“That won’t be necessary.” I cross my other leg and pull away from her, sitting as casually as if I were in a boring meeting. “But I’m interested in knowing why you believe that Ross Emerson would do something like that for you.” One side of my nose curls into a faint snarl as I look her up and down. “Look at you—you’re disgusting.”

Shocked and thoroughly insulted, Bennings lashes out, “Go fuck yourself!” and it still amazes me how defiant and stupid this woman is to be in the situation she’s in and can’t keep her mouth shut.

I smile.

“So, are you going to tell me?” I ask, tapping the bloody knife against my pant leg. “Or, am I going to have to resort to more drastic measures of interrogation?”

As with anyone, I really hope she doesn’t talk.

Bennings stares coldly at me, harsh lines forming around the edges of her pale blue eyes. Strands of her hair are scattered about her face and neck and collarbone, stuck to her skin by sweat even though it’s cold in this warehouse.

I raise both brows asking her in gesture, So what’s it going to be?

“Ross would do anything for me,” she begins. “And I’d do anything for him. Anything!”

“Why?”

“Because we were meant to be together. Because I love him. Because he loves me. What more does there need to be?”

I smile again and look upon her thoughtfully.

“A valid reason to intentionally ruin or take away entirely, the life of an innocent person,” I say, but find myself thinking only of Seraphina in this moment of personal divergence. “If you can give me one good reason, one valid and justifiable reason for what you and Ross Emerson did to Paul Fortright and the two defenseless children the both of you used to get what you wanted, then I will let you and Emerson go.”

Bennings’ trembling mouth snaps shut, her thin, cracked lips stretching into a hard line.

Then it dawns on her and her widening eyes dart to and from me and all around the cold, dimly-lit, spacious area.

“What do you mean, let us go?” she asks carefully at first, but then her voice begins to rise. “Where is he? Tell me! Where is Ross?” She struggles against her restraints.

“He’s in the other room,” I tell her, glancing over my shoulder at the metal door that once led into an employee break room.

“You’re lying,” she accuses, but the worried look on her face says the opposite. “You’re just saying that to—”

“To what?” I taunt her. “You have no more information that I need, Miz’ Bennings, other than the last fairly simple question that I asked you.” I smile faintly and shake my head. “But you and I both know that it’s not a question you’ll ever have an acceptable answer to. Because there’s not one.”

“The answer I gave you is enough!” she roars, her disheveled hair falling more about her face and sticking to her lips. “Yes! We love each other, you fucking bastard! And yes! We’d do anything for each other, even if it means ruining another person’s life! Because that’s what love is! It’s the meaning of unconditional! You would never know!” She spits on the floor and looks at me with such hate and violent retribution in her wet and narrowed eyes.

I grit my teeth privately at her last comment.

Without taking my eyes off her, I call out to Dorian, “Bring Emerson in here!”

The sound of the metal door to the break room opening echoes through the large, empty space and Emerson steps through first with Dorian behind him with a gun pointed at Emerson’s back.

“Ross! Ross!” Bennings cries out, nearly knocking herself over within the chair.

Leaning forward and tapping the blade of my knife against the top of her bare leg I say, “Volume, Miz’ Bennings. Remember what I said about the volume of your voice and the attachment of your tongue.”

She swallows hard and lowers her voice.

“Ross, I-I’m so sorry”—more tears stream from the corners of her eyes—“I’m so sorry!”

Dorian forces Emerson to walk the rest of the way with only the gun as incentive, while Dorian makes sure to stop next to me and not put himself in view of the hidden camera I have on them.

Ross is a short man with curly dark hair and broad shoulders and a look of terror and cowardice. Early thirties. Work boot construction-type who smells of cigarettes and cheap aftershave that he finds easier to pull off than showering. He wants to look at her, but he’s scared. He keeps his dark eyes on the floor, his hands tied behind his back.

“Ross—”

“Please, Kelly, just be quiet,” Emerson says in a low, defeated voice. “Don’t make this any worse.”

“Are you…pissed at me?” Bennings asks with intense worry.

Emerson shakes his head. “No, baby, no. I love you, you know that.”

I roll my eyes and glance at Dorian. “Help Mr. Emerson have a seat, why don’t you?”

