In Love With A Serial Killer 2

Chapter One- A New Beginning

I've always been told I was a reckless kid. Ever since I could remember I have taken the risky route and that could be said about my jobs, my loves, and my interests. Anything I have ever done has been done to the extreme, but nothing more than my time with Vannah. It had been months since I had seen her, yet the scent of her perfume was still present on my leather jacket. I tried to allow myself the happiness that I deserved in another woman, but my mind would continually focus upon her. I wanted the chance to start again, and so I played the part of a dutiful fiance as we sat in the booth for the engagement announcement. The woman who wore my ring had been smart and stunning, but she was not a woman I had come to love. She was an excellent distraction as her father was a politician and they were constantly dealing with threats of danger. I was pushed to date her, and before I knew it, I ended up sitting with a faux smile upon my face while the camera took an umpteenth amount of pictures before finally allowing us free from this singular pose. My fiance was a perfectionist throughout every photograph, with every pose, and with every circumstance.

Growing up, she would have been the girl I teased in school for having had a country club-status, but...I only found myself considerate for the fact she rescued me from the man Vannah made me. That man was one that began to harbor dark thoughts, even ones considering to break Vannah out of the mental institution to be with her  but I saw it now, I understood the damage that had been done to me and the extent of its reach. Although I had not spoken a genuine I-love-you to Trina, she stood by my side through my own trials and triumphs as we were set to be joined in matrimony in just one year. Although the thought of being bound beneath the heavy expectations of her family was suffocating, I was prepared to take on a wife, especially someone as kind as Trina.

Although she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she couldn't have been any more kind. She worked for multiple charities, spent any free time she had doing things for others, and even paid hundred dollar bills to the homeless that lined these streets. She was exactly the woman I needed, but not the one I wanted.

Following the engagement shoot, the events of the wedding beforehand such as rehearsals and last minute details had me running like a chicken with its head cut off. I didn't have the slightest idea to what had been expected of me, but I stood with a smile and that seemed to get me quite far. As I sat around the dinner table of her family, I got s glimpse of what I never knew. My holidays always consisted of arguments of who drank the last beer or someone having called the cops from the dysfunction that was my childhood. Although my memories weren't found, the joyous union of her family seemed to ease those thoughts. Even as the snow fell outside the nearby window, encasing us in the perfect snowglobe of a scene, I had still felt as though something had been missing.

My fingers danced nervously on my knee as I thought of Vannah, sitting in the waiting room of the psychiatric facility. She deserved to hear the news from me, but before I had the gall to go through with it, I escaped the potential confrontation before returning to my fiance.

This would continue until the week of my wedding when I would find a new level of comfort in my circumstances. Everything had been down to a tee, dress fittings had been completed, cakes had been tasted, and all the vendors had been paid, met with, and scheduled. To celebrate this, we made our way to the country club for dinner, enjoying the banker lamp lighting on each table and the amazing cuisine set before us. We spoke of our honeymoon plans and the excitement for the future and for the first time, I believed in the words I had spoken.

With a genuine smile on my face, I moved to the direction of the bathroom before pausing when seeing a woman stand outside the club. Although I never knew Vannah to smoke, the woman was a dead ringer for her. If not for the slight marks of crows feet, I would have ran to her and just stared. However, the woman who looked like her turned and gave me an odd look before I had made my way into the bathroom and managed to linger at the sink. I stood at my reflection, unaware of the figure staring back, before my gaze fell to the water against my skin. I could still feel her touch beneath my fingers and the sound of her heartbeat against my ear, but I had to replace my memories of Vannah with potential moments with Trina. Otherwise I would be on God's good humor.

However, as I set myself to leave, a grunt could be heard from the back of the bathroom. It was not the kind of noise as if someone struggled going to the restroom, but the sound of someone in medical distress. As I called out, I could hear a floppy sound before moving to the back of the restrooms to find a pool of blood beside a man. He looked anxiously at me, desperate for help, and although I managed to have EMTs arrive rather quickly, it had been done too late to save his life. The details of his murder had been kept from the public, bit I knew something nobody else had. As I exited the restroom to give the police my statement, I saw her. She had changed, seemingly into a different woman, but held a mischevious look upon her face. One that seemed to taunt me as I was pulled away to speak of officials. I wanted to believe her time in the institute had saved her from committing further atrocities, but it seemed as though this was no longer the case. She was there, and although I saw her in every woman with a voluptuous figure and raven colored hair, I knee it was her. When you truly love someone, you can tell it is them-no matter the changes they go through. But I'm not sure what scared me more, the fact she was present, or the fact she was present when I had found a body...