If I want to save this man, all I have to do is work his confessions free. There has to be a catch—Grayson has never given any of his victims a real chance. He’s doing this for me.
“Where is Michael?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond. Then, as I reach for a key, he says, “Wait. I’m not ready.”
“Neither were the children you stole and killed.” I grip and pull the key.
Roger drops. His toes hit the acid, and he cries out.
“Now, where is the boy being held?”
“Fuck—” He bends his knees, trying to hold his feet above the acid. “If I tell you that…then I’m going to prison. Do you know what they do to men like me in prison?”
“Do you fear that more than death?” I challenge. “If so, tell me. If death is your choice, I know the man doing this. He will grant you that freedom.”
“Freedom?” he spits the word at me. “You’re insane.”
“That’s the second time you’ve insulted my mental state.” I hop off the rock with little to no jarring impact to my back. I breathe in a cleansing breath. “You’re making a poor case for yourself, Roger. And you only have hours to decide.”
Unable to hold his position, his body weary, he drops his legs. His ear-splitting scream echoes through the maze as his feet submerge. “God, please—I don’t want to die like this.”
I step onto a stone. “How did your victims die?”
His breath fogs the air around his head. “Go to hell.”
Been there. I stretch onto my toes and grasp a key. The cool metal feels satisfying against my heated skin.
“Wait,” he says again, straining to keep his grotesque, acid-eaten feet held over the tank. “I couldn’t help myself. It’s a sickness.”
“How?” I demand.
“Shit. All right. Fuck. Okay. I choked them.” He wriggles, trying to swing his body away from the container.
A cruel memory of my father’s hands around my neck assaults me. Disgust morphs into rage.
“Yeah. I choked them,” he repeats, easier this time, as if the admission feels good. In this way, Roger is also being liberated.
I close my hand around the key. Then pull. Again, Roger is lifted higher. He extends his legs, relieved.
I move to the last stone. I understand how this works, even if Roger hasn’t caught on yet. It doesn’t matter the number of keys dangling above my head; my selection of a key is my choice. Grayson knows me—he understands me, anticipates me.
One key will set the pedophile free. One key will end his life.
I study the keys. All the gleaming bronze, rusted metals, shiny silver. They’re beautiful. I never admitted it—not even back then—but when I inked a key over my scar, I was branding my kill. It was my trophy. I can admit this now.
The canopy of blood-red string and keys plays a dark melody that speaks to my soul. No, I wasn’t born this way. I was stolen, groomed, and born to another realm the average person only glimpses in nightmares. I never feared the monster, because the monster was already inside me.
“I want to know where the boy is,” I stress to Roger.
Sweat pours from his matted, balding head. He’s as pathetic here, now, as he is in his life. He shakes his head. “I can’t.”
“You can and you will.” My hand wavers between two keys. The first is gold. Untarnished and new. The second is corroded. Its teeth gnarled, the silver worn and faded. It’s a replica of the key I wear on my flesh.
Grayson chose it for me.
“What do you see when you think of Michael? What do you feel, Roger?” My hand stretches into the air.
Roger finds the strength to tear at the harness. His curses salt the night as he claws the leather. “He’s special,” he finally says. “I watched him the longest. God, he’s beautiful. Baby blue eyes. His thin blond hair cut into a bowl. His skin is soft and delicate.”