Love Kills

Another crude copy, a replica sculpted to dull the maddening urges that eat away at his mind like parasitic bacteria. Her screams died long before the sound cleared from his eardrums, lost in the way crimson lines burst against the white of her eyes. It wasn’t always like this; bloodied wigs, purple handprints decorating delicate necks, and endless acts of additional violence. Satori knew he had never been normal, ever since he was a child, but he hadn’t turned into this monster until he came across her.
Aurora Dean; the only daughter to the prolific real estate extraordinaire Jasper Dean, selectively known for being the mastermind behind a money laundering criminal syndicant.
As time went on, Jasper began to dabble in additional financial ventures, one of which crossed the likes of Satori’s boss. Satori had been instructed to dive into the personal lives of the Dean family, acting as a hired gun and cyber-genius to his organization. Hunting his targets was as easy as taking them out. In his digital quest for weaknesses against the Dean patriarch, Satori found Aurora carefully buried behind layers of vague security. All of Jasper’s social media pictures had been meticulously combed through to ensure the appropriate people in them were tagged, never once missing either of his sons or wife. A handful of images featured the opalescent-haired woman, not one accompanied a tag leading to her account. Satori refused to accept she had no social media, she was twenty-years old. He scoured, a man on a mission, picking through every friend and connection he could find to the family in a sleepless determination to find the ghost of a woman.
When he managed to find her, it wasn’t of his own willful accord, but a coincidental happenstance. A niche post on one of his social media groups revealed her, her unique appearance visible even in the miniscule profile picture bubble floating at the corner of the page with others who interacted with the post. To his fortune, she recycled her username on all social platforms, making his hunt through her posts a breeze. Unlike the rest of her family, she never shared much of the lifestyle they are known for, as if she had been removed from that sphere of activity. Comparison of the rest of her bloodline’s socials verified his assumption; she was only ever pictured in private, family events or ones related to her father’s real estate business. Never was she photographed with one of her father’s associates, flaunting the wealth of her family, or trying to cause any notable presence. Food, pets, hobbies; the plain, boring, intimate shit that had Satori captivated. Her interactions with others online read as superficial, the masses more interested in her riches and luxury experiences than her. A sea of thousands following her, but not a single pair of eyes ever truly saw her. That realization is what made Satori decide to change his tactics.
Previously, his failed attempts at replicating her were randomly dumped. Discarded at random sites like the trash he viewed them as once they stopped playing the part. Contacting Aurora directly wasn’t an extra curricular he could afford just yet, so he had to settle for the best he could offer. The willow tree she loved to read under in the park, the field at the center of the track she always ran, the cafe patio where she’d write her poetry, outside her college library where she would study. All marked with grotesque labors of his love, gifts– silent expressions of his all-consuming devotion.
Recovering from the morbid fascination with bursting blood vessels, Satori grimaces at the damage he’s caused once again. Far too many times his lust for violence collides with his hair-trigger temper, resulting in catastrophic injuries that often scaled too gruesome for the media to publicly discuss on-air. Podcasts and written reports online went into more graphics, emphasizing the most brutality came after the victims had passed; a sign of no remorse as much as it was a way to make identification less likely. The buzz surrounding his unknown obsession did nothing to deter him, opting to distance himself from the media frenzy and intentionally avoiding anything online having to do with his extracurricular activities. Outside opinions on his behaviors never interested Satori.
“Bleh,” his tongue pokes out in comical disgust, hands relenting in their vice grip as the building pressure finally forced one of her eyes to bulge from the socket. “Can’t have you looking at me like that.” Standing from his crouched position over the deceased, he moves to retrieve his trusty toolbox from the corner of the room. Old and worn, the black paint coating chipped, exposed metal rusting at some areas. A kit of terror passed down from the man who taught Satori everything he knows about stripping an individual of their identity. This one he’ll leave at the sandy point of the lake Aurora swims at every weekend.
