Page 85 of Cruel Pleasures
20. Imani
bury a friend - Billie Eilish
The book clenched between Timothee’s long fingers slips free and smacks into the hardwood flooring. His body remains upright for a second longer, even after his face glazes over.
Then he tips forward and crashes down onto me. The dead weight of a man with a knife handle sticking out of his skull.
I scream.
My mouth hangs open as I scream louder than I ever knew I was capable of. Louder and more hysterically than I ever have screamed in my life.
“GETHIMOFFMEGETHIMOFFME!”
I’m beyond rationalization. No amount of consoling can calm me down as Timothee’s weight sags on top of me and specks of blood drip onto the front of my clothes. Distantly, I’m aware that Archer’s speaking. His hands are reaching out to heave Timothee’s body off me.
It’s not good enough.
Another horrified scream peals out of me. The second there’s enough room, I slide out from under him, sitting up, kicking away at his limp body.
“Get him off!”
“Will you calm down?” Archer asks. He’s gripping him by the legs, dragging him away like you’d steer a wheelbarrow. “Haven’t you ever seen a dead body before?”
The alarm bells ringing inside me reach new jarring levels. I gape at Archer as though I’ve discovered he’s some monstrous demon that’s been lurking in middle of the night. Knowing the depravity I’ve encountered on the Isle of Hurst, he just might be.
In the face of my terror, Archer’s cool and amused. He stands up straight, dusting his hands off. The fading afternoon light that streams in through the window highlights his golden-brown hair and fair complexion and gives him a distracting god-like quality about him. He’s effortless in how he carries himself even now, when dressed in designer clothes and streaked with blood.
He finds the situation funny.
He just stabbed a man in the skull and his lips quirk as if on the brink of laughter. His features that I’ve been so attracted to, from his sapphires for eyes to his square jaw, are nothing more than the features of the devil. The mask has slipped and though his face remains the same, I see a stark difference at once.
Who Archer really is.
The disturbing identity he’s kept from me since I met him.
He’s a cold-blooded, deranged murderer. He threads fingers through his hair and lets out a resigned sigh as if more bothered by the cleanup than the man whose life he took.
My stomach bubbles out of the deep distress. I wrap an arm around my middle and tear my gaze away from his.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
“No time for dramatics. Get up and go check to make sure the coast is clear.”
“The coast is clear for what?” I spit.
“What do you think, minx? We need to get this one downstairs to my workshop. If my mother finds out Timothee’s no longer employed here, she’ll be upset. He’s always been her favorite.”
“No longer employed here… as in you killed him!?”
“Same difference. You make the mistake of thinking she’d care about the reason he’s not working and not just that he’s not working period. Go ahead and take a look in the hall.”
I’m dumbfounded as it sinks in he’s serious. He expects me to go stand watch in the hall while he takes Timothee… somewhere.
His workshop?
What kind of workshop, I can only imagine. Doing so draws another deep shiver out of me.
Thrown off enough by the moment that I can think of nothing else to do, I stand up on legs that might as well belong to a baby deer. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to walk properly as I stammer over to the door and fumble with the brass knob.
