by Hadena James
Twenty
“What exactly am I supposed to do?” I looked at Gabriel with a mix of horror and fear.
“Sit and wait for her to wake up.”
“Okay, I do not deal with living people, especially victimized living people. What am I supposed to say?”
“Ask if she remembers something,” Gabriel said.
“Why can’t Fiona do it? She is better with people than I am,” I argued.
“True,” Gabriel agreed but didn’t pull me off the hospital. “But if her attacker comes back, you will be better protection.”
“Okay, I will sit in the hall, Fiona can sit inside. It will be safer for everyone,” I told him.
“Cain, just do this.” Gabriel turned to walk away.
“I am a sociopath. You cannot leave me with a victim, I will traumatize her.”
“She’s been traumatized. You might look like Mother Teresa by comparison,” he continued walking. I stopped arguing. I was stuck on this and I didn’t know why I was being punished.
Valerie McGregor lay in a hospital bed with wires, tubes, and monitors surrounding her. Huge bandages covered most of her body. My desire to catch this monster had just tripled. McGregor had been victimized once before. She’d been found in a warehouse, strung up from a rafter with chains, and someone had taken a very large knife and cut into her.
This time, she’d been found in her apartment, the water running in her shower, soaking her bathroom floor and leaking into the ceiling below. The bed had been covered in blood. A machete had been found in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, her blood still drying on it. They had cut off several of her scars from her previous attack. Also, she’d had some tattoos inked onto her skin to hide lesser scars from it and these had been removed as well.
My guess was the person that had attacked her in LA was the same son of a bitch that had attacked her in New Orleans. Maybe he had been here hunting for her. Maybe he had stumbled across her and Mr. Headless together and attacked them both. The details had yet to be filled in. It did explain why Mr. Headless’s tattoos were intact. He hadn’t been the primary target.
I had to give it to Lucas and Xavier. I had been wrong. We had been dealing with a psychopath the entire time, a psychopath who had been picking victims who probably had some imaginary connection to Valerie.
Of course, I still had no idea what I would do when she woke up. I could protect her, but I wasn’t going to be able to comfort and coddle her. I also didn’t think I could question her. Her injuries were great. He had even rammed a portion of the blade into her genitalia.
Seven hours of surgery and they were still pumping her full of blood. It was a miracle that she was alive. I was going to catch this monster and make him pay.
Killing someone, I understood, but doing this to a person was unthinkable. Her self-esteem was probably shattered from the first incident. Worse, she worked as a counselor to victimized women. Her list of enemies could be very long. I intended to visit each and every one of them as soon as someone relieved me from this assignment. She worked with cops for a living. I wouldn’t be the only one searching for her abuser. He’d better hope like hell someone else found him first.
Night had settled on the city again. We’d been here a few days now, but I wasn’t sure how many. Time was the sociopath’s enemy. I couldn’t keep track of it. Days blurred together. Most of the time, I wasn’t even able positively to tell a person how old I was. I had to be reminded from time to time.
This floor of the hospital was quiet. Even the nurses were quiet as they went about their duties. Their shoes never squeaked or clicked. It was as if the ICU was somehow impacted by the lingering threat of death and breaking the silence might mean that Death would break the truce and send monitors screeching. I settled into the chair that had been provided for me. It was about as comfortable as a medieval tortured device, and since that was actually, what my expertise was in, I would know.
For me to be stuck in a room that did not have much more than the rhythmic beeping of monitors set my nerves on edge. I didn’t like hospitals. The principle was fine. They did save lives. However, they were petri dishes for bacterium that was antibiotic resistant, and I walked a little too close to death on normal occasions to feel entirely at ease in a place that tried to save people from it.
Proverbs say that idle hands do the devil’s work. I wasn’t entirely convinced of that, but I did know a bored sociopath was never a good thing. My tablet was tucked in a small bag that sat on the floor next to me. However, that nemesis had already caught hold of me and I was thinking about me.
