The Pirouette Predator

by Jade Wright

  I have bald patches now.

  No wonder Luke didn't want me.

  I am pathetic.

  Disgusting.

  The stress from the past few weeks is all too much for me.

  I am deteriorating just as quickly as the girls surrounding me.

  When I look at myself in the mirror I don't even recognise myself anymore.

  The dark rings beneath my eyes are deep and unforgiving.

  My nails are bitten right down to the quick.

  My skin is dry and flaking and my body losing all muscle.

  I have truly let myself go.

  It is all Luke's fault.

  He did this to me.

  I used to be strong but little by little he tore me to shreds. I didn't even notice it at first.

  I suppose there were always subtle clues. His phone would ping while we were together, hidden away from the world. No one could ever know about us. I was his dirty little secret.

  I'd stroke my fingers through his chest hair and ask him who was messaging him so late.

  'No one important,' he'd always say. I had loved that answer.

  The naivety of it infuriates me.

  I thought I was so special with that answer. It implied that I was important. Better than everyone else!

  Lies. All lies.

  I used to have a fridge magnet that said, 'Sometimes I feel like a mushroom. I'm kept in the dark and fed with bullshit.'

  That is exactly what Luke had done with me.

  He hadn't wanted anyone to find out about us.

  He hadn't really wanted anyone to find out about any of his other relationships either, apparently.

  Besides fucking Bibiana.

  She was always a bit more special than the rest of us.

  More public.

  I pick my wasted body up from off of the floor and lurch towards her now, my eyes venomous.

  “I don't know what he saw in you.”

  My lips curl up into a cruel grin. I squeeze her mutilated foot in my hand, dried blood flaking off .

  Warm fresh blood pours out as I tighten my grip. She screams until the duck tape loosens around her mouth.

  It's a piercing screech, her eyes filled with tears.

  I slap my bloody hand over her mouth to silence her.

  “Shh,” I coo.

  She's still trying to scream, but I can feel her weakening.

  I start to sing to her.

  Hush Little Baby.

  That always used to help me calm down as a kid, when I woke up from the nightmares.

  It works like magic. After a while her eyelids start flickering.

  I look at her pretty little face, examining it closely.

  She is no better than me.

  She hid behind so much make-up every day.

  It was all an illusion. Contouring, enhancing her best features... She's a manipulator.

  Without it all, she is nothing. A nobody. Like me.

  I'm still pondering over why she was the lucky one who got more from Luke than anyone else when it comes to me.

  The sun is setting in the sky and I realise what my next step is.

  His fucking parents. They're here.

  I am bloodthirsty.

  I lick my lips, they're cracked and chewed open from my torment.

  The girls haven't eaten properly for a day or two, maybe three.

  I lose track of the days, but I couldn't care less right now.

  They can wait.

  I grab my car keys off of the floor and sprint up the staircase.

  This was never supposed to be how this went.

  I didn't intentionally set out to actually kill people.

  I just wanted to scare the girls away from Luke. Make them see that he was mine! But I guess I hadn't thought it through properly. When my mask had slipped down and they saw who I was, I knew I could never let them go.

  As much as they begged and pleaded, their fate was sealed... and once I started hurting them, it started getting addictive. Fun.

  But I want the world to know I hadn't actually killed anyone until that nosy old couple who stumbled across me digging some graves.

  At that stage I wasn't sure what I was going to do, really.

  You see, I had to kill them.

  They would have gone straight to the police, I'm sure of it.

  I couldn't have that... and that feeling of power that came over me when I took their lives, it was unlike anything I'd ever felt before... and now I need that adrenalin rush again.

  I'm quivering with excitement.

  I have renewed vigour.

  Luke's mum and dad are next.

  I'll deal with Britt later.

  CHAPTER 21

  They never even had the chance to bury their son.

  Luke's home was apparently a bloodbath when the police kicked the door in after two days of no sign of life coming from within.

  It was the security guard who had raised the alarm.

  He had gotten used to seeing Luke's mother's shadow moving around in the window, making copious cups of tea.

  The news-reporter's are saying that Luke's dad had gotten drunk, killed his wife with multiple stab wounds and then turned the knife onto himself.

  That's how it was staged to look, in my opinion.

  There is no doubt in my mind that they were murdered.

  Killed by the same person who took those girls, who tormented Luke, who took River's leg and who has been playing with me this entire time.

  It wasn't Luke. I know that now.

  I wish I'd said that to his mother. I wish she'd had someone tell her they believe her son was a good person before she died.

  She went to the grave thinking the entire world despised her son – and despised her for ever having him.

  I should have said something.

  Our meeting plays through in my mind, all the things I could have said or done.

  I could have made a difference, but I didn't.

  I offered her some shitty supermarket bought flowers.

  I left her with suspicions.

