Volumes of the Vemreaux Complete Collection: A Dystopian Adventure Trilogy, page 35
His chin jutted out in an unnatural angle, making his surprised and soulless eyes lock with hers, whether by coincidence or by choice, she was not sure.
The last glimpse of his life hit hard in Blue’s gut and sunk like a rock through the ocean of her self-loathing. She could scarcely believe the hands that she saw were actually attached to her body. Unfathomable though it was, she was the bringer of doom, despite the rationale Baird would no doubt feed her wounded soul later.
In that moment, there was no Light, and no dark. Just death.
33
Witness to a Moment of Weakness
“If you use that butter knife, you’ll probably end up accidentally piercing the eyeball and squishing it. I’m sure Baird wants his prize in one recognizable piece.” Alec instructed her which nerves she was cutting through with his knife. In the cover of darkness, she allowed a grimace when she felt the eyeball pop out of the socket with a sickening slosh as it rolled into her grocery bag.
Sam drew no masculine merriment from this, and his weighty expression was not veiled. He left his cigarettes in the car, so as not to attract attention to the wooded area behind the university they’d dragged the body to. He desperately wished for a smoke to relieve the tension.
“What?” Alec turned to his friend. “You’ve seen and done worse. You’re acting like this is all new to you.”
“I’ve done my duty by the free world, but I’ve never had the displeasure of plucking out a person’s eyeball,” he pointed out.
“Well, you’ve killed a fair few protecting the throne,” Alec pointed out. “Baird’s right. You can’t think of her like a normal girl, Sam.”
Blood began to boil beneath Sam’s controlled outward appearance. He noticed Blue’s stiff shoulders and guessed that she hated these comments every bit as much as he did. “How about she pulls out your eyes next?” he suggested gravely. “Then maybe I can use them to show you that, in fact, she is a girl. And this is wrong.”
“Wrong?” Alec guffawed. “When did that become a judgment instead of a challenge to you?”
Blue made quick work of the second eye, and eventually Sam could no longer deny the boyish fascination that made him watch her swift and clean movements.
Alec then explained to her in the pleasant tone of mere instruction the usefulness of a makeshift tourniquet when doing dark deeds as they were. He shook his head when she handed his sharp knife back to him. “No, you’ll need that to saw through the bone in his hand.”
“Maybe you do,” she muttered. Alec and Sam watched with morbid interest as she picked up the victim’s wrist and crushed the hard bones beneath the butts of her palms with what looked like a calm, meditative pose. “Now I’ll take the knife.”
“Did you just… Did you just crush the bones in his wrist?” Alec asked, astonished.
“Of course. How else am I supposed to do it? Easier this way.” Blue held up the deflated and floppy arm and jiggled it for his benefit. Her eyes were focused and her motions precise as she sawed through the contorted skin. She refused to lose herself now that the end was so near. The veins and stubborn sinew were reluctant to give up Baird’s trophy, but conceded defeat when she yanked the hand free of its death grip, making sure that the blood splattered away from the men.
“Tourniquet’s got to be tighter than that next time,” Alec instructed, shaking his head. “Do you need some help, kid? I don’t think Baird would mind if we dug the grave. Give you a break.”
“I don’t need anything,” Blue spat out a little too forcefully. “And I’m not your kid or anybody else’s.” Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she unceremoniously tossed the appendage into the grocery bag. “Didn’t get to be a kid. Too busy training for this kinda thing.”
Sam made good use of the shovel as he began to dig what would be an unmarked grave by morning. He was glad that he had opted for black pants and a button down shirt instead of the suit he’d worn when greeting the Emperor of the Americas.
Blue held out her hand to take over for him since this was her task, but he refused on principle. He would not be the only one who did nothing other than drive the getaway vehicle. This was her moment, and he wanted to be a part of however she decided to feel about it after it was over.
