Even when I wasn’t stalking her, she was still a constant presence because she had latched herself onto my brain. Like a parasite. The longer I went without seeing her, the more I thought of her. Of her high-pitched, giggly voice, her horn-rimmed glasses, the nose that was always buried in a book.
A small nose, slightly turned up, with a dash of freckles on it.Greenish eyes, but I didn’t often see the color because they were hidden behind her permanently fogged-up, askew glasses. When she blushed, her pale skin took on a blotchy red tint, but she didn’t blush that often. She was so annoyingly sure of herself.
I gave her a ride once, because it was pouring rain, and it was all I could do to not crush her tiny body between my arms.
God, I fucking hate her.
And now she’s in my high school. I just can’t seem to get rid of her.
I actually hesitated to ask Dad to let me change schools, and I would have spoken to him about it if I hadn’t already known it was pointless. Dad’s done everything to set me up in life, according to his idea of what that means. Buy the right house so you’re in the right district to go to the right school, so that when you finish high school, Devil will recruit you.
They recruit their teen soldiers from Astley High.
Instead of trying to avoid her, which would have been the sane thing to do, I’ve changed my entire schedule so I can be in all her classes. Wanting to feel the hatred surge in me, the contempt, as I watch the skinny little insect sit three rows in front of me, or walk around the hallways. The bag on her back seems to completely engulf her as her face is invariably stuck in a book even when she walks, her hand absentmindedly nudging back up her huge round glasses on the bridge of her nose.
I don’t think Iama psychopath, because I’ve never had the urge to kill anyone else. Just her. A true psychopath would want to kill everyone, wouldn’t he?
Sometimes the thought scares me. I don’t want to turn into a serial killer and fry on the electric chair. I never had an opinion about Dad’s plan in life for me, but maybe working for Devil will be a good thing. I could channel all my rage into killing people who are not the incredibly annoying insect currently standing in front of me.
Fuck. Today’s the worst day of my life.
Because my hatred of her has reached such a boiling point that as I look at her, smiling happily at me in the hallway, I get the feeling I have what it takes to murder her.
10
Quill
Present Day
I’m going to have to be more careful.
She saw me last night. I just couldn’t help but leave the closet and walk toward her. The same something about her that makes me want to strangle her with my bare hands makes me want to own her.
Her life. Her death. Her cunt.
The gravitational pull toward her is insane. Even as I’m telling myself I need to stay back and observe silently from the bedroom closet, I just can’t fucking help it.
My feet take one step, then another, even as big warning signs flash before my eyes. I tighten the hoodie around my mask, making sure it fits snugly on my face.
I hope she didn’t recognize me.
She couldn’t have, right? She would have said something. I disguised my voice, and I was wearing the same full mask as now.
No, she didn’t recognize me.
She merely let me fuck her throat and then her pussy with my gun, because she’s a fucking whore. She’s made that very clear.
I hate her, and I wish she were dead to me. I wish she were dead, period.
I wish I had the strength to follow through on the urge I used to struggle against.
But when my hand lifts on the sleeping form sprawled out in bed, it’s not to strangle her. Not even to strike her. It’s to capturea tendril of her curly red hair and push it back over her ear.
I don’t know if many people would find her beautiful. I never had. I always thought she looked like an insect. But I guess it’s one of those optical illusion things. You rub your eyes and suddenly the darkness holds the shape. It’s not a face, it’s a vase.
It’s not an insect, it’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.
I can’t seem to get back to viewing her like an insect, no matter how hard I rub my eyes.
