Page 15 of Grave Love

I shrug. “I want to go home?”

“Why? So you can sneak out of your grandmother’s house again?”

My cheeks burn. I jerk my head toward him, and he smirks at me, so damn smug my skin crawls. How does he know that I live with my grandmother? Is he making fun of me?

Screw this.

I angle toward the parking lot, ready to get the hell out. He grabs my arm.

“You can’t leave. Not when I’ve seen you here,” he says, his words slow and methodical. “You broke in after hours.”

I keep still, facing the street. A car passes without the driver noticing us.

“So did you,” I say.

“We both know thatyouwere the one who broke into the funeral home first.Youwere the one who vandalized Ms. Smith’s body for your own sexual gratification,” he chuckles. “I just happened to find you. It’s not your first time now, is it?”

Ice floods my veins. He knows.

He’s been watching me.

Why?

What does he want from me?

A million thoughts war in my mind. My consciousness bounces back and forth, trying to find clarity in it all, but finding none.

Anger throbs in my temples, melting the fear inside of me.

No. Thisisn’tover. He doesn’t get to decide how this ends.

“You fucked me, pretending like I was a corpse when youknewI wasn’t dead,” I rasp. “Yourapedme.”

Pride lingers at the corners of his lips. He lifts his chin, looking down at me.

“Rape,” he murmurs. “Such a strong word for what we did. The way you were so compliant. So willing. Soreactiveto everything I did.” He licks his bottom lip and my eyes betray me, following his rough tongue against those pale pink lips. “Go ahead, love. Tell Denise that I raped you after hours, and I’ll tell her exactly what you were doing here. How you’ve been sneaking into Last Spring for weeks now. For all I know, it’s been months.Yearsbefore I even stepped foot into this town. What have you been doing all of this time? Stealing? Changing payroll? Making more work for yourself so you can keep your job? Oh no—it’s worse than that, isn’t it? You’ve been desecrating bodies, and if the clients find out, you’ll be burned alive. You know how this town gets.” He clicks his teeth. “Is that what you want, little corpse? To destroy everything in your wake, including yourself?”

A shudder ripples through me. Stubble marks his jaw, his facial structure angular, almost like he’s been hacked from a thick piece of wood. Splintered. Frayed. An old tree carved into the shape of a body, the core rotting inside.

Cloaked in black, towering over me, he’s not a handsome man; he’s frightening. The kind of man you’d cross the street to get away from him. A violent ghost shrouded in a human’s skin.

He’s got me pinned under his claws, and we both know it.

“What do you want from me?” I whisper.

He grins, his head dipping down just enough to meet my gaze. “You want to die, don’t you?”

My jaw is tight. “What?”

“I see it in your eyes. The way you stare at the retorts while the bodies burn. The jealousy in your eyes when you see the corpses in the caskets. How you long to be one of those cooled bodies in the refrigeration units. Be honest with me, Ren. You want to die, but it’s not that simple, is it?”

Visions of the open caskets flash before me—

The embalming botched like a caricature.

The bloated body I put into the retort yesterday.

The dead woman my age—Ms. Smith—how bruised she was when she died.