“How can you protect me better than anyone else if there’s nothing you know that I don’t?” the lawyer in her whips at him and a slow grin crawls into place on my face. She knows he knows, and she can’t let it go. That knowledge brings me more peace than it should as I breathe in the crisp fall air.

“Please,” he says, pleading with her and his tone is genuinely desperate. I catch the small details of her expression shift. The thin creases around her downturned lips and the way her gaze softens.

Holding my breath, I watch him touch her as if she belongs to him. As if he can hold her and comfort her and make everything all right.

That’s not the way it works. He can’t make it better. What’s worse is that he knows he can’t.

She’s a strong woman, but not strong enough. That’s obvious from the way she says his name, like it’s the only word she knows.

We all know better. As he leans in and kisses her, her arms wrapping around his shoulders, all I can think is that we all know better.

My phone buzzes again and his messages can’t wait any longer. I could stay here and listen to her sweet moans all night ... but then he’d be the one kissing her.

Personal conflicts aside, I’ll have to leave this ending to be a surprise.

If people knew the story of how I grew up, they would feel so badly for me. Most of them would. If, however, I started that tale with the barn … a sarcastic huff leaves me as I picture women securing their arms around their children and slowly backing away.

The metal stairs to the fire escape creak and groan as I climb down until my boots hit the pavement.

The streetlights shine down on me and that’s just fine. With the jacket that’s tight across my shoulders sporting an electric company logo and the nondescript black bag in my hand, I’m merely out on the job. Fixing a broken cable box or whatever the hell will do the trick to get bystanders feeling comfortable.

I went from being a boy abducted from his shitty hometown with crime rates that rivaled the most dangerous cities, to becoming an onlooker in a sleepy suburb, hiding in an abandoned barn while I observed the most heinous of crimes. I spent my days watching a man who defended both the innocent and guilty for a living, a man everyone seemed to look up to.

It wasn’t often he came to the barn with his victims. But my birth was a long one and I learned who I was, what I wanted, and more importantly, how and why I should kill.

I was the lucky one who escaped one hell, only to be birthed into another.

Delilah

It’s far too quiet in this apartment now that I’m alone. It’s late and the residents above me, the Whitmores, must have gone to bed early or left for vacation. I haven’t heard a thing through the floorboards. It would offer me peace any other time to know the obnoxious pacing and thuds of heavy footsteps are silenced for whatever reason, but not tonight.