twenty-three
Baron Dolce
“There she is,” Mabel says, pointing to a pair of headlights coming up the hill, a smile spreading over her face.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Duke asks.
“There’s only one way for her to go,” I point out, my gaze moving to the mountain on our right.
On our left, the incline is steep, though it’s not a sheer drop.
Still, her car would tumble a long way, surely crushed as it bounced down the mountain before coming to a stop.
If she has any instinct, she’ll swerve to the right, where there’s no escape.
Duke is supposed to kill her, but came to me and said he couldn’t to it, that Dixie didn’t deserve to die for posting a video, and even if she did, he wasn’t the person to decide that.
I told him I didn’t mind doing it. We can make Mabel think it was his kill easily enough.
And in truth, I like my chances with this one. It might be my perfect kill at last.
Each time, some unforeseen circumstance prevented me from executing the plan as intended. I don’t like admitting weakness, but I have to acknowledge, to myself at least, that each time, the failure was mine.
I almost had Jane, but it was too dark to see her eyes, and I didn’t stay long enough because I was distracted by Mabel’s escape.
I could have had the Darling patriarch, but I lost control, lost my temper, at the thought of him hurting Mabel.
I could have had Mr. Harris, but if we’d followed the plan, that would have been Black Widow’s kill.
And since I didn’t, it wasn’t well planned.
The knowledge that he’d hurt Mabel so deeply shook me more than she knows, and though the kill was methodical instead of passionate, he was already unconscious, too feeble to struggle if I’d strangled him the way I’ve pictured in my mind so many times.
Dixie presents a new opportunity.
She has no control over Mabel, so she can’t make me lose control. Mabel has even agreed to stay in the car to minimize potential evidence from being left.
My contact with Dixie was more extensive than either of my companions knows, but I have no loyalty to her.
I knew her well in high school, probably better than most. She even thought we were friends, though she downplayed her connection to us to serve her own purposes.
I understood that it was all part of her game, and though it wasn’t part of mine, I didn’t mind the intercept.
Sometimes, we had similar ends in mind, and we coordinated efforts.
But she was a means to an end, but she no longer serves us.
With a grim expression, Duke pulls the car out onto the road behind her.
We let her get ahead a few minutes, knowing there’s nowhere for her to turn for quite some time.
We catch up with her soon enough. We pull up close behind her, but she doesn’t seem to notice.
Our headlights shine through her back window, and we can see her swiveling her neck to a beat, her messy curls knotted on top of her head, bobbing to the rhythm of whatever music she’s listening to.
“Why isn’t she pulling over?” Duke asks, leaning forward over the wheel and peering at her through his glasses. I would never ask such a thing, but Mabel’s too focused on the hunt to notice his slip. I shoot him a warning glance, but he doesn’t see it, doesn’t look away from the car ahead.
“Maybe she hasn’t noticed us,” Mabel says, leaning forward between the seats in anticipation.
“We’re halfway up her ass,” Duke says. “How can she not notice?”
Dixie waves one hand in the air, and though I can’t tell if she’s waving at us to back off or pass. She can’t pull over. There’s nowhere to go. The narrow road carved into the side of the mountain barely allows two lanes.
“What is she doing?” Mabel asks, her tone impatient.
“She’s dancing,” Duke says.
I realize he’s right. Dixie returns her hand to the wheel, then swoops it around again, part of a musical performance she’s putting on for herself.
We scoot up even closer, hugging a curve and staying on her bumper the whole way. When she doesn’t move toward the edge of the road, we creep dangerously close.
“Don’t clip her,” Mabel says with a grimace. “It’ll leave evidence.”
“I won’t,” Duke says, just as Dixie suddenly brake checks us.
Even at the slow speed we’re traveling, there’s no way to avoid the collision.
“Fuck,” I yell, my hand automatically shooting across the space to flatten on Duke’s chest, pinning him back against the seat as metal squeals against metal.
Mabel lets out a hysterical giggle.
Duke taps the brake, and Dixie’s lighter car swerves from the slight impact, but she corrects quickly.
If there’s one thing I should have learned about Dixie in high school, it’s that she should never be underestimated.
