I smiled at her wit. “Yes, dear. Of course. But see, I won.”
Carmen didn’t fight me anymore. She just watched my come paint her body, melding the blood with the thick liquid of my release.
She didn’t move off the cot when I got off of her to grab the scissors from her station.
It wasn’t until I sat on her chest and snapped on gloves that she suddenly got chatty.
“Wh-what are you doing, Carrington? Haven’t you and your monster friends done enough to me…please. Just go.”
“Carmen, really?” I grinned at her, pulling her wrists up to her face. “Are you going to act like you don’t enjoy the burn that the cut elicits? This is downright euphoric for you, darling. Not only did you get an orgasm, but now you get the best burn of all.”
Tears fell from her pale face as she tried to swallow and spit blood from her mouth.
“Now, show me that pretty neck of yours, and I will make it quick. It’s my gift to you for being the best present I could offer to the one I love. He needs to see who he is, and you, my darling, are just the beginning of making that happen.”
“I don’t w-wanna die,” she sobbed, bringing her hands to her face as I arranged a tarp of her hair supplies around her body.
“Oh? You’d prefer to be broken and battered by Tyler for the rest of your years? Or perhaps even your parents, when they stop bleeding you dry of the money you earned. There is no freedom for you, Carmen. There is only death. Embrace the darkness, or you will drown in your illusion of the light.”
“You’re wrong,” she said stubbornly, even as I got on top of her body and held her head steady for the sharp point of the scissors. “There’s always room for light in the dark. One can’t exist without the other.”
I took no joy in watching her blood spill. Didn’t feel hard at the warmth of the blood coating the nylon. Her gasp at the end didn’t feel like a high racing through me. This felt almost tainting.
Her words bounced around in my head until I physically couldn’t handle it. I vomited in the bathroom. My cleaning job was anything but perfect. There was no peace. Not ritual or habit.
Because she was right.
Darkness can’t exist without light.
I couldn’t stomach the sight of her open corpse for long. I dragged her out the back, discreetly and quietly making my way back to the trail where this all began.
The woods offered the private things I needed, the memories I needed to erase and replace. The same trees where another night had meant something to him, the same dark that nearly saw him crack.
I left her there, buried by the tree, her blood painting the bark in a message of my own. I didn’t look back when I finished. I had spent hours perfecting and cleaning, doing my job the best I had ever done before.
This had to be perfect.
The way the world closed its eyes after you crossed a line was strange. The leaves seemed to mutter, and the town’s distant lights blinked like indifferent witnesses as I walked back to my car. The blood was washed away, but I could feel its slick texture coating my skin. I could feel her come harden and flake on my dick.
For a while, I thought it would calm me to know I had completed this mission. Knowing he would see the mistake he made and be forced to own up to it. But nothing I did made me feel complete. It didn’t matter.
The lack of sound where there had once been noise from the bar echoed. I replayed the scene the way men replay fights on television, overconsuming, turning every move into a justification.
I needed her death. He touched her. She’d been a placeholder if anything. She’d reminded me that Shiloh had been somewhere else. A fact that he could break with the right amount of pressure. I told myself I’d made the reminder disappear forever, and yet the relief tasted like iron.
The truth was. Her death didn’t bring me anything but a hollow emptiness. It made the pain greater, it ripped me raw inside, and left me more exposed.
All I could do was sit at the bar. Watching her stool, hearing her soft laughter, and realizing I wouldn’t hear it again.
Darkness and light needed each other. Without both, they didn’t exist
How long would I exist in this world without Shiloh to anchor me?
How long before I disappear into the void I have created for myself?
“Ineed space.”
The lie rolled off my tongue easily, smoother than it should have. The look in Xanthy’s eyes when I said it nearly made me choke on my guilt. She’d asked me again this morning, like she’d been rehearsing it all night in her head, if I’d go with her to that stupid fucking wedding.
