I move before she can finish.
The knife cuts through the air, glinting under the harsh bathroom light before it sinks deep into her abdomen. Her whole body jerks. A guttural noise tears from her throat—half a gasp, half a sob. I push forward, driving her back until her hips slam into the edge of the sink, the force making bottles topple and rattle around us. Her hands are everywhere—grabbing at my jacket, clawing for my arms, pushing against me with every ounce of strength she has left. Her nails catch my skin throughthe fabric, frantic and useless. Then one hand lunges upward, catching the edge of my mask. She yanks it off in a desperate pull.
For a moment, our eyes meet. Her eyes widen—recognition, shock, and disbelief flickering through them in quick succession. A question forms on her lips, but I cut her off by pulling the knife out, splattering blood across my sweater and surrounding surfaces. I drive it into her again. The second thrust penetrates between the ribs, and the third buries the blade to the hilt below it. I can feel the steel scrape against her rib as I twist, slicing through viscera. Her body convulses with each hit, her strength fading fast. She’s still trying to speak, to scream, but all that comes out is a soft wheeze, a wet, rattling sound that fills the space between us. I drive my knife into her once more, right between her breasts. She gasps, coughing up blood as she collapses against me, heavy and limp. I hold her, a smirk curled on my lips as I watch the life in her fade away.
I pull my knife free slowly, the wet sound it makes when it leaves her flesh is music to my ears.
Her body stills, and I let go, letting gravity take her. She slides down the wall, smearing blood in uneven streaks as she goes. She crumples into the tub, hitting the porcelain with a hollow thud. The hollow impact echoes around the small bathroom. The shower curtain jerks, the plastic rings snapping one by one until it tears from the rod and falls with her. The fabric envelops her body, tangling in her limbs, except for the one leg that hangs over the edge of the tub. Her head lolls sideways, eyes half open and glassy.
Blood seeps fast, pooling beneath her and spreading along the seams of the tub floor. The color dulls as it mixes with water left from her earlier shower, smearing into the grout. The mask she tore from me still hangs from her hand, fingers stiffening around it. I look at it for a long moment, then decide to leaveit. Let them find it. Let the media put a face (albeit a mask) to the carnage I am responsible for. Her blood is already smeared across the plastic anyway, and I’ve prepared for a moment like this. I have another for incidents like this, just in case.
I crouch beside her, my chest rising steadily as I watch the life drain from her. It truly is a beautiful sight. Not just the blood, but the whole masterpiece. There is something truly gratifying about knowing that I held her life in my hands and got to decide when it ended and how.
Smirking, I dip my gloved fingers into one of the new wounds, feeling the warmth of the blood before I pull away. Then I stand and press those fingers to the wall, dragging them across the tile in thick red strokes.
YOU CAN’T SAVE RAELYNN. NO ONE CAN. SHE WILL BE MINE.
The letters gleam wet under the bathroom light. The words stand out stark against the pale wall. I wipe the blade on the pink towel beside the shower, then slide it into my pocket. I take one last look, my eyes shifting between her body, the blood, and the message, and step into the hallway. The noise of the sitcom blooms again in the living room as if nothing had happened, as if the world had already decided to move on. I head back to the room I had entered, just a few feet from the bathroom, climb out the window I came in, and melt into the night.
TWENTY-SIX
EMILIO
The scenewithin the house is chaotic. Ceramic shards crunch under my boots, littering both the living room and the bathroom floor. Coffee has puddled and dried tacky across the hardwood. Blood drags through the hallway in broken streaks and handprints, a morbid map of whatever hell this poor girl went through. In the bathroom, a bottle of mouthwash has spilled across the tile, blue liquid mixing with dark pools of blood until it runs in thin ribbons into the grout. The air is suffocatingly thick with a mix of the metallic stench of blood and mint.
The bathroom looks like a slaughterhouse. Blood is everywhere—on the floor, speckled up the vanity, cast across the shower tile. The pattern pulls the eye to the tub, to where she took her last breath. She’s half in, half out—left leg hanging over the rim, while the rest of her is tangled in the shower curtain that came down with her. In her right hand, caught tight between stiff fingers, is a white vinyl mask smeared with dried blood. She most likely yanked it off during a struggle. But why didn’t he grab it? Is there a reason he left it? My brows furrow as I take inthe rest of the bathroom. But what stops me cold isn’t the body, the blood, or the mask…
It’s the message written on the wall.
