Alex: Your boy is in the park.
I read the message again slowly, this time deciphering the meaning. A normal, rational reaction would be to panic. My heart rate remains steady as I mentally pick through the details to find a solution.
Someone in the penthouse sent that message. They said your boy, clearly referring to Alex. He’s in Central Park. Beaten…or worse. This person discovered Alex was there under pretext, and they know about me. Whether or not this person is Ericson or one of Brewster’s men is a deciding factor on how to approach the situation, one more dangerous than the next.
Either way, I’m out of my seat and pushing through the door of the coffee shop. Alex could be anywhere in the park, but I start with the entrance right across the street from the hotel.
I don’t wait for the crosswalk sign to signal it’s safe to cross. I cut across the street, dodging angry cab drivers and tourists. My defenses are up as I shove past people crowding the lamplit entrance.
With the noise of the city behind me, I enter the dark park and search the pathway, the green pond. The crisp air does nothing to mask the smoggy, earthy scent of the park. Alex has to be somewhere nearby; there’s no way anyone had time to take him deeper into the park.
As I head toward the first bridge, I look up to scan the arch above, to make sure no one suspicious is watching me, waiting for me. I enter the tunnel, and I can feel eyes on me. I look at my phone screen, deciding whether or not I should send a reply, demand to know where Alex is right now.
Honestly, I should ditch my phone, but there’s still a chance Alex will contact me. The fact that he hasn’t yet isn’t good.
I continue on around the rock formation, the place where Alex and I spied on Ericson together. He can’t be too far away, if he’s in the park at all. I climb to the top and use the higher ground to search the nearby areas.
No bodies, no beaten, passed-out scientists in sight. I curse and start to head down when a snap catches my attention. I stop and wait to hear it again, my breath held. With slow and deliberate movements, I creep toward the foliage where a high wall of shrubbery separates the street from the park.
The noise never comes again, and there’s no Alex. I exhale, releasing my frustration with the fiery air in my lungs, as I once again start to leave.
It happens in a blink. In the time it takes my eyelids to close, I feel a sharp pain in my neck. A brief moment where I try to bat away an insect—then the stark and terrible realization of the needle piercing my skin.
For the first time since I can remember, my heart rate changes pace. I can feel it slowing, the beat becoming weaker. My pulse thuds in my ears as the sounds of the park fade into the distance.
My muscles go lax, and I’m guided down to the hard ground by strong arms.
My attacker stairs down at me as I lie helpless. Anger courses my blood right along with the drug he injected into my bloodstream. I try to move my lips, to form words, to demand to know why—but my mouth is just as immobile as the rest of my body.
“Not as delicate as your little cocktail,” Alex says, those blue eyes gleaming, “but ketamine more than gets the job done.”
14
Experiment
Alex
In Greek Mythology, fate was decided by three goddesses. Every soul had a life thread, the course of a life woven within the twine. There is one goddess to spin the thread, the next to measure, and the third to cut the twine at the moment of death.
According to the myth, the Fates control every destiny, and no one escapes their doom.
The scientist in me rejects philosophy and mythology on merit. Yet, I can still appreciate the wisdom in the lesson. Because of course, the purpose of all religion is to teach a moral.
We’re not avenging angels, or deities of fate, Alex. Blakely said these words to me—and she had no idea how right she was.
There were no deities of fate in charge the night my sister was brutally murdered.
There was no moral to her story, in what doom befell her. She was stolen, tore from this world in the most violent display.
There were no avenging angels to balance the scales, just a psychopathic killer with a hunger to feed.
I spent months trying to make sense of it, trying to understand how an individual could commit such an atrocious act. I analyzed every book on the subject of psychopaths. Hours upon hours of research and study, and truly, there was no definitive answer. Worse, there was very little conclusive proof that monsters like the one that killed my sister could ever be rectified.
I had given up on psychology completely. It was about as useful to me as mythology. I am a man of science. I am a biomedical scientist. I eradicate disease. This is what I understand.
Then it donned on me, like the Fates themselves wove a shiny new thread right into my life, gifting me the answer.
Psychopathy is a disease of the mind. Not unlike a virus, an infection. A sickness.
I couldn’t bring Mary back, but I could stop the disease from spreading.
In the end, there was only one solution:
Cure the sickness.
The telltale rattle of chains pricks my ears, and my fingers halt over the keyboard.
She’s awake.
Slipping my arms into my lab coat, I move into the sterile white room and draw back the canvas curtain. Blakely lies on a gurney. Her wrists are secured with leather braces, the chains fastened to the cinderblock wall. As she slowly begins to rouse, her eyes flutter open.
This is my favorite part. The subject fresh and new and full of possibility.
“Where the fuck am I?” Blakely’s voice is hoarse from hours of unuse. As she becomes lucid, her eyes dart around the room, taking in her surroundings.
The white walls. The three large monitors. The whiteboard. The steel island with equipment. One side of the curtain is sterile and devoid of distractions. The other side is a laboratory of my design, years of research and dedication.
As her eyesight improves, Blakely’s gaze finally lands on me. Her features draw together in anger.
“Well, not anger,” I say out loud, correcting my observation. “Anger is an emotion felt by a healthy person. Your response is reactive to your circumstance. You’ve learned to display the proper corresponding emotions.”
She tests the wrist restraints and understands quickly that she’s trapped. Her eyes track me as I move to the foot of the gurney. “And what circumstance is that, Alex?”
Any emotionally sound person would be panicking right now. Pleading to be released, begging to know why this has happened to them, what’s going to become of them…
“You’re very intelligent, Blakely,” I tell her, adjusting my glasses as they slip down the bridge of my nose. “That’s why you’re so perfect, and also why I had to subdue you in the manner that I did. You’re so aware of your environment, always alert and on guard. Taking you by surprise was never going to be easy. So, I set the stage for you to expect an attack, to be ready for it, so when that one opportunity presented where your guard slipped, just for a second…” I snap my fingers to demonstrate.
The corner of her mouth kicks up into a smirk. “You sound proud of yourself. How very courageous of you to attack a girl.”
I lift the clipboard strung to the back of the gurney. “Let’s drop all the predictable banter. We both know you’re not just a girl.” I walk toward her and touch the inside of her wrist. She doesn’t flinch away, and I smile. “Steady pulse. Nice and slow.” I make a note on the page, then lift my eyes to hers. “You’re a psychopath.”