Chapter 14
Ramsey
My cousin, Penn, stands in the doorway, baseball cap askew, expression morphing from fury to dark amusement as he takes in the scene. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they created the Joker after my cousin.
"Well butter my ass and call me a flaky ass biscuit! You fucking did this shit without me, and now I'm Pauly D pissed!" he shouts, stomping into the room.
I yank the knife from Justin's chest, blood spraying across my face. "What the fuck are you doing here, Penn?"
"What am I doing here?" He throws his hands up, circling the chair to examine my handiwork. "What the fuck are YOU doing here without your favorite cousin? This is some premium grade-A slaughterhouse shit, and you didn't even send a text?"
He kicks one of Justin's severed hands across the floor like a hockey puck. "You skinned his fucking face off! That's like, next level psycho, and you didn't invite me. If you don’t love me anymore you could have just said that."
"It wasn't a fucking social event," I growl, wiping blood from my eyes with my forearm. "How did you even find me?"
Penn taps his phone. "I’ve had an alarm on Grandaddy Clark’s old fun house for about seven years now."
Penn circles Justin's corpse, admiring my work like it's a fucking art exhibit. "So, this piece of shit put hands on my sister?" He kicks the chair, making the body jerk lifelessly. "And you didn't fucking tell me?"
I wipe blood from my face with the back of my hand. "It wasn't your business."
"Not my business?" Penn's eyes flash dangerously.
"Let me break it down for your thick skull, cousin.
My little hellion has avoided her sister for days.
You drop her off, and I can tell she's a little too stiff, and she's got a shiner she's hiding quite well under makeup.
" He steps closer, jabbing a finger into my chest. "So now I wanna know why you didn't tell me what fucking happened to Reese, why you didn't let me handle this, or hell, even have a part in it. Now I'm pissed."
I stare back at him, my hands still dripping with blood. "This was personal."
"Personal?" Penn laughs, but there's no humor in it. "Everything about the St. Pierre sisters is personal to me. Reagan is my fucking wife, which makes Reese my family too. You think you're the only one who gets to go psycho when someone hurts her?"
I walk over to the sink and wash my hands before turning back to my cousin. "Are you done with your tantrum?"
"Tantrum?" Penn's voice goes dangerously quiet. Fuck, this isn’t gonna go well. "You know what? No, I’m not done with my tantrum, mini-me. So now you owe me. Go dig a grave and then bury faceless Freddy over there and don’t even say a fucking word to bitch about it."
I sigh. I was going to do that anyway, but I’m not about to say that. I respect my cousin. I know I owe him probably my life more times than I really want to know about. He took the brunt of abuse from my uncle in order to protect not just his brothers but me.
"Fuck you," I mutter, but there's no real heat behind it. I grab a shovel from the wall and head outside, Penn trailing behind me like a smug shadow.
The moonlight filters through the trees as I search for a good spot. About fifty yards from the cabin, I find a clearing that'll work—soft enough soil, far enough from any paths.
"Right here," I say, jamming the shovel into the ground. "Unless you've got a better idea?"
Penn just smirks, spotting an old tire swing hanging from a massive oak at the edge of the clearing. "Nah, that's perfect. I'll supervise from over here."
I glare at him as he saunters over and plops his ass on the tire, giving himself a little push to start swinging. "Real helpful, asshole."
"Hey, you didn't want my help with the fun part." He kicks his legs out, swinging higher. "So now you get to do the heavy lifting while I enjoy the show."
Digging a grave is fucking exhausting. The first few shovelfuls come easy, but soon I'm sweating through my blood-soaked hoodie, muscles burning as I carve deeper into the earth.
The hole needs to be at least six feet—not because I'm traditional, but because I don't want some fucking coyote digging up pieces of that shitbag.
Penn swings lazily, the creaking rope keeping time with my labored breathing. "So when are you gonna tell her?"
I pause, leaning on the shovel. "Tell who what?"
"Don't play dumb, little cousin. When are you gonna tell Reese that you've been jerking off thinking about her since she was seventeen?"
I hurl a shovelful of dirt in his direction. He dodges it easily, laughing.
"Fuck off, Penn."
"No, seriously." The swing creaks as he drags his feet to stop. "You just skinned a man's face off for touching what's yours. But she's not actually yours, is she? Because you're too chicken shit to tell her how you feel."
