Page 95 of Clean Slade
Fuck.
My.
Life.
I never intended to kill the man, but when Slade told me what he’d been doing, when he’d said Salieri’s name, I…
I snapped.
Survival took over.
Someone had tried to hurt the part of my heart that lived outside of me, the part of me that had been wrenched out of me and created something beautiful.
And no one messed with her.
“I…I’ll explain everything. Where are we taking him?” I looked down at the rug.
That had never been part of my job. Cleanup had not been in my job description. There was something awful about carrying a dead body—hell, seeing one wasn’t a walk in the park—after the adrenaline rush.
“How would you feel about a little boat ride under the moonlight?”
I cocked my head, and for the millionth time, I was surprised by the man standing before me. Somehow he knew how to deal with everything and everyone.
He always seemed to have the answer to everything. Nothing was ever a struggle or a big deal with him. He wore his heart on his sleeve and somehow didn’t let this world and its cruelty wear him down.
I wish I had a bit of him in me, a little sliver of his hopefulness, smile, or the lens through which he saw everything around him.
But then again, would he still be the same Slade when I told him who I really was and everything I’d done?
“That would be…” I started, but I burst into tears before I could control myself.
It came all at once. This wave of misery I’d been holding down for all those days and months.
All those years.
“Hey. Hey.” He grabbed me and pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me, and I let go. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here.”
He was. He really was. But for how long?
The tears disappeared as suddenly as they’d come, leaving my eyes a little dry and my body a little cold.
“Okay, let’s do this.” He gave me my phone back, and I stared at it.
“Did you find it already?”
“Yeah. It was concealed as a calculator app. Pretty basic for a ghost app.”
How did he know these things? How was he so good at everything, and yet the only thing I was good at was…
Well, inside the rug.
“Did you delete it?”
He shook his head.
“I locked our location though. Deleting it would tell them straight away we found it. This way, he’ll think you’re still oblivious.”
“Th-thank you.” The tears threatened to come again, but I bit the inside of my cheek and stopped before I made an even bigger fool of myself. “Lead the way.”
