Page 21 of Lethal Kiss

“Perhaps this isn’t a conversation for out in the open. Where are you headed?” Marcella tosses her head up the stairwell, gracefully tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. I notice the shell of it is dotted by diamonds, piercings from lobe to crest. What would it feel like to run a fingertip down them?

Tucking the impulse deep, I nod and start climbing again. “I study on the fifth floor when no one’s around. It’s kind of abandoned—I think it was servants’ quarters back in the day—and no one bothers me up there. No classrooms, and far too dusty. But you’re welcome.”

The ease at which I’m letting her into my sacred places! I chide myself silently, but my heart is thrumming in my veins because she cares about what I have to say and, like a child, I want to please someone, anyone. I want to hear one good thing about myself, because I haven’t in so long—even if it comes from her.

Marcella follows me silently up and up, spiraling around the staircase, the dizzying drop over the banister. When we finally reach the door to the fifth floor’s long corridor, I’m puffing and pretending like I’m not, taking deep breaths every few seconds as my heart hammers. Marcella, fresh as a new-cut rose, is of course perfect.

It’s maddening.

Marcella pulls the heavy wooden door open for me, a twinkle of a laugh in her voice. “After you, sweet Lacie.”

Cheeks reddening, I step through the door, and am greeted by a cloud of flies. They hum at my ears and I give a little squeak as they go not out into the stairwell, but into the hall.

Strange. An alarm bell rings distantly inside of me.

The lights are off all around us, blanketing the corridor in blackness. The hair raises on the back of my neck and I reach out, running a hand down the pebbled plaster, seeking the switch. Ah—there.

“Wait,” Marcella says, her voice a warning, a strong command.

My fingertips linger. “What?”

“Prepare yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

She makes a choked sound of concern. “I— Nothing.”

Odd, but whatever, maybe she gets migraines? “Okay, well, brace yourself. Turning them on now.” I flip the switch and for a second, my brain can’t put it together.

Red spatters the floor, spills dark and thick over the grody gray carpeting. There’s fabric, a random shoe? A shattered pair of horned-rimmed glasses, cast aside after having been thrown against the wall. I begin to step forward, pulse rattling, but Marcella grabs hold of my shoulder. Her fingernails dig hard into my flesh, but instead of yelping, I stop short.

I really look.

There, under the flickering, university-issued lighting from the ’80s, curled on her side. A frazzle of dark hair around her head. Her bag’s on the floor next to her other discarded shoe.

“It’s okay,” Marcella says, her voice whisper-soft at my back. “It’s okay. It will be. I promise you.”

A sob rises through my body, animal and screaming. I rip from Marcella’s grip and fall to my knees, damp slicking through my tights.

“Laurel! Laurel, wake up!” But the smell—the bloat splitting Laurel’s tweed skirt at a seam, spilling from her torn shirt—I turn and gag over my shoulder, and Marcella pushes past me, blocking my sight so I can scramble backward. Laurel’s face, it’s slit in two, torn half from her body, her swollen, bruised throat pocked with harsh—harsh bites?

My brain can’t wrap itself around her state. Maggots writhe inside of the cavities carved into her neck, wriggling helter-skelter through lax flesh.

“She’s been dead for days,” Marcella muses, strangely stoic. Maybe she’s in shock. “But this is not the work of men. Do you not think?”

“W-what?” I stutter out.

“All her blood is outside of her body. Quite interesting.” Marcella lowers her head toward Laurel’s neck, her lips pursed, her eyes wide.

“No!” I scream, hurtling forward to grab Marcella.

She grunts, dragging her gaze over my hand. “What are you doing?”

I release the expensive fabric of her suit, forehead slick with sweat. “This—this is a crime scene! Don’t touch her!”

I don’t know what I thought she was going to do. But for a single second, I was sure she was going to bite Laurel with those perfect flashing teeth.

Fuck. Fuck, what the fuck!