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It takes me ten seconds to ask Zeus to estimate the person's height in the footage.
5’9.
The same height as Ella.
Icy anger cuts through my chest.
“Doug!” I call, and exactly that moment, the doorbell rings.
He heads to the door first, and I watch him open the door from my armchair.
He glances down, his body tenses, and he draws his gun. I can’t see around him, but no one seems to be there.
“What is it?” I ask, rolling back my shoulders in apprehension—not without pain. My chest still hurts like shit.
“Package, I don’t recall you ordering something.”
“I didn’t,” I say.
Doug closes the door, leaving the package where it was. It’s awfully big, and my mind is already on edge. What if it’s a bomb?
Doug gets a metal detector and swipes it over the parcel.
“Negative,” he calls, and I can feel my body relax.
He slips on a mask and gloves before he opens the package outside.
“There’s a card,” he says, and brings it inside to hold it up for me to read.
Get well soon.
My mouth drops open.
“What’s in the package?” I hear myself ask.
“You gotta see that for yourself,” says Doug cryptically and carries the package inside.
He opens the box, and a disgusting smell trails up my nose.
“Ewwwww!” I say and turn away.
“Look at it,” says Doug, and I do what he tells me to.
My heart plummets.
In the box is a severed hand, holding a gun. Stiff and dull-matte in its color, with dried blood on the outside. Cut off by the wrist, I can see the bones and cord-like structures. The scent is the worst of it. I want to vomit.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask as my eyes wander from Doug to the box.
“It’s the Lords,” says Doug. “The gun has the same engraving as the one I killed.”
It takes me a moment to find my words, because I don’t know what to think and feel right now.
“She fucking killed someone,” I whisper. “And cut off his hand to send it to me in a fucking box! What kind of fucking mad person does that?”
This is a situation that allows any form of cursing.
“I’d say a person who's madly in love,” says Doug. “And well, a killer,” he adds sardonically, and all I want to do is murder him for even saying it.
