The Prices We Pay For Love
Tonight's the night, Dexter thought. He was sitting at his table, his hands folded neatly in front of him. The silence around him was complete, and he sat there, staring into nothingness, with nothing to distract him from his thoughts.
He went through every detail once more, as he had done ever so often. It had been quite a while. But even though planning a kill was nothing new to him, this was a special night. It was different this time. It was about so much more than the mere act of killing.
Dexter had spent the last three months settling into his new home, getting to know the town, the neighboring towns, the people—though not on a personal level, of course. He had no interest in any kind of social contacts, whatsoever. He had learned what those could lead to; he had learned it the hard way. No, he had merely gotten to know the way people lived around here, had analyzed their lifestyles. He had found that there were actually quite a number of loners—a fact that suited his purposes very well. The absence of a person with no family and no friends was much less likely to be noticed.
He had chosen his victim two weeks ago. Stalked him. Made sure no one would miss him all too much. Dexter did not know whether the man had ever committed a crime—his new job was no use for stalking people, much in contrast to his former job as a blood spatter analyst. No, he did not know, and quite frankly, it did not matter.
He stared at the vacant chair in front of him. Harry was gone, and so was the code.
Standing up, he looked around the place he now called home. He allowed himself to think of Harrison for a couple of seconds. And Hannah. He blinked and both of them moved back to the farthest corner of his mind.
It was time to go.
He went outside, got into his car and began to drive; all of his movements were mechanical, he had no choice, this was what he had to do.
After a while, he felt some kind of emotion fill him—it took him a few moments to realize that it was excitement. Finally, the time had come. Tonight's the night.
He drove for almost an hour; he had decided it was safer to strictly separate his living space from his killing space. This little corner of the world did not have Miami's anonymity, after all.
The next few hours went by, just as they always had. Stalking the guy. Injecting the tranquilizer. Dragging his victim into the kill room in an abandoned building. Wrapping him in plastic. Waiting for him to wake up. But there were no pictures on the wall, no pictures of his victims. Because this man was no murderer. As far as I know, anyway, Dexter thought. He chose a knife.
"Please, what do you want of me?" the man whimpered, tears of fear running down his clean-shaven face. "Please, I'll do anything!"
Dexter ignored him. He walked up to the table and hovered over him for a couple of minutes. Finally, he took a deep breath and cut into the man's cheek, as he always used to do. He watched to blood trickle out of the wound. It had been a long time now. Dexter barely heard the man crying in pain and fear; he was too busy willing his own heart to slow down. He stared at the little wound on his victim's face a while longer. He wasn't going to take a blood sample—no reason to take up bad habits again.
He closed his eyes and listened to his heart, the way it was beating against his chest, thump thump, thump thump, as if he had just run a marathon. So close…
"Dexter…" he heard a faint voice. His eyes shot open, but there was no one there. No one besides the innocent man, wrapped in plastic, crying; his sobs muffled by the cloth in his mouth. Dexter did not remember gagging him; it was such routine work to him that he must have done it without even noticing.
He looked around the room once more, but there was no one there. He nodded to himself. He had expected as much.
He grasped the knife with both hands and looked his victim into the eyes. "I need this," he explained dryly. He thrust his arms downward, sinking the blade into the man's heart. He watched the blood flow down the table, forming a pool of red.
Dexter breathed out noisily, unaware that he had been holding his breath.
"Dexter, what have you done." It was more of a statement than an actual question.
Dexter closed his eyes and smiled. A sob of relief escaped his lips. "I had to. It was the only way I could see you again."
He raised his head and opened his eyes. There she stood, across the room, on the other side of the kill table, just as he had known she would.
"Dex, you just fucking killed an innocent man!" Her voice was full of reproach—as he had known it would be.
"I know," Dexter replied calmly. It didn't matter. The code was dead. All that mattered was the fact that she was here with him, here in this room. She would see that, eventually. She would stay with him, he was sure of it.
"I missed you so much," Dexter said softly.
Sure, Dexter would have preferred a scenario that didn't involve disappointing her. But he had come to the conclusion that this was the only way. Now they would be together, forever. He would kill as much as it would take to keep her here, with him. No more, no less.
"Oh, Dex," Debra said with a sigh, "Oh, Dexter."