Kisses and Lies: A Anti-Hero Standalone Romance

by T. L Smith

  The dead are easy.

  The dead don’t complain.

  The dead don’t care if I cut them into tiny pieces so I can see what they’re made of.

  They don’t care that I cut a hand off and hand it to someone else so they can access their phone.

  They simply don’t care.

  They’re dead.

  And it’s the reason I love this job so much.

  But the dead also deserve respect.

  No matter how vile or evil they are, their soul is gone, and their body is left. I take great pride in doing what I do—my cuts are flawless, precise, and the care I take is perfect.

  For someone who is about to burn them that is.

  They come to me in usually pristine condition, unless they don’t have loved ones or were involved in a terrible accident. Their hair is combed, and they’re dressed in their best outfits. It’s the bad ones, or the homeless ones, or those who have no one that I take extra care of. Even the ones Blaze brings to me. I know he has his reasons, and I don’t question them, but I still treat them respectfully.

  I do it to help him, and I do it to cut.

  I like to cut.

  I love the sound of the saw.

  Removing the first hand, I place it in a plastic bag and look up. When I do, Rochelle is standing there with Blaze next to her, a grin gracing his lips. Her eyes are wide, and there’s fear evident in them. Removing the gloves, and not even bothering with the music, I walk to where she’s standing. She steps back, and her hands go up as if warning me not to touch her.

  “I know that person.”

  Fuck, of course she does.

  Her eyes lift from him to lock on to me. “You look comfortable, more relaxed than I’ve ever seen you,” she says while shaking her head. “How is that possible? How do you like that?” She nods, and I turn to see Blaze watching our exchange.

  He’s never inside. Ever.

  “You had to bring her in, didn’t you?”

  Blaze shrugs. “She saw you… the real you.” Blaze turns to her. “Tell him what you saw.”

  She does as if she’s on autopilot. “You were smiling as you cut into him. You were smiling through your mask.” Rochelle shakes her head. “I rarely get smiles like that.” The music from the room thumps and she shakes her head. “I have to try to accept this side of you if I want you, don’t I?” Then her eyes go back to the room, and she shivers. “He served me coffee. Creepy coffee guy, I used to call him.”

  “He was more than creepy,” Blaze harrumphs next to us.

  I turn, and without thinking, clock him one right in the fucking jaw. Hard.

  Blaze falls backward and clutches where I hit him. “What the fuck,” he screams, wiping the blood from his lip. “She asked to see you, so I brought her in,” he mumbles, then he says something else as he walks out shaking his head, but I don’t catch it.

  Turning back to Rochelle, she’s biting her bottom lip as she shyly looks up to me.

  “I like you, Marcus, that is obvious. But this…” her eyes flick behind me, “… I don’t like to see this.”

  “You don’t have to see this. It’s simple. Don’t come here.” My words seem harsher than I mean for them to be. “You don’t have to come here,” I say to her again, this time softer and with more care.

  “I know. I was driving past, and I wanted to see when you were finished for the night.” Rochelle steps back, and I know she’s going to leave.

  “I’ll be finished in an hour.”

  She turns, giving me her back when she walks out. “I’ll go home. See you after.”

  Rochelle doesn’t give me a chance to respond, she leaves.

  Walking back in, I turn the music off, my mood having significantly changed. Covering the body back up, I slide it to the cremator and push it in, letting it burn.

  I would have spent up to an hour on that body.

  Cutting. Spending time expelling my demons.

  Now I can’t even stand to look at it.

  Walking out, I see her. She didn’t leave like she said she was going to. She’s sitting on the ground, much like where I first saw her that time she was here for her grandparents. I was shocked by her, a beautiful woman lying on the ground. She had all that hurt written on her face. So much so I had to take a deeper look. I had to know why, and what put that there. A girl as beautiful as her shouldn’t carry such monsters around with her.

  I watch as her eyes close the closer I get. She knows it’s me because she doesn’t move.

  “I thought you were beautiful the first time I saw you. It’s what pulled me to you,” I tell her honestly.

  Rochelle opens her eyes at my words. “I thought the same thing about you.”

  “That I was beautiful?” I smirk.

  “No, that you were the most attractive man I’d ever laid my eyes on. And beyond that, you held something I was searching for that I didn’t know I needed.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Death,” she says, then sits up.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rochelle

  Marcus looks at me as if he can’t work out my words. Neither can I, but he doesn’t need to know that. I understand only a fraction of why he’s in my life, and why my pull to him is so intense.

  He’s the epitome of death—he works with it, and he lives in it. I had never been around or experienced something like that until that day I met him. I needed him, and that scares me.

  “Death,” he says, stepping closer. He offers me his hand and I take it. “They don’t call me Reap for nothing.” Marcus pulls me up and slams my body into his front. “Most women want me because they want the fear attached to me. They think it gives them something, being with someone who they can’t contain or keep a hold on.” His hazel eyes glisten as he stares at me. “You want me for me. I like that about you.”

  “You do?”

  “I do,” he says.

  “You still scare me. That part of you…” I point in the direction of the crematorium, “… I hate.”

