His(43)

My hand gripped the punctured wrist. It ached already, ached much more than a simple cut should have hurt. Under my fingertips I could feel the pulse of my heartbeat. It was fast, frightened, but it was there. I was still alive, after all.

Not like this. I couldn’t end it like this. If I could snap my fingers and turn the world off, turn the shadow off, I would. More than her, more than anyone, I hated living. It was an endless fight against the shadow, one that I could not win. I did not want to live, no, there was nothing on earth that made me want to stay alive.

But unlike her, I was too scared to die.

I could lie to myself about why I stayed alive. I saved women from being abused. I saved children from being molested. A service to humanity. But I served the shadow only; the real reason I killed was to drive back the darkness. If I could make it go away by killing myself...

I unwrapped my fingers slowly from around my wrist. The drop of blood smeared red over my skin. I lifted the wrist to my lips and licked off my own blood. The coppery tang filled my nostrils and my stomach roiled.

I stood up from the tub. Water dripped down my body in slow rivulets; it felt thick as blood. At the bottom of the tub, the knife’s edge rippled under the waterline, silver and shining.

I would never be as brave as her. No matter how much I wanted to.

How, then? The thought of popping pills repulsed me – the vomiting, the mess. A gun would be a sure thing, but again, messy. I don’t know why I cared so much about my body. It was only a body, after all. I’d sink into the thick earth of a graveyard as easily as anybody else.

I forced myself to think about it. Worms devouring my flesh. The blood in my veins clotting and crumbling.

I didn’t care overmuch about the bodies of my victims, but mine was different. I wanted my body to stay whole, at least until after I was dead and gone.

A stupid, irrational desire. But it was a desire, and I hadn’t had many of those lately.

So what did that leave? Instant incineration might be a good way to go. Fire burns away the bodies I make, and it’s certainly less messy. If I could find a rocket and sit under the jets, let the fire burn me to nothing in a split second, I would.

Drowning, maybe. Smothering, if you could smother yourself.

But not a knife. Not my own blood.

Enough, I thought. Her moans reached me from the bedroom, and I left the knife where it was. I had other work to do.



Kat

“Gavriel?”

“I like the way you say my name. Like you’re scared of me.”

“I am scared of you.”

“Silly kitten.”

He sat down on the side of the bed, completely naked except for the white towel around his waist. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been pulling on the ropes that tied my hands and feet to the bedposts while Gav had been doing…what he had been doing to me. They ached.

Now he leaned over me again, and my body quivered even without his touch. His hair was wet, dark and dripping. His chin was dark, unshaven, and his eyebrows pulled together over his light eyes.

“I don’t know how you did it, kitten.” He turned away from me, and I longed for him to come back, despite everything. The ache had not gone away. His method of torture was terrible; I wanted nothing more than for him to return between my legs, no matter how I despised him. I did not despise his tongue.

“Did what?” I asked.

“Tried to kill yourself.”

“I—what?”

“I can’t do it at all. Can’t even begin to cut myself.” He bowed his head, his hands clasped between his legs. It was then that I noticed the prick of blood on his wrist just below his thumb.

“You tried to cut yourself? Now?” I had heard him run the bath, but I had never imagined what he was doing.

“You are brave, kitten,” he said, as though he hadn’t heard my question. He was off in that other place again, a place where I didn’t belong. He didn’t notice me staring at him, didn’t notice the aghast expression on my face.

If he’d killed himself, I would have starved to death, tied to his bed. Did he even think about that? Think about me?

“The pain is worse than anything else,” he said. “Not the actual pain, but the thought of leaving this behind, all of it. As much as it hurts to stay, it seems like it would hurt even more to leave. I would miss it. It needs me.”

He turned to me, a shadow of pain masking his face. His fingers clutched his wrist.

“I would miss you, kitten. And the killing. I would miss never killing another person.”

“That’s… that’s disgusting.”

“No, not at all.” He raised his chin up to the dimmed lights, his face beatific. “It’s exquisite. The moment of release. Think about what I did to you, before my bath.”