Page 17 of Reaper
His voice shakes, burns, and mine is absent.
After a long silence, he continues. “I loved her so fucking much. The second I met her, I knew there was something about her that would change my life in unforgettable, unimaginable ways. Even living how I was, how she was, we were both deep in that fucking shit, doing things to ourselves that people aren’t fucking meant to do, and yet she still fucking shone like a star in the darkest part of the sky.”
“Then why’d you do it?” I whisper.
“I hate myself in ways you can’t imagine for what happened to Vanessa. There are people out there that call themselves my friends, my brothers — and they are, but I don’t think I deserve to call them that, with all that I’ve done — and they tell me I should forgive myself for what happened to her. That I should move on. But they don’t have to live with the fact that they loved her, that they knew what she could do and who she could be if things had just been different, if they hadn’t snuffed that life out.” His voice breaks, and that sound pulls my eyes to him despite every effort of my burning heart, and I see him, halfway wrapped in a towel, hunched over in pain, his muscular, tattooed body tense with the agony of his sorrow. “Every moment, it seems like I see her face or hear her voice. I still feel her in my arms, the weight of her lifeless body… And even when I’m trying to kill myself, or wanting you to kill me, there’s a part of me that thinks that a fate like that is better than I deserve.”
He sobs. He shakes. I speak. “It is.”
“It is.”
Silence and understanding settle between us. It’s a little less hateful, a little more pitying. At least this monster feels regret. At least he knows that what he did — taking my incredible little sister out of the world — was a horrible crime.
“What was she like at the end?”
A pause.
I press. “Ricky, don’t hold this back from me. Do you know how hard I looked for her? How much I hurt for so long because I couldn’t find my little sister? How many times I worried she was dead and that I’d never get to say goodbye? Well, you took my chance to say goodbye from me, so the least you can do is tell me what she was like before she died.”
He stands naked except for that towel, and nods. My eyes don’t leave his. I see in them scenes play out that I wish I had witnessed — memories of my little sister.
“She was working so hard to get clean. She’d tried before, we both did, and everyone fucking says that — ‘oh, they were trying so hard’ — but this time, it was different. She was as strong as she had ever been. She had help, people supporting her; she’d walked out on me, and she was doing everything she needed to do to get her life straight. She was even helping me get my life together. I was clean, too, because of her. I think that was the first time in as long as I can remember that I actually felt hope. And I owe it all to Vanessa.”
“What went wrong?”
“I did.”
I look into his eyes, look at him as I would a criminal — which is what he fuckingis— and it takes me only a second to see through the lies.
“That’s a bullshit answer, and you know it.”
He opens his mouth to protest, but then shuts it because he knows it’s futile.Good. At least he’s fucking smart enough to know I won’t buy his bullshit.
“What do you want to know?”
“What do I want to know? I want to know everything. All those years I lost, I’ll get none of that time with her back. But most of all, I want to know the truth. If she was getting clean, if you were getting clean, then I want you to tell me the truth about why my sister died of an overdose.”
Another heavy silence. A war plays out deep within the irises of his troubled eyes, and I wait.
“I’ll tell you the truth about how your sister died. But when I do, when this is over, I want you to promise that you’ll fulfill what you set out to do.”
“You mean?”
“Yes, I want you to keep your word. I want you to kill me.”
“Fine. I promised I’d kill my sister’s killer, so, yeah, I’ll keep my word.”
He nods, satisfied, and opens his mouth. But no words come out. Instead, he cocks his head to the side, listening.
Then I hear it too. Shouting.
Followed by the unmistakable crack of a gunshot.
Chapter Ten
Ricky
My mind, my attention, it’s elsewhere — it’s anywhere but here, anywhere but focused on the stunning, nearly naked woman in front of me who pulls at my heartstrings in ways that no one living ever has, in ways that disturb and distress me to my very core, and in a way that’s about to drag the bitter truth out of me even though that truth scares me to the deepest reaches of my soul.
