Page 90 of Not Today, Satan
I’m sorry, Nate. Even the great Sherlock Holmes would’ve come up bust here.
“No.” I pick up Nate’s box and hug it to my chest. At least I can bring him some memories before he leaves for good. “Sorry I bothered you. I’ll take this and go.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” Alex grabs my arm, and the box spills at my feet as I’m flung into his soul.
Alex’s memories are nothing like Nate’s.
Whereas I viewed Nate’s good deeds through a white haze, Alex’s mind is dark, like I’m in a tunnel.
Even as a child, he was unkind.
He beat up other children before graduating to harming animals. My stomach heaves as he ages into a teen who stalks women on the street, wretched thoughts in his voice buzzing through my head so loudly I want to shove my hands over my ears to block them out. I’ve seen a lot of bad things where I come from, but I’m still not prepared for his mind.
Alex isn’t just bad. He’s evil.
I’m yanked further in time until I’m standing in a study, surrounded by hardbound books. I’m Alex and I have a gun raised at the man from Nate’s birthday photo. Gabe’s face is a mask of anguish as he pleads with his son to lower the weapon, tears streaming down his cheeks.
I strain to make out what he’s saying, but he’s cut off by two shots. His body jolts as blood pools on his plaid shirt. He falls to the floor clutching his chest, and I drop the gun and run.
I tear back into reality with a shriek, breaking away from Alex’s freezing touch.
Mr. Bellum tried to explain what I’d see when my sight was fully accessed—how sins would be clear as my own memories. He’d warned me that touching the person would be more intense. I’d experienced glimpses of it with Nate and on the street when we’d arrived in Los Angeles, but nothing like this.
Shivers course through me, my stomach clenching against the horrors I’ve lived through Alex.
If this is what Father feels when he’s judging, I understand his desire to punish.
Fury courses through me, making my teeth ache.
“It was you,” I manage through a tightened throat. “You killed your father.”
XLIII.
Alex drops his hand and cocks his head like I’ve told him the sky is blue instead of calling him a murderer. “Interesting. What makes you say that?”
My arms tremble as I hug myself and back away from him. “You killed Gabe, and you let Nate take the blame. Natediedbecause of you.”
He grabs me by the shoulders and pulls me into him, his fingernails digging into my skin. “Who told you that?”
I break out of his grasp, rubbing my indented skin. “No one. I can see it for myself.”
He cackles. “I’m impressed. Not even the cops suspected me. Mind you, I was good at playing the innocent victim.” He raises his voice to a wail. “‘Not my dad! Nate, how could you?’ They didn’t even flinch when I told them I watched the troubled foster kid shoot him, then hid down here for my life. They went up there, guns blazing. I mean, the most I’d hoped for was they’d lock him up. Them killing him was a bonus.”
Pressure builds behind my eyes. He’s the reason Nate went to Hell. The reason he’s about to go back. “Why did you do it?”
Alex gives a half-hearted shrug. “Dad loved me till Nate moved in. Then, suddenly, I was invisible, and a nobody foster kid who wasn’t even blood was his favorite son. It wasn’t fair.”
My eyes widen, and the breath dies in my chest. “You killed your own dad because he liked Nate more?”
He leans on the wall and stares out the window as a bird swoops across the sky. “I hadn’t planned on it. I did everything to drive Nate out—broke his stuff, shredded his clothes, threatened him daily—but he never got the hint.”
“He’s too good a person,” I say. “Nate probably thought he could win you over.”
He thought the same of me. Only he did win me over. And is now paying the price.
Alex doesn’t seem to hear me. He paces between the window and the doorway, his long legs crossing the room in three strides. “When Dad missed my first college game because Nate was sick, I snapped. I hit two home runs and won the game, and he missed it.”
I have no idea what a home run is, so I blink at him.
