Better off dead. (closed for Braschi)

WARNING: This SRP thread will feature rape, extreme BDSM, torture and pseudo (apparent but not actual) murder. It is a non-canon stab at the Dexter TV show. Read along at your own risk.


Twenty-one year old Agneta Schuster snapped shut her heavy human microbiology textbook. She pecked at her ancient laptop and then scowled as it flatly refused to do her bidding. Agneta turned her wrath on the cheap router in the corner of her bedsitting room. She had learned the hard way that kicking it was rarely the way forward. She had a long and boring essay on the nervous system to churn out before next Wednesday but half the time she couldn't get online to do proper research. Agneta toyed with the idea of walking to the huge library at Innesbruck Medical University but at this time on a Friday night, she just couldn't bear it. She picked up her mobile phone and called her room-mate Heidi.

"Where are you, darling?"

"Library." Heidi replied with utter disgust. "Internet keeps dying."

"I know. It's Friday and I cannot look at this essay any more. Either we're going out or I'm cremating it ceremoniously in a saucepan."

Heidi giggled. "If we're going out, we're going to Prometheus!"

"Then you're buying the damn drinks."

"Oh I will, until someone offers to buy them for me." Heidi replied mischievously. "But you actually have to wear something hot and I don't care how cold it is outside!"

"I only dress frumpy so you look good."

"No need... so no excuses! I'll be back in half an hour."

Agneta packed away her books and flipped on a hard rock/metal radio station. She retrieved their bottle of vodka from their snow crusted third floor windowsill, poured herself a large measure over ice and gyrated to Queens of the Stone Age's 'Smooth Sailing' while she decided what to wear.

Prometheus Keller was a dichotomy of a place, located on Hofgasse. At street level it was a cafe serving hot, cold and alcoholic drinks along with toasted sandwiches. The cafe often had open mic nights for music and poetry. In the cellar was Innesbruck's oldest bar and dance-floor. Hard rock and dance music played until 6am, when the cafe above re-opened and started serving breakfast. Prometheus was the cheap, grungy hub of the student scene. The place had a sting in the tail though. A cellar literally crammed with a couple of hundred dancing students reached temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius. Drunk students who staggered from there into the -10 Celsius conditions outside inadequately dressed could find themselves in serious trouble. Every year one or two students died of hypothermia on their way home. The local police tried to keep an eye on the place but the opening hours were so long and Prometheus so popular that a few kids inevitably slipped through the net. There was a new and incresingly popular phenomenon dubbed a 'gef-fick' ('gefahr-ficken' or 'dangerfucking') that involved ducking out of the club for a fast fuck in the adjacent alleyway or nearby snow covered scrubland that had to be finished up before the cold became utterly unbearable, thus forcing the amorous couple back inside.

Agneta had not been joking about Heidi buying the drinks. While Heidi's father did something obscenely well paid for Credit Suisse, Agneta was on a scholarship. Her own family were from Kitzbühel, where her parents ran a small bakery. Agneta's continued funding depended on good grades but it wasn't often she went out partying. Not having the money for much of a wardrobe, Agneta put on her trusty charity shop dress and completed the look with black hold ups and her battered black snowboots. She was only five feet tall but nothing would induce her to wear heels at this time of year. As Heidi clattered in through the door, Agneta started applying her make-up with heavily lined eyes and blood red lips.

Heidi settled on a shimmering silver dress and insisted on teaming it with silver platform shoes.

"Well I'm not fucking carrying you home again." Agneta observed acidly.

"Relax Aggie, we'll get a cab." Heidi cajoled.

The girls pulled on heavy coats and hats and punctuated the walk across town with a bracing shot of schnapps from Agneta's hip flask. The snows in December had their own layers of sedimentation. The first snows turned to slush and then refroze as treacherous black ice. Then heavier snows formed thick layers like blankets, compacted on the pavements by the pounding of pedestrian traffic. Atop all this lay the most recent snowfall, light, crisp and powdery. So long as the girls stuck to these powdery areas there was little chance of slipping but even so, Agneta was not about to trudge across town in heels. Heidi, determined to suffer for her art, clung to Agneta's arm, tottering along like she was already drunk and slowing them down. Finally, they made it to the club, checked their coats and huddled in the cafe at first, smoking cigarettes and sipping Tia Maria laced chocolatl until the cellar filled up with other students. Agneta was already tipsy as they clattered down the cellar steps and started dancing.

Predictably, within the hour Heidi was cosying up to some preppy guy and showing him her dance moves. While she loved Heidi dearly, Agneta always felt like an ugly peasant duckling beside the well polished glamour of Heidi's swan. There were guys showing interest in her but nobody who caught her eye. It always deeply irritated her when guys talked to her purely because they didn't have the stones to directly approach Heidi. Then Agneta would get politely ditched if Heidi displayed any interest. Heidi didn't give those boys the time of day either but it made Agneta wary and mistrustful. Agneta shook off one such duplicitous suitor, then stalked upstairs and out into the cold for a smoke. She could hardly hear anyone speak downstairs anyway and she needed a break from dancing.

Tomas Muller closed his eyes and let the water run over his face. There was something about the warm water striking his face that helped push his thoughts inward. It was a habit he developed when growing up, and had returned to it much more frequently of late. For once, he needed more self-inspection than the world needed him to inspect it.

Inspecting was what he was paid to do, and after just under ten years of it (and four years of University making him just shy of 32 years of age), he was getting really good at it. And that was part of the problem; he was getting too confident, both in his job and outside of it. In his job, that wasn't such a problem. At worse, he could be killed. But in his hobby? The consequences would be much worse.

