Page 30 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

Most people count sheep. I choreograph trauma like ballet.

I can lose hours like this.

Tonight’s lead? The eight-inch chef’s knife in my passenger seat.

I pick it up and balance it between my fingers. Place the tip against my index finger and spin it in a slow circle.

It nicks me before I notice.

Just a pinprick. Barely enough to sting.

Of course it’s sharp. My mother always kept this blade like a scalpel—deadly, precise.

I set it down, squeeze my finger, and watch the bead of blood rise.

The knife is old. The rest of the set long gone—lost to moves and garage sales. A sleek new block sits on her counter now.

But this one? She kept.

Which is why the thought creeps in.

What if this is the knife she used to kill Colton Rhodes?

Travis’s face twists into Colton’s. The autopsy report I read last night returns.

Dozens of stab wounds.

Throat slit.

Overkill.

But which came first?

She could’ve ended it with the throat. Quick. Efficient.

But she didn’t. She kept going.

This is a classic question of the chicken-or-the-egg.

Except the chicken is a dead man, and the egg is my mom’s trauma-fueled rage.

If I had to bet: she slit his throat, then stabbed until nothing remained of her fear.

Until the girl who ran was gone and only the woman who survived remained.

That’s how I’d do it.

Not quite as messy.

My phone chimes and I jump, nearly launching the knife into the cupholder.

It’s my mother.

MOM: Goodnight, dear! Just finished chapter 49. The shadow prince split into six copies… simultaneously. Use your imagination.

What a wholesome way to end the evening—knowing my sweet, cardigan-wearing mother is winding down with a supernatural orgy.

I set the phone down like it just told me Santa isn’t real and also sex is weird now.

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