She may picture my face when she’s jabbing a punching bag, but she clings to my scent at night when she’s fearful, when she needs comfort—and that knowledge is powerful.
I tuck the shirt beneath the pillow where it belongs.
As I descend the loft, my senses pick up on something out of place. Standing at the base of the staircase, I keep my back to the kitchen and scan the living area, noting every detail. The front door is closed. Locked. The apartment is quiet, but there’s a draft.
Too late, I catch the flutter of linen curtains and the open window.
I turn toward the kitchen, and he’s already standing before me.
My skin ices over. Every artery inside my body seizes. My heart beats manically in my chest, trying to force blood flow, but my mind is overriding basic bodily functions as I stare into the cold eyes of a killer.
Grayson Sullivan.
The Angel of Maine.
The monster who murdered my sister.
“You,” I say, my voice some distant construct of my thoughts.
Sullivan lifts his chin, pale eyes boring into me with menacing intent. “Dr. Alex Chambers. You’ve been very busy making a mess.”
Confusion draws my features tight, but I don’t get the chance to question him. We both move instantaneously. I go for his middle, he aims for my face.
Amid the violent clash, I lose consciousness.
The room goes dark.
Blakely’s scent is the last thing to fade from my senses.
5
Angel of Mercy
Alex
Of all the structures and systems in the universe, time is the cruelest.
Our whole life is centered around time. Our day comprised of its relative nature. Too much time as we sit bored in a waiting room, letting time waste away like it’s not preciously finite. Waiting for the clock to run out at the end of the year so we can reboot and start over fresh, a whole new person with dreams and goals.
In the same vein, there is never enough time to complete an important task, a goal, a dream. And deeper still is the loss of time, those feelings of regret, or the desperate ache of too little time when last moments are spent with loved ones before their time is gone forever.
The time I’ve expended studying Grayson Sullivan could constitute as obsessive, and should serve me now. It should have prepared me for the moment he materialized in my life. Thinking over my course, it was inevitable we would cross paths. Yet the cruel irony is when faced with our deepest desire, preparation is often the biggest miscalculation of time.
I could never prepare myself for this moment.
And now I have no choice but to wait, seconds turning into minutes, as I’m strapped to my own gurney. To illustrate my point, a faint tick, tick, tick whispers through the air, a mocking sound dredged to the surface from a delusion. There are no clocks here—I made damn sure.
When I awoke, bleary-eyed and groggy, the bitter aftertaste of some drug coating my tongue, the memory of him subduing me started to filter back. My head thumps painfully from where I was hit with a metal bar, and I can feel the puncture wound in my neck from a needle.
I’m fighting dehydration. My temples pulse with an angry thud. As my mind clears, I feel the leather restraints strapped across my forehead, wrists, and ankles.
The ticking fades away at the sound of boots walking across the floor. I try to turn my head, immediately sending a sharp pain up my neck. “How did you get me here?”
There are other, more pressing questions that need answers, but let’s start here. You can’t carry a full-grown man around the city without garnering some attention.
There’s the clatter of tools on the metal table, then Grayson moves into my line of sight. He’s wearing a black thermal and black pants. Those piercing colorless eyes assess me coolly with indifference.
“Wheeling an unconscious man down the sidewalk isn’t a red flag in this city. I think I even waved to a cop on my way here.”
Sullivan is talking to me. Hearing his voice is a shock to my system. I’ve seen him on countless TV stations, dug up rare interviews on the Internet. But this is different; there is no mask.
I’m looking into the soulless eyes of a psychopathic killer with no empathy or mercy.
I hold his penetrating gaze as my mind quickly calculates the logic of this situation.
He knew where my improvised lab was located. That means he’s been watching me for at least a couple of days if not more. He followed me to Blakely’s apartment. There’s an uncertain variable where I don’t know if Dr. Noble apprised her patient of certain details, or whether his knowledge was gleaned from stalking his doctor, but Blakely’s email was sent out days before Dr. Noble replied. Grayson could’ve intercepted that missive. Blakely may not have even met with Dr. Noble—he may have intercepted her.
Either scenario concludes one crucial truth that can’t be ignored.
He knows about Blakely.
Suddenly getting free of this gurney is vital.
I have to keep Grayson talking. I have to stay conscious. Which is going to be a difficult feat as I watch him systematically lay out tools—scalpel, electrodes, syringe—next to the gurney. He toggles on my electroconvulsive machine before reaching for a mouthguard.
Fuck.
“I couldn’t have devised a better death for you myself,” he says, selecting the electrode rods. “You should be proud, Dr. Chambers. This is all you, your hard work. A healer rarely gets to reap the benefit of his own methods.”
He moves toward me with the mouthguard, and despite knowing it’s useless to fight, to try to escape, as I always tell my subjects, my base survival instinct kicks in and I struggle against the restraints.
“Wait—” I say, trying to stall him. “If you kill me, then you can never recreate the treatment for yourself.”
He stands over me. Something like amusement flashes behind his eyes. “I think you missed a glaringly obvious flaw in your treatment plan, doctor.”
I swallow to moisten my dry throat. “What’s that?”
“The catch twenty-two.” He bears down on my wounded hand, and I groan out in pain. He shoves the guard into my mouth and seals a strip of duct tape over it. “For a psychopath to be cured, they first have to want the treatment. However, without the emotional capacity to care, there is no desire to be cured. A conundrum that renders your procedure impractical and useless.”
Grayson stares down at me as he places the rods to my temples. I sink my teeth into the guard. He never looks away as he reaches over and turns on the juice, not gauging the voltage before electricity courses my body.
The induced seizure cords every muscle tight. My body planks against the gurney. My vision blurs, the tremors rattling my optic nerves. An overwhelming urge to vomit burns my esophagus, but I choke it back so I don’t asphyxiate.
The session may only last a few seconds, but time is my enemy in this moment, and the seconds drag out as pain afflicts every cell in my body.
By the time Grayson kills the switch, I’m tunneling under.
A violent slap to my cheek rouses me back to consciousness. The tape is torn away, and the mouthguard falls to the gurney from my slack mouth.
“If your subjects can withstand a harder dose,” Grayson says, “then surely the scientist can take a few small jolts.”