Page 121 of A Taste of Torment
Tears well in my eyes.
Yesterday, it would have been easy to tell him no. I believe him. Trust him. Now, Bea’s words rattle through my mind, casting doubt too thick to lie my way through.
I hold the journal against my chest and try my best not to freak out.
“You—you fit the profile.”
Jarron barks out a laugh. “Right. The profile. I should have realized last night when you accused Mr. Vandozer. Those things you marked of him are true for me too.”
Bea’s words twist through my mind, full of thorns that carve so deep I can’t help but bleed. “I had to consider—”
“Had to?” he asks, voice pitching high. Rage distorts his features as he stalks forward, and I shrink away from him. “Being alone with a demon is the most idiotic thing I’ve ever done. I spend every moment terrified he’ll kill me the way he killed her.” He whispers the cursed words without looking at me.
He did read some of it.
“I didn’t—” I can’t think. I know I have ways to explain all of this, at least mostly. I can tell him that, yes, I did suspect him but not anymore.
“I hoped I was wrong,” I say. “I—I was afraid it was you, but that doesn’t make all of this not real.”
He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move.
As the silence stretches, my heartrate slows a bit, my seizing lungs catch up. The ache in my chest doesn’t ease, though. If anything, it becomes more and more painful.
He stalked her, carved his talons through her skin. That was long ago. A moment of passion.
Passion because he desired her? My stomach twists. If he wanted her then, what about now? What about last year when she was dating someone from this school?
“Is there something you want to ask me, then?” he says finally.
Did you kill her?
Did you date her?
Did you love her?
“Candice?” he asks, his voice quiet. I run through the events of that night, how he stalked her, cornered her. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me away. I wasn’t hurt, but I couldn’t stop him.
My best friend growled at my sister as she whimpered and cried for me to help while he grabbed her and sliced her open.
“Tell me about you and Liz.”
“What?”
I look down at my own wrist, running my fingers over the veins. “Liz,” I say, voice low. Defeated. “Did you kiss her?”
The room freezes in an instant, literal frost cracks over the walls. He stumbles a step back. He doesn’t answer, but betrayal and bone-deep pain flashes in his pitch-black eyes.
“Yes,” he admits with no emotion in his tone.
My face crumbles. “When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Have you seen her since?” I wish I didn’t have these doubts. I wish it wasn’t carving its way through my body, but it is. I’m drowning in the fear that Jarron never wanted me. He wanted her. And if he wanted her—
“No,” he growls. “Do you need me to say it? I didn’t kill her.” He shakes his head and then turns, running his hands through his hair between his shinning black horns.
I’m glad he said it, but it’s not enough. There’s too much swirling around in my mind. Too many questions.
