My Darrling (9 page)

I wanted to be tangled in Isaac, to be as close to him as
you can be with another human. I wanted to forget that Isaac was the Fallen
Angel Killer—for now.

Sometimes the things we want the most are bad for us—
really
bad for us—but sometimes what’s bad for us sets us free. When I was with Isaac,
I felt like a bird gliding through the open air: free, uninhibited, and
unafraid.

My eyes widened in shock as “The Loudest Sound” by The Cure began
streaming through the speakers.

“Yeah right,” I said in disbelief.

Isaac grinned. “What are the chances?”

“You set it up didn’t you?”

He shrugged one shoulder and his lips pulled up into a cocky
grin. “I might’ve.”

His mouth hovered teasingly over mine until I couldn’t take
it anymore and softly brought my lips to his.

Making love to Isaac felt like an outer body experience; my
mind fogged with yearning, thirsting to somehow be even closer to him; my body clouded
with euphoria, pleasure. I wondered what he was thinking—did he feel the
connection that I so strongly felt? Was he immersed in pleasure like I was? Was
this how he expected it to be?

A few low moans of pleasure escaped from his throat and I
had my answers. He glided his hands down my back and pressed me into him
cravingly. He brought his mouth to my ear, his exaggerated breaths sending
chills bolting down my back.

“I love you, Sophie,” he whispered.

“I love you, Isaac.” Those four words were the most honest
words I had ever spoken in my life.

And possibly the most twisted.

I didn’t want to love Isaac, I really didn’t, but I couldn’t
help it anymore than I could help blinking.

I wanted this moment to last forever, and if I could have
stopped the world right there, frozen time so that I could exist only there and
then—only with him—then I would have.

Isaac’s lips felt like velvet against mine. His body seemed
to glow under the candlelight, and his jaw was all sharp angles. His big gray eyes
danced hungrily over my face and body, and his hands skated up and down my
back, sometimes stopping to press me into him harder.

Skin to skin.

Lips to lips.

Isaac was mine, and I was his.

My heart rapped wildly against my chest. Every one of my
muscles seemed to tense up. Shivers crawled over my skin, and I couldn’t help
but moan as every one of my nerve endings felt bathed in mind-numbing pleasure.

Isaac’s dewy body started to tense up, and the muscles in
his stomach and arms protruded, hardened. I ran my hands over his defined arms
and chest, wondering how someone could be so divinely beautiful. His skin was
soft as silk, contrasting with the rock-hard muscles beneath it. My hair came
loose from its ponytail and slid down across his face. I arched my back and
pointed my chin toward the ceiling. I was immersed in euphoria now; nothing
existed, but everything existed all at once. My limbs started to quiver from
tensing every fiber of my being. Sweat trickled down my face, down my chest. I
dug my fingers into Isaac’s shoulders as my muscles tightened.

Tightened.

Tightened.

He didn’t take his eyes off me even for a second: darting
them down below my stomach, letting them linger on my breasts, meeting my eyes
with tenderness.

He set his jaw and clenched his teeth.

He pressed his hands into my lower back, pulling me down on
him harder.

Harder.

Harder.

Blood pooled up in his cheeks, and he was drenched in sweat
now. It somehow made him even more beautiful.

I took Isaac’s hands and guided them to my chest, gliding
them in soft circles. His touch made me feel things I didn’t know were
possible. Beautiful things.

I tightened up.

He tightened up.

Isaac ground a loud moan out through his teeth, and the
corners of his lips tugged up into a euphoric smile.

The room was muggy.

Then slowly, all of my muscles relaxed as an exhilarating
pleasure swarmed my body. I was left breathless, sweaty, and completely at
ease.

Isaac’s body relaxed below me, and we just lay there,
staring at each other, breathing deeply, and smiling. I kissed his forehead, then
laid my head on his damp chest. His heart pummeled wildly; I could hear the air
entering and escaping his lungs. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed me
closer to him.

I was tired, exhausted, and wanted to fall asleep in his
arms.

And so I did.

