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How long would I keep her around? I wasn’t sure yet. Before I got rid of her, I’d have to be certain that Brianna would play nice with Gareth.
It… it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was for Gareth. She was never meant for me. But as the days went on, things began to change.
No, that was a lie. Things had changed the first moment I’d seen her sitting in that park, alone. How I wished I could say I thought clearly when Brianna was in the picture, but I couldn’t. When I saw her, locked up in Gareth’s blood room, a hand down her pants… I tried to be impartial when I got back, as I helped her to the bathroom and made her wash up. I tried to hold myself back—getting involved with her was a mistake like no other, especially since I’d been so adamant about her belonging to Gareth.
But she made it all too easy to lose myself in her, to feel, to want things I’d never wanted before. It was almost like I became a different man when I was with her. The way she felt, the sounds she made, how she listened to my orders like I was her personal Jesus… I crossed the point of no return that day.
Things could never go back to the way they were before.
And that brought us to today.
Chapter One – Alistair
When Rick called, sounding frantic, I didn’t know what to expect. And he said to bring the kid, which I found immeasurably odd, since Rick hated Gareth’s guts. He’d hated him ever since he’d killed his mother, my sister, the woman Rick had loved for years. I think the only reason Rick never retaliated was because I had evidence of his involvement in his brother’s death.
But none of that mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered to me, to Gareth, and to Rick himself was the girl sitting before us, straddling a corpse while utterly naked and covered in blood.
Rick had originally thought, coming into the house, that Gareth had kidnapped her and brought her here, but it looked like whoever was currently dead beneath Brianna had been the culprit. I didn’t know who he was; we wouldn’t know until we got Brianna off him.
And that proved to be one of the bigger issues we faced.
The house we were in was abandoned, no one currently living in it. There was no electricity by the look of it; the only light filling the room came in from the windows on either side of the living room. Brianna and the corpse rested just beside the sofa, almost like they’d rolled off it. Honestly, the longer I looked, the more I didn’t know what I was looking at.
Gareth circled her like a vulture, his mouth open, and he divided his time between staring at her and at the body. She had a small knife in her hands, and she currently sawed away at the corpse’s face, humming a tune only she knew. She acted like she was alone in the room, none of us there.
“What the fuck is she doing?” Gareth asked.
“She wouldn’t let me get her off him,” Rick said, and he tossed a glance at me. “She wants to see his bones.” He sounded totally unnerved, and with the sight before us, no sane person could blame him. It was almost like Brianna had lost her grip on sanity.
Although, I’d argue, it might not have ever been there fully to begin with.
Brianna had cut a line down the corpse’s face, and we watched as she traced the outer edge of his face with that same knife. She then peeled the top layer of skin off, dropping it next to her and making Gareth gag.
“You know, I might kill people every now and then, but at least I don’t do that.” He pointed to the fleshy face on the floor. “That’s some weird shit right there—”
“Gareth, shut up,” I told him, and he did just that, his jaw clamping shut. “I want you and Rick to search the rest of the house and the property—make sure we’re alone. I’ll handle Brianna.” Her mother was at the country club, I believed, so we had some time.
Gareth glared at Rick, then at me. “Why do I have to help him?” The animosity between the two was palpable, and yet I could tell there wasn’t much heart behind it. Gareth wasn’t one who knew how to diffuse tense, strange situations like this. This was when my calm demeanor came in handy.
“You heard your uncle,” Rick huffed, his hands on his hips. He didn’t wear his sheriff uniform, but he did have his holster and his gun. As Gareth sighed and moved away from Brianna, he added, “Check the rest of the house. I’m going to circle the property and see if there’s a cellar. Meet me outside when you’re done, and we’ll sweep the grounds.”
My nephew made it clear he wasn’t happy to be paired with Rick, but he said not another word more as he and Rick left the living room. Rick exited the house right away, while Gareth went down the hall to check out the rest of the house. After a while, I heard him pound down the hall and leave the house too, which I assumed meant the rest of the house was unremarkable.
And why wouldn’t it be? The only one that really mattered was here with me, even if she was out of her mind.
I stepped forward, though I stopped just before the large pool of blood that had escaped the boy’s neck. Before moving to his face, she’d taken her time with his torso, tearing open his chest and exposing all the meaty bits beneath the skin. Now she worked at ripping off the muscle and tendons on the right side of his face to get to the skull underneath.
I knelt down, staring at her all the while. Her face was covered in blood, that perfect skin of hers marred with the red stuff. She’d gotten splattered with it on the chest, and the blood had oozed down to her stomach. All things considered, she was completely uncaring that she was naked. It was only because I’d lowered to her level that I saw the dilation of her eyes.
Drugged, perhaps? Though being drugged didn’t automatically lead to something like this. No, but it might lower her inhibitions a bit, enough to stop that inner consciousness from telling her how wrong playing with a corpse was.
Why was she naked, though? Had this boy brought her here to rape her and kill her? The mere thought that someone else had laid hands on her filled me with a type of rage I hadn’t felt in a long time. A long, long time.
“Brianna,” I spoke her name evenly, calmly, seeking to ease her back into reality. “Brianna, do you know where you are?”
She stopped, her fingers resting on the side of his face that she’d torn up, and she stopped humming. Sluggishly, her head turned toward me, and our eyes met. Her full lips parted, and her eyebrows creased. “Alistair? When did you get here? I thought Rick was…” Brianna trailed off. She sounded confused, disoriented, and I’d definitely say she wasn’t all there.
“Rick’s here, and so is Gareth,” I told her. As much as I hated knowing Rick had somehow found a way to connect with her, perhaps if she knew he was here as well, she’d be more pliant. Me, Gareth, and Rick: the three fools who’d gotten caught by Brianna and everything she was. I repeated my previous question, “Do you know where you are?”
