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C’mon, you BASTARD!
It’s the last of the cameras, but of course, it’s the goddamn hardest one to attach. The trunk is thicker than the others and I can’t tighten the strap, even though it’s right in front of me. Up in the tree, everything disappears. I can’t chance using my headlamp.
“Fuck,” I grunt when my foot slips on the bark and I slide. The camera drops, hitting my eye and forehead. At least I have the other end of the strap to hold it so it doesn’t hit the ground.
I dig my boot back into the trunk and hoist myself up. It has to get above the lowest branch so it won’t be seen.
“It doesn’t have to be this tree,” comes the sarcastic voice of my uncle. He never thinks anything I do is good enough or smart enough. Even when I get kicked out of Cavendish, he’s more worried about how it will affect him. “You always choose the most difficult, weakest, pathetic option.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I tell him, the damp November air swallowing my words.
The voice has been visiting me a lot lately, maybe because I’ve sent Cat on his mission. I don’t have anyone to talk to anymore.
“You don’t need anyone. Especially not that woman.” I hitch my shoulder up to rub my ear. The voice sounds so real, breathing right into my ear. But I won’t look around. The day I look to see my uncle will be the day I fucking lose my sanity.
“I need that woman, but not in the way you think,” I say out loud, not because I think my uncle’s behind me. I say it to reinforce my plan. Saying it loud makes it real.
When I jerk the strap tight, I whoop. Fina-fucking-ly.
I loosen my grip and slide down the tree. The bark bites into my hands and legs, but I don’t care.
I hit the ground with a thud, landing awkwardly and tumbling.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit.”
I reach out with my arms and legs to slow my roll, my heartbeat thundering in my ears when I feel the evergreen branches I’ve laid over the pit.
“Another stupid decision,” comes the voice. “First cheap cameras, and wasting time digging some hole.”
“Shut up,” I tell it. I know the cameras are a good idea. Wireless. Night vision. I’ll be able to watch every step my prey takes into my masterpiece.
The pit trap is the jewel in my plan.
“My coup de grâce,” I tell the voice, sure that he’ll appreciate the pretension of using a French term.
“It’s stupid. Something only a low-life, idiot, worthless—” the voice berates, tickling the skin behind my ear, pushing me closer to the edge of insanity.
“No. No, no, no—” I hit my ears until the only thing I can hear is the sound of the blows.
Then the noise comes over me, forcing me to chant my mantra.
“She will be mine, she will be mine,” I murmur, over and over, the words turning down the dial on the roaring in my ears but not stopping it completely.
“Mine, mine, mine, mine,” I promise the visions that flood my mind.
The woman falling into the hole. A knife. A new knife, sliding under her clothes. The fear in her eyes. The terror.
My cock is hard, and I squeeze it.
The woman in my mind is featureless, just the white skin of arms and legs. But when I slide my imaginary knife over her skin, it leaves a ribbon of red. Beautiful, warm red. Trailing over the white, spilling into the dirt. It coats the knife and when I touch the edge to my tongue—
The vision disappears in a blinding flash of pain and when I open my eyes, I’m several feet away from the hole. I sit up, wheezing out the last of the bloody image and breathing in the frosty air.
The pain hums from my thigh, and I reach for my headlamp, shielding it as I point it down.
I hold my new knife in one hand and rest it on my thigh. Just above a tear in my pants where a fresh cut oozes red.
