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the lawns of our small neighborhood, following a course that had been set for them.
    My emotions began to mingle with my earlier revelation and the sentiments that came from watching my son. I was a mother, a wife, and a homemaker.
    This is the way it is supposed to be . I’m happy, I told myself. But I was immediately struck with the fluttering reservations I’d searched for earlier. Who am I to risk everything, anything? But Steve, I demanded. Sure, there were jobs that didn’t risk my going to prison, but my mind was set and I wasn’t going to change it.
    I stood on our porch and felt the cool air run across my face and through my hair. In my mind, I imagined that I was a winter butterfly, cocooned and living inside a lie. Something ticked inside me then, some deep, selfish notion that I embraced and held onto like a starving animal with food. I’d lived the life that had been scripted for me, and now it was time to hunt, it was time to eat, it was time to become me .

SIX
    O UR HOME COMPUTER never looked so intimidating before. The large, blank screen stared at me, daring me, as if knowing what I was about to do, as if knowing what subtle treacheries my fingertips would search for. I quickly pushed my thumb against the power button and listened as the computer’s guts whirred, coming to life.
    I twisted Katie’s friendship ring—a nervous habit I’d developed soon after we’d given them to each other. I had no idea where to get started. Just exactly how did one become a murderer? I doubted that I’d find a wiki page online, offering a step-by-step guide . . . or maybe there was? I simply had no idea.
    But there were other things that I wanted to do too. There was so much more than just the web searches. I needed a new box, a secret box. One that would keep my designs safe. I’d kept my first one, and I often thought of it fondly. I knew that it would always be safe from curious eyes. I’d hidden my secret box beneath the floorboards of my old room. While just a beat-up, tattered cigar box from a great uncle whose face I can barely remember, I knew its every detail. When I had last opened, the faint cigar smell was as I remembered it: old tobacco, tangy but pleasant. The batting I’d lined it with had thinned and lost its cloud-fresh white, but the corners had stayed true, securing the secrets of my youth. And inside, my first Killing Katiedesigns were still legible—once the paper’s endless curl had been straightened.
    Tapping my finger atop Steve’s desk, I considered my needs. The first was a new box. The screen flickered something at me, offering a list of cryptic messages about drivers.
    We need a new computer, I thought as the familiar frustrations began.
    We’d needed a new computer for a while. The screen rolled up, spouting message after message. Steve had mentioned that I should wait before touching the mouse and the keyboard. I stared, trying to be patient.
    Maybe there was a digital box that I could use? An online version? A folder that only I could access?
    I’d need to be able to get to it from anywhere and from any machine. Surely, something like that existed.
    But how traceable would it be? How would it work? Would it be too risky? I wondered. Worth the risk? After all, my high—my need to feed the hunger—came from the planning and the designs too; half wouldn’t be an option.
    The computer screen blinked a flash of blue before showing a collage of last year’s vacation pictures. My gut twisted at the sight of our family photos. I pressed my fingers against the cool screen, touching one of them. The photo was of the four of us sitting together on the beach, a tall ocean surf climbing behind us. A helpful stranger had taken ten minutes out of his own vacation to try and get the best angle.
    “I can’t do this,” I mumbled, running my fingers to another photograph. Anxiety lurched inside me, telling me this wasn’t right. “Not here.” And not just because it felt risky, but