The Serial Killers Guide to Love (Deadly Darling #1)

Chapter 19

19

Sam

All the way in my cabin, the sounds of the night invaded my mind and made it impossible to relax. Peace should lay around my shoulders, like a fucking warm and cuddly blanket, but instead my nerves are raw and frail.

The bad thing about having my type of rather obsessive personality, is that you can’t always pick the object that is the center of attention for your revolving mind. I glanced at my phone.

My phone laying on my chest was becoming an instrument of torture. I wasn’t expecting it to jump up and talk to me. I am not that type of crazy.

Just one look.

A lone owl screeched and plunged itself into the night to hunt.

“You and I, buddy.”

I can understand that type of hunger. The need to take lives, for me is as vital as the need to eat or drink. I can’t imagine how my darkness would twist itself into something worse and uglier if I wouldn’t have that.

My fingers traced the edge of the phone, feeling the on button under my thumb. All I need is to press it and have a look. It’s no big deal. It was not the first time I spied on Lilly, stalked her during the last few months. Watching her is as natural as brushing my teeth.

I sat up in my bed, and looked into the darkness that surrounded me. It was as if I was looking into my own darkness and it stared back at me.

“Yeah, so what?”

I yelled at no one but the ghosts that pushed themselves around me. I don’t care about the ones of the people I killed. They were judged and found lacking, the ghosts that follow me are of the ones that are living. They claw at the man that I am. At Sam. They see the inhuman part of me under my well constructed facade and I hate that I feel naked and invaded in a way that I can’t control.

Lilly’s face looks at me and I shiver.

Moving my hand to my lips I try to understand how I can miss that kiss so much, desire more and still feel trapped by the touch of her hands on me.

The therapist that talked to me in the home found out. It was abuse, all kinds, but I never got over it. My only coping mechanism over the years was killing and isolating myself fully from each and every human desire.

I study them, like flies under a microscope, but now it feels as if I am one of those flies and I am lacking direction in the darkness.

And that phone.

The torture device burning like a hot iron and turning my skin into lava.

My fingers clasp it and I give in. This is important, I tell myself. I have to make sure she’s safe.

The buzz from the kill is gone. I need to see her. Just a few minutes. I will be like those people who smoke less and less. I can diminish my dose of Lilly as I go.

Moving fast, my fingers know the way. My first stop is her bedroom, but it’s empty. A slow feeling of dread rises in my chest.

She isn’t in her greenhouse.

Idiot, sure she isn’t there. She must attempt to sleep, but she probably can’t.

I click from one camera to the next, until. I get to the kitchen. She’s with her back to me, facing a man. And my hand clasps the phone so hard, I fear I’ll break it in small pieces.

Why is there a man in Lilly’s house so late after midnight? Was that kiss nothing to her?

Never before have I understood jealousy. It was the most abstract feeling, something I considered that was invented by writers to add drama to their books, but as I saw a stranger sitting at her table, I felt the entire array of feelings that drove Othello mad and ruined his life.

I couldn’t take it.

There he was, a man that sat with her and they shared some sandwiches.

Why was she making him a sandwich?

Did they?

No.

I couldn’t deal with the idea of a man touching what was mine.

Fuck, I am even more fucked up than I assumed.

I can’t have her, but I don’t want anyone to have her either.

Now as I watched Lilly, I hated that I didn’t have any sound to the video. Her body language was off. She was too stiff. This guy, he wasn’t Derek.

What the hell?

I ran to my laptop and cracked it open and unlocked the feed.

What was that?

This man had a weapon on the table and he kept pushing potato chips into his mouth like a damn animal. How could he sit in her presence and act this way?

Lilly, she was too calm as if she tried to contain everything inside her.

Who was he to her?

There was no time for questions, and I had no real interest in finding out who this man was. He will no longer draw breath after tonight. No one is doing something like this to the one that makes me act like a fool and keeps walking.

After I kill him, maybe we can talk.

Maybe it will be easier for her to understand how I feel about her, and that I need more time to open up. That touch isn’t something that comes easy to a man like me.

It was all too much. But killing, I can do that. Killing is the only thing that I am an absolute master at. Lilly doesn’t need to stain her pretty hands with this man’s blood.

I drove down the freeway, and the phone was on my dashboard. I kept checking on them, and they still sat at the kitchen table.

Why didn’t I put microphones in the damn house?

Hitting the wheel with my fist, I had to pull all my anger back.

He has a gun, but I don’t use guns. Killing is a delicate art, one doesn’t just take a blade and stick it into a man without preparation. Not that I can’t. I am more than willing to fillet this animal who keeps chewing on the potato chips.

I am doing 90 and still, I can’t stop this need to get to Lilly.

If anything would happen to her, it would be my fault. I should have taken a DNA sample from her and I should have run a complete background check, not only a surface level one.

I should have researched her deeply.

This was not good.

This, whoever this was, it was not a coincidence, or a Tinder flirt. I checked all her Tinder boys; neither one of them had any criminal energy that went above a speeding ticket.

There are sheep and there are wolves, I am a more evolved sheep with machine guns. This made me smile, but my foot was stuck on the gas.

When I threw another look at the phone, they were gone.

No, fuck, this can’t be.

I have at least 20 more minutes before I can get to her.

Fuck.

My heart never beat that loud, not since the first few kills I executed. I have never tried to save a person. The victims of, well, my victims were not important to me. Maybe I just need the excuse that I am cleaning the world from bad people.

I do, but it’s not a priority for me.

I have to make a decision. I can either stop on the side of the road and watch Lilly’s house from the laptop, or I can drive faster and free her.

Knight in shining armor much?

I have never seen myself like that.

I never expected anyone to save me.

And on my side, I never expected or hoped to be someone’s savior.

Can I bring the end of life and at the same time save one?

My foot pushed harder on the gas. They have to be there. What if he took her away?

How would I find her?

There was that certain type of mental pain that I felt all the way in my finger tips. Like scratching with your nails against a chalkboard.

It hurt me, like Wasabi in the back of my skull.

What if…?

She could be dead, and all she could remember about me would be that what, that she kissed me and that I ran from her like the sad fucking loser that I am.

My heart moved too fast for the speed that my already fast car could catch.

I need to make this car drive faster. So much faster. Why can’t I be as calm and collected as I am when I kill? I don’t care then. It’s me and my victim, but I am the one that controls all aspects of the interaction. Here, I am just a helpless spectator who can’t do much but comply with the demands of the first violin.

Who is running this show?

I am not.

Lilly isn’t either, but is this man the one who calls the shots. I don’t know.

Fear like I have never experienced in a long time slides inside me, and chokes me.