Page 4 of Line of Sight (Second Sight #4)

I’VE ALWAYS been different.

Take my birthday parties as a child. All those kids, brimming with emotions, excited, laughing…. I felt none of that, but apparently I knew enough even back then to fake some emotion, to try and fit in.

Fuck, it was exhausting.

And then there were the mirrors.

I used to stare at my reflection for hours, wondering. Practicing.

Wondering why I wasn’t like other people. I looked like them, but I knew that inside the similarity ended.

Practicing the same foolish smile I saw every day on my brother’s foolish face.

And there I was, unable to crack my lips. Showing emotion was always difficult. Feeling it was even more of a problem. Holidays and celebrations were the worst. I stood out like a sore thumb.

It wasn’t until I was eleven or twelve that the panic attacks started. At least now I know that’s what they were. Back then I didn’t talk about them, but there was a lot of shit that got me all worked up, inconsequential shit that really didn’t matter.

That all changed when I hit fifteen, sixteen.

A lot of those awkward emotions finally packed up and left, but that was also a problem.

I didn’t feel anything. Like, nothing, not even when those around me got pissed at me or annoyed or frustrated.

And while that made me sad at first, I soon shrugged that off and realized I was better off without people anyway.

Especially people like my father.

I don’t know if he saw anything, or even suspected, but I swear he was always watching me.

Anyway, enough about my idyllic childhood.

When did I first know my true nature? When I was nineteen and I read a book called American Psycho . Before then I was merely a fledgling killer.

Reading that book wasn’t a light bulb moment—it was more akin to floodlights reaching into the darkest corners of my soul.

That book spoke to me.

It whispered to me.

It revealed a map I knew would lead me somewhere.

Eventually.

And when the time came to put my feet on that path, I knew everything would fall into place. Where Patrick Bateman led, I would follow.