Chapter 1 Pink

— 1 —

PINK

Gemma

4 MONTHS AGO

"THERE'S JUST SOMETHING about changing the color of your hair… It's so transformative." My reflection in the mirror is glossy, blurred through my tears.

I glance at my cell phone propped up on the bathroom counter and make sure the live stream on my social media continues to capture every liberating moment of my undoing. I manage a gentle smile for my viewers before looking into the mirror again.

I blink away the tears to find some clarity in my reflected image. I haven't been able to look at myself for this long in years, but now, I find a morbid beauty in the rawness of my appearance. My falling tears capture dark mascara and eyeliner, mix to form black rivers that carve canyons of dark memories down my cheeks.

There's no shortage of dark memories in my mind, but the memories I made tonight are the only ones I'll treasure.

I'll cherish this night forever.

I separate another section of my naturally blonde, unnaturally blood-stained hair, and paint on the bubblegum-pink dye.

I expected my viewer count to start dying off at this point, but instead, it's grown. I only started the account two days ago, posted a couple of rambling videos after I rounded up three of my killers—the men who took me, tortured me, and left me for dead six years ago. I told the world that I was holding them captive, that I was hurting them in all the ways they hurt me. I made it known that I wouldn't let them survive this.

The comments on my original videos told me the viewers were skeptical, but that skepticism is what skyrocketed my views and follows. It's only by luck that my videos are still up, that my account still exists, and this live stream has continued far longer than I ever expected.

I thought it would be shut down by now, but a certain type of comment has gained popularity. The consistency of its message seems to be helping me as my live streaming continues.

DO NOT REPORT THIS LIVE. It will get shut down! The longer it stays on, the more info police can gather. DO NOT REPORT!!

I shouldn't read the comments.

Nothing good ever comes from reading the comments.

But curiosity continues to beg my attention on the screen, and I can't help myself. There's a constant upward flow, then a fade of emoji reactions and clusters of text.

You go, girl!

This is fucking sick...

My hero!!! Send her all the bad men!!

OMG, where are the cops?! Is this real??

I feel sick. I can't believe this. Does anyone know where she is? What do we do?

Someone's getting Evicted...

I'm counting on getting Evicted—sentenced to life in the Territory. That's where he is: my fourth and final killer. He's the worst of them all, and I need to make him pay.

I will make him pay.

Through the mirror, I glance at the reflection of killer number three over my shoulder.

Colin is pale, cold, sliced to shit, and practically bathing in his own blood in the bathtub. He's silent, unmoving… Dead. He didn't deserve the relief of death—if I could have kept him alive, awake, aware, and in pain, I would have.

But he had to die.

All of them had to die.

I may be leaving this world soon, but at least I'll leave it with fewer monsters than it had before.

"They were vicious, vile, true monsters," I continue my thoughts out loud for my viewers. "I had to do this. I couldn't go another month, another week, another day, knowing they were still out there in the world. And after what they did to me… The things they did… You can't…" I make eye contact with the faceless viewers who continue to bombard the comments section. "I told you enough for you to understand why I did this, but you'll never know the true horror of the things they did to me. You can't even begin to imagine…" I trail off, my gaze shifting out of focus.

My mind disconnects from my body. It has to. It's the only way to shut off the memories.

A hazy fog shrouds the awful mental images, allowing me a few moments of peaceful nothingness as my fingers automatically work to separate another section of hair and trail down the strand. Halfway down the dry section of my long hair, my fingers halt on the sticky, viscous substance that shouldn't be there…

Blood .

My eyes snap to the mirror, and I see the streak of red where my fingers have stopped. It's such a vibrant shade that it almost looks fake.

The memory of blood spurting from Colin's chest when I stabbed him flashes across my mind. A misplaced smile spreads across my cheeks, yet somehow, more tears fall. Hurting him felt so good, but it didn't take away my pain. It didn't take away the years of misery I suffered in the aftermath of what they did. It didn't give me my life back or bring me a better future.

My future is Eviction. Banishment. An indisputable sentence for spending the rest of my life in the Territory once I'm charged as a violent felon. It's the future I knew I'd have when I began this. It's the future I chose . I decided that punishing my four killers meant more to me than anything else.

I chose revenge.

I chose to take my power back with deadly force.

Eviction is the only way for me to finish what I've started because Seb—Logan fucking Sebastian—is already there, already sentenced to a life in the Territory.

And I will have his blood on my hands.

I attempt to steady my twitching nerves with a deep breath. Then, I lift my brush, paint pink dye onto the section of hair, sweep right through the blood, and let it streak.

"It's transformative," I whisper. "Pink…"

Pink will soften the vivid red rage in my mind.

It's the stain of my vengeance, the remnant hue of their blood.

Pink will remind me that I'm stronger now, that their power belongs to me because I took it. I claimed it when I claimed their lives…

Pink is my reclamation.

