Page 36 of Anathema Codex

I tense my body and wait.

Trusting her right now is not a fucking option and I still need to get to Arizona.

With or without Willa.

She drops to her knees, looks at the dying man next to her, then sets her rage on him. She raises the knife and plunges it into him, over and over, the sound is wet, sick, and fucking all-consuming.

It’s making me hard again.

I lower my guard when she’s finally done. She drops the knife to the side, her hands completely soaked in blood as it continues to slowly ooze out of the gaping wounds she’s made in his torso. I crane my neck to take a better look and shake my head in appreciation.

She’s stabbed him so many fucking times that if she had any more strength left in her, she would have easily reached his spine. I can see his insides, or what’s left of them, and I can see what pure anguish can do to someone who thinks their invincible.

And maybe now, I’ll have her on my side once and for all.

“Come on,” I tell her quietly as I reach down and extend a hand toward her. She lets me pull her to her feet and I push her hair behind her ear, using a thumb to wipe away a blood-soaked tear. “We need to get cleaned up before we head out again.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Collecting Knives and Memories

DAPHNE

I wait in the car until I see Aftyn and Willa disappear into the trees, running with each other like a couple of pre-teen best friends. Straight out of some awkward 1950s idealized version of Americana—obnoxious.

Rolling my eyes, I grab my backpack, make sure it's all zipped up, and then I get out of the car and slam the door. The boom of the door closing seems louder in the silence of the woods, and I take a deep breath and lean back to look up at the sky. It's overcast, dismal, which means if I don't find another ride, I'm gonna get soaked.

One problem at a time.

Wandering into the woods on the opposite side of the road from where the two loveless not-lovers went, I go deep enough into the trees that if another car goes by they won't see me peeing behind a tree. Not that itreallymatters. If I'm lucky, some idiot will drive by and I can make up a story about getting left behind by my friends.

Not that I've ever actually made any friends.

As soon as I'm done, I stand back up and button my jeans, tugging on the backpack straps as I get it adjusted on my shoulders before I start walking. I'm not heading back to the highway yet. As strange as the pair of them are, I agree with Aftyn that being out here feels good. Being cramped in their damn car for a day has been pretty shitty, and even though I tried to have some fun with them... they clearly don't want to play.

Too busy baiting each other into sexually charged arguments to give two shits about the girl theychoseto pick up at a rest stop.

OrAftynchose, but it doesn't really matter.

I didn't try to catch Aftyn's attention. He came to me. He pulled me off the sidewalk and insisted I ride with them, and while I'd hoped there'd be some benefit to it, that was clearly just some petulant move on his part to try and make Willa jealous for his dick. The guy has one hell of a smile, and a nice body from what I've seen... but I'm not getting the feeling he wants to fuck me with Willa around, and that bitch isn't going anywhere.

That's why I got out of the car.

Not just because I've needed to pee for at least six hours, but because I don't plan on leaving with them.

I've had a rule since the first time a car ride went bad that I never get in the same car twice. If I get out, for any reason, it's a sign that I need to move on. Pick another sucker, find another mode of transportation, and move on. I've only held on this long because I really thought these two might be entertaining, that they might have something redeeming about them to alleviate the constant boredom of life.

Unfortunately, it seems I was wrong.

Once I dug past the curious dynamic of their friendship and poked at the absence of their previous road trip partner, there just wasn't much left to do but pretend to sleep in the backseat and see how far I could get in their car. Missouri is farther West than I've ever been, so that's one accomplishment, and for a kid that was told she would never get out of Chicago—I think I've done pretty well for myself.

The wind whispers through the trees rising high above me, and I like the way the leaves clatter together in a shushing sound, as if the entire forest wants everyone to stay quiet.Shh, shh, shh...I used to dread that sound, as far as I can feel much of anything anyway. Not that I was ever really afraid when Brian started coming to my room instead of Lauren's, but I just didn't want to deal with it. The walls in that fucking foster home were so thin that I'd known what he was doing to her for months. I could hear him talking, hear the bed moving, hear her crying—which is probably why he changed his mind and picked me.

He used to say my silence was creepy. That I weirded him out with the way I watched him and everyone else. It was his favorite topic of conversation whenever he started drinking, but apparently, I wasn't too creepy to fuck. Suddenly my quiet was a benefit.Hisbenefit. But, once Brian started using my body at night, he didn't say a word against me, and I liked not having to deal with his shit during the daylight hours. He chose another one of the kids to be his verbal punching bag, or his idiot of a wife, and he never really talked to me when he showed up and climbed in my bed. Just the occasional groan, the occasional comment about how good I felt, the rhetorical questions on whether or not I liked it. I ignored all of it, but for some reason I couldn't block out the sound of him shushing me whenever I made the slightest sound. He'd put his hand over my mouth, his lips right by my ear, and hiss out each goddamn syllable.

Shh, shh, shh...

Fucking pedophile.

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