EPISODE XIX

  The Perfect Victim

  The monstrosity could not be comprehended by mortal eyes. It twisted in dimensions beyond even that which mathematicians dreamed of, pieces existing in planes of concept and adjectival existence. Color could not be assigned to it, for what part of it existed that could be seen did not match the color of any other object in existence, an entirely new concept that should not have been seen. It did not matter what species or whether it was a person or animal who looked upon the monstrosity, it was beyond their perception. Cameras exploded trying to explain what was seen. All who beheld it felt as though a spike had pierced their brain, and the pain lingered long after visual contact was broken—but the monstrosity was also hypnotic, and it took quite a powerful will to look away before the sight itself made one’s head explode in a shower of that same impossible color.

  None of this mattered at all to Jenny.

  “Trying to blow up my head? Pfft, amateur.” Jenny thought for a bit and snapped her fingers, lighting her fist on a fire the same impossible color as the monstrosity. She punched it.

  There was a sound like glass breaking inside of a cat’s stomach while it was in the middle of a euphoric dinner. The monstrosity had never so much as felt anything from the material plane before, didn’t even know it existed, but now it had been violently attacked. For a being so spread out and complicated in how it was weaved, such a blunt force easily shattered it into hundreds of thousands of pieces.

  Only three of those pieces dropped in the material plane, though, three triangles of the impossible color. Jenny laughed. “Wimp! Huuuuuge wimp!” She picked up the three triangles—despite falling under gravity they were somehow lighter than air—and put them in an empty pizza box.

  She then left the pizzeria’s kitchen. “There you go, all clear!”

  The owner of the pizzeria didn’t look up from the body of his dead dog. Headless. “Okay…”

  Jenny hissed under her breath. “Yeah, um… sorry about your… dog.”

  “…It’s all right.”

  “I’ll be taking my pizza now…” Jenny picked up the pizza box that contained her order and set it on top of the one that contained the impossible shards. She left a large wad of cash on the counter, far more than was needed for the pizza. Strictly speaking, I should be asking him to pay me, but… nah. She gave the owner a sad smile and walked out of the pizzeria.

  It did not take long for her mood to improve. With two pizza boxes in one hand and a slice in the other, she skipped down the sidewalk all the way to the school. She had a music player in her pocket and earbuds in her ears, and the jazzy nonsense going on just filled her with life. She strolled into the front door of the school and got a few looks. At this point, people were used to her barging in with strange bags and boxes, though since she had been part of Emma’s party a lot more people recognized her for who she actually was.

  “Hey Jenny!” some of them called, waving happily at her. She smirked at them and winked as she passed. Those brave enough to approach, she would give a high-five, though given the pizza slice in her hand this was sometimes a little messy, but usually the receiving party found this amusing. Most kids, though, gave her a wide berth, not wanting to deal with whatever crazy thing she had in her pizza boxes. She made her way deeper into the school until she arrived at their special basement, which at this point actually had a sign on it. Oddity Storage. The sign was a tapestry with weird mathematical patterns made by Amaris’ mom.

  Jenny danced down the stairs, twirling around until she arrived at the bottom. There was more furniture down here now, including a few bookshelves lined with notes. A large map of the basement occupied a central table, with indications of what was held and where. Jenny consulted the diagram.

  “What did you bring this time?” Amaris asked—she was currently sketching one of the guns they had found in the land of junk, both of which were on the table in front of her.

  Jenny slid up to Amaris. “Weird dimensional thing that makes your head explode if you look at it too long… in the best box money can buy!” Jenny slid the box with the shards to Amaris.

  Amaris very quickly took out a large black marker and wrote “DO NOT OPEN, HEAD WILL EXPLODE” on it. Then she grabbed some cord and tied the box up in several different ways.

  “Also, have a slice,” Jenny gave Amaris a slice of pizza and then proceeded to dance out of the school, grooving the entire way. She no longer really had a goal of where to go so she let herself drift, dancing and jumping the day away. She just felt good.

  She eventually ended up in one of Nuk’s public parks. She wasn’t paying attention when she entered so she didn’t know the name, but it was the one with a lot of really dense trees to give the impression of being in a forest—despite the fact that just outside Nuk there was actual forest, but that likely had wild animals and other nasty things in it, given the pattern.

  Jenny continued to enjoy her funky walk. She was completely aware of the fact that the sun was starting to set and the park was becoming dark, and she had enough experience to expect something to go wrong at this point. But she kind of wanted it too, another monster to punch in the face, or something… some Dweller of the Park, that would be great.

  Her pizza had gotten cold a while ago, but she was still eating it—she picked up the last slice. She didn’t see a trash can anywhere so she vaporized the box with a punch. She continued her snack and dance, essentially begging something interesting to come at her.

  Instead, a small car drove by. It was one of the tiny ones run by park services. The headlights made it hard to see the driver. Jenny had a brief thought of excitement—maybe there was no driver! But, alas, her dream was not to be, for there was a driver. Human, probably, but it was hard to tell since the figure was in a full winter coat and bundled up, despite it being late summer. A little odd, but it did get cold at night sometimes, maybe a storm was expected?

  The car stopped right next to Jenny.

  “A kid like you shouldn’t be out this late!” a voice called from inside the car—it was a woman.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me, I’m fine!” Jenny called back, giving her a thumbs up.

  “Oh, I’m not worried.” The woman pulled out a tranquilizer gun and fired it multiple times. Four darts hit Jenny in the neck and chest.

  Jenny lazily looked down at the darts sticking out of her. “Oh. Well, shoot, you got me and woooah those are some pretty colors…” Jenny took a few shaky steps over and then flopped onto her back, hands spread wide and staring up at the sky. “Wheee…”

  The woman said something, but Jenny’s awareness was no longer sufficient to make it out.

