The Condemned (33 page)

     
‘Not here. Not now. We’re doing this and we’re doing it together. You’re not running away from me again Leci.’

    
It wasn’t a request, it was an order and she nodded obediently. He smi
led, gripped a handful of her ha
ir and tugged her head back, lowering his mouth to her exposed throat and trailing a line of kisses from her jaw down to her collarbone. Leci shivered, closing her eyes, ready to give herself to him but then his touch was gone. She opened them again and pouted. Amato laughed and stood, lifting her as he did and standing her on her feet.

     
‘Wait here. Your plan is a good one
,
but I reckon I’m gonna be able to pull off stage one better than you could.’

    
She didn’t argue; he was probably right.

    
He kissed her roughly on the lips, took back his leather jacket from where she had left it in the corner of the room
,
and then he disappeared through the door, leavin
g her alone in the darkness
. She hugged her arms around herself and moved to the window, all she could do was wait.

Chapter 29

Amato closed the door behind him and leaned back against it.

   
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He’d managed to keep i
t together in there, mostly
for her sake, but it had been tough.

    
Her story wasn’t particularly bad. Sure, it was painful and ugly and she’d experienced hurt and loss but so had most people.
Everyone had it rough. No life was a simple one, they all had their fair share of grief and angst and shit. Rape and murder were so commonplace that no one even flinched at them anymore. People did what was ne
cessary
to survive and he knew that.

    
He was annoyed at himself for being so upset by what she had done with the apartment owner.
He knew that it was all she knew, especially now, after hearing what she had to say.

    
Hell, it had never meant anything to her, was never anything special. Four men had repeatedly taken advantage of her for their own enjoyment. It would be stranger if she was able to view the act of love as anything more than some necessary unpleasantness. She had detached herself emotionally from that part of living, was protecting herself by viewing sex with no sentiment.

It made it a lot easier to forgive what she had done, to her
there had been nothing wrong with it. What she had shared with him had meant nothing to her and she couldn’t be unfaithful to something that didn’t matter
to her
.

    
It killed him to know that it didn’t matter to her.

    
Maybe if he could get her through this, get her past her past and help h
er to exorcise her inner demons, m
aybe then she’d look at the whole thing differently. Maybe
then
she’d be able to love him.

    
Shaking his head, he pushed away from the door and headed off down the corridor.

    
He had a hooker to find.

Chapter 30

Leci sat in the corner, her back to the wall, her feet planted firmly on the floor
,
and her knees pulled up to her chest.

Her hands dangled between her legs and in them she held the small knife she’d gotten from the girl at the bar when she’d traded clothes and horses.

    
Amato was wrong, she
did
know how to trade with other things...

    
Ok, bad time to be dwelling on that.

    
She toyed with the knife, feeling the cold blade against her fingers, running them along the edge. It wasn’t particularly sharp but it would do the job.

     This was the part she ha
d been dreading. She hoped that Amato would take over and do it for her but she didn’t see how that would work. It made more sense for her to stay hidden and use the element of surprise to her advantage.

     She felt like she had been waiting forever, h
er ass was numb
,
so she stood up and started pacing instead. She’d glanced out of the window once or twice but other than a good view of the alleyway below she couldn’t really see anything useful.

    
She was eaten away with the worry that he had just changed his mind and gone, rode out
of town,
left her here
alone. All of a sudden that seeme
d like a really bad prospect but
she couldn’t push aside the gnawing paranoia.

The she heard voices outside the door, tilted her head and brushed her hair aside to hear better.

    
Amato.

    
He was being purposely loud, letting her know that he was here, giving her a chance to get out of sight. She heard another voice too.

    
There was a woman with him.

    
Leci was surprised at the stab of jealousy she felt but didn’t give herself time to think about it. She moved to the table and hid beneath it, pulling one of the chairs in front of her to try hide her presence. She watched as the door opened slowly. She’d had plenty time to get used to the dimness of the room
,
and she could make out their shapes pretty well. Amato entered first and held the door for his companion. Leci couldn’t make out any details other than that she was small, about the same height as Leci, same build.

    
Good.

    
Perfect.

     
‘It’s dark in here.’

    
Her voice was low, husky, kind of sensual. She sounded a lot more grown up than Leci and again, the g
irl felt something piercing her.

R
eally? Was this jealousy? She couldn’t understand why, it
didn’t make any sense. For starters, Amato hadn’t brought this woman here to fuck her
,
and for seconds... Why should Leci care even if he had?

    
Ok, so the woman was older, maybe prettier, mor
e experienced than Leci but... s
hut up, just shut up. This could all be dealt with later, right now she had a job to do.

    
She couldn’t make out any sort of details in the gloominess but she knew that Amato would give her the opportunity he knew she would need.

    
She watched him take the woman into his arms, she stayed where she was, crouched beneath the table, her fingers wrapped tightly around the hilt of the knife.

