Chapter 7
Kota woke up alone.
There was no purr of an engine, no motion from the rig itself, just the low hum of the AC. Kota flushed when he realized he was still naked, the blanket tangled around his legs, leaving much of him exposed. The shades were still pulled, so it was impossible to know if it was day or night.
For a second, panic flared in his chest. Then he caught the faint scent of Walker lingering on the pillow beside him and the feeling dissipated just as quickly.
It had to be daylight by now. He had a vague recollection of the rig in motion, but thought he’d dreamed it.
He detangled himself, then searched through drawers until he found shorts and a shirt that weren’t falling off him.
He shoved his feet into flip-flops that felt like clown shoes on his smaller feet.
The shirt smelled faintly like laundry detergent and truck cab, which shouldn’t have been comforting but was.
He patted Cake on his way out the door, earning a trill of acknowledgement before she returned to her nap. What a hard life she lived. Eat. Nap. Judge people. Repeat.
Kota was jealous. She was living his best life. What would life be like as Walker’s forever passenger princess?
He pushed the door open and winced as sunlight pierced his eye sockets like tiny knives. He blinked, trying to disperse the sparks blinding him, then jumped down to the ground, the rubber on his sandals making a thwacking sound in the eerie silence outside.
He studied his surroundings. They were in a clearing that looked like it would be swallowed by the surrounding woods at any moment. The truck was parked in front of a small cabin and an old barn that looked seconds away from collapse.
The cabin leaned slightly to one side, the porch sagging beneath the weight of time and neglect.
How had they even gotten there? His eyes landed on a narrow path that was essentially just two dirt tracks worn into the earth by tires over time.
Had Walker really managed to get his rig all the way down that path?
Obviously.
That shouldn’t have been as hot as it was.
Kota definitely had a crush. Of course, he did.
Only he would fall for a murderer in less than forty-eight hours.
At this point, he was starting to suspect his survival instincts were mostly decorative.
He’d never met a bad decision he didn’t immediately jump on.
He started walking towards the small cabin when he heard an odd noise coming from the dilapidated barn. The sound was metallic and rhythmic. Heavy. Deliberate.
He walked slowly towards the slightly gaping door, feeling like the final girl in a horror movie. The kind who definitely should not investigate the creepy noise, but did anyway, because otherwise there wouldn’t be a third act.
Inside, Walker stood, wearing a thin papery blue jumpsuit that covered him from head to toe, yellow rubber gloves that went to his elbows, and goggles that kind of made him look like a minion…but, like, a sexy one. Kota might have thought it funny had he not also been holding an electric saw.
If Walker saw him, he didn’t acknowledge him.
Kota leaned against the door as the saw in Walker’s hand roared to life, coming down on the shoulder joint of the man who’d tried to use those arms to kill Kota hours ago.
The sound ripped through Kota’s spine, reminding him of the sound a knife made cutting through frozen chicken—this nauseating “shuck” noise. It set his teeth on edge, but not nearly as much as watching the man’s severed arm fall onto the plastic tarp beneath the table.
The arm landed with a heavy thud. Kota immediately regretted having eyes.
“Oh, God,” Kota said, gaze wide, stomach churning as the saw quieted. “That’s… Oh, wow.”
His brain seemed unable to decide if this was horrifying, fascinating, or weirdly domestic.
Sure, Walker was dismembering a body, but he was, like, really good at it.
There wasn’t much Walker wasn’t good at.
He could kill, he could drive that huge truck, he fucked like a porn star… Maybe Kota just had a competency kink.
Walker set the saw down beside the frozen, bluish-purple corpse, then set the arm on parchment paper, winding it around the limb, then tying it off with twine, like they weren’t in a barn but a butcher shop. His movements were efficient. Practiced. Almost gentle.
Only then did he acknowledge Kota, his smile dazzling.
“Hey, squirrel. How’d you sleep?” he asked pleasantly, crossing the room to Kota, packaged arm in hand.
For a second, Kota worried he might hand it to him. Instead, Walker slapped a kiss on his forehead, chuckling as he took him in. “You look like you lost a fight with your sleep paralysis demon.”
