Ethan
When the third call went straight to voicemail, I began to worry. I hit redial.
The number you have called…
I hung up and was about to try again when I swiped the contacts away and tapped into the only indoor camera at home. The basement.
“Fucking hell,” I gasped, slumping into my chair.
I backed out of the live feed and scrubbed to the moment Anne entered the basement.
“Ms Selbourne?”
She ignored him as if he didn’t exist, crossing the room to lay out the set of knives I’d bought her. She pressed the flat of a blade against her cheek, eyes fluttering shut.
“A man has trapped me here. Please—can you let me out, or call the police?” the naked Frenchman pleaded.
When her eyes opened, they were vacant. She pivoted toward him with the hint of a smile.
“How terrible for you,” she said flatly.
My eyes widened as she approached the cage and simply unlocked it. The man was far larger than Anne—I should know; I’d dragged the fucker down the stairs myself.
He scrambled out, crawling on hands and knees before sitting upright like a meerkat on guard duty. I blew out the breath I hadn’t known I was holding.
Then she kicked him full in the face. The moment he collapsed, she sat on his protruding belly.
“You’re all the same,” she spat, and drove the knife toward his chest.
“Argh,” he cried, throwing his arms up against the blade.
The knife pierced straight through his hand. I tapped pause and zoomed in. Through the palm—his face twisted in shock and agony. I hit play again.
“God,” I murmured as Anne went into a frenzy.
Her arm moved so fast it blurred. She carved through his hands, then started on his arms. It was nothing like the Anne I’d observed before—and nothing like how I conducted myself down there.
He tried to shove her off and failed. The second time he succeeded and scrambled away, but Anne was faster. Blood smeared across my pristine floor as his hands and arms leaked over it.
When he tried to rise, Anne put the knife in his spine.
He screamed, reaching behind himself to pull it free, and Anne began to laugh as he collapsed. Blood pooled on his back, dripping down his sides. She bent and drew the knife out, inspected the blade, and wiped it clean on his shoulder.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he howled, dragging himself along the floor in the world’s slowest escape. “Please. I don’t want to die.”
“You’re just unlucky,” Anne mused, planting her feet on either side of his hips. “We all get what we get. It doesn’t matter whether we deserve it or not.”
She grabbed a fistful of his brown hair and began to slice.
Ashlyn knocked on my door and called my name.
Fuck. The Caruthers woman’s appointment.
“I’ll be with her in five,” I shouted.
When I glanced back at the screen, Anne was brandishing a fistful of scalped hair.
“We’re just getting warmed up,” she said sweetly.
I dragged the video forward to what I’d witnessed earlier.
Anne held the sledgehammer over her head for a single second before she swung.
Bone crunched—brain matter, blood, the Frenchman’s face splattered across my floor.
It wasn’t enough for her. She swung three more times, until his skull was pulverised.
Then she dropped onto him and smeared his remains across the floor, and then across her face.
She didn’t stop until she was blood-red to the hairline.
Her eyes lifted to the camera.
White teeth beamed at me.
Another knock at my door.
I stuffed the phone in my pocket and went to consult with my client. She did most of the talking, because I couldn’t stop replaying everything I’d seen. And the question underneath it all.
What made Anne snap?
?? ?? ??
I closed the door behind me, listening to the click before I double-locked it and stepped into my deathly silent home. My shoes echoed against the polished marble as I crossed the foyer.
No food cooking in the kitchen. No sound from the living room. Just silence, and I didn’t like it.
She left you. You always knew this would happen.
“Anne,” I called, the name echoing back to me.
I jogged upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. The bedroom door stood open.
There she was—curled up in the middle of the bed. I set my bag by the door and peeled off my jacket, letting it fall to the floor. As I approached the bed, I paused to toe off my shoes, then pulled the covers up over her.
She lay with her back to me, a white towel wrapped beneath her arms. I settled in behind her and kissed her exposed shoulder. I didn’t say anything. I just held her close.
She didn’t leave. Whatever this was, we could work it out.
I don’t know how long we lay there, but the sun had begun to set when she finally spoke.
“I’m tired of this world,” she whispered, her voice low and flat.
There it was. What lay beneath the exterior. What had made her cut. The doubt that I wasn’t enough for her. Did she still want to die?
I held her tighter, hooking my leg over hers as if I could shield her from the torment.
“What can I do?” I murmured, rubbing her arm, listening to the slow, shallow rhythm of her breathing.
She didn’t speak. But after a few beats she turned and buried her face in my chest. I didn’t miss the red, puffy eyes, or the sorrow that had dulled them.
She spoke, and I listened.
My mind didn’t wander the way it usually did. Her soft words built an ugly picture—one I could comprehend, to a degree. Emotional and physical abuse were beasts I knew. What she described was another animal entirely.
It wasn’t until she showed me her phone that I understood the exhaustion. Understood why she would never bring a child into such a world. I held her until she dropped into a depleted sleep, and I never let go.
I kept reading. Article after article, until they blurred into one—the crime, the judgment, the absence of punishment.
I kissed the top of her head. She clung to my shirt, finding me in her sleep, and I offered what little comfort I could.
As my eyes closed, I considered my own self-serving activities.
I wanted a world with my Anne in it, and some adjustments would need to be made.
Adjustments we could both live with.