Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

I couldn’t turn around and look at him because I was sure my face was ten shades of red. He’d put his tie on me after the movies when he’d dropped me at home, and I wasn’t going to wear it, but . . .

“Don’t worry,” he said, letting me go and adding a brownie and chocolate milk to my tray. “All they see is me fucking with you. They’d never suspect—” “That you were serious?”

“No, that you like me.”

“And stop putting all this food on here! You’re not eating with me.”

“It’s for you,” he told me, taking out his wallet. “You’re pale. All of that’s kosher, right?”

“I can’t,” I said, louder this time. But he came in closer, looking down at me. “And then I’m taking you to my house. Just us. I want to have a Mission: Impossible marathon with you tonight.”

I’d let things happen he’d only make me regret.

But he came in, taking his tie around my neck and rubbing it between his fingers. “You come to me,” he said, “or I’ll come to you.”

Maybe I should shave again. I mean, if he found me, I . .

But then a shadow moved on the other side of the shower curtain, and I froze.

The shadow peeled back the curtain slowly, and a lump swelled in my throat as Damon Torrance stepped into the shower with me.

“Martin?” he repeated. “Why would your brother be stalking the girls’ locker room?”

He pinned my wrist to the wall at my side as he smiled down. “I want to know what he sees in you. Maybe I’ll see it, too.”

What, you can only get hard if I’m scared?

I gathered it was new for him. He preyed because it got him off, but it ruined his plans when he wasn’t the victim’s first rodeo, didn’t it?

It wasn’t the sex, but the power.

My heart thundered in my chest, but I remained frozen, staring up at him as he looked at my body and the bruises in the shapes of fingers wrapped around my upper arm. The scrapes on my legs and the blue and purple on my shoulders.

“Until you can’t remember who you were before you started lying even to yourself,” he added. “Until you can’t remember ever smiling when it didn’t fucking hurt.”

Abuse can feel like love.

Starving people will eat anything.

He didn’t have any marks that I could see, but there were other kinds of pain.

Like a smile that doesn’t hurt. I nodded.

“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.”

“You can’t take him away from me,” Damon told me, stepping back and letting me go.

And in that moment, I understood exactly what his problem was. He didn’t dislike me. He resented Will liking me so much.

One day of wearing his school tie, because I loved the way he made me feel and I had to have a piece of him with me every moment, was nothing compared to the years Damon had relied on Will to be his little...

The whole school knows. He won’t fit, because you’re committed to being miserable and you’ll just drag him down.”

“He wore you down,” Damon went on, “and you need a release. I get it.”

“So, take it for what it is,” he whispered. “And release with me.”

“His infatuation will end, so pretend you’re the one in control,” Damon taunted. “Call it for what it is, because it’s sure as shit not love. It’s a crush. Hormones. Instant gratification. Acting out.”

“That need kids like us feel that Will never will? That need to destroy anything good, because every man for himself, and if you can’t beat ’em, then join ’em.”

“That tingle between your thighs,” he panted, “that’s telling you to just let it happen, because in the back seat of my car is where you’ll be in charge.”

“And when you’re done with me,” he breathed out over my mouth, “you’ll get to be the first to walk away from something that was never going to happen anyway. You can do that with me. Don’t play with his heart. Use me, instead.”

“I’m good,” he whispered, holding my eyes. “I’m really good, Emory, and I’ll make it worth it and save you the pain of him. As long as you quit now.”

I thought about what it would be like . . . for a moment.

God help the woman who ever fell in love with him.

But Will liked Em. I’d rather live in that memory of the movie theater forever than ever make another one with anyone else.

“Be prepared for what’s going to happen when he does,” he warned. “And what can happen to him if he goes up against a cop.”

These moods were harder to take sometimes than the violence.

“I’m sorry, you know?” he choked out, and I could hear the tears in his throat.

“I do love you, Emmy.” He paused. “That’s why I want you to go. You’ll be the one thing in this family that’s not a fucking failure.”

“I don’t even know what I’m doing when I do it,” he mumbled. “I just can’t stop.”

nodded, finishing the stove.

And what better place for a criminal to hide?

He came over and kissed my forehead, and I stilled, only relaxing again when he’d backed away.

I liked to put them on the shelf whenever he gave me one. It pleased him to see me display his gifts, but also . . . it was like I’d accomplished something. It was like a trophy.

When the bruises faded, and I had nothing else to show for what would never fade in my head, I had this. One book for every time I stood back up.

He’d bought me other things over the years, presents every time he’d spent his anger and the guilt crept in, and those things were also set about the room.

But someone sat there, in the corner of my room in my chair.

“What did I say?” he said in a low voice. “If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you.”