Page 11 of Six for Gold (The Magpie Rhyme #6)

C had didn’t return with Josh in tow, and the car parked up outside didn’t take off down the track meaning Chad and Josh must’ve gone inside.

Romeo drank the water, used the bucket, then grabbed the crossword puzzle.

Chad had given him one recently sharpened pencil in the bottom of the washing up bowl. Romeo often grew exasperated with Chad for filling the puzzles out in pen, being so certain he had the right word before finding out later on he’d been mistaken. It led to a messy page and more often than not an abandoned crossword and a grumpy Romeo.

Chad was very good at apologizing and cheering him up again...

Romeo suspected Chad did it on purpose.

He wrapped the duvet around himself and began the first puzzle in the book.

By his tenth completed puzzle, boredom had morphed into throbbing temples and scratchy eyes.

It was infuriating not knowing how much time had passed, and Romeo wondered whether it stressed out Mercutio half as much as it stressed out himself. Chad never left Mercutio on his own for more than four hours. Romeo assumed he would be given the same treatment, but at a guess, five long hours had passed.

His ears perked at the voices outside, Josh and Chad saying goodbye to each other.

An engine rumbled to life, Josh called out goodbye a few more times, then left.

Romeo stared at the door, coiling like a snake, as he waited for Chad to reappear. He knew he was out there, standing on the concrete, no doubt making sure Josh had gone completely.

But he didn’t come inside.

Romeo was concentrating so hard he heard the bang of the front door shutting.

Chad had gone back into the house.

Romeo sighed, dropping the puzzle book, and relaxing all his tensed up muscles with a huff.

He checked his hand again. It burned like it was on fire and his wrist and his fingers felt tight and stiff. No tendon had been cut. The blade had sliced through muscle. Thanks to Romeo’s sharp knives it was a clean wound, or it had been until he’d ended up in the mud. Romeo’s hand trembled wildly as he tried to assess the damage. It was his right hand. His preferred hand for both pleasure and murder. He studied his palm as he held it out in front of him, fingers and thumb curled to receive a throat.

Chad’s throat.

As soon as he flexed, pain burned through his hand.

His head snapped up at the knock on the door.

Chad stepped inside with another tray. He kneeled down before sliding it within Romeo’s reach. He squinted at the toast. Romeo could see both butter and marmite on the two slices. Chad couldn’t remember much, but apparently, he could remember how Romeo liked his toast. He wondered whether it was memory or instinct when he’d been faced with a cupboard full of toppings. Chad preferred the sweet—the jam, the honey, but Romeo preferred savory.

“Does it hurt?” Chad asked.

It took a few moments for Romeo’s brain to boot up again, then he looked down at his hand. “Yes.” His fingers twitched. “It needs stitches.”

Chad snorted softly. “I can get you a needle and thread, but you’ll have to do it yourself.”

“You won’t help me?”

“I won’t put myself within your reach,” Chad said with a sad smile, “Not when you’ve made it clear you want to kill me.”

“Fine. I’ll take your needle and thread. It’s not like I haven’t stitched myself up before.”

Chad cocked his head. “When have you stitched yourself up?”

Romeo refused to answer. He had stitched his bicep after it got ripped open from a spray of shotgun pellets, but this Chad didn’t need to know that. That wound had been easy to stitch, only needing Romeo to pass the innocent looking needle through his skin four times, but this was much bigger, and in a more delicate area for sure, but the longer it was left, the worse it would heal.

Chad sighed, then got up and left.

Romeo slipped off the bench seat and crouched on the ground to eat his toast.

It was perfect. The perfect crunch. The perfect ratio of butter and marmite.

It made him hate this Chad even more.

Chad returned with a Tupperware box full of threads and a bottle of gin. He slid the box over.

“I sterilized the needle. And there’s a wad of kitchen towel in there, soaked in salt water for you to clean the wound.”

“I assumed the gin was for the wound?”

Chad shrugged. “I thought you might want to drink it. You know ... for the pain.”

Romeo didn’t reply.

“Ally will be here soon. They don’t like to leave me alone for too long.”

“Can you blame them?”

Chad bowed his head. “She’s taking me to my therapy session. I told her I can take myself but she’s adamant she drives me. I’ll be gone a few hours, possibly more if we go back to her place.”

Romeo didn’t verbally react, but he nodded, once.

He’d witnessed Chad like this before whenever he was going to work. He’d kiss Romeo goodbye, but crouch down and offer up Mercutio an explanation on why he was leaving and give an estimated time frame of when he’d be back. Romeo had always thought it odd considering Mercutio didn’t have a clue what Chad was on about, but he was grateful for it now.

“Can you change my bucket first?” Romeo asked, tilting his head towards it.

Chad recoiled. “Um. Yeah. Sure.”

Romeo slid it across the floor, then backed off for Chad to get it.

Chad disappeared, returning five minutes later with a clean bucket that smelled lemon fresh.

He turned to leave.

“And a toilet roll.” Romeo said.

Chad frowned. “I swore I gave you one.”

