Sebastian nods. Dalton and I exchange a look. It’s not up to us, of course. He will stay. The council let him come, knowing his backstory, and they aren’t going to allow us to kick him out. But if Sebastian thinks Dalton has that power, it makes things easier for us.
“We’ve gone through the whole ‘I’m not a threat’ routine,” I say, with a roll of my eyes.
I actually feel a little bad about that eye roll, seeing Sebastian flush, but this too is something I need to hide. I think about what it would be like, to do a terrible thing at such a young age, to realize there’s a crossed wire in your brain and that no amount of rehabilitation will undo what you’ve done. I know what it’s like to do a terrible thing, without the excuse of youth or mental illness.
If Sebastian had done this during a psychotic break, like from untreated schizophrenia, I would have complete sympathy for him. I have met suspects who’ve done that, and I have witnessed their horror on realizing it later. It is as if they’d been trapped in their own bodies, demon possessed; and now they are forever trapped with the consequences and the memories.
Alternatively, I have zero sympathy for someone who murders while high or drunk. You chose to imbibe, and the outcome is on you, the same as shooting Blaine is on me, whatever my emotional state.
So where does Sebastian fall? He knew what he was doing. He was not experiencing a mental break. This is his mental state. I realize that it’s a mental illness, but he is still culpable. I need to think more about it. Research it.
There is also the very real possibility that, duh, Sebastian is lying through his teeth. He’s a sociopath. He shows what I want to see. He knows the role to play. Perhaps it should seem that obviously I wouldn’t believe him. Yet nothing I read in those articles led me to think he was that type of sociopath. Otherwise, why would he have been so quick to plead guilty when caught?
I know better than to believe his seemingly genuine displays of remorse and frustration. I need for him to understand that if this is a front, it’s not fooling me. So I must roll my eyes when I tell Dalton that Sebastian has been insisting he’s not a threat.
“Yeah, that’s a shocker,” Dalton says. “Usually, when we find someone here who committed a crime, they can’t wait to tell us how they’re going to do it again.”
“Sarcasm warranted,” Sebastian says. “But you may do anything—anything—to protect people from me. Put any restrictions you want on me.”
“How about making you take a roommate?” Dalton says. “To watch over you.”
“That’s not why I refused one, sir. It’s the opposite. I…” He takes a deep breath. “At the age of eleven, I decided that the only way to escape my parents was to kill them. Not because they were abusive. I had everything … except what I wanted. I was a spoiled, rich brat who murdered his parents because they showed him the world when all he wanted was regular school and friends and sports. That’s what you see. What I see? That exact same kid—I’m making no excuses for him. But in my head at the time, it made sense. To that kid, it was a reasonable solution to his problem. Up here”—he taps his forehead—“I can never get rid of that kid. No medication helps me grow a conscience. I needed years of therapy to be able to put myself in someone else’s shoes and say ‘How would I feel if that happened to me?’ You do that naturally. I cannot. I never will. It takes a conscious and—to be bluntly honest—exhausting effort. If you’re in front of me in the morning coffee line, and there’s one muffin left, I immediately think of all the ways I could get that muffin. Not kill you, of course, but only because it’s unnecessary and excessive. Before I trick you into leaving the line, I must stop and remind myself that you have as much right to that muffin as me. I can be trusted never to hurt you for that last muffin. I cannot, at this point, be trusted not to hurt a roommate who really, really pisses me off.”
“So you might smother a roommate who snores too much?”
“I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, sir, but the answer is ‘I really hope not.’” He looks from Dalton to me. “I will take any room, if it means I’m alone. I don’t care if it’s a tent or a storage closet. Think of me as an alcoholic who doesn’t want to live next door to the bar. I know that sucks for you guys—one more person needing extra supervision—but I will help in any way I can. Speaking of alcohol, I’ll be nineteen in two months, but even when I’m legally allowed to drink, I’ll abstain. I took the chopping job because I wanted to pull my weight, but if you’re concerned about me with a hatchet, put me on sanitation. I have avoided being a ‘joiner’ because, frankly, I was terrified of giving myself away. Now that you know what I am, I would love to join in community stuff … unless you’d rather I didn’t. I know Ms. Radcliffe was a psychiatrist, so please feel free to give her my full background—my therapy file, too, if you can—and I will see her however often you’d like. Therapy has helped. I’d actually like to continue, if that’s possible.”
“Isabel was a counseling psychologist,” I say. “She has no experience with your issue. We do have someone who does. A psychiatrist who’s an expert in … well, killers, actually. Sociopathy and psychopathy, in particular.”
Sebastian’s brows shoot up. “Seriously? Does that mean … are there … others?” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I shouldn’t ask that, and I guess it’s a bit ironic, a killer worryi
ng there might be other killers around.”
“Our expert is here because his work brought him into danger,” I say. “Not because we have need of his services.”
“Sure, I’ll talk to him, then. I’d love that, actually. A new shrink means new ideas. New techniques. If he’s okay with helping me, then tell him everything. Please.”
“He’s already guessed at your problem.”
His brows rise higher. “Really?” He sounds almost excited. “That’s a good sign. May I ask who it is? Devon in the bakery gives off a therapist vibe.”
“Mathias.”
He blinks. “The … scary butcher?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Uh…” He gives a shaky laugh. “Besides the fact that he’s at the top of my who-else-might-be-a-killer list? Are you, uh, sure he’s what he says he is?”
“We are.”
“Okay, well, then therapy with scary-butcher dude it is. I’ll do whatever it takes to stay.”
“Why?” Dalton asks.
Sebastian looks at him, and Dalton says, “Why is it so important to stay here? No one found you down south. Sure, they were looking, but you’d avoided it, and now you pay to come up here, willing to live under whatever rules we impose, and do the worst jobs we have. Why?”
“When my parents took me out of school—it interfered with their travels—I begged to be allowed to go back. I said I’d do anything. Send me to a military school and leave me there year-round. I just wanted to be a normal kid. Now that I’m free, I thought I could finally have that. Be a normal kid. Go to university. Get a job. I can’t. Not after what I did. I know I can’t hide up here forever, but I paid almost everything I had for these couple of years. A chance to go someplace where no one knows who I am, where I can be just another face in a crowd. Where I can finally experience ‘normal.’ I’ll have to go back. I’ll have to admit who I am and face that and deal with whatever comes from it. I know that. People dream of all the exotic places they could go if they had the money. I had it. I went all those places with my parents, and none of them gave me the one thing I want. This does. It’s my vacation to normal, and I know if I do anything to screw it up, I’m gone. That’s the biggest leverage you have over me. Threaten to send me back. It doesn’t matter what wiring is missing in my brain—I understand that, because it’s about me. Use that, and I guarantee, you’ll never have a moment’s trouble.”