I walk leisurely toward the gas station, my mission allowing me to once more bury the waves of emotion that have been crashing down on me ever since I caught sight of my little girl. No one’s behind the counter, but I catch a glimpse of a man behind a glass door at the back. The minute he sees me, his beady eyes glitter, and he hurries out into the main room.
“What can I do for ya?” he asks.
“Bathroom,” I grunt.
The smirk playing at the sides of his mouth disappears. “For women only,” he growls.
“Really? How about paying customers?”
“Women only,” he insists.
My eyes sweep around the room until I spot the most expensive thing on sale, a massive plush pink teddy bear with a sparkly collar about the size of… well, my girl. I pick it up and heave it onto the counter with a thud.
“I’ll take this,” I say, “and I’ll use your bathroom.”
He hesitates for a few seconds, his eyes glinting greedily, then relents, grabbing a key from behind the cash register before ringing me up. “That’ll be $219.30,” he says. “Got a little girl at home?”
“Something like that.”
I take the key and head toward the bathroom. Unlocking the door, I look around, and soon spot the tiny black lens positioned on the wall, its lens angled toward the toilet.
Gotcha, fucker.
I grab it, pull it out forcefully, the screws fixing it in place clattering to the floor, and crush it between my fingers. I have to swallow my anger as I realize he must have secretly been filming my girl for the past eight months.
“All good?” he asks, hearing me leave the bathroom.
“Yep.” It shouldn’t be such a struggle to keep my voice steady and my face impassive. I’m used to bluffing. But when it comes to her, it’s a different story.
I cross the main room then pause before opening the door. “By the way, could I have the tapes?”
He frowns. “The… the tapes?”
“Sure. From the camera in the bathroom.”
An embarrassed chuckle escapes his lips. “Oh, you saw that. Well, you know… It’s just one of those things…”
“I know,” I smile, and he relaxes into a grin.
“Gotta get our kicks somewhere, right?” he shrugs. “Sure, I’ll show them to you. Always nice meeting a likeminded fella.”
He gives me a wink that makes me physically sick, then gestures for me to follow him to the back office. He powers on the computer and clicks on a folder labeledChickson his desktop. It’s not exactly discreet.
The folder opens to reveal hundreds of thumbnails. All of them are videos, I realize, as I note the extension names. And in each thumbnail, a woman is either preparing to undress, or already partially unclothed, underwear and skirt or pants pooling around the knees. The quality is grainy, but I can tell that many of the videos are of the same girl.
“My salesgirl,” he says, pointing her out. “Not everyone’s cup of tea, maybe, but I like ’em skinny and young. She doesn’t talk,but with a body like that, she doesn’t need—”
He interrupts himself as he notices my expression, and blanches. “Say, what are you? FBI? I didn’t do nothing wrong. I just…”
“No, I’m not from the FBI,” I mutter. “I’m the Devil.”
“The Devil?” he repeats, snorting with laughter. “Okay then, and I’m…”
He interrupts himself again, this time to yelp out a startled, strangled cry, which quickly turns into a shriek of pain as I continue to twist my pocket knife into his abdomen. There’s a sick, wet sound as I remove the knife to stab his chest. I watch with satisfaction as he falls, clutching at his stomach, a shocked expression distorting his features.
My pet was right. There is something highly satisfactory in stabbing someone. It’s much nicer than shooting. I don’t have time to give him the slow, painful death I’d like, but I am going to get to see him suffer a bit before he dies.
He lies on the floor, gasping in pain, red-tinged foam bubbling at his lips. I kneel down over him, drawing the blade of my knife toward his face. He stares at it helplessly as I bring it down on his forehead, and begin to etch a design in its center, pressing the blade deep enough that it penetrates his skull. The stab wounds prevent him from screaming, but I feel him under me, his body spasming in pain, before it grows still.
