You hand her the tweezers so that she can shove one side under her nails and scrape out the rest of the blood and she thanks you with a little “hm” noise while you go back to running your gloved fingers through your hair. When you look up in the mirror you see your face, but you don’t look at yourself in an admiring way, not the way Beth does. There’s dye in your hair that’s slowing taking your brunette strands and grasping them into black. Beth is still washing her hands next to you, going to town with that poor Dial soap. You don’t think anyone could use more soap than Beth and you do. The water running down the drain is clear now.

           “I’m gonna miss your brown,” she says.

           “You said the same thing when I got rid of the blonde,” you say, rubbing your fingers into your roots.

           “And I’m gonna say it again when you bleach it back to blonde.”

           “You’re a loser, pick a color.”

           “Blue.”

           “I’m not dying my hair blue.”

           “Why not? We could make punk aliases. We’ll change your name to Raven Wing and I can be Bloody Mary and we’ll spend all our money on eyeliner.”

           You scoff and try to make your smile go away before she sees it, but it’s too late and you catch her gaze as she looks up from washing her hands. She draws out a dumb sounding laugh that makes you snort at her and she bumps her hip against yours.

           You finish spreading the dye in your hair and start to peel your gloves off inside out. Your hair used to be longer, but after the last kill you chopped yours off real short, above your ears. It’s a little longer now, and Beth tells you that it looks gorgeous on you (but she says that every time you cut your hair). You watch the way she flicks her hands to spray off some water before grabbing a towel, a white one at that, but when she hangs it up there’s no crimson stains, her hands clean from the deed.

           You throw things away in a separate garbage than the one the motel provides. You’re not dumb enough to leave evidence behind. You take the garbage with you, leave it in the back of the van, and toss it somewhere random that goes with a just as random city. Last time it was at a Dollar Tree dumpster in Forest Grove, Oregon.

           “You okay?” Beth asks.

           “Yeah.”

           “M’kay.”

           You peel off the second glove, putting them in the separate garbage bag as her arms rest around your waist, her chin on your shoulder. She’s looking at you through the mirror and you look back at her because you don’t want to look at yourself. She’s prettier anyway. Her hair touches her shoulders, (she dyed it red a month ago) and it hangs in a mess that follows her. Her skin is dark and alluring, a wonderful contrast to your pasty ass. “But you’re the white stars in my black sky” she’ll say.

           You don’t say anything right now and she doesn’t either, so she kisses your jaw and slips away to strip and change clothes. You watch until she catches you and you pretend to be busy with tidying up the bathroom area.

           Surprisingly, after the killing nights, you’re calm. You’re most calm after a killing. You get new names, new hair, and you see new places. Six months ago you went to the top of the One World Tower in New York and kissed Beth at 102 stories in the air.

           The dye has to stay in for half an hour, so you’re very careful when you change because you don’t want to get the black coloring all over your clothes. Sure, you’re a murderer, but you care about your style.

           Beth has the TV on and your laptop open. It’s both of yours, but you use it all the time. You’re the researcher mostly. You find the targets. You find out where they live, what they’ve done, what kind of security system they have, where the cameras are, and you walk Beth through it while she usually does the dirty part.

           “We’re on TV,” Beth says, and you follow her gaze to stare at the late night news. A woman with far too much hairspray is staring seriously back at you as if she knows you personally as she reports on the body that was recently found only three hours ago. It’s four in the morning. Damn, they were fast.

           “Damn, they were fast,” Beth says right after.

           “You were probably too loud,” you say. “Maybe a neighbor heard.”

           “Whatever, I’m a fuckin’ ninja.”

           “You broke a vase in the last house.”

           “Oh, yeah, like that creep was gonna need it.”

           Miss Voluminous on the TV says, “This death comes just three days after Kurt McCoy walked away not guilty for his charge of sexual assault against his daughter.”  

