Killer Instinct, page 2
They are, leaning up against her car out front, making out. I watch, a little disgusted at their sloppy display, waiting for them to make the next move.
He pulls away from their groping and climbs into her car to drive. Twenty minutes later they arrive at a Cape Cod. They go inside and I know, based on what I heard in the courtroom, how it goes from here. She wants it, the Weasel refuses (as he did with all the other women), choosing instead talking. The talking I’m sure convinces the women he’s harmless.
An hour later he finally emerges. He walks the perimeter of her house before heading from the neighborhood, getting into a cab, and pulling away. Miss Big Boobs will be his next victim—this I’m sure. I hope I’ll be there to take him down.
Chapter Four
I SPEND THE NEXT UNEVENTFUL couple of days going to school, doing my normal routine, and eagerly thinking about the Weasel. Each night I spy on him as he does his naked routine in his third-floor condo, and I fantasize about how I’m going to make him suffer.
On the third night I park in my usual spot, get out my binoculars, and see him naked, standing in his bathroom, meticulously shaving his face, arms, chest, legs, and pubes.
No evidence.
Tonight will be the night. My whole body vibrates in expectation.
While he continues his ritual, I start my own with the supplies I bought from the surplus store and the one I stole. . . .
I stuff my springy red hair into a full-face ski mask, slip my leather gloves on, and tuck my long-sleeve dark tee into my black cargo pants.
No evidence.
Into those cargo pockets I put a Taser, the stolen tranquilizer gun, zip ties, and my lock pick. This is my first time and my personal kit will likely change as I fine-tune my methods. I recognize this and am looking forward to that evolution.
The Weasel drives from the underground garage in his perfectly normal Corolla and pulls right past me.
I don’t immediately follow. I know where he’s headed—the Cape Cod and Miss Big Boobs.
About twenty minutes later I pull onto her street and right past the Weasel’s Corolla. He’s already gone inside.
I park in the darkness under a tree and cut my engine. I lower the face portion of my mask and take a second to calm my anticipatory nerves. This is it. The night I become me. The start of everything. In my mind it goes two ways: Either I kill him. Or I don’t kill him.
If I kill him, he deserves it for how he raped all those women. If I don’t kill him, I’ll make him suffer, and I’ll enjoy every minute of it. It’ll curb the urges I have lived with for years and have only mildly satiated. Tonight is the night I completely fulfill that dark, missing side of me that has persistently been clawing at my insides. I want to do this. I have to do this.
When I feel ready, I climb from the Jeep and stay to the shadows as I approach the house. At eleven in the evening no one’s out in the sleepy, family neighborhood.
I skirt along the side yard and make my way to the back door.
Years ago Victor taught me how to pick a lock. It was all for fun, of course. He had no clue I’d really be using the skill.
He also taught me how to shoot.
I crouch at the back-porch door, fumble with the pick, and accidentally drop it through the wooden slats beneath my feet. Dammit.
I step down and scramble through dirt and leaves, looking for my pick. I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I dropped the pick. I push aside more leaves. Where is it? There! Its silver glints a teeny bit in the moonlight, and I reach for it, noting my hands are shaking. No, no shaking hands. Be calm.
I pick it up and fist it tight to not only force my hands to stop trembling but also to ensure I don’t drop it again. Next time I’ll pack two.
I crawl back up onto the porch and concentrate on a steady hand as I try again. The lock makes a silent click, and beneath my mask I smile.
I step over the threshold, silently close the door, and immediately hear classical piano. I give myself a second to orient and slowly head toward the music. Halfway down the hall, I stop, close my eyes, and blow out a very—long—calming—breath.
My eyes snap open, and I focus on candlelight flickering from a room just ahead. A vanilla scent wafts through my senses. As I draw closer, I hear whimpering and the sound of clanking metal. The two combined mute the throb in my ears and have me stepping through the doorway.
