THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

[ 024 ] how not to strangle someone with a scarf

XXIV.

h o w n o t t o
s t r a n g l e   s o m e o n e
w i t h   a   s c a r f

—IT WAS MORE than just a slight tingle that ran underneath Five's skin. No, it was as if someone had attached a live wire to each of his nerves, jolted the bejeezus out of him, and then robbed him of the ability to feel anything in that moment other than sharp, searing pain. His body convulsed as the violent electrical current passed through him, and then he fell back onto the bed in a dead faint.

Gasping for breath, Zara morphed back into herself, glad to feel oxygen rushing through her veins once again. The smell of fish markets and burning ozone still lingered in the air.

Panicked, she prodded the unconscious boy in the chest. She hadn't really meant to electrocute him. A little shock, maybe, was all she had been going for.

"Five?" she poked his face, speaking in hushed tones. "Are—Are you okay?"

Still, he did not move.

Zara pressed a hand to his neck, sighing with relief when she found a steady pulse. He was knocked out, that was all. He was alive.

Maybe that wasn't a good thing.

Her eyes drifted over to the coat hook near the bed. A knitted scarf hung on it. She looked curiously at it, then at Five, tilting her head on one side like a terrier might and thinking.

Five was unconscious, Diego and Luther wouldn't be back for half an hour or so . . . she would get no better opportunity than now.

How easy it would be—simply slip the woollen scarf round his neck and pull it tight. He wouldn't stir, and she could expect no sound from him but a small, choked gurgle. Then the scarf would be pulled tighter still . . .

There would be no thrashing, no suffering. Just a quick, painless death. She'd be doing Five a kindness, even. Hazel and Cha-Cha would not be so merciful as to kill him in his sleep.

As if in a daze, Zara reached for the scarf in one smooth, dreamlike motion. She drew it between her fingers and felt the soft ridges of wool. Slowly, gingerly, she traced the line of Five's throat, like a butcher inspecting his carcass before the first sickening chop.

Zara wrapped the scarf round his neck and began to pull . . .

"One, two, shut the door," came a voice from somewhere below. "Three, four, buckle my shoe."

Her mind snapping back to its usual mercurial state, she lurched off the bed, pressing her back against the wall in an effort to keep herself as far away from Five as possible, holding her arms tightly to her chest.

"Your—Your memory's going, Kiki," Zara stammered out. "It's one, t-two, buckle your shoe."

Kiki hiccuped, as she often did when she thought she had made a mistake. The bird flew from her spot near the trash can and perched on Zara's shoulder, murmuring simple, nonsensical things into her ear.

Zara said with a shaky, almost frantic laugh, "Look, Kiki, a black beetle has come out to look at us. Isn't he a nice black beetle? I never thought I could like a black beetle so much!"