She wasn’t even special enough to be his only punching bag.
His only lover.
She was his maid. His housekeeper. Somebody who worked enough to barely keep the lights turned on.
Renan was her daddy, only much better-looking.
She shut the fridge and drained the rest of her drink. Threw the can in the recycling bin, and then smiled because nobody would ever recycle here again. Or clean, or do homework, or pay bills.
She was ready to kill him.
The woman was already flayed open by the time she came back. Montessa stared, the scarlet insides looking wet and ravenous and almost sexual. Lu’s hands were red nearly up to the elbows and his eyes were slightly unfocused, the pupils large.
“He’ll come to, soon,” he said. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, smearing blood across his face in unintentional war paint. “You’d better hurry.”
“I’m ready.”
“Need some help?”
She shook her head, and he nodded. Communication without words. Forget being baptized earlier in salt: this was Montessa’s baptism in blood.
She kissed the tip of Lu’s First Kill knife, let her lips linger. Moved them carefully, saying a prayer. She learned to pray as a little girl, and still did from time to time. Maybe it wasn’t appropriate, but it seemed right.
She set the tip of the knife on Renan’s sternum, wondering if his skin was warm, wondering how long it would take to cool.
“Not there. More to the side. Under. Beneath the ribs, to the heart.”
Lu’s voice. His calm, melodious voice. Calm and beautiful, her True North.
She repositioned her knife.
“Atta girl. And lean hard. All of your weight. It’ll be more difficult than you think.”
The knife was so sharp. So cold and clean. Seeing the way that Renan’s blood oozed under its steely touch, it was like being plunged into a pond laced with ice. Falling unexpectedly into the river, and scrabbling over the rocks, coughing out water and oxygen and what was left of youthful hope and optimism. Barking up pieces of lung and tissue. Good-feeling and organs.
She watched the pulse in Renan’s neck, thought about the way she used to rest with her head on his chest, listening to his heart. It was the only time that she remembered really being happy with him. Knowing that he was there, alive, that his arm was thrown around her…
A woman as lonely as Montessa should really just get a dog.
The scream surprised her, a small feral sound somewhere deep in her throat, bursting up from the broken places inside and rushing out through her mouth. She leaned on the knife, threw her weight against it, pushing into the floor with the balls of her feet, and felt the knife push, push, push until there was blood and her hands were slick. It was on her face, running down her neck. Renan made a noise, the most terrible of sounds, the most heart-wrenching and sickening imitation of a human voice, sobbing, jerking and choking, and then there was nothing.
Nothing.
“Okay, baby?”
She couldn’t answer. Her hands were glued to the gory knife, wrapped around the handle so tight she could feel her blood pulsing through her fingers. Her working vascular system, carrying oxygen. Carrying nutrients. Firmly encased inside of her arteries and skin, not loosed and sliding in a pool like Renan’s blood.
Lu put one red hand on hers, and she realized she was sobbing.
“Come here,” he said, and gently tugged her hands from the blade. He wrapped her arms around his waist, wrapped his arms around her. He bent his forehead down to touch hers.
“I’m here,” he said and let her shake.
She tried to cover her face with her hands, but Lu held them down firmly.
“They’re bloody,” he said, and she collapsed against him again, crying, holding on to his body through the thin cotton of his shirt.
Her tears soaked his clothes, and Lu became afraid. Afraid that this was too much for her, that it wasn’t the liberation that he had experienced, but something frightening and ugly and evil.
Maybe it wasn’t cleansing, he thought, and held her even tighter. Maybe I broke her. What if she thinks she’s damned?
The shaking intensified, so hard that he felt he was going to lose her, that she was going to shake apart into pieces of bone and sinew.
“Baby? I’m sorry. I thought this would help. I thought—”
Was this what despair felt like? Absolute horror? Because if this was more than she could handle, if this had turned her into a monster, or worse, made her realize he was one himself, then she would go.
She would go. And he would have nothing left.
The shaking and the sounds. The tears and the torrential wailing from Montessa. The room itself began to quiver, the bed and the dresser shook, and the now-familiar Wind That Was Not A Wind blew through the room. Blew bits of meat and shreds of skin from the bed. Blew a hat down that he realized was Montessa’s. Shattered the mirror on the wall.
“Montessa. My love. You need to pull yourself together.”
This was it. She was breaking. Her first kill had thrown her right over the edge into insanity, and he was the one who caused it to happen.
She pulled back and he saw her expression. The teeth that split her face wide. The way her eyes…danced.
She was laughing. Laughing.
“He’s gone, Lu. I did it. I killed him.”
She put her hands to her face and this time Lu didn’t stop her. She laughed and sobbed and Renan’s blood ran down her face with her tears. A bloody teardrop slid into her mouth and Lu bent close and kissed it away.
“Are you all right?”
She gulped in deep breaths. Looked at Renan and the corpse that lay beside him. No. Looked at the corpse and the corpse that lay together.
She tasted blood. Knew it wasn’t hers. Thought that the last time she had seen Renan, she had tasted blood then, too.
“Renan’s tastes better,” she murmured, and her legs gave out.
