Page 93 of Beneath Her Skin

Judith smiles. “I am.”

I laugh, sharp and hysterical. “How?” I say. “How are the two of us going to—going tokillsomeone?”

“Do you mean that logistically or ethically?”

I blink. The question’s hazy because my thoughts are still hazy. “Both?”

Judith, ever so gently, tilts my head so I’m resting my cheek on the carpet again.

“Logistically,” she says. “We have a week to plan. But my initial thought was that we’ll let him think I never found you. Then we can trap him in the bomb shelter and use his own weapons against him.”

Judith says all this as if she’s planning a goddamn dinner party.

“Ethically?” She pauses. “Well. I suppose that’s a little trickier.”

“You think?” I stare at the fire as she goes back to tending my cuts. She doesn’t respond, just keeps cleaning and wrapping my back, and doesn’t say a word until a single, firm, “Done.”

I push up, shaking, to my hands and knees, then slump down on the carpet with my wrapped leg jutting out in front of me. Earlier, I had put on the old, loose linen pants she brought me, the stupid things more expensive than any item of clothing in my closet, but I had to be topless for her to take care of my back. I’m used to it, sitting around with my tits out.

But Judith seems uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than she was in the bomb shelter, which gives me a weird crawling sensation. She keeps trying not to look at me and failing. It reminds me of those johns who at least try to be a little respectful.

“Here’s your sweater,” she says, holding it out to me with her eyes averted. “It should be big enough to account for the bandages.”

I take it from her but don’t put it on, just squeeze it like a stuffed animal. The fabric is astonishingly soft, with a kind of velvety fluffiness. “You can look at me.”

Judith lifts her green eyes to my face.

“Nudity’s not the problem here,” I add.

“No.” She looks away, cheeks turning pink. “No, of course not.”

I must be going fucking crazy because I think it’s cute, how shy she is. I’ve never been around a shy woman before, and I have this thought out of nowhere, that I wish she’d been the one to come to the Red Blossom and pay for a few hours at the Sunrise Tide instead of her piece of shit husband.

I slip the sweater on, tugging it down gently over my bandages. It’s like wearing a warm, soft cloud, and I keep petting the fabric, astonished by how soft it is.

“It’s cashmere,” Judith says suddenly. “I thought you might like it.”

“Seriously?” I laugh, not because it’s funny but because I can’t believe it. “You brought me a fucking cashmere sweater? What if I bleed on it?”

She shrugs. “You deserve something nice after what my husband did to you.”

“You don’t even know all that he did to me.”

Judith looks right at me, and that shyness, that sweetness, is gone, replaced with a kind of burning blackness that shudders right to my core. For a moment, I see her husband, his face twisted and splattered with blood, and I realize I can see her the same way.

Just—not directed at me.

“No,” Judith says, “But none of this is unfamiliar to me.”

Terror turns my blood to ice. “You told me you didn’t what he was.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then how can any of this be notunfamiliarto you?”

Judith looks away, and I can see she’s hesitating to answer, which doesn’t do much to ease my fear.

“I grew up in a place, in a family, where—” Judith hesitates again. “Where this sort of thing was common.”

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