Page 71 of Psychotic Faith
The medical team swarms Faith the moment we arrive, whisking her upstairs for treatment. Oxygen, steroids for the throat swelling, careful examination of the damage. I want to follow, but there's work to do first.
The basement welcomes me with its familiar fluorescent glare. My shoulder throbs from being reset, painful but functional. Neumann is conscious now, taking in the concrete walls, the single metal chair, the table in the corner.
"The famous Rosetti basement." He tries for bravado, but I hear the tremor underneath. "Rather anticlimactic."
I don't respond. Just pull a chair from the corner and sit, facing him. Waiting.
"Faith needs twelve hours minimum for throat trauma recovery," I say finally, my voice empty of the usual calculation. "Then she decides what happens to you."
Neumann actually laughs, the sound bouncing off concrete. "She doesn't have the stomach for this. She's a librarian. A good girl."
"She watched her mother die." I lean back, studying him the way I'd study a specimen. "She has more steel than you can imagine. More patience too. Twelve years she's been planning your destruction."
His face shifts, uncertainty creeping in.
"I've killed hundreds," I continue, conversational. Clinical. "But you're different."
Not a threat. Just observation. Scientific fact.
"You're the first one I'm killing for love instead of emptiness."
The word love comes easier now, like saying it to Faith's dying body taught my mouth the shape. I rest my hands on my knees, completely still. The most dangerous I've ever been.
"The others were business. Pattern. Routine." I meet his eyes. "This is personal."
Each word deliberate, measured, the voice I use when explaining chemical reactions. How elements combine. How bonds break.
"Faith breathes wrong because of you. Has nightmares because of you. Lost her mother because of you."
I stand, moving to the table in the corner. There's a single knife there. I pick it up, test the weight, then set it back down.
"When she wakes up, when her throat heals enough to speak, she's going to come down here. And she's going to tell me what she needs from you. Confession. Apology. Whatever closure looks like for her."
I turn back to face him, hands empty.
"And then she'll decide if you live or die."
His face has gone pale now, the reality sinking in. This isn't a negotiation or a game.
"You're going to sit in that chair and think about what you did. Every woman you hurt. Every life you destroyed. And when Faith arrives, you're going to face her."
I photograph Neumann in the chair. Not for Faith—she doesn't need to see this part. For me. Documentation of every step. The before picture. The after will be very different.
I move toward the stairs, then pause.
"I hope you use the time well. Because once she makes her decision, there's no appealing to a higher court."
I leave him there in the silence, the anticipation worse than anything I could do to him right now.
Upstairs, Marco waits.
"He secure?" he asks.
"Very." I head toward the medical room where Faith is being treated. "And he has twelve hours to realize exactly how fucked he is."
"You're not going to work on him?"
I pause at the door. "This one isn't mine. It's hers. I'm just the weapon she gets to choose whether or not to use."
