Free Fuzzy Navel by J. A. Konrath

Jack? Why did I yank out my teeth? Why didn’t I just get the hell out of there and not care if they realized I was gone?”
    “For me,” I say, my voice small. I stare at my lap.
    “Exactly. I did it for you, Jack. Because if they knew I escaped, they would have warned you, and you would have gotten away.”
    Alex grabs me by my hair, twists my head until I look at her.
    “How often did I think of you, when I was locked up? Take a guess, Jack. Guess how often.”
    I don’t have to guess. I know the answer.
    “Every day,” I say.
    “Every hour of every day I was in that hellhole I thought about you, Jack. About this moment right now. It made things bearable. Knowing one day I’d have you, and the people you care about, at my mercy – that was the only thing that kept me going. That was how I could look at my ugly, scarred face and not slit my own throat.”
    She releases my hair, and I force myself to hold her gaze.
    “Tell me, Jack. Did you think of me?”
    I don’t know what she wants me to say. Rather than try to guess, I tell her the truth.
    “Only in my nightmares.”
    “And what did you have nightmares about, Jack? Of me escaping?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why didn’t you kill me when you had the chance?”
    “Because I’m not a killer.”
    “But I am. You should have taken that into consideration.”
    I don’t want her to ask another question, so I blurt out one of my own.
    “Do you think this is going to make everything right, Alex?”
    She narrows her good eye. The other one just twitches. “What exactly do you mean, Lieutenant?”
    “You can’t get the time you did back. You can’t get your family back. You can’t get…” I force it out, “… your face back. Killing us isn’t going to change anything.”
    Alex caresses my cheek, lets her fingers linger.
    “I know that, Jack. I’m not doing this to make things right. The past is the past, and can’t be undone.” She winks her good eye. “I’m doing this because it’s a lot of fun.”
    I don’t want to provoke her, but I can’t help whispering, “You’re a monster.”
    Alex sighs. She looks at Mom, and Latham, and then at the ceiling, perhaps gathering her thoughts. When she speaks again, her voice is hard and even.
    “Life is all about cruelty. You know that. You’re a cop. You see it all the time. Nothing on this planet lives without something else dying. You call me a monster because I choose to accept my nature. I embrace it, rather than deny it. Here’s a bonus question, since your moral compass is so true, since you’re so sure you know right and wrong. Where has your morality gotten you, Jack?”
    “Hurting others is wrong, Alex,” I say.
    Alex laughs, a harsh, cruel laugh. “Look at history. It’s filled with atrocities. War. Murder. Torture. Rape. We call that kind of behavior
inhuman
. But maybe the terminology is backward. Maybe being
human
means hurting others. That seems to be what humans do best.”
    I shake my head. “Our species is successful because we nurture, not because we harm.”
    Alex spins the cylinder again, then twirls the gun around her finger like a cowboy.
    “Let me clue you in on something, Lieutenant. Nothing is black and white. There are no universal standards that determine what’s good and what’s evil. It’s subjective. You can’t kill for money, or recreation, but you can kill during a war. Why is there a difference? Dead is dead. I set someone on fire, I’m bad. The state fries me in the electric chair, and people sell T-shirts and toast champagne. Right and wrong is a matter of perspective.”
    “Your perspective is warped. Killing is wrong.”
    “Yet you’d probably give up everything just to have a shot at killing me right now, wouldn’t you? Let me enlighten you about something, Jack. Human beings are just animals, and all animals are selfish. Every single thing an animal does is selfish.”
    “People can be unselfish,” I maintain.
    “How so? Feeding the starving?