“Why did you do that? They’ll put me back in the hospital. I can’t go back there!”
I ignore her cries and lift her arms above her head, pinning them with one of my hands. She winces and the red stream trickling down her arm and onto my skin fed the yearning inside me to see her bleed. I part her legs and wrap my free arm around her waist, lifting her and spearing her down on my cock. She screams out and I show no mercy in thundering my hips against her. Our bodies clash and slap against each other, sending water everywhere.
“You know,” I growl, “if you want attention you could just change your birthday on Facebook to today. Think of all your friends and family wanting to send their best wishes to fucked up little Jodie.”
I hammer away at her as her sobs mix with moans and her blood showers down on us with the water. I pull out so I don’t come inside her and place her back on her feet. She’s unsteady so I guide her to a sitting position.
“This hurts, Ryan,” she whines.
I turn the valve on the bath, which shuts off the shower and plugs the tub. Turning on the faucets, I let water fill over her body.
“What are you doing?” she asks as I begin dressing myself.
“I’m going to let you rest in a nice hot bath.”
I lace my boots and walk over to her to turn off the faucets. She looks so confused and pale. I grip her hand; the one with the open cut and make her stare at it with me.
“If you want to die, Jodie, you slice up.” I motion with the blade, pushing it into her soft flesh.
Her breath hitches and I cover her mouth quickly to soften the sound of her scream. I open her up from the wrist to the elbow. Moving my hand from her mouth, I watch realization fall over her features. Her eyes droop and her mouth moves but no words come out. She tries to reach for me with her other hand but she’s too weak, the water she now lies in is a glorious red. I place the blade in her palm and leave her before she’s fully dead. I open her front door a crack and check the hallway’s empty, and then casually walk out and down the stairs straight into my room. I pack up what little amount of shit I have and finally open the envelope of my belongings. There are files in there that I’m pretty sure shouldn’t be, but my attention is solely on the bank account information
$439,890
My brother’s blood money. I can’t believe he didn’t reclaim this or use his tech savvy fingers and empty it. Nearly half a million dollars sat there from the money he made before I was incarcerated and then accrued interest. I lie back on the bed and let it all sink in. My eyes close and when I open them daylight is filtering in the window and there’s a pounding at my door.
I PULL THE DOOR OPEN and shout, “What?” for effect. I’m pretty sure why there’s knocking.
The hall is filled with the other residents of this not so humble abode. Isabella throws herself into my arms and sobs against my chest. I can’t make out what she’s saying through her wails. Police catch my eye and then coroners bring down a stretcher with a body bag strapped to it. Isabella’s wails get more erratic and she’s quickly pulled from me by some of the day nurses that visit to administer medication to some of the people here. They inject her arm and within seconds she calms.
Rat boy is pacing the stairwell entry, tugging on his hair.
“It’s Jodie. I know you were close. If you want to talk or need me to call your case worker, just let me know,” Jason tells me.
Why the fuck is he being nice to me? I was an asshole to him only last night. I guess this is sympathy. Urgh, pathetic. He’s looking at me like he’s waiting for a reaction, and I guess a normal person would have one if their . . . fuck . . . friend died. I run my hands through my hair and drop on my haunches.
“I can’t believe it,” I pant and he drops his arm over my shoulder. My inner voice is laughing at how gullible he is, and how easy it was to kill Jodie. “What happened?”
“We believe she killed herself. Were you the last person to see her alive?” An officer appears in front of me and I’m dumbstruck. I don’t know how much to admit to.
“No, I was, sir,” Jason pipes up and we all look at him. Is he covering for me, and if so, why?
“She signed in before curfew and she seemed sadder than usual but I just thought she was having a rough day.” He shakes his head and rubs his palms down his face. “She said she was going to have an early night and I watched her on the monitor go up the stairs to her place and close the door.”
“Are there tapes from these surveillance cameras you can show us from the time of her arrival until now?” the other officer asks.
“No, they don’t record,” he replies, embarrassed.
They do record he’s just too lazy to keep switching out the tapes and the system is so old it’s not connected to a server like most equipment these days.
“She was under psychiatric care for attempted suicide, Officer. This is a common thing for her . . . well it was. I guess she finally succeeded,” one of the nurses says.
“I will need statements from anyone who saw her yesterday. We’ll know more when we have the coroner’s report but there’s no sign of foul play. It looks like a suicide. Unfortunately we see a number of these in the build up to holiday season,” he says, shaking his head and putting his notepad away. I hadn’t even noticed the holiday season is approaching.
“Suicide claims forty thousand lives a year in the US alone,” I say for no reason and when all eyes come to me I add, “I need some time.”
I go back in my room and watch through the window as Jodie’s body is loaded into the back of the coroner’s van.
The door opens behind me and a stoned Isabella staggers inside. Why the fuck didn’t they put her in her own room?
“I thought they gave you a sedative,” I said.
She flaps her arms up like she doesn’t have control of them. “They just gave me something to calm me down.” She sniffles. “I can’t believe she did it. Do you think it’s because of us?” She pleads with her eyes and tone for me to comfort her and tell her it wasn’t.
“Probably because of you more than me. You were the worst friend a girl could have and you should feel the full force of guilt for this. I can’t even look at you!” I grab the bag I packed last night and attempt to leave.
She jumps from the couch she fell onto seconds before and claws at my arm. “Where are you going? You can’t leave! Jodie just died.”
“She didn’t just die, it’s been a few hours and I’m not staying here with a sniffling bitch. I’m moving out of this shithole.”
Her hand clashes with my cheek and ignites a fire there. Would this bitch plundering from my window look like another suicide?
“You’re fucking horrible. I hate you so much!” she bellows.
“Feeling’s mutual, sweetheart, only I actually mean it.”
“Fuck you! You’re going straight to hell, Ryan.”
Souls go to hell and I’m lacking that vital component to make me human. I’m not going to hell. I’m the living hell staring her right in the face. Her teary eyes quench my thirst. I want to drown her in her own river of tears.
“This is hell, Isabella. I’ll be seeing you.”
AFTER SEEING RYAN AND TALKING to him, I come home, and for the first time since knowing he’s out there, I have clarity. Before I was completely clueless about what he’s capable of and the shock of his actions was just that, shock. But I had dealt with that for eighteen years. I survived his destruction. Mel and I made a life for ourselves in the aftermath.
I’d let him murder us without the knife; Mel slept in the spare room, I’m never here and when I am, my mind isn’t. I have all the resources at my disposal to keep her safe and instead of utilizing them; I drove myself insane wondering where he was and what he was planning.
He has a cell. The first thing I’m going to do is hack into that and activate his GPS.