Lyrics and melody flow into my thoughts, and I begin to sing out loud. The song has to come out. I can't think of the word pink one more time without hearing Steven Tyler's voice sing that single syllable in my head.

I sing Pink by Aerosmith.

There's always been a soundtrack playing in my mind. It's a constantly shuffling playlist of random songs, and each begins to play when called upon by some perfectly mundane word or thought… Like the color pink.

My viewers love the singing—at least, the ones who understand me and why I've done what I've done. But I don't sing for the viewers; I sing for me. I sing because it carries me through the moments I wish I could forget.

It carries me through them, though it doesn't help me forget them. If anything, the melody stakes its claim over the moment, gives it deep roots which tangle and burrow into the song, ensuring the memory returns whenever I hear it or sing it again.

And because the song and the memory attached to it won't fade unless I sing it through, I always sing them through. Too many songs are connected to these men, to my past, to the nightmare they made me endure. They tried to break my mind with the songs they forced me to connect with the worst moments of my life.

The song they played when I thought I was going to die, the one I heard every time they made me think it was really the end… I sang it for them when I killed them. I made sure it was the last thing Dominic, Peter, and Colin heard before taking their final breath.

When I find Seb in the Territory, I'll sing it for him, too. My worst memory is rooted in that melody, and I want his to be, too.

I'll make his worst memory on the day he dies…

I laugh, interrupting myself in the middle of the song. I felt such rage in that last thought, but it didn't make any sense.

"He can't hold a memory if he's dead…" I tell my reflection.

Or at least, he can only hold it as long as I keep him alive.

I don't know how long I can keep him alive.

I don't know what the world is like in the Territory; I don't know how I'll find him, how I'll overpower him, what tools or resources I'll be able to scavenge and use to hurt him. I don't know if I'll have the opportunity to do to him what I did to them. I can't plan, I can't prepare, not like I did with these three. Seb could get the upper hand. He could take me and hurt me all over again.

A sob cuts through the laughter, bringing fresh tears to drip down my cheeks, though they flow over the curves formed by the sad smile that remains. He caused me so much pain, so much sorrow and misery. But the worst feeling is knowing that he won't have to live like I did. He won't have to feel what I felt as the girl who survived and broke free. He won't have to suffer the impact of the trauma I'll cause him for years to come.

Six years of suffering…

I suffered, and they lived without consequence for what they did to me. That's what their privilege bought them. They could hurt women without consequence because Mommy's and Daddy's money could pay to clean up the messes they made—hide evidence they left, hire the best lawyers, pay off the judge. Though I guess even the Sebastian family fortune wasn't enough to buy him off when Seb killed his best friend Peter Cavanaugh's little sister a couple of years later…

"Chloe Cavanaugh." I always say her name out loud rather than think it to myself—I won't let it be lost to silence.

I would hope that if I'd been killed the way she had that people would say my name out loud. I would hope they'd say my name more than my killer's.

"Logan Sebastian was caught and convicted for murder when they found Chloe's remains." I look over at my phone screen, painting my hair blindly while I speak. "I guess you could say that I was just lucky to have survived him. Lucky to have been one of his first victims, back when he was still learning what he liked to do to women. Back when he had his little squad of obedient dickwads to corroborate on their story, and all their families' collective wealth and social resources. The justice system failed."

I huff and look away, scooping more dye onto my brush heavy-handedly.

"It fucking failed me! It failed all of us. Every single woman, time and time again. Men have been getting away with the most heinous acts against us since the fucking dawn of time. They keep destroying us, ruining us, breaking our hearts, our minds, our spirits, our bones ."

I hastily paint my hair with rough strokes.

"The broken bones… They hurt, they really fucking hurt. But it's nothing if you compare that to the pain of a shattered soul, a ruined life. They failed when they tried to kill me, but they ended my life all the same." I look at my phone. "You probably won't believe me because all you've seen of me is this … This violence and chaos. You've only seen the desperate, damaged parts of me. You don't know who I was before them.

"I used to be so level-headed and calm. Hard to believe, right? Before I met them, I was smart, focused, ambitious. I had dreams. There were so many things I wanted to accomplish, so much more I wanted to learn… an entire universe of discoveries I could have made."

Tears of grief warm my eyes over the life I never got to live.

"I was close… So close to having everything I ever wanted, to living my dream. I survived what they did to me, but the person I used to be is gone." I pause. "Did you know that trauma alters your brain chemistry? I won't get into the science of it, but it's true. Trauma changes you. It fucking changed me . I was never the same again. I never went back to finish my graduate program. I couldn't make myself—"

My voice cracks, falters, then ceases altogether.

