3. Crave

The girl finds her pattern.Work at the mall. Home to her apartment. Hooking up with her conquests. Back to work again. Fifteen minute breaks to gawk at the Galloway House, fascinated by the potential truths locked inside of those dried-out walls.

I study her from one of the second-floor windows. Rae leans against the mall, texting on her phone—probably swiping right on her next valuable hookup. The desert wind snakes through her hair, and the mall hovers behind her like the bars of a cage. Her chin tilts up, and in my mind, I can see her right in front of me: those dust-brown eyes peering at this house, searching so hard that she doesn't see me in the window looking down at her.

I don't see her either. I see myself.

The meat bag groans under my boot. I shift my weight. The mask clings to my face, soaking up my sweat. The leather is tight around my head with sheer material across my eyes and a zipper on my mouth. My leather-gloved fingers drum the fabric of my mask as I contemplate this situation.

Rae is standing here. In my hometown. So close, I could run out of this house, tackle her, and shove her head into the pavement if I wanted.

"I lorve—" the meat bag garbles, facing the other body in the room: the soon-to-be corpse that looks entirely too similar to the meat bag. The bodies always spew nonsense at this point in the game. Sometimes, it's entertaining.

But right now, I'm distracted. I knew Rae was moving to Pahrump. I knew she'd find the house. I didn't think she'd start working at the goddamn mall. I wanted her close, just not that fucking close. Not yet anyway.

"I love you," the meat bag chokes out. I kneel down on top of its legs, just outside of view from the window. I brace the hips, preparing to insert myself. Blood and mucus crust the asshole, and the fuzzy hair surrounding it matted down with secretions. The body whimpers. It's not about the gender or the physical pleasure of the act. It's about knowing that I'm in control, and the meat bag's body is mine to use. Just like I'll use Rae one day.

The window's shaggy, floral-printed curtains obscure my view. I imagine Rae is still there, staring at the house.

One day, she's going to use and kill a body too. Just like this.

The body cries, and I thrust my dick inside. The warm cavity surrounds me, the friction enveloping me in the body's pain.

I angle my head toward the window again.

"I love you," the meat bag cries with each jolt of pain from my cock. "I swear, I've always loved you?—"

The look-alike's eyes water. "I love you too!"

I sneer, my cock growing numb. They're predictable. The groans, the tears, the desperate promises they make in an effort to save their lives.

Rae isn't predictable. Not yet.

"If you love her so much, then fuck her," I say.

It twists over its shoulder. "But she's my— my?—"

"Your sister?" I smirk. Does the meat bag really care about social rules right now? It wails, and I jerk into it harder. I lean down, my dick still inserted into the meat bag. "It wouldn't be the first time though, right?" I ask. "You've fucked her before, haven't you?"

"Yes," he cries. "I love her so much."

I turn to the female look-alike. "Crawl to your brother then," I bark.

Tears drip down her face. She ambles forward like a dog, then spreads herself for her brother. He licks her up, hungry for her, even with my dick in his bloody asshole.

It's easy. Anything for survival. For love.

But love doesn't exist in these walls.

And just like that, my cock is softer than a pillow. The meat bag's words echo in my mind: I swear I've always loved you. They crawl over my skin like ants, causing heat to flicker in my veins. It's not about the incest; I don't give a fuck who fucks who. It's something about the past tense in this scenario—loved, not love—that stops me. It should amuse me, knowing that the meat bag and its look-alike have basically already accepted their place at the bottom of the food chain, resorting to fucking for the last time.

I don't find any amusement right now.

My dick flops out of the bloody rectum. Red-tinged mucus glistens on my skin, the fleshy juices coating my piercings: the four metal bars on the bottom of my shaft, the horseshoe metal in my tip, and the curved barbell right above my balls. I yank the zipper on the back of my mask and rip off the leather. Stale air sends a shock wave across my skin, refreshing me.

The bodies scramble, a tangle of limbs and adrenaline, thinking they have seconds to escape just because I removed my dick.

I grab the baton off of the ground, swinging the weight into my palm. It's too easy. Too predictable. Too much of the same goddamned thing. I can switch from a straight couple to an incestuous fuck fest, and every human being turns into a sopping mess of final confessions before they take their last breaths.

One last word. One last regret. One last love. As if that's all that matters.

Love isn't real. Possession is.

I slam the baton against the back of their heads in quick succession. It's easy. So fucking easy.

They fall silent.

The bodies lie limp, like male cicadas after mating. The blunt force trauma is obvious, but once I dump the corpses off in the desert, no one will give a shit. I hook my fingers into their mouths and drag them across the floor until they're piled up in the center of the room. The media will think they disappeared on a hiking trip. Perhaps dehydration or starvation will be their supposed downfall. And if I could figure out their forbidden love by following them for a few short weeks, then their parents definitely knew. To them, their two adult children may be starting over in a foreign country. A place where they aren't brother and sister. A place where they're simply in love.

I step behind the curtains. The mall's employee smoking area is empty now. I imagine Rae in the boutique inside, folding another pile of designer shirts, checking her phone, flirting with the next man she'll steal from.

The corpses should make me feel powerful, but it's meaningless. Rae is the only one who can make me feel something these days.

I zip up my pants.

The logic is there, written in our connection. I should have killed her that first night she was in my taxi, and yet, I continue to keep her alive. She's had a good life so far. What will she do when I truly enter it?

You are obsessed, my mother's voice rings in my mind.

"It's an experiment," I clarify.

Rae isn't a person; she's an object. It's more interesting to think of her as a thing with autonomy, a female version of myself. And honestly, I don't care what she does with her free time. Who she fucks. What she steals. It's a game to her, a way to use her sex appeal.

And she's a game to me too.

She'll use her cunt to overpower you,my mother's nauseating voice says inside of me. If you really wanted to control her, you should have put cameras in her apartment already. If you had a single brain cell left, you would have done that by now.

My mother is dead, but my inner thoughts have since taken on her voice like she's part of me.

"You fucking bitch," I mutter. "She won't overpower me."

I stomp to the two bodies, imagining my dumb mother bent over the pile. I pull out my knife. I shove the blade into one of the corpse's neck, slicing to the spine. A mix of adrenaline and desire courses through me. I promised myself that I wouldn't put any cameras in Rae's new apartment. It's enough to be in the same town. I trust my instincts to know her well enough. I can control her from this distance.

But maybe I should install hidden cameras. I did it for the firearms CEO. The same strategy could help me now.

I stab the knife into the corpses again and again, the rhythm thumping through me, my dick twitching in anticipation. Then I pull out my cock again, squeezing it until blood reddens the pierced tip. The bodies blur until I don't see them anymore. I see Rae.

Rae against the wall.

Rae pulling at her torn stockings.

Rae with her tongue down her conquest's throat.

Rae winking at me.

My dick strains. "Raven Sinclair," I say. "I see you. The real you."

On the outside, she's normal. A generic girl with a smile so plastic, she seems defenseless. A person capable of fitting in.

I blend in too.