Hunting Adeline (Cat and Mouse, #2)

by H.D. Carlton

They want us to feel as if there is no escape, so we might as well act right and take the good days with the bad. But that’s not surviving; that’s conforming.

Your mom doesn’t hate you, Addie. She hates herself. And she doesn’t resent you because you’re not living the life she wanted for herself, she resents you because you were living the life you wanted, and she wasn’t.” She stares at me, seeming to contemplate that. “The best thing you can do is keep living that life, little mouse. Continue being a successful author who loves horror movies and haunted fairs. Who loves her Nana and the gothic mansion she inherited and finds a thrill out of the ghosts that walk the halls. You’ve always been unapologetically you.”

“I hope they’re happy,” I murmur. When Zade looks at me curiously, I nod towards the individual in the purple dress. “This world can be so cruel. So, I hope they’re happy.” Zade is quiet for a beat. “Happiness is fleeting. All that matters is that they’re living their life the way they want to.” “You believe that?” I ask, facing him. “That happiness is fleeting?” He shrugs, tossing the last bite of his cone into his mouth, and chews as he contemplates something. “Absolutely,” he says finally. “It’s not something solid you can hold on to. It’s vapor in the wind, and all you can do is inhale it when it’s near and hope it comes around again when it blows away.”

You’re so unapologetic for what you’ve done. For how many people you’ve killed. How are you okay with that?” “Why wouldn’t I be?” he challenges, tilting his head with an amused grin. I’d say he looks like a cute puppy, but that would be a lie. He looks like a vicious beast that’s been locked up too long and is ravenous. For me, in particular. “I don’t know—morals?” I say, like the answer is obvious. Because it is. “Guilt? Remorse?” “The very people you want to kill are the founding fathers of society’s morals. I killed their expectations of me, and then I sliced open their throats to show them that they would never control me. They will only ever answer for their crimes, and I have no problem being the executioner. If you don’t want to do this, y—" I slash my hand in the air, cutting him off. “Don’t do that. Don’t give me an out.” “It’s not an out, it’s an option. I want you to do whatever you can handle, Addie. If that means staying home, I support you. If that means going on a massive murder spree, I’ll be right by your side, baby. You’re still having nightmares about Sydney and Jerry, and carrying around that guilt for protecting yourself. If you can’t learn to accept that, how will you accept taking anyone else’s life? Because believe me when I say, this won’t be self-defense from here on out.” “I don’t know how to accept it, Zade. I feel like I’m justifying murder.” “Just like I ‘justified’ stalking you?” He puts air quotes around the word because we both know Zade wa...

You need to figure out your morals, and what you’re okay living with. Not what you’ve been taught, but what you feel in your gut.”

“So, stalking and assaulting me is written in your book of morals?” “No,” he says, his smile widening. “I was obsessed with you from the moment I saw you. All those dark, twisted emotions I felt were the rawest form of who I am. I made the decision to show you that instead of concealing it. I never claimed to be a good person, little mouse, and that was something...

“You will never hear me call myself a good man. Or kind. Or even honorable. There is very little left of that in me, and the truth is that it was never really there to begin with. I was born with a blackened soul and good intentions. And there is a difference between those who are needlessly evil and those who do bad things hoping that something good will come out of it. I'll let you decide for yourself which one I am.”

Now, I realize that choosing to look the other way and let God handle it is a fucking cop-out. It’s allowing evil to continue to live because they believe the afterlife is scarier. If it’s so scary, then why wait to send them there?

“Our mouths are touching the same spot,” she says shakily. “Does that count as kissing?” “You tell me, little mouse. When I make you cry out for God, does that count as praying?”

I inhale death in order to erase the urge to create it.

Do you think needing me somehow makes you weak?" "Doesn't it?" I snap. "No, baby, it makes you strong.” He bends down, putting his face directly into mine. "I may own every breath in your body, but make no mistake, Adeline, you own mine, too. I am yours to command. To bend and break. To mold and manipulate. Do you think that makes me weak? Or do you think I'm strong enough to admit that even though my body can physically live on without you, I would never get my fucking soul back?”

But giving Zade pleasure doesn’t make me feel weak and helpless like I thought it would. To see him lose himself in my mouth makes me feel like a queen sitting upon her throne.

He may be spitting his demands, but he’s still under my mercy. Proven by the way his head tips back, a groan working through his throat, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“I don’t want your apologies, Xavier. I want your suffering.”

“You and I will never end, little mouse. Even when we’re six feet under, and our bones are dust, I will haunt your soul until it aches to be free of me. And then, I will hold you tighter.”

it’s hard not to take it fucking personally. Feeling that weight is what makes you human. But there’s a difference between feeling another’s pain and blaming yourself because someone else hurt them.”

Heaven isn’t a place you go to when you die, it’s inside the person that’s worth dying for.