“I had a twin sister, Kat,” he says out of nowhere. “On this day, three years ago, she killed herself, leaving me a letter and a tape behind. The letter said that she only trusted me with what was on the tape. I watched it once all the way through, and that was enough to have what the men did to her permanently scarred on my mind. You saw what that other girl went through. The men I’m killing tonight all drugged and raped Kat in the same way.”
“Zack. I’m so sorry.” I enclose his hand in both of mine. “The police did nothing?” It feels like a stupid thing to ask, but I want to keep him talking, to be able to finally piece him together.
He shakes his head. “No. They wouldn’t hear me out. Those men…Their faces are all I see every night. Kat’s cries haunt my days. I’ll be walking down the street, and out of nowhere, I hear her begging for help. I became obsessed with wanting them to pay, and I knew that it was up to me to end them.”
I finally understand.
He lets out a sad laugh. “I had it all planned out so perfectly. Even had a speech ready for each one. But with you there, everything changed. All I want now is for them to be dead and for you to be mine.”
“You have both of those things. We’re going to kill the last man together. That’s where we’re heading, right?”
The universe answers the question for me as we arriveat a sleepy neighborhood. I can sense that the monster Zack is hunting lives here. Another wolf hiding among the innocent.
“His name is Christopher Davis. Kat was best friends with his daughter, Alina. He lives here with his wife. She’s away at a fucking bingo night, and Alina’s got her own life out of town. He’ll be all alone.”
Zack turns down a narrow alley and parks away from the streetlights.
“Were his wife and daughter part of it?”
“The wife I don’t think has a clue on any of it, but Alina played an involuntary role. Christopher was using his daughter to lure her friends into his basement. Anytime she invited someone over for a sleepover, he’d drug them, including Alina.”
“His own daughter?” I gasp in disgust. “How did you figure it out?”
“I found a ridiculous amount of sleeping pills locked away in his kitchen. I tracked Alina down and tried to talk to her about her father and his friends. She told me about the sleepovers, and that her father’s friends would often come over on the same nights. She also mentioned waking up feeling off. As soon as I mentioned the possibility of her being raped by those men, she shut me down and left. The fact that she never mentioned me to Christopher told me I was right about it all. He and his friends, Jackson and Walter, would rape the girls and record the whole thing. I recognized Christopher on Kat’s tape instantly. The other men took some tracking down. I knew I couldn’t deal with them too far apart in case the others ran. So I planned it all for one night.”
That’s truly awful. I know the horrors of men from my own experiences, but there’s something about seeing thepain that these men’s actions have left on Zack’s face that makes it worse.
They are the ones who turned Zack into the killer he is today.
“I’m sorry you’ve had to do this all by yourself,” I tell him. “You’re not alone anymore, baby.”
I’m going to make sure he never forgets that he’ll always have me no matter what.
I listen intently as he tells me exactly how he wants this next kill to go. It’s the final one, and the most significant since it’s the ringleader, so I want to make sure it goes perfectly for him.
With a plan in place, we head down the alley.
Zack doesn’t want me to be bait again, but I assure him this is the best way for us not to get caught.
“Chloe, I told you not to put your life below others. If you go in there and something happens to you…”
Putting my hands on his shoulders, he goes quiet. “Nothing’s going to happen. Not with you here. Stop worrying, and show me the chaos that I adore in you so much.”
His pierced brow rises as he smirks. “You adore?”
“Yes, Zack.” I kiss him and let my lips linger afterwards. “I adore all of you.”
Leaving Zack picking his jaw off the floor, I head around the corner to the path leading to Christopher’s front door.
The lawn is neatly trimmed, and the bushes are blooming with flowers. It’s an idyllic white picket fence home.
When I reach the door, I take a breath then frantically start rapping my knuckles on it, careful not to be too loud and wake the neighbors.
A minute later, the door unlocks, and a man in his earlyfifties with short brown hair and glasses answers. He looks a little bit older than his appearance on the tape I saw earlier.
The soft smile Christopher gives me would fool anyone else, but not me. I see the intent hidden away behind his glasses. He doesn’t eye me up like the other men did, but I still feel that same predatory energy rolling off him in waves.
“Can I help you?” he asks kindly, and more than a little curiously.
