AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lyra walks another three blocks to the headquarters of theEaston Times. The newspaper’s reputation hovers between gutter-level and rancid piss water. Its readership has fallen by more than sixty percent in the last five years, and they’ve gone through a revolving door of head editors. Most of the articles they publish are rubbish you can find on any quack website online.
It’s no wonder they employed Lyra.
She disappears inside. I may no longer be able to see her, but I won’t be losing her whereabouts anytime soon. I’ve linked our phones with a useful tracking app that provides me Lyra’s exact coordinates at all times. Assuming she has her phone on her. Which she does. The device often accompanies her to thetoilet.
I wait it out.
In the meantime, I call the office. Rebecca answers formally, as if it’s a patient calling and not her fucking boss.
“What are you doing?”
“Doctor Raskova, I was hoping you would call in. Eunice Mitchell called earlier to reschedule her pre-op consultation. I told her I would check with you before settling on a new date.”
“I couldn’t give less of a damn about rescheduling her. Pick a date that doesn’t conflict with any of my other patients.”
“Any preference as to day of the week? Time?”
“It would be wonderful if you would make a decision for once, Rebecca. Without consulting me over every trivial detail. I didn’t call you about Eunice Mitchell and her atherosclerosis. I called so that you could clear out my calendar for the rest of today.”
“But you just said you don’t care when you’re scheduled—”
“Something has come up. I am preoccupied. Clear out my schedule. Do you understand?”
She sounds more confused as she answers with, “I guess so.”
I provide no further clarification before hanging up. I don’t have the time nor patience to coddle Rebecca and her inability to follow simple directions. She lacks decisiveness and is thoroughly unable to adapt to my workflow.
One more fuck up, and she will be at the unemployment line like the others.
It’s no surprise I go through medical secretaries and assistants like Celeste cycles through random men on Easton’s nightclub scene.
I require perfection from those I employee because I demand it of myself. I didn’t become a vascular surgeon because I needed to, or even wanted to out of some selfless desire to help mankind.
As the son of the third richest Russian man on the earth, I didn’t have to do anything with my life beyond exist as my father’s heir. I chose the field I did because of my superior intellect and abilities. I save humans from themselves—as their weak, fragile, failing anatomies collapse, I am there to save the day.
Play God.
Soak in the blood as I cut them open and peer inside their souls. With their life in my hands, I am all-powerful. I am capable of giving lifeandtaking it away.
My hunger often lurks inside me as a hidden creature demanding to be let out. Demanding that I give in and take the life away. It would be so simple to do so and pass it off as natural causes.
If Lyra does not fit my why, perhaps Eunice Mitchell will on my operating table. The woman has always been unpleasant; she was once charged with animal cruelty after refusing to slow down for a stray dog in the road (when I say I am a thorough researcher, I mean it).
She deserves to die more than Lyra, who may be pathetic but seems harmless.
The thought is at the forefront of my mind when the doors to theEaston Timesoffice open. Lyra wanders out looking distressed.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her without her phone in hand. She wraps her arms around herself as if cold on this humid September afternoon and tucks her head down. She’s still refusing to pay attention to where she’s going, walking fast down the block with her gaze on her beat-up shoes. Does this girl realize how easy it would be to come up behind her and pull her into the nearest alleyway? Make her disappearforever?
Agitation prickles the back of my neck.
Perhaps Lyra deserves to die, after all. She’s so irritatingly clueless and defenseless. She doesn’t eventrynot to be.
I might need a new why category—too pathetic to go on.
These would be the people who would be best put out of their misery. A complete and total waste of life.
I tail her the entire way home. From the many blocks on the street she rushes down to the subway underground, where she plops into a seat and remains sullen-faced and silent for the duration of the ride.
