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Understanding lights her gaze, and she nods. “The updated lab results on the remains should be in tomorrow. We outsourced everything, every piece of viable evidence is in the process of being retested. I’d like for us to go over it.”
I hold her dark gaze, sensing a tenuous camaraderie. “Sure,” I say, knowing I won’t be here tomorrow to go over any of it with her.
As long as I remain here, Kallum will remain here. And the only way I can ensure he won’t fall prey to his violent nature is to remove any temptation.
I’m responsible for the monster I created.
“But feel free to also email me anything you want eyes on right away,” I add, hoping she’ll follow up.
Her forehead creases, but she says nothing else as her phone rings and pulls her in another direction. The lead agent is in the process of securing search warrants for all the victims’ homes.
Rana is not like Alister. Despite the bureaucracy of her agency, she appears openminded. She doesn’t just want to resolve the case, she wants answers, the truth.
By the time I reach the night air, my head has cleared. Maybe it was a touch of claustrophobia, or the shifting light toying with my equilibrium—but I can’t stop seeing the moth flitting around the bulb, like a dark silhouette against the setting sun.
I climb into the passenger seat of the SUV, the frail moth still cupped in my palm.
“Back to chauffeuring duties,” Hernandez says, but there’s no trace of malice in his tone.
I look his way. “We need to make one detour first.”
With a resigned breath, he keys the ignition. “No rest for the wicked.”
A despondent smile pulls at my mouth. “Nemo malus felix,” I say under my breath.
“What’s that?”
“Latin.” I glance down at my closed hand. “It means, peace visits not the guilty mind.” Those debilitating thoughts which plague the guilty, we’re offered no peace to rest. “First from the book is Isiah, then later, Ozzy Osbourne.”
He chuckles. “Christ, he’s rubbing off on you.”
Literally, he’s all over me.
I shiver despite the warmth of Kallum’s jacket, and Hernandez shuts off the A/C.
On the terrace, Kallum said he first saw me in the setting sun, yet it was night when we collided on our path. With Kallum, it’s all poetry in the words, beauty in the language, the startling intelligence that seduces the mind.
And that’s all it could’ve been, an arbitrary verse delivered to seduce.
I let my hand fall open. The moth lies on the bed of latex, its wing crushed from the light. Or it’s possible it’s my doing, trying to hold on too tightly.
I can’t entirely fault Mrs. Lipton for her actions. When it comes to the people we care about, when we see them suffering, we’ll do almost anything to spare them pain.
Because selfishly, we want to spare our own.
Trying to hold Kallum back from his own violent, self-destructive nature is like trying to stop a star from going supernova. It’s paralytic, the fear that I can’t protect him.
I put Kallum in that cage of violence. I told him to sever the head. His psychopathy should have never come into contact with that level of violence.
I lower the window and open my hand, allowing the moth to float away.
If the moth survives, I can’t stop it from returning to its source of pain, just like I can’t stop myself from being drawn to Kallum. It’s the light we’re drawn to.
The light is so lovely it’s blinding.
Some cages, we design for ourselves.
8
