“I know everything about this island,” he said. “Every room, every key, every secret. I know when the tides come and go and where to find the seagulls’ nests and how many steps it is from north to south—and I know everything about you. I know that you think you’re special, because you’re Moira Crue’s daughter. You think you’re better than us. But you’re not. Oh, no, you’re not. You’re not as special as you think, Sophie Crue.”
Suddenly he kissed her, hard and rough and greedily, and she pressed her hands against his chest and shoved him away. He stumbled backward, dropping the cord, and Sophie leaped forward. But he caught her by her hair, pulling her backward, and she screamed and dropped the soda she’d been holding. His arm snaked around her waist, and she grabbed it and bit it. With a shriek, he let go of her hair and she darted forward again. This time she scooped up her soda can, whirled, and smashed it into the side of his head. Grape soda sprayed all over the room, splattering the mirrors and staining the carpet. He hissed and dropped to his knees, his hands pressed to his temple. Before she could make a dash for it, he grabbed the cord and pulled her feet from under her. She fell heavily to her knees.
He shook his head as he stood up and gave her a pitying smile. “Look at you. You’re pathetic,” he said. “Now look at me.” He spread his hands wide; Sophie had never known anyone else who could strut while standing still, but Nicholas pulled it off. “They say psychopathy is a ‘condition,’ a handicap, a thing to be cured and treated. But it’s so much more than that, Sophie. It’s a gift! It’s ultimate freedom—freedom from the stupid conventions of conscience and guilt. It’s the true ticket to happiness, you know. I mean, look at me! I can blow up your sad little boyfriend—pow!—just like that and not think twice about it! I can do anything!”
She stood up and slapped him, leaving a cherry red mark on his cheek. He froze, then laughed.
“You can’t make me mad,” he said. “I don’t get upset. I don’t cry. I don’t care, Sophie. That’s what it all comes down to. I don’t care about your pilot being blown apart into a million tiny pieces of skin and hair and bone and scattered all over the ocean for the fish to eat. I don’t care that you hate me for it. I don’t care if you think it’s wrong or evil.”
“You’re twisted,” she hissed.
“It’s so liberating.” Nicholas’s tone took a dreamy timbre. “You don’t get held back by feelings. You can do whatever you want and never feel bad about it. It doesn’t make sense to me, you know? How people like you can hurt someone and think, Oh, man, I shouldn’t have done that. It makes me feel so bad. So wrong . . . What’s it like, Sophie? Is it like wearing a collar around your neck all the time, having some invisible moral hand yanking you around, dragging you away from the things you really want?
“You know what I think?” Nicholas went on. Does he never shut up? Sophie wondered. “I think you people aren’t as good as you say you are. Okay, okay, stop.” He held up his hands. “I know. I have an idea. Close your eyes.”
She glared at him.
“Oh, come on, just do it! Just close your eyes.” When she still refused, he pushed her roughly into one of the dryer seats and wrapped a hand around her throat, choking her just enough to make her panic a little. “Close your eyes,” he insisted.
She closed her eyes.
“Good! Now, just imagine, just think about this: Have you ever wanted to lash out at someone but you knew you couldn’t because you’d get in trouble? Or maybe you wanted to just take something from someone because you knew they didn’t deserve it? Ever want to just cut out all the crap and the fakery and the shallow politeness and just be who you want to be?”
She refused to let him into her mind, and instead pictured herself somewhere else; on the soccer field, pouring all of her strength into strikes on goal and cheering with her team the way they had after they won regionals. The fantasy was strong, but it didn’t block out his voice, not enough.
He released his grip on her throat and she opened her eyes. “See,” he said softly, contemplatively, “I don’t buy this whole conscience thing. At least, I think it’s a kind of last defense. Like, you already want to do something terrible, and you probably think about how you’d do it and how you’d get away with it. But then your conscience steps in and is all, ‘Oh, Sophie, you can’t do that, that’s wrong.’ And so you don’t. Or even if you do, you feel bad about it. Your conscience beats you for it for days, right? But, see, what if committing that terrible thing in your mind is the real crime? Maybe there’s not such a difference between you and me. Maybe the only difference is that I have the guts to do what you’ll only think about.”
He dropped to a whisper and ran his hand over her hair and her cheek, studying her with consuming intensity. “Are you really so noble? So good? The urge is in you to do terrible, unspeakable things. It’s in everyone. It’s part of us, like a monster in our heads. Are you really so different from me?”
“You are completely obsessed with yourself,” she said, narrowing her eyes in frank, horrified fascination. “You really are. You think you’re some kind of enlightened messiah, don’t you? Unlocking the secrets of the universe, discerning the core of the human psyche. But you’re just a delusional, lonely little boy inside who throws a tantrum when he doesn’t get his way.”
Nicholas stepped back as if she’d slapped him again, and he scowled. “You’re the child, Sophie Crue! Not me.”
“Really? What do you honestly know about the world? You grew up on this island, isolated from real society. What, do you watch movies? Read books? You must have some kind of Internet access to have sent me that e-mail. Do you really think you know what people are like, when you can count the number of people you know on two hands? Oh, the other Vitros don’t count—they’re just shadows of people.”
“I’m going to leave this island,” said Nicholas, “and I’m going to take whatever I want.”
“If you’re trying to impress me, the only thing I’m impressed by is how ridiculously stupid and narcissistic you are.”
His hand rose to slap her, but she blocked him and raised her knee, driving it into his groin. Nicholas gasped and doubled over, and she jumped out of the chair but he tackled her from behind, cursing and hissing threats. He flipped her over and grabbed her hair, yanking her head back and then covering her mouth with his other hand when she started to scream.
“Enough,” he whispered in her ear. “You want to know why I brought you to this island?”
She twisted, trying to throw him off, but he was sitting on her stomach and when she moved he just pulled her hair; her eyes flooded with tears of pain and she could only moan.
“I watched you grow up, Sophie Crue,” he said. “Oh yes. You’ve been watched your entire life. Photos, videos, medical records, even artwork and school reports you sent to your mom. She keeps it all in a little room behind her office and I am the only person who knows about it. I found a way in. I know every corner of this island, down to the forgotten rooms and the spaces inside the walls themselves. I know every secret on Skin Island, and you are the best-kept one of all. I know everything about you.”
He smiled. Her skin crawled; even if he was lying, just the thought of him stalking her from the other side of the planet was enough to chill her to the bone.
“I know you hate your stepmother,” he murmured. “I know you broke your arm when you were ten by trying to run away, and they put you on medication to keep you from trying it again. I know you had a yellow parakeet named Popcorn but your stepbrother strangled it with dental floss when you were twelve and hung the body over your bed, and when you tried to tell his parents about it he said it was you who’d done it, and they put you back on the meds.”