Page 31 of Promise of Destruction
When my eyes open, the light overhead burns, and I wince. My vision is blurry and fuzzy around the edges. I must have taken my contacts out at some point, but I don’t remember doing it.
I am in the bathroom though—I can tell by the little crystal chandelier I bought from an online shop. It was my firstpurchase for the home. Vin had just looked at me like I was crazy when I asked him to install it.
“A chandelier?” He’d asked.
“I love it.” I told him, knowing that would be all he needed to hear to justify the purchase.
“But…” he looked like he didn’t want to offend me, but his confusion was so innocent. “It’s a bathroom?”
“I know, but it’s a fancy bathroom.”
Vin hung the chandelier without any further discussion, though he did laugh and shake his head a lot during the process. By the time we installed the dimmer, and I lit the candles on the tub surround, he’d changed his mind entirely about the bathroom chandelier.
“It was a great choice.” He whispered as he stroked between my legs. I had laid my head back on his bare chest and listened to him continue to tell me how beautiful I looked under that light until I fell apart from his touch.
The memory feels safe, and my body fights to stay in the comfort of it as hard as it fights to regain consciousness.
This time when I open my eyes, everything is still blurry, but after a few long, excruciating blinks the shapes re-focus into items I recognize. The chandelier, the bathroom counter, the mirror above it. Maybe I came to take my contacts out and passed out?
It takes another minute, but I finally feel like I may be able to move my limbs. I try to lift my arm, and agony reaches into every corner of my body. That simple action sets off a chain reaction that makes every inch of me hurt—places I didn’t even know were capable of hurting.
There’s a hollow sound somewhere that I can’t place, but it echoes in my skull like a drumbeat.
The pain radiates through me, all the way to my bones, but I don’t know why—until I try to press a hand to my aching head and see the cut that runs the width of my wrist.
I blink at the slash, trying to get my brain to process what I’m seeing.
There’s a chunk of my flesh missing.
Dried blood is caked around it, and on the top of it, a thin line of gelatinous blood that hasn’t yet clotted entirely. It takes a moment for the realization to set in, but when it does, adrenaline eclipses my confusion, and I lift my other arm to find it looks much the same.
Though I’ve felt enough pain to lead me to believe that Iampain now, it’s as though I realize all at once that there’s more to my body.
I glance down at myself in an effort to take in my situation.
I’m naked.
Or at least, I’m pretty sure I am.
It’s hard to tell because I’m submerged head-to-toe in blood.
twenty-two
Declan
Iswirlthebourbonin my glass as I watch Soren pull the blanket tighter over her head. I’m deep into my second drink and getting more agitated by the moment.
When I called the realtor this morning, she’d been more than happy to convince her sellers to accommodate my request. They weren’t living there, so it wouldn’t be an intrusion ontheirprivacy. It was reasonable to want to see if the neighborhood was safe, after all. There had been a murder across the street a year ago and nobody had ever been reprimanded for it.
“Domestic dispute, I believe.” The realtor—Janine—said confidently. “I think his wife killed him because he beat her. The neighbors all said they never heard any signs of an issue before that night, but the evidence speaks for itself. They all say she’s harmless, that she worshipped the ground he walked on. Poor girl just snapped, I guess. It was a truly isolated incident that’s hardly enough of a reason to stop you from moving in.”
I wanted to press her for more details, but I couldn’t risk setting off any alarm bells so I hesitated and then told her I just wasn’t comfortable moving my family to a neighborhood withsuch a recently bloody history. Janine took the bait, assuring me that the neighborhood was really quite quiet outside of that one time. I hesitated again before asking if I could possibly install some surveillance and monitor it for a while before making a commitment.
“They’re really not obstructive these days.” She agreed quickly. “It wouldn’t be hard to install some and keep an eye out from your phone to be sure nothing trips the system. If we get any interest in the meantime, I will get in touch with you right away.”
She didn’t bother saying what we both knew—that the house wouldn’t be getting any other interest.
The owners had moved out just a few weeks after Soren was released from the hospital, and it had been sitting on the MLS for almost three hundred days. It’s over-priced because the economy is in the toilet and they owe more than they can sell it for. The owners are between a rock and a hard place, and probably desperate. Which is why I’m not even a little surprised when she called back ten minutes later to give me the greenlight.
