When I close her door, the broken chain swings once and goes still.
I don’t know where I’m going, and I don’t care.
As long as it’s away.
And maybe, justmaybe, if I keep driving long enough, I’ll find that ghost who doesn’t mind the company.
A man can wish, right?
It takes about an hour after orgasm for my full strength to return.
Cassian stays outside the bathroom door while I shower, giving me a rare sliver of time to myself. Water thunders over me like it’s trying to rinse off the last decade. I let it. I scrub and soap and steam myself raw until my skin turns pink and new, until every inch of me sings.
By the time I step out, I feel brand new.
No. Better.
I feel reborn.
Psyche and all.
There’s no shame, no ache, no echo of Mark left in my body. Everything he ever touched has been overwritten, sanded down, burned out, and rewritten by the hands of three monsters I somehow now call mine.
Is this what balancing karma feels like?
Because I swear to god, I’m light as a freaking feather. Light like a gust of breeze that forgot it's supposed to push things over, not giggle while it floats.
I wrap myself in a plain white towel. My skin is still damp and glowing. I squeeze my boobs together so they’re plump and glistening like twin resurrection peaches.
Did I just leave my own personal spa, or what?
Cassian glances up from where he’s leaning against the wall.
“You know what?” I say, grinning as I strike a little pose. “We should do this more often. I think I finally get it. What gets you guys off in punishing murderers, I mean. It’s like it adds glitter to the world.”
He snorts. It’s one of those reluctant snorts. The kind gruff men make when they have been won over against their will. Full of gravel and quiet affection.
Yup. I am all the way under that turtle shell armor of his.
A scream rips up from the basement below. It’s high, wet, and desperate.
“Mark is still getting it, I see,” I say.
“Hope they give him hell,” Cassian says. “When they are done, it is my turn.”
“What, you taking it on yourself to land the finishing blow?” I tease. That’s such a manly-man kind of thing to do: starting only after everyone else is satisfied. I don’t know, it turns me on. It’s not like hehasto do it. Besides, in his experience, Mark’s a mellow killer in Cassian’s catalog of horrors, but Cassian wants to punish him anyway.
For me.
He looks at me. “Something like that.”
I grin at the thought and then, because I’m gleeful and a little unhinged tonight, I decide we’ll throw a party.
When someone’s being tortured in your cellar, the polite thing to do is be quiet. Slip away, pretend nothing’s happening. Only if they deserve it, of course. I’d never turn a blind eye to anactualcrime. But this isn’t about politeness. I want the world to know how small Mark’s screams sound against my life now. I wanthim to hear my laughter. I want the normal people in the city to hear music drifting from the abandoned hospital and picture nothing more ominous than rowdy kids with a speaker. Let the contrast bruise him further.
“Cass,” I say, drying a stray curl against my shoulder, “do you guys have a speaker? Something loud. A record player? We need music. For ambience.”
Cassian’s brow tightens. “We don’t stream. It’s too traceable.”