The thought brought him back to that night a couple of months ago. Summer had completely faded into autumn, and the air had that ominous chill of an upcoming bitter winter. The men standing around under the floodlights kept their hands deep in the pockets of their uniforms and stamped their feet or wandered aimlessly trying to stave off the cold. Tomas felt extra warm inside; he was always prepared, always planned ahead. Always check the weather before going on duty.

"Guten Abend, Herr Inspekor," the shivering Sergeant greeted him on the scene.

There were two kinds of beat cops when it came to bodies. Those who couldn't help but gawk like children, and those who felt uneasy and couldn't look at all. Tomas preferred the latter; they didn't mess with the crime scene as much. The Sergeant, however, was too old and seen enough to not care anymore. "No ID, nothing in his pockets, spotted by a couple of joggers. They're over there," the Sergeant pointed towards one of the vans on the other side of the blue, white and red cordoning tape. Standard, anonymous victim; Tomas nodded along, almost bored. He would much have rathered the body be discovered in the morning. Then the Sergeant woke him up: "The body was dumped here at 19:48hrs from the back of a sedan."

"How do you know that?"

"There was a witness." Tomas' blood ran colder than the snow that would be falling in the very spot just a month later. How could he have been that stupid? But he kept his composure; his face wouldn't have registered anything more than the lucky surprise an inspector would feel in having some helpful if unexpected information. Inside, however, his mind was a turmoil. Checking for people around a drop is basic. That was a complete amateur mistake. An inspector half as good as he could crack this case.

The Sergeant nodded towards an Audi with POLIZEI stenciled in blue letters along the side. "Said he got a good look at him, too."

Scheisse.

Tomas kept his cool, despite a small portion in the back of his brain screaming to drop everything and run, he summoned all of his considerable knowledge and began to work on a plan. People got caught because they ran. Everything can be fixed. "Has he been interviewed?"

"Not yet. Waiting for the sketch artist. Dombrecht is on duty," the Sergeant added with a bit of scorn.

"Oh, he'll be rolling along any hour now," Tomas managed to joke, despite his nerves. But at least he had a plan now. He'd been lucky the older, fatter, and less willing to drive half way up a mountain in the middle of the night Dombrecht was on duty.

When the other police finished politely chuckling at his rather poor foray into humor, he excused himself to get to work. He made several trips back to his car, and made sure to pass by the cruiser where the witness sat. Tomas got a good look at him; a late-age farmer, probably had been resting in the barn and Tomas had completely missed him. If there hadn't been anyone around, he might have kicked himself for his stupidity. When Dombrecht finally did arrive, Tomas offered to help him carry his things. Such a nice young man, he was; the older artist lamented that the younger generation had no respect for their elders. The other officers should be more like Tomas.

But Inspector Muller wasn't there for the accolades. He spent the rest of the night on pins and needles; his plan was still based on a considerable amount of luck. He hated that. He was meticulous, organized, prepared. He hated not knowing what was going to happen.

It was near daybreak before a judge gave the order to move the body to the morgue, and the forensic team met with the interview team to build a case.

---

Most of the forensic minutiae went in one ear and out the other; Tomas already knew what happened, and he wasn't in the mood to feel amused by the mistakes other detectives made. He was waiting until the Chief Inspector started to hand out the composite image from the witness.

"Unfortunately," the CI was saying as he distributed print-outs. "The witness wasn't as reliable as we hoped. Apparently he got mixed up with seeing one of our own officers." The CI held up a picture that looked remarkably like Tomas. "Unless Muller has something he wants to say to us." There was a twinkle in his voice.

"I thought my nose was bigger," interjected Tomas, with concealed relief. As much as 70% of witnesses will describe one of the responding officers when doing a sketch instead of the actual perp. One of the quirks of human memory that constantly frustrated investigators, and Tomas was exploiting for the occasion. It helped that he had such an average face. Although, he had to realize that it was only luck that his ruse was working, and that didn't make him feel all that comfortable.

"Right, so we're basically looking for someone of average height, average build, short brown hair and about middle aged. That should make things easy," the CI went on and Tomas went back to not paying attention. He really oughtn't have gotten away with it; a less overworked force, a more zealous inspectorate and he'd be sitting in one of the police vans instead of describing cut marks from a knife.

After getting over the initial scare, he began to feel thankful for the wake-up call. He'd been becoming sloppy lately, and remembered other things he'd missed but had lucked out on not getting caught. He had to seriously review himself, and make sure he was on top of his game. He was well aware that too much success can go to a man's head, but often it takes a slip to realize just how high you've climbed.

He resolved to stop his hobby for a while, and return to studying. He would plan the next one as thoroughly and methodically as if it were his first time again. You are never so much of an expert that you can forget the basics.

It had been a couple of months since, and he still didn't feel like he'd spent enough time reviewing. But he was also keenly aware of how much he'd gotten used to the exhilaration of the hunt, and in his self-imposed abstinence, he was getting, well, antsy. Restless. Even irritable. He didn't like this person he was becoming; he felt so close to the edge of control. He knew he'd have to go back, soon. But he must prepare. There were still things to prepare.

He shut off the water abruptly and quickly dashed the water from his hair and body. It was getting late, but he didn't feel like sleeping. He felt like he needed to do something, but couldn't put his finger on what.

He stepped in the middle of the shower and began to towel himself off. He had a full-length mirror in his rather modest bathroom, and wiped off the condensation to look in it. Something of a narcissistic gesture, but it was more of a reflex, since his mind was still elsewhere.

