Chapter Seventeen Travis
Chapter Seventeen
Travis
My alarm clock rings, and my eyes jolt open, the memory of Sage finding out the truth about me still lingering in my mind.
I promptly reach over to stop the ringing, tiredness making me sluggish.
I’m annoyed that I’m tired too. I grab the alarm clock and throw it on the floor.
It shatters on the hardwood, and I make a mental note to leave a one-star review later.
How dare this clock shatter in my time of emotional need?
Sleep is yet another thing Sage has disrupted in my life. If it wasn’t for her snooping around, I never would have gotten the motion-sensor notification on my phone that disrupted my slumber last night.
Ugh, if I wanted random surprises in my life, I’d adopt a cat.
She’s still beside me, and I know there’s a conversation we need to have.
I’m simultaneously impressed by her and disappointed in myself that she could find me out.
I’ve killed thirty-eight people so far, and besides the person who is seemingly digging into Amelia’s disappearance, nobody has ever discovered evidence linking me to their deaths.
How did Sage, of all people, put the pieces together?
I look at her, surprised to see she’s awake and staring at me.
I expected to see fear or anxiety in her eyes, but I don’t.
She and I aren’t made the same way. My mind is vastly different from hers.
I try to put myself in her shoes and see what she might feel like after I confessed to being a killer.
I just can’t do it. I expect she felt betrayal, fear, and stress. But her face doesn’t show any of that.
“I’ve been thinking about . . . it all night,” Sage says. She takes a deep breath and looks at me with an annoyingly earnest gaze. “I’m in.”
“In . . . what?”
“I’m going to help you kill this guy,” she promptly replies.
She sits up and looks at me with a half smile on her face.
She must be mistaken, because there was no invitation for her help.
This isn’t a fun activity to do with friends.
I’m extremely meticulous, and I won’t lower my standards for her to join me.
“I never asked for help,” I say, sitting up and glaring at her. “I’ve killed thirty-eight people so far, and I’ve never needed help.”
I study her face as I give her my number, and she gives no indication of being alarmed by it. She hears that I’ve killed that many and isn’t fazed. Even I know that’s not a normal reaction.
Sage might just be in worse shape than I am.
I turn away and open my bedside drawer, pulling out one of the knives I have stashed away there. I flick it open and turn around to show it to her. I hope to see her eyes wide with fear, but they’re not. I use it to cut the zip ties around our wrists.
“Why would you want to help me?” I can’t wrap my head around it. This isn’t a hobby a friend recommends you pick up. It’s serious. It’s not something anyone can do.
“Because maybe something good can come out of your . . . hobby. There are bad people in this world, and those people can do whatever they want and get away with it. If I can help right those wrongs—balance the scales between good and evil in the world—then I want to.” She has a hopeful look in her eyes as she speaks, and I feel my distaste growing.
I’m not surprised. Sage is delusional and naive, so she likely thinks I’m some Dexter-inspired killer. She thinks all my previous victims have been child molesters and killers themselves. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
“That’s not why I do what I do.” I squint at her as I take a deep breath. “I’m not saving the world from evil. I am evil.”
“I don’t believe that,” she says immediately, but I can see the crack in her veneer.
She’s trying to see good in me, which contradicts what she knows about me now.
I smile at her naivete. It would be interesting to see the world through her eyes.
Believing in the best even when you’re presented with evidence against it.
It’s such an innocent mindset, and I can’t help but want to shatter it.
“You have no idea how easy it is for me.” I rest my hand on her leg, tracing a small circle on her thigh with my finger.
“Before I sold my company and had billions of dollars to throw into these proclivities, it was a little hard. But most people don’t know where to look.
That’s what I love about it. The planning.
You should know, I’m very detailed. One doesn’t get away with thirty-eight murders without having a detailed plan.
“Three months ago, there was Cal.” I smile as my hand creeps up her leg, slowly inching toward the warmth of her pussy.
“I met him panhandling outside of a Speedway, and I offered to buy him a hot lunch. I sat down with him, talked about his life, and learned how he got where he was. After that, it wasn’t hard to follow him around and map out his routine.
He was homeless, addicted to pain pills mostly.
When he couldn’t get his hands on those, he took anything anyone would offer.
When he saw me again two weeks later, after I had already studied his every move, he trusted me enough to get in my car.
