I almost felt like Avery was playing some kind of game with me. In the first place, it didn't seem like she could possibly be this calm about being kidnapped. I wasn't an idiot. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and that the idea of her falling in love with someone who was holding her prisoner in their house was preposterous. And maybe I was more delusional that I realized, but she almost seemed like she was enjoying talking to me at dinner. Like she was actually interested in me. But I knew that wasn't possible.

And in the second place, I couldn't believe what she said to me about wishing she were someone else. All my life I had wished that I would magically turn into a completely different person. Someone taller or smarter or someone that my mother didn't seem to be so angry with all the time. I would sit at the table after I had made breakfast and stare at the clock on the wall and think and wish really hard If God really loved me he would turn me into someone else at nine o'clock. But when nine a.m. rolled around I would always still be me.

Or I would wish that my real parents would show up at the store one day and take me away to a house where I never had to constantly look over my shoulder to see if someone was standing behind me, watching me and telling me that they knew what a bad boy I was even when I was washing the dishes or cleaning the house or something else that I had been told to do.

It made me angry to hear her say something like that. It made me angry that anyone would feel that way about themselves, but especially Avery. She was just so incredibly beautiful and so sweet and the more I was around her the more I felt like we were truly meant for each other. That just maybe she was someone else in the world who could understand exactly how I felt, and exactly what I was afraid of.

* * *

I had set Avery up in her room and so far it seemed like it was going to work out on the days I had to be gone all day. All I had to do was install a lock on her bedroom door and another one on the door that led out of the bathroom to the adjoining room and then put industrial metal mesh over the windows to make sure she didn't break the glass and call out to someone who might be able to hear her from the street. I also bought her a small fridge and stocked it with the things she liked to eat and after that I felt pretty secure leaving her alone in the house while I was at work.

I knew I was treating her like an animal but I still didn't know what to do. I was so used to being alone, so used to ten years of complete silence in my house other than the occasional screams I heard when I would go down to the basement to take care of a girl down there, that it was really different having someone in the house with me, but it was a difference I couldn't imagine living without now.

Each day that I would be at the salon we would eat breakfast together in the kitchen, and then, even though she had her mini fridge filled with food, I would pack her a little lunch. Ok, maybe it wasn't so little, but I didn't want her to go hungry while I was gone. I would make her a sandwich and put in some fruit and chips and other snacks and I would even use some colorful little bento containers and forks with cute animal heads on them because I thought she might like that. I'd had that stuff around for a long time and had wanted to use them to make someone a cute little bento lunch for years, but I hadn't ever had anyone to make one for, until now.

* * *

As I walked home from the salon in the rain, I tried to figure out how any of what I was doing could possibly play out the way I imagined. I fantasized that somehow through my cooking and bento making skills and my willingness to bring her anything she asked for, she would somehow forgive me for everything I had done and would crawl into my bed with me and we would fall asleep in each others arms. But I knew deep down that I was being ridiculous. It had been a week since I found Avery in my house and I still didn't know what the hell I was doing with her.

I stopped by a couple stores on the way back to my house and picked up some things that Avery needed, then stopped and got some groceries and headed home.

As I approached my house I noticed that someone was on the porch and I hoped that if I just kept walking they wouldn't notice me, but just as I passed the stairway they called out to me.

"Hey, aren't you the guy that lives in this house?" The girl on the porch asked.

I knew who she was and I just wanted to keep walking and pretend that I hadn't heard her, but I was carrying a bunch of bags and didn't want to have to circle the block with them, so I stopped and looked up. She had that same dog with her, the one that wrapped its leash around Avery and I that first night we met. And it went from whining and scratching on the door to barking at me when the girl pulled on it's leash. I was starting to wish I just kept walking because the closer it got to me the louder it was barking.

"Joey! Hey, stop it! Sorry about that, he's all worked up after being trapped inside all day. Anyway, I'm your neighbor, Barbara. I'm the apartment manager for the house right there. And one of my tenants, well, she's actually my friend too, she's been missing for about a week. This is a picture of the two of us. Does she look familiar to you? Have you seen her at all?"

I looked at the girl's phone and there was Avery, smiling at me with every inch of her face. It was so amazing to see her like that, her eyes sparkling and pointed down on both sides in half moons, and the corners of her lips curled up so delicately, but it also made me incredibly sad to think that she would never smile up at me like that. That picture was the closest I would ever get.

