Archer just headed through to the garage, and we followed behind him. He passed all the fancy sports cars and expensive SUVs, then popped the driver’s door open on a midrange silver sedan. Oh yeah, this was their “transporting dead people” car for sure.
"Let's go," he said, clicking the garage door open and sliding behind the wheel. Kody and Steele jumped into the backseat, leaving the passenger seat open for me. It took me a couple of seconds to force myself inside, though.
Gritting my teeth against my welling anxiety, I pulled the door closed but flinched at the sound of my seat belt buckling. Yeah, the crash with Bree hadn't done wonders for my car anxiety, that was for sure.
"Are you okay?" Archer murmured quietly as we drove out of the garage and down the main driveway.
I jerked a sharp nod, my fingers gripping the strap of my seatbelt in a white-knuckled grip. Mainly because I was badly fighting the urge to cry from pure stress and fear. Also because I couldn't handle the sensation of the diagonal belt across my tender bruising.
"I'm fine," I croaked, feeling cold sweat beading on my chest.
Archer raised a brow at me, clearly not buying my shit, but he didn't call me on the lie. He just reached out, his hand finding its favorite place on the inside of my knee as he drove. Somehow, that worked. A small amount of my fear eased with every moment his heavy, warm hand rested on my leg. It was grounding me, reminding me that I was in good hands.
We drove for a little over an hour in near silence, everyone lost in their own thoughts and no one even turning the stereo on. Eventually, though, Archer turned off the rural road we'd been following for miles and onto a dirt driveway.
"Where are we?" I asked, trying to peer at a sign as we passed it. It was dark outside, though, and we were going too fast for me to make out the details.
"Benny's Pig Farm," Steele answered, drumming his fingers on the door handle as we approached a farmhouse. "We've got an arrangement with the owner."
I wanted to ask more, but I also totally lacked the energy to make my thoughts into words. So I just waited and watched. When we stopped, Steele hopped out of the car, approaching the middle-aged man who came out of the house to greet us. No one else made any moves to leave the car, though, so I stayed put as well.
Steele and the man—Benny, I supposed—exchanged a few words, then Steele handed him an envelope. Benny then went back inside the house while Steele returned to us in the car.
"All clear," he advised Archer as he slipped back into his seat.
Archer started the car again, driving past the farmhouse and further into the property, then pulling up outside some fenced-off pens.
"You can stay here if you want," Archer told me as he, Kody, and Steele climbed out. Arch reached down to pop the trunk open, and I shook my head in refusal. I needed to see it through to the end.
I climbed out of my seat, tucking my arms tight around me as I watched the guys unload Scott's body from the trunk. Kody used his own butterfly knife—an emerald green one that I'd never seen before—to slice through all the plastic sheeting they'd packaged Scott up in. Then he and Steele hoisted the body up between them and tossed it straight into the middle of the pig pen. Clothes and all.
"You're not serious, are you?" I whispered, aghast. "That's... guys, that's not going to work. This isn't a movie. Pigs don't just chow down on a human body and leave no evidence after the fact."
As if perfectly on cue, there was a sickening sound of crunching bone. Shocked, I moved across to the fence just in time to see a huge, hairy pig rip Scott's hand off his body, then trot away to eat it in peace.
What. The. Fuck?
"Trust us, Hellcat. This one is pretty damn foolproof." Steele gently moved me away from the pigpen as the rest of the animals swarmed the corpse and the gut churning sound of tearing flesh filled the air.
I shook my head in stunned disbelief. "I don't know if I'm horrified or impressed. Which one of you twisted fucks even thought of this?"
The three of them exchanged smug smiles, knowing full well I wasn't actually horrified.
"We can't claim credit for this one," Steele told me with a laugh. "A friend of a friend suggested it some time ago, and it's worked out well ever since. So much more reliable than dumping weighted bodies off the coast."
"And quicker," Kody added. "Remember how long those boat trips used to take?" He grimaced, and I just shook my head again. These guys were a whole other breed. Maybe Bark was onto something with his alien theory, after all.
"So now what happens?" I asked, snuggling closer into Steele's warmth.
Archer shrugged, leaning against the side of the car. "We wait until the pigs do their thing so we can see with our own eyes that it's all gone. Then we dispose of the plastic wrapping at a recycling facility a few miles from here and head home again."
I couldn't fight my grin. "You guys recycle the plastic you use to transport bodies?"
Archer gave me a serious look. "If we don't take active steps toward a greener planet, we'll fuck it right up."
"Worse than it already is," Kody added, peering over the fence to check the pigs’ progress. "I think we're good to go." He pulled out his phone, using the flashlight app to check the pen more thoroughly. "Yep, all done."
"That was fast," I murmured, following as they all piled back into the car.
Archer shot me a smirk. "Hungry pigs today."
He drove us out of Benny's Pig Farm without stopping at the main house again, and a few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of the recycling plant. It was deserted, closed for the day already, but there was a self-service drop-off zone where you could dispose of recyclables through segregated chutes.
Steele climbed out, grabbed the plastic sheeting from the trunk, and strode across the gravel to drop it in the plastics area.
I watched him go, but my attention caught on something red that kept flickering on the side of the building. The facility was totally closed up, though. We were the only car in the lot. So, what was making that red light flicker?
"Guys," I murmured when my curiosity burned. "What's making that red light?"
Kody leaned forward from the backseat, trying to see what I was pointing at. "I don't see it," he replied.
I frowned, no longer seeing it myself. Maybe it'd been a trick of my imagination or something. But then it flickered again.
"There!" I said, pointing. When neither Kody nor Archer seemed to follow my line of sight, I let out a frustrated sound and pushed my door open, climbing out to get a better look. They both followed me, and Steele gave us a curious look as we headed in his direction.
"What's going on?" he asked, meeting us halfway across the parking lot after discarding of the plastic responsibly.
I frowned in the direction of the light... which was now gone again. Was I going crazy?
"MK saw something that worried her," Kody answered. "We couldn't see what it was, so we're taking a closer look... right, babe?" He tilted his head as he looked to me for confirmation.
I nodded slowly.
"Okay, well—" Steele paused what he was about to say, pulling his phone from his pocket to check a message. Then his brow furrowed in a deep frown. "This can't be good," he muttered, then held the phone out for us to see.