Page 28 of Love You To Pieces

His eyes seem to catch the sun and hold it, becoming caramel-like instead of just brown.

He’s gorgeous.

And he’s still humming, I realize belatedly as his gaze slides down to meet mine.

Shit.

His smile widens a little at the corners, lips tilting upward in a sweet, charming smile. “You can stare all you want, Sadie-Rae,” he teases with a chuckle. “I certainly don’t mind. But you’re also welcome to tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Why are you doing this?” It’s the first thing I can think to say. “I don’t understand. If you’re the sheriff, shouldn’t you be helping me? Reporting this? Catching the other guys who⁠—”

“What makes you think I’m not doing those things?” He’s walking again, barely looking where he’s going, but I suppose he doesn’t need to.

The house is pretty and seems to come right out of a rural homestead magazine. The hardwood floors are old but clean, and the whitewashed walls with shiplap borders look like they’ve been well kept up to maintain their appeal. Every room we pass is homey, lived-in, but all together, this doesn’t look like the den of monsters.

It looks nice, if I’m honest with myself. Especially when we pass a large bay window overlooking the front yard, the white, lacy curtains drifting inward on the breeze that blows through the house.

“My mom did all of this,” he says, in answer to a question I haven’t asked and probably won’t. With no effort whatsoever, Fox starts up another flight of stairs, taking me back to the second floor where I escaped from earlier.

It’s better than the fucking dog kennel.

At least up here, I can see outside if he locks me in that room again. Even if he locks the window, I can break the glass. I can do something, and I won’t be alone and in the dark.

“Is she…?” I trail off, not sure what to ask.

“She’s gone,” he admits. “My brother Jed left a few years ago—he was her favorite. Her protégé.” Fox rolls his eyes at that. “Anyway, he left. Went up north and never spoke to her again. It broke her heart, and she never really got over it. But…” Shifting me in his grip, Fox opens a door leading into a large, tiled bathroom, and turns on the light with a click.

“No offense, Sadie”—his smile is apologetic and he sets me down finally, holding onto me as I regain my balance—“but you fucking reek. And your hair is, uh…” He gestures at me like he can’t quite figure out how to say it, which only makes me want to see it more.

The mirror behind me over the sink is large and ornate, but for a moment, I can’t tell who I’m looking at. After all, the bloody, hollow-eyed girl staring back at me can’t be me.

I don’t look like that.

Except I do, apparently. “Fuck,” I murmur, my hands coming up only to pause and hover near my hair. I look awful, and if I wasn’t probably, mercifully, nose blind to myself, I’m sure I’d be in agreement about how badly I reek.

“Yeah,” Fox agrees, bustling around behind me. As I watch, he shows me a bundle of clothing that’s mostly flannel and cotton, and a towel. Both end up on the back of the toilet before he gestures to the tub. “Take your time. Hot water lasts a while.” His smile is sweet, genuine, and makes something in me stir.

But it’s stomped down by the rational side of my brain that can still see whatever lurks under Fox’s sweet smiles and Deacon’s less innocent, less genuine grins. I nod my head, waiting to move until he leaves and I can lock the door behind him.

It’s not like he told me not to, after all.

But once I’m alone, I can’t hold out any longer. With the shower heating up, I strip out of the clothes that are, at this point, only fit to be burned. They really are an absolute loss, with blood and worse staining any fabric that didn’t get torn or frayed. My shoes are hardly any better, but those I set beside the tub, intent on at least trying to clean the blood off them while being thankful as hell they’re mostly black.

I shouldn’t be showering in the monsters’ house.

Yet here I am, stepping gingerly into the tub and nearly melting out of sheer relief when the water hits me. The only thing that keeps me from lying down and waterboarding myself is the filth that streams from me, and I force myself to pick up a bottle of shampoo from the caddy under the faucet. Instead of using an appropriate amount, I dump probably a quarter of the bottle into my hair, until it runs down my face like slime. My hands go to the stiff, matted strands, and I scrub like I’m trying to rip off a layer of skin, starting with my hair and working downward.

No matter that it hurts, no matter that I’m rubbing my skin raw, I don’t stop. The water continues to run a rusty brown, but Fox was right. The hot water absolutely lasts.

Through all three different lathering sessions of shampoo, the one round of conditioner, and even as I scrub and scrub my skin to make sure all evidence of the auto shop is gone from my body, the hot water stays almost scalding. It’s perfect, and when the water runs clear at long last, I give in to what I’ve been craving since I first stepped into the tub.

With a groan, I sit down, legs crossed under me, and let the water fall like rain over my head and shoulders. It streams down my already heated skin, and when I close my eyes to rest my face in my hands, it feels a bit like heavy rain.

Except instead of cold and bone-chilling, the water makes me feel human again. For the first time in days I feel like I can think. I feel like myself. Without having to ignore the blood and gore and worse on my skin, I can finally take a moment to just exist.

At least until that familiar, awful, yawning loneliness and dull fear invade my chest. My friends are gone. Dead, with at least one of their corpses outside, maybe a few hundred feet from where I’m sitting.

Ariana hadn’t deserved that. Scotty didn’t either, and if I’m being nice, Tyler deserved less than what he got. My fingers tense against my face and I shift, dragging my knees up to my chest to wrap my arms around them.