Chapter 11 #2
"I'm probably insane," I admit, and the words taste strange in my mouth because I've never said them out loud before.
I've thought them, certainly. I've run the diagnostic criteria in my head late at night when the satisfaction of a completed hunt starts to fade and I'm left alone with the reality of what I've done.
But speaking them to another person feels like removing a piece of armor I didn't realize I was wearing.
Scarletta doesn't respond, but her breathing remains steady against my chest. She's still here. Still listening.
"If you'd like to leave," I continue, and something tightens in my gut as I say it, "I'll take you back to the preparation pavilion. Give you a private room. You can clean up, eat something, rest for as long as you need. Then I'll put you on a plane home."
I watch her face for any flicker of relief, any sign that she's been waiting for permission to escape the madman who's been holding her.
"The money will be in your account regardless," I add before she can answer. "The full fifty thousand base pay, plus the bonuses you earned at Stations One and Two. You've more than fulfilled your contractual obligations."
The silence stretches between us.
I'm not accustomed to uncertainty. I plan every variable, anticipate every outcome, maintain control over situations through sheer force of preparation and will. But right now, watching Scarletta process everything I've told her, I find myself genuinely unable to predict what she's going to say.
It's uncomfortable.
It's also, I realize with some surprise, almost exhilarating.
She still hasn't spoken, so I continue. Part of me recognizes that I'm making a pitch, selling her on something, which is absurd because I've never had to sell anyone on anything. I acquire what I want through planning and resources, not persuasion.
But here I am, laying out options like a salesman with a quota.
"If you stay," I tell her, "I've got eight more stations set up for you. Designed them myself. Every detail calibrated to the specific fantasies you've written about, the particular psychological triggers I've identified in your work."
I pause, letting the weight of that settle.
"Station Three is exceptional," I say, and I can hear something almost like enthusiasm bleeding into my voice. "A maze in the jungle. Sensory deprivation. Complete trust required. The psychological intensity exceeds anything we've done so far."
Scarletta's lips curve slightly at the corners, and the sight of it loosens something in my chest.
"Then a break for lunch," I continue. "It's Valentine's Day, after all."
She smiles properly now, a small sound escaping her throat that might almost be called a giggle. The sound is so unexpected, so completely incongruous with the heavy confessions we've been trading, that I find myself staring at her like she's a species I've never encountered before.
"I had the kitchen prepare something special," I tell her. "Fresh seafood brought in this morning. Lobster, oysters, whatever you want. The chef trained at a three-star restaurant in Paris before I hired him away with an offer he couldn't refuse."
I'm rambling now, which is not something I do. Caleb MacLeay does not ramble. Caleb MacLeay speaks with precision and purpose, every word calculated for maximum impact.
But Scarletta is watching me with that small smile still playing at the edges of her mouth, and I find myself wanting to keep talking just to see if I can make it grow.
"After lunch, two more stations," I continue. "Then a full massage, a proper bath with the attendants, and dinner. I was thinking the terrace overlooking the ocean. Sunset should be spectacular this time of year."
I hesitate for a moment, weighing whether to reveal the next part. But I've already told her I kill people for justice. Admitting that I want her company seems almost trivial by comparison.
"I was going to invite you to sleep in my room tonight," I say, and I'm aware that my voice has dropped lower, softer, into a register I don't typically use. "Not for sex. Obviously we've had all the sex we need for one day."
The understatement hangs in the air between us, and I see her eyes flicker with amusement at the absurdity of it.
"But for companionship," I finish. "I thought it might be... pleasant. To not be alone."
The word feels inadequate. Pleasant is what I call a well-executed business deal or a satisfying meal.
It doesn't capture whatever this thing is that's happening in my chest, this strange warmth spreading through tissue I'd assumed was incapable of feeling anything beyond satisfaction at a hunt well-conducted.
"Then tomorrow," I continue, because she still hasn't responded and the silence is starting to feel like a physical weight pressing against my lungs, "five more stations. Each one progressively easier, not harder. A gradual descent rather than an escalating climb. We'd be finished by lunchtime."
I think about the beach on the eastern shore of the island, the white sand and clear water I've never actually used because I'm always too busy monitoring operations and planning hunts.
"After that, we could do something fun," I say, and the word sounds foreign in my mouth. Fun is not a concept I typically apply to my existence. "Go to the beach. Swim. There's a boat if you want to go out on the water. Fishing equipment if that appeals to you. Whatever you want."
I stop talking because I've run out of things to offer her.
The silence returns.
Scarletta is looking at me with an expression I can't quite parse, her eyes searching my face for something I'm not sure I'm capable of providing.
I wait for her answer.
And wait.
And realize, with a sensation that feels disturbingly like vertigo, that I don't know what she's going to say.
This is not a familiar feeling. I research. I plan. I anticipate outcomes and prepare contingencies for every possible scenario. But Scarletta exists outside my models, unpredictable in ways that my usual methods of analysis can't account for.
I think about what happens if she chooses to leave.
The plane ride back to Idaho Falls. The empty apartment waiting for her, still decorated with the Christmas tree I had installed, still monitored by cameras she hasn't disabled.
She'll write about this experience eventually.
She'll turn it into another story for her readers, another chapter in the ongoing narrative of ScarletSins and her dark fantasies.
And I'll be here.
Alone.
Watching her through screens, reading her words, cataloging her patterns, but never touching her again.
The thought produces a physical reaction in my chest, a tightening sensation that I identify after a moment as something I haven't experienced in years.
I'm going to be sad if she leaves.
The realization lands like a blow.
I don't do sad.
I do focused. I do driven. I do satisfied when a hunt concludes successfully and empty when I'm between targets.
But sad implies caring, implies investment, implies that this woman has somehow become more than a project, more than an obsession, more than the subject of six months of careful surveillance and planning.
I look at her face, at the way the soft lighting of the aftercare room catches the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, at the small smile that hasn't quite faded from her lips.
I want her to stay.
Not because I've invested resources in this operation.
Not because her departure would represent a failed mission.
I want her to stay because the thought of watching her walk away makes something inside me feel hollow in a way I don't have words for.
She still hasn't answered.