Cruel Intensions: Being Inside the Mind of a Young Serial Killer

Josh

Josh

Josh

His heartbeat stuttered as his brain swam dizzily.

Josh

Josh

Josh

He was turning struggling to keep himself from running out of the room. He was sweating, even as chills raced through him. He peeled off his sweater and drooped it on the floor. He starts shaking like tremors before an earthquake. His heart raced. His head pounded.

Josh

Josh

Josh

He stumbles to the bathroom. He fell to his knees in front of the toilet and retched, his whole body convulsing with the effort to vomit. He clutched the bowl, he dropped his head on his forearm and closed his eyes. The image of his son flashes behind his eyelids.

Josh

Josh

Josh

"Oh God, Josh," he whimpers.

The tears came, scalding out of him. When they were spent, he pushed himself off the floor. Shaking, he went out the hall. The door to his baby daughter Lily's room was ajar, letting a small sliver of light filter through the hall across the carpet. Further down the hall, the door to Josh's room stood wide open.

Hannah sat on the bed, her legs curled under her, her arms wrapped tight around herself. She watched Paul as he turned on the small lamp on the bedside table. She wanted him to to smile at her and hold out his arms out as he told her that they found Josh safe and sound, but she knew it wasn't gonna happen.
Hannah says nothing. She doesn't have the energy or the heart to ask if they had found any clues. Paul would say if they had. He just looked at her. The silence spoke for itself.

"Have you slept?"

"No."

She looked as if she hasn't slept for days, he thought. Her hair frizzed around her head, mascara and fatigue left dark smudges around her eyes. She looked vulnerable. Vulnerable is a word that Paul barely used to describe his wife. Hannah was a modern woman. Independent, capable, strong, equal. She didn't need. She could have lived just as well without him. She was exactly the kind of woman he had dreamed of marrying. A wife he could be proud of instead of embarrassed by.

"I've just been sitting here." She muttered. "I wanted to feel close to him."

Her chin quivered and she squeezed her eyes shut. Paul sat beside her, reached over and touched her hand. Her fingers were ice cold. He covered them with his his hands thinking that it used to be easy to touch her. There had been a time where they couldn't get enough of each other. That seemed ages ago.

"About- When you told me-" He broke off and sighed. Then tried again. "I'm sorry I jumped on you. I wanted to blame somebody."

"I try," she whispers. "I try so hard."

To be a good wife. To be a good mother. To be a good doctor. To be a good person. To be everything to everyone. She tried so hard and thought that she succeeded most of the time. But she must have done something wrong to be made to pay this way.

"Shh..." Paul pulled her into his arms and letting her cry on his shoulder, letting her lean on him. He rubbed her back. "Hush..."

He kissed her hair and breathed in its scent. He listened to her soft weeping and absorbed the feel of her clinging to him. Desire wafted through him like smoke. Hannah needed him now. She didn't need his income or his friends, or his social position. God, she didn't even need his last name. He was a shadow, the nobody. But she needed him now. She wrapped her arms around him tightly and hung on tight.

"Lets go to bed." He whispered.

Hannah let him help her up from Josh's bed and walk her down the hall to their own room. She made no protest when he slowly slipped her clothes off and kissed the side of the neck. A breath shuddered out of her as his hands cupped her breasts. She had felt so alone all night. Emotionally abandoned. Exiled. She needed badly to feel loved, comforted, forgiven.

She turned her head and kissed him. Inviting his returning kiss, rising to it. Her breasts pressing to his chest, Her back arching as his hands settled low along the small of the back. The need burned out the fear for a few moments. It suspended time and offered a refuge. Hannah grasped it gladly, greedily and desperately. She took his clothes off and pulled Paul down to the bed with her, wanting his weight on top of her. She opened her legs to him as he pressed his erection between her legs, needing to feel him inside her. She held him while he arched into her again and again, wanting nothing more than the close contact, the illusion of intimacy. When it was over, she closed her eyes and lay her head on his shoulder, wishing that the hollow ache in her heart would disappear and that the sense of closeness would last. But it wouldn't.

What happened to us Paul?

She didn't even know how to ask. She still couldn't believe that it was real, this distance and anger that hung between them. It seems that it was all a bad dream. They had been so happy. The perfect couple. The perfect family. The perfect life. Now their marriage apart and their son was kidnapped. Stolen....abducted....taken. God what a nightmare.

Her eyes drifted shut at the horrible thought, the exhaustion winning at last and she slides past the nightmare into the blessed darkness.

Paul knew the instant she fell asleep. He lay there, staring at the ceiling, feeling as if he were caught in the middle of some surreal reality show. His son was missing.

Josh

Josh

Josh

His eyes burned as he continued to stare at the ceiling.