Vicious (21 page)

Brody squared his shoulders. “Since when have my decisions needed to be questioned?” he asked in that quiet, menacing voice of his.

His father, of course, was not fazed by it. “I trust you, son. I trust you to get rid of anything that could potentially be a problem.” His eyes were on me again, his gaze so hard that it made me feel like shrinking back and hiding behind Brody. Of course, I didn’t though. I just lifted my chin and met his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t see weakness in me.

He
and his men moved past us then, their footsteps echoing around the cold space. Once they disappeared, Brody nodded his head toward the open doorway. I took a breath and stepped through. Plastic covered mounds lay on the floor, and they must have been bodies because blood was gathered in dark pools on the rough concrete. There must have been four of them because I counted four body shaped figures. I should have been horrified, but I wasn’t. This was expected.

Brody stood by my shoulder. “Michael had his fun,” he whispered. “He was gracious enough to leave us one more though.” Only then did I reluctantly turn my gaze to the man in the corner. He was gagged and trussed to a chair,
and a slick of blood ran down the side of his head. He was young, not much older than me and his eyes were a bright, bright blue even in the dark of the room. He was staring at me, and I saw fear there, no pleading, just fear.

Brody went and stood behind him. “You two have met before,” he told me. “He’s somewhat of a motorcycle enthusiast.”

I stared hard at the boy. I had imagined that black-clad murderer on the motorcycle as a demonic figure, not the boy that was trapped here before me with his eyes too blue for this darkness. The boy blinked as Brody grabbed his hair and yanked his hair back; blood ran into his eyes, and I gasped in spite of myself.

Brody laughed and it echoed around the room. “Are you squeamish now, Violet? I thought this was what you wanted.”

I hated the challenge that I saw in his eyes, and I lifted my chin. “It is.”

Brody produced a knife and twisted it so the handle
was pointed at me. “Here you go then.”

I swallowed, and stepped forward to take it.
It was heavy and smooth, as if made of some kind of bone. What kind of creature died to create this instrument of death? I was vaguely aware of how natural it felt in my hand, and that was so wrong. Everything, though, about this was wrong, but that did not stop me. I lifted it so the sharp blade rested against the boy’s stretched neck. His skin was too white, just like his eyes were too blue.

In a silent movement, I positi
oned myself so I was behind him while that blade stayed connected to his skin. He was taking great breaths now, his chest moving up and down in a panic that served to remind me all too well of Damon’s last moments. That thought made me freeze as if Damon himself were placing his icy dead cold hand upon my spine.

Brody let out a slight laugh
, and his hand went to cover mine. “I didn’t think it would be your kind of thing. Here, let—“

“Don’t.”

He paused, then backed away with his hands up. “It’s up to you.”

I grabbed the boy
’s hair in a violent movement. It was hard with product, and I wondered if he had got up casually that morning and styled his hair thinking that today would be a good day; if he had grinned at himself in the mirror and thought nothing of the fact that Damon was dead and cold in the ground. My hand seemed to move of its own accord. The blade slid along his throat as if it were no more thick or consequential that a sheet of paper. There was a gurgle, and then it began to rain blood. I let go off his hair, and his head flopped forward. The blood didn’t stop though; his heart had obviously ceased beating, but the blood didn’t
stop.

I stepped back.
“Oh,
God
.” The knife dropped from my hand and clanged onto the ground with a jarring sound that cut through to my bones. “What did I do?” I whispered. I looked at my hands, and there was some blood on them, but not as much as there should have been. Most of the blood was pooling in my feet in a vile puddle.

“Get your clothes off,” Brody ordered as he started to pu
ll at my sweater. Was he going to kill me now? I just stood there numbly as he stripped me, the cold of the night intruding bitterly on my skin and reminding me that I was alive, and this was real. He threw my clothes into a pile before shrugging off his own jacket and wrapping it around me. I was engulfed in it, and it kept me warm, but for some reason that shaking would not stop and my teeth chattered. My hands were being wiped with something and the red began to come away.

Lawson entered then, with
men who I didn’t know. Plastic was being laid down, and bleach was being opened, its pungent smell not enough to disguise the thick scent of blood. Brody’s hands guided me toward the door. I twisted my head just in time to see the boy being cut free and his floppy body falling forward onto the plastic. His eyes were open and not so blue anymore.

I let Brody guide me to the car where the driver waited
, and not a word was uttered as we sped through the night. I didn’t seem to be able to move of my own accord and had to be helped from the car and into the lift. Everything looked so normal in the apartment, it all seemed so wrong. Another boy was dead, and I had killed him, yet everything still seemed so fucking normal. Brody guided me into the shower, and steaming hot water poured down on me. He stepped in behind me, naked now. Shampoo was lathered into my hair, and every inch of my skin was scrubbed by him until I started feeling raw, as if bone and flesh should have been showing. I did not, however, feel clean.

After I
had met whatever his standards were, a thick white towel was wrapped around me, and I was seated on a stool. I caught sight of myself in the mirror; my hair hung down in dark, wet, strings, my eyes big, my lips pale. I looked innocent and sweet clad in this white towel. The mirror was a liar. I watched while Brody tipped bleach down the drain in the shower, its smell making me want to vomit, and I welcomed it as the fumes rose up and stung at my eyes and lungs. Maybe I would die now, poisoned, as a result of getting rid of the evidence.

I bit out a laugh, and Brody gave me a cool look before he pul
led me up from the stool and led me to his bedroom. There, he let the towel drop to the floor as he pulled me into bed. The shaking had not stopped, and he pulled me against his chest with my limbs trapped by his. Like that, I finally felt that it was possible to breathe again, to speak.

“I can’t believe I did that,” I told him, my voice sounded weak as if some stranger were in my body, a stranger who had never done anything bad.

