Battered Dreams

by Hadena James

  “Because it was her birthday and she liked things like that.”

  “I see,” I answered. “When did you give it to her?”

  “On her birthday. She had a really bad day, her house was robbed, and then her car broke down, so I drove to meet her. We had dinner together, I left her at the electronics store because she said she’d call someone to come get her and I had to get home from San Antonio on a weeknight. No one’s seen her since.”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Mrs. Blanks interjected. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew the missing girls from San Antonio?”

  “I don’t know them all, I just know Esperanza; she played volleyball.” Jessica snapped at her mother.

  Twenty-Two

  Sleeping had been fitful. Malachi had texted several times. My waking mind wanted to dwell on our serial killer and how she got around as she did.

  The problem with psychopaths was that they were psychopaths. Even the ones who weren’t out chopping people up, weren’t exactly “good people.” They were very adept at making it look like their hearts were in the right place, but in reality, everything they did benefited themselves. Malachi for example, even when he was looking out for me, it was being done because looking out for me was in his best interest.

  Jessica Blanks was a sixteen-year-old psychopath with a high IQ and social skills. She was also very dangerous. Psychopaths tended to live in their own versions of reality. They had very rich fantasy lives and when the real thing failed to meet up to the standards of the fantasy world, they became moody.

  Sociopaths and psychopaths had pulled the greatest trick in the history of mankind. Malachi and I both knew it, but we didn’t discuss it. My brain tumor had revealed the secret to some degree, but no one had caught on, because they bought the lie.

  I hadn’t suddenly learned to feel because I had a tumor in my head. I hadn’t been able to turn it off because of the tumor. Our emotions worked on switches, so to speak. They could be turned on or off. For most of us, it was easier to turn them off and keep them there. When they were on, we tended to become violent, sadistic, rage-filled monsters.

  There were triggers for those switches as well. Mine was the intimate group of people that I considered my equals, my mother, Nyleena, my team, Malachi, and to some degree, my sister-in-law and her children. I was Malachi’s biggest weakness, but he had a few others. In moments of hedonistic sadism, we liked to push each other’s buttons and see just how angry the other person could get.

  We could even empathize when forced into the right situation. If someone were torturing Nyleena, I would be able to empathize with her. Her pain would become mine. It was why I would go to great lengths to kill who ever hurt her. They would be hurting me as well. We were every bit as narcissistic as we claimed. Our reality revolved around us.

  Aside from a few neurological changes that caused psychopaths not to feel pain or understand fear, the greatest difference between a sociopath and a psychopath was the length of time they held onto those emotions. Psychopaths held on longer, it was the reason their rage was stronger.

  It was why we were drawn to one another like a compass finding magnetic north. It was easy for a sociopath or psychopath to find a kindred spirit. We knew exactly what to look for; we knew all those dirty little secrets that we kept hidden from mankind. We sought each other out because we could derive the greatest pleasure from forcing another of our sort to feel.

  It made us vulnerable. Once I had realized that Jessica’s tears were only half-real and her soft tone carried hints of anger, I had instantly found her Achilles’ heel. Becky Childs sat in a conference room with Lucas and her father, the mayor. Becky was as crucial to Jessica as Nyleena was to me. Even a soft interrogation, which is what she was currently enduring, would be gut wrenching for Jessica.

  At the moment, I felt nothing for the upset sixteen year old in the other room. My emotions had been off as much as possible since the tumor had been removed. Feeling wasn’t just exhausting, it made me angry. I wasn’t even bothering with the fake half-emotions that I used to mask my condition. Even those pissed me off.

  Becky’s tears, which were very real, only made me sigh with irritation. Lucas was carefully bullying her, trying to get some sort of statement about Jessica being off. We didn’t need much evidence that Jessica was our serial killer, but my gut reaction to her being a psychopath wasn’t going to do it this time. Lucas had picked up on hints of it, but to him, they could have also just been teenage angst. No one but me was willing to throw the captain of the volleyball team and valedictorian candidate into The Fortress based on a necklace.

