Number one glanced back and forth between Dinara and me. “They are just photos. I never touched a kid since I came out of jail.”
“The kids in those photos were touched by other perverts like yourself so you could wank off looking at those photos,” I growled.
I stepped close to Dinara and she lowered the gun. We moved a few steps away from the man. “What do you want to do now?”
Dinara swallowed audibly, conflict dancing across her tense features. “I want him dead. I want to be the one, but…I just don’t know if I can. It’s like something is still holding me back.”
“You’ve never done this before. It’s only natural that you hesitate.”
I didn’t remember the moments prior to pulling the trigger on another human for the very first time. It had happened too fast, no time to let my conscience speak up. I sometimes wondered if it would have. In the weeks after my kill, I hadn’t so much been bothered by my conscience but the lack thereof.
“Can you show him the video? I want him to remember what he did, and maybe it’ll give me the courage to go through with what I want.”
Number one hadn’t moved an inch as if he hoped we might forget he existed.
I removed the laptop and the disc from my bag and set everything up on a shelf so the asshole got a good look at the screen. After a nod from Dinara, I turned the recording on. This time neither Dinara nor I hit pause. Instead we watched every soul-crushing moment of the video. I wanted nothing more than to turn the screen off, or better yet smash the fucking thing like I’d done with Remo’s laptop, but I stayed rooted to the spot. The only movement I allowed myself was the occasional sideways glance to Dinara who seemed to be lost in the images, her gaze distant and her body taut with tension. How hard must it be for her to relive those moments?
I glowered at the asshole on the floor who had lowered his head as if he couldn’t bear to watch. Fury raced through me. I grabbed his head roughly and jerked up his chin, forcing his attention back on the laptop screen. “I know what I did! I don’t need to see,” he whimpered, closing his eyes, and my fury multiplied, turned feral. “You will open your fucking eyes or I’ll staple your eyelids to your fucking brows. I’m sure I can find a stapler somewhere in your shop.”
His eyes flew open and he didn’t dare looking away from the screen again. I was glad when we neared the end of the recording. The sounds and images had turned my stomach, and I just wanted to help Dinara move past those horrors.
Dinara looked like a wax figure of herself, pale and perfectly motionless. This was meant to help her, but what if it didn’t? What if this only fulfilled my own twisted hunger for blood?
The images of the screen became blurry and my mind took over, replaying my memories so much more vividly than the video.
Every sensation washed through my body, every pain and odor, every sound and image. They flooded my body like an unstoppable avalanche, dragging up buried emotions. Shame and revulsion, fear and despair, but above all: anger. Anger at the man before me. When the screen turned black and past-Dinara’s ordeal was over, I lowered my gaze to the cowering man before me. He begged me with his eyes, pretended to be a victim, when he was a monster who’d ruined my childhood to satisfy his own needs.
I’d remembered his eyes and his words, the names he called me and the name he wanted to be called, even before I’d watched the video. I remembered his low breathing, his aftershave and the sweat underneath it. I moved closer, took a deep inhale. Even his aftershave was still the same. A new flood of images, the same I’d replayed before, wanted to flare up for a repeat performance, but my mind fought the onslaught.
Revulsion welled up in me, followed by panic, but I didn’t allow it to take root, and finally anger ruled over everything else. My hands were shaking and my throat was tight as I set down the gun on the counter. Adamo watched the move with a frown. My blood seemed to pulsate with fiery anger as I stepped up close to Adamo, my breathing coming in quick bursts.