Slow Agony (27 page)

We slept together on a narrow mattress in one of the rooms. There were no blankets or sheets in the rooms and the air conditioning was extremely cold. We huddled close for warmth, entwining our bodies, wrapping our limbs around each other.

We didn’t talk much, but we communicated with every touch, every brief kiss, every caress. After what had happened between us, there was now an undercurrent of tenderness in everything we did. We were both careful with each other.

The last thing I remembered before slipping into sleep was Griffin’s voice at my ear, whispering that he loved me.

“They can’t have gotten out. Both the doors are still locked.” Marcel’s voice boomed from the inside of Naomi’s house, floating through the open windows. “What are you telling me, they went down the drain or something?”

The response was too muffled to hear. Griffin and I were outside the house, hiding in the woods nearby. It was late morning.

“They can’t have gone far,” said Marcel. “The cars are still here. Check the woods.”

Griffin smiled at me. This was what he had hoped would happen. There were four guys besides Marcel in the house. If they were sent into the woods, we could surprise them, kill them, and get their guns.

That was about as much of a plan as we’d made that morning while stealing breakfast from the empty dining hall kitchen. At that point, we’d been so hungry that we weren’t picky about food. And the dining hall definitely wasn’t excellent cuisine.

But now our stomachs were full, and we were back for revenge.

We watched as two of the men came into the woods several feet away from us.

Griffin pointed. “Go that way, make a bunch of noise.”

“Really?” I said.

“Like it’s going to be hard for you,” he said. “You’re loud in the woods.”

I glared at him.

“Go already.”

I got up and started in the direction Griffin had pointed. I unintentionally made intensely loud thrashing noises. He was right, goddamn it. Why couldn’t I be quiet like he was?

“There!” yelled one of the men.

The crack of a gunshot.

A bright burst of pain in my ankle. I stumbled and fell, gritting my teeth at the pain.

They’d freaking shot me. Was this part of Griffin’s plan?

“Got her.” The two men ran towards me, making even more noise than I had.

I saw Griffin leap on one of the men, snapping his neck.

The man fell to the ground.

The other man turned, bewildered. Seeing the other guy dead beside him, he brandished his gun.

Griffin kicked it out of his hand. He tackled the man and knocked him onto his back.

Griffin crawled on top of him. “Get me his gun, doll.”

I started to crawl, but it hurt. “I’ve been shot, baby.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right.” He wrapped his hands around the man’s neck. “Better not to shoot you, anyway. Too noisy.” He squeezed.

The man’s eyes bulged.

“Do you think they’ve been given the serum?” I asked.

Griffin padded the guy down, finding a knife in his pants’ pocket. “Better cut their spines to be sure, huh?”

I cradled my wounded ankle in my hand while Griffin slashed the backs of their necks.

Then he came over to me. He knelt down and inspected the shot. It was bleeding pretty heavily.

“It went through and through,” Griffin said. “You’ll be fine. You’re going to heal up in a few minutes.”

“It hurts,” I said, sticking out my lower lip.

He drew me into his arms. “I’m sorry I got you shot, doll.”

I laid my head on his chest. “You better be sorry.”

He kissed the top of my head.

But he was right. I could already tell that it was healing.

“Hey!” yelled Marcel’s voice. “What the hell? I heard a shot out there. You hit anything?”

“False alarm,” called Griffin, changing his voice to sound more like the men’s. “We’re going deeper into the woods.”

“Motherfucker,” Marcel yelled back.

Griffin picked up the gun the man had dropped. “You take this. Think you can walk yet?”

I tested my weight against my ankle. I flinched. “Not yet.”

“Okay,” he said. He pointed. “You can see the porch from here?”

I nodded.

“One of the guys is going to walk around outside in a minute. You think you can hit him?”
“Um...” I wasn’t sure if I could. “If I don’t, does it ruin everything?”

“You can do it,” he said. “I watched you practice with Sloane. You got this. Just stay loose and remember to breathe, okay?” He kissed me on the forehead again. Then he picked up the other man’s gun and darted away.

I took several deep breaths, raising the gun and pretending to aim.

I heard Griffin’s voice. “Hey Mick.”

And, sure enough, a man walked around the porch, right into the spot Griffin said he would. “Who is that?”

