The Dark of You by S.M. Shade

Chapter Fifteen

Insomnia hasn’t been what’s kept me up, but telling Amelia I’m tired wasn’t a lie. The rest of my day is spent lounging around my house until I crawl into bed before it’s even dark outside. Hours later, I find myself staring at the shifting shadows on my ceiling. Something dragged me from a dream into consciousness. I’m not sure what it was. The house is still, but goosebumps rise on my arms. Malice permeates the stillness.

The air’s thick with something unrecognizable, but alarming. As if my world is paused on the edge of a lightning strike, a moment away from devastation. My entire body jerks hard enough for my spine to crack audibly when a loud bang comes from outside. Metal against metal.

That came from the shed. I’ve been in this position before. It has to be Reeve again, but something feels different. Wrong.

My hand trembles when I peek out of the window to see the glow of the shed light. The door stands ajar. What do I do? The answer seems clear. Sitting here isn’t going to get me any answers.

A sliver of the moon watches me through the scattering of clouds while I force myself to cross the yard one terrifying step at a time. It’ll be okay. It’s probably just Reeve like it was last time I woke up to noise in the middle of the night. Yeah, when he showed up bathed in someone’s blood. No, I’m sure everything’s fine. The foreboding is just my anxiety rearing its head after a break.

No matter my attempts at reassuring myself, I still hesitate just outside the shed door, filled with the unexplainable sense that the next moment is one I’ll never escape from and it’ll change everything.

How I wish I was wrong.

The wide, terrified eyes that stare into mine when I step through the doorway don’t belong to Reeve.

“Senator Miller.” The words tumble out in a whisper of disbelief.

A gag tied securely around his mouth prevents him from answering, though he tries to shout through it.

“Quiet.” A blow lands on his ear hard enough to slam his head to his shoulder. Reeve’s voice is calm, uninterested even, but his stance is rigid and full of fury. He looms over the senator, who resorts to whimpers instead of muffled shouts.

It takes a few moments for the whole scene to register to my brain. Miller sits in a chair, naked, his hands bound behind him, and feet tied to the chair legs. That blow to the ear isn’t the first, judging by the blood leaking down his temple.

A loud buzzing in my ears prevents me from hearing whatever it is that Reeve says to me, and my field of vision narrows to a tunnel. My body feels light.

“Darcy! Breathe!” Reeve shouts into my face.

A hard, whooping inhale focuses my eyes and restores my hearing, though my heart thumps so loudly I’m sure he can hear it. The first words that surge through my lips seem to be in someone else’s voice. Shrill and deafening. “What are you doing? Reeve!”

His hands squeeze my shoulders, and he keeps his gaze on mine. “You don’t need to be afraid. He can’t hurt you.”

Stunned, I take a step back out of his grasp. “No shit! He’s tied to a fucking chair! What have you done? He’s a senator! We’ll go to prison!”

“No.” Reeve’s calm demeanor is infuriating while I’m doing my best not to have a mental breakdown. “We won’t.”

My words trip over each other on the way out. “I don’t…how did you…why?”

“He tried to hurt you. Put you on the street for years.”

So many questions bang against my skull, but one stands out. “How do you know that?”

My plaintive cry is met with a smile. “I told you, Darcy. I’ve always known you.”

It doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense. “That was years ago. Why did you bring him here now?”

“To make sure he pays.”

There’s no mistaking what he’s planning. His tone clarifies his words. Miller isn’t supposed to leave this tiny metal room alive. “You can’t do this.”

A low chuckle I first heard months ago echoing around me on a dark street fills the small space. “I can do whatever I want.” His hand reaches out to stroke my jaw. Such tenderness shouldn’t exist in someone so hard. “And so can you.”

No. This isn’t right. This is murder. Jerking away, I slam both of my hands into his chest. “No! I’m not like this! I’m not like you!”

I’m spun around, then grabbed from behind. His arm wraps tightly around my waist as he talks into my ear. “Look at him, Darcy.” Though the sight of the doughy, naked body strapped to a chair disgusts me, I obey. “Do you think you were the only one? No, so many who aren’t a fighter like you, who couldn’t get away, had their bodies rented and sold by this man. I know. I’ve watched him. Why should he draw one more breath?”

It’s one of my worst fears, and taps into the guilt I’ve felt over not trying to report him. Of course, there were others. “It’s…wrong.” The small, faltering nature of my words render them weak, useless.

He turns me around and holds my wrists. “That word is meaningless. Stop fighting and accept the truth. Do you think I can’t feel your hatred of him? How hard you’re fighting to keep that violent sliver of yourself contained right now? Stop holding back and embrace everything that you are.”

