Chapter 16 #3
“You want me to like you?” Widow says, repeating my words back to me like he doesn’t understand them.
His eyes are on Trish, a reflection of childhood hurt buried deep in a gaze the color of a harvest moon.
I understand that look because I see it in the mirror on rare occasions, when my control slips and I let myself feel things. “Why?”
“Because he might have agreed to listen, but Ash still fantasizes about dying heroically and leaving me with three lovers.” Scarlett gets up in my face, heedless of the sword in my hand or the drip-drip of the blood off the blade.
She’s not afraid of me and never has been.
“You can’t help your thoughts, only your actions.
I get it. So long as you’re a good boy for me, I’ll let you think dumb shit and make romantic poet eyes in an attempt to get away with it. ”
Scarlett lays her palms against my cheeks and I almost melt into a puddle on the floor, a fluid of longing to mix together with Mr. Rattray’s spilled blood and Trish’s crocodile tears. Widow sighs and puts his hands on his hips, staring down at his aunt in disgust.
“If he wants to take out all the scum on his way out the door, then let him.” Widow shrugs one big shoulder and offers me a look of grudging acceptance.
“All this time, he’s been a weak spot for you, Scar.
He’s put you in jeopardy over and over again.
On Halloween, during the party. Thanksgiving.
At the race track when you two decided to fuck each other outside in broad daylight.
For once, he’s making the right decision.
For once, he isn’t being selfish. I respect that. ”
I close my eyes as Scarlett traces her thumb across my lips.
“I don’t want you to die, Ash. Losing you…
” Scarlett trails off and I open my eyes again to study the expression on her face.
I thought she’d be angrier with me, for killing her sister and burning her house down.
She’s not. Instead, she makes me want to be Ash in a way I was never allowed to be before.
“That’d be harder on me than Alexis. Than Lemon. ”
Oh. I flush. My cock is adamantine, a nauseating level of need poisoning me below my navel and across the tops of my thighs.
My nipples harden to painful points, and my balls draw up nice and tight.
Not right now, with Trish sobbing and Maryanne driving to her death.
I might like it though, if we did it in the blood.
“Aspen,” I say suddenly and Scarlett cants her head at me, beautiful dark hair cascading around the most perfect face I’ve ever seen in my life.
The shape of that plush, pillowy mouth. Expressive chocolate-almond eyes.
A warrior’s cheekbones. Skin like poured bronze.
“My pet frog. He can’t stay here. When you leave, so does he. ”
“When we leave.” Scarlett says, frustrated with me.
She scratches at her temple, considering me.
Seeing right through my flesh and bone to the weary spirit underneath.
I never told her about the dead frogs in my bed.
I told Bohnes, but not her. I didn’t want her to worry.
“Of course we’ll take your frog. But why name him Aspen? ”
I grin, and I’m sure it’s hideous, what with the blood of the deputy mayor all over my face.
“An Aspen that doesn’t feel anything at all for me. He couldn’t care less whether I live or die. I find that comforting.”
Trish shoves up to her feet, making a run for it.
Widow moves like he’s going to take her out, but she slips in Denis’ blood and tumbles to the floor all on her own, cracking her chin against the tiles.
With a sigh, Widow steps up beside Trish and puts a boot on his aunt’s back, pressing down hard enough that she screams.
“Do you remember my mom’s funeral?” he asks dispassionately, putting his body weight on Trish’s lumbar vertebrae until she chokes on the pain.
“How I begged and begged and begged to come live with you?” Widow releases her as she sobs, tears mixing with the blood on the floor.
“Ruin a child, raise a monster. Good work, Trish. You brought this on yourself.”
I study Widow’s face, pleased that he’s appreciating his gifts.
With me dying and all, there’s no need to continue with such blatant and hostile animosity.
Scarlett is still staring at me, the only person in the room (besides Trish, obviously) who’s unsatisfied.
That bothers me. I’m doing all of this for her.
“Got anything to eat around here?” Bohnes inquires casually, making himself comfortable on the couch that I did not attack with an antique samurai sword. He throws his arms out to either side of him, crossing his legs and rocking one foot absently as he looks around.
“Oh.” I swing the sword down and tap the end of it in the blood, splattering a little. “Shall I serve some tea and scones?”
