I killed boys for target practice. I was Satan’s assassin. Spreading his will like a burning Bible.
My heels clicked against the hardwood as I headed for the door. The microwave read 12:41 a.m.—half an hour since Joe posted watch and finally left. The ledger window was open and I needed three names tonight before His Evilness next graced me with his presence, or I’d be fucked. Probably riding on an over-crowded city bus full of body odor and handsy old men for eternity.
“I expect an apology when I get home, Jesus,” I called, locking up. “Now, what to do?”
Back to Luscious? It’s an excellent hunting ground, but after tonight it sounded like a headache, not a haunt. I didn’t need that shit in my life at the moment.
“The park it is,” I grumbled. The neighborhood park off the bar strip featured dim lamps, long sightlines, and a mile of drunk delinquents spilling in after last call. If I was going to scramble for substitutes, that’s where I’d find them.
A half naked girl walking alone along a mile long strip full of bars and drunken men to wander inside of it. What could go wrong?
“Take me home tonight,” I sang under my breath. “I don’t wanna let you go ‘till you see the light…”
I cut south toward the strip, passed two shuttered bodegas and a tattoo shop, and slipped beneath the park’s iron arch. The paved loop wound through dense greenery and manicured bushes. Good cover for those looking for trouble, better bait for me. It wasn’t long before I was alone with the hum of sodium lamps and the steady cadence of my own steps.
An hour later, I’d looped the trail a handful of times, patience thinning, until a laugh split the night and goosebumps walked my skin.
Nights like this one, when my last shreds of humanity made the thought of murdering someone taste like ash on my tongue were becoming fewer and farther in between, but they still sucked.
I never looked forward to Death Day.
But once I fixed on a soul, the switch flipped. Bloodlust took the wheel. Mercy stopped mattering. I needed that switch tonight. The ledger window was shrinking to hours, and I didn’t have time to be tender.
Did I dread the hunt?
Usually.
Did I love the kill?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
I slipped my hands into my jacket pockets and made myself as small and fragile looking as possible before I started singing my favorite Eddie Money song again, looking like a breakable girl who was scared of the dark and had to sing to get through it.
It wasn’t long before snickers rose behind me, and footsteps hastened to catch up. Pregame jitters spread goosebumps along my skin and a smile stretched across my face. My expectation was simple: draw them close, peel one from the herd, steal his soul, move on.
Their faces came into view, and I could tell in the narrowing of their eyes and lip between their teeth that they’d already decided I was prey. Something they could have just because they wanted it. An object to be used and discarded because society said I owed it to them.
“Take me home tonight…”
“Your place or ours, sweetness?”
I laughed shyly, slumping my shoulders and picking up the pace to trigger their need to hunt. Time stopped as I waited for the telltale signs they would take the bait. It wasn’t a matter of needing the kill anymore.
Iwantedit.
Sneakers shuffled and scraped against the paved trail. There were no laughs or hushed conversation, only the quickening of their breaths as adrenaline pumped through their veins. They didn’t say a word as they grabbed me by the arm and threw me into the bushes.
The taunting began as one covered my mouth to muffle my cries while the other ripped the seam of my dress and unbuckled his belt.
I knew what would come next. A chorus of ‘you fucking like it’ and ‘good little whore’ harmonized with grunts and sweat slicked skin slapping together.
Not me. Not tonight.
Thorns scraped my calves. A palm pressed my cheek into damp earth. Another hand fumbled at my jacket zip.
I let the first sob catch in my throat. Let them lean closer and smell the subtle notes of fruit in my perfume, and the product in my hair. All of the feminine shit that creeps like them went feral for.
And then, when they were so lost in testosterone that they felt invincible, I turned to swing.
