I have a job to do.
“Funny, I like the burn.”
The basement door creaked open, and the heavy cellar door dropped open. Then there was the sound of footsteps.
“Cry Baby! There you are! It’s been three days. You really did it this time.”
Melodie.
She stormed down the stairs, and her pretty face was twisted with fury like her curly pigtails. “You stupid little bastard!” She grabbed both sides of my face and shook me, straddling my body.
“What the hell were you thinking, going after that damn cop? I warned you!”
I blinked at her. I was so hungry that the rat carcasses were starting to smell appealing.
“You hear me?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I just smelled her spicy perfume.
She shook me again. “A cop, Cry Baby! A fucking cop!”
“I know what he is.”
Her palm cracked across my cheek, and I tasted the blood.
“You deserve this! So fucking smug. Why did you kill one of Natalie’s packages? She is so angry. I have been working that nerd for three months, by the way, and you just ruined it.”
“I deserve a lot of things,” I said simply, the exhaustion in my voice audible.
“You don’t chase cops!” she scolded me again.
“I wasn’t chasing?—”
“Don’t lie to me!”
She shoved me hard enough that the chains rattled and the resistance pulled on my collar. “You let him get inside your head, Cry Baby! Years of teaching you how to stay invisible, and you become obsessed with the one man guaranteed to destroy you!”
“I’m not obsessed.”
She laughed bitterly and raked her nails down my naked chest, drawing beads of blood. “You practically begged him to notice you by ripping away his fuck buddy!”
“He noticed, alright.”
“You’re impossible! Do you like Natalie using you like this? Starving, and shitting in a plastic bag for days on end? “ It’s like you miss this life.”
She shoved me again, and the bag she mentioned caught my attention.
Something inside me snapped.
I lunged at her throat.
The chain gave me just enough slack to reach the bag, and my hands wrapped it around her mouth before either of us realized I’d moved.
Her eyes widened in disbelief and terror.
“Wha—”
I squeezed harder, feeling her struggle on top of me. Her nails dug into my wrists, the bag popping from her nails. The smell hit me faster than the spewing vomit did.
