5SOS Book of Imagines

LRH // Killer (2)

Your eyes meet. Piercing blue against your wide, brown ones.

He continued walking closer, oblivious to your stillness. You wanted to bolt into the house and lock yourself up but your feet refused to take orders, they were solidly planted on the ground, immobile.

This, Luke noticed, "What's up?"

You gulped before answering, trying hard to keep your voice normal, "Um, nothing. Nothing, really. Just getting some fresh air."

You watched him as he laughed bleakly, his black metal lipring glinting as he did. Now that you've got suspicions to his linkage to the recent serial killings, your silent next door neighbor started to look like a different person. You've started noticing things about him. Started to see him clearly. He had dark circles around his eyes probably from lack of sleep.

"Fresh air? Here? There's nowhere more un-fresh and rotten in this town than this neighborhood," he said, gazing around the houses lined up in your street.

"What about you? Where are you from?" Your muscles had relaxed themselves a bit, allowing room for you to want to investigate, to clarify your suspicions.

"Downtown," he said shortly, his tone clipped, the sarcasm gone completely. He sounded like he was angry.

You gulped once again as the menace in his voice hung in the air.

"What did you do there?" Your voice almost broke with nervousness, trying to be brave by faring with his obvious anger.

"It's none of your business."

"It is when there are already four people being murdered around the area and you're always in the crime scene when they're recovering the corpses." You didn't know where your strength came from but as his eyes bulged out in surprise, you held his gaze and stared him out, seeing a hint of fear on his blue eyes.

You wanted to hate him because it's as if he just confirmed your assumptions true but fear, undiluted and raw, swam in his eyes and you saw someone scared for his own life. You couldn't understand it but you felt bad for making him feel bad.

He composed himself but his wounded, fearful expression was still there, barely hidden. "We used to be friends when we were kids, right?"

Why is he changing the subject? You thought but nodded anyway, your mind immediately racing back to when you were a little girl, remembering running around the street with your next door neighbor. Climbing trees, playing hide and seek, eating picnics on your backyard. But then all of it stopped when his mom went home from New York, bringing with her his new stepdad. You never see the boy outside anymore.

Luke smiled as if he was remembering the past as well. The smile looked strained, as if he was finding it hard to do so.

"Come with me?"

In your right mind, you wouldn't. Especially when you suspect him of having something to do with the televised killings, but you stared into his eyes and something in them made you want to say yes. He said it like it required great effort, like it was something...huge, something he doesn't usually tell people or something he never planned to tell but is contemplating whether he should. You made do with a stiff nod.

He smiled. This one wasn't strained, this was clearly a smile of full pleasure in his case. Then, with that same, almost creepy smile, Luke said, "I'll show you how they die."