A reactive flame licks my skin, and I’m forced to look down into the den of the crime scene to escape his knowing leer.

When Alister said he planned to bring Kallum back onboard the case, I had hoped the red tape would take longer to cut through. I wonder how Alister convinced Dr. Torres to release Kallum to the service of the feds once again rather than transferring him to another facility, as he was so intent on.

“I assume everyone will play nice together,” Alister says, attempting to dissipate the obvious awkwardness. He then bows his head in my direction. “Are you leaving?”

Finally breaking free of Kallum’s penetrating hold, I give my attention to the agent in charge. “No, just taking a short break,” I say, deciding there’s no way I can leave Kallum on this crime scene where he can potentially tamper with evidence.

“You look like you’re in need of a bed, Dr. St. James.” Kallum’s voice is fine gravel scraping at my resolve. The dark flame banked behind his clashing eyes sends up a warning flare within me, the insinuation hitting its mark.

I swallow the ache trapped in my throat and flip my white forelock out of my vision. “Some of us appreciate the sacrifice that has to be made.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I mentally claw the air to snatch them back.

Like he’s been given a gift, Kallum smiles down at me with practiced, weaponized smolder that shallows my breath. “Oh, I more than appreciate your sacrifice, Dr. St. James.”

Liquid heat pours into my veins, and my thighs clench at the empty ache in my core. A flash of memory surfaces—my wrists bound; my thighs wrapped around his thrusting hips—and I can feel Kallum so deep inside me, I have to take a step back to breathe.

My emotions and weaknesses are human. I’m a flawed design. I can’t shut off the torrent of emotions he unleashed inside me in a matter of hours. I gave Kallum a piece of me that I’d never given anyone else…and now, I can’t simply forget, no matter how badly I wish I had the power to do so.

Unlike the soulless demon standing before me, I’m not an unfeeling monster.

Regardless of the confusion waging an internal war, my mind is stronger than my metaphorical heart. It always wins out. Kallum knows this—he even believes this—the power of mind over matter, the philosophy of The Will to Power. It’s why the last words he uttered to me were spat with venom.

“There’s no way I’m ever letting you go. We are the duality.”

He wants me to give in to some illogical, immaterial passion. Which he’ll manipulate, utilizing every head game in his arsenal to cloud my reason.

A heavy bout of mental exhaustion claims me already, and we’ve barely started this dance.

When a crime-scene analyst approaches Alister, the agent steps aside to speak with him in private, and suddenly the negative space between us is charged with everything last said and unsaid.

Kallum steps closer, leaving the other agent farther behind. I purposely loosen my grip on the strap, allowing a tingling sensation to bite into my fingertips as feeling returns.

This is exactly how it feels to be Kallum’s object of obsession. First the numbing balm, then the pain.

The bandage around his left hand is stained with fresh blood. As if he knows the effect his proximity has on me, Kallum grins, leisurely rolling up the cuffs of his black dress shirt to put the bandage in my direct view.

I tear my eyes away and catch sight of the scripted tattoos which decorate the areas between the sigils and archaic designs inked into his skin.

“You’re in pain,” he says, his voice softening as his gaze tracks my body, momentarily landing on the bruises along my neck.

I’m not sure if he’s referring to the attack I sustained from the dead suspect, or our frenzied love making—but I don’t want him probing any of my wounds.

“Halen—?”

“I’m fine,” I say, cutting him off. I look at the scripted words tattooed on his skin, shifting my thoughts to a safer topic, like the verse I’ve read countless times on his arm. “There would be no harmony without high and low notes…”

He glances down at his forearm before returning his attention to me. “Heraclitus’s oppositional process of eris and dike.”

I hold his gaze, unwavering. “Strife and justice. Or is it strife and harmony? What does the philosophy expert believe?”

A flash of amusement lights his features. His tongue travels over his bottom lip, as if tasting me in the air, a snake scenting its prey. “Impressive. I’m surprised you’ve had time to memorize my tattoos to research.” He tosses an unconcerned look at the crime scene. “Then again, you never could keep your eyes off me.”

A flare of indignation blisters my face. I mentally sidestep his baiting remark. “I just find it ironic you have a quote by a philosopher known as The Obscure. It’s rather…I don’t know… Fitting?”

“Initially, he was called The Riddler,” he corrects before taking a purposeful step forward to crowd the thin space between us with his consuming, towering presence. “There’s no irony here, little Halen. I’ve never once been obscure with you. I’ve always been honest, offered you the truth. Ask me anything. Whatever you want, whatever you need, I’ll give you.”

Beneath the heavy press of his implied offer, one thing screams inside my head.

The knife.

With his severe eyes focused on me in challenge, I want to demand what he did with the carving knife after Landry’s attack. Did he take it with him when he left the ritual ground? Is it the weapon that was used to sever the victim’s head?

“I know how to find them. You know I can find them.”

These words Kallum said to me before he disappeared into the high reeds, leaving me to clean up the mess at the ritual crime scene. His claim he could locate the missing victims.

For hours, Kallum was out of my sight—out of everyone’s sight. The ankle monitor left behind at the hotel. He had just under three hours to locate a victim, set the scene, and get back to the hotel.

Thinking about it in terms of anyone else, it’s not possible. There wasn’t enough time. The walk alone would’ve taken Kallum over forty-five minutes to reach the hotel.

But we’re not talking about anyone else—this is Kallum Locke. The man who had an agenda from the moment he first approached me at the university crime scene. The man who knew his end game before I ever sat down across from him at the Briar visitation table.

The man who believes charging sigils on his skin can manifest his most coveted desires, and whose delusional, twisted concept of love is manipulating me into believing I’m a murderer.

If planned ahead, if Kallum already deciphered the location of the town’s missing victims, then it’s feasible he could have held Detective Emmons’ brother somewhere else, somewhere nearby. He removed his ankle monitor once, proving he could’ve removed it at any point prior to the night of the ritual. As he found the second crime scene with hemlock and ears in mere minutes of studying the first scene, Kallum could have known where to look for a possible third location.

There’s a lot of hypotheticals in my working theory, which is not how I break down a crime scene. The only thing I have right now is speculation, and herein lies the danger of building a profile while looking directly at an offender.

Until I find the one pivotal piece of evidence—the murder weapon—I need to focus on the why instead of the how.

Kallum’s motive is simple: Revenge.

My questions burn to be released, but I can’t give up my theory to him. Not until I have what I need.

This time, I can’t give in to Kallum or his games.

The special agent behind Kallum clears his throat, noting the tension between the two consultants is reaching a fever pitch.

“There’s absolutely nothing I want from you.” I try to back away, but Kallum reaches out and grasps my forearm. His thumb brazenly grazes the sensitive skin of my inner wrist, feeling the abraded flesh from the rope burn and speeding my pulse.