Colour Series Box Set (8 page)

I LOCKED HER IN
again last night. I went back to her room and cleaned after I saw she passed out on the bathroom floor and I left a note. I won’t let her leave here until I know what her husband did to her. It’s eating me alive and I cannot get a grip on myself. I am acting irrational; I don’t even like having people near me so why do I want her here so badly? She slipped up and said he had nearly killed her when he found out she had hidden her money from him. Clever girl, I will give her that much not letting the asshole know she was loaded. As soon as he knew she had some money he wanted to off her, makes me wonder about him. I googled him earlier today to find not much on him, he seems legit he is a big business man who is well connected and doesn’t need her money that’s for sure. I wonder if he had another woman on the side and just needed an excuse to be rid of her. Thinking of him the way she described him with such venom and anger, she called him evil and her eyes were on fire even when her body language remained perfectly calm and together. I have this need to know what I missed when I stopped watching her, I cannot let go of the idea that something horrific happened to her while I was busy having my life.

I plan to kill him. I have done since the day he hired me. How horrible that death is going to be will depend on what he has done to her. I know he has done something awful. She is broken. He broke her mentally but my instinct says he hurt her body too. I haven’t seen her body to know. God how I wish I could see her body. Stop brain! I have to make this right I need these feeling, fucking feelings I shouldn’t have, to stop. I want to know every detail of her life, I never want to know about anyone, in fact I get annoyed when I am burdened with personal details about people. I don’t do personal, I am shallow and controlled and there is no room to feel anything other than the satisfaction of ripping the life from another and snuffing it out.

I have to work today, thank God I need to kill someone I hope that will kill this insanity and get my head straight. Callum has two tattle tale dealers that need to keep quiet so I have a job to do for my friend. These jobs are the easiest. No one cares a damn if you die here, much less if you’re already a criminal. So two halfwit dealers will not be missed, in fact, no one will even look for them at all. I don’t want to work today, I would rather stay and watch her, maybe try and talk to her again. I better buy her some decent food while I’m out. My job gets better and better ruthless killer and food delivery service all in one. Fuck, I better get it together and go do this. I am losing my shit and that cannot happen.

I’m well-known in the coloured gang community here for exactly what I do, and I don’t mean wine farming. To them I clean up messes. Usually messes who want to talk to other drug bosses or our useless fucking police services. No one will cross me or question me because I am neutral I work for all their bosses not just Cal. I do very bad things and I do them very well. Guys who talk to me tend to disappear afterwards.

I pack my small work bag and change into a suit. I only wear a suit when I have to go work in this neighbourhood. It’s rough and my suit screams ‘I am not one of you, I work for the boss’. I know where my two little friends will be today as I’ve been watching them. Idiots are so predictable they never change their ways. I load my bag in the car, tuck my gun in belt and make sure the house is locked with the security system is armed. I can remote video monitor the whole place from my iPhone. Fuck I love technology. But I don’t need the distraction. I just want to go to work and come home as quickly as I can. I need this today, I need to be myself, I am losing control of things and it makes my monster hard to resist.

I head for Mitchell’s Plain about thirty two kilometres outside the city I love so much. It’s a bit of a cesspool, known for its gangs and tik - that would be crystal meth to us educated folk. Tik is big money here and an even bigger problem in these townships. Kids as young as seven are hooked on the shit and it’s completely normal here. To find a resident not on tik that would really surprise me. I’m headed to the eastern side of Mitchell’s hell hole where the poorest of its residents live. More specifically to a local high school. I want to be there when school comes out; my little snitches actually go to school. I promise they’re not there for an education but for marketing only.

I park under an old tree across from the main gate of the grotty as hell government school and wait. Litter blows around in the dirty, dusty street and I can see a few members of a local gang hanging out just up the road they nod at me and carry on their business. This place is infested with gangs and I could just get one of them to off these two. But I’m a bad man and I get a sick satisfaction out of doing a job myself. I need that satisfaction now as I feel things are completely out of control with this Ellia business. This I can control, this is what I do best, what I was born to do. Kill.

I hear the school bell in the distance dismissing the delinquents for the afternoon. I know my boys will be out soon to join their gang pals up the road. Who I see made themselves scarce, clever boys. I get out and lean against my car waiting for them I cross my arms across my chest, the urge to storm through the gates and drag them out is right there, but I need to be nice calm Rowan until we are out of the public eye. They will know I am here to chat and they will also know better than to run. I am a good shot.

As predicted, the two come out the gate with some young girls hanging off them obviously after their next high. Their school uniforms are all ratty, skirts hiked up high and the white shirts grubby and unkempt. They scream poverty and desperation all the way from over here. The thought of them selling their sweet youthful bodies it makes me sick, I really don’t like Cal’s line of work. Murder doesn’t seem to grow into other crimes it’s the end of the line, while his drugs seem to spread rot with them, prostitution, theft, rape and God knows what else. They chase the girls away as soon as their gaze meets mine. All Cal’s employees know who I am. They walk wearily over to me and greet me in their horrendous fucking pigeon language.

