I shake out my hair. Now that my identity is no longer secret, I’ll keep the blond. I find I’m starting to like it, too. It’s a part of this unpredictable change that, in any other circumstance, would frustrate me. Yet I’m somehow enjoying the sudden spontaneity of it all.

Hypothesis

Alex

The scratch of the lead across the page sends a prickling sensation over my skin. As I work on the outline of Blakely’s features, the woman begins to materialize. It’s an image right out of my memory bank. Blakely sitting across from me at the bistro table, her tousled blond hair falling over her slender shoulders, those sea-green orbs staring right down to my marrow.

I keep a journal for each subject. Filled with notes, observations, results, and sketches. I find that, even though I work primarily with data, a visual representation alongside all that data helps me see the whole picture.

I look up from the page and stare blankly as I recall her features. A building-choked horizon looms over green treetops of Central Park. The park is muggy today, like so many other days in the spring. There’s a filmy haze in the air that settles on my skin. I can taste it, that thick layer, every time I take a breath. It tastes like the way one would imagine fog to taste.

I’m camped out on the bench at the entrance to the park, my journal spread open before me, as I saver another few moments to sketch Blakely’s beautiful face. I know she’s watching me. I arrived here fifteen minutes early, and I felt the moment her stone-cool eyes snared me in her perceptive gaze.

She’s assessing me. Even though she agreed to let me “tag along”, she’s not entirely convinced it was the right choice. I had to appeal to her greedy nature in order to get this far. I have something she wants; a tempting program that intrigues the hacker in her.

If I hadn’t been convinced of her nature after I woke up in the supply closet of the club with a pounding headache…her admission of how she came to work in the field of revenge sealed my resolve.

She wanted money. She knew she could do the revenge job and she did it.

A person with a psychopathic disposition doesn’t have the same kind of fears as the average person. What holds us back—fear of failure, fear of success, fear of change—the healthy types of fear that help govern our choices and actions, doesn’t reside within Blakely.

Her lack of fear propels her forward. Very little holds her back. She makes rash, impromptu decisions based on her wants. This doesn’t mean she’s impulsive. Rather, she’s exceedingly crafty, sharp-witted. Cautious when the situation calls for it.

In order to lower her defenses, I had to downplay my own similar attributes. I can’t be competition. Better she believe I’m a loser than a rival.