Page 4 of Stalk (Assassin’s Kiss Duet #1)

Ren

I can never wash my hands well enough. No matter how hard I try, I can still feel it coating my flesh.

The blood. So much blood. Not just from tonight, either.

From every night I’ve taken a life. I carry each soul with me every time their blood paints my skin crimson.

Try as I might to use gloves and not make a mess, I almost always fail.

Even when I think I’ve been successful, I’ll come home and see blood spatter on my wrists—my neck— somewhere.

It’s like each person always finds a way to haunt me. To leave their mark.

If only they knew the impact they have far after they’ve taken their last breath.

My last kill was a horrible person. There’s no doubt about that.

His file detailed the sex trafficking ring he ran.

I got the pleasure of reading all about the pre-teens and young teenagers he trafficked.

Learned all the gory details of his trade, including all of his past charges and even the offenses he made without the legal system’s knowledge.

He was sick. Perverted. Downright evil, I would say.

Still, taking his life made me sick. I know that the majority of normal people love to say that people like the sex trafficker deserve a fate worse than death.

Some of those people might even say they’d be fine with executing him themselves.

All I can say is that the fantasy of taking a life is far different than actually carrying out the act.

No matter how evil the person is, being in the business of taking lives takes its toll on me.

More than that, really. I think it’s killing me.

Physically and spiritually. Some people are good at it, I suppose.

But I’m the type of person who traps spiders and sets them free outside.

I’m the type of person who buries dead birds when I find them in my backyard.

Killing is the last thing I was put on this earth to do.

Yet I have no choice but to live my life like this.

The build up to the actual assassination is worse than the comedown from it all.

It’s a vicious cycle I can’t seem to break away from.

As soon as I’m assigned my next target, my stomach clenches like an iron fist. Then, the shortness of breath.

The flashes of all the faces of the people I’ve taken come and go during my waking and sleeping hours; unrelenting.

The night sweats wake me up, and sometimes I can’t fall back asleep afterwards because my heartbeat pounds at the back of my throat and the nausea slides throughout my stomach and intestines like a serpent.

On the day of, I’m barely alive. I detach myself until I’m a phantom—the only piece of me left is my flesh and blood. My mind turns off completely, like a simple switch of a light. All I think about are what steps I have to take to complete my task.

Grab a gun. Put gun in holster. Grab a knife. Put in holster. Leave the wallet. Take the phone. Walk outside. Lock the door. Travel to destination. Stalk. Wait for the right moment. Shoot or stab. Stage the area. Don’t be seen. Go home.

And then that light switch is turned back on, involuntarily.

I would leave it off permanently if I could.

My life would be much simpler without all the emotions that consume me the second I walk back through my front door.

Because as soon as I’m finally done with the task—as soon as I’m back home, away from the reality of it—my soul tries to claw itself from my body.

I collapse to the floor in a cold sweat before I can do anything.

Sometimes, I at least make it to the couch in the living room before losing it completely, but not often.

Flashes of distorted memories assault my brain as soon as I collapse in the fetal position.

It happens every time, without fail. Everything I pushed away during the assassination comes back, despite my pleading.

It’s like whenever I’m about to take a life, I black out, but as soon as I’m done with it all, I have to relive it.

Over and over again until my stomach churns and I vomit out my sins.

Only then, once my racing heart has stilled, can I find the strength to stand back on my feet. Wash up. Continue on.

Tonight is no different. After I clean out the vomit from my kitchen sink, I quickly spot the blood under my fingernails, staring up at me like crimson half-moons.

I’ve been scrubbing away at my increasingly tender flesh ever since.

Though the bristles of my handheld dish scrubber feel like tiny needles at this point, I keep going, even after all traces of blood are long gone.

I scrub until my own blood pools underneath my nails and salty tears fall down the slopes of my cheeks, down to the sink below, mixing in with the suds.

It feels like there’s the weight of a boulder strapped to my chest, but I know there isn’t.

Feels like someone is crushing in the crown of my head, but it’s just me in this house, alone as usual.

I’m sick of it. Sick of repeating this cycle.

Exhausted from the physical and emotional toll this line of work takes on my body.

I wish… I wish she was still alive. I wish she hadn’t left me with this life. I wish… I wish I had died instead.

I shake my head violently, trying to snap out of my usual intrusive thoughts, which only makes the killer headache radiating from my temples grow in severity.

Screw you, Mom. You could have done something to change this.

With an elongated sigh, I use the last of my strength to turn the water off and grab a handful of paper towels from the roll that hangs above the sink.

I wrap the paper towels around my fingertips and slide down to the tiled floor.

My head leans back against the uncomfortably hard marble countertop, and I stare up at the ceiling.

You weren’t meant for this. You were supposed to be done with college. You were supposed to be a normal member of society. Not this. Not a monster. You weren’t meant to be trapped here, in your dead mother’s house…

I know better than to shake my head again.

Instead, I blink. I glance down at my feet and count all the tiles I can see.

I repeat the action until my breaths even out.

Then, I remove the paper towels from my hands.

The underside of my nails quickly seep with more blood, so I wrap them up once more.

When I’m standing, I rely on my muscle memory to guide me back to my bedroom.

I’m not coherent enough to depend on my body’s help.

A lot of people would have moved into the master bedroom if their mother left them a beautiful Victorian home in the heart of D.C. Not me, though. My mother’s bedroom has remained practically untouched since her death.

The funny thing is, even after she died when I was eighteen—before I knew what she really did for a living—she left no traces of her trade at home.

All I found was a single gun, hidden in a box on the top shelf of her closet.

I assumed it had been for self-defense because that was before I knew the truth.

Hell, maybe that one gun was for self-defense.

Sometimes, I still wonder where she left all her guns and blades if not here.

I’m not curious enough to dig through her room any further, though. At least not now.

I still sleep in the bedroom of my youth.

It may not be as large as the master, but it’s plenty of space for me.

The entire house has always felt like too much space, even when it was the two of us under the same roof.

Now that it’s just me, I can’t help but feel like I live in a museum of sorts.

An homage to the life my mother once lived, with all of her decor and trinkets still spread across each room, keeping her forever alive in some way.

Sometimes, the quiet is unsettling. Especially when I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.

Sometimes, I can’t help but wish that there was someone— anyone— around to help ease some of my burdens.

But that’s not the hand I was dealt. So I live in this unwavering, unwanted solitude; a hermit.

When my achy bones finally manage to take me up the stairs and to my bedroom, my forehead crashes against the door before I can open it.

Take a breath. Turn the knob. The bathroom is only a few yards away.

But I’m so tired… so tired… so…

The knot in the back of my throat that has been making it hard to breathe, hard to swallow, constricts my airway.

I force a violent inhale through my nostrils and push on.

My bones scream at me in protest. My muscles strain with the simple movement of twisting the doorknob and taking the few steps necessary to make it past my bed and into the en suite bathroom.

You have to. You have to get clean. You can do this. It’s just a shower.

By the time I collapse forward into the bathroom, knees buckling and a thick layer of sweat coming to life on my skin, I almost lose myself completely.

I know that once I get in the shower and have the hot water running on me, I will feel better.

I can’t erase the sins of tonight—or any other night, for that matter—but washing away the residue of tonight is the best bet I have at some solace.

But I don’t want to pass out, either. The room spins violently around me. I stumble to the toilet and sit down atop the closed lid, then put my head down, in between my legs.

Breathe. In… out. In… out.