Girl Undercover 8 & 9: Traitor & The Smiley Killer (20 page)

“Don’t you worry about him,” Alyssa said, smiling pleasantly. “I’m strong enough to be his crutch for now.”

She grabbed his arm and slung it over her shoulders and forced him to start moving. He let out a loud moan and grimaced as if he was in deep pain having to walk, even with her helping him.
That’s good. Keep making it seem worse than it is.

“Go!” she yelled at me and I started toward the house.

Before long, intermittent moans from Ian accompanying us on the way, we entered the house through the main entrance. Burt remained slumped in the corner where I had last seen him, in a pool of dark blood. What he’d been through made me want to cry, but I didn’t move a muscle in my face.

“Excuse the mess,” Alyssa said in that glib tone. “The maid’s off this week, haha. Let’s go to the sitting room.”

I continued into the area she had indicated, stopping in the middle of the long, sparsely furnished salon.

“Have a seat on one the sofas,” Alyssa said, motioning with her head toward the two green silk sofas facing each other before the fireplace on one side of the room. “Make yourself at home.”

Awkwardly, I walked over to the nearest sofa and took a seat there. Alyssa, all the while pressing the gun toward Ian’s temple, helped him over to the other where she made him sit down, then sat down herself beside him. She kept an arm around his shoulder even though it wasn’t necessary any longer, the gun firmly in place. She smiled at me, all of her teeth showing this time. Perfect, big, white teeth. Now that I could see her clearly, I noticed the deep cuts on her bare arms, neck and chest, likely a result from her fight with Nadja.

“What do you want from us?” I blurted at her, unable to hold back any longer.

The smile on her lips faded. “Excuse me, but who gave you permission to ask a question?”

“No one,” I muttered.

The smile was back on her lips. “Next time, just please ask if it’s okay first.”

I tried my best not to glare at her, having a feeling she wouldn’t like that. It was better to seem submissive and act like her behavior was completely normal.

“May I ask a question?” Ian said.

She squeezed his shoulders as though they were good friends. “But of course! What would you like to know?”

“How did you manage to come up to us at the shed like that? I didn’t see or hear you.”

She grinned at him, seeming pleased that he’d asked this. “That’s because I can move like a cat! Literally. It’s a great skill to have. I walk on all fours and so softly it makes no sound at all. You can surprise people so easily that way, at least if they’re standing the way you two were and I sprint. And I can
sprint
fast.”

I stared at her, convinced that she’d let out a guffaw and tell us she was only kidding. But she didn’t, just regarded us with that same content expression on her face.

So she must be serious then,
I thought.
That shouldn’t really surprise me much. I couldn’t think of another explanation for how she’d appeared right beside us without us noticing before it was too late.
I thought about how Ian had told me they were using animal genes in the hybrids to give them superior genes and qualities. Had they used feline genes on Alyssa? That would explain her being able to move like a large cat, stealthily and at a high speed, not to mention how she’d been able to shoot Nadja all the way from the other side of the glade in the darkness of night. Cats, like snakes, definitely had better night vision than humans. Plus, the grass growing knee-high in the field in which the storage shed was built further explained how we hadn’t noticed someone crawling at high speed toward us, especially if the person had moved as soundlessly as a cat.

“Burt was a little harder to surprise,” she said after some time, “since he was sitting down. But I managed to approach him from the side because he was staring at the front door, probably expecting me to come in through it. I of course used the back entrance and then came up from behind, keeping the knife in my mouth.” She laughed, but not happily. Certainly her eyes weren’t smiling. “That knife was inside him so quickly that I doubt he realized what had happened to him before he was dead. Unlike the others. I took my time with them. I had to take my time with them.” She sighed deeply, as if admitting this was hard for her, and then gazed into empty space.

Ian’s and my gaze connected across the carved wood coffee table between us. With the gun in her hand still pressed against his temple, we needed her to be more distracted before we could risk taking her down.

She found my gaze again. “Do you know how much it pained me to torture all those people?”

