Body Tox (The Bodies duet #1)

Chapter 26

“ Y ou gonna tell me why sister Beatrice thinks you’re St. Katherine?” Asher egged for the fifteenth time.

We were nearly back at the church, and I didn’t want to admit it, but a part of me wanted him to know. It was clear that the place had some bad memories for him…maybe knowing would help him somehow.

“I donated some money to the orphanage.” I shrugged and kept my pace steady.

I didn’t give him a chance to ask me to elaborate. Instead, I said, “I saw you from the window when you were outside. What’s at the bottom of the pretty tree?”

Now, he was silent.

“Okay then.” I shrugged. The question was eating at me, but I had to act like it didn’t matter.

The truth was that the moment I saw him escape outside, I had had my face shoved against the glass of the upstairs hallway, but then I had input the ‘anonymous’ donation that had Beatrice shrieking and getting all the fucking kids crying from being startled.

I had expected her to receive the notification well after I ditched the facility. However, she apparently wasn’t the dinosaur I’d thought she was. She’d used her bifocals to read the dollar signs listed for her funding page.

I didn’t confirm it was me, but the look in her eyes, her incessant hugging, and calling me a savior was enough for me to know I didn’t fool the old bat.

My teenhood sucked without my mom, and my father was a true monster.

I couldn’t imagine my life without having had my mother to lessen the blow. I wanted all those kids, drooly and loud as they were, to have a home someday, or at the very least live in a safe and comfortable environment.

Beatrice deserved that much, too.

The way she had talked about Asher made me wonder what had happened to change his prankster nature. Could that girl’s death change him so much? What was she to him, anyway?

You’re jealous of a ghost.

I ignored the annoying voice running around my brain, smacking myself upside the head to knock the bitch out.

“Were you…” I paused, thinking of how to word my question without sounding like the pathetic woman asking it.

“Was I what, Little Wraith?”

He had stopped and looked at me, his tied binds collecting snow as we stood still. I pulled my coat further onto my shoulders. Alaska was fucking bipolar. It could downpour one minute, snow the next, or be sunshine and rainbows an hour later.

“Why would someone want you dead, Asher Ballard?” I peered up at him and focused on his sparkling eyes and brown hair.

He got very close to my face, enough to make out those little freckles under his eyes and dimples in his cheeks.

The cold air suddenly felt warm.

“You really wanna know?” he said with no emotion on his face.

I nodded, chewing my lip at the realization of how badly I needed to know.

“Unpaid parking tickets.”

I blinked, the annoyance at the flourishing smile growing on his face enough to make me see red. Suddenly, I could easily picture him as a child oversalting food and tying hair ties to water faucets.

I threw my fist out, smacking him hard in the chest. He laughed out loud and backed up in surrender, raising his bound arms in front of him.

“Fine, fine,” he said. “I also double park my bike.”

I furrowed my brow. I hadn’t seen any bike or so much as a helmet since meeting him. Then again, I hadn’t seen a damn thing except just him, constantly popping up where he wasn’t welcome.

Had he ever worked for my father? Was he ever really a true bodyguard?

He had to have been because he saved me from that creep in the alley.

“Can you be serious? Ever? I swear,” I rolled my eyes at him. “Just when I think that maybe you’re not so much of a dick, you instantly change my mind right back to the conclusion that you are a twat waffle.”

“I am what I eat?”

I pushed away from him and kept walking, but I could hear his snickering behind me.

It was cold as hell. Fall had swallowed the spring, it seemed, and seasons here were either summer or icy winter.

I pulled my coat onto my shoulders tighter, trying to fight the chill.

The wind kept blowing, and snow was falling on us now. There were no tweets of birds or deer grazing. The warning that ran up my spine chilled any laughter from before. The moaning of the trees was growing louder, and a shadow consumed the blue of the sky.

Most locals were sleeping, and the homeless left to seek refuge from the harsh winds.

The problem with Alaska was it being so cold normally that even a little wind could turn the land into a frost-bitten cake of shit, much less the ferocity that it was blowing now.

“We need to find a shelter!” Asher’s voice drifted through the howling.

I didn’t know how far behind me he was because I could barely see two feet in front of my face. The snow was pouring down now, wrapping me in a white blanketed tornado while the light dimmed in the sky like some black hole was swallowing it.

“There!”

I couldn’t get my bearings. I didn’t know what direction I was even headed in anymore. It felt like I was struggling even to stand upright. I felt a hand on my back, ushering me sideways.

I let Asher be my eyes, shielding my face from the burn of the whipping of the air around us.

It made my cheeks burn.

“Here, put your face on my shoulder. I’ll get us to that gas station there.”

