Chapter 14 Already Mine
Already Mine
PREACHER
“And what does this salvation look like?” She asks.
Ripley’s been in fight or flight her whole life, I can see it carved into her skin like a brand. When you come crawling out of that kind of hell, you start to smell it on other people like a sickness. I want the truth as she knows it, to swallow every last morsel until I truly understand her.
“Anything you want. Money, power, and a constant flow of bloody chaos to satisfy that beast inside of you.”
I reach up to brush away a wave of damp curly hair, and to my surprise, she leans into my touch. There’s no denying the fact that she’s beautiful, even with the bruises and the split lip. It’s those eyes that kill me, though. That bright blue that both unsettles, and takes my breath away.
“All you have to do is tell me what you did.”
She breathes deep, scrutinizing me as I listen to her heavy heartbeats. I take in every bruise, every freckle, and every line on her face. The longer I stare, the more captivating she becomes.
“I killed him,” she snorts. “Obviously.”
“How?” I lick my chops like one of the dogs under the table, hungry for any morsel of information she can give me. “Why?”
“Why? He kept me prisoner in that house. Starved me, beat me, tortured me!”
My anger rips through me like a bullet as I see my own past reflected on the woman in front of me.
“How long were you with him?”
“Almost 10 years. Funny part is I ran away to be with him, dropped out of school and everything.”
All that time, all that wasted potential.
“I thought he saved me at first.” She scoffs. “What a fucking joke.”
“Saved you from what?”
She bristles a little, draining the rest of her wine.
“Let’s just say a different kind of monster.”
I nod, grabbing the bottle and pouring her another glass.
“Alright, so how’d you kill the boyfriend?”
“I stabbed him until he looked like ground beef.” Her face changes, her eyes gleaming as she licks the last of the wine from her lips. “And then I cut off his head, and took his tongue.”
The hairs on the back of my arms stand straight up.
Fuck.
I swear I’ve never listened more intently to someone in my life. These days, it’s always just my brother yammering in my ear about how we have to be careful or what the client wants.
It’s rare that I get to talk about the intricacies of a kill like this.
Ripley’s chest heaves and she takes another swig of wine, almost like she’s trying to distract herself, or keep herself from saying something she shouldn’t.
But I can’t let her relax; I want to hear it all, all of the grimy, sinful details.
“What’d you do with the head?”
“I put it on a bookshelf facing the bedroom door.”
She lets a giggle slip out, the cracks in her mask beginning to show me her true face.
“That’s a hell of a nice touch.”
“Thanks.”
She’s me, but not really me, sadistic in her own way, while being less curated and controlled. The problem is she’s still too focused on this one man. At least for now.
“Gabriel was in deep shit with this guy named Adonis, from the Disciples? Not sure if you’ve heard of them. Anyway, Adonis told him he was coming to take his head, along with me and the rest of his stuff. Guess I did half the job for him.”
“And how, exactly, did you do it?”
I’m starving for the details.
“Found a saw in the basement. Used that for the head and a big-ass knife for the tongue. I was kinda surprised by how hard it was.”
I let out a soft exhale, slumping back into my seat and she frowns.
“What’s wrong?”
It’s impossible to ignore her pointedly raised brow, almost like she’s challenging me.
“Nothing,” I laugh. “I was just thinking that explains why your cuts are so sloppy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Should I have given you a call? Asked for some tips?”
She’s funny. Maybe a little annoying sometimes, but funny.
“I can teach you how to do it properly. There’s a much smaller knife for that kind of detail work.”
And if she sticks with me, I’ll teach her everything else as well. It seems like we both like to let our demons out to play.
Ripley’s shoulders start to shake, and at first I think she’s crying, but then she lets out a hyena-like cackle that makes both dogs get to their feet. I quietly hold my hand out, letting them know to stay put. She’s not a threat.
“What’s so funny?”
She doubles over, the sound of her fork clanging against the plate like a gunshot, howling with laughter as she ignores everything else around her. That’s when I realize the booze and pills must have finally hit her, all at once.
“I stuck him like a fucking pig!” Little wheezes eek out in between gasping breaths. “He begged me to stop.”
I’m feeling that giddiness all over again.
“And the blood, what about the blood?”
This is exactly the kind of crazy I was hoping to get from her.
“There was so much. So much fucking blood, all over everything.”
The moonlight drips through the little crack in the curtains, making her look even more grotesquely beautiful, her corpse-like skin and the mottled bruising around her eyes reminding me of the body parts I keep in my freezer.
“Did you feel guilty?” I ask, keeping my voice as calm and gentle as I can manage.
“No,” she snorts, a big stupid smile eclipsing her face as she finally begins to catch her breath. “It was fucking beautiful.”
She suddenly looks a hell of a lot more relaxed, like a weight’s been lifted off her shoulders. That’s a good sign; the more free she feels around me, the easier it’ll be to gain her trust. In time, I may even be able to take that tracking collar off.
“I remember when I shot my daddy,” I murmur, the words leaving my lips before I even realize they’re coming. “Seeing all that blood, it felt like seeing the ocean for the first time… Or at least I assume. Never been before.”
Ripley stares at me, her eyes half lidded as she gnaws on her lip.
This might be the most intimate I’ve ever been with someone, at least if you don’t count the intimacy that comes with drawn-out torture. Sex is just a reflex, a short and simple blissful moment between two people that you both forget eventually.
