My mouth tips into a slanted smile. She’s not wrong; Zarathustra is a divine depiction of Nietzsche. Philosophers can’t resist feeding their egos. But logic and rational deduction will only serve to frustrate her further. And it won’t serve me at all.

It’s time to start lowering the veil.

“Nietzsche advocated instinct over reason.” Elbows braced on the armrests, I steeple my fingers together. “The ‘will to power.’ The belief that, essentially, our will alters the universe. Amid your offender’s crippling fear of his end, his weakness of the flesh, he will cling to this belief.”

She sits on the edge of the bed, dropping her head in her hands. “We’re going in circles, Kallum. When I first read Allegory of the Cave , it was like falling down a rabbit hole. Yet he’s incorporated every symbolism into his delusion.” She blows out a breath and pushes her hair back, linking her hands behind her neck. “Everything connects. As if I already have the answers, all the pieces, but finishing the puzzle is like trying to link together over a million intricate pieces.”

“Synchronicity,” I state.

“But now I’m just exhausted.” She rests her hands on her thighs. “No more rabbit holes, no more existential meanderings. I need facts. Or…I need to leave and let the case solvers do their job.”

I narrow my eyes on her. “Running away is your default.”

“You don’t know anything real about me.”

“I know things that would make your head spin.”

“I’m trying to rationalize how to save these people—”

“You rationalized renting a car when you were leaving today,” I say. “To go where?”

My question gives her pause. She looks to the door. “I wasn’t sure,” she admits.

“Neither of us have a place we belong.” I cock my head. “Aren’t we a fucking pair.”

She releases a derisive breath. “Yes. A crazed, murderous fiend, and an apathetic profiler who lets him go down on her in the middle of an urgent case with lives at stake.” She shakes her head, disgust evident in her drawn features.

I can’t help the devilish smile that teases my lips. I stand and walk toward her. She keeps her gaze aimed on the floor, so I lower myself to my knees and cup her face.

“Falling through suffering is a descent into chaos,” I say, savoring the feel of her soft skin. “It’s the darkest obscurity, the ultimate terror. But the ascent out of the abyss reveals itself in the most tender moments.”

Her gaze alights on me, and a kernel of hope—that rare emotion always so elusive amid true despair—flares in her eyes. If I could bottle the awe in her face, my ego could feast and never starve. But it’s not her soft underbelly I’m a glutton for.

I sweep my hand to the nape of her neck and sink my fingers into her hair. I grip her hair and force her head back as I rise to my feet. Staring down into her face, I drink in the emotive fear crashing through her.

I flatten my other hand against her chest, absorbing the violent thump of her heart.

“That day in the quad when I approached you,” I say, “you felt your heart race for the first time.” Her heartbeat quickens in response. “That’s what terrified you.”

She struggles against my hold, her nails dig crescents into my wrists. “You twist everything—”

“That fire is really why you became infatuated with me,” I press on. “Why you couldn’t stop thinking about me, even when your career was in jeopardy.”

Her fight stalls. Breaths ragged, she doesn’t deny it.

“I could strangle you.” I yank her head back farther. “Does that frighten you?”

She doesn’t hesitate. “No.”

My gaze drags over her features, assessing the truth for myself. “Death doesn’t scare you,” I say, “because you have nothing left to fear losing. You’ve stared into the abyss, faced your worst horror, and now you fear nothing at all.”

She swallows hard, and the intoxicating mix of her lust and terror is the most potent aphrodisiac.

“Except me.” I slip my tongue over my teeth. “You fear everything about me. The way I tempt you to lose control. The way I dare you to rattle the cage of that dark prison in your mind. But most of all, you fear the way I make you feel . That terrifies you so deeply I can taste it every time you look at me.”

Her heart rate spikes, slamming against my palm.

“What do you fear, Kallum?” she asks, her voice breaking on an exhale.

My smile falls. “As if I’d give you yet another power over me, sweetness.” I tsk . “You’ll have to solve your own riddles.”

I remove my hand from her chest and touch her face. I run my thumb over her full lips with a reverent yearning so intense, my teeth grit against the need.

“The more you suffer, the deeper your pain, the more intoxicating your rapture.” I wet my lips. “That’s why the frenzy was so seductive to you last night, Halen. You’ve experienced hell. Anything above that is sheer, transformative ecstasy. It’s Nietzsche’s rausch . The path to the philosopher’s stone. What your suspect so desperately desires.”

“You are certifiably mad,” she says.

“Want will drive you right into the maddening depths, I assure you. But you have to want with a fire, with a passion. The day you stop wanting, is the day you decide to die.” A tense beat settles between us, the air thickening. “I know this, because I believed I’d never find my muse. Unfulfilled until the end came for me. Bored. Apathetic. Uninspired.”

Worshipful, I trace my finger across her cheek. “But then there was you—and you sparked a ravenous desire, one I will drop to my fucking knees and grovel for.”

The fear within her peaks, her defenses erecting to close me off. “You need help, Kallum,” she says. “I should have left you in that hospital to rot.”

A deep chuckle escapes, and I fasten my hand to her jaw. “Oh, you couldn’t hop on that plane fast enough to get to me. You’re in thrall to your obsession just as I am. There’s nowhere to go, little Halen. No one else can give you the answers to the questions plaguing you.”

The veracity of my words penetrates her obstinate defenses, and her expression opens.

“And the answers will be delivered my way because you owe me .” I seethe the words, dropping them against her mouth.

With what restraint I have left, I release her, and she pushes away from me.

“Now, are you coming willingly? Or am I throwing you over my shoulder, gagged and bound?”

Her anger is a fiery whip as it lashes out at me. “I don’t know if you’re really insane or not, but you’re a fucking sadist.” With derision in her heated gaze, she grabs a hairband and ties back her hair in a low ponytail, then grabs her mud-covered boots from beside her case, decidedly making her choice.

Good girl. Although I’m admittedly disappointed we’re not going with the former option.

As I head to my room door, I say, “Trusting my methods has gotten you this far. Dare to go all the way, little Halen.”

“All the way down to the pits of hell with the devil himself.” Her slitted pixie eyes flay me. “You asked me which one of us was selling our soul. I think you now have your answer.”

A smile forms as I hover in the doorway. “The ninth circle welcomes you, sweetness.”

She slips her feet into her mud boots. “You truly believe everything you say.” She assesses me coolly, logically, through the lens of a psychologist.

“I’ve had some time to work through my struggle with faith and trust. If you can’t trust your own mind, then what can you trust, Halen?” I leave her with that as I dip into my room to gather the supplies.

The suspect and I have at least one thing in common: We both need a bridge.

For him, in order to overcome his pity for the higher men and do what’s necessary to feed his unrelenting desire for self-deification, he must sacrifice them. Those he painstakingly selected. Those he may even love.