Page 214 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

I’m tired of looking at myself. Tired of the split in my skin.

I cock my arm back—and this time, there’s no hesitation.

My fist punches through the mirror.

Glass shatters outward, raining onto the counter and the floor. Blood wells instantly from the split across my knuckles. Pain flares—sharp, white-hot—but it’s distant.

Just background noise to the devastation inside me.

I stagger back, chest heaving, and slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the cold tile, my back scraping the paint-stripped drywall.

The broken reflection stares back at me from the jagged shards.

Fragmented. Twisted. Wrong.

I tip my head back, eyes burning.

“How do I make her choose me,” I whisper to the empty room, “when I’m the one hiding behind the mask?”

There’s no answer.

Only the quiet tick of the clock in the next room.

Only the rush of blood in my ears.

Only the slow, wet drip of blood onto the tile.

Finally, when my breathing evens out?—

When the violence drains from my veins and leaves me hollow?—

I whisper the only truth left.

“I have to end this,” I say, eyes closing, the words cutting deeper than any broken glass ever could, “before she falls in love with a ghost.”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned since my case was declared a mistrial, it’s that rock bottom isn’t a floor.

It’s a trapdoor.

And mine swung open sometime after I was kissed by my masked stalker and left sobbing in my driveway like a lovesick idiot.

The raid footage is everywhere.

News outlets on an endless loop: grainy video clips, flashing sirens, men in suits handcuffed and shoved into black SUVs.

Every channel. Every headline.

And all I can think is,what if I landed on the news and someone recognized me from the night of Travis’ murder?

Because nothing screamsI’m totally not a murdererlike showing up in the background, blood-splattered, holding a dog hostage.

Bless Declan for ordering me to leave the van.

If I had stayed five more minutes, I’d be a TikTok meme by now.

#HomicideHoney

#BloodyBarbie

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