Love and Blood

The cop car lights lit up Ashton’s face that Thursday night and as the state troopers held their guns at us, I wasn’t scared. I didn’t know what would happen to us and I didn’t care. The only thing I could think about was how beautiful his face looked in the lights. We stood there just looking at each other for a while until Ashton snapped out of the trance and faced the cops, not knowing what to do.

This all started 5 months ago. I met Ashton through some mutual friends who aren’t important to this story. We hit it off immediately. We were both into some dark shit. I wore black and listened to Manson, Ashton had lots of taxidermy on his walls and books about serial killers. We were both pretty messed up and I guess that’s why we clicked.

I never planned on anything going this far but, I don’t know what else I expected. All that mattered to me was the love I had for Ashton, though. I would love to take credit for all of the illegal acts we committed but, all of them were Ashton’s ideas. Surprisingly, Ashton had to talk me into going with most of the things he thought up. I loved the idea of being a serial killer but, when it came time to actually do it, I would get nervous and Ashton would have to convince me to. I always ended up doing what he said, though. I loved him too much not to.

The first time I ever took someone’s life was one month after I met Ashton. We had followed him to his house from a local bar. I sat in the passenger seat next to Ashton. He knew I was nervous so he held my hand the whole way there. He told me he had done it before and that there was nothing to worry about. He said it makes you feel alive. I don’t really know what I felt when Ashton grabbed the man’s arms and I slashed his throat with my pocket knife but alive was not one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I lusted to do it again but I also felt fear and regret.

I felt like that the whole drive back to Ashton’s apartment but as soon as we got in the door, Ashton kissed me hard and passionately and all thoughts of what had just occurred were replaced with my love for him. Ashton had this control over me that no one had ever before. Hell, I killed for him and if that doesn’t mean something then I don’t know what does. That wasn’t the last time I killed for him, either.

I went on to kill five more people over the course of those next four months. Each time got easier. My relationship with Ashton got better and better over those months. He told me he wanted to be with me forever and I had mutual feelings. We planned on spending the rest of our lives running from the cops and kissing in the backs of stolen cars. We were in love and no one, not even death could take that away.

That’s what I was thinking about on that night when Ashton and I stood in front of those cops. We had been sloppy with our work and distracted by our love. I knew that we wouldn’t be able to run away and I sure as hell wasn’t going to prison. Ashton looked to me and I nodded at him, knowing what to do. We whispered our I love you’s before Ashton counted us off and as the word 3 rolled off his tongue, we both ran in opposite directions. You might think that the last thing that I heard was the gunshots, but it wasn’t. In my mind, the last thing that I ever heard was Ashton telling me he loved me.