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“Give me an hour tops, and I’ll have it done.” I wave him off as he removes himself from the room.

“Right back to it,” I say, falling to my knees, wiggling toward the man, who is tied around the chair, his hand scraped at the back, and the same with his left leg. I rummage through my pockets, taking out my stapler. His bloodshot eyes are wide open t, so he’s scared and rightfully so. I want him to be scared, but I don’t want him to plead for his life. That’s just sad, and we don’t need that.

“This is the plan: I’m going to staple your mouth and eyes, and then I’ll kill you. How fun.” I giggle, but he doesn’t look impressed. I don’t like it when they look mad; it’s not my fault. All he had to do was know I wanted that cinnamon roll, and he didn’t do that; that’s on him, not me.

I step forward, forcing his eyes shut before stapling the left three times, screaming fall from his lips as he begs for mercy, but I don’t care before taking his top lip over his bottle, stapling his right side, then left, and then the middle. I step back, admiring his beauty.

“Peace at last, don’t worry, not much longer till you die.” My chuckle echoing through the room.

I walk toward the door before I look into the cabin. A knife and some acid—that should do—I skip back over, taking the knife, plunging it into his chest in a downward motion. It’s fucking beautiful, ruining him just how I like it. I cut deep, the blood seeping out of his red covers everything, before I force my hand inside his body, reaching his organs, ripping them free, ready for my pigs.

The farm isn’t mine; it just so happens that when we killed the owner of the house, I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them, so now they help by getting rid of the evidence and a good meal; I call it a win-win situation.

My phone buzzes as soon as I get ready to collect the prices, my phone buzzes.

The group chat

Hallow fest

Max: Can someone do me a favor and tell Emma that killing someone over a cinnamon roll is wrong?

Rian: Control yourself. Or at least don’t contaminate the food. I don’t want to have to write you another prescription for antibiotics.

Emma: Ermm, rude, and too late; I just ripped his organs out.

I type back a smile, lighting up. Why is he messaging in a group chat full of killers? They know I get hangry all the time. If you take food away from me you might end up like Dave, or Jason—I can’t remember his name, but when I look up I notice he is fully white. I stand back knowing I should clean up but I really don’t have the energy. I’m now regretting my idea, because I have to carry his body down two flights of stairs into our kill room. As I walk out and shut the door, my phone buzzes again.

Jessa: Men need to learn not to touch what isn’t theirs. Women’s bodies, cinnamon rolls, whatever. I find this fully justified.

Mal: He messed with your food? Gonna have to side with the ladies on this one. Dude deserved it.

I roll my eyes. I am not answering the group chat; that’s for later. Right at this moment, I have masks that I need to make and don’t have a fucking clue how to make them. I had this idea of a bunny mask, but scary, the kind that would make a good game of cat and mouse, my favorite; there is nothing more thrilling than chasing someone. After a while, they trip over a tree branch and roll around in the mud. There’s nothing they can do but turn red and look ashamed, and at that moment, I know I have them at my mercy. A girl has to get some begging somewhere; there’s no chance in hell that Max is kneeling for me, begging me to suck his cock. But me, I would kneel and beg him to fuck me every day. People seem to have this idea that we’re in love, but all I see is my best friend, with benefits, and that’s far from the truth. I love him, but not in the way that makes me want to marry him. I’ve known Max my whole life, and we’ve always had this spark, but it was nothing more than sexual, which is why we can be so close. We like to call it friends with benefits. We have so much freedom with each other. He’s been there for me through my ups and downs, and I’m grateful I’m able to call him my friend. But right now, I wish he would stop chatting shit about me in the group chat, knowing I’m upstairs and all I would have to do is go down and stab him, but we all know I’m bluffing. I couldn’t live without him. Who would move the bodies? I’m a fucking midget, not even 5ft, sitting at 4,10, while he’s 6ft. He’s a giant compared to me.

AGE NINE

I was taught from a young age that I didn’t have a voice. My father made that clear the day he trapped me in the basement for what felt like days. He later told me it was only seven hours, as if that somehow made it better. Seven hours spent in pitch darkness, with no food, no water, and no idea when—or if—he’d let me out. The air was damp, tasting of dust and old concrete. Every sound, even the creak of the house above me, made my heart pound. I remember pressing my palms flat against the cold floor, trying to ground myself, trying not to scream, because I knew screaming would only make things worse.

I thought I was going to die down there.

Any time I cried or protested, he would tilt his head and say, almost casually, “Your mother made things difficult, too.” As if she were already dead, but she isn’t.

Apparently, I was “rude” when my father’s friends came over and started feasting on my body with their eyes. I still remember the way they laughed too loudly, how the smell of beer and sweat filled the living room, how their gaze crawled over my skin like something alive. I was only a child, standing in the doorway in an oversized T-shirt that barely covered my thighs, trying to shrink, wishing I could disappear into the wallpaper.

My father saw my fear and disgust and called it disrespect. He told me it was rude of me to look scared; instead, I should have smiled, stood up straighter, maybe even asked if he wanted to see more. His friends chuckled at that, as if it were some kind of joke, I was too stupid to understand. But I understood enough. I understood that my fear amused them.

Why would I ever want an older man—one who made me feel sick just to look at—to see a body that wasn’t even fully developed yet? My chest ached with a shame that didn’t belong to me, a shame he kept trying to hang around my neck like a necklace I’d never asked for. I remember wanting to scrub my skin off, to peel myself out of my own body and leave it there in that room with them.

That same night, after they left and the house finally went quiet, I went to bed and curled myself under the covers. The sheets smelled faintly of detergent and something stale, but they were the only barrier I had, the only thing between me and a world that saw me as something to take. I pulled the blankets over my head and tucked my knees up to my chest until I was as small as I could make myself.

I cried until my throat burned and my eyes swelled shut. Every time I tried to stop, another wave of sobs rose, shaking my whole body. I pressed my hand over my mouth so he wouldn’t hear me, biting down on my knuckles to stifle the sound. In the darkness beneath the covers, I tried to imagine a different life, one where there were no basements, no leering eyes, no fathers who called terror “rudeness.”

My pillow grew damp with tears, and my chest hurt from holding everything in—my fear, my rage, my grief for a childhood that never really belonged to me. I stayed like that until my body finally gave out, until exhaustion wrapped itself around me tighter than any blanket, and I slipped into a restless sleep still clutching the edge of the sheet like it could save me from him.

“Whose idea was it to make these masks?” I say, sweating bullets down from my forehead. Max answers even though he knows I’m not looking for an answer.

“You.” Max glares at me, looking at the back of the packet for the instructions on how to make a bloody mask. I need to mix the dry with a cup of water and stir till it thickens, and then I need to apply oil or Vaseline to the person’s face, making sure it comes off easily. Surely, it can’t be that hard.

Right?