Gun Shy(84)

She glared at me. “Because he didn’t come inside me after he promised to pull out.”

I snickered. “Oh, your daddy pulls out every time?”

“You did this to me,” she accused, ignoring my jab at her obvious daddy issues. “You said you’d pull out. You didn't. I'm pregnant. Asshole.”

“You said you were taking birth control,” I replied.

“I-had-a-fucking-stomach-virus!” she hissed. “How was I supposed to know throwing up makes the pills useless?”

It seemed perfectly logical to me how throwing up a pill could make it ineffective, but again, I was starting to realize how stupid my pretty little Jennifer was.

“And what happens if I don’t give you the money?” I asked, feigning boredom. In reality, my blood was simmering, my eyes bloodshot. I regretted getting into this conversation before I got my dick sucked. I tried to forget that, to focus on the fact that I now had everything I needed to cover my tracks, to kill two birds with one stone. Make Jennifer disappear, pin it on Leo, and kick back with Cassie while the chips fell. I still hadn’t figured out how I would explain the brand new baby that would arrive in about six months time, but I still had plenty of time to start constructing an elaborate story. I’d invent a long-lost sister, or maybe a cousin, somebody who was sick or drug-addicted or just a fucking mess. I would ‘rescue’ their child from them and everyone would think me a hero, and I’d be the best daddy there ever was. Cassie would finally forget about Leo Bentley because my child would steal her heart instead. She’d be a good mother. We would be a family. Jennifer could have had this, but Jennifer was a selfish cunt.

I knew I’d have to kill Jennifer once the baby was born. It’s so sad; I had a real affinity for the girl, but I had a far greater affinity for my own son or daughter she insisted on holding hostage inside her womb.

“You can’t ever come back from a decision like this,” I said to her. I already knew in my heart that Jenny was too far gone. She didn’t want to be a teenage mother. She didn’t want to let her family down. She didn’t want to shame her famous football star brother.

“I stole one of my brother’s credit cards,” she said. “If you don’t give me the money like you promised, I’ll take it from his account. He won’t even miss it.”

“There’s nothing I can do to change your mind, is there.” I was stating a fact, but she felt the need to argue anyway.

“You think I wanted this to happen?” she yelled, tears in her eyes as she slapped my hand from her shoulder. “You did this to me, Damon. You told me it would be okay. And now look what you’ve done. I’m ruined. You ruined me. And I’m not having a baby so I can be like every other girl in this town. I’m not going to give my life for some ungrateful fucking kid to destroy. I’m not going to live and die in Gun Creek because you’re too much of an asshole to wear a fucking condom. This is my life. Don’t you care about my life?!”

I ground my teeth so hard my jaw ached. Black dots swam in my vision. I wanted to beat her fucking skull in, and I would have were she not carrying my child.

She pulled out her midnight-black Kate Spade purse, the one her daddy bought for her for her sixteenth birthday, and I thought it so ironic; That I gave her a human being for her sixteenth birthday and he gave her this wallet and she hated the thing I gave her but the piece of dead animal, the shiny leather, is what made her eyes light up every time she took the damn thing out and stroked its slick surface.

I thought of all the times I’d politely smiled and nodded along with women’s rights protests, of course women should be able to choose because I lied. I’m not pro-choice at all. I’m pro-me. I’m pro don’t fucking abort my kid, you stupid little girl.

I’m so sorry, Jenny, but that was the end of the line for you and your tight mouth and your expensive little purse.

Never choose somebody who worries about their appearance more than the things that matter. It’s impossible, isn’t it, because we all want the beautiful.

We all want the young. But in that moment, staring at the mother of my unborn child as she held her perfectly manicured hand out for five hundred dollars, I realized how inherently ugly Jennifer Thomas really was. Peel away the surface and I could see her skull and her bones and the way she’d fit neatly into the earth when it came time for me to bury her.

I smiled because at the end of it all was blessed relief. I’d take her home and put her away and make her do as she was told. I had regained control. I was the hero. I would rescue my son — I was so sure it was a boy. She would push him from her body with no painkillers, no doctors, just a towel to bite down on and rope to keep her from trying to run. And when I finally murdered that bitch I’d spend the five hundred dollars she so desperately wanted on a fucking pine box to bury her in.

“Fine,” I said, reaching into my pocket. She calmed instantly — here comes the money — but it wasn’t money that I took out of my pocket. It was a rag covered in chloroform, and I shoved it over her nose and mouth before she could so much as draw a breath.

She bit me. Hard, in the soft spot between my thumb and index finger. The pain was sharp and jolting; I bit down on my tongue in reflex and the taste of copper fills my mouth as I slammed Jenny’s pretty face into the passenger window, “Cunt!” The blow stunned her long enough for me to grab hold of the back of her neck and seal the rag over her face properly.