I sigh, flicking the frozen skin of Mason’s calf. “Have you ever heard of the Silent Slayer, Mr. Candyman?”

Colby is silent for a moment as he puts the pieces together. “I… I n-never killed anyone.”

“I know that,” I snarl, turning to face him with the severed leg in my gloved hand. Colby’s gasp becomes a wretch. He turns away and vomits, bile spattering against the lower edge of the glass. “Christsakes. The toilet is only a few steps away, Colby. I’m not cleaning up after you.”

I watch for a moment with my lip curled in disgust. I’m used to this now, men puking. Pissing themselves. Even shitting their pants. I imagine I might get the unholy trilogy from Colby the Candyman.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” I say, waggling the leg around before dropping it onto the gurney with a thunk. “I think you’ve heard of the Silent Slayer. But I bet you never heard there was one person who survived his killing spree. They kept that out of the press, for once. Though I think you might be able to guess who that sole survivor was.”

I spare only a brief glance toward Colby as I move to the table of implements and select a scalpel and a pair of tweezers to take back to the severed leg. My focus turns to the toenail of the first phalanx as I grip it with the tweezers, working the sharp edge of the scalpel into the membrane that adheres the frozen keratin to the flesh until it begins to loosen.

“He wasn’t all that different from you,” I say, freeing the toenail from the skin and dropping it onto the edge of the gurney before I proceed to the next phalanx to lift another toenail free. “I was young. Seventeen. I didn’t know there was a serial killer hunting girls like me. People like the Silent Slayer were nightmares who didn’t touch lives like mine. He was just a dark phantom. Until he was real. Until he had drugged me, until he entered my home. Until he sunk his blade between my bones as my parents lay dying right before my eyes.”

“Please, please,” Colby whines when he finally stops heaving the contents of his stomach across inappropriate surfaces. “I just want to go home, I’m begging you.”

“How many girls have said the same thing to you? How many have begged you to take them home?” I ask as I drop the second toenail onto the table. I spare Colby a quick glance over my shoulder before returning to my work. “You’re a predator. You’ve gotten away with preying on women for so long that you probably don’t even worry about getting caught anymore. You thought that you could slide through life unscathed. But you know what? You’re not at the top of the food chain. You’re what we call in biology a tertiary consumer. Like a snake. Or a coyote.” I swallow a sudden burn in my throat as I pull the third nail free. “There are wolves out there, Mr. Candyman. And they can’t wait to gobble you up.”

“I c-can’t…I’m not…I’m not a bad guy—”

“You know, everyone fears the wolf. But do you know what the wolf fears in the kingdom of the wild?” I ask as I lift another toenail free and drop it to the table with a tick. “The lynx.” Colby blubbers behind me with quiet sobs. “I know, right? Most people wouldn’t guess a lynx. They look so snuggly, all plush fur and snowshoe feet and those adorable little black tufts on their ears. Super cute.” I pry the fourth nail from the frozen toe with a faint, wicked grin. “But a lynx will sneak into a wolf’s den. It will kill their pups. Their pregnant females. Even the full-grown males, when they get them alone. A lynx will flip a wolf on its back and gouge its stomach or neck, and then leave it to die. A single lynx will never challenge a wolf pack. No…it will bide its time. And when you least expect it,” I say as I lift the final toenail free and set it down among the others, “that’s when they emerge from the snow and the shadows. That’s when they kill.”

I grasp the leg by the ankle and return it to the freezer before gathering the toenails into a small Ziplock that I slip into the interior pocket of my jacket, tossing my gloves in the trash next to the table of implements. My gaze rests on the wall of photos and notes and I pull a picture down, the scene so familiar that the physical image is hardly needed, its details burned into memory. I slide it into my pocket next to the bag of souvenirs as I turn to face my captive with a grin. When I saunter toward the glass, Colby backs away, those delicious tears dampening his thick lashes and sliding across his skin.

“Jack is the wolf who hunts you. But guess what I am?” I press my hands to the glass and give Colby a shrug to go with my devious smile. “If the wolf never stood a chance against the lynx, what good do you think your begging will do?”

We regard one another for a long moment before I turn and stride toward the fortified steel door. “Clean up your vomit, Mr. Cameron. There are towels in the rubber container under your bed. I’ve got my own messes to attend to.”

I leave my little den to the melody of Colby’s pleas and protests, the first door slamming shut behind me with a thud that echoes up the concrete stairs. When I arrive at the second door, I pick up my rifle from where it leans against the wall and key the code into the pad to open the lock, entering the hidden cellar of my off-grid hunting cabin.

My dog Cornetto raises his head from his place where he lays guarding the threshold to the cabin as I enter the main floor, joining me to sit at my side on the worn sofa as I lay the Savage 110 across my thighs. I take the photo from the pocket where the toenails lay hidden. It’s one I took myself with a long-distance lens, a picture of Jack the year before I came to West Paine University. He’s in profile, his hands buried deep in his pockets as a bitter wind lifts his short dark hair from his brow. Jack is looking across the single acre of land that the university had managed to provide for his research with a threadbare grant. That was before I came along. Before I secured an additional forty-eight acres of field research space. Before I rallied for funding to build new labs and teaching facilities. It was from the days when every step I took closer to my quarry still felt like a wonderful challenge, a tactical move across a chessboard.

My father’s words come back to me. “There’s a saying you need to remember, Peanut,” he would tell me every season, no matter the prey we tracked. “Hunting is not a sport. In a sport, both sides should know they’re in the game.”

This is not a hunt, not anymore. Even if Jack finally understands he’s in the game, it’s not a sport.

It’s a reckoning.

I trace a finger across Jack’s face, an ache flaring beneath the thin, cracked crust of rage that’s built up over the years since this moment was captured. It never really bothered me much that he didn’t remember me the first time we officially met. There was disappointment, sure, but it wasn’t a strike deep enough to wound my heart. But everything since is different. Each of his hits has felt purposeful. Each venomous bite has burned hotter in my veins.

And it’s not just that I didn’t deserve the kiss of his poison.

It’s what he meant to me, despite each strike.

Jack was the person I emulated. Someone who could crush the breath from an enemy while still navigating a successful life in society, his dark secrets hidden from view. I wanted to be like him. In control. Impervious to the cruelty of time. Powerful. And I wanted to give Jack what he had given to me; a way to thrive in the absence of light.

So, I threw myself into my studies. I crushed each degree in as little time as possible, studying endlessly until I was top of my class. I signed up for every field school, seized every opportunity. I turned my hunting skills on those men who deserved it, cleansing Ashgrove and then Westview from the detritus of civilization one mediocre soul at a time.