48

She was standing alone in the car park. Her body was shaking as the cold air rushed her on all sides. This was a stupid thing to do. This was putting her hand in a bear trap and pressing down. But the police had nothing. She had done her research. This guy had taken six vics and he hadn't been close to apprehended. She didn't have a knife or a gun on her. She only had her mind. She hoped it was enough. He pulled up, the black Lotus glinting invitingly. She expected him to be bigger. He left the car running. She tried to peer in and see if he'd brought her, but the windows were too dark. He was tall, and skinny, scrawny even. The fear he invoked in the city now seemed ironic. He approached her slowly, knowing there was no risk that she'd run, although her legs were hurting from forcing herself to stand still. "Two sisters for the price of one." He was pleased. He held out his hand. It was icy cold. She stared into his black eyes. He was beautiful, the way death would be if he could speak and had porcelain skin. Her voice was trapped, her vocal chords frozen. He took her arm and lead her over to the car. He opened the door for her, and she stepped in. It was done. Rumour had it he kept his victims for forty eight hours. And it had been nineteen hours since he kidnapped Amy-Lee Rice, Bianca's younger, adopted sister. She hadn't slept. She was wired. Her skin felt raw. He looked at her, sympathetically, as if he were staring at a wounded antelope wailing and trying to get up, its legs already broken and a hunk of its flesh gone. "Please, doll, feel free to lean your head against my shoulder." She shuddered. He laughed. "You know what I don't understand is why you would just feed yourself to me. You do realize that I'm going to kill you? And that's forty eight hours away. In 29 hours you can watch your sister die… and when I revive her, and strangle her, you can watch her die again." She gritted her teeth. If he had hurt Amy-Lee she was going to kill him. She had thought about rushing him, once she knew she could free Amy. But it was naïve to physically attack a serial killer, someone who spent their every waking moment preying, or fantasizing about attacking other people. Someone who's nervous system was on constant alert. But always being wired made you weak. As much as you felt alert you could break down any minute. Not having a conscience didn't mean you couldn't feel your own pain. If there was one thing Bianca knew it was that anybody could break down.

"You're not wearing some kind of tracking device, are you?" he quizzed her. She shook her head. He knew she'd come alone. There were no police cars following them and there was nobody yelling "Freeze!" when he took Bianca. He had both the Rice sisters. But there was something very strange about a young woman walking willingly into the life of a serial killer. For the first time since before he had taken his first victim he felt curious. And it was a curiosity barely tempered by the desire to hold her head down in a bucket of water while he placed a tazor on the back of her neck. "You know I torture my victims, right? So don't think you'll get to sit in some dank little cell until I'm ready to have my way with you." He laughed at her. She still said nothing. "Do you hear me?" He slammed on the breaks. He hated being disrespected, and being ignored meant she wasn't taking him seriously.
"I know you torture your victims. You know why I know? Because I stole classified police files. So trust me, there is nothing I don't know about your M.O, Mr Forty Eight." They were both revealing too many cards too fast. She had wanted to keep that a secret, and she had already blown that. But he had shown emotion. As angry as he was, it meant he didn't feel indifferent about the situation. Toward her. It wasn't a bad sign. "Okay. Why don't we have a little quiz, then?" he snarled.
"Okay."
"On the fourth of December I kidnapped Debbie Ward. Why did they find at the scene of the crime? What did I leave so the police knew I had Debbie?"
"Her scarf, with a single drop of her blood. A piece of the victim's clothing. Your signature."
"Good girl. It seems you know your shit. But let me a ask you a question that isn't in the report. How many times do you think I came when I hung your sister up by her ankles, whipped her, and then electrocuted her until she coughed blood?"

Bianca opened the car door, leant over and threw up. He wasn't sure how to react. He didn't feel good, like he should. He hated bodily fluids. He liked blood less than a serial killer should, that's why most of his methods avoided it. Even when he came he was disgusted with himself. "Bianca," he said quietly, "can you put your head back in the car, please?"
She did. She turned to him and spat, "Your mother should have had an abortion." It wasn't much of a comment, but the look in her eyes was volatile. He looked away from her. "There's some water in the back." She found it, rinsed her mouth out and rolled the window down and spat. She was shivering. He turned on the heater and wanted to throw up himself when he got an extremely strange impulse. He kept his eyes on the road. It wasn't like she was beautiful or anything. Her shiny black hair was pulled back in a low pony tail. Her dark blue eyes stood out against her pale complexion. It's not like she was beautiful.

She worked hard to stay awake. What he had said about her sister was almost too much to take. She wanted to bail out then and there, to let the police handle this freak. But she couldn't. She had to get to her sister. "How is she?" she asked. He opened his mouth to glorify her condition. To describe the scabs and the marks and the rope burns marred the fourteen year old's fragile body. But when he looked at her, he couldn't. "Alive," he answered simply, "alive but scared she's going to die. I imagine she'll be pretty glad to see you." She held her head away as far as she could, tears were betraying her. She couldn't think of her sister alone and scared and in pain without experiencing strong emotion. She needed to be like him, but she wasn't. She wiped her eyes and leant her elbow against the window. She settled in for a long ride.