Page 17 of Drag You Down
So what if it was a run-down building, and the only people living in it were squatters?
My lips thin into a line.
Well, we have our own run-down little building now, and plenty of unsafe wiring around us.
“Please, whatever you want, I’ll get it to you!” Moretti begs.
The only thing I want is a gentle young man with a taste for blood.
“What I want is to ensure you can never murder anyone ever again,” I say with a brittle smile.
I trail the knife over the skin of his collar bones. A small line of red wells up.
If I lick it, will I taste the same sin Levi did?
“Why did you do it?” I ask Moretti, blowing into his ear.
He’s sweating profusely already, fear radiating from him as he tries to pull away from me. I grab him by his thinning hair, forcing him to stay in place, and inhale the scent of sweat and blood.
The stale air of the building doesn’t detract from the moment. If anything, it adds to the moment, adds to the fear I swear I can taste.
Maybe I can. People can do all sorts of unordinary things, can’t they? They can see music and hear numbers; why wouldn’t I be able to taste fear? Whether I imagine it or not, it’s still intoxicating, and I lick my lips to get more of it.
I wish I was kissing my little lamb. I wouldn’t want to taste his fear again. I want to taste his longing, his need for the coppery taste of blood.
Iwillgive it to him.
And when I do, he’ll call me “Daddy” with pleasurable sighs.
Not today, but someday soon, I will smear my own blood across his lips. We’ll taste it together when we kiss, and I’ll hold him in my arms and assure him that there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing.
His fear will turn into lust, and that will be the sweetest taste of all.
“—I promise,” Moretti is saying.
I’m not sure when I tuned him out, but his voice has begun to get on my nerves. I usually enjoy the begging that comes with their realization that their lives are coming to an abrupt end — untimely, they think, but they’re only getting what they deserve — but today, I find it lonely.
I wonder if Levi would learn my methods. I may call him my little lamb, but there could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing there after all. I could teach him to research, to hunt, to punish.
To kill.
I could teach him so much.
It would take the innocence from his eyes, but it would replace it with something even more alluring. His confidence would be delicious.
“Hmm?” I ask, cutting another slice over the other side of his collarbone. “I apologize. I should be paying closer attention to your final words, shouldn’t I?”
Moretti struggles harder against the chair he’s bound to, but all he does is manage to upset it so he tumbles to the floor. I observe dispassionately, not moving to right the chair again. The fire department will labelthisarson as well as murder, but there’s nothing to trace me to Moretti.
Even if there was, I’m at peace with the idea of eventually getting caught.
It won’t be from this murder, though.
It won’t be today, or even a week from now.
When it happens, the public will condemn me as a murderer or hail me as a vigilante.
I’m neither.
