Page 255 of Heart So Hollow

SLUT

I thought I would’ve puked, seeing something like that, but I don’t. I don’t feel nauseous or queasy. I just watch Bo with disgust, lamenting the utter uselessness of what he’s doing.

Is it not enough that you killed me?

Bo crosses his “T” and straightens up, admiring his work. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t scowl, he just stares at it—at me—emotionless. Finally, he drags the flat edge of his blade across my tank top, wiping the blood from it. And all I feel at that moment is…let down.

I’m not in pain. I’m not afraid. I’m just disappointed, but in the way you’re disappointed when it’s time to leave a party but you’re still having a good time—when something good ends too soon.

I look at my carved-up stomach, then at Bo, and just shake my head.

Bo turns and walks a few feet before suddenly hopping off the edge of a ditch. There’s a splash, and he bends down and starts swishing his hands around in the creek water. After a minute or so, he stands back up and shakes the knife off before flipping it closed and tucking it back into his pocket.

Bo examines something on the side of the drop-off, then looks at my body lying in the dirt. He jumps back out of the ditch and strolls back over to my body. Lifting my foot, he pulls my Adidas sneaker off, and then my white sock. He does the same to my other foot before moving up my body and pulling my torn tank top and bra off of me. Once they’re free, he stands back up and studies my bra, fingering the tiny pink bow where the cups meet.

Bo takes a step back, his feet planted on either side of my calves, and stares down at me. He scans my body for an inordinate amount of time, ogling my dirty, twisted, scratched limbs, my dull, half-closed eyes staring into oblivion, my butchered whisps of hair sticking to my face, and the fresh slashes across my stomach oozing blood that’s quickly coagulating. Then he smirks, letting out a whisper of a laugh on his breath.

My eyes round and I feel my jaw clench, you goddamn son of a bitch.

Bo drops all my clothes in a pile on the ground and bends down, scooping up my limp, naked body. He carries me down the slope of the ditch and steps into the foot of water gently flowing through a pipe.

He was looking at a culvert.

Bo crouches down in front of the 5-foot-wide corrugated steel pipe and tosses me halfway inside with a splash. He drops down into the water on his hands and knees and grabs my partially submerged body, scooting it further into the culvert. The farther he crawls, the more compact I get, until I’m lying in the fetal position, partially submerged in the tunnel of creek water. Bo backs out of the pipe, hops out of the ditch, grabs the pile of my clothes, and continues his walk through the woods, dripping as he goes.

I hesitate. I don’t want to leave…myself? But I need to find out where the hell I am. There’s a culvert here, which means there’s a road nearby.

I start following Bo through the woods. We walk for a while, but not as long as before. If it weren’t for the fact that he just murdered me and stuffed my body into a pipe in the middle of the woods, it would feel like I was spending one of my favorite nights with him—wandering around the woods together.

Then he had to go and ruin everything.

He’s probably thinking the same thing about me.

I stop abruptly, glaring at his back as he continues his march through the trees. In the first extreme emotion I’ve felt since waking up, I grit my teeth and feel the rage—the injustice—spark in my chest. It instantly ignites, engulfing my heart, and threatens to turn me into a fire-breathing dragon and incinerate everything in my path.

Glancing at the ground, I see a broken limb lying a few inches away. The bark’s flaked off, leaving the smooth, dried out wood beneath. A quarter of the way down, there’s a jagged, razor-sharp nub where another branch snapped off. I slowly crouch down and grasp one end in my hand. It’s about 30 inches long, the weight familiar and comforting. I rise back up and rotate my wrist, swinging the limb at my side. Glaring at Bo’s back, muscle memory takes over and I tap the end of it against the side of my sneaker. But this time, I’m not in a softball diamond. And, this time, I’m not aiming for a ball.

I lunge forward and start running toward Bo, the leaves, rocks, and loose brush recoiling like a spring floor under my feet. As I come up behind him, I angle my hips and sashay to the side. Raising the limb, I bring my other hand up, clenching the wood in my fists as I reel back. Rotating my torso with my shoulder, I bring it around with the weight of my entire body and smash Bo square in the shoulder blade with a force harder than any home run I’ve ever hit.

The limb splinters in half with a crack that echoes through the woods and Bo flies forward, falling face first onto the leaf laden hill. He flips over, gasping for air through yells and curses while his feet spin out, kicking up leaves and dirt as he tries to get up. He reaches back and jerks his gun out of the back of his jeans, thrusting it out in front of him. His eyes are wild, darting around as he aims the gun into the shadows, searching for his assailant.

Grinning with pride, I stand squarely at the bottom of the hill, glaring at him, so close I could reach out and touch him.

Superstar Maguire’s right, asshole.

Bo stares out into the woods, petrified, then sees the broken limb laying on the ground. He looks up, his eyes darting through the trees. He’s not stupid, he knows it’s not big enough to have fallen and hit him hard enough to break. But he also thinks he’s the only one left out here.

Slowly, he stands and listens, hearing nothing but the forest sounds. Once he’s satisfied there’s no one there, he turns around and pulls up the back of his shirt. As soon as he lifts his arm, he winces in pain, letting out a groan. He finishes pulling up his shirt, and when he does, I see a six-inch gash where the broken nub of the branch tore through his muscle. It’s bleeding. A lot.

Bo reaches back and swipes his fingers across it, rubbing them together as he studies the blood and curses under his breath. Finally, he pulls his shirt down and continues up the hillside, picking up the pace a little. I glance down and spy something in the leaves. I can just make out the faint outline of my torn, red bikini underwear with the lace waistband lying next to a fallen poplar branch. I watch Bo continue trudging up the hill, looking back periodically with paranoia.

I wait to make sure he doesn’t turn back and realize what he did.

Soon, he disappears over the crest with the rest of my clothes and I start up the hill after him. But I don’t care what he’s doing now, I need to figure out where the hell I am. I reach the top of the hill and walk another short distance until I emerge from a tree line onto the gravel shoulder of a road.

Across the road, lined with honeysuckle, is an abandoned garage with a shadow of a sign bearing the painted cursive words, Grumpy’s Motorcycles. It’s barely visible, but I recognize it, without a doubt. I’m on Grisham Road. It’s a long way, but if I take this road west, I’ll eventually come to another entrance to Palomino.

Bo crosses the road and continues across the cracked asphalt to the garage. He disappears behind the flaking cinderblock building and a minute later, I hear the engine of a car. I watch with seething rage as his white Lancer appears from around the side of the building and pulls out onto Grisham. Seconds later, his tail lights fade into the distance and I’m left on the side of the deserted road, a poisonous mixture of fury and betrayal simmering in the pit of my stomach.

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