by Cole McCade
One where she’s not sure why she added it, except that she didn’t want to give up something so expensive just because she hates the man who gave it to her, when she’s already grown attached to it and the way it tells her story—and she needs her story to be complete, even the worst parts of it.
It’s just that some pages in her story are just for her.
Like the little diamond-studded baseball bat, a perfect replica of the one her father used to spank her with, only she’d never felt the bite of a cut diamond in her ass.
Like the little Chinese character for love, that little “ai” that was the only word she learned on a pre-divorce vacation in Macau, where she met a gorgeous man with a beautiful smile who wanted to take her away but she had to be loyal and not let herself get tangled up in rough hands and the strong lickable tan slope of his throat, the fascinating way the tendons in it stood out sharp and strong every time he turned his head.
Like the white rabbit.
It’s almost like the Playboy rabbit, but not quite.
Silver, with white enamel and a single little diamond eye.
That one, she doesn’t think about.
But it always dangles over the line of the scar starting at the base of her wrist and snaking up her arm in a swoop so smooth it’s almost like a seam, as if she’s an android put together in bits of rubber simulation skin that cracks into a dark line showing where it fits together if you pull on it too hard.
She doesn’t really see her scars anymore.
Not the one swooping neatly from wrist to forearm, not the ones mapping out the sections of her hand like an anatomical diagram, not the ones that circle her breasts or make a grid over her swelling tummy.
Or the ones on her face, drawing lines from her lower eyelids down her cheeks, like permanent pink tear-streaks cut into her skin.
They’re a part of her. Her ordinary landscape. Her son calls them her kiss-lines, all the places where he kisses all over her cheeks and hands to tell her he loves her in little sweet pecks.
Her husband had called them a fascination, like she was some kind of strange animal specimen, and she’d tried to take it as a compliment but it had just made her feel like an object.
But more than anything they’re just…
There.
She’s gotten used to not seeing them. Not thinking about them. Not noticing when people who aren’t familiar with her stop and double-take and stare. That’s their problem, not hers.
But she can’t stop watching the sway of the white rabbit against her wrist right now, and suddenly she feels every line mapped over her body burning like bright hot wires against her skin.
No, that one she doesn’t want to remember.
But it’s part of her story, and so it has its place on that line of charms.
She doesn’t want to remember, but she won’t let herself forget.
Sindy pushes it aside, though, as she edges into the entryway and kicks the door shut, and this time she makes sure the latch catches and flips the deadbolt with her free hand before pocketing her keys and heading toward the kitchen.
It’s warm inside, and that’s one reason she likes these adobe houses. They trap heat in the winter but stay cool in the summer, and it’s always the perfect temperature inside to enjoy the feel of the kitchen tiles on her feet as she kicks her shoes off and pads in to set the groceries on the counter. Those seamed scars are on her feet, too, starting in the dips between her toes and making grooves between the tendons all the way up to her ankle, and to her they make patterns interlocking in and out of the floor grid as she walks.
Back and forth, back and forth, dipping in and out of the fridge, humming to herself, and she thinks, she thinks maybe for a side she’ll—
Oh.
As she turns, then, she realizes.
Someone is in the dining room.
Someone has been in the dining room, and yet she looked right past him because she knows her house, she knows what should be in her house, and it’s easier to see what she expects to be there rather than what really is:
A man in a placidly blue knit sweater vest over a short-sleeved pale blue button-down, sitting in the chair directly facing the west kitchen entryway.
A man in a rubber white rabbit mask with the fur detailed in sculpted grooves, the whiskers plastic wires, the eyes big and bright with a wire mesh over them that hides everything but the faintest gleam of the real eyes behind.
But she knows those eyes.
She knows they shine like a scalpel, and she doesn’t even realize she’s screaming until her bladder lets go and the sound of tinkling liquid splashing against the tile counterpoints her voice in a strange harmony, and she feels the rawness of her throat and the warm wetness soaking her jeans against her inner thighs.
She’s seen this moment in her dreams. In her nightmares.
And in her nightmares she can run, she can hide, she can flee down a long dark hallway with a long-eared silhouette stalking her while she sobs and sobs and he never quite catches her but she never quite escapes, either, when the hallway is endless and her legs never stop moving but slowly her body falls apart, piece by piece, as the scars open up in bloody lines and the meaty chunks of her start to separate.
But wide awake, staring at that blandly pleasant rubberized face, she can’t run.
She can’t move at all.
Nothing but her fingers, flexing and unflexing into claws, as if trying to grasp desperately at whatever severed strings have left her frozen in place, unable to take a single step. Unable to do anything but scream.
And scream.
And scream some more.
Not even when the man in the rabbit mask stands, the chair scraping on the dining room floor. All Sindy can think about is that she’s always telling Todd not to scrape the chairs because the dining room floors are hardwood, almost the same glossy dark wood as the dining room table and chairs, and it’s hard to buff that kind of scratch out of the aged walnut floors.
