Page 112 of Watch Me Burn
“Then explain it to me!” My composure shatters. I surge forward and jab my finger into his chest. “Tell me why you did this to me!”
“Because I’m fucked up!” His hand shoots out and catches my wrist mid-jab, his grip firm and unyielding. “Because I’m dark and broken inside, and I don’t know how to give you what you deserve! I knew this would blow up eventually,but I couldn’t stop. By the time I realized I was in love with you, it was too late. I was in too deep. Letting you go wasn’t an option. It never was.”
He loves me. Or believes he does. But it fixes nothing. If anything, it makes everything worse.
I pull my hand free from his grip. “You fell in love with me. And your brilliant solution was to keep lying to me?”
I draw in a breath, steadying myself.
“Look, I get why you didn’t tell me at first. You were stalking me, fucking me while wearing a mask. You admitted you’re a serial killer. So yeah, in some sick way, I understand the initial deception. But later? After it became more than sex? Why keep lying? Why make me fall for two versions of you?”
“I’d never…” He tears at his hair again as he turns to face the window, and I worry he might actually tear it out. “You don’t know what I come from, Luna. Love wasn’t something I understood before I met you. I didn’t know how to handle it. All I knew was that I needed you in every way possible. The dark parts of me needed to own you, possess every piece of you. But there was this other part. This part that just wanted to make you smile. Be worthy of you. I thought I could give you both.”
“By lying to me.”
“By protecting you!” He wheels around to face me, his eyes wild. “Do you think I wanted you to know how depraved I really am? Wanted you to think about the blood on my hands every time I touched you?”
“I already knew the hands you touched me with were covered in blood, sometimes before you even came to me at night. But it didn’t matter. I wanted your hands on me, anyway. I always accepted you, even when it cost me pieces of my soul to do it.”
“Do you really think knowing the truth would’ve made you feel better? Do you feel better now, knowing it?”
“No. I feel betrayed and used.”
“It’s one thing, Luna, to know that the masked man you’re fucking in secret is a killer. It’s quite another to know he’s also your neighbor. The seemingly civilizedman who takes you to fancy galas and also devours you against the windows in his penthouse.”
The weight of it all slams into me at once—the lies, the manipulation, the months of living in two different worlds with the same man. My shoulders cave inward, and my spine curves forward like I’m trying to fold myself in half.
“Knowing doesn’t change anything.”
He scoffs, and his mouth twists into a smile that makes him look like a different person, all sharp edges and self-loathing. His eyes flash with bitter amusement, the kind that comes from watching your life burn down around you and finding it grimly funny.
“Now, who’s the liar?”
“Is it because you don’t trust me?” I move closer to him again, drawn by some invisible force I can’t resist. “Do you think I’ll turn you in to the authorities? I told you I’ll never betray you.”
“It isn’t a matter of betrayal. It’s a matter of burden. You don’t fucking deserve the burden of knowing what I do and who I truly am. Because make no mistake, Luna, the man I am is the one standing in front of you right now. I’m a man who kills without remorse and then comes to you after and pours all his darkness into you along with his come. I’m not the man you see in the daytime. That man is the true mask I wear.”
“It wasn’t your decision to make for me, Damien.”
“I never wanted my darkness to touch you.”
He reaches up, his thumb tracing my cheek, wiping away tears I didn’t realize were falling. The touch is so gentle, so familiar, that I almost lean into it before catching myself.
“Your darkness touched me the second you put your hands on me.”
I step back, pulling away from his hand, and the separation hurts, like a physical ache that radiates through my ribs and settles heavy in my stomach.
“I save lives, Damien, and somehow, I made peace with loving someone who takes them. I’ll never tell anyone. I’ll take your secret to my grave. But this… the lies, the deception…”
His eyes widen, panic flickering across his features. “Luna—”
I gesture between us. “This… us… It has to end.”
The words tear a hole so deep inside me, I don’t know if it will ever heal.
“No.”
The word is flat and final, carrying all the authority of a man accustomed to getting his way. He’s gotten his way with me too many times.