  Wonder what I’m going to wake up to…

  ~~~

  Jenny woke up with her arms and legs chained to a wall. Her head was throbbing but all that meant for her was that she thought a little slower than usual. The first thing she noticed was how red everything was. Even before her vision came into focus, the redness of the walls and floor were unmistakable. Everything else took a bit longer to come into focus, and while it did, she noticed that the chains keeping her to the wall were actually nicely padded around her wrists and ankles, so as to not cause undue suffering. It was far from comfortable but it wasn’t actively painful or anything.

  With her sight rapidly restoring, she determined that she was in some kind of basement, as the only exit she could see was a stairwell. There were various pieces of furniture littered around, including a bed, a couch, a table, and two chairs. There was also a really big TV on the wall that was currently off, and a bunch of lights in the ceiling that weren’t on at the moment but were tinted to suggest they were colored. A tall lamp in the corner was the only light source in the room, filling it with just too little light to be comfortable.

  Jenny realized she was not alone in the room. A short distance away, sitting in one of the chairs, was a woman with brilliant red hair and sharp features who wore a pink polka-dotted tie. She was currently looking right at Jenny with a warm smile.

  Jenny recognized her. “Scarlet…?”

  “Ah, good! You recognize me.” Scarlet stood up, her calm smile not vanishing for a minute. “A lot of you don’t really know who I am, and that does take some of the fun out of this.”

  Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Fun?”

  “Yes, that’s why you’re here! See, you and I are going to play some fun games!”

  “Games that involve me being strapped to the wall?”

  “Not all of them, but that is where we start, at least.” Scarlet leaned in closer, examining Jenny all over. She ran a finger down her neck. “Has anyone ever told you that you have immaculate skin?”

  “…Yes, actually, believe it or not.”

  “A deserved compliment, to be sure,” Scarlet said. “Almost like it’s never been touched by a blade…”

  Jenny snorted. “You are going to be so upset…”

  “And you show absolutely no fear, despite clearly having realized what is going on here…” Scarlet’s simple smile broke out into a very clearly psychotic grin. “I do so love the strange ones.”

  “I predict you won’t in about… oh however long it takes you to finally stab me or whatever. C’mon, hurry up the torture train.”

  “Not even a moment of hesitation… very well.” Scarlet chuckled, pulling an ordinary chef’s knife out. She ran her finger over the blade. “Usually, I start the game slowly. Take a little bit here, a little bit… there.” With lightning quick reflexes, Scarlet threw the knife and perfectly grazed Jenny’s cheek.

  Had she been normal, blood would have been drawn. Jenny’s skin, however, regenerated immediately.

  Jenny grinned. “Problem…?”

  Scarlet stared right at Jenny for a few seconds. “Oh. You’re Jenny, aren’t you?”

  “Guilty as charged! And now you’re in for a world of hurt…” Jenny lit her fists on fire and tried to punch. She realized with no small amount of chagrin that her current situation prevented her from swinging her fists at all, and without that she was a small, frail individual who had no hope of breaking out of industrial strength chains. “…Dagnabbit.”

  Scarlet found this amusing enough to chuckle.

  “Ah yes, laugh at the chained up girl, why don’t we?”

  “It’s less at you and more at how curious fate can be. Had I imprisoned you in a way where you could swing your fists, this would have ended very badly for me.” She used a finger to lift up Jenny’s chin. “For all my careful planning, it all came down to luck right there.”

  “Luck?” Jenny laughed. “Listen, psycho-lady, I’m entirely immortal, you can’t do jack diddly squat to harm me. I don’t cry out in pain, I don’t scream, and eventually Amaris is going to notice I’m gone and you’re going to be found out!”

  “All of those things are true,” Scarlet said, her smile not wavering. “But I think you’ve misjudged me. You think I’m going to be upset that you can regenerate all wounds, are fearless, and don’t respond to pain? Dear, dear Jenny…” She put her mouth to Jenny’s ears. “That makes you the best victim I’ve ever had. I can do whatever I want with you, and you’ll still be here. I don’t have to worry about physical limitations!”

  “Good gravy, you’re insane!”

  “By most people’s metrics, absolutely, but I think as you get to know me you’ll find that I’m remarkably consistent. Now.” Scarlet rammed her knife into Jenny’s heart. “How does that feel?”

  Jenny gagged. “Makes… breathing… awkward…”

  “Fascinating…”

  “Oh, so I’m a lab experiment now?”

  “Have to start somewhere!” Scarlet said, jumping back with glee. “Oh, I can go right to the intense stuff I usually save for the obnoxious victims, this is great! How about… oooh! What happens when I cut off your head?”

  “It grows b—”

  Scarlet produced a meat cleaver and chopped right at Jenny’s neck. She lost all awareness, but since it wasn’t a blunt force trauma, when her head regenerated, she was fully conscious. “As I was saying, i—”

  Scarlet chopped her head off again. The next time Jenny was aware she saw that there were several copies of her head on the ground, many of which had been cut off in states of partial regeneration.

  “This is amazing!” Scarlet said, picking up one of the heads and looking at it. Since it was not part of Jenny anymore, blood was oozing from the neck. “Oh, I really do wish I could keep these skulls, make something out of them, but that’s just asking for trouble…”

  “Oh, gotta keep yourself secret, do you?” Jenny asked.

  “Well… recent investigations of mine suggest maybe not, but I’m not going to stop being careful off a hunch.” Scarlet pulled out two knives. “Now, you barely even flinch when your head’s cut off, I’m curious if you can flinch at any pain at all…?”

  “Not as far as I’m aware of,” Jenny said as Scarlet surgically put both of the knives into her arm, trying to peel the flesh apart to get to the bone. Her regeneration was too fast for this to be very effective, she maybe got to bone for a split second before the muscle formed around the two knives trying to get to the bottom of it. “Hah! You’re not going to get that from me.”

  “Hmm… getting to the organs might be a fun procedure…”

  “I mean you could just chop me in half and take the other half.”

  “But that would be admitting defeat!” Scarlet grinned and adjusted her tie. “I’m going to show you the color of your own liver.”

  Jenny tilted her head. “You know, I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually seen my liver before…”

  “Then this will be a learning experience for both of us!” Scarlet rubbed her hands together. “I think I’ll need some supplies to really get to you, though… the normal knives just won’t ‘cut’ it, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  “I hang around with Coleus, that wasn’t even that bad.”

  “Ah, such a nice girl in a hard place, that one.”

  Jenny glared at her. “I bet she’s on your list for stabbing, isn’t she?”

  “Oh no, not at all, I only do this to absolute strangers I have no connection to—that’s the attempt, anyway.” Scarlet waved a dismissive hand. “I happen to like people, and if I had my fun with those people they wouldn’t be around anymore. You don’t need to worry your pretty little head about Coleus, Amaris, or any of the others. Had I known who you were, I wouldn’t have taken you, but here we are so we might as well make the most of it.”

  “You are messed up.”

  “By your metric, absolutely, but I’m just trying to maximize my enjoyment in life.” Scarlet started absent-mindedly running the knife up and down Jenny’s arm, as though the action of slicing through flesh calmed her down. “I, like all people, get joy out of watching others suffer. There’s a particular thrill out of causing it myself, being the one in control, to do what society shuns, and to slowly tear the hope and humanity from a person.”

  “And she reveals how evil she is!”

  “I don’t believe evil exists,” Scarlet said, twisting the knife in Jenny’s arm before ramming it between her bones and coming out the other side—bloodless, of course, the regeneration was that strong.

  “Oh, so everything you do is just fine then, is that how you sleep at night?”

  “I don’t believe in good, either,” Scarlet continued. “There’s not really a point to existence, Jenny, surely you can see that in the long life you’ve lived.”

  “That’s stupid. You’re stupid.”

  “Really? Then tell me, why do you believe there is good?”

  “Uh…” Jenny paused. “Well…”

  “Most people I ask the question will say it’s because of Dia… but I have a sense you don’t really pay her much mind.”

  Jenny furrowed her brow. “I just… defending my friends is right.”

  “Because it feels right, yes?” Scarlet said. “I’d defend my friends as well, but it’s not because I think it’s ‘good’ or ‘evil,’ it’s just because I want to. I enjoy friends and family, so I forge relationships and protect them. I enjoy driving knives into people in increasingly creative ways, so I do.” Scarlet shrugged. “It’s simple.”

  “You’re betraying your friends by being this way!”

  “Am I? They have no idea, and I do my absolute best to not harm anyone close to anyone I actually know. Technically speaking that’s still true, I’m not exactly harming you, am I?”

  “Well, no, but…”

  “Though I suppose there is mental harm… but at this point what else am I going to do with you?” Scarlet sighed and sat down in a chair. “You are the perfect victim, but there are going to be unpleasant consequences because of this. That curse of Amaris’…”

  “She’s going to stop you, you know.”

  “Possibly,” Scarlet admitted. “I can’t predict what the curse will find ‘interesting,’ but I’m at least going to try for a workaround. Until then…” She cut through Jenny’s shirt, somewhat surprised to find her undergarment regenerating. “Clothes too?”

  “Just the gloves and the… well it’s not exactly underwear but it’s always on under my other stuff, so…” Jenny tilted her head to the side. “The really annoying part is that I get the gloves back, but no shoes.”

  “Interesting.” Scarlet took a moment to, rather than drive knives into Jenny everywhere, examine her body all over like some kind of medical professional. “Do you know there’s a mark on the back of your neck?”

  “Yes, I do, it’s…” Jenny frowned. “It… it’s my name, I think? Jenny Zero?”

  “Never seen this language before, and that’s saying something.”

  “It’s been a long, long time since I thought about it…”

  Scarlet surgically removed the skin from the back of Jenny’s neck and brought it so she could look at it. “You sure? There’s not a lot of letters here.”

  The language was alien, there was no way Scarlet could read it. But Jenny recognized it immediately.

  GEN 0

  “Ooooh, that’s just where my name comes from, ah…” Jenny chuckled awkwardly. “It reads ‘gen zero.’ “

  “Indicating you might be some kind of designed prototype… after all, this mark regenerates with you. It’s an identifier of some kind.”

  “Look, I’m a bit of a mystery, but I always have been, and I’ve lived long enough that I’ve forgotten what answers there were, so…”

  “Ah, but I can try to help you figure out what you are, just like I help Amaris with all the weirdness going on.” Scarlet grinned. “I really do enjoy that as well. By the way, what’s your favorite food?”

  “Uh…” Jenny thought for a moment. “You know what, shrimp pizza, if it can be done correctly.”

  “Tall order, I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Oh, trying to treat me like royalty to earn my trust?”

  “Of course not, I’m your tormentor and a serial killer, you can’t trust me. You’re just a guest of honor and I want to show you some appreciation!” She patted Jenny on the head. “Might as well make your stay here more pleasant. Speaking of, I think I’ll move you to the bed, but I can’t let you move your hands because of that magic of yours so…” she pulled out a syringe. “I’m gonna have to knock you out for a bit, kay?”

  “Not okay, but what am I going to do to stop you?”

  “That’s my girl!” Scarlet injected Jenny in the arm. “Nighty night!”

  “Screw… you…” Jenny made a rude gesture as she lost consciousness.

