Chapter 4: Skinny dipping
The motel room air was thick with the ghosts of bleach and cheap cigarettes, a futile mask over the deeper stench of guilt and spent violence. Chandler sat at the small table, methodically field-stripping his pistol, the components laid out on a stained towel. The metallic clicks and snaps were the only punctuation in their silence. Kate watched him from her bed, tracing the water stain on the ceiling with her eyes. The image of Lena’s body, wrapped and chain-weighted, sinking into the black quarry water played on a loop behind her eyelids. It wasn’t remorse; it was a souvenir.
“I can’t breathe in here,” she said, her voice too loud in the quiet room.
Chandler didn’t look up. “Open a window.”
“It’s not the air. It’s this room. It’s… everything.” She sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. The springs groaned. “I need to feel something else. Anything else.”
He placed the cleaned barrel back into the slide. “What you need is to stay low. We both do.”
“We are low. We’re at the bottom of a fucking motel.” She stood and walked to the window, peeling back the corner of the stiff curtain. The night was clear, the moon a sharp, silver coin. “Remember that lake we passed? Just a few miles back. It was… clean.”
“It’s a quarry, Kate. It’s not a swimming pool.”
“Exactly. No one’s there.” She turned to face him, leaning against the wall. A familiar, challenging glint entered her eyes. “Come on. I’m still sticky. I can still smell… everything. Let me wash it off. For real.”
He finally looked at her, his gaze flat and tired. “It’s a bad idea.”
“It’s a great idea.” She pushed off the wall, her voice taking on a lighter, cajoling tone. She moved to the table, standing over him. “Five minutes. I’ll be quick. I just need to feel the water. It’s so still out there. No one will see.” She nudged his knee with hers. “Please? I’ll be good. I promise.”
He held the reassembled pistol in his hand, weighing it. He looked from her pleading face to the grimy window, then back. The fight had gone out of him, replaced by a deep, resonant fatigue. The image of her, clean and weightless in the dark water, held a strange, seductive appeal. A baptism of sorts. “Ten minutes,” he said, his voice gruff. “Not a second more. And you don’t make a sound.”
A slow, victorious smile spread across her face. “Quiet as a ghost.”
The quarry lay under the moonlight, a vast, obsidian mirror reflecting the cold, indifferent stars. The air was chill and carried the scent of pine and wet stone. It was a different kind of silence out here—vast and natural, not the claustrophobic hush of the motel. Chandler lit a cigarette, the flare of the match a tiny, temporary sun. He leaned against the van, his eyes scanning the perimeter out of habit.
Kate didn’t hesitate. She walked to the water’s edge, her boots kicking loose gravel. She peeled off her jacket, then her t-shirt, her jeans, her underwear, letting them fall to the ground in a small heap. Her skin was alabaster in the moonlight, a stark, living sculpture against the dark landscape. She didn’t look back at him, didn’t seek permission or approval. This was for her.
She waded in a few steps, hissing as the cold clamped around her ankles, then her knees, her thighs. Then she dove.
The water was a shock, a black, icy glove that squeezed the air from her lungs. She surfaced gasping, her hair plastered to her skull, the sound unnaturally loud in the stillness. She floated on her back for a moment, looking up at the cosmos, the water lapping gently at her ears, muffling the world. For the first time since Lena, the screaming in her head stopped. There was only the cold, the silence, and the moon.
Chandler watched from the shore, the cherry of his cigarette a pulsating red eye in the dark. He saw the pale blur of her body moving under the water, a selkie in her element. The tension in his shoulders began to ease, just a fraction. This was okay. This was under control.
Then she screamed.
It wasn’t a playful shriek. It was a raw, jagged sound of pure, startled agony that tore the night in two.
She thrashed, her form breaking the placid surface into a chaos of white water. “Chandler! Chandler!”
He was already moving, the cigarette discarded, sizzling on the damp ground. He waded into the water, the cold a sharp bite through his jeans. “Kate! What is it?”
She was clutching her side, her face a contorted mask of pain. “Something stung me! It burns! It fucking burns!” Her words were choked, panicked sobs.
He reached her, the water up to his chest, and grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him. Her skin was slick and freezing. In the moonlight, he could see a raised, angry red welt already rising on her ribcage, just below her breast. It was webbed, like a lightning strike etched into her flesh.
“Jellyfish,” he grunted, pulling her stumbling towards the shore. “Probably a freshwater jelly. Hold still.”
“It feels like acid!” she cried, her body trembling violently from the cold and the shock of the pain.
