Page 23 of What's Left of Us

“Who is she?”

Porscha waves a hand, gripping my elbow to drag me closer. “Come see! Come see, and then you’ll know. You’ll see why I had to.”

Unease creeps through the high. Her drugs are good, and I know I have an addiction to what she gives me, but I can fight it if I must. “Who?”

She pulls me across the room and I let her, glancing at the bag. It’s unzipped, and there’s a body -

Porscha is shoving the blade into my hand. The weight is familiar; this one is mine. We have the same blade, two copies, and usually we each use our own. The main differenceis the color of the handle, but they inflict the same amount of damage. “Come on, just one cut…”

I’m stronger than Porscha physically, we both know it. I don’t resist as much when she positions the blade near the girl's arm, my eyes catching on her hair. Blonde. It’s always blondes with Porscha.

The girl doesn’t make a noise when Porscha guides my hand, digging into the flesh and drawing blood as we cut her together. It leaves the familiar, long gash, and as Porscha causes her to bleed I realize something about the sheet.

It’s sticky. This isn’t the first mark. She’s been down here for a while slicing her, and it doesn’t matter if it’s my blade or hers that she’s using; she was going to kill someone else once again. I interrupted it.

I need to see her. I always see the victims' faces; it’s something I need. I need to see who they were in life before I welcome their death.

Her attention is on my hand, guiding the movements, and she’s standing closer to the girl’s head instead of over here by the rest of her body. Using my other hand, I grab the sheet and toss it away so I can see her.

All at once, my interest in this dies. Something inside me breaks, and the person laying on the table, cut apart and bleeding to death is the last person I ever wanted to see here in the cellar. Her name is a whisper on my breath. “Joelle.”

“I picked her,” Porscha growls, and I feel her pushing the blade deeper. “She’s in this now. We have to finish or we’ll be found out!”

Rage builds in my chest, clouding out the hazy high, and my voice is firm when I speak, fighting her grip on my hand. She’s using both of hers now. “Don’t go any deeper.”

Joelle twitches and moans, and I realize she’s waking. I tear my grip away from Porscha, who looks at me with wideeyes. I don’t defy her, not down here in the basement when we have a victim.

She doesn’t usually have to guide my hand. I don’t resist the twisted side of me that wants someone else to suffer and writhe in pain. But that doesn’t include Jo. It never did.

Porscha sneers, and then her blade is in her hand. I don’t know if she had it tucked into a pocket or what but she has her own now. She twists, and it puts her further into the light.

She’s… red. When did she become red? There’s blood on her clothing and across her hands, and when I look down at my hands there’s blood on the backs where she held me, cutting Jo with the knife I held. She’s not just covered in a little blood… she’s soaked in it.

That anger that I work to suppress surges up, and I snarl at her. “How could you?”

Porscha just grins, and she lunges at Jo again. Her blade sinks into her arm and drags downward, deeper than before when I resisted her, and Jo’s eyes flutter open as she screams.

Grabbing Porscha, I tear her and the blade away from Jo. Mine falls to the floor someplace, but it doesn’t matter as I shove her as far as I can and step between them.

Her daughter. She brought her daughter here.MyKiller. She doesn’t belong in this hell.

Porscha grins, kicking the bag. There’s definitely a body in there. Before I can go for Porscha, Jo’s speaking.

“A-Alastair?” Terror and guilt claw at me as I turn, her confused and horrified blue eyes peering up at me. I can see the pain in her gaze, the betrayal.

It’s because of me. I didn’t protect her, even when I thought she could be safe. My girlfriend, Porscha’s daughter… why did she have to become a victim?

“Jo-”

“Get away from my daughter!”

Turning, I meet Porscha’s wild gaze again. I can’t follow her train of thought, and I don’t know if this is part of her plan or if she’s just running with it. There’s a wildness to her eyes in the shadows, and I can already see where this is going.

Jo, me, Porscha, we’re not all meant to leave here alive. That would shatter the Citrus Grove Slayer facade. But now that I know it’s Jo, there is absolutely no way I can kill her.

I’ll do my best to protect her from the nightmare that is her mother, even if it’s the last thing that I do.

“Constantine.”

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