CHAPTER 23Weary and sore, I reverse my trek through the dark Enger Park and set into the streets of Duluth. I find a gas station with a payphone and place a call to William Henry. He’s still with his current client, but he’ll be able to pick me up in about an hour or so, so I give him the address of the gas station, and return inside, where it’s warmer.I buy a magazine so I have something to keep my mind occupied, but I can’t focus on the words on the page. The last forty-eight hours play themselves out repeatedly in my head. Worst yet, I can’t believe I actually fucked that sonofabitch. The sex isn’t even what makes me feel most violated. What makes me feel most violated is somehow he knew that making himself look similar to David Brennan would be an effective way to manipulate me—and it fucking worked, damn it.Then, of course, there’s the whole letting him get away thing. On some level, I know I should just be grateful that I walked away with my life intact, but it doesn’t stop
CHAPTER 24Naturally, school got cancelled for the rest of the week, in response to the additional deaths of Bethany Martin, Anthony, principal Davison, and Christy Lee Spinner. Can’t say I was disappointed to have the extra time to recuperate and not have to pretend to be Jennifer Donner for a while. I spent the time alternating between soaking in the tub and watching Mister What on streaming. I decided to skip over Brennan’s episodes to the episodes featuring Matthew Smytheson, the actor who replaced Brennan after he left the series. If in the next couple months a Matthew Smytheson look-a-like shows up on my doorstep, I’ll be sure to slit his throat. With my luck, he’d probably turn out to be the real Matthew Smytheson. Ugh.Anyway, after the week’s slight reprieve, I return to classes for my last week of the assignment, just to smooth things over. According to the ‘official’ story, I was attacked at the same time as Bethany and Anthony Hill, and I was left for dead, which provides
CHAPTER 25First thing the next morning, William Henry arrives to take me to Duluth airport. I sit the ride to the airport in silence, staring absently out the window at the passing scenery. I tip William well, then begin my mythical and arduous quest of passing through TSA security. I go through the moves blindly and numbly. Check my bags. Wait in line. Keep waiting in line. Get felt up by the TSA operatives, at least this time it’s a woman, so she doesn’t overdo it on the groping. Thank porcupines for small favors.Sit around waiting for the flight to board. Wait in line as the flight boards. Spend four hours getting hit on by the skeezy businessman I am lucky enough to be sitting next to. Wait in line to depart the plane after arriving in Los Angeles, knowing full well that Skeezy Businessman is taking advantage of being behind me to ogle my ass.Meet the town car driver at the bottom of the escalator, holding a sign for ‘Jasmine DeLaney’—the name my return flight was booked unde
“I love my work and want to start again. You will soon hear of me with my funny little games . . . My knife’s so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away if I get a chance.”—Jack The Ripper.
CHAPTER 1Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.Okay, okay. Sorry, I just hate these stupid introduction things. It always makes me feel like I’m in grade school, again, and I hated grade school. I also hated middle school. And high school. Thank porcupines I didn’t go to college, I probably would’ve hated that, too. I hate a lot of things, incidentally.All right, let’s start over.My name is Sarah Killian, and I am a professional serial killer.No, goddammit, I am not a mother-fucking assassin, goddammit.Sorry. Again. That was my Tourette’s. I just have issues with assassins. They’re jackasses.Every. Single. Last. One. Jackasses.Let’s just say that it’s no coincidence the word starts with two asses, because one ass is not enough for those douche bags.So no, I’m not an assassin. I’m a professional serial killer, also known as a PSK. Assassins are lazy. Kill one terrorist with a sniper rifle from a hundred yards away and then disappear into
CHAPTER 2Zeke calls me at 5:00 in the fucking morning. He likes to do this; calling as early as possible with new assignments just to fuck with me, because he knows it pisses me off. And I can’t do anything about it, since he’s my boss.Even though I know it’s him, since no one else has enough cajones to call me at 5:00 in the fucking morning, I answer the phone. “This had better be Nathan Fillion calling to tell me he’s on his way over to my apartment—wearing his Captain Hammer uniform, fake nipples and all—to take advantage of me in every position imaginable.”“Hello, Clarisse,” Zeke responds.That’s another irritating quirk of Zeke’s. He tries to make himself seem creepier than he already is by impersonating famous movie sociopaths. I suppose that kinda shtick might work on normal girls, but it takes a lot more than Anthony Hopkins to creep me out. Truth be told, if I was ‘one of those girls,’ Zeke wouldn’t need to impersonate Anthony Hopkins to make my skin crawl. Fortunately
CHAPTER 3After mercilessly slaughtering an allegedly helpless stuffed dinosaur until it is nothing but a few shreds of green and purple fabric, a frenzied mess of stuffing, a tangle of wires, and a smashed sound box, I feel much better and I’m able to get a few more hours of sleep.After I’ve woken up, showered, and gotten dressed, I make my way—as Zeke had known I would—to visit my mother, relying on L.A.’s crappy public transportation system since I am currently Porsche-less. Whenever I do make one of these pre-assignment visits, I always feel guilty, because I feel like the prison guards should know me better than they do. If I were a better daughter, the guards and I would all be on a first name basis and they would wave at me all friendly-like whenever I came to visit, not even bothering to check my identification since they see me so frequently.As it stands, however, they are practically strangers to me. I recognize some of their faces—the ones who have been around forever a
CHAPTER 4After leaving my mother, I head to THEM headquarters, located in Chatsworth. The general public is led to believe this is a porn distribution warehouse. The majority of headquarters is actually underground, as they keep the warehouse above stocked with porn, just in case the L.A.P.D. decides to surprise us with one of their periodic raids to determine whether we’re doing any filming on top of the distributing. Gotta love the San Fernando Valley.After I enter the building through the front entrance, using my employee I.D. badge to unlock the door, I pass by the rent-a-cop guard on duty at the front desk—ignoring him since he no doubt thinks I’m a porn star as the rent-a-cop’s are kept in the dark about what the building is really used for—and continue into the back warehouse. At the very rear of the warehouse is a shelf filled with DVD’s. I remove one titled The Horny Games—a porn-parody of a popular young adult book and film franchise in which Pussniss Everbone is forced b