Prayers For Rain Part 26

Leonard said, "I don't want to kill you, man. I just-"

"Then, go," I said softly. "No more time. Now or never."

Leonard stood. He placed a sweaty palm on the butcher block and took several deep breaths.

I straightened my back against the wall and pushed up, felt my head swim and a momentary numbness find my nose and mouth as I reached my full height.

"Take the gun," I said. "Go."

Leonard looked at me, his face a mask of stupidity and fear and confusion.

I nodded.

He ran a hand over his mouth.

I held his eyes.

And then Leonard nodded.

I resisted the urge to chuck a sigh of relief the size of a mountain out of my lungs.

He walked past me and let himself out the gla.s.s door that led to the back deck. He didn't look back. Once he reached the deck, he picked up speed, lowered his head, and cut through the yard, let himself out the side gate.

One down, I thought, shaking my head and puffing air into my cheeks to try and clear my vision.

I heard Cody's footsteps approach the staircase.

One to go.

11.

I did several quick squats to return blood to my legs and sucked up as much of the oxygen in the room as I could.

Cody's feet hit the top of the staircase and he started to descend.

I inched my way along the wall toward the corner of the kitchen.

When Cody came down the bottom of the stairs, he shouted, "Eureka!" again. He bounded around the corner and tripped over my foot, and a sheaf of brightly colored paper flew from his hands as he toppled into a bar stool and slammed his right hip and shoulder hard off the floor.

I doubt I've ever kicked anything as hard as I kicked Cody. I kicked his ribs and his groin, his stomach, his spine, and his head. I stomped on the backs of his knees, his shoulders, and both ankles. One of the ankles made a hard cracking sound as it snapped, and Cody ground his face into the floor and screamed.

"Where do you keep your knives?" I said.

"My ankle! My f.u.c.king ankle, you-"

I drove my heel down along the side of his head, and he screamed again.

"Where, Cody? Or I do the ankle again." I thought of that gun in my face, that look in his eyes when he decided to take my life, and I gave him another kick to the ribs.

"Top drawer. The butcher block."

I went around the butcher block and turned my back to the drawer as I pulled it open. I cut my fingers on the first knife blade, worked my way up to the handle, and pulled it out.

Cody rose to his knees.

I came back around the butcher block and stood over him as I worked the knife up between my wrists.

"Stay down, Cody."

Cody turned on his side and pulled his knee up to his chest. He reached down and touched his ankle, hissed through his teeth, and rolled over on his back.

I worked the blade up and down against the twine, felt it slice through, felt my wrists begin to spread apart. I kept slicing and watched Cody roll around at my feet.

The strands around my wrist suddenly separated and my wrists pulled free of one another.

I placed the knife on the counter and shook my hands in small circles for a full minute to get the circulation back.

I looked down at Cody on the floor as he held his ankle aloft, gripped his knee, and moaned, and I felt an exhaustion that had become all too common lately-a bitterness with what I did and what I'd become that had taken residence in my bone marrow like errant T cells.

I'd had hopes, it seemed, of becoming someone else at some point during my younger life. Hadn't I? What kind of life was this-dealing with the Leonards and Cody Falks, breaking into homes and committing felonious a.s.sault, snapping the anklebones of human beings, however putrid those human beings might be?

Cody's breath was coming in harsh sucking hisses as the shock wore off and the pain took hold.

I stepped over him and picked up the brightly colored sheets of paper he'd dropped on his way in. There were ten of them, all addressed to Cody, all written in a girlish scrawl.

All were signed Karen Nichols.

Cody,

At the club, you seem to love your body as much as I do. I watch you with those weights and the sweat beads on your skin and I think of running my tongue up the inside of your thighs. I wonder when you're going to make good on your promises. That night in the parking lot, didn't you see it in my eyes? Haven't you ever been teased, Cody? Some women don't want to be courted, they want to be taken. They want to be ground down and held down. They want you to shove yourself in, Cody, not slide. Don't be gentle, a.s.shole. You want it? Come take it.

Are you up for that, Cody?

Or is it all just talk?

Waiting, Karen Nichols

The rest were more of the same-taunting, pleading, daring Cody to force himself on her.

Among the pages, I also found the note Karen had left on Cody's car, the one I'd balled up and stuffed in his mouth. Cody had smoothed it out, kept it as a souvenir.

Cody looked up at me. There was blood in his mouth, and a broken tooth or two rattled when he spoke.

"See? She asked for it. Literally."

I folded nine of the pages, put them in my jacket. I kept the tenth and the note I'd shoved in Cody's mouth in my hand. I nodded.