Page 84 of False Idols

The cop nods at us. “Good luck you two. Don’t open this door if it isn’t one of us,” he says and then turns to walk back to his car.

Beau watches him for a second before he shuts the door and bolts it. He opens a security panel next to it and taps a few buttons. “Is that a security system?” I ask, even though my question sounds dumb because what else would it be?

“Yeah, if any doors or windows open, it’ll go off. The station in town will get the signal too.”

He doesn’t say what I’m thinking.

“That’s good,” I say and don’t say it either. We both know we’re too far from Bloom for anyone to make it out here in time if The Reaper comes knocking. Alarm or no alarm, we’re on our own.

* * *

Beau and I get ready for bed and everything feels oddly normal. Like we’ve done this before, like things have been normal between us. I’m tempted to do what I do best and pretend. It would be so easy to slip into the thought that this is my house and Beau is my husband. That we’re happy and normal.

I don’t do it though.

I stay where I am and soak up all the little details from being with Beau. I watch how he brushes his teeth and takes extreme care not to leave any toothpaste anywhere. When he washes his face he’s meticulous. When he turns on the shower and pulls me close. He doesn't rush when he takes my clothes off. Beau and I shower and make love, that’s what it is. It’s slow and soft. The hot water from the shower head set into the ceiling falls around us like rain and it makes me think of storms, but this storm isn’t wild or demanding. It’s gentle and restorative, it relaxes me. When I come with Beau’s name on my lips, he has to hold me up so that I keep my feet.

After, we dry each other off with slow touches and kisses that feel different from the ones we’ve had before. These are gentle and I feel shy when Beau looks at my naked body. I shouldn’t be flushing and fighting the urge to hide from him with the things I’ve done with him, the brutality he’s marked my body with. The filthy things I’ve said to him.

How am I shy?

If Beau notices, he doesn’t let on. He just dries my hair and hands me a sleeping gown to get into. It’s silky and black.

“This is your mom’s, isn’t it?” I ask when I’m dressed and he’s toweling off his hair.

Beau makes a face and nods. “Yeah, it is. But I don’t want to think about her when I’m going to get in bed with you.”

I laugh and walk into the bedroom to turn down the bed for the night. “Fair point.” I pause at the foot of the bed and dig my toes into the plush carpet. The bed is huge, a four poster affair with thick blankets and fluffy pillows that look like they belong in a boutique hotel, not someone’s house. It’s a beautiful bed in a beautiful bedroom in an even more beautiful house. It’s easy to forget that there’s evil waiting for us outside of its walls when everything is so peaceful here. The clock reads just after nine but I’m exhausted and I know Beau is too. When he comes into the bedroom I’m already nodding off in bed. He doesn’t get in right away, but he does click off the light. I hear him go into the hallway and there’s the sound of a door opening before his footsteps fade away. When he doesn’t come back into hearing range, I sit up and glance towards the door. My heart starts to pound and I count the seconds until I hear him again. I get up to 600 seconds before I hear Beau at the end of the hallway.

“Beau?” I call out into the dark and he responds immediately.

“I could be anyone Nevaeh. Don’t give away your position, calling for me like that.”

“I know it’s you,” I say. “He walks too heavy. I’d hear him straight away.”

Beau enters the room a second later and closes the door and locks it. “What does he walk like?” He asks and I feel the bed dip under his weight. The room is pitch black because we have the curtains pulled, even up here on the second floor. I didn’t want to risk it.

“Heavy,” I say and then try again, “he sounds like he’s big. And he is, because I’ve seen him. He walks like he doesn’t care who hears him. When he was running behind me, his boots on the pavement were the only thing I could hear.” Even now I can hear the steady thump-thump-thump of him running behind me.

“He has to be in shape. There’s no way he can be so big and fast. He ran like he could do it forever. Strong, too. When he tackled me…I should have died then, but I didn’t. Somehow, I didn’t.”

I didn’t die because I was too angry. The rage, that red hot, blinding rage, had fueled me. It was like when you hear about mothers that lift cars off their children when it’s life or death. They gain superhuman strength they didn’t know they had. My rage was like that. Superhuman. Utterly transforming and incandescent in its power. Would I be able to do it again? What if it failed me? What if this time, when I try to fight him off, it fails me and I end up just another name in the long list of victims? The name people wince and look the other way when you hear it. The name people feel obliged to say, “she was such a nice girl” and “she had her whole life ahead of her.”

That’s what The Reaper wants to turn me into. Just another hard to say name and an uncomfortable moment.

“How big is he?” Beau asks and scoots closer to me. I feel his legs rub up against mine and a second later he’s hooking his arm around my waist to bring me against him. Our legs intertwine, and when Beau lays down, I go with him, my head on his chest. My stomach aches. I know I’ll be sick soon if I don’t try to calm down.

“Maybe 6’4 or bigger. He’s as big as you,” I say and start to trace the shape of Beau’s hand beside mine where they rest on his stomach. “He’s strong too and so, so fast. B-but the way he moves? He moves like he’s the scariest thing out there. He knows nothing can touch him. Not the cops, not me, not anyone.” My words end on a whisper, because my throat feels tight. It’s hard to talk with how hard my heart is pounding. Even though I’m with Beau and I know I’m safe in his arms, my body doesn’t. I can feel my heart racing, it pounds against my rib cage so hard that my chest hurts. The pain is stress, I know that, but I can’t stop it. Even from just talking about The Reaper, my body still thinks he’s right behind me. I want to get up and run, even if there’s nothing to run from.

Where would I even go without Beau? There’s nowhere I would want to run to if he wasn’t there with me.

I take in a deep breath and then another while Beau rubs my back. He turns us so my back is to his front and curls his body around me. We lay like that for a while with neither of us speaking. I stare into the darkness, willing myself to calm down. Beau at my back works like a charm and bit by bit, limb by limb, I relax into his arms.

“You’ll be free.” Beau kisses the back of my head and brings my hand up to his mouth. “I’m going to kill him, Nevaeh.”

Beau means what he’s saying. I know he does.

“I know you will,” I lie into the darkness. As much as I want to believe the man I love, the boy I put away for a murder that marked us both, I know the truth.

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