The darkness and warmth that Asher’s shoulder offered made me feel…safe. I let him blindly lead me away from this horrible blizzard. How he could even see…was beyond me.

After a few minutes, I felt a cold glass, and Asher urged me to shove it with him.

With our combined strength, it opened enough for me to see the dimly lit shelter. If I had to guess, it wasn’t a functional gas station and had been abandoned some time ago.

There were broken boards on the windows, and the tiled floor inside was filthy and graffitied.

This was likely some crash pad for stoners or a halfway decent spot for the homeless to rest in. The church was near the edge of town, so this place wasn’t exactly easy to find. I hadn’t come across it when I went to the church all the other times.

We either got turned around in the blizzard, or it had been coated with trees concealing it.

I tried to catch my breath, the screaming winds persistent as they rattled those broken boards and battered the roof and windows of the building.

There were leftover shelving units and a random assortment of condiments, too. Chip bags, candy bars, and canned goods as well. There was no light but for the shadowed windows of the dark sky.

“Are you hungry? We’re going to be here awhile. You get some food, and I’ll check out the bathroom and office.”

Asher sounded so protective and knowledgeable about living like this…it made me wonder how many times he’d needed to do this.

“Echo? You okay?”

I was startled when he gripped my shoulder, realizing I hadn’t spoken since the storm started.

“Uh yeah, I just…I don’t like blizzards,” I muttered. I was already flashing back to that night over and over again.

I didn’t mean to, but I flinched at his touch, and he tried to meet my gaze.

“Here, take these. Tie them together and put it over your nose and mouth to keep out the cold.”

He handed me his gloves, and I tried to protest, but he walked away, going to the back of the room where there was a half-empty door.

I sighed, not loving the idea of being alone in this dark, damp, freezing place.

I didn’t even bother to ask him where his binds had gone. He must have been placating me by keeping them on. I kept hearing weird noises but brushed it off, assuming the state of the place was also a shelter for rodents.

The blizzard was in full force outside, and the flickering moonlight of the boards smacking the window and shadowing them over and over was giving me a headache. I crawled on the hard floor to the shelves where the candy bars were.

I wasn’t much for chocolate or sweets and rarely ate them, so I could keep looking amazing for Cali, but how hungry I was now made me think I’d eat the damn rat if it came close enough.

Smash, Smash, Smash!

My heartbeat quickened to the pace of the boards beating the siding. It brought me back to a time when I’d have rather been consumed by the blizzard…

The harsh wind smashed against the window, ripping branches and rocks from the ground and swirling them like daggers in a hail of white.

Alex smashed me against the wall, my head hitting the window just as hard as the swirling debris. He was drunk, I could smell the alcohol on his breath, and he reeked of blood.

“We’re safe here, pet, don’t worry. Why don’t we get a bit of friction going to keep us warm?”

I pushed against his chest, his slurred words right in my face.

“Get off me,” I demanded, turning my head to the side to avoid his sloppy kisses.

“You’d rather go out there?” He laughed and slapped the window by my head. The loud wrapping caused me to flinch away.

He reached behind me and undid my bra through my sweater, falling into my cleavage and moaning while inhaling my scent. He was so fucking heavy that I couldn’t get the bastard off me. I jerked to the side, trying to weasel out of his grip while he was distracted by my breasts.

His stupid boot tripped me, and I fell sideways onto the ground, his drunk body slamming on top of me and stealing my breath with a painful ‘whoosh’ of air.

“Ooh, feisty Eira. We should really wait so Daddy doesn’t hear you scream.”

I struggled against his smiling face, using my heels to dig into my floorboards and push myself upward.

“Get off me, Alex,” I yelled, and he clamped my mouth shut with his big, meaty fist.

“Shh shh, Eira! Don’t be so loud. I’m trying to protect you. We can’t have your Daddy thinking you don’t want this, can we, baby?”

He laid his arm over my chest, his hand still firmly over my mouth while he leaned up, pressing me down harder, and pulled his dick free of his jeans.

I didn’t want him.

I didn’t want anything to do with him.

“Stop,” I said through his fingers on my mouth, but he kissed my lips forcefully, gripping my cheeks in a bruising hold.

He had my legs locked with his knees and my chest trapped under his arm.

My pants were a pathetic defense against his blade. I whimpered, the sliced material leaving my bare legs chilled. Blood ran down my thighs where he nicked me.

“Please stop, Alex.”I tried again, realizing I was stuck.

His cold, dark eyes looked into mine, the light of the window flashing in his eyes, the true evil residing there.

“Oh, c’mon, Eira. You have always begged for me to dick you down. Why act like a virgin now?”

I struggled again, trying to get my arm out of his hold.

