Share

Chapter Two

last update Last Updated: 2021-09-06 16:19:08
CHAPTER TWO

Marie did, indeed, take a bath. Such a luxury, time spent on herself when she should have been cleaning, or catching up on that night’s batch of work, or taking the soup to her mother with Aleta. But she didn’t. She did neither of those things.

She pinned her dark hair up. It was thick and streaked with gray, but sometimes it still managed beauty. She liked to think so, anyway, when she caught unexpected glimpses of herself in mirrors and store windows.

“I don’t look half bad,” she sometimes mused, and very nearly tossed her head. If she did so, perhaps her hair would fall over one eye. Perhaps it would hide the heavy circles under it, the weariness that peered out of her irises. Perhaps somebody’s eyes would be drawn to that rather foppish section of hair instead of the worry lines around her mouth.

Worry lines. Not laugh lines. Grim Marie knew this, knew there was a difference. She knew she wore her station and her sorrows on her face like other ladies wore fine hats. Her eyes would skitter away from her reflection, and she’d continue on, her head down, her fingers counting the few dollars in her pocket.

But now, she thought no such thing. She pinned her hair high on her head. The water was decadent, almost unseemly hot, and she had put in a little hand soap to create bubbles.

“Mom,” Aleta had told her before, rolling her eyes. “I have some real bath stuff. Good stuff. You should use it. Stop acting so poor all of the time. If you do, it’ll stick.”

“One day I’ll buy my own,” she had promised, and she meant it at the time. She still did. But now was not that time, and the “good stuff” belonged to Aleta. She didn’t want to use it. Besides, the hand soap smelled good, as it should. She had made it herself. And it didn’t remind her of working, as dish soap did. This bath was enough luxury without completely losing her head over it.

Well. Maybe a little. She could perhaps go a bit wild.

She took down a candle, precious to her. Something small and meaningless, perhaps, to somebody else. An extra gift for Christmas. Something that came free when you ordered something in the mail. She couldn’t remember exactly, but she knew this candle meant time, and it meant a touch of elegance, and it meant that she was doing something for herself because she, Marie, was a good person and deserved good things.

This made her sniffle and rub at her face with the back of her hand. And that made her laugh. Then it made her cry. Who was she to believe she deserved so little? She had been full of dreams, once. She and her husband and Aleta, all.

Misplaced dreams. Ill-suited dreams. Nearly unseemly in her unabashed, wide-eyed dreaming of them. She should be embarrassed. She should be ashamed to have dreamed such feral dreams at all. They weren’t for little people and nobodies. They weren’t for her.

Her refuge, reward bath turned into a cold comfort for an undeserving woman. Marie covered her face with her hands and cried. Louder and louder, less and less controlled, she sobbed until she howled, like the ecstatic howl of The Wolf, and these noises covered the scream and cries of her sweet little Aleta as she floundered and eventually fell under The Wolf’s snarling jaws.

Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App

Latest chapter

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Eighteen

    CHAPTER EIGHTEENOfficer Will took the call with sorrow. Grim Marie had taken her own life. She was found in the bath with expensive-smelling bubbles and a candle. She had used a razor.He wished this hadn’t surprised him.His heart felt heavy, but he tried to convince himself that at least she was at peace now, enfolded in the arms of her mother and her daughter. A third little urn lined up on the shelf, perhaps. At least the pain and misery of her hunt for The Wolf was over.He sighed.“I’m responsible,” he said aloud, and the words pierced. They twisted up inside of him like a jangle of knives and sharpened bones and Dead Marie’s razor blades.He had sent her after the man she believed to be her daughter’s killer. Told her to keep an eye out for any DNA he might drop. He hadn’t believed this man was The Wolf, but it didn’t matter. It gave her something to do. Gave her something to throw her heart and soul into, since she had little heart and no soul left. Picking up a littered

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Seventeen

    CHAPTER SEVENTEENThe test results came back. This wasn’t The Wolf. Neither the DNA nor the bite marks were a match.She had done it, but it wasn’t worth it. Not at all.

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Sixteen

    CHAPTER SIXTEENOfficer Will’s wife met her at the hospital.“Thank you for coming,” Marie sobbed. “Thank you so much.”“Of course I’d come,” Winnie said. She sat in the corner of the room while the nurses scrubbed and swabbed and collected everything they could. It was like being violated all over again, except with soft voices and lighter touches.The worst, Marie thought, was when she exposed her breasts. Bite marks everywhere. On her nipple and ribs and on her stomach.“I hope it helps,” she whispered to nobody in particular. “I hope it helps my baby.”They didn’t understand and she didn’t bother to explain, but pictures were taken. Bites were measured. Details were taken and carefully written down.It seemed to last for hours. At last they said she could go home.“I’ll drive you,” Winnie offered, and Marie nodded wearily.The car ride was silent for a long time. Marie leaned her head back against the seat and stared at the dark sky.“Thank you for coming today,” she sa

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Fifteen

    CHAPTER FIFTEENShe walked into the police station. Officer Will took one look at her and leapt up from his desk.“Marie!”“Don’t touch me. I have DNA. Lot of it.”“Marie, what did you do?”He reached out to touch her but she pulled back.“Please. Could you take me to the hospital? Is that what I need to do?”The officer’s face changed. Anger and concern, yes. A little bit of hope. Something that looked like sorrow, but she couldn’t be certain. But underneath, something primordial and snake-like roiled to the surface. Hatred and revenge.“He assaulted you?” he asked. “I can’t believe he would be so stupid. Where is he?”“It wasn’t like that at all. He didn’t do anything that I didn’t ask him to do.”Marie didn’t realize another person could look so stricken. His concern was making her lose her nerve.“Please,” she said. “The hospital. Because after this is done, I really want to take a shower more than anything else on earth.”“Marie.”He reached into his desk for his ke

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Fourteen

    CHAPTER FOURTEENShe left him while he was sleeping, sprawled naked and stinking on top of the hotel sheets.She vomited quietly into the toilet. Once. Twice. Then she slipped her clothes on and crept out of the door.Marie held her body far too carefully. She was tired, and sore, and disgusted, and so, so jubilant. When she stepped into the lobby that she had only been in a few hours before, the man behind the desk raised one eye at her.GLENN, his nametag read.“Hello, Glenn. Would you call a cab for me? Please?”“Certainly.”Glenn the Polite spoke quickly and quietly on the phone. Marie leaned against the desk, aware that her eyes were starting to blacken and her face was swollen. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss?” Glenn asked her. His words were professional, but his tone said so much more. Sweet, kind Glenn. A lamb working at the desk, unknowingly serving a wolf.She looked him deeper in the eyes, then, and realized that he knew. That there was a weariness

  • Little Dead Red   Chapter Thirteen

    CHAPTER THIRTEENShe wondered where he lived. She bet it was a disgusting hole underneath a rock. A dirt cave he decorated in children’s bones and chicken legs, like Baba Yaga.He led her to a motel. Not cheap. Not nice. Just a thing. A place. An anonymous hidey hole squirreled away in an odd corner of the city.“This is where you live?” she asked, trying to keep her nose from crinkling.“No,” he said simply.And her heart dropped. How was she to lead police triumphantly to his home if they weren’t going there? She had worked hard on memorizing the way, the street numbers, but they were just In The Middle Of Nowhere, USA.“Do you . . . stay here often?”He stopped and dropped her wrist abruptly. The look in his eyes made her swallow. Hard.“I don’t bring people to my home and I don’t answer questions. Do you understand?”She nodded. He was suspicious. She was losing him. She knit her fingers together and bit her lower lip.“I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m nervous. This isn’t . .

More Chapters
Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status