Please, Kill Me (Jeff the Killer x Reader)

Chapter 28 ✓

• Jeff's PoV

I tore through the undergrowth, branches clawing at my face like the hands of the dead. I didn't look back. I couldn't. The air in the balcony had become too thick to breathe the moment the word cancer left her lips.

How could she keep this from me? Was she just waiting for the clock to run out so she could vanish into the dirt and leave me here alone? Did she plan this all along? Is she just really used me?

"She said she’d stay!" I screamed at the sky, the sound tearing through the silent woods and sending a murder of crows scattering from the canopy. "She promised, but now she fucking used me to kill her immediately!.. why?! WHY!?"

You don't deserve her. The voices hissed, sensing the crack in my armor.

She should have died week ago. You're weak, Jeffery.

You’ll end up alone. That is your fate. Blood and silence.

KILL HER NOW! END THE WEAKNESS!

"STOP IT!" I shrieked, clutching my head so hard my fingernails drew blood from my scalp. I collapsed to my knees, pressing my forehead into the cold, damp earth. "STOP! HAHAAHHAHA FUCKING STOP!"

KILL HER!!

"NO!" I gasped, shaking my head violently against the dirt. She wasn't a toy. She wasn't just another body for the pile. She was... everything I wanted. The light I am trying to ignore. "I want her to stay.. I want her to stay.. I-I want her.. to stay with me.."

The snap of a twig behind me sent my reflexes into overdrive. I spun, my knife leading the way, ready to disembowel whatever was stalking me. But the strike died in mid-air. The man standing there lowered his hood. His face was a map of scars, but his eyes... they were eyes I had seen in my nightmares and my fondest memories alike.

"Little brother... it’s me. It's Liu."

Rage, white and blinding, eclipsed my shock. "I killed you! And then you tried to make me kill her in that room!" I lunged. I didn't care if he was a ghost or a demon. I swung for his throat, but Liu was fast—faster than he used to be. He caught my wrist, twisted it painfully, and shoved me back.

"Jeffery! Calm down!"

"FUCK YOU!" I roared, sprinting at him again. This time, my blade found purchase, sinking into his left shoulder. He groaned, but instead of retreating, he drove a heavy fist into my side—directly into the wound Jane had given me.

The world went white. I crumpled, clutching my waist as the stitches tore. "Fuck... you made me almost kill her..."

"That wasn't me, Jeff. That was Zalgo's puppet," Liu rasped, clutching his bleeding shoulder. "They want you insane. They want a monster they can point at their enemies. When they realized she was changing you, they decided to break you instead." Then he stepped closer, reaching out a hand. "I’m here to help you. Both of you."

"Why would I trust a dead man?" I snarled while clutching my open wound.

"Because he’s telling the truth," a cold, feminine voice rang out. Jane stepped from the shadows, her black eyes fixed on me.

"Honestly, Jeff, I’d love to watch you bleed out right here," Jane said, her voice dripping with venom. "But your girlfriend stopped me once. I suppose I owe her. Your brother is right. Zalgo is moving. Smile Dog has been seen circling the town; he's the one gathering the 'strays' for Zalgo's army."

"Smile Dog?" I spat. "Where’s the mutt's house? I'm going to turn him into a rug."

I tried to stand, but Liu’s hand was a vice on my arm. "Your wound is open, Jeff. You can't fight like this."

"I don't fucking care!" I snarled, baring my teeth at him. "Let go!"

"No," Liu said firmly. "I’ll handle the dog. I promise, Jeffery. Just like I used to."

Something in his voice—that old, protective tone from the life before the fire—made my muscles unconsciously relax. I looked at him, truly looked at him, and felt a spark of the old trust. Without another word, Liu turned and vanished into the treeline, moving with a predator’s silence.

Jane watched him go, then turned to me. "Go back to the Mansion. You're bleeding through your hoodie."

"No," I muttered, staring at the ground. "I can't."

"You can't what?"

"Why did I let her get close?" I whispered, almost talking to myself. The madness beginning to fray into raw grief. "If I had just killed her the second day... I wouldn't feel like this. She's going to leave me, Jane. She’s going to die and leave me here. She was planning it all alone.. to hurt me.. hehe.. hurt me like everybody does."

Jane walked up to me and, without a word of warning, hauled off and punched me square in the jaw. My head snapped back, the copper taste of blood filling my mouth.

"Snap out of it!" she barked. "Is that how the world works? Yes! Everyone leaves! You, me, her—we all end up as dust! But you don't waste the time you have whimpering in the dirt like a beaten cur. You spend every second you have left with the person you fucking care, so when the time comes, you don't have to live with the regret of being a coward, asshole!"

She stepped past me, her shoulder catching mine. "Stop being pathetic, Jeff. You’re a killer. Act like you have the stones to face the truth."

I stood alone in the clearing, the reflection in my knife showing a man I barely recognized. A murderer. An insane ghost of a boy. I had lived for the kill for so long that I’d forgotten what it was like to live for a person.

I want to stay... Jeff, please... stay like this forever. Her voice echoed in my mind, drowning out the demons. Kill me... is it possible?

No. I wouldn't kill her. And I wouldn't let the cancer kill her either. Not without a fight.

"I won't let you leave me," I whispered to the wind. "Never."