How Villains Are Made

When I woke up, the hotel room was full of smoke. Megan was shaking me violently, urging me to wake up. Startled awake, I coughed, inhaling smoke. Taking my hand, she led me outside. I grabbed our bags. The ones containing our passports and money were essential. We rushed outside. The firemen came, and tried their best to put out the fire. The hotel was promptly evacuated. We stood outside, a hundred feet away from the entrance. Watching the spectacular hotel burning. It was eerie. I looked among the crowd of hotel staff and patrons. I didn't see Aaron or Samantha. When I asked Megan, she simply shrugged. She said we had gotten out, that's what mattered.

We went to another hotel, and booked a room. I watched news of the hotel fire on TV. Everyone had gotten out, except for two American tourists. Aaron and Samantha. They both died in the hotel fire. I stared at the TV blankly. How could it be? Megan wrapped her arms around and said she was thankful we both got out alive. She said that's all that mattered. Her lack of emotion about the deaths of Aaron and Samantha puzzled me. But I didn't make anything of it at the time. The two of us slept in each other's arms. Well, she slept. I didn't. I kept replaying the evening's events in my mind. The Mexican authorities claimed the fire was suspicious. Definitely man-made, and deliberate, not accidental. They were investigating it.

For some reason, that really bothered me. I replayed the night's events one more time in my mind. Megan had gone out to the festival. She claimed to have come back right around the time the fire started, and she rushed to wake me up and get our belongings. That part of the story was okay. The part that bothered me was my being asleep. I used to sleep-walk, back in the day. And that's when my fire-starting tendencies were the most prevalent. My dad used to lock me up in my room after inspecting it for incendiary devices. Was I asleep, or did I wake up and cause the hotel fire? Oh, man! I think I could have! While under stress, fire soothed me. I could have played with the lighter while sleep-walking, and caused the hotel fire! The icy grip of fear seized my heart, and I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night.

When morning came, I told Megan we should leave Cancun. She was okay with that. We got on a plane and went back to Massachusetts. During the plane ride, I kept fidgeting. Did I cause the fire? Were the Mexican authorities going to start an international manhunt for my black ass? Would the U.S. extradite me to Mexico? My college career, my life, everything I've worked for would be over. Yet when Megan asked me if I was okay, I smiled and said yes. Megan chuckled, looked me in the eye and said I would be alright. She took my hand in hers, kissed it, and said all our problems were over. I stared at her. Had she been smoking something? What was she talking about?

Megan gently touched my face, and said I was now free. When I asked what she meant by that, she calmly told me what she'd done. She noticed me playing with the lighter, and watched the calming effect fire had on me. At dinner, she paid a Mexican waitress a lot of pesos to put a slow-acting sedative in all our drinks. Aaron and Samantha drank it, as did I. She, however, didn't. When Aaron and Samantha returned to their room, they fell asleep. Megan went out, hung out at the festival and bought some gasoline before she came back to the hotel. She poured gasoline in various rooms, starting with that of Aaron and Samantha. She locked their room from the outside and blocked their window, so they wouldn't be able to escape even if they somehow woke up. No one saw her. The hotel staff was downstairs and nearly all of the patrons were at the festival. Then she returned to the hotel, woke me up and we left together.

I stared at Megan, stunned. My beautiful girlfriend was a psychopathic killer. She smiled at me, and said I wasn't the only one who liked to play with matches. She was a fire starter too. I stared at her, stunned. She did all that? Why? Megan gently stroked my cheek, and kissed me on the lips. She said she loved me and would do anything for me. Aaron and Samantha were grade-A assholes and bitches who got what they deserved. She said the world was a better place without them. I stared at her, stunned. Wow.

I sank in my seat. I needed a drink. Megan calmly stroked my hand, and told me everything would be alright. I told her she was insane. Megan grinned and said she knew all about my starting fires in years back. Including the fact that the injuries I inflicted on Roman back in Haiti eventually drove him to suicide. I stared at her, shocked beyond belief. How did she know that? Even I didn't know what happened to Roman. My father and mother would simply not discuss it with me. Megan told me she had friends in high places and had ways of finding things out. She looked at me and said we were both the same. We loved fire. And we didn't like people messing with us and getting away with it.

I didn't know whether to feel flattered or horrified. Megan asked me if I was going to turn her in. I asked her if she'd try to stop me. She laughed, and said she would do no such thing. She said she thought I was many things, but not a hypocrite. I asked her to explain. She said we were both killers. I was indirectly responsible for someone's death. And she had killed two people because they were in my way. She claimed she did it for me. That's when I realized it. She really was insane. And in many ways so was I. A sleep-walking fire-starter who tortures his victims with fire and drives them to their death after scarring them in the most horrible way possible. That's what I am. I was a killer. And so was she. I told her as much. I wouldn't turn her in. We were the same. Both of us were guilty as sin.

On the airplane television, they were giving the comedy So I Married An Axe Murderer. Mike Myers was dodging his lady love's axe-wielding psychotic female sibling on a rooftop. I wished the poor bastard good luck. Apparently, I wasn't the only guy dating a psycho. Man did my dad get it wrong. He tried his whole life to stop me from becoming a psychotic monster and thought Megan would be a normalizing, stabilizing influence in my life. Well, he was wrong. We were both psychopaths. I took Megan's hand in mine and kissed it. She smiled, and kissed me passionately. Time after time, she told me she loved me. I know it's crazy but I love her too. Hey, psychos need love too. I'm a psycho guy and normal chicks can't handle a man like me. Which is why I had to find myself a psycho broad. I can be myself around her. As Megan and I embraced, I forgot all about Aaron and Samantha. If you ask me, they got what they deserved. I may be a psycho but I'm not a jerk. Aaron was a jerk and Samantha was a bitch. They went around making people's lives miserable. I don't do that. It's not my thing. I'd rather burn stuff up instead. Now, if you'll excuse me, my girlfriend and I are about to join the Mile High Club.