Wicked Games: Book Two of The Psychopath Series

Chapter 45

Alex sat on the stool across from the creature he captured. The flecks of copper in his cognac eyes glimmered underneath the dull overhead light. The night was still, cold, and dark.

The chilly breeze that leaked through the cracks of the old cabin was the same one he felt when he was a little boy. It was that very couch, the one the creature sat on now, that he settled in for the night after a long day of scavenging the land for food. We're going to turn you into a man, Uncle Roan proclaimed before dropping the rifle in his arms. The coming-of-age hunting trip quickly snuck upon him. After Paxton came back from his, tight-lipped and dismissive Alex was more than eager for his own time but after the shattering gunshot blasted through the calm dusky early morning he dropped down his eagerness for agitation.

All-day he hunted; sore muscles, empty stomach, and mud lathering his skin denied by his father, uncles, and grandfather the clemency to flee. Flee back to the cabin, back home to his mom, back where he didn't have to prove his worth; where being born into the family was enough to make you a Lemen. He was seven when he took a life. Although it wasn't human it was still soul-shaking.

A vein across Alex's forehead perturbed. "The rules work because we are a team. We are a pack. We are a pack because we follow the rules." Alex felt Isabeth speaking through him. He never thought those words would've come out of his mouth. He didn't really see the point of those rules.

He rolled his eyes that night in New York standing in the corner as Faith sat on the end of the California king bed in the penthouse suite at Hotel Plaza Athénée with a gold throw draped around her shoulders wanting to desperately peel off the across the shoulder, red Zuhair Murad dress and disappear under the Belgian cotton sheets to get some peaceful sleep. Isabeth was eerily calm in her black satin Zac Posen ball gown as he folded Adam's svelte body in the trunk that Faith had four dresses stuffed in because she couldn't decide which one she wanted to wear to the MET opening. "You are the rule I've broken."

The rules were simple. There were just five of them. Five little rules Isabeth created to keep Faith in line. Five little rules to ensure no one ended up in jail. Five rules that bonded them tighter than conjoined twins in the womb. No lies. No secrets. Every decision must be voted on. A problem for one is a problem for all. Protect the circle, anytime. Anywhere.

"I broke them all for you." Alex's head hung past his shoulders. "And for what?" He stared at the ghastly man. "You're a monster. You're not worth it."

The creature huffed, "I know what you are."

"What am I?" He straightened.

"You're a schlemiel." It peered at Alex earnestly, the way Sonia did, like he was a clueless puppy that peed on their oriental rug for the first time with no idea he did anything wrong.

"And what do you suppose that is?" Alex rolled his brown eyes waiting to hear the definition of the word it probably made up itself.

"An awkward and unlucky person for whom things never turn out right for."

"If I'm a schlemiel then what are you?"

"I'm the therapist that tried to help you." The creature leaned out of the dark and under the light. Fulton's grim, scruffy face tinged under the light. The light he was forbidden to have.

Alex jumped up. "I didn't need your help!" He kicked the stool back.

"You're a lamb born into a family of wolves." Fulton sat back against the couch he sat for hours pondering over where he went wrong. "If it wasn't your father that sailed you down the river, it would've been your uncles, your grandfather, or anyone of them."

"Why would I believe you? You're a rapist."

"If you detest me so, why are you here?" Fulton scratched the Abraham-like beard he was dying to hack off his face. "Oh, I know." He grinned. "Fear and terror. Chaos and strife." The chain around Fulton's bruised ankle rattled as he stood. "We bring you thee: dread and disdain, death and despair. Reeking havoc on those we loathe; that posses a gift, not at our dispose. Screw you and your soul. Ridiculing us because of our empty hole."

 The chain slid along the floor as he walked to the window. "You can keep your love, hope, and compassion. We rather have turmoil, anguish, and trepidation. Making you pay for being blessed with what we cannot bear. Get ready to feel the wrath from the storm forming in our void. Arranging to kill and maim, to drink your salty tears and feast on your pain. We are the psychopaths."

"Their benediction."

"They're a double-edged sword; they're the worst of the worst and the best of the best." Fulton looked away from the window. "You let them out...didn't you?"

"Yes." Alex held his thundering heart.

"Has anyone died yet?"

"Yes."

"Then something wicked has surely come." Fulton looked back out the window, out into the vapid night. "If you think I'm a monster then prepare yourself to meet my creators."He placed his hand on the cold window.