But this? Breaking bread and confessing our sins?
This is a bond.
We sit for a while, a long silence working its way in between us, and I find myself feeling strangely vulnerable, ready to tell her almost anything.
And then Ripley starts snickering again.
“What’s funny now, little rabbit?”
“I choked on his goddamn lip.”
“You what?”
She lets out another wild cackle.
Oh, fuck. She really is high as a goddamn kite.
“I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking! I just… tore it off.”
Sometimes I miss that rush that comes along with not quite knowing what you’re doing. Over the years you become more confident, more controlled. You start to pick up skills and add them to your bag of tricks, making everything so much easier. Removing the friction.
It’s a necessity, really, staying ahead of the curve. After all, every serial killer who stops killing does so for two reasons: they die, or they get caught.
Still, I’ve lost a lot of that manic whimsy over the years. Now, everything I do is calculated, right down to the way I skin my victims. No room to improvise. Ripley, on the other hand, seems like the type to make things up on the fly.
I can work with that… to an extent.
“Did you clean up afterward?” I ask.
She shakes her head, lifting her bandaged hand and gesturing with it.
“Had to make them think I was dead too, right?”
“Clever rabbit.”
Her mouth twitches, just short of curling into a seductive little smirk before she pulls it back to neutral.
“So, who’s your main target?” She asks. “Like, what do you look for specifically?”
This is more of a Raph question, but can’t rope him in just yet. Not until I know who and what I’m really dealing with.
“It’s pretty broad, actually. Men who rape, men who hurt kids, men who beat or kill women…
People the system lets slip through the cracks.
” I clear my throat. “We have clients and those clients put in specific orders, and that’s where my partner comes in.
He starts hunting through court records, arrest documents, and police databases.
He aims for the guys who think they’ve gotten away with it, anyone not currently being seriously investigated anymore, and then that list of names is delivered straight to my doorstep.
The market for sinners is small, but some people are willing to pay a hell of a lot for what the Devil has to offer. ”
“Nice metaphor, Shakespeare.”
“Well well, was that a compliment?”
“I have no fuckin’ idea.” She frowns, like she’s just realized something for the first time, and leans forward. “Okay, so what’s your modus operandi?”
“Mm, so clinical.”
She stammers a little before clearing her throat, clearly embarrassed.
“I, uh, I read a lot about people like us. Modus Operandi means—”
“Your method, your tools, your victimology.” I grin. “You really think I’m just some dumb hick, don’t you?”
She looks mortified, but I reach out before she can turn away, sliding my fingers beneath her chin and tilting her head to face me.
“You know what your little trophy told me about you?”
I release her as she swallows, steadying her breathing.
“Enlighten me.”
Her voice is smooth and sharp, teetering right on the edge of control. She’s not angry, but she is challenging me with her gaze, asking me to share.
“Your beast is vicious—”
“Thank you.”
I grin.
“But you’re also timid.”
She frowns, obviously annoyed with my reading.
“How so?”
“Years of social conditioning. Being told to sit down and shut up, being called a ‘good girl’ for blending into a crowded room, for being a wallflower. It’s made you afraid to step into your own power.”
“Were you afraid?” She asks, leaning in closer. “Before the first time?”
“I was angry.”
“I wasn’t angry when I cut out Gabriel’s tongue,” she whispers. “And I wasn’t afraid, I was…”
She trails off, like she’s struggling to find the words for this darkness we share, one that envelops you like an old friend.
“Tell me.”
She glances over her shoulder, like she’s afraid the cops are gonna bust through that door and take her away at any moment.
“It felt like I was possessed.”
Every new detail draws me in deeper. If she can be trained, if I can break her down and rebuild her again… she could be perfect.
“Tell me more.”
“It was like something overtook me, holding all of my anger, all of my grief... All of the things I wasn’t allowed to feel.
But then all of a sudden, that shit was gone, all at once with that first clumsy thrust of the knife.
” Her eyelids flutter, and she absentmindedly licks her lips. “It was fucking orgasmic.”
Her whole face changes and I see it clearly: she’s opened a door she can’t close, straight to the woman I want.
“Orgasmic,” I rasp. “That’s an interesting word choice.”
She’s malicious, vile, and cold-hearted, everything reflected infinitely between us.
“What would you call it?”
I grin, confidently studying her once more as I cock my head to the side.
“Total freedom.”
“That’s oddly poetic for a cowboy.”
I snicker, and we settle back into our comfortable silence, each of us cleaning our plates.
It’s not until she leans over to let the dogs lick her fork that I notice she’s starting to nod off, her head drooping ever so slightly.
I push my chair back and quickly pluck the utensil from her hand to keep her from accidentally poking one of them in the eye.
“Ripley?”
She rolls her head to the side, staring up at me, eyes half closed with a big, stoned smile on her face.
“Hmm?”
“You need to rest.”
She barely makes a fuss at all as I scoop her up in my arms and carry her all the way upstairs, kicking the bedroom door open and laying her down on the bed. She must have been further gone than I thought.
“Get some sleep,” I mutter. “I’ll check on you a little later on, to make sure everything’s alright.”
She watches me as I head across the room, laying in silence as I switch off the lights and lock the door behind me. I half expected more resistance, for her to try something at the last second, to rush for the door, but no.
She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s already mine.