Body Tox (The Bodies duet #1)

Chapter 12

S not ran down my face, and the cold hardened it. My makeup already made me look like a two-bit whore, but I didn’t give a fuck. Using the back of my sleeve, I tried to see the frosty view in front of me.

My eyesight was blurring through my tears.

The street turned into a warped, wavering tilt a whirl until the unshed tears spilled over. At least it would keep the creeps away from me.

It was raining, and the fucking chill in the air made each droplet feel like an icy dagger on my exposed skin.

I didn’t think much about my escape, and I still had on house slippers, my PJ pants, and a shitty white crop top. I still smelled like Cali’s perfume. She smelled like wild roses.

More tears fell. Fucking hell, Cali.

Why did she have to get caught up with me anyway? Peering over, I took a peek at the street sign. I was on Geer Street. She was close, sitting in a damn box awaiting her date with the vulture morticians. They were just going to pick her beautiful body apart.

My hand itched for my golden dagger. In my haste to free myself from my prison, I left it and my mask at home.

I am too exposed to the elements and people’s glaring eyes dressed like this. Pausing, I spun around…fucking, fuck it. I don’t care.

My house shoes were soaked, and the Alaskan night air wasn’t helping me warm up. So, feeling literally numb, it was. Well, at least my outside would match how I felt inside. Besides, stupid things were making me trip as I ran down the line of the streets, getting closer and closer to the morgue.

“And fuck these stupid ass shoes!” I kicked the useless things off my feet and ran at a dead sprint to the morgue. Stupid house slippers were weighing me down.

The rocks embedded into the pavement instantly cut my feet, but I ignored the pain, letting it fuel my rage to run even faster.

Finally, after meandering around the buildings, I found the entrance to the small building tucked in the corner, hardly ever used, as opposed to the hearse constantly going back-and-forth.

The way I burst through the door could have been in a movie, and the startled squeak of the receptionist was equally iconic. I knew I probably looked like a bat right outta hell, but I used that to my advantage.

“Uh…do you have an appointment or a viewing?” she said.

Rallying all my energy, I smiled as sweetly as I could, probably more or less resembling a cracked-out clown than a model citizen, but again, I didn’t give a flying fuck.

“Cali Grace…” I said slowly.

The pain of her name felt like a knife. The frail woman blinked, looking down at some papers on her desk. I spied a pen in her hand, thinking of the eighteen ways I could kill her with it. The vulnerable spots on her body ran like a slideshow through my head.

Coronary arteries: Heart. Carotid arteries: Brain, head, face, and neck. Vertebral arteries: Brain and spine. Iliac arteries: Pelvis.

“I see. Yes. Cali Grace was identified an hour ago by her father…are you here to?—”

The slide show stopped, my vision clearing on her face. “I need to see her.”

The lady blinked again, leaning over her desk and looking at my bleeding bare feet, my chaotic snow-white hair drenched in water dripping on her tiled floor in front of her, and the last thread of sanity lingering in my eyes.

Something scared her because she cleared her throat and pressed a button on the desk.

A buzzer sounded, and the door behind her opened with a mechanical whirl.

Plastering my smile back on my face, happy that I didn’t need to waste time murdering her, I walked through the door without another word.

The room was fucking cold. The air from the fan in the ceiling blasted me in the face with the smell of chemicals, iron, and old cheese stink, like meat that was left out for too many days.

The space was full of things but empty of people, dead or alive. The only sound was of an AC unit kicking on somewhere farther away.

I cleared my throat and tentatively walked forward, eyeing the metal table with blood smeared all over and tools scattered on it.

That isn’t exactly hygienic. It could have at least been cleaned up .

“Fancy doctor, person?” I called out, continuing forward, getting an eerie feeling chasing the chill of the room.

The smell of rusted metal became overwhelming when I rounded the table. Gagging and holding my nose, I fell flat on my ass, landing with a ‘squelch.’

Confused why I’d tripped, I assessed the area, and there was a corpse on the ground below me—not the ‘long gone’ kind, but a ‘fresh one.’ He had on white scrubs that seemed to be made of paper-like material and a blue medical mask. It was half covering his face.

Reaching forward, I pulled the material off his face. His mouth was frozen open as if he’d been scared to death or had been in a state of shock.

“What the fuck?” I scooted away from the stiff.

Damn, he really did look like a gaping fish.

“Thought you were the only one to leave a mess behind, Little Wraith?”

I jolted, my eyes darting to the corner of the room where that fucking nuisance of a man skulked out of the shadows. He pulled his smiling skull mask off his face and stuffed it into his pocket.

My initial reaction was to run at this fucker, claw his eyes out and make him eat them, but…

I beamed at him, standing and walking toward the center of the room.

“You followed me here. What an interesting freak you are. Really dedicated to those good reviews, huh?” I mused, dancing around the aisle on my tiptoes. “Or did Daddy Dearest have you fetch me like the bitch you are?”