I sensed that she wanted me to reply to that, so I said, “No, but I would love it if you told us.”

She shook her head slowly, sighing again. “Something inside me compels me to kill, to torture. To inflict pain on other people. I need it, crave it, like you crave water when you’re thirsty, food when you’re hungry. But I don’t really want to be this person. Somehow, I just became one. Can you understand that?”

“I think so,” I said. “But if you want to explain it further to really make us understand, please do. I want to understand better.” The way she was looking at me told me she was dying to tell us more.

She nodded, adjusting her position on the sofa. In the process, her foot accidentally bumped into Ian’s hurt one. He let out a pained moan, grimacing.

She glared at him. “If you don’t stop acting like you’re in such pain when you’re not, I’ll show you what real pain is like. Did you think I didn’t notice how you were faking it all along?”

Ian wisely didn’t say anything, just averted his gaze and directed it toward his shoes.
Well, she’s nothing but not perceptive,
I couldn’t help but think.

“Trust me,” she continued while glaring at him, “I have plenty of practice inflicting pain on other people and I know what really makes people hurt. I know you were down in my basement, snooping around. All those people down there suffered plenty before I finally killed them. I enjoyed and hated every moment of it.” Her gaze moved to me. “The funny thing is, I think, in the end, I suffered more than they did. Still, I had to do it again and again and again.”

I was desperate to know how she’d gotten hold of all those people, but I didn’t dare asking.

She smiled at me then, and had I not known how crazy she was, I would have thought she was just a sweet girl who happened to be lost. “I can tell by the look on your face that you want to ask me something, Gabi. What is it?”

I cleared my throat, not wanting the words I was about to ask to come out accusatory. “How did you find the people in the basement?”

She shrugged. “Some I befriended and brought here. Others I kidnapped, then brought here. A couple, a man and a woman, I stalked for a while after they’d annoyed me and I wanted to be sure they got what was coming for them.” She huffed, her nostrils flaring with indignation. “Some people just don’t know how to behave. That couple deserved every little thing I did to them. I made them suffer for weeks before they begged me to kill them. I actually kind of enjoyed the time I spent with those two, as I do believe it’s important not to be rude to others. Don’t you agree?”

She was directing the question at me.

“Yes,” I nodded, “that’s very, very important.”

“Right?” She tsked and rolled her eyes, for the first time making me realize that she couldn’t be more than twenty-two years old. We needed to keep her talking until we got a chance to disarm her. So far it seemed she wasn’t aware of me having called 911 and asked for help. We could only hope it was coming soon, and that it consisted of more than two cops in a car. About ten minutes must have lapsed since I made the call, so they should be here any moment now. That is, if they were coming at all. Who knew how effective emergency services were out here in the middle of nowhere?

I smiled at Alyssa, trying to get a feel for what she wanted to talk about next.

“You know the only person I really regretted having to kill?” she asked me.

“No, who?”

“Well, it’s really two people—my mom and my dad.”

“That’s understandable,” I said, thinking how I couldn’t remember reading anywhere how she’d killed her parents. That must be another part of her extensive and gruesome killer career The Adler Group had managed to bury. “They’re your parents after all.”

Her beautiful face twisted with anger, turning it into a grotesque mask. “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re on
their
side now?” She turned to face Ian and snarled, “You’re on their side, too, huh?” She squeezed his head to her chest and pressed the gun harder to his temple. “You know all I have to do is pull the trigger and then your nasty little head will explode like a water melon. And I’ll make your little friend over there clean up after you.”

“Alyssa, please,” I said, truly terrified that she’d go through with her threat; she was obviously even more unhinged than we had thought. “We’re both very much on your side. What makes you think we’re not? We’re your friends. We love you.”

The ugly grimace on her face instantly smoothed out and she gazed at me with gratitude.

“Really?” she said, letting go of the iron grip around Ian’s head. It was no doubt she was a very, very strong girl. “You really mean that?”

I discreetly let out the breath I’d been holding. My gut feeling had been correct then— for some reason she didn’t feel her parents had loved her and she craved love and acceptance.

