Page 70 of Like Grim Death: Part One
All those men watching, no one helped her. Because they needed her dead. She carried a secret that could bury each one of them.
I feel dizzy, and despite the perspiration coating my body, my mouth is so dry. The treadmill’s belt stops completely below me as I pop open my eyes, remembering briefly sitting here with Atlas all those weeks ago for Rain’s birthday party.
“Do you hate the crowd? Or the people in it?” he asks, his dimples flashing as he smiles at me beside him.
I feel woozy, the pill he gave me calming me down but making everything off balance too. Tilted. I fold my arms across my knees and rest my cheek on my hand as I close my eyes. “I love Maverick,” I say quietly, as an answer.
He laughs a little and I imagine him shaking his head, but I keep my eyes closed. “But not everyone who comes along with him, huh?”
A chill slides down my spine even with the flushed feeling in my veins. Kid Cudi plays in my ears, just like he did in the movie. I reach up and pull my earbuds out, pocketing them as I twist around to look over my shoulder, like I might find someone looking back.
The gym is immaculate. Gleaming hardwoods. Glass walls through which I see the lobby of the gym with a coffee table, a loveseat, carpet. There are various cardio machines beside me, including an elliptical and two stationary bikes. Beyond the lobby is another glass room packed with weights, then another for yoga.
I crane my neck, checking out the stairwell leading up to the first level of my house, just past the weight room. It’s dark, and I tuck my elbows in toward my body, staring into the gloom.
But no one is here.
I’m safe. I’ve done what I’m supposed to do, and I haven’t gotten any summons for more. Whatever I felt on Tuesday night was all in my head. No one would be under my bed, or hiding in my closet, getting texts at the same time I sent them. Even the person I met in the shadows wouldn’t dare dothat.It’s irrational, and I was high on Benadryl and lack of sleep.
I pluck my phone from the cupholder of the treadmill and hop off, heading up the stairs and leaving all the lights on down in the gym.Just in case.
I switch the faucet knob to cold. It’s too late now to treat the bruises this way, but with the sweat from my workout and the lingering pain, it feels good all the same. I close my eyes against the ache, my knees shaking as I wrap my arms around myself and step under the spray completely. The scent of mint from my conditioner relaxes me, and I inhale in the glass shower, keeping my eyes closed and trying to fight the tremble that seems to overtake my entire body. I know my sprints aggravated the muscle and sometimes it feels like the bruises go just that deep. At least the marks have faded away to pale yellow. I’ll still need to be careful with Mavy the next few days, but if hedoessee, it’ll be easy to explain away.
I swallow the guilt and open my eyes, then reach to turn the shower off.
Silence descends in the bathroom, only glowing candles beyond the frosted glass of the stall, and I stare at the muted, flickering light. It dances macabre shadows across the glass, and they transfix me, pulling me in. Then I blink and the spell is snapped.
I take a breath, freezing from the cold water. I reach for the silver handle of the door, but just as my fingers close around it to push it open, both candles go out at once.
The hairs along the back of my neck stand on end, and I bite down on a whimper, cutting my top teeth on my bottom lip.
The sound of my own pulse thuds fast and vicious in my ears, and I want to call out. My reflex is to ask,Who’s there?But in horror movies, that’s how people get killed.
And they die in showers too. Naked, usually.
Always women.
My mind flickers to the Arlo Estere film.I should not have finished that movie alone.
I hold onto the cool door handle tightly, biting the inside of my cheek and pressing my thighs together so I don’t pee. Fear is freezing in my veins, and I blink, trying to see a shadow, but the moon is waning tonight, and nothing comes in through the big bay windows to the right of the shower stall.
It’s like the darkness has swallowed me whole.
Seconds tick by. There’s only silence.
I start to think somehow the candles fizzled out on their own. It’s the explanation my brain reaches for even as I know it isn’t logical. The windows certainly aren’t open so they couldn’t have blown out, but… I lit them at the same time. Maybe theydidmelt down to the wick all at once.
“No,” Lucifer says, his voice cold as he stares at me in the darkness of the abandoned house. “Don’t question this. You do it, then you’re done. You don’t do it…”
I hold my breath, wanting Maverick as I hug myself and shift from foot to foot.
“Then you die.” He takes pleasure in the words. I can see it in his smile.
I blink, and the memory gives me strength. Fuck this. I know I’m doing the right thing and therefore, no matter how much he wants to avoid looking at me, I know I’m under some semblance of Lucifer’s protection. He wouldn’t allow someone to break into my house, if only for his own sake.
I push open the door and step out of the shower, dripping wet, the chill from the spacious bathroom causing my teeth to chatter. I dart my gaze around the darkened room, but I see nothing. I shake it off, the scent of blown out candles heavy in the air, gray smoke drifting like ghostly tendrils in the darkness.
I shut the shower door and step around it to the built-in shelves, my fingers grazing over a luxurious towel I know is white, even though I can’t see it. But just before I can grab at the soft fabric to wrap around me, a cold, amused voice breaks the silence of the room.