Dorian grins. “I’d be delighted,” he says properly and with a broad smile.

Two shots ring out. Emerson’s cries fill the space as his kneecaps are taken out by the bullets. He falls to the cold floor onto his side, the side of his face hitting the concrete.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Bennings screams. “He didn’t do anything!”

I shoot up from my chair and wrench Benning’s lower jaw in my hand, forcing her mouth open—always keeping my back to the camera. She tries to cry out but begins to choke on the saliva and tears draining into the back of her throat as I force her neck back. I grab her fleshy tongue amid her screams and her struggles and her gnashing teeth, forcing two fingers into the warm, flabby muscle underneath it, and my thumb on the top to maintain my grip; her eyes pried open by terror, all the bones and muscles in her body solidifying at once.

I put the blade to center of her tongue.

“Please! Don’t hurt her! I’m begging you!” Emerson cries out from the floor, unable to lift himself into a sitting position, much less to his feet.

I pause indifferently with the blade still on her tongue.

“I know what we did was wrong,” Emerson speaks out through troubled breaths and painfully twisted features. “Paul threatened her,” he goes on. “Said if she ever left him and their daughter, that he’d make her life a living hell. That he’d take custody of Abigail and force her to pay child support.” He stops only long enough to catch his breath and let more pain shoot through his legs. “The plan was my idea. To accuse him of molesting my daughter. We just wanted him in jail. Out of the way. It was better than killing him.”

I shake my head with disbelief.

“Better to live a life banished by society and by his own daughter because he wears the label of a child molester?” I laugh lightly and press the blade a little harder against Bennings’ tongue, drawing blood. She cries some more, her eyes opening and closing from exhaustion and fear, but she doesn’t dare struggle knowing that one wrong move could take her tongue off.

Emerson has no rebuttal.

“Do you see me, Mr. Emerson?” He looks up at me from the floor, pushing through his pain. “Tell me, what do you see when you look at me? Be completely honest. I won’t hurt you for telling the truth.”

Bennings’ eyes move back and forth, at me and in the direction of Emerson, but he’s too low against the floor for her to see.

Emerson appears baffled by the question, and leery of it just the same. It takes him a moment, but finally he begins to stammer. “Y-You’re a man of justice.”

I look upward in an annoyed and disappointing manner.

Dorian laughs from behind.

“That’s fucking hilarious,” he says. “He’s being kind—I’ll give you an honest answer.”

“I didn’t ask you,” I say without looking at him.

“Well, I’m just sayin’, you want the truth, I’m your guy.” He laughs again and says below his breath, “A man of justice. Fucking hilarious.”

I look only at Emerson.

“I said I wanted the truth.”

“But…that is the truth.”

With deep aggravation, I release Bennings’ tongue and she gasps sharply, sucking back the saliva that had accumulated in her mouth that she could not swallow.

“You tell me the truth, Miz’ Bennings.” I know she’s the only one of them that will. “What do you see when you look at me? This is your chance to get it off your chest without any repercussions.”

Bennings sneers hatefully. “You’re a sick fuck—that’s what you are. Deranged. Demented.” She spits on the floor again. “I bet you cut people into little fucking pieces for enjoyment, don’t you? When I look at you I see a man who’s not right in the head. A sick fuck.”

I smile gently and take a step away from her.

“What you’re really seeing,” I say, “is a man created by people like you. Evil incarnate who dance their way through society dropping poison on the tongues of the innocent. You deface, despoil and destroy the light in those who are still too young to control their own paths, by stripping them of their light and leaving only darkness.” Me. Izabel. Cassia. “You’re an infection. A malignancy. And you’re right, Miz’ Bennings, I am a sick fuck. I revel in what I do. I covet it. And I’ll never stop because being a sick fuck who takes pleasure in torturing people like you who made me this way, is the only thing I can ever imagine being.” I stab my knife into Bennings’ uninjured hand, straight through the bone and the tendons and into the wood of the chair arm beneath it.

“FUUUUUCKKK!” she cries out.

Emerson cries out too, reaching a hand out to her, but still unable to move.

Casually, I step backward and out of view of the hidden camera and turn to Dorian.