14. Zyran
ZYRAN
For a second I can only make out shapes, a body on the ground, and then her silhouette kneeling beside it.
Killing the engine, I open the truck's door and step out into the cold. The night air hit my lungs sharp and metallic, carrying the smell of trash and stale beer. Gravel shifts under my boots as I move forward, closing the distance slowly enough to take in what’s happening in front of me.
Dean lies on his back, feet away from the dumpster, one arm bent beneath him in an unnatural angle. There’s blood spreading from the side of his neck, dark against the concrete, working its way into the cracks.
And there’s Esperr, kneeling a foot away from the body, eyes already on me as I step forward.
It’s then that I see it as I approach; her lower lip is split, with dried blood at the corner of her mouth. The skin beneath her right eye is already swelling, discoloration beginning to bloom under the surface. There’s a faint smear across her cheekbone that isn’t her.
For a moment the world narrows to that bruise—my hands curling into fists without a conscious thought. Heat rises up my spine so fast it makes my jaw ache.
He shouldn’t have touched her, shouldn’t have had the chance to.
And yet she doesn’t look like someone who was just attacked.
Her breathing is steady and completely controlled, shoulders squared, and she isn’t scrambling backwards or dissolving into panic.
She just watches me carefully, eyes clear and measuring my reaction with no frantic explanations spilling from her mouth.
I crouch beside Dean, pressing my fingers to his neck, though I already know what I’ll find—no pulse.
When I straighten, my gaze goes back to her face, finding the bruise is worse up close. The swelling is rising fast, the skin tightening beneath her eye, and the split lip makes her mouth look softer and more dangerous at the same time. Blood rushes to my cock just looking at her mouth.
“He hit you,” I say, willing my dick to stop.
She nods once. “He hit me first.”
Her voice never shakes or trembles; it is flat and certain. I bite my cheek and glance around, noticing the items lined up neatly next to her: phone, wallet, and keys—she’s already pulled them out.
Most people would be unraveling by now, crying, staring at their hands, the blood, or even talking too fast. But she’s not doing any of that; it’s like she’s already thinking.
“Well,” I say, blowing out a breath and looking down at Dean’s body before shifting my eyes back to hers, “I never really liked him, anyways.”
Esperr’s mouth twitches despite the split, a short laugh slipping out. It’s dry and unexpected like she’s let go of the pressure that’s inside her.
“Yeah,” she nods, smiling, “Me either.”
The sound of her laughing in an alley over a dead man should feel wrong, but it doesn’t. It feels right, and maybe that’s wrong, but I like it.
My gaze drops to the bruise forming under her eye again, and the anger tightens into something heavier.
If I had only reached him first, he wouldn’t be lying here with a neck wound.
He would have been conscious long enough to understand what he’d done, and I’d drag it out to make sure he begged for death.
She studies me for a moment, and then her head tilts to the side. “Were you following me?” She asks, raising a brow, “Or him?”
I open my mouth and then close it, knowing that I can’t exactly tell a girl that you’ve been stalking her. I’d probably end up like Dean if I told her the truth.
Her eyes narrow just enough when she realizes I’m not going to answer.
“Okay,” she says after a second, nodding like she’s filing that information away for later, and then climbs to her feet. “That’s fine; we can circle back to that.”
She brushes her palms against her jeans, hissing a bit at the contact.
There’s a faint stiffness in her movements, a small wince she tries to hide when she straightens fully.
Her gaze drifts down to Dean, to the dumpster, and then up to me.
“I was thinking about the dumpster, since it runs in three days, but there’s a chance someone could find it before then. And it just seems lazy.”
I shrug, because it is. Someone will find it, sooner or later; he won’t be rotten enough before someone does.
Stepping closer to the body, I crouch down again, assessing it more carefully.
The wound at his neck isn’t exactly clean; blood has soaked into the collar of his shirt and pooled unevenly along the pavement.
She’s not going to be able to drag his body anywhere, so it’s going to be up to me.
“His friends saw him leave,” she mutters. “They’ll assume he went home.”
“That’s good,” I agree, nodding my head. Scanning the building I look for any type of camera but don’t find any.
“Are there any cam?—”
“No, not past the front door. There’s nothing back here for footage.”
Despite everything, I still smile, even though I have no clue how she would know any of this. Rhys’s research hadn’t pinged anything in her past, but now that makes me wonder if she had someone cover it up.
