By the time I was coherent enough to try and calm myself, the scraps of flesh in front of me were no longer recognizable as human. It didn’t help. I wished he’d magically spring back to life so I could make him hurt again. I wanted to tear out his entrails and shove them down his throat while he choked. I wanted to slice off each finger that had made contact with her skin, one knuckle at a time, and pound them into his skull with a fucking hammer.
Looking down, I noticed I was not only still naked but covered in thick, coagulated blood again. I pushed myself off what was left of Dreadlocks and threw the scraps into the huge fire. Once he was burning nicely, my feet carried me back down the beach and to the water’s edge. I went into the water to wash the blood off and ran through the last few hours in my head primarily from the time Raine stopped me from further mutilating a corpse on the beach to carrying her back to the shelter.
I had to be the biggest dick to ever live.
After everything she had been through – and I didn’t even know what they might have done or said before I got there – I threw her down in the sand and fucked her like a common fucking whore. I sure was a hell of a catch. Note sarcasm. I had to be the worst fucking…what was I? Her boyfriend? Girlfriend wasn’t enough to describe what she was to me, and I had probably just fucking ruined it like the stupid motherfucker I was. I wondered if I could manage to beat myself up like that guy in Fight Club did in front of his boss.
Growling at myself, I stomped up the beach, pulled on my nearly dry shorts, and tossed my belt over my shoulder. The back of my leg stung from the contact with the saltwater, but I deserved whatever fucking pain I had because I was such an ass. Actually, I undoubtedly deserved a lot more.
Raine’s bloodcurdling scream brought me out of my musings. Despite the pain in my leg, I ran back to the shelter.
“Raine! Raine, what is it?”
“Bastian!” she screamed again and threw her arms around my neck. The sobs and shakes were back, and I could barely stay upright between my injured leg and her added weight. “You were gone…you were gone…”
“Jesus, Raine, I’m sorry,” I stammered. After never uttering a single apology in my entire adult life, how many fucking times had I said “sorry” to her automatically in the past few hours? “I was just down the beach, baby. I wasn’t far.”
“Don’t leave me!”
“I won’t, baby,” I maneuvered her back onto the fronds on the ground and lay beside her, trying not to wince too much. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”
“Tell me you got me!”
“I’ve got you.” I held her head against the crook of my neck and shoulder and whispered into her ear, “I’ve got you. Baby, you’re safe. Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.”
I closed my eyes and just held her against me, telling her over and over again that I had her – she was safe. I moved her so she was on her side, but I was still over the top of her, keeping her warm and surrounding her body with my own. I wrapped my arms and even one of my legs over her, cocooning her in my embrace and holding her as tightly as I dared. Outside the shelter, I could still hear the crackling and see the flickering light of the macabre bonfire on the beach.
“Why did you build a fire?” Raine asked softly, her eyes still hidden in my neck.
“Just a little cleanup,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask any more of her usual questions but knowing she would anyway.
“You burned the bodies?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Yeah.” I sighed heavily and waited for the next barrage of questions.
She was quiet for all of about thirty seconds.
“What about the bones?”
Of all the ridiculous things to harp on, she decides to wonder which body parts are going to burn best.
“I’ll get rid of them when the fire’s out.”
Again, another thirty seconds of blissful silence.
“Who were they?” she asked, her fingers digging even deeper into the skin of my shoulders. I shook my head, not really wanting to give her my assumption on the matter. Even though I had told her about all the shit I did, and she now knew some of the sordid details of life outside the law, I didn’t want her to know everything. I didn’t want to tell her about the stuff that was, in my opinion, much worse, the kind of shit I wouldn’t touch no matter what the stakes or the payoff, but I knew plenty of people who did.
“Hard to say,” I shrugged. I tried to brush it off, but she wasn’t buying it. Apparently, I was a fucking shitty liar when it came to her.
“Who were they, Bastian?” she repeated. Her hand went to the side of my face and tilted my head towards hers. “Tell me.”
“You really don’t want to know.” I took a deep breath and blew it out my nose, not wanting to go there. Knowing what they could have had planned for her in my own head was bad enough. I didn’t want those thoughts going through hers as well. She glared at me, and I knew any more fight on my part was pointless. I sighed heavily and closed my eyes. “Slavers, I think.”
“Slavers?”
“Yeah.”
“As in people who…sell people?”
“Yeah.”
“What would they have done with me?” she asked quietly.