Page 22 of Ruthless Knot

"You just killed two people."

"Exactly. Got that out of my system early. Now I can focus on the important things. Like mail delivery and stalking my mystery pen pal."

"Your priorities are deeply concerning."

"Yourfaceis deeply concerning."

"I don't have a?—"

"Semantics."

My feet find a rhythm—step, step, chassé, step—turning the walk into a dance, because why walk normally when you can turn everything into choreography?

The post office is only three more blocks away. Three blocks through gradually safer territory, where the violencedecreases, and the civilian population increases, and people start pretending this is a normal school instead of a pressure cooker designed to forge weapons from broken children.

The sunrise breaks over the eastern buildings, painting everything in shades of orange and pink that match my hair.

Beautiful, I think, tilting my face up to catch the first rays of warmth.

Absolutely fucking beautiful.

Somewhere behind me, someone will find the bodies soon. They'll document the scene, file a report, and add two more tallies to my official record.

Fourteen confirmed kills.

Maybe fifteen.

Sixteen and seventeen now, I guess.

The numbers are starting to blur together.

But right now—right this moment—I don't care.

Right now, I'm a girl walking to the post office in the early morning light, humming a song about endings, with a letter pressed against my heart and blood drying on my ballet shoes.

Right now, I'm exactly who I'm supposed to be.

My whistle joins the humming—a cheerful, discordant melody that probably sounds deranged to anyone listening.

Let them listen.

Allow them to hear the crazy bitch with pink hair.

They should be warned of my lovely rising in this place of the damned.

My voice rises slightly, singing the words under my breath as I skip over a crack in the sidewalk; step on a crack, break your mother's back—not that it matters anymore, her back is already broken by bullets.

"With you, love doesn't hurt... love is for better or worse... so I do..."

The post office looms ahead, its ugly concrete facade somehow welcoming in the growing light.

The postal staff are probably already inside, brewing terrible coffee and preparing themselves for my weekly appearance.

Morning, Sera. Blood on the seal again?

Yep. And on my shoes. And probably in my hair. Wednesday mornings, am I right?

I giggle at the imaginary conversation, my steps quickening with anticipation.