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This is my world.

—

I sit by the window of my hotel room, staring down at the blinking neon sign of Village Tap.

I am not a violent person.

I’ve never hit a man.

Never even tried to.

But if I want my family back, there’s simply no way around it.

I have to do a terrible thing.

Have to do what Jason2 did to me, only without the conscience-protecting option of simply putting him back into the box. Even though I have one ampoule left, I wouldn’t repeat his mistake.

He should’ve killed me when he had the chance.

I feel the physicist side of my brain creeping in, trying to take over the controls.

I’m a scientist, after all. A process-minded thinker.

So I think of this like a lab experiment.

There’s a result I want to achieve.

What are the steps it will take for me to arrive at that result?

First, define the desired result.

Kill the Jason Dessen who’s living in my home and put him in a place where no one will ever find him again.

What tools do I need to accomplish that?

A car.

A gun.

Some method of restraining him.

A shovel.

A safe place to dispose of his body.

I hate these thoughts.

Yes, he took my wife, my son, my life, but the idea of the preparation and the violence is so ugly.

There’s a forest preserve an hour south of Chicago. Kankakee River State Park. I’ve been there several times with Charlie and Daniela, usually in the fall when the leaves are turning and we’re antsy for wilderness and solitude and a day out of the city.

I could drive Jason2 there at night, or make him drive, just like he did to me.

Lead him down one of the trails I know on the north side of the river.

I will have been there a day or two prior, so his grave will already be dug in some quiet, secluded place. I’ll have researched how deep to make it so animals can’t smell the rot. Make him think he’s going to dig his own grave, so he thinks he has more time to figure out an escape or to convince me not to do this. Then, when we’re within twenty feet of the hole, I’ll drop the shovel and say that it’s time to start digging.

As he bends down to pick it up, I’ll do the thing I can’t imagine.

I will fire a bullet into the back of his head.

Then I’ll drag him over to the hole and roll him into it and cover him up with dirt.

The good news is that no one will be looking for him.

I’ll slide back into his life the same way he slid into mine.

Maybe years down the road, I’ll tell Daniela the truth.

Maybe I’ll never tell her.

—

The sporting-goods store is three blocks away and still an hour shy of closing. I used to come in here once a year to buy cleats and b.a.l.l.s when Charlie was into soccer during middle school.

Even then, the gun counter always held a fascination for me.

A mystique.

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