He knew better than to talkto Ant before he went to bed. Every, single, fucking time he wentto bed thinking about Anthony Bruce, his dreams were tortured andbloody. Eight flashed before his eyes. In his dream he had cut herheart out while she was still breathing. He held it up in front ofher horrified face as it pumped its last dying beat, thick clotsdripping from his hand and the arteries and mangled veins hanginglike webs from his fingers. In his dream, her beautiful, brown eyeswere pleading with him, her stunning red hair was all around hertranquil face and her hands were clawing at his chest. When hetasted blood in his mouth from biting his own lip, he boltedupright and ran to the bathroom, bile rising in his throat. Hebarely made it to the toilet when his dinner spilled out ofhim.

He was accustomed to thenightmares and he wasn’t sure why he was feeling so sick about thisparticular one. Maybe it was still just too fresh in his mind, thecombination of tasting his own blood and the details not fadingfast enough. It could also be that the faces were just toofamiliar. He had never dreamt of his Chapters in such a ghastlyway. It was the Cambridge case; it was getting to him in a way noother case had.

Eight… He shook his head whenElsa suddenly popped into his head again. No matter what he hadconvinced himself of or what the facts were, he wasn’t Anthony, orany cold-blooded killer for that matter, and his Chapters would nolonger simply be referred to by their numbers. They all had namesand he repeated them over and over in his mind.

Kayla. Anissa. Jordan.Peyton. Terra. Emily. Elsa. And theChapter that started it all… the one whose name he would neverspeak again…the one who made him into the calculated soul-crusherhe had become.

*

Dressed and ready to facethe community and his fellow investigators, Victor headed to theFBI office for another day of work. Just as he entered thefacility, his phone chirped with a text message.

C8: I found this quote:“The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent asthe impulse to sexual love – almost as violent and much moremischievous” by Aldous Huxley. I’m truly sorry for my cruel words.I know nothing of your life or past to have said something socallous. Even if I did, there is no excuse for it except to say Iwas angry and hurt, and I wanted you to feel the same way. It willnever happen again.

C8: P.S - Wherever you are– be safe and know that whether or not you show up, I’ll be waitingfor you, 9:00 a.m. on Saturday at Grace Street.

Frozen with emotion, hestared at the phone. He hadn’t even had to punish Eight,Elsa, to make herunderstand her wrongdoing. Simply letting her come to theconclusion herself had been enough. It was a revelation. Had hismethods been flawed all along? He hadalways used basic psychology: positive consequences for positivebehavior and negative consequences for negative behavior. Ofcourse, he had always focused on the punishment aspect, for obviousreasons – his own selfish wants and the fact that he got off on it.But was he wrong in thinking he couldforce someone to change their ways with harshconditions?

Someone bumped into him,nearly knocking his phone out of his hand, reminding him of thereal world waiting for him. Hope crept into his subconscious andfor the first time in years, he allowed it to stay. He couldn’tchange who he was or what was coursing through his veins, butstill… maybe today would be different. Perhaps today there would bea real break in the case.

15: Eye-Opener

Elsa sat in her office reading all morning,not once attending to what she was getting paid to do. She wasdevouring Mr. Black’s case study like it was some kind of depraved,dark novel where there was no romance involved, only sex, pain,humiliation and cruel lessons. Still, she couldn’t stop reading.She had finished with Chapter Seven and was now more than half-waythrough Chapter Six - Terra, the prim and proper personal assistantto a CEO of a major corporation. Elsa found out quickly this wasthe Chapter that Mr. Black had fucked and mentally and physicallytormented in a run-down hotel on weekends. This was also theChapter that begged for more every time he would humiliate her.

Elsa just couldn’t wrap her brain aroundTerra. In a way, she could identify with Chapter Seven. She hadonce been the same way – attention seeking, rebellious and even abit promiscuous, although she was a teenager at that time and not agrown woman.

Why would anyone want to be treated the wayChapter Six wanted to be treated? What was Mr. Black trying toaccomplish with her? From everything she was reading, he wasn’thelping her at all. All he was doing was feeding into hersickness.

But who was she to judge what a person gotoff on? Maybe it wasn’t a sickness at all and simply a fetish.Hell, she had her own perversions, like being screwed in the buttand dominated. Elsa shook her head at herself for beinghypercritical. She, of all people, had no right to look down hernose at anyone. Everyone truly was different, each with their ownwants and needs and obsessions.

Her current obsession: Victor Laurenzo. Shehad stopped trying to deny it wasn’t. Her thoughts were consumedwith him and her sanity was like a thin thread ready to break.

She checked her phone, hoping for some kindof response from Mr. Black regarding her text, but only a blankscreen stared back at her. She reminded herself that he was busydoing the noble thing of trying to bring justice to the familieswho had lost their loved ones.

It was astounding to think that the man whosejob it was to find killers and give peace to the families of murdervictims was the same man who had chronicled his debauched mentalgames with unknowing victims. She had only joked about there beinga personality split, but Elsa was starting to wonder if that wasreally the case.

There were only a few other references to hispersonal abuse and nothing else was shared up through Chapter Six,leaving Elsa to make up her own horrible ideas of what he could’vebeen put through living with an alcoholic parent. Where was hisfather in all this and why would he have allowed Victor to livewith a mother like that?

Lunch came and Elsa continued to hide in heroffice, reading. She was happy to be done reading about Terra andmoving on to a new Chapter. She only hoped this one would be lessdistressing. She was wrong.

Chapter 5 – Peyton, age 37. Profession:Restaurant Owner and Entrepreneur

Prologue:

Welcome to my world, C5. I used less thanethical means of finding you, but alas, I found you. A case youwere involved in fell into my lap by sheer luck. You are thesurviving ‘victim’ of a known murder suspect, though I hesitantlyuse the term ‘victim.’ I would never suggest that you were askingfor what you got, but you stated it yourself. Even now, you willnot talk openly or divulge everything about what transpired thatnight. Why is that? I ask, but I already know the answer. You likedit. You sought it out. You are a masochist and one of the mostintensely personal people I’ve ever met, even in my line ofwork.

Your façade is almost perfect, but I can seeright through you. I’m not sure there’s even anything I can helpyou with except to give you what you want – pain. This will be alesson for the both of us and I hope you can teach me to embrace mysadism fully, as my other Chapters have pigeon-holed me and notallowed that side of me to come out completely.

Pre-activity:

I made my offer to you and was pleasedthat you accepted, though I expected as much. Your STD check hasreturned clean and I’m eager to get started working on you. I havesecured a quaint bungalow not far from my place and out of viewfrom the rest of the world. The solitude will allow for us to playhard and permit you to scream without fear of being heard, and youwill scream, C5. I promise .