She’s different now, but still so much the same. What was always there is now heightened, the desire to inflict pain magnified. The dare to make others suffer amplified.
Blood calls to her.
It knows her name.
Killing is in her veins now.
As soon as I read the news article, I knew it was Blakely who sank a blade into Ericson. Not once, but thirteen times. The authorities labeled it overkill.
I won’t be like you, Alex. I’m not a killer.
No, Blakely may have never become a killer. Her malady as a psychopath was never that of a murderer.
She’s a justice dealer.
And who deserved a round of justice more than a putrid rapist like Ericson Daverns?
As her emotions and neural pathways are still equilibrating, her responses and reflexes are going to be erratic. She will be volatile one moment, lethargic the next. In time, she will let go of her guilt over taking a man’s life. She will come to realize she had no other choice.
It was either him or her.
Although Ericson would’ve made a prime subject to further the experiment, his purpose was best served by allowing Blakely to explore her emotional range. A scientific sacrificial lamb.
Fortunately for me, there are other Ericsons in this world, a few of them located right here in this city. On that particular research, my beautiful monster has already done the vetting work for me.
A page torn right from her little black book.
Such as Subject 9 on my gurney. His name was third down on her “Douche checklist.” Her own personal rating system, how she tallied her targets from the least deserving to the most deserving of a client’s revenge. It’s a vetted list of the worst kind of humans, and subsequently, the ones at the top happen to be psychopaths.
Her notes on the subject of psychopathy are particularly interesting. As she had a special insight into this disposition, she knew one revenge scheme wasn’t suitable for all.
Like Reilly Stafford, her revenge for him was just, but he has a higher purpose now. He doesn’t have to be a waste.
Reminded of my patient, I check his vitals. “You probably think I’m callous,” I say to him, regardless of whether or not he can hear me. “That I exhibit similar psychopathic tendencies. You wouldn’t be wrong. In order for one to achieve what I have, one has to assert a great level of insensitivity.”
Feeling no pulse, I frown down at him. “But don’t forget that a psycho killer did put an icepick through my sister’s brain. Something so traumatic does have a tendency to leave a mark.” I push harder against his neck. He’s unresponsive. I drop my hand.
Anger seizes my nerves, and I shove the gurney away. “Fuck.”
With begrudging effort, I wheel the gurney to the kitchenette and raise the bed. The body slides off and lands with an unceremonious flop on the plastic sheet. Counter forensic measures are taken to clean the body and mask the burn marks on the temples, but only as an added precaution. No one will miss Reilly Stafford. He’s a toxic dump of human filth.
I cover myself with a used Tyvek suit I fished from the same medical dumpsite I sourced the gurney, then I select the switchblade—the one identical to the blade Blakely used to carry on her person, the one she brutally stabbed Ericson thirteen times with.
I stand over the dead body and grip the hilt, then begin stabbing his chest and torso.
It’s not an easy feat, driving a knife into a body. Without the presence of rage, you feel the blade slice past skin and cartilage and tendon. You have to wriggle the knife loose and pry it out. The sound is worse.
The time of death is so closely marked to the knife wounds, a medical examiner will find it difficult to determine that cause of death wasn’t due to the attack. I make sure to hit the heart, and watch blood slowly ooze atop his chest.
I stab him twelve times, one less than Blakely’s count, but authorities will still label it as overkill.
Even though it’s not scientific in the least, when I chose my subjects from her list, I believed a link to Blakely would tip the scales in our favor, that the next treatment would be a success. How sentimentally superstitious of me.
But here I am once again, another failed procedure, another expired subject.
I could recreate the experiment a hundred times, do everything exactly identical, and I would never get the same outcome. I don’t even have to compare the data to know why.
The result is unique to Blakely.
She is unique.
I’m unsure if this realization infuriates me or excites me—but it does simplify the objective.
For the past two years, I’ve been trying to change the world by designing a preventative. A cure to inhibit the decay and deterioration of the mind into a psychopathic state, when the cure is far more elaborate and…unique.
The objective has never been more clear.
I know what has to be done.
Once I dump the body, making sure to get every detail precise, it’s time to find my little lost monster.
There is preparation to be done. The groundwork must be lain.
They say absence makes the heart grow stronger.
The anticipation is killer.
I had wanted to share my discovery, my breakthrough with the world. I had wanted to honor my sister and restore her status in the medical community.
Now I don’t want to share Blakely with anyone.
It’s not about prevention at all.
It’s about elimination.
And I have the perfect calibrated weapon to carry out that objective.
3
Old Flames
Blakely
My plane touches down at eight-thirty on the west coast. The San Francisco airport teems with eager tourists, arriving in shorts and tanks and pasty skin anxious for a sunburn. It takes me half an hour of wandering the airport maze to get to the outside world, where a hot and humid blast of coastal air hits me like a wet blanket.
I Uber to the downtown hotel I rented for the night. Located only blocks from Union Square, the luxury hotel boasts views of the cityscape, the bay, Alcatraz, Golden Gate and the Bay Bridge. While the suite’s terrace view is quite breathtaking, I’m here for none of that.
My phone pings with a text. I set my wineglass on the marble table and slide the message open. Tension knots my belly as I reply to the text, then call down to the lobby.
Before I ventured to Devil’s Peak, I had sent an email to the renowned criminal psychologist Dr. London Noble. In vague reference to myself and without providing any names or identifying particulars, I detailed Alex’s theory on psychopaths, his gruesome experiment, and the fact the convicted serial killer Grayson Sullivan had been the direct catalyst.
To be honest, the email sounded insane. I didn’t expect a response from this woman, who has been through much of her own suffering at the hands of a deranged killer. So I was shocked when Dr. Noble invited me to speak with her in person.
I mean, I could’ve just scheduled a session with the psychologist. Shown up at her townhouse office and sprang the whole horror story on her right in her therapy room, using the doctor/patient confidentiality clause and demanding all her answers. And normally, that’s exactly what I would have done. Treated her as an obstacle to be removed in order to obtain my objective. Quick. Easy. Direct.
I reach for the Cabernet, take a long sip, savoring the robust flavor and heated buzz rushing my veins. My fingertips turn white against the wineglass as my grip tightens.