Chapter 34
Chapter
Thirty-Four
HER
F or a moment, Damon’s face mirrors the look of a child caught red-handed with their hand in the cookie jar.
But as his demeanor shifts, he adopts the smugness of a cat showing off its latest catch.
“It’s not what it looks like.” He pauses for a moment, opening his mouth to say something else, but he stops short when I raise my palm to shush him.
“First, you abandoned me at that Christmas party. Then you go out, kill someone”—I crane my neck, seeing his neighbor face down in the shower—“And, to add insult to injury, you use that line on me?” I scoff. “Get real.”
“How did you get home?” he asks, changing the subject as he shuts off the water. “And how did you get in here?”
I want to scream. Even though I should be more upset at the fact that he murdered someone—when we were supposed to lay low—I’m more apt to strangle him with my bare hands for tonight’s succession of events. “Caught a taxi, then picked the lock. But never mind that. Do you know what I had to deal with at that fucking party?”
He lifts a brow before answering with a shake of his head.
“Once he realized you weren’t coming back, your boss decided it was the appropriate time to ask me out.” I can still feel his disgusting hands on me, and I grimace, trying not to retch. “He even groped me. Like what the hell?!”
He clenches his jaw and grips his knife with white knuckles. “I’ll kill him, too.”
Feeling a headache bloom, I rub my temples. “Jesus Christ, Damon.” I lean against the door frame, wanting nothing more than to take off my heels and soak in a warm bath. “Be honest. How many people have you killed tonight?”
“Just two,” he replies nonchalantly, his lips tugging into a shit-eating grin.
“Well, aren’t you on a roll?”
He lifts his arm, seconds from putting his mask back on. “I can make it three if you let me go back to that?—”
“Damon! This is fucking serious!” I close my eyes, inhaling and exhaling as I attempt to calm my frayed nerves. “There’s a dead body behind you.”
It’s his turn to scoff. “You act like you’ve never seen a corpse before,” he remarks, unbothered.
“Oh my God!” I resist the urge to bash my head—or his—against the wall. “Just … Please tell me who else you killed.”
“Detective Bryant,” he replies, calm as can be.
“Oh, wow.” In my head, I visualize the card he gave me back in Ashburn. I know he would never leave us alone; he’s too tenacious. Too stubborn. Part of me knew it would come down to this. But, of all things to feel, I didn’t anticipate myself feeling relief that he’s gone. “What are we gonna do with?—”
“Him?” He tilts his head toward the very naked man behind him. “I have some things in my apartment to take care of this little … problem . If you want to slip into something more comfortable, then you’re welcome to give me a hand.”
“I don’t know anything about … this ,” I say, gesturing to the body.
His childlike glee is clear in his wide grin and sparkling eyes. “I can teach you. Show you the ropes.”
I shoot him an incredulous frown. “On how to dispose of bodies?”
He nods, moving past me. “When you’re in this line of work, you have to get creative, Little Finch.”
The nickname stirs something dark within me, and my mind wanders back to my family’s old property. “Wait,” I say, giving him pause. “I have an idea where we could bury them.”
He smiles like the Cheshire cat, giving credence to my earlier analogy of him. “Now you’re thinking like a real killer.”
As we sneak out of the apartment, I’m not sure if I’m starting to think like a killer—or if I’ve been one all along.
This isn’t how I thought I’d spend the final hours of Christmas Eve, but here I am.
I stop by my apartment and change into something comfier—or as comfy as one can be when learning to stage a crime scene and ride out to the middle of nowhere to bury a body.
After changing into a worn Metallica shirt, we return to Alex’s apartment. Damon then walks me through the steps of setting up the scene for our plan, making it look like a successful suicide attempt since Alex is our fall guy.
But as he detailed his process, I couldn’t help but think that he truly did kill Grace in the same manner.
He had already prepared a suicide note— just in case , he said—and left it in the bathroom. It’s long-winded, having Alex confess to Damon’s murders in gruesome detail. But claims that he could no longer take the guilt of committing such ‘heinous deeds.’
After he arranges the body, I fill the tub and make sure our scapegoat has a near-identical replica of both Damon’s hunting knife and mask. Nausea roils in my stomach, and I’m unsure whether it’s from the humidity of being stuck in the bathroom—or because I just took part in pinning a bunch of crimes on a mostly innocent person .
Damon rubs soothing circles on my upper back, making me flash back to the past for a few beats before his voice drags me back to the present. “You did good. Now we need to take care of Bryant. The cold won’t keep him from decomposing for long if we don’t move fast.”
I can’t help it; I laugh. It’s all just so goddamn absurd .
After gathering his supplies and dressing suitably for winter, we get into his rental car and drive off. There’s just one thing—there’s a dead body in the trunk. At this point, I think I’m seriously past the point of wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
Would Dad be proud?
The irony of burying someone in my family’s land—the same place where my father, the Lakestone Reaper himself, dumped bodies of his own—is not lost on me.
We park the car further into the property because hauling a corpse when rigor mortis has already kicked in is a tall task. As if things couldn’t get worse, the frozen ground adds an additional obstacle to overcome. I wonder how the hell we’re going to dig through it and bury Bryant deep enough to avoid detection or animals too curious for their own good.
