Nightfall (Devil's Night, #4)

by Penelope Douglas

“Don’t you know that you can have anything you want?” His eyes searched mine. “I’ll hurt anyone for you.” The weight on my chest was too heavy, it almost hurt to breathe. “Who is it?” he asked. “Who do I have to hurt?”

“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.”

“Real monsters don’t wear masks, William Grayson III,” I retorted. “They look like everyone else.”

Given the chance to run, I always ran.

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.

Like the Horsemen. Watching them sometimes, the other players didn’t exist. Michael, Kai, Damon, and Will were like the four limbs of a single body.

“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.”

“So, I’m a challenge then?” I asked. “That’s what all this is really about?” “No.” He shook his head. “You just make me want to be . . .” “Better?” I rolled my eyes at the cliché statement. But he paused a moment. “More,” he finally said. “No one ever expects more from me.”

And in that moment, I wanted to do nothing else with my life more than change her world, so she’d never feel like this again.

I stared out at the road as we headed back into town, unable to help the smile peeking out. Sorry, D. That’s her seat now.

“Will is like that,” he said, his voice softening, somber now. “Isn’t he?” 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.”

Damon Torrance was gifted at manipulating someone’s mind. Putting the right glasses over someone’s eyes to make them see the world how he wanted them to see it. God help the woman who ever fell in love with him.

“That’s the thing about broken people, Guillaume. If we ever give you our heart, then you know that you deserve it.”

“Evil doesn’t exist. That’s just an excuse for people who want quick answers for complicated questions that they’re too lazy to deal with. There’s always a reason things are as they are.”

All the frowns were worth the trouble for just one smile.

Loving a guarded girl, I had realized, was a pyrrhic victory. The rare moments of happiness came at too great a cost.

A pyrrhic victory. And here I was, pretty sure that no cost was too great to just be able to hold her. It kind of scared me what I’d pay.

“I’m lucky,” I said, almost to myself. “I have a family full of people who know what going over the edge feels like. They know there’s a place inside of us where you make the rules instead of following them. I’m not alone.”

“They’re a storm,” I told him.

“You didn’t dress up?” I asked. His green eyes held mine. “I didn’t want to make it hard for you to find me.”

Will was right. Something changed in the air when nightfall came, but . . . The allure for me was in the glow that softened the shadows. It was more beautiful than the sun.

“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.”

He wanted to give me a piece of him I’d never escape, but he had a part of me I’d never get back. This would never be as good with anyone else. I was fucked, and he’d already had his revenge.

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

“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.”

“After a while, you get tired of pretending that you’re in control of everything that happens to you.” He paused, turning to me again. “And you start being what happens to everyone else.”

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

No one was going to tell me how to feel. Not anymore. No one could make me feel anything I didn’t allow. I was in control. And I was ready for an adventure.

the cloud in my head thickening again until the pain of wanting him turned into an addiction to the pain of rejecting him.

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

I’d rather eat my hands than see her do that to herself. If this was who she was, I’d rather this than see her become what I became—someone who needed to hurt myself day after day in order to fucking smile.

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

We couldn’t shut out every single person who’d disappointed us. Some of them were still worth fighting for.

I wasn’t scared to fall with him, because he made me feel safe no matter how high we climbed.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” he whispered in a raspy voice. “You haven’t left prison yet.”

She hadn’t needed a boyfriend. She’d needed a friend, and I’d been selfish and arrogant and spoiled. I should’ve been whatever she needed, whenever she needed me. She didn’t owe me her heart just because I wanted it.

“Hell yeah, you love me,”

“You’re crazy about me, and you may not be blond or eighteen or named Heidi, but you’re fucking mine, Little Trouble.”

“I don’t need the Cove,” he said over the rain. “I need more memories with you.”

“Memories that aren’t tainted with all the years apart right afterward,” he explained.

“I build with you now,” he whispered to me, the heat of his mouth on my lips. “We make Thunder Bay together, Em. I love you.”

“I love you,”

“I’m wild crazy for you, and I’m sure I’ll kill you at some point, but . . . God, I love you so much, and I want you to marry me.”

“Marry me, Will Grayson.”

“Can you marry me? Can I ...

“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.”

“Don’t sleep tonight.”

“Don’t break this. Don’t break the spell.”