The room falls into eerie silence as James paces up first to Jacob, then Dickers, and finally back to Trent.
Glancing at me, his eyes still wild, James repeats the circuit.
Jacob, Dickers, Trent.
In that order, over and over again.
I find myself holding my breath, afraid to breathe as the air practically crackles with tension.
A tension James seems to gather around him like a coming storm.
I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but a sense of impending doom washes over me.
And I fear for James. Fear… something is wrong. Very, very wrong. Something I can’t even fucking explain…
“Talk to me, James,” Lucifer says, finally breaking the silence.
James stops in front of Jacob and stares down at him.
Jacob tries to scramble away from James with a look of terror on his face, but he’s pushed against a wall. There’s nowhere for him to go to escape.
“James,” Lucifer snaps with irritation.
And James seems to snap in return, finally cracking.
“I can’t fucking take that they’re still breathing after hurting my baby!” James roars before he reaches down, grabs Jacob by the throat, and drags him into the middle of the room. Dumping him beside Trent.
Finally looking up from Lucifer’s phone, Simon makes a face and jumps out of the way as James stomps over to Dickers next.
On his knees with his hands behind his head, Dickers sneers up at James. “Fuck you. You motherfuckers won’t—”
James punches the sneering man in the face, causing Dickers’s head to whip back and blood to spurt out of his mouth.
“I can’t fucking stand that they took her away from me!” James bellows, his words booming like thunder in the room, before he grabs Dickers by the throat and drags him over to join Jacob and Trent.
“What do you need?” Lucifer asks, excitement leaking into his voice. “Tell us and it’s yours.”
I glance over at Lucifer to see his eyes gleaming.
What the fuck?
What the fuck is going on here?
I thought Lucifer was trying to talk James down, but now he’s clearly egging him on.
Does he want James to do something crazy?
Because I’m pretty sure James is going to do something fucking crazy if no one stops him.
I try again to speak, to get words out of my mouth, but my throat refuses to cooperate. Even with the cold compresses, my entire neck feels like raw hamburger.
James slowly circles the three men, his wild eyes glaring at them, and something about it reminds me of a lion circling its prey.
Then James screams in fury as if there’s something inside him he can longer contain. “I need to make them pay… I need to make them suffer for hurting her!”
My stomach drops.
Fuck… oh fuck…
James suddenly lunges forward and grabs Jacob by the back of the neck, yanking him up until he’s on his knees.
“For fucking touching her!” James snarls, spittle flying everywhere, and yanks Jacob’s head back as far as his neck will go, like he’s trying to snap it, before suddenly letting go.
Putting his boot to Jacob’s spine, James forces his face down to the floor and roars, “For taking her from me!”
Stepping off of Jacob’s back, James reaches down and grabs Trent by the hair, ripping him up just like he did Jacob.
But he doesn’t have to push Trent down.
Sobbing and whining, Trent tips forward, hitting the floor face-first as soon as James releases his hair.
“She is my everything! My everything!”
Stomping over to Dickers, James tries to grab him, but Dickers resists.
Bellowing, “Fuck you!” Dickers takes a swing at James.
James sidesteps Dickers easily, as if he was expecting it, and kicks him in the stomach.
Dickers starts to fall over, clutching at himself, but James grabs him. Viciously twisting him around and bringing him to his knees.
Then he kicks Dickers hard in the back, forcing him to fall forward.
Ripping his knife from his belt, James stares down at Dickers for a moment.
Then he screams, “And you will kneel and bow before her!”
Slashing down, James stabs his knife into the back of Dickers’s neck.
When Dickers reaches up, hands desperately searching for the knife, James slams his boot down on top of the handle, driving Dickers back down.
Face a twisted mask of rage, James brutally keeps Dickers pinned beneath his boot as the other man struggles to yank him off. Grinding his foot down until Dickers grows so weak all he does is spasm and twitch.
Once Dickers is finally still and most likely dead, James lifts his head to look at me.
Huffing for air, his eyes meet mine. Bright, crazed… and full of pain.
A pain that both calls to me and cuts right through me as I stare back at him in surprised horror.
Stare at him as if I’m seeing him for the first time.
The real James.
The James he’s been warning me about this whole time.
Stupid me, I didn’t believe him.
I didn’t believe he was as bad as he was saying.
When he told me he had murdered before, I thought it was just some stupid kinky roleplay.
And now…
Oh god, now…
I believe him. I believe everything he’s said.
Maybe it’s the horror on my face, or maybe it’s something else, but some of the crazed gleam in his eyes starts to fade.
“Fuck!” he curses then spins away from me.
Grabbing at his own head again, he starts to tug on his hair, and shouts, “Fuck!” again.
And, even after watching him murder a man, I have the strongest urge to go to him.
To hug him and ease some of his pain.
Because I can’t stand to see him hurting.
God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me… Maybe I’m fucking sick too because I don’t know if I want to run away or run to him.
I should run away. I should totally run away from him, his obsession, and this crazy shit…
Yet I can’t seem to get my feet to do it. I can’t seem to move at all after what I just witnessed.
“James,” Lucifer says, “are you done now?”
“Done?” James repeats and goes still for a minute, as if he’s surprised or considering it. Then he laughs a laugh that sends chills down my spine and pulls his hands from his hair. “Not by a fucking long shot.”
Lucifer grins a wicked grin. “What do you need to finish this?”
James shakes his head, as if he’s trying to shake something loose.
Then he slowly turns around.
All traces of the madness that gripped him just seconds ago is gone, replaced by an unsettling calm.
A calm I find more terrifying than the rage.
“Knives…” James says, looking at Lucifer. “I need knives, Matthew, and… I want Simon’s bag.”
Almost at once, the men in the room move into action, as if they were waiting for this moment. Whipping knives out of their belts or fishing them out of their pockets.
And I have to wonder if I’ve suddenly stepped into the fucking twilight zone.
Because this is so surreal, it can’t be real…
Can it?
No one seems the least bit disturbed by James’s sudden and complete one-eighty, or the fact that he just murdered a man, like I am.