As a general rule, I’m a narcissist. It’s a side effect of being a sociopath. We’re all narcissists. Nyleena and a few others in my inner circle kept my ego in check. Yet, lately, they had all been feeding that ego. This concerned me, not the ego stroking exactly, but the fact that they all knew better than to feed my narcissism, and had been anyway. I was sick enough to enjoy the flattery, but not so twisted that I recognized that it meant something really bad. How broken had I actually become?
Most psychologists and psychiatrist would tell you that the demented personalities of sociopaths and psychopaths couldn’t be broken. They would be wrong. I had seen it on more than one occasion. Malachi had broken once. He had gone into complete meltdown mode. He had ended up in the hospital having his toes reconnected to his foot. His excuse was that he had been bored and wanted to know what it felt like. For some, this made sense, but not to me, Malachi had been shot before he shot himself. So whatever led up to him shooting himself in the foot had to be more than just curiosity. Shooting himself had not improved his funk. It had lasted for months, and then just as suddenly as it came on, it was gone.
The circumstances around it were still mysterious. I knew the trigger, but not the cure. There was no understanding for me as to what he had experienced during that time. He wouldn’t talk about it no matter how much I pried. Could I have been on the verge of a mental break, like Malachi had experienced? What exactly would have happened if I had reached that point?
If a migraine and brain tumor could make me hold a gun to my head, anything seemed possible at this point. My eyes fell on the figure in the bed. She was in a coma. She would probably require a skin graft or two. Having been there myself, all I could say for them was that they hurt like nothing else on the planet and she was better off in a coma than awake. If she were really lucky, she would remain in the coma while her body healed. If not, she’d better hope she had doctors willing to put her into one.
Looking at her made me angry again. It surged through me and brought down the darkness. I fought it and lost.
Few things penetrate the darkness, emotionally speaking. Rage builds up there. Any imagined injustice can suddenly fuel an endorphin amped rampage. When I wasn’t on the verge of a rage, I felt very calm, too calm. It was an unnatural feeling. The entire world became just a little less interesting. Time seemed to slow down or stop entirely. My thoughts became more logical. It also sometimes felt like a dissociative state. My body moved. Words formed in my mouth and spilled forth when needed. However, I watched it all, detached, even more so than when I looked in a mirror on a regular day. My face was unable to maintain the mask of sanity it wore under normal conditions. The mask seemed to look constantly annoyed, but it was better than the blankness that existed behind it.
I had seen it on the faces of others, but had never seen my own face during this time. As soon as the thought struck me, I got up and walked to the small sink. There was a mirror over it and I looked.
The face that stared back was familiar to me. I recognized it. It was me. It had scars, lines, wrinkles, and eyes that would have caused a normal person to pause. They weren’t dead looking, but said I was mildly amused. Seeing myself made the corners of my lips turn up. Some of my teeth became exposed as my lips spread apart. My cheeks blanched, causing my eyes to appear darker and the eye sockets too deep for my face. My nostrils flared with each intake of breath, as if I were sni
ffing the world for some unknown scent. My cheekbones seemed to stand out more. My jaw muscles clenched behind the smile, forcing the skin to stretch across the now defined edges of my face.
I remembered people telling me I was scary when this happened. There was some merit to this. I had gone from being an unrecognizable entity to staring into the visage of a predator. One that was toying with its prey because it found it entertaining.
I looked at my monster and recognized it more than I did the human. I had seen other people’s demons but never my own. I found it amusing and the laugh that came from my throat was rich, deep, and anything but sane.
Someone was going to pay for everything that had happened to Valerie McGregor and all the others that they had mutilated to get to her. Of that, I was certain. I hoped it involved bleeding.
