April 11, 2010 (28)
8:30 a.m.
Evalynne’s Apartment

The job interview had gone well and the manager of the diner had given me the job right on the spot. I began my very first day of work in half an hour exactly. I wasn’t too thrilled to be working with Michael and Valerie, but I knew it was a good thing. If I worked with Michael, we’d see eachother every single day. That would give me the perfect opportunity to try and get him to open up to me.
Maybe I could even get him to drop a useful hint on what his plan to do with me was. That was definitely something I wanted to know. I also wanted to know how the hell he would find out whether or not I called the police on him. However, I knew by now just how smart Michael was too, so I had to be careful while trying to find out this information. I couldn’t do anything stupid or else he would be on guard.
I spread some cream cheese on my freshly toasted bagel and took a bite out of it. But my nervous stomach churned and I completely lost my appetite. I ended up throwing the rest of the bagel in the garbage before heading out the door to go to work.

After I’d walked into Mimi’s and met with the boss, she’d immediately given me my first job assignment. I was told to go wipe down the windows of the restaurant, and so that’s what I was doing. I sprayed some Windex onto the glass with a sigh and wiped it down until it was shiny and clean.
As I continued to work my way through cleaning the windows, I heard Michael’s irritatingly friendly voice. I turned around only to see him standing a few table over from me, taking someone’s order. It was a young woman, about twenty maybe. She was tall, blonde and gorgeous…not to mention absolutely clueless.
I could tell by the way she looked at him that she was attracted to Michael. When he flashed her a polite smile, she blushed and beamed back at him. And just as he turned to walk away from her table, she flipped her hair over her shoulder flirtatiously.
I rolled my eyes, disgusted by Michael’s irresistible charm. No wonder he won Valerie over so easily. He had a way of getting people, especially people of the female gender, to like him. This was very frustrating to me, because I was forced to sit back and watch him make friends with all these people.
“Evalynne,” It took me by surprise when he said my name. He had obviously seen me when he turned away from the flirty blonde’s table.
“What?” I remarked as he approached me. I turned back to the windows, trying to keep my eyes averted away from his face.
“Congratulations on getting the job,” he said to me. “I look forward to working with you.” He shot me an impish grin, which sent chills down my spine. And not in a good way either.
“Thanks Ben,” I remarked derisively, keeping my focus trained on the window I was scrubbing. “Now we’ll get to see eachother every single day! This is even more exciting than those friendly visits you love so much!”
He laughed haughtily under his breath as he shook his head. “Are you mocking me, Evalynne?”
“Just trying to be friendly,” I retorted. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” I looked up at him with wide eyes, taunting him with my fake friendliness.
But rather than getting angry like I expected, he just smiled back at me. In fact, he looked as if he were actually enjoying this…as if he were amused by it. “Yes, Evalynne, it’s exactly what I wanted.” he replied. And with that, he turned on his heel and strode off towards the kitchen.
I wanted to smack him for his reaction to the way I’d mocked him. He wasn’t supposed to be amused by it. It was supposed to get him angry, not make him smile. And it really aggravated me that no matter how hard I tried, nothing I did could ever faze him. Yet every move he made had me scared out of my mind, had me paranoid that he would try to kill me. It just wasn’t fair.
I continued to sulk over this as I wiped the windows down, feeling helpless against Michael’s intelligence. I leaned down to scrub away at a small speck of dirt on the otherwise clean glass. But as I did so, I felt someone reach into the back pocket of my jeans. My heart sped up at a rapid speed and I straightened my body out immediately, turning around to see who had just done that. That was a complete violation of my privacy!
I angrily glanced around to see who the little perv was, but my gaze ended up landing on Michael. He was at a table a few feet away from me, standing so that he was looking right at me. I looked into his eyes and a small, mischievous grin spread across his lips. He winked at me impishly and then focused his attention back on the person who was currently ordering.
I couldn’t believe it. How dare he reach into my back pocket like that! I gritted my teeth together in rage as I spun around on my heel, turning back to face the windows. But as I did, I felt something crinkle in the back pocket of my jeans. That was when I realized that he had slipped something inside.
I nonchalantly reached for the piece of paper he’d tucked inside and pulled it out. Then I held it up to my eyes to read what he had scrawled out on it.
Meet me in the back room during break…I found some info on Ashton
~Ben
After reading it, I glanced back up at him again, but he was no longer there. He must have already finished taking the customer’s order. I bit my lip, trying to decide whether or not it would be a good idea to meet up with him. I had to admit, it was pretty tempting. He had information on Ashton. What if he had found out how he was related to Ash? I couldn’t risk the chance of not finding that out. I needed to know.
So about two hours later, when break time finally rolled around I went to the back room where Valerie had taken me yesterday to pick up an application. Sure enough, when I got there, Michael was waiting patiently inside. I stepped into the small room, shutting the door behind me.
“So what did you find out?” I asked him.
“What are you talking about, Evalynne?” he replied, moving a bit closer to me. I felt my heart begin to race at how close we were and took a small step back. But he just moved in even closer, backing me up to the door.
“You said you found some info on Ashton,” I reminded him. “So what did you find out?”
An amused grin flickered across his lips as he reached behind me to lock the door. Instantly, a sense of uneasiness plunged through me. I knew that something was up. He wouldn’t have locked the door like that unless something was up. Now I was scared.
“I lied.” he told me. “I haven’t found out anything about Ashton yet.”
