Chapter Text
You play girls like a man but your eyes are like a child
Your face is cool and calm but your hair is wrecked and wild
You hide behind your metaphors and pray that no one sees
The fear behind your poker face, your dark and twisted needs
~
Mary Barlow.
Mary fucking Barlow.
John Tyler rarely cursed - it made people less likely to trust you, and was a rude habit, besides - but if there was anyone who deserved a nasty epithet, it was Mary the fucking bitch Barlow. She’d ruined his life. Refusing to hire him at the trust stung, but he would have survived that. Truth be told, he’d seen it coming, despite hoping against it. But no . She’d blackmailed him into breaking his parole, shoved him headlong into old habits he’d worked so hard to break, and then cut him off without so much as an apology.
And, as it turned out, she hadn’t even needed him in the first place. He’d almost put his fist through the motel TV when he saw that press conference. Mary, surrounded by her well-dressed entourage, practically vibrating with righteous anger as she described her encounter with Karen Miller, the confession, the fight in which Mary barely escaped with her life. She looked good for someone who had gone toe-to-toe with a murderer. But then, Mary always looked good, didn’t she. Money had a tendency to do that.
He’d bled as much money as he could from the AmEx during the weeks they’d worked together, little withdrawals here and there from her seemingly infinite pockets. He’d sold the Dodge for cash and bought an old beater held together with spit and prayers, stayed only in the cheapest, seediest motels. He picked up odd jobs, spinning stories about a vindictive shrew of an ex-wife and a divorce that bled him dry. (Her name, of course, was Mary.) And all the while, he drove further and further away from Mary Barlow, because he knew that if their paths ever crossed again, he’d kill her. No matter how much the dark little voice in his head whispered and cajoled, he would not be a murderer. She was the one with that stain on her name, not him.
He still had the video of Esther Moses burning a hole in his hard drive. If Mary changed her mind and sent the cops after him, he’d make sure they both went down in an inferno fit to rival hell.
Truth be told, John was feeling unmoored. More so than usual. His own sister had told him, right to his face, that she didn’t want him. Mary Barlow didn’t need him. She’d spent weeks winding him up, encouraging him, enabling the hunt, and then right at the very end… kaput. No more. Like a delicious meal whisked away before the first bite. Like sex without a climax. The hollow pit in his stomach was more than just aching loneliness. It was hunger. He was a loaded trap that desperately needed to spring.
John Tyler needed an ending.
***
He found that ending through Janine Murphy. John was renting a one-bedroom house just outside the Murphys’ picturesque Virginia horse ranch. It had once been a caretaker’s home before getting repossessed by the bank during the recession in the 80s and eventually falling into the hands of a private buyer who had probably never even set foot in the state. The Murphys seemed greatly amused to see it occupied again. (“If you ever need work,” Janine’s husband, Mike, had said, and John didn’t think he was really joking.)
Lean, blonde, possessed of that smug certainty that the world would bow down and kiss her feet if she but asked, Janine was one dead kid away from becoming another Mary Barlow. Fortunately for everyone around her, her three children were alive and well. John knew this because she never shut up about them. Andrea, the oldest, went away for college and came back with a doctorate in veterinary medicine, a husband, and two babies, with a third on the way. Aaron joined the military at eighteen and was his daddy’s pride and joy. Eleanor was her youngest, freshly nineteen and set to marry her high school sweetheart in early January. Janine taught riding lessons to future Olympic hopefuls; Mike oversaw the management of the ranch and the care of the few racehorses they boarded there. Miriam, Janine’s mother and an award-winning equestrian before a career-ending injury, also lived with them. They went to church on Sundays with their geriatric pastor. Janine hosted a ladies’ book club every other Thursday.
John told himself he was just being neighborly. The Murphys were chatty; it was polite to remember what they said, not a cataloging of information. He took his morning jogs on the trails around their ranch because they were peaceful and isolated, not because he could see the house and the horse pastures through the trees. He told himself over and over, hoping it would become true if he said it enough times. But the raw and ugly truth was that he hated them. He hated Mike’s flashy cars and MIriam’s pearls and the way Janine took every opportunity to talk about the new renovations in her kitchen and her guest bathroom and her finished basement and the old barn where Ellie’s wedding was being held. The Murphys were the perfect American family, and John loathed them for it. Every day, he woke up and went to sleep with the knowledge that he had the power to destroy their golden lives like a hand grenade in a china shop. All it would take was a few more sympathetic lies, an afternoon and an empty room and Janine or Ellie or even Miriam bleeding on the floor, for the sugared silver spoon in their mouths to turn rancid.
