Page 141 of The Anchor Holds

I’d thought it was bullshit. But I got it. Killing wasn’t heroic. It was disgusting and selfish. Against nature. It changed something visceral inside of you.

My eyes protested as the lights switched on, and a warm glow bathed the room.

Elliot’s swift intake of breath caught my ears as he gazed at my body. My eyes followed his.

Blood covered me, my torso, my arms. I hadn’t realized how bad it looked.

“It’s not mine,” I managed to croak out, unable to keep looking at the concern in Elliot’s eyes. Horror. He was not meant to be faced with a woman covered in the blood of a former lover. That was not the life he deserved. Yet there he was. Because I dragged him into it.

His eyes found mine.

There it was.

My anchor.

Still holding me down.

Holding me together.

Though I was still wading through the thickness of the fog in my mind, I could see the questions he wanted to ask. All of it was painted on his face. Revulsion, fear, concern. Yeah, there wereprobably a lot of questions to ask the woman sitting in front of him, drenched in blood that wasn’t hers.

Most promptly would be questions having to do with the authorities. Normal people’s first instinct was to call the law, to seek help. Elliot was normal. He believed in law and order. I doubt he’d so much as jaywalked.

I was not normal. The law wouldn’t help me, if he suggested we call them. They’d put me in cuffs.

If he wanted to call them, I wouldn’t stop him. Couldn’t right then. Maybe that was where I deserved to be. In a cage. If that’s where he thought I belonged, that’s where I’d go. Elliot was the judge and jury. His word meant more than any in the land.

“Let’s get you in the shower.” He spoke firmly, purposefully, with softness but also with confidence. It told me he’d made some kind of decision. He’d been standing at a crossroads and had made a decision. It was the wrong one. I wanted to scream it at him.

I blinked up at him with questions of my own swirling. Did he know that showering me would make him an accomplice? That it would wash away the tangible evidence of my crime?

But I didn’t ask him any questions. I let him gather me into his arms, feeling small and delicate and like I’d rattle if he took a misstep.

But he didn’t. Every one of his strides was sturdy, sure, as if my added weight was nothing but a bag of groceries.

I wanted to look at him. At the contours of his face, to see if I could find the same man I left. But I was afraid of what he saw now, how he’d look at me now. I didn’t want to see the truth of myself in his eyes.

So I kept my gaze on the ceiling instead, my body rejoicing and revolting in the places he touched me. I wanted his touch, his warmth. But he was rubbing Jasper’s blood on him. My crime. My sin was tarnishing him.

With the lights of the bathroom assaulting my retinas, I blinked the dark spots away, forcing myself to look down at my clothes.

But Elliot was quicker, shedding them off me and my limbs which were somehow pliable. I felt completely numb, unable to fight him.

The spray of the shower filled the room with a noise that wasn’t the slap of my clothes on tile, my heavy breathing or my heartbeat.

Elliot made quick work of his own clothes, then after another slow blink, we were in the shower. The water was almost scalding, yet I wished it was hotter. Wished it would burn the skin from my flesh so I could shed it like a snake. Turn into something else. I didn’t make that request. I didn’t do anything but watch the water turn red and go down the drain. The last evidence of my crime. Of Jasper’s life. I figured Knox would’ve burned his body by now.

Erasing him from existence felt easy.

Erasing him from my insides felt impossible.

Elliot’s hands on my skin brought me back from the brink. I was unable to detach from his touch, even in this state. I forced myself to focus on the movement of his hands, lathering soap over every inch of my body. The touch wasn’t sexual, not in the slightest. It was caretaking. As if I were completely unable to take care of myself.

Which was true.

Everything felt drained out of me. I’d held it all together. I’d done everything that was required to fix my life, to save it. There was nothing left. I was nothing. And Elliot was holding me together, instead of saving me in the traditional sense of the word by brandishing weapons, drawing blood. He was washing the blood from me. He was holding me when I didn’t have the energy to hold myself.

The shower turned off, then a fluffy towel encircled me before Elliot began methodically drying me, then himself. Then he gathered me in the towel like I was a child, carrying me to my room.

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