From a collection of unpublished short stories by Jona Nightingale

Part 1

Khawla sat in the room and waited for the therapist to speak. She could hear the rapid beating of his heart and the sharp inhale that signaled he was regretting all his life choices if it led him here. 

But this man’s problem was not hers to solve. No, he was here to solve her problems. To give her guidance on what to do with her life. At least, that is what she hoped would happen now that she had agreed to share the inner workings of her mind. 

The man takes in a sharper inhale this time and spoke, “I am Dr. Pine, I have a Ph.D. in  maladaptive personalities and Shame. I also have 25 years of experience treating patients from various backgrounds and life experiences. You can check my references if you wish to continue meeting.”

Khawla had already check Dr. Pine’s references. In fact, she had done such a perfect background check on the man, Khawla even knew he had high blood pressure and a penance for bland wine from the corner store and tragic romance novels. 

She could recite the last 65 years of this man’s life from memory, including the terrible deal he made that got him into this spot. Sitting across from one of the most sinister people in the country and trying to pretend he could handle it. Khawla gave a brief nod and Dr. Pine continued to speak, or at least tried to. 

Dr. Pine took several deep breaths to center himself, there had been worse days than this, and he had made it through all of them. What was one more client that looked far too innocent for their reputation. “As you may know, I have been contacted to help you through this difficult moment in your life. It is my understanding that your father died?”

What should have been a statement, sounded like a question coming out of the therapist’s mouth. Khawla scowled, so this was the reason her mother had sent her to therapy. She had wondered about what would make her mother worried to the point of telling Khawla that unless she went to therapy, there would be a 75% cut in her responsibilities to the company. 

It was a tricky bargain to make, Khawla could just take over the company, but that was not a part of her long term plan. And until then, she needed the cover of her responsibilities to the company to buy her time and resources. 

“Yes, in my arms with a bullet to his head.” Khawla answered, looking directly at Dr. Pine. The man seemed nervous, which was acceptable. The only people who weren’t nervous around Khawla were the ones that did not know who she was. Though not many people knew who or what Khawla was, one of them was her dead father and the other was her close friend, Theo. 

“Tha-that must have been hard for you?”

Again, the statement sounded like a question. Khawla resisted the urge to leave the room and sat still, recalling the faint trimmer of relief she felt when her father died in her arms. She sat it, the beautiful pink hue of his soul rise from his body, just before it was absorbed into hers. It had felt like breathing fresh air after diving deep into the ocean. The relief of being able to breathe again and subtle thrill of knowing you could dive in again was exhilarating. 

Khawla did not mention any of that to the therapist, after all, she didn’t want to have to kill him. His death would do nothing for her, well, at least not yet. Dr. Pine had much more to live for than just sitting across from her a trying to diagnosis a problem that may or may not exist. 

“Death is nothing new in my line of work, people die all the time in this world and no one is breaking down the doors in mourning.” Khawla’s response was not what Dr. Pine had hoped for, but he knew this patient was not going to be easy. 

He wanted to keep asking questions to gauge her response, but he was starting to see, he needed to take a different approach. 

“Do you feel anything when someone dies?” Dr. Pine asked, if he was going to get somewhere, he needed to know the extent of her emotions. 

There was a brief moment when the good doctor thought he saw a silver gleam in Khawla’s eyes. But he quickly shook his head and continued to ask more questions. “Did your father’s death represent anything significant for you?”

Khawla tried to conceal her amusement and broke eye contact with Dr. Pine. “Who doesn’t feel anything when someone dies? It’s a part of the human experience to feel remorse when someone you know passes away.”

“Did you feel remorse when your father died?” Dr. Pine pushed forward. 

“I felt pain.” 

“Was it a physical pain or an emotional pain?” Dr. Pine did not yet want to suggest it was mental pain of losing control over a situation. He had to test the waters of Khawla and her willingness to talk. Even if Dr. Pine was sure there were some depths to Khawla that he hoped they would never reach. 

“It felt like a piece of me was taken as soon as I saw him fall, nothing prepares you for that. The moment you know someone is dead and there is nothing you can do about it.” Khawla spoke without inflection, even if her words felt real, her voice displayed no such connection to the present or past moment. 

“There was blood everywhere, and he was the only one bleeding. In a room of 50 people, no one else was injured or bleeding, but he was. Everyone started screaming, but none of them were hurt.” 