He lived alone, since a having a partner would get in the way of his pleasurable activities. Or so he rationalized it; but realistically it was hard for him to feel anything about another person. Love was a concept he understood, but didn't feel. Not that he hadn't been with women; he enjoyed sex as much as any other man. But he had no interest beyond that.

His mind was going over the latest case while he toweled off his legs and groin. Absentmindedly he started rubbing the towel up and down his cock, and quickly got a stiffening response. A few seconds later he was fully erect and dragged his mind out of the case files to see himself in the mirror jerking off with a towel, alone in his apartment.

This would not do.

He hadn't been with a woman since he had his near-fatal miss. Maybe that's why he was so edgy. It was Friday, not too late in the evening. He wasn't one for impulses, but it was about time he had some fun. Maybe that would take some of the edge off his restlessness and he could get back to preparing.

Given the circumstances, he decided on something safe. He knew Prometheus Keller since his college days, and found himself in it once every few months or so. College girls were more likely to be up for something quick and stringless; and in his experience, the ones into hard rock always had an enjoyably open view on sex. And it was one place he let himself stand out a bit as a more mature man, instead of the immature college boys. Dance hookups were all about image and no substance. And he was a master at crafting an image for his own purpose.

He dressed himself in something respectably youthful and drove into the city. The roads were starting to get slippery in the cold, and less populated. As a police officer, he knew these were the most dangerous conditions to be on the road; people were not used to the coming wintery conditions, and the approaching weekend meant plenty of reckless tweens trying to show off behind the wheel. Somehow he felt it comforting - or was it liberating? Being away from the oppressive safety that society seemed to expect.

Another advantage of Prometheus is that college students didn't have as many cars, and it was easy to find a place near the entrance. A clear positive given the weather. He parked down a deserved alley that couples liked to occupy for amorous activities, and stalked towards the door. It was too early to find anyone vigorously exploring another's body, so he took notice when a girl came out of the door. People who were alone were vulnerable, and always got his attention; but in just a dress in this cold, she was extra vulnerable. He realized how long it'd been when he noticed her legs, naked and luring his eyes up towards the hem of her dress.

Coatless, her make up still in order, a couple beads of perspiration on her hairline, a flushed face. She must be taking a breather from the dancefloor, he concluded. From the look of her dress, maybe to drink something from a concealed flask and avoid the extra expensive drinks in the bar. Or maybe for a smoke. He caught himself hoping it was the later; he didn't smoke himself, but it was a great icebreaker, and he always carried a lighter and cigs just in case. Always prepared, always a couple of steps ahead. But, talking to her wouldn't exactly be according to the plan...

Agneta stamped from foot to foot as she rolled a cigarette with shaking fingers, unwittingly jiggling her arse and making the hem of her dress bounce around the bottom of her black thong clad buttocks as she did so. It had been too dark inside to see what she was doing and now she could barely control her hands. The pale skin between the tops of her thick black stockings and the hem of her dress was splotched with blue by the time she put the roll-up to her blood red lips. She was on what was termed 'the comedown' when the body goes into - if not shock then a state of mild but increasing surprise - when one experiences an instant 40 degree temperature drop. Blood rushed to her vital organs and left her fingers blue. She tried to light the cigarette and failed, the icy winds proving prohibitive and her half-numbed fingers not entirely up to the task.

"Hurrensohn!" She swore. All she wanted was to suck down this cigarette and get back inside.

A man strode into her field of vision and Agneta looked up, still trying vainly to kindle the lighter flame in her cupped hands.

He wasn't wearing a massive coat, so had clearly just exited a car. At a club full of young men who had yet to fill out, he seemed somewhat brutish with his tall height and the obvious muscular bulk beneath... overly preppy clothes for a hard-rock club and overly youthful in style for a man who was most decidedly in his thirties. He looked, in short, like he was trying too hard. Oh, there was always a contingent of dirty older men on the fringes of Prometheus but they were viewed as little more than paedophiles just about operating within the law - a standing joke. Girls would sometimes accept drinks from them, if they were determined to buy them but nobody took them seriously. Certainly, nobody but the most desperate, drunk or damaged went home with them. More often than not, the club security guys protected young women from themselves by running older men off when the girl was obviously incapacitated. older men who persistently and aggressively targeted incapacitated girls were barred but there always seemed to be more where they came from. It irked Agneta that Prometheus admitted them in the first place, since they obviously weren't there for the fucking ambience.

So it was unsurprising then that Agneta's expression shifted to one of mildly amused disdain as her gaze swept up and then down the newcomer. The way his eyes were glued to her legs was particularly pathetic.

Shame I'm not a different kind of girl. Agneta mused idly. I could make a fortune from fucking idiot men like that.

She had watched a documentary once about girls fucking their way through college. One stunning blonde had financed a whole doctorate that way. The interviewer had asked her how she felt about allowing men to exploit her like that and the girl had laughed.

"You still don't understand do you?" She replied. "I'm the one exploiting idiot men with credit cards. It's money for... nothing. They are nothing to me. They take nothing from me." The only problem she had was going back to a more modest income.

"Hey, have you got a light? One that works?" Agneta asked the newcomer, somewhat reluctantly. She huddled over the silently proffered Zippo, thanked him and then took a long drag on her cigarette. Agneta took a step away from him and towards the door, to indicate that she didn't plan on standing around flirting until she died from exposure. Polite and thankful but trying to convey a distinct lack of interest.