To ensure that it was deep enough, Sam dug uninterrupted for thirty minutes. When it was three meters deep, he motioned for Alec to roll the garbage bag-wrapped body down into it. Blue was faster, though, and she pushed the body in with eyes that were devoid of the spark he’d been drawn to. In that moment, Sam began to hate Baird.
Blue held out her hand for the shovel after Alec dumped in most of the man’s personal affects, but Sam refused. “I should do it,” she insisted.
“I’m not arguing with you over this,” he said as if they bantered like this all the time. “You did the kill, we’ll do the cleanup. Cleaning up won’t teach you a thing you’ll need to know when you’re up against the predator. They’ll want his ugly head on a pole and a big parade when he dies.” He grunted when he hefted in a particularly stubborn clod of dirt and rock. “With twinkly lights and the token baton twirler. Everyone’ll love it. They’ll eat cotton candy and throw confetti in the air in your honor.”
“Do you want me to take the shovel from you, or are you gonna give it to me?” she asked threateningly. “I have to finish the job. I…this is my friend’s school. People actually learn things here and study and get degrees. It’s not right that I ruined his university like this.” She sighed. So desperately had she wanted to attend there and learn everything they had to teach her, but now her mere presence besmirched its higher purpose. She felt the need to rid her inbred savagery from the institution to somehow make recompense. “Even if it’s not important to you, it is to me. I made the mess. I should clean it up. Baird would say the same thing.”
This was clearly the wrong thing to say, but Sam barely got out, “I don’t give a…” before she jerked the shovel from his tired hands with more force than he anticipated. Her small frame always threw him when she did things with more strength than her slight physique seemed to allot for.
Alec bit back a snide comment at Sam being robbed so easily.
“Alright, you pushy woman. Just save the grass patches for last. Those should be put back in place by hand, not with the shovel so it doesn’t look so obvious that there’s a dead body under it.”
She worked quickly, her muscles not tiring as a normal Wayward’s or even a strong Vemreaux’s would. After she handed the shovel back to Sam so that she could kneel down and replace the sod, she eyed the rest of the dirt that did not fit due to the displaced volume of the man’s body beneath her. “Spread it out over the bloody patches so the dirt’s not all in one place,” Alec instructed calmly, as if he was telling her how to turn on a washing machine. After he observed her handiwork, he gave his approval. “It’ll do.”
The mild acceptance instead of praise caused her shoulders to sink. She looked over the grass and dirt under her hands to see where she’d gone wrong. Smacking down a stubborn edge of unearthed grass, she found yet another small pool of blood that was too visible. She picked up a chunk of dirt and packed it over the offending area so that it was obscured from sight.
“It looks good,” Sam assured her, offering his hand to help her up off the ground. She surprised him by taking his hand and using it to pull herself up next to him. Without thinking or recalling his personality, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest.
Before she made contact, her forearm flew up to shield her breast while her other arm guarded her stomach from his body.
It was the strangest embrace he’d ever had, including when Liam would try his hand at different wrestling holds by sneaking up on him from behind. Sam hoped that she could allow a modicum of softness to surface, but the hug only caused her to stiffen against him, like she did not understand the concept of an embrace from a man.
Alec did not need to be asked to leave. He granted the two a moment of privacy as he picked up the discarded shovel and Baird’s plastic bag. He ironed out a few more dirt patches and wiped off his knife on the grass before leaving them in the darkness.
Blue’s rigid body frustrated Sam, but he feared that he would make her even more uncomfortable if he said anything overtly selfish. “Hey.” He willed his voice to be gentle. “You can relax. It’s over now.” He rubbed long, deliberate circles into her back.
So quiet that he almost did not hear it, Blue whispered. “It’s not over. It’ll never be over! This is just the start of what I’ll have to do.”
Sam considered this a moment as he traced a line down her side, stretching from her shoulder to her hip. “How about for tonight we just pretend that it’s over. You can be someone else if you want. Some gorgeous Femreaux whose biggest problem is how to fit ninety-seven dresses in a closet that only holds eighty-six.”
