by Hadena James
“And he isn’t in the database because, until now, he’s never done anything criminal, being an overachiever has always been enough to get him through. For whatever reason though, he picked up a gun and realized that playing God was a better high than getting good grades.”
“Exactly,” Brock said. “The rise of the serial killer would require them to change from sexual predators of average intelligence to highly intelligent, very organized killers with non-sexual motivations.”
“You’re talking about Eric Clachan.”
“That’s what he said in court, David. It’s hard to ignore. Look at his grandfather; Patterson Clachan has been underground for forty years, yet still turns out a body every year or so. The guy is getting up there in age and is still beating people to death. It wasn’t sexual for Eric; it isn’t sexual for Patterson. Both have genius level intelligence quotients. We also have evidence that Donnelly Clachan was a psychopath, just not a serial killer.”
“You think our guy has a relative that’s a serial killer?”
“No, I’m saying that maybe killers like Eric and Patterson Clachan are not the anomalies anymore. If you apply that principle to our guy, then you get a much different profile.”
“The rise of the serial killer.” David sighed.
“Terrifying isn’t it?” Brock went and sat down. “So, he’s a highly intelligent college student. He attended our town hall meeting on one of the campuses. He wouldn’t be able to resist. He would also want to participate to some degree. Sociopaths think they are invincible, even more so than most college students. He was probably internally laughing at us as he asked a question or something.”
“That works in our favor,” David said.
“How?” Brock asked.
“The profile was wrong, he won’t expect us to be looking for him. We need transcripts and we need a way to figure out who attended the town hall meetings.”
Chapter Seven
Thursday night, Max saw his opportunity. He was off that night due to a water leak at the warehouse where he worked. The place was crowded with people; employees, managers, plumbers, and everyone else under the sun, so they sent him home. The bus dropped him a few blocks from his house. As he walked towards it, he saw a car idling on the street. It was fairly common around this area to do that, especially when the nights were a little chilly.
He spent maybe thirty seconds deciding on whether to go ahead and take it. He did. Once he was behind the wheel, he could feel the surge of adrenaline already starting to work its way through his body. He had started carrying his gun for opportunities just like this one. It sat in his book bag in the seat next to him.
At the first red light, he drew it out, then he aimed his car towards the bar district near the college. Despite the warning given by the SCTU just two days ago, the place was packed. There were dozens of people milling about the streets. He had expected nothing less since they only had a week until finals. For some reason, his fellow students would drink heavy all this week and then crack the books on Sunday and pray they passed on Monday morning. Add to it that they didn’t have class on Friday due to finals and everyone was out living it up for a few extra nights.
It was all about timing and understanding how the human brain worked. If all their brains processed like his, they wouldn’t be such easy targets. Instead of being out drinking, they would be getting a few extra days of studying in due to the madman that roamed the streets.
If he had been the prey and not the predator, he’d be home right now, watching TV with his roommates or getting a few extra hours of sleep. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten more than about four hours. Maybe a Saturday night over a year ago, but he wasn’t even sure about that. He no longer needed sleep like the others; he was becoming something more than himself. He was becoming something more than human. He could feel it. He stopped at a red light, drew the gun, and fired the first shot into a crowd of people.
He smiled as the herd broke up. People began screaming and running. Chaos and panic broke out among them. He aimed near a girl that was fleeing and fired.
His arm felt like someone had poured molten lead into it. His hand spasmed and he dropped the gun. He started to drive away, but rear ended the car in front of him. He felt light headed, not in a good way. There was something very wrong.
“Out of the car!” People were shouting at him. Didn’t they know he had a gun? Didn’t they understand that he would kill them? He looked down. Surprised to see the gun was gone and even more surprised to see steam coming from his engine. What the hell had happened in the last three seconds?
“Out of the car! Get out slowly, hands where we can see them, lay face down on the ground!” The shouting was getting closer, he turned to face whoever was shouting at him.
Brock Lowman didn’t look like he could take on a small dog in a fight, let alone a serial killer. Yet it was him shouting at Max. Max sneered at him, unsure how this lowly US Marshal had been here, at this moment. Max was bleeding profusely from just below his elbow. His hand wouldn’t work the door handle. He tried to back the stolen car up, but it refused to start.
The door was wrenched open, jerked out from under his bleeding arm. He stared straight ahead, unwilling to let the US Marshal have the satisfaction of seeing him wince with the motion. Lowman jerked him out by his shirt. Or so he thought, when he did finally make eye contact, the man that had hold of him was not Lowman, it was another US Marshal. He didn’t remember the guy’s name. Max smiled at him and quickly punched the man twice in the side. He rolled away from Max.
