No…that’s impossible. Psychopathy isn’t a disease that can be cured. It wasn’t Alex’s experiment that broke my brain, it was the emotions he forced on me—emotions I wasn’t built to feel. His love created the affliction.

He made me a killer.

Epilogue

Alex

Our brains have an internal clock.

Located in the medial temporal lobe, the lateral entorhinal cortex stores cells that code episodic memory. These cells capture the specifics of an event. Basically, they capture memory.

This is our perception of time. Our clock. And some days, it’s pure torture.

I’ve been counting the seconds since Blakely escaped me.

I’ve been counting the minutes since I was inside her, since I last tasted her lips, felt her in my arms.

The days stretch on, and I count.

I destroyed every clock. Shattered my pocket watch. Torched my sister’s cabin and burned it to charred, skeletal remains. I voided data and killed my project in one violent act, all so Blakely could be free.

In essence, I tried to stop time.

So what a cruel revelation it is to discover my brain is the ultimate timekeeper.

As long as I breathe, my cells won’t let me forget her. She’s hard coded into my memory. Her sweet scent of coconut, her taste of sin. The electric current of her touch. She’s a part of my DNA now.

I scrub my hands over my face, a fervent curse uttered in despair as I try to redirect my thoughts. Like the cells coding my memories, I’ve been busy reprograming a new life—one where I’m no longer a brother or a biomedical scientist. One free of every painful tie anchoring me to the past.

And as with any program, the coder always leaves a backdoor open. Another way in. However in my case, I left a way out. The night of the fire, I waited until Blakely was clear of the cabin before I escaped through the crawlspace. I had every intention of going down with my failed experiment, but as the flames climbed higher, searing my flesh, the pain brought on a moment of clarity.

I saw her sea-green eyes and the torn emotion behind them as I asked Blakely to end my life. She was conflicted. It was just a spark, the slightest glimmer, but it was there. And that realization changed everything.

I’m counting and theorizing as I wrap my hand with bandage when my laptop pings with a new email. I finish securing the burn, then seat myself behind the screen. My heart rate spikes.

The notification is from my alerts, the ones I have set in place for specific words, phrases, and names.

Ericson Theodore Daverns appears highlighted in bold.

I click the email.