Free Prey Drive by Wrath James White Page B

prayer against her forehead. Tears wept from her eyes. Lana’s eyes blazed brilliant with rage.
    “No! I don’t believe that. You’re fucking lying!”
    “She loved me too, Lana. She understood me.”
    “ Bullshit! You murdered her! She trusted you and you betrayed her. You’re a sick, perverted bastard and you deserve to be locked up forever!”
    Joseph nodded. “You’re right. I’m a sick bastard and I do deserve to be locked up, but you’re wrong about Alicia. We loved each other and now we are one. I still feel her inside of me, in my blood. I’ll always love her. She’s part of me forever.” Tears welled in Joe’s eyes and spilled down his cheeks.
    For a moment, as she watched the big cannibal weep in obvious pain, Lana’s expression softened. For just a moment Joe could tell she believed him, that she wanted to believe him. Because the way he described Alicia’s death was almost beautiful, poetic, not like the horrific photographs they’d shown at his trial. And Joe knew Lana needed to believe Alicia had died happy, loved, rather than screaming in pain, afraid, and alone, helpless in the grip of a sadistic serial killer. Thinking about her sister dying that way had obviously been tearing her and her mother up inside. Joe’s story offered her another interpretation, one that might allow them both to sleep at night.
    Then, as abruptly as it had come the expression was gone and Lana’s dark, beautiful eyes hardened once more.
    “No one could ever love you, Joseph Miles. You’re a fucking monster ! No one could ever love you!”
    Joe nodded in agreement. The tears flowed without relent now. “I am a monster. You’re right. And you should never forgive me. I took her away from you. I took her from the world. It was selfish of me … of both of us. I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. I tried. I’m sorry.”
    Joe hung up the phone and stood. Lana and her mother stared at him, hugging each other for support. Hatred burned in Lana’s eyes. Joe had never seen such raw, naked aggression in a woman’s eyes before. Lana looked so much like Alicia it was breaking Joe’s heart to look at her. She could have been Alicia’s twin. It hurt him to see that expression on a face so beautiful, a face he had once loved, that he still loved. He turned and knocked on the door.
    The new CO, Officer Addison, opened the door and Joe held out his hands for the shackles. The officer’s hands trembled as she secured the cuffs around his wrists. Joe was weeping openly now. His body jerked and hitched, wracked by the force of his sorrow. He couldn’t get Lana’s face, those eyes filled with rage and sorrow, out of his mind. Her words followed him out of the room.
    “No one could ever love you, Joseph Miles. You’re a fucking MONSTER! No one could ever love you!”
    She was right. This thing he had become had robbed him of any chance he had of giving and receiving love. Anyone or anything he got close to he destroyed. Joe continued to weep unselfconsciously. Beyond Officer Addison, standing in the hallway, Officer Belton smiled.
     
     

Ten 
     
     
    Officer Cindy Addison didn’t know what to think of the giant serial killer weeping and moaning the name Alicia over and over again as he lumbered along beside her, shackled at the wrists and ankles. There was something so painfully tragic about him. He’d looked so dangerous and intimidating when they’d come to remove him from his cell, so arrogant, powerful, even sexy. But now he looked perfectly pathetic. He’d been almost hysterical with grief ever since she’d escorted him from the visitor’s room, and she could tell by Belton’s demeanor that he had known this would happen.
    Immediately after Joe went into the room, Belton had told Cindy that Joe’s visitors were the mother and sister of one of his victims. The warden had granted their request to visit Joseph even though they weren’t on his visitor’s list. The warden had made an exception and Cindy