CHAPTER 2: THE FIRST STROKE
The lecture hall was hot and smelled like stale hoodies. George sat in the back row, watching the professor's mouth move while the headache behind his eyes ticked like a clock.
*Three inches.* It was all he could think about. He'd messed up the spacing on the left side of the mural. He'd been so worried about the security light flickering down the street that he'd rushed the curve of the torso. Now, the memory of that lopsided line made his skin crawl. It was a failure.
"Guy, stop staring at the board and just write the answers down for me," Chris whispered, sliding his notebook an inch toward George's elbow. "Seriously. You didn't even take notes last week and you still cleared the quiz. Give some of that brain to the needy."
George didn't turn his head. He just watched a fly crawl across a coffee stain on the desk.
"I'm fine, Chris. Just a headache."
"Then just drink water, and use that big head to solve Question 4," Chris muttered, leaning back and hiding his phone under the desk. "I'm one fail away from my old man cutting my allowance. You have to carry me this semester, abeg."
George didn't answer. He looked at his knuckles. The skin was tight and shiny from the bleach he'd used to scrub himself raw. He didn't care about the quiz. He was wondering if the police were smart enough to see the flaw, or if they were just happy to have a body to count.
By 7:00 PM, the campus was emptying out. The air was thick and sticky, the kind of heat that made your shirt cling to your spine the second you stepped outside.
George rolled his chair toward the notice boards by the science block. He liked this time—the "in-between" where everyone was too tired to notice a guy in a wheelchair watching them. He scanned the flyers.
*Roommate wanted. Used Samsung for sale. Final year clearance.*
Then he saw her. A girl on a "Blood Drive" poster. She had a long, thin neck and high cheekbones. He didn't see a person; he saw a frame that would hold a pose.
*Tuesdays. 8:00 PM. Faculty Library.*
George's fingers tapped a slow rhythm on the rim of his wheel. He wasn't looking for a victim. He was looking for a do-over. He needed someone who would fit the layout he'd already planned.
"The measurements don't make sense, Femi."
Anyi didn't look up from the photo. She had a pair of metal dividers in her hand, the tips resting on the victim's outstretched limbs. The office was quiet, except for the hum of a dying fluorescent bulb.
Femi leaned against the doorframe, refusing to come closer. "The girl's family is in the lobby, Anyi. They don't want to hear about your geometry. They want to know when they can take her home."
"Look at the angles." Anyi finally looked at him, her eyes bloodshot. "The left arm is at exactly forty-five degrees to the torso. The right is thirty. He even accounted for the slope of the concrete so the blood would pool in a perfect circle. This isn't a 'mess.' It's a blueprint."
Femi straightened up, his face hardening. "So he used a ruler. Some killers are neat. So what?"
"No," Anyi said, her voice dropping. "He missed the spacing on the left side by three inches. The symmetry breaks right at the hip. He was rushed."
Femi squinted at the image. "You think he noticed?"
"I think it's the only thing he's thinking about," Anyi said. "A guy this precise doesn't just walk away from a mistake. He's going to try to correct it on the next one."
George sat in the dark of his dorm, the only light coming in, was from the streetlamp outside the window.
He pulled a small glass jar from his bag. It was half-full of the red dirt he'd scraped from the docks. He rolled the jar between his palms, feeling the grit through the glass.
He opened his notebook and drew a single, vertical line down the center of the page.
*Scratch.*
The pen felt heavy. He thought of the girl on the poster. Her neck was right, but she looked like a runner. If he picked her, she'd put up a fight, and a fight meant bruising. Bruises ruined the lines. He needed someone smaller. Someone he could handle without making a mess of the body before he even started the work.
He tore the page out, crumpled it, and threw it into a bin that was already full of trash.
"Next time," he whispered.
The city outside was a mess of sirens and generators, but inside George's head, everything was finally starting to line up.