My hands tremble as I clip a flashlight to my collar. “What happens if someone finds him?” I ask, watching as Damon retrieves two shovels from the backseat.
“We’ll be long gone before then,” he says matter-of- factly, tossing me a shovel. “So don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
I roll my eyes. “No need to be condescending about it. I’m new at this, remember?”
“Just trust me,” he says, invading my bubble. “I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
I stare up at him. His eyes resemble chips of ice, and the coldness of them chills me to the bone, sending shivers down my spine. Is there any feeling to be found there? Any empathy or remorse for the things he’s done? Am I even capable of fixing him? He’s a psychopath , I remind myself. Someone beyond repair .
Even if it were possible, in all honesty, I don’t want to fix him. Part of me likes him broken, vengeful. Unhinged. It makes me feel … alive .
Fuck, something is definitely wrong with me .
I tear my gaze away from him and shake off my thoughts. “Let’s just get this over with,” I say, scanning the area for a probable burial site. “How deep does it need to be?”
He shrugs. “Deep enough that no one will find him if they come snooping around.”
We set off into the woods. The night is eerily still, like a tomb. How appropriate. The snow has finally laid off, so at least there’s that. Eventually, we come upon a secluded area near a frozen pond. The trees here are larger, their gnarled branches casting creepy shadows on the glittering snow. It’s surreal, almost peaceful.
“This looks like a good spot,” I say, pointing to an area just far enough away from the trees that we hopefully won’t run into their roots.
He nods in agreement, his expression unreadable. He wastes no time shoveling snow aside in the place I picked until the brown earth is visible underneath. Then, he begins to dig.
I join him. My arms ache in a matter of minutes, but I forge onward, wanting to do my part. In burying a body , the voice of my stepfather says in my head. I blink a few times, focusing on the task at hand. I do wonder, however, about how many bodies Damon had buried before. How many lives he snuffed out.
The prospect of a concrete number should bring me dread—but a curious thrill slithers through me instead.
Time passes by in an agonizing crawl. I’m deep in thought, various scenarios running in my head over the potential repercussions of our actions when Damon speaks.
“You know we’re gonna have to move on eventually, right?”
I look at him for a moment, unable to comprehend his words. “What do you mean?” I ask hesitantly, wiping my brow with the back of my hand.
He continues to dig. “If the blue shirts begin to poke holes in our set-up, then we’ll have to leave. Start over. The sooner the better.”
Memories of the past year play in my mind like a movie on fast-forward. I’ve been constantly relocating, changing names and backstories whenever things became too difficult or uncomfortable. I’ve become used to it, putting on a new persona and moving to a new city or state. It didn’t take long for it to become second nature to me.
But as I remember my apartment and all its familiar items, a current of sadness sweeps over me.
I thought I had found a place in Fallbank where I could live normally, settle down with the cute neighbor guy, and hang out with my friends from work. Now, it all seems so far away, like a fleeting dream. What I thought was a peaceful little life I’d managed to carve out with my minimum wage job had gone from feeling secure to dissolving in an instant the moment Damon walked into my sphere.
But he’s always been there, always been my shadow.
He casts a glance in my direction, noticing my distress. “Don’t worry,” he says softly in an almost uncharacteristic show of gentleness. “I already got things worked out. We’ll have new identities and everything.”
I’ll never be normal again, will I?
“We’ll get through this,” he reassures me. “You can trust me. I don’t plan on ever letting you down again.”
Uncertain of how to interpret his statement, I continue digging until the hole is large enough for a body. I glance at Damon for confirmation, and he nods, setting down his shovel. I do the same before following him back to the car.
“Give me a hand, will you?” he says, popping the trunk.
Tentatively, I grab one end of the body bag, wondering where Damon got it in the first place. But considering he’s obtained a stock of prescription strength medicines without a medical license, who knows how many body bags he has stashed away in his closet.
We carefully maneuver the body out of the trunk and carry it over to the plot. Once there, we lower it into the ground. I’m struck with a brief wave of queasiness, but Damon maintains his calm demeanor. He retrieves his shovel and begins piling dirt on top of the bag.
After it’s completely concealed, with both packed dirt and snow, I look at him. I want to know why he did what he did—in his own words.
“No exaggeration, Bryant was close to taking us down,” he states, an intensity radiating off him. “I wasn’t about to let that happen, so I did what needed to be done. He had to die so our secrets could stay hidden.”
There’s an undeniable finality to his voice. My skin prickles as I’m seized by a chill. The gravity of our predicament slams into me, the weight of it stealing my breath. It isn’t just about staying out of jail now. We’ve both crossed a line that can never be uncrossed.
Damon is a murderer, and I’m equally complicit. There would be no going back from this, even if I wanted to.
But I understand now; he had no other choice.
My teeth chatter. He wraps an arm around me, and I feel his warmth seep through his jacket, heating me. Silence envelops us as we listen to the breeze that rustles the branches. He grasps my hand, and the gesture—one of comfort—turns my heart into a molten blob.
“We did what he had to do,” he says softly. “Now, let’s go home.”
He pulls me closer, and I lay my head on his shoulder.
We’re in this together now.