Chapter 19
I sat completely frozen on the sofa, unable to move and unable to properly process what had just happened. I knew what I had done; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was how… still everything felt.
Her apartment didn’t change; everything stayed almost obnoxiously normal. That ugly fucking lamp in the corner kept glowing like nothing had shifted, like the air wasn’t heavier now, like there wasn’t a dead body cooling on the floor. Why the fuck didn’t the lamp look weird?
I remember staring at her longer than I meant to, trying to catch something. Guilt, panic, fucking anything that would make it feel real. It didn’t come, and I think that’s the first time I realized something in me had already gone too far to come back from.
You’d hate that part, wouldn’t you, little Ghost? … Or maybe not.
It came out of nowhere, a knock loud enough to pull me out of my head. It cut straight through whatever was left of my thoughts and dropped me back into my body so fast it almost hurt.
I rose to my feet, and for a minute I just stood there like an idiot staring at the door like it might open on its own.
Who the fuck… Another knock, harder this time.
My chest tightened, not from guilt or regret, no, something much simpler.
Fear of getting caught. That was the first thing my mind went to.
I moved then. Slow at first, then quicker, wiping my hands on my shirt without really thinking about it as I crossed the apartment.
The hallway felt narrower than before, like the walls had leaned in while I wasn’t looking.
I leaned in and looked through the peephole in the door, and for a second, I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Then it clicked.
Zwierek.
Of course it was him. Who else would show up now?
I unlocked the door and pulled it open just enough for him to slip inside. He didn’t even look at me at first. Just stepped past me like he belonged there, like he’d always been there, dragging cold air in with him from the hallway.
“Finally,” he muttered, shrugging his shoulders like he’d been inconvenienced. “I’ve been out there for what, an hour?”
An hour? That didn’t make sense. I hadn’t heard him knock, not once before the one that made me open the door.
My brain tried to grab onto that, tried to make something of it, but it didn’t get far.
Because then he saw her. His head tilted slightly, eyes dragging across the room until they landed on her body.
And then, he smiled. A genuinely pleased smile.
“Holy shit, Rowan.” There was something almost impressed in his voice, like I’d done something worth congratulating. I felt something twist in my chest then. Not guilt, not yet, just confusion. Because who the fuck looks at a dead body like that and smiles?
Well, Zwierek did.
He let out a short laugh under his breath, shaking his head as he stepped closer, hands slipping into his pockets like he was walking through a gallery instead of standing over a corpse.
“I should fuck her.” The words didn’t even land right at first. My brain rejected them, like I’d misheard.
“What the fuck did you just say?” He glanced at me, casual, almost amused.
“What?” he shrugged.
“Not the same hole as you, relax. I’m not a complete psycho, I can take the other one.” There was a pause. A beat where everything just sat between us.
“You’re a fucking psychopath,” I said. He laughed, actually laughed. Like I’d said something funny. Everything around me felt unreal, like I’d slipped into some kind of twisted dream. I tried to make sense of what had happened over the last few hours, but it all felt too far away to hold onto.
“I didn’t fuck her.” It came out more aggressive than I meant it to. He looked back at her, then at me again.
“Yeah?” he said, tilting his head.
“Then where is it?” I frowned.
“Where is what?” And then he looked at me properly, not amused anymore, not smiling.
“Your fucking semen, Rowan.”
And that’s when it hit. My stomach dropped so hard it felt like my body lagged behind it. Her throat. I could feel it again, the moment, the heat, the way I hadn’t even thought about it, hadn’t cared. If someone found her, it would lead straight back to me.
“Don’t tell me you were that fucking stupid,” he said quietly.
It wasn’t yelling, and he didn’t sound angry either. That would’ve been easier to deal with. This was worse. Disappointment.
He exhaled slowly, dragging a hand over his face before looking down at her again, studying her like he was already solving something in his head. There was a stretch of silence before he looked back at me.
“You know what we have to do.”
