REVELATIONS II

"Call me Kyle," He said as he put the car in drive and took them off the highway and behind a large rock formation that wasn't too far away.

"Kyle" She began nervously "Where are we going?"

"Somewhere out of the way of prying eyes and traffic, you see I cant be seen in the front of a patrol car with its officer held in the back seat, now can I?"

"I suppose not" She answered back, straightening up in the seat as he drew the car to a slow and easy stop.

"Now do you want out of the backseat of this thing, I know how uncomfortable they can be?"

"Uhh sure." She answered back as he swung open the door and let her climb out.

He was leaning against the hood of the patrol car when she stood up to get a look at her surroundings.

"Do you have a cigarette in that car of yours?" He asked without looking at her.

"No, but I have a pack in the front pocket of my shirt." She offered up coming around the car to where she stood in front of him. Letting him see the pack that was peeking out of her breast pocket. "Want to grab them?"

He looked her up and down and shook his head "No, you grab them, I told you that I am not the type to take advantage of a pretty girl, even if she does throw it in my face, got it?"

Her face blushed hot and red as she retrieved the crumpled package of menthol cigarettes from her shirt pocket. She shook the package until a couple fell from the package into her hand. Shaking, she handed him one and stuck the other between her lips.

Kyle reached into his jacket and pulled out a gold and silver lighter with some sort of decorative crest on the front. He flicked the lighter with his thumb and touched the flame to his cigarette lighting the tip. He looked over at Lisbeth and lit hers too before clicking the lighter shut and tucking it back into his jacket.

He inhaled deeply and shut his eyes for a moment enjoying the taste. She watched him with fascination; she could not figure this guy out.

"You are trying to figure me out right now." He said simply "Please don't, you'll just drive yourself insane. I can't even figure myself out."

Kyle pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto the hood of the car "Damn hot out here isn't it?" He asked rhetorically.

She didn't answer as he suspected she wouldn't, she only commented that he did choose the worse colors to wear in this heat, all black.

"Hey you're uniform must not be that much cooler." He chided with her, flashing her a quick grin.

"I usually have air-condition in my unit." She said nodding to her cruiser.

"Ah yes, I didn't even think about that." Kyle answered amused.

He waited until she leaned up on the car hood next to him before speaking again "If I were to give you your weapon back, would you try and shoot me?"

She looked down at her feet and then back at his face "Yes, I might, but I would not try to kill you unless you made me."

"An honest answer." Kyle replied "I don't get those much, I like it."

"You like that answer?" She asked astonished for she thought that would surely anger him.

"Like I said before I like honestly when its not forced, not saying that I would relish the thought of being shot, although I have been through much worse in my life."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" She asked "Aren't you afraid that I will let my department know if I get out of this alive."

"I guess that I am hoping you won't feel the need to tell anyone about this after you hear what I am about to tell you. And perhaps the truth of the matter is that, while I might value honesty, I rarely use it. I lie, hell I lie a lot, it's the nature of my beast."

"The nature of The Beast." She corrected him, and then bit her tongue.

Kyle watched as her bottom lip shone with a speck of blood and he knew that he was getting to her. "No, I said that quite correctly, because I am the beast, I know that, have known that for a very long time."

"So how do I know that you are not lying about everything you have said so far to me?" She asked a little unnerved.

"Well, if you must know I have come to question some things about myself lately, and I wanted to set just one record straight even if it's just with you. But make no mistakes, the nature of what I am I still don't question it at all."

"What has happened in your life that has caused you to question things? And just maybe you are just trying to understand things." She said, watching him crush the butt of his cigarette with his heal. She had noticed that he had a rather fluid movement about him, everything he did seemed so very precise that she was wondering if he had rehearsed this whole scenario before.

Kyle pondered over this question for awhile, he had never even thought of it when he so often analyzed the things he had done since his time spent with Jarod. Maybe Jarod himself was the mitigating factor. That realization struck him as odd, before he never thought that someone like himself could even be capable of even trying to understand why he felt the way he did. All he knew for sure that those small cracks in his mind that he thought he buried long, were trying to rise to the surface and make him feel something once again.

