Page 23 of Collateral Damage

She should have fought louder. She should hate me deeper, fear me harder, yet she's passed out safe and sound beside me without a care in the world. Even shackled down as her dainty fingers cup the air, she looks peaceful and it's making me gnaw my jaw.

Tomorrow she will deny that my company gave her any comfort but she's not looked this content since the night I brought her here. She's deprived of affection and I've somewhat given her a taste to ease her subconscious when I shouldn't have. I shouldn't give a damn how she feels, yet I'm sat here counting the freckles on her face, withstanding the unbearable metal sinking into my shoulder blades as I suck in nicotine with my bare back against this bed frame, keeping a bed warm for someone who should be buried in my back garden. I exhale from my cigarette slowly, bracing my neck against the bar, staring up at my uneven ceiling remembering the countless nights I'd have to brave my demons until the sun came up and then I realise.

It's silent.

My mind is quiet.

A little too quiet. The only thing taking up residence in my mind right now isher, when I should be concentrating on more important shit, like my next target.I need to sort it out.

I remove myself from the bed, placing my t-shirt beside her without even thinking, captivated by the crack of light cutting her face in half. She looks ethereal and I question my perception of beauty for a moment as I admire her before making my way out the door to the living room. I tap my leg at Shep, directing him outside for five minutes before a subtle tilt of my head leads him back to the bedroom, slipping on another black tee hanging off the back of the sofa before making my way tomypart of the house.

I unlock the garage door that's accessible by the kitchen where two doors sit side by side. Neither are the stairway to heaven, but they both serve me the purpose I need.I unlock the right door and slip in, locking it behind me before my ass hits the chair and artificial light almost blinds me.

I've been after a lead for months and the bastards finally slipped up. He recently purchased a new car which gave me access to all the finer details like where he now lives, his place of work, his phone number, and with a little push, access to all of it. He's been out of town all week on a business trip and it was too far for me to travel with my little cockroach in the mix, so I'm patiently waiting for him to come back. I'm sure the sick fuck can't wait to get back and let some anger out on his kids, but hopefully I will catch him before he has chance. I have a day to kill before he's on a flight back to Chicago meaning I have yet another 24 hours to twiddle my thumbs and occupy myself until he lands.

My computer is littered with open tabs, documents, images and personal details. It’s my mom’s old computer that I've inherited for work usage. I’m disconnected from the Chicago police department but my computer skills are a little more advanced than them, meaning I have access to everything they do without being detected which makes my life a whole lot easier, but also twice as risky.

I do bad things, but only to eradicate worse. I do bad things to tame the trauma inside of me. I do what I do because I realised it was what I needed to do to feel something. It's what kept me alive. I sat in the compounds of my own mind for six years and held on to the part of me that thirst for blood. It is now programmed into me and it's what I will keep doing until I eventually kick the bucket, but until that day this is all I know and I wish I didn't.

The things I had to suffer to get to this point I would only wish on people just as sick and twisted as him.I am that wish. But I am not him. Children and women beaters hide amongst a society that covers them up because they raise money for charity and sit on wads of cash. Someone's gotta fucking do it. My consequences are just my count down with a broken clock. I don't know when that will be but when it happens, a bullet will find a home inside my chest where it belongs.

Before I know it the room is glowing with golden accents. I stare at the clock, unphased by the time before exiting my nook and lock the door. There are things in here I'd rather she didn’t find, not for my benefit, for hers. She's not strong enough yet.Yet. I huff at my own inner words, amused that I think she'll even be around that long.

My feet find the kitchen, dragging my dead weight, reaching for the kettle to make myself a much-needed strong coffee. It's routine, but I must have exerted far too much brain power because I feel like I've been hit by a bus this morning and my face feels drier than the Sahara Desert with yesterday's face paint I couldn't be arsed to wash off. I say couldn't, but I actually couldn't even if I wanted to. Not when playing super nanny anyway.

I take myself to the bathroom and wash the crusty, murky paint off my dry skin before smearing another picture back on. Some might say it's unsanitary to use someone else's blood like makeup but it's my trophy. A reward I wear with pride, it feeds the sadistic freak in me that was drummed into my flesh and carved into my cheek, running the crimson over the ravine travelling the corner of my mouth.