  I left her with an evident argument brewing with her husband. Penitence stews inside of me as I think about the last few hours of her life.

  I think it will haunt me forever.

  That poor woman.

  It sickens me how many people are relieved they are dead.

  Social media has exploded.

  Once again everyone has their own theory.

  Photographs of Luke's vandalised house have gone viral.

  Some say his dad went mad, others are saying the students who were trashing their house teamed together and killed them.

  Only one thing seems pretty clear at this point. Everyone is in agreement that Luke was the killer and he is now gone.

  Everyone but me.

  Police are investigating his phone records, trying to track his movements from where his phone hit signal towers on the days leading up to his suicide.

  Search parties have tripled in an effort to find all the missing girls, now deemed dead.

  No one believes they'll be found alive at this stage.

  I'm sitting on the floor, clutching onto a photograph of my sister. She was one of those girls.

  If what everyone's saying is true, then my sister is dead.

  I don't know if I can carry on without her.

  I kick the wall in front of me, letting the tears flow freely down my face.

  River can sense my sadness and limps over to me.

  She puts her head into my lap.

  I've been sitting here for hours, paging through Robyn's journal. It's brutal to read.

  I know I haven't been the best sister over the years, but I had no idea just how much she was suffering.

  Our childhoods in and out of foster homes definitely took its toll on us.

  I wish I'd asked her from time to time how she was doing, but I never did.

  I was always so excited to share my travel experiences with her that I never really gave her the c
hance to speak.

  There are pages and pages of her writing about our past.

  I have to put the book down after an hour because it's too hard to remember it all.

  When I pick it back up, steaming mug of fennel tea in hand, I start reading massive chunks of entries about her relationship with Luke.

  She, like me, had to be kept a secret and it doesn't look like she'd handled it well.

  My sister was in deep.

  She even had pencil sketches of his face on some of the pages. I've never known my sister to be in love, so it cuts me deeply that she never told me about this.

  Then again, she couldn't, could she?

  I carry on reading until one entry really hits me hard.

  I think Luke's gone to meet another girl out on his boat.

  I can't help but imagine him right now, fucking her on the lagoon. It sickens me.

  I can't stand his lies anymore.

  I feel so out of my depth.

  I'm not in control of anything.

  I wish he'd just tell me, it's not like we are officially together anyway. We can't be... not yet. But he doesn't tell me anything that would paint a bad picture of himself.

  Instead, he always seems to focus on my flaws.

  Before he left my place, he told me I live my life in fear.

  He said that it controls me.

  The fear of losing him.

  The fear of being alone.

  The fear of not having my happily-ever-after with marriage, kids and the cliché white-picket fence.

  I know he's right, but it's infuriating that someone so young can say that to me, even if it is true.

  He knows me better than I thought he did – and that scares me.

  The thing is, I just don't know HOW to let life unfold naturally.

  I wish I did.

  I mean, it feels like I'm destroying my own life with my desperation.

  Even my sister is getting married.

  Maybe that's it. Maybe I'm getting scared of being left behind. Piper and I were supposed to do everything together.

  We used to huddle in bed together and pinky promise each other that one day we'd get married and have babies at exactly the same time.

  At my age I guess I'm stupid to have still been holding onto that promise.

  Today has honestly been the worst day of my entire life.

  I've worked so hard to get over my depression... but the knife went to my wrist like a magnet.

  At least if he told me the truth about seeing other girls, I wouldn't feel like he was outright lying to me.

  Honesty would be so much better.

  God I'm pathetic... listen to me! I'd rather be a pushover and let him see other girls as long as he told me about it.

  What has happened to me?!

  I'm numb now. I still cry... but I feel like I'm hollowing out. There's not much left for me to give.

  He has no idea how he is making me feel. Like an annoying 'blob' who just gets in the way.

  This is actually worse than a physically abusive relationship.

  I'd take that over this any day.

  Fuck him.

  FUCK HIM.

  He's fake.

  Why am I so stupid?

  Why do I still love him?

  He's an asshole with more emotional baggage than my sister and I put together!

  I want to scream.

  I feel like I have to tiptoe around him.

  I feel so unwelcome in his life until he gets horny and demands my presence with his raging hard on.

  He is breaking me.

  I can only hold on for so much longer before I crack.

  I swear to God if he is cheating on me....

  Reading the entry, it had started out so neat in her pretty cursive writing; but as it went along the messier and more angry the words became.

  I hate seeing how much she's been bottling up inside and struggling alone.

  What happened to us? We used to be so close. Tell each other everything.

  The entry makes me so angry at Luke for making my sister feel that way.

  He made me feel that way too, the way she feels is uncanny to how I felt.

  For the briefest of moments I am happy he's dead.

  Having her journal in my hands makes me want to get mine out again. It's jammed into one of the boxes I came here with.

