Page 7 of Bones

My youngest brother has hair slightly darker than my dirty blonde shade. The women all seem to love his hazel eyes, which can either appear charming or threatening depending on his mood. All of my brothers are fit, like myself, because physical fitness was instilled in us at an early age. I approach Reaper as he stands, looking down at apretty blonde woman. Well, I’m sure she was pretty when she was alive. She has a lovely golden shade to her hair, and her open eyes are a dark blue, like the ocean, although slightly glazed over now. Her skin is pale, telling me without checking her pulse that she’s likely dead.

“What the fuck?”

He doesn’t take his eyes off her. “Isn’t she pretty? I think I want to keep her eyes. That’s not weird, right?”

“Jesus Christ. You’re the one we should call Psycho. Yeah, it’s a little fucking weird, man.”

I don’t bother asking why he kills anymore, because we all know he does it for the thrill. This isn’t new. I’ve known this for a long time. Wanting to keep her eyes, though? That’s new, and creepy as fuck. My brother may be the black sheep of the family, but not in the traditional sense. He is odd, but we accept him as he is. I guess we’re all fucked up that way, because most family members would not love a serial killer. And if he ever gets busted, he won’t do a second of time, because we won’t allow it. Right or wrong, family sticks together.

“Look, if you’re going to kill people, you need to learn to dispose of the bodies. You can’t be calling me at all hours of the damn night for help.”

He nods slowly. “I know.”

I lean up against a gravestone. “Alright, you need to figure out a way to ditch the bodies, but make sure they won’t be found until the DNA has degraded enough that there’s no evidence. Or better yet, destroy the evidence.”

He scratches his dark hair. “What if I buy a farm?”

I’m really trying to keep up with my kid brother, but I’m too tired for this shit. And I have work of my own to do.

“Reaper, can we focus? I don’t care if you buy a farm, but you need to deal with dead girl first.”

He grins with a sneer. “I’ve done some research. A pig can eat a two hundred pound human in eight minutes.”

My brother looks so proud of himself as I shake my head at him. “Is that so, Reaper? Well, you’ve got it all figured out then, don’t you?”

He’s an idiot. While he may have researched this topic, he hasn’t considered everything.

“Do you know they can’t digest teeth? They leave them behind. Do you know what they use teeth for, Reaper?”

Arching his eyebrow, it’s clear he realizes his mistake, and I nod. “That’s right, brother. DNA. Evidence. If anybody ever looks on your hypothetical farm, they’ll find DNA evidence proving that you knew the dead girl.”

Living dead girl blinks and jumps to her feet with a shriek. I slide to the ground and get comfortable against Aunt Eva’s headstone, because clearly it’s going to be a long night. I could save the girl if I wanted to, but I’m not the hero, and I’m not in the business of saving lives.

Reaper chases after the girl, who disappeared into the trees from my view, as my mind bounces between my father’s devastating news and my Butterfly. I’m close with my dad. I always have been, and I can’t imagine a day where he’s no longer here. We all know this is the circle of life. Everybody is born and everybody dies. There are no exceptions. The possibility of taking over for him is bittersweet. I always imagined he’d retire and be around to help me, offer guidance. And his ludicrous demand for me to get married adds an extra layer of insanity. I don’t know anything about being a husband, although I assume it’s a lot like managing the men I do now. Maybe this will work. I’ll order her to do things, and she’ll do them because she’s so grateful to be alive.

After waiting for well over an hour, my brother comes back, staring at me with absolute confusion. He runs a hand through his hair. “She got away. They never escape.”

I chuckle because he looks like a pathetic fucking puppy. “You let her get away?”

He shakes his head. “I know where she lives. She’ll never get away from me. All she did was make the game worth playing.”

“So what’s the plan then, little brother?”

Reaper shrugs with a sardonic grin. “I’ll find her and keep her for a while once she finally begins to relax, and thinks I forgot about her. Then I’ll kill her. And I’ll take her eyeballs. I want her to always be able to look at me. Even in death.”

Climbing off the ground, I say, “Gotta go, Reaper. I have a Butterfly waiting for me.” I don’t tell him about our father, because the others will be notified when he wants them to be. Not a second before.

“Thanks, Bones.”

I shake my head at him and narrow my gaze. “I mean it. Figure out how you’re going to handle dead bodies, or stop fucking making them dead. I don’t have time for this shit. Oh, and good luck with living dead girl.”

My little brother isn’t a bad guy. In fact, he might have the biggest heart out of all of us. It’s just hidden. He made his first kill when he was nine years old, and I think it altered something in his brain. Reaper has never gotten past the thrill of the kill. It’s exhilarating. If you’ve never taken a life, you wouldn’t understand. It’s like a surge of electricity coursing through your blood. Watching the light fade from someone’s eyes is exciting. I don’t care who you are. We are all murderous psychos. The difference is that Reaper is addicted to the kill. I don’t imagine anything will ever dull his need for ending lives. It’s who he is now. We all have our own thing we’re known for. I break bones, he kills people, and Kage, well, he rather enjoys making his victims go crazy by being kept in a cage, before he ends their lives. Psycho, like Reaper, is a breed all his own. He doesn’t have a specific way of killing people. He will simply make sure it’s painful, and involves a lot of blood.

CHAPTER SIX

ATHENA

I’ve been sitting in this cage for what feels like days. Luckily, he didn’t take his shirt back, so I’ve been able to avoid the metal digging into my flesh like it was before, but I’m still miserable. Only a monster would keep a woman caged like a goddamn animal. Seriously. I’m not drinking from that damn bottle. I will dehydrate before I drink from it. I did take a look to see if I could remove it, but it’s impossible. There’s an opening at the top where he must pour the water in, but there’s no way to remove it. I suspect it’s never cleaned, which only makes it more disgusting. I glance around my surroundings, as I wonder how many people have died here. It doesn’t smell like death or anything, but I have noticed the drain directly under where I sit. Is that for the blood? Urine? Am I going to die in here while he watches my life force literally go down the drain? The worst part of being locked in here, is the hours I have to consider every scenario of what he might plan to do to me. None of them are good. Each one ends the same, with my death.

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