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“What the hell,” I mutter as I notice something red leaking through the bottom.
Alec and Coen come over to me and look at the box in my hands, presumably trying to find out why I’m cursing at an inanimate object. “What’s up?” Coen asks in his calm tone.
“It’s leaking,” I huff in annoyance before carrying the box to the kitchen, placing it in the sink to avoid making too much of a mess. As soon as the box is out of my hands, Coen grabs my hand, that’s now covered in the sticky red liquid. It isn’t until now that I recognize the smell of rust.
“Mia, that’s blood!” Coen and Alec shout at the same time, my eyes widening even though my mind had already come to the same conclusion. We stare dumbfounded at each other for several long moments, neither of us sure of what to do or say. Before I can muster up a reply, Coen grabs a knife from the drawer and slices the package open. Tipping the box upside down, we watch a slim and white-skinned finger fall into the sink with a thud.
Alec rips the package from Coen’s hands, and I watch as he pulls out a few printed pictures. Stepping closer, I look at them from the side, and my heart plummets when I realize what I’m looking at.
The pictures are of me.
Me waiting for the Uber before Mark’s funeral.
Me arriving at Mark’s apartment.
Me and Alec hugging at Mark’s grave.
Then… Oh God, there are pictures of Coen fingering me in the alley.
And…
Fuck!
Pictures of all of us at Dolce. My head is thrown back, my lips parted. Both my hands are hidden beneath the tablecloth.
“No!” I scream, as though my denial can change the events.
Through blurred vision, I see Alec handing the pictures to Coen, and I watch him pale in front of me. “What the—” That’s all he says before Kas barrels down the stairs.
“What’s going on?” Kas demands, eyes darting between the three of us.
The tears burning in my eyes aren’t from sadness, it’s vitriol and anger.
Red-hot and all-consuming malice spreads through my body as I tear the bloodied papers from Coen and hand them to Kas. In a voice I barely recognize, I spit, “We noticed the box leaking and moved it. As soon as we worked out it was blood, we opened it, and this was inside,” I point at the papers now in his hands. “And that.” I take a step back and gesture toward the sink.
With a wet cloth in hand, Alec mumbles something about cleaning the carpet.
“What did you just say?” Kas asks. “Clean…” The way he says the word makes it sound like he’s talking about something entirely different.
I keep staring at the finger in the sink, unable to stop thinking about who it belongs to. Even though I know it’s not mine, I can’t stop letting both thumbs run across the rest of my fingers. It’s an absentminded motion, probably my subconscious trying to convince me it isn’t mine.
When Alec returns, he grazes Kas’ arm, and the movement seems to snap him out of whatever he’s thinking about.
“There was no dust,” he says.
Huh? No dust where?
Without thinking, I walk closer to my usually cheerful guy who’s right now looking anything but. “No dust where Kas?”
He looks at me through wide eyes, swallowing audibly before removing the edge I’m barely clinging to. “Your apartment, sweets. There was no dust, it was all clean.”
‘Your apartment.’Those two words suddenly become my entire world.
Blood rushes to my ears, my palms become sweaty, and the only sound I hear is the thump of my heart as it beats against my ribcage.
Thump!
No dust!
