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That’s it.I’m going in.
I run forward, putting my mouth and nose in the crook of my arm to avoid breathing in the dirt.
I halt when I see Tanya’s crouched form, panting like she’s hyperventilating.
Valerie is on the ground, looking at the sky with glassy eyes. Her chest isn’t moving. The gun is discarded a few feet away.
“Tanya?” My voice is soft, as if I’m speaking to a wounded animal.
She turns her face to me and her pain is written all over it. Tears leave tracks on her dirt-covered face and her small shoulders shake with each quick breath.
I don’t waste time on words, pulling her away from Valerie’s body instead and embracing her to my chest. She buries her head in my neck and cries.
Next to us, Valerie’s head is resting on a stone pillow, disconnected internally from her torso. There is no blood. She seems to have hit the back of her neck on a rock and died instantly from damage to her spinal cord.
I hold Tanya until her breathing evens out and her sobs stop. She collects herself a lot quicker than I expected.
“I killed her, didn’t I?” she whispers. Her words are a cloud of warm air on my neck.
“It was an accident,” I say. “I saw it all.”
“I wanted to scare her,” she continues. “I wanted her to know her place and to be terrified of me. I wanted her to take her shit and leave Lavender forever. Sophie will free Damien today and take all the glory. What do I have to show for my devotion?”
She says all of this on a tangent, every new sentence getting faster than the previous one.
“You were always there saving people. Sophie couldn’t have done anything without you.” I try to comfort her, but the truth is, I have no idea what to say. My neutrality means that I don’t know what she’s talking about and I can’t press her for it.
“No, that’s not enough.” She shakes her head, wiping her face on my shirt. “This all happened because of me.”
“What? That’s not true.” I put my hands on her shoulders and gently push her away so I can look into her eyes. Her irises are big and blue, while her pupils are tiny dark dots. She’s terrified.
“You have no idea,” she says in a trembling voice. “The darkness inside me, it will never stop. It will keep hurting me until I direct it out and hurt someone else. It needs to be released! The darkness will devour everything. I can’t live like this! There is no light for me. I don’t deserve it because I’m tainted. The darkness is in my blood!”
I’m so stunned at her outburst that I just let her berate herself. How do I turn this around? How do I make things better?
My logical brain takes over because the level of emotion in front of me is too much to bear. Tanya is in pain and I don’t understand why. The only way to help must be by making sure I don’t cause additional damage.
“I’ll help you get rid of the body,” I say after her spiraling takes a pause.
“I killed her,” she whispers. “I’m a killer. Although I guess I was a killer already. This is nothing new. Only the darkness finding a way. It has been released now, so I will be fine for a little while. Yes, Valerie’s body must be hidden. Where do we hide it?”
She steps away from me and looks around, as if all she wants to do is drag Valerie behind a barrel and leave her there.
“No, we need to make sure it is not found,” I say.
She peers at me like I’ve said something complicated and she’s failing to comprehend. Then her face changes. Her next words are cold and calm. The Tanya I know is back.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
“I followed you.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you could use my help.”
“You saw me kill her. Are you going to tell Damien?”
“No. There is a scrap yard at the other end of the city. The owner owes me a favor. We take Valerie and her car there, and it gets destroyed. No one will find her there. I doubt that anyone would look anyway.”