“Knife!” Multiple people shouted. Another bullet burned through Max’s body. It tore through his shoulder. He cried out and was instantly pissed off at himself for showing weakness. A boot slammed against his hand. He felt the bones break as the boot ground the fist holding the knife into the asphalt road. He could hear the snapping of his fingers as the handle and asphalt destroyed his fingers. He would probably never be able to use that hand again.
“Don’t do it,” someone said very quietly to him. It was strange to hear amongst all the shouting. He looked up. David Ashby stood over him. He was the one destroying his hand.
“How did you know?” Max asked.
“We discovered why you hunted,” David answered him. “After that, it all fell into place.”
Max wanted to ask more, but the look on Ashby’s face stopped him. There was something off about the man. He could see it now that he was up close. All the emotion was missing.
For the first time, Max realized there were more predators out there than just him. Predators that were meaner than him, predators that were scarier than him, predators that could kill him and never think twice about it. He stopped resisting.
Chapter Eight
James Everston died from his injuries. The knife penetrated his liver in two spots and perforated an artery. He died on the street.
Brock Lowman felt responsible. He should have warned James about the possibility that Max Goff would have a backup weapon. When they arrived back home, Brock realized he couldn’t do the job that he was being asked to do. He couldn’t play so closely with the monsters. He liked having an office where he built profiles and handed them out to others. He put his service weapon under his chin and fired. He had no thoughts after the trigger was pulled, just a sense of peace.
David Ashby had always known he was faking most of what he felt, but he had never put a name to it. It wasn’t until he was crushing Max’s hand that he realized he was a psychopath. That made him uniquely qualified for the job, in his opinion. There would be other monsters, monsters that would require people like him to bring the fight.
However, the mood of the SCTU was grim. They had lost two men in two days because of one serial killer. One snotty nosed, college student serial killer. They couldn’t celebrate their victory, only mourn their losses and lick their wounds.
Even though they could break the rules to get things done, they had failed. One civilian and one US Marsha
l had died on their first serial killer hunt. It didn’t seem to matter that they had been able to predict where he would strike based on classes being out to allow students to study for finals. Nor did it matter that they had figured out it was Max by looking at his school history and remembering he had asked a few questions during their town hall meeting.
Brock’s suicide made them all question whether they could do the job. It also made them question if they would be allowed to do the job. This first outing wasn’t being hailed as a success. Most of them were on the verge of losing their jobs before being transferred to the SCTU. The majority had excessive force complaints. This was their last stop before finding new careers.
The entire world was in flux for them.
Chapter Nine
US Marshal Nathan Green sat in front of a committee. They wanted to know his opinion on how the SCTU was going to work. Nathan had some thoughts, but he had no intention of telling them these. Maybe taking the advice of Caleb hadn’t been his shiniest moment.
“Marshal Green, do you feel like they are trained enough to handle these situations?” Peter West, once a beat cop, now a department head at the NSA, asked him.
“I feel training for the SCTU will need to continue.” Nathan answered. “I know this doesn’t look like a successful case, but we aren’t dealing with meth heads or bond jumpers. They are dealing with serial killers. Everything about hunting serial killers is different. They were smart enough to change the profile and find the right suspect, something the FBI was unable to do.”
“So you believe the case would not be solved without the SCTU?” Peter asked.
“I do,” Nathan agreed. “Remember this is all very new and very different than what we thought was going on with serial killers. Imagine how effective they will be in a few more months, with a few more cases under their belt.”
“Fine, we want more training and you’ll have to find a replacement for Brock Lowman. This group needs a psychiatrist on staff.” Peter stood. Everyone else stood. They all walked out of the room without saying a word to him.
Nathan stood, rooted in place for several minutes. They weren’t up to the task at hand. He could see this. They didn’t need a psychiatrist, they needed more psychopaths. Only Ashby had performed as expected. Everyone else was too normal to handle the job.
Most people would have been surprised to know that Nathan’s twenty-one-year-old son had predicted as much. Caleb Green was a psychopath and understood more about how other psychopaths worked than anyone Nathan had ever met, except for maybe Eric Clachan. It had actually been their idea to find someone like Ashby and put him in charge. At least for now, as the group grew and evolved, Eric had some other suggestions for the SCTU personnel, including his sister.
However, she was still only sixteen and he had a spot or two to fill. Her time would have to wait. Right now, he had to go talk to an FBI agent who worked with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and figure out if he was crazy enough to join the team. Nathan wasn’t entirely sure about him. He definitely wasn’t going to be leadership material, he was a little too crazy for a position of power. He also didn’t seem to like women very much, he thought they were weak. Talking to him wouldn’t hurt though, Nathan needed crazy people and there just weren’t that many that were willing to spend all their time chasing serial killers. It was a dark path to go down.
