Guardian Angel

Talia

It was happening again. That unquenchable thirst and hunger to hurt, maim, torture, and kill. I didn’t mind the feeling. I embraced it. What was alarming was the frequency of my dark urges.

Usually, I could go a minimum of three months before my deadly desires surface. Lately, I’ve been feeling the need to kill monthly. I had just killed someone three weeks and three days ago, and already I’m searching for my next victim.

I didn’t have a rhyme or reason for my selection process, and I wasn’t some backward goody-two-shoes saint like Dexter Morgan. I didn’t care who you were, what you’d done, and who you had waiting for you back home. I hated it when I was close to finishing my victim, and they begged and pleaded for me to spare them because they had children.

Fuck those kids.

Kids are little shits, and as a public school librarian, I’d been tempted to strangle a kid or two, but I wouldn’t. That was my only rule: no kids. It wasn’t because I found it morally reprehensible. It was because kids made it too easy. Abducting a kid could be as simple as offering them a piece of candy, and they’re ready to jump in the passenger seat of your car. My tastes centered around a much bigger game.

When selecting my victims, it could be as easy as them making direct eye contact with me...and then they’re mine, and the hunt was on.

My last victim worked at a fast-food restaurant. I watched him for a few weeks and realized he was responsible for taking the trash out every night. On the evening of his demise, he took the garbage out like any other night in the dimly lit alley. He opened the dumpster, and I popped out like a jack-in-the-box and slit his throat. I took a few seconds to take a mental screenshot of the shock on his face as he desperately attempted to quell the bleeding.

I skedaddled out the alley and was bathed, in pajamas, and in front of the TV an hour later.

Television was not a source of enjoyment for me. It was strictly a learning tool. It has taught me everything I needed to know about acting and faking emotions. I studied the actors’ facial features and reactions to various stimuli and later mimicked the actors in my bathroom mirror. I practiced my smile in the mirror, ensuring I wasn’t smiling too wide like some freakish birthday clown. My face was always set in a permanent resting bitch face, but I learned to control that better over the years.

Believe it or not, I had to practice laughing and giggling, which was the hardest since I didn’t understand when laughing was socially unacceptable. It only took one time for me to learn that it wasn’t appropriate to laugh at a funeral, but the way that woman flung herself on top of her dead lover’s casket tickled me pink. The woman marched toward me and started yelling in my face in front of the entire congregation. She made a fatal mistake.

Later that week, they found her dead in her apartment. The detectives ruled her death a suicide due to the copious amount of pills I forced down her throat and her spouse’s sudden death. She yelled that the Lord should’ve taken them both at the funeral, so I did her a favor.

I wish I could say that there was something extraordinary about me, but I couldn’t. I was a simple woman whose only enjoyment was killing and reading. Because I was a psychopath, I had no friends and never had a boyfriend. I aged out of foster care, and my origins were unknown.

Maybe I’m not actually of this world? Perhaps I came from below?

Whatever the case, I knew that someone had given birth to me and didn’t want me.

By the time I was five, I was labeled a budding psychopath by a child shrink, all because I killed the newborn kittens that were born behind the orphanage. The mother was a feral cat with the same idea my birth mother had, and dumped her kittens and ran, leaving us with four mouths to feed. I helped them by snapping their little necks. Thanks to me, they would never feel the pain of being abandoned. As a result, I was also deemed unadoptable.

I wished I could blame my psychopathy on some deep childhood trauma centered around physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, but I couldn’t. Children, teens, and adults were terrified of me and barely wanted to be in the same room with me, let alone close enough to strike me.

I was homeschooled, had my own room, and ate separately from everyone else. I aged out, went to college, and now here I am, blissfully scanning returned library books.

I stopped scanning when I noticed a throat clearing in what once was my peaceful sanctuary.

“What can I do for you, Coach Delgado? I asked with the fakest smile I could muster.

“As you know, the school is hosting a movie night in the park this weekend, and I was wondering if you would like to go with me?”

It was no secret to the faculty and me that the physical education coach had a crush on me. He always went out of his way to speak with me and blushed when I said his name. He would visit the library to “check out” a book, but would spend most of his time talking to me about God knows what and leave empty-handed. I rarely ate my lunch in the cafeteria, but when I did, he always seemed to find his way to my table with an extra slice of chocolate cake that he couldn’t finish on his own.

The truth was that Talia Marie Reed had a weakness, and Coach Delgado figured it out. I had a nasty sweet tooth that led to many unwanted visits to my dentist, who was probably the only person I wouldn’t kill.

Where will I be without him?

“Please remind me what they’re showing again?” I ask, feigning interest.

“Honestly, I don’t know, but whatever it is has to be PG or lower,” Coach Delgado nervously chuckled.

“How lame. I was hoping for something with a little more blood and gore,” I teased. Coach Delgado’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“You? A horror fan? I don’t believe it.”

“Why not?”

“You just look so...innocent.”

“Well, you know what they say...looks can be deceiving,” I warned.

“They also say it’s the quiet ones you have to look out for.”

I hummed in agreement.

“Maybe we can go to the movie in the park and hit up the movie theater afterward to find something more suitable for your taste? It’ll be a double feature, my treat.”

“Promise me Twizzlers, and you got yourself a deal,” I agreed.

I won’t fuck him, but if it’s free, it’s for me.

“I’ll go to Sam’s Club and buy them in bulk if you want me to,” he desperately offered.

“You sound eager to please, Coach D,” I seductively whisper. His eyes ticked over my body, no doubt envisioning what I looked like naked.

