Remember.
There was something about that word. Something just out of reach.
My hands were sticky. Why were my hands sticky?
I blinked, once, twice. Winder stood in front of me, gripping my shoulders like I was the only thing keeping him upright. “Winder.”
He smiled, a soft, broken thing. “Yeah, baby.”
That smile told me I had been dreaming, and not the good kind of dream. I tore my gaze away from his eyes, looking down at my sticky hands, at the blood that covered them.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Here was the truth, laid out for me without any drugs to numb the pain.
This was real. I had made someone bleed.
And all those times before, I had made someone bleed, too. I had killed them.
“Oh.” My voice was quiet, too quiet for my liking, and my breath was coming too quick.
“It’s okay. Breathe for me. Just focus on your breathing.” Winder rubbed my shoulders, and I clung to the sensation, closing my eyes. “None of this changes anything. None of it. I am still in your corner. I’m still here.”
Whoever I hurt was still in the room, and Winder was trying to distract me from it. I could only hide from the truth for so long, before it came back to haunt me. I opened my eyes and pulled out his grasp.
Leon was slumped in the bathtub, surrounded by a puddle of his blood.
“Oh,” I repeated. While the unsettled sensation of acknowledging I was a murderer sat in my stomach like a ton of bricks, I didn’t feel sad for Leon.
If he knew who I was, and Winder was nervous about this Conrad person, Leon was a liability. But logic didn’t make the emotions disappear.
I slumped to the floor, the tile cold against my bare legs. A slash of blood covered my thigh, what looked like a smeared handprint. Leon must have tried to fight back.Shit.
The worst part was having no recollection of doing it. Zero. I went to bed at night, and woke up someone else, with someone else’s memories.
“Fuck. Fuck!” I wailed, pulling at my hair.
“Give me the knife,” Winder demanded, slamming the door behind him.
“Why?” I looked up at him from the floor, desperate for him to tell me I was dreaming.
“First, so you don’t hurt yourself. Second, because he’s still alive. And unless you want someone else to find him like this, I have to finish the job.” Winder held his hand out. “Knife, Blaire.”
He was going to finish killing someone for me. He was about to involve himself in a situation he didn’t need to, and puthimself in danger forme. I shook my head, getting to my knees. “I’ll do it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not going to let you do it. Let me do it for you.”
I glared, trying to get a grasp on my breathing so I could get to my feet. “Stop trying to fucking protect me, Winder. You can’t save me from this. You can’t protect me from myself.”
Ignoring his hand, I stood, a bit wobbly. Winder sighed and shrugged, and I pushed past him to Leon, still sprawled in the bathtub.
My grip on the knife was so tight it hurt, as I watched the light slowly fading from my victim’s predatory eyes. Winder was right. He was close to death, but not close enough not to be a liability. My hand shook as I raised it. I closed my eyes, trying to call to that part of myself I kept so hidden, the part I tried so hard to ignore.
Right as I brought my hand down, Winder grabbed my wrist.
His voice was quiet in my ear, sending a shiver through my body. “I can’t protect you from everything, no. I couldn’t protect you in the past. But I can do this for you. Let me carry some of the weight.”
I let him take the knife from me, let him turn me away from the scene. It didn’t stop me from hearing the knife sink into Leon’s flesh, though, and it didn’t stop me from hearing that last desperate gasp for air.
I did this.
