“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admits.
I lay my hand over his chest, feeling the furious pulse of his beating heart. “I know that, too.”
Love and obsession are so closely linked, the emotions evoked by obsession easily mistaken for love. And when obsession rules your world, you become a slave to its demands.
Grayson has no experience with emotions on the extreme spectrum. His response could be volatile. The mind and body take mercy on each other, one numbing the other when physical or mental pain becomes too much.
Grayson suddenly experiencing an extreme emotional breakthrough is akin to a burn victim suddenly regaining sensation in nerve endings. Only instead of a merciful death, the mind would shatter.
I close my eyes against the thought, and Grayson pulls me tighter to him, bringing me back. “I haven’t hunted a single victim since I left you that morning.”
His admission catches me off-guard. I drag his arms around me, shielding myself from the chilly air. “But the murder in Brunswick? Minneapolis? The reports said—”
“Seems I have a copycat.”
He says it flippantly, but lethal agitation brims beneath his cool exterior. Most serial killers aren’t flattered by an imitator. Rather, it’s an insult.
“Do you know—?”
“No.” He shakes his head lightly. “Not yet. But I will.”
Of course, if Grayson knew who the imitator was, they’d already be eliminated.
“This could further complicate things, or…” I again look at our victim, only now in a new light. The rapist could serve a bigger purpose. “We need to dispose of the body.”
“I need to,” Grayson emphasizes. “You need to return to your life.”
But I’m already thinking beyond that. My gaze snags every detail of the warehouse, and I realize it’s not just a vacant building. It was once a mechanic garage. “This place has far more potential.”
“I love the look on your face right now,” Grayson says as he feathers my hair over my shoulder delicately. “Like someone is about to suffer.”
I find his eyes, enlightened. “Is this what it feels like when you design your traps? When everything slides into place and you know it will work.”
“That depends. What do you feel?” His question burns with honesty. He truly desires to know, to experience what I’m feeling.
“It feels holy—like an epiphany.”
“Epiphany,” he repeats, a calm expression softening the sharp lines of his features. That rare dimple carves his cheek. “You were my epiphany.”
I fall into him then. Completely. Lost in the blue of his eyes, the softness of his lips, and the red staining our hands. A beautiful and brutal epiphany that could save us, or damn us further, blooms to life right here in the darkness that spawned us.
3
Origination
Grayson
Murder.
Is the desire to take life in our DNA? A hereditary trait passed down through generations. Or is it a malfunction of the brain? All those misfiring neurons. Or is it something more—something other—that which can’t be assimilated in a lab?
Nature or nurture.
The age-old question of scientists and doctors the world over.
Yet it’s a tired question. A boring one. And the answer doesn’t affect the outcome. Just ask Dr. London Noble. The doctor who shattered my reality. The woman who wormed her way into my decaying soul and resurrected me. Like a phoenix born from ash, I’m a new man.
Because of her, the question no longer plagues me.