Page 44 of The Road to Ruined

"Lost girls like you. Younger, usually. Girls like the ones you saw dead tonight."

"I need a drink," I say as I follow him up the staircase. "Surely, you have alcohol in your shitty hideout. I need a knife, too."

"There's some vodka in the freezer," he says. "And why do you need a knife?"

"So I can free my fucking tits," I tell him. I shrug off the hoodie, leaving me in the black turtle neck. "I told you this shit hurts."

"Turn around," he says when we step through the door.

He lifts the back of my shirt and slices the binding down the center of my back.

"Ow. You cut me, you dick."

"You'll live," he says.

But fuck—I can breathe again.

I pull off the rest of the binding, letting it fall to the floor, then open the freezer and dig the vodka out of the ice dispenser. I hoist myself onto the counter, pop the top, and take a swig. Bone Saw makes his way to the back wall and begins thumbing through a collection of records. I wonder if they're actually his in this place that isn't a home.

"It has a label. Nothing else in this place has a label."

"Nope," he says.

"This is the good kind," I tell him, taking another shot from the bottle. "I don't know if you're aware of things like that, but it is. This is the kind Luca fed to me the first time we met."

"He fed it to you?"

"Mmhmm," I say, hitting the bottle hard this time. "He fed me, he clothed me. He told me to open my mouth and called me a good girl. He kept the bottle from that night, too, with my lipstick stain on the rim. He was so good to me…in his own way, which was the right way for me."

"You think I want to hear this shit?" he asks. He stops in front of a record player on the other side of the room, changes out the record, and pushes play. Classical music fills the space again.

"I don't think you really care what I say either way, Bone Saw, so I might as well say whatever I want." I take another pull from the bottle. "Declan liked listening to my voice. I miss his voice, too. He…he wouldn't have wanted this for me."

"He was a part of this," he says. He drops down onto the dark grey leather couch and props his feet on the coffee table.

"No. He thought that life and death were equally beautiful, but there was nothing beautiful about the lives or deaths I saw tonight. Declan wouldn't want to be a part of that. And he wanted me to be…soft and sweet," I say sadly. "I was…for him."

"I've watched both De Rossis stab girls on tables just like that. And Declan left you," Bone Saw says. "Shut the door…hurry! That's what he said when he climbed onto the plane."

It hits me like a punch to the gut. Tears well in my eyes again.

"I hate you," I say through clenched teeth.

"Yeah, well, I'm all you've got now," he says. "I'm the only one who's here, taking care of you."

"You think you'retaking careof me?"

"I've clothed you…twice. I fed you…kiwi and now vodka. I saved your ass in that alley, and I'm currently sheltering you. So, I don't want to hear shit about Declan and Luca. And you should be a little more grateful."

It takes everything in me not to throw the bottle of vodka across the room. Seething, I hop down from the counter with a death grip around the bottle's neck, find my footing on wobbly legs, and cross the kitchen to the dark living room where I sit on the coffee table facing Bone Saw.

"Are your eyes open or closed?" I ask.

"They're open."

"Do you ever take it off?"

"Anyone who knows me as this has not seen me as anything else. And they won't."

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