Chapter 29 – Camille
Ipressed a bag of frozen peas to my swollen eye as Erich tightened the rope around Reed’s wrists.
I sat in the wooden kitchen chair, my ruined muffins still scattered across the floor. I didn’t bother cleaning them up.
Reed lay unconscious as Erich finished tying him. My mind should have been racing with plans—but it wasn’t. It stalled, caught between the shock of seeing him again and the lingering pain in my face and stomach.
“What were your ideas?” I asked quietly.
Erich didn’t answer right away. He pulled the rope tighter—hard enough I thought I might hear something snap—then gave Reed’s body a sharp kick before turning back to me.
Before I could adjust the frozen peas, he stepped between my knees and dropped to a kneel, his hands settling on my thighs.
His hair fell loose around his face, catching the flicker of the kitchen light. His expression softened as he studied me, and something in my chest twisted tight.
I lowered the peas to the table.
He took my hand, turning it gently, examining my fingers before pressing a soft kiss to each knuckle.
“Would you think less of me?” he murmured.
I shook my head, my gaze drifting over him—his arms, the tension still lingering in his shoulders.
“Tell me.”
His mouth curved slightly. He leaned in, pressing a slow kiss to my thigh.
“We could castrate him,” he said quietly. “Let him bleed out. Bury him in the woods.”
Another kiss. Higher.
“Or weigh him down and drop him in the river.”
My breath hitched despite myself.
“But my favorite…” His voice lowered further.
He lifted his head just enough to meet my eyes.
“We take him back. Burn the house with him inside.”
My heart was thudding against my chest as Erich looked up from between my legs, his crooked smile growing as he watched my reaction. “Why is that last one your favorite?” My voice came out quiet, breathy from the exhilaration of his strategically placed lips and ideas.
“I want him to watch as I eat you out on his table, in the house you both grew up in. Then I want to hear his screams as he’s burned alive for what he did to you.”
None of that fazed me. It should have. I should have been horrified at the man between my legs and thinking he was psychotic.
But the pictures in my head were poetic justice, and I knew deep down it was something I wanted nearly as much.
The only reason it didn’t come up before was because I would’ve never come up with it on my own.
My minimal ideas went as far as stabbing him in the heart and leaving him in the woods for the wildlife.
Erich moved to get up from the floor, and I grabbed his face with both hands before bringing him back down towards me. He grunted out of surprise as my lips met his before he matched my energy, scooping me out of the chair so my legs could wrap around his waist.
I was clinging to him as if these were our last moments on earth. I bit his bottom lip gently as I began to pull away, and I got his gravelly moan as a reward before I spoke up. When I pulled back, breath unsteady, I met his eyes.
“I think that’s my favorite too.”
A quiet laugh escaped him before he pressed a kiss just below my neck.
“Then you’re just as sick as me.”
He set me back down gently, turning his attention to Reed again.
Blood had begun to darken in his hair where the crowbar struck. His body lay limp, bound, mouth open—too still.
For a moment, he seemed almost peaceful.
Erich lifted him without hesitation, adjusting his grip to account for the rope.
“I’ve always wanted to drive a Rolls-Royce,” he said, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth as he carried Reed toward the door. Outside, Reed’s black Rolls Royce hummed idly as it awaited it’s owner that would not be returning behind the wheel.
And just like that—
We were moving forward.