by Eve R. Hart
I thought on that last part for a moment as she moved away from me. Yeah, I was going to make sure that there was a later, because there was something that had been building slowly over the years. So slowly that I hadn’t even noticed it until recently. I wasn’t saying that we were destined to be together, but we were meant to be in each other’s lives some way. And I wanted nothing more than to get to know my little psychic as much as possible.
“What’s your name?” I asked just before she shut herself in the bathroom.
“L-Lucy,” she said then closed the door with a soft click.
Lucy.
I smiled, albeit briefly because there was a shit-ton of work to do and no fucking time to waste.
I got my head in the game. As I slipped out the door, I checked my surroundings. The night was quiet. Almost too quiet. Even though this place was out of the way and shady as all hell, there was no way this had gone unnoticed. The place seemed vacant but I had no doubt that there was someone up in the office. Or was, at one point. Maybe they were dead too but I had a feeling I wouldn’t get that lucky. What struck me as odd, was that there wasn’t a car or motorcycle in sight. That led me to think one of two things happened. Either they parked somewhere out of the way to sneak up on her, or they chased her on foot back to this room. I didn’t really need answers to do my job, and most of the time I preferred not to know anything, but this was different. I knew that before I even got in my truck and floored it down here. I needed to know what happened here.
I grabbed my supplies out of my truck, my mind racing with how I was going to separate this job out. There was a lake in the middle of the city that was home to many of alligators. That could work for half of the bodies. There was also the vast ocean not that far away. But I didn’t have access to a boat right now. I didn’t keep bodies around any longer than I had to.
I turned and headed back into the motel room. I closed the door softly behind me and heard the water still running in the bathroom. I had this need to go in there and check on her, but I decided to keep my distance for now. This was a big enough shock in itself, but I had this feeling in my gut that it was even more so for her.
I laid the bodies out on four different tarps, all spread out next to each other. There was barely enough room between the end of the bed and the dresser, but I made it work. I decided to start with the big, meaty body first. Taking in his bashed in skull, I had a feeling that he was the hardest to take down. I was a little stunned that she’d managed to do all this herself—or so I assumed. Part of me just wanted to roll these guys up in a rug and toss them in the river, but I was smarter and better than that. I made quick work of dismembering body number one. After he was in fourteen pieces, I packed most of him up in three empty buckets.
I was starting to worry that I didn’t have enough supplies on me. Matter of fact, I knew I didn’t. This night was just not going well at all. I carried the buckets out, placed them in the bed of my truck, then scanned to see what I did have on me.
I heard something that sounded like feet shuffling behind me. Without warning, I whipped around, prepared to take whoever it was down without a second thought.
“I got some of them drum barrels in the shed if that’d help ya out, son,” the frail, weathered man said staring me in the eyes, unblinking. He stopped a good few feet away, as if he knew not to crowd me.
I blinked at him but said nothing.
“Some cat litter too. The kind with that odor absorbing crystal things in it.”
I was still unsure, as I very well should have been. Also, a little pissed that there was a witness. One I didn’t know what to do with. The man seemed harmless as he looked upon me, but there was something in his eye that told me he knew what was going on in that room all too well.
“I used to serve breakfast here. Got me one of them industrial meet grinders up in back of the office. Those things work real well when you want to make fresh sausage and whatnot. Grind up everything, even damn bones and teeth.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I finally said. It wasn’t something I’d ever used before or had ever planned on using. But I was in a bind and it would make things easier to transport.
The side of his mouth tipped up as if he knew just what my line of work was. He drew closer, his steps uneven from a limp.
“It’s been many a year since I cleaned anything,” he said, his eyes shifting over to look at the door to the room. “I wondered if I’d ever be able to smell it again. Went away for a long time. Guess you just get an aversion after a while. But at first, it sticks with you long after. Like a bad hooker with a case of the crabs.”
I nodded, understanding exactly what he was hinting at. It did. Those early jobs. That iron smell crawled into my nose and nothing I did worked to get it to go away. I couldn’t even dull it. Not with candles. Not with soaps. Not even with sage. But then there was that point where it just didn’t even phase me anymore. It was like I couldn’t even smell what was around me.
“You need some help in there, or would you rather I go warm up the grinder?” he asked, his bushy brows pinched together like he was trying to read me. I could tell he didn’t want to overstep and piss me off. Little did he know, that I wasn’t the violent type—usually. I didn’t feel threatened by him but I was still a little leery.
“There’s three more,” I said, feeling some sort of odd calm about the strange old man. “I could use some help.”
“Well, get to it, son. Ain’t got all day.”
I actually huffed out a laugh as I turned and walked to the door.
“The girl alright?” he asked just as I turned the handle.
“She will be,” I said in a sure and low tone, wondering if she was still in the bathroom. I was going to go check on her if so. It was past the point of being healthy. I knew it was a lot to take, but I didn’t want her to break. “I’ll make sure of it.” The last part came out as a whisper and I wasn’t even sure if he heard me.
