Page 12 of The Chaos She Brings
“I ordered pizza,” he replies. “We’ll eat, and then we need to deal with the body.”
The clock on the oven tells me it’s almost six in the evening, and my stomach growls loudly, reminding me that I slept the entire day away after last night's shenanigans.
“Oh god. I’d almost forgotten that he’s still in your car.” I wince at the thought.
“Yep. And the sooner he’s not the better.”
Kai disappears again and I take the time to study his house. It’s clean—but like, freakishly so. I open his kitchen cupboards. His mugs are all sitting at exactly the same angle with all the handles at the same point. Sure, it could be a coincidence, but I think it’s purposeful.
I check the fridge. Everything is in a clear order with labels describing where everything's home is; ‘fruit’, ‘fizzy drinks’, ‘juices’, ‘sweet snacks’, the list goes on.
Moving into the living room I note that the sofa cushions are perfectly fluffed, and the coasters are all aligned on the coffee tables. It’s like a show home, not somewhere anyone lives.
The food arrives, and Kai appears holding the boxes. Instead of bringing them into the living room and eating them straight from the box like a normal person would, he carries them to the kitchen and deposits them onto plates then carefully dismantles the boxes and places them into the bin before he grabs the plates and carries them to the dining table.
I try to stop my gaping mouth before he sees me staring at the strangeness.What an odd man.It’s kind of endearing though.
Taking a seat opposite him, I wolf down slices like eating is going out of date. Thank God he bought two pizzas.
“So,” I mumble around bites. “How are we getting rid of the body?”
“Feeding it to pigs.” The way he says the words is so casual you’d think he was talking about the weather.
I pause mid-bite. “Pigs?”
“Yep. Clean. Efficient. No evidence. They eat everything.”
I stare at him, trying to decide if he’s joking or if I’ve just stumbled into an episode ofCriminal Minds. “Do you happen to have pigs on hand for this job?”
“Not me personally.”
“You know someone?”
“I take them to a farm that’s always abandoned at night.”
I choke on my pizza. “What the fuck?”
Kai’s lips twitch. “Welcome to my world.”
4
God Help Me, I Might Actually Be Starting To Like Her
Carina to Kai: I think you’d be good for each other. [unsent]
Kai
You’dthinkthathavinga decomposing body in the car with you would make it hard to focus on anything but the stench of decay. But Tess is acting like she doesn’t even notice it.
We’ve been on the road for forty minutes and Tess has been speaking for at least thirty-nine of them. She barely even stops to take a breath.
It’s like a thought pops into her head and she just says it.
So far, I’ve learnt that she once dyed her hairblonde, but it turned green after a chlorine mishap, and she had to use ketchup to remove it. The relevance of that was that the smell was apparently “dire” and “the worst thing ever.” I almost rolled my eyes at that. The girl has been in the same room as a dead body, but ketchup in her hair is the worst thing.
She’s terrified of spiders but thinks tarantulas are “kind of cute” and she has a weirdly strong opinion about meat feast pizza. Apparently, it’s “an abomination,” and I’m “a monster” for not agreeing.
She’s also mentioned that she once got locked in a bathroom cubicle and instead of calling for help she attempted to climb over the top but instead landed with her head in the toilet bowl.