           “He guilty as fuck now,” Beth scoffs and pretends to throw imaginary popcorn at the screen as it shows flashes of red and blue that reflect off the windows and caution tape around the house Beth and you were at three hours ago.

           “What do you think they’re calling us now?” you ask.

           Beth makes a hum that lasts a long time as Nest Hair keeps talking about the murder on the TV. Fifteen seconds later the speakers say, “… it’s suspected that the two female friends—”

           “Ha! Friends!” Beth yells. More invisible popcorn hits the screen, pretend butter smearing on Fat Hat’s face.

           “—Bethany Olson and Charlotte Poole—”

           “Just say it!”

           “—are responsible for the death—”

           “Leeeezbeeeeeiiiiins!”

           “—of Kurt McCoy.”

           Beth looks at you and grins with laughter. You can’t help but smirk back at her and finish undressing. You pull on a baggy shirt so that you can slip it up your hips, that way no dye in your hair spreads, and decide to screw wearing pants because the heater in this shit motel is useless anyway.

           “Where to next?” you ask.

           Beth is changing channels as she sighs. “Hmmm… Let’s go east until we hear something new.” She looks at you. “How long you gotta leave that in?”

           “Half an hour.”

           “Hm.”

             Both windows of the van are rolled down. You’re driving while Beth has her feet up on the dashboard and chooses a CD to listen to. You’re headed towards the coast. You both have seen the ocean, but you’ve never felt it; never put your feet in it.

           “I wanna put my feet in the ocean,” you say.

           Beth goes “eh?” and then rolls up her window halfway so there’s no roaring wind covering up your voices on the highway.

           “I wanna put my feet in the ocean,” you repeat.

           “Hell yeah,” she says. Then: “We need new names.”

           “Ideas?”

           “Chrysanthemum.”

           “For you or me?”

           “You.”

           “I’m not changing my name to Chrysanthemum.”

           “My little flower.”

           “Stop.”

           “Precious blooming flower,” she coos.

           “I’ll hit the break. Are you wearing your seatbelt? You’re not, oh my God, Beth, we’re supposed to kill shitty people, not get killed because you’re stupid as fuck, put your seatbelt on.”

           “Okay,” she says as she pulls the belt across her chest and clicks it. Then she adds quietly, “Chrysanthemum.”  

           You swerve the van and she screams. You laugh while she whacks your arm, but the little “ow” noise you make is completely covered up in her own cackling that joins yours.

           You met her when you were sixteen, sophomore year. You had math with her and shared lunch. Her style changed every day, and she could pull off any outfit, and you always found yourself staring at the classroom door excitedly to see what she was wearing when she got in. You were always disappointed on the days she was sick and didn’t show up, but you realize now that you always focused on the math lessons better on the days she didn’t show up.

           The first time you kissed was after a game of Mario Kart. It was random, really. One minute you’re rolling across the finish line in first place (Beth was in last) and suddenly her big brown eyes were all you saw as she smooched a good one right on you, and you kissed her back in the middle of her flustered apologies.

           You didn’t commit the first kill. She did. You don’t blame her and there’s no reason to forgive her because there’s nothing to forgive.

           Beth was one of the smartest people you knew, and you sometimes wondered why she left the tech stuff to you when she was a good enough genius to look like one of those nerds in the spy movies who says words like “hack” and “firewall.” She always knew.

           “I tripped on the stairs,” you would say.

           And she would say “liar” or “you said that last week” or “yeah, right.”

           She would answer the phone at three in the morning when you were crying and blubbering quietly that Dad had gotten angry at you (again) and she would lie for you and pretend she wasn’t exhausted and talk to you until the sun came over the edge of the hills outside your window; until your tears were dry and your eyes stung, and she would tell you stories about your future with her. She told you her favorite wedding dress she wanted to see you in (sweetheart neckline, fit and flare), what state you would move to (Colorado), the kind of cat you would own (a tabby named Dorito), and what kind of jobs you would have (you were going to be a social worker and she was going to be an astronomer. She wanted to learn about everything that wasn’t here and you wanted to help those who had been hurt like you).  