Most of all, he hated himself for thinking those thoughts. He was supposed to be better now. He was well . Minnesota was a slip; he was a good person, and good people didn’t think about raping their neighbors until they bled. But how he ached, how he burned to see what skeletons were hidden in those spacious walk-in closets.
***
The skeleton’s name was Eva.
John was sitting with Mike, Janine, and Miriam on their spacious front porch, allowing them to goad him into attending their New Years’ Eve party in a few weeks, when Ellie burst through the front door in a flurry of excitement.
“Mama, she’s coming!” Ellie always spoke in exclamation points.
“Who’s coming, dear?” Janine asked, taking a precise sip of her coffee.
“Eva! I got ahold of her finally and she said she’s coming to the wedding!”
John didn’t miss the shadows that passed over the elder Murphys’ faces.
“Oh, sweetheart…” MIriam said hesitantly. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I am!” Ellie’s excitement began to dim. “It’s been almost five years…”
“It’s your wedding, pumpkin,” Mike jumped in, cutting off Miriam’s next complaint. “If you want her there, of course she’s welcome. Did she say when she’d get here?”
“The 30th! Or the 31st, she wasn’t quite sure.” Mike slung an arm around his daughter’s shoulders and followed her off the porch as she started up on another endless string of chatter, leaving John alone with Janine and Miriam. Both women were visibly troubled, MIriam staring into her teacup with a thunderous frown and Janine looking after her daughter like she was walking to death row.
“I hate to ask an awkward question,” John said with practiced delicacy, “but… who is Eva?”
Janine sighed heavily.
“Eva was - is - our foster daughter.”
None of the Murphys had ever mentioned a third daughter. Janine seemed embarrassed to even say her name.
“I didn’t know you fostered,” John said.
“We don’t. Not anymore. She was the only one.” Janine fiddled with a tassel on her cashmere shawl, avoiding eye contact. “She… Eva was troubled. She was…”
“A monster,” MIriam interjected. “That girl was a monster and you know it, Janie. She came to us fresh out of rehab,” she told John. “Thirteen years old and already addicted to dope.” Miriam gave a little harrumph of disgust. John raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything.
“Ellie was so excited when we first told the kids we’d gotten approved to foster a girl,“ Janine continued, “someone closer to her age. Andrea’s so much older than her, they barely spent time together growing up. She was hoping for another sister, but it just… it never worked out that way. Eva just had no patience for her, for anyone.”
“She was a vicious little brat,” MIriam spat. “Fighting at school, always running off and making trouble, wasting the good sheriff’s time. I told Janie time and time again that she should send her back, let the state deal with her before she hurt someone under our own roof, but I raised my girl a little too well and she wouldn’t give up on her.”
“She left the second she finished high school,” Janine sighed again. “Went to the bus station straight from the graduation ceremony. Not a ‘thank you’ or a ‘goodbye’ or a hint of where she was going, and we could never get a call through since, until now.”
“Ungrateful,” John murmured, sipping his cooling tea. “It sounds like you did the best you could, Janine. Some people just don’t want to be helped.”
“Thank you, John,” she said with a weak smile. “I just pray to God she found a group of good people to help steer her right.”
MIriam looked doubtful. The two women quickly changed the subject, but John wasn’t really following the conversation anymore. He may have resented Janine Murphy for her perfect life and the way she seemed a little too eager to show it off, but he really couldn’t stand people who refused good help when it was handed right to them. It was never too late in life to teach someone manners.
***
New Years’ Eve saw chaos descend on the Murphy house, an endless crowd of friends and neighbors and extended family come down for the wedding. John didn’t think he’d ever known so many people in his entire life, let alone at one time. Janine was radiant, the hostess in her natural habitat, and she kept trying to ply him with beer, wine, something harder, perhaps, but he refused it all. (“I stopped drinking after Mary left,” he said, “didn’t like the person it turned me into.” “At least a champagne toast at midnight,” Janine pushed, and he relented at that.) Names and faces blurred together as she led him around and made introduction after introduction, but none were the one he wanted to hear. Eventually, she swanned off to shower attention on some guest or another, leaving John to wander the house alone and search for a face that looked out of place in the crowd.
“John!” Ellie was holding court in one of the sitting rooms with her fiance and a gaggle of other boys and girls around her age, but she jumped to her feet when she saw him pass the doorway.