  Maybe I should start writing again, I decide.

  Maybe it will help me somehow through everything that's going on right now.

  Writing used to be so therapeutic for us.

  I continue to flip through the pages and after a while I notice a list. It takes me a moment to realise exactly what it is.

  A list of girls.

  The first few are all the girls who have been abducted, but there's others too.

  The ink colour changes towards the end of the list, written later on with a different pen, I think.

  Britt's name is there and just below it, underlined angrily, is my name. I touch the letters. The ink smudges.

  This was written recently.

  I drop the book, my heart thumping erratically in my chest.

  I don't understand – or at least, I don't want to.

  The phone rings and I look down at it, still in shock.

  It's the police station.

  “Hello?” I say, trying to mask the tremor in my voice.

  “Ms. Brady, it's Detective Engelbrecht,” I recognise his voice instantly.

  “How can I help?” I ask, my voice clipped.

  He just thinks I'm a drunk who likes drama.

  He doesn't believe a word I say.

  “Ms. Brady, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Lock every single door and window in your house right now. I'm on my way over to you.”

  My stomach drops.

  “What's going on?” I ask him, scampering around the cottage and bolting every lock I can.

  “The speaker I took from you that night was left in the evidence room. I went in there today and it's gone,” he's speaking hurriedly. I can pick up the anxiety in his voice.

  “Gone?”

  I can't quite comprehend what he's trying to say.

  “Someone took it and they left something in its place.”

  “Well what did they leave?”

  Panic starts to rise inside of me.

  “A note,” he says.

  “What the fuck does the note say?!” I shout at him, unable to contain myself any longer.

  Why isn't he just telling me?

  Spit it out.

  “She's next...”

  I almost drop the phone from my hand.

  “Don't worry Piper, I'm on my way,” he tells me, hanging up the call.

  My breath is hitched in my throat.

  Beads of sweat roll down the side of my temple.

  I'm losing control again.

  The room around me is spinning, objects start to blur.

  My knees buckle as I black-out completely.

  *

  CHAPTER 22

  Luke, Luke, Luke.

  If I didn't hate you so much, my love, I might actually have shed a tear when I heard what you did. But then through time, I have discovered how weak you really are.

  You men are all the same.

  I trusted you.

  You were the first man I'd ever really had faith in.

  It's never been easy for me, not with the childhood I had. Accepting that I would never be normal from a young age definitely made things hard for me, but I stupidly thought you were different.

  Oh how wrong I was!

  I guess initially I'd wanted us to end up together, after all of this. However, through time, things changed.

  The girls were a bunch of sluts who needed to be dealt with.

  It took me a while to realise just what a slut you were too.

  A man whore, as they say.

  How had I been so blind, Luke?

  How had you managed to pull the wool over my eyes the way that you did?

&n
bsp; You thought you were so clever. Top dog.

  You thought you could get away with anything – but look where that got you! Six feet under.

  I'm glad you're gone.

  The world is better off without people like you.

  Cheaters, liars... you're all the same and you deserve every inch of pain that has come you're way.

  In a way, I've won.

  Now the question is, where to from here? You've definitely put a little spanner in the works, my love.

  You've always done that though, haven't you? Fucked things up right till the very end.

  I bristle. A cold wind bites at my bare arms.

  The bark on the tree I'm leaning against is damp, dew from the morning seeping into my shirt.

  I suppose I'm out here trying to have a moment of silence for you, Luke.

  Despite everything, I had thought we would work things out.

  Run away together after you realized everything I've done, I've done for you... for us! And now you've left me! Ha! Just like everyone else.

  Can't trust anyone anymore, can you?

  I rake my bitten fingernails through my hair.

  I need to come up with a new plan.

  Do I continue with everything, see things through to the end?

  Or do I just give up as you did and come to find you in hell?

  The truth is, I actually don't know if I want you anymore.

  Not after what you've just done. Left me when you knew I was doing this for us!

  You stupid prick.

  You couldn't just wait.

  Perhaps you never wanted me at all.

  Was everything you ever told me a lie? Spewing words that didn't mean anything out of your mouth to me, like you did with all those sluts?

  They're all down there now.

  Fading away.

  Their ribs are jutting out, almost piercing through their skin. Stomachs bloated, skin ruined.

  A thought strikes me.

  I could just leave them. Let them slowly starve. The police will find them eventually.

  There are three stages of decomposition. Did you know that?

  Stage one is Livor Mortis. That's when the body starts to turn a purplish, bluish colour about thirty minutes after death.

  Algor Mortis comes next. That's when the body goes cold.

  The fascinating thing is that the skin, the bodies biggest organ, as well as bones can stay alive for days after death, so I've heard! But it takes about a twenty-four hours for a human body to be completely cold after death.