Chapter 4

R ough brick meets my palms as we take a moment to rest and listen. Running amongst the shadows is exhausting. I touch a bruise forming on my shoulder as I stare at Sam's back. I don't understand what I do to make him so angry. If I'm as terrible as he claims I am, why is he with me?

He knows why I'm with him. He caught me in his web when I was in the prime of my daddy-issues phase. And by daddy issues, I mean the fact that my daddy is dead. Abandonment issues of the most permanent kind. He used that to his advantage, securing me in silk until I couldn't leave.

I thought he wanted to take care of me, but he was only ensuring I had no finances with which to leave him. I believed he loved me, but I now know that he only loves two things: himself and control. Now...I'm stuck.

A scream breaks through the quiet, coming from the other side of the building we're hunkered down behind. I look around for somewhere better to hide. A rusty dumpster stands in the alleyway, and when I look back at Sam, he nods. We rush for it as the screams grow closer.

I peel back the lid and shudder at the mingling, fetid scents of decaying food matter, sour milk, and piss concentrate. Looking back toward the source of the sounds, I consider the alternative to diving face first into this cesspool, but the screams have become noisy footsteps.

And they're drawing closer.

Fuck.

I heave myself over the side of the dumpster, and my feet sink into squishy mounds of black trash bags filled with god knows what. I get caught on the corner of one and rip the bag, soaking my pants in stale coffee.

Gross, I think, but I don't have time to focus on hygiene as Sam lands next to me. He holds the lid and eases it closed, enfolding us in a deeper darkness as we hide and hope for the best.

As the seconds pass and the adrenaline wanes, the fragrant scent of garbage overtakes my senses. The smells wrap my lungs in a chokehold, squeezing until I'm certain I'll suffocate on a throne of dirty diapers and vegetable peelings. I grip Sam's sleeve. Between the cloying perfume and the panic, I almost want to leap out and throw myself into the unknown.

When I can't take it anymore, I make a move to get up. My head touches the metal lid, but Sam pulls me down, forcing my ass onto another bag of trash.

"Stop," he whispers.

I wish he were trying to protect me, but those delusions are long gone. He's simply trying to save his own ass. If they find me , they find him .

Sound explodes just outside the dumpster. I put my hand over my mouth to silence a startled shout. A man screams, and then the sound of squelching flesh reaches my ears.

Everything in me wants to jump out and help the man, but not this way. We can't. We need to have the upper hand, and there's no place lower than the fucking garbage. My heart breaks for the stranger who will likely die just feet away from our hiding place.

"Please...don't," he whispers. Wet sounds punctuate the ragged breath between each word.

His attacker feels no pity. He only laughs. He's toying with him.

The sounds bring me right back to the moment with my father. Had he begged for his life to be spared? Had his pain and agony brought his tormentor as much joy?

My heart aches, and I have to fight the urge in my muscles to get up and stop this, whatever it is, but before I can move again, the pleading stops. Everything stops.

Footsteps near the dumpster, and the lid opens. We make ourselves as small as possible and pray the killer doesn't see us. Moonlight shines through the crack as he tosses something into the heaps of trash. It lands in my lap. Imagine my surprise when I look down and see a man's head.

His mouth, frozen in death's grip, twists in agony. Heavy lids hang over his unseeing eyes. Warm blood drips from the gaping neck stump and mixes with the coffee permeating my jeans.

I clap my hand over my mouth again, my nostrils flaring as I try to keep the human guillotine from hearing me.

Don't move , Sam mouths.

Sweat pours down my temples and makes my face itch. I don't move a muscle, though. My need to keep my head firmly attached to the rest of me overrides the urge to scratch.

The dumpster slams shut, and the man outside begins to whistle as he walks away. The footsteps recede, slow and unbothered, as if he didn't just kill a man and toss his head into my fucking lap. Once the footsteps become a distant memory, I let out a breath and push the head away from me. I can't take another second of staring into his terrified face.

"Oh god," I whisper, the words choking out of me.

"Quit bitching. You're fine," Sam whispers.

"But he's not," I say, gesturing toward the severed head.

"As long as it's not us."

That's where Sam and I differ, I guess. He doesn't care as long as it's not us. I don't want it to be anyone ever again.

Sam cracks the lid and peers out of the opening. When he's satisfied the coast is clear, he lifts the lid off the rest of the way. He climbs up, balancing on the rim, then hops out of the dumpster. I go to do the same, but Sam's voice breaks through the silence.

"You might not want to look," he says.

"I need to look."

The man's body lies in a widening puddle of blood on the concrete. His neck is a mess of red flesh and white bone, and a large cut runs from his sternum to his pelvis. Pink organs peek through the gash.

I wish I was more nauseated or frightened by what I'm seeing, but it just makes me angry. This man's death heats my blood until it's burning me from the inside.

"Who would do this?" I whisper.

"Monsters."

"No. Even monsters are more humane than this."

"Let's figure out who they are, then."

I nod and step over the body, but I can't stop myself from wondering if he has a daughter. If so, will she grow up and seek vengeance as I have?

If Sam and I can put an end to this nightmare, maybe she won't have to.

We step into the shadows and continue on.