Page 166 of Crucible
Aurelia’s brows shoot up. “You’re giving me a severed head?”
“I was thinking that once all the skin falls off, we can turn it into a vase. To hold all the flowers I promise to pick for you again.”
Thorin and I make eye contact when Aurelia’s gaze softens, and she nervously takes the head from him. “Seth…I love it.”
Jesus, fuck, she’s just as crazy as him.
“Aurelia, you can’t keep the head,” I tell her.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s evidence?”
“But, Khalil—”
“I said no, baby.”
Seth leans over and whispers something to her that I can’t hear, and Aurelia giggles. When her eyes find mine before flicking away when she sees me watching, I know those bitches are talking about me.
I’m still staring at her when Aurelia hands the head back to Seth and stands. I don’t look away as she walks over to me and places her hand on my right shoulder.
My hands are covered in blood, so I don’t touch her, but God, I want to.
Instead, I hold very still and let her do what she wants to me. Aurelia moves to stand behind me, and then her other hand finds my left shoulder and starts massaging.
“You’re tense, Khalil. Did I do something?”
“No.”
“CanI do something?”
Fuck it.
Reaching behind me, I pull Aurelia back around to my front, where I can see her. “You can start by telling me what the hell happened on that ice. What changed, Aurelia?”
Thorin pauses from loading the body parts into the steel vat that we plan to turn into a pressurized cooker, using lye to dissolve the bodies. It won’t be pretty. There’s any number of things that could cause the sheriff to suspect foul play, but there’s nothing to link us back to the drifters, so it won’t matter.
But if the cops find even one hair of Aurelia’s, we’re fucked.
“What do you mean?”
Thorin, not as willing to be coy, answers. “Aurelia and I made a deal.”
“What kind of deal?”
“I agreed to stay and be yours on the condition that I’m no longer a prisoner.”
“Okay…”
“That means the tracker comes off, and the punishments stop.”
“How do we know you won’t run?”
“You don’t. You just have to trust me.”
“Trust you…”
“Like I’m trusting you not to make me regret it.”
