Page 46 of Brian and Mina's Holiday Hits
There is a part of me that knows deep down I don’t have to do this. I can make a different choice. Surely the threat of me now is big enough that I could make sure she never raises a hand to Aidan again, but she’d call the police. I wouldn’t be able to get close to the house again. They’d find my bugs. Too many things could go wrong.
Besides, it’s too late now. When I look into her eyes I see my stepmother, and there is only one way that story ever ends.
“You don’t have to do this. Do you want money? Take whatever you want. I don’t care. It’s all insured.”
But I only barely hear the words, and their meanings certainly don’t register in time for my rational sanity to come back online.
A moment later she’s grabbed a cigarette out of a nearby ash tray and presses the burning ember against the side of my neck. And with that one small act, any chance of mercy is gone.
“Not this time, Linda,” I say.
“Who’s Linda?” They are the last words she says before my hand crushes her windpipe.
The body slides to the ground, and I give her lifeless corpse a kick and then back away. Who the fuck even smokes anymore? I look down to find my hands shaking. This never happens to me, well, not since the very first time. I squeeze my eyes shut and put my hands over my ears, blocking out Linda’s shouts and the sound of the switch slicing through the air... my dog whimpering...
My ears ring, and the room gets very loud with a long tone before I readjust to the silence of the room. It’s only then that I finally hear the dryer down the hallway. I jump at the sound of the dog barking again, but then he sees Eliza. He blinks andlooks at the body and then looks at me and back at the body again.
He’s thinking as hard as I’ve ever seen any dog think—as though he’s trying to decide if she’s worth mourning.
“She kicked you a couple of times, too,” I say.
He just whimpers and slinks out of the room and back down the stairs as though he actually understood those words. I flush the cigarette butt down the toilet in the attached bathroom and follow the dog downstairs. I shut the front door so he can’t get out again and put food and water in his dish.
He eyes me warily, but nothing can keep him from his food bowl for long. Then I go through the house and remove all the listening devices.
I’m still shaky when I get back out to the car, but I start it up and pull away. Once I’m well outside the neighborhood I use a burner phone to tip off the police about the murder then toss the phone out the window. I couldn’t let Aidan come home to that. I just hope they find a delicate way to get him to his Uncle Martin’s house. There’s no reason he needs to go to another funeral right now.
When I get back to the house, I find Mina in our dungeon room, staring at the wall.
“What is this?” she asks. She hasn’t yet noticed my clearly shattering mental state, and I’m glad for the brief reprieve.
“That’s my murder wall. It’s just something I’m trying.”
There are photos and thumbtacks and post-its and red strings connecting things. I guess now is as good a time as any to tell her about the new contract.
TWENTY-FIVE
mina
About thirty minutes ago.
When I open my eyes, Brian is already gone. He’s been already gone a lot lately. Something has been off since the ill-conceived plot to blow up the Stryker building during the Fourth of July parade. I’ve asked him where he goes a few times, and why we’re not going together, but he brushes me off.
I don’t want to bethat girl, you know, the one who needs to know exactly what her boyfriend is doing at all times, but… if he’s letting me in on his world and his side jobs, shouldn’t I know about anything that pertains to that? I laugh out loud in the empty dungeon room, thinking about Brian as myboyfriend. He is so not my boyfriend.
Though he did get me those almost-black roses for our murder date. They lived a whole 3 weeks. I kept them upstairs in the gym, so they could get some light.
Things have been pretty quiet at the house lately. Most of the girls have been steering clear of Brian’s wrath, there have been no good contracts the past couple of months, and no misbehaviors among the pleasure house’s clientele.
So Brian has become increasingly antsy. I can feel it in him, this need to kill something. And I’d be lying if I said the beast curled up inside of me isn’t making the same grumbling noises. I don’t know if Brian’s darkness feels like an itch under his skin, but it feels like one in mine.
The first time it happened, I tried moisturizing. Nope. It wasn’t until Easter when I killed Matsumoto’s son and a guard, that I realized this dark thing inside me was no longer content to just beokaywith Brian killing. It wanted some of the action, too.
I feel like a cartoon character as I dramatically stretch and yawn. The side table says it’s eleven o’clock. Great.
I hate it when Brian doesn’t set the alarm. He’s got this internal alarm that wakes him up like clockwork, and I have no idea how he does it without sunlight cues. Normally he wakes me, but when he’s gone like this, I’m left to wake myself, which means I end up missing out on the house’s breakfast buffet.
I sigh and swing my legs over the side of the bed, and that’s when I look up.
