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

Chapter 35

35

Sam

I was used to sleeping in Lilly’s bed. She knew that I would sneak in and put my arms around her, and pull her body as close as humanly possible against me. Only tonight she was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, waiting.

Her body was tense like a spring.

“My deadly darling, what’s the matter?”

I knew that there was something in the air. Maybe I was never good at social clues, but Lilly is ingrained in my insides. If someone would cut me open, they would find her, entwined with my darkness.

“Don’t call me that, I don’t like it.”

She used a calm, neutral tone that gave me the chills.

“But you said you do. I won’t call you that anymore if you don’t like it.”

She made a sign for me to sit, but as soon as I tried to slide next to her and wrap her into my arms she pulled away.

“We need to talk.”

Even I knew that this sentence was horrible. Wrong.

“Sure, always. Tell me what’s on your mind?”

“I, I need to tell you something, and it is not easy.”

Her eyes avoided me. I took a glass and opened the bottle of wine that stood on the table.

Alcohol was never something I enjoyed, but I knew that I would need it tonight.

“Sam, I can’t do this.”

“What?”

“I can’t watch you kill people, that’s not my thing.”

It was her thing. She loved killing Miller, but then, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I wanted her to enjoy what filled me with glee.

“Oh, okay. You don’t have to go with me then. We can work it out.”

“Are you stupid?”

Her voice rose.

“You disgust me. You are a creature of darkness, a monster, you are not human. A real man can’t like killing other people! And you do. I don’t want to be with you. I don’t want you to touch me, you freak.”

My mind was empty and I looked at her.

Who was she?

What happened?

“Lilly, I.”

“Don’t Lilly me. I need a normal man, who plays golf, not a freak who shows me how to cut a body open.”

“Maybe tonight was too much. How about I go over to my place, and we talk tomorrow?”

“There is nothing to talk about! I don’t want to see you ever in my life. You disgust me. I am leaving. I don’t want to be dragged into your soulless existence!”

And I stood there, watching the scene unfold from the outside. In all the books I have ever read, I never, ever understood how one of the lovers can just stop loving, but I didn’t know of love, and now all I felt was a hollow pit in the spot that Lilly had taken in the darkness.

The pit was Lilly shaped. It burned.

“No, no, no. I can’t. Please explain. I don’t understand what happened.”

And then she pulled her necklace.

“Do you know what that is? This is poison.”she opened the locket and showed me the pill she had inside.

“It is enough for me to die. If you come near me, I will kill myself. I am scared of you. And disgusted. I killed because I had to, but you, you kill for pleasure and then you raped me on top of the corpse.”

I raped her?

I was sure she wanted me as much as I wanted her.

“I am sorry.”

“I don’t want to see you ever again. Go, leave, I can’t bare to look at you.”

I stood, but the weight of the world was on my shoulder and I was breaking.

“I am sorry I hurt you.”

I was walking towards the door, and threw one last look toward her. She sat there on the couch, shaking, her arms wrapped around her chest, trying to push warmth into her body . A few hours ago I was certain that no matter what, we would find a way to work through all our issues. That she loved me and trusted me the way I loved her. She showed me her darkness and I showed her mine, wasn’t that what love was about?

I stopped in front of the door. I couldn’t walk away and leave her like this. What if she wasn’t okay?

“Lilly?”

I asked, but my voice broke under the weight of my emotions. Like a damn that exploded, all those feelings flooded my chest and scratched at my flesh, consuming me from the inside out. My palms leaned against the door.

“Go.”

She said, but my heart and my darkness ached after her storm.

“Lilly.”

“I don’t want to see you, ever again. If I see you, I will kill myself. You disgust me. You make me hate myself. I don’t even like you.”

This was all too much. Over the last few weeks I felt things. I allowed that side of me that was somewhat human to come to the surface, pushing the creature, the monster back into a place where he was meant to stay still and silent. And now the monster roared.

It was all my fault. How could I imagine that someone could look into the darkness that was my own self and could love me.

Delusional.

Each step echoed inside me.

My house loomed across the street, like a monster ready to swallow me. A part of me wanted to go back to Lilly, to plead and beg, to throw myself on the ground and ask her for forgiveness, but that was not an option. Even now, in my darkest hour, she was more important to me than my own self. If she wanted to clean herself of the stain that my presence left on her, then so be it.

She will be free of me.

The door opened and I stepped into another life. Less than one hour ago, I left this house filled with warmth and a strange buzz in my chest planning to spend the night with my lover. And now it was only me.

My house was too big, too empty, too lacking Lilly.

My body ached as if I was beaten hard by a gang of thugs.

What can I do?

Is there something I can do?

I was used to being alone. I liked being alone, but not anymore. After getting a taste of what love must feel like, the perspective of being the Hunter was not appealing.

One tear rolled down my cheek. It mourned what could have been. Us.

She was gone and she took the humanity out of me. She burned it, cut it and smashed it against a wall.

Pulling my phone I wanted to see her, but as soon as I was about to punch the access code for the cameras, I hated myself and threw the phone away.

Poor thing crashed against the wall and became the second casualty in this, after my heart.

My head hit the wall again and again.

Think!

What have I done?

I showed her my true self. What have I expected?

There was nothing left to say, nothing to do.

It was not as if I would kill her. I couldn’t. I always wanted to protect her, from myself first and foremost and then from all else. And did I?

No, I failed again and again. I didn’t manage to protect her from Roy or from the darkness that was inside me. What was I expecting from her?

To say, sure you are such a cute serial killer, I want us to go on a killing spree through the country?

Why the fuck?

What’s wrong with you, Sam?

I walked up to the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. One of my knives was hidden in the small cabinet under the sink.

I took it. The handle was feeling right, familiar in my hand.

The first thing I did was slide it under my shirt and cut it off.

My skin was visible in the light.

There were a few old faded scars, but nothing to mark me as who and what I was.

A monster.

A freak.

I took the blade and pushed it on the skin, right across my chest. The slashing move was soft, but my blade was sharp enough to open a trail of blood.

My blood.

It dribbled down my chest.

“Are you happy?”

I screamed in silence at the face that looked back at me. We lost her. I showed her the real me and she is gone.

She’s gone.

I lost her.

She’s gone.

With the tip of the knife I started to carve the letters.

“M”

It was a big M, right on top of my heart, where Lilly put her hand once and felt my heart beat. When she still wanted me, loved me. Before I disgusted her.

And O

Monster

Was written in bloody letters, cut into the skin on my chest.

I pushed the knife on top of my heart. I had to feel it but shivers made my hand shake.

Why keep appearances?

I could kill until either I am dead, or until someone will catch me. This man, this meat suit is a farce. I am nothing.

I am scum.

Disgusting.

I hate myself so much, I can’t keep hating myself more.

The Monster roared, loud and clear. It was there taking over, feasting on the last leftovers of the man that I once was.

With Lilly gone, the last bits of my humanity melted away and the Creature, the thing that I kept in check howled. Its pain was stronger than mine, because the monster too loved Lilly more than anything else and refused to be civil without her.

Maybe she was gone, but she unleashed something that would burn like a fire and take countless lives in the process.

I watched myself in the mirror. The man that smiled at me there, that wasn’t me.

I was something else. The darkness took over and the human left over was ready to crawl somewhere, hide under a stone and die.

It was already dead, a few heartbeats separated me from the real ending.

But I will have to shed some more blood before I can rest.

And it won’t all be mine.