Doe Eyed

Chapter 1

My plan fell into place the moment I heard Stanley was out.

Is it a stupid, half-cocked plan? Yeah, probably.

But the moment it was announced that he was spotted, free from his cell, back in his usual haunt, nothing was going to deter me from stopping him before he hurt anyone else.

Unfortunately for him, the person he tried to hurt tonight was little old me.

I positioned myself as the perfect victim. The bait he couldn't resist.

Now, as the moment of truth approaches, nausea rolls in my gut.

The hairpin feels heavier and heavier by the minute—like it's taunting me and begging me to be used for its purpose.

Stanley pretends to be fucking wasted, letting his drunkenness set up his defense again. We were both drunk; maybe I just took it a little too far.

Motherfucker.

Even with all the grime surrounding us, his hands are by far the most disgusting part of tonight. The alley wall behind me is sticky, the broken concrete beneath my feet crunching horrifically as I scramble to stay upright.

His fingers dig into my ribs painfully as he breathes heavily in my ear, urging me to relax. Promising me that if I just relax, he can make sure we both enjoy this.

If there was any humanity left in me, I might be afraid. But something fundamentally broke inside me that fateful night 10 years ago.

Now, I can become the monster I see in these men. Mimic them and take what I want with no regrets.

I've ignored it for the last decade, all but avoiding men, for my own sake and theirs.

But when Sophie showed up at my door last month, covered in bruises, with a broken nose and this motherfucker's semen mixing with blood between her legs from how brutally he raped her, there was no stopping me.

Stanley isn't well-connected or even well-liked. But he's a man and, as such, was automatically given the benefit of the doubt, even with the rape kit.

Sophie wasn't in any state to stand up to him and the entire state department. She's hardly been in any state to leave her house.

Even her once-thriving social media empire has become a toxic wasteland.

What did she think was going to happen advertising her body like that?

What was she doing on that side of town dressed like that anyway?

It was only a matter of time.

Women are so quick to claim rape when they sober up and change their minds about someone.

She probably led him on.

Every comment, every message, every fucking ping of her phone over the last few weeks sent me spiraling into madness.

I knew it was only a matter of when, not if, they let him go since she's too fucking traumatized to face him again.

It's sick to say that I've been waiting for this— that I've been hoping for it, but I know I can take care of him in a way the system never will.

My free hand reaches up for my hairpin, letting my hair fall down my shoulders. Stanley doesn't even notice, too caught up in trying to unzip the false zipper down the front of my dress.

Maybe he's drunker than I thought. There's no denying the scent of stale whiskey and cigarette smoke on his breath, wafting into my face with his heaving exhales as he roughly pulls at me.

Saliva pools in my mouth, my body preparing for the vomit it's trying to force up.

Briefly, I wonder if he would stop due to being puked on or if he'd get off on the obvious show of fear.

The latter, definitely.

The smug smile he wore in his mugshot told me everything I needed to know about him. He likes the fight, the terror. And if I don't start showing it soon, or end this altogether, it's going to get a lot worse for me.

His fingers become more insistent, and if I don't do this now, he's going to succeed in ripping my dress off. I have to finish this and get on to step two of my plan.

See? Step one and step two. I plotted carefully. I'm basically a pro.

I put the knife in my dress pocket at my side, using my thumb to ease the plastic cover off the sharp, deadly weapon, slowly easing it back out with a shaking hand.

I can't stab him. It won't be fast or clean enough. He'll get a flood of dopamine, adrenaline, and cortisol, and I'll have to fight him off. Even with a stab wound, I can't be sure I'm capable of overpowering him when he's hopped up on all those fight for your life hormones.

It has to be the throat, and it has to be fast.

With one solid, sudden shove, I push him away from me.

Just enough to get a look at his furious, exhilarated face as he reacts, reaching for me again and calling me a fucking bitch.

