Watkins had a contemplative look on his face. Trying to read that expression proved impossible. The man was a master at concealing his inner thoughts. Something Malcolm found increasingly frustrating but there was nothing he could do about it.
"You want to break me." His voice wasn't as strong or as steady as he'd have liked it but fatigue and blood loss played a significant part for why it wasn't. "You can't."
"See, there, Malcolm, you're wrong. I can break you."
"My, uh, father tried." Flippancy wasn't exactly wise but it was the only weapon Malcolm possessed at the moment. "He failed."
"You're the same, remember?" The words cut to the quick. Something Watkins clearly relished. "See, like Martin, you love your family." A small smile appeared through the dark whiskers covering his mouth. "It's your fatal flaw."
"Yeah?" Malcolm blew out a breath. "Trust me, it's not even my worst one."
"Malcolm, Malcolm, Malcolm." Watkins shook his head. "Why else do you think I brought you here?"
"Ah, well, I was hoping it was because you were going to give me some answers about the girl in the box..."
"Enough with the girl in the box." All humor gone, Watkins sat forward. "I've told you all I am going to tell you about her."
Those words bounced around inside Malcolm's head. The implication in them was clear: Watkins knew more about the girl in the box than he was letting on. Either because he wasn't willing to share what he knew with him or because he couldn't.
Malcolm found himself wondering which it was. Not for the first time, and he had a feeling it wouldn't be the last time, he wondered if Watkins wasn't working with someone who also wanted revenge on Martin Whitly.
Given the number of victims his father had, it wouldn't be all that surprising.
"So, how do you plan to break me?" His mouth was dry but a drink wasn't in the cards. "What are my trials going to be?"
"Oh, you've already passed your first one." Watkins indicated his side with a wave of his hand. "You survived being stabbed. Like I did."
"What's next?"
"Sacrifice." A chill swept down Malcolm's spine as Watkins eyes gleamed in the faint light. "Sacrifice will be your final trial, in fact." His smile returned. "Don't worry, though it won't be something you have to do. It's just something you have to... endure." Watkins reached into the bag he carried down with him what had to have been hours ago. Malcolm's heart stopped as he slid an axe out and rest it across his knees. "I'll do the doing."
...
Dani called Gil soon as she was outside. She didn't even wait for him to say hello. She just blurted out, "Bright's not here," soon as it stopped ringing.
"Any sign that he could have been there but was moved?"
"Negative." She allowed her gaze to wander around the property, hoping for something; anything that'd give them a clue as to where Watkins took Bright. "It doesn't look like anyone has been here in years."
"Probably hasn't been used since the Surgeon was arrested."
"What do you want us to do?"
"Head back to the precinct," was Gil's tired reply. "I'm about to go in and talk with Dr. Whitly. See if I can't find out from him where Watkins took Bright."
"Do you think he will tell you?"
A sigh came through the phone.
"We can only hope he will."
He didn't need to add that Dr. Whitly was their last hope for finding Bright. If he didn't divulge a list of places Watkins might pick to use they had nothing else to go on.
"Maybe..." Dani paused, knowing she was getting dangerously close to that line she never crossed with Gil but not seeing any other option if Dr. Whitly refused to help them. "Maybe you better reconsider letting Sorcha talk to him."
"If Dr. Whitly won't talk to me..." Gil said as JT came lumbering up to her, "I will let Sorcha talk to him." Dani could imagine him wiping a hand over his face right before he added, "I'm hoping he will talk with me, though. I want to avoid putting her in his cage with him if I can."
"JT and I will go back through the photo albums and see if we can find another location that Watkins might have used."
"Call me if you find anything."
Dani slid her phone back into her pocket.
"Boss still don't want to let Bright-lite have a crack at his dad?"
"No." Her brow creased. "And I don't know why. She knows how to interview men like Martin Whitly."
"Boss feels he failed to protect Bright from a serial killer." JT turned as Swanson exited the cabin. "No way is he gonna fail to protect Bright-lite from one."
"I think he should be worrying about what she could do to Bright's father if he doesn't tell them where Watkins could be holding him."
"Yeah, well, that's his other reason for keeping mini-Bright away from him." JT slanted a look at her. "Doesn't want to arrest her for murdering Bright's father."
Swanson signaled for them to leave.
Head back to the precinct.
Where they'd search through the photographs and paperwork they searched through a hundred times already.
Only to come up against dead-end after dead-end.
And with a clock slowly running out the more time passed.
...
"No." The word came out barely a whisper. It was the best he could muster given the condition he was in. "You don't have to do this."
"Oh, but I do." Watkins made a sound, almost like a purr, deep in his throat. "It's my calling, Malcolm."
"It doesn't have to be."
Watkins twirled the axe in one hand. If not for the fact that he was a madman looking to kill his family as a way to break him and make his father pay for whatever happened on the camping trip, he might have appreciated his skill.
"I disagree."
"I know that voice," Malcolm said, desperate now to try and get through to him. To stop Watkins before he took that axe and left this underground room. "The one inside your head. Trust me, it will never be satisfied." He gazed at him imploringly. "And neither will you."
"Well, Malcolm." Watkins chuckled softly. "On that we agree."
Malcolm grasped for anything he could use. Reasoning with serial killers was what he did. It was what he was good at. Only, John Watkins wasn't the average serial killer.
No, he was in a league almost by himself.
"I hear that voice, too," he finally told him. "It's my father. I can hear him. I can see him." His hands shook on the cold pavement. Hard enough the chains rattled. He ignored it, pushing on, saying whatever came to mind to try to sway Watkins from his murderous path. "I don't have to listen to him. So, don't. Don't listen to that voice inside your head."
