Page 72 of Ominous: Part 1
But maybe that’s the key. Manipulation comes with preparation.
Besides, I’m not shocked at the manner of death. Perhaps, if he was a different person, it’d be full of gory violence. Blood splattered on walls, dripping down the hallway, a trail for the police, a crime that might initially appear to be one of passion but ultimately forensics and questioning give way to a simpler truth. The perpetrator was a psychopath. They planned every bright red detail.
Blood did not make them queasy and killing came easy.
But Eli… maybe he’s too pristine for that sort of chaos. Cold and controlled, he wouldn’t slip up.
I realize I haven’t answered him as he huffs the smallest laugh. “Is this too much for you?” His voice is sensual, and I exhale, trying to focus on this moment, and not Eli off on an out-of-character bloody crime spree.
I remember he told me he almost drowned someone, but it seems irrelevant. A flippant thing to say to get me to open up. I don’t mention it.
“No, I’ve never watched anyone drown.” I swallow, intentionally loosening my grip on my pen. I almost ask it.Have you?But I bite my tongue at the last moment, because he already saidalmost.Besides, it’s not my second question and he won’t rob it from me.
His teeth flash like he knows what I just stopped myself from doing. “Well, my worst thought about myself is I drown someone I love, in a bathtub.” He clears his throat, glancing away, and it’s the first time I’ve ever seen him unsure of himself.
It feels like something I shouldn’t be witnessing. Like I want to save him from the awkwardness of it. Or maybe it’s part of his magnetism.
“Sounds easy to me.”
He still stares at the bookshelves behind me, over my head. “Because you haven’t seen someone drown. Besides, there’d be a struggle. Blood in the water, from my victim fighting back. Maybe a razor blade against my skin, and maybe I’d be upset enough to return the favor to them, just over their throat, and maybe it would be a straight blade instead of a disposable thing you buy at the store. The water would turn red and after what felt like forever, they’d stop struggling.”
I’m panting, and I’m glad he’s not looking at me. He’d see the truth in my eyes, how much this stuff turns me on.So, there is blood after all.Eli is fascinating, perhaps because he’s so unpredictable.
There’s a follow-up question bursting to come forth, and unlike the last times I stopped myself, I don’t bother now. “Is it sexual?” My cheeks are warm, but I keep going. “Any part of it? Do you… do you rape them or—”
“I don’t rape them.” He seems angry I even asked as he brings his gaze back to me. “That part, they wanted.” It isn’t cockiness coating his statement. It’s something else, like heneedsit to be true.
We stare off for a long moment.
Is it me?A question I won’t ask.
Who else would it be?An imaginary answer. My wish fulfillment.
“That’s two questions.” He taps the water bottle against his knee to a silent beat.
I roll my eyes, relaxing a little as the fantasy washes away in my head. “I can count.” Before I lose my nerve as he gives me a blank expression, I just press onward.Excelsiorsounds in my head, learned from Latin, and it gives me the lightness to ask. “Why doesn’t your mom live with you?”
The look on his face stings. It’s one of disappointment. He cocks his head, staring at me. I wonder if his mom is dead. “I’m going to give you a chance to take that one back, and trust me, you want to.”
I don’t trust you.“No.”
“Take it back.”
I drop my pen and cross my arms. “Answer it.”
“Why would you waste your time with this?”
I feel hot shame course through me, like I haven’t lived up to the idea ofmeinside his head. It makes me want to walk the question back, retreat, come up with something else a little more clever. Even with my arms over my chest like some sort of defense mechanism, I want to shrink down into my seat. Or just get up and walk away.
But there’s a reason he’s acting this way, isn’t there? He’s getting angry with me, for the first time.
“Tell me.” I inject coolness into my tone.We can both play.
Good luck with that.Even with those phantom words stinging inside my head, he won’t make me back down.
He doesn’t blink for long moments, but the longer he looks at me, trying to shrink me, the angrier I get, the bolder in knowing this is the question I want the last answer to.
Answer it, Eli, and tell me the truth.I clench my teeth, waiting, thinking it over and over in my head, knowing he could lie and hoping I’ll be able to tell. But I think he’s very good at it. I think lying is like breathing for him and I’m not sure how many times he’s either kept or discarded the truth with me already.
