Part 13 (1/2)

When Jude lifts the knife away from Bob's skin, I release the breath I didn't realise I had been holding. He lets go of my hand, and I numbly drop the knife, watching it to clatter to the floor. Suddenly, Jude grabs onto Bob's throat, squeezing to the point that it literally looks as if his eyes will pop from his skull at any moment. ”Caleb!” he shouts.

The door cracks open and Caleb pokes his head around the door. ”Take Tor outside,” Jude grates through gritted teeth.

”Jude,” Caleb starts.

”Take her the f.u.c.k out!” he shouts. I glance between the two of them as a tense, silence takes hold. Caleb breaks first, gently wrapping his fingers around my arm and pulling me from the room. I glance over my shoulder, looking back at Jude as his eyes fix on Bob who is still struggling against his hold.

The door slams shut behind me, and all I can hear is the echo of my footsteps. I'm halfway to the next door when I hear a loud gunshot ring out behind me, followed by another. I flinch, and my hands start shaking. I know Jude just killed Bob. One look at his face and I knew there was no way Bob was getting out of that room alive. Jude is not someone to double cross. Bob hurt me and he killed him for it. Part of me knows that he doesn't deserve my grat.i.tude, and yet I can't help but feel some towards him. I'm no longer just veering from my path, I'm cras.h.i.+ng and burning, and like the m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t he makes me, I'm reveling in the flames.

I don't know who I am anymore or what I'm becoming. I just took a knife to a man, and I liked cutting him. It felt cleansing to me, and that's depraved in so many ways. By the time I reach the door at the end I'm shaking, my knees threatening to buckle. I glance down at my hands, and they are covered in blood. For the first time in my life, they are covered in blood because I was harming someone, not saving them.

I small sob rips up my throat, and tears slip down my cheeks. I've become the very thing I've always feared, because as of this moment...death no longer affects me. I feel nothing except the loss of myself. My knees give out and I drop to the floor.

”Ria!” Caleb rushes to my side, but I push him away.

”No.” I whisper. I don't want Caleb to see this. He still sees good in me, and his faith is so misplaced. I glance up at him and meet his concerned eyes. ”I'm sorry. You're not a monster,” I cry. How could I ever think he was a monster? He's just a kid.

His hands stroke over my face. ”I'm sorry.” ”Shh, it's okay.” He smiles. ”You have nothing to be sorry for.”

I nod and sniff as he wipes tears from my face.

”Caleb. Go.” Jude's rough voice rumbles behind me. Caleb rises to his feet, flas.h.i.+ng me one last look before he turns away.

”Tor,” Jude says my name quietly.

I meet his eyes, and he studies me for a long while. ”I'm...I can't...” My voices trembles as I try to process what just happened.

”Tor,” he says, more sternly this time. ”Look at me.” I can't look at him. ”Look. At. Me,” he demands.

I drag my eyes to his, expecting his anger, but instead understanding. ”It's okay,” he whispers.

I nod, and whatever emotional barrier that I had in place snaps as tears stream down my cheeks. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't know whether I'm losing myself or finding myself. The old me would never have taken a knife to someone, she would have recoiled in horror. This damaged version needed to cut Bob, needed revenge and Jude could helped me with that. I close my eyes as shuddering sobs wrack my body. One minute I'm falling apart, and the next, strong arms are wrapping around me, holding my broken pieces together.

I shouldn't let him hold me, but I do.

I shouldn't like the way his warm chest feels pressed against my cheek, but I do.

This should feel wrong, but it doesn't.

Maybe I'm more broken than I thought.

I sit at my desk taking bets, but I'm distracted. I can't get her out of my f.u.c.king head. I start to light a cigarette when the phone rings and I answer it.

”Go ahead.”

”That missing person's report came in,” David pauses. I can hear the m.u.f.fled noise from his police radio on the other end. ”I cancelled it twice already. Can't do it again. You're gonna have to do something to make this disappear.”

I twist the cord between my fingers, sc.r.a.ping a film of nicotine from it. This is all I've been able to think of. What I'll do with her. I can't let her go because I fear Joe will kill her. To me, there's only one logical solution. I inhale. ”I need your help.”

”Yeah?”

