But not today.
Today, my OCD latched onto the vile ruin of Mercer’s home, and I couldn’t focus on anything else.
Brain. Gore.
Mess, mess, mess.
Pushing Pim away, I regretted the hurt I put on her face but couldn’t ignore the hated voices inside my head. They were a demanding lot—a cruel task master with the never-ending chant of clean, clean, clean.
But they were better than the blackness I’d sampled—the blackness I would never taste again. I accepted the punishment and hiccup in my thoughts, bowing beneath the pressure to obey.
I dragged my good hand through my hair, finding more bruises on my scalp than yesterday. “It’s too much. I need to clean.”
I had no products, no bleach, but I’d fallen down the slippery slope to the pit where I’d always hoped Pim would never see me. I wouldn’t be able to stop the compulsion until the mess was gone and everything righted the way it was before.
Throwing her a look of utter dismay and self-condemnation, I dragged my weary form back to Daishin and pulled at his ankles.
I’d done this.
I’d fix it.
Pim drifted closer as I commanded my depleted body to haul the dead man’s weight. The determination to toss him outside and stop him from marring this perfect family home was too loud to ignore.
Soft hands landed on my shoulder blades. “El.” Pim’s voice remained battered and bruised, stilted and stiff. “El, stop.”
“Can’t. Need to get it clean.”
“You need to rest. We all need to rest.”
I shook my head, tugging Daishin’s ankles once again, sliding his corpse through disgusting body fluids. “I’ll rest once it’s clean.”
Voices sounded behind me as someone guided Pim away from my angry jerks that weren’t quite strong enough to lug a body. Female voices murmured as a black shadow fell over Daishin, hinting I had company.
He didn’t touch me, but his French voice lowered with understanding rather than judgment. “It seems the men most bound by their passions are the worst to pay.” A hand wrapped around one of Daishin’s ankles, bumping me away until we each held one leg.
I didn’t like sharing tasks. This mess was because of me. I would be the one to clear it, but Mercer appeared in my vision, distorting my drive, my endless craving to disinfect.
I blinked, focusing just long enough to understand Mercer tried to offer me a lifeline before I drowned in compulsive complication.
He carried his own wounds and injuries from a night of fighting, but instead of condemning me or ridiculing me for a chemical unbalance I couldn’t change, he nodded as if my need to eradicate tonight wasn’t a stupid idea at all.
He didn’t smile, deadly serious and just as intense as he had been while killing trespassers in his home. “I have migraines. Had one ever since you entered my house. I get it, Prest. I’ll help you clean. And then…fuck, then I’m taking my esclave to bed and not coming out for days.”
Knowing he’d help me fix this slaughterhouse ought to have taken pressure off my rampaging need to clean, clean, clean, but just like I didn’t want help removing Daishin’s body, I didn’t want him taking away my other jobs.
I didn’t want help cleaning. I needed the sole responsibility—the gluttony of hard work. The utmost satisfaction of putting something right that I’d damaged.
Having his help ruined that.
Snatching my hands off Daishin’s ankle, I skipped to another chore I could do without his interference.
It was suddenly very, very important to my analytic brain. “I need to count them.”
Twenty plus Daishin.
There had better be twenty-one dead Chinmoku. Otherwise, my tired and agony-riddled brain might very well have a stroke and finish me off for them.
“Okay. Go count. I’ll ask my staff to help fix this catastrophe.” Mercer clapped me on the back, smiled at Pim, then wrapped his arm around his wife and vanished into the house.
I should be grateful.
I should thank him.
But I wasn’t grateful.
I was furious he’d stolen any hope at redemption.
Good riddance.
If I had the energy, I’d tear around cleaning before he had time to rally his help. But that was the point in all of this. I didn’t have the energy to do anything, and that made my brain even worse.
Franco and Selix stood by, no longer enemies but soldiers in the same war. I nodded at Selix, thanking him without words for what he’d done.
He nodded back, a quick salute to his temple before following Franco to find more cleaning gear.
Alone in the foyer with the dead leader of the faction I’d been terrified of with the woman I was now petrified of scaring away with my stupid fixating brain, I slowly turned to face her.
“Pim, I…”
What could I say? How could I explain the bone-deep need to clean this place from top to bottom? How could I admit that sleep would be impossible, rest, healing, sailing away—all of it utterly banned to me until I’d done this.