𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐰: 𝐚 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞

Six months later

"...and that's the story of Aileen Wuornos, dubbed the first female serial killer who claimed that she had murdered in self defence. What do you guys think? Do you think that she was a product of her circumstances, or do you think she used her occupation as a cover-up? As always, join our Discord community and let me know! Stay safe, and I'll see you guys next week on another episode of Winter Tales."

Winter sighed, satisfied yet tired, and shut her laptop closed. She rubbed at her eyes, letting out a yawn before having the strength to haul herself off her couch where she had been for the last four hours.

After multiple rough cuts and attempts to condense audio recordings nearing two hours long, she finally finished the final edit for her one hour episode that was scheduled to go live on Wednesday.

She wanted nothing more but to raid her fridge of last night's Chinese leftovers and binge watch her Korean dramas, but she had plans that she had promised to attend weeks ago. Winter was exhausted, but she was never a flaker.

Padding over to her bathroom, she tied her long, red hair back in a loose bun and fought to trap her bangs and baby hairs underneath a headband, freeing her face from any loose strands from interfering with her skin care.

She was a little, okay, very, meticulous about her skincare regime.

Cleanser. Toner. Essence. Serums. Moisturiser. Eye cream. Lip balm.

Once she was satisfied with the results, Winter moved onto her makeup; erasing her features with a sheer foundation before reintroducing them by exaggerating the contours of her cheeks, nose and her temples. She expertly filled in her straight brows, then moved onto her eyes with cool-toned shadows, a liner and false lashes.

It wasn't her best work compared to the hours she spent getting ready when she bartended, but she wanted to make sure that she was at least worthy to be photographed.

Unlike makeup, fashion wasn't the strongest of her suits. Winter struggled to experiment outside of what felt comfortable for her, and as a result ended up with a wardrobe consisting of eighty percent black clothing and the other a mix of white, greys and creams. For tonight, she opted with a simple black, off the shoulder sweater dress that hugged her body and a pair of high heeled boots.

With her purse and keys in tow, Winter quickly exited her apartment, climbed into her Uber and was off to Downtown Seattle.

It was the opening night of Hell's Ark, an exhibition held at Henry Art Gallery.

The place was packed, people in groups intermingled with other patrons, sipping on the skinny flutes of champagne and nibbling at the charcuterie paraded around by waiters dressed in white shirts and black vests.

Winter held her third flute of the night in her slim fingers, tapping her nails against the glass and watching the miniature bubbles swim to the surface.

Jae Kim was a regular at Mansion, ridiculously wealthy with business conglomerate parents and enough money to blow on tables week after week with a new set of girls in tow. He always made sure Flora and Winter were assigned to his table and that they were well taken care of, and his friends quickly adopted the same attitude. Any time someone started shit with her at the club, Jae or one of his fight-hungry buddies would take care of it.

Throughout the years that Winter knew him, he was always starting something new with his trust fund money and failing his way through various startups and business ideas. It seemed like this time with art, Jae Kim finally found something that stuck.

Art was subjective, Winter knew that much, but she did have to give Jae some credit for his, previously unknown to her, painting skills. His art consisted of a lot of wild animals with extra heads or two sets of eyes, often accompanied by symbols of wealth like the lion sitting on a pile of cash, but they were still nice to look at, she supposed.