“Oiyah,” Satori fishes through the depths of his pocket, pushing his hunk of keys to the side in order to slip the vibrating, metal rectangle out. Glancing at the caller I.D, he wastes no time in answering the call, “Jazzyboy!–”
“No. No,” the exasperated sigh carries for a moment, cutting off anything meant to follow. Satori’s lips purse in cruel satisfaction at his superiors immediate, albeit mild, annoyance. “I don’t want to know.” Jazzyboy, the awful nickname Satori created in an effort to promote more camaraderie in hopes of slithering out of authoritarian consequences. Jazmyn grumbles something incoherent, too deep and quiet in the back of his throat for Satori to decipher, before getting to the point of his interruption. “Finish whatever you’re doing. Rabbit’s nest, twenty-two, half-past.” The line disconnects without further conversation, the need for confirmation an ancient requirement long retired between the pair.

**~~~*~**

The mansion was larger than pictures made it appear, a fact that made Satori grateful towards the teammate who argued they should build their task-force around the square footage (not that he’d ever admit it out loud). Hunting through the ten-bedroom home would have been an arduous mission with only four members, even if they were the best trackers in the organization. Sniffing out every Dean relative inside was the goal, lethal force authorized for one of the sons only, the only other restriction being no harm came to Jasper’s wife, Serena- beyond necessary force to subdue her. While the rest of his pack sought out the members specifically tied to competitive business, Satori was off on an unrelated mission: finally securing the object of his obsession. The rabbit clan fought tooth and nail, kicking and clawing at the canine intruders, never folding to answer a question even as each one was rounded up. Six of the seven residents of the Dean estate had been gathered into a single room, circled in by the vengeful pack. Just as she had been online, Aurora was an enigma that wouldn’t surface without the perfect circumstance to drag her out. Lacking any verbal responses regardless of physical force and brutality used, two of the offending agents ventured off from the mass group, searching high and low for Aurora themselves. It would turn out that their screamed threats didn’t stir her, not for lack of appealing to her emotions, but because she didn’t reside within the walls of the main house. Jazmyn, fully aware of Satori’s twisted investment with her, passes word to him that there’s a poolhouse in the back with a few lights on. Shifting glances of concern from the corner of her parents eyes are all the confirmation Satori needs; his target is out there.

Soft shades of pink, sage, and cream are the primary colors in her humble abode; the demure feminine aesthetic emphasized by fluffy blankets and rugs, subtle bow patterns, and a plethora of floral decor. Not the image that conjured in Satori’s fantasies the countless times he envisioned being in her home. Stepping through the front door of the poolhouse, he was transported into the realm of a Fairy Princess; not what one would suspect belongs to a wealthy, athletic, bunny-girl familiar.
Moisture hangs in the air like a wet sheet on a line, the heat from her shower drafting into the main room of the small house. Rose water and salt filters through the air; she must have gotten out of the shower right before he snuck in, her body wash invading every nook of his olfactory sense. Satori silently lurks around her living room, analyzing pictures on display, memorizing candle scents, and peeking into any drawers for clues to more personal interests. Chess, drugs, a dildo– the specifics couldn’t matter less, he’d accept anything he could get a hold of. Empty handed, he recedes to the corner seat hidden in the shadows, patiently waiting for Aurora to emerge. If she was suspicious of someone breaking in, she’d made no obvious move to make her knowledge known. If she has no idea of his presence, the most likely option, he doesn’t want to risk putting her into immediate fight-or-flight by being boldly visible.
There isn’t an amount of time that exists that the wolf won’t wait for her, the ten minutes he spent affixed to his seat awaiting her arrival passed in the blink of an eye. Her motions lacked fluidity, her entire body stiff with uncertainty, nerves rattled to the core. Putting eyes on him was an act she didn’t need to waste time on, her prey instincts likely warning her from the moment she stepped anywhere near his scent. Satori rises from his seat, stepping forward into the light, his prolonged shuffle closer an attempt to keep her from speedily fleeing. There was a fifty-fifty shot she could sprint to the front door and haul outside of a trackable distance before he or any other member of his pack could catch wind of her. Aurora contemplates the same options laid out before her, the analytical haze glossing over her golden stare exposing the pro-con list rapidly unfolding inside her mind. The cinematics in his head are guided by instinct, the minuscule twitch in two of her fingers a tell, a vague indication on which path her sense of preservation had decided towards.