  ~~~

  Jenny awoke in the bed. Her hands were chained to it with cuffs that were rather soft, but also definitely not moving even an inch, there would be no punching. That said, the bed was quite comfortable and of the highest quality, and it even smelled nice, vaguely of flowers. Jenny also smelled shrimp pizza nearby, and that made her stomach growl.

  That said, she stubbornly refused to open her eyes. She did not want to be here, she did not want to go through whatever bad excuse for a horror show Scarlet had for her, she just didn’t want to interact. She was just going to sit here, silent and unresponsive, refuse to give her any—

  “I can tell you’re faking it.”

  Jenny sighed, opening her eyes. “How did y—AGGH!” The scream was short, but it was a rare moment of true fear for Jenny. Dangling right in front of her face was a complete copy of her, naked and covered in bloody stitches. The mouth and eyes were sealed shut with some kind of pink glittery cord, and the limbs were bent at painful angles that nonetheless kept all the bones in one piece.

  “Ah, it is possible to disturb you!” Scarlet said, grinning.

  “Geez, lady!” Jenny said, slowly bringing her breathing and heart rate back to a manageable level. “You have no chill do you?”

  “Oh, I could, but I wanted to see how hard the egg was to crack. You didn’t crack, by the way, you were just started and disturbed, the fact that you’re actually talking instead of screaming, shuddering, or crying kind of proves that.” Scarlet stood up and rolled the Jenny-corpse away—it was evidently mounted on an office chair.

  “Still messed up.”

  “Thank you, I was trying to be.” Scarlett took a pizza box off the end table and opened it up, letting the smell of cheese, shrimp—proper shrimp—and sauce fill Jenny’s nostrils. “I found the best of the best.”

  “How am I going to eat it?” Jenny asked, glaring at her.

  “Well we have two options, I can sit you up and you can use your feet, or I can just feed you. I don’t mind doing the latter but something tells me you want to try the feet first.”

  “My feet are probably very di—”

  “I cleaned them, you’re good.”

  Jenny paused for a moment. With her legs, she kicked off the blankets and revealed that she was very clean, sparkling even, her toenails even looked manicured. She was wearing some kind of fancy designer jeans and a shirt that belonged at a fancy dinner.

  “I got the impression you weren’t one for dresses, so I got you something else. I have a lot of things in your size, actually, I never threw away any of the clothes I kept for my niece back when she was your size.”

  “You’re… weird.”

  “You’re an honored guest! Or, well, prisoner, but you’re still honored.” Scarlet carefully adjusted the cuffs holding Jenny’s hands to the bed, adjusting them so Jenny was in an upright position. She set a tablecloth over the sheets and set a slice of pizza on the plate. “Just let me know if you want any help,” Scarlet said as she took a slice of pizza herself.

  Jenny was not coordinated with her feet in the slightest, but she could manage to get the slice to her face, and at which point she found she was very coordinated with her mouth. “…Lay me down on my stomach, I’ll eat that way.”

  “...I think we can do that.”

  A few minutes of rearranging later, Jenny’s hands were tied to the edges of the bed, but she was on her stomach and could use her head and mouth to move things around, including gnawing on pizza.

  “You really are remarkable, you know that?”

  “Yes, I’m Jenny! Immortal legend!”

  “I bet! I wonder what sorts of adventures you’ve gotten up to.”

  “Oh, there’s been a lot, so many I can’t even remember.” She paused. “But right now I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “I have a bedpan for that.”

  “Really?”

  “What, you think I’m going to let you go into the bathroom? Even with me watching you’ll have a lot more freedom of movement with those hands of yours. You’re not leaving this basement, I’ll handle any disgusting things for you. You should be honored, a lot of people have to pay good money for this sort of treatment!”

  “Yes, old people whose bodies don’t work anymore,” Jenny grumbled. “And let me guess, you’re probably going to be creepy about it?”

  “We’ll see, I do think you’ll be immune to being disturbed by your own excrement seeing as, well, you’re now entirely used to the corpse of you hanging over there and are having no trouble eating.”

  “Oh joy, I get to replace that with, I don’t know, getting dunked into a vat of my own blood? Ever think of that one?”

  “Mmm, not yet, but I have now. Anyway…” She pulled the bedpan out from under the bed. “You want to get this over with or wait until you can get a lot out at once?”

  Jenny let out a loud, exasperated groan.

  “You really are my most fascinating victim, such unusual responses…”

  “Go jump off a cliff.”

  Amaris, surely you’ve noticed I’m missing at this point…

  ~~~

  Amaris laid down a card. “Straight.”

  Vayvaresi tipped over the card holder she was using to hold her hand. “Three of a kind.”

  “Victory!” Amaris declared, throwing her fists into the air.

  “I still want to know why we’re playing a gambling game without gambling,” Rin said as she started to deal out the next hand.

  Amaris shrugged. “Because it’s just a fun game?”

  “And gambling would just make it stressful,” Emma said. “I think it’s better this way!”

  “You would,” Rin commented, finishing dealing and looking at her hand. She frowned. “Fold.”

  “I do believe this game would be more fun with more players,” Vayvaresi said, throwing some potato chips they were using as currency into the center of the pot.

  “Oooh, Jenny!” Emma ran to the window. “Jenny, do you wanna play cards!?”

  “Haven’t seen Jenny for a few days,” Amaris said, taking a sip of cherry juice while she made her bid.

  “Really?” Emma blinked. “Isn’t she supposed to be protecting you?” She returned to the game, making a bid. Vayvaresi folded.

  “Yes, but she vanishes regularly to go do her own thing or gets caught up in little adventures. I’m not worried, she’s completely invincible, and it’s not like there’s anything going on here right now that she has to deal with.” Amaris shrugged, making another bid. “She’s a free bird. I might have a talk with her about how to actually be a bodyguard, but truth is I have Vayvaresi now, and I wouldn’t want to demand Jenny always be on call anyway.”

  “Not like she really was to begin with,” Rin said.

  “Yep.” Amaris laid down her hand. “Two pair.”

  “Full house,” Emma grinned, taking all the chips for herself.

