Chapter 30: Sebastian - Hunter or Hunted

I sounded too excited.

I was excited.

But not because of the kill room we planned to build.

Gwen told me to lead the way. I asked if I could drive. She made a joke about the irony of it as we swapped places. That she’d always been told not to let a man bring her to a second location, and now she did it with a smile on her face.

A few weeks ago, I would’ve stressed about that comment. The implication of it. Had that meant she was afraid of me?

Now, I had the feeling we both knew she was the one to fear in this couple.

Five minutes out of the ranch, she said, “Isn’t this the way to your house?”

“Kinda, yeah,” I said.

“We can’t do that, Sebastian.” Her tone bordered mothering. “It’s bad enough we’re doing this. We can’t risk Lizzie seeing something.”

As if I hadn’t thought of that. “You’ll see. Just wait.”

A dramatic sigh, followed by a turn of the stereo dial.

The clock on the dash said 11:38 when we turned down the gravel road. Easing on the brakes, I dropped the speed to ten miles an hour. “Now close your eyes.”

“That’s what they always say in the horror movies, you know.” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“If anybody’s killing anyone here, I’d put my money on you,” I said, flicking on the high beams. The bend of the gravel road veered right, which meant we’d nearly arrived.

“I was thinking more ghost or werewolf,” she said. “But I don’t mind you remembering that I’m capable of murder.”

“Not like you’ll let me forget.”

Not like I minded either. I liked Gwen’s fire. Her convictions. She stood ten toes down on what she believed in.

That was why we were here. Not because her thirst for blood got mine pumping, but because she’d believed in society’s morality, and it betrayed her. She built her own from there. It so happened to align with mine.

The rickety farm fence came into view straight ahead on the left. Gwen started to say something, but I cut her off with, “Your eyes are still shut, right?”

“Yes, they’re shut,” she said. “You know, the whole vibe here—making this a surprise, that excited little grin of yours—aren’t we breaking your rule?”

I shifted the car into park just past the opening between the fence rails. Leaving the keys in the engine, I unclipped my seatbelt. “What rule is that?”

“About enjoying it.” She kept her hands cupped over her eyes. “This seems like enjoyment to me.”

“Give me ten seconds, and I think you’ll understand what I’m actually excited about.” I opened the car door and stepped out. “Keep your eyes closed!”

She did. At least, it looked that way as I jogged to the passenger door. As I opened it, I said, “Okay, keep them closed, but take my hand.”

“There’s no way this is a second location.” She kept her eyes pinched shut, closing her fingers around mine. “You’re way too happy for this to be a murder spot.”

“It’s not just a murder spot,” I said, guiding her onto the path I’d plowed this morning.

“Is it the crematorium?” She clutched my hand tightly, careful not to slip on the thick layer of packed snow underfoot. “Because, look, I am really grateful for it, but just logistically. I don’t need a grand tour. That’s where they burn dead puppies, and⁠—”

“Okay, that’s not the visual I want you to have in mind right now.” I stepped behind her and gingerly took hold of her shoulders. Gliding her into position for the right view, making sure the car’s headlights illuminated it, I trailed my hands from her shoulders down her arms.

Voice quiet, soft, I said, “Get all the doom and gloom out of your head. Think rainbows and unicorns and butterflies.”

She laughed quietly. “Rainbows and unicorns and butterflies. Got it.”

“Once you’re sure all the doom and gloom’s gone, open your eyes.”

A deep, soft breath fogged before her face, melting the tension in her shoulders. She opened them.

She gazed ahead, blinking slow, squinting at the old farmhouse.

It wasn’t the greatest sight to behold. Where the white siding hadn’t blown off, exposing the thick stone beneath, it’d turned gray from decades upon decades of neglect. At least a third of the dozen wooden-framed windows were cracked or broken out entirely. The whole right corner of the roof over the wraparound porch had caved in. All the snow disguised the dense overgrowth of vegetation, and the trees blowing in the winter wind cast eerie shadows onto the snowy ground.

Maybe this did give more of a werewolf vibe than the rainbows and butterflies I saw when I looked at this place.

“What am I looking at, Sebastian?”

She didn’t get it. That was okay. The view was only to set the scene.

“The guest house.” I pointed past the house and through the trees at the dim glow of light on the mountaintop off to the right. “That’s my house. My parents’ house, really. Lizzie’s house one day. And here’s where my great-grandparents lived while they were building it.”

Still confused, she squinted up at me. “I’m sorry, baby, I’m not following.”

“Okay, come here.” I held out my hand. She took it, and I started toward the house. “This place has been sitting for fifty years. I kept telling myself I’d fix it up. Maybe donate it to Rhiannon, or let Lizzie sell it when she’s older, but then we decided to… well, you know.”

“Kill people?” She kept up behind me.

“That, yeah. Watch your step.” I nodded to the caved-in corner of the bottom stair and trekked slowly the rest of the way up. “But we need somewhere to do it safely, right? Somewhere with no eyes on us. And look around.”

Now on the porch, I gestured to the yard. It stretched a few hundred feet in all directions. All that stared back were snow-dusted trees.

“It’s private,” she murmured. “Far from town, far from Lizzie. Far from the ranch.”

“And fixing this place up serves as a good excuse for us to be here.” I squeezed her hand. “Wanna see inside?”

Face somewhere between blank and confused, she nodded slowly. “Yeah. Sure.”

I fumbled for the keys in my pocket and got the right one into the old brass knob. “It’s a disaster. Total chaos.”

I pushed the door in and flicked on the old light switch on my right. Overhead, the sparkling chandelier—like a spider on a web—flicked on. It illuminated the winding cherry staircase on the left, casting enough light to brighten the office behind glass French doors and the formal dining room on the right.

