Wake to Dream(86)

Alice’s eyes rounded, her head shaking in disbelief.

He smiled brighter to see the panic written clearly across her face. “She deserved what she got, Alice. You should have heard the things she said about you. But I didn’t kill her like the others. I wouldn’t do that to you, my love. I knew you would never forgive me for doing something as terrible as that.”

He was insane. She’d known that since the moment he’d hurt her for the first time. But the realization had never been as immediate as it was to her right then.

Forcing herself to speak calmly in an effort to temper the rage she could clearly see building up inside him, Alice asked, “Didn’t you think I’d be upset that you killed her at all?”

Max didn’t answer her, and instead he looked away. Several seconds passed before he explained, “I thought you’d understand, Alice. I thought you’d appreciate the fact that I silenced one of the people who caused you so much pain. I dug a hole for her, a plot next to my parents in the family cemetery. She doesn’t deserve to remain in your garden. Her body would only destroy the sanctity of your space.”

Stepping away, he stopped before he’d crossed through the doorway into another room. Turning his head to talk to her from over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll finish burying her before her body starts to rot, and when I come back inside, we’ll fix this. I won’t let that bitch break us apart.”

It was the final straw, the unforgivable event that finally broke through Alice’s carefully constructed web of denial. Reality slammed into her like a runaway train, the realization that with one phone call – one single bad decision – she’d handed over her sister to the Devil himself.

Something snapped inside Alice, a cord pulled taut that had once held all her delicate and fragile pieces in place. And with that snap came the stark and blinding truth that the only kindness Alice could ever provide the man she loved was to end him and finally put the monster down.

She waited in place for Max to climb down into the musty depths of the dark and damp basement, for the door to close behind him so that she could move quickly without fear of being heard. Dashing into the kitchen she saw the cleaver on the black granite counter, its silver blade gleaming beneath the pendant lights that swung softly above it.

Her fingers gripped around the wooden handle, the metal sliding against stone as she pulled it away and held it down at her side. Tears streamed over her cheeks at the thought of what she had to do, at the harrowing reality that she’d been left with no other choice than to end the nightmare of her life.

Shock was a balm that numbed her sorrow, and with furtive steps, she crept forward until she stood by the basement door.

Unsure if she could go through with the quick decision she’d made, she grit her teeth as she shifted her weight between her feet. She loved this man, more than anyone she’d loved before, but he was so utterly broken, so incapable of repair, that she couldn’t see a way to mend the damage. Like a wounded animal, injured and in pain, Max had no hope of a bright and beautiful future, no chance to survive a normal life in a world that had done nothing but hurt him.

Alice knew that pain, and she couldn’t allow him to continue leaving bodies in his wake, couldn’t stand silent any longer as he stripped innocent futures away from people who had done nothing to him besides having had the bad luck of walking in his path.

Certainty became her strength to end him. Her love became the mortar holding together the wall she’d constructed around her heart in order to follow through with a decision that would end the dark cruelty of a man too shattered to exist in this world.

Raising the cleaver above her head, she cried her angry tears and waited silently for the basement door to open.

A flash of surprise and betrayal behind blue eyes, her arms coming down in a sweeping chop that landed the cleaver at the junction of his shoulder and neck. Her heart crumbled beneath her ribs, her soul tearing apart in one painful rip as his body sunk to the floor at her feet and she heard her sister’s body fall down the steps into the basement below.

He didn’t die from the first strike she’d made, his eyes opened wide as he watched her drop to the floor beside him.

With a gentle hand, she wiped the splatter of blood from his cheek, her body shaking with a keening sob as she bent down to kiss him one last time.

Whispering so that her voice was a soft caress against his mind, she begged his forgiveness for the choice she’d made. “I love you for eternity, my dear husband.” Her voice cracked and shattered, her eyes blurred from the tears that wouldn’t stop. “I love you.”

Kissing her fingers and pressing them to his lips, she gripped the handle of the cleaver with the other hand and pulled it from his body. “Until death, Max,” she promised.

One strike, and his gorgeous face was split apart.

Two strikes, and his skull was crushed on one side.

Three strikes, and his shoulder was separated where it met his neck.

Four strikes, and the hollow of his neck was gouged open.

Five strikes, and the blade of the cleaver was buried into his chest.

With five vicious blows, Alice silenced the monster inside her husband and freed the man trapped inside the body of pervasive darkness. Alice watched the blood running off her hands in rivulets of crimson red, and prayed that the good part of the man she’d known could escape to find the light.