Chapter 107
Camila POV
Morning came, but sleep sure as hell didn’t.
I laid there in bed, staring up at the ceiling like it held all the answers I didn’t know how to ask. My sheets were tangled around my legs, my hoodie sticking slightly to my back from sweat, and my heart? Still pounding like it hadn’t gotten the memo that the horror movie was
over.
Except it wasn’t. Not really.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw it again. The blood. The bodies. The way the power flicked on and turned everything into a goddamn crime scene from a slasher flick. And Ethan–oh my God, Ethan–with blood smeared across his face like war paint, smiling at me like he had just done something sweet. Like bringing me a bouquet or baking me cookies. Except instead of cookies, it was… y’know. Mass murder.
I rolled over and groaned, pressing my face into the pillow. Maybe if I stayed here long enough, the universe would reset or something. Like a bad game glitch. Let me restart the level, preferably without the werewolf–stepbrother–mate situation.
A knock came from the door.
I flinched so hard I practically levitated off the bed.
Another knock. Gentle. Patient.
I sat up slowly, heart thumping in my throat. “Fuck,” I muttered, rubbing my face before I dragged my ass off the bed. My bare feet hit the cold floor, and I padded across the room, every muscle tight with tension.
Please don’t be him, I thought. Please be a ghost. Or a demon. Anything else.
I opened the door.
It was him.
Of course it was him.
Ethan stood there, worry plastered across his annoyingly perfect face. His stupid fluffy hair was a mess, and he had this concerned tilt to
his eyebrows like he was genuinely trying to read me. Like maybe I was the one who needed therapy after his little massacre.
“Are you okay, Camila?”
Wow.
What a fucking question.
I blinked at him for a second, my mind doing the equivalent of static noise. Just–fzzzt–dead signal.
‘Did you call the cops?” I asked instead, vojce flat. Because yeah, we were skipping the whole “feelings” part of this conversation,
Ethan’s brows pulled together, like I had just asked if he believed in Santa Claus. “Why would I do that?”
I stared.
He smiled.
Like a freaking puppy.
“Then the bodies?” I asked, arms folding tight over my chest like that could somehow keep the nausea from crawling back up.
He tilted his head slightly, still looking at me with those golden boy eyes. “If that’s what you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve taken care of it,” he beamed.
too.”
He fucking beamed. Like a proud little cub scout who’d finished a badge in “corpse cleanup 101.”
My mouth opened. Closed. Tried to reboot.
“You-” I cleared my throat. “You cleaned them up?”
“Mmhmm.” He nodded like it was no big deal. “Chopped them up. Burned them. Buried what was left deep in the woods. I masked the scent
I just… blinked.
This boy was standing in the hallway, barefoot, in a hoodie that probably still had someone’s blood on it, casually talking about how he dismembered and disposed of multiple people like he was giving me a weather update.
I leaned on the doorframe, stunned. “Were there… like, a lot of them?”
He shrugged. “Eight. Maybe nine. It got messy near the end.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Not because I was scared–I mean, okay, yes, I was terrified–but because I was starting to spiral. Because how was this my life now? When did I go from normal high school drama to werewolves and death squads and midnight cleanup missions?
“Oh,” I said. Just that. Oh.
Ethan stepped forward a little, his eyes narrowing as he studied my face. “Cam, seriously, you don’t look okay. You didn’t sleep, did you?”
“You think?”
He reached out like he was going to touch my arm, but I stepped back. My body still didn’t know what to do around him. Half of me wanted to punch him in the throat, the other half wanted to curl up in his arms and scream into his chest. That second half pissed me off.
“Would they come back?” I asked quietly, still trying to wrap my head around any of this. “More of them?”
Ethan’s face shifted. The soft, worried look melted like wax, and something sharper peeked through. “Likely,” he said, way too casually.
I stared at him. Dazed. Just… what the actual hell.
“How is that funny?” I asked, my voice coming out a little roughér, raw. I wasn’t even yelling–I was too tired to yell. “You’re smiling.”
“I won’t let them touch you, Camila.”
I looked at him for a long moment. Just really looked. His jaw was still streaked with blood he must’ve missed when cleaning up. There was
a small cut on his collarbone–barely visible under the hoodie. His hands had dirt under the nails. His smile? That stayed.
He was calm. Peaceful, even.
And that terrified me the most.
Because whatever happened last night? That wasn’t some Out–of–control moment. That was Ethan in his element.
Chapter 107
“Cool, I breathed out, nodding slowly, because sarcasm was the only shield I had left. “I’ll go make some waffles then.”
“You want me to help?”
‘Nope.”
He smiled again, and then turned and walked off like this was any other morning. Like we were just roommates in some stupid sitcom instead of two people in a house that had been painted red with blood less than twelve hours ago.
I closed the door. Leaned against it. Exhaled so hard my lungs burned.
This. Was. My. Life.
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