Jamie gasps, and they both lean forward at the same time, watching the screen as a body lies on the floor, jerking, his head tilted back, his face contorting in a duct-taped scream of agony, a body straddling him, the head in a gas mask, her hands moving in some action that is causing the man inordinate amounts of pain. Jamie swallows, pulling her eyes from the screen and finishes the sentence for him. “Isn’t normal.”

“Yeah.” His voice sounds tired. Defeated. “She isn’t normal.” He pushes the laptop away from her, blocking her view at the moment that Deanna severs an appendage, shutting the screen on the image, his stomach rolling with sudden nausea, and she leans against his chest, his arm moving to grant her access, her body curving into his as she buries her face into his warmth. Then, with the image of the man’s face contorted in pain, branded in her mind, she starts to cry.

CHAPTER 94

IT TURNS OUT my hand strength is that of a small child’s. I’d like to say I took his entire finger off—got the whole digit, something with some substance to hold on to. But I don’t. Can’t. With his squirming and howling, and my puny muscles, I have to move the pruners down. To his knuckle, where I don’t have to snip through a bone. Where I just have to cut through the cartilage of a joint. That is easier. I am still covered in blood when I finish.

Accomplishment. I feel like I have run a marathon, my chest heaving, my blood on fire, the still-dripping-blood appendage triumphantly grasped in my hand. He shouldn’t have fucked with Mike. Not my hacker, the man who protects my lifestyle and shares the information highway so freely with me. I have no family. I have no friends. Don’t fuck with the only acquaintance on my payroll. I set the finger on the counter, ripping off a dedicated paper towel for it to lie on. Then I rinse the cutters under running water, watching the diluted red water run down my white sink before turning the tap closed and setting them down into the sink. I wipe off my hands and turn back to the man.

Marcus Renza. I search my brain. The username had been Freebird-something. It’s been a while since I blocked him. A month or so. And we’d had… three chats? Four? He’d wanted to hire me for an in-person session, if I recall correctly. I look at the man before me, a slow, pained wheeze coming from his chest, his back arching off the floor as he squirms. I grin. Guess he got what he wanted. My undivided attention, my hands on his skin.

I crouch, examine him closer, my bare feet moving soundlessly as I stare. I can’t believe he came here, hurt Mike, all over being blocked, an act I do to a hundred men a week. It seems so excessive of a reaction. I look at his squirming figure, moans rolling across the space at me, and wonder what took four weeks. Why he hasn’t showed up sooner. What he found out about me in that length of time. What his plans for me had involved. I have the bizarre desire to interview him, examine the mind of an evil individual, and compare it to my own. I’m certain that evil was his intent. Otherwise, why condoms? Why zip ties? Why the syringe? He failed to get at me online. Probably felt disrespected by my block. Showed up to fix the situation. Reassert his manhood. But is it really that simple?

I lift my mask, testing the air. Better. Still rancid enough to make me cry like a baby girl, but nothing I can’t handle. I pull the mask back down anyway. Tears aren’t very intimidating. I stand and step closer.

To kill or not to kill? It’d be so easy. I could open up my safe and test every blade I have on his skin. Listen to his screams. Watch the slow slip of death as it claims his soul.

I need a minute. To think. To be intelligent.

I turn away from my prize and sit, in my desk chair. Roll back and forth, toward the man. Away. Toward the man. Away. He is still. Quiet. The sniffles stopped. The whimpers gone. This is the moment. The moment when the whispers of my insanity are quiet, my hands still, no shudder or shake in their movements. I am in control. So… now what do I do?

CHAPTER 95

“WHAT IS SHE doing?”

Jamie and Mike stare, as one, at the screen, this one from a different cam, one that shows the girl seated, staring at the man as she slowly rotates the desk chair—left, then right, chewing on her lip, a blank look on her face. “I don’t know…” Mike responds. “Looks like she’s thinking.”

“About what?”

He shoots her a perplexed look. “Do you have to ask?”

“Jesus. Should we call the cops?”

“I’m not going to even dignify that with a response.”

“We just saw her chop the guy’s finger off!”

“Cut. She cut his finger off.”