Chapter Fourte en

Nila

Patient exhibits fear upon waking. He’s vulgar and unsure of where he stands in this place, leading to him acting out. It will only be a matter of time before he reaches the pleading stage.

The problem with capturing was waiting for the drugs to wear off. Biding my time filing my nails, I mentally prepared myself for what was to come. Each patient, each man across my slab, was a battle to me—a war that had raged within me since I was eighteen. An uncontrollable hunger only fulfilled by blood. Never the blood of innocence though. Oh no. My prey was always the weakest form of men—the rapists, the child molesters, the abusers. I took pride in seeing them come apart at my hands. Once men, they were reduced to the sniveling, pathetic wastes of space they truly were. Begging, pleading for redemption, to be spared. Up until the last minute, they truly believed they were worth being saved. That after months of hearing their awful, sinful confessions, I would allow them to breathe the same air as me, as their victims.

He stirred as I headed his way, a strut in my walk as my hips swayed. This was my element. This was where I belonged. Where I once was light, the darkness had gripped me and dragged me so far in, it was now a part of me. As my captive struggled against the bonds that left him with no room to move, I caught his attention.

“There, there, sweetheart,” I started. “You don’t want to do that.”

As my voice registered with him, I came into view, making sure he knew exactly who had taken him. The why would come soon enough, but for now, I savored his recognition of me.

Come into my web, said the spider to the fly.

Where once Jonathan Ross was the spider, preying on those weaker than him, the tables were turned and now I was the spider. I was the one in control. Jonathan was weak.

Loosening the gag around his mouth, it gave way and the words spilled over his lips.

“Miss Winters? How could you do this, you fucking bitch! What the hell do you want from me?”

“Ah, ah, ah, Mr. Ross. Remember who’s in charge here. I’m the therapist. You’re the patient. Same rules apply, despite the surroundings.”

With that said, he finally glanced around the room. Not much to look at, the abandoned warehouse did its job. It was quiet with its soundproof walls, in an abandoned industrial district, and far enough from my home that no one could easily trace it to me. These deeds done in the dark of night had no bearing on my daytime life, and I made sure to keep them separate, wanting no hint of the evil lurking within me visible. I wasn’t going to let anyone dissect me under a microscope, wondering what made me tick.

In the middle of the warehouse, I had a medical table, reminiscent of the one that I was once intimately familiar with, one similar to where I took my first life. Jonathan looked so weak, so pathetic, strapped down and glaring. As if there were something he could do. He was nothing.

“Mr. Ross, I’ve spent the last eight months listening to your words … but not the truth. We’re here because you deserve to pay for your crimes. The Parole Board may have thought you deserved to be free, but I don’t. I’ve watched the darkness in your eyes. I’ve bided my time, and today you finally let out a piece. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be confessing to everything. Think of me as your priest. Confess your sins to me.”

“You can’t do this! Someone will find you. They’ll be looking for me.”

“Will they? You have nothing, Mr. Ross. A dead-end job, no family, no friends. No one will be looking for you, and by the time they do, you will be long gone, and I’ll be back in my office treating another patient. You see, Mr. Ross, I have a reputation to keep up. Nothing traces back to me. Nothing.”

For the first time since we began this pointless conversation, realization washed over him and the fear began to seep into his bones. Good. He should be scared. The wimp didn’t know what he was getting into.

Heading over to my work table, I looked through my toys. Usually, a punishment was already planned ahead of time, but Jonathan Ross was a special case. He was close to abducting his next girl, if I read between the lines right. That called for a different brand of torture.

Surveying my tools shining against the red cloth, my eyes landed on the perfect tool to start with. Having taken his shirt off earlier, I proceeded to strip off the rest of his clothes. Looking downward, I caught a glimpse of his slight erection. Try as he might to hide it, the situation was making him hot and bothered.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

Grabbing a can and my little friend I’d brought along for the ride, I placed the rat on his stomach and the metal can over it. Jonathan fought to get free.