  “Cain,” Gabriel whispered my name and touched my shoulder. He was standing. I could have sworn he was sitting a few moments ago.

  “What?” I whispered back.

  “They found a body they want us to look at. Lucas is busy, so you’ll have to help Xavier.”

  “I usually do,” I reminded him.

  “I meant with the psychobabble,” Gabriel corrected himself.

  “I’m not a psychologist.”

  “You’re the closest I’ve got that isn’t busy. Go with Xavier. Call me when you come to some conclusions.” He motioned for me to leave.

  I did as I was told. He wasn’t going to let me go in there with a phone book anyway. It would be better for me not to watch the interrogation of Becky Childs.

  It was dark. Xavier kept throwing glances my way though. The shadows in the car would change when he did it. I stared out the front window, not wanting to deal with whatever was on his mind.

  He stopped the SUV in front of a house with a squad car already there. The house looked older than the pyramids and in worse condition. The lights from the car were violently bright. The strobe burned my eyes and made them water. I held my hand up to my forehead to block as much of it as possible. Xavier was walking towards a barn.

  The barn was in good condition. Was it a Texas thing to let the house go to ruin, but keep the barn looking nice? I didn’t know and I didn’t figure asking was going to win me many points, points that I might need in the future. After all, I was an interloper and no one really liked interlopers.

  The air in the barn was fresh. Both large doors stood open. Aside from the smell of grass and hay, I caught a hint of freshly smoked pot and below that, decomposition. I put balm under my nose as I caught sight of Nails, the Doberman. He wagged his tail as he sat on the hard floor.

  “What’s with the dog?” Xavier asked.

  “The boys that found the bodies panicked and couldn’t remember how they got to it.” Young appeared out of a hole. “So they called me to come relocate the entrance. I’ll admit it was well hidden, but their condition might have hampered their memories.”

  “I take it that the smell is their pot,” I said.

  “I can’t believe you can still smell it,” Young said. “That was two hours ago.”

  “It lingers,” I shrugged. “Our serial killer?”

  “It doesn’t look like it,” Young told me, “but I’m not an expert.”

  Xavier went down the strangely built steps first. They terminated about six feet underground. Xavier was standing up, but only just. I had no trouble standing in the root cellar, but it felt cramped.

  The smell was also worse. The bodies were fresh. Scavengers had gotten to them, most likely rats and mice, but possibly a few burrowing animals. Xavier’s flashlight caught bone in the corner. We both walked towards it.

  One body was a few days older than the other, based on how they looked. The newest one had only been down here a day, maybe two. It was still bloated. Black ooze dripped out of the nose when Xavier rolled it over.

  They were nothing like our other kills. These had not died quickly from a stab wound to the heart. They had been beaten. Bones jutted out at odd angles. A quick look told me one of them was Sabrina Reeves, a teen that had gone missing last week. The other was unidentified, even though it was the newcomer to the pit.

  While Sabrina’s body had been
battered, it looked practically peaceful compared to the other. Only one of Sabrina’s legs was broken. The other suffered two shattered legs, including a broken femur that poked through the flesh of the thigh.

  Cloudy blue eyes caught my attention. I leaned in closer to the body. My memory wasn’t as good as Malachi’s, but it was good and I had seen those eyes before. Slowly, my brain began reconstructing the face. The jaw and cheekbones had been crushed. Skin had been split open and ripped off. The nose was nearly gone, most likely broken by the attacker and then eaten by rodents.

  “Simon Westbrook,” I told Xavier.

  “I’ll be damned, I think you’re right,” Xavier answered. “He really pissed someone off. This is a lot of rage. A whole lot of rage, not just overkill for fun and enjoyment. I can’t even begin to think of what kind of weapon the assailant used.”

  “Me either,” I was pulling out my phone.

  Ask Becky if Jessica Blanks had a thing for Simon Westbrook. I texted Gabriel.

  Is that the victim? He asked.

  No, that’s one of the victims. I answered. We have two. Ask about Sabrina Reeves too.

  Jesus Christ. I put the phone away, recognizing that as the end of the conversation for now.

