Appetizing.
I walk over and reach up, popping open the smoke detector and pulling out the battery so it'll stop making noise. Karissa glances at me, offering a timid half-smile in place of any words.
Words are a rare gift from her these days. She showered me with plenty of scathing ones before they dried up and we entered the drought stage.
I wait it out, but her silence is deafening.
Frustrating.
Downright torture some days.
She walks around here with those earbuds in her ears, music blaring as she blocks out the world. If she can't hear me, she can pretend I'm not here. If she can't hear me, she thinks I won't waste my breath trying to talk.
She turns back to the stove, to her burnt food. She's usually better than this, but something has her frazzled. I'm not sure what it is.
"Everything okay, Karissa?"
She clicks off both burners as she mutters, "just fucking wonderful."
My jaw clenches at her tone and I force myself not to react. I don't take to disrespect well, but she dishes it out some days like I'm starving for it.
Hell, maybe I am.
Maybe I deserve it.
But I don't like it.
At all.
Instead of pushing her for more of an answer, for a better answer, I just walk out, leaving her to salvage a dinner she knows I won't eat. She does this every day now, part of a routine she settled into this summer, a routine she doesn't often differ from anymore.
She's predictable, borderline robotic as she fights to keep her emotions from showing around me, like if she does the same things day in and day out, maybe I'll grow complacent and overlook her presence. Like maybe I'll forget about her. Like maybe it's the key to getting away. She doesn't realize that's how I catch people. They think they fade away in the bustle, when they stand out more to me that way.
She's distracting herself, with these disastrous dinners, these routines, but it doesn't keep her from thinking. From overthinking. Strained silence fuels the most morose thoughts. I know. Believe me, I know. And that just makes it all worse.
She's a ticking time bomb.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
It's only a matter of time before I clip the wrong wire and she explodes.
Heading into the den, I take a seat at my desk and pull out my cell phone to call a nearby Chinese place. I order whatever the special is today and request some Beef Lo Mein without any of the vegetables, Karissa's favorite.
I can hear her moving around in the kitchen, banging cabinets and throwing things. I just lean back in my chair and listen to her chaos, absorbing the impact like it's made with her fists.
I didn't set out to love her.
I didn't even plan to like her.
But it happened... we happened... and I'm still trying to figure out how to deal with that.
The delivery guy shows up in less than thirty minutes. A new one every time, different places whenever I order out, so nobody can predict where I'm eating from that day. It's not fool proof, but it's certainly proven safer than eating something Karissa makes.
I pay for the food before curiously strolling toward the dining room. The light is off, but Karissa sits at the table alone. The glow filtering in from the kitchen shows me she has a plate in front of her. She shifts the food around with her fork, not eating it, as she once again has those earbuds in.
I'm not surprised.
Another part of her routine: she won't admit defeat.
Wordlessly, I pull out the carton of Beef Lo Mein and set it on the table beside her before I make my way back into the den, leaving her with a shred of dignity, letting her eat whatever she wants in peace.
Dealing with people.
Finding things.
My specialties.
I sit in the den, my feet propped up on my desk, leaning back in the leather office chair as I scarf down my dinner. My eyes are trained on the laptop, on the stock ticker scrolling along the screen. I have some of my money invested in various high-profile businesses, legitimate dealings that keep me off the government's radar, but my focus right now is on the little ones, the barely existing penny stocks nobody cares about.
Chop stocks, they call them.
You find one, invest, and con a bunch of others into putting their money in, convincing them it's the next big thing, and then as soon as the price skyrockets, you pull your money right back out. The stock will plummet, since it's shit, and everyone else loses out, but you walk away with a pretty profit thanks to the suckers.
It's illegal, and I don't do it, personally, but it comes with the territory.
Finding things.
I've always been good at orchestrating schemes, finding a way to get things, to make money, but it wasn't until I started working for Ray that I really honed my skills. I have connections all over the world now—if somebody needs something, I know a person, or know a person who knows a person who can get whatever it is. It goes hand-in-hand with dealing with people, when it comes down to it. If people are terrified of you—of what you're capable of—they'll never cross you or turn you away.
That particular skill of mine wasn't discovered until later… until the world I built crashed down around me, leaving me a ruthless shell. When you've got nothing left inside of you except for darkness, it becomes easier to snuff out somebody else's light.
And that's me. I do what I want, take what I want, and make no apologies for any of it. After all, I wasn't born this way. The world made me who I am, and the world pays for that mistake every day. There's only ever been one thing to evade me, one person to elude me, one clever enough to stay ahead of me all these years.
Carmela Rita.
Johnny was easy to find. He took the same route Karissa is taking now: predictability. He played it close to the chest, settled into a routine, buying a house and working a shitty nine-to-five job, hoping to fly under the radar by becoming nothing. Fitting, really, since he was nothing.
Carmela, on the other hand, shook up her routine, living a life of chaos, of impulsiveness. Whenever I got close to her, she fled, switching tactics, moving on somewhere else.
She's a lot like me, I think.
She's smart.
But I'm smarter.
It's how I know this isn't over, that killing Johnny hadn't ended anything. I wish she would run again, disappear into another life, create another existence somewhere and never look back, but she won't.
I know this, because that's not what I'd do.
Carmela's full of darkness, too. The only light in her life now brightens my home, and she'll come for it. She'll come for Karissa.
God help her when she does.
Speaking of the light of my life…
My eyes shift from the laptop to Karissa when she walks into the den, barely making a sound as she curls up on the couch and grabs the remote control. She turns on the television, keeping the volume low, as she flips straight to the Food Network. A notebook lays open on her lap, a pen tucked between her fingers that she absently shakes as she stares at the screen.