Chapter 21 The Present
It takes about an hour after orgasm for my full strength to return.
Cassian stays outside the bathroom door while I shower, giving me a rare sliver of time to myself. Water thunders over me like it’s trying to rinse off the last decade. I let it. I scrub and soap and steam myself raw until my skin turns pink and new, until every inch of me sings.
By the time I step out, I feel brand new.
No. Better.
I feel reborn.
Psyche and all.
There’s no shame, no ache, no echo of Mark left in my body. Everything he ever touched has been overwritten, sanded down, burned out, and rewritten by the hands of three monsters I somehow now call mine.
Is this what balancing karma feels like?
Because I swear to god, I’m light as a freaking feather. Light like a gust of breeze that forgot it's supposed to push things over, not giggle while it floats.
I wrap myself in a plain white towel. My skin is still damp and glowing. I squeeze my boobs together so they’re plump and glistening like twin resurrection peaches.
Did I just leave my own personal spa, or what?
Cassian glances up from where he’s leaning against the wall.
“You know what?” I say, grinning as I strike a little pose. “We should do this more often. I think I finally get it. What gets you guys off in punishing murderers, I mean. It’s like it adds glitter to the world.”
He snorts. It’s one of those reluctant snorts. The kind gruff men make when they have been won over against their will. Full of gravel and quiet affection.
Yup. I am all the way under that turtle shell armor of his.
A scream rips up from the basement below. It’s high, wet, and desperate.
“Mark is still getting it, I see,” I say.
“Hope they give him hell,” Cassian says. “When they are done, it is my turn.”
“What, you taking it on yourself to land the finishing blow?” I tease.
That’s such a manly-man kind of thing to do: starting only after everyone else is satisfied.
I don’t know, it turns me on. It’s not like he has to do it.
Besides, in his experience, Mark’s a mellow killer in Cassian’s catalog of horrors, but Cassian wants to punish him anyway.
For me.
He looks at me. “Something like that.”
I grin at the thought and then, because I’m gleeful and a little unhinged tonight, I decide we’ll throw a party.
When someone’s being tortured in your cellar, the polite thing to do is be quiet.
Slip away, pretend nothing’s happening. Only if they deserve it, of course.
I’d never turn a blind eye to an actual crime.
But this isn’t about politeness. I want the world to know how small Mark’s screams sound against my life now.
I want him to hear my laughter. I want the normal people in the city to hear music drifting from the abandoned hospital and picture nothing more ominous than rowdy kids with a speaker. Let the contrast bruise him further.
“Cass,” I say, drying a stray curl against my shoulder, “do you guys have a speaker? Something loud. A record player? We need music. For ambience.”
Cassian’s brow tightens. “We don’t stream. It’s too traceable.”
“Oh, come on,” I say, flicking water from my fingers like confetti. “I’m not asking for god knows what. I just want vibes.”
“We don’t vibe,” Cassian deadpans. The corner of his mouth betrays him anyway.
Another scream rises through the floorboards, snagging in the old ducts. My name is in it this time. I blink, startled by the absence of any flinch in me. The sound lands, rolls off, and evaporates.
Huh.
“He’s calling for you,” Cassian notes, his voice flat.
“It’s cute he thinks I care,” I say. “Let me put him on hold.”
Something in me should be horrified, right? Old me was a moral pretzel, twisted into shapes to accommodate everyone else’s comfort. Old me would have felt a tremor, at least. But tonight, all I feel is buoyant. I’m light as helium.
I grin wider.
“Do you know what this is?” I ask, conspiratorial. “Corruption. You’ve corrupted me.”
His snort is more audible this time.
“Speaker,” I repeat, sing-song, wagging a damp finger at him. “You boys must have something. A boom box. A gramophone. Something possessed in Nathaniel’s closet.”
“You won’t get internet access,” he says. “You won’t get Bluetooth or anything that pings.”
“I’m fine with analog,” I counter, eyes brightening. “As long as you have it. Do you have it?”
Cassian sighs. “Yeah. Talon has a portable. It’s on a battery pack. He uses it when he burns things in the courtyard.”
Yes. Victory.
“See? Vibes!” I clap, delighted. “Where is it?”
“In his room.”
I don’t wait. Towel cinched, I beeline down the hall, leaving wet footprints in my wake.
Before long, I shoulder into Talon’s room and start looking.
It turns out to be under his bed. It's a sturdy little portable turntable with scuffs in all the right places, paired with a chunky speaker the size of a small tombstone.
Talon taped a skull sticker over the logo.
Cute.
I cradle the turntable in my hands just as Cassian appears in the doorway.
“Help me carry this,” I tell him, already handing it over. “It’s fucking heavy.”
