It should be easy from here, no? Check his license for his address, or use his thumb to unlock his phone, where it’s sure to be nestled in his Uber or Maps history. And what then? Splay him out on his kitchen table and set at him with his knife set? Or simply leave him lying face up in bed, in the hopes he chokes on his own vomit at some point in the night? But he might have a security camera at home. What then?There’s many a steep stairwell in the narrow and twisting streets of London that he could take a tumble down.
The churning in my gut intensifies. I’ve not yet considered that the girl in the toilets saw me with him, as have most of the people in the bar, and his colleagues will definitely throw my name out if he’s discovered suddenly dead…
Shit.
I suddenly feel utterly powerless. What am I doing here? What am I doing? I don’t want to kill a man in cold blood—this is not who I am.
Mr. Periphery groans. Between the stretched, slipped, and skipped-over syllables, I can just about understand that he feels sick. He wants to go home.
And I have to let him.
It makes me angrier than I was before. Angrier than I was walking into this bar. But there’s no scenario here where I don’t end up fucked, albeit not in the way Mr. Periphery was planning.
The cocktail stick lying beside a saucer of olive pits taunts me. I’m so furious I can’t help myself. I grab it and press it against his crotch. He grunts. I pinch the tip tightly and drive it as hard as I can against the fabric. I feel it burst across the membrane.
He screams. Well, I say “screams.” He tries to. It is a low, animal wail that thunders. I’ve not driven the splinter as deeply as I would have liked, but he is sure to feel this tomorrow. For a while. I yank the stick out and toss it to the floor. Just in time, too, as one of the bar staff rounds the corner, peering in.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
My expression is apologetic, earnest. “Yeah, I think he’s just had a bit too much to drink.”
“Right.” He gives me a sympathetic look.
“To be honest, I’m in a bit over my head, here. I only just met himtonight and I need to be getting home. Any chance you’d be able to help him sort a taxi? Sorry, I know it’s a lot to ask but—”
He’s skeptical. Who wants to be landed with a loaded suit to look after? “We close in half an hour.”
“And my last train home leaves in fifteen. Please.”
His shoulders relent before his mouth does, deflating in a long exhale. “Okay, love, get off home. We’ll sort it.”
“Thanks so much,” I say with my biggest, most grateful smile.
That smile remains fixed to my face, painted on with the uncanny quality of a porcelain doll’s. The moment the fresh night air hits me, it wipes it off. I want to cry. I want to hide and scream and rage. The whole point of tonight was to make me feel better, not worse, and yet now…
Somewhere in the distance a siren wails, a lamplight flickers overhead, and I try to pretend that I’m not a ticking bomb waiting to explode.
23
Now
Dimple
It’s a sunny view I’m treated to in Dimple’s office today. The trees beyond the window look particularly verdant and lush. I’m decidedly more on edge.
“I’m in a funny sort of mood,” I announce, fingers stroking across peach fuzz.
“How so?” she asks.
“I think I get it. My impulses, I mean.” My mouth twists at the euphemism. Say what you mean and mean what you say, after all. “I have a better understanding of why I hurt people. It’s always been obvious with the others that they’ve pissed me off in some way. But it’s not just that. It’s not just annoying me, or even betraying me. It’s about power. It’s about injustice. It’s about them taking something from me and me needing to take something back.”
Dimple makes a movement of her head that could be agreement or a simple checking of her notes. “What makes you say that?”
I consider her for a moment, whether I’m still prepared to embrace this unbridled honesty I’ve decided will help her help me. Well, I do want to be helped…
“I tried to kill someone last weekend.”
She blinks once, twice. Her mouth flops open and then clamps shut. An involuntary shake runs through her head as she readjusts her glasses, readjusts her whole body in her seat. “Could you please talk me through what you mean when you say that?”
