The scan didn’t show any swelling of the brain. It did show some wonky neuron firings. Parts of my brain were lighting up like landing strips when they shouldn’t have, other parts weren’t lighting up like they should. Xavier pricked me with a needle. I watched him do it, but I didn’t feel it. My pain receptors registered nothing.
“Well, the migraine’s gone,” Xavier smiled at me. He was right, no pain receptors, and no migraine. I was still pissed. I remembered Xavier bringing me the literature on the study. I remembered saying it sounded interesting. I absolutely did not remember agreeing to participate, nor did I remember him bringing me any forms to sign for my consent.
“Aside from the obvious, her brain appears okay.” Lucas was looking at a computer screen. “I’d need another brain similar to her to know for sure.”
“We could go inject Malachi,” Gabriel offered.
“I’m not sure that would work,” Xavier told him. “While they do have similar brains, they have some serious differences. Her brain isn’t fully psychopathic in structure and function, and his is.”
“Me today leave hurry bitter want rubbery glitter.” I lightly punched Xavier in the arm since I couldn’t yell at him.
“I think she’s upset,” Gabriel said.
“Yeah,” Xavier shrugged at him, “she’s going to give me hell when she finally starts talking.”
“Why?” Fiona asked, touching my nose.
“Winter jump golden hoppy trail position butter quite.”
“Is she even attempting to talk in sentences?” Fiona asked. I gave her the finger. “That, I understood.”
“Yes,” Lucas frowned at me for a moment, and then he too hit Xavier lightly in the shoulder. Since Xavier had a bleeding disorder, no one hit him as hard as they wanted. Fiona punched him next.
“Hey, what was that for?” Xavier rubbed his arm and looked at her.
“Everyone else is doing it, so you must have done something to deserve it,” Fiona replied.
“Can she fly?” Gabriel asked.
“I see no reason why she can’t,” Lucas said. “At least we know the tumor hasn’t returned.” He looked at Xavier, “When she can talk, the three of us are going to sit down together about this, and Xavier, this had better not have anything to do with her brain.”
“I would never do that,” Xavier responded.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Fiona said.
“Hat bottom viper matched dancing hamsters.” I shouted at her.
“Sure,” Fiona got up from the chair she had been occupying. “I think I liked it better when your tongue was hanging out. You didn’t talk during that time.” I gave her the finger again.
“Let’s get this freak show on the road,” Gabriel sighed. “Bring emergency supplies, including stuff to cut into her skull in case she has brain swelling or something.”
“I don’t know about doing lobotomies on airplanes,” Lucas said.
I waved my hands in the air, motioning that I had no interest in having my head cut open in general, let alone on an airplane and a lobotomy was out. They were not removing any part of my brain for any reason. I would let a neurosurgeon do that. Xavier had been in the room, but he hadn’t been cutting into my grey matter. I loved Xavier and respected him as a doctor, but I had limits and he had leapt past them and kept right on going towards the first star on the left. I would die before I let him do brain surgery on me.
We all followed Gabriel out of the clinic. I sat in the middle seat in the back, wedged between Lucas and Xavier. Fiona was riding shotgun because of my condition. Normally, Lucas rode in the passenger’s seat. His bulk was uncomfortable and took up extra space in the back seat, space that I would have loved to have. As it was, I was touching both guys. As a general rule, I wasn’t a toucher. I liked space, lots of space and they were not only in my personal space, but had ruptured the bubble and were squishing me. If I could have found the words, I would have told them about it. Since every time I talked I sounded like an idiot stringing random words together, I remained silent.
Once we got on the plane and I had room to breathe, I considered trying to talk again. However, after thinking about it for a moment, I stopped. The world was still moving too slow. My vision hadn’t cleared up either. Ironically, it was as if I had tunnel vision with movement tracers, things I experienced with a migraine. In a flash of genius, I grabbed an ink pen. Aphasia only affected verbal speech. I scribbled a note on a piece of scrap paper and passed it to Gabriel. He looked at for a moment, a smile spreading over his face.
“What’s it say?” Xavier asked.
“It says, ‘Since we are going to Louisiana, I’m going to slip crawdads in your bed’.” Gabriel read it out loud.
“Why would she put crawdads in your bed?” Xavier asked.
“The note is for you,” Lucas pointed out to him.
“Oh, that makes sense.” Xavier smiled at me, but the smile slowly wilted as he watched me. I nodded slowly.
“Okay, so the case,” Gabriel said. “You do understand me, right?”
“Hunger,” I answered. Irritated, I scribbled “yes” on the piece of paper and showed it to him.
