by Nikki Ash
Sleep.
Sleep.
I’ll be gone soon too.
Death, take me to her, motherfucker!
Clackclackclackclackclack.
The chill is warming. It invites me in. I close my eyes.
In the dark, dark darkness I hunt for her. It’s so fucking cold here. I will find her.
“Catrina!” I wail. “Catrina!”
In the dark, dark darkness she hides. I can sense her. A stifled giggle. Her scent lingering in the air. That overwhelming presence whenever she is near.
Searching and searching.
I follow my heart and come up empty.
Why is life so cruel?
My body is shaking. From the cold? No, someone is doing it for me. They steal me. They take me away from the most important hunt of my existence.
Clackclackclackclackclack.
“You’re so cold,” Helen rasps. “Heath, come and stand by the fire so you don’t catch pneumonia. At least change out of those wet clothes.”
I cannot stand. I will not leave my love. Squeezing my stiff, beautiful love in my arms, I snarl at the prying woman. “Go the fuck away from me!”
She jerks her hand back and affixes me with a distraught stare. Finally, the woman leaves, but it’s only to add logs to the fire in the fireplace. I stare at Catrina’s perfect blue lips with the red flames reflecting off her pale, bloody skin giving her the deception of life behind those dull features. The room warms, but my heart stays frozen. It’s dying. A broken heart is real and it’s a killer.
Oh, God, how it fucking hurts!
A warm blanket is draped over me and I want to push it away. I want to freeze to death. I want to die. But I’m too weak to do anything.
All I can do is hold her.
Hold mine.
My Catrina.
Scraaaape!
The sound of metal on metal has me cracking my lids in protest. Bright light shines in from a window. Helen stands by the window where she’s recently dragged the curtains open.
“Leave, woman,” I growl, my voice a bitter croak.
“I will not, Mr. Heath.” She waves a hand at me. “You’ve not moved in two days. I’m sorry to say this but…” she trails off and holds her nose. “The body is starting to stink.”
I glower at her. “Leave, you meddling bitch!”
She purses her lips and walks forward but not too close. Her nose crinkles. “The electricity is still down, but I could run you a warm bath. We have candles galore. You need to eat and drink a little something. I’m afraid you’ve fallen ill with pneumonia.”
“I’ll stay,” I hiss.
The smell makes my nostrils flare, but I ignore it. Stale blood isn’t pleasant. But know what’s worse? Losing your motherfucking soul. That’s worse. I clutch Catrina’s hard body tighter.
“She’d have a fit, you know,” Helen says softly. “Knowing you let her stay in such a state. Ruined.”
I wince at her words. “She can’t speak against it, now can she?”
She huffs. “But if she could, she’d want to be cleaned up at once. Please take a bath and allow me to clean her up some. We can plan her burial. You can see the baby—”
“I don’t care about the baby!” I roar, my body trembling with fury. “The only thing I’ve ever cared about is gone! Gone, Helen! How can you stand there so unfeeling? You loved her too.”
“Dear Lord, Heath, of course I loved her,” she exclaims. “And because I loved her, I know what she would have wanted. She wouldn’t want this…”
I lift up, my body weak and shaky, to stare down at Catrina. Without her life burning through her, she is a cold husk. Simply a body. Bile rises in my throat. I’m hugging a corpse. Her heart is gone. Her laugh and wit are erased from this world. So what in the fuck am I still clinging to? Decaying flesh?
Shuddering, I pull away, disentangling my limbs from her stiffened ones. Our clothes are nearly fused together from the blood and I peel myself from my other half. I stare at her body, my heart tearing in two all over again.
Heat leaks down my cheeks.
A man has never cried as much as me, this I am certain of.
I’ll never be able to turn it off.
“Come now,” Helen urges, wrapping my blanket back over my shoulders.
I stand on wobbly legs and the room spins. A pang in my stomach outmatches that of my heart. All I feel is pain. All I’ll ever know is pain. This is my future. My past—God, I loved her beautiful smile—has dictated this for me.