Lu caught her. Helped her to the ground.
“Don’t fade out on me. Look at me.”
“I killed him,” she repeated. Her voice was getting faint. She looked down at her clothes, knew they were ruined. Knew there were stains that would never come out, never. Out of your heart, out of your shirt.
Out, damned spot.
“Come on,” Lu said, and helped her up. He mostly carried her to the shower. Turned the water on.
“How do you like it?”
“Hot. It’s never hot enough.”
He grinned, the blood splatter looking like shiny freckles in the light.
“I can make it as hot as you want it. Hotter.”
He pulled off his shirt, stepped out of his jeans. The water warmed, steamed, and he peeled Montessa out of her clothes. She stood there like a broken doll or an obedient little girl.
“In,” Lu said. She stepped into the tub. Lu followed and pulled the shower curtain shut.
“Warm enough?” he asked her.
She was still shivering. She thought she’d never be warm again. All of her hot blood had seeped out with Renan’s. All of her warmth.
“No.” Her lips felt sticky. She turned her face to the shower head and watched the water run red at her feet.
Lu narrowed his eyes, and the water heated up even more. Their skin turned red, mottled, but Montessa only sighed.
“Thank you. I think I love you, Lu.”
He washed her. Firmly and with a tenderness he didn’t even know he possessed, getting all of the blood and bad memories off. Washed her hair with her own shampoo. Turned her to face him and kissed her lips gently. Washed himself with a dead man’s soap. Turned off the water and dried both of their bodies with a dead man’s towel.
“They’re my towels, too, you know,” she said, but her voice was still shaking.
“I know they are.”
“This…this is my house.”
“I know, baby.”
“I just exorcised it.”
“You did.”
They dressed. She in her clothes, he in Renan’s. Everything was too big, but clean. Lu wondered if Montessa had washed them last, or if Renan had.
“Of course I did. Or maybe one of his girls. That man wouldn’t know how to start a washing machine.”
They sat at the table. Ate some cold cuts and Lu had a beer. Montessa wished there was more Diet Coke.
“Better pack a bag,” Lu said. He looked around the house, the kitchen. He’d seen inside so many times, but it was different when he was actually here, sitting in the chair.
“Kinda like playing house, isn’t it?” Montessa’s eyes had refocused. The glow was starting to come back. Her hands had stopped trembling. She pushed her wet hair out of her face.
“Kinda is.”
“Maybe that can be our dream, Lu. Our own house. I want a purple one.”
“Backed up to the river.”
“That would be nice.”
“A garden?”
“Of course.”
“How about otters?”
“Now you’re just being silly.”
“But I really want otters.”
It would never happen, this dream. They’d never settle. Never be safe. They’d have to move and move and move, because staying meant getting caught, and getting caught meant getting separated.
Lu realized he had never known real terror until now. He thought he knew it, thought he understood and breathed it in, but that hadn’t been the case. Discomfort instead of horror. Annoyance instead of misery. The idea of being separated from Montessa, from his other half, made his eyes bleed. He bled water from his eyes.
“Don’t cry, Lulu. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
She kissed him, a long, gentle kiss. The kind of kiss meant to take place in meadows with picnics and sunshine. The kind of kiss that, in any other situation and with any other couple, would mean forever. But here and now, with her dead boyfriend in the other room, it was filled with a strange sorrow.
“I’ll miss you,” she whispered against his mouth. “I’ve never missed anyone before.”
“You haven’t lost me yet,” he said.
“Yes. But I will. “
She packed her clothes and shoes into a bag. She tossed a black duffle to Lu and he stuffed Renan’s clothes into it with deft, mechanical speed. He was a man used to getaways. Used to taking what he wanted, and then walking away while everything burned behind him.
“Will it bother you to see me in his clothes?” he asked her. He kept his eyes on his task, seemingly unconcerned, but she could feel how he roiled and steamed and burned inside. Would this drive her away? Was this a terrible mistake? Should he have taken Renan out instead of her? Was she damaged? Would she blame him for this life? She had been a victim before. Now she was an accomplice.
“Don’t go nuclear on me, Lulu.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to you knowing what I’m thinking.”
“You will, darling.”
She stood in her house one last time. Thought of her things, none of which meant anything. Thought of the bodies in the bedroom, which meant even less. She took a deep breath. She took Lu’s hand.
They left the house without a word. She didn’t look back, but held tightly to her bag and to Lu. She heard the rumble of flames as they erupted behind her. Knew the fire was gnawing at the bones of the place, at the skeleton of its structure. She bit her lip, concentrating, and called up a ferocious wind that blew, feeding the fire. She felt the heat at her back, saw her shadow dance before her. Wild and free and fierce. Her shadow had a knife in its hand that glowed like the divine guiding star.
She had never known shadows could smile before.
Lu’s shadow grinned and writhed as well, every bit the demon his father always said he was. A demon of beauty. A demon of deliverance. She watched their unholy celebration, shadow hands and fate intertwined.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
She didn’t have much to say. Lu drove and Montessa sat quietly, playing with his First Kill knife, which had now become her First Kill knife as well.
Finally, he broke the silence.