“Ellie,” he greeted warmly, holding very still as she threw her arms around him under the watchful gaze of the fiance. “Big day’s coming soon, isn’t it?”
“Less than a week!” She held up her fingers before her face, seemingly mesmerized by the way the light sparkled off the fat diamond of her engagement ring. Shaking herself out of her trance, she took John by the wrist and pulled him into the room. “Come on, there’s someone I want you to meet!”
John’s mouth went cotton dry and his heart began to pound as heat flooded his body. Despite the adrenaline rush, he did not miss the desperate edge to Ellie’s bubbliness as she led him to a girl seated near the fireplace. The girl was wearing a dark button-up shirt and slacks, her black hair pulled into a bun with a silver hair stick that looked sharp enough to do damage. John thought her shirt was trimmed with lace, but as he got closer he saw it was tattoos, dark and intricate, swirling over her slender neck, crawling down the backs of her hands and the tops of her bare feet. In the flickering firelight, they seemed to writhe.
“John,” Ellie said, her voice high and nervous, “this is my sister, Eva. Eva, this is John Miller. The one I was telling you about? Who lives in the caretaker’s house?”
The predator that had been pacing John’s ribcage roared to life when Eva turned around. Her face was fine-boned, long-lashed, and unsmiling, a silver ring in her nose matching the half-dozen piercings studded along each ear. Her eyes were very, very blue, and they only met his for the merest flash of an instant before sliding down and away. John had to fight to keep his voice steady and his smile from showing too many teeth as he stuck his hand out for a shake he already knew wasn’t coming.
“Hello, Eva.”
“Hi,” she dead-panned. She was already turning back towards the fire.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard so much about you.” She froze. “All good things,” he rushed to add, as though afraid to offend. She wasn’t looking at him. John wanted her to look at him.
“Somebody’s been lying to you,” Eva said at last, rising to her feet. “Excuse me.” The top of her head barely reached his shoulder as she brushed past. She smelled like woodsmoke.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie half-whispered, mortified by her sister’s brusqueness. She wrung her hands nervously, eyes big and pleading. She was always such a good girl. Good enough to bore John to tears.
“It’s alright, Ellie,” he reassured her, giving her shoulder a brief and friendly squeeze. “Not everyone’s great with strangers. And hey, congratulations again.” The mention of the wedding was all it took to restore Ellie’s smile as she skipped back to her circle of admirers. John rejoined the party, bouncing from conversation to inane conversation and keeping his eyes peeled for a glimpse of black and silver. Eventually, the noise began to wear on him and his cheeks hurt from smiling, so he pulled on his coat and hat and slipped outside for a moment of respite.
And found Eva sitting on the porch swing, alone and sullen and boring a hole in the shadows with her stare. Her coat and boots looked like they’d been thrown on as an afterthought, untied laces trailing over the wooden deck and one sleeve slipping off her shoulder. It was late and cold and John’s breath smoked in the air before him.
“Hi again.” Keep it light, friendly. The girl made no indication that she’d heard him, and her rudeness rankled him. John made a show of shivering and rubbing his hands together as he leaned against the railing across from the swing. Eva didn’t blink. John wasn’t sure if she was even breathing.
“I lied earlier,” John tried again. “It wasn’t all good things.”
She wasn’t looking at him. John really, really needed her to look at him.
“What did they say?” The faintest ghost of an accent lingered around her vowels, but John couldn’t place it. Certainly it was nothing like the Murphys’ Virginia drawl. He considered pretending to be embarrassed, but he’d been playacting all night and he was tired and it didn’t matter anyway because she wasn’t looking at him.
“Miriam called you a monster,” he simply said.
“That sounds about right.” The corners of her mouth twitched like they were considering the thought of a smile. “We all hate each other. I don’t know why I’m here.” Her voice got quieter with every word. Something about the situation felt wrong, felt off , but John couldn’t think past the rushing of blood in his ears. It would be easy, the easiest thing in the world, to throw her over his shoulder and march off into the dark, back to his house or to a motel room somewhere outside of town where he could lock the door and eat her alive . Eva looked so small and vulnerable sitting there in the freezing dark, and the party was loud enough and he was fast enough to cover her scream, and John was already straightening up and taking the first step towards her, and-
-and Janine Murphy had to go and ruin it by throwing open the door with a glass of champagne in her hand.