Twenty-one
I don’t need a lot of sleep to begin with, five or six hours and I’m good. When the calm was upon me, I needed even less. Feeling required a lot of energy. It was why most sociopaths and psychopaths chose not to do it. I could go a couple of days before I went into shutdown mode and sleep overtook me. Unless something caused a massive adrenaline rush and my body was pushed to the limits while hopped up on endorphins and increased neural firings.
This meant that I not only watched the sun set, but watched it rise. The hospital overlooked a part of the city I had never seen. If I had a map, I probably could have figured out where I was, but I honestly, didn’t care.
The tall, brick structure towered over other buildings, green grasses, manicured bushes and trees, flowerbeds, and pathways. We were near or on some sort of campus. Judging by the number of people in their twenties with backpacks, it was a college campus. This was probably a teaching and research hospital, as well as handling serious trauma victims. Beyond the campus, houses and apartments could be seen. Most of it was probably for students.
I leaned against the window and was surprised that the pane of glass was cool on my forehead. Directly below me, there was a parking structure. My view was the roof of cars, SUVs, and trucks. Most of them were older models, the staple of the working class. It must have been a visitor’s parking garage. Doctors and nurses tended to drive newer cars, or at least, more expensive brands of cars. Even with nurses being underpaid, most still drove better cars than laborers, fishermen, and clerks.
Since it was a research and teaching hospital, it probably served a large number of poverty or just above poverty level patients. It could not afford to be elitist with students to teach and medical breakthroughs to make. I could appreciate that irony.
The door opened behind me. It wasn’t a door like a normal door with hinges. A sliding door allowed for only a small amount of privacy, if the curtain was closed around the patient. Everyone else in the room was on display, like fish in a bowl. The shadow was bulky with broad shoulders. I didn’t turn around to face Lucas. Instead, I continued staring out the window, moving my gaze from directly below me to the distance where tall buildings punctuated the skyline and dark clouds moved slowly.
“We have a problem,” Lucas said. His voice was barely audible. I shook my head. We always had problems. That was the nature of hunting serial killers.
“Great,” I said, pushing away from the window and turning around in one motion.
“Whoa,” Lucas stepped back involuntarily. “Sorry.” He blushed as he always did when the calm caught him off guard.
“What’s the problem?” I asked. He handed me an envelope and the color drained from his face. He collapsed in the chair, his composure completely gone. To see Lucas break down was rare.
The handwriting on the envelope was great. The letters flowed into one another and almost looked as if a master calligrapher had applied them. It was just his name and a bunch of black smudges where they had attempted to lift fingerprints from it. A few had developed, the pads of the fingers small, indicating a woman had handled it.
“Should I put on gloves?” I asked.
“No, they dusted it this morning. The letter inside is not the original.”
“So, they kept the letter, but not the envelope?”
“The envelope was delivered sometime late last night by a maid from another hotel. It’s already been contaminated by several hands. It’s of little to no evidentiary value.” He didn’t look up and his hands were shaking.
The script of the letter was just as flowing and beautiful. I had to give it to the writer. They had amazing penmanship. My eyes scanned it and stopped. It was signed “Apex.” The name rang a bell, a huge bell. He was a contract killer that liked to carve his name into his bullets to make sure no one else could take credit for the kill. My brain concentrated on the words above the signature.
Mr. McMichaels,
I feel duty bound to inform you that a contract has been put out on your life. The person to accomplish the job will be paid ten million dollars. I watched you tonight and cannot imagine why someone would pay so much money to see you dead. You appear to be an honest, hardworking, gentle man. As such, I have decided not to take the contract. The only information I have on the person who wishes for your death is a phone number. I have included it here. Hopefully, it will be of some assistance to you and your colleagues. God speed. Apex.
The man on the balcony. The man in the street. They both made sense to me now. However, if Apex had been watching, he had to have been the man on the balcony. His face surfaced. My memory did not have all the detail it wanted. It had been dark and I had only seen it twice, as he lit cigarettes. It was the face of an older man, in his fifties, maybe. He hadn’t been particularly tall or imposing. He hadn’t had the eyes of a psychopathic sniper. He had been average. Of course, that made sense. Average blended in. I didn’t have an eye color, just that he had been white with a tan complexion and brown hair with grey coming in at the front. That wasn’t much of a description for a contract killer that we knew had several high profile kills under his belt.
