The smell is sickening. Overwhelming.
Even with the fans whirring, it lingers in the air. She must have been in here for a day, maybe longer. I don’t want to think of how long. The room is warm, far hotter than the chill air outside or the temperate climate in the main house.
The heat hasn’t been kind.
I close my eyes and replay the image, making sure I have everything that Em could want to know.
About the state of the body. Not what led to this.
What caused it is the thick marble cone tossed in the bathtub. The other missing piece being the dead man now lying beyond the door.
I can’t stay. My stomach will revolt even if my eyes kept the peace for Em’s sake. I fumble behind me for the door handle, missing it once when my sweaty palm slides off it.
Then Stefan’s there, pulling me outside and closing the door. “You need to hurry. The sooner I stage this scene, the sooner we’ll be out of the firing line.”
“Why did you—?” His glare means I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t ask him why he bought my girlfriend here and tried to toss her to the wolf.
He’s my boss, not a friend. Not a colleague, even. My superior. Every inch of his face is putting me in my place right now.
He placed us in the middle of this mess, but I can’t ask him. I need to stop aligning with people who hold more power than me. Especially when my associations now spill over to affect Em.
She helps me, bowing under my weight as I stagger off course, my muscles refusing to do the simple tasks I ask of them.
Finally, we reach the car, my mother’s anxious face collapsing into shock as she bursts from the driver’s seat to help Em steer me to the safety of the back seat.
I thought I was a hero, coming to save her. Instead, she saved me.
I guess that makes us even.
Her arms close around me as we drive away from the scene, too many thoughts to process easily, except the relief of being together. Of having fought our way through a valley of fire and escaped out the other side, a little crispy but otherwise unscathed.
The swirl of colours spills from her skin, staining me until I can barely stand to keep my eyes open, they’re so bright.
She saved my life.
I smile with the realisation that I now belong to her as much as she belongs to me.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
EM
I creep out of Caylon’s bedroom when his steady breathing assures me he’s fallen asleep. I wish I could trust myself to do the same, but I can’t stand to close my eyes; each time I do, a thousand awful sights are there to assail me.
Caylon’s mother, Effie, sits in the lounge, the television playing out some dimly lit horror movie while the sound is turned off. I can’t decide if that makes it more disturbing or less. Figures jump at a noise I can’t hear, screaming, their faces contorted, but with no words.
“We can watch something else if you like,” she immediately offers, patting the seat next to her. “I don’t mind. I just need something for my eyes to do and they’re nowhere near ready to go to sleep.”
“It’s fine.” I sit, perching on the edge of the sofa cushion, aware that I’m intruding into her house. A stranger responsible for the beaten state of her only son.
I’d offer to leave but there’s nowhere to go. I can’t imagine returning home, inhabiting the space without my mother there. To have her scent, her taste, her attempts to turn a concrete tomb into a home all around me but have the central figure missing.
A sob clogs my throat, choking me. I gasp, my fingers clutching at the couch cushion, the threat of tears stinging my nose.
“Gummy worm?”
One of the brightly coloured lollies is thrust in my face and I take it before thinking, eating what pretty much amounts to pure sugar for the first time in years. A thousand women’s magazine warnings sound dully in my head.
“They’re officially protein,” Effie says, wrinkling her nose. “That’s what I tell myself. Nice, natural protein that doesn’t use exhaustive farming methods to produce.”
