CHAPTER 10
AZRAEL
The alley has a dreadful stench of wet metal and burnt oil. I can hardly breathe because the smell is so strong. The air is heavy, quiet in the way it only gets when everything alive is holding its breath.
Broken glass glitters under the weak glow of a single streetlamp casting shadows across the brick warehouse. She is here, exactly where I’ve made her wait for over an hour now.
“I hope whatever you were doing was worth losing your life over because that’s what you’re going to lose if you make me wait again,” she says, frustration evident in her voice.
Amused. This is the only way I can describe how I feel. This little stalker should learn how to behave sooner rather than later. She still has no clue who she’s dealing with and no clue how many times I’ve been in charge of exploiting useless human beings. She’s just one of many, not a first, by any means.
“You’re late,” she pushes, but that doesn’t entertain me.
“Just move,” I say as I pass by her like she is nothing more than air.
My indifference must hit her hard because she quickly reacts.
“Don’t turn your back on me.”
This will be way too easy.
“I said?—”
“No. You don’t give orders here.” I slam the rusted door open. “You want in? Beg.”
“I’m going in.”
“Wrong.” My voice is nothing more than a whisper in the wind. “Try again.”
“Azrael—”
“Beg.”
“I don’t beg.”
Is she really so stupid to think she has a choice? “You will soon learn how to. One word, and you’re allowed in.”
“Overmydeadfuckingbody. In one word.”
Samantha 2.0. Probably sucks a cock better, but still a Samantha.Why the fuck would I think about her sucking my cock?
I step inside and close the door behind me, making a point to leave her outside. If she leaves, it will only be for the best. I need to make sure there is something inside her I can work with. If a closed door is all that’s needed to stop her, she is not cut out for what I have planned for her.
All it takes is three seconds, and then she storms in after me, smashing the door to the wall. Too fucking predictable.
The warehouse is nothing more than an abandoned place where Isometimesassess my subjects—a skeleton of metal that makes each step echo like a hammer being dropped to the ground. In the middle of the room, I have already placed what I’ll need: one chair, one mirror, and a camera that is already recording.
“Is this your big move?” She laughs it off. “Empty buildings and cheap furniture?”
I gesture to the chair, and surprisingly, she doesn’t object and almost runs toward it. Excited or dumb, that is the question.
“They always assume it’s about the violence,” I say, walking toward her in the same manner as when I’m lecturing from the podium in the university’s amphitheater. “In their view, psychopaths are believed to be hooked on inflicting pain.”
Her eyes narrow, and for a second, I think she wants to correct me. It would be a shame if all her brain could come up with aboutfeelingsis pain.
“That is just the story ‘normal’ people tell to make themselves feel safe.” I continue, “Everyone wants to believe they would be capable, at any given point, of detecting one of us in the middle of a crowd full of people. But the truth? We don’t crave chaos. We crave patterns, precision, and order. Systems that only make sense to us. We want full control over everything and everyone.”
She pops her lips, and while half of me understands she does it because she’s not taking this seriously, the other half has different ideas.