Page 45 of Collateral Damage

“I'll be sure to get you a lock and keyInnocence.” There is that look I've been trying to draw out.

Hope.

“I'm sure you have plenty lying around.” She gets snarkier every day and I secretly enjoy her bratty little mouth. It makes it so much more fun to mess with her.

C H A P T E R 27

MY WORK OF ART

Puppeteer

Play - ‘Unfair - The Neighbourhood’

The fridge opening breaks the silence of the eerily quiet night, a bottle of corona tinkers against the plastic as I pull it out, only to realise it's the last one. I've gone through an entire crate of six in less than an hour hoping for that familiar buzz that sometimes helps me close my eyes for a while. Shep peers at me from the couch waiting for me to plant my ass back down but I close the fridge door and find my bearings for a moment, pulling out a freshly made cigarette before sliding it between my lips waiting for those endorphins to riddle my core. My backsides wedged into the island as I lean back, blowing my ghost into the still air as it lingers like a premonition while I close my eyes and focus on anything but the things that won't stop smothering my every thought. The living room is pitch black at night, not even the nearest streetlamp can reach the windows and it's where I feel most alive. Most at peace. In darkness where I belong. Where I can imagine death for a while and pretend I'm no longer here.

The bedroom door clicks, causing me to open my eyes, peering up at the pitch-black void that is my kitchen ceiling and momentarily roll my eyes at my disturbance. I hear the chains onSheps collar clank and a floorboard creek between her tiny feet before I'm met with more silence.

She stands there for a while. Maybe a little too long and I wonder if she knows I can see her through the back of my head with her bourbon eyes burrowing into this glass like she's trying to fill me up with answers to questions I know are sat on the end of her tongue.

“If you stare any longer you may bore a hole into my head.” I can almost feel the fright oozing from her chest as she breathes slightly heavier.

“Sorry- I-” Her voice is timid. Quiet. Defeated, as I pull another drag and blow it into the tense atmosphere. By the nervousness in her voice, she wants to tire her tiny mind with chit chat. She's never ventured out ofherroom at this time.

“Couldn't sleep?” My voice feels far louder when the world is quiet and my smokers rasp bounces back off the open space. She's probably wondering why she didn't wake up with me next to her. Routine and all. But like many other nights where she's deep in sleep, I usually don't stick around for long, only until I know she's finally peaceful. I wanted to drown my incessant thoughts of her out with booze but it appears I can't even do that because she's like my little shadow.

“Yeah…” She admits, like it's a bad thing. I don't move, but I can feel her moving closer to me as the air shifts.

“Isn't it bliss.” I'm now surrounded by a cloudy haze as we sit in one another's silence for a couple of minutes, paying no mind to her glaring at me like I'll somehow shatter. Her anticipation is practically screaming into the room, I can hear the little slaps of her lips as she continues to open and close them, hanging on faint inhales waiting for her to spit out whatever is clearly weighing heavily on her mind.

...

“How do you do it?” She finally questions, as I rub the back of my neck.

“Do what.” Another pause is met, so whatever she's about to ask isn't how I style my hair or deal with the little tornado on my couch.

...

“Hurt people.” Now I'm the one hesitating as I ponder on an answer that no matter how I deliver will never sound sane or rational, but I'm sure she knows I'm neither of those things. That's exactly why she's asking.

“I turn it all off.” There are many ways she can interpret that. But it’s pretty simple. If I don’t turn it off, it swallows me like sand beneath the waves. A prisoner to its inevitable crash as it lashes against me, starving me of numbness as I’m forced to fight against the way my lungs are burning.

“Don't you feel anything?” I sit on her question a little while, trying to figure out a way to answer that. I could lie and simply tell herNo. But we both know that is a lie. She just wants to hear me admit that I’m not as horrible as I think I am, but who’s to say I don’t enjoy the feeling, I’m a sadist, I feed off people’s fear, the way I do hers.

“More than you know.” I say barely above a whisper but clearly not quietly enough.

“So why? It clearly keeps you up at night.” I rub the corners of my mouth down to my chin as I stretch out my hanging jaw, tilting my head to the right slightly to almost meet her gaze as I attempt to find her over my shoulder.

“Taking a life isn't what keeps me upInnocence. Constance is.” The finished cigarette meets it’s end between my clammy palms.

“Constance?”

“I'm a constant reminder of everything I swore I'd never be, but now it's too late to change it.” I sigh.

“A murderer?” She whispers through uncertainty, trying to come to terms with the fact that she’s stood in the same room as the person who took her loved ones. But I hate the term murderer. It states that my actions are of a mad man, that the crimes I commit are unlawful when I’m anything but. I’m the conscious evil that they should fear. Murder is a word created to label the ill nature of cleansing their kind because they can’t admit that they too, are murderers. I will not associate myself with scum.She’s right, I am-

“A Monster.”I correct her.

“Insomnia equates to a guilty conscience you know. It shows that you do feel. Somewhere, in that desolate heart of yours.” A part of me fights back amusement as I grin into the abyss.

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