Chosen Girls by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2024-02-05T15:09:11+00:00

42

How long has it been now? I think of the meals I've eaten, I've counted more than three weeks. And I'm not stupid. I've heard the stories. What our moms and pops and teachers won't admit to us, but the reason they tell us to be careful. To walk home in pairs. To obey the curfew in early fall. And the warnings I never thought applied to me. The reason strangers come to town with their cameras, booking rooms in the local motel. The boogie man in the stories boys tell us to scare us. The Facebook posts. I know what he did to those other girls. Years ago. I know it's HK.

Everyone thought that maybe he'd gone. He'd given up, died, moved on or got himself locked up for another crime. But he's back and I'm the latest. So I know, when he tells me I'm gonna die at the end of homecoming, he means it.

When I count forward from the night he took me, I know that I can only have a few days left. And I start to wonder if he'll kill me quick, before he does all those horrible things he always does to his victims. Or if he'll do it slow, while I'm alive.

I think about all this, over and over, in the dark. Sitting against the back wall with my thighs pulled up to my chest. Arms wrapped tight around my legs and chin resting on my hard, smooth knees.

I look across the room as he comes in. A crinkled white plastic bag in hand. He walks all the way up to me, where I sit in the gloom. He stoops in close.

"It's time for the marking," he says as he grabs me by the arm.

I try and shake him off, but he drags me to my feet and into the lighter part of the room. He lays down the bag and takes out a pair of latex gloves. He pulls them over his leather gloves and reaches into the bag again. He lifts out a small, round tin. He pries the top off, dips in a finger.

"Hold still," he says.

I squirm. He restrains me with his left hand. Runs the tip of his right index finger down the center of my nose. Across my forehead. Diagonal, across either cheek. And finally, he strokes a line from my throat, up over my chin. He stops at my bottom lip.

He pulls my head left and right, as if sizing up his work. He nods to himself. Lets me go. Fixes the lid back on the container, snaps off the latex gloves and puts the stuff back inside the bag.

The stuff is thick and sticky. Some kind of oily, dark copper paste, it dries fast and tightens against my skin. Smells earthy. Like charcoal.

"Are we in homecoming week?" I ask. "Is it time?"

"Soon," he says. "This is just the start."

"You don't have to do this," I say. "There's still time to let me go."

"I can't do that.

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