"No, sorry. I've never seen her before," I said as I handed the phone back to her. "I don't really talk to the neighbors around here much. I just go to work and come home. That's about it."

She looked at me kind of funny, like she didn't really believe what I had said. Plus, her damned dog wouldn't stop growling and lunging at me so I was getting kind of nervous.

"Well, the window to her apartment is that one right up there. So, you might have seen her on her balcony up there ... maybe, from your house. But, if you don't recognize her, then I guess you didn't."

She was looking at me like she was challenging me. Had Avery told her that she'd seen me looking at her through my window? I was starting to sweat under my coat and my throat was drying out, and I really just wanted to walk off and leave her and her noisy dog right there on the street.

"Are you sure she's not just staying with her boyfriend?"

"No, she didn't have a boyfriend. She didn't know too many people here," she said as she finally took her eyes off mine and looked down at the ground.

"Ok, well I'll get out your hair. If you see her around, please let me know. I'm in the ground floor apartment at the back. The door says manager on it. Come on, Joey, let's go," she said as she pulled her barking dog away from me and down the sidewalk.

"I will," I said as I walked up the driveway and through the gate faster than I ever had in my life. I had never ever been approached by anyone about one of the girls I had brought back to my house and I was completely and totally unprepared for it. My hands were sweating and I felt like I was about to have a heart attack and I was positive that she knew. And as I unlocked the door to the house I looked down and realized that the top item in the bag I was carrying was a box of tampons.

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ!

* * *

When I got up to the kitchen I threw the bags on the table and stuck a roast in the oven as quickly as possible. I didn't want to see Avery, I just wanted to be alone for a while and calm down, so I went in my room and laid on the bed until the kitchen timer went off.

This really is insane. What I'm doing is insane, I thought as I stared at the dark ceiling. What did I think was going to happen? That Avery would suddenly decide that she really did want to stay with me and we would live happily ever fucking after? Now her friend was asking about her and she was sure to go to the police soon. And the first thing she would tell them would be about the suspicious neighbor who used to stare at her friend through the window and this house would be the first place they would look.

Avery had asked my why she was here at least once a day every day for the last week and I didn't have the vaguest idea what to tell her. That if I held her prisoner long enough that she eventually would fall in love with me? That's not what I wanted, to force her to love me. That's now how I wanted Avery to feel about me at all.

After I took the roast out of the oven I went to Avery's door and unlocked it, then knocked and told her that I had picked the things up that she had asked for. She opened the door and came out into the hall.

"Smells good, again," she said. "Where did you learn to cook so well? Everything you make smells and tastes so good," she said with a slight smile. I figured she must be trying to get on my good side because I couldn't figure out any other reason she would be smiling at the horrible person who was holding her prisoner.

"I'm going to make a salad and then dinner will be ready," I said as I turned and walked to the kitchen. Things just didn't seem to be going very well and I wasn't in the mood to stand there and listen to her lie to me.

* * *

"What is that on your arm?" I asked after ten minutes of eating in silence. We had barely spoken since we sat down at the table, but my eyes kept going back to her forearm with the design burned into it. The dots were starting to heal and fade, but today she was wearing a t-shirt and they were clearly visible.

"Nothing, really," she said as she put her fork down and rubbed her right hand over the area.

"It looks kind of like a tattoo. Is that what it is?"

"No. Well, it's not permanent, but I guess it's kind of like a tattoo since it's a design."

"Did you do it yourself?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

She didn't answer right away and I imagined that she was uncomfortable talking about it. I had started feeling a little bit better after we sat down and began eating and I really wanted to talk to her about it. I felt like it was something we had in common, in a way. And as I waited for her to respond I realized another thing that seemed really similar. It was a hard thing for her to talk about.

"I've watched you," I said, knowing I was headed down a dangerous path, but for some reason not able to stop myself from saying it. This hadn't even been my plan, it was just happening and I didn't want to stop it. I wanted to talk to her. And I wanted her to know exactly how I felt about her, even if she never wanted to see me again.

"What do you mean?"

"I watched you do that to your arm, for over an hour. You sat in your window seat in front of a candle and you heated a pin and burned your skin, one dot at a time. When I finally saw it up close I was ... mesmerized by how intricate and how beautiful it is.