“But tell me you don’t see the potential.”

Her big eyes flicked around. No words left her parted lips.

I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I was hoping for, but silence wasn’t it.

“It’s over a century old, but electricity and radiated heating were installed in the sixties,” I said. “The kitchen is the size of a closet, but the living room beside it’s massive. We could easily knock that wall down and make it bigger. And there’s a really nice canopied bed upstairs. It’s not quite as detailed as the one in my parents’ room, but I know you’d love it. And you’re always talking about character and craftsmanship, and just look at the woodwork.” I gestured to the strips of mahogany before the falling plaster around the cased openings. “I think a pipe burst up there, but the wood’s in great shape. We could remove it, put up new Sheetrock, refinish the wood, and put it back where it was. Or move it somewhere else. We could do anything. We can make this place whatever we want.”

Those eyes that’d been flicking around the room, taking it all in, finally landed on mine. She just held my gaze for a tick or two.

“You hate it?” I asked, chest hollowing. “That’s okay. I mean, it is a mess. And my grandparents were kinda horrible people, so it’s not like I’m all that sentimental about it, but⁠—”

“We?” she asked.

I cocked my head to the side. “What?”

“We,” she said. “You keep saying ‘we.’ We can make this place whatever we want.”

“Well, yeah,” I said.

Her eyes glassed, and my stomach fell into my ass. Shit. This was too much. We hadn’t been together very long, and now I was pushing for too much.

“I mean—I’m not saying—I just—” A half laugh left me. “I’m sorry. I got ahead of myself. I know you’re happy at the ranch, and I’m not saying that we have to fix this place up. I was just—well, I⁠—”

“You’re planning for a future,” she said slowly. “Our future.”

Heart in my throat, I swallowed hard. “I was, yeah. And I probably should’ve talked to you about that first. I just got to thinking about everything with Evan. What we need to get away with it. And then I remembered this place exists. There’s a barn out back that we could easily make into a garage. One that’s easy to clean, and quiet, and secluded⁠—”

“This isn’t about a kill room, Sebastian,” she said, still cautious. “This is where you see us.”

“Not tomorrow or anything.” I spoke so fast, some of the words merged together. “I know you’re not ready for that. I’m not either. Not yet, anyway. And this place—it’s not a requirement. I told you I’m in, and I am. I’m gonna help with Evan and⁠—”

“Okay, let’s take murder out of the equation,” she said. “That’s not why you were excited.”

Swallowing hard, I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t.”

“You’re excited about”—she took another look around, swirling in a slow circle—“this. Us, living life together.”

I had been, yeah. Now she was stone-faced, and I didn’t know if I had any right to be. “Am I getting ahead of myself? I am, aren’t I? I’m freaking you out⁠—”

“It freaks me out that you thought the only way to get me excited about this was the mention of murder.” Something that almost sounded like a laugh left her. Those big blue eyes softened as she stepped closer. “I loved you before I knew what you did with David. I loved you before you agreed to anything with Evan.”

That thick mound in my throat began to release. So did the tension that’d gathered in my shoulders since this conversation started. “You just don’t look excited.”

Her lips curved up at the edges, but grief rimmed her eyes. “For a future with you? Of course I’m excited.”

I thought I’d released all the anxiety from my body, but everything relaxed a little more at those words. “I sense a ‘but.’”

“But you hate this place,” she said. “You just gave Simone a lecture about this town. You talk all the time about the bad memories here. I see a future with you, Sebastian, but in that fantasy, we both have everything we want. Is this that? Is this place, this town, everything you want?”

“You’re everything I want.” The vulnerability of those words tasted sick and scary on my tongue. Until that grief around her eyes turned to joy. “You’re right. About my feelings for this town, I mean. Most of the time, I don’t feel like I belong here. But at the ranch, I do, and it’s a short drive down the road. That place is yours now too. Your family. And I can’t see you leaving it. Not forever. I don’t think I could either.”

Were those tears in her eyes? The smile across her lips was real. I couldn’t deny that. “But you told me before that you wanted to buy your own place after Lizzie goes to college.”

“I thought about that, yeah, but now I’m thinking about this,” I said. “My place, my parents’ place—it’s never felt like mine. But when I was a kid, me and Sarah used to play in the woods, and at some point we wound up here. Me and Edwards broke that window on the second floor playing football in the yard.” I nodded upstairs, and she laughed. I did too. “After we found it, any time my dad was really bad, me and Sarah would run down here. She’d play that piano in there”—I pointed to the formal dining room—“and I’d paint on the porch. This house was my Narnia. Another world where things were better. And so, no, I don’t want to stay in my parents’ house forever, but this one? This one I wouldn’t mind growing old in.”

It was more of a smirk than a smile this time. “That sounds like an invitation.”

Invitation. Proposal.

We’d already committed a murder together. Besides having a kid, it didn’t get more committed than that.

“I guess it is.” I swept a snow-dampened curl behind her ear. “But I know you don’t want to rush things. I don’t either. I just…”

“Want to build.” Rather than glassiness, something glittered in her eyes. “I want that too.”

The tension in my shoulders finally eased. A quiet laugh fell from my lips. Just when I started to say something else, the grandfather clock down the hall chimed.

She practically jumped forward, tossed her arms around my neck, and pressed her mouth to mine.

I tucked my arms around her waist, expecting a quick peck, but she pressed her body closer. Her lips opened, tongue teasing, as I opened my palms around her ribs, taking in the feel of her curves, the heat of her skin when I snaked my hands beneath her coat.