by T. L Smith
Other men come up from behind him. Anton pauses running, coming to a halt, and pulls his own gun. I go straight to Kazier. His eyes are closed, and Elina begins screaming, blood soaking through her white dress staining it red. She doesn’t move him, just clings to him.
She looks up when I reach down for him, reaches into his pants, pulls Kazier’s gun just as I lift him up. She stands, tears running down her face, covered in blood and turns her stare to the men. She walks fast, raises the gun and aims it. Shooting the first shot. It’s perfect. An absolutely perfectly shot and the first man drops to the ground.
“Don’t kill them,” Viktor shouts.
Her death stare turns to him, and his head drops. Anton has tackled the second man with the gun, and he has him pinned to the ground. She walks straight up to him, pushes Anton with her free hand, he moves but keeps his foot on the man’s shoulder. Then without so much as a blink, she shoots him in the head.
She drops the gun, turns back to me, tears still in her eyes and walks toward me. If she weren't about to get married, I would take her and keep her. That’s some serious shit. And she looks like the bride from hell, which amuses the crap out of me. I don’t wait for her to reach me, I start to run to his car, passing the celebrant on the ground who’s dead.
“Clean-up,” I yell, knowing Viktor will call someone to deal with it. I throw his body into the back of the truck. Anton comes out of nowhere and jumps in next to him, and I take him to the family doctor, speeding like it’s my own life on the line.
****
Anton carries him straight in, the doctor is already set up, gloves on, and starts tearing at his clothes. Kazier’s heart stops as we place him on the table, so the doctor begins CPR, and when that doesn’t work he brings the paddles out.
The door opens and Elina rushes in, she runs straight to him and touches his face after a pulse finally rings out through the monitor. She sighs in relief. The doctor immediately starts working on getting the bullet out. I walk away and let her hold his hand as the doctor works on him.
Viktor pulls up just as I walk out the door. “Your house,” he says telling me the bodies are on their way. I leave planning to get lost in death.
Chapter 17
Pollie
I heard footsteps but didn’t think much of it. Elina told me it was a secluded park and that the only people who knew about the wedding would be there. So when I heard the footsteps, I had to say something to make sure it wasn’t someone uninvited. I never thought it would be followed by gunfire. Though with this family, I shouldn’t have guessed anything less.
Death was touching my back, I didn’t tell him to remove his hand, I’ve missed his touch, the warmth of it. He pushed me into someone else’s arms, I didn’t know who that person was until we reached the car. Sebastian told me to buckle up and sped out of there. He asked me where I lived, but I told him I wanted to go to Dmitry’s, and he didn’t reply.
When we finally stopped, he touched my arm and told me to wait. We sat in the car for a few seconds longer then he asked me, “You sure this is where you want to be?”
I just nodded my head and climbed out. I don’t know why it’s here I need to be. I just know it’s where I came last time I was scared, last time I heard gunfire.
He unlocked the door for me but didn’t follow me in. I shut the door after me and was expecting Sebastian to come in with me. I waited on his couch for over an hour until the front door finally opened.
“Dmitry?” I asked. It was more than the sound of one person’s footsteps. They stopped at my voice, and I heard something drop to the ground. They didn’t answer me and they walked out. I stepped over to where I heard the thump, my foot hitting something hard on the floor. I dropped to my knees and felt for it, coming into contact with clothes, then blood, then skin. I scampered backward, landing on my ass.
“Pollie,” Dmitry’s voice calls for me.
I don’t get up, my body is in shock, fastened to the floor. My mind is baffled, but all I see is bad. A body is on his floor, and he doesn’t seem to care. He touches my arm, and I pull away scurrying backward.
“Don’t touch me,” I squeak out.
“Pollie, you know this is what I do.”
I shake my head at him slowly. “You’re sick, aren’t you? Just sick,” I spit out.
“I’m me, Pollie. Nothing will change that.”
“This is why you don’t do relationships, right? Too many secrets, too much death.” My hand covers my mouth, I now understand his name completely.
“No, it’s by choice. I don’t like anyone.”
I scoff at him and manage to pull myself up. Walking around the other side to where his voice is located and around the body, I fall straight down over another body. My hand comes in contact with more dead skin. I scream and struggle to get up, I’m sitting in a room full of dead bodies. Me living, and Death just surviving, for God only knows why.
“What’s wrong with you?” I scream at up at him.
His hands come under my arms, and he pulls me into his chest he then moves me away from the bodies. When he puts me down his hands skim over my sides, and continue further down until I push them away.
“Why have you been ignoring me?” he asks.
I shake my head not believing he doesn’t care that three dead bodies lay on his floor. He would rather talk to me about why I haven’t spoken to him in a week.
“Your brother told me what you do. How you burn…” I can’t finish that sentence.
“Sebastian is filling your head to scare you.”
“Are you telling me he’s lying? That these bodies won’t go with you to wherever it is that you go, and you won’t cut them up and burn them in acid?”
He curses in Russian. I recognize those words from Kazier.