  “I think she hobbled him,” Xavier said to me. He was pointing at Simon’s knees. They were both dislocated. “I’m guessing those were done upstairs, then she shoved him down here and continued the assault. When he died, she just kept hitting him.”

  “She?” I asked.

  “A guy isn’t standing up down here and getting a swing going, so yeah, she. Despite the brutality, I would say it’s the same killer. These were more personal though. She beat the shit out of both of them.”

  “Hammer? Crowbar? Baseball bat?” I asked.

  “For Sabrina Reeves, maybe a baseball bat. There’s some dark bruises on her arms and back that would be the right width. For Simon, it was smaller than a baseball bat, but it might have been harder. The wounds are worse.”

  “Smaller because she could only use one arm,” I pointed out.

  “Maybe or maybe because she really hated him, more than Sabrina.” Xavier stepped back from the bodies. “I know what made Simon’s injuries.”

  “That was fast.”

  “I’ve seen it before. She must have been furious.”

  “Well don’t keep me in the dark, literally and figuratively,” I snipped.

  “You have too, just not this particular kind,” he pulled a small object off my hip. With a flick of his wrist and push of a button, my carbon steel expandable baton became a menacing piece of equipment. “She used a baton, but not one meant for self-defense. It’s a Mace Baton. They have full metal cores, instead of rubber.”

  Twenty-Three

  It turned out that Mace Batons were used mostly for military ceremonies. Jessica’s brother was a military graduate. Becky confirmed that Jessica had a crush on Simon Westbrook. She also told us that a few weeks ago, Sabrina Reeves and Simon Westbrook had been caught making out in a bathroom at school. Sabrina had been suspended. Simon had gotten detention. The world was an unjust place.

  It was about to get a lot more unjust. I knew because I was standing outside Jessica Blanks’ house in the middle of the night with a warrant we didn’t need. Her best friend was still at the police station, under lock and key, so that she couldn’t warn Jessica that we were asking questions about the girl.

  The lyrics to Angry Johnny by Poe was playing in my head. It seemed appropriate since it was about a girl wanting to kill a guy. Of course, in the song, the girl seems to be doing it for revenge, since she claims she’s in Hell. Jessica had just been pissed because Simon didn’t seem interested in her.

  The house was quiet. The lights were all off. There had been some debate about breaking down the door and ringing the doorbell. I had eventually lost and Gabriel rang the doorbell.

  Upstairs, lights began popping on. The sound of feet could be heard. Gabriel hammered his fist against the wooden frame of the front door.

  Mr. Blanks opened the door. His eyes were wild, his face confused and terrified. He really had no idea why we were beating on his door in the middle of the night. Ironically, at this exact moment, a much nicer person was knocking on the door of the Westbrook’s house to tell them their son was dead.

  “Mr. Blanks, we need to see your daughter, immediately,” Gabriel’s voice was stern.

  “What is this about?” Mr. Blanks acted like any other father on the planet when people were demanding to see his daughter in the middle of the night.

  “What is it, Richard?” Mrs. Blanks asked on the verge of panic.

  “US Marshals Serial Crimes Tracking Unit,” Gabriel pushed his way in the front door. Lucas went in behind him. “Where is Jessica Blanks?” Gabriel demanded again. I stepped off the porch. If Jessica wasn’t responding to our midnight visit, she was either drugged out of her mind or she was about to do something really stupid.

  A shadow flashed by the corner of my eye. She had chosen wrong.

  “We’ve got a runner,” I shouted, taking off after the shadow. The girl was faster than I was, lighter than me, but she hadn’t been crazy as long as I had. I used that to my advantage.

  The irritation slipped away from me. I let the darkness sweep through me. Being completely empty is hard to describe, but in that void, the restraints my mind put on my body lifted. My pace picked up just a touch, my stride lengthening as it did. My heart rate slowed, despite the increased cardio. The muscles in my legs would tear themselves in pieces before they tired and gave out on me. My heart would explode in my chest before it stopped pumping oxygenated blood through my system. Here, I felt no pain and with it, no restrictions.

