Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

You need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow up. In the end, she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than the other girls. —J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

the whole group looked about as shallow as a rain puddle. Never deep enough to be more than what it was.

They looked seventeen. And suddenly, for a moment, I wished I was them. Anyone other than me.

I just loved the nicknames the little wannabe gangsters gave themselves in high school, but someone should really tell them it wasn’t scary when you had to tell everyone how scary you were.

“Don’t you know that you can have anything you want?” His eyes searched mine. “I’ll hurt anyone for you.”

That you stayed, because . . . Because . . . “Abuse can feel like love.” I blinked, the voice so close that my ears tingled. Slowly, I raised my eyes to look at the side of Damon Torrance’s face, his shirt wrinkled, and his tie draped around his neck. The whole class fell silent, and I glanced at Will next to me, seeing his eyebrows pinched together as he looked at the back of his friend’s head. Mr. Townsend approached. “‘Abuse can feel like love . . .’” he repeated. “Why?” Damon remained so still it didn’t look like he was breathing. He looked at the teacher, unwavering. “Starving people will eat anything.”

I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t. “Is this the part where I giggle?” I said, trying to sound tough but failing. “Or beg?”

Turning back to him, I stared up into his eyes as my fingers clutched his shoulders. And then I felt it. The smile still on my face. I was smiling. A little. Shit.

I looked down, seeing Damon lying on his stomach and watching me. His head was propped on his hand, his eyes sharp as he brought up his fingers and dragged his thumb across his throat, not blinking once as he stared at me.

Blood isn’t love, and love is the only thing that begets loyalty.

When the bus stops, get in my fucking truck. I breathed out a bitter laugh. Aw, someone’s lost his temper. Why? I asked. The next thing I know, the bus stopped, he yanked the earbuds out of my ears, and I sucked in a breath as he leaned into my face. “Because you’re mine,” he growled in a whisper.

“I think that’s why I’ve always liked this time of day best. People hide in the dark. They quench their thirsts in the dark. They build their secrets in the dark. We’re more ourselves here than anywhere else. I get to be me”—he swallowed, staring at me—“when nightfall is coming.”

I wanted inside her head first. Because contrary to whatever she thought, this shit wasn’t ending when the lights came up.

“Easy, normal, peaceful . . .” he told me. “The only thing in my life untouched by anything ugly. Nothing has tainted him. He’s the one thing that’s still beautiful and thinks the world is beautiful and believes people are beautiful and all that shit.”

“But you’re going to be fucking mine someday,” he growled. “Come hell or high water, Emory Scott. You’re my woman, and you’re going to come home to me every day and sit at my table and warm my fucking bed.” He kissed me. “And you’re going to give me a Will Grayson IV. Mark my words.”

“You’re Lilith,” he whispered against my skin. “You can’t be burned if you’re the flame.”

She was dark and light. She wasn’t afraid to fall or to burn too bright. She was a flame.

You’ve been blowing my mind for forever.

I folded the tie slowly and stuck it in the Ziploc bag, followed by my Cove Ride-All-Day bracelet from last night, and the collapsed, empty box of Milk Duds he got me at the movie theater.

I couldn’t keep him close, but I couldn’t throw him away, either.

But as she climbed on behind him, he looked over his shoulder at her, something written in his smile I’d never seen in him before. Tenderness.

I had to smile a little, remembering the pirate ship and how I’d sounded exactly the same last night. I loved that feeling, too, Winter Ashby. It wasn’t the ride, though, honey. It wasn’t the ride.

But then he started sobbing, shaking and gasping, and I was him.

“Does Will know?” he asked, rubbing my blood between his fingers. “No.” He lifted his gaze to mine. “Because he’s the one pure, beautiful thing untainted by ugliness,” he repeated nearly his exact words from the shower. “And we love him for it.”

Damon held my eyes the whole time. The part of me that always gave in to tears was gone. Tears solved nothing.

I dropped to my knees, hurriedly helping him push the earth on top of her with my hands. We didn’t talk. I didn’t even think we really realized what was happening or what we were really doing, but it was too late now. Even if I turned him in for murder, I’d helped him dump the body. It was too late to panic.

But his face was twisted in sadness and despair as tears spilled over, falling down his dirty face. “I don’t know why it hurts,” he told me. “I didn’t love her.”

He cleared his throat. “I have a sister,” he told me. “Her name is Nik, but everyone calls her Banks.” He met my eyes again. “If something happens, and I can’t be there for her—if they arrest me for this—you need to go to my house and help her. She doesn’t have anyone else. You understand?”

He smiled, small but genuine, and he grabbed the towels,

Something crossed her eyes, and she looked like she did that morning in the movie theater so long ago. Like she wanted to melt into my arms. Like she didn’t really want to go, because she wanted to stay with me.

Alex was like Damon. They loved me. They indulged my dark side. They were too forgiving and too enabling.

I’d loved Emory since the moment I laid eyes on her when I was fourteen.

From that moment on, it seemed I was always aware of her, and everything I did, I did with it in mind that she was watching. Every joke in class. Every strut into the lunchroom. Every new haircut and every new pair of jeans.

I hated that she was alone. She was always alone, and she shouldn’t have been, because she should’ve been with me. But the older she got, the angrier she got, and the more desperate I got about trying to forget her.

She loved me. She loved me. The world swayed in front of me.

What I didn’t know then was that the damage we would do to each other was only just beginning.

He was insane. I’d be the first to admit they abused their power, but after helping one of them hide a body, I knew now that people were more complicated than that.

“The role of the villain is only determined by who’s telling the story.”

“It’s very old,” Will said, slipping it onto my finger, his hand shaking. “It’s your family’s?” “It’s yours now.” He met my eyes. “It’s been yours for nearly ten years.”

Once upon a time, she was a kid who blew our minds and ran with us all night. She hadn’t changed.

Damon put his finger under her chin and pushed, forcing her to lift her eyes up. “Chin up,” he bit out. “And stop being a mouse. You’re my mother, for Christ’s sake.”

“Live for your love,” the judge said, “love your life, and raise hell.”