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“We’re both alive,” he says with a shrug.
“Are you afraid? Is that it? You’re afraid that by being around me you won’t be able to control yourself? I let you cut me, Ezra. I can give you what you want while also allowing you to be a hundred percent yourself. You don’t have to lie to me. You don’t have to pretend.”
“And that’s why it’s dangerous. I’m only free because I’ve never told anyone anything, but now you’re here and trying to get me to do what will only get me caught and locked up. Plus, I know you’re still lying to me. I don’t trust you. And you have your own fucked up hobbies. You want a happily ever after? You want us to leave the house, have me go kill someone while you stalk someone else, then we come back for dinner like that’s fucking normal?”
“There is no normal!” I shout. “We could do whatever the fuck we want.”
He leans down, his hand grabbing my face. “I’m doing what I want. Don’t ruin it. Don’t give me a reason to end you, Kas. I know you can be obsessive, but aim that shit somewhere else, okay?”
Fury boils beneath the surface of my skin. He doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. Foolish.
Grabbing for the knife, he cuts the zip tie from my left hand before placing the knife just out of reach on the nightstand.
“You’ll get to it eventually and be able to cut the other one off. I don’t trust that you won’t chase me down. You understand.”
“You’re not thinking straight. You don’t know what we could have.”
“There isn’t awe, Kaspian. There isn’t aforevereither.”
He walks out of the room, my blood staining his hand, his cum coating my skin, and he thinks there isn’t an us.
Ezra
ChapterTen
Two weeks go by without seeing Kas. Two weeks and three days, to be exact. It’s too long to be normal. You can’t avoid people here. After the first handful of days, I briefly worried he was still tied to his bed, unable to get free. He’s smart though. Definitely capable of getting out of harder traps. The knife was nearby. Even with one hand tied to the bed, he’d be able to get up and reach it.
I couldn’t cut him loose completely. Without a car, I had a long trek to the highway where I eventually met up with an Uber driver. I didn’t want to risk him catching up.
Now, however, I wonder what he’s up to. Though most of me doesn’t believe he’ll tell anyone what he knows about me, there will always be a small concern that he will, and that concern will continue to grow unless I handle him.
I’ll admit I underestimated him. He was aware of me watching him from the beginning. Had even been watching me first. He had done research and found out who I used to be. Sort of impressive, but mostly frustrating. I can’t slip back. I don’t want to be Quintin.
Ezra Hamilton is far different from Quintin Black.
Kaspian makes it too easy to be Quintin. His permission. Encouragement. It’s tempting to run with it, but I can’t. Not unless…
No! I can’t.
You see, Quintin killed his parents. And if someone can kill their own parents, then there isn’t much hope for anyone else. Who’s safe if the people who brought him into the world weren’t?
After them, I knew I needed a cover. I had to create a serial killer. I had to become one in order to be safe. The cops were suspicious. I was a young college kid home for the summer. I didn’t have a motive, but my alibi was shaky. I was out with a girl that night. She told them we had been drinking and she didn’t remember much after going to bed. I insisted I was in her bed all night, but one of the cops looked at me like he saw who I was. He didn’t believe it, but there wasn’t proof either way.
My third kill was a few weeks later, because I needed them to look elsewhere. I spent the night with another woman, and she was my alibi. She never knew I slipped out into the night when she fell asleep. Alcohol wasn’t the reason that time. I didn’t want to risk that being a pattern. However, she had a slight allergy to cats, and I had been sure to visit my friend’s house, which was filled with them, before I went to hers. They were all over me, rubbing their bodies against my legs, climbing into my lap as I sat on the couch. Their fur was on every inch of my clothing. She wasn’t going to die, but she had enough of a reaction that she became itchy and her nose ran, and she needed to take some medicine. Medication that would make her sleepy.
The fourth was a little over a month later, and the news started running with the idea of a potential serial killer in the Seattle area.
I could’ve stopped then. I did. For a while.
Then those two assholes raped and beat Leslie and hardly got a slap on the wrist. The serial killer had to strike again.
It’d be a lie to say I didn’t enjoy it. There’s an art to it. You can’t do it out in the open. You can’t be angry and sloppy. You have to be methodical. You have to have a plan. There’s even a thrill in the buildup to the big moment.
The times after then were sporadic. It’s dangerous, after all. I did what I could; it was never anybody that would be missed. Nobody with a family that would report them missing. Some I was able to dispose of, some were found and added to the tally of the Heart Stopper.
The last one was right before I moved here. I thought he was just another addict on a corner street, begging for dope from anyone who walked by. When I approached him, asking if he was interested in a score, I got him to follow me to my workstation. He probably thought it was another drug den, but it was the perfect spot to do what I do. Not many people went on that side of town, nor strayed that far from the main road. It was a dilapidated house, its image discouraging people from exploring it. There wasn’t any electricity, and a lot of the windows were busted in. I used wood to cover them up. It’s not like I needed an audience anyway.
He followed me there, believing that’s where the drugs were, instead it's where he met his fate. After untying him, I began to clean up. I removed his wallet and any personal effects, and low and behold, he was a fucking undercover cop.
