𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ✔️

♡ Chapter 15 ♡

There was blood. So much blood.

It stained my shirt and neck, and was even stuck in my hair. I lay facing the ceiling with ringing ears, forcing long blinks as if that would help me come back to reality. The blood smelt like copper, and although it was a smell I was familiar with, it made me feel sick. 

"Celeste," Nic's voice finally reaches my ear after the ringing dies down.

I force myself up. I stand to my feet, my eyes going to the body on the floor. A puddle of blood stained the carpet beneath Jesse, who lays with pale skin and his eyes open.

"We weren't supposed to kill anybody, Nic," I speak in a little bit of a panicked voice. "Those were the rules, we weren't supposed to kill anybody!"

He continues holding the knife in his hand. He drops it to the floor and steps toward me.

"What did you want me to do then, huh? Just let him hurt you? Fuck no. I wasn't just gonna let him hurt you," his voice was firm and his face was strong as he shook his head slightly. "I'm not gonna let anybody hurt you."

My heart pounded in my chest as we stood there. I began thinking. This was a messy kill. Our DNA was everywhere, and his blood was soaked in our carpet. Not to mention the fact that his last outgoing call was to me.

Killing as an assassin is easy. You do it without leaving any DNA. But this wasn't the kill of an assassin, this was an emotional kill. One Nic did without thinking.

"It's not going to take the police long to figure out he was last seen here," I say to Nic. "We need to get rid of the body. How the fuck are we going to bring an entire body down and through the lobby?!"

Nic puts his hands on my face, "Hey. Look at me. Breathe."

I stare into his icy eyes, and take a deep breath.

"First, we need to get all of the blood off of you and out of your hair. Okay?"

I take another deep breath before nodding slightly.

I followed him into the bathroom. He turns the shower on, the water hitting the tiles. I look at him over my shoulder, "Aren't you gonna leave?"

"I'm helping you get all the blood off. I can see it in places you can't."

I nodded. He looks away from me as my clothes hit the floor and I step into the shower. He had already seen me naked once before, so what was another time. I tilt my head up, the water turning red before it hits the drain below. Nic orders, "Face me."

I turn to look at him. He rolls his sleeves up before grabbing a bottle of my body wash.

"Hades is going to kill us," I say to him as he starts scrubbing the blood off of my neck. 

He puts all his attention onto it, rubbing both sides of my neck before rubbing the front. The soap takes the blood away with it, but it's still stuck in my hair. He shakes his head, "Hades isn't going to find out."

"How?"

"Police are gonna start looking into it once his friends and family report him missing - turn," he orders me in the middle of his sentance, and I turn around while he lathers my hair in shampoo. "We're gonna get rid of all the evidence. Destroy his phone. And then...leave the body to me."

The way he said 'leave the body to me' didn't feel like he was going to deal with it in a normal way. While his hands massaged my scalp and scrubbed the blood out of my hair, I asked, "What are you going to do with the body?"

He doesn't reply.

"Nic," I say with a stronger tone. 

"I'm gonna cut his head off and mail it to the police. It's what the Mexican cartel does - and it'll make them look at them, and not even look into us," he tells me.