The letters are still wet when I read them. Eleven words—each one a slick, brutal cut—and they land in my gut like punches. For a second, the room tilts and my hands go numb. Those eleven little knives written in blood, wake something old and violent inside me. The same blind fury I carried as a kid when my father beat my mother, then turned on me, is nearly the exact same rage I’m feeling reading these eleven fucking words smeared across the wall, and it makes my vision narrow to that smear of red and nothing else.
CSU threads around me, moving with careful choreography. Cameras pop every few seconds as they photograph every piece of evidence. I barely register when one ushers me out of the bathroom so they can collect the rest of the puzzle pieces that could hopefully help us catch the fucker that did this, starting with whatever they can hopefully get from the mask. After swabbing the mask, they move to her fingernails. They swab the nail beds and scrape under them. Every scrap is handled, every droplet photographed, labeled, sealed. They put numbers next to footprints, measure the smear patterns, and photograph the angle of the wounds.
After several minutes, a black bag is brought in and laid out across the floor. My fists tighten as I watch them lift the girl out of the tub. The shower curtain—tacky with blood where it clings to her skin—peels away as they wrestle the plastic from her. The curtain comes off in one sticky sheet and is folded, catalogued, and bagged like everything else. Everything necessary and valuable is tucked away for safekeeping—except for the message on the wall. That still sits there, drying into the seams of the tile.
He’s full on taunting me now. Taunting her. This message only confirms my suspicion. A psychopath is after Raelynn, andit’s only a matter of time before he decides he’s psychologically tortured her enough, broken her down enough, that he finally moves in for the kill.
But the thought of him touching her, of her being next, makes something dark and violent rise in me.
My nails dig into my palms until I feel the sharp sting of skin breaking as anger surges through me. My fists clench tighter, blood rushing hot behind my eyes as they zip the bag closed, sealing up another person within Raelynn’s circle. The second the team wheels the body past, I turn on my heel and push through the doorway, the hinges rattling behind me. The night air does absolutely nothing to cool the fire in me. I pace, breathing hard, trying to keep myself grounded, but every breath only fans the flames higher. I slam my fist into the stucco wall beside the door. The crack of impact echoes across the yard. Pain flashes up my arm, followed by the sting of torn skin, and I welcome it. Blood wells up through my knuckles, running down to my wrist.
Kline’s voice drifts over the yard. He’s standing a few feet from the porch with the roommate who found the body. The poor girl looks traumatized. Her McDonald’s uniform is rumpled, the name tag hanging sideways. Tangled strands of strawberry blonde hair stick out of her bun. Mascara runs down her freckled cheeks in messy black streaks, and her hands—stained red—are shaking so hard she can barely hold onto her phone. There’s blood smeared across the front of her uniform from when she tried to help but then realized too late that her roommate was long gone before she got there.
Her swollen red eyes fix on me, then to the blood dripping from my knuckles, before dropping away, lip trembling. Kline angles himself to block her view of the door and whatever she might see behind me.
He murmurs, something comforting or reassuring, is my guess, and gives her bicep a gentle squeeze before glancing towards me. “Give me one minute,” he tells her softly. “I’ll be right back.” When she nods faintly, he gives her a small smile before stepping away.
He turns toward me and climbs the porch steps. His eyes sweep over me once, lingering on the blood spattering between my boots. My hand is already swelling, the skin split wide open, and my knuckles raw. The adrenaline in my veins has my heart pounding so hard I can hear it.
“Emilio,” he says—my name carrying both a warning and a question.
“I’m fine,” I mutter, even though I can’t bring myself to unclench my fists. He gives me a stern look, definitely not buying my lie. I am practically vibrating with unspent rage.
“You’re not fine. What is it?” he presses.
I drag my uninjured hand through my hair, the motion jerky. My breath shakes as I try to steady it. “He left another note,” I say finally, voice low, rough. “This time addressed to Rae.”
Kline’s face hardens. “What did it say? I’ve kind of been occupied out here since arriving on scene.”
