Page 162 of Lau Ahi
“You’ll beg me to help you but not her? That’s an insult to my fiancée. You see what underestimating her once got you: a fucking leaking gut.”
“I’m sorry just call someone.”
“Nah. I’d rather show her how good a team we are when we work together.” Ori gave me a wink before turning and swinging his fist as hard as he could into Wilbur’s face. The crack was instant, his knees buckling beneath him as he swung around from the blow. Ori didn’t let up pouncing on the man with a fury that was the opposite of the well composed almost flat affect man that I’d observed the last nine months. I’d seen it peek out once when he’d gotten Anderson together but this was a berserker off leash. His fists moved in tandem each landing a blow against his face that further dented the bone structure beneath. When he had done too much damage for the hits to be satisfying enough to his face he began to stomp the knife further into his stomach grunting with each hit that he landed. He still looked unsatisfied and what he did shocked me to my core. He removed the knife out of Wilbur’s stomach, which took some effort since it seemed lodged in his spine and then began to cut at his hands. I was mesmerized at the efficient way he moved, almost emotionless, his brain shut off and he was simply going about his task. When he had both hands cut free from his body, he stabbed them until they were little more than minced meat.
Wilbur was on the floor a bloody mess, and I couldn’t help but feel relieved.
“I’ll get this cleaned up.”
I’d been looking at the body and hadn’t noticed that he’d been watching me. He looked entirely too calm when he was pulling his shirt off his body before but now he was using it to wipe his face free of blood. His face had gone back to the normal passive way he looked, ignoring that we had a dead body at our feet.
“Of course you will. I most certainly won’t.”
It was all I could do to maintain my composure and being rude to Ori was the best way to feel normal. The corner of hislip quirked and I marveled at how much better he’d been at his attempts to smile.
“A thank you would’ve been better.”
“Thank you? Whatever you did was the reason he came after me. You all had words but you didn’t feel the need to tell me about it?”
“So I did this?” Ori pointed down to the body angrily.
“You know what I mean. He did this because he’s fucked in the head. But you don’t have to overreach with whatever machismo you displayed just because you woke up alone!”
“You think my ego had something to do with this? That I saw that someone else desired you and I was losing my shit?”
“Isn’t that what it was?”
“No! I saw someone treating you the same way you thought I would and I got angry. Angry because you run into this as your reality and it’s made you hate everyone because of it. He had the nerve to lay claim on you and tried to warn me away.” Ori’s eyes were narrowed again insulted by my words and Wilbur’s action.
“But I still shouldn’t have been warned?”
I hated feeling as though someone else was trying to control my steps and not give me the information I needed to protect myself. I hadn’t thought about Wilbur since I hadn’t been atExplicitor on the site.
“You have a problem with me getting people in here to help with disposal?” Avoidance. He wasn’t going to apologize for how he was moving and it only infuriated me more.
“Not at all. You live here as well so have fun with whomever you want to bring here.”
His brow quirked as confusion clouded his harsh features. “Where are you going?”
I laughed and looked down at the mess he’d made on the rug.
“You didn’t think I was going to help you, did you? Silly man. The way I wanted to do all of this was for it to be a nice controlleddeath without all the blood splatter. You broke every bone in his face and turned his hands into mincemeat. The deep cleaning you’re going to need for this place is beyond what I could do. I’m just glad this didn’t happen in the living room or the closet. Most of my pieces are one of a kind.”
It was fracturing again. My brain was compartmentalizing everything yet again. I needed space to process this and I wouldn’t get it if I stayed close to him. He would push and hover when I needed silence.
“We’ll check the entire room for blood splatter.”
I appreciated his thoroughness but cleaning was the least of my worries. “Find someone to sage this place too. The last thing I want is his spirit getting trapped here.”
“I’ll kill a ghost if he attempts to stick around and sneak a peek.” An attempt at a joke, which I appreciated but it wasn’t necessary.
“As if I could give a damn about a spirit harming me. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being in my presence even in ghost form. He doesn’t deserve it. ”
“Guess we’ll be pulling out the haint blue whenever we decorate this room.” He looked around at the bare walls that were dotted with blood splatter and probably brain matter.
“More than happy to leave the task up to you. I’ve got more important things to do right now.”
He focused on me as if now was the moment I was going to fall apart. As if I would so dramatic as to announce it. “Like what?”
