A dull ache burns inside my chest. Dropping her hand, I step away. “What is the hemlock for, Devyn?” If what Kallum believes is true, that Devyn wants me in place of the victims, then there’s at least a chance I can reason with her here.
“Where is the knife, Halen?” She counters, cocking her head. Dread prickles my skin. If she knows about the missing evidence, then Agent Alister might already know, too.
“Oh, that’s right,” she says. “You don’t play by the rules, but you expect others to do so.”
I look back at the diner, waiting to see Agent Hernandez walk through the door, and a hazy glow stems from the florescent interior. The streetlights twinkle a little too brightly, and as I tilt my head, multicolored tracers streak the night.
“You could…” Devyn says, following my line of sight. “You could scream. You have a phone in your back pocket. You could call for help, or you could just run. I won’t chase you.”
“I won’t run.” Wherever Devyn wants to take me, that’s where I’ll find the victims.
When Kallum first told me his theory of the Overman, that I was in danger, a part of me was exhilarated. Knowing I could bait them. And that’s why Kallum hasn’t left my side. He felt that within me. He wasn’t fearful of the suspect—he was frightened that I’d risk myself to lure the Overman out.
Finally, a worthy sacrifice.
Through my fuzzy vision, her face blurs, and I blink hard. I touch my forehead as I stagger to the side, the sudden bout of dizziness increasing my heart rate.
I bring the coffee cup up, and realization grips my lungs in a vise. “Why didn’t you just—”
“Take you?” she says, eyebrows hiked. “Steal you away in the middle of the night like some brute? Attack you and force myself on you like that bastard Alister?”
My bleary gaze snaps to hers, and her features reflect her commiserating tone. “Yeah, I know what he tried to do,” she says. “Choice is the most powerful weapon we have, Halen. As a woman, you know this. I’m not taking your choice away from you.”
My laugh is clipped. “You’re not taking my choice away, but you drugged me. Do you see the faulty logic there?”
Her expression softens. “It’s meant to relax you. Not alter your decision making. You’ll need to be relaxed for what happens next.”
I force a swallow past the thickening of my throat. “You could have just come to me,” I say. “Talked to me. You’re my friend, Devyn.”
“I know this, Halen. And you would’ve psychoanalyzed me, and tried to make me see the logic. But this isn’t about right and wrong. Good and evil. This is so much bigger than all that basic shit.”
My equilibrium pitches sideways, and she reaches out to steady me. I hold on to her shoulder and find the gentle brown of her eyes. “Then where does that leave us?”
Reaching up, she traps the shock of white hair framing my face. She admires the lock, touching my hair the way Kallum would, before curling the length behind my ear. “You'll come with me,” she says assuredly. “You want to know how I know this?”
I shudder out a breath, hating the layer of heartache encasing me at losing her.
“Because of that right there.” Melancholy touches her smile, affecting, sincere. “How long before the pain hits in the morning? A minute? Not even a full thirty seconds? How much reprieve do you get before you remember all the death, the loss…?”
A violent ache rips through my chest wall, the pain stealing my breath. The stinging pressure builds behind my sinuses, and a tear tracks down my cheek. I suck in a gasp, lips trembling. “Fuck you, Devyn.”
“I’m not your enemy, Halen.” She palms my face, her thumb swipes my cheek to clear the tear track. “Memory is your enemy. Consciously trying to heal from the pain hurts worse. So much worse. I can help you forget the pain. It’s easier to simply…let go.”
A surge of dizziness crashes over me, and I sway out of her touch. Coffee gripped tight in my hand, I say, “I’ve fought every goddamn day not to give in…” I trail off to catch my breath. “There is no easy way out.”
There is always hurt and pain left in the wake of death.
There is always someone left to suffer the loss.
She presses her lips together, features drawn tight. “Only through pain and suffering do we ascend,” she says. “That’s why it’s you, Halen. Take my hand.”
I wipe my face, lightheaded, as a laugh slips free. “Why would I ever do that?”
“Because, there's so much you want to know, have to know. And, where he merely dangled answers just out of your reach, I will give them to you freely.”
I lock with her gaze. “Everything has a price.”
“But it’s the price to solve your mystery.”
I look at the police building, to where Kallum is locked within its walls.
I came to this town to find the lost victims. But I was caught in a web, tangled in a bigger mystery, and I’ve since become the one who is lost.
A warm buzz courses my veins. Acceptance is solace. “What is there left to lose.”
As long as no one conducts a search of the FBI vehicles, then Devyn’s attempt to frame Kallum for the Harbinger murder will be faltered. If I don’t make it out of this, I know Kallum will. Crosby will arrive in town tomorrow. And Kallum always finds a way to outsmart everyone.
Because I already know what comes next.
I bring the coffee cup to my lips. Holding Devyn’s deep eyes over the rim, I drink.
“Good girl.” Devyn holds out her hand. “It’s time to go.”
The lights twinkle brighter as my pupils dilate. Sounds are louder. Devyn is more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her, a siren luring me with her angelic voice.
I slip my hand into hers. “Take me to them.”
OceanofPDF.com
13
OceanofPDF.com
CREATIVE GENIUS
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KALLUM
Of all the deities on the Greek pantheon, Dionysus was the only god who demanded a violent ritual in worship. The rending of animal and human fed an innate, primal desire within, creating a link to the god himself.
Some scholars theorized this violence was not only acceptable but essential in order to balance our flesh and spirit, carnality and essence.
Jung expounded on this theory with his hypothesis that to balance the totality of opposites within oneself was to become liberated, elevated. The closest one can ever be to achieving divinity. If you don’t go mad in the process.
A truly daunting undertaking, as Nietzsche lamented in his own words: “I undertook something that not everyone may undertake: I descended into the depths, I bored into the foundations.” His harrowing quest into the abyss of his psyche, where psychosis claimed his mind.
And where all others have seemingly failed, the Hollow’s Row offender has set out to succeed, to attain the unattainable primordial wisdom. Walking in the footsteps of the greats from the past three millennia. To become transcendent and ascend to the highest plane of human consciousness.
A path scored by the deepest pain, the most profound suffering. The destination only reached by breaking, most violently, through our very foundation.
I cast a look down at my hand. Dried blood gathers dark in the creases of my knuckles. The skin split over bone. A garish mix of red and violet bruises wrap the flesh. A throbbing hot ache flares beneath muscle and cartilage. The slashed flesh of my palms stings and demands I feel the pain.
And still, there is no physical pain that can rival the anguish which tore through me the moment I heard Halen scream.
Miguel de Unamuno wrote: Consciousness is a disease.
I flex my hand, lighting up the pain. To deny this inherently savage part of ourselves is to deny our very existence, our consciousness—to allow the disease to creep in through the slats of our mind and rot us from the inside out.
