Page 86 of Anathema Codex

It doesn't take long for him to yank the ruined comforter and sheets from under the mattress, tossing them over the priestess' mangled corpse, but the wad of twisted, bloody fabric is too big for him to get his arms around it.

Sighing, I test my injured leg, and it seems to be able to hold my weight now, even though it hurts like a bitch.I'll get my chance to kill Aftyn eventually, or I'll get to watch Lakyn do it, and honestly I don't care much which direction things go—I just plan on being the last one standing when Lakyn Meyer is done with this reunion trip. Until then, I slap the sweet smile back on my face and limp over to the bed, grabbing the end of the pile that holds her legs. "Get the other end. I'll help."

"I don't need your fucking help." Aftyn doesn't even look at me as he sniffles, swiping under his nose. He's crying, and he's not hiding it well. When he finally manages to get his arms around the other end where her torso is hidden in layers of cheap cotton, it's clear he can't manage it by himself. He's just being an idiot.Again.

"Fine. Pretend I'm not helping you. I'm helping Lakyn." Picking up my end of the dead girl burrito, I swallow the groan of pain from the added weight on my leg, figuring out how to balance the awkward shape of it before I look up at him. "Well?"

After a silent glare in my direction, Aftyn finally starts moving. It's clumsy, and I almost fall, but we manage to get her crammed into the corner of the bathroom.

"Move." He shoulders past me and takes the few steps to the shower without another word.

When I catch him swiping at his eyes and nose, followed by another sniff, I roll my eyes. "You're welcome, by the way."

Aftyn answers with a middle finger, but I expected nothing less. He's predictable, boring, and even when he managed to take his mask off for a minute, he couldn't handle being that real for very long. Back to hiding behind his awkward obsession with the dead girl that never gave it up for him.

I head into the room and see the blob-like stain toward the end of the mattress. While the comforter was able to absorb quite a bit of the blood, there's no mistaking the dark stain on the cheap mattress for anything else. Popping open the closet door, I lean up on my tiptoes and find what I hoped was there. An extra pillow and two blankets. Limping over to the door, I drop the pillow and blanket on the spot I've claimed for myself, and then shake the other blanket out and lay it across the bed.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Lakyn asks, sending a plume of smoke my direction.

"It's so you don't have to sleep on the mattress." I have the strangest urge to giggle when he looks me up and down, but I manage to bite my lip and drop my eyes. The sound of him sucking his teeth fills the silence for a second before he stands up and my gaze snaps back to him.

"You're not sleeping on the bed, Red."

"I know." Pointing at the pile by the door, I shrug a bit. "I've got my spot picked out."

"Good." Scooping up his cigarettes, my knife, the ashtray, and the lighter, he takes off the towel and tosses it on the chair.Fuck.He's beautiful. It's not just his eyes, or his face, or even his body… it's how unapologetic he is about his existence. Lakyn Meyer doesn't give a shit what anyone thinks of him, and he never tries to be average like Aftyn does. He doesn't try to be 'normal' because he never could be. He's too real, too wild, and he burns too bright for anyone to ever mistake him for boring.

I know I'm staring when he lays out on the bed—on the blanketIput down for him—and I keep staring as his muscles shift when he reaches over to stack his things on the bedside table and flick the light off. The room plummets into darkness, but the vision of Lakyn is still hovering behind my eyes like one of those afterburns from a bright flash.

"Hey Red?" His voice comes out of the darkness and I can feel some kind of energy running over my skin.

"Yeah?"

"If you touch me or get on the bed while I'm asleep, I'll kill you." It's not a threat it’s a promise, and I know that, but I wouldn't break his rules. I want to learn from him, to show him that I can fit in his life so much better than the walking sperm donation he left behind. I hear a rustle and then the flick of a lighter and the flame lights up his face in the black, which is growing less dark as my eyes adjust to the light leaking around the door from the bathroom and the curtains on the window. Lakyn inhales and the flame disappears, followed swiftly by the smell of cigarette smoke. "Make sure the kid doesn't wake me up."

"Okay, Lakyn." I don't know how long I stand there listening to him inhale and exhale, breathing in the smoke, but eventually I hear him stub out the cigarette and roll over, the mattress creaking as he shifts, until silence settles again. The shower cut off a few minutes ago, but Aftyn is still sulking in the bathroom, and I'm frustrated because I need to look at my leg before I can go to sleep.

Eventually, my eyes adjust enough to find the shadow of the table and my backpack on the floor, and I grab it, putting it back on the chair to dig around by memory for clean clothes to change into. When the bathroom door opens a minute or two later, yellow light floods across the room, and I wave at Aftyn, whispering, "Close it!"

"Fuck off." Aftyn leaves the door open, and I sigh. Fortunately, the angle of the doorway is keeping the light off Lakyn's face, but the extra light does show me something I hadn't noticed before. Lakyn's shirt is on the floor near the bedside table, and I limp over to grab it, shoving it into my backpack before I head to the bathroom. Aftyn's propped himself in the corner of the room with the towel still wrapped around his waist, but when he notices me looking, he flips me off again, hissing out another pathetic threat. "Stay the hell way from me, because I promise, the next time I cut you, you won't be walking away from it."

"Sure thing, Aftyn. I guess you finished crying in the shower?" I ask quietly, flashing a smile at his enraged glare before I step into the bathroom and close the door behind me.

Getting the jeans down my legs is a lesson in pain management, but I bite down on my shirt to keep the groans in until I'm finally free of them.

Fucking pussy.

Aftyn had taken an opportunistic swipe, and if I hadn't been so impressed by what he'd done to the priestess, I would have realized he was going to come at me. But nothing teaches lessons like pain, and although the cut is deeper than I'd like, I know if I can manage to keep it pretty clean, I'll be okay. What's more important is stopping the slow leak of blood rolling down my thigh with every beat of my heart.

Living the way I have means Aftyn isn't the first asshole who's taken the opportunity to hurt me, the difference between the two of us is that Ialwayscome out on top. It's obvious by the car he and Willa were driving that he isn't used to life being difficult. It's why he's still moping over his not-girlfriend being dead. I doubt he's ever been on the receiving end of something like what he did to the priestess, and when he was naked, I didn't see any scars to tell a story similar to mine. People like Aftyn need others because they've never learned to function on their own.

I've never needed anyone.

I haven't evenwantedanyone before… but I do want Lakyn. And I don't care what that means.

If he wants me in his bed, I'll be there. If he wants me on the floor, I'll sleep there. If he wants me to kill, I will.

As long as I can be around him, life will be more tolerable, and as soon as Aftyn is gone everything will be better. No more masks, no more pretending, no more waiting to see if the next car that picks me up will want to hurt me or fuck me just because I wanted a ride. No more putting up with it until they drop their guard enough for me to slit their throats and move on.

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