Kota glowered at him, trying to push down the hair he could feel standing up all over his head, skin still tingling where Walker had kissed him.
A normal person probably wouldn’t get butterflies because a man interrupted dismembering a corpse to kiss their forehead. Kota had long accepted that he was not a normal person.
“We need to stop on the way to The Morgue and get you some clothes that fit. People are gonna think I don’t know how to take care of you.”
“What were you—” Kota began, then stopped short.
What was he about to say? Was he going to ask what he was doing? It was pretty obvious.
Early’s head was missing from his body, as was his other arm and one foot. Shapes vaguely resembling said body parts sat neatly wrapped like Christmas presents on a separate steel table.
The sight should have been horrifying. Instead, his brain kept circling back to “take care of you” like a dog worrying a bone.
He glanced around the barn to distract himself from his impending downward spiral.
It was less a barn and more a slaughterhouse.
The floor wasn’t dirt but cement, with a drain in the center.
On the wall, there were plastic coveralls, goggles, something that looked like a gas mask, and industrial size rolls of plastic sheeting.
Hoses hung from the ceiling like snakes, with strange attachments Kota didn’t recognize.
It was a disposal site. His brain wasn’t nearly as horrified as it should have been. It was still caught on Walker’s casual mention of taking care of him. Of Kota.
His heart leapt into his throat.
Did Walker want to take care of Kota? Did he plan on taking care of him? Did Walker actually want that or did he just feel obligated? Did Kota want that?
The answer to that last question arrived a little too quickly.
Had he finally found someone even crazier than himself? He didn’t dare hope that was true. But he also really hoped it was.
Kota stayed rooted to the spot as Walker returned to the corpse.
“How many of these do you have?” he asked.
“Dead bodies?” Walker teased, adding the arm to his stack of presents.
Kota hated that he found the joke funny.
“Slaughterhouses,” he clarified, stomach churning.
Walker shook his head. “Oh, this isn’t mine. I’m not Israel Keyes. It belongs to the game. They have them all over the world.”
“Oh,” was all Kota managed.
That somehow felt worse.
And who was Israel Keyes? Was he a friend of Walker’s? Another killer? An ex?
Walker fired up the saw once more, dragging him from his thoughts. He stopped when he noticed Kota staring.
“I’ll be finished here shortly, then we can get on the road.
Why don’t you go play with Cake or find something to watch on my laptop.
These places all have surprisingly solid wifi,” Walker said, like there wasn’t a corpse in front of him.
“My laptop password is carrot cake spelled backwards, all lower case.”
Kota snorted. Of course, it was.
“The wifi password should be taped to the bottom of the router.”
“Do—Do I have to go?” Kota asked.
Walker looked him over with a quirked brow. “Do you want to stay?”
“I—” Kota snapped his mouth shut before he embarrassed himself.
Because the answer was yes. Because Walker was here.
“You what, squirrel?” Walker prompted softly.
Kota shifted nervously, scuffing his foot on the concrete floor, prompting one of Walker’s flip-flops to dislodge from his foot. The stupid thing skidded halfway across the concrete floor. Kota stared after it, mortified, as Walker chuckled.
Nothing killed a romantic moment quite like accidentally ejecting someone else’s footwear while standing beside a headless corpse.
“I—Can I just keep you company?” he asked, looking anywhere but at the dead body.
“Do you want to keep me company? You look about as pale as Early.”
Kota nodded. “Please. I don’t want to be alone.”
Walker laid the saw down, then removed the gloves. He picked up the flip-flop, carrying it back, then kneeling before Kota to replace it. When he stood, Kota stared at him with wide eyes.
Walker backed Kota up until he was pressed against a wooden table in the corner. Walker picked him up, dropping him onto the rough surface. The table creaked ominously beneath his weight.
“I do like when you beg for me, squirrel.”
The blood in Kota’s brain headed south as he leaned into Walker’s space, dropping a chaste kiss on his lips. “Really?”
“Mm,” Walker said, kissing him again, deeper this time.
