And there goes my heart. Racing. Jumping. Skipping beat after beat as a dizzy heat washes over me. Edwin grabs my arm and drags me back to the table. He squeezes my wrist. His jaw tightens as he pries my fist, finger by finger, open. He takes my hand and wraps my grip around the slick handle of the hacksaw, covering my tiny hand with his huge one. I fight him when he attempts to move the saw over her throat, but after a few shakes and jerks, his other arm wraps around my throat in a chokehold. Eventually the blade is right above her throat.
“I’ll help you,” he whispers, nuzzling his nose against the crook of my neck. “Don’t worry. The bone makes a damn terrible noise, and the spine”—he kisses right below my ear—“it’s a bitch to sever sometimes, but we’ll do it together.”
I go limp, and the second that blade touches her skin, the first sensation I get—those vibrations of the saw tearing into her flesh and bone—I scream and shout and cry out to a god I never believed in.
What hell have I been delivered to? My eyes veer to the screen of the computer, to those wicked little words I’ve typed, and I know it’s too late. My soul has been taken, and there is no way back from this.
“Limousine”—Brand New
The cold rain comes down in sheets over the windshield. The headlights of my patrol car bounce over the trees and the side of the cabin. I turn in to the driveway, not bothering to cut the engine when I jump out of the car, flashlight in hand.
Drawing my gun, I hurry up the steps to find the door wide open, all the lights on inside.
“Detective Peralta,” I shout as I step inside the house. It’s silent except for the ticking sound from the grandfather clock at the far side of the room. “Miranda?”
Silence.
I make my way down the hall, freezing when I come to the last room on the left. The door hangs from the hinges. The window is slightly cracked, and I walk over to it, shaking my head. Just before I turn to leave the room, I notice the shed on the back of the property.
Hurrying back outside, I round the side of the house, my boots splashing in the mud, the cold rain soaking through my clothes. I aim the flashlight at the shed, the light reflecting off the droplets pouring down. On the ground in front of the door is a padlock. I reach for the door and raise my gun. The second it cracks, blood-curdling screams filter out into the night. I take a breath as I nudge the door the rest of the way open, shock rippling through my body.
Miranda glances back at me, her eyes riddled with fear, a hacksaw clutched in her hand and hovering over a dismembered bloody mess of a body. Blood is splattered all over her porcelain skin, her clothes.
“Make him stop! Make him stop, Jax,” she cries.
I drop my gun to my side and stagger back a few steps before I grab onto the doorframe to steady myself. My eyes flit around the room in a desperate attempt to make sense of this all.
“Make him stop!” she shouts again, her voice strained.
Taking a step inside, I slowly lift the gun once more. Another steady step inside, the smell of death and blood making even my trained nose sick. “Miranda, put the saw down.”
“He won’t let me. Edwin, please,” she begs. “Please let me go.”
“Miranda…”
She shakes her head, covering her mouth with a blood-covered hand.
I aim the gun.
“Shoot him.”
I swallow, my pulse hammering through my temples. “You’re alone, Miranda.”
Her eyes widen, her gaze veering to her left. “He’s right there, Jax. Shoot him.”
She looks so certain. So sure that it makes me question myself momentarily. I glance to her left, but there’s no one there. “Miranda…” The gun is now shaking in my hands.
I glance at the corpse on the table, two large Xs cut across her breasts. My stomach sinks. Bile rises in my throat.
When I met Miranda, I knew there was some common thread, some connection, but I thought it was fate. She shares my burden too. I’d thought that but had no way of understanding just how fucking true and sick that commonality was. I had been hunting for the person who killed my sister, and all along, it was Miranda.
Fighting the urge to cry, my nostrils flaring, I raise my gun, staring down the sights into those hazel eyes I thought maybe, just fucking maybe, I’d found myself in. I close my eyes, the sound of her moans echoing in my head, the way she felt pinned beneath me searing through my skin. I swallow. I open my eyes.
"Jax… please. Help me." Her voice is barely above a whisper, fear in her eyes.
My throat goes tight. I shake my head. My finger twitches over the trigger and…
“Paint It Black”- Ciara
Three months later
I stare at the white cinder block walls, humming “Singin’ in The Rain.” I can’t get that damn song out of my head for some reason. There’s nothing in here aside from the rickety cot I’m sitting on. No windows. No sheets. No pens. Nothing. Four walls and a damn cot.
“I know it’s difficult to understand,” Dr. Roberts says.
My gaze veers back to her, and she offers a sympathetic smile. I hate when she does that. I’m not fucking crazy. They all think I am, but I’m not.
“Detective Peralta said when he found you in the shed, you—”