Not sure of how to convey this to her, he simply shrugged his shoulders and replied "Life got to me."

"So why do you still want to hurt and kill people?" She asked finally her throat parched from the oppressive desert heat.

"Because I can." Kyle replied dryly. "Because that was why I was created,"

Lisbeth was more confused than ever, "Why can't you just quit and go off the grid or something, go somewhere no one can ever find you?"

"It's not so black and white, not to me." he answered back "There are so many shades of gray the rule my life still, but the easy answer is; I owe my brother the truth, he thinks that I am dead, killed in a car crash and for all the pain I might bring down upon him, I believe that he deserves to know the truth. It's loyalty. And those who used to hunt me still hunt him relentlessly."

Lisbeth was about to say something else but Kyle cut her off.

"Now let me ask you this why is it that you picked law enforcement as a career? It's a dangerous job hunting down criminals like me."

"I just wanted to make a difference with my life." She answered looking down at her feet as she spoke. "To do something that mattered, something I can be remembered for after I die."

Kyle moved so close to her that she could smell the shampoo on his hair and felt her arm tingle when he brushed it with his fingers accidentally. Her pulse quickened out of pure reflex. If he had noticed, he seemed oblivious or just plain unfazed.

Kyle did indeed notice, but said nothing. He just scooted over a bit and continued. "When did your father die?" Kyle asked lifting her chin gently with his fingertips. He had been watching her body language as she spoke and he knew that somewhere she was holding onto something that she couldn't put aside either.

"How did you…Umm My father was murdered when I was 17, he was shot while on duty by a drug dealer during a drug bust that went bad." Her voice quivered as she spoke of her father's death. "He was a good cop and an even better father to me."

"And what were you going to do before you choose a job where you could get even with people like the one who killed your father?" Kyle asked letting his hands fall back to his sides.

"I..I Was at MIT, a full scholarship. I graduated early and was in my second year there when it happened. But I didn't join the force for revenge if that is what you are getting at?"

Kyle grinned at her because he could feel the anger in her voice rising with each syllable she uttered "So are you some sort of genius type or something? I mean full ride to MIT that's not a walk in the park."

She furrowed her brow at him. "I don't like labels." She said at last.

"Then you sell yourself short, because I know that you are exceedingly brilliant, you kept me talking all this time, even though you know or at least think you know what I am, besides we can read each other. One's like us, too damn smart for our own good I suppose."

Kyle was surprised at her candor; he wasn't used to such honest conversations unless they were under duress. This woman intrigued him, she was different then any officer he had ever dealt with. No one like her had ever been even remotely civil towards him. The prison guards treated him with contempt and hatred and never engaged him in conversation.

"You look thirsty; I noticed a water bottle on your passenger seat." He walked over and bent down reaching inside the car and tossing her the bottle.

"So, did they catch the guy?" He remarked before even turning back around.

"They tracked him down to an old apartment where he was holed up with another dealer, I don't know how but the guy managed to get away and has never been caught. They found the body of a 14 year old girl in that death hole; she was bound, drugged and beaten to death."

"What is his name?" Kyle asked taking another puff of his cigarette.

"Rodney Jenkins." She spat his name out like it had a bad taste.

"Did you ever want him dead?" Kyle asked quickly not giving her a moment to hesitate.

"For years that's all that I ever thought about, I let that hatred consume me for years and now I just don't know, I hate him so much still even though it wont bring back my father. If he was in jail or dead then maybe it would ensure that he never kills someone like my father or like that girl ever again."

"Ah and there it is." Kyle said "You see we were both made into what we are today, you by tragedy and death and me, well the things they did to me I doubt anyone sane would believe any of it. Imagine being on the threshold of waking up from the worst nightmare you ever had, but not being able to. In a nutshell that was my childhood."

Kyle thought about all the experiments he was forced into, all the pain that came from the hands of adults when he was just a boy. He felt the rage beating inside him, burning at his soul with every breath. But this woman who stood there next to him, had not been a part of all that, even if she did wear a uniform. Suddenly he felt conflicted but for the life of him he didn't know why.

Lisbeth watched him silently; she instinctually knew that whatever he was thinking about was eating at the very core of his mind. What it was she couldn't even fathom and dared not even ask.

