The pleasure I feel is so much more than physical.
I finally realize what happiness feels like.
There’s no malice in it. No greed. It’s not something you seek for yourself.
It flows between two people, around and around, back and forth, given and received in the same breath.
Her happiness makes me happy.
And even if it didn’t, I want it for her anyway.
That’s what loving her means—I want her safe, protected, flourishing, whether it benefits me or not.
It hits me so hard that I let out a groan. Mara touches my face, tilting it so I look right in her eyes.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“I know,” she says.
That’s what makes me cum. Not the physical act of fucking—the emotion of it. Finally being known. Finally being understood.
I explode into her. It rips through me, painful and pleasurable, just the way I need it—the only thing that satisfies.
She clings to me, biting down hard on my shoulder. Tasting my blood in her mouth.
When I set her down, the sirens are closer.
“Listen,” I say, holding tight to her hand. “I need you to do something for me. Can you do it quickly, before it’s too late?”
“Yes,” Mara says at once.
“Good.”
I retrieve her coat and wrap it around her shoulders, explaining exactly what I need.
When I’m done, Mara nods and kisses me once more.
Then she runs away through the maze, leaving me alone with Shaw’s body to wait for the cops.
21
Mara
3 Months Later
It takes several months, a team of lawyers, and some hefty “donations” to the right people before Cole is entirely in the clear.
In the end, the Chief of Police pins a medal on Officer Hawk’s chest for closing the case on the Beast of the Bay.
Hawks scowls through the entire press conference, not at all pleased with the deal Cole struck with the SFPD.
Hawks gets the credit, and Cole gets fifty hours of community service for flipping a police cruiser in the middle of Sanchez Street. He’s been serving his time at the Bay Area Youth Center, teaching delinquents how to draw.
He comes home from his sessions in a surprisingly good mood.
“Some of these kids show real talent,” he says.
“What kind of talent?” I tease him.
Cole grins. “All kinds. That’s why I like them.”
Cole’s lawyers argued that he was wrongfully arrested, and that he had no choice but to escape after he witnessed Shaw abducting me off the street and dragging me into the labyrinth.
I supported this story, including the part where it was Cole who cut Shaw’s throat, while I fled back to Cole’s mansion. I pretended to be disoriented and in shock, freshly showered and hiding in bed in my pajamas when the police finally found me.
They couldn’t question me too hard since I had been telling them all along that Shaw was the Beast. I was the girl who had to escape him TWICE because they wouldn’t listen to me.
It helped that the cops uncovered a mountain of evidence in Shaw’s apartment.
Most damning was Shaw’s collage of stolen driver’s licenses. He had spray-painted them gold, hiding them within one of his technicolor paintings. When the cops scraped off the paint, they found the IDs of Maddie Walker and twenty other victims, Erin’s “lost” license among them.
They also found the wallets of two missing men: art critic Carl Danvers and Professor Oswald. The papers noted that Danvers attended a party with Shaw shortly before his disappearance, and that Shaw was one of the professor’s students at CalArts when he likewise went missing. The professor’s wallet finally allowed the death of Valerie Whittaker to be linked to the Beast.
Cole was extremely pleased that I managed to break into Shaw’s apartment before the cops showed up.
“And you didn’t leave a single print!” he said, admiringly.
“I learned from the best,” I grinned back at him.
I’ve come a long way on my journey, to the point where planting evidence is exhilarating rather than horrifying. I’m beginning to understand how even the most reckless acts can feel like a game, the high stakes only enhancing the fun.
Still, I’m glad it’s over.
Or I suppose I should say, almost over.
I have one piece of unfinished business to attend to.
I’m standing on the front step of a dingy, single-level house in Bakersfield. The grass is unwatered and uncut, the garden beds nothing but bare dirt.
I have to ring the bell several times before I hear the shuffling sounds of someone moving inside the house.
At last the door cracks open, and I see an eye pressed against the space, peering out suspiciously.
For a second, she doesn’t recognize me.
Then she pulls the door wide, straightening up, blinking in the garish spring sunshine.
I almost wouldn’t recognize her, either.
She’s chopped her hair to shoulder length, frizzy and uneven. Threads of gray run through, poorly covered by an at-home dye job. She’s gained weight, enough that she fills out the baggy oversized sweatshirt that once belonged to me. As faded as it’s become, I still remember that retro Disney logo on the front. I never actually went to Disneyland—I bought the hoodie at a thrift shop, hoping other kids would think I’d been.
Makeup from the night before cakes around her eyes, settling in the wrinkles beneath. The lines are deep, etched in place from every ugly expression she’s carried, hour after hour, day after day, all these years.
Her face bears record of every scowl, every sneer. No smile lines at the corners of her eyes—only trenches on her forehead, between her eyebrows, and in marionette lines running from her nose to the edges of her mouth.
She’s become a witch from a fairy tale. Transformed by misery. The darkness inside finally reflected on her face.
Those gray-blue eyes still glitter with malice. The same color as mine—cold as San Francisco fog blowing in off the bay.
A part of her will always be in me.
But I choose which part.
“Hello Mom,” I say.
I can see her struggle.
She prefers to be the one showing up unannounced on people’s doorsteps. She hates that I’m trespassing in her space, catching her unaware.
On the other hand, she’s been trying to find me for years. She can’t possibly slam the door in my face when she’s finally getting what she wants.
“What are you doing here?” she croaks.
I must have woken her, even though it’s ten o’clock in the morning. The sour scent of unwashed clothing, spilled wine, and stale cigarettes wafts out of the house. An old, old smell for me. One that recalls my earliest days.
“I brought you a gift,” I say, holding up a bottle of merlot, her favorite.
Her eyes flick to the label and back to my face, narrowing. I have never bought her alcohol in all my life.
“A peace offering,” I say. “I have something to discuss with you.”
I already know she won’t be able to resist. The wine is only half as tempting as what she really wants: the chance to dig information out of me.
“Fine,” she grunts, holding the door wider and retreating back into the house so I can follow.