I must not have moved even a little
bit, because when I awoke, I was in the exact position I had fallen asleep in.
My cheek felt cool and damp against Isaac’s chest. I shuddered as chills swept
over my bare body.

I lifted my head up and saw that Isaac was already awake.

“Hi, beautiful.” His voice was low and groggy.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Oh God, what time is it?
I’m supposed to be home—”

“You still have time. It’s not even ten o’clock yet.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and my heart slowed. “That was
scary. I thought I’d slept all night.”

He laughed, a light-hearted laugh. “The things that scare
you....”

The sleepy fog in my head cleared and I remembered why I was
there, lying on the floor, naked.

I was no longer a virgin.

I expected to feel different, but I didn’t really.

“How long have you been awake?” I asked, pulling the blanket
up around my bare shoulders.

“I never fell asleep. Just watched you, played with your
hair. You talk in your sleep you know.”

I felt my cheeks flush. “I do?”

“Mhm. It’s more of a mumble, and I couldn’t make out most of
what you were saying, but I got the gist of it.”

I didn’t want to know, but I wanted to know. “What did I
say?”

He pulled me in toward him, so that I was lying back down on
his broad chest. His skin was so soft. “Well, you talked about your father. You
asked him to forgive you for loving me.”

My stomach twisted, my shoulders tensed. The part that made
me feel most guilty about loving Isaac was that my father was murdered by some
sick bastard, some disgusting—

Someone just like Isaac.

A killer.

Most people hate murderers, but I spent my life loathing
them with a different kind of malice, disgust. I hated them with everything I
had, with every part of me. That’s why I wanted to become a criminal
psychologist, because I needed to know why—
how
—someone could have
brutally murdered my dad; an innocent family man with a heart of gold. It felt
like I’d never be okay, never be happy, until I understood.

But here I was, with the boy who felt like home to me. I
didn’t understand a thing about Isaac, but I loved him all the same, and I
hoped so badly that my dad would forgive me.

“Yeah...this has all been really confusing.” I rubbed my
eyes as I tried to find the words to explain the chaos in my head. “It’s like I
hate you and love you all at once; like I’m afraid, but I feel safe; like I
don’t want you to go to prison, but I want you to go. And I feel like this is
wrong, for obvious reasons, but especially because of what happened to my
father. But I also feel like it’s so very right.”

“If it’s worth anything, I’d kill the man who murdered your
father if I knew who he was.”

I shuttered. “That’s not what I’d want, at all. That
wouldn’t fix anything, change anything.” I hated thinking about Isaac like
that, too. Doing things that I pretended he didn’t do...like slicing people’s
throats, waiting for them to bleed out, dismembering them, and carving the
Fallen Angel markings into their backs.

If there was one thing I’d learned about killers, it was
from Ted Bundy who said, “We serial killers are your sons, we are your
husbands, we are everywhere.” They can be the people who are loved and trusted
the most. They often have a charming façade. They can be extremely intelligent.

They can be Isaac.

“Are you hungry?” Isaac asked after I rubbed my stomach. “We
can go to the café up the street.”

I didn’t want to walk anywhere that I didn’t have to in this
neighborhood. “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.” I sat up and looked down at Isaac.
“Unless we order in. Then I’m hungry. I just don’t want to go out to get food—this
neighborhood freaks me out.”

“Pizza or Thai?” he asked.

My hair swung in front of my face so I tucked it behind my
ears. “Thai sounds good.”

I planted quick kiss on his lips then stood up and got
dressed before I ordered the food. I was never able to talk on the phone while
naked; I felt like the person on the other end could see me.

As we waited for the food to arrive, we cuddled up on the
bed and listened to music and talked. He asked about the same things any
boyfriend would—like school, home, friends, and family.

These talks were the best times of my life.

Before I left that night, Isaac called off our visit for the
next day, said he had some stuff to take care of. I figured he had to work on
new schemes to set investigators off his path, and I was actually relieved by
the idea of having a night to myself, where my mind wasn’t inundated with a tug
of war of emotions. I’d spend the night being
me
—the me from before I
met Isaac.

