I’m not aware that I’m crying until his face blurs in front of my eyes. My chest is too tight, my breaths too shallow. I’ve known that Peter is obsessed with me, but I’ve never imagined that in his mind, that obsession equals love, that he wants some kind of real future with me… one where we’re together as a family.
A future where FBI agents aren’t about to storm through the door.
“Don’t cry, ptichka.” His thumb strokes over my wet cheek, and I see the mocking smile return to his lips. “This doesn’t change anything. You can still hate me. Just because I love you, I’m not any less of a monster—and I’m not going to disappear from your life.”
But you are. I want to scream out the truth, but I can’t. I can’t warn him, even though my heart feels like it’s tearing apart. I don’t love him—I can’t—but it hurts as though I do, as though losing him will be the worst thing ever. A choked sob rips from my throat, then another, and then I’m in his arms, clasped securely against his chest as he carries me out of the bathroom.
When he reaches my bed, he sits down, holding me on his lap, and I cry, my face buried against his neck as he strokes my back, slowly, soothingly. He’s right; his confession of love shouldn’t change anything, but somehow, it makes things worse. It makes me feel like I’m losing something real… like I’m betraying him and us.
How can a monster hold me so tenderly? How can a psychopath love?
My skull feels like it’s being sawed open from the inside, my headache worsened by my crying, and I push at Peter’s chest, twisting out of his embrace—only to fall onto the bed, whimpering as I clutch my temples.
He leans over me, concern darkening his features. “What’s the matter, ptichka?” he asks, stroking my arm, and I manage to mutter something about a headache before squeezing my eyes shut. What I’m feeling is more along the lines of a migraine, but I’m in too much pain to explain.
The bed dips as he rises to his feet, and I hear footsteps as he walks out of the room. A couple of minutes later, he returns with Advil and a glass of water. I pry open my swollen eyelids long enough to swallow the medicine, and then I close my eyes again, waiting for the violent drumbeat in my skull to quiet to a manageable roar.
I expect him to leave then, or to get in bed with me, or whatever he was planning to do, but instead, I hear the bathroom door open, and a minute later, a cool, wet towel covers my eyes and forehead, bringing with it a welcome sliver of relief.
Once again, he’s taking care of me, giving me comfort when I need it most.
The tears return, trickling out from under the towel as he tucks the blanket around me and sits on the edge of the bed, his hand slipping under my neck to massage the tense muscles in my nape. It’s torture of a different kind, this tender care of his. It soothes my headache but intensifies the searing pain in my chest. I’ve been fooling myself when I called what we have a sick fantasy. It might be sick, but it’s real, and when he’s gone, I will miss him, just like I missed him when he went to Mexico. It’s not love I feel for him—love can’t be this dark, this illogical and insane—but it is something.
Something other than hate, something deep and disturbingly addictive.
A dog barks in the distance, and I hear a car door slam. It’s most likely my neighbors on the next block over, but my heart still jumps, my stomach churning as I picture a SWAT team busting through my door and gunning down Peter at my bedside. It plays like a movie in my mind: the black-clad figures rushing in, the bullets tearing through the bedsheets, the pillows, his chest, his skull…
Bile surges up my throat, my head all but exploding with agony.
Oh God, I can’t do it.
I can’t stay quiet and let it happen.
“Peter…” My voice trembles as I ball my hands under the blanket. I know I will regret this in a thousand different ways, but I can’t stop the words from spilling out. “You’ve been spotted. They’re coming for you.”
His hand on my nape stills mid-stroke, then resumes its gentle massage.
“I know, ptichka,” he murmurs, and I feel his lips brush against my wet cheek as something cold and hard pricks my neck. “I know they are.”
Lethargy rushes through my veins, and with strange relief, I realize that this is it.
He knew about the FBI all along.
He knew, and I’ll never be free again.
45
Peter
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