On Midnight Wings

“If I didn’t know that you’re a sociopath incapable of feeling anything for anyone except yourself, you’d almost have me believing that you actually cared. You’re good at pretending. Damned good. Always were. You even managed to fool people who should’ve known better. But you’ve never fooled me.”

“Think you know me, huh?”

“Better than anyone,” Purcell said quietly. “I know what Violet and Heather don’t—that you always turn on those foolish enough to trust you, the ones who think they’re actually safe with you. Just ask Chloe. While you’re at it, you could quiz Gina and Jay also. They trusted you too, right? And where did that land them? Oh, yeah, on metal tables in the morgue.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Dante growled. Pain pulsed through his head, hollowed his heart. From the shattered depths within, voices whispered and droned.

You’re gonna end up hurting everyone around you because you can’t help it.

She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved.

No escape for you, sweetie.

That’s my Bad Seed bro.

“Go fuck myself, huh?” Purcell questioned, a deep satisfaction crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Sounds like I hit a nerve.” He touched the com set curving around his ear. “Graham, Morgan, c’mon in.”

Two men in the standard black suits strode into the room, one holding a not-so-standard baseball bat, the other an even-less-standard drill. One was white, the other black, and both were tall and broad-shouldered. They stopped, each taking a place on either side of the table, both eyeing Dante with cold and savage intensity.

“Friends of the men you killed earlier tonight,” Purcell said. “I promised them a little payback. After I see Violet onto her plane, I’m heading to New Orleans to check in with our surveillance team, before returning here tomorrow afternoon. Should give everyone plenty of time to get acquainted.”

Shit. Fuck. Sonuvabitch.

Purcell headed for the door, then stopped with a snap of his fingers. Swiveling around, he returned to the table. “Just one thing before I go. I watched you kill Chloe. Watched you tear her throat open. I watched every single thing you did that night.”

Dante stared at Purcell, pulse pounding in his temples.

“You never even hesitated. Just sliced and diced and kept on fighting like a good little programmed monster—even at twelve or thirteen or however old you were at the time. Wells and Moore were so goddamned proud of you. Even though she punished you for”—Purcell put air quotes around the next word with his fingers—“ ‘grieving’ afterward.” He shook his head in disgust. “Fucking little psycho.”

Fucking little psycho.

The jackhammer slammed home.

Cracks splintered in every direction across the dam’s broken face with breathtaking speed. Dark water began to trickle from a few of the deeper rifts.

Reality took a slow, sideways roll as Dante remembered Purcell.

Strapped into a straitjacket, Dante hangs upside down from a gleaming hook. Purcell stands beside the man whose face Dante can’t see as anything but a headache-inducing blur. Purcell nudges Chloe’s cooling body with the toe of his polished shoe, then glances at Dante. She trusted you. Guess she got what she deserved. . . .

“She was eight years old and you slaughtered her,” Purcell now said, stating facts. “Just like you’ll slaughter Violet and Heather and anyone else who gets close to you. It’s what you do. It’s who you are.”

“Fuck you,” Dante whispered, voice raw, rough.

“No,” Purcell replied. “Fuck you.” Glancing at his men, he said, “Do whatever the hell you want with him. Just make sure he’s breathing and aware again by the time I get back from NOLA.”

“With pleasure, sir.”

Without another word, Purcell strode from the room, pausing long enough to switch off the room’s camera. The camera’s green power light winked out. The drill whined to life. Dante flexed against the restraints one more time, frustration a cold coil in the middle of his chest. But neither steel nor canvas nor drugs would give an inch.

“This, you bloodsucking son of a bitch, is for the human being you turned into a goddamned meal. His name was Josh Bronson.”

At that moment—the worst moment possible—an old commercial Dante had once seen on YouTube decided to pop into his head, some candy commercial where sharks on a taste test panel discovered that the guy they’d chosen as the yummiest among the contenders had eaten one of the candy bars before becoming a shark snack.

Steve was delicious, one shark says.