Of course, it couldn't just be Jade. That would be too nice of me to do. One of the first things that stood out in my mind about Kill Bill was The Bride's theory on justice. Vernita and The Bride are standing in Vernita's kitchen after their opening fight, and Vernita says she understands why The Bride wants to get even – because Vernita fucked her over badly. And The Bride looks to Vernita with a tolerant, yet completely amused look, and says:
"But that's where you're wrong, Vernita. I don't want to get even. To get even, even Steven. I would have to kill you, go into Nikki's room, kill her, then wait for your old man, Dr. Bell, to come home and kill him. That would make us even. No, my unborn daughter will just hafta be satisfied with your death at her mother's hands."
No, I'm not going to work on grammatical errors. I'm going to leave Mister Tarantino's words as they are. The man is a genius. After all, it's he that made me realize all of this. The least I can do is leave his work in one piece.
But you see, it's the truth. If I were to kill Jade and Jade alone, that wouldn't mean anything in the long run. So I kill the person that's ripped my heart out more times than anyone can count. So what? She goes on to some wonderful, lovely afterlife that she probably doesn't believe in anyway to dance without effort on clouds any human would kill to touch and look down at the still breathing figure of the girl that loved her more than anyone else (me, of course) sitting on Death Row, waiting for her chance to take a ride on the electric chair.
Where's the justice in that?
No, I couldn't let things go that easily. For Jade to truly pay for what she'd done to me – and I do mean everything that she'd ever done to me – I'd have to take things to a new level. I couldn't let anyone that had hurt me in the process of this walk away alive. This had to cover everyone and everything.
So that narrowed it down to three.
Not just Jade. Charlotte and Sarah, as well. After all, it wasn't as if they'd been anything along the lines of kind to me during all of this. No, Charlotte had taken it upon herself to laugh whenever Jade turned things around. And as for Sarah? Oh, Sarah was another story in herself.
I'm not a person of hatred by any means. It takes something far greater than myself to make me hate another human being. In all my years of life I'd never truly hated before. I thought I had, but after careful analyzation of what I'd been feeling I could dismiss the whole damned thing as nothing more than hormones and emotional instability accompanied by a painfully strong dislike.
That doesn't mean I'm incapable of hate. It just means no one was ever deserving enough of that intense of an emotion from me before.
Sarah was the first.
My best friend turned worst enemy. The girl that stole the love of my life through her twisting of my words and manipulations of my feelings (striking likeness to Jade, hm?), among too many other things to recount. Betrayal was too light a word for what she'd done to me. I knew I hated her far more than anyone else, though at times I questioned who I felt the more strongly for – her or Jade. It was a complex situation, wondering if I loved one person more than I hated another, or vice versa.
But that was, again, beside the point. The point was that I hated Sarah. She was the only person in all the world that I felt true, undying hatred for. And for that, she simply couldn't be allowed to live. I'd lost count as to who had done more horrible things to me – Jade or Sarah – but it didn't matter.
I'd take care of them both in the same way.
Not the exact same way, of course. That wouldn't be poetic enough. No, this was going to take a careful amount of planning. One murder would have been hard enough, but three? Quite a different task.
Oh, and did I forget to mention, all three of them live in different states? Across the entire continent?
Priceline and Orbitz were going to become two of my closest friends.
After a moment's consideration, I realized that wasn't going to be possible, either. In order to avoid detection, I couldn't use a credit card of any sorts. No debit, no checking, nothing that could leave a paper trail. Everything would have to be done over the counter and through cash. It was the safest means I could come up with. Granted, I'd probably not have to worry about anything being traced. The way I was planning to carry things out, no one would ever be able to make a connection to me. But still, I was one of those better-safe-than-sorry types.
So cash it was.
But that was going to be the simplest part of all. The more difficult side was getting everything together. Making it all fall into place. I had to choose when and where, and then how.
The when and where, I wasn't worried about. The how had to be carefully decided.
Something I couldn't decide alone.