  ~~~

  “What is your earliest memory?” Scarlet asked as she worked—which, at the moment, involved having stabbed Jenny with four separate metal plates in the lower abdomen, pushing her flesh away into four “walls” and preventing it from regenerating. The problem was, the bottom of the pit she was working on still generated as a skin-like wall and was making it difficult to actually pull anything out. The regeneration seemed very concerned with keeping all the blood inside Jenny.

  “My first memory…” Jenny thought about this, frowning. “I remember holding a baby.”

  “Really?” Scarlet tried to lift one of the metal plates but the flesh just came back. This was clearly annoying her.

  “No idea who the baby is. She had pale hair, red eyes.”

  “Like yours?” Scarlet did some precision hacking and slashing, finding no freedom. “Egh…”

  “A little,” Jenny admitted.

  “Possibly…?”

  “You have a dirty mind, you know that?”

  “It’s not like you’re actually twelve.”

  “Hey! I can pass as fourteen!”

  Scarlet stopped her work to look right at Jenny and raise an incredulous eyebrow.

  “…At least it works when I tell people that…” Jenny grumbled. “…But she couldn’t have been mine.”

  “You could have adopted her.”

  “Then you think I would remember more than just holding her, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know…” Scarlet pressed two plates into Jenny’s stomach and pushed them apart, once again getting nowhere. “If this is the first memory you have, it could simply be the most precious one from hundreds of thousands of years ago, that moment which defined you more than anything else, so you kept it despite no longer knowing why.” Scarlet paused. “This isn’t working.”

  “Give up yet?”

  “I’m not giving up until my kitchen timer goes off! I ha—”

  The kitchen timer went off. Scarlet groaned and pulled all the metal plates out of Jenny’s abdomen, tossing them on a nearby table. “Guess we’re having dinner instead… looks like I won’t be showing you the color of your liver.”

  “You could just cut off my torso and take it out of that.”

  “That ruins the entire challenge…” Scarlet shrugged in resignation. “Your ability is just too strong. If a doctor ever needed to operate on you, it would be impossible.”

  “Since when would a doctor ever need to operate on me?”

  “Good point. Anyway… better get the stew off the heat before it burns.” Scarlet went up the stairs, leaving Jenny alone, chained to the bed as usual. Jenny clicked her tongue and struggled against the chains for a few seconds before giving up.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  It had been a few days at this point—Scarlet didn’t hide information from her like that. Amaris apparently either hadn’t noticed anything or just wasn’t worried. Which, to be fair, Jenny wasn’t exactly in any danger, but this was a decidedly uncomfortable and annoying situation to be in at the very least. It was also mostly just boring, she sat here chained to the best most of the day waiting for Scarlet to come home. Even though Scarlet did leave her books to read, she had to read them with her feet, and that was just… annoying.

  Everything about this was annoying.

  Imagine if you weren’t Jenny, this would be a nightmare as she peeled off your skin and removed parts of you bit by bit until you were dead… Jenny shivered. At least as long as I’m here I’m keeping her occupied…

  Scarlet came down the stairs with two piping hot bowls of stew. She had a special warmer placed around the bowl so Jenny could do her usual thing and try to eat with her face. Usually a messy endeavor, but it worked well enough.

  Scarlet waited for her soup to cool off. Jenny, meanwhile, didn’t care in the slightest that her tongue was being burned and just went to town on the soup, burning her face in the process, but that was even less relevant as that didn’t temporarily ruin her sense of taste.

  The stew itself was composed of the usual ingredients, potatoes, carrots, peas, broth, and some kind of meat. Jenny thought it was beef at first, but as she chewed she realized that it was a very unusual texture…

  “…I’m eating myself, aren’t I?”

  “Have you tried it before?” Scarlet asked as she took a spoonful of her own soup.

  “I think so?” Jenny said. “I think I was just curious one day.”

  “You don’t taste any different than anyone else, for the record. Normal human taste.”

  Jenny let out a sigh. “Did not need to know that…”

  “And yet your reaction to all of this, instead of deep-seated horror and screams and tears is just… exasperation.” Scarlet closed her eyes and lifted her head to the ceiling. “Jenny, you go so far above and beyond anyone else I have ever taken. You can take… seemingly everything, and I’m finding that I enjoy simply trying to crack you. Failure is an interesting feeling! I may not be able to succeed at all!”

  “Whoop de do.” Jenny decided to keep eating the stew.

  This prompted Scarlet to outright laugh. “Jenny! Why… one would think you had a taste for human flesh!”

  “Actually tastes pretty good, I have to admit, I should grill my own arm more often.”

  “We could invent an entire series of Jenny dishes…”

  Jenny chuckled. “Great idea! Jenny cake, Jenny hamburgers… I could be a food tycoon! Ethically sourced human meat! Trademark. Copyright. Whatever actually goes here I don’t understand law.”

  “I believe trademark would be the correct one.” Scarlet said, running her hand through Jenny’s hair. “You truly are the best victim I’ve ever had. I feel like we’re forging a real connection here.”

  “So do I, I’m not a fan of it, can I punch you in the face yet?”

  “Maybe one day,” Scarlet said. “But not today, today… what other kinds of dishes made of yourself would you like? Shall I try a pizza?”

  Jenny blinked. “…Frick, now I’m curious.”

  “I thought so! Let’s just…” Scarlet pulled down Jenny’s pants and sliced off a large chunk of thigh. Making sure to do it slowly enough that the regeneration would keep any blood from getting the sheets messy again once the chunk was separated from Jenny. “All right, I’ll cook this up later.”

  “Can we also have shrimp pizza again?”

  “Of course. In fact… I can get that for breakfast tomorrow! How’s that sound?”

  “…Better than usual, which isn’t saying much.”

  Scarlet winked at her. “I know you liiiiike it.”

  “Imagine me punching you.”

  “Oh, I am.”

  “…Are you secretly a Masochist too?”