Blue suffered her cheek to lean against his shoulder, and felt his chest swell at the contact. Despite her devastation, she managed a short chuckle. “Wow. That is a problem.”
Sam smiled. “Then I’d come along with some brilliant solution.”
“Like what?” she prodded, her defensive fists loosening their death grip on her body.
“I don’t know. You could shove the dresses that don’t fit into my closet or something,” he suggested, mentally moving Blue into his house.
“That is brilliant,” she conceded, her tone going flat. “Sam?” she choked out in a whisper. “It’s not working!” The weight of her foul deed nearly pulled her into the freshly dug grave along with her victim. The blackout was safely at bay, but she sensed the guilt from this never would be. Dread coursed through her as she lifted one hand to the Vemreaux’s chest and clutched onto the front of Sam’s expensive shirt, using it to keep her body upright. Her face pressed between his shoulder and collarbone to muffle the single shudder that rocked through her and threatened to shake her apart. “This wasn’t my choice!” she pleaded with nobody for absolution. “Why does it have to be me?” Her knees shook under the weight of the bleak world and nearly gave way beneath her.
Sam scrambled to keep his grip around her finally pliable body as she deflated in his arms. With all of his might, he struggled to hold the girl together as she came unglued. “I’m here,” he promised.
“I just killed that guy, and I don’t even know his name!” she confessed, the ugliness of her violence rang out in every word as torture. “I’m a murderer, Sam. You’re holding a murderer! I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve killed. I’m a d-dangerous p-person!” She released his shirt to rake her nails down her arm, letting out a little of the tension she could not contain.
“You were following orders, Blue. I’ve killed people I didn’t know, too.”
“But he wasn’t even armed! I killed someone who couldn’t fight back. What kind of a person does that make me? Killing the predator’s one thing, but this guy’s just a regular person.” She buried her face further into his chest, willing the tears to stay tucked away inside of her as she scraped at her own flesh. “I’m a monster.”
Sam said nothing to this, for there were no words that would make her feelings or deeds disappear. Instead, he settled for holding her while she shook unnaturally in his arms. He reached out and grabbed her hand to stop its punishment of her arm. “Stop that. Don’t hurt yourself.”
When her tremors quieted, he brushed his fingers through her auburn hair, releasing her pheromones from the tangles. “Hey, this emptiness and regret that you’re feeling is what makes you a person instead of a killer. If you weren’t upset about all this, that would make you a monster.” He could tell that she was thinking up an argument, so he distracted her by trilling his hand down her side once more.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?” Blue fought as best she could against the shiver that replaced her shaking. “I can see it in the guys every now and then. They get scared sometimes when they learn more about what I can do. Why’re you being nice?”
“Shh,” he whispered into her hair. “Just let me hold you until you’re not so scared of yourself.”
“That might take a while,” she warned.
“Good.” His arms around her loosened from their vice when he judged that she could stand without assistance. The loving embrace became soft with its gentility, coaxing both of them into an understood hiatus from the severe stress of the night.
After several minutes of breathing in and out together, Blue closed her eyes and nuzzled her cheek into his warmth. His hand covered her jaw and stroked the filthy flesh lovingly, bringing her further into the tender moment. “So tell me more about this Femreaux with the millions of dresses.”
Sam smiled as he lifted his other hand to cover the one she still had bunched into his shirt. He pried her blood and dirt-stained fingers loose and entwined them through his. He heard her breath catch as he pressed her knuckle to his lips and gave it a small kiss. “I’ve heard,” he began, moving on to the next knuckle as he spoke, “that the guy she’s with is really good looking.”
“Is that s-so?” she replied when she found her voice again. “I d-didn’t know you noticed other men like that.”
