Page 12 of Beautiful Prey

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” I said gently.

“It was always so dark,” he started slowly, looking at his feet. “I begged not to be put in the room. I couldn’t fight, I was too young, not strong enough yet. So I was dragged inside. The woman in the room never stopped smiling and staring at me. Her face was broken...like a doll’s. Her body was bent and also broken. Sometimes, she climbed the walls. Up the wall so I couldn’t get close, get close to the one crying on the other side…even though I needed to. I needed to…be with her.”

I leaned forward but didn’t dare interrupt. I could see his body tensing, the chains tightening.

“Then the man with clear eyes came and dragged me away,” he continued in a seething voice. “I accidentally called him father as I begged him not to separate me from her. And he beat me for it.” Emery’s breath was growing ragged. “Then he stuck his needle in me and watched me cry.”

His rage was like nothing I’d ever seen or felt. It was almost an entity all its own, a demon possessing him. A biting cold seeped into my bones. His eyes no longer saw me; they were dark, stormy.

“Emery…” I said softly. Now, I was scared of him again. I felt certain he would rip his chains right off and grab me, twisting me until every bone in my body broke.

He hissed, and for a crazed moment, I wanted to go and calm him down. “When crying didn’t help, I imagined how good it would feel to take one of his little knives and stick it in him a few times,” he growled. “Split up his face just like the woman’s. Make him smile forfucking once.” His voice grew hoarse, inhuman in its fury.

“Emery, look at me.”

He blinked once, then twice and the darkness started to clear. He must have seen my expression because he let the chains drop, calming himself. “Sorry. Scared you a little, did I? I’m pretty good at that.” He looked at me and he actually seemed to appear sorry for it. He also looked around him like he was scared himself, as if he was really back in whatever nightmare he described.

“It’s okay. Hey, you're not alone. You're not there anymore.”

“Switched one box for another,” he said, laughing, as if hardly hearing me. “Yes, I am alone.”

I was shocked when I suddenly felt some small feeling for him. Something like pity. I knew he had to have had a bad childhood. Though not all killers do, most had a traumatizing past. Some abuse or neglect in their childhood. Though Emery’ssounded truly awful and, in the greatest term, unique. A father doing that to their kid? Drugging him? It was heinous, awful. But…I still had to let that go. No matter what happened to him, he still did an awful thing in return. Something to me personally. And I couldn’t let that go. So, though I acknowledged my pity, I still reminded myself of who he was. Of the monster that had been created.

He turned his head as that invisible person whispered in his ear. “That was rude, wasn’t it? I shouldn’t recount to you how slicing and dicing people up was somehow therapeutic.”

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to answer with, “You need someone to talk to and I’m here. I chose to listen. I told you nothing would leave this room. You don’t have to keep anything from me.”

He studied me. “You really mean that, don’t you? I can tell. But what is it to you?” Before I could answer, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I’m stupid. I know you’re a student. You’ve come to examine me for your little project. That’s always what I’ve been—a project. A failed experiment. Trust me, I’m used to being nothing but an object to be bent and melded into whatever someone wanted.” His head tilted, and that cold anger was seeping through again. “So what is it that you want to turn me into?”

I had no real answer for that. But I could still give him some crumb of honesty. “I just want to understand.”

“Understand? What? Why I did what I did?”

I nodded, unable to verbally admit it.

He glared. “Many reasons. All good in my mind. But to understand, you’d have to know everything. And I don’t think you're ready for that, Evee. If you want to know, then you have to relive it all with me. And I’m not ready to do that either.”

It was a fair answer. He didn’t have to tell me, and I couldn’t force him to. I smiled, trying to appear unfazed and hidemy disappointment. “That’s okay.” My eyes flitted over to the doorway, and I saw John and the others close by, looking in to check on me.

“Time’s up already, huh?”

I glanced at him just in time to catch a dark shadow passing over his gaze. “For tonight,” I replied. “But I’ll be sure next session, we have more time together.”

“You swear?”

I stilled as I went to pick up my bag, my gaze locking with his. Was he really enjoying these talks or was he just playing me?

I grabbed my bag and stood. “Yes. If it’s really what you want.”

He mumbled something, but I didn’t catch it.

“Sorry, what?”

“I want it,” he said.

“Good.” I started to walk past him, then stopped. I turned, making sure I was at a clear enough distance where he couldn’t get to me, then I took out my notebook and set it down by him. He looked over at it curiously.

“Since I’m no longer recording and won’t be writing down anything to be noted in some article. You can borrow my notebook to write in for your journal.”

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