  “No, actually, but the emotions that would run through you in such a moment do get me quite excited.”

  ~~~

  Jenny woke up. The TV was on, and Scarlet was sitting at a nearby table, cutting something with her knives. She was wearing a blue and yellow zig-zag tie today. With a sigh, Jenny let out a yawn and stretched out her arms.

  Wait a second.

  She realized that she wasn’t chained down at all and had full motion of her arms. She grinned, lifting her fist into the air…

  …except she didn’t have a fist. She had a stump with a metal plate at the end of it affixed to her arm with numerous spikes and locks.

  “Do you like it?” Scarlet asked, looking up from her ‘work.’

  Jenny examined her stumpy hands. “…Well, it’s better, but… I still can’t punch you.”

  “That’s the idea, and what a good one it is! Now you can actually do things like move around, and—I think this will be your favorite—you won’t have to use the bedpan anymore!”

  “Oh, thank goodness, that was the worst part,” Jenny said with a sigh of relief.

  “I agree.” Scarlett shook her head. “I have grown attached to you, humiliating you doesn’t really do it for me anymore.”

  “And yet you still keep me trapped.”

  “This opportunity isn’t going to come by again, now is it?” Scarlet asked. “Gotta make the most of it while it lasts. Speaking of, take a look at this.” She gestured at the bloody chunks on the table in front of her. “This was your hand.”

  “Shocking.”

  “But what’s inside it is the most interesting…” She pulled an onyx-black circle out of the pile, holding it up on the tip of a knife. “Each of your fingers had one of these on the end. I think it’s what makes your punches magic.”

  “There’s also some of those at the base of my neck,” Jenny said. “You’re right, that’s exactly what they do. Can’t tell you how though.”

  “The material they’re made out of is fascinating, though.” Scarlet said. “When I break them they reform even though they’re not attached to you, and they’re quite hard to break.”

  Jenny shrugged. “I haven’t been able to figure it out. …As far as I know, anyway, you’d think that’d be something I’d remember.”

  “Maybe it just wasn’t very interesting.”

  At this point, the TV’s program switched to the news. Scarlet herself was on the screen, giving an overview of the ‘mysterious junk pile’ that had appeared in the Junkyard.

  “They didn’t let you mention Amaris?”

  “I thought it was best if I didn’t,” Scarlet said. “That girl doesn’t need to be hounded by reporters, she’s already got enough ‘interesting’ to deal with. She works best subtly.” Scarlet sat back, thinking for a moment. “She’s headed for greatness, that one. Greater than me, probably greater than you.”

  Jenny snorted. “As if. I’m the best thing since sliced bread!”

  “You do make great slices!”

  Jenny put her hand-stump to the bridge of her nose and sighed, glancing back at the news. “…You cover your own murders, don’t you?”

  “Oh, regularly, it’s part of the network I have set up to make sure I’m never caught. I am the reporter on murder cases, and I’m able to draw attention to differences in the way murders occurred. I do my best to never let a body be found in the same condition, the same place, or even the same kind of person, leading to the illusion that my killings are not one person, but a lot of different ones. It is quite thrilling to find increasingly creative ways to leave bodies around, often getting called in to offer my expertise to the police on them.” She giggled. “It’s quite a fun game, and one that increases the thrill while also making me far less likely to be caught!”

  “Really? Sounds like the murder-specializing reporter would be a prime suspect.”

  “Not if each murder seems to have its own special calling card that is unrelated to the others. I also make sure to imitate other styles of murderers every now and then, just to be extra confusing, and I cause a few mimics myself! Those are always fun, when I didn’t do one of them and, welp, the body’s in the exact same condition I left one last Tuesday. Quite exciting. I also make sure to leave no traces, to be in enough layers of clothing to be unidentifiable when I’m out, always take people from different locations, and, of course, dispose of all evidence. I have gotten really fast at cleaning this basement to a perfect sheen, repainting everything, and making it ready for a guest room. My niece used to stay down here regularly and she never suspected a thing.”

  “You’re proud of this. Monster.”

  Scarlet winked. “Guilty as charged!” After this, however, her smile slowly vanished. “However… my investigations for Amaris have suggested that maybe I’m more proud than I should be.”

  “Afraid of her finding you out?”

  “Not at all, it’s what she’s revealed about this world we live in.” Scarlet folded her hands. “It’s become clear to me that this country is set up to allow the monsters you keep finding to perpetuate. To allow people to do horrific things. I’m fairly sure the mysterious ‘higher ups’ know exactly what I do at this point, and that I am permitted to do so. The country is set up to allow people like me to ‘flourish,’ as it were.”

  “…Why?” Jenny asked, tilting her head. “Why would anyone want this?”

  “I have no idea,” Scarlet said. “I certainly don’t want a dozen horrific creatures of dark magic living in my neighborhood, just like I don’t want there to be serial killers.”

  “But… you are…”

  “My best life is where I’m the only serial killer in existence,” Scarlet said, smirking. “Able to do whatever I want, and no one I care about will ever be threatened by everything else. It’s why I help Amaris, I would rather Yeshalo be safer than it is.”

  Jenny stared at her blankly.

  “My philosophy is entirely self-consistent, I assure you. I want what I want. I want to capture random people and torment them in my basement, but I also want to be the only one able to do that, because the more people like me there are the more likely I am to be captured and tormented, or my mother, or my niece, or my friends. And I really don’t want that.”

  “Then… think about what other people want!”

  “Why should I care about what the random person on the street wants?”

  “Basic human decency?”

  Scarlet chuckled. “Since when do humans have basic decency?”

  “Like… normally!?”

  “The average human in this city hates nekos so much that they will purposefully leave a dying one on the side of the road. This is a well-known fact that has been studied in scientific journals on psychology.”

  “That’s just…”

  “The way Yeshalo is set up? Perhaps. But I do wonder, sometimes, if this extends beyond just Yeshalo. Amaris always encountered the ‘monstrous’ out there. She never created it, it was always there. Perhaps it is not only whatever secret people actually call the shots in Yeshalo that permit this, but rather the very world itself that seeks to torment its inhabitants.”

  Jenny stared blankly at her. Then she punched her in the face with her metal plated stump, knocking her out of the chair.

  Scarlet stood up, rubbing the bruise that was quickly forming on her face. “Do you feel better?”

  “No!” Jenny shouted. “You’re a freaking monster! How can… how can you see the evil in the world, want to stop it, and then think it’s perfectly fine to go about doing it yourself!?”

  “Because I don’t think it’s evil, I just don’t like it when I’m not doing it.” Scarlet gave Jenny a sad smile and ran her hands through her hair. “I want what I want, Jenny. It’s very simple.”

  “Your ‘friends’ and family would be horrified by what you are.”

  “I know. They don’t have to know. Most of them won’t believe you if you told them…” Scarlet sighed. “I do wish it could be different. That I could be open with someone… I think that’s why I feel so connected to you. I can just… speak my mind, and get an honest, measured response in return, not just screaming agony.”

  “I’m screaming at you right now!”

  “But you’re in your right mind. It’s different. I… really do appreciate it, thank you.”

  Jenny’s stomach did a flip-flop. “You… I…”

  “I… will have to let you go, eventually,” Scarlet said, turning to look at a wall blankly. “I don’t want to. I want to keep you here forever. But I… also want you to go out and see more, again.” She started nervously fiddling with her tie. “You won’t be here forever, Jenny. As much fun as you are… I do want you to live your life.”

  “You… you are so messed up I can’t even…”

  “I believe you can.” Scarlet gave Jenny a smile. “You already understand me more than you want to admit.”

  Jenny looked at the ground, ashamed.

  “Hey, don’t be like that…” Scarlet put her hand around Jenny’s chin and gently caressed it. “By the metrics of most people, you are a hero. You do great things. Just because you’re human doesn’t mean you aren’t still amazing.”

  “Your approval…”

  “It doesn’t fill you with disgust anymore, does it? For you know I’m not saying you’re like me. I cannot appreciate a person like me. I can appreciate a person like you.”

  Jenny looked at the ground, saying nothing.

  “I’ll leave you to your thoughts for a while, seems like you need it. There’s pizza over there.” Scarlet gave her a quick kiss on the forehead and went up the stairs, locking the door to the basement.

  Jenny looked at the stumps on her hands. She was alone, she could try to get them off…

  …that probably wasn’t going to work, though. She’d have to gnaw through her arm and it would regenerate faster than she could do that…

  She went to one of the chairs, sat down, and just stared off into space for a few hours.

  ~~~

  “So, what do you think?” Scarlet said, showing off a red dress she had just put on.

  “I think it makes you look like you’re desperate for some guy to notice you,” Jeh said.

  “Ah, no, that definitely won’t do!” Scarlet took the dress off and began the long and somewhat tedious process of putting on a red suit. “For obvious reasons I’m not really the sort to be compatible with anyone.”

  “Anyone who would be cool with your murder sprees would be someone you couldn’t stand.”

  “Exactly!” Scarlet said, trying to get the suit on comfortably, which wasn’t exactly easy but she wore them often enough that she was able to do it. She spent a significant amount of time adjusting the cufflinks, of all things. “It is somewhat annoying, mom really wants some grandkids, and it’s not like she has any other kids.” Scarlet paused. “I suppose I could adopt, but that would make doing this really hard to do.”

  “Maybe take care of the kid and not go on murder sprees?”

  “You really underestimate how much joy I derive from this.”

  Jenny sighed. “No, not really, it’s just wishful thinking at this point. ‘Maybe Scarlet can be given an alternative hobby than randomly murdering people!’ “

  “I wouldn’t give this up unless I was forced to somehow,” Scarlet said. “And even then I’d look for every opportunity to do otherwise.” She buttoned up the last button. “There, does this look better?”

  “You look like a cardinal.”

