The anger is growing in me as I watch them neck like a couple of teenagers in public, beginning to turn into a deep rage. Even though the night shrouds them, people can still see what they are doing. I can still see what they are doing, and my fingers twitch against my knife.
Yes, you will die. The second you’re out of her sight.
I’m getting worse while I watch them. The rage is taking me over, enveloping me in a blanket of hate. I want him dead, and I want her back with me, by force if it has to be. The feelings are suffocating me, and as I step closer to them I wrap my fingers around the handle of my knife, ready to unsheathe it and use it, even if he’s not out of her presence yet.
No asshole, stop. She’ll never come back willingly if you kill in front of her. Don’t be fucking stupid.
“Go home Dani. Alone.” I growl under my breath, still hiding in the darkness, still raging, still wanting to murder, violently.
I get my wish sooner than expected, when she pulls away from him, their hands still interlocked. She smiles at him, and I read her lips as she says “I love you” to him. He says it back and kisses her gently on the lips one last time before she reluctantly pulls her hands from his and leaves him standing there watching her walk away, just as I do.
It’s a conundrum. Do I follow her home or to wherever she going? Or do I stay and end him now?
“End him now.” I chuckle to myself, even though I know it’ll change her routine, and I might lose her for a few days.
It’s worth it, I think, to pause my interactions with her so I can clear the way for her to take me back with no competition. I could even console the grieving woman. I could hold her, love her, comfort her, all while I know I’m the reason for her pain, just like she’s the reason for mine.
Her footsteps fade away as she disappears into the darkness of the night, and he stands there watching her back, completely unaware that someone is watching his.
The knife slides silently from its leather holder, feeling heavier in my hand than it normally does. Maybe it’s the gravity of the situation, the fact that I’m about to take a life with no other payment than that of the heart of the woman held by him.
His back is to me now, his stance relaxed and at ease, clueless at to what is about to happen as I creep out of my hiding spot and not the sidewalk. I’m stealthy, silent, a fully trained hunter ready to pounce on his prey, weapon in hand.
Chapter Eleven
The feeling of his body heat warms my front as I come up so close to him that he should be able to feel my breath on the back of his neck, but he’s too involved with watching her, most likely making sure she’s safe until out of view. Only thing is, is that he’s ignoring his own safety while protecting hers.
Normally, I would find that noble, even something I would do, but now, nah, he’s just an obstacle in my way to what I want.
White moonlight and a sliver of yellow glare from the streetlamp overhead shine off the blade of my knife as I bring it up. It glimmers like something from a horror film as I abruptly grab him around the shoulders, pulling his back to my front, startling him.
His arms flail out, but there’s no time for him to hit or grab at me when I reach around him and plunge the knife into the bottom of his jaw, just like I took Gustapo’s life. One smooth, quick, silent strike to kill instantly.
The blade goes through his lower jaw, past his tongue, and into the base of his skull through his throat, severing the spinal cord like a rubber band. I can even hear it cut and snap from how close my face is to the back of his neck. It makes a cracking sound inside as I lift up on the handle and push further, making sure that everything is completely destroyed and that death is final.
The blood flows from the wound and he makes one gasping gurgle before he slumps in my arms, having died before he even knew what hit him.
There’s no screaming, no begging, none of the grand gestures you see in the movies, only a man bleeding out from the hole in his corpse in my arms as I lift him off his feet and carry him back into the dark alley from which he came just minutes ago.
He's heavier than he looks but still easy to move, even being dead weight in my arms. His feet bang on my shins as I take him far away from the street, and deep into the bowels of the sheltered alleyway.
Dropping him onto the ground like a sack of bricks in front of a dumpster, I kneel down in front of his body, propping his back against the big metal bin. He’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt, sneakers, and the ball hat.
“Hmmm baseball. A good American boy are we?” I say as I take the hat off his head and toss it into the dumpster above him.
Next, I go through his pockets, digging deep inside, leaning him over to reach the back ones. Pulling out his wallet, I flip open the leather trifold and root through his information. Freezing in place, my breath catches somewhere between my chest and my throat, making a huge lump that chokes me.
A thick swallow doesn’t take it down or bring it up and I feel like I’m dying right along with him as the ID card in my hand tremors. The picture with a black tattooed teardrop stares back at me like a ghostly apparition.
“Oh fuck no.”
Another trembling of my grip has the ID flap fold over in the wallet bringing up a shiny brass badge.
A fucking cop. He’s a fucking cop. Motherfucker.
All the scenarios that this could be flood into my head as I remain crouched in front of the dead body, staring back and forth from his face and the one on the ID.
“Jonathan Mercer. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
