“Like you? You stupid bitch.” He charged toward me, his shoulders curled in rage, to hover in my face. “I don’t like you, but you aremine.” He fisted my blouse in his hands, popping off the top two buttons and exposing my cleavage. ”MINE!” His spit hit my face as he screamed and his eyes roved hungrily over me. I thought back to the date we went on and how he sprayed me with spit then too. How many of this man’s fluids would I be forced to endure?
“We only went on one date,” I pleaded.
He turned bright red with his anger. “It wasn’t supposed to ever go that far. I didn’t need a date to know what’s mine. Notonlydid you ruin my plans, but you alsohumiliatedme. You posted an ad on the internet asking strangers to fuck you, but my dick wasn’t good enough? You’re a fucking whore, Claire. Tell me how that makes any sense!”
“How did you find out about the ad?”
“I told you, you’re stupid. You leave your computer logged on. I did nothing other than look. I know everything. All those filthy emails you sent, how wet it made you when all those horny fucks begged for your cunt. You’redisgusting. You put them all in a book like being a hole to fill was a point ofpridefor you.”
“Then please, just leave me alone. You’re right, Tyler. I am a disgusting whore. Why bother with someone like me?”
“It doesn’t matter what you do, Claire. You were marked the first time I saw you. The thing inside me, it likes you, it wants to see you in pieces. You think you can deny me,us? You’re fucking delusional. I’m going to fuck every one of your holes, drill another one in your skull, maybe your guts too. I’m going to fuck them both too, and leave you here for your precious Mason to find.”
Sweat beaded up on my spine, pure terror raced through me. I was not getting out of this, but I wasn’t ready to roll over and let him fuck my corpse. “You’re going to get caught. Am I worth your freedom?”
“You’re not the first useless whore I killed. You’re not even the tenth.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the word on the wall. “She was, and she loved every single thing I did to her.” A satisfied look crossed his face as he relived the memories, but it darkened again as he regained his focus on me.
“You’re not special, you are a piece of shit. No one will search for you. I told you, I have money, enough that any of my littleside projectsare easily swept away. I would have killed you that first night. Fucked you once, cut you up, and fucked the pieces, but you had to make thingsinteresting. I had to take my time hunting you, and now, everything is going to be so much worse for you.”
“But you took me home. You could have killed me when you took me home.” I pleaded, begging for what he was saying not to be true.
“I do blood and guts. I don’t dovomit.” He sneered at me. “You weren’t going anywhere. I had more than enough time to circle back to you.”
“That can’t be true! You lied to everyone. You told them all I slept with you! Why would you do that if you wanted to kill me?”
He seemed impressed by the question, but that didn’t hamper the enjoyment he got from my denial. “That’s not all I told them. You followed me, Claire, and stole things from my office. You were completely obsessed with me and I couldn’t care less about you. I never killed a coworker before. I figured if they found your body and the cops came asking, it would be in my best interest to have twenty people who would tell them exactly that.” His idea was sick, but he was right. Every last one of them would have defended him. “I would have disappeared if I needed to, but the situationnever would have come to that.”
“Who have you killed?”
“Students mostly, I traveled awfully far at times, but each time has been worth the trouble. But you, you just dropped onto my lap, exactly my type and too irresistible to pass up.”
Time was the only chance I had of getting away, and he was enjoying his grandstanding. Tyler loved talking about himself, and I wanted answers. “Why not kill me some other time then? You followed me, broke into my apartment, you wrecked the place-”
“Your work too,” he interrupted, “even watched you fuck yourself in your office and take pictures.” The evil satisfaction on his face intensified as added fear and realization flitted across my own: he was the shadowunder the skylight.
“Then, why wait?”
His brown eyes crinkled around the edges. “I already told you. This has been the most satisfying hunt I’ve ever been on. I’ve never played with my dinner this long, and let me tell you, it’s been scrumptious. I blew more loads to your nervous glances than a teenage boy discovering porn.”
“You don’t have to do this, Tyler. Please, please don’t do this. My family-”
“Are you going to tell me your family will miss you? They won’t. You don’t have anyone but your mother, and she doesn’t even answer your phone calls. We’re both only children, remember? No one will notice you’re gone but Mason, and don’t worry, Claire, he fucks around so much he won’t miss your cunt before he’s stuffed into the next one.”
A wretched sob escaped my throat, and he smiled in response. “Did you think he loved you, Claire? I knew you were stupid and pathetic but look at you smashing your own glass ceiling. Don’t fret, I’m going to take it all away.” He shoved the gun in his pocket as he opened the button and zipper on his pants to pull out his penis. I whimpered in terror as I realized how hard he was, and how thoroughly he enjoyed each moment of this.
He grabbed the foul appendage roughly in his fist and started pumping himself with a sickening, fleshy sound. He dragged the gun back out, aimingat me. “Spread your legs. I’m going to obliterate every one of your holes, starting with your ass.”
“You mean you’re going to rape me!” I spat at him, unsure what weapon he meant to destroy me with first.
“To-may-to, to-mah-to.” He shrugged, the heat in his eyes blurred by the tears streaming from my good eye.
He took another step toward me and I sealed my eyelidshut as tightly as the one he’d beaten, silently preparing myself to endure the torture he would inflict before he not-so-mercifully ended my life. I didn’t believe in an afterlife, and for the first time, I didn’t envy people who had faith. I would rather be nothing than remember what was about to happen.
The door burst open, straight off the hinges, and my one good eye flew wide open. Was I wrong? Was there a heaven? I must be dead already for what I saw to be true. Mason stood furious, like an avenging angel with a gun in his hand trained on Tyler. His angry expression changed to one of confusion for the briefest moment as he realized who was standing there. He was wrong, and if I weren’t so terrified and so grateful for his arrival I would have said, ‘I told you so’.
“Put the gun down, Sharp. I’ll happily blow a hole or two in her.” Tyler’s gun trained on me, and that was the only reason Mason left him breathing. He was so close to me, only a few feet between us, with his miserable penis in his hand. Mason glanced between the two of us, assessing the situation. He placed the gun on the floor, and I shook my head at him. He needed to stay armed. So what if I died? I wasn’t taking Mason with me.
“What’s this about, Charles? Still mad I took your girlfriend and her virginity?”Charles, what the fuck?