Chapter 26 #2
The block we turned onto was more exposed to the sun. I could almost feel a slight prickling on my face as it itched for warmth.
“Who died?”
“I do not know yet.”
Upon approaching the morgue, I opened the door to quickly duck inside.
Bodies were already on tables, and the sink was full from the morning’s work. Bags of rubbish were sitting in the corner, ready to be taken out.
“Henry!” I called, heading directly down the hallway and into the last room on the right.
The small overhead window allowed some light since there were no windows along the typical spots on the wall for privacy reasons.
Henry was already preparing the morning’s cadaver. He must have been so engrossed that he did not hear me call. When he caught me out of the corner of his eye, his stern expression softened, then it hardened once more when he saw Silas.
“You didn’t tell me you would be bringing a visitor,” Henry moped.
“I didn’t know I was going to have one either.
He joined me on my errands,” I offered the explanation, though Henry waved dismissively at me.
Now that they were both in the same room, Henry was like a shorter, skinnier version of Silas in terms of looks, apart from those dark eyes.
They were polar opposites in personality.
“Apologies for intruding. Silas Forbes, nice to meet your acquaintance.” Silas held out a gloved hand.
Henry glanced at Silas’s hand, as his own were elbow deep in the cadaver. In a thinly veiled attempt to not be rude, he raised a brow at Silas.
“Right,” Silas mumbled, his hand retreating, seemingly annoyed that he had made an effort to be cordial at all.
Henry always made himself look busy when he was flustered. I suppose he was threatened since I suspect Henry had a small favorability for me.
“What came in this morning?” I stepped beside the shorter blond man. “I heard there were two bodies.”
“Animal attack is my best hypothesis.” He shrugged.
Henry was less talkative than usual; that was all the confirmation I needed to know he was upset. I shot Silas a look and jerked my head toward the door.
He furrowed his brows; then raised one before looking toward the door and then to me.
My eyes narrowed at him expectantly.
A rumble of protest in his throat before he silently agreed to stand in the hallway.
“Who is he?” Henry didn’t pull his attention from his task.
“Silas—”
“To you, I mean.”
“Hardly a friend.”
He nodded as if that answer revealed something that I wasn’t saying. I know he was hurt seeing someone else chaperoning me.
“Are you ready?” I put on a set of leather gloves as we inspected from either side of the corpse, covered by the modesty of a sheet.
He nodded, carefully peeling away the edge of the sheet to reveal the face, then the neck, then the chest. When the sheet reached the abdomen, there was nothing else to see.
It was only a torso.
There were large wounds on the abdomen, neck, and face. The skin around the wounds looked like they had been gnawed on by the likes of a dog, but the pattern of the bite marks were distinctly human, making messy horseshoe-shaped marks along the flesh.
Henry did not seem fazed, but he did not say anything. He was processing it calmly, rationalizing the sights before him.
The corrupted were who I suspected caused it, though there could have been others wreaking havoc.
As destructive as the corrupted were, I did feel pity for them.
Empathy, even. They did not choose to be turned into those repugnant shells of people.
I cannot imagine being turned and having all the impulsive desires of a starved Vipera with no biological hardware to feed easily.
While Hosts have dormant organs and teeth that develop after turning, typical humans had to make do with the standard.
The frustration of the messy feeding process made them irate, causing them to tear at the flesh and ultimately kill those they fed on.
Luckily for us, the corrupted did not have the ability to turn.
Which means it was Vipera being careless and leaving it for us to clean up later.
“Coyotes? Wolves?” I asked Henry.
“It is hard to tell; a lot of the flesh is torn, and the bite marks are atypical of wild animals, but the pickiness is unusual.” He used forceps to lift the skin, then used a glass rod to poke around and count the organs left over.
“How so?”
“Animals usually aren’t picky about which organs they eat, especially if they are starved or rabid enough to try for a human.”
“Where was this body found?”
“In the wooded area north of the city.”
“Anywhere else?”
“Both bodies were in the same spot.”
I reached into the abdominal cavity to peel the skin away. I stuck my hand further upward into the ribs, feeling around.
“I feel a partial lung, and I have yet to feel the heart,” I mentioned.
“Whatever it was must have stuck its muzzle up into the cavity to try to pull out organs,” he mumbled, mainly to himself.
“What condition is the other body in?”
“More or less the same . . . no liver and is just as much of a mess as this one.”
“Ah, good to know. Which reminds me, I have to set more traps soon,” I removed my hands, the sound of moisture squishing as I removed my arms from the cavity.
“Discard those in the sink,” Henry instructed.
I pulled the gloves off over the basin and then turned the water on over them, watching the blood flood the drain before dissipating until the water ran mostly clear.
I nearly forgot that I had a golden-haired guest waiting ever so patiently at the door until I looked over and saw him leaning on the frame, watching. His pale eyes watched steadily, I do not know for how long.
It was a grim reminder of a different kind of predator in our midst.
After departing, I could not hear anything Silas said; I was deep in thought as we passed through the park on the way back, since the sun was fighting through the overcast clouds before the storm ahead.
I watched my skirt as it dusted the fresh white powder on the path.
With each step I avoided cracks and rocks to distract from the bitter cold.
I was stopped in my tracks by Silas hooking his fingers into the back of my collar, stopping me as I nearly choked.
“What is it?” I clicked my tongue.
“Could we talk?”
“What is there to talk about?”
“It would be harder to choose what not to talk about.”
“Spit it out then.” I crossed my arms.
“Why do you use venom?”
“How else do I test a drug?”
“No, why do you use it? You know it works; you do not need tests.”
“I quit drinking.”
“In exchange for something more dangerous?”
“You did not mind it when it was you envenomating me.”
He was stunned, shocked as if he didn’t know how to respond.
I would not let go of my pride, not so he could lecture me.
What did he know about coping? He was the one responsible for the phantom pains that lived within my body; he had no right to judge me.
I did not need a coat anymore, for I could feel the heat rising in tandem with my anger.
“I will never understand you.” He swatted some of the snow from his hair as it steadily fell from the sky.
“You never will, that would require empathy.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I do not need empathy to figure you out. You refer to me as a simple creature; you are not much different. You are a feral, disagreeable villain—”
“Then leave me be if you think so low of me.”
“No, my dearest shadow.” He stepped forward to cup my face in his hands.
“It is what I like most about you. Every time you look at me with those unforgiving eyes, I feel you could do anything to me. You could squeeze my heart, and it would still beat proudly for you, swelling until it bursts in your fist.”
“Always the poet, never the lover,” I scoffed, but I did not dare move away from his touch.
“I will always be your lover, even if that love is unrequited.” He glanced at my lips through lowered lashes, our foreheads resting against each other.
I found myself shaking, his touch reminding me how chilled it really was.
“You won’t admit that I am the only one to make an unfeeling thing like you feel alive. Truly alive,” he whispered.
“Do you make me feel alive, or wish for death?”
“I would give you both, if you let me.”
Our breath mingled in the air. How jealous I was of the mist that could escape. Even then, just us being close enough to let each breath disguise itself together was too scandalous of an insinuation for me.
“Use me.” The corner of his lip curved upward into a smirk. “Let me keep you warm for a while.” His whisper nearly registered as a hiss when the wind whistled through the small gap between us.
“Will you not grant me any sort of peace?” I mumbled, pushing at his chest.
“We could only be each other’s peace; we are too chaotic to find it elsewhere.”
“What do you really want from me?”
Silas’s eyes narrowed, his pupils constricting as he stared. He smirked after a contemplative pause and tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear. The leather of his gloves were cold and impersonal despite the soft touch. “I want everything.”