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MORBID DEATH

The Hunter

Psychopathy is characterized by a lack of empathy, conscience, guilt, or refusal to accept responsibility for one’s actions. I’ve long been told that word fits me, but I don’t believe that is the case.

I do feel empathy, just not the kind that a normal human would expect.

I was empathic when we killed our parents, slit their throats right in front of Isolde.

It was the only choice we had. They neglected and abused us all, not physically but rather emotionally.

Our foster dad never cared enough for us, always staying distant.

As if we were a burden to them. Didn’t they know?

Celine and I are not forces to be reckoned with. We are not meant to be controlled to the point of suffocation, and neither is Isolde.

Yes. Killing them was our only chance to finally claim her as ours when they forbade us from seeing each other again.

They had her, and they wasted her by not complying with her every need.

They never helped her when she had no friends, so we became her only friends.

They gave her food and a roof to sleep under, like they did us, but they were both so busy with their work that they never paid much more attention than that.

Our parents weren’t the picture-perfect humans they pretended to be.

They attended charity events in town, but beneath their polished reputation, they were corrupt. Something Isolde refused to see.

One day, she will thank us for saving her life, even if she cannot see it that way right now.

I still remember the blood oozing from our parents’ throats, bodies slumped to the floor while slipping in the crimson liquid. I remember the blood coating our clothes, splattered on our faces. That triumph was the most of all—the relief at seeing their deaths.

Knowing nothing could ever prevent us from being with Isolde again.

Yet, the empathy I felt came from seeing her heartbroken face, the tears trailing down her cheeks, something irreparable. The scream of horror is etched on my mind. I tried to reach her, to hold her and make her feel better, but she stared at me as if I were something evil.

A goddamn monster.

That empathy hit me hard in the chest, almost like a shotgun.

The word psychopathy doesn’t fit me: I do feel responsibility for my actions, particularly for our foster parents’ deaths.

Never once did I regret killing them. They were an obstacle that needed to get out of the way; her love for them was a weakness that blinded her to all their faults, and we had to break it out of her somehow.

I didn’t expect that she would call the fucking cops though. Oh, the pure rage when she sent us to jail.

Didn’t she know? We killed them for her . Even today, I know she blames herself for their death. Well, yeah. We wouldn’t have killed them if it weren’t for her stupid love for them.

The warehouse behind us looms like a corpse with its rusted beams, shattered windows, and facade cracking here and there. Apparently, it used to be Vexglade’s pride and joy back in the day, until the owner died. No one took over it, believing it to be haunted or something like that.

“Here he comes,” Celine muses, pushing away from the wall she leaned on. Her eyes are like knives as she watches the figure approaching.

Casper. Isolde’s ‘boyfriend.’ The man who stole her when we were locked away. He who dared touch what was never his.

He’s clad in a casual outfit of dark jeans and a hoodie, with the hood covering half his face, hands in pockets. Taking discretion to a new level. The way he looks around, shoulders tense, reveals he’s afraid we’ll disappear before the deal is gone.

He doesn’t truly trust us after all. And he shouldn’t.

“You’re late,” I say, crossing my arms as I let my arms roam over him.

For being a cop, he sure as hell ain’t brave.

“You’ve made quite the fucking mess,” he says, turning to me with a voice that tries to sound authoritative. “Do you know how hard it was to cover for your asses? Bodies are piling up again. Same signature kill. You think no one is going to connect the dots to you?”

“Well, they won’t,” I say, not bothered. “You’re handling it.”

His lips press into a thin line, clearly not happy. “You’re lucky I’ve redirected their attention from you. I pinned it all on her.”

I instantly understand who he’s talking about. “You blamed Isolde?”

“It was her or you! I want her to go down either way, and I need you free so you can take care of her,” he snaps, poison littering his words.

“After everything I’ve done for her, saving her depressed little ass after her parents’ were murdered, she still tried to leave me.

Said our relationship was too toxic. She wasn’t allowed to leave, and since then, we’ve fallen into a monochromic relationship where there’s no joy anymore. She doesn’t even trust me any longer!”

Celine’s smile grows, like a predator seizing up her prey. “So you decided you wanted her dead?”

“She left me no choice,” he hisses. “She pulled away. Started looking at me like I was a stranger. Like I wasn’t enough!” He clenches his fists. “But I was. I was the only one she had left, and she still turned on me.”

He’s panting by the end of his tirade, and I only stare at him.

The more seconds that pass, the more I start to realize that there’s something wrong with him.

Obsessive, cold, dangerous. A means to an end that needs to be obliterated, precisely like I thought when he visited us in jail one year ago.

“You’re violent. You already have blood on your hands. You killed your parents. I’m only giving you what you want. You can obliterate the entire Duskvik family and take over the wealth.”

He’s so out of it, he thinks we killed them to take over the family. I play along. “And what do you get out of it?”

“Like I said when I visited you, I will be free. I will move on. Rise in ranks, earn promotions without having to care about her stupid ass. The number of times she hasn’t even had food in her refrigerator!

Coming to me, whining about food.” He nods to himself, as if it’s all making sense in his head. “Yes. I will be free.”

Rage filters deep in my veins, uncontrolled and lethal. The way he’s talking about Isolde makes me want to beat his fucking ass up. Daring to disrespect her like that.

“Well, everything is set in stone now, isn’t it?” Celine drawls, staring at her manicure like it’s more important than Casper. “You’ve freed us from suspicions. No one is coming after us.”