The Weasel stands in a shirt and boxers, with a face mask of his own and his pecker hanging out. The woman lies naked and handcuffed to the bed, gauze shoved in her mouth.
She sees me and immediately starts thrashing.
The Weasel turns, and through the face mask he wears I see his eyes widen.
This is it echoes across my mind, but I don’t move. The Weasel seems confused for a second, then quickly snaps back to reality and makes an awkward lunge for me. I clumsily dodge away. Face your attacker. My sensei’s words float through my brain. I’m doing everything wrong. I’m in the opposite direction!
I redirect and go toward him, blunder with the snap on my cargo pocket, and yank out my Taser. He tackles me to the floor. Umph! All the air leaves my lungs, and somewhere in the back of my mind I think, I should’ve had the Taser out and ready.
We roll a few times across the floor, our panting breaths filling the air. He lands on top of me and reaches for the Taser at the exact second I remember my death grip on it. I raise it up, point it toward his back, and hope to God it doesn’t hit me, too. I squeeze the trigger, barbs fly out, and his whole body arches away from me.
That was close. Too close.
With a grunt, I shove him off me and scramble to my feet. My heart kicks into overdrive as I watch his full body spasm and listen to his shrieks. Slim justice.
I take in the barbs suctioned to his butt and lower back and experience a moment of both gladness that I hit him and disappointment that it wasn’t his pecker I pinged. I’ll have to practice my aim.
Before the .3 joules runs its course, I turn his short pudgy body over onto his stomach, and like I’ve seen cops do on TV, I use zip ties to secure his wrists, thighs, and ankles. I pull extra tight. Probably too tight, but I don’t care. So what if his extremities experience blood loss.
I pick up the Taser and give him another jolt just to see him spasm, just to hear him yell, and to surge the blood through my veins again. His limp pecker catches my eye, and pure adrenaline spikes every nerve in my body as a new thought springs to life.
On the bedside table lies a butcher knife he would have used to intimidate and torture his latest victim. I walk over to it, pick it up, and its large blade catches the light of the flickering candles. Holding it in front of me, I slowly stalk back across the bedroom to his hog-tied form.
He sees me coming, and his body begins violently shaking with the fear he more than deserves to feel. I wave the blade in front of his face, and he whimpers like the pathetic rapist that he is. The snivels roll through my body, fueling it with a desire for righteousness.
“P-p-please don’t,” he begs.
Please don’t what? Do to you what you’ve done to so many others? Make you pay for your disgusting self? Assure no one else will ever suffer by you again?
He responds to my silence with a high-pitched wail that heats my core to near boiling. With one last wave of the blade, I run it up his bare shaved thigh and draw a stream of blood. He screams even louder, before falling completely silent as realization dawns that I left his precious pecker alone. But as soon as that sinks in, he starts screaming again.
I yank his mask off and cram it in his mouth, and he goes blessedly mute.
The woman’s thrashing body has my attention swerving over to the bed. I disengage the Taser cartridge and go to her. Crying and whimpering, she stares wide-eyed at me.
I cover her naked body with a blanket and pull the gauze from her mouth.
“Please,” she croaks. “Please help me.”
I look around the room. I had thought about this part really well—how to help her and stay anonymous at the same time. I take the phone off the bedside table and lay it right beside her head.
“Please”—she jerks at her restraints—“are you sure he’s secure?”
I nod as I dial 911. The sound of the operator answering shoots realization through me. I have to get out of here. I bolt from the scene, through her house, across her yard, and back to my Jeep.
She’ll be okay. Help will come soon.
I climb into my Wrangler, take my ski mask off, and shove it in my glove compartment. The Weasel’s blood catches my eye. Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
It’s on my glove compartment, my clothes, my door handle, and anything I touched with my gloved hands. I messed up. Big time. I’m such an imbecile. I’ll have to be more careful, more alert, more organized next time. No fumbling, no awkward dodging, no leftover blood. I need to have it all figured out. It has to be cleaner. Premeditated.
