Page 144 of I Will Break You
Nothing about this situation is right, from Xero being alive and in my bedroom to the sight of all this food I didn’t buy. This isn’t even my bread, and I sure as hell didn’t stock any cereal and milk.
The ache in my muscles could be from fighting, but what if I was fighting for my life? What if I tried to defend myself because Xero decided to get revenge on me after weeks of biding his time?
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“How do I know this breakfast isn’t poisoned?”
He rears back, his eyes widening, his lips curling with offense. “Why would I put shit in your food?”
“Well, you murdered a bunch of men. Maybe I’m the next in line for your revenge.”
Xero makes a low, animalistic sound that’s half-exasperation, half-growl. Goosebumps break out across my skin, and all the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I don’t know why I’m being so calm in the presence of a killer. Maybe it’s a freeze response, because I sure as hell can’t fight or flee when he’s restrained my arms and legs.
He leans so close that my skin tingles at the caress of his warm breath. “Do you think I want you dead?”
“Are you denying that you set me up to hang?” I ask, my voice measured. “Or was that a hallucination?”
“You weren’t going to hang.”
“I don’t believe you,” I rasp. “How could you know I’d bring down the ceiling?”
“If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it the night I left Death Row,” he snarls, his voice so low that it penetrates the marrow of my bones. “I could have slithered out from under your bed and smothered you in your sleep. I could have strangled you with your sheets or stabbed your thick skull. I could have snapped your neck, slashed your jugular vein, or shot you in the stomach.”
“Impressive use of alliteration,” I mutter. “But I still don’t trust a thing you say.”
He snatches a piece of toast, takes a large bite, chews, then swallows. After washing it down with a mouthful of coffee, he eats a spoonful of cereal. “Is that good enough for you?”
“That depends on if you rush out of the room to throw up,” I reply.
“If I knew you’d be this infuriating, I wouldn’t have bothered replying to your letter,” he snarls.
I grind my teeth. “Why are you even here? Don’t tell me it’s because death will never keep us apart, because I know you want to break my spirit.”
When he doesn’t reply, I add, “Or did another vengeful ghost say shit about me in morse code?”
His nostrils flare. “Are you holding that over my head? After everything you did to me?”
“I already explained a thousand times why I wasn’t at thewedding and why I made money from the videos. Everyone else was earning from the creator fund. What was so bad about me doing the same?”
“Eat your damn breakfast.”
“No,” I snap. “We keep going around in circles. I apologize for what I did, then you cut me off, then you return to make me grovel. Do you know how frightened I was when I saw you as the Grim Reaper? I didn’t know if I was hallucinating again or being haunted.”
He breathes hard, his features tightening with repressed fury. Common sense screams at me that I shouldn’t rile up a mass murderer who’s tied me up in my own home and may or may not be trying to feed me poison, but he’s pushed me beyond the point of reason.
“And another thing. Why the hell did you murder Kayla? She only took a dildo?—”
Xero grabs my throat. “And my mother’s locket,” he snarls. “Did you tell that bitch to turn the photos I sent you into pornographic merchandise?”
My jaw drops. “What?”
“Answer my question.” He punctuates that command with a shake.
How the hell did he switch things up again? It isn’t me who snuck around an innocent woman’s life like aScooby Doovillain, murdering people who got too close to his possession. Now he has the nerve to accuse me of something new?
“I don’t know anything about the merch,” I snap. “And stop changing the subject.”
“I’m alive,” he says.