Free Revenge by Meli Raine

fall apart every time I see a dead body, or have to interrogate an injured victim.”
    “You can’t,” I say simply. “You couldn’t do your job if you fell apart all the time.”
    His eyes flash with surprise. “Yes. Exactly. You do get it.”
    “Try keeping yourself together while video cameras record your every move, the media waiting for the big drug dealer’s daughter to fall apart on camera a t his sentencing,” I reply, my voice so full of bitterness I could bottle and sell it in grocery stores . “I understand, all right. You can’t break down. If you do, it helps no one.” Least of all yourself , I think.  
    “ I wish you didn’t understand,” he murmurs, eyes troubled. “I wish...well, there are a lot of things I wish. But I don’t have a time machine.”  
    “If you did, my dad would be alive. And that poor woman, the one who they just found.” I shiver. “You’re sure it’s not Amy?”
    “The chief says no.”
    “Thank God.”
    M ark’s eyes fill with a kind of darkness I can’t name. “I’m glad I don’t have to call Minnie and tell her we found her daughter, dead. But that phone call has to be made to a different mother , Carrie.”
    He gives me a quick peck on the lips.
    “Someone,” he says over his shoulder as he walks out the front door, “is about to find out that their daughter is dead. And I probably have to make that phone call.”
    The front door opens. My head is spinning like an overturned car with wheels still in motion.
    “Lock the doors after me. Lock the door to your trailer when you go to it . T ext me before you go anywhere. Keep your cell phone battery charged at all time s ,” he orders. The demands come out like a list in his head.
    “Yes, sir,” I whisper. No sarcasm. I’m terrified. Men stealing women my age, including my best friend, and dismembering them has that effect on me.  
    “ Where are you going today?” he asks.  
    “Cindy texted me. Needs help at the shelter now that Minnie’s in the hospital. I thought I’d go there.”
    He nods. “ Just stay the hell away from Eric and Claudia. Don’t go to the coffee shop today. Stick to the no-kill shelter. That’s probably the safest place you can be today, honey.”
    And with that, the front door slams.
    Honey.
    He called me honey .
    I smile in spite of the somber topic we just discussed. How can I be happy when there’s a serial kidnapper who just turned into a killer and he chopped that poor woman’s arms and legs off?
    And the same guy has my best friend?
    The same best friend I would be on the phone with right t h is very second if she weren’t gone.
    I finally did it. Mark and I made love. We’re back together.
    I’m a woman now.
    I snort as I think that last sentence. I’m a woman now was part of a longstanding joke Amy and I had together, for years. When we were teens we were watching television at my house one day and a tampon commercial came on.
    The daughter said to her mother, “Does this mean I’m a woman now?” and my dad happened to walk in at that exact moment. He turned a shade of red found mostly on traffic lights.
    Amy and I had spent the better part of a decade making fun of everything under the sun b y saying I’m a woman now .
    And yet...it feels true. Mark makes me feel more womanly.
    The door opens again and he’s jogging down the hall toward me.
    My heart freezes.
    “Is everything okay —”
    His mouth takes mine in a fevered kiss that shatters all thought. I’m splintered and floating, his mouth taking liberties I can imagine him taking with his hands. Lower.
    He pulls back, worry etched on his face.
    “I couldn’t just leave,” he says, panting.
    I kiss his neck. T hen I lick his collarbone.
    Bzzzz.
    He growls and stands, breaking the embrace. “Tonight?” he calls back over his shoulder as I watch his perfect ass walk away.
    “Tonight what?”
    “Tonight. You. Me. Dinner.” He waves a hand in the air. “This.”
    “This what ?”
    “Sex. Lots