We slowly make our way from the room and the scent of candles—fruits and home baked goods—assault me as we enter the hallway. It no longer smells like death and despondence. Carefully we step up the stairway. One, two, three. We go and go until we’re at the top. She guides me along the hall until I hear it.
A sound.
Tiny little whimper.
I stop in a doorway to find Elliot in a rocking chair holding a bundle to his chest. He creaks and creaks as he pats the bundle with his palm in attempt to soothe the wiggling beast.
“Mr. Heath,” Helen whispers.
Ignoring her, I stalk into the room, fury, a match to my soul. I’m on fire. I want to burn everything. When I tower over them, he finally looks up at me. His eyes are swollen from crying, but he’s not crying now. His cheeks are not soaked like mine. His soul is not wrecked.
He is sad.
I am ruined.
“Do you want to hold her?” he asks huskily.
With a curl of my lip, I stare down at the child, who waves a mighty fist at me. The little mother murderer. She lets out a wail and he produces a bottle. Greedily, the abomination suckles from the rubber nipple as if she always preferred fake to the perfection only a mother could provide.
“I want her buried beneath her favorite willow,” I snarl, my glare never leaving the baby. “You know the one.”
“Catrina?” he asks in confusion.
“She’s the only corpse in the house,” I snap. “But trust me, Elliot, I’d love nothing more than to change that.”
He holds his baby to him, terror flickering in his eyes.
But I’m talking about me.
If someone handed me a rope right now, I’d gladly hang myself this instant.
“Don’t be silly, Heath,” he says, his voice tight. “We have plots in the cemetery because she is my wife—”
“SHE IS YOUR NOTHING!” I scream so loudly the baby starts screaming too.
Helen tugs at the back of my jacket and tries to pull me from the room. “Oh, honey, you need to get ahold of yourself.”
I allow her to pull me to the doorway, but I grab the frame before she can steal me away.
“You will pay,” I threaten. “You will all pay for this.”
Elliott’s eyes go wide. “It wasn’t my fault,” he whines. “I didn’t want her to die.”
“You will bury her as she would have wanted,” I seethe, my eyes burning into him. “You will do it. I want your word now.”
“Okay,” he mutters. “We’ll see. Just leave me and my daughter alone.”
I give him a hellish, evil smile. “I’m afraid that’s something I can’t promise.”
This time, Helen yanks and I go.
To wash away the worst moment of my life.
The blood may run clean from my skin, but I’ll never be able to fill the gaping, horrible hole in the middle of my chest. That wound will bleed until I take my last breath.
Heath
I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE more difficult watching them take her body to prepare it for burial, but there was no warmth left. No smiles for me. No laughter for my ears. Fucking nothing. I watched the coroner cover her with a sheet and roll her out of Elliot’s home. The baby screamed, and a tiny curl of satisfaction wove itself inside my heart at seeing Elliot struggle to calm her. Helen fussed and fawned over the child.
And I left.
I find my horse in their barn and tip my head in thanks to their ranch hand Titus, who’s taken care of my
horse in my absence.
Absence.
I checked out for days.
Helen said I clutched onto Catrina for two days and then I spent another day holed up in a spare room. I paced the floor until I was sure I’d worn a hole in the carpet. The baby’s cries were maddening.
Cat.
Her real name is exactly her mother’s, but I was relieved to hear Helen take to calling her a shortened version. I’m not sure if it was for my sake or the fact the child sounded like a fussy kitten. Either way, I’m glad I don’t have to hear my love’s name spoken in a way as though she is alive.
She is gone.
I close my eyes for a brief moment before reopening them and mounting my horse. The storm has long passed, but smooth flooded waters cover the earth in some areas along my path. Undisturbed and perfect. I want to ruin it. I want to ruin everything.
“Hyah!” I holler to my animal and take off out of the barn. I run my horse as fast as he will go through the waters, destroying the calm as we plow through it. A numbness has begun to settle in my bones. Nothing to do with temperature. Something of the permanent sort.
