Deviant

Chapter 1

Elias

Carefully cloaked away in the shadows, I lean against an oak tree and light up a cigarette while intently watching Blackwater Falls’ favorite daughter, Rowen Hawthorne, walk toward the middle of Grove Bridge, which crosses over Silverstone Lake, contemplating her pathetic excuse of a life.

Unbeknownst to Rowen, this nightly ritual of hers has lately become one of my most treasured—albeit sadistic—pastimes.

Shrouded under the veil of nightfall and beneath the sprawling branches of giant oaks, my presence remains hidden, as it always does on these nights. Not that I’ve ever seen Rowen make much of an effort to scan her surroundings to ensure that she’s all alone up here.

But then that’s to be expected, I guess.

Sweet, doe-eyed Rowen has more preoccupying things rummaging in that pretty little head of hers than waste a second of her time worrying about the distant possibility that she might have a captive audience to her madness.

That works just fine for me.

A smile plays on my lips when I see her hold in a breath as she deliberates the best way to plunge headfirst into the inky lake just ninety feet below. My grin widens further when she lets out an exaggerated exhale, all too eager to start her routine—slowly draping one leg over the safety rail first, followed by the other, leaving nothing between her and the freezing abyss below.

Ahh…

This moment right here… this is why I come every night to watch her—when certain death whispers out her name in the wind and kisses her lightly freckled cheeks pink like a long-lost lover eager to have her back in his arms.

Oh, and how I wish she’d stop being such a cock tease and just give in to the grim reaper already.

Time stands still as I absorb every minuscule movement she makes.

A dance with death that I’ve memorized by heart now.

No matter how many times I see her do this dance, my heartbeat always seems to quicken slightly when she clasps the rail behind her with both hands to look down. Determined to stare her fate in the eye, she bends her head and swallows dryly when confronted by the magnitude of the pitch-black water cascading down the mountain toward our small town.

With my back pressed against the rough bark to keep myself steady, my fixed gaze drinks in her shivering form as she stares at the bleak fate that awaits her below. I try to calm my racing heartbeat by taking a slow drag from my cigarette, exhaling a thin plume of smoke that curls into the cool evening air, mingling with the faint smell of sage and mint drifting through the night’s stillness. But to my chagrin, the toxin does very little to calm my sudden uneven breathing or the rush of blood that races to my cock.

No cigarette, booze, or drug could give me a high quite as exhilarating as watching Rowen’s life flash right before her very eyes—just as it is now.

On bated breath, I wait in grueling anticipation for her to summon up the courage to end it all—once and for good—putting an end to her agony and mine with just one little… tiny… leap.

A sardonic smirk escapes me as I muse over how the thought of Rowen killing herself brings me such enthralling joy.

Hmm.

How quickly things change when you’re not paying attention to them.

Rowen Hawthorne wasn’t even a blip on my radar a year ago.

She was absolutely nothing to me.

Just my kid sister’s best friend and my asshole of a younger brother’s girlfriend.

An annoyance at best.

But now?

She isn’t nothing.

Quite the contrary.

She’s… everything.

An obsession.

My obsession.

That is what Rowen has morphed into—a madness I can’t quit nor pretend I even want to try to.

She’s become this annoying itch I keep scratching, leaving me with little to no relief while oxygen still fills her lungs.

Scratch… scratch… scratch.

Itch… itch… itch.

No matter how hard I try to purge her from my very being, I’ve unwittingly allowed this devil of a girl to poison my bloodstream and corrupt my very sanity just with her mere existence.

Madness at its very core.

It’s ironic, really.

The very affliction Rowen suffers from is the same one I’ve been consumed by.

A sickness that links and binds us together, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

It’s not lost on me how a girl I have never spared much thought while growing up has become the focal point of all my attention, occupying my mind every second of every day.

It’s been this way for the past six months now—following Rowen to this abandoned bridge, stalking her while she’s alone, thinking she only has her ghosts to keep her company.

Little does she know that she should fear the living that lurk in the shadows far more than the dead who haunt her.

Her routine is always the same.

Every night… It’s painfully the same.

She steps over the bridge’s ledge and stares at the dark void for an agonizing amount of time before she chickens out and goes home—still breathing, unfortunately.

I must admit that her impending death didn’t always fill me with giddy exhilaration.

In fact, the first time I caught her up here on this bridge six months ago, contemplating suicide, it shook me to my very core.

