I Would Kill For You

34. Unravel Me

❝ those whom we most love are often the most alien to us. ❞

christopher paolini

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I stared at the box in my palm completely dumbfounded. The silver earring had the shape of a flower, and it was laced with small white crystals, with a bigger one in the centre. The shock was so great that for a while, I just stood still, quivering slightly. But I forced myself to get up: if this meant what I thought it meant, then I was in the bedroom of a killer. The true killer of Monica, Avery and Ellie. I staggered back desperately, trying to get as far away from Damian. He observed the fear inside my eyes and frowned.

"What's wrong?" he stepped forward, making me take a few more steps back.

"Stay away from me." I rasped with a trembling voice, closing the box and squeezing it inside my hand. "You better have a reasonable explanation for this, or I'm calling the police."

"There is no explanation. I have no idea whose box is that nor whose earring." he averred. I scanned his facial expression, trying to find any sign of deception, but he seemed sincere. "Are you...afraid of me?" he asked me, his face depicting desolation.

"Don't play dumb. This is Gabrielle's earring."

His brows raised in surprise. His reaction was genuine, and the more I looked at him, the more I was convinced that he actually had nothing to do with this. But maybe that's what I wanted to believe so badly, that he was innocent, because I knew I wouldn't survive the fact that the one I loved whole-heartedly was a cold-blooded psychopath. That everything between us was a lie.

"Okay, so why are you so scared? For whatever reason, she put her earring in a box and hid it between my books when she was alive. I realize how stupid that sounds, but maybe she wanted  me to have something that reminded me of her."

"You really don't know?" I said hopefully, relaxing a little bit.

"Know what?"

I sighed in relief, but I still approached him warily, not ruling out the possibility that he could be playing me. After all, my best friend, whom I'd known for seven whole years, tried to smother me with a pillow. As much as it broke my heart, I couldn't put all of my trust and faith in Damian. I couldn't trust anyone completely, no matter how much I loved or how well I thought I knew them. No one but my parents.

"Monica, Avery and Gabrielle, they all had a missing earring when the police found them." I glanced at the box perplexedly, cold frissons running down my spine. "This is Ellie's."

"Why would Gabrielle take Monica's and Avery's earring and then leave her own in a box? That doesn't make sense."

"Precisely. That's why detective Nichole thinks that Gabrielle isn't the real killer. Or maybe she had an accomplice who made her write that suicide note and drowned her in the lake. The earrings are like...trophies."

"So you thought I'm the killer." he concluded aggrievedly.

"Damian..." I walked closer, attempting to take his hand into mine.

He steered away from my touch and surveyed me absently, lost in thought. I had no idea what he was thinking about, but it concerned me: there was a grim scintilla of realization in his dark eyes, as if he had just placed the pieces of a puzzle together and he was now seeing the whole picture. A picture that appalled him.

He stormed out of his bedroom without saying a word and came back a moment later with a pair of beige trousers.

"Mom's old clothes." he explained. "I knew my dad hadn't thrown them away as he said. Put them on, we have to go." he urged me.