Our hearts are the same, therefore now that hers does not beat, mine has gone into a permanent coma. It’ll never wake.
The wind stings my flesh as the horse runs, but I ignore it. Quickly, I do my best to harden every part of me. My time for being soft faded the moment my love died in my arms.
I fly across the flooded landscape, sometimes sinking so deep in some areas that I wonder if we’ll go all the way under, when I swear I see a flash of dark hair. My memories haunt me. Times when we were children—when we’d run through the puddled fields laughing and screaming.
All gone.
The trip home goes quicker than I’d hoped. It takes me a bit to settle the horse in the barn since Newton is missing. He normally cares for the horses. He’ll be fired the moment he shows back up. If he shows back up.
There’s a new sheriff in town. Hunter Crenshaw handed over the keys to an empire when he decided to indebt himself to me. New rules around here. And the first rule is when I send Newton packing, Hunter will have a new job.
Ranch hand.
Unpaid.
This cold rage that fuels me feels familiar in my veins. I welcome it so it will chill the burning in my chest. My revenge has been in the shadow of my lover. Lurking and waiting. Ever-present. A moving, throbbing entity just waiting to be fully unleashed.
Time to be free, my beast of hate.
Go forward and cause massive destruction in every single one of their lives.
An evil smile tugs at my lips as I walk into the home and kick off my rain-soaked shoes. The first thing I notice is the silence. And the electricity is out.
That motherfucker left.
Weak. He’s weak as shit. I’ll still break him. I’ll find him and break him slowly.
I hear a sound within the home and I cock my head listening. Poor, pampered Isabel is probably frantic as a starved mouse. She hasn’t worked a day in her life. If Hunter and the boy left, then that means she’s all alone probably wasting away waiting for someone to wash her clothes and cook her food.
She’ll pay for her part in this too. I wasted too many months with her when I could have been with Catrina. My hands fist as fury burns through me. I haven’t thought up what her penance will be, but it will come to me. If she thinks I’ll send her off to her brother now, she has another thing coming. She’s my wife, goddammit.
I storm through the living room and take the stairs two at a time, calling out her name. When I make it to our room, the drawers have been pulled open and emptied. The closet is bare as well.
The bitch left.
Everyone leaves.
I hear another sound downstairs and I exit my room. I’m slower as I walk back down the hallway, which is how I notice the stench this time. Alcohol. So much of it. When I step into Hunter’s office, I find him passed out in his chair. But as I near the desk, I see the empty bottle of pills.
Weak. Ass. Motherfucker.
I check his pulse and he’s as cold as his goddamn sister.
She was taken from me and he ran away like the pussy he is.
Fatigue wears on me. Running on fumes and lack of sleep for days on end wears on you. I stifle a yawn and decide I’ll call the coroner in the morning and hope the water has receded on our road enough for them to come get him. Sleep is more important. I’m headed for my bed when I hear it again.
Silently, I stalk the sound out in case my wife is playing some stupid fucking game. I sneak into the kitchen and the sound comes from the pantry that stands ajar. Rustling. Crunching. Grunting. Well, that’s the biggest damn mouse I’ve ever heard. It sounds like it’s ransacking the pantry. Maybe it’s a coon.
I grab the knob and pull the door open. What I find has me gritting my teeth.
“Momma,” the orphan whines.
My heart is cold and empty as I stare at him. This boy. Left behind by both his parents.
“Orphan,” I grumble, “your asshole parents left you with me.”
He starts to cry. Hell, I would too.
While he sobs and toddles around me, clutching onto my pants, I cut an apple into slices and make a peanut butter sandwich. I set it on the table and watch as the half-starved boy nearly inhales the food.
“Milk,” he whines.
I watch him with narrowed eyes. He’s filthy and smells like shit. The stench of alcohol clings to him. He no doubt tried to get his weak father to wake from his death. I feel pity for the thing.
“Everything in the fridge is shit,” I tell him. “Electricity is out.”
“Shit?” he questions.
I bark out a harsh laugh and he smiles at me. “Yep, shit. Want some fucking water instead?”
