CHAPTER 58
“WHAT’CHA DOING OUT here, white girl?”
The man is young, the sideways cap proclaiming his love for the Lakers while housing a forest of kinked hair. LoveLakers2Death looks toward the street for a quick moment before his gaze returns to me, his free hand stopping midhitch of his pants as he catches sight of the gun.
“Now? Hunting,” I reply. I press the 9mm into his stomach, staring into his face as my mouth curls into a smile. This idiot. So helpful, bringing us both to a private location. Had I known it would be this easy, I’da left my apartment earlier. I will not kill anyone. I hear my conscience and grip the gun tighter, fighting a losing battle against ignoring it.
The man releases my left arm, and I shake it out, the imprint of his fingers no doubt having left a bruise. Raising both hands, he glances back to the street, this time for a different reason.
I watch him with interest, wondering at the man I have the ability to kill. His mouth chews at something, his eyes dart with manic regularity from me to the street, yet he is silent. I expected protesting. Begs. I dream of begs in the dark of night. Begs and screams. Yet here, it appears this man will die silently. It’s quite disappointing, if I’m to be entirely honest.
“On your knees,” I order. “Open your mouth.”
I watched a show four years ago, back when I lived in the decadent world of cable television, a Forensic Files episode, where they showed a collection of crime scene photos. One was from a suicide where the man shot himself through the mouth. The blood spatter was spectacular, painting the wall behind him with splatter and gore. If LoveLakers2Death is going to go silently, it may as well be pretty. I wonder at the hat, if it will fly off or if brain matter will hit and be contained in its yellow and purple cavity.
The man doesn’t move. His eyes flick to the gun, then to my face.
God, I wish I had my knife. A stupid oversight on my part, one that made no sense. With a gun, there is only threat, then action. And action is loud and attention getting, especially from an unsilenced 9mm. I study the man and try to think, my brain sluggish when competing with the hum of need in my head. I push the gun deeper into the man’s ribs. “On your knees or I’ll shoot you in the side and then in the mouth. Look in my eyes and decide if I’m fucking with you.”
Maybe it is the tone in my voice. Or the smile on my face. Whatever it is, the man obediently drops to his knees before me. And I’ve never felt stronger. I am fine without my knife. My kill can still be beautiful. I don’t know this man, he may not deserve to die, but I need this, my four-month hiatus from murder a lifetime long. I lift the gun to his mouth and push it against his stubborn lips.
“Open.”
At the moment he complies, his eyes pleading as his lips shake, my cell rings.
CHAPTER 59
WHEN I ANSWER the phone I hear people in the background and I feel a pang of jealousy that cuts through my bloodlust. Maybe that’s all I need to solve my condition. The jealous distraction of another life. A life where I am out of this skin, surrounded by laughing people. Living my life.
“Just a minute.” His voice is low and seductive, as if I am important and worth answering the phone for, worth stepping away for. As if he and I share a secret, and he is pausing his life to focus on me.
The voices muffle and fade, and I look at the 9mm against white teeth, then the man’s eyes, which dart from me to the phone then the gun, the eye contact turning cross-eyed at the end. His tongue moves, and the gun shifts slightly in my hand. I smile at him and wonder how far the sound of the gunshot will travel. Try to remember how much this gun kicks and if I should use both hands.
“Deanna.” I love when Derek says my name. I feel high on it, or maybe it is just the fact that I am seconds away from killing. Whatever the reason, right now I am un-fucking-stoppable.
“Derek.” I hope he likes when I say his name.
“Is everything okay?”
His question breaks me in a way that shouldn’t happen. Maybe it was fingers of concern that lace his words. Someone cares. Someone, in some form, loves me. The real me. A girl who is very broken inside. A different someone, in another form, loves this man before me. A mother. A prostitute. A child.
“I’m in a bad place.” I speak quickly, watching the man’s eyes before me catch. LoveLakers2Death is listening. Interested. I push the gun harder into his mouth and glare. Try to focus on him, but Derek is speaking and this situation is, with his one short question, falling apart.
“Tell me.”
“Simon… he didn’t lock the door.” My voice is not my voice. It hitches when it speaks. It is weak, it trembles. It is the side of me that is scared of the side of me that is about to break open my world and destroy it. It is a voice that breathes hard and not calm.