Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly Duet Book 1)

GRAYSON

Gen pop, otherwise known to the unaware public as general population, has its benefits in prison. It’s less restricted, and therefore a con can acquire certain hard-to-get items if the price is right.

It’s a bit trickier to take advantage of this currency when sanctioned in enhanced security confinement, but not impossible. It all boils down to supply and demand. In prison, things we take for granted in the outside world hold much more value on the inside. Out there, if you need a prescription, you go to the pharmacy. Here, you have to pay off the right guard.

With less than forty-eight hours until my transfer, time is my enemy. Locked in this cell is like being sealed inside a tomb. I’m already dead to the outside world.

And just as a dead man has no need for possessions, I’ve made arrangements. My cell is an empty, blank slate, ready for a new occupant. Everything has been thrown out in preparation for the transition to New Castle—all except for London’s puzzle.

The photos, the research, the evidence of my obsession…all gone. It’s locked inside me. Locked, locked. Only one other holds the key.

I stare down at the completed portrait of London, every curved jigsaw piece fitted together flawlessly, the seams of her face a delicate maze I’ve mapped over and over.

I touch the beveled edges, recalling her taste, like sweet lilac. The feel of her in my hands. Her soft body molding to mine, coming undone under my touch. When the pieces snap together, it’s an intoxicating satisfaction like nothing else in this world.

We’re a perfect match.

Once you’ve sampled that perfection, that utterly seductive gratification, you cannot live without it. She’s becoming a necessity, part of my addiction, and just as I can’t quiet the compulsions, the absence of her stirs a restlessness, the fear of not having her a madness squirming inside my mind.

I pace my cell. A caged animal awaiting the gate to open.

We’re being tested. She can’t bottle what’s been unleashed, and I can’t return to the man I once was. That man only knew one way to survive: alone. Isolation is a survival instinct. But I no longer crave solitude to suffer my penance—I’ve found the one thing that can set me free, and I’ll kill for it.

Footsteps near my cell. The heavy footfall of boots hitting cement spikes my adrenaline. I want this too badly.

“Delivery from gen pop,” the guard says as he shoves a package into the slot. He holds it there on his side, his gaze narrowed on me. “This wasn’t cheap, con.”

I stand a distance away from the door. “I’ll double the payment and wire it to your account.”

He laughs. “Guess you’re not going to spend it when you’re dead.” He sends the package through.

I grab the package and hold it behind my back. I can feel the contents.

“If you ask me…waste of money. Could’ve just got it from the infirmary.” He continues to mumble to himself as he walks off.

As soon as the lights dim, I unwrap the paper bag packaging. A small baggie within holds three large, white pills. I read the imprint with a smile. Penicillin.

Bringing the meds along for the ride won’t be easy. I open the empty puzzle box and peel back the cardboard along the side, then seal the pills inside. I dread knowing where I’ll have to stow the pills when the time comes.

Before I lose the orange glow of the overhead lights, I yank off my thermal and kneel before a handheld mirror propped on the table. I angle my back to see the fresh ink between my shoulder blades.

The outline was the hardest part; making sure the curves align, that the lines are even. I dig out the ink and shiv from the hollow compartment at the base of my cot. Not an easy feat, keeping the guards ignorant of contraband. Only as long as my index finger, the splinter of a bench I picked up in the yard is used as the handle for the thin, sharp prongs I managed to wrangle from the kitchen. Another perk from my gen pop connection.

I use the needle-like points to shade in the black ink. Dip and puncture. Repeat. It’s a tedious process, but the results are worth the effort. I envision her hand—the ink that she tries so hard to conceal—as I close in the negative space.

Then after tiresome repetition, the most vital element is layered within the shading. I can’t bring the model with me, but I can take the measurements and specs. The formula. All the critical details needed to be planned ahead. Supplies. Check list of items. Plan of execution.

And the most fundamental of all: London.

Without her, this will fail.

My hand trembles, anticipation fueling my adrenaline.

London claims I’m incapable of feeling—that I’m a psychopath with no empathy.

I don’t disagree with her assessment.

There are different types of psychopaths, however. And what she fails to acknowledge—like so many of her colleagues—is that a disempathetic type can and does exist.

I’m the proof.

“Constricted circle of empathy” is how it’s defined, but easiest understood in comparison to a dead tree. Imagine if the tree had every limb severed. This tree has been in the dark all its life, slowly dying, decaying, until the sun shines down on it and a tiny sprig bursts free. The stem reaches for the light, growing toward the only sunshine its ever known.

One living limb on an otherwise dead tree.

London is the sunlight, and that new limb the feelings I’m only able to feel for her.

Love is difficult for my kind, but not impossible.

With every break of my skin, every stain that inks my flesh, I go against the grain of my nature to prove this to her. Like so many untraveled highways, the love and empathy road has been an infrequent path for the neurons in my mind. If you don’t nurture a thing, it dies. I was born with the ability, like every other human is born with the ability to feel, empathize, love—only I was never required to exercise these emotions. They’re weak and neglected.

Idle hands are the devil’s playground…and all that entails.

I smile to myself.

Then there was her. Synapses fired, awakening a forgotten, dormant road. I’ve never felt any connection to a single person…

Until her.

I covet this rarity. Anxious to nurture this dark little seed she planted in my soul. My own design of love may be a twisted creature, but that creature is hungry and demands to be fed.