“Oh!” Lucy said as we stepped into the room.
She stood there wrapped in only a towel, looking wide-eyed and unsure of what to do, stuck between the bathroom and the lined up bodies.
I felt a powerful urge to shield and protect her, but as I looked at the old stranger, I noticed his eyes weren’t even on her. As he gazed upon the carnage on the floor, I could see he was working out the best way to handle the situation in his head.
I took wide strides until I was in front of her, blocking her view from the rest of the room.
“What do you need?” I asked in a calm, smooth voice. Her eyes snapped to mine and she swallowed hard.
“I forgot my clothes,” she whispered. “I wasn’t thinking…and I forgot to grab something.”
“This looks like it makes things easier,” the old man said in the background. The buzz of my electric bone saw started up and I didn’t even turn around to look. “I was more of a hatchet man, myself. Granted, I had bigger arms and more power behind my swing back in the day.”
I didn’t take my eyes off of Lucy. I found myself both lost to her beauty and scared that if I turned away, she would break down. I searched her face, her eyes, for any signs that she was going to unravel. She was scared, I could see that clear as day. She was unsure. And she was a little lost. But she was strong, at least for the moment.
The urge to ask her questions was weighing on me with a forceful pull. I got the sense that this wasn’t the time and it sure as hell wasn’t the place. I had never felt so torn in two. Work needed to be done but I didn’t want to leave her alone.
“Get the girl some clothes,” the old man said and it was then that I realized I had been lost in my head or maybe it was her beautiful eyes. Whatever it was, I had completely forgotten that she was standing there in nothing but a cheap towel.
“Right. Sorry,” I said in almost a mumble. Then I snapped to, finding a bag on the bed, snatching it up quickly, and handing it to her.
“This one’s missing an eye. You know where it might be? Wouldn�
��t want to leave anything behind, that’s for sure,” the old man said just before she turned away.
“Under the b-bed.”
I got down on my hands and knees. I was hesitant to just reach into the darkness. I was honestly afraid of what might be under there, and it had nothing to do with a freed eyeball. My fingers collided with something hard and I pulled it out to inspect it. A knife. The blade pushed all the way through the dusty and wet looking ball. For some odd reason, a flash of pride hit me. She had fought for her life in this room. She’d won. And as horrible as all of this was, I was a little glad for the outcome. After all, it’d brought me to her.
“Found it,” I said moving back over to the tarps and tossing the impaled orb beside its owner’s body.
“I don’t think I want that back,” she said and I looked up to see her staring at the knife with a grimace on her face. With a few hard blinks, she turned and ducked back into the bathroom.
She stayed in there longer than I would have thought it took her to get dressed. I didn’t dare bother her, figuring it was best for us to keep working and get the bodies out of her view as soon as possible. With the old man’s help, we broke them down in no time. Then we wrapped the parts up as best as we could in the powdered covered tarps and carried them to the office.
“What would you recommend doing with the meat?” I asked as he started shoving body parts into the grinder, letting the mushed and mixed up meat fall into a large, white bucket that looked like it might have contained peanut butter at one point.
“Oh, I got a buncha feral cats out back that I’m sure would love a treat.”
With that, I asked nothing else. I wasn’t really secure with the way this job was going down but I felt like I had no other choice but to accept the help. And of course, be grateful about it.
We made it back to the room just in time to see Lucy sorting out her things. It looked like she was packing and getting ready to bolt. I worried that if I had been another five minutes longer, I would have missed her altogether.
Something about that didn’t sit right with me. How the hell was I going to keep her there and finish scrubbing the room? Right then, I wished there were two of me.
-14-
Weird Fucking Night
Clean
“I need to go,” Lucy said suddenly.
I turned my head in her direction trying to hide the surprise from my face.
“I have to go back. I have to get her out of there.”
I had no idea what or where she was talking about. But I did have a clue that it had something to do with the people that had been in this room. If she was trying to mess with this MC then I was going to have to try to persuade her in a different direction.
“No,” I said firmly but softly. I had thought that I’d try a little less bluntly, but apparently, my brain wasn’t having it. “I’m not letting you go anywhere near that place. You see what kind of men these people are. And I know you’re smart enough to know that there are going to be more than just a few of them there. I can’t…I can’t let you go back there.”
“Listen…Clean,” she said, standing up as straight as possible and eyeing me with a look that told me she wasn’t going to back down.
“Derrick,” I said before she could get another word in.
Sure, I wanted her to know my name, and I did chuckle in my head at the fact she called me Clean. Though it was kind of my name to most people, there was something in the way that she said it that held a personal touch in her tone. She had a name for me like I did for her. I had no doubt right then that all this time that was what she called me in her head. But there was also the need to say something to throw her off a bit. She wasn’t going to let me tell her what to do and I knew there was no changing her mind.
“Derrick,” she said under her breath, her eyes looking down to the side like she was testing it out and also a little shocked that she knew my name now. “I’m going. Thank you for…well, all of this. I owe you. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t see this through. I need to do this.”