He doesn’t move.
“Cass,” I say softly, stepping close enough that the edge of my towel brushes his knuckles. “You kept watch outside a shower so I could be new again. You let me be a monster in peace. Don’t ruin the mood now, okay? Please?”
His jaw ticks.
“Let me throw it a parade,” I whine. “This is pretty much a dope-ass funeral of mine.”
I watch the debate behind his eyes: risk vs. the sight of me incandescent. My smile tilts reckless. He takes the speaker.
Ahh, another victory. It tastes so goddamn sweet.
We carry the gear down the hall. The building hums around us. I’m barefoot. Cassian walks beside me, all muscle and tension. I hold the turntable tight against my ribs.
Downstairs, a man faces the bill for his sins. Someone hammers once. Nathaniel’s voice rises, calm and clinical, reading notes. Talon laughs, low and rough.
I don’t ask what they’re doing to Mark.
I don’t need to know to know it’s deserved.
In the common room, Cassian sets the speaker on the counter like it’s a bomb.
“Volume low,” he warns. “Turn down the lights too. People could be walking the tree line.”
“Oh, whatever. Set the volume yourself,” I chirp. “I trust your paranoia, Captain.”
He checks the blinds, fingertips parting them a centimeter. Outside, crows ripple across the eaves, black on black against the night. A few turn their heads in perfect unison when I enter, like they’ve been waiting for me to dance for them.
They haven’t, obviously.
It’s just their creepy stillness, that twitchy patience they have. But I’ll take it. Tonight, they can be my audience. Their owner hasn’t shown up to collect on my promise, so I don’t have a problem with them yet.
“Just to be clear,” Cassian says, “we’re not celebrating him.”
“Oh no.” I lay the turntable down and snap the case open. The little arm gleams in the low light. “We’re celebrating me.”
“Good.” He looks almost satisfied with that answer. “If the volume spikes, I cut it.”
“Deal.”
I thumb through Talon’s crate of vinyl, one sleeve after another. He has punk rage, Motown nostalgia, a jazz record with a lipstick print... I spot Earth, Wind & Fire and know that’s the one.
“Do you remember,” I start to sing, then clamp my mouth shut. “What day it is? Never mind. It’s September somewhere.”
I set the record. The needle finds the groove. The song blooms, and I grin so hard it aches.
Cassian adjusts the volume until it becomes a happy thrum instead of a siren. He leans on the counter and watches me, eyes hooded.
I dance.
The towel slips against my skin as I move, bare feet sliding on tile, hips finding the rhythm before my mind does. I spin until the room smears and the towel whips out around me. I raise my hands high, wrists aching in time with the beat.
I was bound, and now I’m not.
Checkmate, universe.
Checkmate, Death.
Checkmate, Mark.
“Skye,” Cassian warns, his voice warm when I start sashaying my hips his way.
I giggle.
“I’m keeping it PG so you don’t spook,” I tell him, adding a tasteful shimmy. “But you could join me, you know…”
“No.”
“Cassian.”
“No.”
I close the distance, tilt my head, and give him the look. The one I learned by accident. The one that says: you can refuse, but think how bored you’ll be with yourself if you do.
He holds out for half a second longer than last time—progress—then sets both hands on my waist like he’s anchoring a buoy.
“This is not dancing,” he says as I fill the air with spirit fingers.
“It is when I do it,” I argue, wiggling until his mouth twitches again.
He lets me spin under his arm. I pretend his palm is a disco ball. He refuses to play along and still somehow does.
The record hisses between tracks, the needle searching before it catches the next groove. The bass hums low and steady, holding us there for a while. Sweat beads along my collarbone. A muffled thud travels up the stairwell. Then Talon’s voice, rough velvet, breaks through the rhythm.
“Stay hydrated, sweetheart. Screaming’s thirsty work.”
Another scream follows before Talon appears, sleeves shoved to his elbows, forearms a gallery of old scars and fresh smudges. He grins when he spots me dancing and points at the turntable like a proud father.
“You broke into my shrine, huh?”
“I consecrated it,” I correct. “To me.”
He bows at the waist. “As is right.”
Nathaniel follows, rolling his neck. His hands are clean. Of course they are. He surveys the room, clocks the speaker, the towel, the way Cassian is not dancing, and smiles.
“We’re keeping it down,” Cassian says, a preemptive warning for both of them.
“Is that right?” Nathaniel asks before casting me the most I can see right through you look I’ve ever been given.
“We’re having a party,” I whisper.
Nathaniel’s eyes flick to the record, to my towel, to Cassian’s stillness. He listens, nods once, and looks up.
“Well,” he says, mild as milk. “I need Cass for a minute.”