She didn't even flinch when Kyle took hold of her hand, she could feel scars upon his palms and saw them on his wrists as well.

"I'm really not the type of person who has ever helped anyone but myself." He began somberly, feeling the soft warmth of her hand in his "I have killed for much less. But if you do me the favor of never speaking about this to anyone, you will be sure that this man who made you hate so much will never breathe another breath once he meets me. I truly do detest drug dealers; I have killed my fair share of them."

"I can't let you do that." She said softly "I am supposed to uphold the law and bring people like you in. I'm the cop, you're the killer…No this is wrong, I can't go along with that!" She took a deep breath and added "Why would you even offer me something like that? You just met me, you hardly even know me?"

Kyle looked off into the distance, his eyes growing soft for a split second. When he turned back to face her, his eyes were bright and sparkling again. "You remind me of a girl I once knew a lifetime ago," He said as he released her hand.

"Was she someone you loved?" Lisbeth asked carefully.

Kyle released her hand and once again became silent; he was in new territory now, never before had he spoken of the one person who made him want to feel that particular emotion. He kept that information locked in the back of his mind for so long that even thinking about her seemed like a whole nether lifetime. He had never told a soul about the girl who had captivated him from the moment they met. Finally he began speaking, more softly then he had in a very long time.

"She loved me, for she told so often even though I didn't know what love really was. And I still don't know what it was she felt when she said those words, for they were just words to me. But she did manage to make me feel though. And for that I think I might have done almost anything for her. But she is now just a memory to me."

"What happened?" Lisbeth asked sitting back down on the hood of the car.

"I got careless and I made mistakes, the kind of mistakes that one can never take back." Kyle said with a heavy sigh.

Sensing that he was not going to say anything more and because she couldn't think of anything else to say at the moment. She turned towards Kyle and asked in a whispered voice "What was her name?" She really never expected him to answer her, but he did.

"Her name was Annalyse" He said in a quiet voice, he had not spoken her name out loud in so many years that it felt unreal. We had a… awhile together before everything fell all to hell."

"What went wrong?" Lisbeth asked as gently as she could.

"Because of me and the little that she knew about me she became a target."

Kyle suddenly felt drained and his mind was trying desperately to block the memories out, but they came to him anyway. "The people that are always hunting me decided to pay her a visit at her apartment. At the time I wasn't even in the city I was out of town searching. I had only spent the night at her place once, after that we always met somewhere else just to be safe."

Kyle felt again that anger rise inside him as he talked, it felt like torture almost. So why then was he telling all this to a complete stranger, even worse to a cop none the less? For as long as he could remember he was always very calculating and very private, never letting anyone like this get close to him.

Lisbeth had no idea what he might reveal next but watching his eyes go dark she knew that it was something terrible.

Kyle watched her face intensely for several minutes. Watching for any signs that might have betrayed her words. But he saw nothing to indicate that she might be baiting him. Waiting for the moment to try and make a break for it. Instead she remained leaned against the hood of the car.

Kyle leaned up on the hood next to her and spoke some more "I called her phone and got no answer, later I would learn that the phone lines were cut. I felt a great urgency then and threw caution to the wind and went to check on her at her place. When I arrived there I called out for her. But there was nothing but silence. She always had the television or music playing, I knew instantly something was wrong, all the lights were out to. So I searched around in the dark being careful not to alert anyone who might have still been in the apartment with her. I found five men in the living room and I laid waste quickly to all but one. That one I would savor, so I knocked him out and bound him up so tightly that I knew he would not escape before I had what I needed from him."

Lisbeth was feeling dizzy; she felt a rush of compassion run through her body for that girl. She found herself at a loss for words; she could hardly even begin to comprehend the horror of what he was saying to her.

Taking a long drag off his cigarette he blew out the smoke before saying in a somewhat detached way "And then I found her she was unconscious and her body was crumpled on the floor of the kitchen bleeding."

Lisbeth gasped at first then asked nervously "Did she die?"

"There are times that I wish she did." He said solemnly.

"Why would you ever wish such a terrible thing?" Lisbeth asked extremely confused. She could tell just by the way he talked that he must have cared for this girl in some way.