  “So perfect?”

  “Absolutely. Those stuffy bigwigs at the fancy dinner won’t be able to object to your style but they will find the color jarring.”

  “Exactly!” She put on a pair of red gloves. “And this part of the ensemble is inspired by you, of course. I would be tempted to wear yours but your hands are just so small!”

  “Don’t say it…”

  “Just like you’re so small and adorable!”

  “You wanna get punched again?”

  “It would be worth the price of admission,” Scarlet giggled. “Also, as you’ve pointed out yourself, is it really a punch if you don’t have a fist?”

  “Let’s find out!” Jenny grinned and rushed Scarlet. Scarlet ducked to the left and placed a table between herself and Jenny. Jenny attempted to vault over it but Scarlet kicked the table up into Jenny’s face, throwing back.

  “Okay, you win this round,” Jenny said, shaking her head.

  “The score is three to two, my lead.”

  “No, it’s my lead!”

  “I disagree,” Scarlet said with a chuckle. “Anyway, since I’m going out for a while… gotta chain you to the wall.”

  Jenny grumbled.

  “There’s enough length on the chain for you to get anywhere in the basement, don’t grumble, at least I’m not tying you to the bed.”

  “Can you bring some more books down? I’m running out of interesting ones.”

  “Oh, of course, anything in particular you’d like?”

  “Got anything about escape artists?”

  Scarlet chuckled. “Yes, actually, but that’s for my eyes only.”

  Jenny shrugged as Scarlet clipped a ring around her waist and neck that connected to a chain affixed to the wall. “Worth a shot.”

  “You do keep coming up with new ones. It is quite a good joke.”

  “Oh, you assume they’re jokes? That’s your first mistake.”

  “Please, Jenny, you haven’t tried to earnestly escape for three days, I can tell. You’re just waiting at this point.” She patted Jenny on the head. “Which is fine, it’s probably not going to be much longer.”

  “How much longer?”

  “That depends on my mood and if Amaris and the others figure things out.”

  “Amaris, you’re supposed to be smart…” Jenny grumbled.

  “I think her curse is in play, she’s had nothing interesting at all happen as far as she’s aware. What’s happening to you right now will no doubt retroactively become the interesting things.”

  Jenny put her stumps on her hips. “You’re too clever for your own good.”

  “Thanks! I know!” With a laugh, Scarlet left. A few minutes later she brought back a stack of books, waved to Jenny, and went to go attend that ‘stupid froofy dinner party’ she’d been invited to.

  Jenny sat down on a chair and used her stumps to flip open a book on a nearby table. It was about space. Space was cool, Jenny supposed.

  ~~~

  “…And I’ve found further evidence of a conspiracy,” Scarlet told Amaris as she drove her home. “Something in the nation wants there to be these monstrous evil things.”

  Amaris scratched Pitch under his head as she listened to all this. “Are you sure it’s not just the way the world is? Absolutely?”

  “At this point, yes,” Scarlet said. “I have been told to not report on certain details that would expose everything. I get the impression that the only reason we’re allowed to know what we do is the Strider has made it impossible to keep a lid on everything any longer.”

  “So that ‘angel’ thing… was probably sent by the government.” Amaris frowned. “But that ‘angel’ destroyed the dark monster…”

  “Maybe Yeshalo knows that that particular type of monster is a tremendous threat?”

  “Maybe…” Amaris tapped her fingers together. “Do we have any idea who is in on the conspiracy?”

  “None at all, I am not kept informed of who the ‘higher ups’ are, and my manager isn’t likely to tell me if I asked. So we’re going to have to rely on your curse finding things to expose this.”

  Amaris sighed. “Yes, it really looks that way… this is really annoying, we’re supposed to be able to trust the system, to call the police when something needs to be dealt with, to listen to authorities because they know better. But if they’re specifically trying to engineer our suffering…”

  “I don’t think most people are,” Scarlet said. “I think most people are just terrible people, and that a few are pulling the strings to make things this way. I still have no clue as to motive, though. Even simple sadism doesn’t really explain it, allowing such evil to perpetuate is a danger to everyone, including puppetmasters, and anyone small enough to pull this level of conspiracy off would be able to see that.”

  “They clearly have access to magic, maybe they think they’re above us?”

  “But they’re letting the magic be used for monstrosities, not just regular people being terrible to each other. It also makes the nation less efficient, so it can’t be for power…” Scarlet shook her head. “I don’t know Amaris, there’s some pieces to the puzzle we are missing.”

  “I’m sure it’ll show up eventually. I’m not sure we’ll like it when we find it out.” Amaris held her head up high. “But we’ll face it, right Scarlet?”

  “You can count on me, Amaris!”

  “I know.” Amaris got out of the car and went into her house. Irene was cooking.

  “Hey, Irene?”

  “Yes?” Irene said as she added some seasoning to a frying pan.

  “Next time you see Orville, tell him to track down Jenny, she’s been missing for well over a week at this point. I’m starting to wonder if she got warped somewhere.”

  “Will do,” Irene said. “Orville’s trying to find memory ties to Wingding Curiosities, though, he might be a while.”

  “It’s no rush.”

  ~~~

  “S-s-stop it!” Jenny laughed.

  “Someone’s ticklish!” Scarlet giggled, using one of her hands to tickle Jenny all over while the other wielded a knife, running it up and down, tearing her clothes that didn’t regenerate to shreds.

  “Y-y-you’re ruining the nice shirt!”

  “Psh, this was a throwaway shirt. Now stay down, enjoy your weakness!”

  Jenny couldn’t stop laughing as Scarlet tickled her all over. The tickling was far worse, in Jenny’s mind, than the stabbing. And yet… she wasn’t complaining, wasn’t trying to fight back all that seriously, and was actually having a little fun.

  Scarlet stabbed Jenny in the eye and plucked it out. “Oops, there goes another one.”

  The eye quickly reformed but Jenny closed her eyelid anyway. “Yarr, I’m a pirate! And pirates… are also great ticklers!” She twisted her body around and put her feet on Scarlet, going right for the armpits. “You aren’t immune to your own medicine!”

  Scarlet fell back, laughing as well. “J-jenny! That’s not f-fair!” She twisted around and picked Jenny up by the shoulders, holding her in the air.

  “How is it not fair? I don’t have hands; I have to use my feet!”

  “I have shoes on, no toes for me.”

  “You have the knife.”

  “You can regenerate.”

  The two of them stared awkwardly at each other, Jenny suspended in Scarlet’s arms. Then they both burst out into laughter.

  “It really is better when the game is two-sided,” Scarlet said. “I wish I could regenerate like you, then I could give you the knife.”

  “Oh, that would let me get out a lot of frustration,” Jenny agreed.

  “It would. Sadly, life is not always what we want.” Scarlet sighed, sitting down. Her expression became sad. “It’s… I think it’s time, Jenny.”

  Jenny paused. “Time for what?”

  “For you to go.”

  “O…oh.” Jenny paused. “…About time.”

  “You don’t really mean that, and you know it.”

  Jenny wrung her hands together. “Look, you’re a monster, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring you down.”

  “As you should.”

  “This was fun, though.”

  At this point, Orville showed up in Jenny’s mind.

  “Oh, now you decide to check in!” Jenny shouted, pointing at Orville with her stump. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been down here!?”

  Orville blinked at the scene in front of him. “S-Scarlet?”

  “Orville’s here?” Scarlet asked. “Well, what impeccable timing! I was just about to let her go!”

  “I’ve been locked up in the basement of a serial murderer for… weeks!”

  “Sixteen days,” Scarlet offered.

  “And she decided to let me go and then you show up?”

  “I’m betting it’s Amaris’ curse.”

  “Agh!”

  Orville glanced to Scarlet. “She’s… Scarlet? Really?”