“You’re insane. Completely mad,” I reply, my voice hushed. It’s easier than letting myself admit how right he is. How much I’d love to see this man bleed out onto the floor.

“Sometimes madness comes as a friend. The world has given you nothing but pain. Why not pass it on to someone who deserves it?” He pauses for a glance at the senator before looking back at me. “Can you look me in the eye and tell me you want me to let this man go?”

Indecision is ripping me apart. A good person would be grappling with the morality of it, whether we have the right to take a life that has ruined many others, but that isn’t my concern. If we let him go, we go to prison. There’s no way we’ll get away with this. It doesn’t matter that Reeve took him. He brought him to my house. I’m involved. Even if I did get out of it, I’d lose Reeve.

It becomes clear in those few moments that Reeve’s right. The ability to hurt or kill lives inside of me. Maybe it lives in all of us, drawn out at some undefined threshold of anger, pain, or desperation. This is it for me. A line drawn through me that I’ve never crossed is demolished by my decision.

“What do we do with the body?”

“I’ll take care of that. He’ll never be found.”

It’s a promise he may not be able to keep. Only time will tell. The memory of us at the railroad bridge returns to me. How crazy I thought it was to jump. The exhilaration of it. If we go down for this, hasn’t he taught me the fall is the best part? This time, it’s easier to step over that edge. “Okay. Get rid of him.”

Reeve nods and walks toward the bound man. Miller has been listening this entire time and while fear glazes his eyes, anger also radiates from him.

“How are you going to do it?” As far as I know, he doesn’t have a gun.

“Ladies choice.” His hand slides into his pocket and reappears with a knife. He gestures to all the tools around us. “Or I could just beat him to death. Maybe he has a preference.”

With that, he stalks over and pulls the gag out of his mouth. He’s just playing with him now, letting him sit in his terror. “Any suggestions?” he asks him.

Miller spits at him, then sneers at me. “Look at you trying to play the victim. People like you always do. But we know the truth, don’t we? You had an abortion just before you were brought to me. Wasn’t like you were some innocent fucking virgin.”

Reeve punches him in the mouth in a smooth movement that only takes a second, but neatly removes two front teeth. Miller spits them out and glares at him. “Fuck you and that whore.”

The edge of Reeve’s lip tucks in. “I could fuck you. Not with my cock, you don’t deserve that.” Sweat drips into Miller’s eyes as he watches him saunter over and pick up a rake. Reeve pretends to examine it. “This might do. If I shove it up there far enough, you’d bleed out eventually.”

All fight drains from him like someone pulled a plug. Miller’s face is stone white. “No, please.”

“Is that what they said? All those young girls who begged not to be violated?” I speak up. “It never worked for them, did it? Why should it work for you?”

He starts sobbing and shaking the chair back and forth. “No, no, just let me go. I swear I’ll never tell anyone.”

Reeve looks at me expectantly. Right, he said it was my choice. Part of me wants to see it. Wants him to be torn apart while he screams in a fraction of the agony he’s put others through. Maybe Reeve’s right, and I’m just as violent as him, but I don’t have the stomach for that.

“It’ll take too long. We want to get rid of the body before daylight, right?”

“True.” It’s the only thing he says. A second later his knife slashes cleanly across Miller’s throat. Blood sprays, and Miller’s eyes bulge in terror and disbelief. I’m sure it’s hard for him to believe. People like him think nothing can touch them. That their power and money will forever wrap that cocoon of safety around them. Maybe the world needs people like Reeve, like me, to show that there’s always a price to pay. Some of us just pay it up front.

The sound of him gurgling, choking on the blood that’s now spattered over all of us will no doubt be a common visitor in my nightmares. My stomach turns with nausea, but it doesn’t last. It takes longer for him to die than I expected, but the second his eyes go dull, I know it’s over.

There’s so much blood inside a person. A world of red. That’s something I learned at five years old, but being confronted with it now is different. There’s no panic, no fear. Someone turned my world red a long time ago. I won’t be afraid of it anymore.

Reeve sets the knife down and walks over to me. His steps are slow and cautious, his gaze scrutinizing. He’s trying to gauge my reaction. What would he think if he knew how turned on I am? How strong the urge to fuck him just hit me? It’s not the blood or the grisly scene. It’s what he was willing to do because someone wronged me. That he cares enough to do something like this for me.

I’ve always thought that I over romanticize love because I’ve been deprived of it. The way water looks so much more enticing when you’re thirsty. Sometimes, I’ve wondered if it’s real at all, but now I know. Because I love him.

As soon as he’s close enough, I grab his face, and kiss the hell out of him. At the first sweep of my tongue in his mouth, he growls, seizes my hips, and shoves me back against the wall. The clatter of tools falling to the floor may as well come from a hundred miles away, I’m so caught up in him.