“No one has died yet, but all indications are that the attacks are escalating.” He got out his tablet. We all followed suit.
Case files on tablets were weird. Zoom functions worked to some degree and the pages turned like an eBook. These things were nice. However, the downside was that it was impossible to look at two pages at one time.
The file had five names in it, all of them male. It was surprising to see someone prey on men, especially heterosexual men. They were by far the least likely demographic to be preyed upon by a serial killer. The first picture showed a man in his mid to late twenties with blond hair, blue eyes, a big smile, and dimples. The next picture showed the same face, but this time, there were stitches, a lot of stitches. There were nine gashes on his face, and each required stitches. One of them ran along his cheekbone. It didn’t require a medical expert to figure out that the bone had been exposed. Another gash had given him a wider smile and ruined one of the dimples. The once handsome young man looked like a patchwork doll. The final picture was of his back where a large flap of flesh had been cut out. The muscles and ligaments were visible in the gaping hole. I read the description and discovered the spot had once been tattooed. The skeleton tattoo had been carved out and the police had not found the swatch of skin. They also hadn’t figured out where the attack had taken place. The man had been found wandering around the French Quarter in a daze. His memory of the previous forty hours or so was almost completely gone. Toxicology had uncovered Rohypnol and Scopolamine in his blood along with a trace amount of alcohol. It was miraculous that he was alive. Forgetting the hours leading up to him wandering in the streets of New Orleans was probably the best of the side effects.
Victims two through five had similar reports. Victim two didn’t have any tattoos, but the attacker had removed a large birthmark from his thigh. Victim five also didn’t have any tattoos and instead a scar had been removed from his stomach from a bike accident. The same drugs were in all their systems. Their faces were cut up. However, victims four and five had other slashes on their chests and arms. The wounds were getting deeper with each victim. There was an increase in the number of gashes.
“The attacker is right handed,” Xavier said. “The gashes start on the left and become deeper as they move to the right.” I did a quick eye roll at this statement. “Also, the attacks are being done after the victim is lying down. There’s not much of an upward or downward angle to any of the cuts. The few that have them seem to have been done on purpose.”
I grabbed the pad of paper and scribbled a note. I handed it to Lucas. He nodded once.
“Ace says the rage is getting worse, cutting them up isn’t enough and probably was never enough. These five are not the first victims. There’s too much precision for the rage. She thinks there are other victims, probably ones that were only cut once or twice, maybe stabbed by accident. They would have been drunk and may have thought it was a mugging gone wrong or something.” Lucas read my note out loud. “I don’t disagree with her. The perpetrator is probably going to be a large male. A small male wouldn’t have been able to control these victims, nor would he have passed as a mugger, even if the victims were drunk. Unless the first set of victims were not as physically fit as these.” He paused, wrinkling his nose, his forehead furrowing, and the corners of his mouth turning down. “I hate profiling.”
“Ketchup kitchen window moving over upon dreaming spiders beyond carved the purple peach.” I tossed my hands into the air. Being aware that one had aphasia was frustrating. I didn’t know if other people who suffered from it knew it was happening, but I was acutely aware of it. In no way, shape, or form, had that sentence resembled my thought about the knife being a powerful motivator if the attacker had tried to mask the first victims as muggings. Statistics proved time and time again that close up weapons were wielded by people who wanted to inflict damage upon their victims. Guns were meant to scare a victim into compliance. A knife was scarier because it meant that if you were unwilling to comply, the person holding it was more than willing to step in and force compliance. Also, there was this odd thing about knife wounds being more fatal than gunshots. Gunshots were more likely to hit the limbs or penetrate the torso and stop in an organ. The bleeding was bad, but the bullet could be dug out and medical attention could stop the bleeding faster. Knife wounds were almost always to the torso, neck, face, or head. Since knives were larger, they were more likely to pierce or nick other organs or tear through major arteries and veins. As a personal preference, I preferred being shot to being stabbed.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Lucas said.
“Penny victim people fear gaping horror.” I shrugged at him.
“That is definitely not normal aphasia.” Lucas glared at Xavier. I drummed my fingers against the back of my tablet and blew out my cheeks. Whatever was happening to me wasn’t normal. I had better not have been chosen as a guinea pig for this test because of my hybrid brain structure. Lucas and I might team up and kill Xavier. Knowing one has physiological traits of a psychopath did not make life any easier. There was still some adjusting to the knowledge of my physical psychopath and cognitive sociopath status. It also made my brain very unique. It would not be the first time someone, particularly Xavier, had pushed the ethical boundaries because of it. I didn’t enjoy being a lab rat, even if I did trust Xavier with my life.