H E A T H E N

Of course, he did not stay there. He could be quiet up close just as easily as he could from far away, so he figured there was no real harm in following her. He wanted to see her, see what she did, see what her face did in the actual moment of death. Riley’s, that is. Not the girl. The girl was just a human, and she would do the same thing all animals did when they died ( sob, whimper, wriggle, go limp, blah, blah, blah ). 

Riley was different. She was like him. ( Or, she was about as close to like him as people ever got. ) But more than that, the things she did had purpose, and power behind them, and they meant something.He wanted to witness, to understand. 

He trailed behind her, wraith-like, and stopped when she did, crouching down in the trees a few feet away. The first cry startled him, but then he smiled, watching her wail in the darkness like a wounded doe. Clever girl. 

The blind prey staggered directly into her unlikely predator’s arms, and he thought he knew just what would happen next ( a blade drawn ear-to-ear, a fountain of warm and wet ), but he was taken back by Riley’s words. He had apologized to victims before, manically trying to shove their organs back into place in a flash of lucidity, but he had never forgiven one. What did it mean? 

He emerged from his hiding place as the girl took her last gurgling, blood-drowned breaths and the cascade of plasma spewing from her slowed. Gently, he hooked his arms under hers and lifted her slumping body from Riley’s grasp. He placed her on the ground, face-up, and crouched down to pull the blindfold from her eyes. Dark, shallow nothingness is what he found there; a doll’s eyes, painted glass that only echoed the real thing. She was less than an animal now, she was an object. His object. He rested his elbows on his knees and examined her, plotting out his next move. His tongue darted over his lips in a subconscious gesture of hunger.

His mind was slipping from him, and he reeled it back. He still had a question for Riley, and he needed to ask it before he scared her away. He looked up at her, and then back down at the corpse, tilting his head like a child might. “Forgiven for what?”

Riley was staring at her boots, disgusted. They were coated in blood, all the way from the laces to the soles.

“Urgh,” she said, half to herself. “That’ll take forever to get out.”

She knelt next to the body, putting her knife away. Blue eyes examined JD’s face, nose scrunching up in disgust when he licked his lips. What was he planning to do with the corpse, eat it? Or something even...?

Ugh. Wait. No. No. She did not want the answer to that. Shut up, brain, shut up.

“I don’t know,” she admitted plainly. “But I believe -- very strongly -- that She would never set me on the path towards someone that didn’t need to die. For one reason or another. Everyone has their sins. Rape. Abuse. Greed. Stalking. Narcissism. Weakness. The way I see it, you either overcome your sin and become better, or you die in shame.”

She was looking at JD, now. Trying to gauge whether or not he’d laugh at her.

She decided to just say it.

“I think sometimes, She chooses who She needs to carry out her work. And She helps them overcome their sins -- like She helped me. And then, we help her back.”

“the day you stop being worried is the day you actually start having fun. i mean, come on, man, why bother if you’re so scared of being caught?”

“Some things outweigh the fear. I mean, I assume that’s true for all of us.”

He was able to suppress the giggle that was threatening to escape his throat, and it surfaced instead as a wide, bemused grin. Given the circumstances, it was entirely inappropriate. He knew that, but he couldn’t help it. It was just so ridiculous. He hadn’t been speaking loudly. He’d never been loud in his life. It was kind of his thing. In fact, he was often told off for being too quiet. And yet here was this tiny girl, shushing him and giving him orders like some kind of incensed librarian.

He looked around himself in a big, obvious way that made it clear he was gently mocking her paranoia, and then leaned in close, hunching down conspiratorially. ( Personal space? What’s that? ) “No unnecessary suffering,” He repeated, dropping his usually low volume to something hardly above a breath, “But I can’t agree to clean.”

He’d never pulled out teeth before, but he knew it wouldn’t be any kind of simple. He hadn’t brought pliers, of course, and even if he had, he worried they’d damage the delicate contraption that lined the girl’s jaw. He’d have to use a rock to break up bones of her face and then chip them out with the knife he’d brought. It would be neither quick, nor clean.

“You can slit her throat or whatever, say your prayers, whatever you need to do. I’ll help however you want and I won’t interfere.” He searched her eyes, trying to show that he was being earnest, “But then you let me do what I need to do, okay?” Maybe he didn’t have a wrathful god to answer to, but he hoped she’d understand that he was still beholden to his particular need. They all were. He supposed that alone was what bonded them.

“I want something from her. It’ll be messy, but your hands won’t get dirty, and she won’t feel a thing by then. How does that sound?”

Riley took a step back when he got in her personal space, bright blue eyes flashing with a warning. If he tries and touches me, she thought, I may just throw a blindfold on him, see how he likes it.

“I don’t care what you do after she’s dead,” Riley whispered. “Once she’s dead, she’s all yours.”

She didn’t intend to stick around to see what JD had in mind. She was sure it’d be far more disgusting than anything she’d be interested in.

Riley always had at least two knives on her at all times -- one of which she kept hidden in her boot. Kneeling down to get it out, she flipped the long blade open and cast her glance at the girl.

“Stay here, and don’t make any noise,” she told JD, before she made her way down, as quietly as possible, into the clearing with the soon-to-be-corpse.

Riley stayed a few yards away, as per the rules, before raising her voice for the first time all night.

“HELP!” she screamed, allowing a hint of a sob to seep into her tone. “HELP ME!”

Thinking she’d found a fellow victim, the girl turned, hopefully stumbling towards the sound of Riley’s voice. Riley worked up some tears, calling for help again, encouraging the girl closer... closer...

...Into Riley’s welcoming arms.

“You’re forgiven,” Riley whispered, before slitting the girl’s throat in one fluid motion. She dug her blade as deeply into the flesh as possible, wanting to keep the time the girl spent bleeding out, aware she was about to die, to a minimum.

“we’re not on ice. right now, we’re on bedrock. think about it—nobody knows us, barely anybody knows there’s even people going missing, and the pigs are just running around like chickens with their heads cut off. what are you so worried about?” he shook his head. “seriously, remind me to bring some dope next time we’re at the warehouse. you need it.”

“The day I stop being worried is the day I get screwed over. I’d like to keep that day as far away from me as possible.”