Loving Max

Chapter 5: Breaking In

Sitting in class is the worst torture. You just have to sit there and pretend to be listening to your teachers but your real attention was on the clock above their heads. And trust me, you would just want to die than do that. I could hear the ticking of the clock more than my teacher's lesson about the Copernican theory. I sit there and listened to it until four in the afternoon when I could be at my room planning for an "elimination".

Kent is my friend since last year. 'Was' my friend. I ended our friendship earlier when he decided to be my rival. I just can't sit in one room with him. That room is Max's heart. And I just want to be alone there.

I thought of 'elimination' as in 'murder'. Then I knew that it seemed so big a word for a fifteen-year old in love. Besides, Kent was my friend. We had our fair share of good memories. So, maybe I'll just make myself clear to him that Max is just mine and not kill him.

I've decided it. I'm not gonna murder him... yet. But if he still insists on Max, I might have to do it. The question now is how to do it.

I pinned a picture of Kent in the chart I made yesterday and connected a red yarn to it. I wrote some notes that I knew about him. Then I proceeded on thinking of ways to do what I plan to do.

A few came to mind: send threatening letters, blackmail, kill their dog and hang it above his bedroom.

They're too outdated, I thought. People won't believe them anymore. How? How would I do it? Something unique.

I messed my hair in frustration. If I don't do a thing, Kent's gonna win her heart and I'll just forever watch my first love went off with a friend.

That painful thought was disturbed by a commotion downstairs. I hung a shirt to cover the mess of a work I made on the chart and ran down the stairs.

"The serial killer is much closer than we thought. I came here to warn you of the danger we might be in. Officers had made a connection between the victims and the suspect. He is targeting the families of police officers that have arrested him before," dad said. "Here's a mugshot of the idiot." Dad threw a Ziploc bag on the table with some pictures inside. We scanned them.

Those were that of a man with a haggard face. Blonde hair, sallow skin, and a nose like that of a witch. His cheeks and eyes were deeply sunken that his skull almost showed. The weird thing was that the man was smiling. I know some people who smiled when their mugshots were taken but that was out of arrogance. This man, however, is smiling not out of arrogance but of something else. Utter evilness.

"So, if he was targeting officers who arrested him, and you came here to warn us, does that mean...?" Zach asked what was in my mind.

"Yes, I was one of the officers who arrested him," dad worryingly said. He looked at me sadly like I was a dying man. What's that look for?

"Well, why is he out now, on the loose?" mom angrily asked.

"He escaped. Someone smuggled the man a knife. Slit the throat of an officer holding the keys," Dad explained as he threw a picture of the officer.

"We already roved around the neighborhood to warn our neighbors," dad said, "Kiddos, text your friends, too. They might be in danger."

I did what I was told and texted my friends. Even Kent.

I looked at the picture dad threw on the table and there I saw the signature of the serial killer. The officer was lying on the ground. His arms and legs were stretched, forming a star. But something was weird in the  photo. It looks like the man was smiling. A literally bloody smile. It was because the killer had cut the sides of the lips up to the ears. A literal ear-to-ear bloody smile. But that was not all of it. From the blood of the officer, a smiley was drawn on his belly.