“No.” It came out fast, steady, and set in a way that didn’t leave room for anything else. “Don’t you fucking dare say it.”
He scoffed, shaking his head like I was being difficult on purpose.
“What the fuck else are you gonna do, Rowan?” His tone shifted, and I could hear the irritation in it now. “Leave her here? Let someone find her like this?”
I didn’t answer. Because what the fuck could I say?
I didn’t have an answer to this, no solution, and he didn’t exactly give me time to come up with anything. He stepped closer.
“You already know,” he said, quieter now, like he was reminding me of something I’d forgotten. “You’ve read it. You’ve learned it. All that hunting shit you buried your head in? This is what it was for.”
My jaw tightened hard.
“Now you just have to do it.”
There it was. Clear and simple, no way around it. I hated that he was right.
We didn’t argue after that, not really. There was nothing left to argue about.
He found her keys first, of course he did. Zwierek always had this fucked up way of being calm and having everything under control. Quick hands, already going through drawers, surfaces, everything with this strange kind of focus, like he’d done this before or had always expected to.
I grabbed the bedsheet, didn’t think about it too much, didn’t look at her face again while we worked.
We wrapped her carefully. Like covering something that shouldn’t be seen anymore.
Like turning a person into an object you could carry without thinking too hard about what it used to be.
Her body was heavier than I expected. Dead weight.
That’s what people call it; it’s accurate.
Getting her out of the apartment sounded wrong, every little movement too noticeable, and I was getting paranoid.
Every step, every shift, every second I expected a door to open, someone to step out, to ask questions I couldn’t answer.
The hallway was empty, the air stale, the kind of silence that feels like it’s watching you.
We moved fast after that. Down the stairs, out the building.
The night air hit different, colder and cleaner.
Like it didn’t know what we were carrying.
He opened the trunk, I lifted, we didn’t speak.
Just a brief moment where we both stood there, looking down at what we’d just placed inside, and then he shut it.
And just like that, she was gone from sight.
I got into the passenger seat without thinking.
He slid behind the wheel, engine turning over like nothing had changed, like this was just any other drive, another night.
The city blurred past us in streaks of yellow and shadow.
I kept my eyes forward, didn’t ask where we were going, didn’t need to.
You already know where we ended up, don’t you, little Ghost? Of course you do. There was only ever one place it could go from here.
We reached the cabin long after the road had stopped feeling like a road.
You know that kind of place, the kind where the trees grow too close together, where the headlights don’t really cut through the dark so much as smear it around.
The engine sounded louder out there. Everything did.
He killed the lights before the car had fully stopped.
For a second, neither of us moved. Just sat there with the engine ticking and cooling under the hood, the smell of damp wood and something metallic still clinging to my clothes.
“Out,” he said finally, like we were late for something.
We didn’t speak while we carried her in. The cabin door cracked when he pushed it open, same way it always did, like it had something to say about everything that went on inside but never quite committed to it.
Inside, it smelled like old wood, cold ash, and something faintly sweet from the forest bleeding in through the cracks. We lifted her up onto the table. The same table we’d eaten at. That… didn’t hit me the way it probably should have.
I unwrapped the sheet without really looking at her face.
I kept my focus lower, on my hands, on the fabric, on anything that didn’t have eyes or a mouth or a history attached to it.
Behind me, I could hear Zwierek moving through the cabin, drawers opening, cabinets slamming shut, metal clinking against metal. He knew exactly where everything was.
When he came back, I didn’t turn around right away. I just heard the shift in the steps, the way he slowed when he got close enough to actually see over my shoulder.
“Take it.”
I turned. He was holding out the saw. Just… offering it. Like it was nothing. “You know where to start.”
My hand didn’t move, not at first. I hovered there, somewhere between reaching and pulling back, like my body couldn’t quite decide which direction it belonged in. I knew he was right. But knowing something and doing it aren’t the same thing.
“Rowan.” His tone changed.
“Stop this shit.” I was still looking at the saw like it might explain itself if I gave it enough time.