Swinging my feet onto the floor my socks brushed the coolness of the tile and I rummaged beneath my bed, looking for the slip-on house shoes that I kept for wearing around the dorm hallways. And then I took my keys and cell phone before padding down the hallway. Madison was only a few doors away, and I knew she'd know what to do.
At least, she could provide some decent insight.
I didn't bother to knock – no real reason to in a dorm. If your door's unlocked, anyone in the damned hall has a tendency to walk in unannounced, and at times uninvited. Sometimes they take a hint and leave you to your privacy, other times they either don't care or pretend to not notice. Either way, Madison usually left her door open, and I had yet to get a vibe of her not wanting me around when I came by. I had a reputation for being a damned hermit, so whenever I ventured down the hall, it was some sort of an event.
As usual Madison was working her ass off, studying for one of the million classes I prided her on taking, and part of me wanted to shake my head and tell her to put down the fucking book for just five minutes to take some kind of break. But I knew the look I'd get for that move, the one-eyebrow-raised-'what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?' look that she gave to just about everyone at least once a day, whether it be for the hell of it or because they deserved it.
This time I closed the door and sat in the chair in front of her computer, which caused her to look up. Audrey, her roommate, was apparently somewhere other than the room, and I made a mental note to possibly run this by her later as well. Audrey tended to be the more outgoing of the two while Madison looked analytically at something, then decided the best method of bitch slapping whatever fucking ass wipe pissed her off this time.
They balanced each other out well.
Madison watched me with slight curiosity, the book still open in her lap. "What's up?" she asked me, and by her tone I could tell she knew something wasn't right, but couldn't quite decipher what it was. I suppose the look in my eyes was something less than normal, and in fact it probably rested borderline on semi-insane.
That was good. I liked being insane. It made things more interesting. Moments of insanity to me were the ones when things made the most sense, and I came to the immediate conclusion that the people labeled as insane were truly just smart – smarter than everyone else, to the point of where no one else could understand their logic. It wasn't that their logic was flawed, it was that it was too advanced for anyone else's mind.
It made sense to me.
"I need your help," I said simply, sitting halfway back in her chair without any real regard for posture, the way that I normally did when I just didn't give a shit. There wasn't really any point to formalities.
"With?" Madison looked a little more curious now, and I detected a certain amount of uneasiness, not because of me but because of something she was seeing in my face. For someone that knew me relatively well, she was picking up on more than I'd thought she would. Oh, well. I wouldn't have to explain as much later on, then.
"I've decided what I need to do about Jade." My voice was cool, and I saw Madison's eyes flicker and relax a bit, if for the reason that this was a conversation we had at least twice a day. I normally spent hours dwelling on the little things Jade would say in her spaced apart phone calls, concoct some newfangled plan of action that made sense only to me, and then run it by Madison, who in turn very calmly showed me the flaws in my logic, which nearly always had to do with my having no blame in a situation where I tried to take all of said guilt on my shoulders.
Basically, she was ready for that.
Oh, was she going to be surprised.
"What's that?" Madison asked me in response, her book still open on her lap. Criminal justice, I thought idly, and another hint of a smile came to my mouth. Wouldn't it be a riot if Madison ended up being the lawyer presenting my case to a jury? 'Yes, Your Honor, Helen did commit those three murders, but it was a crime of passion' – followed by a long string of terminology that I'd never heard of, let alone be able to understand. The image was, for some reason or another, so comical to me that I had to actually sink my teeth into my lower lip to fight back a laugh.
I was rewarded for this gesture with the eyebrow raise, and I calmed myself down as quickly as possible, though this time it proved to take quite an effort.
"I think I've figured out the only possible way to take care of this," I said, still keeping the same tone of voice. "If anything, I'm surprised you didn't think of it sooner. It makes perfect sense."
I thought I was trying her patience, but instead the sound of the book snapping closed was my response, and Madison sat forward a bit more, tilting her head to the left slightly as she watched me carefully. Carefully as Clarice might have watched Hannibal Lecter through plate glass, disturbed but fascinated.
"And?" Her response was short and a question all at once.