           You had been hiding for too many years and when Beth and you were extremely serious about your future, when she was tired of finding bruises under the spots she kissed, you told your dad. She said she’d come with you, but you did it alone first. You didn’t want her to see how mad he could get.

           She was a flurry when she walked in on it on the middle of his anger. Your lip is still scarred. She used a heavy bookend over the fireplace and was moving in a craze, her hand lifting heavily and then being thrown down, again and again until his face matched your own beating. And then it got worse and worse and he was dead, so very dead, and the stained carpet was soaking with red blood instead of sloshed alcohol, and you saw inside him when she grabbed your arm and kept saying “let’s go, let’s go, Charley, let’s go” as she held her sleeve up to your bloody nose. He was dead, she killed him, and you were never abused again.

           You’ve been on the road ever since. At first it was just living in motels and keeping your head down and getting as far away from your hometown as possible. Six months after that same routine you were in a busy city watching the news when you saw that some pedophile was in trouble for the third time and the poor kids he had ruined weren’t getting their justice.

           Neither of you really said “hey, let’s go murder that dick.” You both just met eyes and knew what you had to do.

           And you’ve been traveling and doing this for the past five years.

           It’s late in the evening and your feet are being lapped by salty ocean water. You were honestly let down by the dreams about this. This water connects the entire world and all you’re doing is sinking your feet in it. It’s cold and you’re just going to have sand stuck between your toes and you’d be disappointed if it weren’t for Beth’s company.

           You look over at Beth, but she’s watching two little kids play farther down the beach. Their mother is saying it’s time to go home, but the sister and brother continue running and laughing and playing tag in the area where the ocean crawls up and claims their ankles in white splashes. Beth is smiling to herself and you rest your head on her shoulder.

           “We could move to England or something,” you say. “New identities. No more killing. Have a baby and that cat.”

           “Hm.”

           “Boy or a girl?”

           “Either. Doesn’t matter. ‘Cause they might change their mind when they grow up. And a parent always has to support their kid. Boy, girl, other, doesn’t matter. If parents learned to do that we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

           You bite the scar on your lip.

           “Do you hate where we are now?” you ask.

           “Nah. I mean, you’re here. I can’t complain.”

           “Dude, Beth… that was kind of gay.”

           She snorts and you smile when you see that you’ve made her smile. She stops looking at the children who are being wrapped up in towels by their mother and she looks at you instead. She’s so plain, it’s gorgeous. Black skin, brown eyes. Some of her eyeliner is smudged. You kiss her nose.

           “Do you believe in redemption?” she asks, as if you didn’t just try to smooch her up.

           “Maybe. Why? Sounds corny and deep.”

           “Like… what if these people we get rid of have potential to get better someday? What if they really, really regret it and we’re not giving them a chance to get better? It’s like that boy in our old philosophy class. That huge asshole who would call us fags n’ stuff. Remember when you found him on Facebook? And he has a daughter and a wife and he runs a non-profit charity.”

           You don’t say anything.

           Beth continues, “Or what about my parents? They didn’t talk to me for a week when I came out. And then things went back to normal. They called you my girlfriend. They made silly gay jokes with me, I was their daughter again and they learned. Like, what if we’re destroying second chances?”

           You’re silent.

           “I miss them,” she sighs.  

           You do too.

           You curl your toes in the sand, keeping your head on her shoulder. There’s heat in your face. There’s no more laughter on the beach. The kids and their mother are gone now.

           “I think we’re destroying third chances. I think we have been all along,” you say.

           “Yeah?”

           “Yeah. I mean, we do it when the person’s done it more than a few times, I think.”

           “You think.”

