Page 45 of Reaper
“Who?”
“My ex-fiancé, his dad, and my ex-best friend.”
“And why is that?”
“I broke off my engagement because I found my fiancé fucking my best friend on my bed. When they wouldn’t stop harassing me, I threatened to put the video my security cameras caught of them fucking on social media.”
I hear his pen scratch against the paper as he makes another note.
“Is there anyone else?”
I shake my head.
“No other ex-boyfriends or potential suitors that you turned down?”
Again, I pause as I frown. “There was one guy that kept asking me out, but I didn’t like him that way and I told him that.”
His pen makes a harsh sound against his paper and I glance up to find him clenching his jaw as he writes something down. I quickly look back down before he notices me looking at him.
“How about someone who would want retaliation for who you’ve been hanging out with or you’ve been seeing since then?”
I shake my head, noting his question seems weird, but with all the memories bombarding me, it’s hard to figure out why he’d be asking me that question.
“Then what happened after you fell?”
“I heard another firefighter’s voice and then he yelled for someone else to come down to help him. One of them got the firefighter off me and the second one picked me up and carried me up a ladder someone had stuck through the hole in the stairs. Then I remember being laid down on a gurney. After that, it’s waking up in the hospital.”
Dr. Ashcroft hums as he makes more notes. What is he writing?
“Now, back to the fire. In Dr. Remington’s notes, you stated that you didn’t think the fires were accidental. If that was the case, why do you think they would want you to be feeling those feelings when you were trapped in the basement underneath the weight of the firefighter and his gear? To be hurting like you were?”
My mind zeroes back in on being trapped under the firefighter and stays there. I can feel myself struggling to get out from under him and feeling the lick of the flames all around us.
“…he loved you and you…”
I lean my forehead against my knees and squeeze my eyes shut as I try to block out Ashcroft’s voice.
I don’t want to be remembering this.
I don’t want to be feeling those feelings again.
“…want to punish you for something…”
Why does he keep coming back to this and those feelings and sensations?
“…why did you do that to him?”
I don’t know who he’s talking about but he’s making it seem like the fire was a punishment. Punishment for something I don’t even know what I did. Why does it seem like he’s making the fire out to be my fault?
Another whimper slips past my lips and I curl further in on myself when I hear Ashcroft humming happily under his breath.
I unlock my phone and hit send.
Chapter 20
Reaper
Standing,Igrabmywater off my toolbox here at my garage, Steel Garage, and take a drink. I’m changing out the brake pads and rotors on an oldFord Mustang, but I’d much rather be a few streets over with Lark.
