Seeing the gaping wound in his soft, white belly made him flinch.

He fixated on it while Evelyn struggled to regain some of her faculties. Whatever drug he’d slipped her last night with dinner had worn off, but her head was still swimming from the aftereffects, what she’d witnessed with Edna, the lack of sleep and the beating.

“You were … trying to … rape me,” she pointed out, speaking despite her swollen lip. She hoped appealing to logic would get him to see reason, help him to calm down. No matter what, he was far more educated than most of the psychopaths she’d studied. He had to understand what had provoked her, didn’t he?

“No. I wasn’t raping you,” he snarled. “I was making love to you. You’ll soon learn that there’s a difference.”

So that was how he rationalized it. She almost said so out loud but caught herself just in time. She didn’t dare provoke him any further.

“What do you have to say to that, smarty-pants?” he demanded.

Apparently, he could tell she had a comeback on the tip of her tongue.

“You’re not so clever,” he spat when she remained silent.

As intelligent as he was, he sounded like he was no more than eight years old. But she’d seen that type of thing so often in her studies—grown men and women arrested at an early stage of development because of severe emotional trauma. By being abandoned by his mother, who chose her new husband over her children, Bishop had endured something that would be incredibly hurtful. He’d been left at the mall, of all places, with Beth, who’d been only ten at the time. And when they finally managed to get home via a city bus? They’d found the house empty, completely cleaned out. His mother had left not only the city but also the state, without giving them any way to find her.

It was no excuse for what he’d become, of course. A lot of people endured abandonment and abuse without becoming serial killers. But given his mother was one of his first victims, Evelyn felt safe in assuming his childhood had, indeed, warped his brain. Without what he’d been through, maybe he wouldn’t have become what he was.

“Aren’t you going to promise me that you’ll behave from here on out? That you won’t try to escape?” he taunted. “Well, don’t bother. Now I know you’re a liar, just like my mother. You don’t know how to love anyone. I can’t trust you.”

Evelyn searched for words she could use to placate him. She’d made him no promises; any promise he remembered was a figment of his imagination. But he seemed to rewrite the script however he wanted it to go.

Still, she had to do something to buy time, didn’t she? She had no more energy, no more strength with which to fight.

What was the point of continuing to fight, anyway? She’d already given it her best. What good would another hour or two do? Amarok wouldn’t be able to find her that soon. They were out in the middle of nowhere, and Bishop was going to give her a transorbital lobotomy before they got back on the road.