After all, he’d never hurt her. She didn’t truly believe he could.
Slowly, her hand fell from the handle, and she turned to face the man who had come to mean everything in her life.
She’d never thought she could have feelings like this for someone. Usually she used her work to stay distant.
But now…
His blue eyes were pleading, but she could see hopelessness setting in.
His shoulders were rigid, his back straight, his jaw hard, and a muscle near his temple was ticking.
“Why?” She took a step forward tentatively. “Why did you do it?”
He crossed his arms and leaned back on the desk. “Why did I what?”
“Don’t play smart with me. Not when I’m doing my best to give you a chance.” She took another step forward. “You’re a good person, Nathan. At least… I think so, though apparently you aren’t a person. And you’re right. I said I would get to the bottom of this. Who you are. And it’s odd because I was finally starting to think I was wrong about you. I was working on a totally different angle for my article because… I was falling in love with you, too.”
He nodded, straightening slightly.
“But the thing is… what you do, what you were just doing, it’s so incredibly wrong.”
“For you,” he said simply, his eyes frank. “For me, it’s the way I was born. It is my purpose.”
“Killing people?”
“Ridding the world of darkness. I forcibly transform at night. That’s why I don’t let you see me after midnight. At night, our powers are amplified and our monster forms take over.”
“What is your form?”
“It’s hard to explain, but I’m willing to show you,” he said. “When we were created, we were called abominations. The term my brothers and I have come to use for ourselves is ‘nightmares.’”
“Makes sense because you appear in the dark and disappear as if you were a dream,” she murmured.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old, worn-looking mini notebook and held it out, flipping through pages.
She saw hundreds of names and tally marks. Some in red, some in black.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve never showed this to anyone living,” he said. “But it’s my ledger. The darkness I’ve pulled from the world and the light that has gone out, because all humans have a little light and killing them is never a totally positive outcome. But I make the best decisions I can.”
She reached over and took the notebook, then quickly retreated out of touching distance once again. “Nathan, there are hundreds of people in here…” She kept flipping through, heart pounding. “And it goes back… Dear God, how long have you been alive?”
“More than a hundred years,” he said. “I don’t know exactly.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t remember my childhood. At least not until we were foisted off as mistakes and monsters, sent into the world with only ledgers and a warning. And a promise from our creator.”
“Who was that?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said.
“Really?” She set down the ledger and put her hands on her hips. “That’s what you’re not going to tell me?”
“I don’t know who she is. We never saw her again. She was supposed to show up and—”
She put up a hand. “Wait, wait. This just doesn’t make any sense. All of this about a creator and a ledger and having to kill people or save them to make up for it. I don’t understand at all. Plus, for all intents and purposes, you could just be some kind of serial killer making up some deluded excuse.” She gasped. “Those crime scene pictures I saw you in, did you go there to feed?”
“No,” he said sharply. “I went there to save people. I want to. That is in my blood, too. There are many parts of me, and I don’t wholly understand what they are. But nothing of me is human.” His eyes darkened. “Though, I have always wished I could be.”
“Really? Why?”
He was quiet for a moment, his handsome face lit by the moonlight outside. She glanced to the window, wondering how long she’d been asleep for it to already be so late and so dark.
He walked to the window, turning his back on her as he looked out with something like longing, his shoulders slumping slightly. “Connection. Humans are connected. They love. They… live.” He shook his head. “I have only been able to watch them.”
She took a step forward, then another. Dammit, why couldn’t she just run from him? Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone? He was crazy. He thought he was some messed-up monster. He didn’t even seem to know what he was.
So many things made sense, though. This lonely mansion. His distance from even his brothers. Then again, he thought they were these “nightmares,” too.
“So you kill humans and you watch humans, and that’s it? That’s your whole life.”
“Sometimes we love humans, too,” he said, turning to face her. Moonlight fell on his features, making him even more beautiful. In the light, he looked like a fallen angel. Or some kind of demon with those dark, striking looks.
How could he look so very human yet claim not to be?
“Are you a vampire?” she asked suddenly, wondering if that could make sense here.
He shook his head. “From what I’ve seen on TV, I don’t think so. I don’t think such things exist.” He looked out the window again. “But I’ve had to stay in the darkness, so maybe they did, too. What do I know?” He put a hand on the glass. “I do know there are other non-humans. But we were warned stay away from them as well. I may have met one or two, only because they smell different, but I guess I’ll never know.”
“Why don’t you find out, then? If you’re so powerful, what are you afraid of?”
He whirled to face her, heightened color in his cheeks, hands clenched at his sides. “I used to be afraid I would be alone forever. That if I didn’t follow the advice I’d been given, keep my promises to those who made me, nothing would ever work out. But guess what? The woman who was supposed to show didn’t. Not for several years now.”
