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I’d never had children, but he was young and his blood stained my hands. I could still feel the drumming of his heart in my fingers. When I’d reached his heart, the beat had transmitted through the knife blade. This killing was a terrible thing, but it was done. Over. The past. I swallowed and dismissed my sorrow.
Looking at his body would do nothing. I tried to catch Jazmine’s eye but she stared at the floor, or at the boy, her hands caught between her knees. So quiet and lost.
Not good. Though I wished I could comfort her, it wasn’t possible.
“Step over here, Pieter, so we may restrain you. Then we can remove the young man’s body and make your room clean again.”
So many years of killing people and witnessing in-your-face violence had left me immune to wallowing in the emotion this sort of thing caused in others. I could wall it off. I backed up to the hatch. Once they’d manacled me, I followed orders and retreated to the shower area opposite. They hauled out his body then came in with a mop. Gregor did the last clean-up and wiped a towel over the wet area using his foot.
“There. Done.” He beamed at me and at Jazmine on the bed. She’d sat there the whole time, stiff and pale of face.
When they all left and I was freed via the hatch, I went and sat beside her.
This was going to be bad. I waited.
“Why?” She shook her head, tears in her voice. “Why? He was alive! I mean, I know Gregor said...all that.” She waved her hand vaguely, while choking up so that I could barely understand what she said. “But why? It was too quick. You could’ve talked! You could. How could you kill a boy like that?” She glanced at me then away. Afraid I’d see how blotchy red her face was? If she didn’t burst into tears soon she’d crack.
Finally she stopped talking. I took her hand and she wrenched it away. Her fingers were cold and trembling. Emotional shock – it wouldn’t kill her but I wasn’t going to just leave her to suffer.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do you even feel anything? God.” She put her hand to her mouth and swallowed. “I think I might throw up.”
I couldn’t answer that. Not easily.
“Well?”
What I’d felt for a few seconds after his death, I’d locked it away. Opening myself up to feeling grief and remorse wasn’t worth the fallout. Her, I felt for. Her distress was eating at me.
“I do.” Truth.
“If you’d just waited. I’m too important to this client for Gregor to kill, yet. He wasn’t going to do it.” She nodded to herself. “He wasn’t.”
Could she be right? I didn’t think so. “Gregor isn’t a man who issues empty threats. This wasn’t something small. He said he’d skin you alive.” Imagining her being sliced up by Gregor sickened me. I reached across her back and pulled her close. Fuck her pushing me away. She needed a hug. I ignored how she stiffened.
“Listen to me. Look at me.”
Though she hesitated before she turned to meet my eyes, she obeyed. Good.
“Someone has to be strong here. It’s me. I can’t afford to be weak. I can’t afford to think I was wrong. I won’t. Gregor is one of the coldest, most sadistic killers I’ve ever seen.”
“One of?” She huffed.
I ran through my reasons. It hadn’t been fear for myself. Yeah, she was right in one respect. I might’ve taken longer to kill the boy if she hadn’t been in the room, though I was sure it would still have come to that. It was she who’d pushed my hand. Telling her that would be cruel.
I guess this was evidence I cared for her more than was healthy for a man who wanted to survive. Funny really. I searched within, trying to figure myself out. It wasn’t likely to be love. It was the same intense feeling I’d get if I saw a dog shivering by the roadside.
With the hand I’d wrapped around her shoulders, I touched her neck, marveling at her softness.
The light bulb came on. Who was I kidding? It was far more than what I’d feel for an abandoned pet. When it came to women, I was a fool. I sighed, wanting to kiss the top of her head but sure it was too early.
“Listen, meisie, I’m not ever going to risk you dying because I hesitated at the wrong time.”
“Fuck.” She ducked her head into her open hands. “I’m still shaking. Don’t know if I’ll ever stop.”
“You will. It will pass. Lie down with me for a while. Please.”
She let me pull her over so we could lie together on the bed and slowly the tension ebbed from her muscles and her shaking did stop. I played with her cold fingers until they warmed, stroked the curls of hair at her nape.
