Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(55)

“I am safer.” The world makes sense with Aeron. He doesn’t give it any other choice; it bends to his command. It’s easy if you know the right logic, the right words. “It’s like magic. He just does what he wants.”

“You sound crazy. Are you on drugs?” She’s still holding her hand out, almost defiantly. “Come here. Let me see your eyes.”

“I’m not crazy, Mum.” I step backward very slowly, toward the door. “I have to go now. I promise, everything’s going to be fine.”

“Please.”

“I’ll call when I’m done.”

“Done what?” she calls after me. “Done what? Where are you going?”

I’m going to make magic.

“Leo! It never stops. It never stops.”

Poof.

Bang.





CHAPTER EIGHT


Leo


Mindf*ck (noun): unexpected violation of the senses




We ran away to the edge of the world, but the truth has followed us. And it will shove us off.

Aeron has been pacing since Gwen left. The floorboards of the water villa creak beneath his feet, muffled each time he passes over a woven rug.

“There’s a fault in the program. Has to be,” he keeps repeating, clawing at his sweat-damp hair.

You know it’s bad when the freaking sociopath is in denial.

“It’s not a fault. We need to explore the options.” On top of everything else I’ve been trying to forget. I’d bury my head too, but even though we’re on an island, I doubt there’s enough sand to go around.

Aeron stops dead beside the couch and pulls his arms across his chest in one jagged movement. “I’ve got an option for you: who the f*ck is Dean Horowitz?”

I recoil into the couch. “I told you—my old neighbor.”

“That all?” He jabs a finger toward the print outs on the floor. “He says in his little sound bites there that you had a thing. A thing.”

“I slept with him once. There’s no need to be jealous.”

“The last person you slept with who crawled out of the woodwork happened to shoot herself in my f*cking lobby. Just FYI.”

I put my face in my hands. “I think we both know that was different.”

“Why, because this one has a penis?”

“No, because you ruined the last one’s life!”

He turns away from me, glaring. “How did he know about Rachel?”

“There was…look. Rachel got drunk one night and tagged us both in some coupley picture on Facebook. It was only up there for a second, and I don’t think many people saw, or thought much of it…I was at college, I was nineteen…but Dean had a thing for me. A weird thing.” I cringe just remembering. “He used to watch me through the windows. Our bedrooms were close.”

“What was he, some kind of stalking dipshit?”

“No. Well. Yeah.” I throw my hands up. “Not the normal kind. He was popular. Way more popular than me…”

“Oh, well that makes it better.” He rolls his eyes, though he’s still furious. “And in all this, you forgot to mention you had a stalker because…?”

“It was years ago. Jesus, Aeron. I haven’t seen him in an age.” Though it’s feasible he figured out the alibi thing.

That it was my mum who took the money from Aeron.

The air conditioning is suddenly uncomfortably cold, gooseflesh puckering my skin.

“God. You’ve got a lot to learn.” He sighs as he falls down beside me. Peels off his t-shirt and fans himself. It’s hard to understand the bulk of Aeron until he starts getting naked; unclothed, he looks like he should be hanging in the window of a butcher’s shop, each cut of meat neatly marked. “Is he still on your Facebook?”

“Of course not—”

“Wrong. Look. People like him, you keep them sweet from a distance. Don’t ever give them a reason to doubt you. I have a whole litany of f*cktards from college as friends online, and none of them ever talk to the media because I press Like on their shitty, whinging statuses once in a while, and it bloats their sense of loyalty.”

“Bloats,” I repeat flatly. “Like a corpse.”

“Shut up. You’ve cut him off, so he feels free to talk. You should never have done that.”

I grab a white linen cushion and hug it to my chest. “I like my privacy.”

“People like us have to fly six thousand miles to get privacy, Leo. Deal with it. You’re lucky he hasn’t said anything else.” He prods at the print outs and snorts. “He was actually quite complimentary.”

“We weren’t on bad terms or anything. I think.”

“You weren’t on terms at all, since you cut him off. Thank f*ck you’re pretty, huh?”

If Dean had figured out the alibi thing…well. Surely he’d have said something, right? Judging by the quotes Gwen printed out, he was kind of defending me…if suggesting that Rachel killed herself because of me—and not Aeron—is defending.

Huh.

“What are we going to do about the second face, Aeron?”

He blinks at me. Heat and sweat have darkened his eyelashes; they look longer, ashen and angelic at the same time. “What would you like me to say?”