Page 31

I smile.

Truth be told, I don’t quite know why I do this. But I do know that reading the comments of people whose days I have absolutely fucked in the ass can, at times, make mine a little bit better.

I prefer not to dwell too long on what that might say about me.

I mean, other than having an incredibly elevated sense of high-level humor.

That’s a joke.

No, at the risk of sounding like the sadist I truly am not, watching the comments section devolve into anarchy just makes me smile. Again, not because I love watching the world burn. It’s the exact opposite, actually.

I love the world. I love living in it. And I fucking adore killing in it. Which is exactly why I personally believe that, given the right parameters, blind, seething, internet rage is actually a good thing.

It’s a pressure valve. So that when we all accidentally and inevitably remind ourselves exactly how fucked the world is, we have a way of letting that rage out.

But…again… It needs to be controlled.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I post beyond horrifying images and videos of decomposing roadkill bodies, bulls goring people to death in Pamplona, ER photos of hands that held onto fireworks, and foxes mating.

It’s the sounds with that last one. Trust me on this.

Then, after I post the videos, I enlist my army of bot accounts to comment, like, share, and repost these nightmares to spread them to the masses.

But, again, not because I want to watch the world burn.

Look, like it or not, people are going to be assholes to each other because the world can suck, life is hard, and like I said, we all need a way to blow off steam. Enter: the internet, where you can plug in to the collective human experience and act like a giant piece of shit to children, the elderly, the clergy, and literally anyone else you can think of with basically zero consequences.

My content might be fucking gross, but at least it gives everyone a target. So instead of the dickhead in his mom’s basement calling random girls “whores” on Instagram for existing, he can direct his fuming self-hatred at my video of a dead boar getting devoured by a pack of hyenas who are also violently fucking each other.

The other reason I do this is, of course, simpler: I’m amused by it. Entertained.

Maybe that’s fucked up, but I also spend most of my free time hunting, trapping, and killing people. So…you know. Perspective.

Right now I’m hunting. Ahead of me, I watch Bella stroll down the street as Hawthorne Hollow begins descending into twilight.

Actually, what’s going on here is that I’m hunting her, watching as she hunts him. Who “he” is remains a mystery, but he has my undivided attention.

An hour ago, he was the one stalking her. Bella was drinking boba tea—fucking gag—at the weird but cool little anime-slash-comic-book-store-slash-boba-tea-spot that opened up here downtown late last semester. Our mutual friend Mister Mystery probably thought he was being cute, sitting on a bench across the street and supposedly scrolling on his phone. But it was pretty obvious to me and clearly very obvious to Bella that he was actually taking photos of her. He followed her to the craft store she went to next, and then Nevermore Books.

Then, without even realizing that the dynamics had changed, our mystery man strolled off, blithely unaware that he was now the hunted.

Bella’s target pauses at the end of the block near The Seven Bells, Hawthorne Hollow’s resident working-class watering hole for the local fisherman that also claims to be the oldest bar in the country.

I have my doubts, but whatever. It’s pretty fucking old.

The man leans against a street sign and starts typing on his phone. I watch Bella pause and turn away, peering into the fogged windows of The Seven Bells as if very interested in whatever is happening inside.

From my vantage point across the street, I see her tense when she spots her two cousins, Lochlan Kildare and Achilles Drakos, the latter the campus golden boy and also my mirror as the head of Para Bellum this year.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that Achilles is involved with my pseudo-cousin Yelena. But that question is on the back burner for now.

Bella slips out of any potential view of her cousins, who are having a few pints at the bar, probably because she doesn’t want to get interrupted on her hunt.

At the corner, her target laughs at something on his phone, tucks it into his pocket, and then continues his stroll.

Bella follows. Fuck, she's good at this.

I follow her.