Not only returning to my home, but I’m revisiting the life andfreedomI once loved. Many things changed me that Friday night in thecabin—a piece of my soul was stolen, my security and my trust—and I also gained a stalker that night. A stalker who is a violent serial killer, but also a man of justice and a moral compass which doesn’t always point true north.
While I still don’t completely understand how I’ve changed, whatever’s simmering below the surface leaves me at its mercy once again. It’s become part of who I am and the part which most desires to walk hand in hand at River’s side as he continues to deliver justice on his terms.
I attempt to drink away the short period in my life which rewired the chemistry of my brain. Hitting like terrible whiplash, I search for a way to move forward, but get captured by my benevolence.
If I travel with River into the night, I will never return to my old life again—I will seal my fate, surrendering to him my newly found darkness.
Is that what Iwant?
Since the moment he entered that basement I felt his energy, and since then I’ve painstakingly tried to push the thoughts of my devotion to him aside, but as I sit here, skin stinging from the hot bathwater, I can’t. Because assuming I can simply fall back into my old life would be naïve of me. Even now, my body aches to be with him, close to him. I do not wish to discover where he begins and I end, because I can’t fathom any point that could ever exist.
I’m in love with River and I can’t live my life without him.
The realization is thrilling, yet terrifying. Which brings me to…
I need to tell him how I feel.
Rising to stand, I grab my towel from the holder behind the door and wrap it around my wet body. Swiping my phone from the counter by the sink, I bring up my text messages.
Me: Come inside. I know you’re out there.
River: Who said I’m not in your house already?
My heart stills. I drop my phone, sprint from the bathroom, and with only a towel covering me I race down the stairs. Out of breath, I come face-to-face with a masked shadowy figure leaning against the wall with his arms crossed at his chest.
“I missed you today.” I grip the towel tightly.
“I miss you too, Raven.”
My pulse pumps like a thick gel through my veins with my desire to shout as loud as I can how much I’m in love with him. “River, I—”
He peels off his mask, showing me those vastly dark eyes I’ve come to know. “Why did you come back to your place?”
“I needed to.”
“Did you miss being here?”
“I did.” Angling my head upward, water droplets fall to my eyes. I blink a few times to clear it. “But this place doesn’t feel like my home anymore.”
A steep raise in his chest, followed by a slow release. “What do you mean?”
“Because you’re my home, River Thompson.”
His boots thump as he gets closer to me. “Do you not want to return to your old life?”
Without a second thought, I shake my head. “No. The only life that exists now is with you.”
“I won’t ever stop killing,” he says. “My darkness only grows stronger after every person. You need to understand that.”
I clear my throat, attempting to find the voice where I accept all of this, because to me there is no other alternative either. “I understand more than you realize. This has forever changed my life.”
River’s eyes blaze with fire, boring into mine. “Lux, my darkness follows me wherever I go. It weighs me down and relentlessly pulls me in. It controls my thoughts and mind. And as soon as I feel like I’ve satisfied it, it returns.” River closes the remaining distance between us. “It nudges me, sending reminders that it’s lurking beneath the shadows in the deepest part of my soul, waiting for a moment of vulnerability to let me know what it needs and reminding me I can never escape it.”
No truer words have ever been spoken to describe what I’ve experienced recently. “I know how it feels.”
His eyelids lower with a few slow blinks. “A life with me will forever involve the nighttime operations.”
My mind races as my thoughts blur and an entire life with him between dusk and dawn flashes before me.
