Page 57 of Beneath Her Skin

His chest was still largely untouched, and everyone deserved to know what he did. I got to work. Red stained his skin witheach incision I made with my bloodstained blade as the letters formed, and soon, the word began to take shape.

And when it was all done, I sat back on my heels to admire my work for a second. Just a second, because that was all I had before I needed to leave the scene. And I couldn’t help the smile that split my lips.

Because on his chest, in the middle of the blood and carnage, in big, jagged lettering was a single word that would never heal, forever branding the nameless boy as the evil monster he was: RAPIST.

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With a stroke of luck, the girl still had all her possessions on her, including her ID. She also appeared to not be seriously injured, and with a bit more snooping, I realized she currently lived at one of the nearby sorority houses. After putting my mask and hood back on to conceal my grisly appearance and rummaging around in the bedroom to find a clean—and way too big—set of clothes to change into, I sheathed my knife, bundled up my slasher clothes, hauled the girl to her feet, and left the murder scene—and by extension, the party—behind, exiting the house through its less-populated back entrance so that I remain undetected.

The sorority house only took ten minutes to reach, two minutes to find a way inside via an unlocked front door, and another minute to gently place the girl on the couch in the living room. Then, two more minutes to make my escape fromthathouse, and another twenty to find my way home, where I wasted no time chucking my blood-soaked clothes in the wash while I hopped in the shower.

The water burned as it cascaded over my skin, the droplets running pink as they mixed with the blood. I watched infascination as streams and streams of blood ran down my torso and legs, pooling around the drain. It was always fascinating how much blood the human body carried, and until now, I didn’t realize how much had truly sprayed me. I picked up my bar of soap and started fiercely scrubbing my skin raw, until there was no trace of the blood left.

And when I was sure I was done, when I felt clean enough and when the water ran clear once again, I turned it off and stepped out of the shower, quickly drying myself off before wrapping myself up in a white bath robe.

Only the most peak comfort after a fresh kill.

When I exited the bathroom, I heard the TV in the living room. My cousin must’ve been home, as he was the only other person who lived in this apartment with me. Though both of us attended the college, we had opted to get a place together off-campus rather than deal with roommates, since we knew each other. Plus, we needed each other more than we would ever admit, since we were the only family we had left.

As I approached, Barron was indeed on the couch. He hadn’t been home when I arrived, so he must’ve returned when I had been in the shower. My eyes then strayed to what was on the TV. It was a news broadcast, though not just any news broadcast. On the screen, the newscaster was detailing the latest kill from our city’s sadistic serial-killer-slash-rapist. The latest victim was a homeless woman, her body mangled the same as all others before her.

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into the palms of my hands. If there was one person I wouldn’t mind dismembering, it washim. The Hooded Killer. In fact, I had been on the hunt for him tonight when I stumbled upon that frat party and changed course. It seemed every single time I tried to find him, he always seemed to elude me. It was frustrating.

Barron turned around just then as if he sensed me, and a smile split his lips. “Hey!” he greeted. “I didn’t know you were home!”

“There’s another one?” I clipped, not even acknowledging his greeting. Barron didn’t understand why I was so torn up over the Hooded Killer, nor did I expect him to understand, since he wasn’t the killer’s target demographic.

Yet despite this, he still tried his best to be sympathetic whenever I brought it up. He frowned. “Yes, there was.”

I deflated. “Fuck…”

“Selina…” Barron scooted over on the couch and patted the seat next to him. “Come here.”

I obliged, sitting in a way so that our knees almost touched. This was all too much. Too many innocent women were losing their lives in the most horrific ways imaginable, and I was still no closer to putting an end to it.

“Everything is going to be okay. You’re safe. You will be okay,” my cousin said softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?”

Slowly, I nodded. “Okay.” But there was no way he could understand I wasn’t worried about myself.

I was worried about the other women.

The next night,I was on the prowl again, searching for the hooded man who thought it was okay to murder women in horrific ways. This time, I brought a blowtorch because nothing says fuckable quite like a melting cock. A smile broke out across my lips at the image, and I was surprised to find I was even excited at the prospect. I was practically salivating at the mereidea of barbequing a man’s dick as if it were a hot dog, perhaps with a side of fried asshole.

After all, the Hooded Killer deserved nothing less.

I began my patrol on the less-busy side of town. I figured that would be the prime spot the Hooded Killer would strike, since there were fewer people and therefore fewer witnesses. Plus, the killer always seemed to go after women whom society had forgotten about, and these women tended to congregate more frequently in this part of town than anywhere else.

A fresh set of my signature slasher outfit adorned my body, the crunch of the empty cans and plastic underneath my boots one of the only indicators I was somewhere I probably shouldn’t be. Bars decorated the windows, and the distant sound of shouting and glass breaking accosted my ears. It was definitely somewhere a womanshouldn’tbe out alone at night.

Good thing I wasn’t a typical woman.

For the first couple of hours, nothing happened. Aside from a few stragglers, there wasn’t anyone else on the streets, and there especially were no hooded figures.

Then in the middle of the third hour, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. The cloaked man from the news darted into a nearby alleyway to my left. Shoulders tensing, I pivoted and disappeared into the shadows that lined the same alleyway where my prey had found sanctuary. For a brief moment, I lost sight of him, and a sense of dread flooded my veins.Fuck! Where the hell did he go?

Then ahead, he reappeared under a broken streetlamp, and I made sure to keep a great distance behind so he wouldn’t know he was being followed. He moved slowly, every step deliberate as he dipped in and out of the shadows. It was how I was following too, his own personal shadow. I preemptively tightened my grip on my blowtorch.

For a moment, it was just me and him. As he went from alleyway to alleyway, searching for his prey, I mirrored his movements as I continued to hunthim. I tried to match each of his footsteps as I crept closer and closer, raising the blowtorch so it was aimed at the back of his skull.

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