CHAPTER ONE
“Good and evil are in the eye of the beholder.
Or so they say.
Either way…evilness has way more space for all my vices.
And for a psychopath like me?
That’s heaven on Earth.”
Him
Him
Stalking is an art form rooted in our deepest desire to possess the object of our obsession.
Wicked, vile desire that consumes our souls and only the few of us who have soaked in darkness a long time ago…answers the lurking call and thrives in it, as guilt and consciousness are a foreign concept to the likes of us.
After all, we are selfish and have no compassion toward those who stand in our way.
Crossing my arms, I zero in on the woman on the beach a few feet away, slipping off her shoes and curling her toes in the sand. She takes a deep breath, and a soft smile curves her plumplips as she welcomes the breeze skirting over her, billowing her yellow dress backward.
If humankind needed a physical representation of a mesmerizing beauty hidden behind agony and pain, wrapped in chaos and suffering, with the power to drive anyone permanently insane…they’d have to look at her.
A gorgeous siren destined to lure the men to their doom, promising salvation while bringing nothing but damnation.
For her beauty is a mask, an illusion that she could have used as a weapon.
Instead, it’s a blade she allows to stab into her, somehow finding pleasure in pain, and that’s an attraction I could have never resisted.
She speaks to the rotten and heinous part in me, craving blood and gore, thriving in the destruction it brings, and temporarily numbing the screams in my head that become louder and louder as time passes.
With that, the desires that should be forbidden grow in me and somehow bring me freedom.
When one resides in hell for a long time, and an angel falls down into their abyss, seeming like a gift from heaven, they should be careful. It’s probably a poison that would be deadly to them.
An elderly couple approaches her, holding out a camera, and a woman asks, “Excuse me, dear, could you please take our picture?”
Her long blonde hair, falling down her slender back in heavy waves, sways when she looks at them, drawing attention to its silkiness and smoothness, shining under the bright sun. Its gorgeousness only emphasizes her clear porcelain skin and perfectly carved profile.
Sculptors in ancient Greece would have begged her to pose for them, as her symmetry adds charm to her irresistible beauty.
“Of course,” she replies, her soft and inviting voice akin to a lullaby promising reprieve from the all-consuming rage constantly living inside me. “What kind of picture do you want?”
The couple beams with joy, only to freeze when she fully turns to face them, and they take a step back, the woman gasping, and Lavender stills.
One side of her face is flawless, while the other holds a deep scar on her right cheek as if someone had put their knife to it, then dusted salt on the wound so she would never forget the pain of it. Along with burn scars marring her neck and trailing to her collarbone, and a few more hidden beneath the yellow cloth.
Her body is a cruel artwork that a madman once used as a canvas.
And if I could go to hell and retrieve his soul so I could punish and kill it once again, I would.
“Oh my God,” the woman exclaims, and wariness, along with hurt, glazes over Lavender’s emerald-green eyes so vivid one might stare at them for hours.
I tried searching for the perfect shade to match them, yet failed to find it, which only increased my need for their sole attention.
As they tend to avoid mine.
