I’m counting and theorizing as I wrap my hand with bandage when my laptop pings with a new email. I finish securing the burn, then seat myself behind the screen. My heart rate spikes.
The notification is from my alerts, the ones I have set in place for specific words, phrases, and names.
Ericson Theodore Daverns appears highlighted in bold.
I click the email.
Officials are seeking information on the murder of Ericson Daverns. His body was discovered behind a Dumpster near Daverns’ apartment building. The report states that Ericson was viciously stabbed thirteen times. His blood-covered body was found with no identification, money, or shoes. Officials suspect robbery as a motive, but are asking for anyone with information to please come forward.
I recline back in my chair and steeple my fingers together. I wince at the pain in my hand, but it’s not enough to deter me from churning theories, possibilities.
The authorities are asking for witnesses…revealing the killer got away. For how long, is the question. I mean, it is the city. Ericson very well could’ve been a victim of a mugging. He also kept company with very unsavory types. Maybe one of them put him down.
Only, that’s not what my instincts are screaming.
Ericson Daverns was at the top of a revenge list of one very dedicated justice dealer.
A thrill courses my system as I imagine her furious and wild, eyes as vibrant as the sea, a harbinger of justice as she attacks. She’s the most beautiful vision like this, so full of passion.
What could drive an individual with shallow affect, with no past violent tendencies, to suddenly lose control and commit murder?
I know the answer—but does she?
Her drive to balance the scales and deliver retribution is a part of her nature. It’s why she chose her occupation. Why she’s so good at reaping vengeance for her clients.
And Ericson Daverns was unfinished business.
But then there’s the darker side of her nature, the part of Blakely that enjoyed causing pain, suffering. It’s why she wanted to take the job to the extreme to truly make Ericson suffer for his sins.
Oh, Blakely, what has my little monster done?
I pull back a section of bandage and examine the burned flesh of my hand. Damaged but my body is already generating new cells to heal the skin. We adapt. We recover. We grow stronger.
Blakely is like those damaged cells; her brain generating new growth to repair and replace the scorched memories. Coding over the old data, learning and adapting to her new emotions.
I did not fail. I knew I could not fail…not with her.
The treatment is a success.
Pulling my desk drawer open, I remove the one object I was able to save from the fire before it took the cabin. The journal of subject 6. I page through the entries to find the drawing of Blakely I sketched in the park.
My fingers trace her features reverently. The hard expression she wore when she believed no one was watching. The delicate curve of her lips, the way she bit her lip so enticingly.
She swore she was not like me—she vowed she’d never be a killer. She refused to take my life, and I witnessed her conflict over that choice. Yet, she seemingly murdered her target.
Why take one life and not the other?
What sets me apart from Ericson?
Maybe the answer will be in new brain scans. Or a whole new emotional map. Or maybe it’s something I can’t quantify with data.
Some look for love in flowers and sweet professions of adoration and devotion. Ours is not sweet. Ours is not naïve. Ours is a sick and cruel love born in a lab. Violence and obsession are only a measure away from passion, and our depraved passion owns us wholly.
Blakely belongs with me.
She is my proof. My cure is out there right now, wandering the world, a fledgling in her own right. She’s going to need protection, guidance. She’s going to need her maker to help her transition. Blakely is going to need me as much as I need her.
Soon, little monster. We will be together soon.
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“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.”
MARY SHELLEY, FRANKENSTEIN
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ALEX
If you had asked me to define love before, I would have broken it down scientifically.
Love is not substantial. It’s firing synapses and brain chemicals—dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, vasopressin—producing a rush of endorphins. That which our body uses as a defense mechanism to protect from pain is the same chemical-induced physiological function summoned to translate love.
Thought-provoking.
Love is not the absence of pain.
It’s the absolute immersion of it.
She doesn’t make me feel as if I’m soaring high above rose-colored clouds, or traipsing through a field of poppies, elated, euphoric.
She drags me through the crags of hell, tearing the still-beating muscle from my chest wall, my blood aflame with her scent, tortured by her stormy eyes.
Her loss would annihilate me.
Even now, as she wields the syringe, the friction of just being near her, my molecules clinging to hers, her energy absorbing mine, I’d sever a body part before I’d suffer the loss of her from my system.
That is the bounds of my love for Lauraleigh Blakely Vaughn.
To wit, there are some truths I have to accept.
I am a killer.
I have taken life.
I am irredeemable.
And I am undeserving of her.
The tick tick tick filters through the air, the trap crafted for me perfect in its design. I can still see the gleaming pewter of my pocket watch, suspended in the darkness.
Our mutual enemy that unites us.
If Grayson was any less sadistic, he would have simply killed me. Instead, he left me here, staring into the lovely sea green of her eyes, to witness her destruction as she makes the choice to bring us to an end.
A derisive laugh falls free from my lips. Helpless, resolute, I surrender my last wisp of hope.
Giving a person power over you to break you.
This is what I find to be the truest measure of love.
Utter surrender.
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25
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HUNT
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BLAKELY
Devil’s Peak looks different in the daylight.
The dark canopy of trees I’ve only glimpsed at night, that felt so nefarious with their gnarled limbs vying to steal the stars from my view, catches the sun’s rays to send glittering shards across the pine straw-covered ground.
The forest is in full bloom. Bright greens and oranges mingle with the heavily wooded backdrop of brown, like a Bob Ross painting with his happy little trees. It’s a sight right out of Vanessa’s pastel drawing room. The scent of the forest even smells pastel.
Before me, the narrow river is gray, the river stones tinting the clear water as the stream moves at a peaceful pace, the current leisure and serene. A tranquil atmosphere that is in direct contrast to the horrors of my nightmares.
Alex belonged to the night.
He was a creature of the moon and shadows.
He was Devil’s Peak, and he couldn’t have chosen a better location for his sinister research lab, where he tortured his victims in the name of science. Oh, he believed—somewhere in his delusional brain—that he was fighting a just cause, but it was ultimately a selfish cause. One that gave his deceased, psychotic twin sister a chance to redeem her tarnished reputation.
