didn’t know what I was talking about. But the only thing she said was, “You promised to hurt me. Don’t stop now.”

“Purple, then.” I helped her to her feet so we could get her clean, and she found her way under the water, wetting her hair. “When can I see red?” she asked. I planted my hand on the wall, holding her face with the other one, as I stared down at her and saw all the shit that was going to eventually hit the fucking fan. When you find out who just fucked you, you’re gonna see plenty of red then.

“Yeah.” “And if I slit your throat?” He breathed a laugh. “My kind of fun has a price, remember?” I stopped breathing for a moment, remembering those words. Remembering that he was him. My ghost.

He carried me, his steps perfectly paced and heavy, echoing in the hallway like they were coming for me and knew exactly where I was hiding. This wasn’t Will. I knew it even before I slipped my fingers into the back of his hair and felt the same little scars I’d come across years ago. But in this moment, in the dark where I was someone else and he was someone else, I didn’t pull away. Why wasn’t I pulling away? God, he felt good. In my arms. I’d almost forgotten. For just a few minutes, he was my ghost back in the house. Taunting me. Playing with me. Making me feel things I wanted to feel. I’d missed this so much.

Winter’s age wasn’t the problem to me. I didn’t even see it. The crime was I couldn’t tell her who I was. And the crime was she didn’t love me back.

She came to me, after all. “You weren’t lying,” she finally said, looking thoughtful, like a memory was playing in her mind. I’d told her in the janitor’s closet seven years ago that I killed my mother. She thought I was talking shit. Now she knew. “When did it start?” she asked, her brain deciphering what happened. But I wasn’t going there. Never, ever again. “In the fountain when you were eight and I was eleven,” I told her. “That’s not what I meant.” “That’s all that matters.”

My chest ached so badly it hurt to breathe. There was no one in the world like her.

“He’s in the city tonight,” she said. “And my mother flew to Spain today to visit Ari. I have the whole house to myself. All night.” Oh, Jesus. My chest caved. What the fuck? It was everything I wanted. Don’t do this to me. She smirked. “Suddenly you have nothing to say?” And I shook my head, more to myself than to her. She could be anyone. I could get from anyone what I got from her. I didn’t want her in my head. I don’t want this. I wanted her to stay perfect. She’d find out, and it would be over. Don’t stay, I told myself. And don’t come back.

Will was the youngest. And the most trouble for his parents. I took him up to his room, plopped him down on the bed, and saw him yawn and pull his comforter over his body. He looked like a burrito, and it was the first time all night I actually felt a smile I wore.

She was so small and gentle and delicate. But there was fire in there. She never lied or pretended she was someone she wasn’t. She couldn’t see what I was, but she felt it and recognized it in herself, and we were able to find each other and feel that it was right. I didn’t know how it happened, but it was why I was always drawn to her. Since we were kids. She saw everything.

“What’s wrong?” I closed my eyes, having no idea where to start. “I fucked up,” I whispered back. She rubbed my back and I soaked in her heat, the rain hiding us from the world, still wondering how she got inside me—inside my head and my . . . “Need to hide for a while?” she asked, a lilt of comfort in her voice. And I nodded. “Yeah.” For as long as I could.

“Don’t make me answer questions,” I told her. “You won’t like the answers.” “But I need them.” She turned her face up to me. “I know.” I knew it was coming. Once the sex happened, she didn’t want to be away from me. And in all honesty, I didn’t want to be away from her.

I loved him. This morning I loved him, and tonight I hoped he suffered unimaginably.

“What?” I asked, giving out and falling into him. “I can’t understand you.” “Don’t let me go,” he whispered in my ear. “Don’t let go.” “I’m gonna . . .” My mouth was so dry. “I’m gonna send you to jail.” His lips rested against my cheek, and I thought I felt his body shake with a silent sob. But as I fell into sleep and oblivion, his words were sharp and clear in my ear. “Then you better hope I never get out.”

“The only good memory I have of Damon when we were younger was when we were kids,” Rika told me. “I was like three or four—the memory is faint but I remember the gist—and we were at the library. Another kid pushed me down and stole my pop-up book.” She laughed a little at the memory. “Damon stole it right back and gave it to me. He never talked to me, and my mom invited him to come sit with us and read, but he had to leave with his nanny, I think.”

“I didn’t start to fear him until high school.” Her voice sounded thoughtful as if she were figuring something out herself for the first time, too. “After everything that was happening in that house happened to him.” “It’s no excuse,” I pointed out. And she agreed. “No, it’s not.” she said. “It’s a reason. Plain and simple. There’s always a reason why things are as they are.”

“And I learned, really quick, that life wasn’t going to be pretty. Not until . . .” Until . . . me? I put the pieces together. His dog at seven, the party at eleven, and how his father yelled at him and how his demeanor had already started to go downhill. I had nothing to do with any of that. “I was so alone,” he explained from somewhere on the other side of my room. “I couldn’t talk to people. I didn’t have any friends. I was scared all the time.” His voice was thick with memory, as if it had all happened just yesterday. “I just wanted to be invisible, and if I couldn’t be invisible, then I just wanted it to end. I was going to run away, because . . .” His sad voice trailed off. “Because the only other way to escape was to end it all.” I couldn’t wrap my head around it. That’s what was going through his mind when I met him that first time? What eleven-year-old wants to die?

“You made the world look different,” he told me. “You always had, and it struck me as odd, because I hated to watch my mother dance growing up. It was just some elaborate lie that I couldn’t stomach, but you . . .” He trailed off, searching for words. “It was pure, and it was a dream. I didn’t want to change you. I just wanted to be a part of it all. Of everything beautiful you were going to do.”

He rose to his feet, and the walls felt too close, and my clothes too tight, and I couldn’t get my lungs to open, because there was too much to take in and not enough said so many years ago. Why didn’t you say all of this years ago? “Nothing was a lie,” he whispered. And then he walked out, and my chest ached so badly, for air or for him, I didn’t know, but I ran to the window, yanked it up, and drew in a lungful of air, feeling everything give way. Slip away, fade, and ease. My fear. My worry. My hatred. My anger. Why hadn’t he said all that years ago? Why?

“I’ll control thirty-eight percent of the hotels on the eastern seaboard, twelve television stations, and enough land to start my own state if I want to.” “When your father is dead,” Will pointed out. Yeah. Which would happen sooner or later.

“Michael and Kai are smarter than you, you know?” she said. I listened. “Because if there’s one thing they know about revenge, Damon, it’s that it won’t feel nearly as good as her love will.” I clenched my teeth together against the ache in my gut, but I felt it anyway. Fuck you, Rika. “But I think you already know that, don’t you?” she continued. Fuck you so much. “She’ll make you stronger,” she said. “And we need you strong.” I closed my eyes, not wanting to feel the shit I felt when I was nineteen when I let myself . . . want her. When I let myself fucking love her.

None of it was a lie, except my name. It was real, and I wanted it again. I fucking loved her. Goddammit.