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“You’ll pay.”
Instead of telling him I already am, I snatch the spunk-covered towel and jam it into his mouth. Since I’m not worried about being caught anymore, I unwrap the towel around my right shoe, returning it to the back of my neck.
“Bite down,” I say, giving Kordin one small courtesy before I stomp on his right elbow, breaking the arm in at least two places.
Predictably, he thrashes, trying to scream, but thankfully only gurgling sounds make it past the expensive damp cotton filling his mouth. I don’t waste time, immediately doing the same exact thing to his right knee, too, that way he can’t drive himself anywhere. He will be right here, in this exact spot, until his wife finds him. It’s up to her from there. I wouldn’t help him if I was her. I’d stuff his face in a pillow like he does to her and wait for him to suffocate.
For that reason alone, I’ll stick to one part of the original plan by making it look like there was an actual break-in. If she decides to off her husband, it’ll look like an invasion gone wrong and she’ll be in the clear.
Without warning, I rip the towel from Kordin’s mouth and place it next to the laptop again. There’s more blood than jizz on it now but hopefully she gets the point.
I bring up the screenshots, enlarging the worst one so it takes up the entire screen.
“No. Don’t…” Kordin’s left leg kicks out at me, missing my own by several inches but giving me my first smile of the night.
His labored breathing provides a soundtrack for the next few minutes as I rush around the room, knocking over pieces of decor and pulling random books off the shelves, a trail of crinkled white paper in my wake. I’ll do the same in another room, then I’ll break a window just before I leave out the same door I came through.
But first…
Towering over the broken, bleeding, and now whimpering man, I tell him what I wish I could tell my dad, “You did this.”
On my way past, he gets one final word out, asking, “Why?” but I don’t stop to answer.
Why am I here? Because I don’t have a choice.
Why am I doing this? Because his wife does. She can get out still.
I couldn’t.
I can’t.
Lex
Thump!
The cold compress prevents my lids from so much as lifting, so I push the now-lukewarm mask up my clammy forehead, blinking several times until the aquarium isn’t as blinding. The clown fish I recently bought hunkers down into the anemone it seems to have made its home in, keeping only its orange head out of the fluorescent-pink tentacles gently undulating in the salt water.
Scanning the rest of the aquarium, I check for anything strange to explain the sound that woke me. Everything appears normal except my husband’s ugly bamboo shark, who must be in his hiding spot. If he wasn’t, I’d assume he was responsible for waking me up. Just like every other male who overestimates himself, that hard-headed asshole will run face-first into the glass without thought. I’ve seen him do it.
But if it wasn’t him, what was the noise?
It sounded like… I don’t know. I thought I heard something, but it could’ve been a dream. Even when I’m not on edge, bedtime hours blur together for me. Some I’m awake pretending I’m not, while others I’m asleep wondering if I actually am. I can’t always tell what’s real and what’s not at night.
Dreams, I question.
Nightmares, I don’t. I know all too well just how real those are.
I turn my face to the ceiling, regarding the blur of blades as I contemplate popping a sleeping pill. I probably already should’ve.
On an inhale, I sit up before immediately freezing.
What is that?
Tilting my head left, then right, I lift my nose just slightly until the scent intensifies enough for me to identify. Rum, tobacco, and…citrus? Orange, not lime or lemon, and the rum and tobacco weren’t consumed, they’re notes in a cologne. A man’s cologne. A man with good taste but not the kind of money to afford the best.
The man of this house can afford the best.
Somebody else was in here.
