Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly 1)

“No,” I say, sitting forward, as much as my chains will allow. “I feel you’re very committed. Just to the wrong thing. Do you believe rehabilitation is possible?”

Her dark eyes blink behind her glasses. “I won’t lie to you, Grayson. I have my doubts. But we won’t know if it’s a possibility for you unless you take our time together seriously.”

Interesting. “I like when you answer my questions.”

She attempts to hide a smile. Crosses her legs. I inhale a deep breath, trying to taste her excitement. “My answers won’t help you.”

“How do you know?”

Her hands go to her lap. She keeps her gaze steady on me, but I see the anxious need to wrap her string around her finger. She hides it well—almost as well as she hides the tattoo on her hand—but I’ve caught her once. A black thread she keeps tucked inside her pocket. The skin of her finger wears the groove marks from where she wraps it, tightening the thread over and over.

I wonder why she does it; where she picked up the compulsion.

“You said you have doubts,” I say, keeping the tables turned. “But what if it’s not doubt. What if you don’t want rehabilitation to work.”

Her mouth pops open. Before she can blurt a practiced retort, she checks herself. “Why would I not want it to work?”

I shrug as I ease back into the chair. “Because seeking the answer on how to fix the sick and deviant is boring. You’re really seeking to understand why you’re so drawn to it. Which is far more interesting.”

She lets a faint smile slip free. “That’s a logical leap. Of course I’m drawn to it, and fascinated with my study. Understanding your compulsion to punish and kill people—”

“I’ve never killed people.” None of them were human.

Her lips thin. “Why traps, Grayson?”

Her question tenses my shoulders. This isn’t what I want to talk about. “Why not traps? Aren’t we all victims of some sort of trap? A wife trapped in an unhappy marriage. A child trapped in a loveless family. A woman trapped in a profitless, unfulfilling career.” My gaze drops to her mouth. Those satin pink lips twitch.

“Those are theoretical. And they’re not life threatening.”

“They can be…”

“But your traps are designed to take lives, Grayson. Your victims forced to participate against their will.”

I release a lengthy breath. “It’s never against their will. Their choices led them there. They’re responsible and should be held accountable for their actions. I only provide a resolution. I offer them a final choice, a way to redeem themselves, which is more than any god would grant them.”

Her hand inches toward her pocket, but then she rests it on the armrest, instead. “Do you see yourself as a god? Granting your victims redemption?”

She can do better than this. She is better than this tired psychobabble. “No, I see myself as a hunter. They’re not victims; they’re predators stalking the woods in search of prey. If they fall into the hunter’s trap, then they were in a place they never should have been.”

She wets her lips. Her tongue peeks out to tease me. One of her sins: seduction.

“This room is designed like a trap,” I continue. “You lure the mentally ill in with promises of recovery and freedom. Maybe not physical freedom, but freedom from their demons. Once they’re shackled—” I tug at my restraint “—you feast on their horror stories in the name of psychology. You feed off them, sating your own twisted curiosities. And then you publish your papers on the poor damned souls that never had a chance. You reap glory off the murderers and from the victims themselves.”

Her sigh is heavy and breathy. It slides over my skin, making the distance between us unbearable. “Have you always been this judgmental?”

This line of questioning is getting us nowhere. “No, but I’ve always liked puzzles.”

“Puzzles,” she repeats. “Why is that?”

A memory from my childhood flickers across my vision, unbidden. I tamp it down. “I like the mechanics, the way each piece has a purpose, a place. The way it simply belongs.”

London uncrosses her legs and straightens her back, sitting taller in the chair. She’s so petite, she could curl up in it. “Where do you feel you belong, Grayson?”

Oh, if she only knew how loaded that question is. But it’s not my purpose for why I’m here; this isn’t about my story. This is about her. Where she fits into the puzzle. It’s time we start peeling back her layers.

I hold her gaze, unblinking. “With you, Dr. Noble. I belong right here with you.”

A tense battle of wills arcs between us, where neither one is willing to be the first to look away.