Page 14 of Edging Sanity

Rowan frowned, looking from Bronwin to Delilah. She’d never even considered that to be an option, Delilah wanting her dead. Despite Delilah being a serial killer, she’d never thought this obsession would be of murderous intent. Delilah pursed her lips, her gaze running over Rowan hungrily, and Rowan knew in that moment that she had not misinterpreted Delilah’s wants. This obsession was purely lust driven.

One corner of Delilah’s lip curled up. “Not yet.”

“How do you view this relationship?” Bronwin asked, frowning. “There’s nothing here that she can give you as her job is solely to escort you to and from therapy. You say you don’t want to kill her yet, but she doesn’t fit your typical victim requirements. So what do you feel makes her so different? What are you hoping to get out of this?”

Delilah’s eyes narrowed at the word victim, matching Rowan’s raised hackles about being referred to as such. “And what are my ‘typical victim requirements’, doctor?” Delilah all but spat.

Bronwin took a deep breath, tamping down her obvious frustration at Delilah’s continued refusal to answer her questions. “Well,” she started calmly, “given the case reports, and what we’ve already discussed, your typical requirements are men with a history of sexual abuse. You choose pedophiles and rapists and then… Well, you mutilate them. Torture them until they can’t survive it.”

Delilah beamed, her anger nowhere to be found now that Bronwin was talking about her. The tone Bronwin used was neutral, but it looked like Delilah was still accepting her words as praise anyway.

“Rowan,” Bronwin continued, “has no history of abuse and she’s not a man. Which leads me to wonder if it’s situational, since she’s your main connection in here? Or do you feel you may be misconstruing her authority over you as something else?”

“No history of abuse?” Delilah asked innocently. “Was she not in the marines for ten years?”

“How did you⁠—”

“Military involvement does not equate abuse,” Bronwin interrupted, holding up a hand to silence Rowan.

“She’s killed people.”

“As a hazard of the job.”

Delilah shrugged as if to say it was one in the same. “Or for her own personal enjoyment.” The words lingered in the air, having stunned Bronwin into temporary silence. Delilah took that as permission to continue. “Tell me, Rowan, how old were you when the first person met your bullet?”

Rowan froze. Fifteen. It was on the tip of her tongue. But that wasn’t what Delilah was talking about, was it? Besides, that was technically not a bullet.

“You don’t need to answer this, Rowan.” Bronwin cut in before Rowan could formulate a response. Then she addressed Delilah. “You’ve clearly found her military records. You already know the answer to that, don’t you?” God knows how she’d get her hands on them since they’re supposed to be classified.

“Twenty-three,” Delilah confirmed, staring at Rowan as if that number just didn’t add up in her head. For a second, Rowan thought that Delilah might argue it right there, but she didn’t. Instead, she continued, still staring at Rowan like she was a puzzle to figure out.

“Three years into your service. Ten years younger than I was when I made my first kill.” Delilah smiled, a little self-deprecating. “I was a late bloomer.”

“Would you say that’s why you want to know Rowan?” Bronwin asked with a soft tone. “Are you experiencing a feeling of jealousy around a belief or concern that you started ‘late’?”

Delilah scoffed. Bronwin raised an eyebrow and hazarded another guess. “Are you seeking a sense of connection through a perceived shared history? You are smart enough to know that killing in the line of battle and killing for enjoyment are not the same.”

A smile played at the edge of Delilah’s lips. “Rowan knows why.” She cocked her head and studied Rowan. “She just needs to put the pieces together.” Delilah turned back to Bronwin, smile gone from her features. “I’m done discussing this,” she announced with a note of finality.

Bronwin’s jaw twitched, but she only nodded and wrote something else down in that notebook then folded her hands in front of her.

“In that case, let’s continue with where we left off after your last session. You seem to have a pattern, as we’ve mentioned before, of going after pedophiles or abusers. But you said something the previous session”—she flipped through her notes, squinting at the scribbles before continuing—“Your fifth kill wasn’t ‘vetted through your usual means.’ Would you like to expand on this vetting process further and explain what you meant by that?”

Delilah lit up, turning so that more of her body faced Rowan than it did Bronwin. “I like butch women,” she said, gaze boring into Rowan with intention. “Someone made a shitty comment to a woman I was… enjoying. I didn’t like it. So I killed them.”

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

Can you come back when you’re done, Rowan? I wish to speak with you privately.

Rowan’s heart raced. She hadn’t given anything away in the session, hadn’t done anything. Hell, she’d barely spoken other than when Bronwin prompted her to. Once they were able to get Delilah’s focus mostly off Rowan, Delilah just reminisced more about her kills. She’d added another criteria for her list of reasons to kill: dangerous homophobia.

Delilah claimed the man she’d killed had threatened her butch, had gotten aggressive and refused to back down.

She wouldn’t admit this out loud, especially not in front of Bronwin, but Rowan respected Delilah’s reasons for killing. Though Delilah claimed they weren’t altruistic, Rowan couldn’t quite say she disagreed with them.

“Thank you for coming back,” Bronwin said pleasantly, folding her hands in front of her as she leaned against the front of her desk rather than sitting behind it. Rowan closed the door and nodded, unsure what to expect. She shoved her hands in her pocket and stood waiting beside the couch.