  “Yes, she’s a serial murderer, check her memories if you want, but I bet you’ll get overloaded,” Jenny waved her hand.

  “Before you do that, I do have something to say to you, Orville,” Scarlet said. “There is nothing you can do to touch me. I’ll be disposing of all the materials and will have this place cleaned to a sparkled sheen in… oh, fifteen minutes. The cops won’t respond to a call to investigate me, General Mason trusts me, and the system itself is designed for people like me to perpetuate. I have lots of forged counter-evidence for alibis, and… well, I suppose you could rely on your magic tricks to outright kill me, but the law would punish you for that. I am quite the prominent figure, you understand.” She paused. “He is still here, right?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said. “Look, Orville, she’s right about everything she said but if you’ve got an idea on how to deal with her, please do, and don’t tell her what it is.”

  “I… am… really unsure what I’m supposed to think here, is this an elaborate prank? You don’t seem…”

  “I’m Jenny, I don’t respond normally to torture.”

  Orville stared at her. “I’ll… see what I can do.” And then he vanished.

  “He gone?” Scarlet asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay, so… as much as I would like a long goodbye where we talk a lot, he’s definitely going to try something and I need to move fast. So…” She kissed Jenny on the head and tousled her hair. “I’m going to have to pretend absolutely like I have no idea what you’re talking about if you ever mention any of this to me, simply to keep up appearances. Can’t be having risks, you understand. Oh, I wish this didn’t have to be cut short, but it does.” She pulled out the tranquilizer gun. “Goodbye, Jenny.”

  “Good riddance, Scarlet.” Jenny gave her one last rude gesture.

  Scarlet gave it back to her in return with a big smile. Then she shot her in the neck, and Jenny quickly lost consciousness.

  ~~~

  Jenny woke up in a hotel bed. A very nice hotel bed. King-sized and extremely soft, it felt like it shaped around her body.

  She had hands again. Sitting up, she lifted a hand into the air and held her red glove up against the window, allowing the sunbeams to pass through her fingers. She curled her fingers into a fist and it started glowing slightly.

  Everything was normal.

  She got out of bed, noting that she was wearing… a dress, one she’d never seen before. Examining the neck line it still had a tag in it, apparently freshly bought. It fit her perfectly and was a brilliant scarlet color and had folds in it that gave her legs full range of motion.

  On the table next to her was her music player she’d forgotten entirely about. There was also a pizza box. From the smell, Jenny knew it was shrimp, and that it was relatively fresh. On top of the box was a note; typed up, but in a font that looked fancy.

  Thank you, I had a great time. ;)

  Jenny pushed the note to the side and opened up the pizza box, taking a moment to breathe in the delicious aroma. She started munching on the food while moving over to the hotel phone, dialing in a number.

  “Hello, Mrs. Kelvin? This is Jenny, I need a lift…”

  ~~~

  “…and then I woke up in the hotel room with the note and the pizza,” Jenny finished, folding her hands together. She was sitting in one of the chairs of Amaris’ living room.

  Amaris mother had her hands over her mouth, eyes wide open in shock. Her husband was leaning against a wall, looking like he was about to hyperventilate. Irene sat on a nearby couch, her legs pulled to her chest, teeth clattering from her immense shivers. Orville simply had his hat in front of his chest, his eyes closed in a solemn expression. Coleus didn’t look shocked, just sad. Vayvaresi was sitting on top of a nearby bookshelf, deep in contemplation, ears drooped. Emma had tears running down her face, while Rin looked ready to stab something with the knife she was playing with in her fingers.

  Amaris’s expression was blank. She was staring right at Jenny, absent-mindedly petting Pitch.

  Jenny rubbed the back of her head. “Look, it’s definitely horrific, but I’m Jenny, I’m f—”

  Amaris ran over to Jenny and pulled her into a very, very tight hug. “I’m sorry.”

  Jenny was stunned into silence. She clenched her jaw, trying to hold it together, trying to just have the hug, trying to just accept what was happening and be as strong as she thought she was. But her hands began to tremble and her face felt all tingly. She frantically clawed at Amaris’ back, let out a short wail, and then went limp as she bawled on Amaris’ shoulder.

  “You’re not actually invincible, Jenny,” Amaris said. “And that’s okay.”

  “What am I supposed to do!?” Jenny shouted. “I… I—no, this is stupid, I…” She suddenly gripped Amaris tightly. “I’ve been tortured before, it wasn’t a problem! I’ve been ground up! I’ve—I’ve been eaten, skewered, slapped with poisonous fishes, stretched out like a noodle… I’ve… I’ve felt it all, it’s nothing! Nothing! Why… why is this any different!?” Jenny whimpered. “Why… why did she have to…”

  “I don’t know,” Amaris said, tears in her own eyes. “I… I can’t understand how she could… be this way. I just know… that you aren’t okay.”

  “I should be fine!” Jenny cried out. “I’m Jenny! I’m Jenny… I’m Jenny…” She stopped speaking and just started letting out haggard, shaky breaths through her sobs.

  “Yes… you’re Jenny.” Amaris swallowed hard. “And Jenny’s still human.”

  Jenny mumbled something incoherent, continuing to grip Amaris.