“Oh John, there you are! It’s almost midnight and you made me a promise, young man!” She shook her finger at him sternly and promptly burst into giggles. John could tell she’d already had a lot to drink, but he plastered another smile over his disapproval and allowed himself to be led inside. When midnight struck, he sipped his champagne with everyone else and swooped down to give Miriam a kiss on the cheek with a flirtatious wink that made the others laugh. He suffered through a few more minutes of bad jokes and New Years’ resolutions before pleading exhaustion and beelining for the door.
The porch swing was empty.
***
Janine sent John a picture of the wedding setup on the morning of the ceremony, which was impolite, seeing as he wasn’t invited, but he replied with the compliment she wanted and an excessive number of smileys before tossing his phone to the side. They’d filled the barn with flowers and white tablecloths and enough space heaters to turn their carbon footprint into a carbon trench. John thought it was all terribly impractical, but what princess Ellie wanted, princess Ellie got, and princess Ellie apparently wanted to ride a horse down the aisle at her wedding.
He had to focus on these little inanities of the rich and spoiled, because he was slowly losing his mind. He had hoped to steal Eva away during the bedlam of last-minute wedding preparations, but there was always a Murphy with an eye on her. It reminded John a bit of being on parole. He sympathized with her over that. But his frustration was reaching a boiling point. He didn’t know how long she was going to stay after the wedding, and internet searches for Eva Murphy gave him no useful results. He could feel his opportunity slipping away.
John would break into the Murphy house and take the girl from her bed, take her in her bed, before he let that happen.
At a quarter past midnight, his phone rang.
“John?” The voice on the other end was wobbly, on the verge of tears.
“Janine? What’s wrong?”
“I’m so sorry to wake you, John, it’s just… I just…” Her voice hitched. “Has Eva been by?”
John’s hand tightened around his phone. He could feel a door opening up before him, a landscape of dark possibility stretching beyond.
“I- no, she hasn’t. Was she supposed to?”
“No, no, she wasn’t. There was… I mean…”
Janine cleared her throat. John waited with mounting impatience. He wanted to reach through the phone and strangle the story out of her. A small sob came down the line.
“Janine?”
“We had a… a disagreement. She ran off.” Janine took a deep breath before blurting, “John, if she comes to your house don’t let her in.”
“What do you mean, she ran off? Should we go out to look for her? It’s freezing out there.” John was already pulling on his shoes, phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear.
“No! No, we don’t need to do that right now. She’s done this before, but…” Janine sniffed. “Oh, she was so awful, John, I really think she might hurt someone this time! If you see her, you call Mike or the sheriff, okay? Don’t let her in. It’s in God’s hands now.”
“Okay, Janine. Is everyone else okay?” John did not care about everyone else.
“Oh, everyone’s fine. Just startled. We weren’t expecting this, she’d been so good this week.”
“Alright, that’s good. I’ll keep an eye out. You let me know when you find her, okay?” Don’t find her before me.
“I will. Good night, John, and again, I’m so sorry for waking you.”
“Good night, Janine.”
John practically ripped his front door off its hinges in his rush to get outside. He didn’t know Eva’s habits, what secret places she’d run to in distress, but he picked a direction and began walking, flashlight bobbing over the trees lining the path. He’d scented blood now, and he wouldn’t return home without his prey between his teeth.
Those teeth began to chatter the longer he searched. It was the middle of the night in the middle of winter, not exactly ideal weather for a stroll. He’d make her pay for his aching fingers, his freezing nose. He’d take back every degree of body heat with whatever force necessary.
He found her walking along the fence of the farthest horse pasture, her back to him. Her hair was down, a riot of inky waves reaching her waist that John immediately wanted to burrow his hands into. She was wearing a gown, deep blue fading to bloody orange at the hem like a sunset, and it left her arms and shoulders bare. The stark lines of her tattoos made her silhouette look like it was dissolving into the night.
“Eva?” John called softly. She stopped walking, but didn’t turn around. Her posture was as rigid as a piece of petrified wood.
“Eva, it’s John. We met the other night, do you remember?” They were isolated enough that he didn’t have to be gentle, but it was a habit. Don’t show claws until all the exits have been cut off. He circled slowly to her front. The flashlight caught a glint of something metallic, and John realized it was the silver hair stick, clutched in her bloody fist like a knife.
Bloody?
Eva’s knuckles were bruised and split. John wondered if Janine had been lying when she said everyone was okay.
The gown dipped low in the front, and he could see where the ink on the girl’s chest gathered into a point over her sternum. Her face was pale and streaked with tears and eyeliner, but her eyes - though glassy and red - were completely blank.
“Hey,” John breathed. “Hey, baby. How long have you been out here? You’ll freeze to death.”