Okay, think. It’s eleven forty-five, and I have to be home in fifteen minutes. I have a change of clothes, and I have a first aid kit with alcohol wipes. I’ll shove my blood-streaked clothes in a plastic bag and immediately wash them when I get home. I’ll wipe my Jeep down with alcohol and then wash it tomorrow and detail the inside. No one will know anything.
Quickly I change, and as I’m slipping out of my cargo pants, my fingers brush the tranquilizer gun still in my pocket, loaded with enough stolen sedative to destroy a man three times the Weasel’s size.
I didn’t kill him after all. . . .
Chapter Five
TWO MORNINGS LATER I’M IN the kitchen, and the Weasel is all over the news. Just the thought of tasering him and helping that woman fills me with a craving to do it all over again.
Yes, he’s all over the news, as is the Masked Savior.
Masked Savior? You’ve got to be kidding me.
“Ugh, that’s awful,” my sister groans. “That man raping those women. God, Lane, why are you watching that? Turn the channel.”
I give my sister a look. What’s the big deal? It’s just the news.
Daisy rolls her eyes. “Don’t you feel anything?”
I grab the remote and turn the channel. I’m not as unfeeling as people think. I show sympathy where it’s warranted. I show hatred to those who deserve it. I just don’t have emotions over the usual things, and to me that has its advantages. Why am I the only one who appreciates this?
“And while we’re on the subject of emotions, would it kill you to laugh? In fact, I don’t think I have ever heard you laugh.”
I suppose I should try laughing sometime . . .
“And talking. Sometimes you’re so quiet it’s creepy.”
. . . and talking, too. Both are very normal things. And with so many abnormal thoughts, I suppose it would behoove me to try “normal” more often. But what does that mean exactly—like Daisy and half the other teens at my school? No, “normal” is subjective, not objective. After all, I’m normal in my private world.
“What’s creepy?” Victor says, swinging into the kitchen.
“Lane is. I told her she needs to laugh and talk more.”
He pinches my cheek. “Don’t listen to Daisy. You’re fine just the way you are.”
“Thanks.”
Daisy gives a dramatic sigh. “Whatever.”
“Whatever,” he mimics, and Daisy giggles.
I used to make her giggle like that by arranging licorice into a hangman’s noose. Sometimes I wonder if she remembers that.
Mom comes in behind me and grabs her mug of dark roast. “Did you all hear about the Masked Savior?” She laughs. “Nothing like a good vigilante.”
Victor delivers a one-armed hug to me and a smooch to Mom, then rounds the island to Daisy. She willingly accepts his good-bye kiss.
Although Mom’s never said so, I know it bothers her.
Mom pulls bacon from the fridge, as she does every weekend, and starts frying it up. Its deliciousness immediately fills the air. Mom has this way of cooking bacon, slow and on low heat. It takes forever but is so worth it.
As if on cue Justin shuffles downstairs. He pours himself a glass of chocolate milk and curls up on the couch to watch cartoons. “Did Dad already go golfing?”
“Just left.” Mom turns to me. “You working today?”
I nod. “I’ll head out after breakfast.” I work nearly every Saturday as a vet tech.
Daisy’s phone chimes with a text. She quickly checks it. “Mom, can I go to Samantha’s later? She’s having a few friends over to swim before her parents close the pool.”
“Gosh, I’m surprised they still have it open.” Mom glances at me. “Can you drop her on the way to work?”
This is the exact reason why I can’t wait for Daisy to get her driver’s license. “Sure.”
Breakfast comes and goes, and I drop Daisy at Samantha’s. Few friends? The place is packed with cars, and it’s barely eleven in the morning.
“Don’t tell Mom,” Daisy says as she hops out.
I won’t. I never do. Daisy’s choices will catch up with her sooner or later.
Another few miles down the road and I pull into Patch and Paw Animal Hospital. I head straight for the boarders and Corn Chip, a beagle-schnauzer mix. He’s here nearly every weekend. His mom travels a lot. Why have a pet if you’re never around to love him, you know? I’ve always wanted a dog at home, but Mom doesn’t like pets in the house. When I get my first place, I’m definitely getting a dog.
