Chapter 22: LOOK AT ME.
[my recommendation for this chapter's mood: listen Not Afraid Anymore by Halsey]
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The faces always changed. A new night – a new person. Some of them were men, some were women. Some too old, some too young, some just right. Sometimes strangers, sometimes people I knew. I had gotten used to it quickly and would receive them all.
I would let them touch me without a care in the world for whose hands caressed me. At the end I knew who it really was – Asmodeus. I only had to gaze into my one-night stands' blackened eyes and saw him there, ominous, lustful, and so, so familiar. His energy would make even the ugliest of men seem alluring, so much so that I burned with desire the moment those ugly men knocked on my door.
Then they would perish, his countless hosts whom he used to use me. Some hanged themselves like did Ronan, some bled in different accidents. Some drowned, some burned. Some surrendered to illness, some expired otherwise.
At some point I grew so indifferent to human deaths I joked, "You might as well bring criminals if they'll die anyway. They deserve it more than others."
He replied, "Sounds like a plan."
Later on I welcomed another man. Late thirties. Gauntly built. Shabby jeans. Old suede jacket. Big glasses. Calm face. Earthly scent. Cold hands. Out of all of them he was the most violent, and surprisingly strong for his scrawny physique.
Right off the bat he shoved me onto the bed, his thrusts – savagely hard. He slapped me with his belt, then chocked me with it. He tied my wrists and ankles with tape, fixated them by means of his own twisted way to completely immobilize me, poured candle wax on my stomach and watched me squirm.
When I had finally become uncomfortably vocal, he slammed me from behind, cold hands pinning down my head where I could hardly breathe.
It was when he had had enough of me that he got dressed, sat on the creaking chair next to my bed and with sick amusement scrutinized my spent limbs. He'd never done it before, never stayed. He always left me like a discarded object after draining me of life. So when he surprisingly stayed, I drawled, "So what's your name, stranger?" There was no strength to even giggle. I could only stare at his cryptic smirk, and into his black eyes when he took his glasses off to wipe them.
"Ed."
"Ed…hm. Short for Edward?" See, my brain was too exhausted to get it right the way.
"For Edgar."
"How charming. Well, Edgar, you're one crazy mothe—" when it did dawn on me, though, my eyes bulged with undiluted terror as before them flashed the pictures of the mutilated bodies. "No…" I gaped at the grinning face. "No. Please. I beg you. Tell me you are lying."
He laughed. "Surprise, bitch!"
"No you're not. You're not him. You're lying. This can't be." I was so stunned with fear I couldn't even hear my own voice.
"Oh, how I love this dumb face of yours!" He kept laughing that mad, raucous laughter. "You never disappoint!"
And I trembled. The Montreal predator. A serial killer. In the enclosed convent. In my fucking cell. His hands touched me. His disgustingly cold hands.
He only stopped laughing when I snarled, "𝘠𝘰𝘶…bloody murderer. I 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳 I will fucking kill you myself, Edg—"
He stared at me so intensely, I halted.
There was no laughter anymore but silence. A long, humming interval of 𝘩𝘶𝘶𝘶𝘶𝘶𝘶𝘶𝘴𝘩 before he demanded tonelessly, "Look at me."
I only glared at him, eyes damp with horror and hatred.
"Look. At. Me." His cold voice chopped each word like a cleaver.
I did not blink, through mounting disgust filtered, "I. Am."
He was not satisfied, jaws tightening with rage.
"I 𝘢𝘮 looking at you, you 𝘮𝘶𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘳!" I shouted emphatically.
"Look at 𝘮𝘦, you blind slut." He growled.
It took a minute to grasp. He wanted me to see past the skin. To see 𝖍𝖎𝖒. I stared hard into his bottomless eyes.
Now, for all the hopeless romantics out there, this part is crucial. Do not romanticize the devil's distress of wanting to be beheld. It is not cute. It was never about whether I perceived his essence, saw his true colors, fell into a sweeping emotion with the monster that hid behind countless masks. Such things as love, deeper connection, higher feelings or other bullshit were 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨. He only ever needed to hear my heart accelerate with fear at the sight of 𝖍𝖎𝖒 and not mortal flesh he 'wore'.
"I am looking at you, Asmodeus." I murmured.
His grim expression did not falter when he leaned forward, the chair squeaking under him, dilated black eyes piercing mine with reciprocal hate.
"Scared, aren't we…"
I swallowed down my drumming heart but still felt it 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙢-𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙢-𝘽𝙊𝙊𝙈!
"I really hope this—" his finger pointed to Edgar Serre's face, "—is not the reason why you're shitting your pants, sweet Genevieve." He stared me down. Hard. Then added coldly, "Or. Is. It."
I wanted to say something but found my lips to be practically cemented together. The infuriated expression of the man before me just wouldn't let me make a sound.
"Eleven deaths, huh? Is that what it takes to scare you?"
Silence. I did not blink. He did not blink.
"Wanna know why he doesn't make it twelve—mmh—right about now?"
None of us still blinked.
"Or why uncle Eddie still breathes?"
None of us…
"Or why 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 still breathing?"
Silence.
"SPEAK!" He exploded.
"No!"
A shadow of a smirk ran across his mouth when he leaned back on the chair, the wood creaking from the movement.
"No is a good answer. No means you understand that it is 𝘐 who decides the fate of 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 wretched flesh, and any other flesh that bows to me. 𝘐 decide whether these hands rip 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 throat out right this instant or tear apart his own. So I better see you fear your 𝘓𝘰𝘳𝘥, not the garbage beneath your Lord's feet." He stood up, walked to the door and turned around to glare at me; his eyes glowed so brightly they made the scrawny body disappear. "Remember 𝘸𝘩𝘰 you're fucking with."
On the following day Edgar Serre made headlines again, this time as a victim. For someone with HPD, he died not as a notorious Montreal predator as he'd probably hoped but as a loser, unlucky enough to be stabbed to death by a jealous psycho-boyfriend of a hooker he had happened to bone on a Friday night at his favorite brothel.
Strange, to say the least.
I always imagined him being caught in the most dramatic setting, with a crowd hatefully shouting his name, fear and disgust etched in their eyes like sunbeams. But his life ended on a silent note. Nobody even knew he was the one terrorizing the public. Matter of fact, people thought the guy who had killed him was the Montreal Predator.
How ironic.
That was precisely Asmodeus's message – 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘭𝘶𝘹𝘶𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
0Dev_Das0
0Dev_Das0 Dying to know your thoughts about this chapter!
P.S. HPD is short for a histrionic personality disorder. In a person with HPD self-esteem depends on the approval of others. These personality disorders are commonly described as dramatic, excitable, erratic, or volatile. People with HPD are typically characterized as flirtatious, seductive, charming, manipulative, impulsive, and lively.
And that was Edgar Serre's trait.
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