PSYCHOPATH

chapter 12: last chance ella

                 

Chapter 12: Last Chance Ella

~"I ripped your heart while you healed mine. I stole your life while you kept me alive."~

Ella knew she was making a bad decision choosing to enter the house. She knew yet she did it anyways.

A gun was in her hands. Her sweaty palms shook a bit around the handle of it but the grip was tight enough that the gun wasn't going anywhere. Firm and steady. Ready in a moment's notice. Breathing out harshly, Ella stopped in front of her door, the porch steps creaking underneath her. He would hear her. He knew she was coming inside.

But he didn't know she was ready to shoot him dead. That the police were on their way in those still moments, tension already growing in the air. There was limited time and she wanted to get the most out of it before they sent him away for good. She wanted all the answers. Every single one, including his identity.

Ella wanted to be the first one to find out.

Trying the front door, she wasn't surprised to find it unlocked. Somehow the Code Killer could always get inside her house with ease. Did he have a fucking key? It was the only plausible thing she could come up with. The FBI must have put the shittiest level of security on her premises because the Code Killer had managed to enter her house, not once or twice but three times now. It was absurd and she was going to have a talk with James Grey about it. So much for his promise to protect her.

What happened to the twenty-four hour surveillance? The question acted as a match, striking a spark of suspicion in her. The Code Killer either was able to disable the security like he did with her own cameras or perhaps no precautions were put in place in the first place.

She couldn't dwell on it any longer. She cracked open the door and slipped through, her gun raised in the air. Her blue eyes instantly darted to the couch in the living room. Her handgun followed her movements to the furniture, only to find it void of any human life. He wasn't sitting in his usual spot.

The TV and the lights were on. Mamma Mia! was playing on the television. Ella halted at the sight of it. She didn't even know she had the movie's DVD. Wait a second- her gun lowered at the realization. The realization that he had put the film on for a specific reason. The songs belted out from the musical on the screen taunted her. It was no coincidence that he put on the one movie Asher and her were singing karaoke for.

He was telling her that he had been at the Orange Lantern Bar. Somewhere. Always listening. There camouflaged as a human. Blended in the crowd and she had probably bumped right past him, digging her elbow into his side to get by, maybe even spilling some of her beer on him in the process.

A master of disguise. The psychopath hides, a wolf among the sheep.

"Hello Ella, long time no see." A voice, low and deep and still very mechanical, resonated throughout the room. It came from behind. She spun around fast, sending her vision swimming. "I'm not surprised to see you using your gun this time."

And there he was. Like a long shadow cast against the wall, decorating the room with evil. At the end of the hallway, standing long and tall. In his dark apparel and his tilted head. A knife was in one glove. The sight made her heart skip a beat, not in the nice tingly way but instead a terrifying moment of not being able to breathe, the organ in her chest frozen mid-beat. Was he here to kill her once and for all?

She casted her eyes around the living room first, noticing immediately the absence of Oscar licking at her knees and assuming the worst. "Where's my dog?"