He half-dragged, half-carried her out of the water and onto the gravel. She collapsed, curling into a fetal position around the searing pain on her side, her naked body shuddering. Chandler knelt beside her, his own clothes soaked and heavy. He looked at the wound, his mind clinically assessing it even as a different, colder fear began to uncoil in his gut. This wasn’t part of the plan. This was a variable. An accident.
He brushed her wet hair back from her face. Her eyes were wide, swimming with tears of pain. “It’s okay,” he said, his voice low and steady, the one he used when things were going wrong. “It’s just a sting. It’ll pass.”
But as he looked at the vicious, blooming mark on her pale skin—a new wound laid over the old bruises—and at the dark, placid water that had hidden its secret, he felt the fragile control he’d fought to maintain all night slip another crucial notch. The world was full of invisible threats, and he couldn’t protect her from all of them.
Her whimpers were sharp, animal things that grated against the quarry’s serene silence. He looked from the vicious red welt on her ribs to the dark, placid water that had seemed so cleansing moments before. This innocent landscape had bitten her, a reminder of his failure in a night already saturated with them.
“It’s burning, it’s still burning,” she choked out, her fingers hovering over the inflamed skin.
“I know. Don’t touch it.” His voice was low, a forced calm that felt thin as ice. He couldn’t fix this with a gun or a knife. He shrugged out of his soaked denim jacket, the heavy material slapping wetly against the gravel. “We need to get you warm. And we need to look at that.”
He draped the jacket over her shoulders, its weight and residual warmth a poor shield. Then he slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back. She cried out as the movement jostled her side, a fresh tear tracking through the water on her cheek. He lifted her easily, her naked body curling instinctively against his chest, seeking both warmth and stability.
He carried her back towards the van, his boots crunching a steady rhythm on the path. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her breathing shallow and hitched. Each tiny gasp was an accusation. He focused on the van, on the next step, on the mundane problem of a sting, because the larger problem of the body they’d left in this same water was a abyss he couldn’t stare into right now.
He maneuvered the passenger door open and settled her inside on the cold vinyl. “Stay here.” He grabbed the motel towel from the back, the one he’d used on his gun, and wrapped it around her. She pulled it tight, shivering violently, her knuckles white.
He found the first aid kit, the same one from the gas station, and rifled through it. The packet of antihistamine wipes was tucked next to the alcohol pads he’d used on her split lip. The symmetry was not lost on him. He tore one open, the clinical smell a stark contrast to the wild, damp night.
“This might sting a little more,” he warned, his voice softer now.
“Everything stings,” she whispered, her eyes squeezed shut.
He dabbed the wipe gently over the raised, fiery pattern on her skin. She flinched, a sharp intake of breath hissing through her teeth, but she didn’t pull away. He cleaned the welts with a strange, focused tenderness, the same precision he used to clean his weapon. This was another kind of maintenance, another wound to manage.
“Freshwater jellies,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Their sting’s not usually dangerous. Just painful as hell.” He tossed the used wipe onto the floorboard. “It should fade in an hour.”
“An hour?” Her voice was small, stripped of its usual defiant edge. She looked young, just a hurt kid wrapped in a stolen towel in a dirty van.
“Yeah. An hour.” He closed the first aid kit with a definitive snap. The sound echoed in the van’s cab. He looked at her, really looked, at the goosebumps on her arms, the water dripping from her hair onto the seat, the vivid mark of a random, meaningless world on her skin. The quarry’s silence felt heavy again, but now it was weighted with the things they hadn’t said, with the body they’d left behind, with this new, stupid vulnerability.
He knew they couldn’t stay here. He slammed her door shut and walked around to the driver’s side, his own wet clothes clinging to him unpleasantly. He started the engine, the roar a welcome intrusion. He didn’t look at the water as he pulled away.
The short drive back to the motel was silent. She leaned against the window, her breath fogging the glass. He kept his eyes on the road, his hands tight on the wheel. When he killed the engine in the parking lot, the silence rushed back in, thick and expectant.
He got out and walked to her door. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and dark in the dim light from the motel sign. The pain was still there, a tightness around her mouth, a slight tremor in her hands. He reached in, his movements deliberate.
He slid his arms under her again, the towel and his jacket bundled around her. She was lighter than he remembered, or perhaps he was just tired. He lifted her out of the van.
He carried her towards their room, her body a tense, warm weight in his arms. Her head found the hollow of his shoulder again, her damp hair cooling his neck. She let out a soft, pained sigh as he adjusted his grip, her arm curling around his neck for balance. He could feel the heat of the sting radiating through the layers of fabric between them.
