“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please don’t, I’ll never do it again, please, no, no, no—”
The girl in the corner was crying, her face buried in her arms. I was sorry that she had to miss this. I looked into the man’s eyes. When I first caught him, he was arrogant. His eyes were full of hate and power, and he thought he could get away with hurting people. Now all there was in his eyes was hurt and pain and terror.
A monster for a monster. Something to feed the shadow.
The fear of death was a powerful emotion. It dropped away everything else and cleansed people of their sins. Nobody, not even the cruelest man, can hold onto their cruelty in the face of death. It takes away their power, makes them humble. It was a blessing to them, I thought, that they died in such purity. And it was this purity that fought away the shadow inside of me.
“You can’t get away this time,” I said to the man. He had stopped pleading—all that came from his throat were whimpering sobs. Beautiful, beautiful. The world was bright again. He was ready for death. I was ready, too.
“Kitten,” I said, placing the tip of my knife at the base of the creature’s throat. “Look here. Look here, kitten.”
The girl raised her head, and I plunged the knife deep.
Kat
I closed my eyes but I could still hear the man dying. His throat gurgled with liquid, and then silence.
Tears ran hot down my cheeks.
“I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.”
I thought maybe if I said it enough times, it would be true. I could click my ruby slippers together and teleport back to the library, where Jules would convince me that I should shelve another section for her. I would be back in my boring life, doing boring things in a boring place. I’d be safe.
Then I opened my eyes and saw the blood puddling on the floor under the table. I was a long way from home.
The man had gotten out an electric saw, and I turned away as he lowered the saw to the body, sending a spray of blood over the front of his shirt. My stomach heaved and I gagged, dry retches that scratched my throat. No. I’m not seeing this. No.
I closed my eyes. My palms pressed hard against my ears but the sick buzzing noise still came through. My head was bent against the radiator, and my body curled up into as small of a ball as I could. I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t want to hear this.
Finally the noise stopped.
The noise stopped, but my eyes were still clenched shut. I heard him walk back and forth, and when I opened my eyes again the body was gone. He wiped up all of the counters and the tiles on the floor with paper towels and dishrags. The white terrycloth bloomed red as he cleaned, and the scent coming from the spray bottle he used was the smell of bleach.
I dropped my hands away from my ears. I didn’t know what to do. There was no way to escape, and now I’d just witnessed an actual murder. There was no chance in hell he’d let me go now, not after what I’d seen. I felt dead inside, numb. My stomach churned and I didn’t care.
Panic attack? I was beyond having a panic attack. I was struggling to even think a single coherent thought.
The killer came back into the room and finished cleaning up a few stray places where there was blood. Then he began to unbutton his shirt.
“What are you doing?” The words came out of my mouth before I could reach out and snatch them back out of the air. Great, Kat. Way to get the serial killer to remember you’re still there.
“Cleaning up,” the man said, as nonchalantly as if I’d asked him while he was washing dishes.
He took off his shirt and tossed it on the middle of the bloodstained tablecloth.
Then he unzipped his pants. I swallowed hard as he stepped out of the black suit pants and added them to the pile of clothes on top of the table. His hair was dark at the roots with sweat, and his muscles gleamed with moisture. If hadn’t been utterly terrified, I would have enjoyed watching him take off his clothes. He was built like a Greek statue, not a single ounce of body fat. Of course, he wouldn’t be fat. Serial killers couldn’t be fat, could they? Oh, lord, I was going insane.
He stripped off his socks, bending over. His back was taut with heavy muscle, and I felt sick thinking about how I had wanted him, how I had kissed him. He pulled off his underwear last, throwing it on top of the pile.
Oh my god. Oh shit. He was going to rape me. He was going to rape me and kill me and take me apart. I couldn’t help but stare at his naked body as he moved, folding the tablecloth on top of the clothes. He wasn’t aroused. Not yet. Maybe he would only get aroused after cutting me like he had cut that man.
Hot tears burned my eyes. Why had I insisted on breaking my boring routine? I could be studying in bed right now, instead of waiting to have my throat slit by a murderer.