He cupped her shoulders slowly, skimming his hands down her arms as he turned her around to face the direction of his house. She moved forward when he pushed gently on her back, but her gait was awkward and robotic, and when she stumbled against a tree root, John swept her up into his arms. He couldn’t resist ducking his head to hers and breathing deep. She smelled like ice and pine.
“Don’t worry, baby,” he murmured against her hair. “I’ll make you nice and warm.”
John was panting by the time he reached the house, both from the exertion of the walk and the throbbing erection pressing against his zipper. It was a bit tricky opening his front door and getting inside with his arms full, but he managed it without banging either of their heads against the frame. He flipped on the dim kitchen light with his elbow and strode to the living room, where he set Eva down on the loveseat. He fetched a washcloth from the bathroom and dabbed at her sticky, swollen knuckles. The hair stick remained inextricably clenched in her hand.
“Eva,” he said, smoothing a hand over her hair, “look at me.”
She sat still as a porcelain doll, face pointed at the front door.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
The hand in her hair became a hand around her neck. She did not move.
“ Look at me. ”
Eva’s mouth quivered, ever so slightly. John growled and lunged forward to claim it with his own. He kissed her angrily, the frustration of the past days and months and years pouring out of him. Her lips parted when he tightened his grip on her throat and slid his tongue into her mouth, dancing over the edges of her front teeth before retreating so he could bite her lip sharply.
John pulled back when he heard the faint clatter of metal against wood. Eva had dropped the hair stick and was staring directly at him with something like mild shock.
“There you are,” he whispered heavily.
She grabbed his head with both hands and pulled his mouth back to hers.
The loveseat was small, but the living room had a good, thick rug, and John was out of patience. He shoved the coffee table out of the way hard enough that it flipped over, landing with a clatter somewhere off to the side. Without breaking the kiss, he dragged Eva to the floor and laid her out beneath him, drinking in every gasp and sigh as he rutted against her. He gathered the fabric of her dress and pushed it upwards until her tattooed thighs and the uninked skin of her stomach were bare to him. Eva tried to push her hands into his hair again, but he grabbed her wrists in one hand and pinned them roughly over her head. John kissed his way down her abdomen to the waistband of her black panties. He mouthed her sex over the dark cotton, then ripped the fabric away entirely. Lust robbed him of coordination, and it took a moment of fumbling to undo his button and zipper and free his aching cock. She was wet, but not wet enough, and John knew he was hurting her as he pushed inside inch by inch. But she didn’t scream or try to push him away, and he didn’t stop until his hips were flush with hers.
He let out a deep, guttural moan. Eva’s skin was still cold, but inside she was deliciously warm and tighter than a fist. It had been years since he’d had any release that wasn’t from his own hand; if he moved now, everything would be over before it even began. John focused his attention on her neck, kissing and sucking and biting until he was sure the marks would show even under the ink. He trailed his lips up her jaw, then took her earlobe gently between his teeth. The silver stud was cold against his tongue.
“You feel so good, baby,” he groaned. “Take me so good. God, you were made for me.”
Tears were flowing freely down Eva’s face now, dampening her cheeks and creeping into her hair. John’s tongue darted out to taste one. The makeup made it slightly bitter, but that didn’t stop him from chasing the salty droplets, kissing each side of her face dry before returning to her mouth and tangling his tongue with hers. He could feel her body trembling beneath him, breaths coming rabbit-fast as she struggled to adjust to the invasion of him.
He trailed a hand down her body and made a slow, rough circle around her clit with his thumb, repeating the movement when he heard her breath hitch. No longer on the edge of orgasm, he pulled out halfway and rehilted himself with a sharp thrust that forced a startled cry out of the girl.
“Oh fuck me…”
John was only too happy to oblige.
Every movement, every snap of his hips, increased her wetness until he was thrusting into her with ease. He settled into a fast, ruthless pace, and soon her hips were bucking up to meet him of their own accord.
“You like that, yeah? How I fill you. You’ve never had anything this deep.” He hissed as her walls fluttered around him. “God, you’re filthy. My filthy little girl. Mine .” Eva’s head lolled to the side, and he hooked two fingers in mouth and forced her gaze back to him. “ No. No turning away. You look at me when I’m inside you.”
