Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
DIORA
The dirt under my fingernails itches, but not nearly as much as the phone burning a hole in my pocket. The sky is bright and the sun is shining by the time I get home, their names circling in my head as I unlock my apartment door.
Josh Panko.
Kyle Montery.
Lewis Karplie.
Orlando Jones.
All dead in their respective backyards, with a little gift from me. A foxglove plant planted in each yard.
I’ll admit, my clean up isn’t the best, but it’s enough to get the job done. Sliding through the front door of my shared apartment, I try to clasp the door handle into place without making a sound so it wouldn’t be obvious I was only just coming home.
I freeze at the door as I silently close it behind me.
Juliet is awake.
I can tell by the noise of the news station on the TV and the soft patter of her slippered feet across the fake wood floors.
Of course, they are freshly mopped, and I thank my brain for getting rid of my shoes in a random trash can a few blocks down.
My dollar store flip-flops saved my feet on the trek through Litchfort, Michigan in the muggy heat of the spring.
My eyes dart around the entry of our apartment, trying to see if I can sneak around Juliet and head straight to the shower. As her footsteps sound closer and closer, I know that the possibility of getting past her is dying.
Her hearing is as good as mine. For different reasons, of course.
My hearing came naturally, as a side effect of the itch I have to kill.
Hers came as a result of someone else’s itch to hurt her.
“Dee, you’re dirty,” Juliet says as she comes into my view.
She wears a cozy two piece set. Cream colored, as if the lightness of her outfit will ward away the grime on her perfectly clean body.
Her brown curls are neat and pulled back in a slick bun, and her ochre brown skin shines with body oils and lotions.
Juliet has deep brown eyes like I do. Hers, of course, have the light my mother always talked about, and mine still don’t.
My sister is older than me by five years.
We both have round, down-turned lips, but my lips are more pouty.
We’re similar in appearance, but our height difference makes me look like I’m the older sister, since I’m about three inches taller than her.
“I was at the greenhouse,” I say and hope that’s all the explanation she’ll need.
It’s not a lie, therefore it shouldn’t feel like I’m lying to the one person I care about, but omitting the whole truth lights a twinge of guilt under my skin.
Juliet’s safety means more to me than the guilt I have from lying to her, though.
Nothing matters more than her safety.
“Is that blood, Diora?” she nearly shouts. The sound brings a smile to my face. Hearing emotion from her will always be a win for me, even when it’s drowned in disgust. Something is better than nothing.
“Many plants have thorns, Juliet.” This blood isn’t mine, of course. I don’t know why I listened to that woman, Mrs. Jay, when she told me to collect blood samples of my kills, but I did.
Being good is simple, while evil is more than just evil. Evil has rankings, levels to it that even monsters can recognize. Mrs. Jay carries the presence of a leader, the monster of monsters. I can’t risk poking that beast. Not when I have someone to lose.
“Then you need to make sure those thorns don’t prick you,” Juliet says, reaching a hand out to me but stopping right before she makes contact. She’s already had her shower. She’s clean. She’s content in her cleanliness, and I understand, for her sake, she can’t mess that up.
Since that night, she has a focus on cleanliness. She believes that night made her dirty. Unlovable. Undeserving of anything.
I can empathize with my mom’s depression from the lack of light in me, but seeing that light die, seeing that light die in Juliet, was so much worse. It would kill Mom. I know it would because it nearly killed me.
I never understood the light, the goodness in a person, until Juliet. She was everything to Mother, everything to me. When that light died, I vowed to get her light back.
“I need a shower,” I say, sliding past her without making contact. Since that night, Juliet does not like to be touched. I ensure that I don’t initiate contact, even by accident. She deserves that from me and more. So much more.
I don’t know if it’s PTSD or anxiety that’s made her so attached to cleanliness, but I respect it. I accommodate her the most, and that’s why she lives with me and not back home with Mom and Dad.
They weren’t there. They didn’t see the light slowly fade out in her eyes like I did. They noticed it was gone, but it’s not the same as watching it die.
Down the hall to the bathroom, I quickly strip and run the scalding hot water.
As much as my older sister is on my mind, Mrs. Jay’s offer makes its way front and center.