“It’s okay,” Mabel says, her eyes sparkling with some feral light when I glance back at her. “We can get a new bumper somewhere.”
“What now?” I ask, turning back to the road. It’s what Duke would ask.
Dixie starts to speed up, pushing the engine on her car to go faster up the steep incline.
“Now we make her pull over,” Duke growls, and he’s back in character, intent and focused like I would be.
And then I pull her out of the car and choke the life out of her.
Duke presses down on the accelerator, pushing the big SUV up the mountain after her. We catch up again soon, roaring up close, but she puts on another burst of speed.
“Why doesn’t she put on her blinker so you know to pass?” Mabel asks, impatient for the kill.
It’s the first time we’ve planned a murder together, since we were supposed to leave Mr. Harris for the Black Widow.
That time, Mabel was calm talking to him online, and once she saw him, her emotions overtook reason.
This time, when she knows death is near, she’s nearly giddy with excitement.
I wasn’t expecting that, and it makes me wary.
I may be intent on getting a perfect kill, but otherwise, I take no great pleasure in ending someone’s life.
Duke slowly eases his foot down on the accelerator, creeping up to within a few inches of Dixie’s bumper.
Her head is still now, crouched lower, as if she’s leaning over the wheel, urging a little more speed from her small SUV.
Ours has far more power, though we go hurtling around a curve so fast the momentum threatens to spin us off course and send us crashing down the mountain.
Maybe that’s her plan, to hurl the bigger vehicle off the road with its greater centrifugal force.
Too bad she’s not a match for us in any way—our car is bigger and better, and we’re smarter and more skilled.
With Mabel cackling encouragement, we roar up and clip Dixie’s bumper, sending her swerving toward the rock face on our right.
She starts to go off the road, and we brake, ready to pull over when she makes contact.
Instead, she jerks her wheel the other direction.
The car swerves wildly, turning at a ninety-degree angle to us.
Our headlights bath her face, and for one second, we can see her expression of shocked terror—mouth agape, eyes forced shut against the blinding glare, skin an unnatural pallor cast by the LEDs.
And then the rear or her car fishtails away from us, and her headlights pierce into our car. I throw up a hand, and Duke throws himself back in the seat. Mabel cries out, throwing herself against the back seat.
And then there’s only our own lights ahead. I reach over and hit the flashers, and Duke pulls to a stop.
Mabel leans up to see again, letting out a little giggle. “What just happened?”
“Stupid cunt went off the wrong side,” I mutter, cursing Dixie for never just making things easy.
She was always trying to stir up drama and cause conflict with her posts online.
I didn’t pay too much attention to it. It was merely obnoxious background noise, of which there was plenty in high school. But now it directly affects me.
Not only has she made things infinitely more complicated, but she’s robbed me of the opportunity to get my perfect kill.
“Should we get out?” Mabel asks. “She might be alive. Her car could have gotten stuck on a tree close to the road. We don’t want to leave another loose end.”
“And she might have seen us,” Duke says grimly. “Her lights cut across us before she went over.”
“I’ll check,” I say, reaching automatically to push up my glasses before remembering I’m wearing contacts because I’m Duke today. I brush my messy hair off my forehead instead, then add, “I was supposed to do the deed.”
“I’ll come with,” Duke says.
“I’ll stay, as planned,” Mabel says. “If anyone comes up behind us, I can pretend we saw an accident.”
“We did see an accident,” Duke says, climbing out.
We go to the side of the road where Dixie went off.
Far below, one headlight shines through the trees before being swallowed by foliage.
It’s pointing downwards, so it won’t draw attention from drivers passing above.
It will almost certainly be tomorrow before anyone sees her down there.
Unfortunately, her new car is equipped with several safety features, including automatically calling emergency services on impact.
“Think she’s dead?” Duke asks.
“Yes.”
From below, the eerie strains of a Mass Hypnosis song drift up from the wreckage, the speakers still intact.
“Should we go check?”
“No,” I say. “We should be gone when emergency vehicles arrive, and it would take longer than you think to climb down there and back up, not to mention all the footprints we’d leave in the dirt. Accidents happen here ever year, and driving at night increases the risk of fatality.”
“What if she’s not dead?”
“Then we try again,” I say. “Sooner than later.”