“Ha.” Sam paused before kissing her third knuckle. “Man, I like you,” he admitted. “This you. Not the one who’s always hiding.” His other hand found her waist and squeezed mischievously, bringing out a squirm from Blue.
“W-we should probably get going. Scene of the crime and all.”
“Just let me finish kissing your fingers, you silly woman.”
Miracle of all miracles, she let him.
34
The Hotel
Though there were no tears, Blue felt that she had purged entirely too much emotion. Enough weakness had been shown for one day, and hopefully, a lifetime. She finally pulled away from Sam.
Reluctantly he let her body part from his, though he would not relinquish his grasp on her hand. He did not want her to hide herself again. They walked hand in hand across the street over to the car where Alec was patiently waiting in the back seat.
“Can I drive you home so you can wash up?” Sam offered as he opened her car door for her.
Blue was confused at this repeat of chivalry, which was a new thing for her. She wondered erroneously as she stood outside the car if he thought she was too shaken to open the door for herself.
“No,” she shook her head. “I don’t want to wake them up. I have to be back in a couple hours. I’ll just jog home to kill time.” She grimaced at her poor choice of words.
Alec spoke up from the back seat. “You look like you just killed someone and buried the body, Blue. If you don’t want to go home, you can come back to the hotel and clean yourself up there. It’s no good for you to be running out in the open with blood on your face.”
Her eyes widened while Sam smirked, ushering her into the passenger’s seat. Though both of them were filthy, Sam reached out after he resumed his place at the wheel. He took hold of Blue’s hand, kissing it again before placing it on the gear shift. “You ready for it?” he asked, his eyebrow cocked in her direction.
“I’m ready.”
Alec called Baird from the back seat to assure him of her whereabouts, the courtesy of one guard to another. Alec felt the kindred spirit to Baird’s watchful presence. “Park around back,” Alec instructed. “Don’t use the valet.”
“You don’t want the hotel staff seeing me without my hair done?” Sam joked. “I know, Alec. I’m not stupid.”
Alec did not comment, but glanced at their clasped hands and sorely disagreed.
Blue kept her chin down, and for the first time Sam was glad that she kept her lovely features from view, given that they were covered in dirt and blood. When they reached the elevator, Blue entered hesitantly, having never been inside of one before. When Alec pushed the button to the penthouse suite, the elevator began to move. Blue’s hands flung out to the nearest wall. She grabbed onto the flat silver railing that clung to the sides of the box.
Alec shot her a look like she was a camel instead of a girl, but Sam spoke first. “Hey, what’s wrong?” Sam’s hand lingered in the empty space between them.
She looked up at him as if he was crazy. “We’re moving!”
“Yeah.” He pointed to the button marked PH that was lit up. “We have to go up to get to the room.” It began to dawn on him how different their worlds were. “You’ve never been on a lift before?”
When she shook her head and eased her knuckles off of the railing, he explained the mechanics of how elevators worked, remembering her earlier request to understand how a car functioned in order to feel safe in it. Admittedly, he did not know much about the inner workings of the elevator, but he did his best with Alec filling in the gaps he left. By the time they reached the suite, Blue did not feel quite as ruffled about the moving box as she initially did.
“Are you taking her home?” Alec asked Sam.
“Yeah, no problem.” Sam slid his plastic key card into the door and held it open for Blue.
Alec arched an eyebrow at him as if to say, “I bet.”
Though Sam had invited many a Femreaux in that very hotel room, it was the first time he felt nervous.
Blue gasped at the opulence. “Wow! This…this is amazing! You live here? I’ve never seen anything like it!” Alec left them for one of the bathrooms, but Blue was too overwhelmed by the decadence to think about washing up. She could not stop her astonishment. “Seriously? You have a kitchen in here? Do you even cook? Two couches? Plants? What is that, a bar?” She moved into the suite without asking permission. “Look at that table! You could fit, like, twelve people there! Whoa, that is the biggest TV I’ve ever seen. It’s bigger than I am!”