What did she mean by spice up her life? She is a killer, like me, I assume, so did she want to teach me to be a better killer, maybe? Why does she kill?
I kill for Juliet, but more so for the itch I get. Like the stretch of a petal on a flower, I feel the incessant stretch to harm. I’ve never acted on it till tonight, contrary to belief, and I’ve never felt as comfortable in my skin as I did tonight.
I can feel the wrinkle of my eye as I sigh in complete happiness. I killed four men tonight.
Four men lost their lives, and it’s all my fault.
Four men died, and now Juliet can rest easier.
How good it is to be evil.
Finishing my shower, I step out of the bathroom in a pink sleep set and meet Juliet in the living room.
Juliet must have been up all night again.
She used to be a morning person, working at the Litchfort newspaper.
She’d be pouring her coffee in a to-go cup right about now, as she would be close to walking out the door.
I sit on the opposite side of the couch as she sips on her nightly glass of wine, watching the news.
“At what point is something tainted?” Her question startles me, not that she could tell.
Her eyes stay trained on the news story about a fire on the other side of town.
Though, by her glassed over eyes, I can tell she isn’t paying attention.
In fact, she rarely pays attention. She’s always waiting for something.
Maybe waiting for a story to make her feel less alone.
I’ll create that story for her. She’ll see that, one day soon, she’ll be free of that night.
Because everyone involved will be dead.
“Tainted? You’re not tainted, Juliet,” I say, shaking my head at any thoughts of Juliet being evil. It’s impossible. She can’t be. She’s not. She’s good, she’s perfect; she’s just as she should be.
“How many bad thoughts makes someone bad?”
“Thoughts are not the same as actions,” I say matter-of-factly, as if I have any right to comment on being good or bad. I watch her from the corner of my eye. Her guilt must be getting to her right now.
She asks me this often. It’s part of our routine.
She’s told me she feels like the dirt on my plant stems after I take them out of the ground.
The dirt often sticks to the stems and is hard to get completely off.
The dirt doesn’t make the plant ugly, yet people shy away from it because they don’t want to get dirty.
She shies away from herself because no matter how clean she gets, she is still dirty.
“I am bad. Though, I can be good, but I am bad, too.” I hate that she says that. I hate that she believes that she is bad. She’s not. Not in this world or even in this universe. Juliet Moss is the good-est person I know.
I’ll be as evil as I need to be so that she can be good. It’s settled.
“Tea?” I ask, but more like, tell Juliet. I rise from the couch and turn the kettle on. As I wait for the water to warm, I grab my home stash of ashwagandha root and crush it by folding and rolling it with a rolling pin.
Once it’s crushed into small enough pieces, I drop it in her mug and fill the rest with water.
I make this tea from scratch every morning and night.
It’s the only way I’ve found to get Juliet calm enough to get through her day, her night, her life.
It doesn’t taste the best, but it gets her to relax enough to breathe normally.
It gets her to function more like her normal self. Not the obsessive hurt lamb. I make some for myself, too, still incredibly hyped up on tonight’s kills.
Though it’s ten in the morning, we both need to relax. Setting her mug on the coffee table, I take mine to my room. Setting it down on my nightstand, I pull out the flip phone Mrs. Jay gave me.
It lights up as I open it and select her contact name. It’s Mother on the phone. Air can’t escape my nose fast enough as I lift my fingers to type out my message.
Diora
I’m in.
Two little words that will probably change the course of my life, but I’m not dumb enough to let a potential opportunity to learn as much as I can from this monster.
I’m a child compared to her.
She’s been killing and getting away with it far longer than I have. Thirty years is a long time to be “in the game”, and I have a feeling I’ll need all the help I can get.
I have to be the evil that Juliet needs so that she can stay good.
Mrs. Jay wasted no time. She wanted to meet in my greenhouse again. Mrs. Jay practically glows as she swishes around the room, studying my other plants. She looks but never touches, knowing better than to after my latest performance.
My love for plants started with the beauty and silence that came from the flowers in my backyard growing up. Those “flowers” later became known as weeds that my mom hated and tried to kill, but that didn’t change their beauty to me.
