She downloaded Instagram and sat on the edge of the bed, her blood hot and sputtering inside her like oil in a pan. Chad had posted four times since she’d left him bleeding in the hotel room ten days ago. The first was a photo of an IV stand in a hospital room. The caption read: #nyc can suck my dick #recovery #subwayslasher #staystrong. There were nearly six hundred likes and almost a hundred comments. omg!… so crazy!… thoughts and prayers!… luv u! The next photo was a vase of flowers with a “Get Well Soon” balloon attached; caption: #blessed. The third was a series of three female nurses posing like Charlie’s Angels: these bitches give good stitches. And finally, the most recent: Chad’s bare feet on a lounge chair with the ocean at his toes. #Cali #bestcoast #recovery #staystrong. Each post had more likes, more well-wishes.

She’d sliced him, in part, to create a warning. As she stood over him with the box cutter, she imagined that every time Chad Drake met someone new they’d be suspicious; what had he done to get such a dramatic injury? She’d thought she was changing the story, but she hadn’t counted on how easy it would be for him to do the same. All those people on Instagram believed his lie about the Slasher. They felt sorry for him. He wasn’t humiliated; he was a hero. Nobody would ask what he did to deserve it. Nobody would ask what he was wearing, or what he’d had to drink. Poor Chad Drake was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

If she posted the video he made how many likes would she get? How many comments? Would she be a hero for surviving? No, she’d be a joke. Dude, she peed. It would be carved into her gravestone. What did she expect? She knew he liked her. She shouldn’t have flirted. She shouldn’t have had so much to drink. She should have known better.

Fine. Now she did. But she also knew she wouldn’t be the last. She knew that if she didn’t do something else—something, unfathomably, more than slicing him across the face—all she would have taught him was to be a little more careful when he wanted to fuck someone who didn’t want to fuck him. Drop the camera, fly solo. How many women would he offer to drive home after they’d had three too many? What a nice guy, they’d think as he folded them into his fancy car. Out in L.A. his pool of victims would grow. What a story! He’d survived the Subway Slasher.