“Your whole fucking life,” he went on, voice rising now, impatience bleeding into something harsher.
“You’ve been taking it. Just taking it. Letting people walk over you, beat you, use you, and then fucking crying about how unfair it all is.”
I could feel the tension build in my jaw.
“When do you grow the fuck up?” he snapped.
“When do you actually do something with yourself instead of just standing there feeling sorry for it?”
Something in me locked into place then. I looked up at him, really looked, and for a second I wanted to hit him.
To shut him up. To prove something, I don’t even know what.
But I didn’t, because he wasn’t wrong. That’s the part you’d hate hearing out loud, isn’t it?
I stepped forward instead and took the saw out of his hand.
It felt heavier in my hands than anything had before, but I didn’t hesitate again after that.
I placed the blade at her groin and pulled the saw back.
There was resistance at first. Thick, stubborn, real in a way nothing else had been up to that point, and then it gave.
Slowly and reluctantly, like something being forced open that had no intention of letting you in.
Blood pooled around the blade, slid down the table, and onto the floor until it formed a puddle around my feet.
The flesh was exposed now. The saw moved further and further down into her.
The sound was worse than the feeling. Or maybe it was the other way around.
I still don’t know. I kept going, didn’t stop, didn’t think.
When I hit bone, I paused and looked up at Zwierek.
He was already watching me. Completely still, like he’d been waiting for that exact moment.
Then he turned without a word, reached for something behind him, and came back with it.
He placed it in my hand, I looked at it but didn’t question it. A hammer and a chisel.
I placed the chisel on the bone, right at the joint where the leg meets the hip, took the hammer, and struck a firm blow on the chisel. This time, there was a wet snap that confirmed to me the bone was properly separated from the hip.
There’s a different kind of force you have to use when something won’t give the way you want it to. It’s not about strength, it’s about committing to the motion and not pulling back once you start. I learned that faster than I expected.
I handed the hammer and chisel back to Zwierek and got the saw in return, pushed the blade through the tiny crack where the bone used to hold in place, and I started sawing again until the saw hit wood, the leg completely separated from the rest of her body.
After that, it got easier.
We didn’t talk much, there wasn’t anything to say. At some point, time stopped making sense. It stretched, folded, then disappeared. And then it was done. Sixteen pieces.
I remember that number, I don’t know why.
We bagged them in black plastic, tied tight.
The cabin felt different after, like it had seen something it couldn’t unsee.
We carried the bags back out the same way we’d brought it in.
Just loaded the trunk and closed it. Zwierek turned to look at me.
Really look at me. For a second, I thought he was going to say something cutting again.
I expected some kind of reaction, but he gave me nothing.
“I’m proud of you,” he said instead. It felt wrong in a way I couldn’t shake.
“I’ll take it from here,” he added, already turning toward the driver’s side.
“Get some sleep.”
Like what just happened was normal, like it was routine.
He got in and started the engine. I stayed where I was. Watched the headlights cut through the trees, watched them disappear piece by piece until there was nothing left but dark again. And then, my body caught up.
I doubled over before I even realized what was happening.
It came up fast, violent, and uncontrolled.
Hands braced on my knees, throat burning, eyes watering as everything I’d forced down came back up in one brutal wave after another.
When it finally stopped, I just stayed there bent over.
Breathing hard, spitting the taste out of my mouth.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand and looked down.
My hands were still shaking, just not the way they used to.
It felt different now, and that was the part no one ever bothered to explain.
There’s this idea that you break in one moment, like something just gives out and that’s it.
But it doesn’t happen like that. Something in you moves, just a little, just enough that the things that should ruin you don’t land the same way anymore.
I straightened up slowly, looked back at the cabin, at the door. And I realized that I could just go back inside like nothing had happened. Sleep, continue. And that terrified me. Not enough to stop, never enough to stop, but enough that I took a mental note of it.
You’re still listening to me tell you this, even now, even after that. I know you might wonder what that says about you, because it says everything about me.