Chapter 18: First One Down
The rain started just before dawn, a soft, persistent patter that did nothing to wash the stain from the world. Scott stood at Luke’s apartment window, watching the water streak the glass, his reflection a ghost over the gray city. He hadn’t slept. The text from Dale about Nikki had hit him like a physical blow, a sucker-punch to a bruise that never faded.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Scott said, his voice raw. He wasn’t talking to Luke, not really. He was talking to the ghost in the glass. “She had James. She had Savannah. She wouldn’t… she wouldn’t.”
Luke approached silently, a mug of tea in his hand. He placed it on the sill near Scott’s hand. The gesture was calculated, a mimicry of care. “The reports are preliminary, Scott. But they’re conclusive. The blade was in her hand. The wounds… were consistent.”
“Consistent with what?” Scott turned, his eyes red-rimmed and blazing with a helpless anger. “With being butchered in that house? None of this is consistent. Liv gets attacked by a stranger, now Nikki… God, Luke, she was quiet, she was sad, but she was here. She was fighting.”
The door buzzer sounded. Ethan let himself in a moment later, shaking water from his jacket. He smelled of damp leather and stale coffee. “Traffic’s a bitch. What’s the crisis meeting for? We all got the same shitty news.”
Scott flinched at his tone. “Nikki is dead, Ethan.”
“Yeah, I read the group chat. ‘She finally did it.’ Not exactly a shocker.” Ethan slouched onto Luke’s sofa, propping his boots on the edge of the coffee table. Luke’s gaze fixed on the scuff marks left on the polished wood.
“Show some fucking respect,” Scott snapped, his hands curling into fists at his sides.
Ethan shrugged, a careless, infuriating motion. “Respect doesn’t change facts. People break. She was a depressed bitch, Scott. Everyone knew it. She hid it, but she was fucking broken. Maybe she just ran out of sanity.”
The callousness was a needle, piercing the fragile bubble of Scott’s control. He looked to Luke, desperate for backup, for the anchor he always provided.
Luke placed a heavy hand on Scott’s shoulder. The weight was meant to be comforting. To Luke, it felt like claiming territory. “Ethan’s being harsh, but he’s not entirely wrong. Trauma… it carves channels in a person. Sometimes the pressure finds the weakest point and bursts.”
“It doesn’t feel right,” Scott insisted, the phrase becoming a mantra. “It feels like the hallway. It feels like something… reaching out.”
Ethan snorted. “The hallway is in your head, man. It’s in all our heads. Nikki’s demons were just homier than most.” He stretched, ignoring the tension crackling in the room. “So, we still on for Hunter and Rabbit tomorrow?”
Scott stared at him, aghast. “Her funeral is tomorrow.”
“And? You going to sit graveside all day? She’s not coming back whether we fuck or not.”
Luke felt a white-hot filament surge in his brain. He imagined crossing the room, his hands on Ethan’s throat. Squeezing until that careless voice choked into silence. He saw the bones in the neck yielding, the panicked bulge of the eyes. He could do it now. For Scott. A gift.
“Luke?” Scott’s voice, small and confused, pulled him back. He realized his grip on Scott’s shoulder had tightened enough to make him wince.
He released him, the mask of concern sliding back into place with practiced ease. “Sorry. Just… anger.”
“We should go,” Scott said, pulling away from both of them. “I can’t… I need air.”
Ethan stood, unbothered. “Whatever. Text me about tomorrow, Scott. Don’t flake.”
After they left, the apartment hummed with a sudden, violent silence. Luke stood in the center of the room, breathing in the lingering scent of Scott’s anxiety and Ethan’s intrusion. The fantasy of murder faded, replaced by a colder, more demanding hunger. Nancy’s promise. Her reward.
The basement of the mill was darker tonight, the single bulb above the workbench swinging gently in a draft. Nancy was waiting. She had laid a faded, stained moving blanket over the bench.
“Clean?” she asked, her back to him.
“Perfect,” Luke said. “They’re calling it a suicide. Scott… he suspects, but he suspects the universe, not a man.”
Nancy turned. She held a bottle of cheap whiskey in one hand. She took a long pull, then offered it to him. He refused. She smiled, a slash of red in the gloom. “Good. Let him orbit the idea. It’ll make the crash more delicious later.” She set the bottle down with a definitive click. “My turn.”
“My turn.” She stepped closer, the whiskey on her breath a sweet, toxic cloud. “You did well with Nikki. A quiet cut. But I don’t want quiet forever. I want a statement next. Something that makes them all shit their hearts right out of their chests.”
She traced a fingernail down the center of his shirt, over his sternum. “For your reward… you get to choose a desire. Not a strategic cut. A personal one. Scott isn’t part of the plan. He’s… adjacent. Expendable. So is that loudmouth piece of shit he drags around.”
Luke’s breath caught, a quick, sharp inhalation in the damp air. He knew. “Ethan.”
“I don’t give a single, solitary fuck what happens to Ethan,” Nancy whispered, her voice scraping like gravel. “But you do. I see how you look at him. I saw it today. You want to wipe that careless smirk off his face with a claw hammer.” Her hand flattened against his chest, feeling the sudden, hard drum of his heart. “Do you want him?”
A tremor ran through Luke’s hands, a vibration of pure, undiluted want. He saw it again—the yielding cartilage of Ethan’s throat, the silence he would bring. It was a cleaner want than the one he felt for Scott, less complicated by the ghosts of that red hallway. This was pest removal. This was pleasure.
“Yes.” The word was a vow.
Nancy’s smile was a predatory gleam. “Good boy. Do it tomorrow. While the good little survivors are wearing black and weeping into their hymns. While Scott is distracted, vulnerable, looking for a shoulder. That’s when you take Ethan out of the picture. Permanently.”
A dark, thrilling current energized Luke’s blood, tightening his muscles. He nodded, a slow, deliberate motion. Tomorrow. The funeral provided the perfect alibi, the perfect emotional chaos to cloak his act. He could already picture the location, the method. It would not be quiet. It would be the statement she wanted.