“No. You didn’t.”

It was childish. Romeo had the toilet roll. Chad had absentmindedly rolled it back to him the night before. It was beneath the pillow on the floor, but Chad scurried off to find him another.

Chad threw two rolls to him when he came back.

Romeo caught one against his chest. The other bounced on the ground. “And some soap...”

“I gave you bodywash.”

Romeo’s nod was patronizing. “Which is different to soap.”

“Fine,” Chad snapped, stalking out.

He returned with a bar of soap, then left before Romeo could make any more demands.

Romeo slumped.

He waited, for what felt like hours, for another car.

It came.

Eventually.

Ally announced her presence by beeping the horn several times.

The engine continued to rumble as she waited, then it faded back the way it had come, presumably with Chad inside.

Romeo grit his teeth and glanced down at the hand he’d been cradling against his chest.

He gingerly dabbed his hand with the damp kitchen towel before growing woozy with pain and having to stop. He leaned his back against the central column of the gym. If he was to pass out, he didn’t want to knock his head as he fell.

The salt stung. He paused and bit into the padding on the bench beside him every time it got too much, then had to wait for the room to stop spinning.

He held his hand out above the ground, savaging his bottom lip with his teeth, and poured some of the gin over the wound. Romeo tasted blood. It was slippery on his teeth. He resisted the urge to tuck his hand close to his muddy t-shirt again and rode out the wave of agony.

When it had faded, he swigged from the bottle, only to hiss as his lip stung.

He ran a finger over the threads before choosing a red one from the box.

Then his painful prep hit a colossal roadblock.

He couldn’t thread the needle one handed.

Despite how many times he tried, jabbing the thread at the eye while the needle lay at the bottom of the box, he couldn’t do it. The thread predictably frayed. Romeo growled, picking a different thread. He tried holding the needle between his teeth to keep it still and thread it, but it was too close to his face to see properly.

He stabbed the needle into the padding of the bench, and tried to pass the thread through the eye, but his left hand wasn’t as steady as his dominant right, and the one time he managed to get it through, it soon dropped out.

Romeo flung the needle across the outhouse. It pinged somewhere near the door, but he couldn’t see it against the grey concrete.

“Damn it.”

He wrapped his hand up in a fresh bandage, then slumped against the gym with his eyes closed, waiting for Chad to return.

****

“A ll sorted?” Chad asked from the doorway.

Romeo glared at him. It felt like a day had passed. His stomach had given up demanding food. The over-tighness in his hand had spread down to his elbow.

“No. I need help to stitch it.”

“And I’m not that stupid.” Chad stepped inside and shut the door behind him.

“I couldn’t thread the needle.”

Chad frowned. “Oh.” He nipped his lip. “I’ll get you another, and thread it for you.”

He turned to leave. Romeo had an irrational urge to ask him not to go, but he managed to control it and pressed his lips in a firm line.

Chad returned with a new needle pinched between his thumb and forefinger.

“Shove the threads over here.”

Romeo hesitated before doing as Chad asked.

He threaded the needle with ease, set it down in the box, then slid it back.

Chad waited.

Romeo narrowed his eyes. “If you’re expecting a thank you, you’ll be there a long time.”

“I’m not expecting anything,” Chad said, sitting down on the floor.

Romeo eyed him. He looked tired.

“How was your session with Keeley?”

Chad shrugged. “Slow. Stop, start.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re not used to each other anymore. I don’t know how I’m supposed to act, or what I’m supposed to talk about.” He sighed. “She’s trying to get me to relax, but...”

“But what?”

“It makes me uncomfortable. I’m worried if I let my guard down, I might accidentally mention I’ve got a serial killer chained up in my outhouse.”

“My Chad never slipped up with Keeley.”

“ My Chad ... I am your Chad.”

“Did your heart stop?”

Chad nodded. “Yes—

“Then you’re definitely not my Chad anymore.”

“That’s not...” Chad squeezed his eyes shut. He reopened them. “Are you fixing your hand or what?”

Romeo exhaled a long breath as he unwrapped his hand.

Chad hissed when he saw the wound.

“It’ll probably scar.”

“I have my fair share of scars,” Romeo replied.

The most obvious scar he had was on his face beneath his right eye.

“Me, too.” Chad said softy.

Romeo paused.

Numbers covered Chad’s torso courtesy of Marc Wilson. He imagined it must’ve been a shock for this Chad to have seen them for the first time after waking up in hospital.

“Do you remember how you got them?” Romeo asked. He picked up the threaded needle.

Chad shook his head. “Ally told me, though. She thought I might freak out the first time I saw my chest.”

“And did you?”

“No.” his brow folded. “They felt... I think I’d have been more uneasy if they hadn’t been there, but I know that makes no sense. They felt ... like they fit, like this scarred up body fits with this,” he touched his head. “Broken mind.”

“Is that how you feel about me? Like we fit?”

Chad shuffled, looking uncomfortable. “Yes.”

Romeo took a deep breath. “I used to think that too.”