John wasn’t pinning her wrists anymore, but her hands stayed above her head, twisting and clawing at the carpet like it was her only anchor. He could feel her tongue twitch as she struggled to swallow the saliva pooling in her mouth. Without warning, she bit down on his fingers, clenching around him as her orgasm set her entire body quivering, eyes rolling back in her head. John pressed his fingers deeper into her mouth, tangling his free hand in the hair close to her scalp. He growled and bit at her shoulders like an animal, and came so hard his vision went white.
He collapsed with a contented sigh, shifting his weight to the side so he didn’t crush the girl completely. He dragged his spit-soaked fingers over her chin and down her throat. She looked absolutely wrecked, sweat and spit and tears smeared across her face.
“Filthy,” he whispered again, brushing a kiss across her cheek as he pulled out of her. She was boneless in his arms as he carried her to the bathroom, and he had to prop her against the shower while he placed their clothes neatly in the laundry basket. John draped her arms over his shoulders and pulled her under the warm spray that filled the room with steam. He hummed a broken tune in her ear as he swayed them gently back and forth, her toes barely brushing over the tile floor. When they were clean enough, he wrapped Eva in a towel and set her on the bed.
She was asleep before he could lift the covers.
***
Muted winter light was streaming through the window when John woke in the morning. Eva was still asleep, curled up in the same position he’d tucked her under the covers in. It was John’s first time seeing her in daylight, and the sight of it hit him like a punch to the heart. She was perfect, angelic in the cool morning sun, long lashes brushing her cheeks and unbrushed hair cascading over his pillows. A handful of tiny scars were scattered across her face, and John carefully traced each one with the lightest touch: her cheek, her jaw, her eyebrow, the bridge of her nose.
His phone rang from the nightstand, and John groaned as he sat up to answer it. He should smash the damn thing to pieces, or smash Janine to pieces for interrupting his peaceful morning.
“Hello?”
“John, it’s me.” No apologies for waking him up this time. John shivered as the cold air hit his bare chest.
“Hi, Janine. Any word?”
“Not a peep. Anything on your end?”
“No, I haven’t seen her at all,” John said, brushing a stray curl away from Eva’s sleeping face. Janine sighed, but she sounded more exasperated than worried.
“Alright. Aaron’s probably going to take one of the horses out to look for her later. We’ll call if we find her.” Janine hung up before he could respond. He frowned down at the phone. He hadn’t missed the change in Janine’s demeanor, or the “ if ” in her final sentence. The sense of wrongness he’d had on New Years was creeping in again; something was not the way it seemed on the surface. He was missing some crucial detail, but for the life of him, he could not figure out what it was.
“Thank you.”
John startled slightly, then turned back to the angel in his bed. Eva was watching him with heavy-lidded eyes.
“For what?” he asked as he slid back under the warmth of the covers.
“Lying for me.” Her voice was soft and sleepy. John had questions for her, so many questions, but he was feeling warm and content in a way he hadn’t for a long time, and he didn’t want to ruin it. Instead, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, savoring the feeling of their bare bodies pressing together. Eva reached up and pinched one of his curls between two fingers, tugging it straight and watching it bounce back with a contented little hum.
It was only natural for him to tilt her head up and kiss her. A soft peck at first, then he covered her mouth fully with his. Their lips fell into rhythm as easily as if they’d been doing this for years. It was slow and sweet and achingly gentle until Eva pressed her tongue against John’s and the hunger from the night before sparked to life.
John slipped his hand between her legs, and she canted her hips into his touch. He traced her folds until she was wet enough for him to fit one, then two fingers inside. He slid them in and out, exploring the walls of her hot, tight pussy, then curled them in a come hither motion that made Eva whimper into his mouth. She had hooked her leg over his hip and was grinding her clit against his palm, chasing a high that John felt generous enough to let her reach. He eased a third finger inside, drinking in her sobbing gasps and the way her nails bit into his skin.
“Eyes on me,” he ordered, gripping the nape of her neck with his other hand. Her eyes were like blue fire, burning into him, and she came on his hand with a gush of wetness. John gave her no time to recover before driving his cock inside her. Keeping her leg wrapped around him, he shifted so he was on top of her. He kept his thrusts slow and deep, rolling his hips so her clit brushed against his pelvis with every stroke. Eva twitched and flinched away from the overstimulation, but her gaze did not waver. She looked as hypnotized as John felt, each bewitching the other, and when he came, she dug her heels into the backs of his legs, pulling him closer until she could kiss him again.
They lay there in a tangle of limbs and sheets until Eva’s stomach let out a loud growl.
“Breakfast?” John asked with a chuckle.
“I like breakfast,” she mumbled, pressing a lazy kiss just beneath his jaw. “I need another shower first, I think.”
