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will be safe inside my perfect memory forever.
    My legs are shaky as I force them
to move toward the bed.
    “I’m sorry,” I whisper to the young
woman who stares at me with unseeing brown eyes. She truly is beautiful. I bet
she was one of those people who everyone described as “full of life.”  Not
anymore. I carefully lift her body with one arm and pull the big cheetah print
comforter off the bed before setting her back down. I don’t have time for this,
but I pull the black silk sheet over her body, covering her nakedness. It’s
pointless. The police will tag and bag her. She’ll be naked on a slab in a
morgue in a few hours, but right now in this quiet moment when her parents and
siblings and all her friends still believe she is alive, she deserves to be
covered.
    I toss the comforter on the floor,
keeping it away from the spreading crimson puddle of Tucker’s blood. The liquid
catches in the grout between the tiles and runs down them like a frisky stream.
    Trying not to look at his face or
the gaping wound I put into his neck, I lift Tucker’s limp body and drop him
onto the comforter. Blood still dribbles from his wound.
    Shit, I killed Tucker
Cartwright. The thought is almost absurd, but here I am, rolling his body
into a cheetah print log.
    Gun.
    I turn and find my gun sitting in
the puddle of Tucker’s blood. My blonde wig lies nearby, looking like a mangled
Pomeranian. I’m starting to shake now, and time seems to be pulsing in my veins
instead of blood. Did Tucker scream? Are the goons coming?
    I shove the wig on my head,
twisting it the right way and shoving escaped wisps of my hair inside. Then I
reach into the blood and grab the glistening gun and push it awkwardly into my
holster. I feel wetness sliding down my leg. The throbbing in my elbow
intensifies. I look up at the ceiling, at the long crack my body made when
Tucker launched me upwards.  
    That’s definitely going to be a
mind fuck for the police.
    I look around the room again, at
the pillow with the charred bullet hole in its center, at the pale starlet
wannabe shrouded in the black sheets, and finally at the pool of Tucker’s blood.
It seems darker now, more wet. Should I try to clean up? Did I leave DNA on the
ceiling?
    Get out. Just get out. Think
through the rest later.
    I grunt and sling Tucker’s bundled
body over my shoulder. His bare feet dangle as I walk across the room and cautiously
open the door. Just as I step out, a door across the hall flings open. The
female pirate, her costume shoved down to her hips, stumbles out. She sobs
loudly, way too loudly, and mascara-tinted tears lance down her cheeks.
    I quickly set down my cargo and
hold up my blood-stained hands.
    “Hey, hey, hey.” I open my arms and
she tumbles into them. Her body shudders violently, all that delicious energy
heaving against me. Her energy is music to me. Sweet music. I can hear
it inside the inner cavities of my mind, plucking beautiful harp strings.
Another time, another place, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to resist all
that energy, all that fear.
    “Help. I….need…he’s dead….he killed
him….Batman….we have to call the…the….”
    “Shhhhhh,” I say to her gently as
my fingers find the carotid artery in her neck. I press firmly.
    “Stop. Wait…..wait…” the girl
mumbles. She tries to break out of my embrace, but her efforts are nothing compared
to my strength. I keep my hold, and watch the red spikes of fear fade as her
aura flattens. When her legs give out, I catch her.
     “You missed one,” I say to Gabe
who stands in the doorway panting hard.
    “He had three girls in there with
‘em,” Gabe says. “I got Red Riding Hood and the witch. Man, Red Riding Hood
gave me quite a chase. You good on your end?”
    “Tucker Cartwright.” I nod toward the
bundle at my feet. I carry the limp pirate back into the room. “Got a little
bloody.”
     Gabe’s angel – the vampire – is
sprawled on a huge, luxurious bed, now