She glared at him, tears welling in her cheeks. “I’m going to kill you,” she said.
“You’ve said that before,” he reminded her. “In fact, I believe it was in a very similar position as the one you’re in now. You’d think a woman as smart as you would learn by now not to come after me alone.” He grinned. “I wouldn’t, though. I knew you’d come by yourself. I knew that you were too small and weak and proud to do anything else. See, if you had come with Michael, then he would have saved you again, and you’d have to live with the fact that you were never strong enough to defeat your own enemies. If you had come with the Marshals or the FBI, then you would just have been one of many agents involved in my capture. You wouldn’t have won.”
Just answer the phone when I call.
Dammit, Michael,she thought.I needed you now.
“And you need to win, Faith,” Dr. West continued. “That is your greatest weakness. You need to win so badly that when you lose, you spiral utterly out of control.”
Faith struggled to a sitting position but didn’t attack West. She glanced at Turk, who was no longer fighting West but staring up at him, his eyes filled with the same impotent rage that filled Faith.
West continued to lecture her.
“I have to tell you, Faith, you may not be the equal I hoped to face, but in hindsight, you really have provided wonderful entertainment. It was exciting to sleep every night wondering if I would be woken by a gun to my temple or a dog’s teeth in my throat. Watching the sunset and wondering if it would be the last I see made the experience that much more enjoyable. You’ve given me a fervor for life that I thought I had lost forever. Thank you for that.”
“Fuck you,” she said.
“Oh, come on, Faith, is that all you have to say? You can’t come up with any kind of witty banter? No threats? No adorable arrogance? Is this how you behaved with Trammell? Did you just swear at him while he approached you with the knife?”
Jethro approached, grinning widely as he lovingly caressed the rusty blade of the knife. He placed the point of the blade just behind her ear and traced a line down the curve of her neck to her shoulders and from there farther down to her thigh.
“You’re nothing like him,” she said, trying another tactic. “He was a real killer. You’re just a cheap imitation.”
Dr. West grimaced. “Now you’re just embarrassing yourself. Come on, if you’re not going to come up with anything witty, at least have the self-respect to keep your mouth shut.”
“What have you done that’s yours?” she challenged. “Huh? You claim you’ve killed people longer than Trammell. Where are they? I think you just made that up. Whatever you did, it clearly wasn’t memorable because no one’s talking about you. And you know it too, don’t you? That’s why you’re using Trammell’s MO. You know that nothing you do, nothing you create, will ever measure up to the Trammell. So you’re borrowing his because it’s the only chance you have to matter.”
He continued to gaze down at her with that pitying smile. “Faith, I don’t care about my legacy. What possible use could a legacy be to me? I’ll be dead. What matters is what happens after I die.
“I’ll tell you what I care about, Faith. What I’m doing that Trammell couldn’t do, that no one else could do. I’m going to break you.”
“Fuck you,” she spat.
“What a dirty little mouth you have,” he said. “That’s three times you’ve used that word. Have you given up already? Please don’t say you’ve given up. There’s so much more fun to be had.”
She started to stand, and his smile vanished. He pressed down with his foot, and Turk yelped and started struggling again. Faith lifted her hands, stomach twisting in knots as she forced herself to say, "I won't attack you. Please don't hurt him."
He eased the pressure on Turk’s throat and said, “Good. You haven’t given up. I can see it in your eyes. That’s good. I think you can go on a little longer. I think you have more to lose. I don’t want you to give up until there’s nothing left. I want you to look around and see nothing but the shattered remnants of your life, and only when all that is left is ash and splinters do I want you to admit defeat.”
“Why?” she asked. “Why me? Why is beating me so important to you?”
His smile faded, and she saw once more the blank, emotionless stare of the sociopath, the true Dr. West once the veneer of arrogance and the almost cartoonish flair was stripped away. "Because I can," he said. "And I don't think many others could. It might not mean anything to anyone else, but it will mean something to me, knowing that I can completely destroy someone as strong as you. Life is a contest, Faith. There are predators, there are prey, and there are parasites. Turk here is prey."
He pressed his foot down briefly, causing Turk to kick and struggle. Faith tensed, but didn’t leave her spot, terrified of what West would do if she did.
“I, like Jethro Trammell, am a predator. You, Faith, are a parasite.”
She knew he was only trying to get under her skin, but the word stung her nonetheless. She bared her teeth at him, but she couldn’t do anything to stop him. His foot was on her dog’s neck, and her rib was cracked or broken. She was powerless to stop him. He could do anything he wanted to her, and all she could do was watch it happen.
And he hadn’t even had to tie her to a chair to do it.
“You leech off of the emotional strength of those around you to fuel your own insecurity. You feel unlovable, so you interfere with your ex-boyfriend’s relationship so you don’t have to see him obtain from Ellie what you couldn’t give him. You feel guilty, so you attach yourself to a knight in shining armor so he can tell you that you’re wonderful and beautiful and perfect, just like every little girl wants to hear. You feel powerless, so you forget all about prudence and procedure and blindly chase the embodiment of the man who laid bare that feeling so you could no longer run from it. You feel lonely, so you treat your dog like your friend and convince yourself it’s the same as connecting with a human being.”
“Shut up, you murderer.”
“I am a murderer, Faith. And I am a copycat. I am willing to admit that. I don’t hide from who I am. You do. And that’s why I’m going to break you, Faith. You’re a parasite. You’re a weak, selfish, insecure, terrified little bug, and I’m going to make you skitter around until your little legs won’t work anymore, and then I’ll squash you.”
She smiled slightly. “You’re changing your story. A few seconds ago, you said I was strong.”
