All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(113)

“Salerno. When I saw him at Jigger Boss for the first time, I looked into his eyes.”

“Yeah?”

“I saw him killing this girl. No, I didn’t see him. I felt it. And he liked it. With DeHaven, too, when I experienced his first kill, he felt so much satisfaction. I kept wondering why. Why was I seeing something that they enjoyed, even if it was terrible? Until a few weeks ago, I’d only ever seen the worst things: the things people felt guilty about, the things they hated about themselves.”

“But Salerno and DeHaven didn’t have anything like that. They didn’t feel bad about what they’d done. They enjoyed it. And your ability has been changing, growing, because, genius that I am, I gave you a shove in the right direction.”

“Sociopaths,” I said, testing the word. “They don’t feel guilt, so there’s nothing for me to dredge up and use against them. And judging by what River’s done, I’d say he probably fits the category too. This just brings me back to the same place: I’ll hunt him down, I’ll face him, and he’ll tear my guts out.”

Night had started to settle over the high plains. In the west, at what looked like the edge of the world, the sun stretched in a long, golden arc. That golden light struck the clouds, and for a moment everything seemed stationary, as though we were speeding through a postcard, on our way to a sharp drop at the end. Above us, given dimension by the orange and gray clouds, the sky shot up until the blue frayed and unraveled into the black and the stars. My heart had the same frayed edges as that column of blue above us, coming apart at the stitches, spilling out into that blackness. Night, I thought. It felt like night, like it would always be night.

“Let’s think about this differently,” Emmett said. “So they don’t feel guilt, or regret, or remorse. But what do they feel? Shame, maybe. Humiliation. Anger. Fear. They’re predators, right? Well, even predators get scared.”

I was silent for a long time. It really was night, now, and the sun had died out, and the darkness had settled against the windows, the Wyoming wind, the ever-present wind, sifting it into the cracks and driving it under the weatherstripping.

“Well?” Emmett said. “Go on. Tell me I’m a genius again.”

“You’re a genius.”

“Can you do it?”

I thought of Frankie, and how I’d used his feelings of being cold, of being irritated, of needing a drink to find the one memory I wanted. “Yes. It’ll take practice, but yes.”

“So what’s the problem?”

To be honest, I wasn’t sure. But a very small part of me was thinking about Dad, lying in the apartment’s cold shadows, eyes wide open and reflecting red from the neon Slippers sign, his breathing like a dying rattlesnake’s last shake. “I don’t like what I did. To my dad, I mean. Or what I wanted to do to that man at the trainyard.”

“Jesus, Vie. It probably saved your life. Your dad’s fucking insane.”

“I know. But if I do it, it means this ability, it’s not just something that affects me. It becomes a—”

—belt—

“—weapon, like I’m the only one in town with a gun. I’m not any better than anyone. I don’t have any right to it. But if I’ve got the gun and nobody else does, I’m in charge. I’m not any better than—”

—my dad—

“—Mr. Big Empty.”

“That’s a nice sentiment,” Emmett said. “I’m not making fun, honest. It’s sweet, and it’s good, and Austin would probably say it’s the right thing. He’d spout some bullshit about fairness and responsibility and he’d be proud of you.”

“But?”

“But let’s face it, Vie: you’re not the only one with a gun, if you want to use that example. Mr. Big Empty’s out there. And River’s out there. Those are two damn big guns, and you’re going to need every advantage you can get.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“So get in there, zap those screwed-up minds until they can’t tell left from right, and do the whole world a service.”

“Yeah.”

“Vie, you’re not the bad guy here. They’re killers. They’re worse than killers.”

“Yeah.”

Emmett glanced at me. In the darkness, the only light that touched his face came from a single yellow bulb mounted under the speedometer. It touched his chin, his cheek, and it brushed the edge of one ear. That light made his face hard, hard enough to break just about anything in the whole world, and the man behind that face wouldn’t mind doing the breaking. He wouldn’t enjoy it, but he wouldn’t mind either. Everything, he had said back in the motel, his voice tangled with fury. Everything about you is my fucking business.

Another day, another time, when there was sunshine and warm air, his words and tone, all that fire, might have scared me. But tonight—tonight, I wanted fire. I needed to be near it.

“You can’t keep your eyes open,” Emmett said. “Go ahead and sleep. I’ll be ok for a few hours.”

“Emmett?”

Eyebrow raised, he kept his attention fixed on the shallow stretch of road illuminated by the headlights.

“Thanks.”

Laughing softly, he said, “Just playing the long game.”