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Over in the kitchen, there’s the basics, a stove, a basin, and a refrigerator. Tucked in the corner is a small wooden table and two chairs.
I walk through the cabin into the bathroom, where everything’s white and pristinely clean. The towels hanging on the rail in size order even match in color.
I step out and take a peek inside the next room. I figure this one must be his bedroom because it smells like him. The bed in the center of the room is made up to perfection, not a single crease in the sheets and when I open his chest of drawers, I laugh to myself when I find his underwear folded into neat squares and arranged in color order.
The low grumble from my stomach reminds me that I haven't eaten anything since my pancakes this morning, and since ridding the world of its scum is such hungry work, I head back into the kitchen and search through the cupboards for something to eat.
All the cans and cartons are rowed up in size order, I find some bread and take two slices. The inside of his refrigerator is cleaner than an operating theatre. Each shelf is arranged by product type and makes it easy for me to find what I’m looking for. I open one of the plastic containers to get some ham, and with a good slap of mayo, I put myself together a sandwich. After helping myself to a beer, I take a seat on Grimm’s plastic-covered couch. Kicking up my feet on the coffee table and picking up the remote, I flick on the TV. I’m not surprised in the slightest when the crime channel comes on.
There’s plenty of work I could be getting on with down at the garage, but I figure I’m due a day off. I’ve worked my ass off lately, I deserve a break. So I stay in Grimm's cabin, binge watching some real crime TV series while downing a few more beers.
By the time it gets dark, I'm bored out of my mind. Grimm still isn’t back, and I decide to take a shower in his pristine bathroom. It doesn’t matter how hot I’d run the water back at my place, I can still feel that asshole’s hands on me. It’s been a long time since anyone has been brave enough to touch me like that and I wasn’t about to let it happen again. I don't care how fresh out of jail he was, or what he thought he was entitled to. Eddie had no right putting his hands on me, not back then and not now.
I take my time under the warm water, enjoying massaging Grimm’s shower gel into my skin, and scrubbing my hair with his shampoo. When I finally get out, I head straight to his room and slowly flick through the clothes in his wardrobe until I find one of his shirts that I like.
Grimm isn’t built as big as Skid, his body is much more athletic than muscular but his shirt still falls below my ass cheeks, and I like the way it feels against my skin. Pulling back the covers from his bed, I snuggle myself inside and rest my head on his pillow. I stare up at the ceiling, wondering how many women he’s fucked right here in this spot. Does he have a regular whore like some of the others do? For all I know he could have an old lady, just because I haven’t seen him with one down at the club doesn’t mean she doesn’t exist. Then I giggle to myself when I picture him bringing her back here tonight and them finding me in his bed.
I allow my heavy eyes to close and my body to relax with the thought of this world being just a little better because of me. I never did bother to make a list of all the people that had hurt me in the past.
I don’t have to remind myself of their names, they’re engraved into my soul, tattooed into my memories with poisonous ink. Sometimes when I close my eyes at night, they come back to torment me. But I’m not a scared little girl anymore.
And tonight, there will be one less face to haunt me.
I like the peacefulness here. The old quarry is in the ass-end of nowhere and over the years I’ve come to know the place well. Bones lay here, secrets lurk beneath the waters, and ashes are merged with the soil. It’s the perfect place for me to reflect. I sit here with just the crackle of the fire breaking the silence, colorful flames licking the air, reaching higher, and with the beautiful sky surrounding me, it could be so easy to forget what those flames are destroying.
Fire has always fascinated me, and not just because of its reliability to dispose. Fire works a lot like I do, it strips back layer by layer, taking its time and leaving nothing salvageable.
Getting rid of things this way relaxes me the most, staring at the warm flames, watching their shapes change gives me the time to think things over, a chance to backtrack and make sure nothing has been forgotten.
Maddy got back to me on the ride out here, turns out the guy who was currently feeding my flames was fresh out of Pueblo, and judging from the time of his release and the time it took him to get to Rogue, we figured she must have been the first person he went to see. I don't know who he is to her, but whoever he was, she clearly hadn’t been happy to see him.
I’d decided this was the most efficient way to get rid of Rogue’s little problem. To obliterate all traces of him. A cover-up or a frame would take planning and detail. I don’t have the time or the patience for either.
So, I’ve taken the easy approach, I wrapped the half-decapitated fucker up in the carpet that he’d bled out on and brought him here. Now that the fire has worked through all the fibers of the carpet, I can smell his skin blistering as the flames eat away at his flesh.
Everyone’s different, each corpse has its own unique smell when it burns, and Eddie Clark has a real rotten tinge to him. I got a strong suspicion that he deserved what Rogue did to him. Not that it would matter all that much to me if he hadn't. I’m here to clean up, not to judge.
I wait for hours, just watching and thinking of all the wrong kinda things. Things like how good Rogue looked covered in blood, wearing that sinister smile. The girl didn’t show a shred of remorse for what she’d done and I envy her for that.
When the fire eventually dies down, leaving only ash and bone, I head back to the van and take out the sprayer. I drench any embers still glowing and douse the hot ash, soaking it until it’s cool enough to pick out bones. When my phone starts to vibrate in my back pocket, I know exactly who it’ll be.
“Skid,” I answer without even checking, continuing to neatly pack away the charred bones in the cool box that I keep in the cage for occasions such as this one.
“How’s it goin’?” he asks, not sounding much calmer.
“Ain’t much left of him now,” I assure him, checking out the femur bone in my hand, there’s a huge chip out of it where the machete must have hit.
“And the house?”
“Every surface checked. Carpets taken care of, walls scrubbed and sanded. I’ll have the Prospect do a paint job on the place in the next couple of days.” This is all standard shit that Skid would never usually bother to question me on.
“You got any idea what he was doin' there?” he asks.
“Not a clue, but Mads found out he got released from Pueblo county detention this morning.”
Skid goes silent for a while, his head probably surveying the same possibilities mine has.
“You think he went straight to her?”