“Please,” scratchy, desperate, pathetic; as if someone else pushed their voice through his throat. The word rolled off his tongue before the realization he spoke hit, still partially tempted to search for another person inside, unbelieving the sound was one of his own making. Clearing his throat of the knot blocking his voice, he clarifies further in an attempt to prevent her from running, “I’m not here to hurt you.” She doesn’t turn to face him, her hand lowering in near slow-motion, falling flat against her side as she continues to focus her view on the pathway to freedom, blocked merely by a few inches of wood and a thousand possibilities. Mix-matched socks, spandex shorts put on inside out, her track shirt on backwards, all signs she had been in a hurry. A silent answer to the unspoken question he had since he arrived: she knew he was in the house before coming into her living room. “I’m Satori Kim.”
“The serial killer?”
“I never said that.”
“So, you’re not a serial killer?”
“I’m-” Heat rises to his cheeks, the anxious boil in his blood pushing him into another plane of existence. She still hasn’t turned to face him, a gift chance for Satori, staring down the disgruntled version of himself with disgust from outside his own body. Fidgeting hands, constantly moving, a deranged glimmer of his true self clawing from behind the narrow, onyx window of his eyes. If Aurora saw him, she’d be petrified. The realization is enough to pull him back to shore, mellowing his offence to counter back, “I’m not agreeing with the term, but,” his voice lowers alongside his expectations for how the rest of their interaction will pan out, “I won’t say it’s inaccurate.”
Silence consumes their bubble of existence, time halting around them as both wait for the other to speak. There’s nothing more he can say to her string of questions, no insight to add that would make the situation any less terrifying. Taking back his name would be an obvious farce, and there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle as far as his reported reputation was concerned. As her shoulders begin to shake, Satori tenses, no way to accurately gauge her emotional state without her looking at him. Her body had been statuesque through their conversation, silently drowning in the fear that shrouded her entire self. Was she crying? “Am I next?”
The earth opens beneath him, his body left hanging in the dark abyss swallowing the world around him, as his heart and soul plummets into the pits of despair below. He could never hurt her, not like he did the others; he was only able to do those atrocities to them because they weren’t her. “No! No, I would never,” in his frantic attempt to calm her, he moves too far forward, bumping into the glass and metal table situated at the back of her couch. His blood runs cold at the sound of his gun knocking against the metal frame, even muffled by the fabric of his pants pocket, it’s unmistakable. Aurora spins around on a dime, red eyes and dampened cheeks highlighting her primal fear, attention locked squarely on the spot his weapon resides. It’s the first time he’s seen her face in person, and their first impressions are going foul. “It’s not–”
“You have a gun.”
“Yes, but it’s not for you.” Slowly, cautiously, he pulls the weapon from his pocket, gently setting it onto the table. He keeps his hands up, visible to her, as he backs away a respectable distance from where he discarded the safety violation. “I always carry one.” Would that frighten her, too? Violence isn’t a field she has any experience in, purposefully iced out of her family’s rotten deeds, and lacking anyone who would see her as an enemy worthy of causing physical harm. “B-but if you don’t want me to, I won’t.” Her arms cross over her chest, seemingly sinking into herself as she mulls over his last sentence. Her body language deflates its previous defensive nature, softening at the edges while her face contorts in contemplation.
For the first time that night, her eyes align with his, as if searching the depths of his soul for the truth, as she asks softly, “Why would my opinion matter?” A simple answer when he speaks it in his mind, but his tongue trips over the words until it’s knotted into silence. Any way he tries to phrase it, she’s going to deduce the fact she has no choice in the matter. Realistically, he always knew this would end in a kidnapping, regardless of how well she did or didn’t take to him sneaking into her house. His silence is an answer of its own, eliciting a turtle-ish nod from the woman, understanding without needing the spoken explanation. “You want me to come with you. You want me to feel safe doing it.” Her heel taps silently against the floor, mouth pinched to keep herself from speaking before fully settling on what she wants to say next. “Why?”
“It’s that or someone else in my pack will come to kill you. Maybe tonight, maybe not, I can’t speak for anything that’s gonna happen after this interaction.” Not the truth, but not necessarily a lie; one of them could be sent after her in the future if her father doesn’t learn his lesson after tonight.
