Page 78 of Ruin

Claire swung the door open, then she hoisted herself in the seat. I grabbed the metal in my hand as she pulled the door to a close. I flung the door open and looked at her as her face was twisted with anger, fear, and pain.

“Do you not understand? I fucking love you, Claire!” I screamed, rage and desperation burning in my chest.

Claire stared back, her expression cold like ice.

I lunged forward toward her. “God gasps at my love for you, do you realize that?” My hands gripped her shoulders. “It far supersedes anything that he created, Claire.” My voice broke as my eyes filled with sorrow.

She stared blankly until her eyes filled with tears. My grasp released from her shoulders as my breathing slowed, and I searched her eyes for acceptance, forgiveness…anything.

She spoke, slow and calm. “Get in the other car, Arik.”

I backed up from the door slowly; my hands balled into fits as Claire pulled the door shut. My reflection stared back at me from the dark window as the moonlight illuminated my face. There was no hiding the mixture of rage and remorse that cut through my expression.

I stood there unable to move as the SUV slowly backed up before cutting tightly to the road and driving away. The red taillights streaked through the cloud of dust that rose from back tires as the SUV disappeared in the distance behind rows of overgrown trees.

“Coming, boss?” Sam called out to me from the driver’s window of the remaining SUV.

I turned around, feeling the space between Claire and me expand. My chest heaved with a sharp pain that radiated in the center and slowly expanded into my neck and shoulders.

“Let’s go,” I demanded as I swung open the door, sat down, and slammed it closed with fury. I fought the thoughts that raged in my mind as we drove silently back to the hotel. My chest was filled with anger. Her distress was entirely my doing. I deserved every bit of her venom. But Claire’s venom did not keep me alive—it killed me.

Up ahead, I watched the red taillights of Claire’s SUV. I was too far to feel her, though I could still feel her presence wrapped around me. I wondered what was happening in the back seat. Was she crying? Was she angry? What was going through her mind? I understood her anger, but I hoped it would soon pass. I had prayed day after day that her feelings for me would slowly grow. That our love would blossom, and she would accept her fate.

There had been glimmers, glimmers of hope. In those moments, our eyes locked, and I could see the gold dancing. But Claire was complicated, much more so than I originally understood. There were parts of her I did not yet understand, and parts of her that I did not yet know even existed.

Claire’s SUV turned onto the road that led to the hotel, the red lights blurring as the driver sped up the drive with haste. As my SUV did the same, I watched Claire’s pull to a stop. She quickly got out of the back and disappeared into the hotel without pause. She did not turn back to look at me, and she did not wait. Her anger was deep, and I could feel it in flashes as I got closer to the hotel.

The burning of our distance grew, and the heat of her anger subsided as Sam pulled past the hotel and proceeded toward the winery. We drove slowly, keeping the sound and dust down as we drove past the guest rooms and toward the vines. Pitch black darkness engulfed the hills, giving the impression that the world ended, and if you got too close you would fall over the edge.

Eerie silence surrounded us as Sam and I pulled to a stop and got out of the car, quietly closing the doors behind us. A long stretch of road separated the field from the vines, keeping a safe distance of a few hundred yards between them. Tall stacks of dead vines, wood, and leaves stood in the moonlight, their jagged edges casting cruel shadows across the road.

Sam’s attention turned to me. “Why not just leave him in the sea?”

My expression darkened as I looked at the moonlight illuminating the scenery around us, “Because I have a feeling his other victims are at rest there,” I paused, letting the wave of anger wash across me. “He does not deserve to decay in their resting place.”

Wind blew against my exposed skin, drying the last of the sea water that clung to my body. “Two birds, one stone,” I murmured to Sam as we walked around to the back of the SUV.

As Sam opened the trunk, I latched onto the thick ropes that kept the tarp taut against Antonio’s corpse. I pulled him out, intentionally dropping his rigor-filled body onto the hardened earth.

“Oops.” I chuckled before swiftly kicking my foot into his bloated side. The sound of his ribs breaking sliced through the silence of the night.

Sam muttered, “Sir.” His voice was weak and unsure. I could feel him, his disgust at the situation.

“What, Sam!” I screamed, quickly realizing my mistake as my screams echoed through the rows of vines that led from the field and down toward the hotel.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

Sam turned away from me, walking back to the driver’s seat and waiting patiently.

I stared down at the blue tarp once again. Wrapped inside was the man who tried to kill Claire. The man who killed Jennifer. The man who probably killed two other women and who knows how many others. This man hunted women. He turned my home—this sacred place I was tasked with protecting—into his hunting ground. He had slipped right under me.

I blamed myself for those deaths. I wondered how they had gotten past me without feeling them. But they were not premeditated. There had been no emotions for me to follow. They were acts of anger, sudden and uncontrollable anger.

I really should have tortured this motherfucker.

I thought of Claire. How she kicked and clawed as Antonio’s body sat upon hers. The fear and despair that radiated from her body as she fought him. The sound of her cries. Her closed eyes were awaiting death as I pushed Antonio into the sea.

I grunted as I stomped my heel into his head until I felt the hard earth below. The roundness of the tarp where his skull used to be was now flat, and blood and brain matter began to seep out of the seams of the tarp. I grasped the opposite end, taking the rope into my fist as I threw the corpse onto the top of the heap of vines. The dry vines let out a crunch as Antonio’s body sunk into them, falling a few feet into the stack as the vines gave way under his weight.