ELEVEN DEVIN
ELEVEN
DEVIN
Ihad so many dreams and nightmares after I passed out, but I can’t remember any of them except for one.
My first kill: Kayla.
I’ll always remember that night vividly. I learned so much from that experience—what to do, what not to do, and what I needed to change for future ones. What excited me the most was how natural everything came to me that night. There was no hesitation or fear, only instinct.
The only thing I wish I did was leave a mark, a calling card of sorts, on her.
I’ve done it for every other kill. I make a cut across the inner thigh, severing the femoral artery.
Since I usually strangle my victims, the blood pours out in a soothing way for me.
As I watch them bleed out, it calms me, brings me down from my high, and brings me back down to reality.
Afterward, I can focus, clean up the mess, and take care of the body. Of course, there have been times when plans haven’t gone my way, and I’ve had to improvise. Those times do not fulfill my needs, and I have to go out and do it again sooner than usual.
I lie in bed and slowly let myself wake up. The foggy and hazy feeling I had yesterday is still there. It must be the alcohol, but I don’t remember having any after I got back to the cabin after our hike.
It’s still dark outside, and Emily is not in bed with me again. What time is it? I need to get up and find my phone. Did I sleep through the day?
As I sit upright, a throbbing headache takes hold, and I wince as I put my hand on my head. I have a bump on my left temple, probably from falling on my face on the trail, and the crook of my arm is sore and itchy. Must be a mosquito bite.
The door to the bedroom is open, and the cabin is eerily still. It’s pitch dark in the entire cabin, and it makes me uneasy.
Emily must have slept in another room again.
I slowly stand up and walk quietly to where I remember plugging my phone in the kitchen.
Wave after wave of pain ripples through my head, making it hard to keep my feet moving through the cabin.
I make it to the kitchen and turn on the light above the stove.
A phone is sitting on the countertop, face down, but not plugged in.
I turn it over and realize it’s not my phone; it’s Emily’s.
I remember telling her when we got new phones last year that she should get one in a different color so we wouldn’t confuse them.
She laughed and said I was barely home anyway, so it didn’t matter.
Where the fuck is my phone? I look at the time; it's just barely 2:00 am, and there’s a text message from a number that wasn't saved from just a half hour ago. Her phone is unlocked, so I take a look.
Does he know?
There are no other messages from this number and no response.
My blood boils. Who the fuck is this? And who are they talking about?
It could be a wrong number, but it seems too odd to ignore.
Should I question her? She would most likely lie, so what’s the point?
It doesn’t matter what she says, but what if she told someone something she shouldn’t have? I need answers. Now.
I spin around looking for my phone. It’s nowhere in sight, and I just remembered she wanted to keep a location tracker active for both our phones, just in case.
I made sure to turn it off during my trips, and she never said a thing.
I check her phone for my location. I notice it’s not in the cabin; it’s in the campground somewhere, but not where it should be.
I check the rest of the cabin, and Emily is nowhere in sight. Her shoes are gone, and the bed in the room she’s been sleeping in is untouched. I check the location of my phone again, and it hasn’t moved from the spot it was in earlier. I think I know where she is: the hiking trail.
What would she be doing there? It doesn’t matter. Tonight is the night, and I need to gather my special bag to meet her.