Mom could hate them, glare at them, spit at them, mow them over, and it wouldn’t change their beauty.
Yellow dandelions were my first comfort as a kid.
Juliet had a light brown teddy bear with big round eyes and pink blush on its cheeks, and I had a bright yellow dandelion that grew brown from being separated from the ground.
My greenhouse contains rows of plants with skinny walkways between them. I don’t grow much since the abandoned greenhouse isn’t in the best shape. But it’s mine, for the most part, so I’m content.
It’s off putting for someone else to be in my space.
Mrs. Jay has yet to say anything beyond a hello and is busy studying my safe space.
I should have the advantage here, but it doesn’t seem like I do.
I know this place like the back of my hand, with my eyes closed, yet she moves with such grace and power I don’t think I’d win a fight against her. Maybe I never will.
She stops over my newest project. The plant that has grown but has months before it’ll bloom. This tree doesn’t quite have a stump, but the stalks are holding up as it grows.
“It’ll grow into an Angel Trumpet tree, hopefully,” I say, pointing to the sign I have in front of the potted plant. I watch as her eyes gaze at the plant and then swiftly move on to the next one that piqued her interest.
I didn’t know killers could appear so… so normal.
It’s so obvious on me. My parents clocked it the moment I was born.
It’s as if it’s written across my forehead, but with her, it’s an aura you can’t pin down one hundred percent.
The way her eyes cut you or the grasp of her hand on yours.
You couldn’t pin a murder on her. Her aura comes off as a question, not a statement.
She obviously could teach me to be a killer. That isn’t a doubt I have. With Mrs. Jay’s training, I could make these kills so much more effective to my cause.
Mrs. Jay is a monster. She can try to hide under the Chanel suits and pearls, but she’s like me. I wonder if she gets the itch like I do. I wonder how long it took her to fall to the itch.
That’s what made me text Mrs. Jay last night. I can only accomplish so much, but six months with a monster like Mrs. Jay, I could be unstoppable.
I also don’t doubt she’d rat me out for killing those officers last night. She wouldn’t have approached me without insurance.
“What am I here for?” I ask. She slows to a stop in front of me. As tall as me, she meets my eye directly.
“You have great potential, Diora. I can see it, and I hope you can see it, too, with me. I need a feminine touch, and I think you’d be the perfect fit.”
“Perfect for what?” Scrunching my eyebrows, I watch as she sits at my little round table where I had the officers tied up last night. She crosses her ankles and rests her hands in her lap as she smiles up at me.
She nods her head toward my kettle and raises an eyebrow. “Every meeting needs tea, don’t you think?”
I start it and turn, so my back isn’t to her. She waits silently as I prepare our drinks. Grabbing two teacups, I set them on my workbench and turn back to look at her. What kind of tea would she like?
I only have three non-lethal teas. Black, green, and rosemary. What will happen if I get this wrong? Will she kill me? Is this what fear is? This sensation crawls up the backs of my arms and creates a home at the base of my neck.
Hmm, I think I’ll like hanging around Mrs. Jay. I pull the black tea. And drop the bags in the mugs before turning to face her.
“If I was a fearful woman, I’d be scared to drink anything from you, sweetheart.” She laughs as she accepts the drink.
“So, why me?” I ask again, settling across from her at the clean round table.
“I can’t tell you that yet, darling. I can’t trust you,” she says with a wink, as if I am supposed to know what that means.
I leave my silence to answer her. I’m confused why she even bothered with blackmailing me into joining her, yet she won’t tell me what exactly I’m joining her for.
She releases a sigh, looking as calm as ever even after she saw me kill four officers last night, and yet, she seems like the more dangerous one.
“Well, let’s get started. First, I need to see your physical abilities, as well as your mental abilities. We’ll work together, and we’ll see if you pass the initiation, and once you do, the real fun will begin.
“What will we start with?” I ask, trying not to show any hint of excitement or nerves. I can’t give her any more power than she already has.
I’ll never figure out what she wants unless I play her game. Why I even give her the chance to play, I don’t know, but I can’t help but want to know what she sees in me.
“Tell me about every single plant in here and how you could use it to kill someone, even the non-lethal ones.”