i was researching 70's men's fashion and woooooow the turtlenecks and short shorts. i want to wash my eyes from what i saw

never doing research for this decade again. i feel violated and definitely traumatized.

I just wasn't expecting all the body hair.

anyway enjoy

Chapter Three

This has gone so much farther than I had initially intended it to.  

My hands wouldn't stop shaking, and I think I was going to throw up. Yes, I was absolutely going to throw up.

I barely made it to the bathrooms as I bent over a toilet. My shoulder throbbed, and the blood on my shirt was now dried up and hard. My entire body was coated in sweat.

I sat on the floor, and leaned against the toilet. I ran a hand through my hair, surprised by the short length, as I had forgotten it was cut.

I am not a girl. I am a boy.

A boy that Virtus just hired as a temporary assistant? 

I shook my head. This was so fucked up.

Someone walked into the bathroom, and knocked on the stall I was in, "Hey, kid?" He threw a clean shirt underneath the stall door, hitting my leg. "Virtus said to give this to you after you stopped vomiting like a gutless skulker."

The fucking bastard.

"How the hell did he know I was in here?" I said it more to myself than the man, but he answered anyway.

"I don't ask, I just do." His spoke almost mechanically, and I listened to him walk out of the room.

Sighing, I slowly stand up, and grab the shirt off the floor.  I unbuttoned the current shirt I had on, and gladly shrugged it off. 

One look at my arm made me almost sick again. My whole left shoulder was a mixture of red, purple, and blue. It looked more like a tattoo than an injury, and it was still extremely swollen.

It would take weeks to properly heal.

The shirt was thin, and I made sure my binder was wrapped tightly around my breasts so as to be certain it wouldn't come undone. I couldn't let him find out I was a girl. Especially not now.

It was incredibly painful to lift my shoulder to get the shirt on, and when I did, I cringed at how large it was.

I tucked it into my pants, which made it puff out, and not exactly help my awkward body shape.

I forced myself to be grateful. At least it wasn't tight to show my very limited cleavage.

I walked out of the stall and turned on the faucet. I splashed my sweaty face with cold water, over and over until I felt a little better about my position.

I was going to New York. Okay. I was going to New York with Virtus Lux. Okay. That's fine. 

I was going to New York with Virtus Lux and my family would never know where I went.

Yes. This is perfectly okay.

I need to call them. I need to find a way to get to a phone booth, and call them without anyone knowing.

I leave the bathroom, and immediately see Virtus walking with a crowd of people behind him, all eagerly waiting for him to tell them to do something. Anything.

I wasn't sure if I should follow him, until he passes me, stops, and turns his head to look at me, an impatient expression plastered on his face.

I follow him.

He explains nothing to me, and I want to ask, but I'm at least smart enough to not piss him off just yet. Also I don't really want to talk to him. I keep my mouth shut, and my legs moving. I notice Alan is nowhere to be seen, and I was definitely okay with that.

The idea of him joining us to New York was a horrifying thought.

We leave the building by the back. There's a vehicle waiting for Virtus, and a large crowd screaming for their favorite killer behind a tall metal fence.

The driver opens the door for Virtus but he doesn't get in.  He turns to me, the second time the impatient expression crosses his features, "Are you going to get in or am I going to have to shove you in?" 

Oh. He's waiting for me. I climb in, and he gets in after me. I hear him mutter the words, "Fucking idiot." Under his breath but I choose not to defend myself since he does kill for a living.

I sit uncomfortably in my seat. He's only a few inches away from me, and it seems as though it doesn't bother him. He pulls out a book from inside his coat, -which was an entirely different coat than the one from earlier- and begins to read the book.

I steal a glance at the title of the novel, and realized he was reading Flowers for Algernon which was an extremely unexpected thing to see.

I never would have thought the country's hitman liked bizarre science fiction literature. It never occurred to me that The Bone Cutter had other hobbies that did not include plunging a man to death with a knife.

He was casually leaned back against the door, one arm resting against the window, the other holding the little book that he was wholly invested in.

I assumed he expected me to stay silent, so I awkwardly pressed against the door on my side of the car, and prayed he didn't change his mind and stab me because I interrupted his quiet reading time.

I thought about how I even got stuck in this situation. This morning I shaved my head with the intention to just speak with Virtus. Now I'm sitting in one of his vehicles as his new assistant, on our way to New York.

There has to be a catch. Why, of all people, did he choose me to hire? It doesn't make any sense, and I hardly believe it myself. He has an underlying reason for choosing me specifically, and I'm almost too afraid to find out what it is.

Did he know I was a girl? Did he recognize me as Cindy's cousin? That's impossible, we look nothing alike.

My mind was swimming in the possibilities, and when I glanced up at him, I nearly jumped. He wasn't looking at the book in front of him, he was staring at me.

I quickly removed my sight from him, to the floor.

"Stop questioning it." He says, and focuses back on his book.

"What?"

"You're wondering why you're here. You're wondering why I picked you." His eyes flicker up to mine, "Don't question it."

How did he know what I was thinking? Was my face that easily read? "I guess that means you aren't going to tell me why I'm here?"

"No." He responds, turning a page, "I'm not."

This confirmed my theory that he had a reason. Him telling me not to question it really only made me question it more.

I stayed silent for the duration of the car ride. My impatience was crippling, as we drove across the state. At first I thought we were to head straight to the airport, but no, the car pulled up through the gates of an extremely large mansion, and as soon as we stopped, Virtus got out of the car.

What the hell were we doing here?

I climbed out after him, and followed him into the mansion. I have never been in a mansion before and this one did not fail to impress. 