As he approached the girl, Tomas dragged his eyes up over her unremarkable charity dress and to her face. The look she gave him wasn't unexpected, but it irked him. He'd just caught himself hoping she'd talk to him. What the fuck? It was like he was 15 years old again, hoping to be noticed by girls, instead of taking charge of the situation. Maybe he'd been out of the game too long and was losing his touch. Wordlessly he pulled out the lighter and held it for her; despite his twisted brain, he was still Austrian and therefore indefatigably polite.

The girl had nice legs and and an eminently fuckable ass to be sure, but that wasn't Tomas' game. He wasn't a pickup artist trying to "catch" the hottest girl in the room; after all, when he gave himself a hand at home, as it were, he didn't use his best sock. The sense of desperation of boys trying to validate themselves with meaningless sex amused him. Which was why he was feeling irritable at having been interested in this one girl, and the the more he watched her while she lit up, the more irritable he was getting.

Realistically, Tomas wasn't there for the sex. Which was why he didn't pay for it in the way he paid for all the other commercially available pleasures. He saw buying sex as a fair transaction and therefore not humiliating enough. What he was after was something money couldn't buy: while all the boys orbited the most attractive girls, Tomas amused himself with the increasing willingness of girls to humiliate themselves out of a fear of going home alone. The desperate downing of hard liquor to try and numb the pain was well worth the money. Though he would prefer to see the pain without the comfort of alcohol, he had until now decided not to pursue that avenue since it would take time away from his hobby and ultimate true passion.

The last girl he'd brought home was months ago. She was quite overweight, and had spent most of the night alone in a corner. Tomas had watched her most of that time enjoying the look of dashed hopes on her face every time a guy moved towards her and the moved on. She was embarrassed about her body, so of course he made her strip with the lights on. She hadn't had much to drink in the bar, and begged for some more liquor fist. But Tomas was of course adamant that he had none. Then he took her to the bathroom and fucked her against the full-sized mirror, so she could look into her own bloodshot eyes while he took her. It was fun, in a way, but she went along with it too easy. In the end, he felt disappointed that there wasn't much fire in her; people always showed more spirit when their lives were on the line. That was so much more amusing.

Back in the freezing alley-way with the cold seeping through his light jacked, Tomas probably would have walked on from the girl, looking for an easier target. He wasn't really invested in the night's activities; his mind was elsewhere, still concerned about his close call. But that was giving some of his instincts an opportunity to come out and play, and he wasn't himself as much as he probably should have been. So when the girl took the first step away from him, the frustration he was feeling against himself for not keeping control lately suddenly shifted towards her. The look of disdain on her face, and the intent to get away did not help her at all; the more primitive part of his mind was awake, seeing her as prey that was running away and demanding he give chase.

If only she had stayed put, he might have ended up ignoring her. But he hadn't scratched his itch in so long, that playing with a broken thing wouldn't do for him. He needed to do the breaking himself.

"It's cold out, you should take my jacket," he said, shrugging his shoulders to remove it and taking a couple of steps towards the door, positioning himself. His meticulous mind hadn't registered what he was doing, or started to calculate the consequences...

Agneta was not remotely impressed with this little display of chivalry and when the man stepped quite deliberately between her and the door, alarm bells started ringing.

"I'm fine." She insisted bluntly, trying to move around him and actively dodging the proffered coat. "I'm going back inside now anyway."

If he had been planning to move aside, he didn't do it fast enough to reassure Agneta that his intentions were honourable. She was so short that his chest was at her shoulder height. Slightly panicked by the fact she could see no security men milling about in the doorway, Agneta jabbed her elbow out at just shy of a 90 degree angle and struck the man an unexpected blow to the soft tissue of his stomach. As predicted, the man doubled over and that moment was all Agneta needed to squeeze round him and get back inside.

"Schwanz!" Was the parting shot Agneta cast over her shoulder as she clattered back downstairs to the safety of the heaving club.

She toyed momentarily with the idea of alerting the bouncers to the idiot older man's presence. She knew that if she made a complaint they wouldn't let him get as far as the bottom of the stairs, just to avoid any potential for trouble. On the heels of that thought however came the decision that he had disturbed her evening enough already and reporting him would give him way too much significance. Heidi would want to know what had happened and... nothing had happened really. If either of them had cause for complaint it was probably her erstwhile assailant, who was no doubt rubbing his belly and cursing her.

Fuck him. Maybe next time he'll think about what he's fucking doing.

Agneta glanced across the dancefloor and saw Heidi still throwing shapes with her preppy suitor. She decided against joining them, instead throwing herself into the midst of the seething mosh pit that writhed in front of the DJ as the insistent beat of Rammstein's 'Ich Will' reverberated off the basement walls.


Agneta sang every word with the rest of the moshers, unperturbed by the sweaty, heaving mass of mostly male rock fans alternately tossing her into the midst of them, so they could gyrate around her and then by pure centrifugal force spitting her out onto the periphery once more as the track built towards its crescendo. Heidi had never approved of Agneta 'mosh diving.' as she called it, getting groped as her appearance was messed up but Agneta was feeling positively belligerent, having put that fuckwit upstairs in his place.

Tomas stared at the crushed white snow on the ground, bent over for quite a longer time than an elbow in the ribs deserved. He was trying to get back his composure, to wrench the maniacal grin off his face and stop himself from... well, it wasn't laughing. It wasn't chuckling or anything like that. It was, something, and it would attract attention.

He pulled himself together, shrugged his jacket back on and stood up. Damn, that felt good. People in this place were too damn polite; they all wore masks. It was so much fun to tear them off. Fancy that; little girl like that getting the drop on a trained police officer, sucker punching him. She was an animal; some sort of beast of her own. Probably she didn't know it, but he was definitely going to find out.

