Quote

World’s use is cold, world’s love is vain,

World’s cruelty is bitter bane,

But pain is not the fruit of pain.

~Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Vision of Poets

Prologue

Dark Mind

Alex

Beauty is deceptive. Like all things in nature, one cannot trust their eyes. The brightest flower, the intricate butterfly wing, all designed to capture attention and warn:

Do not touch.

The primitive predator heeds this threat. Thousands of years of evolution and the laws of nature remain unchanged.

It is a perfect design.

But the human male is more complicated, or rather—truthfully—he’s more simple. He takes the warning as a dare, a challenge. His ego demands that he override evolution and conquer that which threatens to make him weak.

And what could render a man more helpless than a woman?

I tap a large rock against the sediment of the riverbank. Fresh water rushes past boulders, shaving down rough edges as it has done consistently over the years, making the river stones worn, smooth. Welcoming, even.

This is the process. Take the hard and jagged thing and apply pressure and consistency until it conforms. Geology. Trial by trial. The scientific method. And if that fails, there is always elimination.

Eradicate the deviation.

I place the cleaned rocks in a threadbare sack and heave it over my shoulder. I’ve marked this territory, disturbed the natural environment. I’m a part of it now. The waterfall rains down in a sheeting ruffle of blue-green translucence as it crashes into white foam. The sound of the cascade is loud in my ears as it echos through the woods. A perfect auditory conductor to conceal screams.

As we are not primitive animals, we all have a psychological weakness. One consuming desire that renders us helpless.

She is mine.

The brightest flower, the intricate butterfly wing—she was designed for me, to lure me in, to make me weak. Trying to resist her snare was vain, and ineffective.

Do not touch.

Oh, I touched. I put my hand right into her flame. Then I begged her to burn me again.

Obsession is the eighth deadly sin…and she owned me with one kiss.

She’s a deviation. A flawed design. Yet so perfectly engineered for her purpose.

Eradicate the deviation.

The stones knock together against my back as I hike up the hill, the path beat down and familiar now. The wrought iron gate squeaks open, disturbing the tranquility, a noise out of place in this isolated habitat.

I drop the sack near my feet and dig out one of the medium-sized stones. I bring out the pewter pocket watch and click it open, lay it on the hard-packed earth. The ticking reverberates against the bark of the thin pines. I watch the second hand jump, jump, jump…

I smash the rock against the glass face of the clock.