She’s going to be on her knees for hours, she thinks, as the man in the rabbit mask walks slowly around the table, pacing his steps. On her knees for hours, cleaning up the pee from the floor, buffing out those scratches in the hardwood when that man is so much heavier than Todd and he’s going to make much deeper scratches in the floor.
They’re panic-thoughts. Rabbit-thoughts, ha-ha rabbit thoughts, her brain trying to make this normal when she can’t move and can’t get away and she can only think about what life will be like if she manages to run and survive and hide like she did once before, once before when she was all blood and cuts and lines everywhere but he didn’t find her, he didn’t find her.
He stops in front of her, then, and although she can’t see his mouth…
When he tilts his head, she knows he’s smiling.
“Found you,” he says, and his voice is the same voice that haunts her nightmares, oddly reedy and full of strange, whimsical laughter and sweetness as it chases her down the halls singing ring around the rosey, pockets full of posies... “Found you again, Sindy.”
She’s too paralyzed to see the scalpel slip from his sleeve.
But she feels it, when it presses beneath her ear, beneath her jaw, finding the groove of the scar that starts there as if finding home in the soft spot where her jaw blends into her throat.
She feels when her breaths seize, her heart locks.
She feels when her ribs bind up.
She feels when her wet-soaked legs suddenly find strength to move again, thrusting her away, but it’s too late.
It was too late the moment she realized her door was unlocked.
His hand is on her throat, his blade stabbing down, and even through her clothes he finds it.
He finds the start of the grid-maps on her belly, but this time when he digs in, it’s not a thin line making blood art on her skin.
This time he digs deep, and she screams even more, and the pain is a thing that runs along the lines cut into her body like an electrical charge
leaping along wires, rushing and sizzling through her.
She’s even more wet now, wet and warm with blood.
She remembers this pain.
She remembers his breath, rolling through the mask in thin-filtered streams to caress against her face.
It’s happening again.
It’s happening again, and down that dark nightmare hallway her mind runs, sinking away from reality.
But this time…
This time that long-eared silhouette catches her.
And she can only beg, plead, sob, cry as that terrible sound she knows by heart rises again and again.
The fleshy-metallic sound of a thin-edged blade stabbing into meat, down to bone.
Her meat.
Her bone.
And how he makes a rhythm of it, as he sings, sings, sings her to death, his voice rolling in time with the rhythmic chime of the charms swinging from the bracelet on her wrist, the white rabbit’s cool ears teasing against the frantic pulse in the veins beneath the thin, thin skin.
“The wedding bells are ringing, the boys and girls are singing,” he titters, and then stab-slch, stab-slch again. “Sing with me, Sindy. Sing with me again. Your voice was so very, very sweet.”
Her lips part.
Her mouth bubbles.
Her throat gurgles, and her only song…
Her only song is a song of blood, as her mouth fills with the salt taste of her own slow and grinding end.
Read more in CRIMINAL INTENTIONS SEASON TWO, EPISODE TWO: In Sequence!
[SERIES Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR!]
HI THERE, COLE HERE. I get a lot of questions about the series, so let’s answer some of the most common ones!
Q. wait
A. Hm?
Q. Did Sila just say—
A. Say what?
Q. COLE YOU KNOW WHAT HE JUST SAID
A. I do, and we’re not going to talk about it.
Q. …but…but…hol’ up just a goddamn second
A. Yes?
Q. SILA WAS JUST PRETENDING TO BE BRITISH AMERICAN?
A. Yep.
Q. …for like…over a decade…
A. Uh-huh.
Q. WHY
A. In-character reason: part of his psych profile, and tendency toward fabricating new versions of himself to confuse and manipulate people.
My reason: because I’m a petty bitch.
It’s kind of my own personal in-joke. It doesn’t really need a detailed explanation, its just me snarking on some racists who don’t understand colonization and language assimilation for diaspora POC.
Q. …have you really been sitting on that information since he was first introduced in S1E1?
A. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
Q. How is Sila connected to the Golden Ratio Killer? His name was on the return address in the last scene of S1E13 with the man in solitary confinement, right?
A. Wouldn’t you like to know.
Q. But why is Huang letting Sila live after Sila messed with his drug operation?
A. Because Sila has access to someone Huang hates even more.
Q. WHO?
A. does this look like a face that gives spoilers
Q. Okay but why hasn’t he killed Lillienne Wellington, she’s clearly trying to hone in on his operation, right?
A. Lillienne is his subordinate, and she has her uses with being rich and having major connections. If she dies/disappears, that could bring some smoke he doesn’t want to deal with. So he’s just reminding her that even if she’s used to getting her way, he’s the boss. The power struggle between them will be one of the subplots of this season.
Q. OOOOOH BUT ANJULIE AND GABRIELLE ARE IN LO—
A. Don’t even say it.
Q. Why not?
A. Because they’re not. Anjulie is aromantic and just because she loves Gabrielle as a friend and is sexually attracted to her as a partner and/or friend with benefits doesn’t mean she’s suddenly going to stop being aromantic because romantic love “cured” her. Instead of trying to cure aromantics by forcing romantic love on them, maybe respect that their relationship styles are valid and they’re allowed to approach a desire for companionship in a way that makes them comfortable, rather than abandoning who they are to please alloromantic people.
