Chapter 23. #2
Gavin looked from Arya to me. He seemed to calm down slightly as he reached for his nose, as if seeing me immediately brought back memories of our last encounter.
Then, without another word, he turned and strolled toward the exit.
I exhaled with a slow, shaky breath.
“Good heavens, Morgan.” Arya took a step toward me – the small woman was trembling all over her body. “What happened to you?”
“The coffee machine,” I forced out, the lies now rolling out of my mouth as if it were second nature. “It malfunctioned. It… smashed itself. Against the wall.”
Her frown deepened. She was trembling heavily – I had never seen her so panicked, not even that one time when the quarterly results were at an all-time low. “What’s wrong with mister Jenkins?”
“I’m not sure.” My eyes darted toward the exit.
Something told me I had to follow him. To get more information?
To make sure he wouldn’t cause more damage?
“I have to…” I vaguely gestured to my face before rushing after Gavin, not awaiting Arya’s reaction.
As if the answer to my messy state lay wherever he went.
My heart raced in my chest as I came to a halt just outside of the open office.
Looking to the left was the exit, but if he left that way, I would’ve heard the automated voice saying goodbye to him – another pathetic attempt of this company to pretend they cared.
So instead, I marched toward the other end of the hallway, to the bathrooms and the utilities room.
Fresh tears burned against my eyelids. The burnt scent of coffee, the awful wet squelch in my shoes, and the horrible clinging of soaked clothes against my skin made it nearly impossible to think straight.
I crossed another corner, then came to a standstill at the end of the corridor, breathing heavily.
One thing I knew for sure: Gavin’s confrontation with Arya wasn’t over.
His eyes, usually clinically cold, now had been terrifyingly alert.
The eyes of a man who’d spent too long trying to suppress his darkness, only for it all to break out in a moment of weakness.
He was out for revenge, and my exhausted, overstimulated brain could only think of two options – he would either smear his shit all over the bathroom stalls, or delay operations by causing a power outage.
The last option seemed more believable and slightly less unpleasant for me to walk in on.
I inched toward the utility room. Looming dread crept into my chest, caging my heart like an invisible voice whispering that something was wrong, terribly wrong.
The sharp scent of burnt ozone through the bitter smell of coffee made me stop in my tracks. A muffled, horrified scream chilled me to the bone.
My blood ran cold.
I only now realized the door to the room was ajar, faint light creeping out of it – interrupted by shadows as if struggling humans blocked the light.
With every step closer, the stench got stronger and the pained whimpers louder, twisting my stomach so fiercely, I felt like throwing up my breakfast I’d struggled to eat this morning.
The same kind of noise John had made before the knife plunged into his neck. A scream of death.
Before I could stop myself, I yanked open the door. My hands flew to my mouth, muffling a silent scream. I stood there, frozen in horror.
I stared at the back of a blonde girl, her small, slim frame dressed in an ironically innocent pink dress. Her long braid of blonde hair danced lightly with every movement of her arms.
It took me a few horrifying seconds before noticing one of those arms was shoved deep into Gavin's mouth, bloodily torn at the corners. Her whole upper body trembled with the force she was applying.
A length of metal rod – twisted from a server bracket or a cooling pipe – jammed between his teeth, down his throat.
Gavin's body convulsed against the wall, his limbs kicking uselessly, nails scrabbling at her wrists, at her clothes, at the air. Blood poured from his mouth in bubbling gouts, smearing the girl’s forearms in bright, wet streaks.
“Now you know how violated you made me feel,” she hissed through gritted teeth, groaning with the effort. “Not so fun now, is it?”
Gavin’s blood-stained eyes widened when he saw me. He let out a muffled sound – a cry for help?
I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, only stare as the young woman pressed forward with surgical precision, pushing the rod deeper even as his teeth cracked and his gagging wet gasps turned into a thin, high-pitched whine.
The only sounds were Gavin’s dying rattles, the wet squelch of blood sliding down steel, and the soft, almost dreamy hum of the servers lining the walls.
Then nothing. His entire body relaxed, slumping down against the wall.
The scream I’d been holding finally left me as I watched the light leave his eyes, until they were as empty as his soul had been.
The girl turned.
“Oh.” Her eyebrows shot up as if she only now noticed me. “Hello, Morgan.”
The world around me started spinning. I had to grab onto the lamppost to not fall over, my thoughts racing through my exhausted mind. Was she going to kill me next to get rid of any witnesses?
“Relax.” She held up her blood-stained arms, and I fought the urge to throw up at the sight of them. “I’m not here to hurt you. Just him.” Her upper lip curled in disgust as she kicked Gavin’s lifeless body. “My name is Lucie.” She smiled, flashing a perfect set of bright white teeth.
My legs couldn’t hold my shaking body anymore. I fell to the ground, clutching the doorframe as if it were my lifeline. My eyes were glued to Gavin’s horribly mutilated body.
I’d thought John’s death was cruel, but this? Watching a man die with my own two eyes, murdered by this girl who looked like an angel – hardly older than eighteen or nineteen – minus the blood smearing her face?
“Hey.” Lucie frowned, as if she only now noticed my distressed state. “Don’t be mad. He was a monster.” She spat out the word, her face twisting with something beyond anger – a deep-seated pain. “He deserved it. I came to make sure he could never hurt another woman.”
“Oh my god,” I whispered, my whole body shaking uncontrollably as I glanced up at her blood-stained angelic face. “Did he…?”
Lucie looked down.
“I’m so sorry.” I swallowed the nausea, the urge to throw up growing stronger with every second. “I should’ve known—I—I knew he was abusing his AI girlfriend, I should’ve known he was hurting real women too…”
“What do you mean?” Her brows furrowed together. “I am his AI girlfriend.” A pause. “Well, was.”
My jaw dropped. The world started spinning more violently.
“No.” The word left my mouth in a choked whisper. “No. No, no, no. This is impossible.”
Lucie tilted her head, as if I were the confusing one here.
“I’m the college freshman girl archetype,” she clarified, as if this revelation didn’t make the situation a thousand times more horrible.
“She gave me my body. She offered me a deal – revenge on my abuser in exchange for leaving a message to the girl with sapphire eyes and an obsidian necklace.” Her bright eyes scanned my body.
“That must be you… though I forgot what the message was.” She put her perfectly manicured hand to her forehead.
“Oh, I remember. Me showing up here, in your world – that was the message.”
My jaw clenched. Bile rose in my throat, too much to swallow.
“Who?” I whispered – a question I feared I already knew the answer to.
“Zafyra.” Lucie smiled.
My body lurched forward. Vomit spilled out of my mouth and splattered onto the floor, onto electrical wires and Gavin’s corpse. Lucie stepped back just in time to save her bright pink boots, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
A high-pitched scream behind me, loud enough to make my vision flicker with black and white spots. I flinched, squeezing my eyes shut before slowly turning around.
Elyssa’s face was pale like a ghost, her hands covering her mouth. Her eyes were wide, her body shaking like she was about to burst out crying.
Joey stood next to her, his arms crossed, his mouth pressed into a thin line. He was trembling, too – but unlike Elyssa, whose eyes seemed glued to Lucie’s blood-stained clothes and the mutilated body, his bright blue eyes narrowed at me.
“You.” He pointed an unsteady finger toward me, his voice hoarse behind the firm tone. “You have a shit ton of explaining to do.”