Emily could hear her heartbeat in her ears, the blood running through her body pumping so hard it felt like she was vibrating.
Her eyes were glued to the two bodies littering the living room floor of the abandoned property, her stomach doing flips an Olympian gymnast couldn't do. How could he have done this? He was sweet, he was loving, and now he was a murderer?
She knew her silence was an indicator of her not appreciating his work - the hours he had taken to find ways to steal these girls from their homes and find the right tools to do what he had done to them - and she put a hand over her mouth to stop herself from throwing up.
"Emily?"
The sixteen year old's head shook at the voice that echoed around the room.
He caught her, stopping the now crying girl from running out of the house and away from him. "What?" he asked, worried he had frightened her. "What's wrong?"
The ambassador's daughter struggled to get out of the older boy's hold but the sobs that wracked her body made it difficult for her to focus and set her attention to her friend. "Why?" she cried, pushing his arms away from her. "Why would you do this?"
James - that was the name that had calmed her whenever she was drifting back to those dark places that had kept her captive during her early teens - looked at her with confused eyes. How could she not get it? He had done this all for her. "What do you mean?" He pointed over to the dead body, his nose now immune to the horrible stench of their rotting bodies. "They were mean to you. I helped you."
Emily's head shook so violently she thought it was pop off her shoulders.
The older boy turned her back around so she could see his gifts for her. "They were so mean," he said, angry at the memories that quickly came flooding back to him. "They made fun of you and spread rumors. They tried to get into a fight with you, Emily."
Ashley Jensen. She was probably the most popular girl in school, so the first day she hadn't shown up for class everyone was on the lookout for what could have happened.
James had plunged a knife into her left breast, taking a cleaver he had found in his mother's kitchen once Ashley had fallen to the ground and chopping her into separate pieces. He had butchered to death the girl who had told people she was a bastard and threatened to fight after the football game.
The brunette beside the dead blond girl wasn't even a mean girl, hadn't really done anything to Emily. She was a little bit of a loner just like the ambassador's daughter was, but she had a small group of friends that always remembered to include her even if she persisted she wanted to spend her time alone. Her name was Bernadette Miller.
One time she told Emily that she didn't like the shoes she wore, the part of the conversation James had missed was Emily asking the girl if they were ok or not. It was their school's play day where they helped their younger school children with sports, and she knew she didn't have the right sneakers to play the games.
Her throat was slit from ear to ear.
"You can't kill people!" she screamed, pushing the older boy away.
James' eyes widened at the anger his girlfriend had.
Emily could feel her chest heaving as she tried to take in a deep breath. "How could you do that? How could you kidnap them and kill them?" How could he chop up each of them and show their bodies to Emily as a prize? "Why would you do something like that?"
"Didn't you hear me? I did it for you." Walking past her, the blond boy gestured down to the girls lying in their own congealed blood. "They shouldn't have said what they did to you. You're too good," he almost whispered, staring down to those lifeless bodies. "You didn't deserve their hate, so I took care of them."
The brunette slowly backed away from the teenager.
"Emily, I did this for you. Don't you get that?"
She froze when he turned back to her, and she knew he had noticed the long distance she had put between them.
James frowned, stepping toward the younger girl. "What are you doing?"
"I want to go home." She could feel her tears dripping onto her bottom lip, and they slowly slipped onto her tongue. "You can't just murder innocent people," she begged him to understand, her arms crossed over her chest. "I didn't want you to do this."
"I just wanted them to leave you alone."
Emily's head shook. "Then I could have spoken to them." She quickly brought up her hands and wiped away the tears that were flooding her cheeks. "You can't just going around killing people, James. I never wanted you to do this."
James watched as the girl he loved looked away from him and the two bodies. "I wanted you to know that I loved you."
The brown eyed girl looked fearful.
"I wanted you to love me."
Emily felt another wave of tears hit her as he took a step toward her. Backing up, she stumbled over one of the knives he had used to kill their schoolmates. "I already loved you," she sobbed, fighting off James' hands when he tried to bring her into a hug. He was trying to comfort her, but Emily couldn't keep the contents of her stomach intact if he touched her. "I did love you! You didn't get that?"
Smacking his hand away, the brunette sucked in a breath. "I loved you when you stood up for me against that guy in the pub, and when you invited me to the movies. I even loved you when you gave me that Valentine's Day card with your homemade chocolate that got me sick. You didn't have to do this for me to love you."
"So you love me?"
Emily vehemently shook her head, stepping back from her boyfriend when he came toward her. "I did! How do you think I could love you after this?"
James looked utterly confused, looking down and shaking his head.
At that moment the sixteen year old could see her boyfriend taking a knife from his back pocket, and her heart stopped. "Jamie," she whispered, finally looking into those sad green eyes. "Please."
"I didn't know," he stated pathetically, hearing cars driving by outside. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
Emily's eyes filled with tears as she watched him bring the knife into the light. "Please don't hurt me," she begged, stepping back and getting ready to run back toward the front door. "Jamie don't."
She watched with wide eyes as he looked to her and told her he was sorry, and plunged the knife into his own stomach.
"No!" The brunette girl sprinted over to the older boy, her hands on the wound he inflicted upon himself. "James? Can you hear me?"
The front door to the abandoned complex crashed to the floor, police officers flooding the house and flashing their lights at the two teenagers there. "Put your hands up!" They could see the brunette bowing her body over James', noticing a few bloody knives littering the floor.
Emily kept her hands over the open wound, feeling her boyfriend grow still underneath her. Her eyes stung, tears falling all over James' neck and shirt. "James?"
"Hands up! Now!"
Body shivering, the crying teen slowly got herself standing and brought her hands up near her head. She could feel his blood sliding down the length of her arms.
The closest officer took Emily by her wrists, doing his best to be careful of the blood that stained her alabaster skin, and locked her hands behind her back. "What's your name?" He ushered the girl away from the bodies and turned so he could look at her. "Emily Prentiss?"
Her lips quivered as she looked back to her boyfriend lying dead on the floor. "I didn't do it."
Minutes later she was sitting in the back of an ambulance with her wrists still cuffed behind her back, her head bent forward and tears causing small puddles of mud in the dirt below her as the EMTs tried to clean the blood from her hands.
"Are you alright?"
Emily kept her head bent, her eyes closed and mind drifting back to the first time she had met the boy she had fallen in love with.
"I would do anything for you," he promised, offering her a sip of his drink.
And he did.