“Yes. I told you what I do. How do you think I got my name? You think I sew them back together and give them back with pretty fucking little bows in their hair?”
I throw my hands up in the air, I don’t want to be here anymore. “Go and fuck one of your hookers,” I scream at him turning to find the door.
“I prefer to fuck you, my little porcelain doll,” he screams at me.
I run, not caring that I don’t know where I’m going. Bumping into walls and God knows what until I find the door. I push my way through and race away.
I shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up because I don’t hear the car that pulls out in front of me, the one that knocks me to the ground.
****
I wake with the smell of Dmitry all around me. I try to move and my head thumps when I do. I touch the back of my head and feel dried blood. I can feel the sting on my elbows and notice that bandages seem to cover them.
“You’re awake…” His voice comes from next to me, but he isn’t in the bed. The mattress is empty with just me on it.
“How long…” I ask touching my head again.
“Not long. You’ve woken up twice, and gone straight back to sleep. The doctor checked in on you a few times.”
“I should go…” I try to sit again and groan when my head pounds.
“I have to wake you every three hours, you hit your head hard. Why the fuck didn’t you hear it, Pollie? Tell me why you ran straight into a fucking car. Are you trying to punish me?” I go to speak, then he continues, “Congratulations, you did punish me. I haven’t fucking moved. I’ve never worried about someone so much in my life. My fucking heart was beating out of my chest as I saw the car approaching. You didn’t even hear me.”
I don’t even know what to say to that, though I do know I want to leave. I absolutely don’t want to be here right now—near him. Especially knowing that three dead bodies are downstairs.
I go to sit up, my head feels woozy. My hand lands on my chest, and it isn’t silk that covers my body anymore it’s a shirt, and it’s his. His smell is all over it. I go to stand and feel my legs begin to wobble. So I sit back down.
“What are you doing?” he asks me, no
w closer than before.
“I’m leaving. I am not staying here with you… with those bodies.” I shake my head at the thought.
“You can’t leave.”
“I can,” I argue back standing up. I manage to stand longer this time, without falling.
“If you want to go home, I’m coming.” I hear him walk past me, then hear the sound of drawers opening and closing. He walks back to me and his arms come under my legs, he picks me up like a lover would carry someone they adore. I try to not melt into him. It’s hard, though, having him so close. He walks me down the stairs, then carries me to his car.
I don’t ask him if he’s coming inside when the car comes to a stop. He gets out and picks me up before my feet even touch the ground. I don’t argue with him, I really just don’t want to. I hate confrontation, and I feel we’ve reached our maximum for the day. He has the keys before I even think about where they are, and he opens my door, walking me in and placing me on the bed. He tucks me in, then I feel him slide in next to me.
“What are you doing?” I ask. His hand comes down and latches onto mine.
“Sleeping, I haven’t slept for over twenty-four hours.”
I let it go. And before I know it, I’m asleep, passed out with my hand linked in his.
Like nothing has happened.
Like my floor wasn’t ripped out from under me.
Why do I let him continue to do so?
Chapter 18
Death aka Dmitry
She’s still asleep when I wake, her hand still pressed into mine. I remove it, and she turns onto her side. My shirt she’s wearing skirts upward revealing her ass. I have to control myself not to touch her. Throwing on my clothes, I take one last look before I leave, grabbing her keys on the way out. I didn’t sleep long. I wanted to sleep longer with her, except the bodies are calling me. The itch I feel that three bodies are sitting in my basement right now is greater than ever.
She doesn’t want me around, I can feel it. I just haven’t accepted that fact yet. I don’t know if I ever will. If she doesn’t, I plan to keep her, with or without her acceptance. Then there’s Sebastian, who I know is to blame for it all. For the way Pollie sees me, to the reason Kazier is unconscious right now. All him.
He came for me he says, but I don’t believe that’s the only truth. He wouldn’t have come all that way just for me. Sebastian doesn’t even like being here because he’s told me so before. He prefers Russia, he prefers his new boss.
So for him to come here just for me, is not believable. And if he’s as close as I think he is too his Parkhan, he would do just about anything to please him. Even killing family.
I expect him to be at mine when I arrive in the early hours of the morning. He isn’t. I don’t even know where he’s staying. He could be staying at our family home, the one I haven’t been back to for years and never intend going back to.
My hand hovers over the security door for the basement, when I turn around he’s closing the front door. Pulling open the door that leads to the basement, I step down and hear his soft footsteps as he follows me. I pick up my saw and ignore him. He leans against the wall, the red light shining on his face as he watches me with fascination.
One of the bodies I drained while Pollie was asleep. I grab it and carry it to the table, the others have their own tables, but are not prepped to be cut. All their clothes still on, all belongings still in their possession. This one I stripped, and he lays naked on the table. It was the celebrant, the one with the worried eyes. He didn’t have much on him, only his book and a set of keys. The other two I know for sure will have weapons. I look up to Sebastian then back to the two bodies of the guys that ruined Elina’s day. Wondering if he’s really here to see me, or to hide what I may discover.
