Page 26 of The Taskmaster
Society would call me a serial killer. But I was a serial cleaner. A cleanser of the depraved. I made sure children were safe from sick fucks like them. They wouldn’t harm another kid ever again. Not like they’d hurt me.
I’d heard on the radio in my van that they’d made an arrest for the disappearances. It made me fucking laugh. They were chasing shadows. They had no fucking clue who’d done it. And in a way, I was a shadow. I had no official papers. No birth certificate. As far as they were concerned, Isaiah James didn’t exist—James being the surname I chose for myself so I could throw away the Dalton name that’d brought me nothing but misery.
After disposing of the inconvenience that was her fucked-up neighbour from my living room, I went online and hacked into the police database to see what I could find out. They’d arrested Adam Noble, a guy I knew from Brinton Manor, who called himself a fucking soldier of anarchy. I could spend now until the end of my life taking the piss out of that name that he’d awarded himself, but I had better things to do with my time.
He wouldn’t stay in police custody for long, I knew that. If he didn’t already have a watertight alibi, his wife would give him one. Or one of his minions. And the fact remained; he hadn’t done it. Those were my badges of honour to claim. My kills.
I watched Tolley laugh at some lame reality TV show he was watching, and then I saw Abigail throw her phone down as she fell onto her sofa and said, “I hate my fucking life.”
I knew how she felt.
I also knew I’d take great pleasure in wiping the smug smile off Tolley’s face when it was his turn to find out how fucked up life could get.
I watched her take a box from a shopping bag and then take a fucking teddy bear out of it. I laughed when I realised it was a nanny cam. She wanted to catch her stalker in the act, I got that. I also knew I’d be more effective than a fucking teddy bear cam. And the next time I let myself in, the bear wouldn’t capture a thing.
She set it up on her bookshelf, then moved from the living room to her bedroom, and after a while, she noticed the stain on the carpet. The stain I’d left behind. No, I wasn’t lazy or forgetful. I hadn’t left it there by accident. I wanted to leave it there, a blood stain, a reminder that sins can’t be covered up or washed away. Something her father needed to remember.
I’d hoped to teach him that harsh lesson by using his daughter, but I still hadn’t decided exactly how I was going to use her. I couldn’t deny she fascinated me, and I couldn’t put my finger on why. Yes, she was beautiful. Stunning, in fact. But it was more than that. There was something about her that drew me in.
Seeing her on her knees, scrubbing at the carpet and hearing her say, “Fuck my life,” made me feel a certain way. I wasn’t angry, more curious, and something else I hadn’t felt before... I felt a little sorry for her. She looked pitiful on her knees, scrubbing away the stains I’d left behind. Life wasn’t being kind to her. And even though I didn’t feel empathy like other people did, I felt something for her. I wanted to reach through the screen and take her from this world into my own. Study her and find out what made her tick. Keep her like a trophy.
I had my next game set up, ready for Gabriel Tolley. But maybe bringing her in would be more fun. I liked watching her on the monitors, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to see her in real life. Stand in front of her and look her in the eyes. I wanted Abigail Walters to know that her father wasn’t the saviour she thought he was. He hadn’t saved me, and I knew, he wouldn’t save her either.
Chapter Seventeen
ABIGAIL
Iwoke with a start, sweat pooling on the sheets beneath me as the nightmare I’d been shackled to slowly ebbed away. I dreamt I was in a tiny cupboard, held captive. It was dark and I could barely breathe. But it was the smell, the acrid stench of urine and other crap that made everything seem so lifelike.
Now, I lay in my bed in the dark, staring at the ceiling and trying to get my breathing under control.
I turned my head to look at the time on my clock. Three Thirty-Two. I had a few hours before I needed to be up for work, but I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon. Not after that nightmare. So, I rolled onto my side, slid my legs out of the bed, then stood up. I touched my hair and grimaced at how matted it felt. I usually woke up with bedhead, but this was another level of bird’s nest.
I went over to my dressing table, sat down on the stool and started to brush my hair, or attempt to brush it. The knots were so tangled, I doubted anything but a deep condition in the shower would work them out. So, I gave up, grabbed a hair tie and put my hair into the best messy bun I could manage underthe circumstances, using a few hair slides to secure the random bits that kept falling out from one side.
I sat in the darkness of my room and stared at myself in the mirror. My ears strained to hear any suspect noises, but everything was quiet.
So why did I feel like I wasn’t alone?
I sat still in the silence, and memories of a time it hurt to remember came seeping into my brain...
“You can come to my house after school. My mum won’t mind. Dad will be at work. You could even sleep over, if you like?”
“You know I can’t do that, Abs,” my best friend, Stacey, said as she fiddled with the frayed edges on the strap of her school bag. “I have to be back at the home right after school, otherwise I’ll get into trouble. It’s not worth it. Trust me.”
It was the same every afternoon. The closer it got to home time, the more nervous she became. I knew Stacey hated being at the children’s home. I hated her being there, too, but life hadn’t given her a choice. I wished it could’ve been different. But her mum was a heroin addict. She was in prison. And her dad left when she was a baby. She’d told me all about it in confidence, sharing that part of her horrible life, but I knew she kept other things from me. I wished she wouldn’t. I just wanted to help.
“Maybe this time they’ll be okay with it? I could get my mum to ring them. My dad’s a policeman. They should be okay with you being in our house. You’ll be safe.”
“Safer than I would be there,” she muttered, and when I went to speak, she added, “I don’t want to rock the boat. Not at the moment. There’s a lot of stuff going on right now. Stuff I can’t really talk about.”
I hated that her nails were bitten so far down that they often bled. That she looked so tired every day, and her eyes had dark circles like she might not have slept through the night. That she ate her lunch like she hadn’t eaten in days, devouring every morsel, then watching the rest of us as if she needed more. I often shared my lunch with her. Mum had started giving me extra after I told her about it. But most of all, I hated that she wouldn’t talk to me. I knew they weren’t looking after her at the home. I knew she hated it and wanted to get away. I wanted that too, and I’d have done anything to help her.
I’d asked my mum and dad if we could arrange for her to live with us. I’d questioned what we could do to help. But Mum told me you could only help people if they wanted it, and Dad said he’d check the home out and make sure she was safe. Adults couldn’t always fix things. Not the way you wanted them to.
Every day, Stacey came to school with the same sallow skin and haunting eyes. Every day, she sat with me, smiling in a way that felt forced. I wanted to help my best friend. But I didn’t know how.
“Maybe I can come home with you? Would they let us do that? I have a lipstick and some mascara I sneaked from home in my bag. We could do our make-up. Watch some YouTube videos on how to do it properly.”
