Page 130 of Cruel Malady: A Necrosis of the Mind

I rub the back of my neck, my nerves stretched tight. “It’s my problem,” I tell her. “I’ll figure it out.” Which sparks my curiosity. “Why are you helping me?”

Arching an eyebrow, she says, “Has your paranoia disintegrated your brain?” She marches over to the laptop and flips the top open, displaying the countdown I have set at the top of the screen. “If the deranged duet has put this much thought and preparation into you, what do they have planned for me? As much as it pains me, we’re stuck in this together. Solving your problem solves mine and now my mother’s. Because believe me, if getting rid of you would fix my life, you’d already be tossed into the Hudson.”

I blink at her, my mind delving as I follow her train of thought. “All right, that’s it.”

She shakes her head. “What’s it, you crazy fuck?”

“We need to remove the evidence,” I say. Not as simply or as carelessly as dumping the remains in a river, of course, but getting rid of the evidence just the same.

The only way to ensure Grayson can’t reveal the victims is to remove the bones. Yes, there will be trace evidence, but not enough for authorities to warrant reopening an old case to try to track down the remains.

“I won’t be a part of this,” she says, her tone just shy of self-righteous. “Those are people. They have families. They deserve to be given back to their loved ones—”

“If you truly believe that,” I interrupt her soapbox speech, “then why didn’t you report the remains yourself?”

Her silence infuses the room. I nod, accepting what she’s unable or unwilling to voice. She will never admit her reasoning but, she presumed the bodies were my subjects. Her feelings for me prevented her from lashing out against me in that capacity.

I reasoned early on why she never went to the police after she escaped the cabin, why she didn’t make a report of her abduction. Blakely doesn’t like attention. She would find an investigation invasive. It would expose her own unethical revenge jobs—but also, she’s battling the confusing feelings she has for us.

All those intrusive questions cops ask would force her to think about our time together. What we said. What we did. The intimacy we shared.

It was easier for her to move on in denial, ignoring the bones’ cry from the grave, rather than face her own conflicting emotions. She had so much to deal with already.

Instead of pointing this out to her, I walk toward the window, to the same place where she stood a moment ago, and look out over the city. “Relocating the remains isn’t ideal. I need a proper disposal method. I need fire.”

“You could always have another meltdown and burn the rest of your cabin to cinder,” Blakely says, her tone impatient.

“That wouldn’t generate the kind of heat…” I trail off as what she says registers past my inner conflict. I swing around her way and remove my glasses. “The rest of the cabin?”

She pushes her hands into her back pockets. “Sorry I don’t know the proper heat level. I’ve never had to burn a body before.” But her chiding doesn’t distract from what she said.

Placing my glasses on the gurney, I move toward her with measured steps. “You went to Devil’s Peak.”

She crosses her arms, and my gaze leisurely travels over the marks on her wrists—the marks we left on each other as we imprinted our fury and yearning. “I had to know if you were alive,” she says, a revealing tremor in her voice.

I stop walking. I’m a meter away from her, but suddenly there’s no distance at all.

She’s the one who takes the final step to reach me, and my breathing stalls in my chest.

“What did you feel when you didn’t find me in the ruin?”

Head canted toward the floor, she says, “Relieved.”

It’s a wisp in the air—the frailest tendril of promise—but I reach for it as I clasp her chin, tilting her head back so our gazes connect.

She had the evidence I was alive, and all the evidence she needed right there buried in the valley’s earth to turn me in and permanently remove me from her life, and yet she didn’t. She hunted me. She found me. She fought so hard not to submit to her desires…and it’s right here, now, between us.

One profession from her will decimate me.

“Ask me to kiss you,” I say.

She licks her lips, ensnaring me. “Kiss…my ass.” But her voice holds no malice. She’s shivering in eighty-degree weather.

I release her chin and graze my fingers along her jaw, spearing my fingers into her hair. “I’ll eagerly kiss your ass and every inch of your body,” I say, “even when you vehemently deny what you want, when you fight it, I’ll give you what you need.” I lean down closer, feeling her breath slip over my mouth. “And you’ll help me destroy the evidence.”

Her eyes flare and, without words, she consents with the slightest nod of her head against my hand.

This is what she requires. I understand now.

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