His eyes bore into mine, I don’t talk to him and begin to carve away at the first arm. The music is loud, it’s programmed to turn on when the door opens, or I personally change it myself. I expect him to have a retort to do with the music. He preferred classical while he worked, I prefer heavy and intense, something to help me with what I do. Bad matching bad.
The first cut is always the biggest rush, it’s what pushes me to continue with the rest. The bones are always the toughest. Sometimes my hands will be red and sore for days with the amount of pressure I need to apply to get through the bone. I have a chest full of saws, I go through them continuously. They don’t hold their sharpness once you cut through multiple bones.
My gloves go on—and I forget Sebastian is even there—then the mask and apron. He’s watching now with intense eyes. I realize he hasn’t actually seen what I do. Yes, he taught me almost everything I know about bodies, just not the logistics of pulling one apart. That I learned all by myself.
Each part of the body I remove from the man enters the barrel of acid. It sizzles when it penetrates the surface. I watch him take a step closer, just not close enough that it will affect him. His hand lifts his shirt, and he covers his mouth with it to stop the smell. It’s not very pleasant.
Once all body pieces are in the barrel, I place a lid over it, then I walk to the other bodies, feeling my hands in their pockets. I look up to Sebastian when my hand touches something. I pull out a cell phone, place it next to me and keep on feeling around. Then I pull out a knife, the same one as the other man has in his pocket. I look up to Sebastian with his eyes glued to the cell.
“Anything you want to tell me?” I ask him, he looks to where the body is in acid, then back to me.
“You love it, don’t you?” he asks surprised. “I thought it was just something you had to do, but you love it, don’t you?”
“I don’t love anything.”
His head drops to the side assessing me. “You do, and it’s not the only thing you love. She is, also,” he says referring to Pollie.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I grab both cell phones and pocket them, then remove the gloves, mask, and apron.
He starts to walk up the stairs ahead of me as I follow heading straight to the front door, looks down to my pocket and holds out his hand.
“Give them to me,” he says nodding toward the cell phones.
“Kill me first.”
His hand drops and he looks to the floor. “You choose them over me? They would kill you in a heartbeat, Dmitry.” His eyes pin mine.
If I did something wrong, I have no doubt that they would kill me in a heartbeat just as he said. But I’m not the guilty party here, he is. And he knows it. He pulls a gun from his shorts, aims it at me, I stand and wait. I don’t even know this man in front of me, not anymore.
Did I ever really know him?
He was the only person in my life for years, but now he isn’t.
“The only way you’re getting these phones is to pry them from my fingers, Sebastian.”
He holds the gun steady, then he slowly lowers it down. He shakes his head and puts the gun away.
“You want me dead, just like our father?”
I don’t know how to answer that. I don’t, but if he brought it upon himself, I can’t help that either.
“You dug your own grave the moment you came home to fuck with the family. You of all people should know how they operate. You lived it longer than me, saw it first-hand.”
He looks out the door, his shoulders tensing, then back to me. “She won’t love you. I’m the only person left on this earth that will love you. I hope you take more care of my body when you get rid the evidence.”
“That was also your fault. What did you say to her exactly, to make her so scared of me now?”
His lip twitches. “You shouldn’t be interested in someone like her. I set you up with the hookers for a reason. I have something dark in me, but it shines more brightly in you.” He doesn’t look back as he walks out slamming the door as he goes.
Stepping down the stairs, with both phones in hand, the sun is now rising. Pollie will be awake soon, and I need to get back there before she wakes. I slide the screen on the fi
rst phone and go to the calls. The same international number was dialed twice in one day. I press the phone to my ear listening to it ring.
“Hello,” is heard from the end of the line in Russian. It’s a man’s voice. One I don’t recognize. I know Freya’s father’s voice, and this is not his. I do the same with the next cell phone, the same man answers in Russian.
What has he gotten himself into?
****
I left the other bodies where they were, not wanting to miss going back to sleep next to her. When I unlock her door, no sounds are heard. I walk to her room and see her in the same position she was in when I left, curled on her side her ass visible. If she weren't sore right now, I would take her, and make her mine. But she is, and it’s partially my fault.
My phone vibrates as I start to remove my clothing. I look up to make sure it didn’t wake her. I wonder if she knows how stunningly beautiful she is, if she has any idea what she does to the male population. It isn’t fair to compare her to anyone else. Where some woman scream sex, Pollie screams comfort and beauty. Unlike most women I’ve encountered.
“He’s awake,” Viktor’s voice booms through the phone.
“I’ll be there in a few hours.” I don’t wait for a reply as I end the call and climb into bed next to her, my fingers graze her ass, soft as silk. She must bathe in lotion every night to get her skin like that. She moans just slightly turning to her back. I grab her hand in mine and she clasps it firmly in her sleep.
And that’s how I fall asleep with her hand stuck in mine. Trying to figure out what she means to me.
What is she to me?
How come I can’t walk away or fuck her like I do my hookers?
