Mr. Voss stood in the doorway of my room, his shadow stretching across the floorboards like a stain. This is how it ends, I thought as I slowly slid my hand under my pillow and felt the cool steel blade of a knife.

  I could smell him from where I lay. He smelled like he always did—cigarettes and sour beer. The floorboards creaked underneath his steel-toed boots.

  “Rent’s late,” he said, kicking the door frame. I pretended to wake from a deep sleep, “Mr. Voss?” I asked innocently. My grip tightened around the hilt of my knife.

  “Rent’s late.” He repeated the words as if to say, “You know what that means.”

  Fucking try it, I thought to myself pressing back the overwhelming urge to scream it at the top of my lungs.

  “I’ll get it,” I lied. My voice came out weak and strained as if I was on the verge of crying. I hated how small I sounded.

  “You said that last week.” He took another step, and I heard his belt buckle pop open as he slid his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. I wasn’t sorry. Not in the slightest, but it was the only currency I had left.

  He let out a wet smoker’s laugh. “Sorry, don’t pay bills.” His eyes crawled over me, lingering on my feet sticking out the bottom of my blanket. I felt sick and pulled my knees up, hiding my exposed skin.

  The room shrunk as Mr. Voss walked towards me, and nearly fell forward as he turned and dropped his drunk ass on the edge of the bed.

  “Sophie, Sophie- it’s okay. We’ll work it out, won’t we?” He hiccuped and let out a belch as he bent forward to unlace his work boots.

  “Mr. Voss, I don’t—“

  My drunk landlord interrupted me, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  He was right. My skin crawled as I tried to push the memory of it back down. I bit the inside of my cheeks and tasted blood. I could feel myself shaking, fighting the urge to brandish the knife I’d been sleeping with all week.

  Not until there’s no other choice Sophie, I thought to myself. Not until theres no other choice in the world but to defend yourself.

  But there was another voice inside my mind as well. Still me, but calm and decided. Make the hairy fucking pigman bleed, it whispered.

  Do it.

  Do it.

  Do it.

  “Stop,” I said louder this time, as he kicked his boots off and started to pull his shirt up and over his sweaty bald head.

  “Or what?” He threw his t-shirt into the dark corner of my room and stood pulling the covers back, eyeing my bare legs. The kitchen light dimly backlit him, hiding his leering smile.

  Not until there’s no other choice, Sophie.

  "Why let him hurt you?" The whisper returned louder now. "Stick the pig over and over. Twist the blade. Make him bleed."

  He reached down, and I could feel his rough, calloused fingers gently touching the deep white scar on my thigh. I’d gotten the scar when I was fourteen— my foster brother had shoved me through a second-story glass window.

  I would sooner break my femur, again, than ever feel his greasy fingers on my skin again.

  “Poor girl,” said Mr. Voss, “a girl like you deserves to feel good.”

  The overweight man leaned down, and I could feel his hot breath on my neck. Mr. Voss raked his fingers through my loose hair, curling it around his finger before letting it fall.

  “You smell like baby powder,” he wheezed the words, as he ran his hand from my neck, down my collar bone to my chest where he began to grope me.

  “Do it,” said the dark whisper in my mind. "Just run the blade across his throat."

  I had no other choice.

  Before I knew it, I had already slashed the shining tip of the blade across his throat. My closed fist pounded the mattress beside me— the tip of the blade pointing to the ceiling.

  “What the—“ I assumed he was trying to ask what the fuck had just happened, but the words got lost in the frothy blood oozing from the gash across his throat.

  He clutched at his throat, trying to hold the wound shut. By the lopsided light in my room I could only see half of his face, and I stared him dead in that one bulging eye.

  “His sides are fat and soft. Stick him there, Make the hairy hog drag his guts as he runs for help,” the dark companion's words slipped past my own lips now.

  I brought the knife low and plunged it with all my force into his love handle until I felt his warm blood pour over the hilt and over my knuckles. I twisted the knife back and forth.

