Inflict: A Novel

Chapter Thirteen

"She's not going to stay here for the night," Killian said, "not unless I feckin' drug her to sleep or something."

Connor paced the length of the upstairs hallway in his brownstone, willing his mind to slow for even a second so he could calm down enough and have a rational discussion. "What, did you piss her off? I swear to God, I'll cut your feckin' throat, if you did."

"No. What is wrong with you?"

A lot of things.

A great many things.

Too many things.

"I just ... need a bit of time," Connor managed to say. "To get my thoughts together, maybe."

It was only half the truth. He was entirely out of control, and had been slowly moving toward the edge of jumping right off into the land of crazy. He thought he would be able to handle it—doing the job, delivering the women, and going on his way no worse for wear. He figured as long as he kept his mouth shut and his head down, it wouldn't be so bad.

He lied to himself.

With each stop—and each girl shuffled into a building with high, used, and dirty women—Connor felt a wee bit more hellish inside. He knew what he was doing, delivering them like he was, and it killed him.

His mask stayed firmly in place as he worked, his mind going a bit numb as dead eyes stared back at him, failing pleas falling from chapped lips, but inside ... inside he had died.

Connor could hear Killian demanding some sort of answer, or even something to tell Evelyn as to why she couldn't return just yet, but he didn't know what to say. He didn't want to explain, he just wanted to be alone in his hell for a while.

"Just give me some time," Connor said in a rush before ending the call.

It had been a long time since Connor was properly alone. He had moments throughout the day when the silence was so loud that he could hear his own heartbeat, but it wasn't quite the same. He'd had Evelyn for a while—months, now—and with her, she never really gave him the chance to be totally alone.

It wasn't that he minded, but this was different.

Connor shed his leather jacket as he headed for the bathroom. He thought a shower might help to clear his head, and once inside with the door closed, he did his best to avoid looking in the mirror.

He wasn't sure that he would like the reflection staring back at him.

Not tonight.

He turned on the shower head to the large walk-in shower, and turned the water on scalding hot, stepping back and leaning against the glass doors. The steam started to fill the room within minutes, but Connor didn't move to actually get inside the shower, too stuck in his own head to even try to clean the dirty feeling from his hands.

That feeling—that dirtiness—would never go away.

He knew that now.

He hated it.

Connor knew the very worst part had been when he did finally numb to the women and the job; when the girls' scared faces filled his vision, when their frightened eyes pleaded to him for help without ever saying a word, and he'd felt nothing. It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to feel nothing for their plight, but rather, he was trying to protect his own image and his own mind to what he was doing.

And in that moment, when he saw their fear, and he felt nothing, Connor realized how very much like his father he actually could be, when he needed to be. How dead inside, how cold and unfeeling of a human being—how lost of a soul.