Page 59 of Broken Skulls

Jacob breaks the kiss, and spins me around, steading the gun in my hands. I stare at the man who stole my life, feeling the warmth at my back from the one whose returning it.

“I hope all the dead woman you abused are waiting for you on the other side to escort you to hell,” I say.

His eyes widen, and that’s how they remain when the bullet rips a hole through his neck. His blood sprays over Jacob and me.

We stand there for a long time. Minutes, maybe hours. I don’t know.

The door swings open. “Goddammit,” Jesse whines, stomping her foot. “I was looking forward to burning this asshole.” She steps around us to stare at the dead man.

“Come on, baby. Let’s go home,” Jacob encourages, directing me out of the room. He stops and turns back to Jesse. “Burn that thing, will ya?” He nods toward the painting.

She sighs. “I guess it’s better than nothing. Can I burn him up too?”

“Sure,” Jacob tells her.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Jacob

She holds me tight around the waist as we make our way back to the junkyard on my bike. She started trembling about a mile into our ride. I think she might be in shock.

The look in her eye scares me. I’m worried that might have been the last straw for her.

He recorded all of their sessions. They were awful. Some encounters he physically caused her pain. Others, like with the paintings, he tortured her mind. The mind is the hardest thing to heal. There are some deep places in the mind that victims sometimes inhabit, and no one will ever succeed at finding them there. It’s a place for them alone.

She was just a teenager when this began. It shaped her into the adult she is today, and I know he is right. He’s embedded deep in her psyche.

There were several times back in that room, I thought she might drop to her knees in front of him. He still has a powerfulhold on her, but now that he’s gone, maybe that will lessen. She at least won’t have to fear him any longer.

When we get off the bike, her shivering intensifies. I guide us in the house and straight for the shower.

“I’m going to undress us,” I tell her, steadying her by her forearms. I dip my head to capture her attention. “Okay?”

“I can’t make decisions right now,” she tells me honestly, and I love her for it.

“Do you trust me to make them for you? That’s the only decision you need to make right now. Will you let me take the wheel?”

She nods, and for the first time she doesn’t try to hold back her tears. She lets them come freely.

I remove my clothes, putting me on the vulnerable side of the fence first. When she remains calm, I slowly but methodically begin to shed her of her bloody clothes. I shove everything we were wearing in the trash.

“I’m not very good at getting stains out,” I joke.

Elizabeth offers me a shy smile despite the wetness still running down her face. “I haven’t done my own laundry in so long, I don’t know if I even remember how to use a washing machine,” she jokes back.

It makes me laugh lightly and sigh in relief. She’s going to be okay.

She steps into the shower as soon as I turn it on.

Petey warned me before we left to watch her in the shower. “She’s liable to scrub her skin clean off. Trust me, brother, I’ve been there.”

And that is exactly what she tries to do.

“Elizabeth. Stop.” I grab her hands, thankful for my brother’s warning. “Jesus, baby, you’re clean.”

Her gaze darts frantically over her body. She focuses on a spot on her arm and jerks away from me to scrub at it.

I lean over and shut the water off. “We’re done.”

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