Take Me Out

2 - I Won't Hurt You

warnings: description of animal murder, blackmail

***

"So Henry, What was your first kill?" You ask at breakfast one day.

You've already gotten acquainted with all of the men's styles of killing.

How Jake prefers to stay close to home, never leaving Idaho because there are a plethora of shitty people here to kill, why bother moving out of state? How he would choke people to death in those fancy leather gloves, leaving them where he killed them for anyone to find them. He went after anyone and everyone, he has no type, no person he preferred to kill over another.

How Henry would travel from California to Virginia to find the specific type of person he wants to kill. You know that the only person he is really ever able to kill was mothers. Abusive mothers, those who were never caught because society was taught women couldn't hurt their children. Henry still walks funny from the time his own mother threw him down the stairs when he was a toddler and broke his leg and hip. You know that there is a twisted reason he sets these women on fire, but he isn't an arsonist, he got off on watching them burn to death.

How Dustin would always get out of breath when he killed people in drug houses from Detroit to Boston. He carries an inhaler everywhere he goes, using it when the exertion from cutting up bodies and disposing of them in the sea or nearby bodies of water gets too much. His lungs are fucked from the meth lab in his parents basement. What is the reason he kills these people, why he cut up their bodies and tosses them out to sea? You'd prefer to just not know.

So now you are curious as to what their first kill was. Every serial killer has one. Sometimes it tells you more about the type of killer they'd be, depending on if they were younger or older, if they killed an animal first, or if they went straight for setting fires or killing humans.

"Hmm? Oh, my mom's cat. Little bitch bit me, and my mom got mad at me, me, of all people. Said I provoked the fucking thing. She gave me a black eye and broke two of my ribs that day. But I showed her, that night I struck a match and was this close to lighting her bedspread on fire. I should have, it was a horribly ugly pink monstrosity. Should've burnt the whole house down, mom, the cat, every horrible memory," Henry slams his fist down on the table as he remembers that night.

"You don't have to-," you start, afraid you've poked a bear.

"Instead, I took the cat by the scrap of the neck, dragged it out to the woods, and set it on fire. Watched it run around, trying to stop the fire from spreading through its limbs. It didn't work. Watching that cat burn alive was the first time I ever felt at peace."

"Fuck, alright," you nod, taking another sip of your coffee. Your legs are slung over Jake's lap and he runs his fingers up and down the bare skin as you direct your attention to Dustin.

"Is this going to be a thing?" He grumbles into his burnt toast.

"What? I'm curious, I guess you could say curiosity killed the cat," you joke and Jake lets out a rumbling laugh that shakes both of you and you almost spill your coffee.

"Feels like you're trying to make us have family breakfasts or something whenever we're all around," Dustin shrugs.

"I mean, we are like the Scooby gang of vigilantes."

"I really do prefer that term over fucked up group of serial killers, I appreciate that honey," Jake smiles and you nod, waiting patiently for Dustin's story.

"A dog. I found it, sad and crying on my way home from school one day. It didn't have a collar, it didn't have a home. I got so excited about the idea of bringing him home. I was only 8 or 9, but my dad blew up at me. Locked me and the dog out of the house and told me to not come back until I learned my lesson that I could never bring a dog back home without consequences. I took it to this wheat field behind my house and chopped it up with this ax I found."