     
‘You want some light
,
Darlin’?’

     ‘Oh no,
s
weetie, this’ll do just fine.’

    
Leci tried to ignore the sounds of kissing and the giggles coming from the woman. How could he call her a whore and look at her with such disgust
,
and then stand here and do this with an
actual
whore?

    
It wasn’t fair, it made her kind of angry.

    
Amato turned, the woman still in his arms, turned so that he was facing the table and the hooker’s back was to Alecia.

Slowly, very slowly she pushed the chair aside and then she sprang, pouncing on the woman
,
who shrieked. Amato smashed a fist into her face and she shut up.

    
Leci struck with the knife, jabbing it into her back to
the hilt, pulling it out and stabbing again and again and again until Amato pulled the body away from her.

     
‘Leci, that’s enough, she’s dead.’

    
She stood, the bloodied knife clasped tightly in her hand, she was panting, her chest rising and falling heavily and her hair hung in sweaty, lank clumps around her face.

That had been so much easier than she had thought it would be.

    
And really, so, so much more satisfying.

    
She tossed the knife to one side. It hit the wooden floor with a light clang. Leci raised her hands to brush the hair out of her eyes but stopped before she touched herself. She was covered in blood.

     
‘Ugh. Pass me the sheet?’

    
Amato passed it to her and she wiped away the stickiness as best she could, trying not to think about whatever the disgusting article had had on it
before
she got here, not including the contributions of semen and blood that had been made while she’d been in the room, gross.

    
She watched as Amato lowered the body down onto the mattress. She moved over to her backpack and took out one of the candles
, holding
it close to the corpse
, she
lit it up, telling herself that she just needed to see if the woman was a decent likeness. No other reason... She wasn’t interested in how attractive she was.

    
The candle flared to life under her instruction and she
held it over the face of the body.
T
he hooker was older than Leci was, o
r maybe the nature of her profession had just meant that the years wore on her a little worse. She looked to be in her mid thirties
,
maybe. There were bags under her eyes and wrinkles at the corners of her painted mouth. She had long blonde hair, much longer than Leci’s, but she had the same petite frame and delicate features. She was probably a better match than Leci would’ve hoped for.

    
She secured the candle in a waxy pool on the floor
and started hacking at the woman’s hair after
retrieving her knife and wiping the bloodied blade
on the dirty sheet. She cut it relatively close to her own length and stood back, surveying her work,
her
head tilted to one side critically.

     
‘What do you think?’

     
‘I reckon she’ll do. No one’s gonna be looking closely enough to know for sure that she’s not.’

    
Leci nodded. He was right of course. She looked down at what the other girl was wearing. She had been intending on switching clothes but decided against it.

    
The hooker wore a black lacy bra, a short leather skirt and a pair of lacy black stockings that were full of holes, along with a really uncomfortable looking pair of heeled shoes.
Leci had never worn a pair of heels in her life and did not intend to start compromising her mobility now.

    
Ridiculous.

    
The woman was also wearing a very nice black leather jacket. It fit her snugly, was quite cute and Leci wanted it. It would fit her far better than Amato’s did and besides, he’d claimed that back for himself already.

    
Still, she was reluctant to take clothing from the body. She allowed desire for the article to wrestle briefly with the ick factor of taking something from a dead hooker
,
and in the end her gross-out meter was triumphant. She buttoned up the jacket to cover what the lacy bra didn’t.

     
‘We should get on with it then.’
He urged.

     
‘Is it too late?’ She wanted a crowd, wanted to be certain there would be Officials watching. The whole show would be wasted if not.

     
‘Baby, it’s never too late. Those streets are crawling with assholes and there are
always
Officials prowling. Trust me.’

    
She had no reason not to. He’d been one of them; he certainly knew how they worked.

    
She went over to the body and tried to lift it, couldn’t.

     
‘Fuck, for such a skinny chick
,
she’s damned heavy.’

    
Amato laughed quietly.

     
‘Dead weight babe, shit always weighs more when it’s dead.’ He picked the sheet up from where Leci had dropped it, opened it out beside the corpse and rolled her onto it
,
then wrapped it around her and twisted the ends to form a sort of
makeshift sling.
He picked up one end and mot
ioned for Leci to do the same with the other side, s
he did
,
and between them they carried it to the window. Leci clambered over the ledge and dropped down as quietly as she could onto the fire escape ladder. Amato grunted as he passed the wrapped body through the opening towards her. He must’ve lost his grip
,
or slipped
,
or something
,
because all of a sudden the thing was coming at her much quicker than it should’ve been. She tried to catch it but it knocked her over and landed on top of her, knocking the breath out of her and sending spears of agony through her back as she fell at a bad angle against the metal staircase. She felt panic rising within her but it was quelled as Amato jumped out and pulled the body away from her, reaching down a hand and tugging her to her feet.