"Maybe my reasons behind that are purely selfish, but I will never forget the look of pain in her eyes. That's another curse of mine; I remember everything perfectly as if it just happened. I can never forget even if I wanted to. I have a photographic memory of sorts; I remember every little detail in perfect clarity as if it had happened just yesterday even though it's been years now."

"What did you do then?"

"First I took her as far away from her place as I could and checked her into an out of the way motel on the outskirts of town. First I made sure she was not mortally wounded then bandaged up what I could. I told her I would be back soon and went back to finish what I started there."

Kyle asked for another cigarette before continuing "I spent a long while with one I left tied up back at her place and made damn sure that he suffered a hundred times more than she did. I made him tell me everything they did to her and what they asked her about. My knife convinced him to tell me what I wanted to know, she told them nothing, she said she barley even knew me, had met me once at bar where she worked. That was all it took, just the mere thought that she knew of me. They tried their best to find out anything at all but they could not break her silence. So they decided to put a scar on her face to remind her of what they were capable of doing at anytime."

Kyle paced back around to the back of the car before continuing. "I came back to my Annalyse with blood on my hands and confessed what I had done. She hid her face from me at first but when she finally looked up at me with tears in her eyes, I told her she would always be beautiful to me. She cried a lot but she never spoke a word against me. She told me they did those things to her to make her tell me where I was, she didn't and she paid for it. I knew she was telling the truth because that was exactly what the bastard had said to me before I slit his throat wide open and watched as the blood drained out of him. After he died I torched the place."

Lisbeth shuddered even though the desert heat was beating down on her at well over a hundred degrees.

"I knew that more of those evil bastards would be coming soon and they would take me and kill her if they even thought I was nearby. I bought us a few hours by the carnage I created but only a few. I knew that they would never stop hunting me, there was only one thing I could do then."

Kyle grew quiet, so quiet that Lisbeth thought he had told her all that he was going to divulge, but then he spoke again.

"When I got back to the room. I gathered her up in my arms and carried her to the bed, where I made love to her for the last time. That was her terminology, it was always just sex to me, anyway afterwards she laid in my arms while I told her that I had to go and never see her again."

Kyle breathed in a long sigh and continued on before Lisbeth could ask anything more. "She begged me to stay with her, but I knew that was impossible. Leaving her was the only way out, part of me was screaming out to end her and save myself, for she knew and still knows too much about me what little I divulged anyway. But I couldn't even bring myself to think that way. I couldn't hurt her for she put my life above hers once already. No one had ever done anything like that before."

Kyle looked back towards the highway, he knew time was running out and he needed to get back on the road soon. "Here she was this beautiful young woman, who was beaten all to hell and she still didn't say anything that would expose me. Such loyalty is nearly impossible to find and I guess that aspect really intrigued me, for all I have ever known is dishonesty and betrayal."

Lisbeth took in a deep breath "And if they know that I have spoken to you, what then?" She had no clue as to who this mysterious "they" were but they defiantly did not sound good.

"Don't ask because you won't like the answer, I promise you that. Just know that they are far more dangerous than I. They will kill you if they think you know where I am going or what I have told you, but not before they make you wish you were dead."

Lisbeth felt a chill run through her body when he said that. "What happened to her after you left?"

"That, Lisbeth is something even I don't know, nor do I even want to. I told her to change her name, and run as far as she could and never look back. It went against everything in my nature to leave her alone to keep on living. For me that was a very insane thing to do. She knew enough to destroy me if she so wanted to and I still had a mission to fulfill on my own, something that I could not afford to let anyone get in the way of."

Lisbeth felt her body stiffen when she listened to him say that. "How can you say such things so casually when in truth they are horrible thoughts?"

Kyle grinned again and answered bluntly "Because as I have told you; that is simply who I am and who I always will be until the day someone finally puts me six feet under. And then what comes next is anyone's guess."

"You were right Kyle, even if I had a hundred years I don't think I could ever figure you out. But there must have been something about her to make you, as you say let her keep living."

"Well, I told you she was a bartender, but she was also trying to fit into this world. She came from old money, and a lot of it. But she shunned that life of money and privilege and tried to live a quiet life that was all her own."

