"What the fuck?"
Chapter 10
There'snothingleftinsideof me. No blood, no vomit, no heartbeat. No pain, no fear, no cold or hunger.
But there is something that was left in the wake of all of that disappearing... something that fills my veins where my blood used to flow, that pulses in place of my heart, that fills me more than anything ever has.
Rage.
I'm dead, and I'm fucking pissed.
Waking up dead was not on my BINGO card for this year, but I could have gotten over it if I accidentally dropped a toaster in the bathtub or walked off a cliff thinking there was ground beneath me.
I could have lived with being dead, metaphorically speaking, if it had happened in a different way. Fuck, I've thought of all the ways to die, considered doing it myself more than once, catalogued what would be worse from decompression sickness, to burning alive, to being shredded by a woodchipper. Morbid thoughts, maybe, but don't deny you've never had them.
Of all the painful, quick, painless, violent, peaceful deaths that I could have had, I gotthis?
If I could feel anything past the rage, it would probably be humiliation. I remember every detail of what they did to me. I remember how it felt; the pain and the injustice, the fear and the sickness, the hope that they'd have some compassion and put an end to it rather than letting it continue to the point it did.
But humiliation is a human emotion.
And whatever the fuck I am now, it's not human. I was, before I died... before they killed me.
Now, I'm fucking wrath.
Spade watches me with wide eyes as I pace the floor, my shoulders heaving with ragged breaths that I don't know why I'm taking if I’m dead and don’t need to breathe. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
I don't know exactly when I died.
The last thing I remember is telling Krowe my name, how he kept calling me new girl, Jackson's hand inside of me... I think that was my tipping point. I blacked out after that, because I don't remember anything before waking up— dead— in bed next to a fucking ghost who didn't realize he's a ghost.
"Tell me how you found me." I say again. "Every detail, this time."
Spade lets out a sigh. He’s already told me multiple times, but I need to be able to see how he found me. I want to know how I died, and that means I need to know everything he witnessed.
"Tied to the stake with rope. You were naked... covered in vomit and dirt, blood and cum, straw and piss and..."
He stops talking to swallow his words before he can let them out.
"What?" I prompt him.
"I... think maybe feces, too."
"What?" I blink. "Shit?"
He cringes, and I realize I'm in his face. I don't know what he thinks I'm going to do; it's not like it would hurt if I punched him. Besides, I asked him to tell me.
I take a small breath, then laugh when I realize it's irrelevant.
How the fuck do you calm yourself down when you're a ghost? I guess meditation is out.
"I think it was yours, if that helps."
"No." I tell him coldly. "It absolutely doesn't."
Spade nods. "You were so cold that I knew I had to warm you quickly. But when I was going to the house, I heard a guy say something, and I turned and saw him, and I knew he played a part."
"And you did what with him?"
