Chapter 33 - Lila
The moment Shaw realizes she's losing control, something fundamental shifts in her demeanor. The academic confidence that's sustained her through nine years of manipulation crumbles, replaced by the desperate calculation of someone who's just discovered their experiment is spiraling beyond their ability to document or contain it.
"This isn't how the methodology works," she says, her voice rising with a note of panic that wasn't there moments ago. "You're contaminating the research parameters. The presence of witnesses creates artificial behavioral constraints that compromise the authenticity of violent expression."
Kent and I exchange a look that carries the enormity of shared understanding. Shaw is realizing that having Janine and Aliyah here limits what I'm willing to do, what she can push me to become while they're watching. Her clinical detachment is dissolving as she understands that her carefully constructed psychological theater is failing to produce the results she needs for her academic legacy.
"But that's easily remedied," Shaw continues, and her hand moves toward something on the kitchen counter that I can't quite see from my angle. "Ms. North, Ms. Morgan—you've served your purpose as motivational leverage. Now you're simply…obstacles."
The threat hangs in the air like a physical presence, and I see Kent's entire posture change in my peripheral vision. This isn't the reformed furniture restorer anymore, or even the methodical killer who once extracted confessions from predators. This is something more primal, more immediatelydangerous—a man who's just heard someone threaten the people he's claimed as family.
"Get them out of here," Kent says to me, his voice carrying the kind of quiet authority that brooks no argument. "Now."
But Shaw moves faster than either of us anticipated, lunging toward whatever she'd positioned on the counter. Not a weapon—I realize with cold clarity—but some kind of remote device, probably connected to restraints or threats she has prepared as backup contingencies.
Kent intercepts her before she can reach it, his hands closing around her wrists with the precision of someone who's done this kind of thing before. The device clatters to the floor, and Shaw's academic composure finally shatters completely.
"You're ruining everything!" she screams, struggling against Kent's grip with the frantic desperation of someone who's just seen years of work destroyed in seconds. "This was supposed to be controlled documentation, not random violence!"
"Lila," Kent says, not taking his eyes off Shaw, "get them out. Get them to safety. This needs to happen without witnesses."
I can see the terror in Janine's face, the way she's processing not just Shaw's threat but the reality of what Kent and I are capable of when the people we love are endangered. Aliyah is already moving toward the door, her survival instincts overriding any curiosity about how this confrontation will resolve.
"Go," I tell them, surprised by how steady my voice sounds. "Drive away. Don't look back. Don't call anyone until you're somewhere safe."
Janine hesitates for a moment, her eyes meeting mine across the kitchen. I can see her trying to reconcile the woman who raised her with the person standing in this recreated crime scene, ready to do violence to protect the people she loves. The gap between those two versions of me is too wide for her to bridge right now.
"Lila—" she starts, but Aliyah takes her arm gently.
"We need to go," Aliyah says quietly. "This isn't something we should see."
They move toward the door together, Janine looking back once with an expression that might be grief or might be recognition. The sound of their footsteps fading, then the front door closing, leaves the kitchen suddenly quiet except for Shaw's labored breathing and the soft hum of recording equipment that's been documenting everything.
Shaw stops struggling against Kent's grip, and I can see her processing the new dynamics of the situation. No witnesses. No constraints on behavior. No artificial limits on what I might be willing to do to someone who just threatened the people I love most.
"Perfect," she breathes, and there's satisfaction in her voice despite the fear. "This is exactly what I needed. Authentic violent response without performance anxiety. You see, this is when we discover who you really are underneath all the careful control."
Kent releases her wrists and steps back, but doesn't move away from the counter where she'd tried to reach her backup device. Shaw rubs circulation back into her hands, her eyes bright with the kind of academic excitement that makes my skin crawl.
"Do you understand what you've just done?" Shaw asks, smoothing her hair back into place with movements that speak to someone trying to reassemble professional composure. "You've eliminated the last barriers between yourself and the authentic expression of violent capacity. No family watching, no moral constraints, no witnesses to judge your methods."
She gestures to the recording equipment still capturing everything. "Just you, me, and the documentation of what happens when someone stops pretending to be reformed and embraces what they've always been."
The rage that fills me is different from anything I've experienced before. Not the cold analytical anger that helped me assist Kent with my father's positioning, not the frustrated helplessness of watching Shaw manipulate us through her psychological games. This is something pure and focused and absolutely lethal—the protective fury of someone who's just watched a predator threaten her family.
"You want to see who I really am?" I ask, taking a step toward her. "You want to document an authentic violent response?"
Shaw nods eagerly, pulling a small digital recorder from her pocket to supplement the larger equipment. "Yes. Show me the moment of transformation. Document for posterity the precise instant when Dr. Lila North dies and Delilah Jenkins is reborn."
What happens next isn't like Kent's methodical kills. There's no careful setup, no extracted confession, no systematic approach designed to serve justice while minimizing suffering. This is primal and desperate and brutal in ways that Shaw's clinical expectations never accounted for.
I don't reach for the replica tools she's arranged with such academic precision. I don't follow any methodology or technique that could be analyzed and documented for research purposes. I simply move, my hands finding her throat with the kind of desperate efficiency that comes from protecting something precious.
Shaw's eyes widen with something that might be fear or might be professional excitement as she realizes that real violence is nothing like the sanitized version she's been studying from academic distance. There are no careful measurements, no controlled variables, no hypothesis being tested through systematic application of force.
There's just fury and necessity and the terrible intimacy of taking someone's life with your bare hands.
She tries to speak, probably to make some final observation for her research, but the words come out as choking sounds that carry no scholarly insight. The small recorder falls from her fingers, clattering across the kitchen floor to join the backup device Kent prevented her from reaching.