“Why?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I leave today. I don’t know where they are taking me.” Lucas’s large frame heaved with a heavy sigh that could almost be felt in the floor. “Trevor has already been picked up.”
“Marshals?” I asked.
“No, Secret Service,” Lucas answered. “I guess that’s who the Marshals call when they need protection.”
“How long?”
“Until the person putting out the contract is caught.” Lucas finally looked up at me. “Why would someone want to kill me? I mean, sure serial killers want to kill me, but they’d do it themselves. Why would someone pay to kill me? I don’t understand. I’m not a valuable target and ten million dollars is a lot of money. There’s no reason for it.”
“I will find them,” I told Lucas. And I would make them pay for it very dearly. I wondered how much flesh equaled ten million dollars. If someone killed Lucas, there would be no end to the rage that I would bring with me. Hell’s torments would be a relief in comparison.
“You’ll need to be a voice to Xavier’s psychological knowledge. His theories are sometimes half baked when it comes to the mental side of things.”
“It will not last that long. As soon as I get out of this room, I will start searching for the contract offered immediately.”
“No, you won’t.” Lucas smiled. “You have a serial killer to catch. After that, who knows? Gabriel is trying to get you assigned to my guard.”
“Good. If I am protecting you…”
“You can’t stop a sniper rifle, Ace, even you have limitations. I would rather you look for whoever put up the money. Besides, you’ll go out of your skull working as a babysitter for Trevor and me.”
I didn’t argue. He did have a point. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to sit on my hands, wait for someone maybe to pop up, and try to kill Lucas.
“Any chance you can water my plants?” Lucas asked.
“No,” I told him. He smiled at me.
“I sort of meant you as in your mother.”
“Oh, then yes,” I told him. He stood up. For a moment, he just stood there, and then he reached out and grabbed me. It was unexpected to be grabbed by a giant. He pulled me into his arms, engulfing me in his larger frame and yet, his weight bore down on me, as if his knees were giving way under him. My hair began to feel damp. I wrapped my arms around him as best I could. He was crying. I was definitely going to torture whoever was responsible for this.
“Find the person who did this to her and then find the son of a bitch who did this to me,” he whispered.
“I will,” I told him and I would. Hell hath no fury like a pissed off sociopath.
Twenty-two
When someone did finally show up to relieve me, it was an FBI agent that I had never met. He showed me his badge, explained his credentials, and then explained them to me slower. All the while, I glowered at him, not speaking. I wasn’t pissed off at him, I was just pissed off in general and he was standing in front of me. Green finally showed up and dragged me out of the room, much to the relief of the new FBI agent.
Since I could no longer stare the random FBI agent into disappearing, I turned on Green. Green took it well. He didn’t make eye contact, he didn’t speak, and he didn’t push any of my buttons.
The vast majority of the world was under the impression that psychopaths were the scarier of the two. Lucas believed it was sociopaths. I was willing to bet Green, who was a psychopath, agreed with him. Rage was something I had double doses of on normal days, these days were nothing even remotely close to normal. Malachi was still in the hospital and his assailant was safely behind bars where I could not rip his head off and now Lucas was entering into witness protection. And I couldn’t rip off any heads there either because I didn’t know whose head needed to be removed.
This left whoever had assaulted Valerie McGregor and anyone stupid enough to get too close to me. When I entered the conference room, everyone became silent. Green took a seat. Xavier and Fiona were both red faced with bloodshot eyes and pink noses. Gabriel was a little less emotionally distraught, but even he had been crying at some point. I had learned as a child that some people cried when they became exceptionally angry. I was guessing this was the case.