Page 76 of The Butterfly Killer

Roman picked up the axe. He flipped it over in his hand, running his finger alongside the blade, checking for sharpness.

“We’ll be leaving in a few days.”

Marcus’s eyes widened. This was the first he was hearing about them going anywhere together.

With his excitement, he forgot he was walking with a third leg. The end of the crutch got stuck in the soft malleable ground and while it stopped, Marcus didn’t. He was on the ground in the next second, groaning and a pain in his arm. His leg wasn’t affected. At least, that he knew of. It ached all the time and the pain he felt now wasn’t anything different than what he’d been experiencing.

Roman knelt beside him. His gentle hands helped Marcus to his feet once again. The touch confused Marcus, muddying his mind more than it already was. He knew this kindness being shown was nothing more than a tactic to make him compliant, but it was still hard to remember that the man who was being nice to him was actually evil.

He was starting to understand the people who fell in love with criminals. He couldn’t imagine being in love with someone who was a different person to everyone else.

“I assume you’re happy about that?” Roman grinned widely.

Marcus couldn’t look away when Roman was smiling like that. His whole face lit up and it was pure joy Marcus saw sparkling in his eyes.

Roman was handsome. He was beautiful even. Marcus hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself because it would make it that much easier to succumb to Roman’s temptation. How could something so beautiful be so ugly on the inside?

Marcus accepted the help back onto his feet once again. The pride that had held him back earlier was dormant. More or less, beaten down. There was no use in trying to vie for dominance any longer.

Roman pushed lightly on Marcus’s shoulders. “Sit down on the steps.”

Marcus let himself be pushed down. He leaned the crutch against the railing of the steps.

“Oh. Wait.”

Roman yanked off the scarf wrapped around his neck. He laid it down on the step and then helped Marcus to sit on it. The scarf absorbed the dampness on the step and in turn didn’t get Marcus’s butt wet.

He swallowed thickly. His eyes itched. He didn’t say a word.

Roman ran his hand from the top of Marcus’s head and down to the base of his skull. The pet wasn’t out of left field. He’d beendoing it a few times here and there whenever he felt like it since they’d stricken their deal.

The first couple times Marcus had jerked his head back or even slapped Roman’s hand away. Roman hadn’t done anything, but he’d given Marcus the “bad dog” look whenever he did refuse to be pet.

He let it happen this time. The feeling of Roman’s fingers softly massaging his scalp wasn’t bad. It felt good even. And after face-planting into the ground, he needed some soothing to help with his beaten pride.

When Roman was done treating Marcus like little more than a house cat, he went back over to the stump. He’d dropped the axe when he came to Marcus’s aid. It was laying on top of the stump, waiting for its master to come back to it.

As Roman went about chopping wood, Marcus mulled over the avalanche Roman had sprung on him.

They were going to be leaving the cabin. Roman had said a few days. The snow would be back after that time and they wouldn’t be able to come back to the cabin. Marcus had already scoured the land surrounding the cabin and hadn’t seen any presence of a car or any mode of transportation. The car Roman had been driving the day he’d kidnapped Marcus was long gone probably. He’d most likely ditched it only a few miles from where that other psycho had been killed.

Marcus’s body locked up when he remembered the man who’d almost violated him in one of the worst ways any human could do. His vision narrowed to the blade of the axe swinging down. It hit the log of wood and split it in two. The blade struck the stump below and became stuck.

Roman pulled the axe up. He grabbed another log and did it all over again. Again and again. The blade glinted in the sun peeking over the top of the cabin. The cracks and thumps ofwood splitting and cracking filled the air. It became so loud Marcus couldn’t hear his own thoughts.

Images, however, weren’t as easy to stop seeing. They were right in front of his face, more painful to look at and so much more detailed than what should have been possible.

Roman wiped his brow. A thin layer of sweat covered his tan skin.

The chopped wood was piling up. The pile was small as they didn’t use as much with the snow melted. It was warmer than what it had been in days.

Marcus’s heart thudded hard against his chest. He repeatedly licked his increasingly dry lips. His teeth grazed over the irritated skin, picking at the chapped bits. The sharpness of the pain was reassuring. As the pain bloomed and the thudding of the axe coming down on the pieces of wood continued, he came out of the spiraling vortex that was his dark memories.

He quickly looked away from Roman and his wood cutting. He lowered his head, gasping through chattering teeth. He didn’t know that night had affected him so much. He’d been through his share of dangerous scenarios. He was a cop and life endangerment came with the job.

Nothing in his training would have prepared him for what happened in the shed. And he didn’t know if it was because he was still in a difficult situation, but he felt like what happened to him in that shed was more scary than what he was currently going through.

He looked back up at Roman.

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