Page 43 of Bad Seed
I extend my leg and rest it on the edge of the chair. His chair. The only thing keeping him alive. He shuts his mouth real quick.
“Now you know how she felt.”
“She? Who the fu…?”
I expected him to not remember, but his eyes blaze with fury.
“This is about Sadie? That lying bitch. She’s crazy. It was a fucking accident. I never—”
In a rage, I kick the chair. It slams into the kitchen cabinet and bounds away as Derek’s body drops. He’s in survival mode, swinging first to attack while he cries out to kill me, then for help. When that doesn’t work, he finally smartens up enough to reach for the cable above his head.
His hands slide right off.
Of course I greased it. He wasn’t going to get away that easy.
His eyes are going bloodshot, his tongue sticking out like a fat cow’s and turning purple. Forgetting my plan, I stand.
My fist curls, wanting to treat him like a slab of meat for calling her a bitch. I lean closer, still keeping as much of myself in the dark as I can. “If you ever lie about her again…” I flash my knife in his eyes. It’s nothing more than a Leatherman, but he freaks out at the new threat. The wild jerking only tightens the snare around his throat.
I thrust my knife toward him.
He moans, his voice little more than a gurgle, then he starts to wail. Huge, panicking tears tumble down his cheeks as he screams in pain.
I open my hand, revealing I’d only pressed the butt of my knife into his side.
“You’re pathetic.” I grab the chair and put it back under him.
He leaps onto his tiptoes, damn near blubbering gratitude for it. Me he respects, but a woman who cared for him, who loved him… She was the one he treated like a starving dog in the street.
If I wasn’t worried about it reflecting back on her, I’d leave him to hang.
“A tiny man, a nothing man, who tries to wring a modicum of masculinity from the world by terrifying women. By torturing them and leaving them for dead.”
“I did not—”
I stare at the chair, and he shuts up. With my point made, I pick up the chair I sat in and put it back by the table.
“What? Are you her new boyfriend?”
“Nope. Just a man who doesn’t like those who soil the rest of us.”
“Yeah, right. You had your fun. Ha ha. Now cut me down, already.”
He really doesn’t get it. I click off the flashlight, leaving him in darkness.
“Hey!” he cries out like a child after a bad dream.
“Good evening, Derek.” I give a little bow and walk toward the door.
“What? Get back here! Cut me down! This is attempted murder.”
I pause in the doorway, aware of the meager light revealing my silhouette. As I turn, his panicking pleas turn back to threats.
“That’s fucking right. You’re trying to kill me.”
A chuckle slips out, my smile back, but this one’s genuine. “I assure you, if I was attempting murder.” My hand wraps around the back of his chair. “They’d never find you.”
I yank it.