“Doing okay?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“No problem.”
He remembered stabbing his father, over and over and over, that primal sound he had made, the sweet, unfamiliar-now-familiar feel of flesh and bone and muscle give, give, giving under the blade.
“It was that good,” Montessa said. It wasn’t a question.
“It was. Yours?”
“I’m still processing.”
“Of course.”
He drove through most of the night without a word. His knee jiggled. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.
He was afraid he had lost her.
They pulled over and both crawled into the tiny built-in bed. He wrapped his arms around her, and she threw her leg over his, her arm over his chest.
“Just a little warmer, please?”
The room heated up immediately. She heard the currents of electricity and fire zipping through his veins. Much more heat and her clothes would begin to steam, her skin would sizzle and char, her hair singeing. It felt good. It felt so very, very good.
“Goodnight, Nuclear Lulu.”
“Sleep sweet, Apocalyptic Montessa.”
She fell into sleep like she was diving off a cliff and slamming face first into pavement. Dreams of blood coated her tongue. She wore a fine red dress that used to be white once, she thought, and long gloves of crimson coated her arms past her elbow. Renan and her father and her cousins and everybody else turned into paper dolls that burst into the most gorgeous of flames.
Lu didn’t sleep. He buried his face in Montessa’s hair and listened to every gasp, to every murmur and cry she made. He licked her tears away and wondered why he had met her now, when everything was reaching its conclusion. He didn’t have much longer, he knew. And now he had brought her with him.
She could still claim to be a victim. That’s what she should do. Come screaming out of the wilderness one day, wild-eyed and ragged, telling how the man had taken her and murdered her lover. Burned her place to the ground while she was tied up and forced to watch. It would be hard to start over, but she would be able to do it. Montessa was beautiful and soft and fragile, but she had a core made of steel. Made of sterner stuff than most people would believe.
Besides, her mama always said she was special. It was time for her to prove it.
~
“Lu, I’m starving. Let’s find somewhere for breakfast. Come on!”
She was aglow. Alight. A nuclear holocaust of delicious energy. She flitted around the cab like a butterfly on speed, a firefly on crack. The air fairly buzzed with her delight.
“You woke up perky.”
“And you didn’t wake up at all. But we’ll talk about that later. Now feed me!”
She knelt down beside the bed, kissed his mouth. His cheeks and chin and mouth again.
“I have plans, Lu.”
“Tell me.”
“Food first.”
They found a tiny little diner in a worn-out town. Lu drowned himself in coffee while Montessa sipped a Diet Coke. When breakfast came, she ate like she’d been starved for years.
“Montessa, I know how to get you out of this.”
“I don’t want to get out of it.”
“I know what to do. You’re strong enough to—”
“I said no, Lu.”
“I can’t lose you. Now that I have you, I can’t let you go.”
She smiled at him.
“So don’t. And listen. You’re a terrible listener.”
She slapped a piece of paper on the table. And then a map.
“Tell me where your next deliveries are? What routes you’ll take?”
He pointed.
“Here. Here to here. And then most likely this way, though I’m not sure yet. Why?”
Her smile, it was charming. It was sweet and
very nearly sanctified, and it burned with demon fire at the same time.
“I have a kill here. A few in this area. Some people that I want to see…gone.”
Their eyes met over the breakfast table. Intense. Burning. A force of nature meets a force of nature and turns into an irrevocable storm. The lights flickered in the diner.
“I can save you from this,” Lu said one more time. “I’ll go down. It’s my time. You can distance yourself from me.”
“And live what kind of life? I see it. I See it. I know how it’s going to end. And we’ll be together. Isn’t that what you want? It’s what I want.”
She smiled again, and it was disarming. He wondered how she had been as a very little girl, asking for sweets or playing with her doll or…
Most likely none of those things had happened. Her childhood was too similar to his. No candies. No toys. Just games that needed to be played with people stronger than they were. Doors that shut with that horrifying click when nobody else was around. Feelings of confusion and shame and that pain, pain, pain that never fully went away, that made it difficult to sit and walk.
There was a sound, a hissing sound, and Lu realized his hand was burning into the wooden table. He pulled it back quickly.
“Yes,” she said, and her witchy eyes went dark. “Them. That’s who I’m going after. All of them. Will you help me?”
“I will.”
She laughed, and it was bubbles. Pixie dust and the genuine delight of a girl who had been given the most precious of gifts. She ran around the table and threw her arms around Lu.
“Thank you. Thank you,” she said, and Lu held her, ran his hands over her hair and the scabs on her wrists. He kissed her collarbone and scooted over so she could sit beside him.
“I could hold you forever,” he said, and blushed. Words never said before. Feelings never felt before. His emotions had been char and ash, but suddenly there was something shiny in the world. Innocent.
“I’m not innocent.”
“You’re innocent.”
And today would be one of the best days of their lives. He’d think back to this moment in the diner, when she laughed and spread an unsightly amount of orange marmalade on her toast, and they murmured and planned and plotted. What to wear. How to find their new victims. How to hunt down and stalk each and every last one.
Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A tale of Atomic Love Page 7