The cool methodic killer was gone. This was a new Tomas. She would have been better off meeting the psycho killer.

Tomas stalked through the bar and straight down to the basement. He nodded at the bouncers as he went in; his money was as good as anyone else's and older guys had a lot more money to spend. And if there is one thing bars and clubs like more than a full house, is a full house of people buying drinks. Silly girls thinking that bouncers were there to keep them safe; ha! They were there to break up fights so patrons would keep buying drinks.

The basement was hot, and the music loud. One of Rammstein's more "poppy" songs; but of course, people wanted to dance. He couldn't care less; or about any of the girls or boys in various states of drunken seduction and undress. For a second, he thought about slipping the bouncers or the barmen a few euros and getting some information on the girl like any detective would of a pusher. But that would attract attention; and he wasn't really acknowledging to himself yet that he didn't want anyone to suspect a connection. He thought about hanging out in the corner, waiting for some guy to take her out of the club. Then he would be the last person seen with her - but she wasn't attractive enough to ensure such a thing would happen. And he liked sure things.

No, there was a much better way, and much more satisfying given his mood. He circled around the walls. It was a small place, and even a small girl would be relatively easy to find. He wasn't all that surprised to see her in the middle of the mosh. She indeed was an animal. He couldn't help himself from grinning. Not at all related to a smile, of course. Eventually she would come out of the mosh, and the club was dark, with flashing lights and loud music. No one would hear, and no one would notice.

When the song reached the quieter bridge before the final chorus, he snagged an unattended drink. Something that reeked of cheap alcohol (although, "cheap" was a relative term in a club). People shuffled and moved to the beat around him, but they were ghosts in his mind. He would have rather they'd played Rammstein's Ich tu Dir Weh; the lyrics were much better.

The mosh circled around, and he watched her progress. A few seconds before the song was to end, he stepped right into her path, making sure to bump into her like so many other people were. He deliberately spilled the drink on her with one hand, while with he other and under the cover of her surprise and the darkness of the room, quickly jabbed two knuckles into her chest, a couple of inches below the bottom of her bust. It wasn't supposed hurt (much), but knock the breath out of her. If anyone had been watching, it wouldn't look anything different from them casually bumping and he catching her as she slipped.

He gripped her firmly, and came in close to be able to shout over the music. "Relax, you'll be able to breathe in a minute. You dropped your pocketbook outside, you should go get it." In the few seconds she tried to breathe, he relieved her of her wallet and held it hidden behind his arm as he slipped away in the darkness. The song ended, and he was gone among the press of people.

Of course she could go to one of the bouncers, but it didn't take a genius to figure out they would believe the well-dressed police officer who found a girl's wallet over a half-drunk and stinking of alcohol college tramp. Wouldn't the look on her face be priceless when he arrested her for public indecency. More importantly, he had her documents, and with that all he needed to know everything about her.

He yawned and waved at the bouncer as he took the stairs up to the bar, and there the street...

Agneta was dancing wildly by the time the song reached its crescendo. She wasn't here to snag a man (or at least that was what she told herself every time Heidi was swarmed on entering the club) she was here to dance and get a bit drunk. She wasn't drunk yet by any means and generally lacked the disposable income to get silly. Sometimes Heidi paid for things but Agneta was not the kind of person who would ask or expect and she certainly didn't form friendships based on reciprocity.

When she had found the room with Heidi she had confidently expected to loathe the seemingly vacuous débutante who no more needed an education and career than a fish needs a bicycle. Heidi had deliberately rented Angenta's room out to her for a low price but that was because she had a generous spirit and neither she or her father needed the money. While she could not afford to turn Heidi down, Agneta had burned for a while at the thought of being a charity case. Heidi never tried to make a 'project' of her though, lord it over her or exploit the fact she was doing Agneta a favour.


"You can't seriously want to give me the room for free." Agneta had snorted when Heidi had casually suggested as much. "I mean, I wouldn't mind cleaning and so on but... I don't know what kind of deal you want but I'm not going to help you cheat at this. Do you really want to be a doctor? Because shit doctors kill people."

Agneta even took a step towards the door. Surely Heidi would tell her to go to hell.

"Look Aggie-"

"Agneta."

"Agneta. I don't know how to say this so it doesn't sound condescending but... this money is a big deal to you. It's a big deal because you don't have any. It's not even your money, it's a scholarship grant. I don't need your money. My father has a property portfolio that nets him more per year than he earns at Credit Suisse."

Agneta shook her head in disbelief.

"It's not a boast, it's a fact. It's not my money, it's my father's. He bought this apartment just for my studies. I have an allowance. I don't need to work. I don't need your money, Agneta. Not at all. You do. So why would I take it?"

In the rarest of occurrences, Agneta was lost for words for a full five minutes.

"I've always wanted to be a doctor and I have the intelligence." Heidi told her. "I tweaked my Baccalaureate without informing my father, to make sure I would be accepted for university. I want to do something with my life, I mean God, my mother has done nothing with hers. Parties, fashion shows, charity dinners, eating at the 'right' restaurants with the 'right' people and making a career out of passive aggressive, petty sniping and gossiping. I would kill myself. My own father views me as an asset. He loves me like he loves his Lambourghini; something pretty that he can boast about. Something for others to covet. If we were Saudi-Arabian he would know my exact worth in fucking camels and would have sold me with a smile! I refused to go to finishing school and do a degree in deportment and simpering. No. I am here because I want to be here and I value that as much as you do."

Heidi was flushed with passion by the time she finished her speech, her manicured little fist clenched and her breath coming short. Unlike Agneta, she almost never swore.

