Chapter 13 #2
Life wasn’t perfect. I’d lived in squalor.
I’d lived in desperation, not knowing where my next fucking meal would come from.
Why fucking hide it? But then, I guess we all had things we wanted to hide from the world, and we all had our reasons why.
The men I targeted did. I did. So, what was she hiding? And why?
I put the cushions back and walked over to her dresser, where she had bottles, tubs and lotions.
I sat down, picking each one up and opening them so I could smell them, and then, I opened the lid of her face cream, and the scent took me right back to a time I didn’t want to remember and yet yearned to go back to.
“What are you putting on your face, Mum?”
“It’s face cream. It makes me look beautiful.”
I reached up and touched her cheek; her skin was always so soft, like the velvet on her bedspread that was patchy in places.
“You always look beautiful,” I whispered, and she laughed and kissed me on the top of my head. It made me feel warm inside, but that feeling I loved so much didn’t last long when I heard the engine outside. His car was pulling into the driveway.
Mum’s eyes went wide, and she put the tub of face cream in my hand and scooped me up in her arms.
“Your dad is here. You need to go to your bed now. You know he doesn’t like to see you up when he gets home.”
I nodded but didn’t speak. I couldn’t. My throat had gone all funny and felt thick, making it hard to swallow. I felt a sting in my eyes. I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t. If I started, I wouldn’t stop, and that’d make Dad mad. I didn’t want to make him mad because then he’d get mad at Mum.
I put my arms around her neck, and she walked towards the cupboard in her bedroom. She opened the slatted door where my bed was kept. The bed in the little hideaway, she called it.
She placed me onto the mattress, and as she did, the smell that came from it made my nose wrinkle. I didn’t like being in here. I preferred it when he wasn’t here and I could come out. But I knew what’d happen if I tried to sneak out when he was home. I wouldn’t do that again.
Mum closed the door, trapping me inside, and I sat there, on the stinky mattress, holding her face cream in my hands like it was treasure.
I heard the front door close, and my whole body went stiff as I listened to his deep voice downstairs, and then her soft one replying.
He wasn’t happy today. He was already shouting, and usually, I’d put my hands over my ears and rock back and forth to drown it out.
But tonight, I took the lid off the cream and started to smell it, closing my eyes and imaging me and Mum somewhere else.
Somewhere where he couldn’t hurt us. None of them could.
My eyes shot open as I held her cream, and then I dropped it back on her dresser as anxiety swelled inside me, making it hard to breathe. The feeling multiplied, making me desperate for a release. I needed to get back control. I was spiralling.
I yanked the drawer open and took out a pair of nail scissors.
Then I opened the scissors and placed the sharp blade against the skin on my arm, and I cut.
I cut to release the tension, to feel the pain, to block out the nightmares of my past. To gain control of my feelings.
To dominate them. I cut until I felt numb, and the scissors became slippery in my hand and fell to the carpet.
Then the clouds in front of my eyes cleared, and I saw the patterns I’d etched into my arm.
The blood that was dripping, like a tap, eased the hurt.
And I felt nothing again. Just how I liked it.
I’d made a mess of the carpet, but I didn’t care. I picked up the scissors, stood up, and put them in my pocket. I didn’t want to think about what I’d done. I didn’t want to remember why. So, I focused on the job at hand. Emotions and memories served no purpose. It was better to switch them off.
I went into her bathroom, took a small towel from the rail and pressed it against my arm to stem the blood flow. As I held it in place, I checked for any cameras, but there was nothing. Whoever else was stalking her, they were doing it old school.
Or watching from across the hallway.
I rifled through the cupboard in the bathroom and found a bandage roll in a first-aid basket she had in there.
My arm was still bleeding, but I wound the bandage tightly around my cuts, using the whole roll until I was confident that it’d absorb the bulk of the blood.
I kept hold of the towel, I’d take that with me, and I walked across her living room and opened her front door to find the guy from the apartment opposite loitering outside.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
I hid the towel behind my back, hoping the blood on my arm wasn’t seeping through the bandage onto the sleeve of my overalls. It was a good job they were dark blue, and would hide any stains. I’d hate for him to see it and give me a reason to chloroform his ass and take him to my lockup.
“Yep,” I replied curtly. “Almost done.”
He lingered a little longer, rocking back on his heels, then turned and headed towards his apartment. “Just knock and leave the keys with us when you’re done,” he said over his shoulder before closing the door.
“You already said that,” I sneered, bending down to take more tools from my box and pushing the bloody towel to the bottom of it so it stayed hidden.
I got busy fitting the new lock on the door, pretending that I couldn’t hear the chino loser and his girlfriend arguing inside their apartment.
Once the new lock was fitted, I gave the inside of her apartment one last check and then locked up before packing my tools away. Picking up my box, I stood up and turned to knock on the loser’s door. It was his girlfriend who answered.
“All done,” I said, holding my hand out to pass the keys to her, feeling the sting on my arm as my skin pulled the cuts open again.
She gave me a tight-lipped smile and took them, said a curt, “Thanks,” then slammed the door in my face.
“You’re fucking welcome,” I replied to the wood of her door. “Assholes.”
I strode down the hallway, ignoring the pain in my arm and smiling as the jingle of the spare set of keys for her apartment jostled in my pocket.
Yes, I could pick my way past any lock in this city.
But there was something twistedly cunning and sadistic knowing I had a set of keys to her home.
Like a trophy. The key to committing any kind of fucked up shit I wanted.
He didn’t have that.
He hadn’t even put cameras in her home.
I left the building and walked around the back, where my van was parked. As I opened the side of the van to put my toolbox in, I heard a voice from behind.
“You all finished?”
I turned to see the asshole neighbour, chino guy, strolling towards me as he took the last drag of his cigarette and then flicked the butt into some bushes to the side.
“Yep, all done,” I told him, thinking that’d be the end of the conversation. Hoping it was. But he was a persistent bastard.
“You got the key?” He put his hand out, and I shook my head, gesturing to the building.
“I gave it to your girlfriend.”
I didn’t like the way he grimaced, or was it a scowl? Like he didn’t want her to have the keys. He’d wanted them.
“Sorry for her attitude back then,” he added, standing way too close. I’d already told him I’d finished the job, and his girl had the keys, what more did he fucking want?
“It’s no bother.” I shrugged.
“Women, hey?” he sneered, like a fucking creep. “Only good for one thing.”
He laughed.
I didn’t.
I’d had a bad feeling about this guy from the minute I’d laid eyes on him, and I trusted my instincts.
In my van, next to my toolbox was my bag, and on the top, I saw a syringe ready to go.
Without a second thought, I picked it up and stabbed it into his neck, draining the drugs into his system and catching his body as he became lifeless.
He fell into my arms, and I managed to slide his body into the back of my van.
Quickly, I slammed the side of the van shut and scanned the area to make sure no one had seen me. I already knew there was no CCTV to catch me in the act. Then I got into the driver’s seat and started up the engine.
Yes, I had a code that I only killed people who’d hurt me or other vulnerable people out there. But that code went to shit if I was having a bad day or felt pissed off. What was this guy gonna do about it? Sue me?