Faithless

Chapter 15

I went to Avery's house after I left Nancy's. I didn't expect her to be awake so late, but when I saw the light coming from her bedroom window as I climbed into her backyard, I was relieved. Her curtains were draped over the window, but I could see her sitting on her bed with her guitar through the part in the middle.

Avery looked up when I tapped on the window, and slowly pulled her curtains open. She smiled when she saw me and pulled her window open. "Hey." She moved out of the way and laid her guitar on the floor next to her bed.

"Hey." I took off my shoes and climbed into her room, sitting next to her on her bed.

As I closed the window, she leaned forward, sweeping my bangs out of my face, and kissed me on the forehead. "You smell like blood," she said quietly.

"Do I? I tried washing it off."

"Just water won't clean it all. You need soap 'n stuff too."

I sighed. "Yeah, that's right." I took off my coat and set it on the floor with my shoes. "Sorry if it smells bad."

"It's not all that noticeable. Just something to think about."

I laid down on my back, resting my head on one of her pillows. Avery leaned over and turned off her lamp. The room fell into darkness, with the pale light shining in through the window. She rested her head on my chest and wrapped her arms around me.

"Who did you eat?" Avery murmured, so quietly that I almost didn't hear her.

"Nancy Allen," I replied, running my hand through her long soft hair.

She sighed quietly. "Why her?"

"I was putting her out of her misery. When I got there, she was preparing to kill herself." I replayed the events in my mind. "She prayed for forgiveness, and then she was going to slit her wrists open and bleed out. I killed her since she was going to kill herself anyway."

"And she was killing herself because her friends are dead? Right?"

"That's right."

"I feel bad for her," Avery said. "No one deserves that."

"You're right."

She looked up at me. "Did you say anything to her?"

I went silent for a moment, biting my lip. "Yes, I did. But nothing you should want to hear. At the very least, I just confirmed she wanted to die before I killed her."

"Nothing that I would want to hear?" She laughed slightly before settling her head back down. "I'm guessing you were an asshole."

"Yeah, you could say that."

Avery closed her eyes. "I'll miss it here when we leave. Do you hear how quiet it is outside?" She paused, taking a deep breath. "And everyone knows each other here. It feels like I can actually belong somewhere. I didn't get that in Manhattan."

I looked out the window at the trees swaying in the wind. "Maybe we can go to another small town. Somewhere new and... different."

She laughed slightly. "We should think practically. There's no good colleges in small towns. Not very many jobs either. And if you're going to keep killing people, it would be easier to get away with that in a big city where murders are harder to track."

I considered what she said for a moment. "You really are set in stone on this, aren't you?"

She opened her eyes slightly. "What do you mean?"

"You've just wholeheartedly accepted that I kill and eat people."

Avery sat up. "Well it isn't as simple as that. I'm still thinking about it a lot. Like, do you really do that? Should I really be okay with it? I still care about you, Jay. And it's not like you're a horrible person or anything." She played with her hair. "I just want to be okay with it, and it's easier to act like I don't care."