“Listen,” his hand gripped my face. “You did nothing bad, I did. As far as anyone is concerned,
I
did it. Do you understand?” His eyes seemed to bore into me, and all I could do was nod in response. We lay in silence until I finally got up the courage to speak.

“Why did you let me do it?” I asked in the dark.

He didn’t answer straight away. After a few moments had passed, I thought he had just ignored the question, and when he spoke, it surprised me. “Because you cared more than I did,” he said. I started to shake again, and he held me tight until I fell asleep.

We drove north the next morning. The coastline flew by us as we left the city, and I didn’t ask where we were going. Brody just told me that he wanted to get away for a few days. I expected him to leave without me, but he instructed the housekeeper to pack my things. She neatly folded outfits into an expensive looking travel set
, and as I waited by the car for Brody to load my things into the trunk, I imagined that anyone passing would see us as a young, wealthy couple with the world at their feet. The reality, of course, was vastly different. I felt no different being a murderer. There should have been a change, a mark of some kind, but the girl I saw reflected in the tinted windows of the car looked no different.

There was silence on the drive;
not even music intruded into the quiet car. I had never heard Brody listen to music, in the car or at home. I had read once that not liking music was an indicator of a psychopath. I didn’t know if it were true or not. But then again, who was I to judge? My hands had stopped shaking, but I couldn’t stop looking at them. They seemed impossibly clean with the nails trim and spotless. It was like they were the hands of someone else. I ran my finger down my lifeline, following its curve. It was one smooth, long curved line with no interruption. Surely these hands belonged to someone who was not me.

“Where are we going?” I asked after several hours of driving. The landscape had changed to tall pines with snippets of sea visible in
between.

“Not far now,” he murmured
, and that was the end of the conversation.

A winding road led us up an
incline. As the car climbed higher and higher, expansive views showed forest and sea stretching onward with no other signs of civilisation in sight. I sucked in a breath and gripped my seatbelt. It was so odd to be around…nothing. When the car finally pulled to a stop, it was outside a log cabin. There was the brief thought in my mind that Brody had brought me here to dispose of me, but there was no fear at that idea. I just didn’t really care.

I followed behind as he fitted the key into the lock
, and the door swung open. The outside of the cabin was deceptive, and I had expected a rustic, small space. But what was revealed was a large open space, while still homely with its exposed log beams. It contained the luxury that I had become accustomed to in Brody’s world.

“Do you own this place?” I asked as I stepped inside. Brody placed
the keys on a side table, along with his wallet and phone.

“Yeah,
it was the first thing I ever bought.” He disappeared back out to the car to grab our stuff, and I took that opportunity to explore. Stairs led to the upper level which held a large bed covered in what looked like animal furs. It was on a mezzanine that looked over the living area, and the heat from the fireplace would rise to keep it warm. I also found a bathroom and another bedroom.  Two French doors led out to a platform that was somehow secured over the cliff’s edge. With no barriers, it made you feel like you were on top of the world and could fall off the edge at any moment. A small thrill of fear and unsteadiness went through me. I had never been up this high before.

Embedded in the wood was a circular hot
tub, and I found myself smiling at how amazing it all was.

“Like it?”

Brody’s voice made me jump, and I turned to face him. “It’s fantastic. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

He gave a sm
all smile like he was pleased with my response, and held out a hand for me. I took it and carefully made my way off the platform. “I’ve switched it on. It should be hot by morning,” he told me.

“Is this where you come when you go away?” I ask
ed as we went inside. He had a fire roaring, and I hadn’t realized how cold it was until the warmth began to lick at me. I settled myself on the rug in front of the flames, hugging my knees to my chest.

“No, that’s…work. I hardly ever get the opportunity to come up here.” He walked over to the bar.
“Drink?”

“Please.”

He poured bourbon for himself and wine for me, which he passed to me before sitting in a leather armchair closest to the fire. I felt his eyes looking down at me in my position on the floor, and I hid a smile at the irony. He was always in the position of power.

“This all seems too normal,” I said once the wine sta
rted to go to my head. “Isn’t it wrong that we’re sitting here being so…normal after what we’ve done?” I looked up at him and waited.

He threw the remainder of his bourbon down his throat
before placing the glass on a small table beside him. “We’re lucky to be sitting here at all. Don’t think for a second that that kid was innocent. He would have taken us out in an instant if ordered too.” Then he smirked. “Besides, he took out your precious Damon. Isn’t that enough for you?”

I set down my glass and crawled over to his feet, where I sat on my heels and stared up at him. “Are you still jealous? He’s dead.”

He stared at me with a hard gaze. “What? Jealous that you were in love with him? You’re just my whore, Violet. You are nothing to be jealous of.”

I could have flinched at his cruel words, but I recognized them for what they were. I reached out and touched his leg. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. Besides, you’ve given me your answer.” I ran my hand down his thigh. “Isn’t it funny how you don’t sicken me anymore? I know what you’re capable of, yet you don’t sicken me.” I was spe
aking more to myself than him, and I met his gaze. “I don’t know if I loved him, I don’t think that I really even know what love is. All I know is that I feel sick and empty that he’s gone. If I’m your whore, then use me like one, because I need the comfort.”

I crawled up onto his lap and straddled him. I felt the need for someone’s arms around me, for someone to kiss me and lie to me, if only for just one night.
“I need the release,” I continued as I grabbed his hair and kissed him violently. I sucked and bit on his lips until he returned with just as much force and brutality. I scraped my nails down the back of his neck and enjoyed his hiss of pain. I was rewarded with being shoved down onto the rug in front of the fireplace. As he kneeled over me, my skirt was shoved up high over my thighs, and my panties dragged down. He entered me roughly, with no preparation, and it was my turn to hiss as he filled me. But I welcomed it, and felt myself get wet instantly.