That same pen had gone halfway into her right eye. Halfway in.
“No, no, no, no,” I whispered, my body shaking as I scrambled to my feet, refusing to believe my eyes.
“You got spunk, Pinkie!” Derek said, laughing, as he analyzed the face of the woman…Lindsay.
I spun around and pressed my palms to the cold wall and squeezed my eyes shut. My stomach turned, everything I’d eaten for breakfast threatening to come right out of me.
I killed a person.
I stabbed a person in the eye with a pen.
Bile filled my mouth, and it took all I had to push it back down.
“I need to take a picture of this. Damn,” Derek said, but my mind was lost to the image imprinted on the back of my lids. Lindsay’s face, mouth wide open, eyes wide open—except the right one that had a pen in it.
I actually killed a person with a pen.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered to myself, shaking my head. “I didn’t. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t think—”
“Pinkie.”
I spun around with a jolt when I realized Derek’s voice was coming from right behind me. His neck was right in front of my face. Way too close.
His hand touched my cheek just slightly, and I slapped it away, tried to push him off me, but he didn’t budge. I wasn’t afraid. I was only trapped in disbelief still, but I needed space to breathe. To think.
No—to not think.
“That,” Derek whispered, bringing his fingers to my cheek again. “Was.” He pushed my head up so he could see my eyes. “Amazing!” he finished, then burst out laughing again like a maniac.
“Get the hell off me!” I shouted, and this time, when I pushed him, he actually moved.
“I knew it!” he said, shaking his finger at me. “I knew there was something about you. I kept wondering how you did it, and now I know. Ha!”
“Did what?” I choked, trying to look everywhere but at the body of Lindsay on the floor.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look, but my eyes kept going back to her, no matter how hard I tried to focus on anything else.
Oh, God. I’d killed a person, and no amount of pacing around the room was changing that fact.
“Get in his head,” Derek said. “Watch after Teddy, Derek. Make sure Teddy’s safe, Derek. Don’t let anybody near her, Derek,” he mocked, laughing his heart out so hard, there were actual tears in his eyes.
Squeezing my own shut, I shook my head and willed all of this to just go away. Willed myself to disappear, be somewhere else, anywhere else, preferably in a reality where I hadn’t stabbed someone to death with a pen.
Oh, God.
“It was strange at first, you know. Because you look like that,” Derek said then, pointing his finger up and down me. We had two dead bodies in the suite, and he couldn’t have cared less. He looked like he was having the time of his life instead. Definitely not well.
“I look like what?” I snapped so fast, I surprised even myself. Why wouldn’t he just shut up? Couldn’t he see what I’d done? Didn’t he care that I was about to throw up any second now? “Because I look like what?!” I shouted again, and I couldn’t stop. “Because I’m tiny? Because I’m pink?!”
And what did any of it matter? I’d just killed a person!
The lunatic shrugged. “Werewolves like pink too.” Then he slammed his bat to the floor.
Rolling my eyes, I sighed. What was I even doing, talking to him still?
“Look, Derek. Thanks for your help, okay? But I need to clean this up…” Bile rose in my throat again. My damn hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Clean up? I was going to have to actually touch that woman’s body? I could barely even stand!
No, no, no…“I need to call this in, and—”