She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,137

into the white Chevy Suburban followed by the two others who had accompanied him into the Leech woman’s apartment, he felt renewed and completely invigorated. Hearing the gunshot that followed brought a smile to his face that would remain for the rest of the day. Even from behind the six car-lengths that separated them, he could feel Thatch unraveling.

“Wipe that smugness from your face. It’s unbecoming,” Ms. Oliver said from the seat beside him, cradling her useless arm.

“You should have that stump amputated, Latrese.”

“Don’t call me that. Oliver or Ms. Oliver, but you haven’t earned the right to utter my first name.”

He should kill her.

He wanted to, no doubt about that. He also felt that every death should serve a meaning or a purpose, and he had yet to determine what her death would mean or what purpose it could possibly serve. Therefore, he kept her alive. A nagging puppy yapping at his ankle.

Her time would come soon enough.

When he killed the last of them.

When he had Stella to himself.

After he spoke to every last employee of Charter and had the company running like a smooth machine.

She’d die then. He’d see to it she died splendidly.

“It itches,” Oliver said beside him. “All the time. This deep-seated, relentless itch in the bone, under the skin. I can’t scratch hard enough to reach it.”

He wished he’d seen it happen—Stella’s parting gift to the old woman before disappearing to God knows where. Just a quick touch, that was all it probably took. Like a cancer burning through her flesh, ignited at her fingertip, and rolling up the old woman’s arm. He’d seen Stella do it before, and it had always fascinated him, this gift of hers. When she was younger, there hadn’t been much control, but time seemed to have improved that. She could have killed Oliver, but she hadn’t. She only wished to make her suffer.

He found that beautiful.

“Lob it off, damn dead thing is all it is. Smells to high heaven.”

Oliver wouldn’t, though. She’d cling to it until the whole shriveled arm fell off on its own. Stubborn old woman that she was. To him, it was a sign of weakness. If Stella had done this to his arm, he would have cut it off himself, right there in front of her. That wouldn’t happen, though. He wasn’t careless.

“When we get her back, I’ll take my pound of flesh,” Oliver said.

“When I get her back, maybe I’ll let you.”

5

I got back to Penn State at a little after eleven in the morning, but I didn’t go straight to my apartment on Mifflin. Instead, I found a space on Bigler Road, quickly crossed the quad on foot, and took the back stairs up to the second floor of Geary Hall.

I hesitated outside her door for nearly a minute with girls passing me in the hall, eyeing me curiously, whispering to each other. Some were fully dressed, others wore nothing but towels and flip-flops. Boys usually didn’t start appearing on this floor until much later in the day.

I knocked. The knuckles on my right hand were scrapped and bruised.

The door opened about an inch, and Kaylie peeked out from the gap, one eye closed, the other open, her hair a rat’s nest. I must have woken her.

“I need you to hypnotize me,” I blurted out, shoving my scarred hands into my pockets.

Kaylie stood there. She smacked her lips and yawned. “Who are you?”

“Jack. Jack Thatch. You don’t remember?”

Her other eye opened, and she scratched at the side of her cheek. “Oh right, Pepsi-Boy, from the melting party.”

“Can you do it?”

She yawned again. “Can you come back later? I haven’t slept in forever. I was up all night studying Jung’s theories on ego and personalities, and right now all I really want to do is get back to studying the unconscious mind in my bed.”

“I need to do this now.”

“Right now? Right this very second?”

“Please?”

She opened the door a few more inches and yawned again. She wore a Guns N’ Roses tee-shirt and pink panties. “I’m gonna need sustenance and three minutes to make myself presentable for semi-public consumption. There’s a vending machine at the end of the hall.”

“What do you want—”

Before I could get the sentence out, the door closed.

I found the vending machines and bought two Kit Kat bars, a Snickers, and two cups of coffee. Carefully balancing everything, I returned to her room. The door was ajar. I nudged it open with my foot and stepped inside. Kaylie was sitting on