Page 8 of Kept

“But you? You’llneverforget.”

When the screaming and sizzling of skin peeling from flesh has faded into the cold, gray silence that death leaves behind, I step out of the shadows. Enzo whistles as he scrubs his hands under the faucet.

“Come to watch the show?” His words bounce off the stainless steel walls around us, walls that are currently smattered with red but soon to be cleaned off, ready for a new victim. “Maybe one of these days you’ll join in.”

“Perhaps.” We both know that I’ve been tempted. Some of the darkness Enzo faces… some would call him a vigilante. Others, a psychopath. Maybe both are true.

But it’s undeniably justice, too, for the women and girls who slip under the radar of the emergency services, too overworked and underpaid to overly care when women from the wrong side of town get hurt.

Sometimes the streets police themselves, one of my old, tired colleagues said to me once over a beer.

Maybe they do. And sometimes, we do it for them.

I watch the muscles in Enzo’s back ripple, the movement making the tattoos across his skin dance under the amber light from the single swinging lightbulb before my eyes move to the remains of what used to be Antonio.

All very dramatic.

I turn my gaze away. “Might have a new job.”

Enzo stills, and I can almost taste his interest in the air. He knows I wouldn’t bother coming down unless it was something where his particular skills could be of use.

I outline the brief Abby Millers’ father gave to me, and Enzo grunts, throwing down the cloth he’s using to wipe himself over. “Sounds pretty simple. Daughter runs off with loser boyfriend of her own free will and daddy doesn’t like it.”

I roll the words around my mouth before releasing them. Sometimes, I fucking hate the darkness of this world. “The last time he managed to track her down before they disappeared again, Sanderson had branded his name into her collarbone.”

Enzo pauses, his lips pursing. “Well.”

His interest is piqued. Job done, I open my phone and forward the email Millers sent after our discussion to both Enzo and Ryder. “Go through it. We’ll look at the plan tomorrow.”

He nods. His eyes aren’t on me though. They’re on the phone in my hand, and I close it off, turning the background image dark as I turn to go back upstairs. There’s plenty of security cameras in that part of town I can start with.

“Mav.” His voice stops me with one foot on the stairs. “You can’t save them all, brother.”

That’s why he spends his days here, slowly cleansing the city of the scum that dwells beneath it. Justice for the ones we were too late to save.

My grip tightens on the phone in my hand. Silently, I continue up the steps.

Tell me something I don’t know.

4 – Zella

I manage to lose a few hours, sinking yet again into Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet’s romance. My fingers only pause on the battered page when the light around me begins to dim, lazy afternoon settling into dusky evening.

Shifting to ease the tingling needles in the leg I’ve had tucked beneath me, I glance out of the window by habit, looking for any hint of the sun settling in for the night. But I never get to see the sun set. The apartment’s wall of windows stretches right across, but only on one side.

The sunrise is beautiful, though.

Stretching, I put the book away and double check through the apartment, stopping off in my bedroom. Assessing myself in the mirror, my fingers smooth down the non-existent crinkles in my dress, shaking out the sleeves, and I just have time to brush out my hair one more time before the elevator dings.

Sixty seconds.

That’s how much notice I get, every time Ethan makes his way up. When the doors slide open, I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Perfectly still, lined up alongside the statues, hands placed carefully in front of me.

I know the routine. Ethan has many littlequirks. His aversion to touch being one. Just once, I wouldn’t mind a hug, but I don’t remember him ever touching anything but my hair. And, of course, there’s his obsession with cleanliness.

Perfection, he calls it.

I glance around. Nothing is out of place, nothing that will make his face pull down into that particular frown that tells me how disappointed he is. I hate that frown.

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