Page 88 of Pink Ink

Reyna is full of blushes today. Only this time, she turns her face away in an attempt to hide that she’s biting her lip.

She pauses next to the corner table at the end of the couch and motions at the sleek black object beneath the lamp. “An hourglass symbolizes the afterlife, but there’s no sand. It’s not that the subject’s time is up; there’s nothing else for him beyond death.”

Her shoe coverings rustle against the bloodstained carpet as she ducks down and peers up beneath the lampshade.

“No light bulb.” She nods to herself like she’s confirming what she already knew. “The banks of the River Styx where the souls who can’t pay are left to wander are often described as being dark. Hence no light bulb.”

Eight out of ten. She’ll get the next two points if she can guess the other reference.

There’s a stone from the garden beside the shoe rack in the entranceway. The bulb beneath the fake tree in the dining room is also missing. In his bedroom, I’ve left out a white hoodie for him on his bed, and a black one in his car.

It’s my personal take onIsle of the Deadby Arnold Böcklin.

My personal favorite is the fifth version; however, I believe that’s too specific to expect Reyna to figure out.

She hasn’t noticed that not all of what’s on the wall is blood either. Exhilaration floods through me as I glance at the drops of pink ink I’ve splattered around the room. It’s washed out against the red, but I know it’s there. The evidence of our kinship, and the risk of losing it all if she were to see me in the art I made for us.

“What’s this?” I say, pointing at discoloration in the carpet, because I’m an utter fool when it comes to her. I want her to see me.

Reyna crouches to peer closer. She squints, and I really do try not to grin as she says, “I don’t know, but it looks slightly… pink?” She makes a sound of contemplation. “There could have been chemicals here that made the blood oxidize or whatever they call it. I’m not a scientist.”

Three out of ten. But because she never touched it, showed her working, and is so enjoyable to be around, I’ll give her an eight.

I scroll to the next picture on her phone to find a wide view of the scene with Jeremy missing his hands and ears. The cuts are far from clean, more like he was torn apart by an animal.

Jeremy was perfectly silent and pliant as I carried out my experiment. I took a page out of Reyna’s book and found a drug that paralyzed him. “What type of weapon do you think he used?” She steps away from a nearby shelf to come up to my side in front of where the body was found. The bloodstains are the worst here. “The coroner’s report states the killer used three different weapons.”

“I don’t care about the doctor’s opinion. I want to know what you think.”

“I’m not qualified to answer that.”

Cop-out. She has opinions.

“Humor me.” I’ll give out extra marks.

The browns in her eyes brighten. “Well, the report said a serrated blade was used. I mean, here—” She comes closer to scroll through the photos until she finds pictures of his head. “It looks like his ear was ripped off. It’s messy.”

“Not impressed?” I’ll have her know it was difficult to cut off body parts with a bread knife.

But she was right. It was rather comedic.

“It’s not that. I’m struggling to think of the messaging behind it. That he’s heard something he shouldn’t? Fallen for rumors, maybe? Grégoire Guérard has a painting based on a passage where Peter cuts off a man’s ear, but if memory serves, the story behind it came down to mistakenly acting in defense of another.”

Close, but not quite.

Depending on who you speak to, in the ancient story, Peter cut the servant’s ear off to insult a high priest. In this instance, I’m only insulting Jeremy because he’s a fucking cunt. He’s Roland, but if Roland knew how to cook.

Plus, she may as well call me a fan of her work, because this part was inspired by her take on hearing no evil and the rule of three. Frankly, Reyna is a more creative killer than I am.

“And the hands?” I scroll back to the previous photo.

In the interest of fairness and symmetry, I felt it wise to cut off the same limb at the same angle, from the same spot right below the wrist, using a different tool.

“I think he’s trying to say that the subject carried out wrong with his hands while he was alive—maybe because of what he heard—and continuing with the theme of the afterlife, it could be so that he can’t commit those harms there too.”

I don’t think I’ll ever have the heart to tell her that I just wanted to cut one side of him with a coping saw and the other with a bread knife because of our discussion in the library. The latter was far more efficient at carrying out dismemberments. But both were equally terrible for the task. It was purely experimental for our mutual benefit.

I appreciate her blowing smoke up my arse either way.