“Then why did you tell me you did?” I demanded, growing a bit irritated. I’d gotten all excited to finally know the truth about him only to find out that Michael had no idea what it was after all.
“I knew that it was the only way for me to get you to come meet me here. So I lied,” he replied.
“Well if that’s not why you wanted to meet me here, then what’s the real reason?” I asked him. Honestly, I was pretty terrified of what the answer might be. What if he said that he’d only invited me here to kill me? Or to tie me up so he could go kill Cole without me trying to stop him?
But he didn’t say either of those things. “I just wanted some alone time with you,” he told me instead.
“Alone time?” I said softly as his face moved even closer to mine. “For what?”
He looked into my eyes for a long moment, looking content the entire time. But content about what? What did he want from me?
I couldn’t help but to cringe when he gently tucked a strand of wavy, blonde hair behind my ear. He was so close that I could feel his warm, minty fresh breath on my face. A mere two inches was all that was separating us from eachother. But he closed that short distance by bringing his lips against my own.
It wasn’t really a kiss exactly. All he really did was brush his mouth against mine, pulling his face back to the mere-two-inches-away that it had at been before. But even this small move made me want to smack him across the face. How dare he be this close to me, this intimate towards me! He had no right to do such a thing!
I opened my mouth, about to protest against the move he had just pulled. But before I could get any words out, his lips were pressed to mine. Only this time, it was an actual kiss. His tongue found it’s way into my mouth, which I hadn’t been able to close in time. It felt warm and slick as it moved across my lower lip. I felt bile rising up in my stomach as the feeling of repulsion intensified.
Finally, I summoned up enough strength to push him off of me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I shouted at him, rage boiling inside of me.
“Answering your question,” he replied.
“What?” I demanded, unsure of what he was talking about.
“I told you I wanted alone time and you asked me what for. I was just showing you what I wanted alone time for.” He said these words so nonchalantly, as if making out with me in a surprise attack was no big deal.
“Well you better not ever do that again!” I cried. “Why would you even do that anyways? Why are you trying to get me to like you? Is it so that you can do what you did with Valerie? So you can pretend to like me, get me to like you back and then kill me? Because if that’s your plan, then you should just give up now. I’ve seen what you’ve done in the past, Michael. I’m not going to fall for it.”
“I don’t understand why you’re getting so angry with me, Evalynne. I never said I was going to do that to you. Yes, I might be using Valerie. But she’s not important. She doesn’t matter to me.” he informed me.
“And I do?” I remarked. What could he possibly have seen in me? What made me so special to him?
“Yes, actually, you do. You have a bit of an edge to you, Evalynne. You’re confident and outspoken…and I like that about you.” I hated the way he was looking at me as he said this. Like I was his prey or something.
“I don’t care what you think of me.” I told him. “Nothing you say is going to get me to change my mind.”
“That’s not fair, Evalynne.” he stated through clenched teeth. He was growing angry now. “You gave a Will a second chance after he punched you. But I’ve never even laid a hand on you, yet you won’t give me any chances at all.”
No way. There was no way he was going to get me to feel bad for him. He could try as hard as he wanted, but it wouldn’t work. “That’s because you don’t deserve a chance.” I retorted. “You’ve killed a person, and you’re perfectly fine with doing it again if you need to. You’re a murderer, Michael. I don’t care if you go to counseling to deal with your issues and become a better person. I don’t care if you join the freakin’ Peace Corps. Because at the end of the day, Jennifer will still be dead and it will still be your fault.”
“If you’re trying to get me to feel bad and apologize for what I did, then you can just give up now. I have no regrets about what I’ve done in the past. Some people may see the things I’ve done as cruel or sadistic. But I see them as acts of determination. I want to prepare a flawless and successful future for myself, but I can’t do that when certain people are a part of it. Therefore, I get rid of those people.”
The little explanation he gave just made everything about ten times worse. The only reason he was willing to murder people was to make his own life a little better. Not only was he psychotic, he was also incredibly selfish.
“Well I think it’s a little late for your perfect future. You can’t go back to college because the cops are after you and you can’t get into another college because this Ben person you made up has no background. No college will accept a person who can’t even prove that they’re real.” I told him matter-of-factly.
His eyes went cold when I said this, probably because he knew I was right. After all, he was a smart boy. He was perfectly capable of realizing that his plan had many flaws to it.
“Break’s almost over. We need to get back to work.” he stated, pretending like he hadn’t even heard the last thing I’d said to him. Then he made his way around me and headed out the door. I followed behind him and we both headed to the kitchen.
“Ben, Evalynne,” our boss called out when we walked in. “You two are both going to be waiting tables for the rest of your shifts. Ben, you’re in charge of tables one through five and Evalynne, you get six through ten.”
The diner wasn’t all that big, so there was about twenty tables total. Our boss numbered each of the tables and got the table numbers drilled into our heads too. So when I was told that I was in charge of tables six through ten, I knew exactly which tables I had to wait. I was kind of excited actually, because this was my first time ever waitressing.
“You got it, boss,” Michael replied, flashing her a smile. She nodded once in approval and then scurried off to go yell at one of the fry cooks about something. “Come on,” Michael said to me. “Let’s get to work,” Both of us walked out into the restaurant and when we did, Michael’s eyes lit up. “Looks like I’ve myself got a customer,” he murmured.
I looked in the direction he was looking and felt my heart skip a nervous beat. Because sitting at table four, was none other than Shaun.