Page 69 of After the Chase

I check for a pulse one final time and there is nothing.

Then I leave the showers and return to my own locker and change back into my street clothes. I'm out of the gym by 6:45, just another early morning exerciser finishing his workout.

I return to the hotel to find Chase awake, sitting at the desk with his journal.

"It's done," I tell him.

He looks up, his eyes searching my face. "How do you feel?"

"I don’t feel anything."

"What about an adrenaline high? Remorse?"

"No."

He nods slowly, then returns to his writing. I move toward him and read over his shoulder.

Noah returned and his expression was neutral, his movements no different than normal baseline. He reported the elimination with the same tone he might use to report completing an errand.

This is different from his personal eliminations. Those carry a sense of purpose. This was purely transactional, a job completed, a task checked off a list.

I find myself wondering if this is sustainable. Can Noah maintain this level of detachment? Or will the operational murders eventually bleed into his personal pathology?

Time will tell.

"You're analyzing the difference," I observe.

"Yes."

"And what are you discovering?"

"That you're capable of compartmentalization. Personal murders are more intense and violent because they are driven by possession and control. Operational murders that you do for the guys are more clinical, a simple task."

"I don’t understand why you enjoy this so much.”

“You don’t need to, Noah. I just love learning more about you.”

The next day Chase and I are having breakfast at our kitchen island, and I’m fully aware of his shift in mood. His normal routine when he eats a bagel for breakfast is to cut it into halves, before eating one half within five minutes, each bite he takes he chews approximately eleven to fourteen times, depending on the size of the bite. Today he has taken one bite, but only chewed around four times before struggling to swallow it. He has barely spoken and refuses to look at me.

“Tell me, Chase, we don’t have secrets,” I say as I take a large gulp of the tasteless coffee. I don’t take much pleasure from food and drink, only looking at it as a source of sustenence rather than enjoying the taste.

“Tell you what?”

“You’re not yourself, and you’re panic eating. Out with it,” I say as I place my cup down and watch him, waiting for an answer. He runs his hands through his hair and sighs, before looking at me with what I have learnt is a sad look.

“I have been thinking about something, but I’ve been unsure how to approach it.”

“Directness.”

“You are insufferable, you know that? Okay, I’ll just say it, I want to write a book. Become a self-published author and write a thriller. Under a pseudonym name, of course.”

“Okay.”

“Okay? What do you mean okay? I thought you’d be pissed with me like you were about the psychology book?”

“That was different, you were using me as a test study. This is fiction.”

“Well…fiction and real-life. I want to use all of my notes and findings to create the story. Obviously no real names.”