Page 55 of Craving You
“Right,” I laugh and get out of bed.
“I also picked you out an outfit for today,” he says, pointing to the chair.I walk over and hug him and he lifts my chin to kiss me.
“Thank you,” I say.“It’s so helpful to not have to think about these things.”
“Anything I can do to make things easier, I will,” he says.
Once I get dressed, I pull my hair up into a ponytail, so I don’t have to deal with it, and we go downstairs.I don’t bother with makeup because I will inevitably cry and ruin it anyhow.
“Morning,” Cam says as he hugs me as soon as I get into the kitchen.I hold on to him for a moment when reality sinks in that she is, in fact, not here.I sniff back my tears back pull away to wipe my face.
“I’m sorry.I don’t know where that came from,” I say.
“What happened?”he asks softly.
“I just… I expected her to be sitting here with a smile on her face,” I say.“Sleep okay?”
“Yeah,” he smiles.“It was easier with you two there.”
“Morning,” Ross says from the doorway to the kitchen.I turn and see that Andrea is with him.
“Hey,” I sigh.
“You look like you just woke up,” Remy laughs.
“Mmm.Yeah.I had another officer with me, so someone was watching out,” he says.
“So… Beatris’ autopsy was completed last night,” Andrea says.
“Oh?”I ask.“And?”
“How blunt do you want me to be?”she asks.
“I want to know the truth,” I say.
“She was whipped and sustained significant welting and bruising from that.She has a large bite taken out of the tip of her shoulder, but the piece was not recovered.Her clitoris was cut off and found in her stomach contents.The most significant injury was from a large knife that she was assaulted with.It damaged her cervix, uterus, intestines, and severed major arteries.She lost a significant portion of her blood, so death happened within minutes of those injuries.Semen was found in the abdominal cavity, so it’s likely that she was assaulted at death or after,” she says bluntly.“Start to finish, the medical examiner estimates that the entire interaction would have taken no more than thirty minutes.The severity of the injuries occurred in the last few minutes, in my opinion.”
“So… he whipped her, cut her clit off, fed it to her, ate a chunk of her shoulder, fucked her with a knife, then fucked her dying or dead body?”I ask.
“Yes,” Andrea says.
“Well, goddamn,” I say, huffing out a dry laugh.
“She suffered, but it wasn’t for long,” Ross says.“That’s what this boils down to.”
“Also, the medical examiner said that she likely went into shock very early on because the bite in her shoulder and her clitoris being removed caused massive blood loss also, so there is a good chance she didn’t feel a lot of it, or she was unconscious,” Andrea says.
“Well… that makes me feel a bit better,” I say.“What the fuck is wrong with humans?Who decides to do shit like this?”
“Monsters,” Ross says.
“Well,” Cam says.“Definitely not repeating that in any meetings today.”
“Shit.Tris would want me to, just to freak people out,” I say, and he laughs.“I am learning that trauma makes me say inappropriate things.”
“Sometimes we have to laugh through the pain, or it will eat us alive,” Ross says.
“Kinda like her eating her clit,” I say, making Remy laugh this time.“Ignore me getting it out of my system before I get to the office.”