"When I'm qualified I will vanish. I want to travel and work for Médecins Sans Frontières in Africa. I will earn my own money and make my own life and if I'm feeling really vindictive I'll marry a Kenyan farmer."

Agneta smiled at Heidi. "I can't take the room for nothing. I do have pride you know." she said eventually.

"So what is your pride worth?" Heidi countered.

"Oh more than I can afford, I'm sure." She smiled wryly.

They eventually agreed on half the going rate and Heidi insisted that would be all, no contributions to the bills. Finally they shook hands and against all conceivable odds, the girls became firm friends.


Agneta reeled as a man collided with her, slinging a warm, sticky cocktail that smelled of schnapps down her front. She gasped with the shock of it.

And then the breath flew straight out of her and immediately the man's hands were on her. The blow to her sternum was so unexpected that Agneta was in his arms before she even knew it had happened. She gasped like a landed fish but nothing was going into her stricken lungs. His grip on her was hard and controlled in a manner that suggested to her that this may not have been an accident. It was a fleeting instinct however and swiftly eclipsed by Agneta's tipsy vitriol. She flailed around to no good purpose as he yelled into her ear and she realised it was the arsehole from outside. Agneta tried to muster the strength to struggle.

".... You dropped your pocketbook outside, you should go get it." He told her.

Just as swiftly, he was gone and Agneta found herself kneeling. It was not a good place to be among the press of people but she was still recovering from the shock. A flailing hand smacked into her face and she felt her teeth tear into her bottom lip. The guy looked round, apologetic and gave her a hand up, whereupon she drifted shakily over to the wall in order to regroup.

"Schwanzkopf!" She snarled quietly through the first unlaboured breath she exhaled, spitting blood and saliva.

She looked down and could dimly see the wet fabric of her dress clinging to her tits and stomach. The highly localised pain in her sternum made her suddenly panic. Blood? Had he stabbed her? It all happened so fast. He could be a lunatic. Swift investigation reassured her otherwise, her hands moving slowly over the fabric that was sticking to her chest. Yuck. Just winded then.

He had her pocketbook, the same guy from before. She had jabbed him and he had returned the favour with style. This did not bode well. Maybe he hadn't meant to knock her? No, it was too calculated a strike. It had been deliberate. Was he trying to lure her out there so he could fuck her? What other motive could he have? Did he seriously think he could get away with that?

She scanned the club for Heidi but Agneta was too short and the club too busy. People were starting to look at her, standing there with drink down her and a split lip like she was some kind of brawling delinquent. If a bouncer saw her he would probably turf her out. Time to get her coat.

But he was out there.

She made her way towards the coatcheck desk and then realised the ticket was in her fucking pocketbook.

Scheisse.

There was a long queue and there was no saying whether she would be able to get her coat without a ticket. The girl on the desk looked spectacularly bored. Again she scanned the club for Heidi but couldn't see her. Heidi had a way with service staff that just left Agneta completely in awe. It was like she was Princess Diana or something. She eyed the stairs, her gaze travelling up to the top. Maybe she should just get her pocketbook off of this bastard. He couldn't think he was going to get away with attacking her right outside. The place must have cameras or something and there were the doormen. Agneta rolled a cigarette, squared her shoulders and marched up the stairs. A doorman raised a quizzical eyebrow at her and Agneta shrugged, trying to convey that she'd been unfortunate but wasn't a violent drunk.

And so she emerged into the freezing elements with her damp dress, split lip and determined expression. It had started snowing again, impairing visibility. She got a light from someone standing nearby and squinted into the darkness. Where the fuck had the bastard gone?

When Tomas got into the open air, he walked quickly to his car; he remembered it wasn't parked too far away that he couldn't see the entrance. And there was no reason to be standing around in the cold, not with what he was wearing. The snow obscured his vision a bit, but that also meant people couldn't see him as well, either. He liked it like that; so many people wanted to be part of the center of attention. He just wanted to slip by unnoticed.

He flicked on the overhead light and scanned the girl's documents. Name, address, ID number. All useful research tools. Ooo, and a student card. A Med student; how very interesting. You had to have quite a brain to put up with the grueling pace of medical school, and the idea rather excited him. The challenge of bringing down a smarter prey. He quickly committed her stats to memory before putting everything back in it's place, and then waited.

Normally, girls don't go out to a club alone. He was fully expecting her to come out of the club dragging along another scared friend. It made him think, though; girls tended to be more skittish, and you'd think he would prefer them. But most of his hobby revolved around men. Though he didn't get that kind of pleasure from his work; it was more like an itch, really. Or a thirst. He hadn't had a drink in months, and was feeling quite parched.

He'd been hasty before; maybe that's why he'd screwed up. Hadn't planned properly, hadn't scouted out the drop spot thoroughly. The hunt was fun, but he found the cleanup and leaving the bodies boring. Maybe he should just dump them all down a well; but that would mean if they ever were discovered, there would be a much better chance of finding out who he was. No; it was better they were discovered in a controlled manner.

Though even the last one had been boring; like drinking a glass of water when you weren't thirsty. It might have sounded good to say that he rushed the job, because the man was already planning his next kidnapping. But the reality was, something was just... off. Tomas almost felt like he was going through the motions just to get it out of the way. And that wasn't like him. Even the horror on the man's face, when Tomas showed the pictures of the little girls he'd abused, and was convinced of the certain he he would die, just didn't inspire Tomas.

He was wondering if it wasn't a matter of not being thirsty, and that he was instead pining for a different drought.