“We don’t dump him; the dumpsters are traceable, trash runs on a schedule, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be on time.” I say, straightening up.
“Yeah, and there are prints; it’s too easy to connect,” she says, sighing and folding her arms loosely across her stomach.
“We can dump him somewhere else; I know a place.”
She burst out laughing, shaking her head, as if I were joking. But I’m not, someone we use once in a while when the job is close enough to use him.
When I don’t say anything after a minute, her laughs trail off, blinking hard before frowning and glancing up at me.
“You know a place…” she repeats.
I give her a single nod, hoping she won’t ask me to elaborate.
“That’s…” she starts, biting her lip, “oddly specific.”
Her arms stay folded, but she shifts her weight onto one hip, watching me carefully. And she’s not afraid; there’s no suspicion or shyness like most; she’s just aware.
“I know a few,” I mutter, shrugging.
That makes her smile wider, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Of course you do.”
Giving her a smirk, I turn on my heel and head back to my truck, lowering the tailgate, the metal groaning softly in the cold alley. I reach forward into the storage compartment and pull out a black folded tarp, along with a coil of rope that smells faintly of oil and dirt.
When I turn back and walk around the side of my truck, she’s still in the same place, watching me.
“You just keep this stuff in your truck?” she asks.
I stop midstep, realizing that people don’t usually keep this type of stuff in their vehicles. Maybe one or the other, but typically not both.
“It’s for… um… emergencies.”
She snorts softly, rolling her eyes. “That’s really comforting.”
Stepping around her, I drop the tarp beside Dean’s body and begin to unfold it, annoyed when the thing begins to rustle against the pavement louder than it should be.
“Help me roll him,” I motion towards Dean's body after a few minutes.
Esperr steps closer, no hesitation in sight, and for a split second it makes me wonder if she’s done this before. She’s oddly calm after just killing someone.
Grabbing Dean by the shoulder, careful to avoid the worst of the blood, and nodding toward her.
“You get his legs.”
She crouches down, hand reaching for his thighs.
“On three,” I murmured. “One, two… three.”
With more ease than I expected, we rolled him onto the tarp, Dean’s head thudding lightly against the pavement.
Esperr stands up, exhaling slowly through her nose, before brushing a strand back from her face with the back of her hand.
“You know, it’s still weird,” she says quietly.
“Huh?” I frown, glancing up, meeting her gaze.
“You knowing a place.”
“And you laughing about a body is weird,” I say, smirking.
She tilts her head, considering the fact that it’s not normal. Most people aren’t used to dead bodies, let alone killing someone.
“Fine, that’s fair.”
I don’t bother saying anything and go back to pulling the tarp over him. From the corner of my eye, I watch her move in front of me and begin to mirror my movement, lifting and folding the tarp with careful precision.
“You know what I can’t figure out?”
I cinch the tarp tighter around Dean’s legs, pulling the fabric until there’s no room left to move. “There’s probably a long list of things you can’t figure out.”
She scoffs, one that turns into a quiet laugh. “Rude. But I specifically mean right now.”
Knotting the rope, I test the tension with a hard tug, happy when it doesn't give. “Enlighten me.”
“How you look so calm during this,” she shifts on her feet. “Like this is just another Tuesday errand.”
“It’s Saturday.”
She pauses, rolling her eyes and snorting. “That is so not the point.”
I smile, looping the rope across the tarp again. “I guess now. But I’ve had a worse Tuesday and worse Saturdays before.” I shrug, glancing at her hands, at how steady they are as she stands there. “Should I also mention that you’re awfully calm too?”
Her body pauses for a moment as if she hadn’t realized she was calm, and then she’s shrugging, folding her arms over her chest. “Am I?”
“Yeah.” I pull the rope tighter, watching her out from the corner of my eye. “Most people would be screaming, crying, maybe even running. They’d be freaking out.”
“Panicking seems unhelpful,” she mumbles, tapping her foot against Dean’s foot.
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“Well, he was the one to attack me; some might even call it attempted murder. So it’s not my fault, and it’s hard to feel broken up about him getting a little… folded.”
My hands are still on the rope. For a second, all I see is the flash of her on the ground, images of what she looked like while he attacked her, and the sound of her begging for him to stop.
The rope digs into my palm as I yank it tighter, the thing creaking under the strain.
“A little folded.” I repeat, biting back the urge to try and bring Dean back just so I can kill him again.