I assumed this was his home, or one of his many homes. I couldn't imagine living in a place like this. It was too damn big, and oddly empty.

He began to ascend up a staircase, and I stayed plastered to the floor by the door. When he was halfway up the stairs, he stopped, as if realizing I wasn't following, and looked at me, "Unless I tell you to stay where you are, intern, you will follow me no matter where I go. I thought we made that clear by now."

When he said he needed an assistant by his side, he wasn't joking. I didn't realize by his side meant every second of the day.

I ran up after him, and he continued forward.

I didn't fail to notice just how many cleaners and maids he had roaming around the place. It was an unusual amount of workers for such an empty home. Even if the house wasn't empty, having this many people just to serve him was extremely odd.

Something felt weird about all of this.

I followed him into one of the rooms. The room was littered in books. Shelves of them encased around a single bed. On the floor were hundreds of novels stacked on top of each other, laying in the middle of the floor, or against the wall.

"Sit down." He orders me, but the only place I can sit was the bed.

When I didn't do as he ordered he swung around to me, and acted as if he wanted to do nothing more than hit me against the wall just like Alan, "Sit down you stupid fucking dumbass."

I sat down on the bed, or rather, I immediately dropped onto it. My heart pounding in my chest as he added, "You will stay right here, until I tell you otherwise."

I nod quickly.

One of his servants come into the room, and stands quietly as he begins to rummage through the books that were sitting in the bookshelves. He pulled out several of them, and practically flung them at the poor woman.

She catches them with ease, as if she has done this several times. 

I begin to question if we came all this way just for him to pick out books to read. Surely he had better things to do than this?

When he was finished, the woman carried the stack of books out of the room. He shrugged off his coat, as another servant brought in an entirely different set of clothes to wear.

"Get some for him too." He tells her, and she nods once, quickly leaving the room.

I'm still completely lost as to what is happening, and the longer I don't get an explanation, the more annoyed I become.

He starts to unbutton his shirt, and I tense. Is he about to get dressed in front of me?

Internally I panic. I quickly try to think of something to say that wouldn't irritate him further, but was that even possible?

There's a knock on the door, and he walks over and opens it. His shirt is half-unbuttoned as he takes the clothes from her, and shuts the door back. He throws them at me. "Get dressed."

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. "N-Now?"

"Another rule I thought we already established, don't ask questions. When I tell you to do something, you do it."

"I can't." I blurt, and I really hope he doesn't stab me. Luckily, I don't see any knives on him, though it wouldn't surprise me if he had one hidden.

He's staring at me so intently, I want nothing more than to sink into the blankets of this bed. "And why not?"

"I don't like dressing in front of others. I'd rather dress privately. My body is," I quickly think of an excuse, "unnatural. It's hard for me to gain weight. It is an insecurity of mine that I'd rather not display." It wasn't entirely a lie. I did find it incredibly hard to gain weight. Sometimes I felt like I had a body more like a girl, than a woman.

Though, who would have thought my unwanted flatness would come to my benefit like this?

He tries to make sense of my refusal to his order, but clearly doesn't care enough about my comfort to allow me to do so, "You can't."

"I can't?" I try not to let my panic show.

"I'll turn my head, but you can not leave my side. That was part of the reason why I hired you."

I hadn't realized he couldn't even let me leave his side to get dressed. Was I going to have to bathe in front of him too? This was becoming a serious problem rather quickly.

The word 'pervert' was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it down. I was just going to have to trust him enough not to look while I quickly changed, because if he even turned his head the slightest bit, he will see I am not a man.

"Okay." I say slowly, "Fine." 

He turns his head, and begins to get dressed, and I, freaking out, quickly pull off my shirt, the pain in my shoulder raging, but I don't care. I put the new clothing on, which consisted of black jeans and a classy red button-up that was heavy on my shoulders. 

I keep my head turned away from him, as I finish by pulling on a jean jacket, I refuse to open my eyes until I'm sure he's clothed.

"Let's go." I hear the door open, and I open my eyes in just enough time to see him walk out of the room. I quickly run after him. I noticed his clothes are now changed to a military-green jacket, and dark pants. This is nothing how the Bone Cutter usually dresses. He looks almost normal. 

As if he is trying to blend in with normal men, and refute his status as Virtus Lux.

I stare at him, unable to make sense of his motive. Why couldn't I leave his side even to change? Why is he trying to hard to not look like The Bone Cutter?

This is all so incredibly incomprehensible. 

"Call one of the pilots." He orders a woman walking past us, "Tell them I'm on my way."

"Yes, sir." She scurries off, and I'm left dumbfounded that someone could just make orders so simply and have someone do them. 

We leave the mansion through one of the back entrances. There's a different vehicle waiting for us, and I dread having to get back into the car with him again.

The driver opens the door for us, and this time I don't hesitate to climb in first. Frankly, I'm a bit sick of Virtus insulting me already, and it's only the first day.

I don't forget my reasoning to being here. Cindy has been my only focus. I wondered if he killed her simply because she annoyed him. She always was a talker, and he clearly doesn't like to be spoken to.

I feel my anger rolling inside of my chest. I clench my fists and watch him pull out Flowers for Algernon once more, and begin reading again.

I say nothing to him, but my mind is a hurricane of questions and insults. One day I will find out how and why he killed not just Cindy, but all four of his wives.  Three other women were married to him before Cindy was. Did their families not get closure either?

My hatred for him is only growing, quicker and quicker like a stubborn weed that won't die. 

I'm too far in to turn back, and even if I had the opportunity to turn back now, I wouldn't take it.

Cindy deserves to rest, and I will make sure she gets what she deserves.