Bryan Smith - The Killing Kind

“Zoe.”

Shit.

Zoe sighed and looked out the window again.

“Zoe.”

“What?”

“This cold-shoulder bullshit is fucking annoying. What’s your damage?”

Zoe shrugged and shook her head. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like hell you don’t.”

Chuck shot her a puzzled glance.

Zoe shook her head again and rolled her eyes.

She turned in her seat and looked over her shoulder at Emily. “Look, stop the drama-queen crap. I’m just tired. Okay?” She forced a brittle smile for her friend. “Long night and not much sleep.” She summoned an exaggerated yawn and groaned. “Christ, you should be as tired as me.”

“I am wide fucking awake.”

Zoe yawned again and this time there was nothing fake about it. She really was tired. And her head was hurting, an ache arguing with Emily wasn’t helping any. She just wanted things to be quiet for a while. Was that too much to ask?

“Fuck you, Zoe.”

Zoe flinched. “What?”

Emily was smiling now. “You heard me.”

Annalisa sighed in the back. “Guys…come on…we’re almost there.”

Emily’s tight smile remained in place. “Hey, I’m just kidding around. I’m just so fucking tired. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m not in my right mind and shit.”

Zoe didn’t bother with a comeback to that. The situation was delicate enough. It was time for some damage control. “Emily, I’m sorry. I seriously am. It’s been a weird and fucked-up morning, I think you’ll agree, but I shouldn’t have been such a bitch to you. Can you please forgive me?”

Emily stared at her a moment later, then looked away. “Whatever.”

Zoe was satisfied. She wasn’t exactly accepting the apology, but the edge had gone out of her voice. She was letting it go for now and that was good enough.

She turned away from Emily, scrunched down in her seat, and propped her bare feet on the dashboard. A while later a green road sign caught her eye: myrtle beach 51 miles.

Almost there…

Feeling a lightening of spirit, she closed her eyes and started to drift toward sleep.

March 23

Rob sat slumped in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the passing scenery without really seeing it. They had been driving in silence on the interstate more than an hour. He could tell Roxie wanted to talk, but he hoped she’d keep her mouth shut a while longer. He was more afraid of her than ever and wouldn’t know what to say. About anything. The incident in the woods had changed things between them. He sort of felt like he was coming back to his senses a little bit, but it was a classic case of a mixed blessing. He was seeing things more clearly, including how much of a fool he’d been. It’d been stupid in the extreme to let her manipulate him into sex. It’d complicated his feelings and made him vulnerable to being exploited even more, which had probably been her intent all along.

And he’d fallen for it.

Fucking idiot.

“Hey, asshole.”

Rob winced. “What?”

“So you’re admitting you’re an asshole?”

“Yeah.”

She laughed. “At least you admit it. It’s okay. I’m an asshole, too.”

“I know.”

“I’m also a bitch and a right fucking cunt a lot of the time.”

“Yeah.”

She slugged him in the shoulder. Hard.

He looked at her, a frown on his face. “That hurt.”

“Good.”

Rob sat up straighter in his seat and turned toward her. “Good?”

“Yeah.”

He shook his head. “Last night you said you liked me.”

She smiled. “What about it?”

“Did you mean it?”

She glanced at him, her expression carefully blank. “Yeah.”

“Okay. So…if you mean that, if you’re not lying…why do you want to hurt me? If you fucking like me, Roxie, why would you for fuck’s sake point a fucking gun at me and make me think you’re about to kill me?”

She snorted laughter.

“It’s not fucking funny.”

She laughed some more and shook her head. “You should just see the expression on your face. So serious.”

He glared at her. “Excuse the fuck out of me, but I think having a gun pointed at me is pretty goddamn serious. Maybe I’m just weird.”

“You’re definitely weird.”

“Maybe. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

It was a strange thing. He’d spent much of the afternoon dreading and avoiding this conversation, but now that it had started he wanted answers. Direct, honest answers.

She looked at him. “I like to fuck with people.”

“So that’s what you were doing? Fucking with me?”

A small nod. “Yeah.”

“Lovely. Nice.”

“Stop being such a sensitive bitch.”

Rob didn’t reply to that.

She was still staring at him. “Admit it.”

He frowned. “Huh? Admit what?”

“You’d like to fuck me right now.”

Rob’s expression then was meant to be withering, an “I can’t believe you even went there, you fucking lunatic” look. An equally scathing and sarcastic comment should have accompanied it. But some primitive, below-the-surface part of him appraised her body even as he seethed with indignation. His eyes traced her curves and the swell of her breasts against that tight black T-shirt. He looked at that bright shade of lipstick and licked his lips. God, he wanted to kiss her.

He wanted to…

Shit.

She laughed. “You know what I’d like?”

He swallowed thickly. “What?”

“I’d like you to stick that gun in my pussy. Fully loaded. And fuck me with it.”

“Jesus. You’re crazy.”

She smirked. “You’re just figuring that out?”

“Jesus. Look. Seriously. I’m not sticking a gun…there.” He shuddered visibly. “No. Just…no.”

“Prude.”

“If refusing to stick a firearm in your private parts makes me a prude, so be it. I can’t get over how totally fucking insane you are. I mean…what kind of person thinks of things like that? There aren’t words for how totally messed up you are.”

Roxie’s expression turned oddly thoughtful. “For me, sex and violence are closely related things, Rob. Think about it. Sex itself is a pretty aggressive, violent act. All that struggling and exertion. All that sweat and physicality. One person dominating the other a lot of the time. Most people don’t let themselves see it that way. They wrap it up with all these phony ideas about romance and call it ‘making love.’ Pure bullshit. Sex is a brute thing. It’s about asserting yourself and controlling the other person. It’s about subjugation. And violence.”

Rob scratched his head and squinted at her. “I don’t know. Have you ever really been in love with someone, Roxie? Because I can tell you that sex with someone you really care about is more than what you’re saying. It’s…deeper.”

Roxie made a dismissive sound. “Right. Whatever. I read about a woman on death row in Texas a while back. Maybe you’ll remember this. She and some other people killed some people. She used a hatchet on one of them. She said she had an orgasm every time she swung the hatchet into the victim.”

“Christ.”

Roxie was smirking again. “That’s what I’m talking about, see? Sex and violence, they’re flip sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. That woman later repented and found God, the way they all do before they fry, but I guarantee she was never being more honest than when she said that thing about the hatchet.”

“Is that what it’s like for you, Roxie?” Rob couldn’t bring himself to look at her as he asked this, fearing what he’d see in her expression. “Do you get off when you shoot people?”