“You stupid fucking bitch. You’ll pay for this! Do you hear me? You will pay!”

“Surely, darling, I’ll burn in Hell, but you’ll be there far before me.”

Holding the can down with one hand, I lit the edge of a tightly bound bunch of herbs and slid it into a pocket inside the can before sealing the top again. I started my interrogation as the smoke curled around the trapped rat. I wondered when he’d start trying to eat his way out. Jonathan’s screams filled the warehouse, and the pain that radiated from his face was intoxicating.

“What were you planning to do?” I questioned over his wailing screams of pain.

Another scream, but no response came from him.

“What were you planning to do?” I repeated.

“I-I … was going to take her! I was going to take her, all right?”

“Take who?”

“Some girl.”

“Elaborate.”

“No. That’s all you’re getting from me.”

I wasn’t surprised he was starting to fight back. Jonathan was a man who prided himself on being in control. I was taking his control from him. It was worse because I was a woman, someone he thought was lower than him. It was only a matter of time before he began to fight. They all usually did, but they lost their fighting spirit pretty quickly. Something told me Jonathan, having experienced both lust and rage at the same time, would be a bit harder to break.

That was okay though. I had all the time in the world. I much preferred being able to take my time and savor it. I wrapped a tie-down around the can on his stomach to hold it in place. Pulling plastic gloves over my hands, I poured lubricant on my fingers. Spreading Jonathan’s legs, I sodomized him with my fingers as he yelled.

“What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bitch?”

“How do you think that girl felt, huh? What do you think she went through when you pried her legs open and raped her? You forced her to have sex. You took something from her. How is it to have your legs pried open and something forced inside of you? How much of a man are you now?”

Tears in his eyes, he shook his head.

Pulling my fingers from him, I grabbed an anal plug from the tray.

“I want you to think of her,” I said right before shoving the plug in. “Think of poor, sweet Melissa Hankins. Melissa was a college student. A lacrosse player. You raped her, and now she has to live with the memory every day. She dropped out of college, you know? She was a bright star, but now she shoots heroin to get rid of the memory of your teeny, tiny shit violating her.”

I always made sure to do my homework when it came to my kills. They needed to go through every torture their victims did. Melissa reminded me a lot of me—innocent and sweet before becoming lost in darkness. She hid in her demons. Me? I embraced mine with arms wide open. A killer. A monster. Dangerous.

Leaving Jonathan to sweat a bit, I walked to the doorway in the far corner and into the small kitchenette area filled with a ‘70s-style refrigerator and sink. When I bought the warehouse a few years back, I didn’t change anything. There was no need. This was the last stop for these men. No reason to make it homey.

If I were going to sufficiently torture Jonathan, I needed to keep him hydrated. I wanted him scared for his life and in absolute agony. I wanted to avenge Melissa. I wanted to take him, break him. Hear his confessions and absolve his sins with a swipe of my knife. But until he confessed, the killing blow would have to wait. In the meantime, though, torture was sweet. His screams were beautiful madness.

I wanted to feast on his fear. I wanted to bathe in his pain. The darkness was such a captivating ride, like a roller coaster I never wanted to get off of. Full of thrills, speed, and ups and downs, the darkness was magnificent in all its glory.

Filling a glass with water, I headed back out to the main area in time to see Jonathan leaning his head over the side of the table, throwing up. I knew it was only a matter of time before the shock and pain overcame him. Watching them shatter was always the best part, and this was only the beginning.

“Here.” I thrust the glass toward his mouth, waiting for him to sip from it, which he did greedily. The aftertaste of throwing up was never good, and he was eager to wash it away.

He licked his lips, eyes darting back and forth nervously. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“Men like you are the reason I’m the way that I am. You did this to me, all of you did, with your sick fascinations and obsessions. The way women’s screams get you off. Do you think I asked for this? That I wanted this? I didn’t! I wanted to be normal, but a man like you destroyed that. Like you destroyed Melissa.”