“Get in boys we have a meeting with your boss.” I keep my voice cold and stern so they know I am nobody’s friend.

I open the back door and wait for then to haul themselves and their back packs into my nice clean car. Filthy little shits. I can smell their sweaty bodies and it makes my skin crawl. I hate being dirty, my Ma had always beaten it into us ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’. Their filth has me itching just looking at them.

I walk around and get in. I know they are both armed with either knives or guns, but I also know they won’t take a chance pulling them on me.

“Seat belts boys.” I watch them in my mirror shakily putting the belts on. I love the fear that I am causing them. I love that I control their worthless drug pushing lives right now. They don’t get to die in car crash. I like my car too much for that I don’t want blood on my leather seats.

“You boys have been awfully chatty, that’s not good business fellas.” I talk to them in the rear view mirror. I can see that they know why I came for them. However there is still a glimmer of hope that they may just live. Dumb fucks. There is no hope, if I fetch you from school there’s no hope that you will be coming back. Ever. I’m the end of the line for little shits like them. I want to laugh at their hope.

“No bossh,” the younger one actually answers me in his appalling accent.
It was not a question idiot
.

I drive us out of the township to some open farm land on the outskirts of a horse stud owned by a mutual friend of Cal and mine. What do you know he had dug two giant holes in the ground to bury some dead horses? The boys behind me immediately notice them too. That certainly makes my life easier. We park right next to the two giant piles of dug up earth. I am high on the need to extinguish these two pests right now, their begging eyes are just feeding my monster.

“This is how this works boys. You get out my car and jump in a hole and I will make it quick and painless. You run and you die slowly and painfully. Got it.” Neither one answers this time, they just nod. I unlock the doors and climb out opening the back door for them. I can smell the rotting dead animals in the holes behind me, how fitting. The stench in the air is stifling and I can see the youngest one gag a little before he willingly jumps right in the hole. Good boy. Stupidly his best friend runs so I shoot him in the knee and have to drag his heavy ass back to the hole. I hold him up next to me and shoot his friend right in the head while watches tears streaming down his dirty face. My grip is like a vice around him and he has gone limp, his desire to fight or flee is gone. He knows this is the end, I am sure I hear him muttering a prayer under his breath. No prayers will save him, I could save him but I won’t. His friend’s death was quick, painless and totally satisfying. Now for this dumb fuck. Him, I plan to bury alive. While not in the mood for manual labour it’s a shitty way for him to die so I like it. I feel like being shitty, I can just skip gym tonight. I shove him in the hole with his friend and begin to shovel the earth in on top of them. I watch him cling to the body of his dead friend crying, it could have been easy for him too but he just had to run. I feel the monster in me enjoying it and I smile a big toothy smile as I suffocate his stupid ass under the piles of fine red sand.

I leave the shovel where I found it and wipe my now sweaty forehead. A suit was not the best attire for this job but it’s done. I get my car and drive towards home covered in the fine red dust from the sand I shovelled. My brain is finally feeling normal after having her in my house I feel like I am in control again and I can deal with her. I stop in at a drive through to get food for Ellia. I need a shower so badly, a long hot one. I am filthy as if the street rat’s dirt has clung to me where I held him. I hate the feeling of dirt on my skin. After a job, I get the deepest darkest feeling. Well, no feeling really. It’s a nothingness after I kill someone. I should feel but I don’t. It’s just an empty hole where my heart or feelings or something should be. The only word for it is satisfaction. I’m satisfied with what I’ve done.

Tomorrow I will get their numbers inked into my flesh as I do after every single life I take. I have a number of tattoos on my body but on my left side where my heart should be, are numbers. Beautiful numbers starting at one, I got number one when I was seventeen. These will be number one hundred and eight and one hundred and nine. Yes I am responsible for taking one hundred and nine lives. I am a bad man, I keep saying this and yet I know you are waiting for something good to come. It won’t. I’m a murderer and that’s never going to change. I like to kill people, it is why I was born.

I text Cal while I drive. I know it’s dangerous but getting in car here is dangerous so I don’t care. I don’t feel like an actual conversation where he can ask about Ellia. I cannot deal with his questions and judgement right now. I don’t have the faintest idea what I am doing with her.

Done. Thanks for the holes.

His reply is almost instant.

Thanks bud, you’ve been paid. Have you fixed your other problem yet?

Shit I knew he would ask. He thinks I am going crazy. I probably am.

No. I haven’t. I can’t fix it; it doesn’t want to be fixed.

That should confuse him enough to shut him up or send him running right to me, either way I don’t care, I just want to get home now. She doesn’t want to be fixed. She also said she would stay, she doesn’t want to leave.

Fucking traffic is always a joke through the city and it’s going to take forever to get home.

I HEARD HIM DRIVE
out just before lunch time. He shoved instant noodles through my door before he left. I ate them as I’m too hungry to care about good food anymore. I know he’s gone and I’m all alone. I think about trying to escape almost all afternoon checking the windows and doors again like they may have magically opened. They didn’t. I eventually give up and take a bath. It’s like I am back in my old life I cannot escape, the only difference is Renzo isn’t here to inflict pain on me.