He shouldered the motel room door open and carried her inside, kicking it shut behind them. The room smelled exactly as they had left it: stale and desperate. He didn't put her down on either bed immediately. He just stood there in the center of the worn carpet, holding her, the only sound their mingled breathing and the faint, distant hum of the highway. She was still in pain, and for now, in the quiet of this terrible room, holding her was the only answer he had.
He stood there for a long time, just holding her, until the shivering subsided and her breathing evened out against his neck. The initial, sharp agony of the sting had downgraded to a persistent, hot throb. He finally lowered her onto the nearest bed, the mattress sighing under her weight. “Don’t move,” he instructed, his voice rough.
He retrieved a clean-ish t-shirt from his bag and ran it under the cold tap in the bathroom. He came back and pressed the damp cloth gently against the welts on her side. She flinched, then relaxed as the coolness seeped into the inflamed skin. “See?” he said, his tone flat. “Told you it would pass.”
She didn’t answer, just watched him as he tended to her, his movements efficient and devoid of the frantic energy from the quarry. The room was silent except for the drip of water from the cloth and the hum of the ice machine outside. He replaced the warm compress with a fresh cold one, his fingers brushing her rib cage. A different kind of heat began to stir beneath the fading pain.
The frantic, searing pain had melted into a dull, warm ache, a distant echo of the initial shock. She shifted on the scratchy bedspread, testing the sensation. It was just a memory of hurt now, a ghost in her nerves. The cool cloth felt good, but the rest of her felt… restless. The adrenaline from the sting, the terror, the strange comfort of being carried—it was all curdling into something else, something familiar and demanding.
Her skin felt too tight, humming with a restless energy that the cold compress couldn’t touch. She watched his hands, the same ones that had cleaned her lip, disposed of a body, and now dabbed at her side with a detached care. The memory of his weight in the van, the brutal connection that had welded them back together after Lena, flashed through her. The hollow feeling was gone, replaced by a thick, gathering want.
She pushed his hand away, the damp cloth falling onto the bed. “It’s fine now,” she said, her voice low. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
He looked at her, really looked, and saw the shift. The pain in her eyes had been replaced by a dark, familiar intensity. The vulnerability he’d carried from the water was gone, shed like a skin. She was back. The welts on her side were just marks now.
“Kate,” he said, a warning note in his voice. It was the same tone he’d used when she’d reached for the knife.
She ignored it. She reached for him, her fingers curling into the damp fabric of his shirt. She pulled him down, her strength surprising him. “I feel better,” she whispered against his mouth, her breath hot. Her other hand slid from his shirt to the waistband of his jeans, her intent clear and unchallengeable. The sting, the quarry, the body—it all just made this feel more necessary.
The sting, the quarry, the body—it all just made this feel more necessary. Her fingers dug into the damp denim at his hips, pulling him down onto the mattress with a force that was more demand than invitation. The bedsprings screamed a protest they both ignored. "I'm fine," she breathed against his mouth, the words a hot, damp lie. "See?" She guided his hand from the cool cloth to the hot, raised welts on her rib cage. The skin was still angry, but her pulse hammered beneath his fingertips, a frantic rhythm that had nothing to do with pain.
He caught her wrists, pinning them to the pillow on either side of her head. His own breath was coming faster now, the control he’d worn like a shield all night cracking under the weight of her insistence. "This is a shit idea, Kate." His voice was gravel, worn down by exhaustion and the lingering taste of quarry water. "We need to think."
"Stop thinking." She strained against his grip, her body arching off the bed. The towel had fallen away, leaving her pale and exposed under the sickly yellow light of the lamp. The bruise on her cheek, the red welts on her side—they were just part of the map of their night. "You’re always thinking. Just feel it for once."
He looked down at her, at the wild, defiant light in her eyes that mirrored the chaos she constantly summoned. He saw the ghost of the girl he’d pulled from the water, terrified and small, and then he saw the woman who had ended Lena with a single, ruthless thrust. They were the same person. His person. The fight drained out of him all at once, leaving a hollowed-out space that only she could fill.
He gave in.
His mouth crashed down on hers, not with tenderness, but with a kind of brutal acknowledgment. It was a surrender that felt like a victory. He released her wrists, his hands moving to her hips, gripping the bone there as if he could anchor them both. She wrapped her legs around him, her heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him closer until there was no space left for thought, only the frantic, familiar collision.
