God, I hated her, and hated being her happy-go-lucky roommate.
Which made killing her that much easier.
“What are you reading?” Penny peered at me from across the room. She was lying her in bed with her feet up on the wall. I hated how she never wore socks. She had such gross feet.
“It’s a novel called The Devil in the White City. Ever heard of it?”
She shook her head. “Another one of your murder books?”
I sat up straight and glared at her. “It’s not just some murder book. It’s about one of the best killers of all time. Dr. H. H. Holmes confessed to at least twenty-seven killings, and it’s suspected he killed upwards of two hundred people.”
Penny sighed and rolled her eyes. “You’re obsessed.”
She had a point. I shrugged and went back to reading. “What about you? Studying again?”
“We’re not all freakish geniuses. Seriously, Alice, what are you doing at Blackwoods? Couldn’t you have gone anywhere?”
Absolutely, I wanted to say, but couldn’t. I only smiled sweetly and shook my head. “I only got in here and they gave me a sweet scholarship, so here I am.”
“Always the mystery. When are you going to tell me about your family and all that stuff? Whenever I ask, you always pretend like they were murdered in some gruesome way.”
“One of these days, I’ll take you to their burial plots. The headstones are in the shape of an axe, since each of them was dismembered out in the woods by our crazy neighbor.”
“And yet you survived to tell the tale.”
“I wasn’t home at the time.”
“Right, of course.”
We laughed together and Penny went back to studying, and I went back to pretending to read.
But really, I was watching her.
My Penny. My first victim.
I wasn’t a serial killer or whatever. Probably a psychopath, though Maeve said it wasn’t such a bad thing, really. It just meant I didn’t feel things the way normal people did.
It meant I wasn’t totally boring.
Maeve said Penny was important. I couldn’t see why. She was just another normal girl caring about normal stupid things. She was a sheep, bleating away, stumbling around, blind and lost and dumb.
I was a wolf. That’s what Maeve said, anyway.
Penny’s phone rang. She glanced down at the screen and made a face.
“Is it him again?” I asked, trying not to sound too eager.
She glanced over and shrugged. “I don’t know. Number’s blocked.”
“Definitely him. You should answer.”
“I’m not in the mood.”
“Come on. Kaspar Baskin is obsessed with you and you don’t seem to care at all.” I pursed my lips and looked at the ceiling. “What I’d give to ride that boy’s big, thick—”
“Okay, okay, enough, I don’t need the details.”
“Cock. Big thick cock. Seriously Penny, you’re such a prude.”
She rolled her eyes. Her phone began to buzz again. She silenced it and turned it off.
That was the tenth time he’d called that night.
I rolled over to the side, smiling to myself. Kaspar was a strange wrinkle in my plan, but an interesting one.
Blackwoods was an elite secondary school for the rich and powerful. I only got in because of my patron, and she only pulled the strings because I had a mission.
Kill Penny Servant and make it as bloody as possible.
Something tapped at the window.
Penny let out a strangled gasp. I sat up, surprised but curious. I stood and went to look.
“Don’t,” Penny hissed. “It’s like eleven at night.”
“Could be a killer trying to break in.”
“Isn’t that exactly why you shouldn’t look?”
I laughed and pulled back the blinds. There was no killer staring in, salivating at the chance to slice our throats.
Unfortunately.
I looked down at the grass below and grinned. “You’d better come take a look.”
Penny groaned, but stood. She wore light blue sweatpants and a tight black top. She looked like a little girl’s idea of what an elder teen would wear to a slumber party.
She stared outside and sucked in a breath.
Kaspar looked back at her, head tilted to the side.
“That boy likes you,” I crooned, poking her in the side.
She wriggled away. “Stop it. This is so, so weird, right? I’ve been ignoring him for days.”
“He’s persistent. You’ve got to give him that.”
“Persistent and creepy,” she muttered, and moved away from the window.
Another rock hit the glass.
I yanked it open and waved. “Come upstairs. She’s waiting for you.”
“Alice! You asshole!” Penny yanked me away and I laughed at her.
She replaced me at the window and frantically waved at Kaspar. “Sorry, she’s kidding, it’s just too late. I’m studying, okay?”
“Come down and talk to me.”
“Another night.”
“Stop ignoring my calls. I want to see you.”
“Maybe another time, okay?”
She slammed the window shut and put the curtains back in place.
I retreated to my bed, grinning like a fool. Penny was a pathetic little thing, but teasing her could be fun sometimes.
“I can’t understand why you don’t call him up here and let him do all the very filthy things he wants to do to you.”