This is a story based from one of the books I've read recently. I do not own any of the characters featured.
"My name is Santana. I kill people for a living."
Normally, my confession would have elicited gasps of surprise. Paled faces. Stinky nervous sweat. Maybe even an overturned chair or two as people scramble to get away before I buried a knife into their chest- or back.
A wound was a wound and I wasn't relatively picky about where I caused it.
Of course, that kind of reaction wouldn't happen here.
"Hi, Santana." Four people chorused back at me, dull and monotonous just as you would imagine it to be in an AA meeting.
Within the walled confines of Willowfield Asylum, my confession, true as it may be, didn't even merit a raised eyebrow. Compared to the freaks of nature and magic in here, I was relatively normal. Unlike Lauren, the seven-foot-tall Albino giant seated to my left who drooled and gurgled worse than a month-old baby.
A long string of clear, glistening spit dribbled out of her over-sized lips but she was too busy talking to the daisy that she has tattooed on her forearm to pay attention, much less do something hygienic like wipe her mouth.
Disgusting.
Those types were the norm here in the Asylum.
Asylum.
Such a pretty word for a hellhole.
I could handle being stuck here for a week but what set me on edge was having to listen to the building around me. The screams of the damned and deranged had long ago sunk into the granite walls and floors of the asylum, the way all emotions do overtime.
Being a stone elemental, I could feel the constant vibrations in the rock and hear the constant insane chatter through the carpet. When I first got here, I tried to reach out to the stone, to use my own magic to bring it comfort or at least quiet it enough so I could get a good night's sleep but it had been no use. The stones were far too gone to listen to my magic just like the poor souls that shuffled along on top of it.
Now I just block out the noise- the way I do so many other things.
A woman at the head of the circle leaned forward, she was right across from me so it was easy for her eyes to find mine. "Santana, we've talked about this. You only think you're an assassin."
Terri Schuester. The shrink that was supposed to cure all the crazies in this magical nuthouse. The blonde radiated professional coolness and confidence in her tight black pantsuit, ivory blouse and kitten heels. Black rectangle glasses hung on the end of her pointed nose, highlighting her light blue eyes, and her ash blonde hair was flowing past her shoulders in big curls. Terri was pretty enough but a hungry look pinched her face- a look that I can recognize anywhere. The hard gaze of a predator.
The exact reason I was here today.
"I'm not just any assassin." I countered, "I'm the spider, I'm sure you've heard of me."
Terri rolled her eyes and looked at the tall orderly standing just outside the ring of chairs. He shook his head and snickered; raising his finger to his temple and making swirling circles.
"Of course I've heard of the spider." Terri sighed; trying to be patient "Everybody's heard of the spider but you are most certainly not him, Santana."
"Her." I corrected
The tall orderly snickered again, making me raise my eyebrow in displeasure. That laughed just caused him his life, I don't like being mocked even if I had masqueraded as a loon for the past week.
In order to kill people, you had to get close to them. Put yourself in their world. Make their likes your likes. Their habits your habits and their thoughts your thoughts. For this job, putting myself in Terri Schuester's world meant getting tossed into Willowfield Asylum. To everyone here, I was just another schizo dragged off the streets, driven mad by drugs, elemental magic or both.
I'd spent the last week convincing Terri and the others that I was just as crazy as the rest of the babbling psychos in here. Spouting nonsense about being an assassin. Walking around naked, drooling and even finger-painting with the moldy peas they serve for lunch. At one point I even sliced off thick lockets of my vanilla blonde hair during craft time. They took the scissors from me, of course, but not before I used it to pry a screw loose from under one of the tables.
The same screw that I had sharpened into a two-inch-long dart that I now had palmed in my hand. The same screw I was going to shove into Terri Schuester's throat.
Of course I didn't really need a weapon to kill her, I could just as simply offed her with my stone magic. Could have reached out to the acres of granite the asylum was made out of and made the entire building crash down on her head. Call it professional pride but I didn't want to use my stone magic to kill unless I absolutely had to. Unless there was no other way to finish the job.
More importantly, using magic would get you noticed in these parts. If I start collapsing buildings or braining people with flying bricks, someone apart from the police might take an unhealthy interest in me. I'd made my fair share of enemies through the years and the only reason I'd stayed alive this long was by keeping to the shadows.
By creeping in and out of places unnoticed, just like my namesake says.
"The spider." Terri's lips twitch, "as if someone like you could be someone like that. The most feared assassin in the south."
"Actually, the most feared assassin east of the Mississippi." I corrected her again
"Right. Of course." She says condescendingly
"That's right and in fact, I'm going to kill you Terri. T-minus two minutes and counting" maybe it was the calm way I stared at her or the lack of emotion in my voice. Whatever it was, the laughter caught and died in her throat, like an animal in a trap.
