The bottle hit the wall first.
Akira heard the glass shatter before he felt his father's hand on his collar. Seven years old, and he'd already learned to predict the sequence. The yelling came next, slurred words about money and waste and an ungrateful mouth to feed. Then the grip, fingers digging into his shoulder hard enough to bruise.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you."
Akira kept his eyes on the floor. Brown carpet, stained near the baseboards. Three cigarette burns in a triangle pattern. He'd counted them yesterday while his father ranted about the electric bill.
The first hit struck his ribs, and the air left his lungs. The second caught his ear, and the ringing started. His father smelled like cheap vodka and sweat.
"Your mother," his father said, breathing hard, "died because of you. You know that?"
Akira knew. His father told him every time he drank. The drive-by happened on a Tuesday. His mother had been walking him home from school. The bullets weren't meant for her, but they hit her anyway.
His father let go. Akira fell against the couch and heard footsteps move toward the kitchen with a cabinet opening. Ah, he must have gotten another bottle.
Akira stared at the ceiling. Water damage spread across the corner in brown rings. He started counting them until the pain in his ribs dulled to a constant throb and waited for his father to pass out.
Three hours later, when the snoring started, Akira got up. He moved through the apartment without sound. In the bathroom mirror, his reflection showed a split lip and a bruise forming under his left eye. He touched it once, and his skin felt hot.
He didn't cry, as crying made his father angrier.
Instead, Akira went to his room and opened his notebook. Inside, he'd been drawing maps of the apartment building of every exit and window. He also added a note in the margin: Father passes out faster with vodka than beer.
Akira closed the notebook and lay down on his mattress. The springs poked through the thin padding, but he'd learned which positions avoided the worst of them. He stared at the ceiling and thought about his mother's face. The memory was getting harder to hold. Soon, it would disappear completely.
He didn't sleep that night and listened to his father snore and planned.
------------------------------------
The woman's name was Crystal.
Akira knew this because she'd told him three times at the club, each time louder than the last over the music. She had blonde hair, dark roots showing, and a butterfly tattoo on her left shoulder blade. She smelled like vanilla perfume and cigarettes.
Now she lay in his bed, sheets tangled around her waist, eyes open and empty.
Akira sat in the chair by the window. Early morning light coming through the blinds. He'd been watching her for twenty minutes, studying the stillness. Her chest didn't move, and her lips had turned blue at the edges.
The syringe sat on the nightstand empty. He'd told her it was heroin, cut clean, safer than street stuff. She'd believed him; people always believed him when he used the right tone with the right words and the right smile.
The dose had been triple what she'd expected. Her body had stopped fighting after two minutes.
Akira stood and walked to the bed. He checked her pulse out of habit, and it was nothing. He looked at her face, the way her expression had frozen mid-gasp, and felt the same emptiness he always felt.
Crystal had no family. She'd mentioned that between drinks, laughing about how freeing it felt to have no one checking on her. She worked cash jobs at the strip club.
Akira had chosen her for those reasons.
He began the cleanup. Gloves first, then plastic sheeting, already prepared under the mattress, then wrapping the body in layers, and sealing the edges with duct tape.
The woman had been number eleven or twelve. He'd stopped counting after ten. The number didn't change the process.
By the time the sun fully rose, the body was in his trunk, he stripped the bed and put the sheets in a garbage bag, ready for the dumpster three miles away. The room smelled like bleach.
Akira showered and dressed in clean clothes. He ate toast and drank coffee while standing at his kitchen counter, while the news on his tv talk about traffic delays and weather patterns.
His phone buzzed, and it was a text from work asking if he'd be in today. He replied yes and set the phone down.
He dumped the body that night, in a section of woods he'd scouted two weeks prior. By the time anyone found the remains, if they ever did, the evidence would be gone.
Akira drove home and parked in his usual spot, and went inside. He locked the door behind him and checked the deadbolt twice.
Then he sat in his chair by the window and stared at nothing until morning.
------------------------------------
His mistake had been small.
Akira replayed it in his mind as he sat in the parking garage with his engine off and hands steady on the steering wheel. He'd varied his patterns, changed disposal sites, and rotated hunting grounds across three counties. Twelve victims over four years, and the police had nothing connecting them.
But Crystal had a sister.
He'd checked her social media, her work history, and her apartment lease. Everything had indicated she was alone. The sister lived in another state, hadn't spoken to Crystal in six years, according to the posts he'd found.
Except the sister had filed a missing person report anyway, and the detective assigned to the case had looked deeper than the others and found the coworkers who remembered a man matching Akira's description and crystal drinks, which led to them finding security footage
The photo had been on the news two days ago. A person of interest in the disappearance of Crystal Morrison.
Akira had prepared for this scenario; he'd been planning to leave the city within forty-eight hours.
Then the detective had shown up at his apartment. Not with a warrant, but a courtesy visit, she'd called it, she asked questions about his whereabouts on specific dates, showed him Crystal's photo, and watched his reactions.
Akira had given her nothing, but he'd seen the look in her eyes. The way she'd glanced at his hands and at the way he stood between her and the hallway leading to his bedroom.
She knew.
So Akira had thanked her for her time, closed the door and waited thirty seconds, then grabbed his go-bag and left through the back stairwell.
That was six hours ago.
Now he sat in a stolen car in a garage three miles from the border. The fake ID was in his pocket and the cash was in the duffel bag on the passenger seat. One more hour until the shift change at the checkpoint, when traffic would be heaviest.
His phone buzzed and it was a unknow number, he stared at it before he picked it up.
"Akira Fudo?" It was the detective.
He quickly hung up.
The phone buzzed again, It was text message. We have your apartment surrounded. There's still a way out of this that doesn't end badly.
He started the engine, but headlights flooded the rearview mirror. It was two police cruisers blocking the exit ramp, and officers started stepping out, hands on their weapons.
Akira looked at the gun in his lap. A Glock 19. He'd bought it two years ago for exactly this scenario.
The officers were shouting Hands up and exit the vehicle.
He picked up the gun, and time slowed.
He could count the officers, four of them, two with rifles, and all of them behind cover. There was no clear shot or path to escape.
Akira raised the gun anyway.
The first shot came from his left. It hit the window, spiderwebbing the glass. He turned and fired twice, but missed. The second volley came from the right. Three shots. The first hit his shoulder, pushing him against the door. The second caught his side, and then the third hit his chest. Akira slumped forward. Blood soaked through his shirt, spreading. His breathing came shallow. Each inhale sent fire through his ribs. He could hear boots on concrete and some voices, with someone calling for an ambulance.
His vision dimmed, and the garage lights blurred into streaks.