Kelly sighed, then raised her coffee cup to her lips and took a long sip, letting it warm her insides. It was 9am, and it was brisk outside, so she was happy to have coffee right now, even if it hadn't come from her usual spot. The front door opened, and Kelly sat up straighter, pushing her beanie up her forehead, watching closely as the guy from inside stepped out and headed down the walkway, looking around. He reached his car, pulled the door open and leaned inside the car, clearly searching for something.
It'd be so easy, Kelly thought, to right now just walk over there, grab him by the back of his hair, jerk his head back and cut his throat. So very simple. But no, that was too easy, and he didn't deserve easy. He deserved to suffer. She'd wait until the right time to strike, and then she'd hurt him worse than he could ever imagine. After a few minutes of searching, he finally popped back out, clutching his wallet and shoving it into his back pocket. He then shut the car door and headed back to the front door, heading through and shutting it behind him. Kelly smirked. He had no idea what he was about to deal with, and that made her giggle. She loved the element of surprise more than anything else. After all, who doesn't love a good surprise, she thought. Kelly started her car and pulled away, heading to the apartment complex, sipping her coffee along the way. Maybe she'd bring Jason breakfast. *** Jason was standing in his kitchen, having already dressed and showered and shaved. He was reading a newspaper when he heard the front door open and he smiled to himself. Kelly had become a constant staple of his life, and he'd begun to find himself anticipating her company in the mornings. She stepped in front of the counter bar that separated the kitchen and the living room and set a bag on the countertop along with another two cups of hot coffee. "You brought breakfast?" Jason asked, lowering the paper. "Yeah. Are you reading a newspaper?" she asked, pulling her coat off and putting it on the back of the chair as she climbed on. "Yeah, I'm trying to keep up with things," Jason said, "Doesn't hurt to stay on top of goings on around us." "Fair enough, but you realize it's not 1987, right? We have technology," Kelly said, making him chuckle as she pulled his coffee cup out of the holder and handed it across to him. While he sipped it, she started digging through the bag and pulled out numerous breakfast sandwiches from a fast food place and plopped them on the counter. "So what's on your agenda today?" Jason asked. "I'm going to teach you how to create a persona," Kelly said. "What's that now?" Jason asked, half laughing nervously as he sipped his coffee. "You need to have a facade, Jason. You can't be the same person on the job as you are off. You need to create an aura of someone nobody would ever suspect of doing these things," Kelly said, "It's why the best serial killers are often the most surprising. Think about it, how many times have you heard neighbors say something like 'we're stunned, he seemed so normal', and that's the whole point. To blend it." Jason unwrapped his breakfast sandwich and took a bite. He waited until he finished chewing and swallowing before nodding. "Alright then," he said, leaning over the counter, "Tell me, how do you pretend to be 'normal'?" Kelly smiled. She was going to mold him into a master. *** "Are you doing okay this week?" Anette asked, crossing her legs, preparing to write in her notebook. Kelly was 12 years old now, and she was often quiet. Her hair was braided, and she had was wearing corduroy overalls with a nice blouse underneath. She shrugged and looked around the room self consciously, while Anette smirked and jotted something down. She then leaned forward and cupped her hands. "Can I ask you a question, Kelly?" Anette asked. "Okay," Kelly mumbled. "Are you scared to be here?" Anette asked, "Do I make you uncomfortable? Does talking about yourself make you uneasy? It's totally fine to say yes, by the way, because it's completely normal for kids your age to be wary of this sort of thing. I just wanna know what I can do to make this easier for you." Kelly shrugged again and said, "I don't know. I just don't like talking much." "Okay then," Anette said, "You talk when you're ready. Otherwise we'll just sit here quietly, if that's what makes you happy." Kelly figured out pretty quickly after her mothers discovery of her toybox contents that she was going to have to pretend to be a good girl. That she was unhappy with the things she'd done. That she hadn't taken some kind of joy in killing the bird and its children and arranging them in a cult like arrangement in her chest. She figured that now she especially had to pretend to be even more normal in the presence of her therapist, so Kelly decided it'd be best to be quiet and shy, like she wasn't at all someone to be worried or concerned about. But the thing is, and Kelly was aware of this, Anette knew it was bullshit, but she pretended she bought it. Each one of them aware of the others facade, yet continuing it to be involved with eachother. The way Kelly saw it, it was