I stood and stretched my arms over my head, moving the screw to a better position in my hand. As I do, the white long-sleeved shirt I was wearing rose up over my matching pajama pants and exposed my toned stomach. I see the tall orderly from the corner of my eye, licking his lips and locking his gaze on my crotch. Dead man walking.
"But enough about me," I said, dropping into the seat once more and crossing my legs, "let's talk about you, Terri."
She shook her head "Now, Santana. You know that's against the rules. Therapists are not allowed to talk to patients about themselves."
"Why not? You've asked me a lot of questions for the past few days; trying to get me to open up about my feelings and my past. I think it's fair, you know? Besides, I heard you did plenty of talking with Rory Flanagan."
I watch her eyes widen behind her black glasses "Where- Where did you hear that name?"
"Rory Flanagan. Seventeen years old. An air elemental with a serious case of Bipolar Disorder. You really shouldn't have gotten involved with him, Terri. He was just a sweet, confused Irish kid."
The shrinks hand tightened around her furry pink pen until her knuckles turned white. I noticed the orderly looking back and forth between the doctor and I, like we were playing a game of verbal tennis. Lauren and the three others continued to drool and gurgle around me, still stuck in their own twisted worlds.
"Correction..." I continued, "You shouldn't have used him as your psycho ward boy toy."
"Did you panic when he realized you weren't really going to leave your husband for him? Did he threaten to tell his parents how you seduced him? Were you scared that he would expose your dirty little operation of seducing young men and women that are put under your care? Is that why you pumped him full of hallucinogens before sending him home to his family?"
Terri's breath is stuck in her throat, her pulse fluttering in her throat.
I leaned forward, slowly. Propping my elbows on my knees and locking eyes with the sick doctor. "Mommy and Daddy Flanagan didn't appreciate it when poor Rory had a psychotic break and hung himself in his closet, Terri. Before he died, he actually left you a little love letter saying how he just couldn't go on without you." I tell her sweetly.
Normally, I wouldn't even bother with the whole exposition, it was just so cliché. I would have just found Terri, killed her, and slipped out without anyone even knew she was dead. But letting Terri Schuester know exactly why she was dying was an extra bonus on the job requirement that earned me an extra half-million.
"That's why I'm here, Terri. That's why you're going to die. Because you fucked with the wrong boy."
"Guard!" Terri screamed
Last word she ever said.
I flicked my wrist and the point of the screw zipped across the room and sank into her throat, puncturing her windpipe. Her scream turned into a whistling wheeze as she slid from her chair and fell to the floor. I watch her hands wrap around the screw before pulling it out, making blood seep out of her neck like a faucet.
Stupid of her.
She might have lived another minute if she had left it in her throat.
From behind me, I hear the orderly curse followed by his heavy footsteps. He was fast but I was faster. I snatched the shrink's pen off the bloody floor where it had fallen, stood up and rammed the fur covered pen into his heart.
"And you..." I murmured in his ear as he flailed against my grip. "I'm not getting paid for you. But considering how you get your kicks by raping female patients, I'll consider it a public service. Pro-fucking-Bono." I yanked the pen from his chest and stabbed him twice more, one on his chest and another on his neck; I watched as the lecherous light in his eyes dimmed and died. I let go and he thumped to the floor.
In less than thirty seconds, it was over. Game. Set. Match.
I didn't even break a sweat.
My eyes scanned the other four people in the room, Lauren was still drooling on herself and staring at nothing. The two patients to her right were frowning at the floor, like something was wrong although they just couldn't figure out what. The last patient was a raven-haired girl, she was already on her hands and knees, licking Terri's blackening blood off the floor. Vampires. They really would eat just about anything.
The granite floor's insane murmur intensified over the new coating of fresh blood. The wails of the stones around me made my teeth grind together. I'll be more than happy to leave this place and this noise behind. Far, far, behind. Quickly, I yank the pen from the orderly's neck and used the tip to pull out the screw buried in Terri Schuester's neck. No need to leave evidence behind.
I considered killing Lauren and the others, witnesses were bad especially in my line of work. But I wasn't here for them and I never killed innocents. Even these pathetic souls who would be better off dead than stuck in their broken minds and bodies. Instead, I pocketed my still-bloody weapons and headed towards the door. Before stepping out into the hallway, I chanced a last glance at Terri Schuester's lifeless body; her eyes were wide open in a look of shocked surprise. A look I've seen more than once over the years. No matter how cruel and bad people get, whatever evil they've done or who they fucked over, they never seem to believe that their deaths were coming. Until it was too late.
Now came the trickier part- Getting out of the asylum.
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