Page 25 of Serial Killer Games

The shower starts.

“Are you okay?” he hacks from the shower. “Get in here and rinse your face off.”

I wheeze, and snarl, “Fuck you, youfuckingnutjob…fuckingknife…What thefuckis wrong with you…”

“You told me to bring the knife, you kinkypsycho!”

“You’re the fucking psycho!”

I bumble-crawl across the floor, hacking, coughing, raking the walls with my hands to find the door to the bedroom, but I’ve been spun around. The mist on my skin tells me I’ve wandered into the entry to the walk-in shower instead. I reach out and my hand collides with—

I freeze there, on all fours, my nails snagged in—

“What—”

My body convulses at the exact moment I recognize the texture of human hair. I topple sideways into the cold spray of the walk-in shower, I shriek, I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, and force myself to keep them open long enough totake a look. A woman is slumped over, lifeless and naked, at an unnatural angle in the bottom of the shower. Her body is stiff and awkward, her blond hair tousled and wet, her face slack, her mouth forming an O, like she’s frozen in a moment of wonder or horror.

I slip backward onto my ass, knocking over Jake. I can’t keep my eyes open for more than a split second—I scrub my face madly on his shoulder, my red and black makeup coming off onto his shirt.

“What the fuckingfuck!” I shriek between coughs. I swipe furiously at my face a few more times, peering at the sight in front of us in between swipes. I cough again, a brutal, never-ending cough.

“Is that—?”

I cough and cough, and my cough resolves into a laugh—a hoarse, cackling witch’s laugh. I grasp my shaking sides with my hands, and if I weren’t already crying, I’d start.

It’s the first time I’ve laughed in ages.

“It’s—Oh mygod—”

I fall onto my side with my face buried in Jake’s chest, heaving and wheezing and laughing, and he brings his arms around me. He’s strong and warm, and in spite of my burning eyes, and the screaming cold of the water, and the tiles hard as concrete underneath us, it’s strangely nice in here.

I’m being rude, I realize. A man has just come bearing a romantic gift, and I’m leaving him hanging.

“It’s—it’s—” I lose it. “Youshouldn’thave!”

11

Psycho in the Shower

Jake

I miscalculated.

I slide out from under her, shut off the water, and get to my feet, dripping. She lies there, boneless on the tiles of the shower floor, hair wild, makeup a mess, laughing. I’ve never seen her laugh. I don’t know what makes her seem more exposed—all that bare skin, or the laugh.

“Do you always carry pepper spray?” I ask, drying my glasses on one of Grant’s heavy, luxurious towels.

“Any woman who doesn’t is an idiot,” she says, coughing and grinding her eyes with the heel of her hand.

“You thought I was going to fillet you.” I have no reasonable grounds to feel defensive.

“You scared theshitout of me.”

“Youtoldme to bring the knife.”

Dolores ignores this. She hooks her thumb at tonight’s project. “Are you going to introduce us?”

“This is Verity.”

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