6. Sage
SIX
SAGE
The water runs pink.
I watch it swirl around the drain in lazy, thinning ribbons. Dark at first, then copper, then pale, watery pink. I stare until there’s no color at all.
But I don’t trust clear, so I stay under the spray with the rough side of a washcloth, dragging it over my arms, wrists, fingers, under my nails. Soap, rinse, washcloth again—until my skin is raw and stinging and the water has been clear for too long to matter.
It doesn’t matter. I can still feel it on my skin. Still feel him on me.
I wash my hair and remember Brock’s hands fisting it. I scrub my face until the cologne-and-salt memory blurs, but the heat of his blood stays with me.
I’m not sorry.
I turn the hot water even higher, until my skin flashes red and the spray hammers against my back. When I close my eyes, the afterimage behind my lids is an inkblot of blood and more blood.
Eventually, my fingertips prune and the water cools before turning stone cold.
I step out and swipe the fog from the mirror with the heel of my hand.
My reflection looks worse than I expected—blotchy, sunken, eyes bruised all the way around.
I towel off, forcing myself to wipe each drop from my skin.
I’m not okay.
The tears come without permission, and they’re ugly—the kind that twist your face into something unrecognizable and drag out sounds you didn’t know your body could make.
I press my forehead against the mirror and my mouth opens, an animal screaming out—a howl, a keen, something inhuman pulled from the same place that swung that knife.
I killed a man.
I stabbed him past sense, past necessity, until the knife felt welded to my hand and all I had left was the need to make sure he could never hurt me again.
I stare at myself in the mirror and whisper the truth that’s in my soul.
“And I’d do it again.”
I howl again, but it breaks into a laugh, then a sob. The worst part is, I’m not ashamed. It’s grief and shock and terror and something too sharp to name—but it isn’t shame. I brace myself against the sink and let it run through me. Sobbing. Laughing. Shaking.
Eventually I run out of fuel. I wipe the back of my wrist under my nose and breathe through my mouth until I’m at least mildly sane.
I finish toweling off and pull on my favorite oversized T-shirt and cotton shorts—the softest things I own. Then I brush my teeth twice because my mouth still tastes like bile and beer.
Burn the dress.
The guy’s warning echoes through my head. Amy will be back tomorrow morning, and I need all evidence of tonight gone.
I turn to scoop it up. But all I find is empty floor.
What the fuck?
The dress is missing.
I stand there, towel twisted around my hair, staring at the empty tile where I know—absolutely fucking know—I left it. I remember peeling the stickiness off my body. I remember watching it hit the floor.
“Am I going insane?”
My brain sprints through impossible options even as it screams, it should be here. I lurch toward the kitchen—maybe I took it off with the jacket and hung it on the chair?
But I freeze before I reach the table.
The jacket isn’t where I left it.
“Fuck.”
Maybe the shock scrambled things. Maybe I’m remembering wrong.
No. I draped the jacket over the kitchen chair before I went to shower. I took the dress off in the bathroom.
The living room looks the same. The kitchen looks the same. But something’s off.
The knife.
I drop to my knees and check under the chair. Nothing.
It’s gone too.
My chest tightens. Either I’m losing my mind, or someone was in my apartment while I was naked and vulnerable in the shower.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god.”
I force myself to breathe. To think. The bathroom door doesn’t lock. The windows were closed but not latched. And the front door—fuck, did I even check it when I got home?
“I need to leave.”
I make it as far as my bedroom doorway before I see it—a piece of paper, folded once, sitting stark white against the faded blue of my pillowcase. My stomach drops like I’ve been shoved off a cliff.
Someone was here. Someone was creeping around while I was in the shower.
I approach the bed like it might explode, picking up the note with fingers that feel disconnected from my body.
Slowly, reluctantly, I unfold it.
The handwriting is neat, economical.
Your replacement items will arrive tomorrow morning. I’ll handle the evidence. You’re cute for a murderess, but I’d better not catch you stealing my knife again.
—K
P.S. Burn this note when you finish reading.
I read it twice. Three times. The words don’t change.
K.
The one I stole the knife from. The one who barely spoke. The one who watched me use it.
I sink onto the edge of the mattress, note trembling in my hands. He took the knife, the jacket, the dress. Evidence. All of it.
Your replacement items will arrive tomorrow morning.
These aren’t random vigilantes. They’re organized. Professional. They cover their tracks.
I swallow, crumpling the edge of the paper.
Does this make me a witness? Or a participant?
The paper crinkles as my hands shake harder. I should be packing a bag. Calling the cops. Calling Amy.
Instead, I lie back on the pillow where the note was waiting and stare at the water-stained ceiling. Somewhere in this city, K is holding evidence that could destroy my life.
The laugh that bubbles up tastes like hysteria.
I hold the note to the ceiling light one more time. Then I get up, find a lighter in the kitchen junk drawer, and watch the paper curl into ash over the sink.
The evidence disappears into smoke.
I wash it down the sink then cross to the front door and check the handle. Locked. But I’m pretty sure it was locked when I got home, too, for all the good it did.
A man walked into my apartment, took what he wanted, left a note on my pillow, and strolled back out. The lock didn’t slow him down a heartbeat.
I turn it again anyway. Left, then right, then left. Like the third time might mean something.
It’s the only lie I’ve got the energy to tell myself tonight.