Page 73 of Body Tox

I ignored the pain of my damn thumbs and focused on her breathing, her scent, the cool rain aroma, and the soft tinkling of the passing weather. Eventually, I closed my eyes and fell asleep, and my Little Wraith was in my arms where she belonged.

Iwoke up with a jolt, a scream ready to escape my lips. My head throbbed, and I felt a hardened wax in my hair.

I scrunched my nose and realized the danger around me.

Alex.

I blinked my eyes to focus, and the warm body beside me wasn’t my abusive ex. It was Asher. He was shivering and tossing in his sleep. I looked at my lap. His shirt and jacket had fallen off my shoulders when I bolted upright…he covered me?

Did I dream about the files? About Alex? I grabbed my head, the headache forming already enough to make me wince.No. It had to be real…it had to be.

Evangeline was Asher’s sister, and this creepy church was selling women and babies!

My ex had risen from the dead…?

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed crazy. I’d watched Alex die. Recorded it on my phone as I slashed his neck in a smile-like pattern using my dagger.

I watched his blood slide down his neck and drip into the puddles of water underneath him…

“Blood for blood,” I repeated out of habit, gripping my heart, unsure what to believe anymore.

I looked at Asher sleeping beside me.

Sighing, I draped his jacket over his shivering body, the clothing making him sigh in his sleep and curl up closer to me. I snorted, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of this scene.

The two serial killer assassins cuddling…

I snuck out of the makeshift bed, padding over to the jewelry box. I grabbed my phone and scrolled through search engines, punching in Alex’s name.

A flurry of obituaries flooded my screen, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had to have imagined it. Alex was dead. Buried in the damn ground where he belonged to rot in hell for eternity.

“Fuck you,” I said to his spirit wherever it was floating. “You will never hurt me again.”

My hand went instinctively to my stomach. The empty, flat planes under my palm were a reminder of his brutality.

If my mind hadn’t tortured me enough tonight, it flashed to that night…

Alex left, and Cali ran into the room with hot towels and a sponge. Cali was always there for me. The only real friend I had. We were good for each other.

She cleaned my body from the bite marks, the bleeding gashes, the burn marks, and the slashes. She always tried to treat them as quickly as she was able, but the scars still formed. I was riddled with the marks of his abuse.

I looked away from Cali, her gentle hands gliding down my skin with the soapy cloth. Nothing was ever enough to wash his brand from my skin.

I let the tears fall. I didn’t care to try to hide them anymore from Cali, and she never judged me. Alex had left so much worse. The tears on my face didn’t matter. I tried not to flinch from Cali’s touch, and she was as light as possible, her delicate, ebony hands bringing that warmth with each glide of the cloth.

“It’s going to be okay, Coco,” she soothed, leaning her head into my shoulder and trying to put on her brave face. Coco was her nickname for me. The silly pet name always made me smile. I had ‘died’ and been reborn as Echo, but it was always Coco to Cali. Cali Grace was truly a gift I didn’t deserve. She was the doctor, therapist, and lover I needed.

Her skin was so different from his, so soft, dark, and beautiful.

Her lips were so thick and gentle.

Her voice was velvet and kind.

Everything he wasn’t, she was.

“Echo...Have you…bled?” she asked me hesitantly, running that cloth over my breasts.

I frowned. I always bled. The bucket she brought was always to wipe the blood off me, whether it was my thighs or my sides.

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