I aimed at Mick, lining up his head in the crosshairs of my gun. I could do this. Okay. Relax. Stay loose. Breathe.

“It’s me,” said Griffin.

Um, maybe not his head. Maybe his torso. I realigned.

“What?” said Mick.

I pulled the trigger.

Mick yelled, his hand going to his neck.

The bullet had only grazed him. Dammit. I got to my feet, aiming the gun again. I
could
do this.

But Mick was getting out his own gun. “I see you, blondie.”

Fuck. He could see me? I lined up his torso again. I breathed. I eased my finger onto the trigger.

The shot rang out.

Mick’s body jerked. He felt forward, off the porch.

“Nice shot, doll.” Griffin dashed across the lawn, knife glinting. He knelt next to Mick, cutting at the back of his neck.

I crashed out of the woods to join him.

“What the hell is going on out there?” Marcel and the remaining man were coming out on the porch.

I stopped moving, took careful aim, and squeezed off two more shots.

Marcel and the man both stopped where they were, falling lifeless.

Holy crap. I’d just shot them both in the head.

Griffin raised his eyebrows at me. “Whoa. That was awesome.”

My mouth was wide open. “I don’t know how I did that.”

Chapter Fifteen

The other man was dead. I’d cut the back of his neck while Griffin tied up Marcel. We didn’t want Marcel dead yet.

That was why he was tied to the hook in the basement now, stretched out in front of us.

We were waiting for him to wake up.

Griffin had Marcel’s switchblade. He kept flipping the knife out, pushing it back in and then flipping it back out again.

I stood in front of Marcel, my arms crossed over my chest. I poked him. “Wake up.”

His eyes opened.

I turned to Griffin. “He’s awake, baby.”

Griffin’s lips curled into a smile. “Good.”

I had a knife too. I held it in Marcel’s face. “You’re wearing too many clothes.” I slit down the front of his white t-shirt, cutting it off of him.

“You letting blondie undress me, huh, Griffin?” said Marcel.

I stood up. I slashed Marcel’s throat. “You don’t get to talk.”

He gurgled. Blood gushed out of him. His eyes got big with pain. And then dull.

Griffin sighed. “Now, we’re going to have to wait for him to wake up again.”

“Oops,” I said.

Griffin was giggling. He was tossing a gun back and forth in front of Marcel’s face. Marcel was covered in blood. He’d healed, but that didn’t mean the blood went away. “It’s just too much fun watching you die.”
Marcel shut his eyes. “You might think you’ve won, Griffin, but the fact that I meant this much to you only proves—”

“Shut up.” Griffin jammed the gun in Marcel’s face. “Open your mouth.”

Marcel didn’t.

Griffin grabbed him by the back of the neck, forced his jaw open and shoved the gun into his mouth. “Suck it hard, you fuckwad.”

He pulled the trigger.

Blood spattered the concrete behind us.

“Did you know that Wolfman carved words on my body?” I ran the knife over the planes of Marcel’s stomach.

“He did like to do that.” Marcel’s voice was haggard. It was late afternoon. We’d been at it for a while.

“What do you think I should write on yours?” I whispered. I let the knife slice into his skin. “Wolfman wrote his name on me. Should I carve my name into you? You want to know what it’s like to be marked, Marcel?”

Marcel was screaming.

Griffin’s hands were at Marcel’s crotch. He had a knife. There was a lot of blood.

“You’re not going to grow another one of those,” Griffin hissed.

It was dark in the cellar. We had the overhead lights on. Marcel was still tied up, but now he was a bloody mess on the floor. His eyes were closed. He was curled up, wincing away from my foot as I kicked him.

“You killed Naomi,” I was screaming at him. “You shot Griffin’s mother. You killed my baby. You did unspeakable fucking things to Griffin.” I crunched the heel of my shoe into his nose. “There aren’t enough ways for you to die!”

He had stopped moving.

“Doll,” said Griffin, “I think you drove bone back back into his brain.”

“Oh,” I said. I looked at him. “Does that mean it’s going to take him a long time to heal?”

“Probably,” he said.

“Dammit,” I said.

“Please,” Marcel whispered.

Dawn was stealing into the sky.

The basement floor was drenched in blood. Some of it had dried stiff and brown. But some of it was still fresh.

