That would be a lie.
Looking down at Lenny’s bloody body, I realized I had at least one reason to try and cull those—the lies that had spread between us like weeds.
Truth was, all that had changed inside me was now I was used to it. I’d grown accustomed to the sounds of death the way some grew accustomed to the sound of wind. Didn’t mean it didn’t affect me. Their faces and their last words were forever imprinted on me. Some days I wondered if a kill would break my soul free completely, if there would be one final tremor to break free that which held the nearly deadened thing together.
I quickly shook the image of me buckling Lenny into her seat, my hands still wet with blood. Images like those are pernicious; they’re the kind of images that will quickly break you—like when you have to put a bullet in the temple of a kid, you remember how surprised he looks.
When the mom finds the kid, the sound she makes is unlike any other. The scream marks itself forever on your ears. It’s a unique sound, a wailing, haunted…surprised sound.
So yeah, I don’t remember those things.
With Lenny safe and buckled, I zipped out just as the sirens began to sound. I looked in the rearview mirror at her sleeping body, thinking back to the beginning.
Lennox had burrowed herself inside me long before I acknowledged it myself. When she first moved in, I would walk along her hallway, never questioning why. One night I was walking the hallway and I heard a scream and a crash. Instantly my body constricted, my blood blistered. It was the first taste I had of that powerful, possessive ache I would come to know as the side effect of my love for Lenny.
I tried to forget her.
But I couldn’t.
Just the thought that something was wrong sent my head into a tailspin. I broke into her room without reason or thought of consequence. She looked so scared, her red hair falling around her pale face. I quickly assessed that nothing was wrong—well nothing externally. Internally, it was obvious. She was haunted by nightmares.
I could relate.
I didn’t even pay attention to how little she wore—well, I didn’t pay too much attention. She was dressed in a thin lacy bra, but even though her tits were practically begging to be touched, it was her eyes that had me captivated. They were shadowed, haunted. Deep beneath the cobalt depths lurked a sinister reality.
Sanity would have had me turning away, shutting the door, and locking her out of my life, but there was no sanity between Lennox and me. I had been drawn to her then the same way I was drawn to her now. Even though she was only asleep in the back seat of the car, I felt the urge to keep checking the mirror, as if she would suddenly up and vanish into smoke.
Home wasn’t safe any more, not as long as Alice still breathed, so I skipped through Santa Barbara, drove through Santa Maria, and was in San Luis Obispo just as the sun was rising. Lenny still hadn’t woken.
If I hadn’t realized then by the frequent patrols I made outside her apartment—I was basically one step below stalker—and if I hadn’t realized the night I stayed at her place, watching over her like some hardened sentry, I should have the day I invited Lenny to my “cabin”.
It wasn’t a cabin: it was my safe house. Secluded in the mountains behind San Luis Obispo, I’d never brought anyone there, much less a woman I barely knew. By that point it was obvious to me Lenny was hiding something, but I was so preoccupied trying to feign that nothing was happening between us, I never looked into it. Maybe if I had and I had used company resources then instead after all was said and done, it would have turned out differently. Alice never would have discovered Lennox. Dean never would have faced the blunt arm of GEM. And maybe I could have saved Lenny from all of it, even from me.
Especially from me.
I pulled into the garage, momentarily stopping the deluge of flashbacks.
Lenny was still sleeping in the back, she hadn’t even woken for a moment in the hours it had taken to get here. I got out of the car just as the garage door closed behind me, shutting out the now risen sun. Then I opened the passenger door.
Lenny lay sprawled out in nearly the exact same position I’d put her. Leaning forward, I put my bodyweight on the hood of the car as I examined her. Her leg was draped over the seat, her arm across her chest, her red hair messy and all over the place. It was a good thing I invested in the leather because it would be a lot easier to clean out the blood.
I lifted her into my arms. Even though she was basically dead weight, it still felt like nothing. She drowsily curled into my chest.
Looking back, I realized when I’d first invited her to my cabin I’d kicked down a domino that knocked down the entire chain. I should have realized then I was sending out an invitation I could never take back, but the day before she’d just unveiled a part of herself that made her more naked than any flesh. She’d told me secrets about herself that had opened her up like a lily. I’d felt compelled. Then again, with Lenny, compulsion seemed to be the name of the game.
I was playing with fire then. It was like I thought I could keep stoking the flame, thought I could continue to get warmed by it, build it bigger and grander, and nothing would get burned. Lenny was so magnificent; I wanted to see where it would lead me. I wanted to see what color her fire blazed.
The trip had ended when she’d tried to kiss me. She got on top of me, she took her shirt off, and she was more beautiful than my imagination had dared to dream. The fire licked my skin and I ran scared. The emotions she stoked in me were too big to rein in or control. The things she promised to unleash in me were beyond what I had promised myself. And then there was GEM. There would always be GEM, and to unleash that on Lenny was unfair. It was borderline cruel.
I’d pushed her off me and she lashed me with her tongue. That wasn’t the end of it, though, because I’d had a taste of it, of Lenny.
And Lenny was addiction.
Now as I walked up the steps to my cabin, looking down at her pale face, I was just as enthralled as I had been then. She was my Lenny. She would always be my Lenny, but I couldn’t keep putting her in danger.
I laid Lenny down on the couch in my office. I would have put her in the bedroom, but I wanted her near me and I needed to work. I needed to find out if our friends and family were safe. I needed to see if we were safe. I needed to fucking figure out a plan…but she still hadn’t woken up.
Her lips were full, pouty, and effortless. Her eyebrows were unknit and her skin unwrinkled. I’d cleaned her wounds and the entire time she slept. She looked peaceful, and that had me uneasy. As I called Lissie and Zoe to check on their safety, a single red lock fell to her cheek.