When I feel his cock pressing against me through his jeans, all I want is to get it inside me. Our surroundings don’t matter. I don’t care that we’re both spattered with blood or that a fresh corpse sits only a few feet away.

My fingers fumble at his waistband until I get the button undone and zipper down. “Fuck me. Right here.”

I only get a glance at his face, long enough to see lust burning in his eyes, before I’m spun around and bent over the nearby workbench. He yanks my pants down and slams inside me, lighting up every nerve ending I own, making me cry out.

“Is this what you want?” he asks, thrusting into me again.

“Yes!”

There’s no mercy in him when he gives me what I ask for. My lower stomach will probably be one big bruise from the edge of the workbench, but it’s worth it. Anything is worth the feeling building inside me right now. My hands claw at the table, looking for purchase while his strokes drive me higher and higher.

An orgasm strikes me quick and hard. His name echoes around the tiny space for seconds afterward, followed by his groan when he slams into me the final time. The whole thing probably didn’t take five minutes, but my legs are so shaky, he has to steady me when he pulls out.

The first thing in sight when I look up is Miller, slumped over and doused in blood. Wow. If I thought I was fucked up before, this really tops it. I jerk my pants and underwear back up.

As if he can read the thoughts slamming through my head, he grabs my face and looks me in the eye. “You’re perfect. Fucking perfect. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you. Can we just…get him out of here?”

He fastens his jeans and nods. “We’ll take him outside. The blood can soak into the soil as I chop him up. You can hose all this out while I take care of him. I’ll need a few trash bags.” He grabs the small hatchet hanging on the wall.

“Okay.” So much has happened, it seems like it should be a lot later than it is. The wind chills my skin as I rush inside to grab the bags. When I return, he’s moved the body out near the tree line to a patch of dirt.

“His clothes,” he says, nodding toward a small pile. “Burn them.” It didn’t even occur to me to ask about his clothes, but it’s not like the guy was naked when he grabbed him. Reeve stripped him for the humiliation and intimidation aspect.

“I will.” It’s a surreal sight, the pasty white body against the dark ground.

While I’m watching, a jolt of terror shoots through me, and I grab Reeve’s arm. “He moved! He moved! He’s not dead!”

Reeve puts his hand over mine. “No, he didn’t. Darcy, he’s as dead as it gets.”

“I swear. I swear I saw him move!”

“Look again.” Reeve’s voice is calm and reassuring. “It’s the light. It’s playing tricks on you.”

Still gripping Reeve with all my might, I take another look. Thin moonlight shines through the tree branches, causing shadows to shift across the still face. It does give the illusion of movement, especially to my overstimulated brain that’s in full fight or flight mode.

“Okay, yeah. I see it.”

“I’ll handle this. You go clean out the shed and burn the clothes.”

“Right. I can do that.”

His smile brightens the gloom. “You can do anything. Anything you want.”

There’s a lot living in that statement that I finally hear. This is freedom. True freedom. To not give a shit about the laws or the rules. A smile forms on my face as well. “We both can.”

As I walk away, I hear the sound of the hatchet being brought down into flesh. It’s louder than I expected, a meaty thunk that sends a shiver over my skin.

I’m lucky I own a hose long enough to reach the shed, and there’s nothing in there that can’t get wet. The chair he had him tied to is an old wooden one. It can be kindling for the fire.

It takes me about twenty minutes of spraying before I’m satisfied I’ve gotten all the blood. I’m sure one of those blacklights would light the place up like a stadium, but I’ll deal with that later with some bleach. I’ve done enough research to know it won’t be enough, you can never get rid of everything. If we’re ever suspects and they search this shed, it’s over.

Reeve appears in the doorway with the grisly trash bags in hand. “I need your car.”

“Keys are on the kitchen counter. There’s a blanket in the back seat. Toss it over the driver’s seat.”

He nods and starts to walk away. “Reeve!” He pauses and looks at me. “Are you coming back tonight?” It sounds needy, but the last thing I want is to sleep alone after this.

“Yes, I’ll be back before dawn.”

“Okay.”

He pulls out of my driveway while I break up the wooden chair, then haul it and the clothes out to the firepit. The chair ignites easily over the dry grass and pinecones used as kindling. Once it’s caught, I toss in Miller’s clothes. The black leather shoes likely won’t burn, so I grab a trowel and bury them just inside the forest.

By the time I return, the fire is roaring. Blood stains my clothes. They have to go too. The cool wind strikes my skin when I strip down to my underwear. Drips of blood managed to soak through to my bra. It gets tossed in as well. The dark forest around me, hiding me away, is comforting. Under a midnight sky, standing in nothing but a thin pair of underwear, I watch it all burn.