Blackwater Falls may be synonymous with death and despair, but I’ve never witnessed someone willingly give up when there was no need for it. Sure, there are plenty of suicides that occur in this fucked-up town, but they usually take place closer to the Harvest Festival. With The Scourge being more than half a year away, I couldn’t comprehend why anyone would consider jumping off to their death when actual living wasn’t under such a tight deadline yet.

So why, oh, why, was Rowen, of all people, contemplating throwing herself off Grove Bridge now?

From what I knew of her, she had as good a life as anyone could have in this despicable place.

She’s the sheriff’s daughter, which brought her an inkling of respect in a town that lost respect for itself eons ago. She was all that boring stuff people love to eat up, too. Polite and well-educated, never one for talking out of turn. Quiet and submissive, just like Blackwater Falls loves to breed them.

Though a meek girl like that was never my type, even I had to admit she wasn’t hard on the eyes.

With her long chestnut hair, huge hazel eyes, and cupid bow lips, the girl was fuckable, to say the least.

So why would someone like Rowen, who supposedly had it all, just want to give up?

Seeing no reason for her to end her life this way, my knee-jerk reaction was to race over to her before she accidentally plummeted to her death on a melancholic whim.

But then, with a guttural, apologetic wail, I heard her cry out a name that froze me to the spot, preventing me from getting any closer to her or revealing my presence entirely.

“Nora.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Forgive me.”

With my sister’s name dripping down her tongue, every fiber in my being screamed out that the last person in need of my saving was Rowen-fucking-Hawthorne.

If she was here debating if she should throw herself to the mercy of whatever deity she believes, then who was to say this wasn’t precisely the ending she deserved?

It took me but a second to realize that it wasn’t sadness that brought her to Grove Bridge.

It was guilt—inescapable, all-consuming guilt.

But what could a good girl like Rowen possibly be guilty of?

It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out, either.

Especially given the suffering and grief my own family had experienced this past year.

The answer was simple.

Nora’s dead.

Rowen is not.

Which leads me to believe that she must be responsible for my sister’s death somehow.

I’d fucking bet my life on it.

And hers.

With the memory of that first night’s realization scraping away at the walls inside my brain, I flick my cigarette to the ground and stomp it with the heel of my boot, imagining her pretty little neck under it instead.

“Come on,” I curse impatiently under my breath as I watch the cool wind blow the strands of her reddish-brown hair, making them flow like a silk curtain behind her shoulders as she continues to stare death in the face.

I see her cheeks flush a deeper hue of crimson under the moonlight, the night chill caressing her face while she mumbles words too faint for me to catch from my hiding spot. However, I don’t really need subtitles to guess what she’s mumbling about. I suspect the words she is so arduously uttering like a prayer are similar to the ones I heard her say that very first night—a pitiful plea for forgiveness.

Nora.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry.

Forgive me.

“Fuck your sorrys and fucking jump already,” I snarl, but just as the curse spews from my lips, my breath catches in my throat when I see Rowen place her foot in midair as if, somehow, she heard my demand and finally decided to take a stroll to her death.

And when she goes a step further, closing her eyes and releasing one of the hands gripping the railing behind her, my knees almost buckle in frantic anticipation.

This is it.

She’s going to do it.

She’s going to jump.

“Come on… come on… that’s it… just one more step,” I whisper excitedly. “Be a good girl and jump. You know you want to.”

Just fucking do it, Rowen.

If you don’t, you’ll force my hand and make me do it for you.

My jaw clenches with each excruciating second that passes by while her foot hangs in the air, the wind toying with me as its strength threatens to aid her on her self-destructive mission.

“Just let go. Let fucking go.”

But just as I encourage her to take the next step, she pulls her foot back to solid ground, her hand clasping back the rail with all her might.

“Fucking coward,” I spit out, nostrils flaring in contempt.

But what did I expect?

She hasn’t jumped in the last six months, so why would tonight be any different?

But just as my resentment for her cowardice begins to fester, Rowen lets out a blood-curdling scream that echoes in the air and chills the blood, offering me the first real sign of hope.

The deafening pain in her scream eases the hollow ache I’ve been carrying in my chest since my baby sister died almost a year ago.

Rowen might not have jumped tonight, but she’s sure toying with the line.

She’s on the brink… her very sanity, a fragile twig… ready to snap at the slightest provocation.

Good.

That means all she needs is a push—figuratively or literally.

A little incentive.

It just so happens that I’m more than happy to help.

Because one way or another, Rowen Hawthorne’s days of living a fucking full life are accounted for.

She will die.

And soon.

Either by her hand… or mine.

I’ll make sure of it.