“No, why would I kill him?”

She cocked her head, and I could see the confusion in her eyes as she slowly reached forward for the coffee. “Never mind. Thanks for this. I miss them.”

Sitting down across from her, the look she gave me was all I needed to know about where her mind was. She watched me like every move I made might turn into a bite. This was what I always wanted in the past, what I’d thought I wanted from her, but somewhere during our time together—I’d decided I wanted something else entirely. Now her fear felt wrong, and I needed to mold it and reshape it like a piece of clay.

“I want to spend the day together,” I said, and Sunshine blinked, her mouth hanging partially open.

“Why?”

“Why not?” I shrugged. “I know you love art, so I brought some things for us to work with.” Bringing a large bag around to sit between us.

“I don’t understand. What is going on here? You only come in to taunt me, drop stuff off, threaten me, and then leave.”

“I want us to get to know one another better. Don’t you?”

I pulled out large pads of paper, then bottles of craft glue, followed by a wide range of items to decorate the pages. There were boxes of crystals, stickers, crayons, flowers, and glitter. The glitter slightly terrified me as that stuff was hard to clean up. I’d also grabbed some exotic touches I preferred to work with, but I sat them all out and then grabbed one of the pads.

“You are chained to my wall, and I thought you might like to know more about who has you.”

“You want to do kid’s arts and crafts with me? That’s how we get to know one another?”

“No, of course not. We ask each other questions to get to know one another. This is to give us something to do at the same time. I thought that would be obvious?”

I turned my attention back to the pages, and I was already picturing a blend of how I saw Sunshine and myself. She was the light, and I was the dark, but I wanted to swallow her whole.

The black charcoal I picked up from the pile of choices moved swiftly across the page as

the image began to take form. I waited until Sunshine had given in and picked up the other pad and was in the process of sketching out a woman’s face.

“Why don’t you have any friends,” I asked, and Kirby’s head snapped up to stare at me. “I’m not going to use it against you if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m just curious.”