"It's not that simple." I jam the shovel back into the dirt with more force than necessary. Everything about Reese St. Pierre consumes me. Consumes my entire life, my entire being. It’s never been fucking simple between us.
"It is that simple. You want to own my sister six ways from Sunday, but instead of manning up and telling her, you're out here playing Texas Chainsaw with her ex."
"He deserved it."
"Oh, no argument there." Penn starts swinging again.
I drive the shovel into the ground one last time, sweat stinging my eyes as I throw the dirt to the side. The hole's deep enough now—six feet of emptiness waiting to swallow what's left of Justin Chambers.
"Done," I grunt, climbing out of the pit. My muscles burn, my hands raw from blisters that have formed and burst over the last hour.
Penn's still on that fucking tire swing, now scrolling through his phone like we're at a goddamn picnic instead of a murder scene. "About time. I was thinking about ordering pizza."
"You want to help drag the body, or are you just going to sit on your ass all night?"
"Oh, now you want my help. You didn’t want my help when it came to killing him, and that’s really the only thing I’m interested in."
Flipping him off, I walk back to the shack and grab the body underneath the armpits and drag it toward the grave.
I drop him unceremoniously into the hole. His body crumples at odd angles, limbs twisted beneath him. I don't bother arranging him. Fuck him.
I grab the shovel and start filling in the hole, dirt hitting his body with hollow thuds. Each shovelful covers more of him—his legs, his torso, what's left of his face. Soon there's nothing visible but a hand-shaped lump in the dirt.
"Hold up," Penn says just as I'm about to throw the final shovelful on top. "You know what? On second thought, dig him back up."
I pause, shovel hovering midair. "What the fuck, Penn?"
He grins, with that manic gleam in his eyes that always means trouble. "I feel like desecrating a corpse."
"Are you fucking serious right now?" I drop the shovel, dirt spilling over my boots.
"Dead serious." He cracks his knuckles. "You got to have all the fun with the slicing and dicing. Now I want my turn."
"I just spent an hour digging this fucking hole!"
"And now you can re-dig it because you were going to have to anyway. You forget his hands and his face. Unless you planned on going all Leatherface and making a mask out of his face? I mean, who am I to judge? Am I right?"
I groan and grab the shovel again. "Jesus fucking Christ."
Penn's already jogging back to the cabin, shouting over his shoulder. "Don't be such a pussy, cousin! This'll be fun!"
It takes me another twenty minutes to dig up enough of Justin's body to expose his mangled torso.
Penn emerges from the cabin with the face and hands, holding the flayed skin by the forehead hairstrands like it's a fucking Halloween mask.
"Look at this sad shit," he says, dangling the face in front of me. The empty eyeholes and gaping mouth cavity make it look like some fucked-up sock puppet.
"Just do whatever sick fuck thing you're planning so we can finish this," I mutter, leaning on my shovel.
Penn grins, stretching the skin over his own face. "How do I look? Am I pretty, Ramsey?" His voice comes muffled through the dead flesh, his eyes gleaming through the empty sockets. The effect is fucking nightmarish, even by our standards.
"You look like a goddamn serial killer," I say flatly.
"That's rich coming from the guy who took his face off in the first place." Penn adjusts the skin, positioning it better over his features. "This is some premium Buffalo Bill shit right here."
He prances around the grave, making exaggerated model poses with the face still stretched over his own. "Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard."
"Are you done?" I check my watch. "We've got about four hours before Reese expects me back."
"Alright, alright." Penn peels the skin off his face and tosses it into the grave. It lands with a wet slap across Justin's exposed chest. "But I'm not done with my fun yet."
He kneels by the edge of the grave, the severed hands clutched in his fists. "You know what they say about idle hands, right?"
Without warning, he leans into the pit and shoves one hand up the corpse's ass, forcing it deep with a sickening squelch. "That's for hurting my little sister, you piece of shit."
I can't help but laugh, the sound harsh and ugly in the night air. "Jesus Christ, Penn."
"Wait, it gets better." He takes the second hand and wedges it into Justin's mouth, shoving it so deep that the fingers disappear down his throat. "There. Now he can literally eat shit and die."
He stands up, dusting off his jeans like he just finished gardening instead of desecrating a corpse. "Now that's what I call poetic fucking justice."