“Does that mean my safety isn’t guaranteed if I go with you?”
“No one will touch you if you come with me.” Averting her gaze from him, she shifts her focus to the distant side, once again running through the variables of everything being presented to her. “Are you– are you thinking about going with me, willingly?”
“I mean,” her arms tighten over her chest, fingers inching closer to her armpits than around her elbows. She pivots slightly, foot barely lifting off the ground, her physical form being pulling in the differing directions of her brain. “Maybe, I don’t know. This is insane.” Beyond what was theorized online about him, she had no reference to who Satori is as a being. What he does for work, if he works, is completely unknown. Her genuine safety is a cause for a yellow-flag at least; he claims he won’t hurt her, but there’s at least a dozen mockeries of her rotting in the ground as they speak. Majority still unfound, not any he didn’t want found. His scent gives him away as a predator species, a natural foe to her existence. What better to hunt an innocent bunny than a ferocious wolf? Any logical reason for her to leave behind a life of serene luxury was being stretched thin, and under duress. Would she make the same choice if he had initially guaranteed her safety without strings?
“I think they hate me.” He knows how untrue that is, his countless hours of online stalking consisting of more than just her page. He completely sleuthed through the profiles of the males in her family, and sifted through the partially-public profile of her mother. Every single one of them boasted about her; her talents, accomplishments, and general appreciation towards her. Telling her the truth could lose him the advantage of her willingly leaving with him, but he had promised himself he wouldn’t start the relationship with lies. Rubbing at her arm, she glances at the empty couch, weighing the outcomes of her decision before ultimately giving in. Mistaking the conflict on his face for empathy to her situation, Aurora takes a seat. It takes an entire minute and seven seconds, Satori counting mentally, before she gestures for him to join her. More than happy to, he obliges, picking the cushion directly beside hers. She wastes no time, likely having the thoughts weigh down on her more often than not, and having no one else she trusts to confide in. From how they keep her apart from the rest of the family, isolating her in the poolhouse; how they constantly post about and tag her brothers in photos, but keep her left out; the way they pander to her brothers and make her feel like the unwanted child; and how the social events are all just for show, they act like she doesn’t exist outside of the obligatory family picture. She turns to him, one arm resting on the back of the couch, her fingers drawing shapes into the fabric, as the other lays calmly against her thigh. “It just makes me wonder, like, what’s the point of staying?”
It’s a rhetorical question, he knows that, but it doesn’t deter him. “Do you love them more than you hate your own misery?”
An arrow hitting bullseye, the sentiment buries into the core of her chest, a few owlish blinks his only response as she thinks it over. “I’ve never had it framed that way before.” There’s a slower pull for her words as she speaks, still pondering the depth and validity of her inner monologue as she works answering him into the equation. “I love my family, dearly, but at the same time, I feel like I barely know them. I mean,” the laugh that tumbles from her lips holds a somber tone, a bitter cousin to amusement. “How much can I know about people who keep constant walls up all the time? We live together, but it doesn’t mean we’re close.”
“Then stop choosing misery.”
“Why are you doing this for me?” Be it listening, giving her a place to run away to, something else, or any combination in between, Satori wasn’t entirely sure, but his answer is the same for all.
“Because I love you.”
She snorts, rolling her eyes, but the corners of her lips tug upwards in the ghost of a smile; a veil of disbelief to playfully cover a bashful response, “You don’t even know me.”
But he does, and he can prove it. Without thinking, almost robotically due to how well he memorized her routine, he lists all of the places she frequents and the hobbies she does at some of them. How he discovered her favorite color is a creamy orange from the emoji’s and font color she repetitively uses, even though she takes a lot of pictures wearing purples and blues. He rattles out more trivia about her, only stopping once she appears convinced, which only required him to use an eighth of the facts he’d mentally catalogued.
