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I’d help her with her stalker, and then I’d finish up my business with Brianna Montgomery.
I scrolled mindlessly through her pictures on Instagram, stopping at a picture of her and her friends—and a boyfriend, judging by how close he stood to her, his hand on her hip. They all wore nice dresses, and the boy wore a tux. It was captionedprom.
Charlie’s hair was shorter than it was now, though it was curled in gentle waves. She wore a long, navy-blue dress, a sparkling necklace around her slender throat. The way the dress hugged her body, it made it look like she had some curves after all, even if her tits were little mosquito bites.
But it wasn’t the dress or the way it hugged her body that drew my attention. No, it was her face. Her smile, to be exact. Even though she stood there, with three girlfriends and a boyfriend hugging her close, posing for a picture in front of a mantle in some living room, she didn’t look happy. Her lips were tight. She showed no teeth. The smile itself appeared half-hearted, fake.
Suddenly I understood what she’d meant when she’d said my smile didn’t reach my eyes.
Mostly to stop staring at the sad smile Charlie’s past self wore, I clicked on the boy’s face. He was tagged, and I went to his profile, got his name, and started to look him up. Charlie had said she didn’t think it was her ex, but you never knew. I’d go into this with an open mind.
The boy’s name was Zak, and he was in the same grade as her. It looked as though they’d been high school sweethearts, and then nothing. Something happened sometime after graduation—because his profile had pictures of them posing together in their cap and gown. Zak looked happy in all of them, thrilled to be done with high school and its horrors, but again, in every picture I saw her in, Charlie just looked sad.
She didn’t act sad when she was here, when we talked. She seemed normal. It was in pictures, when she was trying to act happy, that she looked like she was about to break.
Was she depressed?
No. Fuck no. It was none of my business, and I didn’t care. I would help her with her stalker problem, and then, once the coast was clear and I could walk in broad daylight without drawing immediate attention to myself, I’d leave. Wash my hands of her and leave. Charlie was a means to an end, nothing more.
As the days passed, I grew more and more stir crazy. The only time I wasn’t stir crazy was when Charlie came to visit. She was a sophomore in college, and she had classes every day of the week from about ten to three, give or take. She came as often as she could, though she never stayed for long.
I was never one for company, not someone who sought to be social. I was only social when the situation called for it, but even I had limits, and being stuck in this room had pushed me to it. And that was why, Thursday afternoon, when Charlie came, I told her I wanted to dye my hair.
“Sure,” she instantly said, nodding once. “Let’s do it.” She grabbed the box dye and together, we went to the bathroom.
The bathroom was a small space. Crowded. Not the kind of bathroom that easily held two people, let alone one of my size. I was taller than the average person, bigger than them, too. The only reason we fit together in the bathroom was because she was so damned small.
“Sit,” Charlie instructed, and I set the toilet seat down and popped a squat, watching as she opened the box and spilled its contents on the counter. Hair dyeing was not something I was familiar with, but judging from her untouched brown hair, she didn’t dye hers, either.
She had to unscrew a lid on a small plastic thing, and then add a bunch of stuff to it. I scrunched up my nose when I got a good whiff of it. “That shit stinks.”
“It’s the ammonia, I think,” Charlie said, shaking the stuff inside the plastic bottle to mix it. “It’ll probably smell bad the entire time, but we’ll get used to it.”
“Or get high off the fumes,” I muttered. “I don’t think this bathroom has the best ventilation.”
Charlie smiled at that, and I only noticed before I saw her face in the mirror. Just a quick smile, nothing that stayed longer than three seconds, a brief flicker of amusement, and then it was gone.
She slipped on some oversized plastic gloves and moved to stand before me once the bottle’s contents were fully mixed. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and then, without saying anything else, she squeezed a good-sized plop of it onto my head and used her gloved hand to massage it in.
It was wet and stinky, and honestly, I think I was going to look weird with honeyed brown hair, but hey, if it helped conceal my true identity, I’d suck it up.
I supposed I could’ve just shaved my head and been done with it, but I didn’t think I’d look that good with a shaved head. It was easier when people—women especially—thought you were attractive.
As Charlie rubbed the dye all over my head, I didn’t know where to look. Staring at the shower on my right or the counter on my left made it seem like I was trying hard not to stare at her—and I didn’t want to stare at her. I might’ve been placated now, but I was still a little miffed that she’d hit me with her fucking car.
Although, I guess you could consider me a serial killer, and as a serial killer, could I really be upset at the girl for wanting to leave me on the road after hitting me?
“We’ll probably have to do this often,” Charlie broke the silence of the bathroom, “depending on how fast your hair grows.” Her gaze was fixated on my hair as she lathered it on me, and that was the only reason I let my eyes travel along her body. She stood close to me, closer than ever… when I wasn’t tied up.
Fuck. She was so small. Short, but not just that. The only word I could use to describe her was tiny. Charlie was fuckingtiny. From the back, I bet she passed as a fucking kid.
Who the fuck would want to stalk her? Some asshole who got off on how small she was? Someone who could picture her as a child and got all horned up like the pedophile he was? I mean, shit, if you were going to stalk someone, might as well choose a prettier target…
But, with her size, and the fact that her so-called stalker hadn’t made any moves, I’d say he definitely got off on the chase, too. The hunt. The stalking itself. Someone like Charlie could easily be overpowered; I had evidence of that. I could’ve strangled the life out of her. It was a miracle that I didn’t.
Only ‘cause she looked up at me with acceptance in her eyes. That was what had saved her. It was only fun when your victims fought and screamed and tried everything they could to best you.
Back to what I was saying, though. Her stalker could easily take her and bring her to a secondary location. Chain her up and never let her see the light of day again. Because he wasn’t doing that, he had to enjoy the thrill of the chase.
