Free Mind Games by TJ Moore

the moments when she was the most vulnerable to its powers. And these were also the moments the evidence was vulnerable to her powers.
    There, in the serenity of her apartment, Amy would confront the hellish presence as if she were doing battle with evil itself. To do this, she had to be brave.
    Whatever evils caused the violence in the cases, Amy knew she was stronger than her past.
    Real victims with real killers.
    Evil had its chance, and now it was her turn. Sometimes, she thought, even evil might experience guilt. Even evil might recognize the losses and gaze upon the blood trails, counting them in fault.
    Amy never found resolve in believing evil would dissipate on its own. Like a squirming beast before her, Amy wrestled with what she knew. The documentation of each crime scene revealed different beasts of different sizes. Some spewed fire while others spewed ice.
    Amy’s mental network of knowledge was her defense against the beasts. Of course the answers weren’t always clear at first, and not every case had a complete chain of solutions. Still, even when fear manifested as an inner trembling, Amy did not back down.
    Over the years, she’d disciplined her mind to decipher the lies in the evidence. The times when it seemed there was no progress, no overarching developments in a case, Amy remembered that evil always left traces of its desolate work. In its path of destruction, even after bleaching and scrubbing, evil would always forget something. The cleanup was always rushed because it was already looking for its next victim.
    Similar to the nature of a lie, some cases had a way of growing, gaining momentum and volume in the passage of time. Other cases underwent the negative powers of time, growing colder as the clock ticked on. When residual images crawled on her back, Amy felt their weight bearing down on her. Many nights, she winced as tiny claws pierced the muscles in her back, scratching down, digging into her skin.
    The times when she felt its presence Amy already knew she was going to win. Somehow, she had an instinctive advantage. The beast would usually latch on during her drive home after work.
    Even when she felt the claws dig in, she just kept driving. There were a few recent cases where the claws dug too deep, almost causing her to swerve off the road.
    Those nights, she didn’t care if she got home. She would stop the car, slam the door, and run her hands over her back, clutching the weight and ripping it from her. She’d throw it to the ground and watch as it scurried across the grass, pawing the green blades with sour vengeance. Amy could never injure the beast or call its name. Instead, she’d watch it race down the street like a hungry predator.
    But Amy always knew it would return.
    Once the bitter, orange sun dipped behind the horizon, drops of fear would drip from her fingertips. Amy didn’t have to fall asleep to wrestle with the nightmares. And she preferred it that way. When she was awake, Amy had a fuller sense of time and space. She could analyze the beast and rebuke it, throwing it from her repeatedly if necessary.
    And if the nightmares crawled back too quickly, Amy would run. She’d pull off to the side of road, opening the door like a crazy person. Then, she’d run from her car, not looking back. And as she ran, the blood flow to her brain would bring her back to reality. The oxygen-rich blood had a way of restoring her sanity and refreshing her mind.
    Then, as her feet hit the pavement, she had the time to think. As the mass of information galloped behind her, Amy played the options over and over, unfolding paradoxes and linking ideas.
    Certain cases, the really grisly ones, Amy never wanted to stop running. On those cases, she deeply feared the sunset since it signaled a literal and metaphysical darkness about to fall over the city.
    Amy had solved many cases on these runs. Surely, they were more effective than the times she sat stagnant in her apartment, scouring the walls for