Chapter 24
Dig Graves could cook.
Lucious locks of steam tendrilled up from the pot making the apartment smell as if we were in southern Italy. The stove and cooktop did not work however he had a two-burner camping stove with small gas bottles to keep the flame alight.
Beethoven tiptoed in the air through a vinyl record player.
There were other records, some modern, some upbeat, but Dig only played classical music.
When the symphony simmered into sweet little patters, the man crying in the back room could be heard.
After a swift booting in the stomach, Dig got him to quieten so that Beethoven would take priority.
While Dig cooked, he refused to let me walk. He picked me up again and planted me on a chair to face the kitchen and ripped his head around to watch me if I dared move.
At least I was not restrained.
Or hanging upside down in the spare room with a kiddie pool underneath me to catch my blood.
Packets of painter’s plastic were stacked neatly in the corner, a box of duct tape next to it, various twines of rope, handcuffs with their keys organised to each pair, and a blow torch.
I briefly wondered how many of the other spare rooms had people tied up, bloodied and beaten or wilting away into corpses. I wondered which room would be mine.
He had not restrained me.
Before leaving, I decided upon enjoying dinner first.
“Don’t you move.” Dig pointed a spatula at me. “You move, I’ll tie you down. Do you understand?”
I crossed my legs and made myself comfortable.
When he turned his back, I searched over the counter tops spotting the collection of cooking knives. Three laid idly on the drying rack on the counter within reach.
There was running water here, this place was close to a five-star hotel in terms of Execution Battle ratings.
Though, without electricity. Dig lit up a small army of candles and spotted them around the apartment, bringing the dark cave to life.
The flames flickered around me. It looked like we might be in hell.
Lucifer bent over the camp kitchen stove on the bench, stirring pasta sauce and boiling linguini.
“What kind of mental health issues do you have?” I casually leaned closer to the knives. “You’re a psychopath? Are you a part of the Flat Earth community? Do you have attachment issues? What can I expect to endure during my time here?”
He grabbed the basil leaves. While he did his jumper hitched up a little, revealing a sliver of skin along his hip bones.
My thighs tingled in response. I marinated in the look of him momentarily before remembering I needed to stab him and swiftly grabbed a knife from off the bench, hiding it under my t-shirt.
“Where did you get the basil from?” I asked, yawning.
“Found it growing outside in the pavement cracks.”
“And you are sure it’s not another plant that may poison us?”
“Yes.”
“And what qualifies you knowing this?”
“I’m not an idiot.”
“And how is that certified?”
“Put the knife back.”
I did.
He set the dining table with a tablecloth.
Candles collected in the centre, a bouquet of wildflowers became my neighbour, he fluffed the stems and pointed their petals to me.
Lastly, he filled wine glasses with water and placed the plate of linguine in sauce and topped with pillowed basil leaves in front of me.
I leaned back as his tattoo and scar-speckled arm set down the plate. “I don’t like—”
“I didn’t put coriander in it.”
“How did you know I don’t like coriander?”
“A guess.”
“A wonderful guess, it’s almost unbelievable.”
He sat at the other end of the table and did not remove his hood nor his sunglasses and pushed the candles away from him until he dwelled in thick dusk. Now more shadow than man, he began to eat, spearing his fork into the pasta.
Once he chewed and swallowed, he looked up. “Eat.”
“I think you should let me go.”
“Eat.”
“Oh, but I think you should. We are even now.”
“Eat.”
“See, I saved your life by suffocating you and taking mercy on not killing you and you saved my life by driving your chariot motorcycle into the crowd of lunatics and whisking me away. We’re practically friends and friends don’t keep friends locked away.
Friends let friends go. We have nothing more between us. Let me leave.”
“Eat.”
“Oh, no, I do not think so.”
“You need to eat your food,” he said with a controlled rage. “You’re weak.”
“Have you put poison in mine?”
“If I wanted to kill you it would be with my fists.”
“You had a lot of rat poison in your other house. It was out of date, but it worked well against the cannibals.”
He ticked his jaw. “So that’s where it all went.”
“Did you do anything to my food?”
Instead of answering me, he got up, swapped our dishes and dropped himself heavily back in his chair.
I looked down at the plate of pasta that he had eaten from, now most certainly not poisoned and frowned at it. “You’ve eaten from this one. Now I have your germs.”
“I’ve had your cunt in my mouth.”
I decided to eat. “This is actually very lovely. Thank you.”
“Hm.”
“I complimented you.”
“What?”
“I complimented you. Now you say something nice back.”
He considered this deeply. “I like your earlobes.”
“What day is it?”
“Fucked if I know.”
“I meant in terms of how many days left of the Battle.”
“Oh, three.”
“Three days left? I’ve been sleeping in this apartment for a day… almost two?”
“You snore. It’s beautiful.”
“Huh.” I prodded my side wound. “No wonder it’s healed well.”
“You sleep talk. It’s even more fucking beautiful.”
“Did you watch me sleep?”
“Eat your food.”
I leaned to the side trying to see him better in the murkiness and rubbed my naked thighs together to discard a tingle. “I need pants if I’m going to go outside and travel.”
“You’re not going to go outside and travel.”
“Oh, I plan on leaving you soon.”
“Cross that off your fucking to-do list then.”
“I can’t, I apologise, I wrote it on with permanent marker.”
“Then I’ll get you a new piece of paper to re-do your to-do list.”
“That’s a waste of paper. Think of the trees.”
“I’ll plant some more trees.”
“They take a long time to grow.”
“You’re not going outside, once you go outside everyone’s going to tear you apart.” He sipped his drink. “And that’s my job.”
The upside-down man in the spare room started to cry again.
I leaned over the table with my wine glass of water and held it out. “Should we cheer?”
“What?”
“Should we clink glasses in celebration of our first date?”
“Our what?”
“This is our first date, is it not? It’s very romantic. I just might fall in love with you.”
He glared at me for a long time. Smothered in dark and cuddled in his hood and sunglasses, I had no way of distinguishing the features on his face nor any expression that emitted from him.
His silence spoke of nothing. The flickering candlelight highlighted the love heart red rims on his sunglasses.
“Is there hot water here?” I asked.
“Eat your food.”
“Can I have a bath?”
“Nice try, but I’m not leaving you alone to climb out of the window.”
“You can watch.”
He dropped his fork on the plate, glaring at me from the other side of the table. “Yes.”