The brush falls from my hand as the recollection of everything I've lost catches my heart in a vise. The pain seizes my lungs, and as I fight for a breath, a sob breaks free. I drop forward on my palms as they land on the countertop, letting my head hang as I cry. I let the sorrow of my stolen dreams consume me, let myself cry until my eyes dry out, until I can't cry anymore.

Slowly, I turn my lowered head to look at my phone so I can speak again, but catch a glimpse of a new comment just before it fades.

Excuses. Your trauma didn't kill them, YOU did.

"I did. You're right. I killed them," I respond to the comment as if the person who made it is in the room with me. "I killed them, but they killed me first. I'm just a ghost of my former self, trying to rise from the dead and serve justice."

Another comment appears.

I FREAKING LOVE YOU, GIRL!! YOU'RE A QUEEN! MY HERO!! I'M TOTALLY STARTING A FUNDING PAGE TO RAISE MONEY FOR YOUR LAWYERS.

I'm not a queen or a hero.

I didn't do this for anyone but myself.

Yet there's a beat of contentment that comes from the acknowledgment of another woman, in knowing that someone out there understands me, what I went through, what I'm going through, why I chose to do this.

This chick deserved whatever they did to her. She's literally too dumb to live, recording herself murdering three men? No fucking self-control. This is why women need men. Someone needs to put this bitch in her place.

It's Seb's voice in my mind, reading the comment. It's his voice telling me that I need him. That I'm nothing without him. That I should go away with him to his summer home…

I snap, fling the back of my hand against my phone, sending it flying across the bathroom. It slams into the far wall and drops to the floor.

Self-control?

I used to have it in spades. I used to be so controlled, so disciplined, that I had myself fooled into thinking nothing bad would ever happen to me. I really used to think that a quiet, unassuming life dedicated to academic rigor would somehow keep me away from the kind of men who would take advantage of women at parties who aren't paying attention to their drinks, women who walked home alone down dark alleys, women who got too drunk at the bar or went home with a stranger hoping for a night of fun.

I did everything I was taught to keep myself safe, and it didn't matter. Nothing I did kept me safe—they found me anyway.

They always find us.

I ignore my phone, leaving it where it landed, and quickly finish painting my hair, thickly overcoating it with dye. Spatters of pink cover the wall and countertop, but I don't bother with cleaning up the mess before I leave the bathroom and enter the master bedroom attached to it. I cross the room and open the blinds so I can peek out through the window.

It's dark now, and although the suburban street is well lit, I can still see the stars—my old friends. I let the dye process on my hair as I search the night sky, silently naming the stars as I spot them.

Alhena.

Mekbuda.

Wasat.

Pollux.

Castor…

It's comforting, like counting sheep, though it doesn't put me to sleep… It just quiets my mind.

After thirty minutes or so, I return to the bathroom to rinse out my hair. I stop in front of the bathtub-shower combo and realize that I haven't exactly set myself up for success. I hadn't forgotten that Colin's body was in the bathtub, I just hadn't thought all the way through to rinsing out my hair. I could wash it in the sink or find another bathroom, but fatigue has suddenly struck me, and I just want it done.

I reach above Colin's head and turn on the faucet, letting the water run over his dead body. It pours over his paling skin, mingling with blood, tinting the water as it flows over him into the tub. I switch the flow from the faucet to the detachable showerhead and reach up to grab the handle, bring it down with me as I lower to my knees on the tile. As I bow my head, I carefully lift my hair up, bringing it over the top of my head to hang down in front of my face. I lean forward, bending over Colin's torso, which I sliced right down the middle.

I see it all.

I see exactly what I did to him.

The true horror of it is unfiltered now that the adrenaline is fading. He deserved it, but knowing that doesn't prevent the wave of nausea or the dry heave that nearly makes me vomit.

With one hand holding the showerhead, and the other digging into my scalp, I scratch and scrub as quickly as I can. Dye rinses from my hair and washes over his mangled corpse. Another heave threatens sickness, and I rush to finish.

I hold it back as long as I can, but I feel it rising the moment I've cleared the dye from my hair. I drop the handheld and somehow manage to toss my soaked hair back from my face, though I don't make it very far. I only manage to turn away from his face as I purge, spilling the contents of my stomach at his feet.

The moment I'm emptied, I spin to face away from him, drop my ass onto the hard tile, and lean my back against the outside of the bathtub. My breathing is unsteady, much like the spinning room. I try to focus, slowly drawing air in through my nose and forcing it out between my lips. When I feel like I have the strength to lift my arms, I gather my hair at the side of my head and squeeze, wringing the water out onto the floor.

As the room gradually steadies and my vision comes back into focus, I turn and reach for the toilet paper, ripping off a few squares to wipe my mouth. I move onto my hands and knees and shift my body closer to the toilet so I can drop in the used paper. I notice my phone still lying on the floor beside the wall where it landed with the screen facing up. I reach out slowly and grab it before returning to my position, sitting with my back to the tub. I unlock the screen, and I'm a little surprised to find that the live is still streaming.

