Page 35 of With Spite

“What tipped you off that it was all too good to be true?” Hux wondered.

“The last month of the year,” I said quietly. “He takes it all away. Then starts leaving you ‘gifts.’ Photos of you crying, mostly. When you lose what you thought was your perfect life.”

“You’re telling me that you’re the only known survivor of the Corpse Violator?” he asked. “You saw him. Could identify him. Then you disappeared before he could kill you?”

I nodded.

“You didn’t think to tell anyone this?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted. “I made sure to ask Apollo lots of questions, though, to ensure that I wouldn’t ever be found. Not by anyone. Not even the Corpse Violator.”

“Did you bring anything from your old life?” he asked.

“No. I left everything behind. Clothes. Shoes. Car. Money. I didn’t take anything. Not even my dog. I left him behind with a friend.”

He started cutting away again, so I started to stuff bags.

When I was done, and he’d cut the last of his meat, he started to clean up.

Everything was mostly spotless when he stripped off his gloves and took the tray of unsealed bags over to a large plastic dome-like thing and said, “Lay the bags in there. Open the side toward the entrance. Lay that little latch over the bag. Then press ‘SEAL.’”

I did, and he cleaned up the mess in the spot where I had been working.

I was four bags in before he caged me in with his large arms on either side of me.

“This isn’t something that you can keep quiet about,” he murmured into my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “I have full faith in Apollo’s abilities, but you can’t underestimate a psycho, Bernice. They’ll never stop. Not for anything at all. He’s probably still out there actively looking for you. All it might take is one fluke run-in, and he has you. We have to share this with the others.”

My shoulders slumped.

The secret had been slowly eating me alive for months.

He was right.

I knew he was right, which is likely why I told him.

Hux didn’t have any skin in this game.

He probably didn’t care about whether I lived or died.

But he did have family and friends here that could be affected.

I couldn’t keep holding on to this secret.

“Okay.”

He sighed, and I felt his breath on the skin of my neck.

It was surprisingly warm, which felt great against my chilled skin.

I was freezing.

Had been for going on an hour now.

I was practically standing in a freezer, handling nearly frozen meat.

But all it took was one huff of breath on his part, and I was feeling warm and tingly all over.

“We’re calling everyone once we get home,” he said.