He is disappointed in her. He drags her away from her own mess, leaving a greasy trail. He picks her up and carries her into the bathroom and rests her in the bath and rinses her down then dries her. When he undressed her a couple of days ago it was new to him. He’d never undressed a woman before and it felt kind of, well, kind of nice. Kind of like how he always imagined it would be with Katie. When all this is over, he might look for more women to undress. Of course, dressing her is much harder. He can’t use a knife for that. He struggles with her, rolling her over the floor while tugging on her clothes, thinking this is pointless since Cooper will strip her down anyway, but doing it because stripping her down will be important to Cooper. It will be part of the ritual. As much as he enjoys the idea of undressing future women, he certainly doesn’t want to go through this process again. The dress is a little big for her, which makes it somewhat easier. His face is sore, and when he reaches up his finger comes away with a spot of blood from where she scratched him. He looks at the scratch in the mirror, then wipes away the blood. It’s not very long, only a few centimeters, but now that he knows it’s there it hurts.

“You hurt me,” he says, but she doesn’t respond. He’s tempted to try and remove the glue from her lips. He could wipe nail polish remover across them, but he’ll wait because Cooper will like her more this way. Her chest raises and falls steadily, a soft, raspy wheeze comes from her throat, the sound identical to the one the old fridge at the halfway house used to make.

He lifts her up and carries her to the basement door. She is much lighter than Cooper and he thinks even lighter than when he first brought her here so he doesn’t need the dolly. He knocks first on the basement door before opening it, thinking Cooper would like that more than just barging in. It’s a small simple sign of respect, one that was never afforded to him whenever the Twins locked him down here. The Twins were a pair of orderlies who used to work here, and for fun they would lock patients down here and make them hurt. The sun has moved to other parts of the house and not much light is getting downstairs, so he hooks the lamp under his fingers before heading down.

“She’s for you,” he says. He lays her on the floor, careful to keep her limbs from tangling beneath her, before turning on the lamp. Cooper is standing at the cell door looking at him, an expression on his face that Adrian has seen on other people before this, notably his own mother when he started soaking her in petrol yesterday morning.

“What . . .” Cooper says, but doesn’t finish.

Adrian hopes Cooper isn’t turned off by the dress. He’d have liked to have put her in something sexier, but all he had was a dress he took from his mother’s house. He took other things too that morning. Food, mostly. And money. “I found her in town,” he says. “Isn’t she perfect?”

Cooper’s face is pressed up against the glass. “Jesus, Adrian, Jesus, this is insane. Totally insane.”

“I found her on Monday night,” he says. “Isn’t she perfect?”

“I . . .” Cooper says, then nothing else.

“You’re lost for words,” Adrian says. “I know what that’s like. See, I told you I can take care of you. I took care of your house. I burned it down.”

“Oh Jesus, my house,” Cooper says. “And this girl. Adrian, Adrian . . .”

“I wanted to do something nice for you,” he says. “And I know you like women and I thought you’d like this woman and I used my own initiative. I want to help you, Cooper. I like helping my friends,” he adds, hoping Cooper believes he has other friends.

Cooper says nothing. Adrian finds the silence unsettling. He’s spent many days and nights down here in silence, and back then he got used to it. Now it hurts. “You said the very thing I liked about you the most is the one thing you can’t do locked up down here. But you were wrong, Cooper. See? I can bring them to you. As many as you need,” he says, hoping Cooper won’t want many, hoping that if Cooper does, taking girls like this one will only get easier.

“I . . . I don’t know what to say,” Cooper says. “Is she mine?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, okay. Good, that’s good,” Cooper says. “So . . . so I can do with her anything I want?”

“Of course,” Adrian says, smiling. He’s happy Cooper is getting the point. “Are you going to have sex with her?”

“Is that what I did with the others?”

“I think so.”

“Then yes, of course, I’d love to have sex with her. It’s just that, well . . . ah, it doesn’t matter.”

Adrian is confused. “What doesn’t matter?”

Cooper sighs. “I’m going to have to say no, Adrian. You’re going to have to take her back, or kill her yourself. I’m sorry.”

“Why?” he asks, his voice gaining in pitch.

“No reason. But I appreciate the gesture, I really do. If only . . . ah, nothing.”

“If only what? Please, just tell me,” he asks, desperate to know.

“This is stupid,” Cooper says. “It’s just that if I’m going to have sex with her, I can’t do it in front of anybody. I can’t have an audience. I’m going to need privacy.”

“Privacy?”

“See, I told you it was stupid, and now you probably hate me and think I’m being ungrateful and a bad friend.” Cooper turns away.

Adrian steps up to the door. “I don’t hate you,” he says, desperate for Cooper to believe him. I think I understand,” he says. “You don’t think you can . . .” he searches for the right word, and settles on perform. “You don’t think you can perform if I’m watching.”

“Exactly.”

“So if I don’t watch, you can sex her?”

“And kill her, if that’s what you want, Adrian.”

“Is it what you want?”

“Of course.”

“Then it’s what I want too,” Adrian says, smiling.

“There’s one more thing.”

“What?”

“Ah, now I feel really silly, and you’re going to say no.”

“Go ahead and ask,” Adrian says. His eyes are wide open and unblinking as he stares at Cooper, hanging on his every word. This is why he wanted Cooper here. For the stories. For the excitement. For his collection.

“I was thinking it would be cool if I had sex with her, and you were to help me kill her when I was done.”

“You want me to kill her?”

“Just help me. You’ve never killed before, right?”

“Right,” he says, but that’s not true.

“So, I’m thinking that as a favor to you for bringing her to me, and to make sure you’ll bring me more, I’d like you to join in. Just on the killing, though, not the other stuff.”

“I don’t know.”

“I really want to kill her, Adrian, I really do. I have a strong need growing inside of me. Also . . . there’s one more thing. I’m going to need a knife.”

“A knife?”

“Exactly! I appreciate it, Adrian, I really do,” Cooper says, and he claps his hands together and starts rubbing them. “See, sex isn’t the same unless you can do some cutting along the way. It doesn’t have to be a big knife, but it needs to be sharp. I’ll wait here while you get it.”

“I don’t know . . .”

“Trust me, Adrian, it’s going to be fantastic. And she’ll be the first of many. How long until she wakes up? What did you to do her?”

“I knocked her out,” he says. “I don’t know when she’ll wake up. Are you really going to kill her?”

“Of course.”

“How do I know you’re not just saying that so you can try to escape?”

“Where would I go? You’ve burned down my house. This is all I have now, I’ve accepted that, and I’m not going to sit in my cell brooding for the rest of my life. I’m going to make the best of it.”

Adrian realizes he’s made another mistake. Even if he believes Cooper, there’s no way of getting the woman into that cell without being vulnerable to attack. Why didn’t he think this through better? He’s learning, that’s why, and things will only be better next time. One of two things will happen—Cooper will hurt her, and then they can become best friends. Or Cooper will try to hurt him. There has to be another way. Has to be. His mother would know what to do. He’s starting to think he killed her too soon. He can hear her voice. “A blessing is only half a miracle.” He doesn’t need a miracle here, he only needs to be smart.