“Ask me to kiss you,” I say.
She licks her lips, ensnaring me. “Kiss…my ass.” But her voice holds no malice. She’s shivering in eighty-degree weather.
I release her chin and graze my fingers along her jaw, spearing my fingers into her hair. “I’ll eagerly kiss your ass and every inch of your body,” I say, “even when you vehemently deny what you want, when you fight it, I’ll give you what you need.” I lean down closer, feeling her breath slip over my mouth. “And you’ll help me destroy the evidence.”
Her eyes flare and, without words, she consents with the slightest nod of her head against my hand.
This is what she requires; I understand now. With the smallest nudge, our systems start to align. Chaos begins to harmonize.
She’s never needed anyone before, never had an emotional need to be met, and she doesn’t even know what to ask for, or how to ask. And from me? The villain who bestowed the cursed emotions on her? She can’t surrender.
But I’m the only one who can give her exactly what she needs.
When her emotions run high, when she falls into that dark chasm of emotional turmoil, I’ll lace our fingers together and pull her away from the brink.
I’ll let the friction between us spark and roar until we’re nothing but spent embers.
Passion can only burn us alive once.
“A crematorium,” she says, as if picking the thought from the air around us.
My brow furrows as my thoughts circle to where we began. “That would be convenient.” I lower my hand, caressing down to the base of her lower back. “Unfortunately, I don’t have access to something that convenient.”
Her swallow drags along her throat. “I do.”
She doesn’t give me time to ask. She presses into me and crushes her mouth to mine.
And as we evolve from a fiery collision to forming molten matter, we forge the darkest of plans in my lab. Sirens wail and horns shout, the sounds of life outside these brick walls flood the dilapidated space while we plot how to silence the dead.
14
Time’s Up
Alex
Blakely’s presence hums next to me, my skin abuzz from her nearness, her energy. Both the physical closeness and the metaphysical. She still has reservations—ones that will take time to climb over the inertia I created along our timeline, but there is one constant in the universe, and that’s change.
Nothing stays the same forever.
Like the turn of a dial, one emotion gives way to the next along the spectrum, and as time passes, our emotions shift and modify. One kiss shouldn’t be life-altering, but factoring in Blakely’s stubborn disposition, that kiss was shattering—a magnitude eight earthquake to rock our foundation.
After the sun set, we headed into Chelsea, where the flurry of nightlife thrives, but the cover of darkness shrouds us as we move through the veins of the city. I follow Blakely as she turns down a familiar alleyway. I was just stalking this borough as we pursued the same target and yet, somehow, I missed the connection.
I don’t believe in fate.
But I can’t deny the irony.
Blakely stops outside of a three-story building with two-tone bricks and a faded black awning.
The awning reads: Pet Heaven Crematory.
She looks at me expectingly. “I watched Addisyn enter and leave here,” she says, turning toward a lockbox nested alongside the rusted door. “She was never one for discretion.” She starts to punch a code into the keypad, and I grab her wrist.
“Cameras,” I warn.
With a derisive tilt to her head, she says, “You’re not a very diligent stalker,” before she returns to the keypad. “The batteries on the Wi-Fi cams are dead. I checked them the first day while trailing Addisyn.”
The box beeps and she opens the small black door, producing a key.
I glance around the bustling four-lane street. No one is watching, no one cares. Who breaks into an animal crematorium? Still, I can’t ignore the tension knotting my spine.
“This is too exposed,” I say, even as she pushes the door open.
“You’re too accustomed to your habitat. Your private, creepy forest. Well, this city is my forest. I know how to operate below radar.” Leaving the lights off, she uses her phone as a flashlight.
The interior looks like what I’d assume the average pet crematory would look like. Miniature caskets. Bare brick walls with a few display shelves to showcase picture frames and animal toys. A generic desk. The smell of linseed oil used to polish the wood mingles with a dry fragrance of what I presume is ash. Another distinct odor hovers beneath of animal feces. I curl my lips.
The front of the business is set up as a merchant shop, with urns and picture frames, even wooden boxes with inscriptions. I suppose mourning pet owners want to bury their pets like a loved one, with memories and cherished objects, as they place them in comfortable, satin-lined caskets and watch them roll into the cremation unit.
Blakely stands over the desk, her light aimed on the laptop. She slips on a pair of disposable gloves and flips it open. “I’ll check to see when the next cremation is scheduled.”
Which leaves me to explore the unit itself. I take out my phone, making sure it’s on airplane mode so I’m not pinged in this location. As I push through the double doors into the back, the pungent scent of antiseptic stings my nose. My reservations are high for this course of action.
There are ways to produce the degree of heat necessary to incinerate remains rather than taking the risk to transport bones into the city, and then unload them into a building. Where anyone can become a witness. There are too many unknown variables and contingencies; nothing feels within control.
I’m a scientist. Solving problems with science is what I do. Before I even inspect the unit, I’m decided against this method and am in the process of turning around when a sound pricks my ears.
The telltale tick of a second-hand reverberates through the dark room.
I stop moving, aware of the unnatural silence, the absolute blackness pushing against me from all corners. Focusing on the sound, I try to decipher if there’s an actual ticking wall clock, or if it’s a manifestation of my anxiety.
My calf suddenly aches. The louder the sound grows, the more intense the pain. Like the phantom pain of a missing limb, the ghost of the antique Rolex reminds me that our time is limited.
The neurotic need to find the source threads my muscles, and I light my phone as I coast farther into the room. I should be attentive to the sounds in the front—Blakely’s movements, the front door, possible trespassers—but I’m attuned to the clean snick slicing the air, drawing me toward the center, where the light catches on the gleam of an object.
I stand frozen.
My lungs burn as I claw for a breath, the pressure damn near cracking my chest.
I’m in the dark room of my cabin again. The walls pitch as coal, the only light source stemming from the mounted pendulum clocks that appear to float all around. There’s a familiar weight in my hand. Not comforting, but habitual, like getting a hit of a drug you can’t bleed out of your system. Toxic, but alleviating the bitter pang of homesickness.
I know what the object is…but I also know it’s impossible.