1
King
The act of sleeping has always been special to me. The naivete that even the vilest creatures adapt while their bodies succumb to exhaustion is an intriguing thing.
You have no choice. You’re not aware of your surroundings or the danger that lurks around each corner, and it’s at that time of day when even the strongest become prey. Weak. Where vulnerability and fear rule as king while those without a moral compass, who thirst for blood more than they do breathing, roam freely and without remorse.
Because at night, there are no rules or societal demands for complacency. No masks to hide behind as I slice a throat clear across from one side to the other and watch my victims bleed. Moreover, in that moment, they see me. All of me—the evil that most ignore while walking down a sidewalk and cross my path—it’s all clear to them then, and their expressions always make me smile.
Confusion.
Terror.
Acceptance.
I yearn for those moments. To hear that last gurgle of blood as it rises and escapes the wound, tempting me to cut deeper, to prolong the inevitable fate for those dumb enough to believe good looks and an affluential status in a city as large as Seattle only belong to those who are honest and hardworking.
I’m not a good man. Will never claim to be.
I watch. I hunt. I take.
And right now, I’m reveling at the thrashing sight before me. She’s my obsession.
Has always been mine.
Perspiration beads across Gabriella’s temples and down her neck, pooling at the base while a whimper passes through full, berry lips. She’s the sweetest there. So tempting. So pure for now.
“Blood. So much blood,” the little beauty whispers in her sleep, her tiny fingers gripping the carelessly thrown sheet across her abdomen and hip, exposing the lovely pair of purple bikini panties covering her mound.
It showcases just enough to tease and taunt as the tight fabric molds over her clit and labia. She’ll fit perfectly in my palm. Her warmth will soothe the beast residing within who needs a queen.
I push off from my perch against the painting she skillfully made of my home down to the smallest detail and stop beside her bed. With each step closer, my cock throbs. It’s hard for her. I’m near the point of praying at her temple for a taste, but not yet.
Today is about her. About celebrating what drew me in the day she crossed my dark path.
With the tips of two fingers, I caress her left leg with gentle sweeps up and down until reaching her knee. She’s soft, and her flesh so pliant beneath my touch. It’s a heady feeling knowing that I could break her without exerting much force, but it’s just as humbling to know that I’ll never harm her physically.
Mentally, though, I’ll revel as she crumbles into madness. A broken doll.
Because this pretty girl knows me. Our paths have crossed more than once, but where she has failed to remember me, forgetting her is impossible. Will never happen no matter what life we’re reincarnated to.
The day Gabriella Moore stepped foot inside my home, asking for help, I found my angel. My perfect prey.
I trace her kneecap and then farther up, pausing where the heat between her thighs kisses my flesh. Even without cupping her pussy, with the tips of my digits just a few inches to the left, it burns me. This need is near maddening and so is the rise of goose bumps across her flesh, showing me without words how much she will always enjoy my touch.
A hard shiver runs through her frame, and I lower my face so our lips hover, not touching as I breathe her in. Tasting her sweetness in the air around us. Pushing myself past rationality, my will is stronger because I know the reward is worth the brief denial.
“Always cherries with a hint of vanilla.” Her nose twitches at my words, but she doesn’t wake up. If anything, she settles and sighs. Such a lovely sound.
For a few minutes we remain this way, my hand on her skin and her breathing even beneath me while I watch and re-memorize every freckle and luscious red curl on her head. A true ginger, the tone is luminous and one of the first things I noticed about her, the second being her delicate height at only five-foot-one; she’s short with an indecent amount of curves for someone so petite.
Soon, I mouth and move down, stopping at the area just above her clit. There, I inhale deeply, and my mouth waters at the heady scent she emits from between her thighs.
It’d be so easy to taste her. To force her will to become one with mine.
“Not motherfucking yet,” I hiss out from between clenched teeth and get off the bed, retracing my steps until I’m once again beside the painting. I’ve tempted her fate enough for one night and need to leave before the fragile tether holding my desires hostage snaps and I bloody her bed.
I survey the room a final time before pausing at her door where a soft scratching sound catches my attention. It’s low and the whine accompanying it pulls a low chuckle from me.
That dog hates me, while I find its loyalty admirable.
He’s of use to me. I know his weakness, and he will submit.
Looking at her a final time, I bite my lip. “Goodbye for now, pretty girl.” And when I walk to the door and open it slowly, revealing myself to her pet, the way he lowers his head and averts his eyes gets a nod of approval from me. I step out, and he shivers. I close the door and he knows his place, following behind me without another sound as I make my way to her studio.
My little artist.
Canvas after canvas fills every inch of wall space, pictures full of color and celebrating life while others depict death and a morbid curiosity. The latter are my favorite.
Blacks and reds and the emotion of grief reach across the finished pieces, and I finger one in particular of a man in shadow. No face can be seen and he’s tall, his build muscular as his exposed torso is the focal point.
Not the blood dripping from his hand.
Not the small body on the ground or the other three strewn about in different sections of the dilapidated road where he stands staring at the destruction left behind.
I want this one.
I know how to get it.
“I’ll see you soon.”
2
Gabriella
“Goodbye for now, pretty girl.”
I awake with a start.
Chest heaving. Palms sweaty. With this all-consuming feeling—fear—gripping me in its stinging bonds while refusing to let go.
Because all I see is red. Red everywhere.
Everything.
It’s all one shade, and yet depending on the lighting, the tone changes its hue to an eerie reminiscence of blood. This blasphemous and disturbing tint that slides down each corner and object I see, destroying any hint of purity within the four walls my mind is trapped within—where breathing is a struggle and my chest aches from the terrifying memory that feels real.
“Pretty girl.”
Inside that room—the same cursed room—and the voice that I’ve dreamed of every night for the past year as if my mind refuses to escape its dreariness while demanding that I remember each detail vividly. To catalog the representation of death. To embrace its mockery of my sanity.
And I do. Even while lying in bed, fully awake, I’m held inside my mind in an inescapable trap.
With each shaky inhale, I still see the antique furniture with intricate carvings in a black mahogany wood that shouldn’t be seen unless under direct sunlight, and yet, in the dead of night as I visit this room, the symbols glare at me. They dare me to ignore the circular carvings with a hidden meaning that I’ve yet to uncover.