He wasn’t afraid of death or the dead. Hell, he dealt with it day in and day out; it was the living that scared the hell out of him, the not knowing who was walking behind him or plotting their next kill. The not knowing what was going to happen next, the helplessness to do anything about is what was devouring him from the inside out. It was simultaneously the most potent and sexy thing in the world to him.
He knew better than to talk to Ant before he went to bed. Every, single, fucking time he went to bed thinking about Anthony Bruce, his dreams were tortured and bloody. Eight flashed before his eyes. In his dream he had cut her heart out while she was still breathing. He held it up in front of her horrified face as it pumped its last dying beat, thick clots dripping from his hand and the arteries and mangled veins hanging like webs from his fingers. In his dream, her beautiful, brown eyes were pleading with him, her stunning red hair was all around her tranquil face and her hands were clawing at his chest. When he tasted blood in his mouth from biting his own lip, he bolted upright and ran to the bathroom, bile rising in his throat. He barely made it to the toilet when his dinner spilled out of him.
He was accustomed to the nightmares and he wasn’t sure why he was feeling so sick about this particular one. Maybe it was still just too fresh in his mind, the combination of tasting his own blood and the details not fading fast enough. It could also be that the faces were just too familiar. He had never dreamt of his Chapters in such a ghastly way. It was the Cambridge case; it was getting to him in a way no other case had.
Eight… He shook his head when Elsa suddenly popped into his head again. No matter what he had convinced himself of or what the facts were, he wasn’t Anthony, or any cold-blooded killer for that matter, and his Chapters would no longer simply be referred to by their numbers. They all had names and he repeated them over and over in his mind.
Kayla. Anissa. Jordan. Peyton. Terra. Emily. Elsa. And the Chapter that started it all… the one whose name he would never speak again…the one who made him into the calculated soul-crusher he had become.
*
Dressed and ready to face the community and his fellow investigators, Victor headed to the FBI office for another day of work. Just as he entered the facility, his phone chirped with a text message.
C8: I found this quote: “The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love – almost as violent and much more mischievous” by Aldous Huxley. I’m truly sorry for my cruel words. I know nothing of your life or past to have said something so callous. Even if I did, there is no excuse for it except to say I was angry and hurt, and I wanted you to feel the same way. It will never happen again.
C8: P.S - Wherever you are – be safe and know that whether or not you show up, I’ll be waiting for you, 9:00 a.m. on Saturday at Grace Street.
Frozen with emotion, he stared at the phone. He hadn’t even had to punish Eight, Elsa, to make her understand her wrongdoing. Simply letting her come to the conclusion herself had been enough. It was a revelation. Had his methods been flawed all along? He had always used basic psychology: positive consequences for positive behavior and negative consequences for negative behavior. Of course, he had always focused on the punishment aspect, for obvious reasons – his own selfish wants and the fact that he got off on it. But was he wrong in thinking he could force someone to change their ways with harsh conditions?
Someone bumped into him, nearly knocking his phone out of his hand, reminding him of the real world waiting for him. Hope crept into his subconscious and for the first time in years, he allowed it to stay. He couldn’t change who he was or what was coursing through his veins, but still… maybe today would be different. Perhaps today there would be a real break in the case.
15: Eye-Opener
Elsa sat in her office reading all morning, not once attending to what she was getting paid to do. She was devouring Mr. Black’s case study like it was some kind of depraved, dark novel where there was no romance involved, only sex, pain, humiliation and cruel lessons. Still, she couldn’t stop reading. She had finished with Chapter Seven and was now more than half-way through Chapter Six - Terra, the prim and proper personal assistant to a CEO of a major corporation. Elsa found out quickly this was the Chapter that Mr. Black had fucked and mentally and physically tormented in a run-down hotel on weekends. This was also the Chapter that begged for more every time he would humiliate her.
Elsa just couldn’t wrap her brain around Terra. In a way, she could identify with Chapter Seven. She had once been the same way – attention seeking, rebellious and even a bit promiscuous, although she was a teenager at that time and not a grown woman.
Why would anyone want to be treated the way Chapter Six wanted to be treated? What was Mr. Black trying to accomplish with her? From everything she was reading, he wasn’t helping her at all. All he was doing was feeding into her sickness.
But who was she to judge what a person got off on? Maybe it wasn’t a sickness at all and simply a fetish. Hell, she had her own perversions, like being screwed in the butt and dominated. Elsa shook her head at herself for being hypercritical. She, of all people, had no right to look down her nose at anyone. Everyone truly was different, each with their own wants and needs and obsessions.
Her current obsession: Victor Laurenzo. She had stopped trying to deny it wasn’t. Her thoughts were consumed with him and her sanity was like a thin thread ready to break.
She checked her phone, hoping for some kind of response from Mr. Black regarding her text, but only a blank screen stared back at her. She reminded herself that he was busy doing the noble thing of trying to bring justice to the families who had lost their loved ones.
It was astounding to think that the man whose job it was to find killers and give peace to the families of murder victims was the same man who had chronicled his debauched mental games with unknowing victims. She had only joked about there being a personality split, but Elsa was starting to wonder if that was really the case.
There were only a few other references to his personal abuse and nothing else was shared up through Chapter Six, leaving Elsa to make up her own horrible ideas of what he could’ve been put through living with an alcoholic parent. Where was his father in all this and why would he have allowed Victor to live with a mother like that?
Lunch came and Elsa continued to hide in her office, reading. She was happy to be done reading about Terra and moving on to a new Chapter. She only hoped this one would be less distressing. She was wrong.
Chapter 5 – Peyton, age 37. Profession: Restaurant Owner and Entrepreneur
Prologue:
Welcome to my world, C5. I used less than ethical means of finding you, but alas, I found you. A case you were involved in fell into my lap by sheer luck. You are the surviving ‘victim’ of a known murder suspect, though I hesitantly use the term ‘victim.’ I would never suggest that you were asking for what you got, but you stated it yourself. Even now, you will not talk openly or divulge everything about what transpired that night. Why is that? I ask, but I already know the answer. You liked it. You sought it out. You are a masochist and one of the most intensely personal people I’ve ever met, even in my line of work.