Page 93 of Grave Love

Ren’s hair is still locked inside of the top compartment.

I take out her hair. Let it drop on the floor. The long strands spread across the hardwood, like the legs of a spider too proud to crawl to safety, even when it sees a human’s crushing fist.

Ren pants in the other room. Scared.

I’m scared too.

Fuck.

The chain links clink together. The cuffs thud on the mattress. The bed springs creak.

Footsteps fill the hallway.

Even if I forced her to stay, locking her in this house with me, she’s already gone.

The front door opens.

Stay,I think.Please stay.

The door slams behind her, her choice loud and clear.

It’s her choice.

I don’t stop her.

Chapter34

Ren

Day after day,it’s a slump, rolling over from one day to the next. The tears form; they don’t fall. My mind is a groggy mess full of thoughts that never finish. It’s like I’m looking over the edge, waiting for that moment when I know it’s time to take that final step.

My stomach growls, and sometimes, I satiate its incessant cries with coffee, and sometimes, I ignore it. Sometimes, I don’t even shower before I start my shift. All the energy I have goes into work.

Take the body from the refrigeration unit.

Turn on the machine.

Place the body on the conveyor belt.

Burn the body.

Every day, I stare. My eyes focus on everything above me, like I’m another corpse lying in the ground. Staring up at the sky. Sprawled on the conveyor belt, inching into the retort.

Everything bleeds into the next, and I can’t keep anything straight.

“I understand that you’re going through a tough time,” Mrs. Richmond says, her voice muffled through the bedroom door. “Really, I do. But you need to get on with it. You have a job, Ren. You’re lucky your boss and I are on good terms; otherwise, you’d be fired, and you already can’t handle the late fees on your loan payments.” She scoffs. “I can’t keep doing this for you.”

All of those promises that things would be different, now that I stood up to her, vanish.

Life goes on.

Every once in a while, my stare shifts in front of me. The empty doorway. The cemetery. As if I’m searching for someone. Waiting for Blaze.

Do I really care, though?

At the end of the eighth day, a new person—a small woman with a pixie cut—smiles at me as she heads to the back exit. I barely nod at her. A few minutes later, the excavator rumbles outside, like a beast emerging from a cave. My temperature elevates like I’m the one cooking inside the retort.

The loss settles inside of me. An empty husk.