Page 5 of The Ripper

I found it rather odd that she had dated no one in all the time I had been watching her. The woman rejected any jock, geek, good boy, or bad boy stereotype to ever glance her way. Granted, she spent most of her time in the library, studying, or in the small coffee shop close to campus, also studying, or in her room, where, you guessed it; she was studying.

Top of her class, that one, and a good friend to my little sister, as they had been roommates every year since Willow started college. But where my sister was wild and always wanted to go out and have fun, Arella always wanted to stay in and have a cramming session.

But not tonight.

No, tonight she was finally corrupted enough to attend a party.

Tonight, I could finally get a closer look without worrying that she might figure out I had been stalking her. Tonight, I could blend in and approach the source of my addiction without raising suspicion, because tonight was Halloween, and everybody loved the Grim Reaper on Halloween.

I hated parties with a passion and never attended them, not even when I’d been the one in college.

Yes, I went to college, the horror.

~ You didn’t learn much, if you ask me.

~ Fuck off, disrespectfully.

I hit the side of my head with the bridge of my palm as I saw her enter the living room of the frat house where said stupid party took place, dressed as fucking Elsa of all things, with some of that long blonde hair pinned in some sort of intricate braids on top, while the rest of its impressive length flowed down her back in soft waves. She wore little makeup, which made her look like a pale, inhumanly beautiful angel.

But why the cold, little angel?

A pair of long gloves covered her hands and arms. The light blue dress she was wearing was thin, and fell to the floor, completed by a detailed corset with snowflake patterns cinching her waist in and pushing up her breasts.

Tasteful.

She never showed more than the perfect amount of skin, so as to pull you in without laying it all on the table.

Arella had an elegance about her, she knew how to be a temptress without trying too hard, a femme fatale of sorts. Everything she did seemed effortless, as though she was born with it and there was nothing that she could do about it, and because of that, she didn’t give any attention to the opposite sex – not that I minded – reserving all of her time and attentiveness for her studies.

A fucking conundrum.

~ Or maybe you’re reading too much into the situation. Just saying.

How could she be walking sin and still not allow herself to fall into it?

As for jewelry, she only had one thing: a thin golden chain with a delicate cross pendant which hung around her long, slender neck.

~ I have a better necklace for her.

I knew she was religious, which may have been one of the reasons she didn’t date, but I had yet to find out how she came to be in such a stranglehold with God.

It didn’t make any sense.

~ You’re the one not making any sense. She’s beautiful and a saint, what more do you want?

I hit the side of my head as I lit a cigarette and watched her make small talk with some douchebag who tried to hand her a drink, which she refused because she was smart enough not to take anything from strangers.

Arella looked out of place as she moved through the crowd of half-drunk students who were either dressed in slutty outfits, or as monsters from different TV shows or mythology. Vampires were all the rage among young people this year, right next to Call of Duty and Game of Thrones characters.

She looked uncomfortable as she approached the improvised bar I was leaning against, almost as if she was wondering how long she had to stay before she could go back to analyzing the skeleton in her room, even though I was sure she could recite all two hundred and six bones in the human body without stuttering or pausing to think.

She reached for the stack of paper cups and took two from the middle, smelled them, then wiped the edges with a tissue. She took a sealed bottle of vodka, unscrewed the cap and poured the liquid into one, rolling it around a few times before pouring it into the other one, then used the freshly sterilized cup to pour herself some coke zero.

I frowned.

~ Only trace amounts of alcohol, huh? Such a good girl.

I stepped behind her, my hands itching to touch her, to pull her closer, glue her to me if possible, but I only pulled the mask over my mouth and lowered my head next to her ear.

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