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My heart pounds in my chest, then it skips a beat. She is not alone.
She is with a man.
The female who deceived me, is sitting in her driveway with a man.
She is a tricky bitch. But no one has my patience. No one has my skill.
Lucy Kincaid will be my next pupil.
If my one transgression taught me anything, it is to never again act on impulse. I will not take her now.
I am a careful planner, every detail practiced, improved, perfect. For years, such organization has served me well. It is a testament to my fortitude that I have been tricked only once by the lying gender into acting too soon.
She plays a dangerous game, catching my attention with her lying, whoring ways and setting me up. But I am far smarter than a mere female.
I watch the man get out of the car, open her door, and walk her to the entrance.
I want to kill them both, though she lied to him as certainly as she lied to me, the whore.
But I do not have the luxury to make a mistake. I must control this powerful impulse. I breathe in the cold January night while my hands clench the steering wheel. Peace settles on my soul.
I see the truth. I am the keeper of the truth.
The man leaves, and I consider again going inside to confront her.
But I must prepare for the whore. And that means taking care of unfinished business.
I leave Georgetown and drive the forty minutes to my house. Or what would take forty minutes but for this weather. The longer it takes, the more frustrated I become. Because my student is waiting for me.
Finally, I am home.
I walk across the new-fallen snow and unlock the front door of the old house I love. The familiar smells make me smile. The plastic of the runners that line the floors to protect them. The lingering scent of bacon from this morning. The lavender from the dried flowers Grandmother hung everywhere. The flowers are gone, but the smell remains.
My home. My sanctuary.
I walk across the floor, the old boards creaking with each step, comforting. I open the door to the basement and turn on the light. Mice scurry across the dirt floor, faint, light movements that also comfort me in their familiarity. The female cries out, whether from the mice or the light I do not care.
The stairs are new. I had to rebuild them when two planks split the week I returned, after being gone for so long. Very little has changed in this house. The stairs. The basement. And of course, the cage.
She sits in the corner of the large pen, arms hugging her legs, chin on her knees. She can’t stand in the cage, but she can sit up, which I think is quite generous of me. And there is room to crawl and even stretch out—it is eight feet square, four feet tall.
She looks at me with large, fearful eyes. Fear, not defiance, the way it should be.
“I am ready for my lesson, Teacher,” she says.
Too bad she must die to make way for the new student. It took her only three days to learn the proper way to greet me in the morning. She has been with me for twenty-seven days, and I have—had—high hopes for her.
Maybe I can keep her awhile longer. A day? Two days?
I take out my key ring and insert the small key into the master lock. She flinches when the lock clicks, but doesn’t move until I say, “You may come out now.”
She crawls to the opening but waits until I open it, reminding me that I will miss this one. She would have lasted longer than so many of the others. I picked well, this female. So obedient. So eager to please.
“Stand,” I command.
She rises, her legs shaky, but I do not help her. She has lost weight with me, but she was too fat to begin with. A woman of her size—five feet four inches—should be between one hundred twelve and one hundred twenty pounds. She had been much more than that.
“Go,” I tell her, and she starts up the stairs. I am behind her. At the top she waits for me, as she has been taught. She is looking at the kitchen table.