Corn Chip catches one look at me and does the whole-body-wiggle thing.
I love the little guy. He humanizes me. He is what makes me different from the profiles I obsess over. I have no urge to inflict pain on him or any other animal. Why would I? They’re innocent. They only want love and a good rub. I do, however, have urges to inflict pain on those people who hurt animals. Big time.
I open the cage and let him out, along with a few others I know get along. As if I’m the pack leader, they follow me out the side door into the fenced yard.
I grab a few balls and give them a toss, and all four dogs take off, yipping and scrambling for the prized possession.
“Thought I’d find you out here.”
Behind me stands Dr. Issa. At twenty-five he’s the youngest veterinarian on staff. I’ve known him the two years I’ve worked here and met him back when he served as an intern.
Whereas my brother’s smile tugs at my heart, Dr. Issa’s shy, intelligent one massages the entire cardiac muscle. Tall, dark hair, brown eyes. Almost all the girls here have a crush on him that he never seems to notice.
Corn Chip runs over to him, and Dr. Issa gives him a total-body rub. “Doing surgery later. Want to assist?”
“Definitely.” Dr. Issa always lets me assist in surgeries. I love watching the whole process. It’s fascinating.
He smiles. “We’ll scrub in at one.”
“Okay.”
“How’d your first few days at McLean High go?”
“Good.”
Dr. Issa gives the ball a toss and all the dogs take off. “My brother’s going there now. Maybe if you think of it, you can give him a hello?”
Welcoming new students is not really my thing, but this is Dr. Issa. “Is he a freshman?”
“No, junior. He used to go to a school in DC.”
“Name?”
“Daniel Issa. I gave him your name too.” He pauses. “I hope that’s okay?”
This is so much more up Daisy’s alley than mine, but again, this is Dr. Issa, so I give a little. “Sure. It’s okay.”
Later, during lunch, when I know everyone’s either out of the building or in the break room, I grab the unused stolen tranquilizer from my Wrangler and head to the storage closet. I slip it back onto the shelf in line with the other vials.
The door opens and Dr. Issa steps in. “Oh, hi, didn’t know you were in here.” He glances to the tranquilizer section. “What are you doing?”
Putting stolen sedative back. Why do you ask? I grab the Acepromazine that I just put up, turn to him, and give a standard lie. “Doing a research project for school.”
Dr. Issa takes it from my hand and puts it back on the shelf. “Careful. You really shouldn’t be handling that without gloves.”
I ignore how close he suddenly is to me and focus on the conversation. “Good for horses. Phenothiazine derivative. Causes profound lethargy followed by immobility. Potential for cardiac effects. If given intravenously will take effect within fifteen minutes.”
Dr. Issa’s dark brows lift. “I don’t know why I’m constantly surprised by your intellect.”
It doesn’t take a genius to research on the Internet. And it doesn’t take a genius to know I can’t use Acepromazine now. After this conversation, the sedative is officially connected to me.
“So what questions do you have, then?” he prompts.
I want to ask him what he knows about etorphine but don’t want that traced to me too. “None, I guess.”
I’ll wander back in here later and see if there’s any on the shelves. However, since it’s an elephant tranquilizer, I highly doubt there will be.
That’ll be a black-market purchase.
Of course I have no clue how one goes about accessing the black market. I’m sure Reggie would know. Or could find out. The problem with that, though, entails letting Reggie into more of my life than I think either one of us is ready for. Reggie loves me like sisters should love each other, but sometimes I wonder if I reveal my true thoughts, I’ll draw a line neither one of us is ready to cross.
Plus . . . I’m not entirely sure I want to kill my next victim. I’m glad I didn’t kill the Weasel now. I’m glad I only made him suffer. Killing is so definitive. Years in jail leads to a more long-term type of justice.