"The thing is, Malcolm." Watkins tossed the axe in an expert move, the blade glinting as the light fell across it. "I like the voice. It's a part of me. And right now?" He caught it with ease and slung it over his shoulder before he started to amble away. "It's telling me to hurry."
Malcolm went cold to the marrow. Desperation and bile surged up his throat to foam into his mouth. He swallowed both back and called out to Watkins, desperate now to stop him from going after his mother and sister.
"Watkins, wait!" The man started whistling as he disappeared into the darkness. "Watkins!"
...
Talking with Dr. Whitly went exactly as Gil expected it would.
The first few minutes he seemed content to just play mind games with him. Berate him for his relationship with his wife and son. Then Gil told him Watkins had Malcolm and he fell to pieces. Part of Gil wondered if the panic attack wasn't for show. The other didn't have time to focus on it.
"Martin? I need you to focus."
Not that the man seemed able to do so.
"Where would he take, Bright? Dr. Whitly, I need you to tell me where he took him."
"I know where Watkins took my boy," he whispered in a second of lucidity. "Yes, I know where he took him."
"Where?"
"Too late." Martin's eyes drifted closed. "He's gonna kill them all."
"Martin!" Gil went to grab his arm but the orderlies stopped him. "Martin! You need to tell me where Watkins took Bright!"
"Too late," he repeated again. "You'll be too late. He'll have killed them all by the time you get there."
"Where?" Gil demanded. "Where does he have him? You have to tell me!"
"There's no place like home," Martin mumbled. "There's no place like home."
No, Gil thought as his heart dropped into his stomach. Watkins couldn't have been hiding in the Whitly home this entire time.
They'd have heard Bright shouting for help.
Not if he's being held underground…
Gil swept from the small room, almost tripping over himself as he headed back to where he left Sorcha. Soon as he saw her, he said, "Watkins has Bright..."
"In the Whitly home." Her expression was grave. "I figured it out after Dr. Whitly mentioned a deep cellar. He and Watkins would have had a murder room under the Whitly home. Probably near Martin's hobby room."
"C'mon," he told her, heading for the exit. "Text Dani and tell her and JT to meet us there."
"Alright."
...
Dani's phone buzzed. She yanked it from her pocket, silently praying Gil had gotten a location out of Bright's father. The message on her home screen had hope soaring shooting through her.
"Watkins has Bright at his mother's house."
"He's been at his mom's house this whole time?" JT eyed her from the driver's seat. "Where?"
"Apparently, there's a room somewhere beneath the house Watkins might have used while working with Bright's dad."
"Of course there is." JT stomped down on the accelerator. "Should have known his skinny ass be somewhere weird."
"Have to hope he's still alive."
"Bright's alive." JT's fingers flexed on the wheel. "Guy might be a danger prone dumbass but he's a lot stronger than he lets on."
"Bright's off his medication." Something Sorcha had repeatedly reminded them about. "Withdrawal symptoms for someone as dependent as he is can be dangerous." Dani stared out the windshield, worrying her lower lip with her teeth. "Who knows what shape he will be in when we find him."
"Mini-Bright will know what to do."
Dani hoped JT was right.
Last thing she wanted to see was Bright ending up in an institution like his father.
"I'll let Swanson know where Bright is being held."
JT merely grunted and hit the gas.
...
Pain, exhaustion, mind-numbing fear and anxiety, blood loss, dehydration, and missing one dose — minimum — of the medications that kept him functional had his world dissolving into a thick gray haze.
His body ached from the top of his head all the way to his toes.
Nausea clawed at his belly, helped by the drum solo being played across his forehead.
Malcolm pushed through his discomforts, determined to do one thing before the shrouded figure trailing after him drug him into the fiery pits he deserved: save his mother and sister from the monster his father brought into their midst.
How he planned to accomplish that... he had no clue.
"Fight smarter, Malcolm, not harder."
Malcolm lifted his head and stared at the man standing at the opening to his father's hobby room. His lips quirked, the most he could accomplish in his current physical and mental state.
"You ingrained that ideology in her, didn't you?"
"I ingrained it in you, too." A gentle smile creased Ian's lips. "I started to impart the same wisdom to you that I did her the moment she brought you home."
"Why?"
"Because I saw the good in you, Malcolm. The potential. Like Gil Arroyo, I chose to become your mentor. To offer you the same things I did my children. The same lessons."
"I'm my—"
"That argument doesn't work on me any better than it does Sorcha."
"Because she's just like you."
"And you're a bit of all of us." Malcolm wobbled on his feet. Shock and fatigue intermingling. "Why do you think you've seen me, Sorcha, and your therapist? Because we represent different parts of you."
"I heard him— my father." His voice broke as he made that damning admission. "I listened to him. Did what he said to do."
"You did what was logical to get out of that cuff."
"I gave in," he insisted. "I gave into him."
"And if you hadn't? What then?"
He frowned.
"I'd still be in that basement."
"And your mother and sister would be left to fight a man with an axe." Ian folded his arms across his chest. "So, tell me, is listening to your father telling you what you needed to do worth their lives?"
"Of course, it is. It's just..."
"Malcolm..." Ian came forward to stand in front of him. "I'd do whatever I had to if my family was in danger."
"I'm not a killer."
"You don't have to kill him. You just have to stop him."
"How? How do I stop him? I don't have a weapon."
"Use what you know about Watkins to stop him."
Malcolm's brow creased.
"His grandparents locked him in a wardrobe..."
Ian nodded. "And what works in place of that?"
Malcolm released a shaky breath as his gaze shifted towards where an empty trunk sat.
"A box."
"Fight smarter," he heard again. "Not harder."
A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!
I just want to send a special thank you to Rookblonkorules and my guest for their lovely reviews!