I hoped I still knew who that girl was.

When I woke up the next morning,
October 23rd, it finally hit me: I was no longer a virgin. I gave myself away
to Isaac, the boy I loved and loathed all at once.

I wished things were normal, that I could pick up my phone
and call him. To see how his morning was going, to tell him that I miss him.
But maybe it was for the best. I needed a day to purge myself of him, for it to
be like he didn’t exist at all.

School was uneventful. I had little to no focus. I was tired,
and all I could think about was one thing, one person. I tried to push him out
of my head, but then someone would say something that reminded me of him, or
I’d hear a voice like his and whip around to see who it was.

When I got home from school I made some pizza bagels for
Elijah and I, since Mom and Michael weren’t usually home until six.

I knew a way to see Isaac, but I told myself not to turn on
the TV and switch it to the news channel. I told myself not to, but of course I
never listened to myself.

I looked at Elijah as he pulled his pizza bagel apart and
stuffed it into his mouth.

“I’m just going into the living room to watch the news,” I
told him. “When you’re done eating you should go upstairs and play for a bit
before dinner.”

He looked up at me with his huge green eyes. “Can I have a
cup of chocolate milk first please?”

“Of course you can.” I poured him a glass of chocolate milk
and stuck a straw in it, then I put my dish in the sink and left him at the
table to finish up.

When I turned on the news they were going through the
forecast for the rest of the week. Rain. Sleet. More rain.

I heard Elijah thump up the stairs behind me, so I turned
the volume up a little. I felt like a young teen tuning in to see her favorite
band or movie star on a talk show. I felt ridiculous.

After about ten minutes of sitting there nervously bouncing
my leg up and down, biting my nails and telling myself to turn the TV off, his
face popped up on the screen.

“In tragic news,” the anchor began with an exaggerated long
face, “a young man, reportedly in his mid twenties, was found in the lower east
side of New York this morning. His back was carved with the now-famous Fallen
Angel Killer markings.”

My mind went blank.

My ears buzzed. I only heard fragments of what the reporter
said after that.

“—believed to be in Germany—”

“—investigators are searching the—”

“Could be a copycat—”

“—unclear as to whether or not Isaac is working with an
accomplice—”

My stomach spiraled downward, a bottomless pit. My hands
started to sweat and I wiped them on my jeans. My mouth went dry, my throat
felt hot and tight.

I needed to see Isaac.

But I had to watch Elijah until either Mom or Michael got
home. Mom usually beat Michael home seeing as her office was a few blocks
closer.

I couldn’t wait.

I sent Alex a text.

PLS DON’T BE MAD, BUT CAN YOU COME TO MY HOUSE RIGHT NOW?

His response seemed to take forever, but it was actually
only three minutes.

DO I GET TO KNOW WHY?

I wanted to scream. I had no patience to text back and
forth, so I called him.

When he answered, I tried to steady my voice, act calm. I
asked him to come over to watch Elijah until my parents got home. I wanted to
tell Alex everything more than anything. But instead I told him that one of my
friends from school was in the E.R. in critical condition. Luckily he didn’t
inundate me with questions. He agreed and hurried over. I promised him that I’d
take him out for dinner after this. I owed him so much more.

During the subway ride, I went over every way to confront
Isaac. I knew I had to stop seeing him, but no matter how hard I tried to think
of the right words to say goodbye, I couldn’t. There are no goodbyes in love,
only so longs, because when the heart meets its other half, it holds on, connects
in a way that cannot simply be undone.

I knew that the victim reported on the news was Isaac’s. He
didn’t have a copycat; there wasn’t some other sick person out there trying to
be like him. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be like him—but then I
remembered he had fans. Fans. People who were obsessed with him, people who
thought of him as a celebrity.

And I was worse than all of them, because I truly loved the
Fallen Angel Killer.

When I got off the subway, I entertained the idea of getting
right back on and going home—mostly because I was terrified of walking through
this neighborhood alone. My visits were not normally unplanned, so Isaac would
always meet me at the subway station and we would walk to the motel together.