Vampire King's Little Killer

Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number of psychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5.

(Source: nytimes.com/magazine)

Tessa

I knew there was something different about me since I was a kid. I had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder at a very young age. As a little girl, I got into trouble on school grounds a lot. My privileged parents might just set off my behavior, maybe, you know, being young and borderline and all. Some even said it was genetics.

There was this one time when I watch a boy stumbled, knowingly tripping his leg will cause him to fall. At that instance, I wanted to see him as his hands break his fall and his palms came in contact with the asphalt. I didn't feel any remorse as my teacher told me I should. I just told her that I wanted to see how he reacted. I wanted to hear his pain and I tilted my head watching him closely, when his eyes were teary from the pain he was feeling as the little boy scratched his hands and his knees hitting the ground, hard.

My parents didn't do anything about my condition, not that they didn't have the money to treat me. I guess they just didn't care enough, they did not plan for me, I was an only child. They were selfish people who couldn't care less about me. And strangely I was fine with that. Huh.

Though my grandparents did, from my dad's side, my mom was a true gold digger while dad was the perfect trust fund guy. I had never known anyone from mom's side of the family, not that I was curious. When mom and dad met, all fuckery erupted and nine months later there was me. I was the glue that made mom latch to dad's money, my grandparents set boundaries and I was cared for by them since my parents travel a lot.

Dad came from old money, he didn't have to work, so he spent his entire life loving my mom, or fucking her, I'm not sure and I didn't care enough to want to know.

I was abandoned, but I have made my peace with my parents and found other stuff that amused me.

Years later at eighteen, I was diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder. My granddad was the one who insisted that I took the test when I turn eighteen. By then he had uncovered the little graveyard of all of my pet strays in the rose bushes, under my pretty bedroom window.

"I wanted to be a scientist," I could remember telling him the day granddad found dead animals under my window.

"So you kill these poor animals?" he asked looking at the bones or what was left of the birds and the squirrels.

"Yes, I slit their throat then open to examine their insides, to see and study them." I shrugged thinking surely the issue will not bother him. I was at the top of my class, I was smart and this was what smart people do. They experiment.

The calls from the headmaster also made him push me to take the test. I do have anger issues. Every time I punch a boy at school, or a girl, I never discriminate, the headmaster called. He even went far as asking about my sexuality, thinking that I was having a phase, hating boys, loving girls all that stupid mundane stuff teenagers were crazy about. But I didn't, and that was when I learned, that psychopaths lacked specific kinds of emotions.

The thing was, growing up I always kept my feelings to myself, distancing myself from anyone if I don't need to. Not because I was shy or ugly. I was far from ugly, my mom was a beauty queen with a vicious mindset to match and my dad never had a problem getting women flocked to his side even after he was married and got older. Their genes made me a hot-looking teenager, I was tall with a perfect set of teeth, flawless skin, and beautiful blonde hair which I like to color differently every couple of months. I was like a chameleon, eager to blend in, eager to see how people react in situations.

I was far from shy, I mingled with the cool kids perfectly, and I can talk to the shy ones, nerds, and even the uglies. The school was my little playground of experimentation on how to read people and get into their circle. I like it there and I was smart, at the top of my class which made my grandparents proud of me. Yeah, I was their favorite granddaughter, not that I had a real contender, all of my cousins were stupid spoiled brats.

Granddad didn't just make me take the test at eighteen because he saw the signs, but because I almost killed my date. The boy think it was okay for him to start poking his tiny dick when I didn't want to have sex with him. Yes, I had boyfriends growing up, and even experimented with girls. I know what was expected of me as part of society and the hormone-driven handsome boyfriend was also part of my experiment.

At the end of the night he had a broken nose, broken rib and a broken heart, yeah I broke up with the loser that same night. My granddad was conflicted when he finally found out about the defense classes that I took behind his back.

"Tessa, I'm not getting younger, your grandmother doesn't need to know about this. It'll be our little secret project, but looking at your result I want you to start seeing someone." Granddad looked at me while he kept on holding my hand with his. We were sitting on his worn-out expensive leather sofa talking about my future.

"We love you, Tess, maybe it's the personality in you that makes it seem true, but somehow your grandmother and I feel that your love for us is real." Yeah, he knew, he understands very well that psychopaths were able to blend in and express loving emotion while we felt nothing on the inside.

"Anyways, I've been talking about your condition with people in their field. And with the right treatment, you can manage it, being a psychopath doesn't mean that you will have anger issues, cover your hands in blood, and go to jail. Most influential people are psychopaths, from ruthless CEOs to high-ranking generals. They would all do anything to achieve their goals. Maybe it's in our blood, they also said it could be genetics. My dad, your great-granddad was a ruthless bastard who knew how to make money." My granddad exhaled, the man looked tired but I keep quiet and listened carefully to what he had to say.

I did appreciate my grandparents, I'd say they were the ones who kept me in line. Until one day they were both taken from me. An unfortunate mugging late one night after they had dinner in their favorite restaurant forced me to lose the two people who love me most. Yes, psychopaths are almost incapable of loving another. I have no feelings for them, though I fake loving them very well.

While I didn't love them, the need to avenge my grandparents was too great. I did trace the muggers and easily kill them and take back my granddad's Rolex and since then it stays on my wrist.

The junkie muggers begged for their life when I had them tied on their dining chairs. I didn't punch them, not wanting to leave my DNA on the scene. But I did play with them with my knives. I enjoyed seeing them cry, watching them squirm, and pleading for their life. Their muffled screams were melodious to my ear. I enjoyed the moment the tip of my knife slit through their veins. I was being nice, it was my first human kill, hence why I opted to give them a quick death by slicing their main arteries. But I did watch them, I did enjoy seeing blood dripping, sipping through their dirty floor, and slowly retreating not wanting to get my shoes dirty with their filthy junkie blood.

Two years later, at twenty, I finished my college degree. I was smart, I skipped a couple of classes then I moved out of my family's mansion. I didn't feel the need to fake a relationship since my grandparents were gone and I couldn't care less about my parents.

The taste of making someone bleed somehow freed my sadistic hunger. Since then every couple of months or whenever I got the urge, I'd scour the dingy alleyway and kidnap a mugger or two and bleed them to death with my knives. There was something satisfying from watching someone at the edge of their life, how easy it was to hurt someone, to kill them.

I was not aiming to become a vigilante, it was too much work and I didn't believe that I care enough for people to start protecting them. I was a psychopath, there was darkness in me that needed to be fed. And killing off bad people was untraceable, no one would look for them, keeping my activities remain a secret.

But when one day I bumped into a group of well-dressed men with guns loitering the dirty alleyway, I had an epiphany. They kept me close, they know my worth, and months later I became their top assassin. Nickname: Beauty.