The comments are flying.

Did she just puke? On the dead guy?

OMG, where are the fucking POLICE?!

I can't look away...

This whole thing has been so disgusting.

I know I shouldn't, but I do it anyway. I tap the screen to pull up the comments section and scroll through, skimming through everything that was posted from the very beginning.

She's a monster. Why hasn't anyone reported this feed? How are we still watching this?

She's not a monster. Do you even understand how they hurt her? She snapped! They totally deserved it.

Is anyone recording? This is live. Will this evidence all be gone when she ends the stream?

I've been screen recording since twenty minutes in. I will be sending it to the police!!

I'm recording.

Recording!!

Okay, but can we talk about her voice? Wow!! So talented. And the way she sang to each of them before she killed them? Damn!

Same song, too. Maybe she's a siren... Dangerous, charming, hot as fuck, great singer... LOL."

A siren? Like the mythological creatures that would sing to lure sailors to their deaths?

Aren't sirens just mermaids?

Yes, she's totally a mermaid!!

I wanna be a mermaid...

They should call her the Siren!

Pied piper of murderers and rapists.

She's such a badass. Personally, I'm proud. Maybe if this was the punishment for men who repeatedly assault women without consequence, the world would be a more peaceful place.

I'm proud of you, Siren!! Making the world a better place one asshole at a time...

Anyone know where she is? Hit me up if you figure it out. I'd love to straighten this bitch out myself.

This is evil. What's wrong with you people? Can't you see the Devil in her eyes?

I want to laugh at the last comment, but all that comes out of me is a sigh. I'm so tired. I'm physically exhausted, emotionally drained, and psychologically overwhelmed. I lift my phone, centering my face on the screen before I speak to the viewers, slowly and clearly.

"This is it. I've finished what I planned to do, and now I'm done. This part is over and I'm ready for what's next. My name is Gemma Hadley. I did this…" I angle my phone to capture Colin's corpse over my shoulder, making sure there's a clear view of the carnage before centering myself in the view again. "His name is Colin Kingsley, and I killed him. I also killed Dominic Brice and Peter Cavanaugh. You'll find us at 3812 Willowbrook Road in Fairfield, Connecticut."

That's it.

This part is done, and exhaustion finally defeats me.

I reach across my chest to set my phone on the edge of the tub, let the live stream continue, give the viewers a chance to confirm with each other that they heard the address right… I need the police to find me.

I slump down the side of the tub and lean my head back to rest on the edge. I stare up at the white textured ceiling until my weary eyes fall shut and the world slips into silence. Then, I drift into peaceful darkness.

When I wake again, it's to the call of sirens. Glimmering blue and red lights filter in through the bedroom window and dance across the walls. I sit up straight, lift both hands in surrender, and wait for the police to find me.

PRESENT

I PLED GUILTY from the beginning—I was never going to deny what I'd done. As expected, I was convicted of a Class A felony. It's the conviction I needed to get to Seb. I murdered them as brutally as I could manage to ensure the courts would see me as the most vicious, violent type of criminal.

The courts have been unnecessarily slow in processing my case, but I suppose they have to do their due diligence. The justice system has always run slowly, but I suppose I'd been na?ve to hope my case would be quick to process given that I pled guilty right away—never mind the fact that the evidence of my crimes was so readily available. There were dozens of screen recordings from viewers who watched me murder them in real time.

As the judge told me, they have to be certain before finalizing the paperwork. Because once it's done, it's done. They can never bring me back.

The only sentence handed to a Class A felon is Eviction.

A life sentence.

Banishment to the Territory for my remaining days.

I was ready for Eviction the night I was arrested, but instead, I've spent the last four months locked up in solitary, alone with my vengeful thoughts, letting my rage simmer until I can finish what I started.

I can't let go of the rage… Not yet.

All this time, I've kept my anger just beneath the surface, saving it all for that cruel bastard.

Four long, lonely, mind-splintering months.

I survived them.

That part is over now, and today is my Eviction Day.

Today, they'll renounce my citizenship from the United States of America. I'll be stripped of all the rights, protections, privileges, and resources guaranteed by the government. I'll be transported across the country, processed, and then banished forever to the Territory. It's a lawless region occupied by the country's most violent criminals, a place they spent decades mapping out, evacuating, and walling-off so they could trap the worst offenders in the desolation of the Mojave Desert.

There's no escaping the Territory.

Eviction is final, permanent, and irrevocable.

There's no changing what I've done.

The sentence is as final as death.

But I'll take this death from the only life I've ever known because it will lead me to the end of my vengeance—the end of my hatred, my rage, my obsession.

I'll find peace at the end of this.

That's the only hope I have to hold on to.