John had every intention of joining her, but when she pushed the covers back, the sight of her tattoos in the cold light of day made him think suddenly and unpleasantly of Kit Parker. He saw it so clearly in his mind’s eye: her pretty head smashed to pieces, bits of brain and skull spattered over the walls, eyes as blank as they’d been the night before. Or maybe… What had Janine said last night? “I really think she might hurt someone this time.”
… maybe she’d be the one holding the hammer.
The sound of the shower running snapped him out of his bloody imaginings. He smacked himself lightly on the cheek a couple of times and got out of bed, pulling on a pair of lounge pants and a thermal shirt. The window in the bathroom was too small for anyone larger than a toddler to fit through, and the one in the bedroom made a god awful screeching noise when opened, so he judged it safe enough to leave his houseguest unattended while he started breakfast in the kitchen.
Prison had given John a newfound appreciation for cooking even a simple meal, and he could feel himself relax again as he chopped vegetables, grated cheese, cracked eggs into his only frying pan. He popped a few pieces of bread into the toaster, then flipped the omelette with a deft flick of his wrist. Soft applause sounded behind him.
“Impressive,” Eva said. “I didn’t know people did that outside of TV.”
“I am a man of many talents,” John replied, dragging his gaze over her appreciatively. She’d put on one of his flannel shirts after her shower, and while it was irritating that she hadn’t asked first, he had to admit he really liked the way his clothes looked on her.
“I’m sure you are.” The mischievous twinkle in her eye made the double entendre very clear. “Something’s burning.”
John swore under his breath and switched off the toaster. The toast was slightly charred along one side, but still salvageable. He portioned out the omelette and set the frying pan in the sink before bringing both plates to the small kitchen table, where Eva had already made herself at home.
“I wasn’t sure how you liked your eggs so I just…” He gestured vaguely at the meal.
“It’s fine, I’m not picky. It smells good.”
She popped a bite in her mouth and nodded in approval. The two of them ate in silence for a few minutes, and then John’s curiosity overpowered his desire for domestic bliss.
“How does a thirteen-year-old become addicted to drugs?”
Eva froze with a piece of toast halfway to her mouth. She looked at him incredulously, as though she were uncertain if she had heard him correctly. John stared back, unblinking and unrelenting.
“We’re not doing this,” she muttered, shoving her plate away. She tried to stand, but John grabbed her shoulder and forced her back into her seat.
“Don’t be rude, Eva, I asked you a question .” She tried to shrug his hand off, but he tightened his grip just enough to hurt. Several emotions flickered across the girl’s face, too brief for him to identify, before she turned away from him.
“Unwillingly,” she snapped.
John released her arm, but raised an eyebrow to let her know the answer was unsatisfactory. He watched as she clenched and unclenched her fists in her lap.
“You know the Devil’s Tower?”
He nodded. It was an old apartment complex outside Baltimore that had been condemned in the nineties but never torn down, taken over by drug dealers and addicts before the police finally raided it about a decade earlier. John had been fixated on a pretty blonde waitress around the time the story broke, so he hadn’t paid it undue attention, but he knew as much as the average person. News outlets had called it the biggest drug bust in decades, the biggest bust of the century. Officers on the scene had reported nightmarish conditions: overdose victims left to rot in vacant apartments, starving children running wild like stray dogs.
“I was eight when I went in and thirteen when I got out.” Something in her seemed to deflate at that. Her next words were devoid of emotion. “They figured out meth made me aggressive. They thought it was funny. Scrawny little kid throwing herself at the walls and trying to claw people’s faces off.”
She wrapped her arms around her torso. John thought she looked very small sitting there, staring numbly at the cheap wooden table.
“Janine… none of the Murphys ever mentioned that,” he said quietly. Eva laughed bitterly.
“No, they wouldn’t. She likes to leave that part out.”
“Why would she do that?” Pieces were starting to fall into place.
“Because if all the pain was my fault, then she’s a martyr who tried to steer a troubled soul to God and was thwarted despite her best efforts. But if it wasn’t, then she’s a stupid bitch who took in a trauma victim she was woefully unprepared for so she could look good in front of her Jesus friends and failed spectacularly.”
Eva’s eyes began to water and her nails dug into her sides. Confession poured from her like water through a breaking dam. John wondered if she’d ever been able to talk about this to any one before.