“Give us a smile baby girl. Show Daddy how happy this makes you.”

The basin of the sink cracks underneath the palms of my hands, oblivious to my own strength asIT'Svoice haunts my hollow skull, even dead it speaks to me, the devil on my shoulder, the ghost in the walls, my very own form of insomnia. The only time it seems to shut the fuck up is when I take another waste of oxygen, it’s my hit of oxytocin, my own personal remedy. No prescription can quiet the darkness that lives inside me, onlydeath, death is my sedative to the war inside my head, others or my own.This is something she will never understand and I don't know why but subconsciously, I hope she does. Something inside me prays that when she realises the truth she will look at me differently, but not with sympathy, with understanding. I don't want her sympathy, nor do I deserve it and something tells me she will cling to it either way. I want her to understand this was not her fault. If anything, she was also a victim to something she was not even aware of, I want her to see that the system failed her too.

C H A P T E R 15

HER FIRST

Puppet

My sleepiness fatigues me as my eyes crack open, holding onto a sudden tightness keeping me from exhaling once I take in my surroundings and last night creeps into the back of my mind, terrified to turn around like I've had a regretful one night stand, so focused on what may possibly be behind me that it takes me a moment to realise there's no longer weight around my wrist. I focus in on my forearm to find it free from its shackle, reacting with a jolt as the mattress wobbles.She's uncuffed me? Touching my tender skin where metal was sat last night, I turn slowly to reveal a furry friend glaring back at me. He’s a German Shepherd and on closer inspection, he must be three times the size of me as he takes up the majority of the bed. He attempts to lick at my forearms as I rub his velvet ears, feeling a tear in his flesh that feels like it’s been there for some time, peering down at the black mound against the stained white sheets where she was lying.

“Hey boy, where is your crazy two-legged friend?” I whisper as an uninvited feeling makes itself known, a feeling ofdisappointmentand I scowl, shaking my head in shame once that feeling reaches the surface. As if I wanted her to still be there.

Now who's acting like this is a date.

I slip into her overly large black long sleeve tee that acts as a dress on me, reaching my upper thighs with its length and my fingertips against the sleeves. I tiptoe onto the wood beneath me and her smell encases me. I don't know whether it's that that's making me nauseous or the fact that I'm shackle free in a killer's house. I make my way to the door where the dog jumps up off the bed after me.Is she here? Is this a game? Maybe now is my chance. She was an idiot to give me free reign. Did she not learn her lesson last time? She thinks that because we shared a bed together last night that suddenly we are friends? She's highly mistaken, but it holds my plan and keeps it in motion.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

I edge myself towards the door where the knob turns effortlessly and I raise a brow.Uncuffed and unlocked?...

Maybe the guilt is catching up to her. I roll my heavy eyes into the back of my head, contemplating whether I should just crawl back into bed a little while longer now that I'm not having to toss and turn against the cuffs but clattering disturbs my urgency for more sleep.

She is still here.

I pitter patter my way out the door until light hits me, where she is standing making something to eat like this is all totally normal. My eyes pan the room slowly, looking for any sign of freedom before stopping in my tracks, distracted by her groggy morning voice, vibrating against the desolate room.

“Morning.” My jaw drops at how carefree she's waltzing around her kitchen. A kitchen I've yet to study but it looks like something from the 80s. Those god awful dark plywood cabinets and Granny curtains close off the view from the window to what I'm assuming is the back garden, or what's left of it. A fridge no bigger than me sits by the back door with a heavy-duty padlock most likely meant for me. The absence of personality gives it an entirely new one, one made up of questions andcuriosity. Nothing about this place screams family friendly, it's been abandoned and neglected. Mistreated and abused. The front window is all boarded up.Why?Why are they all boarded up like this?

My eyes follow the hideous wallpaper encasing the room where holes puncture the walls, opening out onto a very sad looking living room, practically empty besides a stained patch work sofa, an arm chair with holes burnt into the fabric, a TV flush against the wall on a tiny table and a giant dog bed beside it next to the garage door. The entire place is uncluttered from my stampede, she's cleaned it all up like a house maid.

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