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W ith a stroke of luck, the girl still had all her possessions on her, including her ID. She also appeared to not be seriously injured, and with a bit more snooping, I realized she currently lived at one of the nearby sorority houses. After putting my mask and hood back on to conceal my grisly appearance and rummaging around in the bedroom to find a clean—and way too big—set of clothes to change into, I sheathed my knife, bundled up my slasher clothes, hauled the girl to her feet, and left the murder scene—and by extension, the party—behind, exiting the house through its less-populated back entrance so that I remain undetected.

The sorority house only took ten minutes to reach, two minutes to find a way inside via an unlocked front door, and another minute to gently place the girl on the couch in the living room. Then, two more minutes to make my escape from that house, and another twenty to find my way home, where I wasted no time chucking my blood-soaked clothes in the wash while I hopped in the shower.

The water burned as it cascaded over my skin, the droplets running pink as they mixed with the blood. I watched in fascination as streams and streams of blood ran down my torso and legs, pooling around the drain. It was always fascinating how much blood the human body carried, and until now, I didn’t realize how much had truly sprayed me. I picked up my bar of soap and started fiercely scrubbing my skin raw, until there was no trace of the blood left.

And when I was sure I was done, when I felt clean enough and when the water ran clear once again, I turned it off and stepped out of the shower, quickly drying myself off before wrapping myself up in a white bath robe.

Only the most peak comfort after a fresh kill.

When I exited the bathroom, I heard the TV in the living room. My cousin must’ve been home, as he was the only other person who lived in this apartment with me. Though both of us attended the college, we had opted to get a place together off-campus rather than deal with roommates, since we knew each other. Plus, we needed each other more than we would ever admit, since we were the only family we had left.

As I approached, Barron was indeed on the couch. He hadn’t been home when I arrived, so he must’ve returned when I had been in the shower. My eyes then strayed to what was on the TV. It was a news broadcast, though not just any news broadcast. On the screen, the newscaster was detailing the latest kill from our city’s sadistic serial-killer-slash-rapist. The latest victim was a homeless woman, her body mangled the same as all others before her.

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into the palms of my hands. If there was one person I wouldn’t mind dismembering, it was him . The Hooded Killer. In fact, I had been on the hunt for him tonight when I stumbled upon that frat party and changed course. It seemed every single time I tried to find him, he always seemed to elude me. It was frustrating.

Barron turned around just then as if he sensed me, and a smile split his lips. “Hey!” he greeted. “I didn’t know you were home!”

“There’s another one?” I clipped, not even acknowledging his greeting. Barron didn’t understand why I was so torn up over the Hooded Killer, nor did I expect him to understand, since he wasn’t the killer’s target demographic.

Yet despite this, he still tried his best to be sympathetic whenever I brought it up. He frowned. “Yes, there was.”

I deflated. “Fuck…”

“Selina…” Barron scooted over on the couch and patted the seat next to him. “Come here.”

I obliged, sitting in a way so that our knees almost touched. This was all too much. Too many innocent women were losing their lives in the most horrific ways imaginable, and I was still no closer to putting an end to it.

“Everything is going to be okay. You’re safe. You will be okay,” my cousin said softly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?”

Slowly, I nodded. “Okay.” But there was no way he could understand I wasn’t worried about myself.

I was worried about the other women.

The next night, I was on the prowl again, searching for the hooded man who thought it was okay to murder women in horrific ways. This time, I brought a blowtorch because nothing says fuckable quite like a melting cock. A smile broke out across my lips at the image, and I was surprised to find I was even excited at the prospect. I was practically salivating at the mere idea of barbequing a man’s dick as if it were a hot dog, perhaps with a side of fried asshole.

After all, the Hooded Killer deserved nothing less.

I began my patrol on the less-busy side of town. I figured that would be the prime spot the Hooded Killer would strike, since there were fewer people and therefore fewer witnesses. Plus, the killer always seemed to go after women whom society had forgotten about, and these women tended to congregate more frequently in this part of town than anywhere else.

A fresh set of my signature slasher outfit adorned my body, the crunch of the empty cans and plastic underneath my boots one of the only indicators I was somewhere I probably shouldn’t be. Bars decorated the windows, and the distant sound of shouting and glass breaking accosted my ears. It was definitely somewhere a woman shouldn’t be out alone at night.

Good thing I wasn’t a typical woman.

For the first couple of hours, nothing happened. Aside from a few stragglers, there wasn’t anyone else on the streets, and there especially were no hooded figures.

Then in the middle of the third hour, I saw him out of the corner of my eye. The cloaked man from the news darted into a nearby alleyway to my left. Shoulders tensing, I pivoted and disappeared into the shadows that lined the same alleyway where my prey had found sanctuary. For a brief moment, I lost sight of him, and a sense of dread flooded my veins. Fuck! Where the hell did he go?

