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Damon rubs soothing circles on my upper back, making me flash back to the past for a few beats before his voice drags me back to the present. “You did good. Now we need to take care of Bryant. The cold won’t keep him from decomposing for long if we don’t move fast.”
I can’t help it; I laugh. It’s all just so goddamnabsurd.
After gathering his supplies and dressing suitably for winter, we get into his rental car and drive off. There’s just one thing—there’s a dead body in the trunk. At this point, I think I’m seriously past the point of wondering what I’ve gotten myself into.
Would Dad be proud?
The irony of burying someone in my family’s land—the same place where my father, the Lakestone Reaper himself, dumped bodies of his own—is not lost on me.
We park the car further into the property because hauling a corpse when rigor mortis has already kicked in is a tall task. As if things couldn’t get worse, the frozen ground adds an additional obstacle to overcome. I wonder how the hell we’re going to dig through it and bury Bryant deep enough to avoid detection or animals too curious for their own good.
My hands tremble as I clip a flashlight to my collar. “What happens if someone finds him?” I ask, watching as Damon retrieves two shovels from the backseat.
“We’ll be long gone before then,” he says matter-of-factly, tossing me a shovel. “So don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”
I roll my eyes. “No need to be condescending about it. I’m new at this, remember?”
“Just trust me,” he says, invading my bubble. “I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
I stare up at him. His eyes resemble chips of ice, and the coldness of them chills me to the bone, sending shivers down my spine. Is there any feeling to be found there? Any empathy or remorse for the things he’s done? Am I even capable of fixing him?He’s a psychopath, I remind myself.Someone beyond repair.
Even if it were possible, in all honesty, I don’t want to fix him. Part of me likes him broken, vengeful. Unhinged. It makes me feel …alive.
Fuck, something is definitely wrong with me.
I tear my gaze away from him and shake off my thoughts. “Let’s just get this over with,” I say, scanning the area for a probable burial site. “How deep does it need to be?”
He shrugs. “Deep enough that no one will find him if they come snooping around.”
We set off into the woods. The night is eerily still, like a tomb. How appropriate. The snow has finally laid off, so at least there’s that. Eventually, we come upon a secluded area near a frozen pond. The trees here are larger, their gnarled branches casting creepy shadows on the glittering snow. It’s surreal, almost peaceful.
“This looks like a good spot,” I say, pointing to an area just far enough away from the trees that we hopefully won’t run into their roots.
He nods in agreement, his expression unreadable. He wastes no time shoveling snow aside in the place I picked until the brown earth is visible underneath. Then, he begins to dig.
I join him. My arms ache in a matter of minutes, but I forge onward, wanting to do my part.In burying a body, the voice of my stepfather says in my head. I blink a few times, focusing on the task at hand. I do wonder, however, about how many bodies Damon had buried before. How many lives he snuffed out.
The prospect of a concrete number should bring me dread—but a curious thrill slithers through me instead.
Time passes by in an agonizing crawl. I’m deep in thought, various scenarios running in my head over the potential repercussions of our actions when Damon speaks.
“You know we’re gonna have to move on eventually, right?”
I look at him for a moment, unable to comprehend his words. “What do you mean?” I ask hesitantly, wiping my brow with the back of my hand.
He continues to dig. “If the blue shirts begin to poke holes in our set-up, then we’ll have to leave. Start over. The sooner the better.”
Memories of the past year play in my mind like a movie on fast-forward. I’ve been constantly relocating, changing names and backstories whenever things became too difficult or uncomfortable. I’ve become used to it, putting on a new persona and moving to a new city or state. It didn’t take long for it to become second nature to me.
But as I remember my apartment and all its familiar items, a current of sadness sweeps over me.
I thought I had found a place in Fallbank where I could live normally, settle down with the cute neighbor guy, and hang out with my friends from work. Now, it all seems so far away, like a fleeting dream. What I thought was a peaceful little life I’d managed to carve out with my minimum wage job had gone from feeling secure to dissolving in an instant the moment Damon walked into my sphere.
But he’s always been there, always been my shadow.
He casts a glance in my direction, noticing my distress. “Don’t worry,” he says softly in an almost uncharacteristic show of gentleness. “I already got things worked out. We’ll have new identities and everything.”
I’ll never be normal again, will I?