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  I could feel the blade cutting, plucking at organs and entrails, and grinding against the top of his hip bone. Mr. Voss began thrashing about on top of me. I tried to pull myself from underneath him. I tried to push him off, but I was stuck.

  Mr. Voss was panicking. As he tried to jump off the bed, he struck me with an elbow just above my right eye, and I saw stars. The overweight man fell to the floor, banging his knees and elbows on the hardwood floor.

  I shook away the daze Mr. Voss’s accidental flying elbow had put me in, and watched in amazement as he continued to bleed. It was too much blood. More blood then I thought the human body could hold.

  I thought about my neighbours in the apartment unit below me. Were they staring up in horror, phone in hand dialling 911 and watching as blood bloomed and softened the cheap popcorn ceiling?

  I thought about leaving then, but first I had to see Mr. Voss stop moving. I needed to watch as his limbs gave their final twitch. I needed to hear the final rattling breath leave his lungs before I knew I would be free of Mr. Voss.

  I sat up on my knees, shocked and dumb struck, as I watched Mr. Voss slowly begin to struggle to move. His head looked heavy, as if it were tied to the ground as he struggled to push himself up on the floorboards.

  When Mr. Voss finally stopped moving, he was covered in gore. It was a mess of red, and the edges of the smeared pool had already begun to dry.

  The room was finally silent. I stepped off the end of my bed, avoiding the blood as best I could. I opened up the dresser and pulled out a pair of pants, putting them on. I had no idea where I was going, but I needed to leave.

  My brain struggled to pull together the strings of what I’d done. I tiptoed mindlessly through the blood and pulled a pair of car keys from Mr. Voss’s pocket.

  Everything felt like it was moving at hyper speed in slow motion—the world moved around me blurred, like frozen trails of light, while I stood motionless. Was I breathing still? I couldn’t tell when the last time I’d taken a breath was.

  The hallway of the quadraplex dump I lived in, the one that Mr. Voss owned (past tense), was a tableau of shitty lighting and cigarette stained walls that were once white.

  As I burst through the front door of my building, rain needled my face. The storm had turned the world into a watercolor nightmare—streetlights smeared in halos of gold, and puddles shimmered like oil spills.

  Move. Move. Move.

  I hit unlock on the key to Mr.Voss’s car and the headlights of an Audi A6 flashed at me. I could hear someone screaming in the quadraplex and knew my crime had been uncovered.

  My sneakers screeched on wet asphalt, as my limbs came alive with adrenaline. I ran to the driver side door and yanked it open. I jumped into the driver’s seat, and looked for a keyhole.

  Where the fuck was the keyhole? The car interior was so clean it made my skin crawl. It was not what I had expected from the odorous slum lord I knew.

  I stupidly looked around until I noticed a button that had the word, “Start” printed on it. I didn’t know they had cars with buttons. The last time I drove was a provincially mandated course I'd taken while in foster car. I love the idea of driving, the freedom of it, but I'd always been too poor to purchase my own.

  The vehicle was almost silent as it came alive, the engine gave a muted roar of life, and I threw it into gear, as I reversed out of the crumbling parking lot.

  I tore down the side streets of Vancouver, trying as best I could to get to the highway as fast as I could. Slow down, I thought to myself. You’ll only draw attention to yourself.

  I slowed the car to fifty kilometres an hour, hoping that was the speed limit, and made my way through the suburban outskirts of the city one red light at a time.

  The first turn off signs for the highway were just ahead of me, and I knew I had no plan other then to get as far away from here as possible. I was deep in my panicked thoughts when I heard a sound.

  The radio was off, and the windshield wipers moved silently.

  My eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.

  A Spider-man blanket lay crumpled in the backseat.

  “Shit,” I said, praying to God I was wrong, but I knew already that I wasn’t. The blanket twitched, and my heart dropped into my stomach.

  “H-hello?”

  The voice was small and terrified.

  A child’s voice.