Page 38 of Caution Tape

I take my thumb and press it deep into the stab wound, feeling skin and tissue get caught under my fingernails, like when you dig your nails into a bar of soap.

“No, no, no! Please stop—“

Ignoring him, I turn my gaze to her. “Cora, would you be so kind as to tie his hands up for me?”

“My pleasure.”

I hold his hands up to her and she loops the rope around them, cinching them together and winding them up in an intricate knot. I smile at her handiwork.

“Such a good girl. Now I’m going to take him with me. I need you to clean up here. Can you do that?”

She nods. Her eyes have been widening this entire time, as if she’s coming down from whatever high the stabbing had produced and reckoning with what she has done.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her.

“I know. I’m fine.”

“Of course, you are. I just need you to focus and make sure it looks like he ran off. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to buy us time.”

“Okay.”

Michael has fallen quiet. Blood oozes steadily from the wound, shining wetly in the soft yellow light of the bedroom. I rack my brain, trying to figure out how to get him out of the house and into my car without leaving a trail of blood behind.

Cora disappears for a moment and reappears with a thick plastic blue tarp and several bungee cords.

“Will this work?”

I nod.

She shakes the tarp out flat, and together we tip his slumped form onto it, laying him out face down. We begin pulling the edges and corners over him, covering him in the plastic, and cinching it closed with the bungee cords. The blood stops leaking onto the carpet, and only his head remains uncovered.

“Should we put a bag on his head or something?” Cora asks.

“No. Let’s sit him up.”

We pull him back up, leaning his back against the end of the bed as he sits on the floor. His eyes flutter open, and he looks at us with disgust.

“You’re going to get caught,” Michael says. “You’re going to rot in a cell.” He glares at me. “You’re just like her, aren’t you? A freak. You’re not even human.”

Cora and I stand over him, and for the first time I’m fully aware of how naked she is. I had been caught up in the bloodlust, but now the back of my hand is touching her bare hip, and I can hear her breathing next to me.

I want her so bad.

“Why aren’t we covering his face?”

“Because I want him to watch.”

“Watch what?” she asks, but I’m already pulling her against me, my hands grabbing her ass and squeezing it as hard as I can.

She returns the favor by sinking her teeth into my shoulder. The pain pisses me off, just a little, and I reach up and grab her by the hair, forcing her to the ground in front of Michael. I lay her on her back, her hair splayed out behind her head on the carpet. She giggles, and lazily looks over at him. Sinking to my knees next to her, I take one of her hands and direct it down her body, stopping between her thighs.

I lean in and mutter, “Play with yourself. Let us watch.”

“Oh? Is that what you want?” She slowly begins to caress herself, rubbing her clit with a delicate, slow intensity. “I don’t think he deserves to watch though…”

My hand joins hers, my middle and ring finger sliding into her while she begins working her hand faster.

“He doesn’t,” I state. “But let him see what he’ll never get to touch again.”

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