It was all over me. On my hands, my clothes, my face. It smelled tangy and rusty.

“Finish it,” Marcel said. “Please finish it.”

Griffin was standing over him sneering. He had a foot on Marcel’s chest. “You have to do better than that. Beg me. Beg me to kill you.”

Marcel’s eyes were glassy and empty. “Please kill me. Please.” His voice had a tremor in it. He sounded like a little boy. It was hard to believe that the same man who’d taunted us just days ago could be so easily reduced to this—sniveling, pathetic, weak.

I laughed at him. “Who owns who, Marcel?”

“You own me,” he groaned. “I’m nothing. Please, for God’s sake, end it for good. I can’t take it anymore.”

Light from the window, from the early morning, illuminated Griffin.

He was spattered with blood, brandishing a long, wicked blade. He was smiling like a jackal.

I swallowed.

Suddenly, I felt sick.

“You do belong to me, Marcel,” Griffin said. “And if I want to play with you for longer—”

“No,” I said. “Just kill him.”

My stomach clenched on itself.

I ran up the steps, heaving.

I vomited on the porch, over the railing. The sun was coming up in the distance. The sky was splintered with beautiful streaks of purple and pink. I gazed at it, still feeling ill.

I looked at my red-stained hands.

I started to shake.

I stood there, watching the sun rise, trembling, clutching the railing so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

Eventually, I heard Griffin coming up the steps.

“Is it done?” I said, not looking at him.

He came up behind me, running his hands over my shoulders. “It’s done.”

Chapter Sixteen

But it wasn’t done, not really, because we had to bury the bodies. We found sheets in Naomi’s closet to wrap the bodies in. I was glad to wrap up Marcel. I didn’t want to look at him again. I didn’t want reminders of what we’d done to him. He looked small, somehow, lying on that sheet. He was a big, muscled man, but he was naked and bloody and dead, and he didn’t look particularly threatening anymore. Then there was the fact that we had to gather up the... pieces of him. We’d taken some fingers and a few toes. Of course, Griffin had cut off Marcel’s...

Well, there were pieces.

I thought maybe I’d cry or throw up again, but I didn’t. I kept it together. I felt numb and accepting of it. It was only the last in a string of horrors I’d gone through over the past month.

Griffin and I didn’t talk much while we were working, only conversing to give each other direction or to discuss the best way to accomplish a task.

He dug the mass grave. I dragged out the bodies, using the sheets as a makeshift sling. He buried the bodies. I used the hose and bleach to try to clean up the basement.

It didn’t work.

The blood had soaked into the concrete.

I got down on my hands and knees. Scrubbed at the floor with Comet.

The scarlet stains wouldn’t go away.

That was how Griffin found me. I was up to my elbows in cleaners and blood, scrubbing at the floor as hard as I could.

“Doll,” he said.

He was on the steps. I looked up at him. He was covered in dirt and blood. He looked like something from a horror movie, some monster that had crawled up from the ground to wreak vengeance. I felt sick again.

“You’re not going to be able to get it up,” he said.

I dropped the scrub brush I was using. It hit the floor with a clatter.

“If I were cleaning for Op Wraith, I’d probably paint over it,” he said. “Just hose it down and leave it.”

I stood up. My legs shook. Suddenly, I realized I was exhausted. We’d barely slept after escaping, and then we’d been up all night with Marcel. I was hungry too. I picked up the hose again. “You turn on the water for me?”

Griffin walked across the basement, his footsteps echoing through the room. He turned on the hose.

I washed all the bleach and Comet down the drain. It was tinged with pink.

The water turned off. “That’s good.”

I let the hose drop.

He was next to me again. He caressed my upper arm. “We need to get cleaned up.”

I shut my eyes.

His hand found mine. “Come on.” I let him lead me up the steps. When we got to the top, we closed the door on the basement. I never went down there again.

I kept turning the water in the shower hotter. I felt like I couldn’t get it hot enough. I wanted it so hot that it would scald off a layer of my skin, so that I could emerge from beneath it clean and pure, and that everything else that had happened would wash down the drain with Marcel’s blood.

If Griffin didn’t like the temperature, he didn’t complain. We were in the shower together, but it wasn’t particularly sexy. We were just scrubbing. Both of us. I think we each washed ourselves three times.