The girl coming out of the bar door broke him out of his reverie. He hadn't brought any of his tools; but she wasn't all that big, and he was a trained police officer. He wasn't worried. He was, however, surprised when she lingered at the door showing all the signs of being alone. He was suddenly aware of his heart beating slightly faster; he was feeling reckless - he knew that feeling, for sure - but he didn't understand why.

Sure, he had the same urges as men, when it came to women. But they weren't anything to get his heart racing. If it weren't for the desperate humiliation of a girl afraid of going home alone one too many times, he would find the whole thing boring. He certainly found this girl thoroughly unremarkable. Maybe there was a bit of his inner monster he hadn't fully explored, or let out.

He quietly pushed open the car door, and stepped out of the warmth of the vehicle. Half of him was saying to just leave and letter her suffer in the snow for a while, before finding her at a place of his own convenience. But he was also suddenly very thirsty, and the curiosity of what door he'd just opened in his head drove his footsteps towards the girl.

He stopped, just far enough away from the door so anyone loitering wouldn't really get a good look at him, and shrugged off his jacked.

"Let's try this again," he said to the girl. "It's cold you, you should take my jacket." He had her pocketbook; maybe she'd understand that he wasn't being chivalrous this time.

Again with the fucking jacket. What the hell was wrong with this guy? Perhaps he was a special breed of socially inept retard. Aspergers maybe... definitely on the spectrum somewhere. Agneta barely bit down on the impulse to roll her eyes at him. She took a long pull on her cigarette, attempting to keep the shivers in her jaw at bay. With a supreme effort of will, she addressed him calmly and politely, ignoring the proffered coat.

"I want my pocketbook please. It has the ticket for my coat. I don't need yours."

He did not immediately move or respond. Agneta changed tack.

"I need the student card too. I can't get back on campus without it. Please, just give me my things."

She took a final drag on the cigarette and tossed it into the blizzard.

Tomas' world was spinning out of control. He tried to grab on to something, but the wall at his back was smooth, and the other four boys just shoved him around harder. His schoolbooks were a mess around their feet; one of the boys was still shaking his satchel upside down to see if he could do any more damage. Tomas' hair was mussed, his shit messed, but they didn't hit him. One tugged on his hair to get his attention.

"Nazi pig!" he shouted at Tomas to the glee of his fellow bullies. "Freak!" admonished another. "No wonder you're such a sick weirdo," said the leader, before spitting in Tomas' face and shoving him hard enough the would fall down.

Tomas was aware of the irony of a bunch of blonde-haired boys bullying a kid for being a Nazi. But as his knees and palms hit the floor, he didn't find it amusing. A normal person would probably be ashamed of having a grandfather who was on trial for being a prison camp guard. But Tomas had never met is grandfather; in fact, he hardly knew his mother. There was no association.

The bullies seemed satisfied when he hit the floor, and decided to move on, chuckling to themselves and feeling satisfied they'd done something to improve the world. Tomas wiped the spit from his face with his sleeve. He realized a normal kid would feel ashamed, angry... something. But he felt just... unreal. The hard, cold floor under his hands felt comforting in a way; it was familiar and wouldn't turn on him without warning.

No one helped him put his bag back together; no one would be associated with the child of a social pariah. He didn't care; there was something wrong with him, and he knew that long before some reporter had uncovered his mother's father hiding someplace in Brazil. He looked at his hands, and they were strangely clean. He felt relieved; the world stopped spinning and he was able to stand up.

He needed to control it; that much he knew. He wasn't scared of letting it out, of seeing his hands covered in blood. It was comforting, really; everything seemed to be in it's place then. The world around him felt unreal, otherwise; he didn't fit in. But he had to fit in, because that was just reality. In a way, he felt betrayed by his mother's secret; he couldn't control it coming out, couldn't control how the world pressed in on him in a response. He felt the control slipping from him, and his hands started to itch for blood. To make things right. But that wasn't how the world worked; and he must regain control.

-------

The snow swirled around him, melting on his exposed hand, and settling on his hair and shoulders. The biting cold was a bit of relief to him; it reminded him he was there, and alive. But that just made the snowflakes seem real, stationary, and the world swirling around them. Around him. It'd been so long since he'd satisfied his urges, and the world was getting out of hand again. He shouldn't have waited so long.

Somewhere in the back of his mind there was a silent voice screaming, "she's innocent!" But was she? If she was so innocent, why did he have such a strong urge to set the world right? Why was she constantly provoking him, destroying the neat order the world was supposed to fit in? "She's innocent!" the voice screamed again a little more muffled, but he was more focused on getting the snowflakes to move and the world to stand still.

"Please, just give me my things," the girl said.

"You're such a selfish girl, aren't you?" he said. "All you care about is what you want. Didn't your mum teach you that being selfish is wrong? Or was she just a drunk like you? I've only been courteous to you all evening, and you've been nothing but rude." He shook the jacket at in his hand, the accumulated snowflakes spilling off. "I think an apology is in order."

He glanced at the door to the bar, and noticed the faces of those outside were obscured by the falling snow; no one would recognize him. The world suddenly shifted, and it was all he could do to keep his right hand from balling into a fist.

His attention shifted back to the girl. He could make this right. He had to. The voice at the back of his mind was completely muffled, and he tried to crank a smile on to his face.

Agneta hit the hall at a trot as her class ended and hurried to the library. She was accustomed now to scurrying from one supervised space to another. She would stay there with her nose in a book until lunchtime was nearly over and then go purchase some food when the cafeteria was almost empty. In the library she nodded a hello to Jiao, whose parents ran the noodle house opposite Bäckerei Schuster. Away from school they were good friends who often studied together. On campus however, they didn't really hang out. Jiao had swiftly tired of Agneta's kamikaze response to bullying and while Agneta's own mother would take her side and say she was just defending herself, Jiao's folks would be mortified enough to ground her for a week with no TV.

