Page 216 of A Curse On Black Lake
I look up with her foot still in my hand, and she loses balance, catching herself on my shoulder.
“Why couldn’t he just kill me? All of those women would have lived. It’s my fault they’re dead,” she says, crying.
I drop her foot and stand to my full height, pulling her into me again. “Don’t you dare carry that Eliana, that’s not your burden to bear. He chose to kill those women.”
“He said it was because of the curse. He also said he was a Rochester — your cousin,” she says.
I’m shocked for a moment, and push it to the side. “He was no family of mine, blood or not.”
“I think it’s how he justified everything in his mind. He thought I belonged to him.”
“Did he know someone had to die to lift the curse?” I ask her.
“I’m not sure. I didn’t tell him. It had to be a coincidence. He made it up in his mind, and it happened to be the truth. But he said he read about the curse in the journals, so maybe he assumed,” she says.
“Well, I—”
A fist bangs on the front door, echoing through the house.
Eliana looks up at me with panic in her eyes. “They aren’t going to take you again, right?”
I kiss her nose. “I don’t know,” I mutter, and we trade places so I can finish washing up.
She steps out and dries herself off before disappearing into her room. I dress quickly and wait for Eliana at the top of the stairs.
She comes out of her room in another pair of jeans, and one of my t-shirts.
“Whatever happens, it’s going to be okay. Alright?” I tell her, grabbing her hand.
She nods while nibbling on her lower lip.
I drag my fingers under the edge of the collar of my shirt on her. “I like you in my clothes.”
She gives me a look and shakes her head as a blush spreads across her tired face.
“I love you, little witch. Nothing is going to change that.”
“I love you too,” she says, and we go down the stairs hand in hand.
Chapter sixty-five
Eliana
Killianwasofficiallycleareda week later. They didn’t take him back to jail because the case itself was too circumstantial. What happened to me forced therightquestions to be asked.
It helped that they found Eddy’s fingerprints on the dress Hazel was wearing. They found where he was living, and after that it was pretty clear he was the one. Wyatt didn’t give us all the details, but Edward had been killing people for a long time. In fact, multiple cold cases came up matching his fingerprints.
I shudder and push my pencil harder into the paper.
“You’re going to break the pencil,” Killian says.
I drop it and sigh.
“Talk to me,” he says, rubbing his thumb in the divot of my ankle. While we rock back and forth on the porch swing.
“I’m overwhelmed,” I mutter.
“Why?” he asks.
