Strangers in the Night: My Broken Heart, Prey, Predator

Becca keeps a better watch on me now. She knows the signs. She plays the guitar of all things when she senses the darkness. That calms me; it soothes the wild beast that wants out.

Jason has been lurking for the last two days, him and the other two, they keep telling me about the job I left undone. They said if I don't see to it it will destroy me, destroy us, but what can do that?

We're solid, we're whole, we've always been Becca and I. We're getting married, shouldn't we be getting married, for the baby? I remember getting her the ring, where was it?

"Becca, what happened to your ring?" Why is she looking at me like that again, I haven't seen that look on her face in a few weeks at least. It's because the bitch knows what she did; now you see?

Blinding pain! I grab my head to stop it but it's too much. Things flash behind my closed lids. What’s real and what’s imagined? When I pick my head up I'm no longer me, I know it, can feel it.

Can feel that other me trying valiantly to hold on. I reach for her throat; I will destroy her like she tried to do me.

Go ahead; kill the cheating, lying bitch. We’ll just find another one. The red haze intensifies as my hands tighten. She kicks and shakes, her nails biting into my wrist.

That’s why you shoulda left the bitch chained. I want to shake her, hurt her, I want…Do it come on, let’s get some of our own back, show her that you’re a man.

DYLAN stop; do not listen. Look down Dylan do you see it? That's you in there, you kill her you kill you.

I rock back on my heels. What's going on, why would I...

Now they're fighting, Jason and Maximilian. If you don't let him finish what we started then I'll let him do her, it's one or the other. It will destroy him destroy all of us.

The bitch already took care of that; we're nothing they took it all. No you're wrong, there's still hope all is not lost. You're such a pussy Max.

And you're blind can't you see he still loves her? When I'm through he wouldn't spit on that whore if she were on fire. I won't let you win you know that don't you?

May the best man win you fucking sap.

I thought you were trying to help him Jason.

I am Max, what the fuck do you think I'm doing here in this fucking dump? He can't exist in a world where they both still live.

There's got to be another way.

That's why I'm here, those two fucks came up with this hair- brained plan when I was otherwise occupied, now I got to fix shit. Well killing Amos Jones won't help the situation it will only make things worse.

It will make me feel a fuck of a lot better; he touched what’s mine. Are you fucked or some fuck? How can I let him live? I won't let you do this.

It's three of us and one of you Maxi baby, and you're half a pussy anyway, what you gonna do huh? Jason just smiled.

Chapter 7

Okay enough of this happy shit let’s go we’ve got shit to do. They wouldn’t stop. I can’t get them to stop. Becca keeps calling to me, but I can hardly hear her. My hands fall away from her and I step back. Without another word I turn and walk away.

Did you bring everything like we said? That was Jason; he had taken the lead I think. Somehow I was more wary of him than of anger and madness, his was a controlled and cold purpose, I could feel it.

Max was there, on the sidelines, watching, listening; just biding his time it seems like. I drove through the night with purpose, and yet not knowing. There was urgency to my movements, a sense of something pending that I had no knowledge of.

Don’t start that thinking and second-guessing shit it’s too late for that. We came to a stop somewhere vaguely familiar. What was this place, and why do I know it?

Somehow I knew it wasn’t a place that I was too familiar with, but there was something…I left the confines of the car in the dark and made my way to the shrubbery that bordered the home.

There was a stillness to the night that seemed deeper than the dark as I lifted the bag onto my shoulder and moved onward. I reached the door and listened. The house was still, silent, asleep. I tried the door with no luck.

What an ass, move out of the way. Jason took over again and within moments we were in. No, I’d never been here before, but somehow I knew it. The haze was beginning to form again as I covered my face with the black mask.

Next were my hands, before I opened my bag of tricks. My movements were mechanical now, there was no longer any hesitation. I knew what must be done and I was ready.

He was asleep in his bedroom, spread out across the sea of mattress in all his nakedness. The sight of him drove me to madness and I felt nothing as I took the first swing with the club that I had got from somewhere.