The insomniac in her ensured that she saw plenty of midnight hours, sunrises as she stumbled about, not ready for the next day as each blurred into the next. The cloud of sleepdeprivation that bordered onto psychosis in its more intimate moments.
We saw those, too. Stole moments when she slept. Had no idea we were there, inside her space.
And her art. It spoke to both of us in a primitive, prey-in-the-making kind of way.
Because I truly doubted that Helia Mascot was any kind of hunter, even if she would make such a beautiful victim.
“You were never her type,” I told Ethan as I bagged his body, careful not to let his blood drain over the flooring in his dorm. His roommate was off fucking another in his frat, and since that particular man had the stamina of a Rippton Allstars, one of the star athletes on campus, I was guaranteed an unbroken handful of hours of sex marathon plus recovery and aftercare time to boot.
His hands and feet were bagged next as I talked to him softly, soothingly.
“She’ll be cared for, I promise. No, she doesn't know about the pictures. I’ll hide them away,” I reassured his head as it went into a plastic bag, separate from the rest of his body. “Unless youwanther to find them? Did you have a humiliation kink, Art Buddy Ethan? Should I check?”
I raised my eyebrows as blood pooled in the corner of his bag, leaving a softploppingsound as I dropped the dismembered head and bent to collect my blades. I had seven, one of each occasion, though I only used three tonight.
“No, you should not check.” My twin brother’s voice drew my attention to the window where he balanced in the frame like a moonlit elf.
I imagined that was the filter that Helia would see him through, my pale, pigmentless identical twin, our albinism highlighted in the artificial light. Or maybe she wouldn’t and Iwas being a romantic fool, lost in my happy space of murder and death.
“But we could have some fun, message her from his phone,” I protested. “I do love games.”
“And I love not having to bribe police officers. Don’t you remember?” His strict face glowed, forcing me back to the first time I killed. To the memory that set us on the path we followed now.
“Shit. Fuck. I’m—no, I’m not sorry you utter fucking abusive cunt who deserved to die. Shit. Fuck. Fuck!” I gripped my hair in both hands, knowing the stain of my abusive father would transfer to me the moment I grasped the colorless strands and yanked. The pain helped but nothing could alleviate the panic that consumed me as I stared at the fallen body of my sire. The man who decided his son was his toy nightly for years, until I grew old enough to understand what the sharp end of a steak knife could do in a hard grip just after my eleventh birthday.
And already I swore like one of the mafia friends he associated with frequently. I’d sat in on enough meetings, learned the art of negotiation at his table. But I hadn't seen a man bleed so much, hadn’t thought it would be so messy when I took the knife and ran it across his throat as he sank his saggy, sloppy body into mine.
And the blood drenched me like a deluge of sin.
The mess was enormous as I managed to haul my skinny, pale ass out from under his convulsing bulk. The scents of death—piss and shit—that I learned to recognize as part of the process later, clung to me that night. Different from any other, a benchmark I lived by from that point.
And as I sat, pointing the steak knife at a still body, covered in another man’s blood, Key pushed his way into my room and found me. The knife disappeared from my hand and the body was pulled from the bed. Together, we rolled it and bagged it.And then we phoned one of my father's friends, who turned out not to be a friend at all, but one we could pay to help clean up the mess.
A man who Key had used before.
“Next time, don’t be anywhere near the spray,” he taught me, showing me how to slash and stab. "Watch how they clean up. Ask to help. They’ll say no, but they’ll let you sit and watch, providing you don’t interrupt. Just watch, and learn. I’ve been doing it all year.”
“Watching?” My eyes were round as saucers, not a shake in sight from my pale, thin hands that my father had loved on his tainted flesh.
Key shook his head, his eyes on the cleaners, absorbing everything.
“Killing.”
I hadn’t realized what twisted little monsters we were until that moment. Me, out of survival. Him, because he was all sorts of other fucked up. I never asked why he was the way he was, simply accepted him. and … it worked. But my twin still managed to creep up on me sometimes, even when we shared the same obsession.
“Don’t fucking well touch anything in his room. Don’t gift her anything. Don’ttouch her.” Key’s personal brand of obsession shone through.
“No?” I traced my fingers across Ethan’s sealed lips where I had sewn them shut. “He didn’t say much.”
Key snorted. “Looking at him now, I don't doubt it.”
“Not here. Before.” I considered. “It’s like…he expected us. Did you make a deal with him?”
Key tilted his head to one side. “No. Did you?”
“I did not.”
Breath left me. Why would this man expect us, when we hadn’t shown ourselves to Helia yet? Certainly, we’d marked heras ours, but we hadn’t shown our obsession, ourdedicationto her to anyone else at all.