“Yes. And I managed to get her to the castle for you. Convinced her it’d be fun.”

I doubt he managed to do that, but I let him gloat. He won’t be doing much of that soon, anyway.

“Well played.”

I know he’s mad at us for taking matters into our own hands.

We hunted down every bastard who ever wronged Isolde, one of them touching her the wrong way on the day when she found that dead body in the forest. One—the first victim when we got out whose tongue we nailed to the ground—called me a ‘bitch’ so I killed him.

It wasn’t part of his plan, but it was always what we had planned.

We’re the king and queen over this gameboard.

“So it’s all set? You’ll kill her tonight?” Casper says.

I bite down the urge to laugh.

“Yes. She’s currently unconscious at the castle,” Celine says, barely containing the smirk twisting her lips.

After Isolde ignored our invitation to the castle for her birthday, we decided to pick her up instead.

As soon as we had left off her sleeping form on the upper floor of the castle, by the fireplace so that she wouldn’t freeze to death before we returned, we went to the warehouse to meet with Casper.

Casper gives a curt nod, about to leave the warehouse, when Celine’s voice stops him.

“Casper, one more thing.” She makes a pause for added effect. “Do you really believe you’re some master puppeteer? Deciding who we can and can’t kill?”

He freezes in his spot, turning around to stare at us. Terrified out of his goddamn mind, evident in the way his eyes widen like saucers. “W-what?”

“Are you truly that pathetic?”

He blanches, a thin sheen of sweat clinging to his hairline. Legs pressed tightly together and shoulders hunched in defense, he looks as if he might piss himself. Gross.

Without Casper knowing, as he’s too nervous to look anywhere but at me, Celine grabs something from around the corner of the warehouse and approaches him. I see his Adam’s apple as he swallows harshly, fingers fidgeting while attempting to keep his calm.

Celine swings the baseball bat hard into Casper’s temple before he can react, knocking him out cold on the cement ground.

“Fucker,” she spits at his limp, bloodied body.

“Good job, sis,” I drawl, and she gives me a leisurely smile.

—————

THAT CONSCIENCE THAT FITS into the term of psychopathy? Nah. It doesn’t fit me either.

Conscience tugs at my edges, which is precisely why we have a living, breathing human in the back of our trunk.

“Wanna play?” Celine asks as she opens the trunk to reveal the imbecile who has been with our little traitor for the past three years.

She sent us to jail and directly went to get a new pretty little boyfriend. Though he’s not very pretty. It makes my blood fucking boil.

Duct tape covers his mouth, his hands and legs tied behind his back with real rope in a special double knot that he won’t easily get out of.

“You know I want to,” I answer my twin, staring at her with mischief, a slow and crooked smirk tugs at the corner of my lips in anticipation.

Our gazes turn to Casper in the trunk simultaneously, and the terror shines through in his tear-streaked eyes. Fucking pathetic, if you ask me.

He shakes his head as I lean closer, trying to scoot deeper into the trunk of our car, but it’s futile. I tut.

It’s time to let our demons out to play, before finally claiming our little traitor once and for fucking all.

Celine approaches the car, forcing Casper out of it. He stumbles, falling to his knees, and cannot get up again, with the ropes keeping his legs tied together.

Celine groans. “Pathetic.”

The moon glints its silvery glow over the forest opening where we have parked our car.

Celine bends down and picks Casper up again, tears streaming down his cheeks like two waterfalls while he stares at us in shock, desperation, and fear. Good, he should be fucking scared.

Celine walks around him, her long nails trailing over his bare arms in the winter cold, which only makes his spine stiffen.

We were born from the same womb, both equally as ruthless in our nature.

She removes the duct tape covering his mouth.

Even if he screams, this forest is far from civilization.

“No one will hear you if you scream,” I tell him precisely that, watching his eyes bulge.

“My colleagues will notice if I’m gone! Isolde will,” he spews out.

A dark chuckle rumbles through my chest as I cross my arms over my chest, tilting my head while observing him. It only seems to unnerve him. “Did you really think we would leave any loose ends?”

He sputters on his words.

“It was easy enough to fake a letter from you, writing goodbye and admitting that you were the one to kill all those people we left behind. That you are done with your shitty life. Everyone thinks you left—no one will come looking for you.”

“I-Isolde will!” he scrambles to stay, his body trembling.

“Who says we don’t have her as well?” Celine asks, those fingers trailing over Casper’s collarbone.

He winces.

“You can’t kill me! You’re supposed to kill her,” he spits out the words.

“Aww, didn’t you get the memo already? It’s you we will fucking kill,” Celine says.

“Did you really think you could trust us? Two convicted murderers?” I ask in mock amusement.

Casper is speechless, his lips parting, but no words come out. The pathetic waste of space should have thought twice before deciding to turn on Isolde. Even if she apparently turned on him first, which makes satisfaction bloom in my chest.

Good girl.

“B-but! You said you would help me take her down—just like you did her parents!” This time, his voice cracks, his entire body trembling like a leaf in the heavy wind. The biting chill makes his bare arms turn a deeper shade of red. Pure fear is palpable in his eyes.

“Run,” she whispers in his ear, that twisted smile stretching her lips again while inspecting her baseball bat.

He looks at me as if I will save him. When he sees the same dark intentions in my gaze, he scrambles backwards, fleeing for his pathetic life.

“Things are finally going our way,” I mutter.

Celine sashays her way forward, holding the bat she knocked him out with. “Let us play,” she says with a smirk.