Darkly, Madly Duet

by Trisha Wolfe

But the patients I tortured to understand who I am, what I am…suddenly, there are too many of them. The doors crack down the middle, light splintering through the shadows, and the overload flips the kill switch. I shut down.

Mastering the art of lying was a survival mechanism to protect herself, to enable her to pursue greatness in spite of the hurt, the harm, to others.

But with her—she was different, special. There was only a feeling.

The admission too specific, explicit. It’s her truth—and her truth matches my own. It’s what called out to me, and why we belong together. We are the stolen children raised by monsters.

She’s so close, but she doesn’t understand it all fully yet. This isn’t a trap. The burial, the cage…it’s preparation for her trap. She can’t go in until she’s primed, her mind open and ready to accept our reality—to accept us. She’s so close.

My body is just as taxed as London’s. She hasn’t gone through this alone. I’ve been with her. And when she enters the trap, I’ll be with her still.

It’s my home away from home, and when it’s gone, I’ll mourn—but I’ll rebuild. Bigger, better, more intricate. With her.

I built it for her, out of some foreign emotion that consumed me, plagued me, until I was forced to relent. There’s a fine line between passion and obsession—and I crossed that line the moment I saw her.

“It’s time to wake up, love.”

“We’ve already established your sickness, baby. What you have…there’s no cure.” I brace my hand on the bar, blocking the opening. “I’m the closest thing to a doctor you’re ever going to get.”

Then you enter

“If I knew everything, we wouldn’t be here. And if we both knew all the answers, then we’d be far past this courting bullshit.”

“Courting. I suppose this would be considered dating to a psychopath. A romantic dinner after a little strangulation foreplay.”

“I do have your recorded confessions, but they won’t do any good. You were half delirious, clearly under duress amid your abduction at the hands of a madman.” He stands and looks down at me. “That’s not why you had to endure and pass the test.”

“But I think…I think I loved her.”

He was stolen—he has this whole experience and life as an abducted child, raised by the people who took him…and that’s fascinating. But it’s also sacred to who he is and the answers he harbors with that knowledge.

“I don’t want to remember,” I confess. And I don’t. If he tortured her in front of me, if he killed her…my mind has protected me, sheltering me from an evil no child could process. Even now, the pain constricting my chest is so foreign, I’m unable to bear the crush. I don’t want to feel. “She can’t be my sister,” I whisper.

“Do we love each other, or are we merely crazy for each other? I know I’m crazy—maddeningly crazy for you. Obsession is a far more evocative emotion than love.”

“We’re monsters.” I look at him then, breathless and torn. “And our love is this monstrous thing that will devour us.”

“I am sick. I’m lovesick. But all love is a sickness.

“I was fine before you happened to me.” He places a kiss on my thigh, then stands, looming over me. “You weren’t fine, London. You were drowning.”

“No,” he says, removing the printed pages from my lap. “You didn’t kill them. You just gave them the means to kill themselves.”

The truth is, Riley put a bullet through his head. Stole an officer’s gun and right here—”

“You see, London. Now that you’ve been shown the truth, you’ll never see the lie again. You’re liberated.”

“No one understands you better than me. There’s no one who knows you more intimately, who will love you more passionately.” He strokes my face, then lays his hand over mine, caressing the tattooed scar along my palm. “We even mark ourselves the same. Our kills carved and inked on our flesh.”

“You’ve taken six lives. Not with your own hands, you break their minds, plant a dark seed and help it grow, until your victims only have one choice.” He reaches for the knife. “We’re the same.”

“You’ve been denying yourself the honesty of who you are,” he says. “And I’ve been weak. I have as much to answer for as you. My victims didn’t deserve the mercy I showed them, by even giving them a choice to redeem themselves. We were put here for a reason, designed for one purpose. Now that we’ve found each other, we don’t have to yield to their laws anymore.”

“A year ago, I was stalking a man before I was taken into custody. He was going to be my next victim. Now he’s yours. My gift to you.”

“I’ve done nothing to you but reveal the truth. But I am forcing you to finally choose, to stop the lies, London. I can’t tell you how badly I want you to do just that.”

“You have until morning to decide. Free yourself of the string, run the maze, and make your choice. You can either set our victim free through rehabilitation, or you can end his life.” Oh, God. “Begin.”

Then I look up at the keys.

“There are two special keys I’ve selected for you. One will set the fiend free, the other is the kill switch.”

“Roger’s particular paraphilia is pedophilic disorder, though I’m sure you’ll unearth a multitude of others beneath his rotten flesh.”

“I’m a psychologist,” I say, taking a moment before I reach for the next key. “I can help you. Well, in theory. Truthfully, I don’t really care whether you live or die. I just don’t want your death on my hands.”

The realization that Grayson is playing according to his own rules hits me. He’s controlling the mechanism. The keys are tied to the strings, the strings attached to the contraption, and Grayson is working the controls. He’s in control. We’re in control.

They’re beautiful. I never admitted it—not even back then—but when I inked a key over my scar, I was branding my kill. It was my trophy. I can admit this now.

One will free him. One is the kill switch. I yank the rusted key. Roger’s scream arcs over the maze before his body plunges feet-first into the tank of acid.

My thoughts are a void. Hallowed out of me and splashed against the night. I only am—the purest sense of acceptance melds into the natural order. My existence in balance. Then I feel arms surround my waist. Grayson pulls me against his chest. I lean my head back, feeling his heart race in time with mine. His solid form embraces me as he says, “Our first kill.”

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper in her ear. “So alive.”

We’re uninhibited. Unleashed.

“It would’ve changed nothing,” she admits. “And now, I’ll never be sated. How will we ever stop? Filling the void is an endless cycle. We’ll always need more and more until it consumes us.”

“It’s too much—keep touching me, Grayson. I’m burning up. I need more.” “God, I love it when you talk dirty. Tell me all the bad things we’re going to do.”

“We can do anything,” she says, the throaty rasp of her voice tearing at my control.

“Christ, you’re so fucking perfect. I won’t ever hold back with you. That would be a sin.”

“Is this what love feels like?”

“This is what our love feels like.” “Then make me a sinner, Grayson. I don’t want redemption. I want us.”

“I’d suffer any torture willingly if it came at your hands. My sick matches your sick.”

The feel of being inside her annihilates every single belief I had before her. This is heaven. The only heaven I care to witness. She’s my truth now—the rules ours to make.

Grayson told me he would let me go.

He let me go. I tug at the handcuffs, desperate to flee and find him and… What?