He doesn’t do that. Maybe he would have before I confessed what Theo did to me upstairs in our bed, but now he makes it personal. Rather than kill Theo quickly, he yanks his jeans down. I’m confused for a minute, then disgusted as Theo’s gross, flaccid penis flops on the floor.
Ugh, God, bleach isn’t even going to be good enough. We’re going to have to completely replace these floors.
Theo lets out a glass-shattering scream and I focus back on them just in time to see Brant repeatedly stabbing Theo in the dick. He’s not stabbing to hurt, either—he’s stabbing to sever. And he does. After Theo’s cries of pain devolve into pitiful, snotty sobs, I see Brant yank the severed member free. Theo lets out another pained sob as whatever flesh was still connecting it breaks free.
I grimace at the gross, bloody thing in Brant’s gloved hand, then I rear back as he squats down, pries Theo’s mouth open, and shoves it in.
Oh my.
I’ve seen quite enough. I hop down off the counter and make my way toward the door. Brant notices my movement and looks up at me, a flicker of concern in his eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“Yep,” I assure him. “You finish up in here, I’ll be right back. I’m just gonna go grab some baking soda.”
Brant frowns like I’m the crazy one. “Baking soda?”
I wave him off and step through the man door, pulling it shut behind me to give them some privacy.
Once I’m removed from the murder room where killing fools is relatively normal, a cool gust of wind hits me and sends a chill straight through me. I feel a little dizzy, now that I’m out here, but I suck it up and trek to the house.
I go to the laundry room first. I finished drying a load earlier, but I fell asleep before I could fold the clothes. Now I pull out some pants and a sweater and tug them on so I don’t freeze.
I also don’t want to go to our bedroom, and I’m a little worried about it. Part of the reason is I know there’s blood up there, but another part is just because of what happened with Theo.
Maybe I’ll feel safe going in our room again when I go with Brant, but I’m not ready to go in there by myself.
Shaking off the somber thought, I head to the kitchen and pull open the cupboard where I keep the baking soda. I use it a lot for cleaning, so I have two bags equaling seven whole pounds of it.
That should suffice.
I tuck a bag under each arm and then make the trek back out to the workshop.
Thankfully, by the time I get there, Theo has been more adequately murdered. At least it seems that way judging by the way Brant is dragging his motionless body back to the tarp.
“Is he really dead this time?”
“Oh yeah,” Brant assures me, standing and stretching out his back. “He’s good and dead this time.”
I nod and walk over to the table, carefully stepping over a blood puddle. “Why wasn’t he dead the first time?”
Brant looks a little ashamed all of a sudden. “I have to confess, I told you a lie. Or, I thought I did.”
I lift an eyebrow in question.
“I thought you did kill him. When I got home, he was still slumped over on the bed. I had to drag him down here in the bed clothes, bonked his head a bunch of times.” He shrugs, at a loss. “I thought for sure the fucker was dead, but I didn’t want you to think you killed a man, so… I fudged the truth a bit.”
“Huh,” I murmur, ripping the seal and opening the first bag of baking soda. “Well, I didn’t want to add to your body count, but to be honest, I am a little relieved I didn’t kill him.”
Brant nods, looking down at him. “Yeah, so am I.” Flicking a glance at me as I open the second bag of baking soda, he asks me, “What the hell is that for?”
“I don’t know if it will work, but I had an idea. Baking soda absorbs smells, right? And dead bodies start to smell after not too long. So, before you bury him, I thought we could sprinkle all this baking soda over him. That way Scout doesn’t accidentally dig him up, because that would be… truly awful.”
Brant gives me a look like he thinks I’m nuts. “I don’t think that’ll work.”
“You know, for a man who just stabbed someone’s dick off, you sure are giving me a lot of ‘You’re crazy’ looks tonight.”
Not at all ashamed, he tells me, “Choked the son of a bitch with it, too.”
“Well, I think we should try the baking soda thing. Either way, it can’t hurt, right?”