"Could you repeat that last statement once more for me, dear?"
The nurse's infuriating voice grates at my ears as well as her condescending attitude. Anger bubbles up inside of me, but I choke it down, swallowing my rage and the unrelinquishing urge to inflict pain on her in the worst possible ways.
She clicks her tongue knowingly, as I struggle. "Please?" She tries again.
I shut my eyes, electing to rest my head against the cool window and listen to the sound of rain pattering the earth. I buy myself time with tranquil thoughts.
"I killed them."
She is patient and I hate her for it. "Yes, you said that, but the record grows hazy during your recollection of the names." She rephrases her request. "Who did you kill?"
"Everyone," I whisper.
She sighs and I do as well. The questions are never ending. "Earlier you were willing to recount each name."
She is no longer treating me like a mental patient and I enjoy the faint feeling of power she has given me. I rest my hand on the bars latched to the window; they don't make me feel trapped, however. On the contrary, Matthew cannot hurt me in here and I think that is why I stay.
"Grace Carson, Daniel Carson, Jericho Paxton," I let the names fall from my lips as she scribbles them down furiously.
"In an early statement your friends claimed that Jericho was an ally. How did that change."
I glance back at her blankly. One of the terms of my therapy was that I not be reminded of them. The ones who had left me to die. The ones I wish weren't already dead.
"I did not kill River."
The nurse purses her lips. I know she isn't a nurse, but I choose to think of her that way anyways. "You have already stated that, but please recount how you came about the murder of Jericho Paxton."
My mind ventures back to that night, to a place that I wish she wouldn't make me go. Jericho's face swims up from the past and like falling into a painting, I'm back there.
04/05 N/A
The lock jiggles at the top of the stairs, but I am ready. Anticipation hums in my blood, anything that walks through that door is going to be dead before it hits the last step. It is a comforting, if not morbid, promise.
The metal swings open, heavy boots thunk down the stairs and there is a plainly male gasp as someone takes in my broken beam and chains and the macerated body of Alexander. I know his eyes are following the tracks I've made in the dirt to the box that I hide behind and I don't think as my finger closes around the trigger.
The bullet pierces Jericho's heart and a violent spray of blood spurts out of the hole in his chest, spattering the person who cowers behind him. A woman shrieks and as I rise from my hiding place, a satisfied sneer plastered over the numbing terror I feel on the inside. And the walls came tumbling down.
Raelyn kneels at his side and my facade falters. "What are you doing down here?"
A tear streaks down her filthy cheek, mixing with the blood caked at her throat. "You killed him." She looks at me with new eyes.
It's a second before she notices the metal cuffs still encircling my wrists. Her next response is a clear as day and just as gut wrenching. "He broke you."
I shake my head, trying to slow the spinning room. "I've always been broken."
I don't notice the nurse leave the room. Only when a real nurse is escorting me out of the room do I surface from the reverie. On the other side of the door, I am confronted with a face that mirrors the haggard face from my memory. Raelyn is thinner and her face is wane, but she is still Raelyn and I wish they would let us hug, but her hands are wrapped in metal cuffs and mine are considered bloody. The hands of psychopaths.
She smiles as we pass and speaks before anyone can stop her. "River sends her condolences on your current state."
"Likewise to her," I reply as they pull us farther apart. Raelyn fights the guard hauling her inside. "Are we broken?" I ask, my voice suddenly urgent.
Her grin widens. "Shattered."
"Crazies," the guard mutters and Raelyn spins on him, headbutting the smug look off of his face. Her teeth lock around his nose and he shrieks in pain while a roiling giggle threatens to overwhelm me. The nurse's eyes widen.
Orderlies come sprinting around the corner and quickly jab the needle into Raelyn's neck while one lifts me clean off the ground and starts to haul my decaying body down the blisteringly white hallway. "Kate!" Raelyn calls, slurring her words. "You can't cheat death."
I twist, glancing over my shoulder, the shank gives a quick glimmer in the fluorescent lighting before she burrows it deep into her chest.
There is a flurry of motion, but I know before they even drag her through the double doors at the end of the hallway, that she's already dead.
As my orderly totes me back to my room, I whisper into his ear very softly. "You're next."
YOU ARE READING
The Serial Killers (Complete)
Mystery / ThrillerThat's when I saw him. A man, who was clearly a man, stood hidden partially by a tree, the midafternoon sun silhouetting him. His face was covered by a burlap sack with holes for eyes and a dripping black line where the mouth would be. Below that he...
