Page 56 of Alik
As her words drift into my mind, I angle my head toward the bedroom, recalling her strange refusal to go to sleep.
“I sleepwalk. Trust me, it would freak you out.”
I could tell she was lying then. Now I see why.
This really isn’t her talking to me.
“You don’t seem convinced,” the… I don’t know—demon?—says.
I turn back to her to see her arms crossing over her chest. She looks genuinely disappointed.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Her lips pinch as she inches toward me, and I get the urge to step back. We’re two killers in a room, and one of us is unhinged. This is a recipe for death.
But I stay still anyway, watching her carefully as she stops a foot away.
“Do you think I would hurt you, Alik? Is that what’s wrong?”
“Five minutes ago you tried to stab me with the same knife you butchered my neighbor with. Yes, if I turned my back, I think you’d give it your best shot. Twice now, I believe Olive has tried to warn me about you, so I think she’s convinced you’d hurt me too.”
Olive 2.0 shakes her head, her lips sagging with a frown. “That’s because she’s confused. She doesn’t know you the way I do. And I wasn’t really trying to stab you earlier. I only wanted to see if I could trust you.”
“Mmm. Did I pass?”
She shrugs. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”
“And what good does it do for me to have your trust? You arefuckinginsane. I’ve never even met you, and you’re talking to me like we have some connection that Olive and I don’t.”
“Alik.” Her arms uncross, and she goes to take my hand, but I pull it away, taking a step back. She lets her hands fall to her sides and heaves out a breath. “Don’t you get it? Olive was stalking you. Formonths.” She points to the window. “You saw the drawings, didn’t you? She sat inside the laundromat every night watching you through your windows. She watched you through her peephole when you came and went. She imagined every little detail about you for the last six months.”
“What is your point?” I ask, my eyes narrowing. Her stalking seemed cute before. From the psychopath's mouth, it’s starting to creep me out.
She shakes her head like she can’t believe I don’t understand. “Did you really think a view through your window would be enough for her?”
My eyes stay narrowed until meaning starts to register, and I find myself standing straighter.
It wasn’t just Olive stalking me.
It was … this.
“She created me a long time ago to do things she couldn’t.” Olive steps toward me, her hands reaching for me when I step back. “And I try to give her what she wants most of the time. I don’t hate her, despite what she may think of me.”
My heel hits the dead woman on my floor, and I nearly trip over her, my gaze flying to the pink slipper hanging off her foot.
“I followed you because I knew it’s what she would have wanted. I planned to write to her what I saw, even knowing she’d just try to get rid of me, but when I watched you murder that man off Sixth Street and tuck his body into your trunk, I saw your face, and I knew…” She puts her hand on my arm and sighs. “It wasn’t me doing Olive’s work this time. It was her doing mine… Alik, you and I could be somethingunstoppable.”
“Why?” I scoff. “Because we’ve each murdered someone?” I gesture to the neighbor. “Is that what you were trying to prove to me? That you?—”
“No.” She shakes her head as wrinkles shoot out from the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t know Ineededto prove anything to you. But if I did, I wouldn’t do it by killing. I told you, I know who you are. How you think. You’re more than a killer, and so am I.” She waves her hands between us. “We’re problem solvers. Whether you see that now or not, we’re the same.”
Jesus Christ.
“How many times have you followed me?” I seethe.
She smiles. “Baby, come on, you know the answer to that.”
“How many times?” I repeat, barely controlling the urge to shove her backward. When Olive did it, it was cute. She’s my sweet doe. My awkward, nervous little wreck.