42
Tess
I wake my husband with a kiss.
After I left him, I’d tried to forget. I’d pushed the details so far down that for a while they only came out when I was asleep. Then they’d come screaming to the surface, and I would have night terrors that made it impossible to let anyone into my bed.
I open Michael’s bag and look at his notes. If Reid saw them, he would know how much I told Michael. Michael’s version of me is wrong. I have a flicker of a wish that I could ask him if he saw me that way.
But he’ll never speak to me again.
If I survive, though, I’ll send his chapters to his agent. Maybe someone else will finish it. Maybe they’ll get it right.
Michael now shares a fate with all of the women I wasn’t good enough to save.
I don’t forgive Reid, but I can’t forgive myself either. We are both guilty. I won’t let Juliana stay in my tub. Not another one. I know what I have to do. I’ve been ready for today for several years.
Today, though, I must be Tessie. I must be the version of me that barely survived. I must be the woman who loved a monster, or I’ll die here.
Gently, I say, “Reid?”
He stares at me, and for a moment, I see the man I loved.
“Happy anniversary.” I lean down to kiss him again. No matter what blood or lies we’ve let come between us, I taste a sweetness, a promise we’ll never reach.
“You weren’t home for any of our anniversaries.” Reid cups my face in his hands. “I fucked strangers that looked like you.”
I think about them, pretty things all dressed in red. They died and bled in my place. He did that. He killed women who looked like me.
Juliana looks like me, too.
“You can do whatever you need so you can forgive me.”
I walk over to my closet and pull out the suitcase of things I’ve gathered in his absence. It was a strange compulsion to buy things that he’d like, things I hate, but I knew this day would come.
I bought other things, too.
Reid picks up a spiked baton and runs his fingers over it. “You bought this?”
I nod. I’d ordered it from a guy I’d met at a club. They were used by the Chinese police. “There’s one with electricity too.”
He glances into the box, then back at me, staring as if I’m his goddess, like only I can understand him. It’s the sort of trust that held us together for so long, and I’ve brought it back in this offering. I want nothing more than to make this moment the end, to freeze our lives here--before the bleeding and pain.
Before anyone else dies.
He picks up a strip of leather with metal bits knotted into it.
“Will it make you forgive me? Will you let Juliana alive and untouched if I let you hurt me instead of her?”
“Yes.”
I strip.
By the time Reid is sated, I’m shaking and sobbing. Being willing to be tortured isn’t the same as it not hurting. My mattress is ruined, and I know I’ll need stitches on my back.
“No one’s ever trusted me like that, not without wearing chains so they couldn’t escape.” His fingers trail through the blood on my belly. I’m fairly sure most of it is from the deep cut on my breast, but there are other shallow cuts on my stomach too.
I don’t speak. I’m not sure if I can.
“Sometimes, I just can’t stop. I dream about hurting you. I used to pretend they were you when I killed them. It’s not that I don’t love you, Tessie. It’s because you love me.”
I’m glad to finally have it spoken between us, to have the truth on the bloodied sheets. He wants my death. “It’s okay.”
“You’ll need to heal before we travel.” Reid has propped up on one arm, staring down at the bruises that are already purpling on my skin. The look of awe is still on his face.
I pull him close, so I can kiss him. I whimper a little, but he likes that, the proof that I hurt and still want him. When he pulls away, I ask, “May I get a bottle of wine?”
He nods, and I go to the kitchen. One bottle. One corkscrew. One glass.
“Let’s toast to new starts,” I suggest as I hand it all to him.
Reid looks more at peace than he ever has before as he opens the bottle and pours the wine into the glass. It’s that ridiculous pink wine he always bought for me. I keep a bottle of it for this day.
After he fills the goblet, he holds it up. “To us.”
“To us,” I echo.
He drinks, swallowing most of the measure he’s poured. Reid never was one for doing things by halves. I’d worried about that, but Reid is unchanged.
When he holds it out, I touch my lips to it, but none of the drugged liquid even touches my tongue. There was no reason for him to suspect a thing. I'd injected the drugs through the cork.
If I had to, I’d drink it, too. I’d choose death rather than a return to being his prisoner. I want to live, but I am willing to die. With Reid, death is closer to survival than a life as his wife.
He’s not paying attention, though. His eyes are on the rivulets of blood that trickle over my body, and I can see that the sight of my blood still excites him.
I move, reaching out for the bottle of tainted wine again, wincing from the motion, and fill it up. I don’t know how much it will take.
“If you were gentle, we could make love again.” I extend the cup to him. The mere thought of it makes me cringe, but there are two dead men in my house and a woman trapped in my bathroom, and I cannot let him live. “Would you mind being gentle?”
“I can do that.” He empties the glass, and then he lays me on my bed so carefully that I imagine myself as hand-blown glass, too fragile, too rare. I think of us, of the way we found this peace at last, as we make love. For a moment, I remember the way it was at the beginning. I remember how he offered me safety and care. I remember how lucky I felt—before I realized that my beloved was a serial killer.
When Reid rolls me over so I’m on the top, my blood drips onto him, and his look of awe expands until I think we’ve reached something magical.
“I love you,” I remind him. A part of me always will. Tessie will love him. That was the only way to survive. I loved him.
I see the drugs taking hold, the hitch in his breathing, the blinking as his vision blurs. I wasn’t sure of the dosage, so I mixed Rohypnol, Ketamine, and some Ambien too. Probably any of those would do the job, and mixed with wine they’d knock him out quickly. If necessary, I think drinking enough of it would kill us both, but I couldn’t be sure. I need to be sure at least one of us dies here.
I’d rather it’d be Reid.
“Tessie?”
“Shhhh. This is for the best.” He’s unconscious by the time I finish the sentence.
Gingerly, I climb out of bed and walk across the room, trailing blood as I go. That can’t be helped. There are many worse things all through my house. Dying is messy, and this house wasn’t meant for death.
I go to the kitchen.
There’s never been a trace of me before when there were bodies to find. Today, there is no choice. My fingerprints are all over the house, and there will be three dead bodies here by the time the police come. I’ll be in their system. There’s no avoiding it. Not now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to disappear again. I want to, but first I have to end my marriage.