Screwing my eyes shut, I fight for a breath. If nothing else, I’m not going out with his bug eyes staring into my soul. Some of the freaks get off on that.
Panic rises, bubbling higher with each passing second.
Heat hits my face, followed by a strange gurgling sound. Like the noise the sink makes when I scrape the food debris out to unblock it. I peek enough to see Graham’s throat gaping like the maw of a dying fish. The gurgling doesn’t come from his mouth; it comes in bloody spurts from the new orifice on his neck.
Confusion fills me.
Then a pretty redhead peeks over Graham’s shoulder.
‘Hey Mags! Looks like you could use some help.’Eliza’s face beams like sunshine, a chirpy smile belying the man who slumps between us.
Graham’s body slides down mine, desperate gasps coming from his gushing throat as I recoil in horror. Who knew that a splayed neck turns a man into a human fountain, spurting blood instead of water?
‘Oh, my god.’ A shudder tears through me, and I step out from his clutches, my throat still burning where he’d gripped it only a few moments before.
‘That was…’ Eliza’s voice trails off as she kicks Graham onto his back, a pool of red slowly forming around his head. The thick, red ooze reminds me of the delicious strawberry tarts Granny used to feed us every Sunday.
God. I’ll never be able to eat them again after this. Trust this disgusting man to ruin a favourite treat of mine. The tarts from the patisserie down the street from my London flat weren’t a patch on Granny’s, but I’d miss them nonetheless.
‘Terrible,’ I mutter, answering the sentence she left hanging in the death-stained alley.
‘Truly bloody awful. Mags, you know I love you, but what the hell was that?’
‘I don’t need to be graded. I know I messed it up.’ The familiar pit of disappointment opens in my chest, like a vacuum that sucks in joy and replaces it with negativity.
‘You’d get an F, for sure. Thank god I was in town and thought I’d come see you tonight.’ Eliza surveys thesurrounding scene, stooping to wipe her scarlet-tainted knife on Graham’s black jeans.
‘Did you follow me?’
With a roll of her eyes, she laughs. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist. It’s a good thing I did, or you’d be as dead as this knob.’
Opening her bag, she pulls out a pack of wipes, carefully erasing all traces of blood from her blade.
‘Shouldn’t we get out of here?’ I ask as fear takes a firm hold of me, turning my legs into a wobbly mess. A sound at the end of the alley has me near soiling my knickers, only to see a fat little rat scurry across the path.
‘Well, ideally yes. But what do we do first?’ It’s a good thing she’s just saved my life, because I want to kick her with the patronising tone she speaks in.
With a sigh, I parrot the line our father told us time and time again. ‘Clean up your mess.’
‘And what a messy scene we have. The wound on his neck shouldn’t give much away with the size of it, only that it’s not a serrated blade. He didn’t kiss you, or anything, so the DNA transfer should be minimal. Maybe some hair, and traces of skin under his nails. And the sodding great chunk of face you bit out.’
Her calm demeanour never fails to enrapture me. Eliza has just killed a man without the slightest ruffling of her feathers. Just wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Yes, he is… or was… a douchebag of the highest order, but still.Nothing?
She hums as she pulls a pair of snips from her bag,and I need to steady myself against the wall for what I know is coming.
‘They’ll know who he is, do we really need to—’ My words are cut off by the terrible crunching of sinew and bone as she removes the first finger tip. Stinging vomit creeps into my throat, and I cover my mouth, fighting it back down. If I throw up, Eliza will be raging. Vomiting at the scene is an absolute no. Contract killer 101. Which I fail at every possible juncture. Hell, I tried to make myself vomit on purpose when Graham had me pinned. Albeit, leaving evidence is less tricky when you’re the potential victim.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she grunts, it taking considerable force to lop through his bigger fingers. ‘If you throw up, I swear to god I will make you pay for it. Take a breather.’
Moving away from the grisly scene, I fight for breath, the absolute insanity of what has just transpired hitting me.
I failed.
I tried to kill a man, and I failed miserably.
And my sweet, efficient younger sister saved me.
What an absolute letdown. Maybe she would let me claim it as my first?