I don’t know if Anjulie and Gabrielle will end up in a long-term committed relationship. It’s possible. Just because Anjulie is aromantic doesn’t mean she doesn’t want/need companionship, partnership, affection, and support; nor does it mean she’s cold or that there’s anything wrong with her. She’s not, and there isn’t.
But regardless of their future together…I will never have Anjulie fall in romantic love with Gabrielle or anyone else. It’s off the table, out of respect for her aromantic identity. Period, and I will defend that—and her—to my last breath.
Q. WHAT IS UP WITH ADELAIDE
A. She’s very honest, isn’t she? I hope you’ll like her. She tends to process social cues and information differently, so she’s very straightforward and blunt.
(AKA yes, she’s autistic, if you were hoping for confirmation.)
Q. So she’s disabled? What’s her disability? Why didn’t you say before?
A. She’s got muscular dystrophy. It’s not some huge secret, just as the story happened right now it would’ve felt ableist to have any of the other POV characters remarking on it and labeling it, and from her own POV there’s been no natural moment for her to specifically think “I HAVE MUSCULAR DYSTROPHY, FOR THE INFORMATION OF THE READER.” The thing with chronic illness/injury/disability etc. is that frequently the people who actually have the disability often only think of it by its name when explaining it to others or referencing it aloud to educate, etc. In my experience, at least. Most of the time in our thoughts it’s less “ugh I hate my [condition] today” and more “fuck my malfunctioning fucking body” or “FUCK MY LIFE WHY DOES EVERYTHING HURT TODAY.” But at some point she’ll have occasion to state it bluntly. But I’m okay stating it here, too, because it’s not something to hide/some secret. Just how the story’s currently panned out.
Q. Why have you never said anything about Mal and his four-door Camaro, when numerous people have said something to you about it?
A. Because I don’t feel like it’s necessary to explain in the story itself that it’s possible to mod a Camaro from a two-door into a four-door. It’s been done before, just takes a little welding and autobody knowledge, and if anyone would do it, a police detective who sometimes needs to transport suspects in his vehicle would. If y’all really want a visit to Mal’s auto body shop or if anyone is surprised that someone as protective of his car as Mal is would mod it, I can do that, but it wouldn’t add anything to the plot. Especially since they’ll be traveling this season and the Camaro’s hardly going to make an appearance.
Q. I’m confused. By chapter three we already know so much about the Golden Ratio Killer’s kill style, methodology, etc. It’s handed to us on a platter from old case files. Where’s the mystery?
A. There’s a lot planned in this story with layers involving motives, who he actually is—figuring that out is going to be a large part of this, with so many potential suspects whose identities could provide key clues to catching him plus the twisted game he’s clearly playing with the other potentials—and what his purpose is this time. As usual, no spoilers, but…I will tell you that TGRK has an endgame, it’s very different from what motivated his kill patterns prior to prison, and it’s connected to some people from S1.
Q. So…no real solve this episode?
A. Nope. This season’s following a different format, since Malcolm, Seong-Jae, and Aanga are pursuing a high-profile serial case with a lot of complexity. Throughout the season there’ll be reveals, revelations, dangerous situations…but it’s not much of a story if they catch the killer before the end of the season. This time instead of the relationship, it’s the case that’s the slow burn. If S1 was like Criminal Minds…think of S2 more like Dexter.
A merry chase, and the
white rabbit’s gambit.
Q. Why was S2 over a month late coming back?
A. It’s a lot of work putting out one book per month, trying to also occasionally squeeze in non-CI releases, and write another 90,000-120,000 word book every 30-45 days for my ghostwriting clients (yes, for those of you who don’t know, I’m a ghostwriter). After the mess with Black Tattoo, I had a mental health break and just…crashed, from the stress of trying to catch up + an unexpected short-lived but explosive personal detour. So at a helpful reader’s suggestion, I stopped and pushed everything out a month and rested so I wasn’t churning out crap books just to meet deadlines.
...and then I fucked something up hardcore at the last minute because this book is cursed, and had to spend an extra week fixing it.
We all know by now that I’m a disaster, right?
Q. …so what you’re saying is you still have absolutely no clue what you’re doing.
A. Oh, none whatsoever.
This is a wholly untried, untested thing, and just as I got used to writing in the serial format by the end of S1…now I have to come back and figure out how to pick up S2 with both a wholly new season-long plot, and continuation of the original threads I set out in the first season while also sneaking in tiny bits of groundwork for the big S3 story. It’s basically like going back to basics and starting from scratch, only with twice the planning requirements.
I’m completely lost.
And you get to be lost with me.
So buckle in, and here we go.
[AFTERWORD]
IN THE UNITED STATES AND many other countries, we have an instant knee-jerk reaction to assume that someone pathologically violent is also mentally ill.