safer to have Anette watching her eagle eyed than not, because Anette at least was willing to work with her instead of perhaps - like another doctor would've - simply writing her off as ill and having her committed somewhere. And Anette? Well Anette lived by the famous credence of 'keep your friends closer, and your enemies closer'. After the session, when it was lunch, Anette sat in her car in the parking lot of the building her office was in and did some deep breathing exercises. She needed to do this after every session with Kelly, because she needed to absolve herself of her involvement with this little monster. After a while, she finally managed to start her car and go somewhere for lunch, but Kelly stuck to her brain throughout the day, even through other sessions with other patients, because she was just that unnerving. Anette knew she had to do something about her, but wasn't sure what that could be. Thankfully, or rather unfortunately depending on which woman you were in the situation, that decision would soon be made for her. *** "When I was cheating on my wife," Jason said, "I often had to create falsities and workarounds to explain why I wasn't home on time or needed to spend more time at work. I'm not a newbie at lying or anything. At home I was the decent husband and father, but at work I was the cool professor having sex with one of his students." "And she never once suspected anything?" Kelly asked, tapping her nails on the countertop, her chin resting in her hand, her elbow posted up on the counter. "Not until..." Jason started, then stopped and finished, "...not until she was aware, let's say. Point is, I'm not some saint. But that being said, I'm also tired of being a liar." "Well, the only lie is lying about yourself," Kelly said, "you can have a second identity without outright deceiving the people in your life, which, at the moment from what I can tell, consists entirely of me, so. My point, Jason, is that say you met a woman, right? You can't just tell her you'll be home shortly, you just have to bury someone in a barrel first in an open field." "That would be an awkward conversation, yes," Jason said, taking another bite of his sandwich. "Exactly. So get a job that would often allow you an excuse, for one thing. Something you still like to do, but something that also works as a cover for what you do, see?" Kelly said, glancing at the watch on her wrist and asking, "Hey, you wanna go for a drive?" "...okay," Jason said, hesitantly. He'd learned pretty quickly not to say no to Kelly Baker. So, breakfast sandwiches packed back into the bag, coffee still in hand, they headed downstairs and climbed into her car. Kelly pulled away from the complex and drove off down the road. Jason chewed his biscuit and glanced nervously over at her as she tuned her radio and started playing music. "Where are we going?" he asked. "I'm gonna prove something to you," Kelly said, "Prove to you why this is a good idea. Why a persona is a necessity." He liked Kelly, he couldn't deny that, but he also couldn't deny that she scared the loving shit out of him. *** "I think your daughter suffers from severe psychopathic tendencies," Anette said to Stacy Baker one day in her office; Stacy nervously fondled the tassels hanging from her jacket and nodded as Anette continued, adding, "but that's not automatically a negative thing. These are things people don't ask for, don't want and in many cases are willing to have treated. I think she needs to be treated, but...in a way that she's..." "Okay with?" Stacy asked. "No, unaware of," Anette said. "Isn't that...immoral?" Stacy asked, "To secretly dose someone?" "It's frowned upon, but I get the feeling that Kelly is the type of person who would be very against medication. I think she thinks she's done nothing wrong, so she doesn't see the need. She doesn't want to change. But we can't have her out there, untreated. It'd be in her best interest, Stacy. I completely understand if you're against this, but I think it's the best course of action for the moment. I just wanna help her, and you by extension." Stacy cleared her through and nodded again. She did want Kelly to be okay, and she wanted everyone else around Kelly to be okay as well. After a moment, she exhaled and shut her eyes momentarily before opening them again and looking at Anette. "Okay," she said, "Whatever it takes, I'll do it." "You're doing the right thing, Mrs. Baker, trust me on that," Anette said. Anette wrote Stacy a prescription for a heavy duty antipsychotic, which she could pick up within the next 24 hours. Stacy did exactly as she was told. She picked it up, she hid it somewhere Kelly would never find it, and, come dinner time, she crushed it up and put in Kelly's food. Kelly never suspected a thing, and within weeks, it seemed to work. Kelly started to appear as nothing but an ordinary happy little girl, with no oddities that worried her mother. Anette had, it turned out, made the right call. For a while, anyway. *** "Where are we?" Jason asked, and Kelly just motioned for him to stay quiet, so he did. He sat in the passenger seat and sipped his