Page 61 of Beneath Her Skin

Barron didn’t answer at first, lifting his head to meet my gaze. “No,” he said after a few seconds have passed. “No, I haven’t.”

At his words, I deflated as relief flowed through my veins. “Then you should be okay,” I said in a monotone. But internally, I was relieved. I hadn’t realized how much I needed him to say those words until after he said them because I didn’t know what I would do if I found out my own cousin was one of the men I swore to exterminate.

Barron blinked as a stray tear fell down his cheek, and he nodded. Then, we returned to our meals and didn’t speak for the rest of the evening.

I was supposedto patrol for the Hooded Killer again tonight, but as luck would have it, that didn’t work out. It started out normal, like the previous night, and I even started stalking the figure again like I did before. However, something else diverted my attention, much like the previous night, and I had to switch targets. Because tonight, there were two women in peril, two stalkers, one of which was the Hooded Killer, and the other one a drunk rando on the street who didn’t seem to take kindly to the wordno. And the drunk was dangerous, with a small switchblade in his hand that he carried as he followed the woman an unsafe distance away, waiting for the prime opportunity to strike.

Tonight, my prime weapon of choice was a battery-powered circular saw. Though it was small, lightweight, and easy to maneuver, I didn’t choose it for those reasons specifically. I had been curious about something for a long time, and now was the time for me to satiate that curiosity. My identity was fully concealed under my signature slasher outfit, camouflaged perfectly in the shadows of the nearby buildings. And due to the nature of my new prey, I found I didn’t have to be as carefulwhen sneaking around. I could be as close as I wanted, and he still wouldn’t realize someone was following him.

But the woman did. And when her eyes went wide, I put a single finger to where my lips would be underneath the mask. Then, I raised the saw and smacked the dude over the head with it, watching as he fell to the ground in an unconscious heap.

The woman gasped. “Wh-who?—”

“Get out of here!” I hissed, waving my arms about.

She just blinked, confused. “You’re…a woman!” She staggered back a couple steps. “Holy shit. You’re the man-killer, and you’re?—”

“And you need to get out of here because this man was going to kill you, and I just put a stop to it,” I spat. “So, go! Because I guarantee you donotwant to see what comes next!”

Reluctantly, the woman nodded. Then, she turned on her heels and sprinted out of the area as if she had just seen a ghost. When she was out of my sight, I turned back towards the man and grinned.Time to get to work.

I didn’t bring any restraints this time, not that I needed them anyway. I dragged the man off to the side so he was less out in the open before proceeding to tear away his clothing, making sure to toss his blade as far away as I could. When he was good and naked, I turned him over onto his back so his ass was exposed, right where I wanted him.

Well, he has a nice, firm ass. I’ll give him that. Too bad I have to ruin it.

There was no water around to wake him, not that it really mattered this time anyway. He would wake with the pain. Maybe. Probably. I powered on the saw and sliced a shallow cut across his back, waiting to see if that was enough to bring him back to consciousness. When nothing happened, I did another one directly below the first and then another one until his back muscles started twitching and contorting, causing the thin beadsof blood to jiggle, and his head literally slammed back as if he were trying to ward off an attacker.

My knees dug into his lower back to keep him in place. The man stiffened as he gasped for breath. “Wh-where am I?”

“Oh good, you’re awake.” I laughed. “I was beginning to think you were a goner.”

The man stiffened. “Who are you?” he slurred, his words blending from one to the next. “Why does my back hurt?”

I shook my head at his audacity. The man’s movements were still too sluggish, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake me. That was why it was never a good idea to drink if you planned to do something nefarious because you never knew when someone would try to stop you. “Your back hurts because I cut you,” I stated matter-of-factly. “As for who I am, well…that doesn’t matter.”

The man squirmed beneath me, the alcohol severely inhibiting his movements. “P-please,” he begged. “I’ll do anything you want, just please?—”

“See, begging won’t work.” I scooted lower until his ass was directly in front of my face. “Nice ass, by the way. Do you work out, by any chance?”

By that point, the man was literally clawing at the ground in a desperate attempt to get away, fingers caked with blood as each nail broke on the surface of the concrete. “I…I don’t…what?”

I didn’t say anything else, just revved up my saw and literally started slicing from the butt crack into the lower back. The first of the blood started spraying my mask as his screams deafened my ears, but still, I couldn’t stop as I continued to saw him in half. Intestines, muscles, and other entrails started spilling out of the crevice the deeper I went, and before I knew it, the dude went silent, like they always do before I finish a kill. I removed the saw to leave his upper chest intact and flipped him over, instantly, meeting the man’s glassy-eyed stare for the first time,his mouth forever frozen in a silent scream. He was for sure dead, despite the fact I didn’t cut all the way through.

I still had one last thing I had to do.

I revved up the saw one last time and cut his crime on his bare chest so there was no doubt what he had done: STALKER. That way, when the police found him, they would know, and they would also figure out who had brought him to justice.

The famed Incel Annihilator.

5

Ididn’t call the police that night, since the woman was long gone and, from what I could tell, did not need any assistance. Instead, I left the man there and would allow them to find him naturally, and considering I had killed him in a secluded area, that would more than likely happen later rather than sooner.

In the morning, the news didn’t report on his dead corpse, so I knew he hadn’t been found yet. I attended classes as normal and pretended everything was fine. At lunch, there was no breaking news on him either.

By the evening, however, a missing person’s report on him had been filed, and police were on the lookout for him. Not that it mattered much to me because they wouldn’t find anything, like always. There would be nothing at the scene that could be traced back to me, and all they would find was his mangled corpse and one word that detailed his crime. They’d know who did it right away, but they wouldn’t be able to catch me.

It was almost comical the things I was able to get away with because of how careful I was. And I would continue to be careful so I could continue to put more predatory men into the ground.

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