“I’m not the one who hurt you though.”

“No, but I’m not going to let you hurt someone else.”

With that said, he shut his mouth, giving me a minute to pause and reflect on the past.

It had been two months since I was freed and reunited with my family, but everything was different. I was no longer the same, and my family couldn’t understand it. They thought I should be happy to be home, and I was, but a piece of me was damaged in a way I couldn’t put into words.

I should have been happy to be back in my bed at night, but instead, I was as much a prisoner there as I was in my cage.

Every time I closed my eyes, I pictured the boy with the sad, tormented eyes. His dad had done a number on him too. I was sorry for leaving him the way I did, especially to clean up my mess. Each night my heart cried out to him, and I clawed at my bedspread to hold myself from racing to find him. My parents wouldn’t tell me what happened to him, but I knew by the way they clammed up when I asked, it was nothing good.

Another night, another nightmare. I woke up to screaming, but this time it was the neighbor’s dog that insisted on howling all hours of the night. I must have sleepwalked here, my bare feet curled against the cold—here where my hands were wrapped around his neck. I was fighting the two sides of myself: one who wanted to drop the poor old scraggly mutt and run back to bed and forget this happened, and another who wanted to squeeze the life out of the annoying, yapping thing.

With one loud bark, I knew I would be discovered, so I began squeezing, tightening my grip until the last of its life died out. Letting his body fall to a heaping pile at my feet, I heard the darkness call to me for the first time.

This. This is what you need. Embrace the darkness.

I never killed another animal besides that damn dog. Animals weren’t what satisfied my craving for blood. Only men. The worst of the worst. The predators. From that day, I started to prepare myself. I started to train myself to be wiser, stronger. This may have been a man’s world, but now I was living in it. I could be as good as them. If I was going to give myself over to the darkness completely, I needed to be smart about it. It was all a game, a mental strategy. The ultimate goal was to never be caught. I’d survived time in one cage, and I would never go back there again. I would die first.

Jonathan was half out of it, his head lolling to the side. I probably wouldn’t get much more from him tonight. Leaving him to rest, I took the rat off his stomach and began plotting. I couldn’t wait to bring him to the brink, hearing the confessions spill across his lips like a floodgate crashing down. I’d go home for now.

Tomorrow, your secrets are mine to take.

There were two reactions to rape, from a psychological standpoint, based on the perceptions of men and their reactions. One, the Madonna Complex, where the victim refuses to have sexual relations and may even find more comfort with the opposite sex of the one who’d hurt them. Two, the Whore Complex, where they sleep with anyone, be it because they need that sort of validation or because a part of them craved what had been done. Like a light switch that was never turned back off.

I suffered from the Whore Complex, with a fixation on those who represented my darkness.

Naked in bed, I laid with my legs spread, fantasizing about Jonathan on my table. His screams stirred my blood, desire dampening my panties. As all my fantasies did, it slowly gave way to Jacob.

His eyes had stayed with me all these years. The connection between us hummed through the air, but I was too scared of what that meant for me. If I thought I could ever be innocent, I was wrong. The darkness had already seeped into my soul, and I could never truly be free of it.

Now, thinking of his eyes boring into me, there was no shame as I spread my legs wider and inserted by vibrator. Immediately, my body clenched, pleasure thrumming through my core. I was a mess between the vibrations working my body into a frenzy and the thought of Jacob’s classically handsome face, sharp cheekbones, brown eyes, and the blood … Oh yes, the blood on his face as he stood there. My savior.

I knew it was sick and wrong, but the rush I got from thinking of him, blood-splattered and free, made my toes curl. And when our last kiss, came to the forefront of my brain, my orgasm washed over me, leaving me basking in pleasure.

For eight years I got off to the memory of Jacob. The only way I could come was to picture him.

With an exhale, I dropped the vibrator to the side of the bed and slid down into my silk sheets. Tomorrow couldn’t come soon enough.