Page 12 of Deviants
Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, I moved on. The next room was plain with no real character to it. There was an old basketball in the middle of the floor and a weathered desk beside a window. The first door across the hall revealed a small bathroom. The final room was where the bodies were.
A man, a woman, and an adolescent boy lay on the floor. All three had bullet holes in the center of their foreheads.
The little girl from the pictures was missing. I knew she wasn’t inside the house, which meant she was more than likely taken or dead somewhere in the woods.
“Who do you think did this?” Tito asked from behind me.
Crouching down, I reached my hand out and swirled two dirt clad fingers in the blood to get an idea of the texture, ignoring the sound Tito made in his throat. Next, I stroked the man’s face. His skin was taut but rigor mortis hadn’t fully set in yet, and the room was lacking the smell that came with decaying bodies.
“It wasn’t Romero or his people, if that’s what you’re thinking, and they haven’t been dead for very long,” I responded, standing up.
“How do you know any of that?”
“Because I’m an expert when it comes to death, and no one was tortured. There’s also no inverted cross or sigil anywhere, and you know the Savages always leave behind a charming token of their presence.”
Stepping back, I turned around and walked out of the room to head back downstairs.
“And the little girl?” Tito asked, following me.
“She’s obviously not here.”
“Okay, so what do we do about that?”
“Youcan do whatever you want. I’m going to raid the cabinets for food and sleep in one of those beds.”
Turning the kitchen sink on, I grabbed some soap and began washing my hands, scrubbing beneath my nails.
“Are you serious?”
“What do you suppose I do? Go hunt down whoever took her so I can be the next to get a piece of metal in my brain?”
He didn’t respond, so I dried my hands on a cloth towel and then busied myself finding something to eat. I ended up with two pathetic pieces of wheat bread, a dish of strawberries from the fridge, and water from the tap.
“Look, I’m hungry, I’m tired, and so are you. There’s food, and there’s a place to sleep here. Sounds like two plus two to me.”
“Yeah, and the people who lived here are all upstairs.”
“Well, until they ask us to leave, I’m sure they won’t mind,” I quipped over my shoulder, heading back to the upper level.
The heavy contempt in his voice every time he spoke to me grounded what was left of my nerves down to my brittle bones, and I had no energy left for a battle of words.
I made my way into the room with the desk and sat the pitiful lackluster meal on the bed. It took me fewer than five minutes to consume my food and chug the water.
I could hear Tito grumbling to himself when I got back up to shut the door. I’d left him some bread and strawberries so he’d have something to eat; he should be grateful and kissing my ass for not gutting him with the kitchen knives.
Grabbing the desk chair, I positioned it beneath the bedroom doorknob when I saw there wasn’t a lock.
Plopping down on the bed with a heavy sigh, I shut my eyes to revel in the feel of a mattress beneath my back instead of dirt or concrete.
The shower across the hall beckoned and my feet screamed to be free of my worn down boots, but with the bodies across the hall, I felt better being completely clothed. Letting my guard down wouldn’t be the wisest thing to do. If shit were to hit the fan, being ass naked or barefoot wouldn’t do me any favors.
I stared up at the white textured ceiling, my muddled mind sloshing in every direction. Even beyond the brink of exhaustion, sleep still chose to evade me and insomnia taunted. I didn’t have this issue when I slept with Romero.
Frustrated, I threw an arm over my face and tried to force myself to a dreamland.
I could still feel Tito’s disappointed eyes on me. He assumed I was a heartless bitch for not showing anguish over the missing girl.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care; on the contrary, the situation had memories trying to resurface from when I was younger that I was doing my best to suppress.
