Please, Kill Me (Jeff the Killer x Reader)

Chapter 20 ✓

So, you’re telling me you came here just for a charger?" Jeff’s voice was flat, but the edge of disbelief was clear.

"Yes. Well—"

"You could’ve told me to get the damn thing for you instead!" he snapped.

I blinked, genuinely stunned. "Wait... really?"

As if he did not mean to slip that out from his mouth. Jeff immediately looked away, his jaw tightening as he realized what he’d just offered. I couldn't stop a small, tired smile tugging at my lips. "I didn't want to bother you, Jeff. I thought I could handle it."

"And look what happened. If I hadn't followed you, you’d be a corpse on your own balcony right now," he growled. I didn't argue. He was right. I just sighed and then remembered the wound from his palm, so I stood up and navigated the familiar shadows of my room to the vanity, pulling out a small, dust-covered first aid kit. I sat back down on the edge of the bed beside him. "But I'm still alive. I guess that’s more important, right?"

He only answered with a dismissive scoff.

"Really... thank you," I whispered. I reached for his hand—the one Nina had pinned with her blade—but he jerked it back instantly.

"I can handle it," he hissed, snatching the kit out of my hands.

I sighed and let him try. While he fumbled with the antiseptic with his left hand, my gaze drifted to the framed photo on my nightstand. It was a shot from the beach—my parents’ anniversary. We looked so happy, so normal. It felt like looking at a different people.

"Argh!"

The sound of his pained grunt snapped me back to the present. Jeff was struggling; the puncture wound went straight through his palm to the back of his hand. It was a "crucifixion" wound, jagged and deep. I thought he never felt pain because of how he looks unbothered by it earlier.

"It hurts, doesn't it?"

"No," a lie, because his face is slight scrunched by the pain and also his fingers were twitching.

I didn't ask a second time. I reached over, firmly took the bandages from him, and pulled his hand into my lap. "Hey, I told you—"

"Shush. It’ll be faster if I just do it."

To my surprise, the "Great Jeff the Killer" went quiet. He let me work. I cleaned the entry and exit wounds, the sting of the disinfectant making his muscles jump under my touch, yet his face remained locked in that permanent, carved smile. It was eerie—watching a man bleed while he looked like he was enjoying a joke only he could hear.

I wrapped the gauze tightly, securing the pressure. "You should be more careful," I murmured, my voice softening. "Even you have limits, Jeff. Your body can only take so much—"

But his sudden action made me abruptly stopped. Jeff’s head had dropped onto my shoulder, his forehead resting against the crook of my neck. My heart skipped. "A-Are you—?"

"Let me be," he muttered, his voice muffled by my shirt. "Just stay put."

I sat frozen. One moment he was a hurricane of violence, the next he was leaning on me like a tired child. I could feel the heat radiating from him, the faint scent of copper and rain.

"Tell me," he whispered after a long silence.

"Tell you what?"

"Do you still want to die?"

The question hung in the air, heavy and dark. I thought of the diary filled with pain and curse, the ghost who ended up like that due to what she endured, and the way the moon looked earlier, a silent joy telling me to enjoy the world for awhile. "I... I still do," I confessed. "But there’s something stopping me now. I don't know what it is."

I felt a sudden movement. I glanced down to see a knife—Jeff’s knife—lying on the bedspread behind me. He had been holding it to my back.

"Did you just try to kill me?"

Jeff didn't answer with words. Instead, he dropped the knife completely. He shifted, his wounded hand catching my arm while his other arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me into a sudden, crushing hug. He buried his face in my shoulder, his grip almost desperate.

"I wanted to kill you," he rasped into my skin. "I really did." I am actually confused at his behavior right now, but why does my heart beats so fast? Not due to an adrenaline, or anything inclined to fear. It's something different.. something that made my stomach flutter.

"Then why did you stop?"

"It’s still not the right time."

"Then when?" I asked.

"The end of the month. That’s your last day."

Its surprsing, yet, a strange wave of relief wash over me. A deadline. An end. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his back, hugging him back with a terrifying sincerity. "Thank you."

At least now he gave me a n assurance on how long I will wait.

+++

The Precinct: 11:45 PM

"Sir!" A young officer saluted the man sitting behind a desk cluttered with evidence files and half-empty whiskey bottles. The precint is not quite small but not yet bigger. Although it upholds a big reputation that everyone look up with. From those recognitions, medals, and certificates that was solely due to a single person. But when they handled a case that remain unresolved, their department became a laughingstock. A man who is sitting behind his desk with the nameplate read: Chief Anderson.

The Chief grunted, a thick cigar clamped between his teeth. "What is it? I’m on my break."

"We found her, sir."

Anderson froze. He spun his swivel chair around, his eyes narrowing through the smoke. "Show me."

They moved to the surveillance hub. A technician pointed to a grainy, high-definition feed. It was a hidden camera planted in the Y/N residence—the living room and the upstairs bedroom. On the screen, the missing girl was sitting on a bed. And she wasn't alone.

"Sir, we’ve found Y/N. And you won't believe it... she’s with the suspect from the Velvet Apartment massacre. It’s him."

The Chief didn't look horrified. He didn't look angry. He began to laugh—a deep, jagged sound that made the officers in the room shift uncomfortably.

"Finally," Anderson whispered, leaning toward the screen. "The two mice are playing in their hole, unaware that the lion is at the door." He had been right to bug the house; he knew the girl would crawl back to her nest eventually.

"Your orders, sir?"

The Chief ground his cigar into an ashtray, his eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger. "Dispatch the Tactical Unit. Full perimeter lock. No sirens until they hit the driveway. I want them both alive if possible—but I want that boy in chains."

As the officers scrambled to fulfill the order, Anderson walked to the window, watching the patrol cars pull out of the lot. For years, the "Jeff the Killer" case had been a ghost story that embarrassed the department.

"Finally, I get a chance to meet you, Jeff," he murmured to the glass. "Let's see if you're as fast as the legends say."