Liam muttered a string of curses, his jaw clenched so tight the force of it echoed in my own chest.
“Please don’t be mad. I know I should have told you sooner, but nothing has been definite, or even that threatening. I didn’t want to make a big deal out of nothing.”
He yanked me into his chest, his heavy exhale ruffling my hair. “I’m not mad, Firefly. I’m scared. Tell me more about how he looks.”
A shiver knifed down my spine. Liam was scared? I clung to him and squeezed my eyes shut as if that could block out the image of those soulless eyes.
“His eyes are dark, almost black, and they’re small and beady, and even from under his hood or hat, they’re piercing. His smile is thin and flat and sinister, like he only smiles at someone else’s pain. I’ve never seen his whole face clearly, so I don’t really know. But even with that, he looks scary. And because I don’t know who he is, anyone I see in a hood or a hat, I’m scared it’s him. And that’s a lot of people, so I’ve been scared a lot.”
By the end, my words rushed out, breathless and shaky. Liam rubbed slow circles on my back, trying to soothe me, but all I could feel was the fear thrumming through him, mingling with mine, our pounding hearts racing each other. “Shhh, Firefly. I’ll keep you safe.” The words were right, but his voice was so tense, so wrong. I’d known he’d be upset, but not like this. There was only one explanation for his reaction, and it made my blood turn to ice.
“You don’t think I’m imagining it,” I squeaked out.
“No.”
Oh God. My stomach plunged, the cold spreading inside me. “What if I am, and we make a whole big thing about it, and it’snothing? What if he’s just a nice guy with a creepy face who likes to read at the library?”
“Then he’ll find somewhere else to read. Tell me more about how he looks. His size, hair, the hat he wears, everything.”
“He’s white. Average size. I haven’t seen his hair, so I guess it’s short enough to be under the hood or hat. The hat is gray and worn-looking with a white outline of a house.”
He gasped, his arms tightening in a sharp, startled jerk. “Motherfucker,” he exhaled slowly. “You should have told me sooner!”
“I’m s?—”
He crushed me to him. “No,I’msorry, Firefly. I’m so fucking sorry.” His voice sounded tortured.
“It’s okay, you’ve already been protecting me. And you didn’t even know.”
“I did. I knew it. I fucking knew it, and I didn’t do anything. I’m so fucking sorry.”
My heart thrashed. Liam wasn’t freaking out over nothing. I might have been, but he wasn’t. “What do you mean? What’s going on?”
Liam buried his face in my neck. “You should have told me. I should have known.”
“Liam, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
He set me back and reached for his phone on the nightstand. “I need to call Quint.”
I grabbed his arm. “No! Talk to me first.”
He got up and paced to the door and back, and back again. “The day we walked Thor in the park, the day of Dylan’s party…I saw someone.”
The air in the room thickened and time slowed, the words he hadn’t yet said hanging heavy between us. “S-Snake Eyes?”
“Maybe,” he admitted, like it pained him to say it. “He was on a bench by the parking lot. He was hiding his face, but he waswearing a worn gray hat with a white line drawing. I couldn’t make it out, but it could have been a house.”
I clambered off the bed, panic clawing at my insides. “What does that mean? Does that mean it was him? Snake Eyes—he raped that girl?” Oh God, I didn’t want to think about what that meant. If he raped her...
“I don’t know.”
“You do! You think he raped her. And then he followed me. Why didn’t you tell me?” I shouldn’t have been yelling, not at Liam, but I couldn’t help it.
“If you told me…”
“I didn’t know it was anything! You saw the rapist! You saw him and didn’t tell me!”
Liam reached for me, but stopped, his hands hovering mid-air. “I’m sorry, Firefly. He could have—I’m so sorry.” He looked devastated. And afraid to touch me.