Page 60 of Rot

His tall frame let out a hard breath, and he swept closer to me, his crossbow-free hand curling around the base of my lower back. He held me against him as he told me, “You killed for me. Now we’re even.” His words sent a shiver down my spine, and I couldn’t stop the smile on my face from growing.

“Elias,” I whispered out his name with urgency, holding onto him in a way I’d never held onto anyone else before. “I think I love you.”

Was it too much, too fast? Could someone like me really love someone else in the way love demanded? Could someone like Elias ever reciprocate, and more importantly, did it even matter? What was love if it wasn’t crazy, bloody, biblical devotion?

The hand on my back moved to cup my face, and Elias backtracked me to the counter, where he set his crossbow down and then hoisted me up, setting my ass on the counter. Both hands found my face, angling me just so. His black eyes bore into me, peeling back all of my lies and seeing the real me, seeing my twisted, dark soul.

And then he told me, “I think I love you, too.” His mouth crashed down on mine, kissing away whatever remnant taste I might’ve had of the other man’s cock and replacing it with his own delicious tongue. He devoured me with that kiss, made me forget all about the corpse bolted to the wall not too far from us.

It was over for me. I knew it then. It wouldn’t matter what happened in the future; we’d found each other, and that was it.

Elias didn’t ask if I was okay, didn’t stop to ask me if I wanted him. The answer was obvious. I was blinded by my desire for him; I didn’t care how close of a call it had been. He worked on undoing his pants and whipping out his monstrous cock, and then he helped me out of my leggings. Soon enough my bare ass was on the counter, my legs opened wide, and that cock was pushing itself deep into me, where it was always meant to be.

I clung to him as he fucked me right then and there, and unlike last night, I let myself be loud. Anytime the sensation grew to be too much, I cried out, and each cry that left my lips only made Elias fuck me harder.

“You’re mine,” he whispered against my head, proving just that with his cock. “You’re mine forever, Sloane. No one’s going to take you away from me.” The metallic twang of blood in the air fueled us both.

“Yes,” I hastily purred out in agreement, “I’m yours. I’m yours and you’re mine.” I dug my nails into his neck, scratching him somewhat, and his wide chest let out a thunderous moan that echoed in my core.

The feelings inside were too hard to fight. I came undone just like that, throwing my head back and losing myself to the orgasm as it choked me. My inner core tightened around his cock, my thighs squeezing against his body as he continued to pummel me like he was a man waging war.

Elias came shortly after, filling me with his seed as he unraveled. He let out a loud moan as he came, holding onto me like he was afraid he’d lose me, his cock nestled deep inside me. He breathed hard, but he didn’t pull out right away. He remained where he was, holding onto me with an iron grip, his cock inside me.

I peered around his body, at the corpse on the wall. This wasn’t over quite yet. “My mom might be home soon.”

That got Elias to pull out of me and stuff his cock away. “Right. We need to…” He trailed off, obviously blanking on what we should do. Let’s just say it was a good thing I had a mind for these things.

“I need your laptop. I need to print something out.” I slid off the counter and pulled my leggings on. “Once my mom comes home and sees him, she’ll want to run again.”

“He said something about money. What was that about?” Elias asked, cocking his head at me.

“She apparently paid men to clean up our grandmother’s body, and now they want more.” I paused, shrugging at his raised eyebrows. “She deserved it, trust me.”

Elias didn’t question me on it. He went to get his laptop, and while he did that, I used my shirt to clean the crossbow’s trigger and anywhere else he might’ve touched. I then tiptoed around the blood pooling on the floor and cleaned off what parts of the bolts I could. By the time Elias returned with his laptop, I’d already begun formulating what the letter would say in my head.

Now, this was much more a plan that basically involved flying by the seats of our pants and hoping for the best, but with any luck, it’d be a believable story. It would paint my mother as a frightened woman who’d made many mistakes in her life, and it would absolve me of any possible wrongdoing.

In the letter, my mother would sound sorry for what she did. Sorry for all her sins. Trying to kill me when I was nothing but a thought in her womb, trying—and succeeding—in killing her own mother, who’d pushed her to act normal. It would simply look like she’d snapped. It would say that she paid a sketchy group of people to clean up her mother’s body and take care of it, but they kept coming to her for more, blackmailing her.

It became too much for her. The letter would go on to say that she couldn’t go on anymore, so when one of the men came to threaten her, she decided to end it all. She killed again, and then, after the blood settled and the man’s body grew cold in the kitchen, she’d kill one more time.

She’d kill herself.

I had the letter printed out once it was ready, and Elias glanced over it. He didn’t seem shocked at any of what he read, nor did he appear stunned at the final goodbye at the bottom of the letter. All he said was, “What are we going to use?”

That was something I’d thought about. We couldn’t use the crossbow; it was too unwieldy. You couldn’t hold it well and pull the trigger while aiming it at yourself. It wasn’t like a gun, in that respect.

The man who now hung on the wall did have a gun, but getting the angle just right, making it look like a suicide and not a staged crime might be tough. Plus, guns were often a man’s way of suicide.

No, for my dear, sweet mother, there was only one thing we could use.

“Go downstairs,” I told him. “Grab her sheets.”

He nodded, and then he was off to do just that. No questions about whether I was sure I wanted to do this. No hesitation because he was a better person than this. In that respect, Elias was just like me. It wasn’t a wonder why we fit so well together. It was almost like we were made for each other.

Elias came up with the sheets, and he got it ready. We would do it in the living room, from the ceiling fan. I checked the time. It was just before one. My mother was taking her sweet old time in coming home.

“You don’t think she already skipped town, do you?” Elias asked, standing with me near the base of the stairs as we waited. “If she left, then all of this is for nothing. We’ll have to figure something else out.”

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