9. A Curse To Someone (2)

"Now you finally look like a proper villain… don't you?"

Erin smiled—a harmless, satisfied smile—apparently pleased with the sight of me now missing one eye.

"Dean always has to look like a villain…. Otherwise I'd be just the same as…."

The words slipped out of her unconsciously. She caught herself, snapped her mouth shut, and began stealing glances at me.

The contempt that had been in her eyes—the look she'd given a murderer—was gone. Only pity remained.

"Don't look at me like that!!"

The moment she realized I'd read her completely, Erin slapped me across the cheek. My head jerked sideways, and the frozen flesh around my eye socket cracked slightly, blood seeping through the fissure.

She shuddered when she noticed the white frost slowly bleeding red.

Then came the strange, repeated behavior—she'd reach her trembling hand toward the wound, flinch back before touching it, reach again, pull away again. Over and over.

Eventually, she dusted cold air over the wound and froze it shut again.

The way Erin looked at me was twisted somehow—like a child raising a baby chick bought from a stall outside school. She'd inflict pain without hesitation, but the moment death drew near, she'd grieve like a little girl who didn't understand what she'd done.

The confusion she felt—not knowing how to look at something called Dean—seemed to bleed into me as well.

"Crazy… bitch…."

The perfect word for Erin surfaced, and I let it fall out of my mouth before I could stop it.

"…What?"

I rolled my right eye—still intact, still functional—and fixed it on her. My focus came together slowly, settling on her pupils.

"I said you're a crazy bitch…."

In case she hadn't heard, I pushed through the rawness in my throat and made sure she got every word.

"……."

What goes through the mind of a madwoman when another madwoman calls her one?

Watching her shoulders and eyes tremble at the same time, it was clear this wasn't something she could laugh off.

"Shut up…! Shut your mouth!!"

Her fury crested. The broken half of her dagger drove toward my throat—

"…."

—and stopped. Precisely at the skin. Not through it.

A bead of blood formed where the blade barely kissed my neck.

"…Why won't you kill me."

I held the tension of the cold edge against my throat and asked why she'd stopped.

"You used to kill me at the drop of a hat. Something not working out for you now?"

I raised my hand gently and brushed my fingers along Erin's cheek. The way a lover might. With tenderness.

Then I let my hand drift lower, until it rested softly over hers—the hand gripping the dagger.

"Drive it in."

I yanked her hand hard, trying to plunge the blade into my own throat—but her grip tightened and my attempt at suicide came to nothing.

"…No."

Erin said something completely at odds with the moment, and pulled my arm toward her.

I was too weak to resist. My body was hauled upright, and her face came close enough that I could feel her breath.

"…!"

Eyes that couldn't quite focus.

Lashes so sharp they looked like they'd draw blood if they touched you.

Her lips had gone dry and dark circles had settled beneath her eyes—she'd been through something hard—but even that only made her look beautifully, decadently ruined.

I was staring, losing myself in a face so striking I'd almost forgotten she'd killed me, when—

"…Dean, you can't die. You have to live and pay for what you've done."

Erin's voice cut through, sharp and declarative.

"If you die, you're planning to disappear somewhere, aren't you?"

Her voice was sharp. Her judgment was sharper.

She'd known all along—that I was provoking her to get myself killed. Erin looked at my left eye socket, frozen solid and crusted with blood.