Page 42 of Pose for Me
I shake my head at the absurdity of it and continue my shopping.
When I’ve gotten all the groceries I’ll need to nurse him back to health, I head to the checkout register.
A man in shabby clothes gets in line behind me, and his eyes flick around my body, first taking in my attire, then landing on my watch.
“Fancy threads,” the man says in a nervous voice.
“Thanks,” is all I say, dismissing him by turning my back and sliding my groceries on the conveyer belt.
The cashier looks bored as he rings up my purchases and tells me my total. I quickly pay then load my bags into my cart. I don’t even spare the shoddily dressed man a glance as I head out.
It takes me no time to place my groceries into the trunk and push the cart into the carousel.
But before I can make it to my driver’s door, I’m jabbed in the back with a sharp instrument.
I tick up an eyebrow and peek over my shoulder. It’s the man from the line. Of fucking course it is.
His tone is shaky as he says, “Hands up, nice and slow, Fancy Threads.”
I huff a humorless laugh and shake my head. It’s been a while since I’ve been so in my head that someone got the drop on me. Again, this is Lane’s fucking fault. If I weren’t trying to avoid him or get him fucking protein, I would have gone straight home, not get stuck up by a fucking fiend outside of a damn grocery store.
Turning slowly while raising my hands, I say, “You have shit fucking luck, you know that?”
“Me?” he barks a laugh, then steps closer and pokes his knife into my belly. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to know it’s there. “You’re the one getting robbed right now. Now give me your fucking wallet.”
Tipping my head to the side with a sardonic smile, I ask, “You want my hands in the air, or you want my wallet? Can’t do both.”
He growls and swipes at me, cutting my shirt but not drawing blood. “The next one won’t?—”
Before he can finish his threat, I seize his wrist and squeeze tight, making him cry out as he drops his blade. He swings sloppily at me, landing a hit to my shoulder, though I’m sure he was aiming for my face. I grab his free arm and spin him around, using it to hold him in place.
“Like I fucking said,” I growl in his ear, ignoring how he’s kicking at my shins. “It’s not your lucky fucking night.”
Since I don’t have my usual cleanup tools, I can’t stab him like I normally would. I also have to complete a kill without sketching, and that makes me mad enough that I grab the man under the chin and wretch his head to the side, breaking his neck.
He drops heavily to the ground, his eyes wide with shock.
I smile, savoring the kill. It’s been weeks since I’ve taken a life, and I feel fucking rejuvenated.
Then I get pissed.
How the fuck am I gonna clean this up? I’m usually more careful than this. It’s been years since I was this sloppy, killing in the open with no plan.
The last bodies I left without a plan were almost twenty years ago.
In college, I wanted to rush a frat so I could fit in and make friends—a term I use loosely—so I wouldn’t be suspected of themurders I wanted to commit, the ones that filled my dreams and my waking hours.
The frat president and his best friend hazed me more than others, giving me two broken bones and alcohol poisoning before they told me I didn’t have what it took to be in their frat. They laughed at me as I hobbled away on my crutches because of my broken ankle.
A week after my cast was removed, I killed the frat president, throwing him off the balcony in his room after I broke his neck. The week after that, I saw his best friend in the stacks at the library. I waited for him to come out, then I knocked him over the head with a brick and dragged him into the woods where I bashed his fucking skull in. It was a bloody affair, and I relished in the warm liquid splashing over me.
His was the first body I posed. The entire week before I saw him, I envisioned how I wanted his body to be discovered, and almost like a compulsion, I staged his body the way I saw it.
I got lucky back then. I didn’t wear gloves or any protective gear. I was wild, reckless. The only thing that saved me on both accounts was contaminated crime scenes. So many people came and touched the bodies before the police arrived that they had nothing usable.
After that, I perfected my craft, ensuring I didn’t risk ever leaving DNA behind.
I’m not sure I’ll get that lucky this time. My first thought is to leave the guy crumpled on the ground, but that would be reckless. Besides me being in the grocery store, cameras would pick up us talking at the counter. Even if I was dismissive of him, cops would seek me out for questioning. I don’t want them to get that close.