I forced myself to smile at her, made the smile reach my eyes. “Yes, Alyssa, I truly do. We both love you very much. That’s why we came here. To be with you. Why do you regret killing your parents?”

Her face turned dark and she averted her gaze momentarily.

“What I meant to say was that I wish I’d kept them alive so I could keep torturing them,” she said, looking at me again. “For years and years. They got away much too easily considering what they’d done to me. If it weren’t for them, I’d be a regular person, like you and him.” She nodded to Ian. “But they could never love me the way I was meant to be, which was why they insisted on trying to create the perfect child. Even though some of the procedures they put me through were so new I was virtually a guinea pig. That’s so, so selfish, don’t you agree?”

She gazed at me with tears in her eyes now, clearly showing how much pain she was in. One of them curved down her cheek.

“I do agree, Alyssa,” I said, my voice soft. “I can’t—”

The sounds of sirens suddenly blared outside the house. Alyssa’s head turned toward the windows, ostensibly to see what was going on.

Ian ceased the moment, grabbing her arm with the gun and twisting her wrist so hard she had no choice but to drop it. Then his two hands cupped her head and with one swift snap, he’d broken her neck. Letting go of her, her limp body fell away from him and landed on the sofa. He picked up the gun she’d dropped and that had landed on the carpet below.

It all went so fast it took me some time to be sure he was really safe now and that she was really dead. The sirens outside grew louder and soon we could see blue and red lights blinking through the windows.

“Perfect timing,” Ian said, straightening out his shirt that Alyssa had managed to wrinkle and twist around while holding him. His eyes found me. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine. How are
you?
”

“Glad that monster is dead and that she won’t be able to cause any more pain for other people.”

“What are we telling the cops?” I could hear doors slamming and voices talking outside. It sounded like there were more than just two of them, but not many more. Soon they’d be inside the house and then we’d better have a good explanation as to why Alyssa was dead. “They may think we’re the murderers and arrest us. That
she
was the one who called 911.”

Ian nodded. “Yes, they just might. Even if they’ll eventually realize we aren’t, we don’t have time to be arrested. Let’s get out of here before they find us. Come on, help me to the back entrance.”

I got to my feet and, together, we walked over to the door he’d meant.

“Run back to the kitchen and get the biggest, sharpest knife you can find, then come back here,” he said. “Hurry, they’ll be in the house any moment now.”

As he opened the door, I rushed to the kitchen and got a knife. Seconds later, I had returned to Ian, who was standing in the doorway. I showed him the knife.

“Perfect. Let’s go,” he hissed. I grabbed hold of him and we walked up to the corner of the house, watching six cops walking toward the front door. Two squad cars were parked next to Ian’s.

“As soon as they’re in the house, we’re heading to my car,” Ian said. “When I’m in the passenger seat, you’ll slash their tires and then we’ll leave, okay?”

I nodded. The cops had disappeared out of sight, so we moved to the house corner closest to the front yard. All of them entered the house.

“Okay, let’s go,” Ian hissed. His car being only a few yards from the corner where we were, he was soon inside it.

“Only slash two on each car,” he instructed, “and do it on the side that’s not visible from the house.”

Cutting through the thick rubber was not as easy as I had expected, but after a few tries, I got through the tires finally, the air leaving them surprisingly fast. I returned to Ian and took a seat behind the steering wheel.

“Done?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said. “They’re flat like pancakes.”

“Great. Now start the car and let’s get the hell out of here.” He pulled out his car keys from a pocket and handed them to me. Starting the engine, I drove down the gravel road, soon spotting a cop coming out of the house in the rearview mirror.

“They won’t get far with those tires,” Ian commented, having turned his head to see what was going on. He faced me. “Step on it. We don’t want them to get our license plate.”

I did, and we turned a bend in the road that hid our car from the cop's view.

“Phew,” I said, blowing out a breath. “That went well. I only wish Burt and Nadja had come with us…”

“Yeah, me, too,” Ian said, leaning back against the car seat. “Do you know what else I wish?”