She shook her head, laughing bitterly.
“That’s why I was such a mess at the carnival. After I’d found her, I called my parents and 9-1-1. I gave a statement then drove home, put on something slutty, and started driving around until I saw the lights coming from the carnival.”
The carnival where I snatched her first kiss simply because she was too sweet not to take advantage of.
Where she saw me taking a life.
Aisling saw two dead people in less than twelve hours after living a too-sheltered life. It must have been a shock to the system.
“I saw what you did to that man that night…” her chin quivered “…and something weird happened inside me. I knew you would survive, wouldn’t let the guilt consume you. You looked young and healthy and intelligent. I trusted you slept well at night. Ate well. You were … oddly okay with taking lives.”
She looked up at me for confirmation, her eyes swimming with tears. I gave her a curt nod.
“I own up to who I am. I have no trouble eating or sleeping.”
Except for when I touch you … then I become a pussy-ass dipshit with a fever who can’t keep a damn meal down.
She nodded.
“That’s what I thought. But you have to understand, I went to an all-girls Catholic school. Euthanasia goes against every bone in my body.”
“You still do it,” I challenged. “Why?”
“Somehow, that night, you made it real. The possibility of taking a life. Even though our situation is vastly different. The only guilt I’ve felt was for not helping Ms. Blanchet when she’d needed me. Because she was too far gone, and I was far too selfish to burden myself with such guilt. I ended up feeling horrible anyway. Much worse than I would have had I helped her. That day changed my life. Our meeting was kismet. You made me realize what I needed to do. What I was put on this earth to do. And then it made me think about the rest of my relationships. The world surrounding me. You wanna know what I learned?” She sniffed.
I got it. All of it. Why she did what she did. How she had become who she was. A Nix. A gorgeous vision of a woman, hiding an enchanting monster underneath.
But I didn’t agree with her. She wasn’t put on this earth to kill people.
“What is that?” I asked softly.
“The thing I learned is sometimes we do very ugly things for the people we love. I do it for my mother. For my father. Even, sometimes, for myself.”
I said nothing. I’d never truly loved anyone, so it didn’t seem like I could contribute to that observation. She stepped toward me, the fog of death and mourning around her evaporating.
“I met Dr. Doyle in my second year of premed. By chance, if you could believe it. That clinic that you’ve seen? He lives in the apartment upstairs. Back then, he rented it to a few students. I was at a house-warming party there and couldn’t figure out why the basement was so firmly locked. There were no less than three locks on that thing. The guy who lived there said Dr. Doyle used it, and people were coming in and out often, but he’d never asked questions because frankly the rent was too cheap to get picky or vocal about it, and he was a med student—he was hardly at home anyway. My curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to get to the bottom of the situation. I’d scheduled a meeting with Dr. Doyle. Visited his office. The real one, in the nice part of town, where he worked as a dermatologist. He had plenty of pictures of his wife, but when I asked about her, he said that she had died two years earlier. She’d had a stroke that had left her with severe disabilities and brain damage. And by damage I mean, she couldn’t even eat or control her bladder. I questioned him about her death. I knew it was insensitive, but I still did it. I just had a feeling …”
“He killed her,” I said, staring her dead in the eye.
Nix nodded, walking briskly in the kitchen’s direction, popping cabinets open, taking out a chopping board then walking back to the door to retrieve her groceries.
“I knew I had to coax it out of him, so I told him about my story with Ms. Blanchet. It wasn’t easy to convince him, but finally, he agreed to take me under his wing. The minute I graduated, I started working with him full-time. Up until then, I’d studied his work. What he did after hours. He is committed to helping those who cannot be helped anywhere else. We’re not bad people, Sam.”
She collected the carrots, the celery, the chicken thighs, and the broth, chopping the vegetables and meat on the board and tossing them all into a pot for what I assumed was a chicken noodle soup.