Page 16 of Lovely Violent Things

The man who believes charging sigils on his skin can manifest his most coveted desires, and whose delusional, twisted concept of love is manipulating me into believing I’m a murderer.

If planned ahead, if Kallum already deciphered the location of the town’s missing victims, then it’s feasible he could have held Detective Emmons’ brother somewhere else, somewhere nearby. He removed his ankle monitor once, proving he could’ve removed it at any point prior to the night of the ritual. As he found the second crime scene with hemlock and ears in mere minutes of studying the first scene, Kallum could have known where to look for a possible third location.

There’s a lot of hypotheticals in my working theory, which is not how I break down a crime scene. The only thing I have right now is speculation, and herein lies the danger of building a profile while looking directly at an offender.

Until I find the one pivotal piece of evidence—the murder weapon—I need to focus on thewhyinstead of thehow.

Kallum’s motive is simple: Revenge.

My questions burn to be released, but I can’t give up my theory to him. Not until I have what I need.

This time, I can’t give in to Kallum or his games.

The special agent behind Kallum clears his throat, noting the tension between the two consultants is reaching a fever pitch.

“There’s absolutely nothing I want from you.” I try to back away, but Kallum reaches out and grasps my forearm. His thumb brazenly grazes the sensitive skin of my inner wrist, feeling the abraded flesh from the rope burn and speeding my pulse.

“You can’t leave,” he says, his tone taking on a serious edge. “You can’t be alone. It’s not safe, Halen.”

“I haven’t been safe since the moment you entered my world.” I snatch my arm free, severing his connection.

Weighing his next words, Kallum slides his tongue over his teeth. “Don’t you want my theory on the crime scene?”

Like baiting a worm on a hook, Kallum dangles the lure before me. For all my efforts to study the acclaimed Professor Locke, he was the one learning how I tick, how to maneuver me.

Kallum is a sociopath who needs to control the narrative. Anything he offers will be to his benefit. But even Kallum is capable of making a mistake. One way to catch a lying sociopath is to let them talk.

“Enlighten me, professor,” I say.

“With pleasure.” A grin hooks the corner of his mouth before he casts a look over the marsh. “There is no such thing as an original idea,” he says, already veering off on a tangent I know will make my head hurt. “Even the master philosophers wove their doctrines from previous concepts. One in particular—” he points to the inked script on his forearm “—Heraclitus. I find it interesting that line in particular called out to you. As if the universe was trying to offer you a clue.”

“The universe? Or a clever philosophy scholar twisting things to his advantage?”

He chuckles. “You really do have trust issues.”

“I wonder why.”

A tense beat thrums the air between us as we stay locked in each other’s stare.

“Though there was only ever one written dogma,” Kallum says, pushing his agenda, “of which nothing remains except in the teachings of Heraclitus’s successors, his core belief in flux was universally accepted.”

I feel myself being drawn in, the quicksand funneling in around me. “I’m too exhausted for existential meanderings,” I say, expelling a sigh. “Just…explain.”

He crosses his arms with a satisfied smirk. “Heraclitus expounded on flux by stating opposites coincide. He was a philosopher Nietzsche openly respected, I suspect, because he declared Dionysus was lord, and they both enjoy their paradoxes. Opposites attract and all that.” He winks at me. “So then, we have to make an educated guess that Nietzsche’s own path to self-deification was constructed from his teachings. Which means your actual suspect is on the same course. They’re seeking unity in their opposite.”

Through his whole spiel, what I latched on to was: “Opposites attract.” I nod tersely. “The duality, right? Apollonian and Dionysian.”

We are the duality.

Kallum’s gaze flares, a hunger banked in the depths of his clashing gaze. “Plato believed we all have a twin soul, that we’re all just here on this planet searching for our other half.”

I hold up a hand, stopping him. “One riddle at a time.”

“Your suspect hasn’t completed the ascension because he’s searching too, and in fact realized he needs this opposite side of himself in order to fully ascend.” His expression turns pensive. “No one likes to be alone.”

I swallow against the forming ache in my throat. “You seem to have a disturbing fixation with that particular theory, Professor Locke.”

“You have no idea,” he says, his voice a low rumble.

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