Page 10 of Sick Bargain

“A blond,” the guy says. “Tsk. Can never trust a blond.” There’s a mocking cruelty to his voice, but I can’t tell if it’s directed at me, the situation, or the girl herself. I’m a dirty blond…

I can’t see her face, but her neck is bent at an angle that defies the natural movements of her skeletal system. Her hair really is blond, but only in some sections. The rest is bright crimson and dripping, or dirty and tinted from her fall. Her dress, a cocktail-type thing in a golden hue, is ripped open to expose the side of her hip and most of her stomach. More blood. Her knees disgust me, so I don’t look at them, letting my eyes shift down to her calves and ankles. High, dainty, strappy heels in the same tone as her dress, if the random moonlight can be believed.

“Why would she be wearing heels out here?” I ask no one. It’s the least logical question for the situation. “One of the club’s games?”

He doesn’t answer, but I don’t care because the girl takes another rattling inhale. Again, this should jar me into upset. I should bend down, check her vitals, move her hair from her face to see if her eyes are open. I should stop whatever is bleeding and hold her head steady so no more damage occurs to her cervical spine.

Instead, I’m intrigued by the rattle of her lungs. Are they failing, slowly shutting down, full of blood and drowning in it? Or are they simply not getting enough strength to properly work as a muscle? Maybe her diaphragm is damaged, and that’s the reason her lungs aren’t expanding fully.

“What do you think she’s thinking?” the man I gave my life to asks again, a cloud of smoke following the jittery words through his mask in my peripheral. “Regrets? Do you think people really see a highlight reel of their lives in their last moments? All the good parts, and all the things they regret?”

I’d never thought about it before. I am now. What would I regret? Everything, probably. Everything and more.

Her leg twitches, drawing my gaze. Was she dancing? Sent out here by the club’s owner to complete a fun task that put her in harm’s way? On purpose? There are always miscreants in the cemeteries at night.

“Maybe she’s incapable of thinking,” I find myself saying, obliging his questions like they actually matter. “Like her brain is shutting down.” Why am I engaging with this in the middle of the night while a dire situation unfolds and I do nothing about it? Where is my panic? Where is my fear?

His inhale is long and slow, but it comes out a little shaky. “Shame.” His voice is strained, choked, almost. It nearly draws my attention more than the dying girl, but then he says, “Are you going to help her?”

I stare at her, wondering why I’m not helping her. Is it worth it? How many of those six minutes have ticked down? What would I even do if I could move?

“She’s going to die anyway, right?” I ask. “Her time is almost up.”

“Why don’t you comfort her?”

“Why don’t you?” I turn my head, but he’s facing away from me. His hood is up, covering his hair, showing me nothing but black. “What are you even doing out here? We were supposed to meet at my dad’s plot.”

He flicks the ash from the tip of his joint before pinching the glowing tip off. It falls to the ground, hissing for a split secondin the foliage’s dampness before it disintegrates into nothing. Whatever is left of it disappears into his pocket.

“I could ask you the same thing. Something draw you into the trees, Remiel?”

Yes, the girl’s rattling lungs.I heard them and… walked here in a daze.

He steps over the girl’s body, using a stick to slide her hair to the side. I gasp when her face comes into view. Partly because I recognize her, but mostly because she’s purple and puffy. Strangulation? By what or who? Maybe her broken neck. The column of her throat is slender, but it’s twisted in a way that looks horrific, splotched red. If the moon was brighter, I bet I would see all the burst capillaries in her skin and eyes. Which are open. Staring at the guy standing over her body.

Is it me, or does fearful recognition flash in her dying eyes?

“Ophelia Hargrove,” I whisper her name. “She’s in my sister’s psychology class.”

“Probably goes around campus trying to psychoanalyze people, calling them sick when she doesn’t know shit,” he says harshly, but I can’t tell what the harshness means. “Can’t trust a blond,” he repeats. “Come here.”

I don’t know why I do, but I move towards him. His request is more motivating than the twitch of her calf or the rattling of her lungs. Maybe I want a closer look, to see the moment life leaves her body and death consumes it, and he just gave me an excuse to get nearer.

Thunder cracks overhead, but it doesn’t startle me. The clouds are thickening, blotting out the stars and moon. Stepping next to him, wedging my socks and Crocs between where her small hand and her hip are, I peer at her from above.

“Does she turn you on?”

I splutter at the question, trying to look at him. But before I can even turn my head, his hands push on my shoulders and I’m kneeling in the mud, crushing her hand beneath my knee.

“Let go!”

“Look at her,” he demands, voice right next to my ear. Dark and daunting, ominous but playful. “Is your dick hard, Remiel?”

Finally jarred by something, I panic. My palms sweat more and my fingertips go numb, all my blood and energy rushing to the vital parts of my body as my survival instincts kick in.

“Why would you ask?—”

“Mine is,” he says, pressing the front of his crotch against the back of my head. His cock is as hard as iron, and the hand he fists in my hair makes me a slave to the sensation of it. “So fucking hard for this shit. What do you think that says about me, Remiel? You were a psych major, weren’t you?”

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