Page 87 of Bake the Town Red

First thing I do is turn off the overhead lights. Can’t stand those, though they’re a necessity. Gotta keep up that functioning member of society appearance.Normalpeople don’t prefer the dark to the light because it makes them feel closer to a serial killer I obsess over. At least I don’t think so.

I’m tempted to throw a hoodie over my Black Sabbath T-shirt, put my boots on, and go to Dahlia.

Except I’m too eager. Eager to watch her carrying a dead body. Eager to fuck her afterward. Choke her. Feel her nails on my cheeks, back, stomach. Take another one of her holes.

Too fucking eager. And eager people are prone to mistakes.

I could hurt her. Cause damage. Emotional or physical or both. I want that, but only when I have my shit together so I won’t ruin her. Or us.

Onething never fails to take off the edge before I get out there and stalk her. I stand up, gripping the ledge of the dining table. Head bowed. Hair falling on my forehead. I have to wait it out. For her.

Going after other serial killers.

There’s one in particular that caught my attention. A filthy blip on my radar. He has a pattern, same as the rest of them. His is a random one, but I see it nonetheless.

ImEverywhere. That’s his username on FyndUsHere, one of the largest social media boards out there.

The posts appear on different boards whenever he’s on the hunt.

My game. My rules.

Cryptic? More like a joke. It’s been so overdone, yet here they are, doing the same thing others have done before them.

Still, he manages to get away with it. People disappear every time one of these messages pops up.

A Knicks fan disappeared nine months ago, a night afterImEverywhere’s message came up on theNBAboard. That’s how I foundImEverywhere. Call it a sixth sense, but I was drawn to that particular social media after that particular murder.

In April, a missing person’s report was filed by one of the biggest modeling agencies. A woman who worked for them vanished, and guess what?My game. My ruleswas one of the messages posted on thefashionboard a day before that.

A manager of a hedge fund this summer.My game. My ruleswas up there, a taunting message on thestock marketboard. One. Day. Before.

The pattern. The motherfucking pattern.

I haven’t been able to track him down. I can’t stalk everyone in finance in the city, just like I can’t have eyes on every model, or Wall Street asshole.

What I do is the next best thing. I warn them.

My eyes skim through the top boardsImEverywherehasn’t picked on yet.

Music,movies,travel.

It takes the edge off, just like I hoped it would. The wires in my brain aren’t as fried.

This way, I’ll be as levelheaded as I can when I’m with her. I’ll fuck her without losing myself. I’ll be in charge. I’ll own her.

She won’t have any doubts when I’m balls deep inside her. She’ll know I’m okay. That I won’t let fear rip us apart again.

My game. My rules.There that is. A message inhumorfrom today.

Conceited motherfucker.

Was that what Dahlia did? Stalked meand caught me killing people? Does she know I know about her?

I’ll worry about that later. For now, I worry about her. It’s past midnight, and she’s not here yet, in my home. In my arms.

It could only mean one thing. She’s still at the shop.

I’ll go over there to meet her, and she’ll have me, whether she likes it or not.

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