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Prologue

Nyx

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys – Taylor Swift

"You think I killed him, don't you?"

Something in this small interrogation room is whistling. I don't know if it's the broken AC, the small radio attached to the detective's trousers, or the anxiety in my ears.

"Miss Mayer. What I'm asking is where you were this morning between the hours of four a.m. and six a.m."

He taps his pen on the manila folder in front of him. It's closed, proof that he's not planning to take any notes, that my words don’t matter. I'm already guilty.

I look at the used tissues on the table. All me. My nose is stuffy. I can't breathe through it, and I still feel like I’m underwater.

"How long have I been here?" The yellow light isn't helping my swollen eyes.

For someone who's always been terrified of being arrested, and who’s worked so hard against the odds, I can't believe I'm here again in the span of a few months. Just like the first time, I catch myself thinking this is nothing like the interrogationrooms I imagined when I was a kid and my dad would get arrested for petty crimes. In films, they’re dark, with a two-way mirror and a large table. There's a good and a bad cop.

This room is suffocatingly small. No windows or mirror, but I've been told I'm being recorded. I hate the intimacy of the place. Two chairs, with the table separating us so narrow that I can smell what he had for lunch.

"Am I… Am I not allowed a lawyer or something?" I rasp, my throat still burning from the pain ripping through it earlier.

"You're not under arrest. We're just having a discussion."

That faint whistling is still here, and it's driving me insane, but not more than the detective's pompous voice. The girl from the bad side of town did it. Case closed in his mind.

"I heard cops are allowed to lie in an interrogation room. Maybe… Maybe you're lying."

"All I've done so far is ask questions."

"Maybe you're lying and he's not dead," I say with so much hope in my voice he's taken aback for a second.

"Miss Mayer. Achilles Duval was found dead at his family lake house this morning. We received the call from Mr. Hunter at six a.m. That is very much the truth."

A sob explodes from my chest, just like the hundred others since Achilles died. It feels like it's been hours. I think it has. And still, I can't breathe.

He pushes the box of tissues toward me again. Any closer and it'll fall on my lap.

"Now, I'll ask again. Where were you this morning between the hours of four a.m. and six am, and do you have someone who can vouch for it?"

An anger like no other comes over me.

"Why am I the one being questioned? Do you have any idea of the number of people who hate him? And can't you see what this is? It's…It's…" I can't even get myself to say the word, so I gofor something else. "I wouldn’t even have the strength to. It's so obvious that I shouldn't be here. No one should! I'm the opposite of someone who hates Achilles. I—" I inhale a burning breath. "I love him."

"You're obsessed with him, Miss Mayer. And obsession is dangerous. Obsession can lead to murder."

I pause.

I could say many things that show that Achilles was just as obsessed with me as I was with him. That he would’ve never let me go if I’d tried. I could talk about the times he stalked me, followed me, held me against my will. But all of this can count as reasons for murder too. And this cop is somehow convinced Achilles was murdered.

After all, he's right.

Some people might call my obsession with Achilles Duval a sickness. But it's worse.

It's venom.

Because I laid eyes upon the most beautiful, deadly being.