Chaos Within

■POV- Camelia I sped off to the residing sun, hoping for a fresh start, a happy ever after. I scoff at the thought. How am I going to have a happy ever after when I have blood on my hands? I'm on my way to my grandmother's abandoned house, which looks more like a vampire mansion. I've always loved to spend time in that house but my mom hated it there, so we only visited there during the holidays. Since my grandmother passed away, the property now officially belonged to me to do whatever I wanted with it. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth as I mentally designed the basement that would hold my future playthings until I finished them off. Oh yeah, I started killing people on contracts a few months ago. It was not merely a money-oriented profession but rather a passion since my soul was torn away from my body. I enjoyed every second of it, the adrenaline rush I get every time I feel the warm blood trickle against my bare skin and the pure screams of agony are all pure ecstasy for me. Too bad they all had to end so soon due to some leaked information. I'll kill the person who leaked the information eventually when I find out. I stopped at a gas station to refill and use the restroom. After all, driving for more than five hours is exhausting. I bumped into someone and landed on my butt while coming out of the restroom. "Ouch!" I squealed. I looked up to see a raven-haired man staring down at me with striking blue eyes. Oh, how pretty they would look in a jar far away in my basement? I'm dragged out of my fantasies when he clears his throat and stretches out his hand for me. I refused it and stood up by myself. "Watch where you're going," I mumbled underneath my breath. "Sorry. My bad." He flashed me a smile. " New here? Haven't seen you here before?" he asks. "Just traveling." Argh, strangers and their stupid questions. I make my way towards the car before he comes up with more stupid questions. I have another few hours of driving and then I'll be at my new vampire house. I smile at the thought of having a long, warm bath. After all the s**t I went through in the past few months, from being abducted to being held hostage and learning how to kill, it was all a rollercoaster. Can't say that I missed my old self before all this happened because she was too weak and pure to survive the society, too vulnerable, and being vulnerable in this society has made me the monster I am today. They ripped my innocence and purity into shreds until all that was left was an empty abyss, a shell of the human I used to be. My phone rings beside me and flashes a name that is all too familiar for my liking. Bryan. A stupid human who didn't take the hint and ran away like others did. We've been together for about two months and I left him behind with my old life. He was too pure for my twisted soul. He kissed all of my scars, hoping that those kisses would heal what that sick man did to me while holding me hostage. He didn't use me for my body like every other man did and that bugged me. I always found myself wondering when he would give up his act of being the perfect boyfriend but he never did. Even when I broke up with him, he accepted it and gave me space. He did call once in a while to check up on me, which is why he is calling me now. I silenced the call and turned the phone off. All I could see was a glimpse of a black jeep bumping into my car as everything went dark and quiet. ■POV- Rylan I've been following her for more than two hours now, and she still hasn't noticed me. I guess stalking my prey before hunting them down has now become one of my special talents, as they never see me coming until it's too late. She took a turn to the right. The road was deserted in comparison to the road we had before. The road was covered by a thick layer of trees on both sides. The black Hummer that I'm driving is blended into the shadows of the darkening surroundings, and I've been keeping my headlights off just in case she senses that someone is following her. I sped into her car from behind. Too late for her to react, she had never seen it coming in the first place. I calmly stalked towards her car, which ended up in the nearby ditch because of the impact of the crash. Using my flashlight as the only source of light, I tried to free her from the wrenched car. She already had blood running down her nose, and a few cuts oozing out blood. Oh, how pretty it will look when I slice her open. She groans as I place her in the backseat of my Hummer. I made my way home, which was a one-hour drive from where I crashed into her car. I've had multiple experiences with similar scenarios, so crashing into someone's car and kidnapping them wasn't anything new to me. As soon as I saw her in that gas station, I knew she would be an amazing plaything. She's a rather smaller build than most of the women who have caught my attention so far, but that won't reduce the fun I'm going to squeeze out of her as she begs for her life as the light in her eyes dimmed away. I placed her on the surgery table after drugging her with chloroform. I didn't want her to wake up in the middle of restraining her on the surgery table. I started to undress her. What lay beneath her hoodie was a war zone. I proceeded to remove her jeans and was faced with the same shattered skin. There were scars of different sizes. Most of them were small, probably done with razor blades, but some were almost eight inches long and would have needed stitches to hold the skin together, as I could tell they had cut deep with all the experiences I had with cutting people open. The scars look painful and angry on her pale skin. Except for the scars, I saw a few tattoos on her too. One was a half-crested moon carved into the valley between her chest, a tattoo of a snake coiling around her forearm, and an infinity sign on her waist with flowers blooming out of it. The adrenaline rush I had before died down. For some reason, I just couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to break her more than she already is. I couldn't bring myself to harm her. When we had our small conversation at the gas station, all I wanted was to see her begging for her life, but now after seeing her shattered body and realizing that she had probably been through a lot and survived all of it and continued to live, it just made me...sad. I know I would have laughed at the thought of feeling sad for one of my victims but seeing her lying unconscious with a bleeding nose and scars covering half of her body, I just wanted to hold her and make her feel whole again. I cleaned her up and patched up her wounds, which weren't a big deal compared to all the scars running down her body. I dressed her in one of my t-shirts, which probably looked more like a dress reaching up to her mid-thigh, and placed her on my bed. Ain't no way I'm letting her sleep in another room. I want her to wake up and see me lying next to her. I brought some handcuffs from the basement and restrained her to the bedpost just in case she woke up and chose violence. I wouldn't mind seeing her throwing a tantrum, but I didn't want her to come up with an escape plan and act on it. As a man who is resistant to emotions, it's not common for me to have a rollercoaster of feelings running around my head, but my heart aches every time I remember the scars running down her body. I went out again. I need to clear her car, not that I care somebody will report her missing and lead it back to her car being ditched in the middle of nowhere, but because I need to grab her belongings, especially her identity card, so I could at least know her name before she wakes up. Steam is still puffing out of the wrecked car as I neared it. I found her purse with her bank cards, identity card, and cash. The phone was cracked so it was probably not useful anymore, I could buy her a new one for all I cared. I did see a small backpack in the backseat and figured it was stuffed with her clothes. I guess I'll be taking that too since she'll need the clothes till I replace them with new ones. A small smile tugged at my lips as I thought of taking her out shopping. Would it make her happy like it did for all the other women I've dated, or would she be bored with the activity? She can't be a normal woman after all, not just because of her traumatizing scars but because she just made a serial killer feel empathy and that is rare. I drove back home. After all the work I had to deal with today, I was out for the day. I took a long relaxing shower and went straight to bed with the new stranger that I kidnapped lying beside me in her restraints. She was peacefully asleep or probably still knocked off by the chloroform I used on her before. I drifted off to sleep. The darkness welcomed me into its cold embrace.