Naked

16 Hand of the devil

Is this Lola's blood? Is all of this Lola's? What was she doing here? Wasn't she supposed to be with a client?

I felt cold seep into my bones and instantly I dreaded what I would face up there. My gaze lifted as if been guided by a hand to the top of the stairs was Hawk was climbing the edge. I ran up like a woman possessed denying the gut feeling I had.

I stomped in the corridor, my senses going numb and my vision blurring.

Please, please don't be right. Just this time. Just this once.

I had managed to catch up with Hawk and even overtake him as my heart beat erratically and I couldn't control legs. Fast was not fast enough; The need to dispute my instinct was voracious. 

Even the calls I got from the man behind me to stop going stop didn't fully register in my brain.

I spotted two men right outside a room and took my cue to go there. They looked at me wearily but didn't say a word. Their eyes flickered behind me to the man in charge and as soon as the got the order to stop me the poor sobs did their best.

'Fox, don't go in there, guv. It's not for someone as young as you. Let the bossman handle it first.' one of them tried to reason with an uneasy expression and his arms raised in front of him. He did try the polite way and that got me to linger just a bit to gauge his face. He was pale, his pupils wide and a light sheen of sweat was covering his sickly face.

There was even a dribble of vomit on his clothes clearly showing that what he had seen was horrible enough to make a man like him sick.

Fuck. The trepidation I felt intensified and without even acknowledging the warnings from the man behind me that for some inexplicable reason was so slow, I bolted to the door sidestepping the men posted outside.

I probably had moved so fast they hadn't seen me pass but when my move registered they cried out frustrated.

I stepped into the room and it was like time had stopped. I froze in my spot and couldn't help the gasp that left me without air. My hands went to my mouth to stop the wailing sound that wanted to escape my lips.

Lola... No.

I felt a tear drip down my cheek and shakily I ventured closer.

There she was. Someone had the decency to cover her with the bloodied sheet she must have laid on but there was no denying the corpse was a woman.

Jones was unwinding one limp wrist from the bedpost when he noticed the ruckus I caused and stared blankly at me.

'Get outta here, son! This ain't for ya eyes!' he snapped angrily and he sounded like a completely different person. The calm, gentle Jones was replaced.I ignored him and went straight to the bed to uncover the body. I needed confirmation.

With a snap of my wrist, the sheet lifted to expose the deceased's' face giving my heart a kick to dive to the deepest pit of Tartarus with a hearty rock dragging my stomach down.

The once rosy-cheeked, full of life Lola, the one who threatened to take my V if I didn't have a man soon, the one that pulled my hair when I was making bad jokes or laughed the hardest at my most embarrassing moments. The friend I always turned to when Lynette was being prissy.

She was there. Dead. Claimed by the devil.

Sprawled naked on the bed her hands tied to the posts bloodied and bruised, almost black. Her nails were red with blood. Her head hanging slightly on the side, her eyes glassed over with lifelessness. Her neck black. She was strangled. I carefully closed her eyes in respect and held my palm over her face. She was barely warm.