Mentor is about the man we briefly met in Knight and know only as "The Mentor." It is set in his past, telling the story of his relationship with the first woman he ever abducted.
To give you a taste, here is the Prologue. This is from The Mentor's point of view, but the majority of the book is from Kathleen's POV.
Prologue
The Mentor
The Mentor
April 20, 1978
I slinked
further into the shadows, concealing myself in the darker shades of the
night. My hands trembled as I waited for
my victim. The tremor came not from
apprehension or hesitancy, but from anticipation. Soon the darkness within me would be
released, the pressure siphoned off. She
would take my darkness. I would impart
it to her, inflict it upon her.
I would be able
to breathe again.
Seeking to still
my shaking, I immersed myself in the memory of the first and only time the
enigmatic pressure within me had been released.
Screams.
Blood. Death.
Power.
Freedom. Absolution.
I realized now
that I hadn’t really been alive before that.
The dulling film of perpetual apathy that coated my psyche had dissipated
as the light left my father’s eyes, his lifeblood spilling over my hands. The world became sharp, my senses impossibly
heightened. It was the closest thing to
human emotion I had ever experienced. The
pleasure that flooded me was the nearest approximation I could imagine to what
normal people called joy.
But now the
memory of that hyper-awareness – that sensation of being alive – tormented me as much as it pleased me.
No sooner had I
disposed of my father’s body than the sensation began to fade, and the dim
monotony of my detached existence began to seep back into me. Now that I was aware of it, the dimness
built, gathering slowly into darkness. My
darkness.
It coiled within
me, slithering through my veins and rendering my very pulse sluggish. It would overcome me, would consume me from
the inside out, if it didn’t find release.
Killing again
wasn’t an option. I might not have a
formal education, but I wasn’t stupid. I
wasn’t going to leave a trail of bodies behind and risk being caught.
If I kept her with me, she could take my darkness
regularly. I would allow it to consume
her rather than me. I would break her,
train her to like it. Otherwise my
darkness would devour her completely, and I would have to find a new toy. I couldn’t risk drawing attention to myself
by taking more than one woman.
Kathleen Marie
White wasn’t special to me in any way. No
one was special to me. I had chosen her
because she was convenient and she suited my needs.
Like me, she practically
lived at the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame. She had come here to study for the last four
years, and even though I was a few years younger than she, I had been frequenting this place for much longer than that. I wasn’t
a student, but I had always found solace at the library.
The desire to
avoid my father, coupled with my disinterest in mundane human interactions,
made it an ideal place for me to hide out.
People couldn’t speak here. The
pointless tedium of social pretentiousness was muffled within those walls.
As always, she
was the last to leave the library on a Saturday night. The light of the streetlamp near the entrance
caught the reddish facets of her dark hair, crowning her head with a crimson
halo for the space of a moment.
My mind conjured
up images of how I might draw that crimson shade from her body in other ways. Something unfamiliar stirred low in my gut in
response, and my pulse jumped past its normal tempo.
Interesting.
I had intended
to use sexual torment against her. Sex held
little appeal for me; it would simply be a means to an end. But in that moment, I understood its allure. When used as a weapon, sex might be
pleasurable. The sudden stiffening of my
cock told me as much.
I clenched my
fingers into hard fists, willing their increased trembling to stop.
Control.
Control yourself. Control the darkness.
Soon, I would
control her, and the darkness would
never rule me again. I would be alive. More than that, I would revel in the heady
power I had experienced as my father’s life slipped away under my hands. She would give that to me daily.
She turned from
locking the library doors, and I caught sight of her face. It was lovelier than I had realized. She wasn’t perfect by conventional standards,
but the hint of a contented smile that played around the corners of her mouth
gave off a sense of innocence that was undeniably appealing. Her deep green eyes were large, only further
lending to that vision of purity.
When I had
watched her over the last four years, her beauty had been obscured by
unconscious nervous habits. Usually, a
small furrow persisted between her brows as she bent over a book, and her full
lips were thinned while she chewed at a pencil.
I had chosen her
for that very reason. Drive and determination
were evident in every line of her body as she studied furiously every day. She thought she could shape her own destiny
if she just worked hard enough.
But her fate was
no longer hers to govern. What she
surely considered her greatest assets – her tenacity and intellect – were the
very qualities which would lead to her ruination at my hands.
There would have
been no satisfaction in breaking a weak woman.
Kathleen Marie White was exactly what I needed.
No, it was more
than that. More than need.
Want.
I wanted
something. The realization was jarring,
the sensation utterly new. My lips curled
upward in a semblance of a smile, and my hand was rock steady as I reached into
my pocket to retrieve the ether-soaked rag.
I would take
what I wanted.
***
Well, that's all for now. I am so excited to share this story with y'all! Expected release date in early April.
Add Mentor on Goodreads!
No comments:
Post a Comment