Page 20 of Their Darkest Needs

“Okay, are you tired already?” Relief floods me with his question. I’m just being paranoid, I guess. I don’t think I’ve everlied to someone like this before, I mean some little white lies, but not lying to trick someone. I guess I became a whole new person after Mara died.

Grief can do weird things to people, and in my case it must have awakened something in me, something I didn’t think I was capable of.

"Yeah, I am. And I don’t want to sleep alone,” I tell him innocently.

He nods and leans over, kissing my forehead.

I know that I’m doing something bad, but I don’t care anymore. Not when I can get her back by doing so.

Isn’t it funny how it's a man's fault she's gone, and now another one's fault I might never get her back again. And then some claim that women have it easy.

I’m tired of being told what I can’t and can do by a man, of having my life decided for me. I deserve more than that.

Husband or not, I am getting her back, and there’s nothing he can do to stop me.

All I need to do now is wait until he sleeps.

The clock strikes 1 AM and his breathing is stable, so he must be in a deep sleep. It’s now or never.

Slowly, I slide away from his heavy limbs that are draped over me. It’s more of a task I had accounted for, since, well, I didn’t realise how heavy a sleeping body can be, and imagine it being a six-feet tall muscular dude.Note to self, I should start lifting weights.

He moves to his side, and a small sigh comes from him, making me freeze on the spot. Dread fills me. What if he wakes up? I mean, I can just lie and say I needed to pee, but he’ll probably wait until I’m back, so it might go to shit way sooner than anticipated.

His breathing sounds steady again after a couple of seconds, and he doesn’t move anymore. It gives me the sign that it’s okayfor me to go on and move out of the bed. As relief fills me, I tiptoe to the bathroom.

I quickly put on my pants and pull my hoodie over my oversized sleeping shirt, grab my bag, and then quietly go down the stairs. I feel like I’m doing something illegal, while I’m pretty sure locking me inside a house against my will is illegal too.

So far, he hasn’t woken up yet, and I pray to the god I never really believed in to please make this work.

It’s dark and the house is silent except for my own ragged breathing. I grab the key from between the couch pillows and get to the front door, slowly unlocking it and getting out of here.

I park the car I borrowed from Ryan, though, is it borrowed if he doesn’t exactly know about it? I’m just going to go with yes.

I have some plastic garbage bags in my backpack so the dirt wouldn’t get everywhere, so I don’t think he’d even notice that I used it anyway.

I pull the hood of my hoodie over my head. I know that cemeteries are not very well protected based on all the grave robberies I see on the news often, but you never know.

Grabbing my shovel, I walk towards the place I hate the most, and start digging.

PING PING

Looking down, I notice that my car is almost out of gas. How odd. I had just filled it two days ago. I guess I’ll go to the garage tomorrow to see what’s going on. It’s not like anyone else had access to the car, and my keys were still in my pocket exactly where I left them.

I’m almost home anyway.

I look at my phone again to see if I have any messages from my wife but I guess she’s still sleeping. When I left, she was in a very deep sleep, barely stirring when I gave her a good morning kiss.

I wish I could sleep like that. Everytime I close my eyes, another nightmare begins, and I end up waking up covered in sweat. It’s one of the reasons I get up early.

Well, that and I don’t want her to find out what I do for a living; she might not agree with the fact that my job is to stalk people. I guess in some fucked up way that is why I did the same to her. I also think it’s because I don't have the greatest people skills—usually, they just ignore me or leave me.

I don’t want her to do the same thing, but I feel like the reins are slipping while we haven’t even really had a chance to bloom yet.

I place the key in the door and hold the handle to open the lock, but the door shoves open by itself. Panic is rising in me while I grab my gun from under my jacket and slowly move inside. I hadn’t gotten an intruder alert. How odd, did I forget to lock the door? What if Taylor got hurt,again?

I see something moving to the left, and I move, pointing my gun to the living room, ready to shoot whoever it is.

WHAT THE FUCK!I move the gun down and rub my eyes because no fucking way this is what I’m actually seeing. Is this a fucking prank?

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