It was the only way we could escape our abusers. I’d taken Honey, who legally belonged to Troy. At the very least, I had committed theft.
Many women here had done much worse.
But I didn’t give a shit what the law said. Simone had broken it for a good reason.
The law was not always just. The law did not always protect the innocent. The law often protected the oppressor.
No. I would not do that to everyone behind these gates.
Carefully, I lay Simone back onto the gravel.
And some foreign entity floated into my body. It seeped up from my feet, moving them from my seat on the ground until I found myself standing. Then I was walking. I stood over David’s body, staring down at the pond of maroon beneath him, freezing against the snow-covered rocks.
His frozen, dead eyes stared back.
A shutter coursed up my spine. My stomach wretched, and I had to swallow down vomit.
I pulled his lids down.
The entity possessed me again.
My sticky, blood coated fingers grabbed each of his hands. And they yanked. They pulled. I felt none of his weight. No tension in my wrists or biceps.
Nothing. I felt absolutely nothing.
It was like I was in the eyes of someone else. I saw what was happening. I knew what she was doing. But she wasn’t me. This was a movie playing out before my eyelids. I was a viewer, not a participant.
My mind? My thoughts, my feelings? I didn’t have those anymore.
I was just a viewer.
Whatever possessed me decided to drop him at the conifer bushes along the fence line. They didn’t cover him, not entirely.
Then I watched as I scooped mounds of snow into the stomach of my hoodie. Like I’d forgotten a hamper and had nothing to dump my fresh laundry into.
Scoop some snow, dump it onto his body. Scoop some snow, dump it onto his body.
Over and over until he was a mound of pink, frozen water.
Now on my knees, I did the same thing to the trail of blood. Swept and swept snow on top of it until it covered the crimson.
Then I caught sight of Simone, and the entity released me again.
Slumped into a ball before David’s car, her teeth chattered so loud, I could hear it from here. I ran to her and dropped to my knees. Shaking her shoulders, I fought the cold that bit away at every inch of exposed, damp skin. “Simone. Simone, can you walk?”
A low grumble.
I reached under both armpits. “Come on. At least try.”
Another grumble. Simone tugged back.
I released an audible groan of my own, dropping her. Dragging David’s dead weight was easier.
If she wasn’t going to walk, I needed my car.
The run back to my cabin was as blurry as the fight with David. I knew I’d done it. But I couldn’t recall how.
All I knew was that my cabin was right there, a dozen strides away, and I ripped off my shoes. Why? Because they were covered in blood, I guessed.
