Page 89 of Reaper Flame

“Thanks!” The kid beamed and stashed the card in his worn jacket. “I will!”

“What do you think it is?” Vixen asked as soon as the boy left, peering at the package with suspicion like she expected it to blow any second.

“Whatever it is, it’s not gonna be good,” I said. Presents from Hiram never were. I put the package on the desk and pulled a knife out of my bra. I looked at Zander for approval. Hiram wouldn’t kill me with a bomb. If he wanted me dead, he’d do it by his own hand. “May I?”

Zander nodded. My blade cut through the tape holding it together, making a ripping noise. Inside, a nondescript polystyrene box nestled ominously. I’d seen those types of boxes before.

“You might want to look away, Mieko,” I said, bracing myself for what I knew was to come.

I took a deep breath and opened the lid.

An object lay atop a layer of ice. It took me a second to comprehend what I was seeing.

Fuck! No!

My knees buckled as I stared into Q’s glassy eyes. A pirate hat balanced precariously on his decapitated head. Hiram had a sick sense of humor.

Rocky grabbed my shoulders before my legs gave way, and Zander slammed the lid closed. It was already too late. Q was dead. And, just like Crystal, it was all my fault.

* * *

“How is she doing?” Mieko asked Rocky.

Puh-lease, did they think I couldn’t hear them? They may talk in hushed tones, but they were standing right outside my bedroom door! I kept my eyes squeezed shut and pretended to sleep, pulling the comforter up around my ears to shelter myself from the world.

“The same,” Rocky replied. He sounded as tired as I felt. “It’s been two days, but she’s not been eating. She’s not been sleeping either, even though she’s been doing a good job of faking it.”

Damn, I thought he’d been buying it. What else was I supposed to do when it felt like someone had flicked a ‘shutdown’ button on my body? My limbs felt like bricks and moving was like wading through a sea of maple syrup. I was sinking fast. The harder I tried to fight it, the more difficult it got.

It’s not like I’d never seen a decapitated head before. I’d seen many - hell, I’d helped Hiram mount a few! But never a friend. Watching Crystal die broke my heart, but seeing the brutal way Q met his end made my stomach heave. He would still be alive if he hadn’t helped me escape from Hiram.

“Give her these,” Mieko said. She twisted the cap off something. “They’ll help her sleep.”

If my eyes were open, I’d have rolled them. Why do they think I haven’t touched proper food and have been living on packs of chips and candy bars? I noticed how they’d been trying to slip sleeping pills into my meals. They had the best intentions, but none of them understood that sleep was what I needed to avoid.

Seeing Q’s head in my imagination was dreadful enough, but reliving the moment in my dreams would be like tearing open a freshly stitched wound. I couldn’t face that… not yet.

Staying numb and trapping all my emotions inside helped me survive before. If I let my emotions out, I’d erupt like a fucking volcano, and I’d take the whole town down with me.

“I’ll take over from here.” West’s comforting low growl joined in their conversation. “You look beat, Red.”

The guys were taking shifts to check on me, but Rocky had stayed at my side for the longest. He read out random stories from the internet, played music, and cradled me as I held tears back. But I still hadn’t been able to murmur more than a few words.

“Try to make her take these,” Rocky said, presumably handing him over the pills.

West snorted. “I don’t have a fucking death wish.”

“I’ll stay if you—”

“I’ll try,” West promised. “Get some sleep, man.”

The door creaked open, and the mattress sagged as West climbed into bed next to me.

“You can quit pretending now,” he muttered.

Him too?! Clearly, my acting abilities needed serious work. I opened one eye suspiciously. “How did you know?”

He pulled my body close. He was more a ladle than a big spoon. “You usually snore when you’re really sleeping.”

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