Page 49 of Spiders in the Grove

“I missed you, Sarai.” He cocked his head to one side. “If you were unhappy why didn’t you just say so? I’d have done anything you wanted, you know that.”

I didn’t care about what he had to say, all I cared about was making sure Samantha was all right. Trying to keep my eyes on Javier, I scanned the room in search of her. Finally, I saw her bare feet sticking out from behind the recliner.

“Samantha, are you OK?”

She didn’t respond so I knew she was hurt pretty bad.

I looked back at Javier. “Let’s just go—please, she has no part in this.”

He smiled at me, thoughtful but amused.

He was wearing black from top to bottom: long-sleeved black shirt, black belt, black pants, black shoes, black heart. He raised his gun at me and motioned for me to go over to him.

“Let me see you,” he said.

I walked closer, my bare feet moving over magazines scattered about the floor. The grandfather clock standing tall in the corner ticked ominously behind me.

“Javier, she’s going to die if we don’t call for an ambulance,” I urged as I got closer. “Let me call nine-one-one. Then we can leave.”

I saw Samantha’s knees then, but the rest of her was obscured by the chair and the darkness.

Javier reached out his hand.

“Did you fuck him?” he asked and pulled me close. “Or are you still mine?” He leaned in and inhaled my scent like an animal; coiled a loose strand of hair that had fallen from my ponytail, around his fingers.

“No,” I said breathily. “I’ll always be yours.”

“You don’t know what you’ve done to me,” he said, and I felt his breath on my neck. “You shouldn’t have left me.”

I reached up and curled my fingers around the back of his neck. I leaned into him, the side of my face navigating the open buttons of his shirt until I felt his chest on my cheek. “I know, and I’m sorry.” I kissed his hot skin. “I am so sorry for leaving you,” I added in Spanish.

I shuddered, both from pleasure and disgust, when he slid his hand down the front of my pants and put two fingers inside of me. It didn’t matter that he was insane or that he was a murderer or that he might kill me any second; the touch still made me wet. It was my body betraying me, human nature betraying me, not my mind or my heart. I had conformed years ago to react to him in this way; a twisted survival instinct that they don’t teach in self-defense classes. Javier had to believe he was turning me on or he’d know everything else about me was a lie, too.

He pulled his fingers out and brought them to his lips, inhaled deeply, his eyes closed as if to savor it. Then he put them into his mouth and suckled.

I stepped back while he was distracted, to put as much distance between us as I could, although small.

“I’m not sure I want you anymore,” he said.

My heart stopped. If he didn’t want me, then I knew he’d kill me, especially after everything I’d done, all the trouble I’d caused.

“Javier,” I said, trying to hide the nervousness in my voice, “let’s just go. I’m ready to go back.”

I took another step back and to my right, pressing my hands against the wall behind me. And then I saw her, Samantha. She wasn’t moving. She sat slumped over with her back against the wall; her bloody legs were splayed out into the floor; her arms lay limply beside her, her fingers uncurled. Her eyes; they were open, dead.

Bile churned in my stomach, my hands stiffened down at my sides. I shook all over from anger and hatred and guilt, and goddammit, fear.

“You killed her,” I said, my lips trembling.

“I did,” he admitted. “On the fifth shot.”

“But you said…” I looked to and from him and Samantha’s body; my heart felt like it was closing in on itself. “You said if I didn’t—”

Javier raised his gun at me; that last bullet I knew then why he didn’t use it on her.

I stood frozen, one hand on the wall behind me, the other somehow made its way to my stomach as if it could keep the vomit down by being there. I stumbled on more debris and then pressed my back against the wall to let it hold me up. There was a shelf beside me; my hand fumbled its contents in the darkness.

I stared across the small space separating Javier and me; stared into his cold, bottomless dark eyes, not the barrel of his gun pointed at me, but his eyes. I heard a click, just a click, and we looked blankly into each other’s faces, confused by what just happened. Then a shot rang out and I fell against the wall; my body slid down until I was sitting on the floor just like Samantha. Limp and spent, just like Samantha. The room spun around in my vision like a thick haze of gray.

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