I smiled then, a true, full, genuine smile that reached my eyes and sent a serene look into them, an odd sort of calm falling over me. Because it was true. This was the only way. The only choice I had. And it made the most sense of all.
"I'm going to kill Jade."
"But that's where you're wrong, Vernita. I don't want to get even. To get even, even Steven. I would have to kill you, go into Nikki's room, kill her, then wait for your old man, Dr. Bell, to come home and kill him. That would make us even. No, my unborn daughter will just hafta be satisfied with your death at her mother's hands."
No, I'm not going to work on grammatical errors. I'm going to leave Mister Tarantino's words as they are. The man is a genius. After all, it's he that made me realize all of this. The least I can do is leave his work in one piece.
But you see, it's the truth. If I were to kill Jade and Jade alone, that wouldn't mean anything in the long run. So I kill the person that's ripped my heart out more times than anyone can count. So what? She goes on to some wonderful, lovely afterlife that she probably doesn't believe in anyway to dance without effort on clouds any human would kill to touch and look down at the still breathing figure of the girl that loved her more than anyone else (me, of course) sitting on Death Row, waiting for her chance to take a ride on the electric chair.
Where's the justice in that?
No, I couldn't let things go that easily. For Jade to truly pay for what she'd done to me – and I do mean everything that she'd ever done to me – I'd have to take things to a new level. I couldn't let anyone that had hurt me in the process of this walk away alive. This had to cover everyone and everything.
So that narrowed it down to three.
Not just Jade. Charlotte and Sarah, as well. After all, it wasn't as if they'd been anything along the lines of kind to me during all of this. No, Charlotte had taken it upon herself to laugh whenever Jade turned things around. And as for Sarah? Oh, Sarah was another story in herself.
I'm not a person of hatred by any means. It takes something far greater than myself to make me hate another human being. In all my years of life I'd never truly hated before. I thought I had, but after careful analyzation of what I'd been feeling I could dismiss the whole damned thing as nothing more than hormones and emotional instability accompanied by a painfully strong dislike.
That doesn't mean I'm incapable of hate. It just means no one was ever deserving enough of that intense of an emotion from me before.
Sarah was the first.
My best friend turned worst enemy. The girl that stole the love of my life through her twisting of my words and manipulations of my feelings (striking likeness to Jade, hm?), among too many other things to recount. Betrayal was too light a word for what she'd done to me. I knew I hated her far more than anyone else, though at times I questioned who I felt the more strongly for – her or Jade. It was a complex situation, wondering if I loved one person more than I hated another, or vice versa.
But that was, again, beside the point. The point was that I hated Sarah. She was the only person in all the world that I felt true, undying hatred for. And for that, she simply couldn't be allowed to live. I'd lost count as to who had done more horrible things to me – Jade or Sarah – but it didn't matter.
I'd take care of them both in the same way.
Not the exact same way, of course. That wouldn't be poetic enough. No, this was going to take a careful amount of planning. One murder would have been hard enough, but three? Quite a different task.
Oh, and did I forget to mention, all three of them live in different states? Across the entire continent?
Priceline and Orbitz were going to become two of my closest friends.
After a moment's consideration, I realized that wasn't going to be possible, either. In order to avoid detection, I couldn't use a credit card of any sorts. No debit, no checking, nothing that could leave a paper trail. Everything would have to be done over the counter and through cash. It was the safest means I could come up with. Granted, I'd probably not have to worry about anything being traced. The way I was planning to carry things out, no one would ever be able to make a connection to me. But still, I was one of those better-safe-than-sorry types.
So cash it was.
But that was going to be the simplest part of all. The more difficult side was getting everything together. Making it all fall into place. I had to choose when and where, and then how.
The when and where, I wasn't worried about. The how had to be carefully decided.
Something I couldn't decide alone.
Swinging my feet onto the floor my socks brushed the coolness of the tile and I rummaged beneath my bed, looking for the slip-on house shoes that I kept for wearing around the dorm hallways. And then I took my keys and cell phone before padding down the hallway. Madison was only a few doors away, and I knew she'd know what to do.