  “You don’t need to like what I do. You simply need to like me. Isn’t that the healthy thing to say in a relationship?”

  I smirk at his words. “Relationship?”

  “I’m fucking you. You’re fucking me. This is what this is, right?”

  Marcus’ words make me pause. “I guess you’re right.”

  “So how about we go back to mine and fuck?”

  “Just what every girl wants to hear. You’re such a romantic,” I murmur against his lips as he kisses me.

  Hands skim my body and claim me in places only he knows how I like to be touched. I moan as his hot lips connect with mine, while he slides in and out of me. I wonder if I will ever get sick of his touch, or ever not crave it as much as I do right now.

  When he touches me, he brings anything but death. He brings fireworks that blow up so bright I can feel them wanting to escape into the darkened skies.

  I’m falling in love with death.

  I’m falling in love with Reap.

  And I’m falling in love with Marcus.

  I don’t think he feels the same, though.

  To him, I’m just someone who’s here. Someone he likes to play with. I’m his new fascination. He hasn’t ruined me yet, as he promised all those months ago. But I feel if I stay on this path we’re on, he just may completely destroy me.

  Marcus pushes my hair back and touches me with affection. He’s always fucked me, and I never complain because I enjoy fucking him. But I can feel the shift, taste it, with each soulful kiss he gives me.

  It’s not just a sampling anymore.

  It’s more like a devouring.

  My fingers thread through his, and I grip onto him for dear life as I come.

  He kisses me harder, and soon my hands drop to the bed while he finishes.

  Marcus’ body is now on mine, our breaths heavy and our worry is slightly less.

  Until.

  “This won’t be a long-term thing. You know that, right?�
��

  Ruined.

  He’s ruined the moment.

  “Why?” I question.

  He pushes off of me and lays next to me, his hand touching mine ever so lightly that I want to reach out and grab it. Instead, I lay still. Perfectly still. Waiting for his answer.

  “It’s a right-now thing. And right now, we meet each other’s needs, and I’m not going to lie and say you’re like all the other girls, because we both know you’re not. You are different, to me.”

  “Oh, how profound,” I say with an eye roll while sitting up. “It’s a rollercoaster of I want you, and then I can’t have you.” I reach for my outfit and he grips it, stopping me from putting it on.

  “You want kids, am I wrong?”

  I freeze at his words. “Yes, I do.”

  “This is why it’s not long-term, pretty girl. I can’t have kids.” I gasp at his words and turn to look at him. He lets go of my clothes and sits on the bed naked, the sheet not covering him.

  “Do you mean you don’t want kids, or you can’t have kids?” I ask, not sure what I’ve just heard. Before he can answer, my cell starts ringing. I look to it and see Tanika’s name flashing. Usually, I wouldn’t answer, but with the way she’s been, I can’t not.

  “Hello.”

  Marcus looks at me, waiting.

  “Roch, I need you to come.”

  “What?” I stand, trying to pull my clothes on as I listen to her.

  “I need you to come. Please, come.”

  “Okay, okay, where are you? Tell me where you are.”

  I hear her gasping for breath.

  “I’m on the town bridge. You need to come, Roch.”

  “I’m coming.” Grabbing my keys, I run. My boob is hanging out, and I’m not fully dressed, but as I get in the car, it’s the last thing I think of as I drive.

  It takes me a total of ten minutes flying down the highway until I reach the town bridge. It’s quiet, being late at night, but I spot her straight away.

  Leaving my car, I run to her. She’s standing on the edge, not quite on the railing, but her hands grip it with a force so tight her fingers are going white.

  “Tan,” I whisper carefully, coming up behind her.

  She doesn’t look at me straight away, but I can hear the pain in her soft cries.

  “He found me. He found me.” She lets go and hugs herself, then shudders. “This time I didn’t get to run, Roch. I didn’t get to run.” She shakes, and I’m careful as I step closer to her. My hand goes to reach for her, but before I can, she pushes away so I can’t touch her.

  “Please come to me.” My hands are outstretched, and she looks to them, then shakes her head.

  “He touched me in all the wrong places.” Tanika visibly shudders as she holds out her hands, showing me the bruises all over her arms.

  “Tan,” I say again, but she’s in her own world now.

  “He whispered what a dirty little slut I was. Then offered me this.” She taps on her arm where I can see the injection area of a needle. “I couldn’t say no. It was all I could hope for at that time, my hands were tied, and I needed an escape. It was an escape, Roch.”

  I hear a car door shut behind me, but I don’t want to look. I’m too afraid to take my eyes away from her. She’s a danger to herself right now, and I’m helpless to help her. I know this, but it won’t stop me from trying.

  “Tan, come to mine. You can come to mine and never leave if that’s what you want.”

  “Tell Blaze I could have loved him. He’s a good man.”

  “You tell him,” I say while stepping closer. If I reach my fingers out now the tips will touch her.

  The breeze picks up and floats her beautiful, long black hair over her face where it sticks in the tracks of her tears, but she doesn’t seem to care.

