Page 24 of Grave Love
“Why are you helping her and not doing your usual thing?” he asks, his voice hoarse.My usual thing.It fills me with glee. He can’t even verbally admit that I kill people. I slouch in boredom, the wooden trunk creaking underneath me. “Who is she?”
My jaw ticks. Why does he want to know about her?
“Why do you care?” I ask. “She doesn’t matter to you. None of the others did. We both know that.”
“You’re hiding her.”
Irritation floods my veins with ice and fire, the accusation maddening. There’s nothing about Ren that I’m hiding. Her tumultuous desires intrigue me. Remind me of my first, in a way.
I’m not protecting her. I only want her death.
The prick probably wants to help her. He thinks his methods are better than mine. Morehumane.
He can find plenty of others to profit off of, but notmylittle corpse.
“What’s her name?” Brody asks.
“My. Little. Corpse,” I say, growling out each word with punctuation, emphasizing that she’smine,and mine alone.
Brody mutters something about how I’m a sociopath. I ignore him. He didn’t try to stop me with my first, second, or third. He has no reason to care now.
“I am a client. You are the seller,” I continue. “You can pretend like I’m helping someone terminally ill if it makes you feel better; I don’t give a fuck. But youwillgive me the barbiturates like the good doctor that you are, or you can force me to use a different contact in your industry. An untrustworthy source,” I tease. “Take your pick.”
The audio crackles, irritation simmering on the other side of the line.
“I won’t be in town for another six months. I’m out of the country,” he says.
“Ship it,” I command. “Find another contact here to deliver the goods for you. I don’t care. Six months is too long, and if you don’t want to help her, then I will have no choice but to take matters into my own hands.”
“I can’t tell you what to do,” he says, raising his voice like he has power. “Nothing I say or do is going to change anything. But we both know that if you want barbiturates,I’myour best bet. And if you want it, you’ll wait.” He shifts, the phone scratching with static. “I’ve got six more months at the hospital here. I can’t leave any sooner.”
“Don’t forget what you did for me.”
The connection between us is invisible but tangible, the history clutching onto us like a spider’s web. I’ve never let him forget that we both benefited from her death and that heneverturned me in. Even when he found out about the second and the third, he kept my secrets, and with that knowledge, they became his secrets too.
He’s as bad as I am.
“Make it happen,” I say. “Two months.”
I hang up.
In two months, he’ll give me those drugs. Ren’s birthday is in three months, give or take. Which gives me enough time to play with my morbid little toy before I discard it.
Chapter11
Ren
The text arrivesmidday without any context or explanation. I know it’s him. No matter what I do, I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe it’s my sore arm—the birth control must be working—or the fact that he admitted,or lied,about being a killer. He invades my mind and penetrates every thought.
The minutes count down, racing toward his demand.
Come to the crematory at midnight,the text reads.
I stare at the phone’s screen and avoid him at work, staying in the crematory for lunch and my break. It doesn’t give me clarity though. In fact, it stirs tension inside of me like a stormy ocean.
Midnight comes. I practically run to him, telling myself that I’m only doing what he says because I’m afraid of the alternative. That I’m scared for the other potential victims. That I want to help them.
The truth is I’m desperate for his attention. His approval. His desire.