At least, she could provide some decent insight.
I didn't bother to knock – no real reason to in a dorm. If your door's unlocked, anyone in the damned hall has a tendency to walk in unannounced, and at times uninvited. Sometimes they take a hint and leave you to your privacy, other times they either don't care or pretend to not notice. Either way, Madison usually left her door open, and I had yet to get a vibe of her not wanting me around when I came by. I had a reputation for being a damned hermit, so whenever I ventured down the hall, it was some sort of an event.
As usual Madison was working her ass off, studying for one of the million classes I prided her on taking, and part of me wanted to shake my head and tell her to put down the fucking book for just five minutes to take some kind of break. But I knew the look I'd get for that move, the one-eyebrow-raised-'what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?' look that she gave to just about everyone at least once a day, whether it be for the hell of it or because they deserved it.
This time I closed the door and sat in the chair in front of her computer, which caused her to look up. Audrey, her roommate, was apparently somewhere other than the room, and I made a mental note to possibly run this by her later as well. Audrey tended to be the more outgoing of the two while Madison looked analytically at something, then decided the best method of bitch slapping whatever fucking ass wipe pissed her off this time.
They balanced each other out well.
Madison watched me with slight curiosity, the book still open in her lap. "What's up?" she asked me, and by her tone I could tell she knew something wasn't right, but couldn't quite decipher what it was. I suppose the look in my eyes was something less than normal, and in fact it probably rested borderline on semi-insane.
That was good. I liked being insane. It made things more interesting. Moments of insanity to me were the ones when things made the most sense, and I came to the immediate conclusion that the people labeled as insane were truly just smart – smarter than everyone else, to the point of where no one else could understand their logic. It wasn't that their logic was flawed, it was that it was too advanced for anyone else's mind.
It made sense to me.
"I need your help," I said simply, sitting halfway back in her chair without any real regard for posture, the way that I normally did when I just didn't give a shit. There wasn't really any point to formalities.
"With?" Madison looked a little more curious now, and I detected a certain amount of uneasiness, not because of me but because of something she was seeing in my face. For someone that knew me relatively well, she was picking up on more than I'd thought she would. Oh, well. I wouldn't have to explain as much later on, then.
"I've decided what I need to do about Jade." My voice was cool, and I saw Madison's eyes flicker and relax a bit, if for the reason that this was a conversation we had at least twice a day. I normally spent hours dwelling on the little things Jade would say in her spaced apart phone calls, concoct some newfangled plan of action that made sense only to me, and then run it by Madison, who in turn very calmly showed me the flaws in my logic, which nearly always had to do with my having no blame in a situation where I tried to take all of said guilt on my shoulders.
Basically, she was ready for that.
Oh, was she going to be surprised.
"What's that?" Madison asked me in response, her book still open on her lap. Criminal justice, I thought idly, and another hint of a smile came to my mouth. Wouldn't it be a riot if Madison ended up being the lawyer presenting my case to a jury? 'Yes, Your Honor, Helen did commit those three murders, but it was a crime of passion' – followed by a long string of terminology that I'd never heard of, let alone be able to understand. The image was, for some reason or another, so comical to me that I had to actually sink my teeth into my lower lip to fight back a laugh.
I was rewarded for this gesture with the eyebrow raise, and I calmed myself down as quickly as possible, though this time it proved to take quite an effort.
"I think I've figured out the only possible way to take care of this," I said, still keeping the same tone of voice. "If anything, I'm surprised you didn't think of it sooner. It makes perfect sense."
I thought I was trying her patience, but instead the sound of the book snapping closed was my response, and Madison sat forward a bit more, tilting her head to the left slightly as she watched me carefully. Carefully as Clarice might have watched Hannibal Lecter through plate glass, disturbed but fascinated.
"And?" Her response was short and a question all at once.
I smiled then, a true, full, genuine smile that reached my eyes and sent a serene look into them, an odd sort of calm falling over me. Because it was true. This was the only way. The only choice I had. And it made the most sense of all.
"I'm going to kill Jade."
