Blood Money

The lines become blurred when Jasper starts spending most of his time in bed, causing me to end up with the responsibility of doing the operations under the watchful eye of Ruby.

The mistakes keep falling like dominoes.

This is when I know we’re in deep. This is when we start killing people, stealing their money, and selling their bodies to the luckiest bidders. As soon as the anesthesia takes them away, Ruby tells me to puncture their heart, slit their throat, poke holes in their lungs; anything that will end their life so we can get the most we can out of the transaction.

We’re not helping anymore. We’re robbing. And the more bodies rack up, the more suspicion is created. Prying eyes are all around us.

The sound of the meat carver is what makes me step into the embalming studio one day. I expect it to be Jasper standing over the metal table, and I want to scold him for being out of bed when he should be resting his weak bones, but what I find surprises me.

Jasper certainly is there, but his pure white skin is messily hanging off his bones as he lies there on the cold metal. His right arm sways limply over the side, dripping blood as Ruby stands over him, setting the carver down. A hand flies up to my mouth in shock, and I experience a dozen horrid feelings plague me all at once. I almost vomit.

I’m not sure exactly how Jasper died. I don’t know if she found him lifeless in his bed that morning due to the last of the white blood cells finally suffocating him, or if she ended his life there on the operation table. I don’t want to know. Because when Ruby—or who I mistakenly assume to be Ruby—slowly turns around to face me after I make my presence known, there’s a look in her eyes that renders me speechlessly terrified, freezes my heart and shatters it to splintering pieces stuck inside my throat.

It’s Shiva.

Jasper’s warning rings in my head. Don’t let her cut the bodies.

Too late.

Before she can inflict her soul-crushing gaze on me any longer, she stares past me, in a momentary daze, and she blinks. She’s gone, but still, I’m on edge. My eyes are wide with fear. I don’t know what’s coming next.

She shakes her head and looks back at the table, observing Jasper’s grotesque flayed corpse. She reaches out as if to touch his bloody, half-skinless body, and I almost want to criticize her shoddy work.

She turns to me, appearing troubled.

“Did I do this?”

It’s Ruby. Thank God.

I don’t know what to tell her. I’m not even sure what happened.

“I think so.”

She takes another minute to examine the damage done and turns stoic, holding her head upright in a way that makes it seem as though she hasn’t just skinned her business partner and good friend. She walks past me, pausing when she reaches the stairs.

“Get ready. We’re going to Texas.”