Under the Bones by Kory M Shrum

Author:Kory M Shrum [Shrum, Kory M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-12T05:00:00+00:00

18

L ou woke before Konstantine. It wasn’t dawn. She had at least an hour or two of night on her side. The pain in her arm made it hard to sleep. It wasn’t only the pain keeping her awake.

She hadn’t slept so near a man, not since she was a child. When her mother was away on their annual sisters-only vacation, where they left their husbands and children at home and retreated to somewhere tropical—once the Virgin Islands, another time, an all-inclusive resort in Mexico—she would sleep with her father then.

She would climb up onto their elevated four-poster bed with much difficulty and he would let her watch television while he did paperwork that he hadn’t finished on this or that case during the day. She would wake hours later, to find the popcorn bowl moved, and she herself tucked into her side of the king-sized bed, while he snored softly beside her.

It was too vulnerable, sleeping beside someone. Sex was easier.

From time to time, she found men while hunting. Never the men she hunted. Someone who was simply in the right place at the right time. Someone who walked up to her, and said hello while she tracked this or that man. Someone who’d smiled the right way. Someone who’d noticed her in a world where she moved mostly unnoticed.

She’d let them take her back to their place. But she didn’t tolerate wine, conversation, or any of the tactics that they seemed to think she needed. They gave her names. Numbers. She gave them nothing.

She’d never seen a man more than once. Never taken them back to her apartment. And sure as hell had never brought them food. She couldn’t imagine lying down beside them, and closing her eyes. There was always the chance a knife would slice her throat or a gun would be pressed to the side of her head. So no, she hadn’t slept beside a man since Jack Thorne died.

Yet here he was. Konstantine. His chest rising and falling with each relaxed breath. His cheek on her pillow.

Of all the men in the world…

It’s done, her father said. If it’s done, no point in worrying it like a bone. You’re only punishing yourself twice.

She slipped from her bed and grabbed her black boots. Still wearing her scrubs, she stepped inside the closet and closed the door behind her.

The first stop was a thrift store. She exchanged the scrubs for camo pants and Ramones T-shirt. A black hoodie befitting the chilly September night. A black sports bra with one of its cups missing, the other easily removed. Socks for her feet which she laced her boots over. Had she come during business hours, this ensemble would have cost her $13. She took a twenty from the pocket in her boot and put it on the counter.

The first thing she did to every pair of boots she bought was sew an inner pocket into the tongue. Something tight enough to hold a few compressed bills without them slipping loose.

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