Page 27 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

Spin. Catch. Roll. Breathe.

One, two, three, four.

And again.

By the time we’re heading back to Mom’s place, I do feel a little less heavy. Not light—but less. Like I’ve been slowly sinking, and someone paused the descent.

That lasts about five minutes until my phone buzzes.

A text from Benjamin blows everything out of the water:No patrols available tonight. She’ll be on her own. Someone will run a check in the morning.

The silver dollar stills in my hand. My stomach turns cold.

She may be dead by morning.

I sit in the quiet of my mom’s SUV as she cuts off the engine, the overhead light turning on when she opens her door.

“She’s alone,” I mutter. “He’s going to get her tonight, and she’ll be another cold case everyone shrugs about on the six o’clock news while they microwave frozen lasagna and forget her name.”

My mom makes a softhmmas she unlocks her door, and we step inside her dark home. She flicks on the kitchen light, and the familiar warmth settles over everything.

This has always been home. Even though we moved constantly when I was little—always running, always hiding—once that chapter ended... once her rapist was gone, we found this place. And we never left.

The peace inside these walls has always felt earned.

Hard-won.

Safe.

But Mariela doesn’t get to feel that way and she may never again.

Not while Travis Gannon is still breathing the same air as her.

I drop my bag on the counter and stare out the kitchen window, the streetlamp casting a soft orange halo over the lawn.

You do whatever you have to, my mom had said.

To make it stop.

The words echo now, curling around my thoughts like vines. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just... true.

I don’t realize how quiet I’ve gotten until I look over and see my mom watching me. She’s got one hand wrapped around a tea mug, the other resting loosely against her hip.

Eventually, she starts nodding. Like she’s hearing the exact same train of thought clanging through my head.

“Keep going down that line of thinking,” she says, calm as anything. “And you’ll be on the right track.”

I blink at her. Then exhale.

“How do you always do that? Know what I’m thinking?”

She blows on her warm tea. “Moms just know their babies.”

She’s right.

I can’t sit around here debating shadow sex and drinking lemon water like it’s a spa day while Mariela is fearing for her life.

If the police won’t watch Mariela’s building... then by all that’s holy and hot pink, I will.

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