  She wouldn’t be in a state to actually talk again for about an hour. She didn’t let Amaris go the entire time.

  ~~~

  “…What are we going to do?” Amaris’ mom asked. They were all still in the living room. Jenny’s face was beet red and she looked terrible, but she was no longer actively sobbing. She just looked utterly exhausted.

  “She’s planned everything out too well,” Amaris said, pressing her hands together. “She’s right, the police will ignore any claims made against her, we’ve seen that first hand in our other adventures. And she was one of our main allies that could be used to circumvent that. …I don’t think General Mason would believe us.”

  “Surely there’s something we could do…” Coleus said. “I could…”

  “Trap her in vines?” Amaris folded her arms. “Tell me how that wouldn’t be an act of war.”

  Coleus stared at the ground. “Oh…”

  “I—I’m just so shocked…” Emma said. “How can… someone so nice be… be…”

  “A serial killer?” Rin finished.

  Emma shuddered at the words. “Rin…”

  “It’s not that hard, just be smart, figure out you need a public image, pretend to be nice…”

  “She’s not doing that,” Jenny muttered.

  Rin glanced at her. “Excuse me?”

  “I mean… she is setting up an image, but she’s… largely being herself. She really is someone who goes out of her way to do nice things for people. She just… also likes tormenting people.”

  “That…” Rin looked down at the knife in her hand, a clearly uncomfortable realization dawning on her. “Okay, I can get that…”

  “Perhaps we can use my abilities to collect information on her?” Orville suggested, Amaris relaying his words to everyone. “Surely I can watch her and catch her in the act.”

  “It’s worth a shot,” Amaris said. “But she knows about you, she’s going to be careful. And I’m not sure the police will even take our evidence. She’s… a prominent figure.”

  “And she’s set herself up with a lot of excuses and alibis…” Amaris’ dad said. “And everyone who knows her just inherently trusts her.”

  Irene shivered. “C-can we really not do anything? Sh-she just gets to… to go free?”

  “She’ll be limited, if Orville shadowed her forever she likely couldn’t do anything…” Amaris frowned. “But Orville can’t shadow her forever, and we do need him to investigate other things. As terrible as Scarlet is, she’s just… one person, and an ordinary human at that. The monsters we’re trying to face take a lot more people and can do far worse than physically and mentally torture people.” Amaris shook her head. “I… hate to say it, but it might not be worth it trying to contain her by constant surveillance.”

  “So we just… let her kill more people!?” Emma wailed.

  “I would love to stop her, but do you have any suggestions?”

  “Give her a taste of her own medicine,” Rin said, twirling the knife In her hand.

  Jenny tensed.

  “Stoop to her level?” Amaris said with a glare.

  “When there’s no other option, take out the threat by force.”

  “She would be protected by the police, we really don’t want even a suspected murder charge on us right now.”

  “Doesn’t have to be us doing it. My family has… money. And connections.”

  “We are not hiring an assassin, Rin! That would just be enabling someone like Scarlet!”

  Rin was suddenly gripping the handle hard enough that her knuckles whitened. “I’m sure we could create a proper conspiracy with Orville. Hire the assassin through memory, leave no traces back to us, and then set up a situation where the assassin gets caught and imprisoned…”

  Everyone was looking at Rin in horror.

  “You wanted a solution. I have one.”

  “N-no…” Emma said. “As… as terrible as she is, we d-don’t do that…”

  Rin pointed the knife at Jenny. “What do you think?”

  “I…” Jenny paused, wringing her wrists. “I think Emma’s right, we don’t do that.”

  “Then every life she takes is now on our shoulders.” Rin crossed her arms and put her knife away. “Just want to make sure everyone’s ready to live with that.”

  Amaris’ dad nodded. “I… I am, actually, we are not murderers, and our society has rules. …In theory.”

  “I do think Scarlet is right about one thing,” Amaris said. “This nation is designed to allow things like this to happen and for there to be nothing we can do about it without engaging in… the nightmare.” She narrowed her eyes. “But my curse gives us the chance that, maybe, we can do something about it the other way.”

  “I… have some power,” Amaris’ dad said. “I don’t think I can take her down, but I can raise suspicion about her.”

  “She’s the only reporter that actually interviews me without some kind of bias…” Coleus said, shivering. “I’m going to have to let her keep talking to me, or else public image of the Strider is going to get even worse than it is…”

  There was silence as everyone else in the room realized that they, too, would have to live with this woman being involved.

  “…I am impressed by you all,” Vayvaresi said, speaking at last. “You aren’t going for the path of direct revenge.” She jumped down from the bookshelf and landed in the middle of everyone. “You should all take some solace in the fact that you are at least making the attempt not to perpetuate the eternal cycle of violence. Not many people can even be said to have properly tried.”

  Amaris gave Vayvaresi a sad smile. “Thank you.”

  “And, if I may speak as an outside perspective, Scarlet is only different from the beasts you could only run away from in the fact that she is a person. There are many entities and monsters you encounter that you can merely survive, not stop, not imprison, nor deal with. It is no shame to admit such. Recognize, all of you, that she is just another piece of darkness in this world, and you do not have the power or the means to stop all of them.”

  “Yet,” Amaris said.

  “True. If your trajectory continues, your resources will expand, and your connections furthered. Perhaps one day you will be able to stop Scarlet. But that day is not today.”

  Amaris nodded in determination. “You’re right.”

  Irene shivered. “We still have to live near her…”

  “She won’t harm us,” Jenny said. “She likes us.”

  “Th-that kind of makes it worse?”

  At this point, there was a ring at the doorbell.

  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind who it was.

  “Everyone, stay here,” Amaris’ dad said. He went to the front door and opened it a crack.

  “Hello!” Scarlet said, beaming. “My mom just left me some of her famous pies, and I thought, who better to share it with than the Kelvins? I—”

  “I’m only going to say this once,” Amris’ dad said. “You are no longer welcome in this house.”

  Scarlet stopped. “Wh-what? Why?”

  “You know why, but I also know you’re going to play dumb. So I’ll spell it out for you. Jenny returned to us and has told us quite the story about how you kidnapped her and tortured her in every way imaginable, and how she is not the only one you’ve done this too. You are a serial killer. We want nothing to do with you. Do not so much as speak to us.”

  “Y-you’re just going to believe the… story of some kid I’ve never met?”

  “Yes. Orville corroborates the story.”

  “This… Dmitri, this is some kind of magic conspiracy, Amaris’ curse!” Everyone could hear Scarlet’s voice crack, clearly on the verge of tears. “Please, don’t do this to me.”

  “Never come here again.” Amaris’ dad slammed the door in her face.

  “Dmitri! Anastasia! Amaris!” Scarlet called from the other side of the door. Then, after a few seconds of silence, in a quieter voice. “…Jenny?”

  Jenny involuntarily shivered.

  “…I’ll just leave the pies here. Then I…” there was silence. “Then I’ll… never show up again. Goodbye. I… I’ll still try to help if… I can, and you’ll… let me.”

  Everyone sat in complete silence for about a minute. Eventually, Amaris’ dad opened the door, and the pies were there, on the porch step.

  Amaris’ mom picked up the pies and quickly threw them in the dumpster.

  “She sounded so… so sad…” Emma said. “She’s really good at…”

  “It wasn’t an act,” Jenny said. “Her cluelessness was. Those tears weren’t.”

  “Good,” Rin said. “At least she’s suffering a little from this.”

  ~~~

  Some days later, Jenny was walking down the street, music blaring through her earbuds. She was dancing down the sidewalk without a care in the world; for a time, all her problems and concerns were just gone.

  She kicked and danced, the folds of her red dress accenting her motions quite elegantly.

  She passed by a pizza place. That smells good. She looked up through the window, pondering getting an order.

  Sitting right there in front of her was Scarlet. With a big, friendly smile on her face, she waved at Jenny, and then gestured at the empty seat next to her invitingly.

  Jenny stared at her for a few seconds. Wordlessly, she turned and walked away.

  She made it about five steps before stopping. Her hands started trembling. She quickly clenched them into fists, steadying them, and turned around.

  She entered the pizza place and sat down across from Scarlet.

  “Glad you could join me,” Scarlet said with a warm smile. As if on cue, two personal pizzas arrived. The one placed in front of Jenny was, of course, shrimp. “I hope you don’t mind, I went ahead and ordered for you.”

  “Don’t… mind at all…” Jenny said.

  “You look troubled.”

  “I am troubled. Because of you.”

  Scarlet shrugged. “I really don’t know what prompted you to say all those things about me, but I’ve decided I don’t mind.”

  “You’re acting strangely toward a girl you’ve never met.”

  “Oh? Well, in that case, I’m Scarlet. You are?”

  “Jenny.”

  “What a nice, elegant name, quite unfitting for you, but in a paradoxical, poetic way.”

  “Yours fits you perfectly.”

  Scarlet twirled her red hair in her fingers. “My parents weren’t very creative.”

  “My name comes from some letters printed on the back of my neck, at least you got an actual name.”

  “It is something I should be thankful for, I suppose. I take too much for granted.” Scarlet sighed, crossing her arms and leaning forward. “Amaris won’t so much as talk to me anymore.”

  “For obvious reasons.”

  “Yes, I suppose, but she’s throwing away a valuable resource. I still can and want to help, this world… should not be the way it is.”

  “That’s quite something, coming from you.”

  “I can see I’m going to have to live with the insinuation that I’m some kind of monster… very well, I shall roll with it, at least you’re willing to talk to me.” Scarlet smiled. “That’s good. I was a little worried there.”

  Jenny looked down. “I… don’t know.”

  “You came in here by choice. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, don’t look like that. If you must, think of it as continuing a beneficial relationship; you can learn things from me, and then you can take those things to Amaris. You don’t even have to let her know where you learned the information.”

  “Yeah… yeah, that’s good…” Jenny looked up. “We’ll eventually stop you, you know.”

  “If I truly was what you think I am, I naturally should be stopped. No complaints here.”

  Jenny nodded to herself slowly. “All… alright. What do you know?”

  “Oh, you’re going to love this one. See, one of the mysteriously appearing doors vanished later…”

  ~~~

  Two weeks later Scarlet reported on a strange murder where an old man’s skull had been stapled to a clock tower. “These strange, unique murders keep showing up a lot, don’t they?”