Chapter 11 #2
God, now I can’t help but wonder if he’s ever cut anyone to pieces while they’re still living. This is why I can’t kiss him. Why I can’t allow myself to enjoy his attention, or trust him.
This is exactly what I always knew I’d find.
The smell that’s been pounding against my skull really hits when I turn to the pile of parts. It’s easier that none of them are a face or a head. I’m able to imagine they’re doll parts, instead of what they are. But the smell?
I don’t know how anyone can handle this. My hands clench at my sides, in my borrowed shirt that’s probably seen this blood so many times before. How many times has this shirt been covered in it? How many times has Jed used this shirt to wipe away blood splatter from his face or hands?
How many times has Jed done this in his life?
I can’t help the gagging that starts in my chest. I can’t help as fingers seem to dig at the insides of my esophagus, climbing up with nails digging into my throat as I clap a hand over my mouth to prevent the creeping nausea.
My eyes water and I stagger back, hitting the side of the shed with the chainsaw that rattles on its altar behind me.
I gag, but somehow nothing comes up. I lock it behind my teeth, behind my palm and pressed-shut lips, and whirl toward the door. Slamming open the closed door and admitting sunlight into the shed that makes everything ten times worse.
And not just because Jed is outside the shed, leaning against one wall as he gazes casually up at the sun coming between the trees in shifting, filtering patterns.
He doesn’t react as I stumble out and fall to my knees to suck in breaths of cleaner air that doesn’t stink of old blood and bodies.
He doesn’t say a word when I gag, finally spitting up into the leaves and grass under my clenched fingers. It’s a good thing I haven’t eaten today, but the bile burns more than it ever has before as I wretch and cough and heave out the smell that’s gotten clogged into every pore of my body.
“It’s the smell, isn’t it?” he asks at last, casually closing the door and pushing until the latch clicks. “Everyone thinks that it’s seeing the bodies that gets you. And the blood. But I know it’s not. It’s that smell you never really get used to.”
“How—” I shudder and wretch once more, back arched as I screw my eyes shut. “How do you stand it?”
“I’ve been cutting up bodies, or helping, since I was five,” Jed answers honestly. “I just don’t notice it as much anymore.”
Since he was five? The horror sinks in along with the words, and I find I have a lot of questions that I’m pretty sure I do not want answered. A five-year-old wouldn’t be cutting up bodies on his own. Especially if he was only helping.
“Five?” I whisper, still hoarse. “But…why?” There are a million better things to ask or say or fuck, to scream into the woods and hope someone, even a poacher, hears me. But instead I’m asking why he was a childhood butcher.
Jed sighs and kneels down beside me, moving slowly as he pulls my long, tangled hair back from my face.
I can feel him braid it gently, while kneeling in the grass beside me like he’s not at all worried I might puke on him.
“Because my family are a bunch of monsters,” he informs me plaintively, gently tugging on the separated sections to braid them.
“Because they’ve been butchering people for longer than I’ve been alive.
Because we can’t choose the family we’re born into. ”
There are so many implications in his words, but I can’t bring myself to face them. Not now. Not yet.
“Are you mad at me for going in there? You were trying to hide it from me, right?” I assume hoarsely, finally sitting back on my knees and finding that he’s right there, still holding my hair, one hand splayed against my back to hold me up.
“If I were trying to hide it from you, I would’ve locked it,” Jed points out after a few seconds of silence.
“I’m not mad at you. Or even shocked you’re puking in the grass.
I wondered if you’d come back and find it.
Part of me thought you’d just go back inside, back to bed, but…
” I turn to see him smiling wryly. “Having known you for a few days now, I figured you might end up this way.”
“But you’re not mad.” There’s a low rumble in the distance that my brain ignores. I’m too busy holding his gaze, my own eyes wide with shock and fear and denial. “You’re not going to kill me?”
“You already knew about this, anyway.” He nods toward the shed. “You just hadn’t seen it…oh.” He looks up as the rumbling gets louder and carefully reaches out a hand to me with a sigh. “Come on. You might want to be standing for him.”
Without thinking, I let him pull me to my feet, looking up in time to see the large truck pull into the driveway and park, gravel dust curling through the air behind it.
I can hear the loud music from inside, just as well as I can see the man’s lips moving before he turns off the engine, cutting off the music and the loud engine of the truck.
Jed groans as the door opens, shoving his hands into his pockets as he steps away from me, looking guilty. “Perfect timing,” he mutters to his feet, though there’s no real heat in it or actual anger. If anything, he looks…ashamed.
“Uh, Jed?” My heart pounds as the black-haired man gets out of the truck, his shoes scraping in the gravel before he closes the door behind him.
“Was she puking while I was driving up here? Please tell me she wants to be here and the shit I heard from Cass about kidnapping some girl you’re freaking out over isn't true. Because honestly?” I look up at him finally, seeing his coal-black hair and brows raise over concerned eyes.
“We’re going to have to have an intervention if you’ve literally kidnapped her and aren’t letting her go. ”