“She made sure everyone in town knew about the crazy little junkie she was letting into her home, how I was so fucking high when the Tower came down that it took two fucking cops to restrain me at the hospital. It was hell . You know I have permanent brain damage from all the shit that was in my system over the years? But apparently Jesus doesn’t believe in mental illness or withdrawal symptoms because any time anything happened, they’d be interrogating me, asking me what I was using or why I was doing this to them, like I’d ever wanted any of it !”
Her shoulders shook with an angry, barely-suppressed sob, and she buried her head in her arms.
John was no longer in the little house in Virginia. He was standing in his Texas apartment while Mary Barlow threatened to destroy his life if he wouldn’t destroy it for her. He was throwing bricks through Angela Miller’s window, watching Gayle Scott’s face turn sick with fear, while Mary shouted demands for more, more, always more. A blur, and the two women switched places: Janine Murphy forcing a pillow over an old woman’s face while she made excuses for her own virtuousness; Mary Barlow berating a young girl for a sickness she couldn’t control, the blot on her perfect reputation.
That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? No one ever wanted to become a monster. The people around you made you into one. They saw the dark patch in your soul and poked and prodded at it until they became sickened by the abhorrent creature they had twisted you into. They hid behind veneers of respectability and wealth and beauty and turned their noses at anyone who discarded those charades for even the briefest of moments. And once that mask had been taken off, they would never, ever let you put it back on.
John stood and pulled Eva into his arms, a deeper and more genuine embrace than he’d given anyone since his mother had died. He felt kindred to her in that moment, this forced pariah, and she must have felt it too, because she twisted his shirt in her hands and pressed her face against his chest as she silently shook to pieces.
He knew then that he wouldn’t - couldn’t - let her go. He would never let the world hurt her again. He would keep her safe. She would love him, and he would love her, and they would be each other’s refuge in the storm, because monsters had to care for each other when no one else would.
“You have to tell me a secret now,” she whispered. “Something bad. Something painful.”
Bad and painful were two things John Tyler had aplenty, but he had to choose carefully. This was a precarious moment, a turning point, and if he said the wrong thing, everything would be ruined. She wasn’t ready to hear about the old John, the boogeyman John, yet. He couldn’t stand the thought of her looking at him the way Mary did, the way they all did: that mixture of pity and disgust and fear. He’d rather see her face cracked open and bloody than that.
“I’m on the run,” he said at last.
“From who?”
From myself, he thought, but that would lead into a conversation he wasn’t ready to have yet. He felt a small pang of guilt at his hypocrisy, but quickly assured himself that Eva had needed that push, however uncomfortable it was for her. He was building the foundation of their relationship here; he wouldn’t lie to her, but he could cherry pick his truths.
“I broke my parole.” There. Not a lie, even if it wasn’t quite the correct answer.
She pushed away slightly, but only so she could tilt her head back to look him in the eye.
“Why?”
“I was blackmailed. If I didn’t play along, she would have destroyed my life.”
Eva dropped her head back against his chest with a soft thunk.
“This conversation sucks,” she grumbled. John laughed quietly.
“We can talk about something else if you want.”
Her hands slid down his ribcage like she was trying to memorize the outline of him through touch alone.
“Maybe I don’t want to talk.”
John was very okay with that.
***
The sun set, and rose, and set again. Time didn’t have much meaning; there was only John and Eva and an entire world built from the touch of skin against skin. It wasn’t just sex, either (although there was a lot of sex). It was the intimacy of casual touches, fingers running through hair, the comfort of a warm body next to you that wanted to be there.
John refused to entertain the idea that Eva wouldn’t want to be there.
But in the quiet moments between kisses and caresses and undulating hips, he became increasingly aware of the peculiar distance she held within herself. She projected a sense of leaving , like she’d disappear the moment you took your eyes off her. It made him all the more desperate to keep her close, to tie her so tightly to him that she’d never be able to conceive of a life without him front and center.
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
“What are you thinking about, Eva Murphy?”
They were both naked, curled up in a nest of blankets in front of the fireplace. She’d been staring wordlessly into the flames for quite some time now, flickering yellow and orange creating otherworldly reflections in the blue of her eyes.
“That’s not my name. What are you thinking about, John Miller?”
“That’s not my name, either.”
So many secrets between them, like an insurmountable wall. How do you build a doorway without bringing the whole thing down?
“Zarin,” she said.
“Tyler,” he replied.
“Pleased to meet you, John Tyler.”
“The pleasure is all mine, Eva Zarin.”
***
When John woke the next morning, the fire was nothing but cold ashes and Eva was gone, as surely and silently as though she’d never been there at all.