Before he can get a good grip on my body again, I swipe the shiny metal across the front of his throat, cutting a line and praying that it's sharp enough, that I got deep enough, that it really happens as quickly as my research told me it would.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

As warm liquid splatters across my dress, his eyes widen at the realization of what just happened.

Whatever he tries to say, tries to call me, the words come up garbled as blood bubbles out of his mouth.

I'm going to throw up.

Stanley coughs up blood, the sound wet and horrid, as I feel a splatter hit my chest.

Don't puke. Don't puke. Don't puke.

With the last of his strength, he tries to staunch the blood, the flow of it seeping between the fingers clutching his neck as he falls towards me.

At the last second, I dodge him as he crumples towards the wall, using his free hand to hold himself up.

But it's useless, and his hand falls almost immediately, his shoulder falling into the wall before he crumples completely, still gargling and choking on the red liquid both escaping his body and flooding his airway.

Okay, calm down. We knew this was a possibility.

But holy fuck, I had no idea just how much blood there would be.

As it starts to cool on my dress, I have to press a hand to my mouth to keep from throwing up all over the ground and ruining any chance I have of getting away with this.

As Stanley's choking breaths slow and finally stop, I fight against the anxiety growing inside me.

There's a lot of blood, and it's going to be incredibly difficult to wash it all off. Not to mention that I have to take his wallet and any cash he has to make it look like a robbery gone wrong.

I roll his body, the squelch of blood sickening, the scent of pennies adding to the already abhorrent smell of the dumpster that would have hidden his crimes but instead hides mine. With deliberate quickness, I find his wallet, shoving it into my pocket to dispose of later.

I dig through his other pockets, looking for anything expensive to take, coming up empty.

Okay. Step one finished.

As long as I keep focused on what I have to do next, I won't have time to dwell on what I just did.

Right around the corner, I ease into the back door of the abandoned laundromat I've become familiar with.

Every other business on this street that's still open is just a cover for the litany of sins its owners commit. Money laundering, gun sales, drugs. But this one has been closed for years since its owners were put away for cleaning more than just clothes.

Dust covers every surface, but the real goldmine is all the clothing still hanging on the moving racks behind the counter.

I stuff the wallet and cash into the pocket of an old suit, moving slowly and carefully so I don't disturb the dust, leaving everything just the way I found it.

The bathroom, already prepared for just this moment, houses supplies to get all the blood off of my skin, and I spend far too long scrubbing the evidence from my fingers and neck, thanking the universe that I had the forethought to paint my nails the color of old blood just in case any got beneath them.

Then I find the fresh and clean coat I stashed here just in case. I considered a change of clothes, but that would have left me carrying around bloody garments for the next few hours or leaving them here and hoping they weren't found.

The coat was the best option. It's longer than my dress and fitted and pretty enough that it won't look like I'm some psychopath walking around in a trench coat.

But putting it on makes my stomach roll again, the blood on my dress sticking to my skin.

Taking a deep breath, I dig a peppermint out of my pocket, plopping it in my mouth to help with the nausea.

Lastly, I scrub the knife clean, sheathing it and inserting it back into its home in my hair.

Looking in the mirror, I see a monster looking back at me.

While the person there looks like me, with brown eyes, white blonde hair, and rose gold double nostril piercings, there's no denying that she's not the person she used to be.

Barely a person at all.

What kind of human can take comfort in murder like the person looking back at me does?

Well, maybe murder isn't the right word.

Execution is a better one.

They both deserved what they got.

My step-dad and this man do more for this world dead than they ever could alive.

Alive, all they were capable of was causing pain and sorrow.

Now, neither of them can hurt anyone ever again.

I wonder to myself if I should be feeling worse. If something is wrong with me because I can shut off any sense of morality when it comes to these fucking animals.

Nah.

They sucked in life, and now they're in Hell where they belong.

Now on to step three.

The most boring, but arguably the most important.

I need a useful idiot to hit on me for the next few hours at the bar.