Page 10 of Psycho

Other girls’ lives weren’t so complicated, so twisted and wrong. Other girls had simple lives and good families, steady boyfriends and good memories. Me? I grew up poor, working to help my mom pay the bills, my dad absent, save for when he tried to buy my love with expensive toys like videogame consoles—which I kept, because it seemed like a waste if I just threw them out. I grew up going to a school that used twenty-year-old textbooks that were literally falling apart and so outdated some of the information in them was wrong. The best thing in my life had been this scholarship to Hillcrest, but even that wasn’t as good as it initially appeared. It brought me here. I’d come full circle.

I didn’t know how long I stood there in the shower, but I heard the door creak open. Through the clear curtain, I could see Ray. He’d dressed, no longer naked, and he checked himself in the mirror.

I felt my jaw clench as I reached for the water to turn it off. I pulled the curtain aside, pretending not to notice the way Ray’s green eyes darted to me, eating me up like I was the finest piece of meat around. It wasn’t like my naked body was new to him. He’d seen me naked years ago, back when I was a few years underage.

“I’m running to the store,” he told me. “There are a few more things I want to grab before we leave.”

As I stepped out of the tub, I reached for a nearby towel, wrapping it around my body. “We’re leaving?” I tried not to sound too interested, but it was hard. It was hard because I was not in my own head right now. Now was not the time to lose myself, but me and common sense weren’t friends currently.

“You know we can’t stay here,” he told me, moving closer to me. Ray set his hands on my sides, his fingers bunching up the towel as he pulled me closer to him. “We have to go somewhere quiet, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, where no one will find us.” He pressed his cheek against my forehead, his skin hot on mine. “Where we can be happy again.”

At this point, I honestly thought I’d never be happy. There’d be no light at the end of this tunnel. But I didn’t argue with him. I simply said, “Okay. Am I coming with you?” The only thing I’d worn in this house was that slip; I didn’t know what clothes I’d wear out of here.I didn’t know where my clothes from the party were.

“No, stay here. See if you can find any jewelry or anything that looks pricey that we can pawn off. We’ll need more cash.” One of Ray’s hands moved to my chin, forcing me to tilt my head to him, and he pressed his lips to mine.

I kissed him back, because what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t fight this man. I’d tried, and look at where it got me. Nowhere. I made the lap only to find I was still on the same fucking racetrack I started out on.

I watched him go, inching into the hall after a while. When I heard the front door close, I stood there for a few minutes, wondering if Ray really trusted me. If he thought he had me. Sure, I’d come willingly, but leaving me here alone felt a little…stupid.

Almost like he was testing me.

Huh.

Would I be here when he got back, or would I try to run? Would I go along with his plan and search the house for valuables, or would I simply leave and try to find my way back to Hillcrest? Either way, my fingerprints were all over this house. It didn’t much matter what I did.

With the towel wrapped around me, I moved into the bedroom, searching the drawers. I was trying to find my clothes, see where he stashed them, but I couldn’t. Looked like an older couple, judging from the types of clothes I found.

Fuck. Maybe that slip wasn’t from this house. Maybe it was something Ray bought specifically for me. It fit too well otherwise. If it belonged to the woman of the house, it would’ve slipped right off me. I liked to think I was average, but in reality, I was a skinny fuck.

I had no choice but to redress myself in the slip.

With Ray gone, the house felt cold, empty. With Ray not here, it was easier for me to think, for me to realize just how fucked up this situation was. I couldn’t go off with Ray. Gallivanting across the United States with a man who’d been tried for multiple murders would surely only end with me either being killed when he tired of me, or arrested when the police found us and the bodies in our wake.

I liked to think, even though I made the occasional stupid decision, I had a better survival drive than that. I fought to live, and right now…right now I needed to nut the fuck up or shut up.

My bare feet took me downstairs, and with a quick peek in the attached garage, I saw the couple had another car. It wasn’t the car Ray had picked me up in; meaning there had to be keys in this house. If I found them, I could drive away.

He’d only find me again, though. I supposed we could get to that when we got to it.

I searched the kitchen from top to bottom, every single fucking cabinet. I searched the whole damn house for keys and couldn’t find any. I also noticed that I couldn’t find any shoes in the closets…and it made me wonder if Ray planned this all out. Leave me here with no shoes, no keys—what else could I do but stay here?

If there was one thing I was, it was stubborn. I showed weakness sometimes, it was true, but after everything I’d been through lately, I earned a few moments of weakness. Now, without Ray here, it was a hell of a lot easier to be strong.

The house yielded nothing, so I turned my sights to the garage next. I opened the door that led from the side of the kitchen to the garage, and I slowly flicked on the lights. The fluorescent bulbs hanging above flickered on, and I took a few steps toward the car.

The closer I got, the more I started to smell something awful. Something truly vile and nasty, a scent my nose had never before smelled, and yet even so, I knew what it was. There was only one thing this smell could be from, and as I went around the vehicle to its trunk, I had to hold my nose.

Opening it was a mistake. A big, huge, smelly mistake.

When I saw the stained, rolled-up carpet, when my eyes spotted greying heads sticking out of the carpet, I felt like vomiting. The smell was ten times worse, because it was coming from the car itself. These were the poor owners of this house; Ray had killed them and, judging by the smell, he’d killed them a while ago.

I harshly yanked on the trunk to close it, wanting to run out of the garage and forget what I saw, try not to upheave the food in my stomach, but I had to further investigate. This car, I suddenly realized, didn’t belong to the corpses. I neglected to notice when the light was off, but as I moved around it, I realized I’d seen it before. This was his car. Ray’s car.

He planned on ditching it here, I bet. By the time the police discovered it, by the time the police knew the car was his and that he’d done this, we’d be long gone, in another state, in the middle of nowhere, our only neighbors the Children of the Corn.

I saw a bag sitting on the front passenger’s seat, a hoodie draped across it. Still having to hold my nose, I went around the car and opened the door. Hell. Even the air inside the car smelled of rotting flesh too. It was literally the worst smell ever, and I really hoped I’d never have to smell it again after today.

Tossing the hoodie over my shoulder, I dug through the bag. Ray’s belongings, nothing really out of the ordinary. Some thick wads of cash, however the hell he got those. Criminals always had their ways of criminality, I guess. There was one thing that caught my eye, though—something I’d seen before, back in that cabin. Something I’d used.

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