That was the button and I had just slammed my fist onto it. The rage that had been bubbling now overflowed. He yanked upwards, pulling the table with him. It buckled and bent in different places as the bolts struggled to keep it attached to the floor. I gave him a look of disgust, which just made him angrier. He snarled at me, leaning forward, straining against the restraints.
“You stupid bitch, you are alive only because of the men in your life. You want to know why I killed all those women? It’s because they were like you. Their only purpose in life was to ruin good men like Tyler and Gavin. Send them spiraling out of control, making them do things they didn’t want to do, taking away their pride and dignity. You are a selfish, spoiled cunt who doesn’t deserve to live. You are nothing like me. You are nothing to me. You claim to be a sociopath, but all I see is a cowardly woman who hides behind a fake diagnosis to keep from having to be a contributing member of society. Sociopath, my ass, if you’re a real sociopath, I’m fucking Santa Claus, you whore.”
“Thanks, that’s what I needed.” I stood up and leaned towards him. The calm had descended upon me the moment he jumped from the chair. I let him look at my face, only inches away from his. I lowered my voice. “You are lucky you are cuffed to that table or I would have an excuse to rip your heart out and feed it to you. You can call me names all you want, but you know the truth. You have seen it in my face before, the darkness that claims me. It bothers you that I fought you off, even under the influence of your drug cocktail. That is why you tossed me into a window. You could not kill me that night or any other time you tried. Do you know why? It is because I am smarter than you, just as strong, and just as determined. You, Alejandro, met your match with me and you lost. How does it make you feel to hate women that much, but know that a woman managed to outsmart and out monster you?”
“You did nothing like that.”
“I got you to confess and you do not scare me,” I whispered. “However, if it was not for that little genetic anomaly, I would terrify you. However, because you do not feel fear, you cannot understand how to react to me, so you panic. You did it the night you broke down my hotel room door in Chicago, you did it the night I confronted you on the streets of Sioux Falls, and you just did it again. That is the reason you did such a stupid ass thing like pick up an arsenic covered rat. You have no one to blame but yourself.”
He lashed out, attempting to head-butt me, but I moved back, anticipating the move. He growled, low and guttural. The door opened and Lucas stepped inside.
“If you got it, we are done.” I walked past the two men. We finally had a confession and a reason for the killings, at least some of them. We still had questions about the others.
“Well done,” Xavier said as I came into the hallway. He stepped back from me. “I get that psychopaths don’t feel fear, but they should when you’re around and looking like that. I feel like you are looking for a good place to slip a knife.”
“How’d you find out about Eric?” Gabriel asked.
“Nyleena called a while ago,” I answered.
“You alright with it?”
“Eric is a big boy and a psychopath. I can do little about his behavior. He is already in prison serving a life sentence. Why concern myself over him killing one more mass murderer?” I answered. Lucas had shut the door, coming into the hallway with us. From behind the door, we could hear Alejandro having a tantrum of epic proportions.
“Should we talk about the Eric thing?” Lucas looked at me.
“My brother is a killer. He kills people that hurt his family. This is sort of his thing. I do not see anything to discuss,” I pointed out.
“Well…” A loud crashing noise interrupted Lucas. The door rattling followed it. Alejandro had broken free of the table or he had broken the table free of the floor. I checked my Taser. It was as high as it would go. Lucas stood at the door. He mouthed the countdown and pulled open the door.
Alejandro was disoriented for a moment. A group of Marshals stood with us, staring at him. He held a table leg like a club. I took that moment to hit him with the Taser. His body tensed up and he fell flat on his face. The room filled with the smell of urine. Unfortunately, this Taser still worked only in bursts. He wasn’t moving, so I pulled the trigger again, hitting him with a second dose of electricity. He groaned as the burst stopped. Lucas nudged Alejandro over using his shoe. He was alive, but he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. I hit him with a third burst just to be on the safe side. Dealing with psychopaths was sort of like dealing with zombies, a person really wanted to make sure they weren’t going to get back up and eat their brains.
Xavier moved in with needle ready and jabbed Alejandro in the neck. After a few moments, Alejandro was drooling and snoring. It must have been a good sedative.
“What were you saying about my brother?” I asked Lucas as several people began working to lift the snoring giant.
“It’s just that he killed someone that attacked you. If he goes after everyone that has attacked you that resides within the Fortress, he’s going to spend a lot of time in solitary confinement,” Lucas went back to what he was saying.
“But he does not have that kind of list. He does not care about physical damage, he cares about emotional damage. Nick the Bomber caused me emotional damage because I thought Xavier was dead.” I glanced at Alejandro. “I would imagine Alejandro is going to move to the top of Eric’s hit list for attempting to kill Malachi.”
“Malachi got what he deserved,” Alejandro whispered. Arms wrapped around my body, pinning me so I couldn’t go after the injured and sedated man. Although, he couldn’t have been too sedated since he could talk now. I turned to glare at Xavier.
“It’s a learning process. That should have taken down an elephant,” Xavier answered. “It appears the dosage needs to be stronger than that for a psychopath. I’ll work on it.”
“Come on, Ace, we still need to figure out who killed Violet Braun and maybe the others,” Gabriel said to me. I sighed and watched as they took Alejandro away. I would see him again, of that, I was sure, and when I did, I was going to break every bone in his body. And I was really going to enjoy it. I might even get Malachi to help.
Once the man was out of sight, Lucas released me. He put a hand on my shoulder, guiding me to follow the rest of the group.
“You should not do that,” I said to him.
“I know,” Lucas answered. “If you really wanted him bad enough, you’d rip my arms off to get to him. But I think you’d feel bad about it later.”
“I do not feel guilt or empathy, remember?”
“I think, as a hybrid, you do, and just don’t realize it because there have been very few times in your life when you felt you did something wrong. Watching you stare at Xavier’s sling for a couple of days makes me think you do feel guilt.” Lucas stopped walking. “Or at least, you are capable of feeling guilt, because you definitely felt bad about stabbing Xavier.”