  The shadow turned a corner a dozen feet ahead of me. My brain didn’t think. I overran the corner, entering the street before I turned. Instincts trying to keep me from being ambushed. There wasn’t an ambush, the shadow was moving down the street, away from me.

  I was closing the distance. The shadow knew it. Her breathing was starting to become ragged. Her body suffocating under the strain of her sprint. It was slowing down without her approval. I slowed down as I neared.

  When she turned on me, her face was contorted. Rage oozed from her. Spittle dripped from her lips and her eyes were wild, showing too much white. She came at me, arms extended. Her hand clawed at me, trying to grab my hair. She raised her cast, bringing it down on my shoulder.

  My hand did find flesh. The fingers dug into the nape of her neck. I drew back to punch her in the face and found myself staring into the face of a sixteen year old. She was a killer, but she was also a teen. Some part of me knew that and my arm relaxed, grabbing her instead. I spun her up, cocooning her into me, like a mother cradling an unruly two year old. She twisted and screamed. I kept my arms around her, kept her arms pinned to her chest. I squeezed tighter, fitting her smaller body into mine, using my height and weight advantage to keep her secure.

  She kicked me. The rubber sole tore hide from my leg. I put more weight on her, forcing her down. We both ended up on our knees. I leaned into her.

  “You might be good at killing your classmates, but you’ve never come across someone like me. So, settle down and wait,” I whispered to her. Her body relaxed, leaning into me. We waited, quietly.

  The sound of a car starting drifted on the night air. Lights were coming on in the houses around us. Someone shouted to call the police. I didn’t announce that I was the police. My attention couldn’t be divided. No matter how much my brain said she was sixteen, my instincts knew she was a psychopath.

  She started to squirm a little. I pulled her into me, tighter, forcing her to breathe hard as her lungs failed to inflate fully.

  “Hey, get off her!” Some man shouted at me.

  “US Marshals!” I shouted back at him. He held up a flashlight. It bounced off my shiny badge attached to my jacket. She squirmed again, her arm breaking free. I reached for it, pushing us both forward into the pavement. She grunted as my
weight landed on top of her and her broken arm. There should have been more noise. She should have screamed. I moved fast, pulling my handcuffs. The man took another step towards us. The sound of metal hitting concrete seemed very loud in the darkness. He screamed.

  She rolled, catching my hip with her cast, trying to shove me off. I repositioned, straddling her hip. The blade was cold as it slid into my side. I didn’t grab at it; instead, I grabbed her wrist. There was a moment of surprise on her face. She had expected me to look and sound like all her victims. I didn’t. She really hadn’t met another person so much like herself. She began struggling again.

  The man was still screaming. He had fallen to the ground. I wanted to tell him to shut up and suck it up, it was just a foot, but I didn’t. The cast slipped from Jessica’s wrist as she pulled out from under me. The girl was on her feet in almost no time. She kicked me, landing a blow on my jaw. My tongue started to bleed, filling my mouth. I spit it out as I rocked backwards and up onto my feet.

  Sixteen or not, I reached for my baton. It wasn’t there. My eyes locked on hers as the distinct click came to my ears. That’s what she had been doing on my hip. I hated fighting psychopaths; they were relentless.

  “Don’t do it, Jessica,” I warned. “I will Taser you.”

  Jessica didn’t seem impressed by the threat. She took a step towards me. My hand found the Taser, pulled it from its holster and fired. She took another step. I ejected the cartridge, turning it into a stun gun. The cartridge was blue as it clattered to the ground. My cartridges were not blue, they were orange. I was fairly certain that when I survived this, I was going to have to kill Fiona on principle.

  The baton hit my arm. My elbow hit the handle of the knife, burying it even deeper into my side. The elbow dislocated from the double impact. She swung it again. It made a noise similar to a whip as swung through the air. I turned just enough to keep the blow from hitting my hip. It slammed into my buttocks instead. The skin split, soaking my jeans instantly. I caught the tip of the baton and jerked. She stumbled into me. I elbowed her in the chest, using her own momentum to knock the wind out of her.