A body—or what’s left of it—lies on the ground in a puddle of blood. Most of its skin is missing. Eyes next to it on the ground. Scalp ripped off, and the limbs look like they have been chewed off.
I have seen many things. Many. But this is too much.
The eyes!
I glance at Doug.
He shrugs.
“Who was that?” I ask her as my stomach isabout to turn.
“Who?” she asks.
“The body?” I ask a point at the mess that once was a human being.
“Oh, he,” she says and laughs. “The man I met with.”
How can a person forget and not see a dead person?I ask myself, and shake my head in disbelief as I ask her, “And why is he—” I stop myself. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Oh, well, he was the one who had the data from Sutton’s system, the data regarding you. I deleted it, and well, him in the process,” she says casually as if we were talking about tomorrow's weather, and adds, “Don’t worry, I’ll clean that up.”
“You killed him because he had incriminating material on me?”
“Yes,” she said. “And well, because he was the Lords’ broker. He took the revenge on Sutton from me, and I needed an outlet.”
“Stop killing people for me,” I snap at her and add, “While I find your possessiveness admirable, I don’t like the idea of having a—” It takes me a moment to get the word over my lips— “Girlfriend that murders everyone left and right.”
She hums.
“You said the G-Word,” she says and smiles broadly.
“Apparently, I did,” I say through gritted teeth.
“Now I have to kill everyone who touches you,” she says, and I snap.
I box her in the shoulder.
Fundamentally stupid idea, because the moment my fists meet her shoulder, my chest roars in pain.
“Idiot!” I curse at myself as I gasp through the pain.
“Don’t talk to yourself like that,” she says, and I mouth words like a sassy teenager. That’s what she does to me. Making me lose myself.
“Here,” she says and opens the door to a small elevator. “Get in there.”
I do not want to get in there. I hate elevators. They’re the pest.
“What is it?” Kat asks as I stand in front of it.
“I—“ I begin, but my voice turns silent. She cannot know of my fear. She cannot know that my father locked me in the elevator many times as a child whenever I showed an emotion too much for his taste.
“Give me your hand,” she says, and I do. “Just focus on my touch,” she says as she pulls me close, with my back into her arms.
We all squeeze into the metal-caged elevator, and my heart stumbles. She uses a pin pad to enter a number.
“129129114,” she says, and I roll my eyes, because I know what it spells.
“My name in numbers,” I say.
