Chapter 12 Cooper #3
Reluctantly I rise, torn between giddiness and the dread of having to clean up her guts.
My stomach flips at the thought of handling her steaming intestines.
But I can’t say no to following through, Reed and his family have made it abundantly clear that there is no return to normal life after you touch the ground at Wolfston.
Once a killer.
Always a killer.
Reed moves with a casual swagger, sliding into the booth like he’s there to perform a patient history.
I slide in next to his presence. Face-to-face the woman smells like cheap perfume and self-importance.
Her makeup has an awful line that separates the bronze toner of her face and her pale neck.
The woman’s eyes widen while she swallows another piece of her California roll.
“Hi,” Reed says, voice as warm as spiced eggnog. “We couldn’t help overhearing. Everything all right with your meal?”
She blinks at him as if this is the first time in her life that she’s been called out on her bullshit. “Excuse me? I’m perfectly entitled to my opinion—”
“Of course,” he interrupts, sharp as Damascus steel. “You’re entitled to your opinion. However, you are not entitled to inflict your qualms on others for shits and giggles.”
Her jaw crunches. “I beg your pardon?”
Reed smiles politely, a perfect mix that could mean everything’s fine or prepare to meet your maker. “You’re pardoned,” he says swiftly. “But you nearly hit a school bus on your way here to bitch about the sushi, and your overall behavior has been quite awful to tell you the truth.”
The woman freezes with her mouth open, clutching the fork. “How dare you accuse me of—”
“Of calling you out for exactly who you are?” Reed tilts his head, if one could be charming and menacing simultaneously. “Ma’am, I’m a doctor. I recognize pathology when I see it. And right now, you’re presenting with symptoms of chronic self-absorption. Aggressive case.”
I bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.
Her mouth hangs open, aghast, probably thinking of screaming for a manager, but Reed cuts her off before she can summon a sound. “We’re not here to fight,” he says, voice dripping with a warm tenderness akin to prime rib. “We just wanted to make sure you are… comfortable.”
“Comfortable?” she questions, unsure whether to feel threatened or flattered.
“Mmmmhmm,” he hums. “Because if you’re not, I can make sure you never experience discomfort again.”
Her face drains of blood. The fork clatters against the porcelain while she scrabbles for words that have seemingly evaporated from her mind.
“I—” she starts, then stops. Her eyelids flutter.
The mask of outrage cracks into something ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” she squeaks, the words as brittle as crispy tempura.
Reed’s grin is so wide, it almost spreads to his ears. “What is your job, ma’am.”
Her eyes flash from side to side, presumably assessing if there is anyone else in the diner. “City tax assessor for Anchorage.”
He chuckles. “Gosh, I knew you were scum the moment you cut us off. My intuition is never wrong.”
She screams. “Help, help, help!”
“Cooper, gag her mouth!”
I grab the scarf around her neck, twirling it to cover her lips, while Reed flips to the other booth to hold her hands. “Quiet, otherwise we’ll have to knock you out,” he seethes.
Her muffled screams crawl beneath the scarf and up into my nerves.
I hate that it makes something warm and ridiculous bloom in my chest. This should disgust me.
Reed should terrify me. But this? Holding a screaming woman that almost murdered a kindergartner and doing it with a sexy doctor is the most satisfied I’ve ever felt in my life—to have purpose.
“I knew you’d be a difficult one,” Reed mutters with a controlled fury, slamming her head against the wood, cracking the table.
“You nearly killed a kid today—not by accident, but from selfishness. Because you couldn’t be bothered to wait thirty seconds.
Just like when you nearly took me out. Don’t worry, honey.
I won’t let anyone else have the chance of being your next victim. ”
I look over to see the waitress, her hand hovering over the landline. I shake my head at her, mouthing the word: Run. She scrambles out through the kitchen.
“Reed, we have to go before the police get here,” I say, as the Karen wiggles again, shaking the booth.
He slams her head down into the table again, the wood splintering. “You better not wake up until I want you to.”
“Grab her legs Cooper, I’ll grab her torso.”
We somehow manage to get the Karen out of the booth, she must weigh close to two-hundred fifty pounds. As we step out the door, I’m already out of breath from the workout. The only thing that keeps me going is the defined vasculature of Reed’s forearms. He could choke me out with those veins…
We toss her into the back of the Audi, her body flopping against the luggage.
Reed’s ears perk up as sirens rise in the distance. “Time to do Anchorage a favor,” he chuckles, as he guns it out of the parking lot.
We circle around town for what seems like an hour, driving suspiciously slow to avoid police detection, my pulse spiking at every emergency vehicle. Snow is continuing to fall, beautiful little specks falling under the moonlight.
“This will do,” Reed says as we pull into a dimly lit park: Valley of the Moon.
He revs the Audi up into the grass, ignoring the perfectly fine parking spaces, lining us up in between a fenced dog-park and a patch of forest. “It’s your lucky day, honey,” Reed says as he pops the trunk, chopsticks in hand.
“Reed! There are tents over there,” I murmur, pointing with my eyes.
“It’s okay, Cooper. They are homeless; they mind their own business. They might report it in the morning,” my stomach lurches at the thought of ending up in prison over a fit of road rage, now that would be an embarrassing trial. Sorry mom and dad.
“Grab her feet Cooper.”
I groan, but together we chug her past the brush, twenty feet into the forest, her chest rising and falling slowly. I can hear the gurgles of her stomach digesting her last supper.
Reed hands me the chopsticks. “What the hell am I supposed to do with these?” I hiss.
“Through the eyeball, you have to go deep to sever the connections of her brain. Make sure you go in with a lot force. Then you gotta mash it up. Think of it as a giant meatball,” he whispers with a devious smirk.
“Please stop comparing body parts to food,” I sigh, taking the chopsticks in hand. The list of foods that are safe to eat is dwindling far too fast for my liking.
I raise one chopstick in the air, holding it above her right eye. This is for the children. For the citizens of Anchorage, who have incredibly high property taxes. For the innocent drivers that have nearly been killed for a latte.
I deliver a force that strikes through her eyelid, snapping through the thin socket, a mess of goo popping up onto my shirt. Disgusting. Her body seizes, lips moving beneath the scarf. My heart races with a surge of adrenaline. Jesus motherfucking Christ.
“Cooper, the other one!”
“Really?” I groan.
I line up and blow the other chopstick through her left eyeball, a smattering of fluid surrounding us.
You better be dead.
Her body stills, the chest going flat. Good.
“Good job, Cooper,” Reed praises, his words sparking a warmth inside me. Because I know he means them. From the way the fire burns in his eyes. “Now let’s check into our rental before we end the night in handcuffs.”