Page 30 of Where the Dark Things Bloom

I lifted the severed hand from inside, turned toward her, and when her breath caught in her throat, I grinned.

“Hi, Trouble,” I said, waving the severed hand in the air. “Missed me?”

Her lips parted. Eyes wide. She looked at me like I was a ghost, but no words came out of that pretty mouth.

“Cat got your tongue, little stepsister?” I asked, clapping the hand against my own, the sound of it became sharp and wrong.

She stared. Couldn’t look away. Her chest rose and fell like she didn’t know how to breathe. I took a step forward. Then another.

She pinched her arm, like she thought this might be a dream or a nightmare. I saw it in her eyes: she couldn’t tell which.

I came closer.

“Uhhh, little stepsister,” I whispered, dragging the cold fingers of the severed hand down her arm, while my other hand gently moved hair from her face. “No man will touch you ever again.”

She flinched when those dead fingers met her skin. Her breath caught—sharp, shaky. And just for a second, I saw it.

She sawme.

Not the boy she once knew. Not the one who loved her.

She saw what she turned me into.

What shemademe.

“Still think you can run from me?” I whispered, tilting my head. “Still think the world out there is safer than being loved by a monster who’d burn it all down just to hear you laugh again?”

She stumbled back a step, her spine pressed against the stair rail as if it could protect her. As if anything could protect her now.

“You don’t get it,” I said, walking toward her, leaving a faint trail of blood behind from the hand I still held. “You were my cure and my curse. And you left me.”

“Do you know what that does to a man already broken?”

Her lips trembled. Finally, she found her voice. Barely a whisper. “What… what do you want from me?”

I leaned in, close enough to smell the fear on her breath. Close enough to see my madness reflected in those eyes I once worshipped. “Everything,” I said. “I want everything you took when you walked away.”

I took her wrist gently like it still mattered, and placed her hand against my chest. “You feel that?” My heart, still beating. Still aching. “It beats for you. Always did. Even when I wanted it to stop.”

She tried to pull away, but I held her there. Not tight. Just enough.

“You don’t have to love me, little stepsister,” I said, voice low, almost soft, “But you will never forget me. Not in this life. Not in the next.”

She shook her head. “You’re sick.”

A twisted smile pulled at my lips. “No, Trouble. I was sick. You made me feel better. But then you became the disease.”

I let go. Watched her stumble backward up the stairs. She was scared.

“You left me in hell,” I called out as she turned around and ran, “so don’t be surprised when I bring it back with me.”

And just like that, the house fell into silence again. Just the ticking of that old hallway clock and thedrip-drip-dripof blood from fingers that no longer belonged to anyone.

I looked up at the portraits above me—fake smiles, golden frames.

Perfect lies.

We were a family once.

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