"Then why did you ask me what it was?"

"Because I wanted you to tell me." I didn't know where all this was coming from. Maybe I had made an unconscious decision that I had to do something. I had to stop being a total wuss and tell her how I felt, no matter how idiotic it all seemed.

I kept my eyes on her and waited for her response and she didn't look away. It felt like a full minute went by before she started talking and in that time we just looked into each other eyes and I swear she felt the same way I did.

"I guess I do it so that I don't feel so sad sometimes." She finally looked down and when she did I got up and walked around the table and sat down in a chair that I had moved right next to her.

"How does it make you feel less sad?" I asked as I reached out and ran my fingers over the design.

"I don't know. Maybe the pain takes my mind off of my sadness, or maybe it makes me feel something other than sadness. It feels like relief afterward. Like I'm floating and peaceful and at ease," she said as she closed her eyes, like she was trying to feel those feelings right then.

"What does it feel like while you're doing it?" I was holding her arm with both of my hands now, looking at her arm, then up to her closed eyes, then down at her arm again. When I looked back up she had opened her eyes and was looking at me.

"It's exciting. It feels like I'm actually doing something. Like I'm creating something that's all mine. Just for me and no one else," she said as tears started to pour over the edge of her lower lids.

I was stunned. I couldn't even speak, I just stared at her, holding her arm in both of my hands with my mouth hanging open. I wanted to wrap my hand around her head and kiss her. I wanted to devour her and make her part of me so that we would never be apart again.

I had just listened to her tell me exactly how I felt when I was taking the parts off the girls and using them to create the faces on the mannequin heads. How I had always felt. That it was my secret, my thing. It wasn't for anyone else and that made it feel special to me. It made them mine.

I showed them to Landen after years of avoiding the subject because I felt like I had finally found someone else who might appreciate them. But it was something completely different to hear Avery say that exact same thing I had been feeling right back to me. She was somehow experiencing the same thing as I was, only she was doing it without killing people.

"Is that how you feel too?" she asked.

"How do you know?"

"Because ... I don't know what it is ... you seem so ... familiar to me somehow. I don't know why but I almost feel like I understand you in a way. I don't understand the killing and the bloody girl in the basement at all, but there are other things." She stopped talking and reached up and touched my face and for a moment I couldn't see anything else but her. It felt like the room, the whole world, was melting and moving around us, revolving around us.

"Can I ask you about it?"

"Yes," I said. I hadn't told anyone about anything I did except Landen, and I was incredibly lucky to have him. I couldn't imagine trying to navigate through all of this without having someone to talk to.

"How many people have you done that to? Like the girl that was coming up the basement stairs."

"A lot. I've never counted. I've been doing it for about ten years now and sometimes I'll bring a girl home once every two weeks for a while. But then sometimes I will go for six months without bringing anyone back here."

"Where do you find them? The girls you bring back here."

"The salon. I have a system that I use to find girls that no one would look for right away. College girls that need money or aspiring actresses usually."

"Do you do it for sex?"

"No. I don't ever have sex with the girls I bring home." I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable, but I wanted to keep talking to her so I took a few breaths and tried to relax.

"And you always kill them?"

"Yes."

"If it's not sex, what do you want from them?"

"I want ... the beautiful part of them. The part that's perfect."

"So, you kill them to get it?"

"Well, yeah ... that's pretty much the way it works out," I said as I leaned back a bit. I wanted to talk to Avery, but I didn't really want her to know all these horrible things about me. It felt like as I was getting closer to her I was being pulled further away by because she was finding out what a truly disgusting person I was.

"Why haven't you killed me? Why haven't you taken any part off of me?"

I looked up into Avery's eyes; at the most genuine look of sincerity that I had ever seen. She wasn't mocking me or laughing at me. She was just interested somehow.

"Because you're perfect. I wouldn't have to change anything about you at all," I said as I reached up to touch her cheek but then stopped when I realized what I was doing. I immediately stood up but it all happened too quickly and the chair behind me fell backward.

"I ... have some things I need to do now. You should probably to go back to your room."

"Wait, Colin ..."

She just sat there and looked up at me while I waited for her to get up and when she realized that I wasn't going to say anything else, she stood and walked ahead of me out of the kitchen and into her room.