I know that what should be going through my mind right now is precise details regarding the locations of guards, who would have access to Riddick, where to find keys for cuffs.
I should be thinking about stilling myself, so that I can shut down, making rational, clean killing possible.
There are lots of things that I should be thinking. All I can think of is the terrible hurt on Riddick’s face. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for anyone to hurt you so badly. I have tracked you, personally, for a little over three weeks, watching you closely in your relations with others. You hide your emotions very well, and it’s no wonder so many believe you to have none. How else could you have survived so long? The slightest show of any weakness, and you would have been ripped apart. Nurturing a reputation as a sociopath aided in your survival, but none of us is the sum of what those who fear us would say about us.
You will never tell me, but I know, in my heart, that you love me. A worse place to wound you there could never be. McDermott, a master of mind games, in his business and political dealings, made an educated guess, and stabbed you in the heart the moment he saw an opening.
Your hurt is all I can see, a hole burnt right through me. Stripping away any semblance of reason. I have made a life of my discipline and restraint. I let all of that go. There is only the animal underneath left, and her raw instinct.
The killing is easy, once the fear goes, once the usual drive for silence goes. When you don’t care about who will hear, there is a freedom that is absent in an assassination. I don’t care about getting away quietly. I don’t care about people stumbling over bodies. And, unlike my targets, I don’t particularly care whether I live or not. Care for my very survival becomes a far distant shadow in my mind.
There is no one left to kill. It has all happened so quickly. I open the door to McDermotts office, and begin what I swore to do.