           “I don’t know, Beth. I mean, this is where we are now. Maybe we’re fucked up, ya know? I mean, Christ, you murdered my dad and I ran away with you. Maybe we’re sick. And if we are, I think there’s a lot worse things we could be doing.”

           “Worse than killing?”

           “It’s not like we’re killing babies, ya know. And maybe these people we’ve killed are getting their redemption right now. Maybe they’re being taught in some weirdass afterlife, or maybe they’re being reincarnated into someone better, or maybe—maybe they understand now.”

           “It’s a new moon tonight.”

           “What?”

           Her hand lifts, pointing. You see no moon, but because it’s so incredibly dark out now you can see the rural stars taking their place, so much brighter than the main constellations that would unmask themselves in the city. Everyone in the sky is out tonight since the sun can’t use the moon like a lamp for your nighttime.

           Beth shows you constellations until it’s late, and when it’s midnight she holds your hand as you both walk back to the van. Sure enough, there’s sand in your toes and it’s annoying as hell.

           You just spent twenty minutes walking Beth through the security of a high class apartment building. You lost connection with her through your headset fifteen minutes in and you sat in fear and worry out on the street, holding the steering wheel of the van and shaking. It was two-thirty in the morning. No one was around. The crickets were so loud.

           And then she came running. Her hands were bloody and so was her face and your heart was racing as you twisted the key in the ignition and she leapt into the passenger’s seat practically hyperventilating.

           “Go, go, go,” she had said.

           And you did, you pressed hard on the gas pedal and said, “What happened?”

           “He fought back, he really fought back, holy cow.”

           “What happened? Your face, what happened?”

           “I hit a mirror, it just need stitches, I’m fine, I’m fine, focus!”

           “Okay, okay, okay.”

           And here you are, driving.

           You’re doing ninety on the highway. When you glance over, there’s blood dripping off her chin and into her lap, and angry gash open on her temple. Her hands are still red. She never wears gloves when she kills. The police and all of America already know your identity, and you two want everyone to know that if they’re not giving victims their justice, then you’ll take care of it yourselves.

           “I told you we shouldn’t have took this job!” you yell.

           Beth flinches at your sudden outburst. “We just got wired fifty thousand dollars, and that douche isn’t rapin’ anyone anymore!”

           “What if his wife lied? W-what if you had gotten caught? This was supposed to be about keeping people safe and now we’re doing it for money!”

           “Charley, who’s gonna pay for the gas? The motel rooms. We gotta do it this way sometimes.”

           “Fuck!”

           “Hey! Hey. Slow down.”

           You swallow and you listen to her. You go down to seventy-five miles per hour. You breathe harshly as she fishes a towel out from the back of the van and starts wiping off her hands. The towel is already red and no one would ever know how many blood stains have been put in there. A washer can only do so much. She holds it to the gash on her head after and reaches over, holding your hand even if you have the steering wheel in a death grip. Her thumb rubs your knuckles.

           “Hey.”

           “What,” you practically whimper.

           “I love you.”

           “I know,” you say. “I know. I love you too.”

           “We can stop. Whenever you want. You know that, right? We’ll go to a new country, just like you said. Cat and a kid. Do you want that?”

           “I don’t know. I don’t know. We’re too sick to raise a kid.”

           She laughs, rubbing your arm. “We really are, aren’t we?”

           You’re crying, but you scoff and laugh with her, nodding. She wipes your eyes while you focus on passing a car, putting as much distance between that house and you as you can. You choke on laughs through your sobs and Beth laughs at you and you laugh at yourself as you blubber, “We’re so fucked up.”

           “Yeah,” she says, squeezing your hand. “Where to?”

           “Seattle?”

           “Okay.”          

           She whispers “all right” and keeps smiling at you. You watch the white dashes fly by on the road. You stop checking the rearview mirror every five seconds, always expecting a flash of blue and red to show up and start tailgating you, but when you stop freaking out and stop gasping for air, the world has been calm all along. It was you making the chaos.