Once she arrived at high school Agneta realised very quickly that she was catnip to bullies. She was the perfect combination of studious, poor and petite but it was her attitude that sealed her fate. She would not be cowed or forced to beg for mercy. She went down swinging to her last breath, physically and verbally. It was simply not in her nature to just hand over her lunch money or concede that her mother was a whore. Sure, her mother's style was a little dated and trashy but her parents ran a bakery, not a brothel. When they opened the place nearly 20 years ago, the area had been cheap but thriving and desirable. As time went on however, the area went downhill around them, so much so that they weren't charging a whole lot more for their goods now than they did when the doors first opened. They scraped by and these days deeply resented the effort it took them to do so. Agneta worked there on Saturdays. It gave her a little extra money and kept her safe from the worst of the neighbour kids. On Sundays - like everything else in Austria except the hypermarkets - it was closed. Agneta could often earn herself a little extra by cleaning or servicing equipment though. When she first realised what utter misery high school was going to be, Agneta had opened her first bank account and started squirrelling cash into it. Education meant money and freedom. It meant having options other than inheriting her parents' ailing business. It meant college. Not regular college but definitely night school.

Nobody had been more astonished than Agneta when she was offered a scholarship to study medicine. She was so used to keeping her head down with her nose in a book that she expected to go unnoticed by everyone, not just the other kids. When her biology teacher had told her about it Agneta had stared up at him with such utter incredulity that he began to think he had misjudged her terribly and that she didn't want to go to college at all - let alone to study medicine.

"I can't believe you have done this Sir, I don't know what to say." Agneta had stammered. "But I cannot accept it. I will have nothing to live on and Innsbruck is an expensive place to live. Perhaps if I could take a gap year and get some money together?" Working for someone other than her parents, who paid her a token pittance.

"Nein, mein kind, you don't understand." He said gently. "This is a full scholarship. There will be a maintenance grant as well as tuition. I think your parents will be comfortably below the income threshold. You'll still need to work part time but it will cover your accommodation and books at least."

Agneta swayed very slightly, her lips parted in an 'o' of utter astonishment, unable to form a coherent response. Finally she got her mouth to obey her and a lucid thought in her head.

"For a whole medical degree?" she gasped quietly.

"For a whole medical degree - assuming you remain in the top 30% of your class and attend 85% of the lectures and hospital placements. There are a few other stipulations but those are the most important."

That day Agneta had walked around in a daze of absolute happiness. When she got picked up and dumped in a locker she was still smiling like an utter retard. Nobody could have beaten the grin off of her face that day. Escaping Kitzbuhel and her rep there had been huge for Agneta and as her friendship with Heidi had blossomed, so too had her confidence.


She was not therefore prepared to have it threatened by 'Mantel Arschloch,' as she had mentally christened her attacker. His face twisted into every sneer that had been directed at her as a kid.

"You're such a selfish girl, aren't you?" he said. "All you care about is what you want. Didn't your mum teach you that being selfish is wrong? Or was she just a drunk like you? I've only been courteous to you all evening, and you've been nothing but rude." He shook the jacket at in his hand, the accumulated snowflakes spilling off. "I think an apology is in order."

Agneta's incredulity increased as the man went on. What a weapons grade 'eichel rute' he was.

She resisted the urge to glance back and confirm how far she was from the building. The snow affected visibility and as usual, Agneta wasn't about to utter an apology. De-escalation was for pussies as far as she was concerned. If nobody ever challenged asshole men they stopped realising when they were being sexist, condescending, predatory or chauvinist bastards. She stood four-square and looked him in the eye.

Christ. This lunatic had to be on something. Agneta's blood ran as cold as the snow swirling around her. She hesitated.

His eyes were the changeable blue-grey of a stormy sky and what concerned her was his pupils. They like pinpricks, not nearly dilated enough for someone stood in a moonlit blizzard. Given that he was older and more affluent, her first guess had to be cocaine. It would certainly explain his aggressiveness and apparent lack of rationality. Agneta wasn't particularly drunk and the cold was rapidly sobering her up.

Could she run? Was she too cold for that now?

Scheisse.

Instead of the stinging riposte she had been tempted to yell at him, Agneta instead spoke slowly and calmly, in a placatory tone.

"You tried to stop me going back into the club, which scared me and caused me to elbow you so I could get inside. You threw a drink on me, then you hit me. You stole my pocketbook and you caused me to get smacked in the mouth by a dancer while I was trying to get back to my feet. Now you want an apology? You do not deserve an apology because you have not been courteous. You have been violent and stupid. Have the pocketbook, I don't care any more. I just want you to leave me alone. My friend will be wondering where I am. I want to go back inside to my friend but first I need you to get in your car and leave please. If you are courteous and you do not want to scare or distress me, this is what you can do. Otherwise I'm finding the nearest bouncer and getting you picked up for assault. You have assaulted me."

She let the threat sink in for a moment.

"This is not your scene, ok? Go home please."

She really hoped he was capable of figuring out that his best option was to leave. Agneta kept her eyes on him as she took one step backwards towards the club. She had already decided that whatever this guy did now she was going to report him. She had his licenceplate number memorised. What fucking planet did he think he lived on anyway? You didn't get to assault women and then go your merry way believing yourself 'courteous.' Lunatic fucking cokehead. What was he even doing here?