Chase

Age sixteen

Killers aren’t born. They’re made.

I was always a troubled boy. But my parents never gave it a second thought. They never paid much attention to me anyway. I was a burden. Something that shouldn’t have existed.

It was no wonder I eventually ended up in foster care with a mother who disappeared and a father who drank himself to death.

But bored little boys who are angry with society, angry with their parents, do things they shouldn’t.

They start to punish other little boys for doing bad things.

Pulling underwear over their head when they peed on the toilet seat.

Hitting them with a stick when they bullied others.

Giving them bloodied and broken noses when they stole candy.

I did it all and worse.

It was never enough to satiate my insane appetite for justice.

The little boy grew up, but he always kept punishing people. The older he got, the more tools he used, and the easier it became to hide behind a mask.

But nothing ever prepared him for his first murder.

When I’m in a store to buy a gift for a friend, a man comes staggering in. Grabbing a bottle of liquor, he wobbles to the cash register. But instead of paying, he pulls out a gun.

The cashier doesn’t know what to do. Panics. Begins to cry.

The man threatens him. Holds him under shot.

The cashier reaches for something underneath the register. The drunken man screams.

I tackle him from behind.

We fight over the gun. In the heat of the moment, it goes off.

But instead of it aiming to kill me … it kills him.

It takes a while for my brain to register what has happened.

But the elation and euphoria surging through my body are unmistakable.

My first kill.

And I grin … because I already knew this would only be the beginning of something beyond this world.

Something monstrous.

Me.

* * *

Syrena

In the middle of the night, he comes home.

When the door closes, I slide toward the door in my room and listen to the sounds. His steps are soft but still audible.

Where the hell did he come from? And why did he come home so late?

Was it for his job? Or did he go do something else?

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I slowly open the door and listen to the sounds. He turns on the lights and water gushes out of the faucet in the bathroom.

I approach the noise and grasp the door opening.

Suddenly, metal clatters into the sink. It sounds like the soap dispenser.

“Fuck,” he hisses, the water splashing everywhere, even onto my skin. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Sorry,” I say.

“I thought you were in bed.”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

He clears his throat and continues washing something … but what?

“What are you doing?” I ask.

He sighs. “Nothing.”

I sniff something in the air. A funny metallic scent, and it isn’t the soap. I’m sure.

“In the middle of the night?”

“Just … go back to bed.”

I frown and then grasp the thing away from him, quickly smelling it before he snags it back.

“Don’t. Touch. It.” Every word comes out like it’s poison.

As if he’s trying to scare me away.

But we already played this game, and he’s not gonna win twice.

“What is it?” I ask.

“None of your business,” he snaps, tucking it underneath the sink again.

“You woke me up, so now it is.”

“Go to bed,” he says with a stern voice.

“No. I can’t sleep when you’re up and about. You’re washing something … clothes, maybe? And in the middle of the night even. Which begs the question …” I step closer to him. “What are you trying to hide?”

I grasp the cloth again and hold it close to my nose.

It’s blood. Definitely blood.

Suddenly, he grabs my arms and shoves me against the wall. His breath mere inches away from my mouth. “I told you not to fucking touch it!”

“You’re washing out blood,” I reply, unshaken by his rage.

“Don’t …” His voice is so low, it makes my whole body quake. But I refuse to fear him.

“Were you … hurt?” I ask.

He sucks in a breath.

His pause feels like an eternity.

Then he whispers into my ear. “Is that what you want?”

I hold my breath as his tongue dips out to lick the rim of my ear.

“No,” I reply, my voice shaky.

“I don’t believe you. I know you hate me,” he whispers, planting one hand above me on the wall. The other snakes up my arm. “You don’t have to fear me. I won’t hurt you.”

I don’t know if I can believe him.

If he’s really washing out blood, whose is it? Did he get into a fight with someone? Or is he lying to me?

A soft moan leaves his mouth, and he whispers, “It’s hard to resist … So hard.”

Hard to resist … what?

Me?

“Keep pushing me,” he adds.

Is it a threat or an invitation? I can’t tell.

Until he opens his mouth. “I like it.”

What kind of person says that?

After being caught doing … this?

“Who … who are you?” I ask. The question just slipped out of me.

But I can’t stop wondering why he’s cleaning in the middle of the night. Who does that?

I can hear him smile. His hand moves up my neck … all the way to my cheek, where he caresses me. His fingers leave a slick trail on my skin.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to,” he says. I can hear him smile. “As I said, it’s none of your business. Trust me when I say you’re better off not knowing.”

My lips begin to tremble.

His fingers brush down my chin and then let go.

I feel like he just slid his tongue down my throat.

Like he just groped me.

Tongued me.

And I let him.

Even though none of that really happened.

It just played out in my mind.

And it’s so fucked up that the moment he lifts his hand off the wall, I bolt.

* * *

Chase

After washing the bloodied poncho, I dump it in the bleach and cleanse my whole bathroom. I shouldn’t have brought it home with me, but tonight was an unplanned thing, and I didn’t exactly have anything prepared. Guess I should’ve known she’d wake up from all the ruckus.

Fuck.

I slam the wall in the shower and stare down at my feet as the water pools.

How could have I been so stupid? I’m normally never this careless.

It’s just that … the moment I stepped into my car again and everything was taken care of, I immediately thought of her.

Yes, right after, when adrenaline was still surging through my body, I was thinking of her.

And not in the gentlest of ways.

I wanted to grab her by the throat and kiss her so hard it’d steal her breath.

I wanted to fuck her brains out while she screamed out my name.

I wanted to tie her up, spank her, choke her, make her wet.

Images of sex jumbled up my brain even though I’d just committed cold-blooded murder.

This has never happened before.

Never.

And it scared the living shit out of me so much that I instantly drove back home without thinking twice.

Why? I was actually scared she already escaped, which is insane, because I locked all the doors and windows tight. There’s no way out. Yet the fear was real.

Just as much as my hard-on is right now.

Fuck.

I can’t stop thinking about how pretty she looked with those watery eyes, cowering between my hands, her lips plump and ripe for the taking. And how I ruined it all.

Why? Why does this have to happen?

Is this why I couldn’t kill her? Because I’m infatuated with her?

If that’s the case, it’s all been for nothing.

It doesn’t prove anything about my ability to resist evil.

Fuck!

I slam the wall again so hard that it hurts.

I let the warm water cascade down my back.

The longer she stays, the more I succumb to bad thoughts.

Her mere presence has driven me to kill. Twice now.

But I can’t let her go either. There’s no way out of this. I have to keep her, for as long as it takes, for as long as I need to. I don’t even know why … I just know that I have to for my sake. Even though it comes at a hefty price: Her happiness.

After all the blood is gone and I’m clean, I get out from under the shower and dry off. My mind’s still going in circles about what just happened and how she thought I might’ve been wounded. She actually thought I was the one hurt?

Or does she know now what kind of a monster I am?

She shouldn’t have come in, shouldn’t have touched my shit, but she couldn’t ignore her curiosity.

I shouldn’t have touched her, sniffed her, licked her … but God, she tasted so fucking good. But then she ran away … because of me.

Wearing nothing but a towel, I walk out of the shower and to my bedroom. I don’t even go check on her because I just can’t stomach seeing her face right now. I know I’m an animal. I don’t need confirmation.

I throw off my towel and lie down in bed naked, staring up at the ceiling.

No matter how many times I close my eyes, I can’t force myself to sleep.

Can’t do anything but … think of her.

Those beautiful eyes and that sexy body I just want to fuck.

And I already know, sooner or later … it’s going to happen.

Self-control isn’t my best asset. It never was.