Baffled, she merely nods, even after he’s silenced himself, with her lips slightly ajar. She doesn’t have to say it for him to know what she’s thinking, no one has ever bothered to master the details of her persona like this before. “Is that why they looked like me? The dead bodies at those sites.” He grunts, low and rough, to confirm. His interest wasn’t shallow, he wasn’t here for the same performative and self-serving reasons as others who had faked caring about her. Finally, she breaks out into a full beaming smile, giggling beside herself at the cloud of butterflies in her stomach. “Wow, I guess it’s true what they say. Be careful who you love.”
The idea to reach out to gently grab her thigh, squeeze it to reassure she’d be giving her love to the right person this time, crosses his mind. At the same time, he wants to comfort her, make her believe he feels awful for the things she’s experienced, and insist she wasn’t wrong for trying to love the people she thought would reciprocate. The opportunity is missed, halted in a split second.
Aurora doesn’t give him the chance to respond, the cold barrel of his gun already kissing his temple by the time her statement ended. She waits for the rush of fear and confusion to flood his expression, wet betrayal collecting along the rim of his eyes. She smiles, completely genuine, otherworldly beautiful, then squeezes the trigger. Her nose crinkles in a mix of revulsion and vexation, the vile essence of his expired life splattered across her belongings and skin. Sighing out her acceptance to deep cleaning later, she pushes the corpse away from her, wiping her bloodied hand clean on the still-pristine parts of Satori’s clothing. “Dumb fuck wolf,” she hisses, spitting on him before rising from her seat and moving to one of the windows that faces the main house. Two red lights still burning bright against the late night sky; two intruders still on the prowl. “As if I don’t have two finals tomorrow,” she growls, practically stomping as she trudges back to the living room to retrieve the gun Satori brought. She wouldn’t waste her own ammo on two mangey mutts if it wasn’t necessary. Truly, he couldn’t have fallen for her carefully crafted online persona more if he wished all the heavens and stars for it, because he had no idea who she was.
Keeping clean from the business was a page Aurora took from the book of a family friend, their entire lineage just as deep into depraved and black market behavior as her own. If everyone is in on the secret, nothing is secure. Keep someone blackballed from the truth and they’re bound to get snatched up as blackmail or ransome. But if they could fake an outlier to the family business, they could have their own secret agent. The handful of people who did know of her knowledge about the going-ons in her familiar affairs knew better than to follow or interact with her online or out in public in any way that would give an air of overly acquainted. She never played a hand in the illegal activity, making it easier to keep her public profiles centered around the topics she wanted to focus on. Her parents ensured she stayed in the loop on major topics, her brothers fed her the gossip and unweighted issues, and everyone went through trying lengths to solidify she could protect herself. Believing she was naive enough not to know those mutilated women were made to resemble herself was one of his more devastating mistakes of the evening, worse was believing she’d view it as a romantic gesture.
She almost broke character when she realized he was in love with her despite not knowing anything of value about her. The primal fear he sensed when she initially breached the living room with him waiting for her was one she felt down to the tips of her toes; there was no way for her to anticipate precisely what the cogs in his mind were trudging towards, no chance for her to make any escape plans until he revealed a few tidbits. Playing the game was the safest bet, keeping her mask up until she could get him to let his guard down. Not an outcome Aurora had been certain would roll in her favor, given his wildly unstable mentality and dangerous nature. Add in the fact he happened to be a lycan didn’t strike confidence for the prey-based familiar, his biological advantage for hunting and capturing making an anxious jitter tease at the center of her skull. An internal alarm shrieking for her to run, as far and as fast as she possibly could. Her track endurance and speed could have kept her ahead of him, but his scent tracking would have made stopping an impossibility. Taking his life was the only way out– never a preferred method, but when necessary, one does as they must.
A screech in two sharp blasts force a wince from her, the sound deafening, getting across the urgency of their situation, but not without causing her a flash of agitation. Staring at the hidden siren in the upper corner of the room through a pinhole squint, she considers shooting it before grunting out a resignation to the thought, walking with silent urgency towards the main house. There will be an extensive list of items she and her family will need to review following this incident, too many instances raising red flags from a multitude of directions. Pausing with the front door open, she calls over her shoulder, speaking to the security system installed inside her house, “Call Nina. Patch in audio from the main house. Alert for backup to Personnel Security.”

Related to unpublished work “No Foul Play.”