The orange and yellow licks at the wood and cloth, overtaking it. The same way he’s consumed me. This isn’t going to end well. Every trace of me knows it. He’s the fire that brought me light, but there are two sides to every flame. Burn and shine. I have no regrets. For every moment he’s illuminated my world, I’ll happily collapse to ash with him.

The fire burns down, and I retreat inside. A long, hot shower has never felt so good. At this point, I expected anxiety, even panic, to set in. For the realization of what just happened and the danger it puts us in to strike me hard. It doesn’t.

Instead, I feel lighter, contented.

That peace continues as I dry off, dress, and climb into bed under the covers to wait for Reeve. He’s changed my life so much.

I thought of him as a butcher bird, impaling his enemies, but I was wrong. I’m the shrike. He’s the thornbush I come back to, where I leave the carcasses of the past and feel myself grow lighter without their weight. He’s home. Gruesome and accepting and comfortable.

Tonight changes nothing about my feelings for him, and everything about myself.

Disturbing thoughts creep in while I lie staring at the ceiling. What if he gets caught before he dumps the body? All it would take is getting pulled over and a cop searching the car. Especially because it’s not his car. My name will come up if they run the plates.

My writer’s brain takes me where I don’t want to go, playing out scenarios in my head. Cops try to pull him over and he refuses, leading them on a high speed chase until they cause him to crash. While he’s being arrested for fleeing, they find the trash bags of body parts.

He’d go to prison or get the death penalty. I’d never see him again. His life would be over because of what he did for me. My own fate in this horrific reverie doesn’t scare me. Reeve would protect me the best he could, probably say he stole my car after he killed him, but it isn’t me I’m worried about.

Minutes stack into hours. By the time the light outside begins to grow, I’m alternating between pacing the room and peeking out of the window in hopes of seeing my car pull into the driveway. He said he’d be back before dawn. Has something gone wrong?

It’s the most helpless feeling in the world. Waiting and wondering if he’s okay.

The sensation of a panic attack approaching is one I haven’t felt in a very long time, but I recognize it instantly. “Okay, Darcy,” I say aloud, and sit on the edge of the bed. “You’re okay. Reeve’s okay. Breathe.” About half the time this has happened in the past, I’ve been able to rein it in, talk myself down before it goes to full blown panic. This one is fortunately stopped short by the sound of my name being called.

My head jerks up to see Reeve stride into the room, making a beeline for me. Shirtless, covered in dirt and blood, he’s the most beautiful sight ever.

I’m off the bed and throwing myself into his arms before he can get halfway across the bedroom. “You’re okay! I thought…it’s past dawn. Maybe you got caught or hurt or—”

He pulls me tight against his chest. The smell of damp earth and blood clings to him, sweetened by his cool scent of wood smoke that’s been carried on the wind. “I’m fine. I took care of everything. You don’t need to be afraid.”

He releases me after a moment and brushes my hair off my face. “I’m going to shower and we’ll go to bed. You’re exhausted.”

I am, but he must be more so. “Yeah, okay.”

Relief after all that adrenaline makes my body feel limp and weak. My eyes are heavy, but I manage to hold them open until Reeve joins me in bed and cuddles me close. “Reeve?”

“Mmm?” His hand strokes my back.

“There’s still a lot I don’t know about you. It bothers me.”

“You know the most important things.”

“Will you answer one question?” Maybe if we take this part slow, he’ll learn to trust me, and I’ll get some answers.

“What do you want to know?”

There are about a thousand answers to that question, but I choose something that shouldn’t be a huge deal and that I’m curious about. Where does he go when he’s not with me? “Where do you live? A house near me?”

“Near you, yes, but not a house. I camp. I don’t need a house and all that comes along with it. I’m happy in the woods.”

It explains why he always smells of outdoors and campfires.

“Do you have a job?” House or not, he has to have money to survive.

A chuckle rattles his chest beneath my ear. “That’s two questions.”

My fingers fiddle with his short chest hair. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.”

He lays his large hand over mine. “I don’t need to work for money. I have enough.”

Every question I ask only raises more. Does that mean he’s well off? If so, how did he make that money? And why camp if he can afford a better lifestyle? Not that a better lifestyle always leads to a better life. Look at me. Unlimited funds didn’t make me happy.

Looking for normal from him is something I should stop doing. Because I’m far from typical myself, drawing such comfort at the moment from having my back stroked by the same hand that slit a throat and chopped up a body not four hours ago.

It lulls me into sleep void of nightmares. They never visit with Reeve here to protect me.