I didn’t beg him for anything but to stop.

For years, all I wanted was for him to stop.

He was my father’s security officer. At first, his attention felt good. I had been holed up in this house my entire life, and my only freedom was Alex. He would take me shopping and out to eat.

I felt safe with him…but then, he felt I owed him a debt for his kindness.

One that I paid for fear of losing my freedom for good, but each time he took my body, it was more and more difficult to breathe. After a while, I realized this wasn’t freedom. It was a gilded cage, and the one who held the true key to freedom was myself.

“We have all night, little Eira. All night long to enjoy each other. I will take my time to make each and every part of your perfect little body bend to me.”

I closed my eyes, listening to the rocks smash the window, and the branches scrape the house, leaving an eerie sound in their wake.

Anything to drown out his moans.

His grip became tighter, and the blood on my thighs smeared on the floor as he raped me. The burn I felt internally could have been the physical dryness or my own shame consuming me.

“That’s right, little Eira! I’m going to come. Oh, fuck, your perfect holes need to be filled.”

Smash, smash, smash.

Rock after rock, scrape after scrape, until finally, the jarring stopped, and the new blood was able to spill freely along with his seed.

Cali burst through the door, running over and ripping him off of me.

He just laughed and staggered out into the hallway.

I cried in Cali’s arms. She wiped my tears with a cloth and dabbed away the smear of blood. She never knew that every night she washed it away, my dagger was there to repaint the crimson lines.

“Echo?”

I jolted from my thoughts, pulling my eyes from the broken wood and onto Asher’s half-lit-up face. He held blankets in his hands and began wrapping me up in layer after layer.

“N-no,” I stuttered, seeing my breath puff out before me. “You need warmth, too.”

He was trying not to show it, but his lips were blue, and his words also held a stutter. I took a deep breath and motioned for him to sit with me. After a moment of hesitation, he sat down, and I looped his body into the furl of blankets he burritoed me in.

“Your clothes aren’t made for winter, just looking sexy as fuck. I have an actual coat on Echo, and I’m okay.”

I ignored him, pulling the end of the blanket and squishing him closer to me. His breath warmed my face, and he smelled like his usual scent with the added bonus of forest.

“This used to be one of my local hangouts,” he said, his voice barely audible over the wind outside.

“I hid some blankets last time I left. There’s some supplies to last the night hidden in the back of the broken toilet in the back.”

I looked at him. The realization that he hadn’t been able to see this place at all, just knew it existed because he…lived here?

“Were you the only one here?” I said quietly, surprised he even heard me.

“Nah. There were others.”

The light from the window flickered on his face, and I wondered what tattoos represented the other people he survived with. I traced my fingertip lightly on his pec through the jacket, my memory of a wolf inked there and broken boards in a mirage around it.

“Wolves…” I said, continuing to trace the pattern I remembered below my fingertips.

He gripped my hand in his, gently pressing it into his jacket and over the slightly raised lines of ink.

“Jacob,” he said, not looking at me, his hazel eyes lost in his past as he spoke. “We were hunting some hares and left them here so we could reload the traps, but when we came back, the boards were broken, and the windows were all open.”

I stayed silent, not removing my hand from his chest, his heart beating frantically under my palm.

“I told Jake not to go in,” he continued, a haunted story frozen on his face. “I told him we’d find somewhere else to go.”

His eyes blurred with unshed tears. Our memories were both tormenting us tonight.

“He wouldn’t listen. Said we’d have a chance to have food for months then the scraps we rarely caught.”

His breath was faster, the puffs of clouds creating a fog around us.

“Wolves had constantly taken the game from us, and Jake was mad. He went into the station with his knife.”

I felt sick knowing where this was going.

“I followed him, but it was too late. There wasn’t one wolf. It was a whole damn pack, and Jacob was no match for them. I fought as many as I could to get to him.”

Tears were crystallizing on his cheeks.

“His screams and begging me to help him were…yeah. I killed four, but the last one got me. I got bitten in the thigh.”

Flashes of shame and self-hatred swam in his eyes.

“I couldn’t move. I was bleeding badly. All I could do was watch Jake get dragged away by that goddamned wolf.”

I rubbed my hand over his chest, and he gripped me tighter.

“I chased the son of a bitch, and killed him with my bow and arrow, but Jake was already gone. I found all the pieces of his body and buried them outback, behind this place.”

I frowned. The defeat of losing a friend like that was unimaginable.

“I used the wolves’ blood to make the tattoo,” he said, his eyes burning with his anger.

“Eye for an eye?” I said, trying to calm him.

He shook his head slightly, bringing his other hand to hold my chin and lift my eyes to his. “Blood for blood.”