Page 94 of Killing Me Softly

He didn’t.

Instead, he dissected her. Peeled her down to her raw, ugly truth.

“All this just to discredit me?” Kenny gritted his teeth. “And the bodies piling up? Mymother? What are they? Collateral damage?”

“You, more than anyone, should understand,” she said, her voice calm, rational, the kind of voice that had once soothed psychiatric patients into compliance. “True research demands application. Observation. Variables. We can theorise in endless papers, write model after model about the pathology of violent offenders. But until we observe behaviour in its natural state, it’s all just guesswork, isn’t it?”

Kenny’s stomach twisted.

“The world is rife with willing participants, Dr Lyons. Or, if you prefer, unwilling ones. Either way, they serve their function. We must test a hypothesis.”

“You have blood on your hands. She’s killed. You’ve proven your hypothesis. So tell me where she is, and we can put an end to it.”

Pryce’s smile widened. “Oh, no, no, no, Dr Lyons. You really aren’t as clever as you think you are.” She reached into her bag with unsettling ease, as if she’d done this a hundred times before, and with a quick flick of her wrist a syringe was already in her palm, hidden by her grip, needle glinting faintly in the office light.

Kenny barely had a second to react.

Pryce lunged. The needle bit deep into his thigh, a sharp sting cutting through fabric and skin. Too fast. Too practiced. Too fucking precise. He jerked back, hand clutching hers, trying to twist away and wrench her grip from the syringe, but she’dalready pressed the plunger down, her thumb steady, smooth. A doctor’s hand administering a lethal dose of inevitability.

The burn hit first.

A rush of liquid fire spreading through his muscle, into his bloodstream, crawling up his spine. He tensed. A natural response to the foreign substance. And he let go of Pryce’s hand for her to pull out the needle.

“This was never about her.” She loomed over him with menace. “It was always abouthim.”

Kenny’s limbs went heavy. His fingers, curled into the couch, didn’t uncurl when he willed them to.

Fuck.

“You think you’re protecting him.” She stepped away, watching. “But you’ve done the exact opposite. You’ve just made sure he’ll never escape what he is.” She tilted her head, appraising him, like a scientist watching a test subject respond to stimuli. “You’ve reinforced every fear he’s ever had, every dark little thought whispering in the back of his mind. That he’s tainted. Destined for it. That people like him don’t change.” Her eyes glittered. “Just like I did with Mable.”

Chest rising sharply, breathing already slacking, pulse struggling against the pressure pressing down on him, Kenny’s thoughts were clear.Furious. Screaming for movement. But his body refused to respond.

Pryce dropped the empty syringe into her bag.

“What—” Kenny’s tongue felt thick, jaw locking, own voice foreign to him.

“That would be the scopolamine first,” she said. “Disrupting your motor function. Confusion settling in now, I imagine?”

Kenny gritted his teeth, tried to push forward, get up, but his legs refused to respond. His vision faded, tilting, warping at the edges. He knew this feeling. A benzo. Something strong.

Fuck. Fuck.

“You always thought you were above the rest, didn’t you?” she mused. “The profiler.Expert. The one whounderstandskillers, studies them, helps prevent their destruction. But in your arrogance, you ignored the most fundamental principle of all. You let your own bias corrupt your judgment. You let your desires dictate your reason.”

A strangled noise caught in his throat as his limbs gave up entirely, a deep, numbing heaviness seeping into his muscles. His fingers finally loosened. But not by choice. His hands wouldn’t listen. Legs wouldn’t listen. And his entire body was no longer his to control. And Pryce just watched him. Cataloguing his response as if he was another patient on her clipboard.

“Let this beyourlesson, Dr Lyons. Killers areborn.” Her tone was almost pitying. “And you’re about to witness that firsthand.”

Kenny’s head swayed. Not by choice. The room lurched, his vision narrowing, his heartbeat too slight. Pryce then reached for the bottle of whisky and Kenny tried to jerk away, to fight back, but his muscles failed him, his breath too sluggish, his mind stuttering beneath a thick, suffocating fog.

“Soon the world will know what you are. A fraud.” She spoke as though she were delivering a diagnosis rather than condemning him and she tilted her head, eyes narrowing in fascination, studying a specimen that had finally cracked under pressure.“Your reputation, your carefully cultivated legacy, all of itundone.And why?”

Leaning over him, Pryce prised his mouth open and Kenny tried to clench his jaw, to fight back, but her grip was firm, digging her fingers into his cheeks as she poured the bottle of whisky down his throat. Liquid flooded past his lips, burning down his throat as she forced him to swallow or choke. His body convulsed, gagging against it, but it was too late. The drug already had him. Reflexes too slow. Body too distant.

“Because you let yourself be tempted.” She sighed, almost pitying. “Did you even realise what was happening? Notice the cognitive dissonance creeping in? The subconscious erosion of your own principles? You built your career on objectivity, on the belief that you could separate reason from emotion, but in the end—” she tsked, shaking her head. “You fell into the very trap you’ve spent your life warning others about.”

She crouched, levelling her gaze with his as he struggled to stay upright.

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