Karma

Victim 10

When we finally arrived back at my apartment, the light had gone from the sky and my eye had turned back to its natural blue. Axel had moaned all the way home about how his teeth hurt and I just walked silently besides him gritting my teeth, before finally jamming my fist into his temple and making his body crumple to the ground.

Stereotypically, because I was a girl, I wasn't supposed to be as strong as I was. But with the strength of the thing inside of me, I was stronger than most humans - because some were inhumanly strong - which meant I could, most of the time, knock people out in one shot.

However, I didn't calculate the fact that I'd have to carry Axel all the way home whilst he was unconscious. He was a dead weight and I hadn't fucking eaten all day which meant I was weaker than my usual self and so when I did finally deposit him on my oh so lovely bed, I slammed him so hard the my bed broke in two.

And there we have it. The climax of my fucking day.

"We could always sellotape it together?" Axel suggested. He had two of the broken pieces of wood in his hands and was trying to put them together. I gave him a flat look.

"Yes, let me go down to the fucking sellotape store where they sell extra sticky tape, just so that you can be useful with your messed up pea sized brain."

He raised his eyebrows and grinned, "I'm useful now?"

"You'll be useful when I shove that piece of wood up your ass Mr. Let's Sellotape Fucking Wood Together."

He pouted at me, before placing the wood besides him and standing up. "You're mean."

"Thanks." I said, before slipping on my boots and heading towards the door. "Come on douche, I have work to do."

He raised his eyebrows at me and ran a hand through his blonde hair. "Why'd I have to go?" He asked, his tone confused.

"Because. Now come."

He still didn't move. Instead he shuffled and ran a hand through his hair again. I sighed, before turning around to face him and crossing my arms across his chest. "What is it because I haven't got time for your-"

"I need fresh clothes." He mumbled. I frowned, before looking him up and down. He was wearing the same clothes as he was the night before. Shirt, trousers, waist coat and tie. It was all messy, but, admittedly, I thought it made him look cute and so, being the selfish person I was, didn't want him to change.

I rolled my eyes. "Where's your house?"

A grin appeared on his face and he literally skipped to the door. "Just follow me, it'll only take a few minutes' walk."

---

A few minutes turned into a few hours and by the time we actually reached his house, it was midnight and I had yet to get to work. "Hurry up Axel, I need to get a move on." We were walking up a driveway that seemed to go on forever. Trees spanned each side of the drive and it looked incredibly posh.

He turned to look at me and raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because if I don't get at least five people tonight, my ass is getting lynched." And it was true. If I didn't get more than five people that I was supposed to each night, then I'd be killed for not being useful enough. Devan had many lost souls he could replace me with, however they would never be as passionate as me. Passionate Karma. I was great. I had three strikes each year and I'd actually never lost one. Well, I probably had last night, but I had a relevant excuse.

Axel just shook his head and buried his hands deeper into his pockets. I looked at his stance. He had his head tilted up a little so that he was looking at the sky and his shoulders were tensed. I didn't really understand much about him and that was something I hated. He wasn't like my other victims. He was different.

"Go ahead and kill me, god knows I'd do it in a heartbeat." He whispered, his breath tickling my cheek and making me feel slightly uncomfortable. He drew back and took a long gulp out of his beer can. When he pulled the can down, he shook his head slightly. His eyes were twinkling with something strange and a smile danced on his lips.

That must've meant something. It couldn't have just been a fluke because people didn't just wish death upon themselves unless they really meant it. And just as I was about to open my mouth to ask him about it, he opened the front door that my face would've walked into.

"Home sweet home." He mumbled under his breath, before flicking on a light. Everything was covered in about one centimetre of dust and that confused me. If this was his home, why was nobody here? "I'll be two minutes." He said, before running off up the stairs.

My eyes followed him as he went up and, when he was finally out of my sight, I was left in the empty shell of a room that, I could tell, was once very beautiful. The walls were a faded blue colour and from the ceiling hung a broken chandelier.

There were pictures stood along a cabinet. I frowned and walked over to them. There were four altogether. The first one was of three people. There was a woman holding a newborn child in her arms and a man that was kissing her cheek. The second was the same, however, instead of the man kissing the woman's cheek, their places were reversed. They looked so happy.

The third picture was of a toddler on his own. He had a frog between his thumb and first finger and his blond hair was short. A smile that was too big for his face was on his cheeks. I could definitely see the resemblance between Axel and this little boy.

I didn't get around to looking at the fourth picture though, because Axel was behind me with a backpack in hand and a sad smile on his face. "The first and second picture is my mum, dad and me. That was at my uncle's wedding. I remember nothing, of course, but they were happy. The third is just my brother - Jasper. It was cold and wet one night and they went to pick me up from a friend's house. They never made it there though."

"Axel I'm so-"

"And the fourth one," he picked up the picture and smiled. "The fourth one is of my dad and his best mate - my adoptive father. I was only six when my family died and I was left alone, so he adopted me. But then he died too. He had a heart attack. So fucking stupid. And so I go to live with my auntie here. In this fucked up town where she just so happens to fucking die also. I kill everything, without even trying."

He looked down at the photo and winced. "I can't look at my own family without thinking it was me. It's my fault. Why do I get to love if they don't? It's not fucking fair." He gritted his teeth. His grasp on the photo tightened, before he finally threw it on the floor. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces and so did the person in front of me. His face morphed in to so many emotions at once that I couldn't tell what he was feeling.

I didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to do.

Because Axel didn't cause his family's death, but he thought that and there wasn't really a way for me to change that.

I scooped the photo off of the floor and out of the broken photo frame. I stood up to face him again and he had his hands balled up in fists over his eyes. My heart was beating faster than it should've been and I didn't know whether it was my new emotions playing up, but I wrapped my arms around his chest - making sure to only touch his clothed skin and avoid having an unwanted flashback. At first it was awkward, but he relaxed into my touch and I relaxed into his and it was fine.

It was fine.

Until I saw the photo that was now in my grip.