About the Reality Novels
It has always been my intention that the Dreams & Reality novels would be a series and a companion series. Originally, I had planned on the Reality novels being the VCU’s cases. However, being trapped in Malachi’s mind for long periods of time was discouraging. Malachi failed to cooperate.
I find that shocking. His narcissistic personality should have fit well within the confines of a book. They didn’t. The more I tried to write them, the more I realized Malachi doesn’t think like a person. He even goes long periods of time where he doesn’t think at all.
At first, I thought it was because his character was underdeveloped. Certainly as the writer, I should be able to give my creation thoughts. Malachi won that battle because he isn’t underdeveloped, he’s just blank most of the time. The humanity that Aislinn desperately clings to, Malachi has shrugged off. That’s when it dawned on me that Malachi was a psychopath and can in deed go long periods of time without actually thinking.
I scraped the idea of the companion Reality novels to compliment the Dreams novels for a long time. It wasn’t until after I wrote Fortified Dreams that I realized the Reality novels were never meant to be Malachi’s stories. There is history, back stories, and slew of serial killers and mass murderers throughout the Dreams novels that get very little space on a page. It’s rare for the SCTU to capture just one serial killer. Normally, the book starts with a chapter where they are catching a serial killer the reader knows almost nothing about.
Furthermore, there are characters that are just as interesting as the SCTU; people like Eric Clachan and Apex. There are several unexplored and unexplained plot lines; Lucas and Xavier are fond of pointing out that the life expectancy of an SCTU member is short. So, what happened before Lucas and Xavier joined the SCTU? It had to start somewhere. In my head, it never started with Alejandro, Lucas, and Xavier. It started before them. All of these characters came later.
Nyleena has been a serial crimes lawyer for a while and being twelve years older than Aislinn, it would be absurd to think that she wasn’t working with SCTU cases before Aislinn joined the Marshals. Her role in the Dreams novels has always been as Ace’s moral compass and someone that could appreciate Ace’s monster. However, her role in the D&R world is much more complex than that. It is highlighted by the occasional blurring of lines when Ace needs to talk about a case.
That’s not even counting all the new information that was dumped onto the readers by Fortified Dreams. That single book brought to light more about the history of the SCTU, VCU, and Aislinn Cain’s role within it than any other. There isn’t just one conspiracy, but several. It’s time to start telling those stories too. However, most of them do not fit within a Dreams novel. Most happened before the Dreams novels start or in the shadows during the Dreams novels.
It is very likely that my dear readers will feel a little let down by Triggered Reality. Trust me, it went through several revisions and drafts where I was adding and deleting things. There are still some things that need to be kept hidden. They will eventually come out in both Dreams and Reality novels.
However, the two stories contained within it are incredibly important. The importance of Eric’s story is obvious. The importance of Max Goff’s is not nearly as cut and dry, although it is vitally important to the story lines of the Dreams novels. It is the true beginning for the SCTU.
Also, if you see some familiar names, don’t be surprised. The web was always twisted and gnarled when I was creating it. In many cases, the parents of the current SCTU and VCU members is of great importance. They would not be where they were if their parents hadn’t been involved.
The next Reality novel will be longer and explore more of the origins of the SCTU. It will also bring to light the beginnings of the VCU. It is through these stories that the readers will come to know both Malachi Blake and Caleb Green in ways they didn’t expect.
Also by Hadena James
Dreams & Reality Novels
Tortured Dreams
Elysium Dreams
Mercurial Dreams
Explosive Dreams
Cannibal Dreams
Butchered Dreams
Summoned Dreams
Battered Dreams
Belladonna Dreams
Mutilated Dreams
Fortified Dreams
The Brenna Strachan Series
Dark Cotillion
Dark Illumination
Dark Resurrections
Dark Legacies
The Dysfunctional Chronicles
The Dysfunctional Affair
The Dysfunctional Valentine
The Dysfunctional
Honeymoon
The Dysfunctional Proposal
The Dysfunctional Holiday
The Dysfunctional Wedding
Short Story Collections
Tales to Read Before the End of the World
Terrorific Tales
About the Author
Hadena James began writing at the age of eight. By the time she graduated high school, she had published a couple of short stories in literary magazines. She completed writing her first novel at seventeen. Hadena began college as an English major, but quickly changed to a history major. However, she continued to write and took several extra classes in creative writing.
College showed her that while she could write short stories, novel writing was truly where her heart lay. She graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in European History with minors in German and Russian Studies. During this time, she received a couple of contract offers from publishing houses, but ultimately turned them all down.
In August 2012, she self-published her first novel. In retrospect, she is appreciative of the contracts offers she received when she was younger, but believes she made the right decision with self-publishing.
