looked at him.
He shrugged. "Yeah, it's bad. You've seen bad before."
I lowered my head so I was staring at the golden faucet. "I took a month off, Zerbrowski. Thought I needed a vacation, and I did, but maybe a month wasn't enough."
"What are you saying?"
I looked up into the mirror, and my face was almost ghost pale, my eyes standing out like black holes in my face, the remaining eyeliner making my eyes larger, more compelling, more lost than they should have been. What I wanted to say was I don't know if I want to do this anymore, but what I said out loud, was, "I thought the bedroom scene was bad, but this is worse."
He nodded.
I started to take a deep breath, but remembered in time about the smell, and took a shallow breath, which wasn't nearly as soothing to my psyche but better for my stomach. "I'll be okay."
He didn't argue with me, because Zerbrowski treated me by guy rules most of the time. If a guy says he'll be okay, you just take him at his word, even if you don't believe it. The only exception is when lives are at stake, then the guy code can be broken, but the man that you broke it with will probably never forgive you.
I straightened up, hands still death-gripping the sink. I blinked into the mirror a couple of times, then went back for the far room. I could do this. I had to do this. I had to be able to see what was there, and think about it logically. It was an awful thing to ask of myself. I'd finally acknowledged that. Acknowledged that seeing things like what lay in the next room were soul-destroying. Acknowledged and moved on.
I was back in the bathroom door. Zerbrowski had come with me, though, standing just behind me. There really wasn't room to stand in the doorway together, not comfortably.
I looked at the room, at the walls with their coating of blood and gore. "How many people were killed in here?"
"Why?" he asked.
"Don't be coy, Zerbrowski, I don't have the patience for it today."
"Why?" he asked again, and this time there was a note of defensiveness in his voice.
I glanced back at him. "What is your problem?"
He didn't point at the carnage. In fact for a second, or two, I thought he was going to tell me to mind my own business, but he didn't. "If Dolph said why, you'd just answer him, not argue with him."
I sighed. "Dolph's shoes hard to fill?" I asked.
"No, but I'm damned tired of repeating myself when I know that nobody makes Dolph fucking repeat himself."
I looked up at him and felt a smile creep across my face. "Well, actually, I make Dolph repeat himself, too."
He smiled. "Alright, alright, maybe you do, but you are such a fucking pain in the ass, Anita."
"It's a talent," I said.
We stood in the doorway and smiled at each other. Nothing had changed in that small horror chamber. There wasn't a drop less of blood, or an inch less of gory bits plastered to the walls, but we both felt better.
"Now," I said, still smiling, "how many people were killed in the bathroom."
His smile slid into a full grin. "Why do you ask?"
"You bastard," I said.
He wiggled his eyebrows above the rims of his glasses. "Not what my mom says, though you're not the first to speculate."
I half laughed and knew that I'd lost. "Because, Zerbrowski, there are only two full walls in that room, both of them are so thick with blood and heavier bits that it's like two kills, one at one wall, one at the other."
"What about the bathtub?" he asked.
"The water's pale. I've never seen anyone bled out in a bathtub, so I don't know if the water would be this pale, or if it would be darker. But my gut tells me that no one was bled out in the tub. They may have been killed in the tub, but most of the blood is on the floor and walls."
"You sure about that?"
"No, like I said, I've never seen anyone bled out in a bathtub before, but I'm also wondering why the tub is so full, almost to the brim. You can't fill most tubs that full; they've got that little hole that stops it from overflowing. This one is so full that you couldn't even step into it without sloshing water all over the floor."
He watched my face while I talked,