I watch as, with each desperate twist or pull, the rope bites deeper into his throat, forcing him to cease his fight. A look of suddenly realized terror is filling his eyes, and between each bout of choking himself, he lets out a nasal whine.

I know that seeing this should disturb me, but it doesn’t. Not in the way that it should.

What actually does disturb me is that I feel no compassion as I watch him. No empathy. But, even that isn’t the worst of it. If I was feeling nothing at all, perhaps I could make sense of my uncharacteristic disregard by attributing it to a forced clinical detachment.

But, unfortunately, that isn’t the case.

I am feeling something.

I am amused.

Worse than that, the tickle has returned, and I am becoming increasingly aroused by his plight.

Though the immediate feelings I had sensed upon entering the room had been a combination of both killer and victim, my primary concern for my own safety had been in regard to him. Not her. While I’d had my brushes with channeling killers, they were always alive when I had done so. Though I knew that this one, or at least part of her, wasn’t, I hadn’t considered it as fully as I should have, and now that changed everything.

The dead were the ones who spoke loudest in my head, and they were the ones who most often tried to pull me deeper into their world in an effort to make me understand. I suppose I couldn’t blame them for trying to get their points across any way they could. Dead or not, everyone has a story to tell, and it helps if someone will listen.

But, this one didn’t just want someone to listen. She wanted someone to control. Though I could feel the victim and hear his anguish, he was a bit player on this mental stage. Miranda had a far stronger presence, and she intended to dominate the scene now-just as she had done then.