Page 74 of Insidious Heart
Along with all kinds of pamphlets and magazines, and a slew of photos—some Salinski himself are in—taped to the wall and neatly spread across his desk. I also made sure to pull up one of his videos on the desktop and pause it at the beginning, just in case his fellow officers want to get a good look at the way he drops in on those sex offenders he was tasked to check up on.
“What the fuck—”
“You have quite the collection, Officer Sack-linski.” Anthony drops his duffel as he spins toward me, his hand instinctively going to his hip, but he’s unarmed.Can’t satisfy those sick cravings with a big shiny gun getting in the way.“Probably should have hidden it better, though. Any old burglar could’ve broken in here and found it.”
He starts to lower his hands in front of him slowly, swallowing hard as his training kicks in. “Is that what you are? A burglar here to rob me?”
I tsk. “No,Anthony. Robbers rob, burglars burgle. You should know that.”
“Right, yeah. Sorry. So you’re a robber?”
I shake my head.
“A burglar?” The dipshit tries to clarify because clearly he still doesn't get it.
Another shake.
“Then, what are you doing in my house?”
I stay quiet as his eyes move over me; the solid black, industrial-grade hazmat suit, the tinted goggles over the hood, the multiple pairs of gloves on my hands, and shoe protectors on my feet. Anthony’s calm expression falters a little when his stare comes back to my face, and god, I wish he could see my evil grin. But the mask will suffice.
It definitely ties the entire ensemble together.
The mask I wear is in two parts.
The first layer is a simpler, more plain sort of KN95 with a breathing valve because it suctions to my skin and is worn under the hood while a more elaborate one attaches to it over the hood, keeping every inch of my skin one hundred percent covered and hidden.
And it looks like the nose and mouth of a demonic skeleton.
The Harvester of Bones was a more accurate nickname than the papers realized when they gave it to me. It’s almost too bad no one has lived to share that with them.
Oh well.
“Who are you?” Sack-linski asks as terror starts creeping into his features. “What do you want from me?”
I sigh as I push off the doorframe and step into the room, dropping my bag with a thud at my feet. “If you’re really too stupid to figure it out… “ I wait for a response but get nothing, so I continue. “I’m The Harvester of Bones, Officer, and I’ve come to collect.”
Anthony stares at me a little longer, his jaw slack while he just blinks.
That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.
Not that I was hoping the twatwaffle would ask for my autograph or something, but almost anything would be better than that.
Almost, because as soon as it sinks in, Sack-linski lunges at me—another reaction I didn’t want—and tries to gore me like a drunk, mute minotaur charging through a maze.
He makes contact, but not until after he trips over his bag, bounces off the end of his bed, nearly crashes into a dresser, then rebounds at the last second.
Idiot.
Anthony’s momentum suffers because of the pinball effect, but he plows into me anyway, sending me backward a couple of steps before I grab the door and muscle him back into the room.
He leaps like a fucking gazelle over his bed and dives for the nightstand, the squirrelly little fucker faster on his feet than anticipated, and when he spins toward me he’s aiming a .45 at my face.
“Stop,” Salinski barks, his hands trembling. “Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”
I grin to myself as I raise my hands and take a step forward. “Oh,Anthony, you can’t be serious right now.”
He nods firmly and flexes his finger against the trigger. “I mean it. You come any closer and I’ll shoot.”
