Chapter 9 Rhys
Chapter nine
Rhys
Death is… anticlimactic.
So much buildup, and then it's gone. In my day job, I rip off the latex gloves and walk out, leaving the post-op care and clean-up to my nurses. Here I have to do it all myself. I can’t stop my mind drifting to Noah.
Imagine having a nurse here for this. I could bring the professionalism of my day job into my nighttime extracurricular activities.
I could train him to hand me instruments, anticipating what I need before I say it.
A scalpel placed in my palm without asking.
A suction tube ready before the blood pools too deeply.
A real assistant.
Someone who listens when I speak instead of nodding politely and pretending to understand.
But that is a pipe dream. A long-term goal I can't allow outside of my head for the next few months, if ever. Knowing what I do and assisting is a huge jump, and my puppy-mad companion has given no sign he's interested in anything beyond walking off into the sunset with a pack of waddling dogs.
But that small idea makes the cleanup go faster.
“Did you hear everything, Pet?” I ask, pausing my hands mid-task. I always ask questions when I talk, but the audience never answers. Today, my audience participates.
“Yes.” It's a faint whisper, but not because he's sleepy. It's because he's processing everything he's heard.
“They begged me to stop.” I wait for him to say something. Most people would lie here. Pretend they didn’t hear. Pretend they were asleep.
Noah doesn’t pretend.
“They did,” he agrees.
“They begged you to make me stop.”
“I couldn't do that.” He chuckles nervously.
“Because I'm stronger than you?”
“Because I didn't want to.”
Those words seem to make the cleanup go faster. It actually takes as long as always, but it feels quicker, and that's enough.
The metal door of the incinerator slams shut with a dull, final sound. I pause for a moment, listening to the low mechanical hum as the machine begins its work.
Fire is wonderfully efficient. It leaves no loose ends.
Once the bodies are in my in-house incinerator, I shower, change, and head to the small room where Noah is dozing on the chair.
“Let's get you to the guest bedroom,” I call.
When he doesn't wake, I nudge the chair. If my voice soothes him to sleep, it won’t wake him. The jolt does the job.
“I have somewhere more comfortable for you to sleep,” I repeat as he looks at me bleary-eyed.
“I need to know our plan for tomorrow first,” he insists. “I'll sleep better knowing it's sorted.”
“Plan?” I smile. “I won't kill you.”
“About the dogs. There's no morning staff going in to find them. It's just me.”
“Fine, tomorrow morning, at whatever time you start work, you'll call Derek and Frank. You'll leave voicemails asking where they are, send texts asking when they'll be back. Then, mid-morning, you’ll book a train from your place to here. You can walk to the station from here, and when the train arrives, you’ll take a cab here.”
“Wow, you've got it all sorted.”
“When the cab arrives, you'll enter the practice and demand to see me, saying it's an emergency.
I'll call you into the consulting room as soon as I can.
No cameras. Just us. Five minutes later, I'll make plans to accompany you back to the farm in the practice ambulance.
We'll bring the dogs back here to care for until the brothers turn up.”
I smile, making the whole thing sound like a piece of cake.
It isn't. There has to be missing person reports filed, justification to walk off with the farm's property.
Noah has to get through it all without blowing his cover.
It's a side of my process I've never been on before, and it twists my stomach into knots.
“Why don't I phone the police first?”
“Because you are obsessed with the dogs' welfare and Follow the Vet podcast.”
“Well, at least that isn't a lie.” he gives a nervous chuckle.
“Come on, let's get you to bed.” I lead the way out of my underground bunker.
Locking the door behind us doesn't bring the usual reassurance that comes with shutting my secrets away.
Instead, though, there is the thrill of taking a huge risk.
The feeling I used to experience with my first few kills.
A feeling I lost when I became too confident.
I like the guilty flutter in my stomach.
Noah looks around my house, taking in the perfectly curated image of a normal person I maintain in my day-to-day life.
He follows me upstairs, wide-eyed and thrilled, gawping at the guest room.
“This is so much nicer than my room in the farmhouse.”
“I'll grab you some pajamas you can borrow.”
When I get back with the spare sleepwear, he hasn't moved. Just standing motionless in the dim lighting from the lamp. He looks like someone dropped into the wrong life entirely. Too thin. Too tired. Clothes worn out by early mornings in cold kennels.
Not the sort of man who belongs in a serial killer’s guest bedroom.
I hand him the clothing and smile. “I won't be here when you wake up tomorrow. I trust you to take care of the plan yourself?” It’s a ridiculous amount of trust to place in a man I abducted only hours ago.
Yet it doesn’t feel like trust at all.
It feels inevitable. I have trusted strangers with far less before. Usually, while they were strapped to a table.
“Sure. I'll take care of it.”
I nod. Trust, apprehension, and a little excitement threaten to consume me. I like it.