“I’m definitely a giver,” he confirmed.

“I’ll keep that in mind; I’ll meet you at the park.”

“I can pick you up,” Coach Delgado offered.

“That’s not necessary.”

“I get it. You’re cautious and don’t want me to know where you live,” he chuckled.

“Exactly.”

He laughed as if I said the funniest thing in the world, but I wasn’t playing. He probably already knew where I lived or could easily find out. Addresses, like phone numbers, are considered public records, and it was pretty wild if you asked me. It was terrible for my victims but great for me.

Thankfully, the bell rang, signaling the start of the next period. “Damn, I gotta run. The fifth graders are playing dodgeball today.”

“Sounds deadly,” I said, smirking as I thought about ten-year-olds getting knocked out from rubber balls to the face.

“You have no idea,” he huffed.

“See you later, Coach D.”

“Please, for the love of God, just call me Vincent.”

“I can do that, Vincent.”

“Thank you. Take care, Ms. Reed,” he said as he jogged out of the library. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to scan the returned books.

***

Gratefully, school ended a few hours later. To my surprise, Vincent stood outside the library doors like a dog excitedly waiting for his owner.

“Oh, hello. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Yeah, my bad. But I forgot to get your phone number earlier,” Vincent explained.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Are you going to ask for it?”

“Oh, right. May I have your phone number?”

“No,” I replied as I walked past him.

“But are we still on for Friday?” he frantically called after me.

“Yup!” I responded before stepping into the brisk November chill.

I refused to give him my phone number. He’d most likely relentlessly text me how excited he was about our date on Friday. I’ve never texted anyone before because I had no one to text. I would probably respond in either emojis or butchered shorthand, that wouldn’t make any sense.

I arrived at the bus stop and read a novel on my phone while waiting for the bus to arrive. I owned a vehicle, but when I woke up this morning, my intuition told me to take the bus.

I didn’t look up from my phone when a guy came running around the corner, undoubtedly trying to make it to the bus stop on time. It was only me and Crackhead Jones when the unknown man arrived.

Crackhead Jones and I had an understanding. He tried me once when he asked for $5, and I told him I didn’t have it. He attempted to clown but stopped when he felt the cold steel of my switchblade pressed against his throat. According to him, his behavior was a misunderstanding, and it would never happen again. When we see each other, we don’t speak. We exchange a silent head nod and mind our own business.

“H-has the bus arrived yet?” the guy asked, panting from his run.

“If it had, would we be standing here?” I mocked, frustrated by his stupid question.

“Good point,” he agreed.

He’s the one. I’m killing him.

I warily eyed my victim as he strolled past me. I could easily take him. He was only a couple of inches taller than my 5′6" frame and a little on the slender side. He had black, curly hair, green eyes, and soft pink lips. He was also very pale, and I wondered if he was a vampire or just sick.

My victim sat on the bench right next to Crackhead Jones.

Wrong move, buddy.

“You betta getcho ass off my bench! Dis here bench belongs to Crackhead Jones! See it?!” he yelled, pointing at his crudely etched-out name on the green plastic bench.

I rolled my eyes when my victim jumped off the bench and cowered away from CJ. A giggle slipped out of my mouth when CJ flexed at my victim, making him flinch away and protectively cover his head with his hands.

He’s such a fucking weenie, and he will not put up a fight. He’ll do just fine. But why did I laugh? The only time I laugh is when I have to fake it.

CJ went off on the man and threatened to kill him if he caught him slipping again. The bus arrived, and the weenie zoomed onto the safety of the bus, far away from CJ. I nodded at CJ and climbed onto the bus after my victim.

I sat across from him and studied his body language. I could tell from a mile away that he lacked self-confidence. Like me, he was a loner and didn’t have anyone to talk to. He wasn’t responding to texts, emails, phone calls, or playing Candy Crush. According to my research, Candy Crush brought people joy and happiness.

Four stops later, I found myself following him off the bus. He shoved his hands into his coat pocket and entered a park—the same park where the school planned on hosting movie night.

With my back pressed against a bench, I watched him approach a taco truck vendor. He purchased his meal and a drink and moseyed to a vacant bench. I sighed heavily when the lid popped off his drink, and the soda splashed across the front of his clothes. He cursed loudly and set his taco beside him on the bench. While he was distracted by drying himself off, a bird swooped down and stole his taco. He grabbed his hair in frustration and punched the air.

“I can’t kill this man...he’s too pathetic.”

I wouldn’t find satisfaction, and probably would have to kill someone else two weeks later. Something inside of me felt...different. I no longer felt the need to kill him. I felt the urge to...protect him.

The next thing I knew, I stood before him with a handful of tacos and two drinks.

“Hi. I couldn’t help but notice that hawk mugged you.”

He looked away and refused to answer me.

I think he’s about to cry. I’ve never been moved by tears before, but this is too much.

“Bad day?” I asked, taking the empty seat next to him.

“You have no idea,” he whispered.

“Why don’t you tell me all about it?” I urged, handing him a taco and a drink.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know your name, and you can keep the food.”

“My name’s Talia, and I owe you food for my rude behavior earlier. Are you going to turn down free food?”

“I’m sorry. I’m being rude, my name is Dylan, and you’re right. I don’t have the luxury of turning down free food. You want to hear about my day?”

I eagerly nodded my head. “It looks like you have a lot going on and need someone to talk to.”

“Right. Whatever you do, please don’t laugh at my misfortune.”

“I can’t make any promises,” I replied honestly.

Author's Corner

Guardian Angel will be republished by popular demand, but with significant plot changes and edits.