My Little Lilacfell asleep on me. This tiny woman with freckles on her skin and zero survival instincts, fell asleep curled up next to me on the couch.
I don’t know whether I want to savor the moment or throttle her for being so careless. I settle on the former because this is heaven. Never mind the fact that I am one hundred percent going to Hell, I will destroy every demon in the place if it means I can spend the afterlife in Heaven with Hazel.
I frown at that, not liking the thought of Hazel dying. There are very few people I care whether they live or die but apparently, this girl, with her heart shaped face and freckled cheeks, makes the list.
Her nose wrinkles as she snuggles under the blanket I draped over her and my obsession deepens.
I’ve never met someone with so much emotion, so much color. Never met someone who made the world so… fucking quiet.
The second I saw her dancing around her room the constant pressure in my head just dissipated and I’m tempted to carry her around with me for the rest of my life just so I never have to feel it again.
I hate the pressure. It builds gradually at first, like an itch I can’t scratch until one itch becomes a hundred and I want to tear my own skin off.
The first time I worked out how to make the itch stop, I was eight. Some bigger kid was pushing my sister around, so I’d strolled over and stabbed a compass in his ear. Perforated his ear drum.
He’d been screaming loud enough to break glass, but I just stood there in wonder at how quiet my mind had gone. Like a lake at night instead of a crashing storm.
Should we be worried you find violence so peaceful?My sister’s voice echoes in my head and the corner of my mouth ticks up.Probably, Hope, yeah.
I lean forward and flick the TV off, torn between the need to never let my new obsession out of my sight and my desire to know everything about her.Hazel.My Lilac.
I roll my tongue around her name, loving how sweet it tastes on my tongue. Wondering how sweet other parts of her will taste.
I press the heel of my hand against my hardening cock, willing it to calm down because there are a couple dozen police officers looking for me and I have other things I need to do before I leave.
Hazel’s house is small. A bungalow with barely enough room for two. It’s clear though, the second I step into her old bedroom, that this is a home. I may not feel love like other people do but Hope taught me well enough to know that this room is filled with it.
Love is like… being able to breathe. Like feeling the sun on your face or a blanket wrapped around you.
I know I loved my sister, but it never felt like that to me. My love was fierce and possessive and no doubt far too lethal for someone like Hazel to ever want.
I curl my fist at the thought and then I search for the guilt I should feel because the truth is, I’m not sure I’m going to give Hazel a choice.
Photographs of her and an older lady, Hazel’s grandma, are pinned to a corkboard.
Young Hazel makes warmth curl in my chest, stronger than it ever has before. Maybe ten years old with her hair in braids and a crazed, lopsided smile as she leans towards the camera. There’re photos of her with friends too. A girl with a curly black bob and another with blue French braids and a pierced tongue. The girl with the blue hair features in more of the photos, her hair changing from color to color over the years before I find one where she must only be twelve years old with light blonde hair and no piercings. Wright, perhaps.
I grit my teeth at the surge of anger that remains from when Hazel uttered that name. The thought of some other man being in her house, in her bedroom…
I breathe through my nose, unclenching my fists. Wright is just a friend. I don’t have to add anyone else to my list tonight. A list which, until a few hours ago, I thought was finished. I swat away thoughts of the one man I still have to kill. I don’t want to think of him when I’m here in Hazel’s house, don’t want to tarnish her home with his evil. It’s bad enough thatI’mhere.
I unpin the photo of Hazel as a kid, feeling a little calmer after I’ve slipped it into the waistband of my uniform. No pockets for the criminally insane. They don’t trust us not to hide a weapon, which would be smart if I actually needed a weapon to kill.
I experimented with a whole host of ways to cause damage after the compass incident, but I don’t like the detachment weapons provide. People use guns and knives as an excuse, a way to take the act of murder out of their hands, to make it easier to end a person’s life.
I already feel detached enough from the world. When I’m killing someone, I want to know I’m doing it. I want to feel every second as their larynx crushes, as their lungs run out of oxygen and their throat bulges against my palm. I want to feel the kick of their pulse as it fades under my fingers. I want to know with utter certainty that they will never be able to harm anyone ever again.
So long as you’re only hurting bad people, Flynny.
That was Hope’s rule, and I never had a desire to break it. I was a good little sociopath, never even crossing the line into killing people. Not until I found Hope on the floor with her wrists slit.
Killing gets rid of the pressure, but I have enough control that it’s not something I need to do and as soon as I’ve finished with the people who hurt Hope, I’ll stop.
Hey Dexter, don’t think about murder in your future wife’s bedroom. Girls don’t like that.
My lip curls up.Noted, Hope, noted.
I leave the room and make my way through the rest of the house, scowling at the empty refrigerator and the stacks of bills on the table. Hazel needs someone to look after her.