Then ahead, he reappeared under a broken streetlamp, and I made sure to keep a great distance behind so he wouldn’t know he was being followed. He moved slowly, every step deliberate as he dipped in and out of the shadows. It was how I was following too, his own personal shadow. I preemptively tightened my grip on my blowtorch.

For a moment, it was just me and him. As he went from alleyway to alleyway, searching for his prey, I mirrored his movements as I continued to hunt him . I tried to match each of his footsteps as I crept closer and closer, raising the blowtorch so it was aimed at the back of his skull.

So close. I was so damn close to all this being over, to there being no more victims, to the streets of my city being safer once again. My heart practically leaped in my throat, and my arms shook as I further closed the gap, and then?—

A shrill scream split the otherwise-quiet night, the distinct scream of a woman in distress. Instantly, I froze in my tracks, goosebumps peppering my flesh. Because that scream was close, too close for comfort. Whoever was causing the woman to scream was not The Hooded Killer in front of me, which meant there was someone else. Another man who deserved to have his balls flayed alive.

I blinked. The Hooded Killer didn’t even seem to react to the woman’s screams, which caused my stomach to churn. Of course he wouldn’t. A woman in distress means nothing to him. It probably excites him even, the sick fuck.

I was torn. On one hand, I could continue to go after the hooded figure and end his tirade of torture and misery, but on the other, there was very obviously a woman being harmed that needed help right now.

I know what I have to do.

I swung my blowtorch at the Hooded Killer’s head, hoping to knock him out so I could come back for him once I was done taking care of the other threat. Yet, the dude was fast as he quickened his pace, and my weapon sliced through empty air. Fuck! The gap between us was widening, but I didn’t have time to chase after him. With one last scathing look in his direction, I tore out of the alleyway and towards where the scream had come from, leaving behind the Hooded Killer, uncaring if he heard me or not. I would be back on his trail some other night, and then, I would be able to subject him to the fate he deserved. My only thought now was reaching the woman before significant harm came to her. The scream hadn’t sounded particularly far away, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I reached her, but when I finally did, nothing but pure rage coursed through my veins.

The woman was unconscious, her head sporting a nasty gash, and towering over her with what appeared to be her purse clutched in his grubby little hands was a tall man. His back was to me, the only features I could identify in the dim light the pale skin of his hands and a mop of curly, brown hair. A mugging, I quickly realized, but even with that, the man did not seem to be in much of a hurry to leave.

Fine by me.

I stepped out of the shadows, scraping my feet against the pavement. The man stiffened at the sound, and a sense of giddiness washed over me at what I was about to do. It was clear he hadn’t expected anyone else to be there, and as he whirled around, his facial expression dropped, confusion soon giving way to annoyance and then anger. It was always anger with these men, at least until they realized what I was capable of.

And then, because I couldn’t help it, I cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West, which caused his confusion to return. “Aw, you men are so priceless!” I gushed, brandishing my blowtorch so he could clearly see what I was carrying.

The man’s gaze temporarily dropped to my weapon before traveling up my body and landing on my mask. He raised his eyebrows. “Who the hell are you?”

“Now, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?” I taunted, stalking closer. “What’s that you got there?”

The man didn’t answer me. Instead, he threw the purse down behind him and, without warning, charged. I only had mere seconds before he was upon me, so I aimed the blowtorch at his crotch and fired.

His resounding screams as the fire engulfed him and his cheap polyester clothes were music to my ears, and a smile broke out across my lips as I watched the man flail about, struggling to put out the flames. At one point, he even dropped to the ground and began rolling on the pavement, but by that point, it was too late.

My fire had consumed every inch of him—his clothing, his hair, even every inch of bare flesh. His skin was riddled with second- and third-degree burns, mottled with pus-filled blisters and flakes of blackened skin. The only part of him that remained untouched were his eyes, and they stayed wide and unblinking, disbelieving. The scent of burnt flesh permeated the air as I watched his eyes glaze over.

Slowly, I approached, the blowtorch still aimed at him in case he made any sudden movements. I watched his chest for any sign of life, pleased when his chest shuddered with each irregular breath he took. The man wasn’t dead, just unconscious. But he would be soon.

I aimed the blowtorch at the first eye and fired, watching in fascination as the ball liquified and turned to mush, spilling from the socket to pool at the base of the man’s skull. Then, I did the same to the man’s other eye and watched as the liquid eyeball cascaded down the side of the man’s head to stain the pavement below. Soon, what was left were two empty eye sockets and a dead man who was burnt beyond recognition, a man who dared to lay a hand on a woman, all so he could steal her purse.

It sickened me the lengths these men were willing to go to hurt women. It was why I felt no remorse for them when they met their grisly ends. I lifted the blowtorch one last time and aimed it at the man’s chest to leave one final message for whoever would find the body: MUGGER. That way, the entire world would know what he had done.

And I was the executioner.