I’VE NEVER HESITATED BEFORE. I kill without remorse. The girl who loves me, Abby, the one I fuck and leave because I don’t have feelings for her, she’s a psych major and says I have psychopathic tendencies. She says I have a deficiency in empathy and she cried one night, telling me I lack the emotions to care about anyone. But if that’s true why do I care about my brother?
And why, when the single tear that dropped from the green eye, and the Live tattoo with the flower on the wrist of the little spitfire girl that nearly knocked herself out running into me earlier, did I hesitate? Why did seeing her in the mirror, stunning me when I recognised her, make me not want to squeeze my fist tighter around her neck, ending the inconvenience of this cluster fuck of a job? Of all the coincidences, this one blew my mind. The aroma of her body flared the life of the man in me. She was scared and shaking, the sweat carrying her scent to me, making me human at a time I needed to be the evil I was born to be.
“You fucking coward. At least face me if you’re going to kill me,” she murmured.
Hell I was proud of her in that moment and that was a new feeling for me. She wasn’t as weak as I first thought.
My anger grew. I didn’t want to feel anything. I needed to kill her. This job had turned bad so fast. It was a shit storm that might have me tracking the client who hired me and killing him for fun. No one was supposed to be here except the parents, and it was supposed to be a quick, clean kill while they were asleep. A living girl and two dead people in a mass of blood and gore in the dining room was not how I wanted to leave the house. I had no choice. I spun her around and forced her head back into the mirror, knocking her unconscious. It shattered and splintered around her like confetti. She was beautiful; I’m cold hearted not blind. She lay there with her hair fanned out around her. She would never have felt it if I’d just ended her life, but I couldn’t.
I stalked back into the shadows and waited and watched as she roused from her temporary slumber.
I will question why I stayed for my entire life.
When I broke I didn’t see it. I felt it, though. The warmth left me, something inside disintegrated.
When I kill, I don’t think about the person I kill, the family they might have or the person who has to find the bodies. So, to watch first hand as a girl awoke from a dream to be forced into a nightmare and see her break right in front of me was a surreal moment. It was an uncomfortable experience for me.
It’s visible, a person’s soul fracturing. You see their world collapse, their beliefs leave them. You see raw grief switch to anger and back again to inconsolable pain. Questions flitter through their soul. “Why has this happened to me?” The unanswered ache transforms their features. The shutters close over their eyes, dimming their light, shredding them of who they once were and altering them forever. The slouch of the shoulders, the drop of the mouth. Their skin turns pale. You see anger, grief and disbelief. Rage in their eyes like a storm at sea before it calms to an empty ocean. You don’t just kill the mark when you do a job, you kill the spirit in the people who loved them. How will she let this change her? What will she become when she re-surfaces from the depraved actions of a soulless killer?
She cries like a small child, calling out to her dead parents and it dislodges something inside me. I don’t like seeing her shatter. I want to pick up her pieces and reassemble her, and I dislike that even more. I don’t like the stained blood on her knees or the gash I created on her head. I don’t like the hollow look in her eyes as she stares at the woman she called Mommy. I don’t like that I’m feeling. This isn’t who I am. I can’t be here
I dial 911 on their house phone and leave.
I get home by seven o’clock the next morning. The house smells of sweat and sex. The blonde on our sofa is half-dressed, her make up melted from her face making her resemble a wax model too close to a flame.
I kick the sofa, making her grumble and look up at me. Her hair is a mess and she narrows her eyes at me. “You’re not Russell,” she mumbles, standing up, her tits on display. They’re marked with teeth marks.
“It’s Ryan, not Russell. Here,” Ryan says, walking down the hall and slinging a hundred dollar bill at her.
“What the fuck is this?” She holds up the cash. “I’m not a fucking prostitute!” She scoops her top up from the floor and pulls it over her head. It barely covers her tits. “And if I was, I’d charge more than that for the shit I let you do to me. I won’t be walking right for weeks, asshole.” She glares at my brother.
I rub my hand over my tired eyes.
“Great, a freebie then.” Ryan swipes the money from her hand. “See yourself out.”
This chick doesn’t even know his name then gets offended at being treated like a whore? I watch her retreat, slamming our front door behind her, the walls vibrating from the force.
A sigh leaves my body. “Leave that trash in the clubs, Ry. We’ve spoken about you bringing those types here. Put the video recorder away. I do not ever want to see what’s on that.”
I need a shower then sleep, and pray the green eyes that won’t leave my mind will let me shut off.