Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
HIM
We had a body to take care of, a bathroom that still resembled something out of an episode of CSI, and a duffle bag now full of stolen drugs. Meanwhile, Jules was acting like everything was peaches and fucking cream. Disassociating was a common coping mechanism and this girl was an expert at it.
I wasn’t half bad at it myself. I just wasn’t interested in spending the rest of my life in a jail cell to keep from dealing with my issues. Our issues? I guess they were our issues now, weren’t they?
I scratched my forehead with a knuckle. When the fuck did that happen? When did me become a fucking we?
Shortly after she became an accomplice to murder, most likely.
After changing into the clothes she’d brought back with her, which I had to admit I was grateful for, I found her humming to herself in the bedroom, bent over the mattress as she finished creasing the edges of the sheets.
I leaned against the doorframe and watched her for a moment. At the very least, she did seem lighter. Not exactly the reaction I expected when I’d admitted to offing her brother but it was nice to feel appreciated for once.
“Whatcha doin’?” I asked, pushing off the jamb and walking towards her.
“Changing the sheets,” she replied, glancing back at me over a shoulder. “I wanna try something.”
I paused in my tracks. “That so?” Last time she wanted to try something, I ended up almost killing her, and I realized I didn’t want to do that anymore. At least not to Jules.
She was one of the few people to not look at me like I was a monster. And the others? The only reason they didn’t look at me like that was because they were monsters too.
Maybe we could be platonic roommates or something.
“I want you to try having sex with me again.” She grinned, and my dick jumped in my sweats.
Okay, maybe platonic wasn’t the right word.
She inched forward to touch me, and I grabbed her wrist. Gently. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetheart.”
She looked down at where I was holding her, then back up at me. “Why not? Am I not… Are you not attracted to me?”
Fuck. Me. I wished that were the problem. Would have made this shit a hell of a lot easier.
I dropped her wrist and grabbed her face between my thumb and index finger.
Not so gently. Then I lowered my head to hers, brushing my lips over her mouth.
She smelled like clovers—a mix of vanilla and honey that was neither.
She also smelled like blood. But she wasn’t bleeding.
Not from anywhere I could see. And I’d showered twice since our…
situation in the living room. Which meant the odor wasn’t coming from me.
I pulled back and took a step so that I could look at her. All of her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
I leaned forward and sniffed at her again. Didn’t know if I was smelling things or if she could smell it too. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. Ignorance being bliss and all that shit people liked to say.
“Blood. I smell blood, Jules. You bleeding somewhere?”
Her cheeks turned a bright shade of red, not blood red, but close enough to it. “Ah, yeah. That’s why I wanted to try something.”
Look, I was a guy. A guy without much life skills outside the walls of a looney bin. A guy who hadn’t lived with a woman besides his mother—outside a brief stint in foster care—since I was eight. So it took longer than I’d like to admit for shit to click.
“You want me to fuck you on your period?” I wasn’t disgusted by the idea. Obviously a little (or a lotta) bit of blood didn’t bother me none. I was just trying to figure out where she was going with this.
She nodded once. “I took a beta blocker.”
I pointed to myself. “Not a real doctor, remember?”
“Right, okay.” She nodded again, dragging the chair out of the corner and into the middle of the room before gesturing for me to sit.
I plopped down, crossing an ankle over a knee as I watched her climb onto the bed to position herself in front of me.
“Beta blockers lower blood pressure. For someone with normal ranges—someone like me—they can have a stronger sedating effect. Less pressure on the heart means less chance of bleeding out… you know, if I should accidentally get cut or something. But it also dehydrates you,” she explained.
Though honestly she wasn’t explaining much of anything to me.
“Menstrual fluid is very… um, lubricating.”
I dragged the chair forward a few more inches. “Still feel like I’m missing something, sweetheart?”
“Another few minutes and I won’t be able to fight the fatigue anymore.
” She scooted herself towards the middle of the bed, crossing her hands over her lower abdomen while staring at the ceiling.
“My heart rate will get so low it’ll be like I’m almost dead,” she told me, her voice already sounding heavier than usual.
“What the fuck?” I jumped off the chair to lean over her, straddling her waist on the mattress while bracing most of my weight on my thighs instead of her lower body. “This your way of trying to off yourself again?”
She shook her head, staring up at me with those eyes—eyes I couldn’t fucking resist, no matter how hard I tried—her chest barely moving anymore. But it was still moving.
“What if you don’t wake up?” I asked her. I didn’t even know if she could hear me or if she was too far gone already.
“There’s an EpiPen in the nightstand,” she whispered. “If I don’t wake up on my own, use it. Won’t be as effective but should be enough of a jolt to make sure I’m breathing. If that doesn’t work, use my phone to Google how to perform CPR.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I glanced from her face to the nightstand. “You want me to fucking Google CPR?”
This time, she didn’t answer.