Dr. Pine watched Khawla talk about the moment her father died, and bile rose in his throat. In any other session, the client would be weeping, voice breaking, but Khawla did none of those. She sat with her hair in a high arch filled with layers of blue and yellow string and gems of ruby and sapphire. Her eyes were void of tears and emotion, even her face and body remained in a neutral position. 

Khawla was a sharp contrast to her surrounding. While the office was filled with muted browns and shades of beige, Khawla dressed in a moss green suit with complimenting nails and black heels. She looked like she belonged on the Fortune 500 cover of top CEOs, but there were hardly any pictures of Khawla in society. 

Dr. Pine collected himself and tried to step closer to the tiger that would be his death, though in all honesty, she looked more like a devil that would sell a person water in a desert. Khawla’s skin was the shade of the Sahara’s sand, with soft freckles across her nose. Her hair coiled like snakes just before they pounce, and her eyes were dark as the earth. 

“You made a contrast between how none of the people were hurt, but still screamed and how your father was dead, but made no sound.” 

Khawla waited for the good doctor to finish the rest of his statement or ask a question, but neither followed. So she spoke to fill the void, not that it needed filling. They could sit in silence for the rest of the sessions, but she would not act like a petulant child. 

“Sometimes you notice these comparisons when things fall apart, it comes back to you late at night and run circles around your mind.” Khawla thought of such a comparison now as she spoke with the good doctor. He was not really a good person, but the paradox of believing it made it all the more fun. Khawla knew of the people he had killed over the years, the patients he had led down a rabbit hole of psychosis. 

Dr. Pine continued to probe and ask questions for the rest of the session. Khawla answered them in a diligent, but round-about way. For the most part, it did not reveal much, and by the end she could tell that the good doctor was frustrated. After all, he had to report to her mother about her possible progress. 

So much for patient confidentiality, Khawla chuckled to herself and reached out her hand towards the good doctor. The man flinched as if Khawla was going to harm him before realizing it was a handshake. 

He accepted it with caution, but he still did not feel the subtle prick of a needle sliding into the layers of his skin. Dr. Pine frowned down at their joined hands, at the feeling of discomfort that begged him to get away from the creature, from the thing that looked human but did not possess a hint of humanity in their being. 

Khawla smiled down at the man and shook his hand firmly and with purpose. Her smile was a bit too wide and with too many teeth, this was part of the reason she hardly smiled or laugh. Just another form she had not yet mastered in all her years of existence. 

“Dr. Pine, I look forward to our next visit as we tackle my grief.” Khawla did not wait for his response as she slipped out the door and went to discard the needle coated with one of her favorite poisons. 

Dr. Pine frowned at the door and went to close it. Looking back, he should have questioned the feeling of wrongness that settled over his skin. But he chalked that up to nerves of talking to one of the most notorious serial killer of his time. He went back to his desk and took out his notes on Khawla Heydari. 

According to his research, she had been active for centuries, but not much was known of her origin. It seemed that every few years she would take on the skin of another person and return to her familial roots. The Heydaris were one of the richest families in the world, and their global influence alone was enough to topple countries. Instead, they made their money on providing aid to those in need. 

Dr. Pine’s frown deepened as he looked over the history of this family, the only thing that connected them was where the first sighting of Khawla was mentioned. She would always appear as a woman, and each time the family head would take her in and present her with riches and respect. 

But the sinister nature of Khawla would always show itself in the simplest form, people died wherever she went. Not in the most cruel ways, but one by one the bodies would pile up, until they were too much of a coincidence. But the Heydari family would always retain its innocence and when the tensions grew to be too high, the head of the family would die with Khawla there to hold the corpse. 

Dr. Pine had studied the research for the last 25 years, and now he was close to the actual subject of his research. A warm shiver ran through his body, he was both elated and terrified. Because in all his research, there was no evidence of what happened after the head of the family died. It was as if it was purposefully deleted from history each time, but now he had a connection to the story, and he would not let it slip through his hands. 

All the pain and experiments of perfecting his craft would not go to waste. But first he had to report to Ms. Heydari about the session and then check the voice recordings he had made in secret during the session. Dr. Pine already knew he was in the middle of breaking every ethical code known to man, but he was relieved that it was finally paying off. Once, he had crossed the line 24 years ago, and the end was finally in sight.

The End for Now…

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