Cradling the phone with my chin, I bury my face in my palms. I'm tired. I'm worn out from dealing with this s.h.i.+t, from all the f.u.c.king guilt I've had over her. ”I need a body,” I say.

I hear David draw in a long breath. ”A body, huh? How tall is she?”

”About five four...”

”She have anything on her that could ID her?”

”A necklace.” I bend a paperclip, then drag the end along the edge of the desk. ”We've still got her boyfriend's car too.”

”All right. You're gonna have to help me though. s.h.i.+t's a lot of work.”

”Yeah, okay.”

”I'll go around to some of the abandoned houses on the North side. Give me a few days and I can probably find a dead transit we can use.” I hear static from the radio calling for back-up, which causes David to groan. ”I'll handle it later. I gotta go,” he says quickly, and hangs up.

I open the desk drawer and pull out her necklace. There's still dried blood in the tiny crevices of the chain. She'll never really appreciate why I'm doing this, but that doesn't matter.

Three days later, David and I cart the corpse through the pitch-black abandoned lot. I tuck the legs under my arm as I open the door to Euan's BMW, and we set the body behind the wheel. David found her early this morning when he was on patrol, and by the look and stench of her, she's been dead for a few days.

”This is sick, even for me,” I mumble, my fingers trembling as I pull Tor's necklace from my pocket. I loop the chain around the dead woman's neck and fumble to fasten the lock. A light breeze blows, causing the rancid smell of rotting flesh to waft up to my nose, and I gag. I have to step away to catch a breath of clean air before finally clasping the lock.

David tosses me a pair of pliers. ”Pull out her teeth.”

”Are you serious?” I furrow my brow, then glance back at the corpse. ”I'm not f.u.c.king doing that!”

”Dental records won't match. You want them to believe this is her, the only form of ID you can leave is that necklace,” David pats the hood as he leans against the car, ”and this car. You want to make people think she's dead, this is what you gotta do.”

I catch another whiff of death and feel my stomach churn. I swallow the bile eating its way up my throat as I lean into the car, placing my palm on the woman's chilled forehead. What's underneath my palm no longer feels like skin; instead, it's wet and waxy. I gag and cough, spitting out mouthfuls of saliva as I clamp the pliers over one of the few teeth in her head. It takes more force than I think to wiggle it from the socket. Each time I pull, the cracking noise it creates nearly makes me vomit.

I pull the last tooth and get out of that f.u.c.king car as fast as I can. This is f.u.c.king sick! I pace as David douses the body in gasoline. I hear him strike a match. I don't look back. I just walk straight ahead to David's patrol car. The entire drive back to my car, I fight the urge to throw up. I can smell death on me, and I don't know that any amount of was.h.i.+ng will get rid of the stench. I stare out the window and I wonder how in the h.e.l.l I got to the point of desecrating bodies, but above anything else, I wonder why in the h.e.l.l she's been put into my life.

I fold the newspaper and pick up the phone.

I hear the lull of the TVs in the background before anyone says anything. ”Yeah,” Rich groans.

”Send Caleb down with the girl.”

”All right.”

I set the receiver down and light a cigarette. Leaning back in the chair, I take a long pull from the smoke and train my eyes on the door.

Within a few minutes, I hear footsteps on the stairs, and then Caleb walks into the room with Tor. Just looking at her causes a reaction in me: anger, guilt, need. I don't f.u.c.king like that she makes me feel anything, and I try to look anywhere but her face. I trail my eyes over the pair of jeans she's wearing, over the loose s.h.i.+rt that hangs from one shoulder. I cringe when I notice the long pink wound across her throat.

”Sit down.” I point to the chair in front of my desk.

She silently does as asked. There is nothing in her eyes. No fight. No fear. There's a fragility about her that makes me want to protect her, and that's some f.u.c.ked-up s.h.i.+t right there.

”I need to tell you something.” I pause and look her over. What I'm about to tell her is going to send her over the edge. She looks so frail, and this is going to be hard for her to process. I am pretty much ripping away any sliver of hope she may have left. This will make her hate me even more than she already does because she won't possibly understand that the sole reason I'm doing this is to protect her. Why would she believe that a man who held her captive would ever be trying to save her?