Page 53 of Alik

“Olive, what the fuck?” I go to take the knife away but stop as she raises a hand to me, never taking her eyes off the woman. My feet shuffle backward a few steps as I watch in shock Olive trailing the knife down to the woman’s throat.

What is happening?

She whispers something to the woman that I don’t hear, but it doesn’t matter. It’s her face that has my attention, and I squint at it now. The nervous expression she wears like her own brand of makeup is washed off, revealing something stone-like. Confident.Cruel.

Me.

Jesus Christ, she looks likeme.

She drives the knife into the woman’s throat, making her body spasm before her gurgles silence and she stills. Rolling her neck, Olive stands, and only now does she look at me, utter amusement tilting her lips when she must see the confusion stunting me.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” She chuckles and wipes blood on her sweater. “Relax, Alik. No one saw.”

I narrow my eyes at her but don’t say anything.

Is this a dream?

Did I pass out at my desk?

I look over at it as if I’ll see myself there, but the page is pulled up on the same dead-end financial sheet it was on when I got up to smoke.

Is this … real?

It can’t be.

“You heard her.” Olive bends to jerk the knife from the woman’s throat. She twirls it in the air and catches it with a smile. “She knew I was here. That puts us at risk.”

“She…” I shake my head, thinking maybe that will make Olive’s image disappear.

It’s a hallucination. Not a dream. I’m hallucinating.

I need sleep.

“She was a disgruntled neighbor,” I say, looking around for more clues that I’ve gone insane. “You don’t kill your neighbors.”

“Why?”

“Because you can easily be connected to them. Why would…” I let my mouth hang open, not even sure why I’m talking. Closing my mouth, I shake my head and walk to my bedroom, intent on climbing into bed and hoping to wake up believing my psychosis was a dream.

This is insane.

I’m literally going insane.

“See how much I’m learning from you already? This is going to be great.” She skips behind me to the bedroom, and when I open the door, my hand tightens on the knob.

The bed is empty.

“Look, I know I made a mess, but are you really not going to help me clean it up? I’m pretty sure you know this already, but when people die, they sometimes shit themselves. It’s best we get moving on it, you know what I mean?”

Her voice is so … cheerful. Amused.

Insane.

It isn’t me… It’s her.

“I’m not hallucinating,” I whisper the realization to the empty bedroom.

Olive snorts. “Hallucinating? Please tell me you don’t have a history of psychosis. I don’t date psychos.”

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