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It's night when he decides to take a life.
She's in the kitchen, back turned to him. The only light available to make out her smudged form coming from the open windows.
She tenses up as he approaches. And he thinks she knew he was coming. Knew that he was approaching, blade in hand.
He tightens his grip on his knife. Her back is an easy target and he uses that to drive the knife deep into her shoulder. It's warm and he can feel flesh and muscle and tendon give out underneath his force.
She whips around to face him, but the stare she gives isn't anything he expected. She looks resigned. There's a dim smile on her face even as her eyes fade.
She collapses back on him, and he catches her before she can fall. She's already dead weight.
He slides down to the floor as he cradles her in his arms. Her head lolls against his shoulder as blood pools onto his shirt.
He's so warm its sickening. Exciting, fulfilling, he feels so full and he tightens his grip on the knife and stabs her again. This time lower and he feels a new well of blood gush against his pants when he pulls the knife out and stabs again. And again. And again.
It's a rush, It’s ecstasy injected straight through his veins, It's freedom and he's confident in this.
He stays there, holding her body as the night pauses. Her weight is slumped against his, but the burn in his muscles as he holds her up against him is a visceral, real, feeling.
He breathes in the smell of iron and just stays there. He's alive.
Time passes.
The blood starts drying, tacky against his skin. It's still warm, still cradling him, slowly filing him with an unnamable something he craves.
But its staining her. Her hair must be sticking uncomfortably to the back of her neck. If she were still alive.
He pulls a hair tie out from his pocket, gently separating and collecting strands from her neck and hair to pull back into a loose ponytail.
Her bow knocks back as his hands bump into it. It's getting in the way and he shifts position so he can grab it with his teeth and lift it off. He tosses the bow on the floor, determined to leave it behind and collect her hair. He has to fix this on her. He needs it like he needs to breathe.
Slowly, carefully, he collects her hair back, no longer letting it frame her face quite so feminine, and when he looks at her he imagines she could be him. If she weren't dying. If she weren't dead.
He takes a moment to really look at her face. A scar stands out stark against deathly pale skin (because she's dead. Because he killed her. Because he loved it (loved her)).
He'd never heard anything about a scar when he was researching. Never seen her with a scar when someone else was watching.
She must've hidden it, he concludes. Or, maybe no one cared to notice.
He presses his hands into the scar, feeling its raised line and smearing the blood coming from it. It must've just stopped bleeding.
It would've been hurting her, if she wasn't dead. If he didn't kill her.
He thumbs his own bandage. It's all crisp white lines and well covered padding. It's well taken care of, and he tries to keep it clean.
There's no blood smeared on his bandage.
He traces his hands down, taking her in idly as he learns her against him, not sure if he wants to dig deeper into her with his knife. Or just cradle her against him.
It hurts, looking at her vacant eyes. It’s the sadness they held. They're resigned. But he's not. And he's here to take, so the pain is worth it. Every bit of blood coating his nails is worth it.
Her nails are manicured. There's red on them, like his. They're well preserved, maybe just done and he knows when she's lowered into the casket her nails will still look like that.
Red.
There are sirens in the distance. He can see the blue and red from the window and hear the screeching sound.
He doesn’t bother to get up.
His nails are red too. He knows when they catch him they'll take it as evidence of his crimes. Something irrefutably tying him to her.
It's fine if they won't ever let him wash the metaphorical blood on his hands. He supposes that's just his lot in life.
Blood under his nails no matter how it ends.
But he refuses to let himself fade out. She's dead and she's faded and she will be in the grave, nails manicured and red, and still and dead and perfect forever.
His aren't manicured, they're stained.
But they're stained with her blood and he doesn't care if every officer in here thinks he's wrong. If her family hates him because he feels so alive.
He knows, he thinks as he lays down her corpse, what the implacable feeling killing her had gave him. Gives him, as long as she's dead.
He feels right.
The door slams open and officers come and arrest him. They trap his hands in handcuffs and people ask him questions.
They lead him out and he doesn't lie to the cops. What would be the point of that? He's proud!
He's throbbing. Filled with feeling. He's jittery and he feels so confident, so right, so sure he's worth his life, and hers. It's something he knows the girl has never felt before.
It's an eye for an eye,
Her life for his.