Down Twisted
by drkdreamer
Chapter 19
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Inside the abandoned building, a woman with bleak silver eyes had her brain firmly fixed upon only one thing, the fast approaching demise of Thomas James Skyton. A part of Alex simply wished to gut the man, like the pig that he was, but the saner part of her knew that would end things far too quickly for her own piece of mind. The dark Southerner had finally decided to keep him alive for as long as possible, providing he was in an extreme amount of pain, to answer all the questions that had long haunted her psyche. Her thought process's came to a halt at 6:15 a.m. because that was when her sensitive ears clearly detected the muffled sound of heavy footsteps beginning to stride down the hallway. Cold anticipation tightened along her every nerve endings, each part of Alexandra Robert's was rejoicing because finally her prey had come home!
An ironically gentle smile worked its way across her lips because the silent woman knew her destiny was finally at hand. Alex hunkered down upon the heels of her feet as the heavy footed stranger came ever closer. The woman remained perfectly still even though the next sound she heard sent an appalling feeling to shoot throughout the depths of her shattered heart. The whoreson bastard was humming, lowly humming, as he walked closer still to where she was poised to attack. The tune, though sounding disjointed, was clearly recognizable to the dark woman and it horrified Alex to hear one of her favorite songs tumbling out from the serial killer's mouth. "Kiss You All Over," a song Exile had taken to the #1 position back in 1978, sounded so wrong coming from the lips of her baby's butcher. Alex had always considered that tune to be the perfect representation of the '70s as a whole, she now knew it would forever remain gut twisting to hear again if she where able to survive this encounter. The dark woman slipped the gun from her waistband and leveled it towards the man's apartment. It never wavered as Alex used her right hand to steady the fully cocked cross bow, better safe than sorry was her motto. Those were her only movements; she remained unnaturally still as the man with the overly long brown hair came to stand directly in her line of fire.
The man calling himself Jake McGregor was in a fairly good mood, and still humming the song's bridge under his breath, as he unlocked the door to his apartment. Across the hall, Alex Roberts braced herself and, very calmly, proceeded to shoot out the man's right kneecap.
The man, unaware that a bullet was speeding his way, began cursing as he dropped down to his remaining knee. The surprising fact that there where now bits of blood, bone and tissue spread out on the floor in front of him, confirmed his suspicions that the shot must have come from somewhere behind him. The dark Southerner, meanwhile, took aim and, feeling an immense sense of satisfaction, shot another bullet through the bleeding figure's left shoulder. The smile on her face grew in size as she watched that projectile spin the man around so that he lay on his back. Alexandra Robert's simply rose to her full height and coolly strolled into the shrieking fool's apartment. He'd come to rest, perhaps, a foot inside the sparsely decorated living room. Alex reminded herself to take care as she positioned herself so that the man could get a good view of her face. He stared into a composed visage with icy, silver gray eyes that promised him nothing but sorrow and pain. In those first few seconds, he didn't recognize the dark clad stranger dressed like some avenging angle. The Southerner continued to stand there, well aware that the man was desperately trying to recall her face from somewhere deep within his memory banks. He, of course, drew a complete blank and had to lick his dry lips before asking this question.
"What the Hell do you want?"
That hard, crystalline gaze locked firmly upon his face and he wasn't at all surprised by the sheer amount of harsh vehemence held within those silver depths.
"Just a short conversation to begin with then we'll see where the rest of this mornings leads us. Start talking about the unsolved killings stretching across South Texas and Arizona that the police can't seem to connect to you. Your distinctive handiwork is very apparent to me whereas the men in blue seem oblivious to that fact."
Jesus fucking Christ, thought the stunned man, whoever the hell you are, you know too damn much about my previous activities!
Tom Skyton dropped the rather boring facade of being normal and, rashly, attempted to throw doubt into the waiting woman's line of thinking.
"What the fuck are you talking about? I don't know nothing about those murders, all I can say is that, if you don't get me some medical attention soon, you'll be watching me bleed to death right in front of you."
The dark woman was smirking by this turn of events. The private investigator she'd hired 2 days after finding Scott had did a bang up job digging up all the dirt on her eventual prey. Every detail she'd already committed to memory confirmed that Skyton would do anything to turn things in his favor. Alex arched one, finely drawn eyebrow and crushed any hopes that he could confuse her in this endeavor.
"Your name is Thomas James Skyton, you where born on Sept 9, 1965 in Stuart's Grove, North Carolina. Your Mom's name was Anna Jane Skyton, dad is unknown. No marriage license exists and after Anna's death, in 1973, you where sent to live with your grandparents: Jeff and Marie Skyton. By all accounts, they adored you. Your school records indicate you where an average student who scored high on the standardized intelligence exam. What happened, Skyton? Up to then, you could have been so much more! You killed your first victim on the eve of your 15th birthday, her name was Kelly Alicia Cox. She was a neighborhood child and, at 12 years of age, seemed to be a sweet kid with a bright future stretched out in front of her. You, of course, changed all That. After strangling then raping Kelly, you dumped that child's body, like it where nothing more than a common piece of trash, along the road that ran along your grandfolk's home, about a mile up the way, wasn't it? For reasons unknown, you didn't kill again for another three years. Need I say anymore, Skyton?"
That coldly, taunting voice, with its distinctive Southern twang, told the man that he had no hope of lying to this particular woman. She knew far too much about his life but he couldn't resist trying to, somehow, play upon her sympathies.
"And what, bitch, will you do if I don't say one damn thing?"
That woman only chuckled down at him and Tom Skyton knew he had little chance of surviving this encounter.
"Doesn't matter to me because, one way or another, you die today. Talk and I'll seriously consider giving you the one thing you've never once offered to any of your victims, a quick death. Clam up, Skyton, and you'll help me answer a question that has puzzled me for ages. It you where to skin a human being, could you do it in a way so that the flesh remains intact?!?"
After staring into her ice filled eyes, he never doubted she was telling him the hard truth. That cold voice promised him pain in ways even he'd never imagined! In desperation, Tom Skyton searched her face for some small vestiges of compassion. There was none and it was a truly humbling experience for the serial killer to comprehend. Alex simply stared down at the bleeding figure, fully aware that she'd given him no choice in the matter.
"All right," he said," let's talk. Before I say anything, why don't you tell me what made you come for me. What in the Hell did I ever do to you?"
Alexandra Roberts was dumbfounded to hear him ask that question and, in her total astonishment, dropped the cross bow to the floor. After all he'd done, the countless lives he'd carelessly ruined, how in the name of all that was Holy could he ask That?!? It galled Alex and, without much thought, she unstrapped her hunting knife and pressed it's blade against the man's exposed Adam's apple.
"Why am I here? Tell me, bastard, in all the times you've butchered people, have you ever given them a chance to ask the same of you?!? You, Tom Skyton, are nothing more than an aberration to life! Death is your only solution!"
Alex was literally shaking with unrepressed rage but she managed to pull herself back after realizing that the answers wouldn't come if she gave in to her violent temper. The man, who'd been carefully listening to the cadence in her voice, came to a rather stunning conclusion.
"You came because I killed someone you loved, didn't you?"
He was wholly unprepared for the deep growl that burst forth from the crouching woman's throat.
"I'm here because you're a mistake that should have never been born."
With that, Alexandra Roberts spit into the man's upturned face and walked away, firmly kicking the apartment's door shut behind her.