His mouth was warm despite the chill of the barn, the kiss brief but thorough enough to leave Kota’s head feeling pleasantly fuzzy. By the time he pulled back, Kota was dazed. Walker handed Kota his phone, rattling off the code.
Kota sat, swinging his feet and playing a game on Walker’s phone while the older man finished deconstructing the creep who’d tried to kill Kota.
“You didn’t answer my earlier question,” Walker said after a while.
“Question?” Kota asked, distracted, as he watched another line of gems explode.
Walker chuckled. “Did you sleep okay?”
Kota frowned, looking up as he cleared the level. “I don’t know? What time is it?” Before Walker could answer, Kota’s gaze fell to the time in the corner of the phone. “Three-thirty! In the afternoon?” Kota cried. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
Walker shrugged, expression sheepish for a stone-cold killer. “‘Cause I liked being able to sneak peeks at your naked ass while I was driving.”
Kota opened his mouth then shut it again, his brain short-circuiting. His skin grew hot. Nobody had ever said things like that to him so casually. Like it was obvious. Like, of course, Walker would want to look at him.
“Don’t say that.”
“I can say whatever I want,” Walker said, moving to Early’s other foot. “Especially if it’s true.”
The saw roared to life and the blades chewed through the frozen flesh surrounding Early’s ankle bone. Kota took in the neatly severed veins, tendons, and nerves. It was all so…tidy.
Why didn’t more people freeze bodies before they took them apart? The fact that this was now a genuine question he had should probably concern him more than it did. But he only cared about Walker. He seemed different, more relaxed.
Was this just Walker in his element? Kota watched intently as Walker finished dismembering Early, jumping down to follow when he took the parts back to the truck. The older man pressed a button on a panel on the side of the truck that engaged a door.
The hidden freezer compartment. Walker stacked the parts inside the massive compartment, then closed it up. It disappeared seamlessly back into place.
Kota continued to follow him around like a lost puppy as Walker did a thorough once-over to ensure they’d left nothing suspicious behind.
Once satisfied, they returned to the rig.
Inside, Walker grabbed an indentation on what looked like a standard wall panel, then pulled, revealing the bathroom he’d mentioned the night before.
It was more like a wet room than a bathroom. There was a sink and a toilet as well as a shower stall, but it was a tight fit. The entire space was probably the size of a modest-sized closet.
Walker turned the water on, then stripped down right in front of Kota. He swallowed the knot in his throat, unable to stop staring. It wasn’t fair that a man who spent his mornings dismembering corpses looked like that.
Walker must have taken his gawking as an invitation because he started pulling and tugging at Kota’s clothes.
“What are you doing?” Kota whined. “There’s not enough room.”
“You saying no to me, squirrel?” Walker asked, voice purring directly into his ear.
Heat licked through him. “N-No. I guess not.”
Walker made a low rumble of approval. “That’s what I thought. Be good for me.” Kota hated how his words affected him, all the fight leaving him immediately. He wanted to make Walker happy. “Fuck, I love how obedient you are.”
“I’m not always obedient,” Kota sulked.
Walker bit the shell of his ear. “Even better.”
He let Walker strip him, then drag him into the shower room.
There was barely enough room for them to turn around, but that didn’t bother Kota at all.
If anything, he liked it. There was nowhere for Walker to go that didn’t bring them into contact.
This was what he’d hoped would happen in the shower yesterday.
He let Walker wash him thoroughly before taking the shower head and returning the favor, using the spicy scented body wash to touch every inch of him he could reach. The scent lingered in the steam, warm and familiar now. Dangerously familiar.
When they were clean, Walker picked him up off his feet and pinned him to the wall, rutting against him until they both came. For a little while, Kota forgot about dead bodies, serial killers, kidnappings, and everything else waiting outside the bathroom door.
Kota wanted this every day. The thought hit him like a meteor, almost taking him off his feet and ruining his orgasm. While there was something to be said for post-nut clarity, knowing this could all be over in just two days made him want to cry.
Because that was the problem, wasn’t it? Two days ago, Walker had been a stranger. Now, the idea of losing him made Kota’s chest ache. And that felt far more dangerous than anything hidden in the back of the truck.