This sounds strangely accurate and borderline uncomfortable for my situation. Being dissected like this, unraveling, is not something I’m used to.
“However, when you use the same medicine for too long, the dose must increase for them to stay stable. There are those among you, perhaps even in this room, who understand this instinctively.”
Something he just said must be funny because the class breaks out in laughter. I don’t get it because he is right.
“But there are others out there who learned how to manipulate the desire. They push the correct buttons, follow the right steps, and understand the circumstances. The world for them is merely a collection of variables, ready to be manipulated for their…well-being, if you may.”
I find myself playing and replaying the entire fourteen-minute video, rewinding every time, until I could recite the speech by heart. The phrases blur into one another, and the sound becomes useless because everything is already carved into my brain.
I stare at the screen, unable to move or think about anything but what is on it.
What gives me unfamiliar chills is that he understands the situation, his predisposition toward understanding psychopaths and making them do…well, whatever. And whatever is exactly what I need, whatever is better than the state my brain is currently in.
If his words are not just random theories, this could actually work. The way he describes his subjects is a pure description of me, like somehow, through the screen, he cracked open my skull and read everything inside my brain.
I open my team’s private channel, typing in the message that will soon be the bane of my existence.
Victoria: Azrael Lennox. I want everything on this one. Full profile. Class schedules, building access logs, faculty group chats. I want to know everything, from his credentials to the side of the bed he sleeps on. If he’s made even the slightest sound since the day he was born, I want to know what he said.
For a moment, I pause.What the fuck am I getting myself involved in?But I don’t care. This might be my last hope.
CHAPTER 3
VICTORIA
Ididn’t sleep at all.
Every time I was about to call it a night, the image of the Professor’s face pushed away the exhaustion burning behind my eyes.
By 4 a.m., I’d memorized the faculty building’s layout. One hour later, I knew which hallway had the busted security cameras. I know everything that is public about him: class schedules, university staff information. I even managed to get the address of an archived forum, which Alex was promptly instructed to revive. I dug through everything.
Each article he published, that off-hand comment during a panel, the shift in posture while he speaks—I know it all.
His lectures are nothing short of a fascinating case study dissection. He doesn’t promote unproven theories that are nothing more than puked up ideas. On the contrary. He talks like he is well familiar with the subject, almost like he lives it himself.
Azrael talks about mind controlling, psychopathic behavior that could be adjusted, theories that could be applied to a deranged mind, and eventually, make it function normally. Or atleast give it the illusion it’s feeling something, which is a good enough option for me.
He keeps on mentioning some sort of step that could lock—or unlock—the dead parts of the human brain, with such confidence that I can almost believe he’s done it before. And all I can hear is the impossible—a promise of a sensation I thought was gone forever. My way out of all this fucking mess.
It’s like his entire being was put on this planet just to fulfill my need, to break me and build me back up. Is it unusual to want to be destroyed? Probably. But after what happened last night, there is no question I need to fix something inside my brain before I have to do damage control on the consequences.
For over a decade now, I’d been numb. None of the emotions that make people feel alive ever reached me, and everything blurred into a long sequence of empty events.
The months turn into years, while the moments when I feel alive are so few and far between that I’m surprised I’m still functioning like a proper human being. Nothing, apart from the pleasure of wine and the thrill from the kill, can stir up any sort of entertainment in my life.
People’s presence is insufferable, interactions with them even more so. I despise everything that involves someone else’s presence, jobs aside, and living among the others feels like a curse. I’m drowning in this existence, and the thought of building a life alone in the middle of the woods is increasingly appealing.
In a few words, I’m a ghost trapped in my body, incapable of finding a way to come back to life. Until now.
Hour after hour, I continue doing my research on what the Professor’s life looks like, until Alex pulls me out of my train of thought with an impromptu call.
“What?” I answer, too eager to hang up and continue with my little project.
“I got his profile. Very pathetic, if you ask me, nothing special. Uni, two gap years after his PhD, and then became a professor. Pretty smart, but I wouldn’t put him above average.”
Something in his voice tells me he’s not actually believing it and there is something he’s holding back from me.
“Are you sure that’s it?” I demand skeptically.