He looked down at his hand and pushed the needle through his skin.

The pain killed any fondness that attempted to surface.

“But not anymore.”

Romeo struggled to stitch, repeatedly dropping the needle and needing Chad to re-thread it for him. Each time he did, Chad shuffled a little closer on his knees.

Romeo had marked out the radius of his chain with his foot. The faint mark went unnoticed by Chad.

It hurt. Stitching the wound hurt like hell, but adrenaline softened the pain. Chad fell for his trick, inching closer and closer until he crossed the line.

The monster sensed its opportunity to put an end to their drought and satisfy Romeo’s hatred for the man he used to love. He dropped the needle. The thread predictably slipped from the eye. Romeo sighed, tossing Chad a new reel of thread.

Chad caught it and waited expectantly.

Romeo pinched the needle off the concrete, and held it out.

Chad reached.

The monster bit.

Romeo dropped the needle and grabbed Chad’s wrist. He snarled as he yanked him forward, fully into his grasp. Panic flashed in Chad’s eyes, but Romeo ignored it, grasping hold of Chad’s throat in his left hand.

He squeezed.

Chad closed both hands around Romeo’s wrist and squeezed too.

Romeo favored his right hand.

He could kill with that hand alone but had never tried to use his left in the same way.

It was weaker.

But he was confident he could do it.

He held Chad close to him, so close Romeo could smell him, and feel the heat from his face.

His lips were right there, parted, and Romeo was tempted to kiss him.

Kiss him and kill him at the same time.

He licked his lips, bringing his mouth closer.

“You’ll never know.” Chad croaked.

Romeo relaxed his hold a fraction. “Know what?”

“Why I did it ... don’t you want to know, Romeo, don’t you want me to tell you?”

“You can’t remember.”

“Not yet.”

Chad’s face turned red. He didn’t look afraid though, his eyes found Romeo’s.

He used his big brown eyes like a weapon, weaking Romeo’s grip.

“You kill me now, you’ll never know.”

“My Chad is gone.”

“He isn’t,” Chad snapped. “I’m right here. I’m in pieces that’s all, but they’re still here, and if they’re still here they can be put back together. A few days ago, you thought so too.”

“That was until I found out that you were the one to take a sledgehammer to them. You smashed us to pieces.”

“Maybe we can put them together again.”

“What if they make an ugly picture?”

Chad’s shoulders slumped. He let go of Romeo’s wrist. “At least you’ll have clarity.”

“Even if you do end up remembering,” Romeo flexed his hand around Chad’s neck. “I’ll still probably kill you.”

Chad smiled. “I thought as much, but you’ll kill me with your right hand, your preferred hand.”

Romeo stiffened. “How did you—"

“You’ll lift me off the ground so my feet are dangling and my only contact with the earth is through you. That’s how you’ll kill me. That’s how you like to do it.”

Romeo let go completely.

He expected Chad to launch back, but he didn’t.

Chad rubbed his throat, then coughed into his elbow.

“Now,” he said with a small smile. “Let’s fix up your hand.”

He found the needle. He threaded the eye. Then he waited for Romeo to hold out his hand. Romeo flared his nostrils, then gave in with a sigh.

Chad’s touch was delicate, soft, all until he slid a needle through Romeo’s skin.

Romeo watched Chad through a squint.

“Do you know what’s in the field?” he asked.

Chad paused, glancing up at him through his lashes. “Is this ... is this a joke? Does it have a punchline?”

“No. Why do you think that?”

“No idea, just...” Chad shook his head and went back to the wound.

“The field Chad, what’s in the field?”

“Mud I imagine,” he leaned back to glance around the outhouse. “We don’t have any farm equipment, so I doubt there’s anything but earthworms out there.”

“There’s maggots too.” Romeo’s eyes glinted. “I can guarantee there’s maggots.”

Chad frowned but didn’t ask.

He knew how Romeo liked to kill, but he didn’t know who he’d been killing like that.

“Has Josh told you about a case he’s working on?”

“No. He talks about cases we’ve worked on, but nothing current. I’m not a detective anymore.”

“But he is and he has my car.”

Chad leaned back. “Your car?”

“Yes. It’s been over a month, and I’m assuming he didn’t get any DNA or fingerprints from inside or outside the vehicle. I’m on the database, my face would be all over the news if he’d found anything.”

Chad’s nod was hesitant.

“What other tests will they do on the car?” Romeo asked.

“Assuming this car has been involved in something it shouldn’t have been...”

“Yes, assuming that.”

Chad swallowed. “They’ll obviously try to find footage of the car from CCTV, dashcam, that kind of thing.”

“What else?”

“A soil sample from the tires will be taken and matched with a region, then possibly an area depending on what soil, particles and minerals are discovered. They will do a tread print of the wheels, try and match it to a place of interest. Tires leave their own fingerprints.”

“Then you better be careful,” Romeo warned. “Because there’s fingerprints outside the double doors to this outhouse pressed into the mud and you don’t want Josh looking at them too closely...”