Chapter 26

After it was done, I lay next to the woman's corpse and Harper lay on the other side, like some kind of macabre ménage-trois. I stared up at the ceiling, my mouth open in awe and a thin trickle of blood snaking down my chin. Harper had been right. The pain had gone; the thirst had dissipated and was replaced with a sense of fullness and of calm. I felt calm for the first time since Harper had drugged me in the apartment. Something small and with too many legs, crawled over my foot but I didn't care. In fact, the basement seemed less drenched in darkness than it had before. My fear of this place no longer twisted in my gut, I felt stronger, more alive than I had in days. "We have to get rid of it," Harper said suddenly, sitting up. I looked at him questioningly and he rolled his eyes as if I were really the dumbest creature he had ever met. "The body," he drawled sarcastically. "The woman." "Oh," I said, wrink