Instead of going to the diner, I brought him to an old paper mill. ”
My hand reaches the outside of Sage’s crotch, and I start rubbing it. She is hesitant for a moment, but she spreads her legs wider for me. All she’s wearing is a pair of pajama shorts, thin enough for me to feel every part of her.
“You’d be surprised how many abandoned factories litter this part of the country.
” I laugh and shake my head as I move the fabric of her shorts aside to rub her bare folds.
“For the most part, they are a liability. You can buy them through shell companies dirt cheap, and most of the time the local government is practically begging people to take them off their hands. From there, it’s not hard to get the rest of my supplies. ”
Sage watches me cautiously, her mouth hanging open as I trace my fingers along her labia. Her chest rises and falls heavily, a sign that she’s clearly interested in what’s happening. I didn’t expect that, but I don’t expect a lot of things about her.
“So, I brought Cal to the paper mill and tied him up with rope while I let my knife slice from his chin to his navel. It wasn’t deep enough for him to die right away, though.”
Disgust flashes over her features. “That’s terrible,” she mutters.
My finger rubs against her clit, and she gasps, leaning back slightly as she sinks into the warmth of my touch.
“He begged me to let him go, promising never to tell anyone about meeting me. He told me about his family, how they’d be looking for him.
I knew that wasn’t true. They’d all but written him off years before.
I knew I could savor the kill. I started with his arms, cutting into skin and fat and watching as blood spilled freely on the plastic sheeting.
Then I moved to his torso and held him to the ground while I sliced into the less vital organs. ”
“Travis! I don’t want to hear that!” she blurts out, but she doesn’t pull away from my touch. I can see the inner turmoil written all over her face.
Her breath quickens as I slide a finger inside her, feeling how wet she is from what I’ve been doing to her so far. I’m surprised she’s as turned on by this as she is. There’s something broken in her, in the same way it is in me. That’s the only explanation for this reaction.
I listen to her moan as I think of the other details of my kill, pumping my finger in and out of her faster and faster before stopping altogether and keeping her just on the brink of orgasm as she listens with rapt attention.
My cock stiffens in my pajamas, threatening to break through and show its head again.
This is new for me. Normally there’s nothing sexual about my kills.
Of course, it is very gratifying, and when I’m done my adrenaline is pumping and I’ll often pleasure myself.
But the act itself is not rooted in sexuality.
“After I stabbed his kidney, I knew that I only had about fifteen minutes before he was dead. Until then, I could have my fun,” I continue, moving my finger in and out of her as she lies back on the bed, keeping her eyes trained on me.
Her hands reach for her shirt to slide it up. I reach out and grab one breast, then the other, running my fingers over her nipples while she moans.
“In the end, I slit his throat, and the little blood that was still pumping through his veins spilled out like a geyser.” Her pussy tightens around my finger as she gets closer, and my cock stiffens even more. “I sat there for a moment staring at his face as life faded from his eyes.”
Sage is whimpering as her pussy clenches around me, and she comes on my finger. “Oh, fuck yes!”
“I killed six more people in that paper mill before I had it demolished,” I say, moving my finger quickly in and out of her as I pinch her nipple. “Nobody can ever find what doesn’t exist. That evidence is buried under fifteen tons of rubble.”
Her body trembles and shakes against the mattress as I keep working her with my finger. More wetness coats my hand as she writhes against the mattress. I watch her lose control of herself, feeling more powerful in this relationship than I ever have.
By the time her body is still, my head is clear. She breathes heavily, a hand over her forehead, as she stares up at the ceiling with a hint of confusion on her face.
Once again, I have confessed something to Sage that I shouldn’t have. I told her every detail of a kill, even where the evidence was buried. Of course, it would be nearly impossible for her to get that evidence, but whatever remains of Cal and the other six I killed there could be found.
I’ve made a mistake, and I have no way of rectifying it. I never go back on my word, and I already told Sage I wasn’t going to kill her anymore. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I get up and walk into my bathroom, closing the door behind me, and I lock it just in case she gets any ideas about following me. Grabbing my toothbrush, I look at myself in the mirror. My hair is all messed up, and my eyes look tired as my hand tightens on my toothbrush.
I know what I need—a pep talk.
“You are in control,” I say quietly. “You are a weapon. You are superior to all . . . and you definitely do not care about the girl,” I tell myself before I break the toothbrush in half.
Dammit.
“You absolutely care about the girl.”