Kyle seemed to slip off into a memory for a moment but then turned back towards Lisbeth his eyes unclouded and a smile playing upon his lips as he spoke.

"She had the crappiest little apartment and a shitty job, but she was doing in respect what I have always longed to do; to find myself in all this madness. But alas all that was ruined and I imagine that she had to go back to her family after all; for they had all the resources that were needed for her to disappear so to speak. I made her promise me to never look for me ever, for finding me would just mean her death. It was raining that night, pouring rain and I held her shivering body close to mine and kissed her one last time, I'll never forget that one kiss. And then I ran as far away as I could run."

"And what about you, what happened after you left her?"

"I became a true predator Lisbeth, I hurt anyone and everyone that I could, but I could never make that part of me go dark again. I found a perverse pleasure in killing all the drug dealers, all the gang bangers that I could find; I wiped entire crime families off the map just for fun. I killed whoever crossed me and it never even raised my blood pressure."

"So you killed the bad guys then?" Lisbeth asked hopefully.

"Lisbeth, I hurt so many people that soon I didn't care if they were bad or good because that is not the way my mind works. You might think that I did all that because I lost someone that you probably believe meant something to me. But that's not really it, you see I was made into a monster long before I ever met Annalyse; she just helped me turn it off sometimes. Although until the night we parted, I am sure she had no idea what I really was. She fell in love with a façade."

"So I got to ask again, did you love her at all?" Lisbeth asked looking Kyle right in his eyes. His green eyes sparkled when he smiled down at her.

"Lisbeth, I might have let my guard slip with her from a brief time because I did start to care too much for her well being, but I just don't know how to love someone. What it even means to love someone. I just can't feel what she so often talked about. They are emotions that I cannot feel even if I tried, they were lost to me when I was just a kid. All I can say is that I still trust her, like I trust my brother; but that's all I really can do now."

Lisbeth felt her heart beating against her chest as she said "Kyle, I feel sorry for you."

"Don't you dare do that Lisbeth!" He said tersely while looking her straight in the eyes, the look on his face was dead serious and his voice was ice cold. "I have never wanted anyone's pity, and I sure the hell don't need yours. So don't spoil everything and make me think talking to you was a mistake and that I should be rethinking letting you keep breathing."

She felt that chill again even though sweat trickled from her forehead. "I didn't mean anything…" She began to say but he cut her off.

"You want to know what I always say in situations such as these, I decide who lives or dies. So don't make me choose because you will regret it."

"Fair enough." She said in a shaky voice while avoiding his gaze as her heart pumping furiously inside her chest.

Kyle asked for another smoke and sat on the hood of the car staring off into the distance until finally, finishing his smoke and stamping it out with his foot; he stood up and turned to her.

"We seem to have come to a crossroads dear Lisbeth," He began, his face once again serious "I never intended on telling you everything that I have told you and now you hold inside your head my most guarded secret, you could destroy everything or you can preserve it, just never talk about it or write about. They are everywhere and can be anybody; so trust no one."

"Nobody else knows this?" She asked taken aback a bit.

"No one, save for Annalyse and of course now you. Hell not even my brother Jarod knows; for he has such good intentions and like I said before I trust him completely but he doesn't need this burden too, he has enough on his plate believe me."

"But why me of all people did you tell?" She asked feeling vulnerable once again.

Kyle took her hand in his again and smiled at her. "Like I said before, you just reminded me of her and I thought that I would never talk of her again, for she is as lost to me as if she were already gone from this earth."

"But there has to be something more right?" She asked again looking up into his sparkling green eyes. He was so damn enigmatic. She also knew that he could kill her in an instant and just walk away probably with that same smile upon his face not feeling a thing.

"If I could write a last will and testament than I would have, but that could be found and I can't take that chance while Annalyse is still alive, she could be found and it would severely compromise me and my brother and I just cannot let that happen. I have a mission to finish still you see. And nothing can come between me and that unless it's my death."

"How can you even be sure she's alive still?"

"To say I would just know would be redundant. But I do know that her family has had a plot put aside for her since the day she was born and I know that she isn't in there yet. Like I said she came from an extremely wealthy family and I guess that's what they do."