“I’m sorry,” she said because she didn’t know what else to say to him.
“When you came into my building, it was the day after I finally came to terms with the fact that nothing I’ve planned on for over a hundred years is ever going to work out. I’ve seen generations come and go. I’ve watched cities rise and fall. Seen wars decimate nations. And I’ve always been alone. Always been an outsider.”
For a moment, her heart ached for him. She had times of being alone, but then she’d had Sasha, so she supposed she’d never really known what it was like to have to hold yourself back from everyone.
To never really connect.
She could remember him that first night together. Don’t touch me, he’d said.
“I’m the first person you’ve let in, then,” she said.
He nodded curtly.
“I thought as much.” She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked over to the window to join him. Her heart rate had slowed, and the part of her that had lived through hard things was kicking in now, helping her stay calm and try to deal with this rationally.
Regardless of what she’d seen or how horrible it had been, Nathan was still Nathan.
She didn’t believe he would hurt her at all.
His blue eyes flashed as he looked down at her as if puzzled by her approach. “I thought you were afraid of me.”
“If you wanted to hurt me, you could have by now. I was unconscious, after all.”
He nodded. “I couldn’t hurt you. I couldn’t hurt anyone who wasn’t consumed by the dark. I’m not sure my brothers are the same way.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
He kept his hand on the glass. “I shouldn’t say more than that. Their history is not for me to tell. And I can’t claim to know them much at all.” He sighed. “But it is reassuring to know they’re out there. That at least in s
ome way, I’m not totally alone.”
She moved in closer, putting a hand on his waist tentatively, wanting to give comfort.
She couldn’t help it. If he was truly a monster, that was something he had to deal with.
But he was also her friend, and he helped people. Saved Sasha. Cured sick children.
He was a complex, complicated man, and it wasn’t her fault that she loved him.
Now she just had to decide what to do with that love.
“So where do I fit into this?” she asked. “Are you going to keep me here now that I know?”
“Not unless you want to stay with me. I thought I would have more time to think about this. Since we hadn’t caught the stalker—”
“Wait, so you aren’t the stalker?”
He shook his head. “I was following you that night, though. I see… visions sometimes. Of what is going to happen to someone. That day in my building, I was already intrigued at the audacity you had in confronting me. But when you were about to leave, I saw danger. Death in your future.” He exhaled in relief. “I suppose that’s over now that I got rid of that bomber. I thought it was the stalker when you got that note, but now I’m pretty sure the note was just from crazy Bill, and your death would have been by the bomb.”
“He had a bomb?” she said, aghast. “That’s why you were eating him?”
He nodded. “I was sucking out the darkness in his heart. In my vision, I saw him blow up the building. I saw that even if he was caught, he would never stop. He would just keep killing and killing.” He turned to her, his expression softening. “But If I’m honest, all I could think about was the fact that he was threatening you. That you could die by his hand, that I had to protect you.” He shook his head. “Perhaps that’s why we aren’t supposed to get close to humans. I couldn’t make a logical choice.
“I see.”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “I think I did the right thing, though. When I saw into his future, he was almost eviler than Phil.” A wry grin curved his lips. “Your friend sure knows how to pick them.”
“What do you mean? Tell me what happened that night when you went back for him.”
“I saw what lay in his future, so I took care of him before he could achieve all his aims.”
“I… I still don’t understand, I think.”
“I’ll try to explain further,” he said, leading the way back to the chair he’d been sitting on while she took a seat on the chaise. The chaise where he’d done so many nice things to her, where the tension between them had finally broken—
“I’m ready,” she said.
“I know it looks like I feed on blood, but I’m feeding on darkness. I’m removing it from the world.”
“Darkness,” she said, leaning back slightly. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“The kind of thing that makes someone shoot up a school or bomb a concert or hurt women or children… it infects a person, it makes them do terrible things. And when it’s strong enough, they don’t even fight it. They enjoy it.” He shook his head. “I’m not even sure how it happens. I just sense it, and sometimes I can’t help but want to make it go away.”
“So you feed on them?”
“It’s not them; it’s what’s inside them. Then I burn the body so it’s never found.”
She covered her mouth with her hand. “It sounds terrible.”
“It is. But it’s who I am.”
“I just… It’s still hard for me to understand it.” She rubbed her head, feeling an ache coming on.
“When someone is full of darkness, they are just something to be destroyed in my mind. I don’t expect you to fully understand it. I don’t understand it myself. I just know it can’t be changed. At night, I’ll become a hunter of darkness. Affected by the pull of the dark. I simply try to do the best with the situation as I can.”
She inhaled through her nose and then exhaled slowly. “I don’t even know what to say to this.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, fighting back the headache. “So let me get this straight. You sometimes know when disasters are happening? That’s why you appear at them and show up in pictures?”
He nodded.