“Then you wait for me,” I said firmly, pinning her with a stare that was practically begging.
“I think I got it from here,” old man said from beside me.
I didn’t like this. At fucking all. I never left a job unfinished. But then again, I’d never been put in a position like this before.
“I know what to do,” he said, sounding more like a crotchety grandpa trying to convince his children that he wasn’t that old just yet. “I may be rusty, but some things you just don’t forget. Bet if I wanted to ride a bike right now, I’d be able to. Same shit, different situation.”
Lucy looked at the old man with a horrified expression for half a second before her mouth fell open and a laugh erupted outward. I couldn’t help but smile and chuckle silently.
“I’ll pay for the damages,” I said turning to him.
“No,” he replied back, waving me off with a bony hand. “I think you and I both know, this place isn’t where I get my money. And that I don’t got no need to worry with how much I’m spendin’.”
Well, that was true.
I gave a firm nod, having nothing else to say. The two of them had pretty much backed me into a corner that I felt I couldn’t get out of.
I reached for Lucy. She understood what I was saying with that simple gesture. She snatched up her bag off the edge of the bed then walked towards me. She passed me and I couldn’t help but crowd her behind her, lightly placing my hand on her lower back. I couldn’t explain it, but something about it felt comforting, needed, and right all at the same time.
“Thanks for staying at the Sea Breeze Motel,” the old man called as we stepped over the threshold. There was a hint of joking in his tone. “Hope you enjoyed your stay.” His wet laugh followed us out into the night air.
Lucy shook her head but I could see her body shaking with silent laughter.
“This night is so fucked,” she breathed out as I opened her door and helped her up into the passenger seat.
I couldn’t have agreed more. But even with all the insane chaos, I still had this lucky feeling around me. After all, this fucked up night had led me to the woman I’d started to think about more often than not. The one that I wanted to know more about, I mean, not just more, I wanted to know everything. I felt some kind of crazy connection even before I laid eyes on her, which only intensified the moment I saw her.
She was holding it together pretty well, but I could tell there would be a full, hard crash coming soon. Everything would hit her after this was all over. However, I wasn’t really sure what this was. She seemed to be here on some sort of mission and I had turned into the puppy that was just tagging along blindly. There were questions but I feared that if I asked them it would shatter her strength and distract her. Since there was no way to talk her out of whatever she was about to get into, I chose to keep right there with her and protect her with my life. Strange considering I’d just met the girl. But then again, I felt like I had begun to know her from the conversations that we’d had. Who said that you had to be in someone’s physical presence to care for them? I didn’t believe that shit for one minute.
“How pissed would you be if I just drove off?” I asked with a tinge of humor in my tone.
Her brown eyes cut over to me as her brows furrowed.
“Wouldn’t that be kidnapping?” she asked slowly.
“Eh, depends on how you look at it,” I said with a shrug.
“To answer your question, I’d be very pissed. I would probably try to jump out.” She bit her bottom lip as her eyes moved to look out the front windshield. “Look, you don’t have to help me. I really appreciate you coming here. I didn’t know who else to call and I can’t thank you enough. Just because I have to see this through, doesn’t mean that you do.”
Her words cut me a little. And right there I knew that there was no other option. She was wrong. I did. I had to see this through and I desperately needed to not lose her. I needed to be th
e one to hold her when the crash came later.
I drew in a deep, calming breath. I had no idea what I was headed towards but I was going to do it despite the fact that my head and gut were telling me to run.
“Tell me where I’m going,” I said after I released the air from my lungs and turned the key.
“It’s not far,” she said and there was a pause like she was thinking of something. “We should go a different way.” It was almost as if she was talking to herself more so than me. “Turn left at the end of the road.”
So I did. Then we drove another two blocks and took another turn. The place was heavily wooded and I wasn’t even sure why the hell there was a road here anyway. That was when I saw a bunch of SUVs parked on the side of the road.
“Here?” I asked, searching as best as I could through the darkness.
I didn’t see any movement and I wondered where the hell the owners’ of the SUVs were. There didn’t appear to be anything wrong with them and they seemed too new to just be abandoned. But I guessed anything could have been possible.
“Um,” she said, drawing out the word like she was trying to think of something. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I know who those belong to.”
“You care to enlighten me?” I asked with a raised brow.
“It’s too long of a story to go into at the moment. I have to get in there now. I might already be too late.”
I pulled my truck to the side and she was already reaching for the door handle. She was jumping out the moment I put it in park. I snapped to, yanking the keys out of the ignition so fast that I was worried it might snap off. By the time I shut the door, she was darting through the line of trees like she knew where the hell she was headed.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered as I jogged to catch up with her.
We hit the end of the tree line and I reached out and snagged her elbow before she darted out into the open. She stumbled back from the opposing force and her back slammed into my front. I didn’t hesitate to wrap my arm around her waist. You know, to keep her from falling or something. Sure. Yeah, that was it. But in all realness, I needed her to hold on a damn minute while I checked to make sure shit was clear.