Later, tangled in the sour-smelling sheets, the only sound was their ragged breathing syncing in the dark. The lamp was off, the room illuminated only by the neon sign from the parking lot bleeding through the curtains. It painted shifting blue bars across the floor and the pile of their discarded clothes. He was on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. She lay curled against his side, her head on his chest, her fingers lightly tracing the fading welts on her skin.
“It doesn’t hurt at all now,” she murmured into the silence. Her voice was sleepy, satisfied.
He didn’t move his arm. “Good.”
“That was better than the water.” She pressed a kiss to his chest, just over his heart. “It washed everything else away.”
He finally lifted his arm from his eyes, staring at the water-stained ceiling. The phantom scent of gasoline and lake water seemed to cling to the back of his throat. It hadn’t washed anything away. It had just buried it deeper, under the sweat and the heat and the temporary silence. He could feel the weight of the van outside, of the road ahead, of the questions Lena’s absence would soon create.
Her breathing evened out into sleep, her body going heavy against his. He carefully extracted himself, the mattress groaning as he stood. He pulled on his jeans and walked to the window, peeling back the curtain just enough to look out. The parking lot was empty. The night was still. For now.
He could see their reflection ghosted over the dark glass—his own tense silhouette, and behind him, Kate asleep in the rumpled bed. A perfect, terrible picture. He had given in, and for a moment, it had quieted the storm. But the cost of that peace was waiting for them just beyond the dawn, down a highway that led to more dark water and more bodies that needed hiding. He let the curtain fall back into place, plunging the room into blue-tinged darkness once more. The silence felt different now. It felt like the calm before the next inevitable fracture.
It felt like the calm before the next inevitable fracture.
The smell of the quarry was still on her, a faint, fishy decay mixed with their own sweat. Kate pushed herself up from the bed, the sheet falling away. "I'm taking a shower," she announced, her voice raspy. "For real this time." She didn't wait for a response, padding naked across the grimy carpet and shutting the bathroom door behind her.
A moment later, the pipes in the wall groaned and shuddered, then came the hissing spray of water against the fiberglass stall. Chandler stood by the window, listening to the sound. He could picture her under the stream, the water sluicing the lake from her hair, washing the memory of the sting from her skin, trying to erase the feel of his hands. It would never work. They were both stained in ways water couldn't touch.
He lit a cigarette, the flame trembling slightly in his cupped hand. The smoke burned his lungs, a familiar comfort. His mind, usually a map of exits and contingencies, went blank and sharp all at once. It always circled back to her. To the terrifying, absolute fact of her. He saw her not as she was now in the shower, but as a collection of moments: the wild fury in her eyes when she’d stabbed Lena, the shocking vulnerability when he’d carried her from the lake, the brutal need in her just minutes ago on the bed.
He’d buy her a ring. A real one. Not a promise or a lie, but a claim. A circle of platinum to match the one they were already trapped in. He’d put it on her finger himself, a permanent brand. He’d marry her in some shitty chapel with a fake name, just to have that piece of paper that said she was his in a way the world had to acknowledge. He’d do it tomorrow.
His free hand drifted to the front pocket of his jeans, not the one he kept his lighter in, but the smaller one above the knee. His fingers found the hard, square outline of the box. He didn't need to open it. He knew the weight of it, the slight resistance of the hinge. He’d had it for months, a stupid, secret weight he carried everywhere. A bad thought he’d made real.
The water shut off abruptly. The sudden silence in the room was louder than the spray had been. He heard the shower curtain rings scrape back, the wet sound of her feet on the floor. He took a final, deep drag off the cigarette and crushed it in the cheap glass ashtray on the sill. The thought was a sickness in him, he knew that. A rot. But it was his rot. He’d nurtured it, let the roots dig deep.
The bathroom door opened, releasing a cloud of steam that smelled faintly of the motel’s floral soap. Kate stood there, a thin towel wrapped around her, her skin flushed pink and her dark hair dripping onto her shoulders. She looked clean. New. Untouchable. "Your turn," she said, her eyes scanning the room and landing on him by the window. "What are you thinking about?"
He forced his hand away from his pocket, turning to face her. "Nothing important," he lied, the ghost of the ring box burning against his thigh. "Just the route."
She nodded, apparently believing him, and started rifling through her bag for clothes. Chandler pushed off the window frame, the movement stiff. He needed the shower. He needed the cold water to shock the bad thoughts away, even though he knew they’d just wait for him on the other side of the door, patient as stones.