  “I won’t be able to.” She clutches at her chest like the pain is unbearable. “I’m broken now, so broken, Roch. I have no one.”

  “You have me.”

  Beautiful, sad eyes turn to me. “You’re all I have.”

  Then it happens so fast that my heart rate skyrockets. She steps up, those beautiful, sad, haunted eyes look at me, and then she’s falling. And before I know it, I’m going after her. My hands reach the edge, and before I can fall in to get her, hands clasp me from behind, lifting me up and pulling me back.

  “Let. Me. Go,” I scream, but it’s no use.

  Everything is silent.

  Apart from the deafening sound of my breaths.

  “Stop, pretty girl. Stop!”

  I kick, but he won’t let me go.

  I need to get to her.

  I have to help her.

  How am I meant to do that if he won’t let me go?

  Sirens are heard in the distance, and I keep on struggling, trying to be set free, but his hold on me is too tight.

  “I have to get her,” I say, struggling, my legs and hands becoming exhausted. I collapse, but his hold doesn’t let go.

  “I got you,” he whispers in my ear.

  He does have me, but I don’t have me right now.

  I am drowning in that river under this bridge where her body is right now.

  I’m drowning, and I can’t get out.

  I am floundering in a river of pain.

  “Pretty girl.”

  I open my eyes to find the police standing in front of me. There are words being spoken, but I don’t seem to hear them. I can’t register anything. Everything hurts, but it’s my heart that pains me the most.

  Hands pull my shirt up, and I look down, realizing most of my breast has been out on display, but for some reason I don’t even care.

  Why would I care?

  I can’t care.

  I can’t feel.

  When I look up again, ambulances are here, as well as a pair of angry eyes walking toward us.

  Marcus’s grip becomes almost painful as he holds me tight against his chest.

  “Tell me that’s not her.” His voice is so angry.

  My heart is too sore to care what he says.

  “Brother,” Marcus says.

  Rough hands touch my chin and lift my face up to meet his. “You didn’t save her? Who do you think you are?” Blaze spits in my face, but I don’t even flinch. How can I? I don’t care what he says or does. I just saw my best friend jump from a bridge because she was hurt. Hurt again.

  Then, it’s like something snaps and I manage to pull myself from Marcus’ tight grip, and my fists are slamming into Blaze’s chest.

  “He got to her again, you prick. And you didn’t protect her,” I scream.

  Marcus reaches for me again, but not before I slap Blaze in the face as hard as I can muster, but he doesn’t even move.

  Oh God, my hand burns.

  “What’s she talking about?” Blaze’s eyes don’t ask me the question they ask Marcus.

  “He raped her. A-fucking-gain,” I seethe, the words dripping like venom from my mouth. “And you were meant to protect her. You were meant to save her.”

  Blaze takes a step back, shakes his head, and before I can say anything else to hurt him the way I’m hurting, he’s gone. The only thing left is the noise of his engine as he speeds away.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “No. I want to go to my home.” I try to pull away, but Marcus holds me.

  “You’re wearing your underwear out in public, pretty girl. Let me take you home.” I look down and see I only have on panties and my shirt, the latter just barely covering me. I didn’t think clearly when I was leaving, I simply knew I had to get to Tanika.

  “I want to go to my home. I don’t want to go to your bubble where you make everything seem okay. Then you burst my bubble when I think it’s all working.” I take a deep breath. “Nothing is okay. Every damn thing is broken, and people are dying.”

  “People die, pretty girl, it’s just the way of the world. We can’t stop it.”

  “Trust you to say that. You love death. I bet you can’t even wait till you d
ie.” We are standing on the bridge, the police and ambulance people are still milling around. Some know him from what he does, and it makes me even more uncomfortable.

  “Death is inevitable. We can’t stop it, and we should greet it as an old friend. It’s not here to hurt us, it’s here to set us free from this cage we live in.”

  “You’re fucked,” I say, shaking my head and walking to my car.

  Marcus catches up with me, his hand catching my wrist and turning me around to face him. His body touches mine and he wraps himself around me. “I’ll hold you all night, because I know that’s what you need. All fucking night.”

  I’m too weak to tell him no.

  To tell him he’s everything I need and nothing I want.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Rochelle

  Marcus does as he said he would. His arms never leaving me for long, and no matter how much I pushed him away, he would always come straight back, gripping me to him as if he needed it as much as I did. Maybe he does, I know I did.

  Waking up the next day hurts, and all I want to do is to sleep again—there’s no agony in the world of darkness.

  So that’s what I do. I only wake when a police officer comes to take my statement, or when Marcus feeds me, then I crawl back into bed.

  The following day Marcus is still here, still in my house. I wake and know I have to move because I need to go to work.

  I run on autopilot—find clothes, brush hair, apply makeup, get ready, leave.

  “Are you going to work?” Marcus asks, walking in dressed, and holding two cups of coffee in his hands.

  “I need to go to work,” I reply, taking one and looking at the logo. “This is the coffee house of the guy’s hand you were removing,” I say, looking down at it. “Find any other suitable people in there today?”