coffee, waiting. After a few minutes, Kelly hit Jason in the shoulder and pointed at a building, where a woman came out. She was wearing a pencil skirt and a button down shirt with a cardigan over it, her hair pulled up into a messy bun. As she reached her car, she pulled her keys from her cardigan pocket, then fumbled them and let them fall on the ground. She shouted, then bent down to pick them up. "That woman's my therapist," Kelly said. "...and?" Jason asked, "Are we gonna hurt her?" "Of course not," Kelly said, "I need her. Besides, I've already done enough damage to her as it is. I just figured she was the best example to prove my point. I created a persona in order to look okay to her. So she'd stop suspecting me of horrible things. Course, she knew I was faking, but that's neither here nor there. The point is, even as a little girl, I saw how important it was to pretend to be someone I'm not. To pretend to be 'normal'." "I think I see your point," Jason said, "It's for the higher ups, not for myself." "Exactly. The ones who could theoretically do the most damage to you; cops, judges, juries, whatever," Kelly said, "...therapists." "Well then, let's go to the coffee shop, get some snacks and come up with a persona I could use," Jason said, "I'm gonna need one if I'm gonna find a new job anyway, so." Kelly couldn't pry her eyes away from Anette, who finally managed to get into her car, then backed out, forgetting she'd left her coffee on the top of her car. As it tumbled down the back of her car, she stopped suddenly and climbed back out, shouting angrily and kicking her car. Kelly smirked. "She medicated me," Kelly said, "thought she could actually get away with it." "...she's...she didn't? You're not on medication now?" Jason asked, and Kelly slowly shook her head. "No," Kelly said, "and after what happened, she'll think twice before trying anything like that with me again." Jason felt his blood run cold, but he stayed quiet and continued eating breakfast. Kelly smiled to herself. She felt pride, something she shouldn't have felt considering what she'd managed to do. For a person like Kelly Baker, the most dangerous thing to feel was pride for her actions. She turned and looked at Jason. "So, cafe?" she asked. *** "You medicated a child without her knowledge?" Tati asked as they sat in the restaurant that evening. "Yeah," Anette said, "And I know, I know it's, like, immoral or whatever, but she could hurt people, Tatiana. I couldn't let that happen. This was the best course of action." "What happens if she has a negative reaction to it or-" "Won't happen," Anette said, reaching across the table and smiling, her face warmly illuminated by the candlelight on the table as she added, "Trust me, the worst that could happen is she could find out, and even then, she'd blame her mother before she blamed me. I did what I had to do. I did my job." Tati smiled, though truth be told, she was nervous, and rightfully so. She didn't like what Anette had done, but if this little girl was as dangerous as she'd claimed her to be, then perhaps Anette really was correct in her decision. Just then their waiter set their plates down in front of them and they thanked him before picking up their utensils and began digging into their respective dinners. For the moment, Tati figured, it wasn't the time or place to talk about work. It was time for dinner. Leave the work at work, she figured. *** The following day, Kelly was outside the guys house again, waiting for him to show his face. She was once again drinking coffee, the heater blasting her face as she waited patiently. After what felt like an hour, he finally appeared, stopping on the front porch and zipping up his jacket before heading to the mailbox and pulling it open, looking inside. He reached in and grabbed his mail, then stood there and flipped through the pieces before heading back up the walk. Again, Kelly thought, it'd be so easy to just walk up behind him while he was in the mailbox and strangled him from behind or to jab an exacto knife in his neck, ending it instantly if done with precision and accuracy. But, again Kelly thought, he didn't deserve something so easy. He deserved to hurt after what he'd done to her. Of all the people she'd taken down, this guy deserved it the most, the worst, and she'd make sure that he'd get it. Once he was back inside the house, Kelly noted down his behavior and activity in her notebook before shutting it and starting her car up again. As she pulled away, heading to Jason's to pick him up for the day, she couldn't help but feel good about her skills. Her father had once told her that everyone needed a hobby, something to be good at that boosted their self esteem. He probably didn't expect hers to be murder when he'd said that, though.
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A rich teenage girl befriends a desperate man in his thirties to kill people that get in the way of her or her family happiness and fortune. Slowly, the mans guilt eats away at him, while the girl ego rises to dangerous heights. Archives
July 2023
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