"Though shalt not kill," resonated within her heart.
“It was the one I would absolutely hold monsters accountable for. But how could I eliminate a monster with out killing it? How can I de-fang them?”
Then she came back to the same problem, both God’s and man’s laws encountered.
“If the ideas lacked an effective enforcement mechanism, there was no accountability for the misery they spread. If there were no repercussions, there were no real consequences. No rules, laws, or guide for living harmoniously, mattered. The threat of jail didn't work, if they could pay their way out of it. The threat of suffering in hell was only a deterrent if you really believed it would happen. Maybe it would be different in the afterlife, but I had to contend with problems in this world. This was where we felt the pain. This was where the suffering was undeniably real.”
“We needed a form of enforcement that couldn't be resisted, something unstoppable, something unwavering, and something that couldn't be challenged or corrupted. It couldn’t be influenced by money. It had to be something absolute.”
“The only thing I could think of was death. Unless I could invent something else, but what?”
She returned to her make up mirror. She stared deeply into her own eyes and took a deep breath.
"I think the Professor was wrong, one person had to become judge, jury, and executioner. We had them before. I could be like a marshal in the old west. It would work as long as the dispenser of justice was fair. I could become that force of justice and hold the monsters accountable for their sins. But how far could I go?”
She began to pace.
“Carson will keep coming back unless I can get rid of him. He had too many resources. I had to decapitate him from his power.”
Later, she collected dry wood from the shed and built a roaring bonfire. She stood in the glow as the flames warmed her. She liked to be close to it. She spread a thick blanket on the ground and removed all her clothes. The fire felt so good. She lay naked under the stars. Tiny glowing embers drifted up from the flames to merge with the stars. Betty brushed her nipples with her fingertips as she thought about her life.
"Nothing I learned as a kid turned out to be true. Good guys didn’t win and bad guys didn't go to jail. Nothing in the Citadel made sense."
"My life was the culmination of consequences from decisions made out of my ignorance. They all lead me to this moment. I remember my first night at Razzles. I was seventeen. I was so naive. One decision lead to the next, and to the next, until I became the woman I am here and now, five years later.”
"I had seen and done so much in a such a short time frame. The only residual innocence that remained in me was my hope that things would get better. The only line I hadn't crossed was killing another human being. I was still a murder virgin. I hoped to retain that virtue, but I didn’t know if that was possible.”
"I wasn’t afraid to make tough decisions. I just wanted to make sure I made the right ones."
“Should I kill Carson?"
“It seemed like it was the easiest solution. It wasn't like he didn’t deserve it; after all he killed me once. It only seemed fair that I return the favor.”
“I looked right into his eyes when he shot me. There was no mistaking it. He wanted me dead. There was no indication of hesitation, or guilt; both times he pulled the trigger. I couldn't have been his first murder. Someone's first kill couldn't be that easy, could it? Maybe after a few times it would get easy but, certainly not the first. There was no remorse in him. To him, everyone else was beneath him. We were a lower class of life to him. We were things to be punished or destroyed if we got it his way.”
"We sent people to the electric chair in this country when they became too dangerous to live among us. For our safety, they needed to be removed. I tried to put Carson in jail but it didn’t work. It seemed like anything short of killing him and he'd keep coming back. He had too much power, and he needed to be cut off from it.”
“Could I kill Carson?”
“Carson had destroyed the lives of thousands of people and he felt no remorse. He was a capable monster with excellent camouflage and we were his food. He fed on our pain. He was on the loose right now, plotting God only knows what… He needed to go.”
“Would I deliver the killing blow?”
"If I did kill him, was there really any difference between him and me? Maybe that's what it took. Maybe the enforcement had to be as harsh as the villains to be effective."
She stared up at the sky looking for another sign from God, or Zeus, or anyone who was listening. The warmth of the bonfire beside her caressed her naked body. She held herself and drifted off to sleep. Above her Mythological characters in the form of constellations marched across the heavens.
She dreamt about her first night at Razzles.
She couldn't find her friends from the hospital laundry. She sat alone in the dining room with hundreds of nameless faceless people with no color. She saw the handsome man in a tuxedo studying her as she ate her dessert. He wore a knowing smile. It made her weak. He swept her off her feet and flew her high above the city to an ornate room with a massive bed deserving of royalty.
He explained to her that this moment wasn't about love it was about business. He offered her a roll of money. And all she had to do was lie back on the silk sheets and say yes.
He stuffed the money into her purse.
She was repulsed by him but wanted him at the same time. She was commanded to act as if she liked it, but it wasn’t an act. She loved it. She felt alive, powerful. She wanted more. And with each yes, she got it. It was magical. He was so strong and handsome and powerful, like a king. She was fucking a king and she loved it!
His smooth scales slithered under her leg and caressed her.
She woke up suddenly.
It was the middle of the night and she was still laying outside next to the bonfire. Something was partially underneath her, and moving. A big black snake had curled up to her for warmth.
Betty panicked and jumped to her feet. She moved to a safe distance as the sleepy reptile slithered into the tall dead grass unharmed. She didn't know if it was poisonous or not but the situation was unsettling. Her father once told her the same thing happened to cowboys who slept on the open plains. She just thought he was telling tales and trying to keep her in the house at night. Her father warned her about sleeping with snakes. He said nothing good could come from it. She decided to sleep in the big black car for the rest of the night.
It may have been the safest place in the world.
Betty seemed somber when she requested time off from work at the hospital. She didn’t give much notice. The nurses and nuns she worked with were worried. When asked, Sister Hazel told the interested ladies about the odd conversation she had with the young nurse only one day before. At the time, she didn't think anything about it, but with this new insight, all wondered if the events were connected. Some of the older nurses who had seen soldiers from the great war told stories of men who seemed fine one day, then years later they would be struck down by melancholia. Traumatic memories would seize them without warning.
Betty was always quiet and kept to herself. She always seemed tired. They all knew Betty’s life story. She had endured much more bad luck in a short period than most people would over the course of a lifetime. Plus her mom was a little twitchy. The more they talked about it amongst themselves, the more their fears grew. One warned. "She might have done something drastic!"
They tried calling her several times, but the phone just rang and rang. Then using the address in her personal file, they visited her tiny apartment in Citadel City. They were shocked when the landlord told them she hadn't lived there for months. She had disappeared for the time being. All they could do was hope for the best and wait for her return. There was no one else close to her to contact. She was alone in the world.