His jaw flexed, and he smiled back with a dangerous and powerful smirk.

It was true what they said: ‘Monsters were the prettiest people you could find.’

Too bad, Pretty Boy, you’re about to have a few scrapes on that good little face of yours .

“You are an elephant in a china shop, Little Wraith. Not like you’re very hard to follow,” he said with a smirk.

His steps matched mine from the opposite side of my destination—the autopsy table.

I giggled, letting out some of the mania I felt. The metal came up a little past my waist, so I turned around to hop up on the table. My feet dangled from the metal bed as my hand lay covertly over the abandoned scalpel.

“I like to make an entrance,” I said, shrugging and checking my nails.

The blood on the tabletop was running down my wrist. The man’s eyes zeroed in on that little trickle, and my eyelids lowered with satisfaction. He seemed to shake himself from the daze, his sparkling hazel eyes going back to meet mine.

“Well, as fun as this is, Pretty Boy, I think I will play later, I have some shit to do.”

Grabbing the scalpel and some other sharp thing, I hopped off the rickety table and dashed toward him. I came to a complete standstill when he pulled his hand from his pocket, a plush pink object in his grasp.

“I know how much you loved her tongue, Little Wraith,” he said, dangling the flesh in front of me as I tripped over my own feet, barely managing to keep myself upright. “Well, I felt a smidge guilty for giving her the lethal poison that was meant for you.”

I blinked, blindsided, and pissed as all hell.

He did kill her…and it was supposed to be me.

Truly looking at the squishy pale-colored part in his grip, my blood felt colder and colder. He was holding…her tongue. The object in his gloved hand was Cali’s fucking tongue. I stared at the blood on my shaking hands, knowing now it was Cali’s.

This monster butchered her to taunt me?

I gritted my teeth so hard I felt sure they would break, tasting that familiar metallic tang in my mouth.

The man watched me carefully, uncertainty painting his features. He looked at me the way you would a cat when you didn’t know if they were about to go ape shit randomly and permanently try to delete your stupid ass for just existing.

The glass of the cabinets behind me caught my reflection. I looked as unhinged as I felt.

I teetered on my feet, unable to decide if I was going to pass out or scream until my lungs gave out. Instead, I eyed the scalpel in my hand. Cali’s blood was still shining at its sharp end.

“You like to play doctor, Vamps?” I said, tilting my head slowly at my well and true enemy.

His eyes narrowed, stepping back slightly, almost like he didn’t know he moved. I smiled wider, hysteria bubbling to the surface in a sing-song laugh that could make the asylum patients shake.

“You’re a psychopath, lady. What are you fucking doing?”

I thought about that…What was I doing?

“You know that’s just rude, Vamps,” I said, bringing the blade up and cutting away the material of my pajama pants until they fell off my body in tattered strips of fabric.

I was now standing in a white lace thong and my crop top.

Damn. What an outfit to be described in my obituary.

At least I’d made it easier for an autopsy when whatever unlucky fuck took over Stiffy’s job as the local mortician.

“I am clearly a high-functioning sociopath,” I said just a bit louder than a whisper, snorting at his ignorance.

He took tentative steps forward, and I waved the scalpel blade around like a magic wand.

“You are one to talk,” I said, the hysterical giggles happening all over again. They left a tremor in my voice, the sound vibrating in my throat.

The door opened, and the weary secretary screamed, turning to run. I threw the other sharp tool in my grip toward her direction, and she fell with a garbled groan.

Blood pooled under her body, and the wound from her back spouted like a geyser, a fountain of deep red swallowing the whiny bitch.

“Should have let me in sooner, bitch.” I sneered with pure venom in my heart at her.

My stalker backed up and covered his mouth, shakily grabbing the mask from his pocket and pressing it to his nose and lips like a lifeline. I laughed loudly. The last shred of humanity leaked out of me through the sounds coming out of my throat.

“The vampire calls me a psychopath? That’s rich.”

My humor died off as I tested the point of the scalpel on my thigh. The high of the sting made me hiss, downright fucking euphoric.

I let the blade glide, my own blood mingling with Cali’s. I moaned, shoving the metal deeper, my vision blurring through my tears and the stinging, beautiful pain. This is the last thing I can do for you, Cali baby.

My body fell into a hazy cloud, collapsing like a rickety bridge. That skull mask blinked in and out of my vision. An anguished sound roared above me, reminding me of a wounded grizzly bear.

I could see gauze being shoved onto my beautiful mark. The white turned red just as fast as it covered my pale skin.

“No. You fucking…don’t!”

The words were fuzzy, like a radio station going in and out that I couldn’t quite catch the channel.

“Bye-bye, Pretty Boy,” I mumbled, closing my eyes, waiting to be with my Cali again.