“That’s why you took me to that lunch place? Or knew to follow Sasha that night?”
He nodded.
“And you thought I was in trouble as well, and that’s why you had me stay here.”
“That and because you were the most intriguing, beautiful creature I’d ever met. I could tell you had touched darkness, but there was no darkness in your heart.”
She waved a hand. “What you call darkness—which is to say rage, hurt, things like that—I’ve seen what it does to people, and I have no use for it. I’ve seen people let it fester in their hearts, so I’ve always tried to root it out when I sense it in mine.”
“I can tell.”
“But then again, maybe my optimism led me to this moment, where I’ve been tricked again, lied to by someone important in my life.”
“I’m not like your dad, Lillian. I can promise you that. I’ve never thought about another woman like I do you, and from the moment we touched, I had the feeling I never would again. If you leave me, if you decide to do the smart thing and run and never look back, I would simply be… alone.”
She was silent, considering that.
“It was fun being in the light with you, but I’m aware that I never deserved it. I’m aware that a creature like me should never have been able to bask in your glow. But I did, and I’ll never be the same, even after you’ve left me.”
“But you’ll still feed on people,” she said.
“I will,” he said. “Because I’m dedicated to it at this point. Not to the feeding or the satisfaction, but to knowing that I can make a difference in the world in some way. It’s my only way of indirectly making a connection. When I save people, when I sacrifice a part of myself to take in the darkness, I feel less… alone.”
She was still trying to comprehend it and wasn’t sure she ever would. But she couldn’t ignore his loneliness. His pain. The feelings he must have felt holding himself apart all those years even with people right next to him.
To never have someone to hug him, love him on his birthday… tell him he had worth in this world.
And to do what he did, telling himself it was worth it, trying to be less of a monster while still fulfilling the only thing he knew how to do—that took gumption.
She slumped back, exhausted, and ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know what to think, Nathan. I don’t know what to do.”
He looked at the clock. “Before you make your decision, you should see me at midnight. That will at least show you I’m not human, not just some deluded serial killer. Yes, you’ve seen hints of my true nature in my ability to be in the right place at the right time. But before you go, you should see all of me.”
The clock began to chime, and Lillian’s heart began racing.
“You can look, but then go when I tell you,” he said, walking to the door and opening it before coming back into the middle of the room and opening his shoulders up with a stretch.
“I want you to be safe, Lillian, so make sure and run when the transformation is complete.” He smiled at her softly. “I know in my heart there is no way I could ever hurt you, but just in case.”
And then the clock finished chiming, and she heard a series of pops like someone cracking their knuckles as he shifted from side to side.
Then he stared at her blankly, and her mind raced to comprehend what had just happened.
The man standing in front of her looked just like regular Nathan.
He really was simply human, an insane one at that.
“I think I should probably be going now,” she said softly, hoping he didn’t block her way to the door.
Chapter 24
“I don’t know what happened,” Nathan said blankly, watching Lillian stare at him with dawning horror, but not the kind of horror he had expected.
It was t
he horror of seeing him as someone who had lied to her, who had said crazy things and then disproved them.
He didn’t know why the transformation hadn’t taken hold. He could feel the energy surging inside him, yet it was held at bay, and the usual, terrible hunger he felt at nighttime was no longer there.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, looking as though she hoped he wouldn’t block her way to the door.
But how could he explain this? Obviously, it was bad being a monster, but being a simple human doing all of this and lying about it was even worse and made him look insane or just plain evil.
As much as he’d never wanted her to see his transformed appearance, he’d known that it was another piece of the puzzle that might help things make sense.
Or at least back up his explanation of himself as a supernatural being. Not human.
But as he stood there, ironically feeling very human, very stupid, and very shocked, he had no idea what to say to her. What to do next.
All his plans had already fallen by the wayside, and now this latest one had failed as well.
He walked to the window and scowled at the moonlight, willing the transformation to take hold.
“Nathan, I… I won’t tell anyone,” Lillian said, creeping closer to the door.
He put out a hand, wanting to stop her. Wanting her to wait because the transformation might still take hold. As long as she was still there in the room, there was still hope for him. That someone could understand him. Love him. Stay with him.
If she left…
She shook her head, blinking back tears. “But you need to get help. This is so much worse than I thought. You need to turn yourself in. To the police. Let them decide what to do with you. They can keep you safe… from yourself. From these… hallucinations.”
“You know they aren’t hallucinations,” he burst out, striding toward her. “You saw me save Sasha, stop that robbery. You know I’m not a bad man.”
“You said you weren’t a man at all, and heaven help me, I was crazy enough to believe in you. Just for a moment. Dear God, Nathan. You’re delusional. You’re dangerous.” She swiped at her tears as she reached the door, bumping her back into it because she was facing him. “And dammit, you’ve broken my heart.”
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