Scarlett glares at me, and I don’t understand why. How dare she knit those glorious brows; the sight is like a baseball bat to the backs of my knees. Bakayaro. I’m such a stupid bastard. Falling in love was not on my bucket list. Falling in love is a sweet fatality.
“Mr. Kelly.” Alexei studies me with a tight press at one corner of his sharp mouth, an almost-smile that never quite cuts through the intensity of his stare.
“Ash.” I shouldn’t give a fuck about him saying my real name, but I do.
It feels so good. Like vindication and justice.
Like truth and forgiveness. “You needn’t try so hard to win my favor.
Ernest Bolin, alive and squirming in my hands, is the perfect gift. ”
Alexei finally deigns to settle himself at the edge of a large wingback chair.
It’s velvet, custom-made and imported from Venice.
Jonas and Aspen never could abide by cheap things.
Also, Yua is an excellent housekeeper. Even Alexei’s fickle tendencies won’t be able to find fault with her cleanliness.
He’s trying though, pale green eyes cataloguing the room like everything and everyone in it is a potential contaminant.
A single gloved finger runs along the edge of the side table before being lifted up for his inspection.
Alexei rubs two fingers together with an unreadable frown.
He folds his gloved hands, resting them lightly over the knee of his crossed leg.
Our gazes come together, and I get this eerie sense that he’s taking cues from Scarlett.
Looking at me like she does. Coming to some aha realization.
“You should keep trying to earn my favor though.” Bohnes rubs a hand over his mouth, bemused. “You kidnapped the murderer of Fuckboy Four’s father, and you’re killing Fuckboy Three’s aunts. I should at least get refreshments.”
“Killing me?” Trish shrieks into her hands as Scarlett draws a knife from…
wherever she was hiding it in that scandalous fucking dress.
If I have to die, couldn’t it be between her thighs?
If she sat on my face and suffocated me with that tart cunt, I wouldn’t be mad about it.
Scarlett puts the tip of the knife against the arm of the couch and spins it. A warning. For me or for Trish though?
Scarlett’s eyes never leave mine. I’m being hunted, captured, and trussed. I agreed to be hunted, captured, and trussed. I…want to be hunted, captured, and trussed.
“You’ll be lucky if all we do is kill you, Auntie.” Widow doesn’t answer my question about tea and scones. That’s alright. I’m going to make enough for everyone.
“Gyokuro?” I ask, far too eager for my own good.
Now that I’ve decided that Scarlett’s other lovers aren’t my mortal enemies (I do still occasionally indulge in the fantasy of having shot Alexei in the head when I found him rutting Scar into the warehouse floor), I’m having fun in a way I haven’t in years.
“It’s a green tea, similar to sencha but grown in the shade instead of the sun.
The name means something like jewel dew or jade dew. ”
I feel a great unraveling in me, like the person I was never allowed to be is rising to the surface in a rush.
In the past, the words that just came out of my mouth would’ve been a death sentence.
Aspen would’ve hated the mix of British and Japanese culture flowing from my lips.
He would’ve been sickened by my admittance to liking something.
He would’ve spent every waking second figuring out how to make that liking turn to hatred. Pain. Bad memories and terror and punishment. Scarlett murdering him was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.
“Mm. Sounds delightful. Truly. I will regrettably have to pass on any refreshments.” Alexei reaches up a finger, yanking at the neck of his Prescott High hoodie as he scowls a little. “There’s a corpse on the floor. Not sanitary enough for teatime, I’m afraid.”
Ah. I see his point. The corpse is fresh, so it doesn’t bother me much. If it’d been sitting there for a minute, that’d be a whole different story.
“Oh, what nonsense.” Bohnes folds his arms behind his head as Widow leans raffishly against the wall to watch over his sobbing sociopathic aunt.
“If I refused to eat or drink just because there was a body around, I’d fucking starve to death.
I’d dehydrate and shrivel up like a grape.
Long as there aren’t any maggots, I really don’t see the problem. ”
“You’re so sick in the head,” Scarlett murmurs fondly, shoving her knife several inches into the couch like she’s enjoying the violent penetration.
She may not know who Trish and Denis are exactly, but I’m sure she can infer that they had a hand in Lemon’s death.
Probably why she’s letting me do it. This house is already a crime scene, so what’s another murder or two? “Yes, Ash. Yes. Make some tea, honey.”