"But why now would you want to write your own will out?"

"Because, like I said, I have a huge score to settle very soon and either they will die or I will die."

"That sounds a bit morbid even for you." She commented.

He laughed and smiled back at her "Ah, but it is logical."

She returned his smile and even laughed a bit at that. God, he was a conundrum wrapped in an enigma. She feared him and at the same time found him to be so damn attractive. He repulsed her with his callous words and then drew her back in with his charming smile and his gorgeous eyes. He was the type of person who could mesmerize her right into bed even though she was the type of woman that had only one relationship in her life and that lasted 4 years. She was smart enough to know that he was a psychopath no doubt about it and she was an officer of the law yet she still felt drawn to him. This both excited and disgusted her.

She handed him another cigarette from her dwindling pack and took another for herself. He leaned towards her and again lit hers with that silver and gold lighter before lighting his own. He began to put it back in his pocket but instead changed his mind and held it out for her to take. "Keep it." He said, then added cryptically "Call it a reminder; I don't need it anymore anyway now."

She looked down at the lighter and knew immediately that it was indeed very expensive; it was heavy in her hand from being fashioned from gold. In the Silver inlay was the letters K and A. This was most likely the only possession that he had kept from his time with Annalyse; she probably had it made to order just for him. Why he had decided to part with it now was a mystery to her.

Lisbetha sat down on the hood of her patrol car and put her head in her hands, she didn't speak for the longest time. "Okay Kyle, let's just say none of this ever happened, I never met you and you never met me." She said softly "But I must insist that you let me deal with the scum the killed my father, I want him to pay but I want to do it the right way and put him behind bars one of these days myself."

"If that is what you want then fine" Kyle said as he stood in front of her and handed her back the firearm he had accosted from her earlier. She took the gun in her hands and checked the chambers they were still full of ammunition.

She gave him a rather puzzling look "Why?" was all she could ask.

Kyle turned his back to her and simply said "I'll let you decide this time."

Then she understood what he was saying to her in those few words, he was giving her an opportunity that he had never given anyone before. To stop him. But she just couldn't, she was beyond conflicted now. So instead; she just watched this intriguing man start to walk away back towards the highway.

He never turned back around just raised his hand in a farewell gesture and called back "Nice talking with you Lisbeth, I truly hope we never meet again."

All her instincts were telling her not to let him go. He was dangerous, a self proclaimed killer. She really should stop him from just walking away but instead she just holstered her gun and watched him leave. Soon he was just a silhouette and then seemed like nothing more than a mirage.

If anyone had asked her why she had done it, she would not have had a straight answer, all she knew was that the guy she met in the desert had seemed more real to her than anyone she had known besides her parents.

He let her into a part of his life that wasn't just some wild cowboy story or a badly forged fishing tale; there was no wonderland in what he had told her. No absolutes, there was only darkness and emptiness and strangely enough something that she related to and that both scared and shamed her at the same time. Because of that she would never speak of this encounter to anyone.

By the time she composed herself and drove back down to the highway, he was nowhere to be seen. His cycle was gone, there wasn't even a dust trail left to indicate he had been there. It was almost as if he had not even been real, just a figment of her own imagination swarming about in her head.

The radio in her squad car was off, so she flipped the switch back on. And instantly a voice came over the airwaves.

"S-22; this is HQ. What is your position and do you require any assistance? We have not been able to raise you and were just about to send another car out looking for you. 10-4"

"S-22 here, I am still out here on hwy 139. My car battery went dead and it was awhile before this trucker came along and helped me out with it. That's a negative to sending assistance the situation has been remedied. 10-4."

"S-22, what about the cycle you pulled over? 10-4."

"HQ, it was nothing, the driver was going a little fast, but everything checked out so I just let him off with a warning. I've just been stuck here on the side of the Highway alone ever since. I'm heading back to the station now, my shifts been over for about 20 minutes now and I would like to get home soon. Over and Out."

"S-22, Copy that."

Lisbeth smiled to herself and sped out down the Highway, turning up the radio in her cruiser and listening to Mick Jagger belt out the lyrics to Sympathy for the Devil.