The toddler orphan babbles what I assume is an effort to parrot yet another curse word. It satisfies me that Hunter left his only legacy with me. Mine to ruin. I’m going to ruin everything.
“I’ll ruin you too,” I explain to the boy as I fill a cup with water but leave it running, turned to warm. I squat and my nostrils flare when I get a whiff of his shitty ass. “Here. Drink.”
I have to help him, but he guzzles the whole glass. His eyes are droopy and he looks as sleepy as I feel. Once he finishes, I set the glass on the counter and plug the sink drain. The sink fills with warm water and I pour in some dish soap to be safe.
“You stink, orphan,” I grunt as I bend to start shucking off his clothes. He wiggles and cries, but I’m stronger. I take off his soiled diaper that is coming up both his front and back and toss it in the trash. Then, I snag the filthy runt and toss him in the sink. He screams and squirms, but then he gives up. His curious blue eyes stare up at me. I scrub him with the dish sponge and vow to throw it in the dumpster later. Once he’s clean, I wrap him in a dish towel and hold him to me as I make my way through the house.
“Momma,” he cries when we pass his parents’ room.
“Nope,” I grunt as I bypass the room to go to his nursery. It takes some wrangling but I manage to put a diaper back on him because I don’t want that fucker shitting all over the place. I find him some zip up pajamas and grab his stuffed zebra. “Let’s go.”
He clings to me and sucks his thumb, falling asleep before I’ve even left the room. I’m half tempted to throw him in his bed, but then he’d probably start hollering the moment I close my eyes. Not happening.
I find my room and close the door behind me. Then, I kick out of my wet pants and socks before crawling into my empty bed with the orphan. I settle on my back and pull the covers over us. The kid may not be something I want to deal with right now, but he’s warm.
As soon as my eyes close, I see her. Her smile. Her twinkling eyes. Her soft brown hair blowing in the wind. A severe ache tears through my chest again.
She’s dead.
There’s no bringing her back. That’s out of my control.
But there are things in my control.
And those things w
ill be handled tomorrow.
Today, I sleep away the pain and invite numb hatred into my heart.
Tomorrow, I get my revenge.
Helen
The Present…
“THAT’S IT?” EMILY DEMANDS, SOBBING. “It can’t be it! What an awful story, Nanny!”
She slides from the bed, her phone still in her grip, and runs to the bathroom. A few minutes later, she comes out and dabs at her eyes with a tissue. Sweet Emily is so pretty. Just like her mother. I scoot to the edge of the bed and pat the blanket beside me. She flops down very unladylike.
“I can’t believe that’s the end,” she says sadly.
I hug her from the side and kiss her head like I used to do when she was a little girl. “Oh, sweetheart, it’s not the end. Not the end at all. I’m afraid the story’s just getting started.”
“But she died,” she moans. “Their love is dead.”
I purse my lips. “I never claimed Mr. Heath’s story to be one of romance. You conjured that in your head all by yourself.”
“It’s a tragedy,” she grumbles.
Her phone buzzes and she stares down at it. Of course I peek too.
Mom: Dad and I are bringing pizza on the way home. We’ve missed you.
Normally, she blows off her Mom’s texts, but she’s especially fragile after that part of the story.
Emily: I miss you too. Nanny’s telling me about Heath.
I swat her. “Tattletale.”
Mom: Nanny doesn’t know the whole story.
Emily looks up at me in question.
“I know enough,” I say with a huff.
Emily: You want to fill in the gaps?
Mom: After dinner we’ll go sit on the porch swing. Some stories need to come straight from the horse’s mouth. No exaggeration. Just cold, hard truth.
“I don’t exaggerate,” I snip at Emily.
Emily laughs. “Sometimes you do.”
Her phone buzzes again, but it’s not her mother.
Finn: When I get there, we’re going to talk.
Emily lets out a furious growl.
Emily: I’m sick. Nanny is taking care of me. We can talk tomorrow.
“Persistent boy,” I mutter.