Page 40 of King Among the Dead

He headed not into town, but out of it. Beyond the last houses, into moon-silvered fields, through tunnels of knotted tree branches that threw dappled shadows onto the pavement.

Down a long, patchy driveway that ended in a clearing circled by dense forest. He left the headlights on, and they dug.

They dug, and dug, and dug. Until all her muscles burned, and her chest ached from breathing deeply, and their shoes and pants were caked with mud. The ground was soft, and she knew that eased the way, but it was still more work than she’d ever done all at once. She could barely lift her arms when, finally, Beck boosted her up out of the hole they’d created and then crawled out himself, hissing and wincing. He rolled over and lay on his back in the grass a moment, staring up at the sky; the breeze had scudded the clouds, but the stars were still visible, a wedge of white-cheese moon.

He studied the sky and she studied him, the smear of mud on his forehead, his parted lips, the dark of the inside of his mouth.

His gaze flicked to her, and he smiled, another of those wide, fanged smiles from before, unrestrained, and wicked, and beautiful. “This was easier when I was twenty,” he said, like a confession, and then hauled himself to his feet.

They unwrapped the bodies before they buried them. Folded up the plastic and put it back in the trunk. “You can leave prints on plastic,” he advised, slamming the trunk shut. “And sometimes rope, if the CSIs are any good at their jobs.”

She fell asleep on the ride back, completely worn out, lulled by the violins and the gentle rumble of the car. Next she knew, Beck was shaking her gently. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go. We’re home.”

Home. Yes, it was home. A home that she had fought to protect tonight. A home where she lived warm and safe with books, and Beck. A home whose bannister Beck would vault so he could slit the throat of anyone who dared trespass.

She felt warm, and thick-headed, and not at all self-conscious about leaning into him when he wrapped an arm around her and steered her into the house. He could have let go of her, once they were inside, but he didn’t, arm snug at her waist as he locked the door. As he towed her to the stairs and up them, both of them treading over the new bloodstain in the foyer.

A bit of clarity returned when he led her not to her own room, but to his, quietly but firmly closing the door behind them. Then her pulse gave a little uptick, and some of the sleepy fog cleared from her mind.

Alone with Beck in his bedroom, while the night lay dark and velvet against the window glass, the house snuffling like a sleeping pet all around them.

He turned to her, his expression caught between impossibly soft and frighteningly alert. When he tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, she saw the blood crusted under his nails.

She thought he might say something – he gathered a breath and wet his lips. But in the end he only stared at her a long moment, and then towed her into the marble splendor of his bathroom.

“I’m okay,” she protested, when he installed her on the low, tufted bench beside the tub.

He didn’t grace that with a response; instead plugged the drain and started the water. “I’ll be right back.” He left; she heard the bedroom door open.

As the tub filled, the room filled with steam; the mirrors slowly fogged. Her reflection blurred to an indistinct smudge of color, and she finally dropped her gaze, tired of searching for something in her own face that wasn’t there: regret.

Her hands lay in her lap, palms facing upward. Crusty with the dried blood she hadn’t washed away earlier, and the caked mud from the field; black under the nails, and stinging, she felt, in the lacerations on her palm. She flexed her fingers to feel the tiny wounds pull and grab. She’d nicked herself on the knife, then, and hadn’t noticed in the heat of the moment, when she’d been flooded with adrenaline.

The bedroom door clicked shut, and Beck padded back into the bathroom with a lit cigarette dangling off his lip, carrying a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “Did you cut yourself?” he asked, glancing over as he poured.

“Just a little bit. It’s fine.”

“We’ll clean it.” He extended a glass toward her, more than half full of sharp-smelling whiskey.

At another time, she would have found the gesture odd. Even inappropriate. But now it seemed like the natural course of things. She took it with a murmured thanks, and took a sip that tasted awful, and burned – but which pleased her. Seemed to relax her almost immediately.

He drank his own down in two long swallows, refilled the glass, and worked on his cigarette, leaning back against the edge of the counter as the tub continued to fill.

Rose watched him openly; the sweep of his lashes as he blinked; the twitch of his fingers on the filter paper as he brought the cigarette to his lips again and again; the flare of his nostrils when he exhaled the smoke. If asked, she would have said she was too tired for coy subtleties and furtive glances. In truth, she feltallowedto look her fill in a way she hadn’t before. A barrier had crumbled between them tonight, an invisible wall of tension held in place by politeness and carefulness.

She had the sense Beck wasn’t being at all careful, now. He brought his whiskey to his lips, and met her gaze. Held it. “Ask me.”

“What?”

“There’s a question sitting on your tongue. Ask me, and I’ll answer.”

She took another sip of whiskey. There were so many things she could ask him. She had a dozen questions about his past: when had he killed his first man? Why did he keep doing it?

Though, the why of it wasn’t too great a mystery, now, not while she sat with blood caked into the creases of her hand.

She surprised herself by asking, “Why me?”

His brows lifted in a show of casual inquiry – but tension stole through his body; drew his shoulders up tight; stilled his breathing a moment.

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