Page 115 of Psychopath

Quinn shook his head. “I don’t know. He said he responded to things differently, the smell of death, rot and decay didn’t bother him, and he actively liked the smell of blood.”

Quinn told Virgil he was about to start the slide show, then clicked play on his laptop.

“Jesus,” Doctor Hart hissed. “What did he say his earliest memory was?”

“At six years old, he found a dead deer on the road, dragged it into the woods and conducted ‘experiments’ on it.”

“But he doesn’t remember anything before he was six?”

“No… I couldn’t find out anything about his parents. He doesn’t remember them.”

“Quinn,” Virgil said. “Everything okay?”

He pressed the button. “You’re doing fine. Now, I’m going to play you some sounds.”

Again, chaos reigned, but one sound, a dripping, lit up his frontal lobe and his eyes dilated.

Quinn bit his lip, then pressed down on the microphone.

“What I want you to do for me now is to close your eyes.”

Virgil frowned at the camera but eventually shut his eyes with a huff.

“Now what?”

Quinn swallowed. “I want you to picture Luca. His face. Him smiling that wicked smile you told me about.”

Virgil’s face relaxed. His eyelids moved, and the chaos, the violent flashes, faded. They didn’t disappear altogether, but it was as if someone had slid a filter over them, calming their harshness.

“Luca,” Doctor Hart said. “The boyfriend?”

Quinn nodded.

“Where are you?” Virgil whimpered inside the scanner. His brow pinched, and he scrunched his eyes. The battle in his brain restarted, with flashes and sparks, and he opened his eyes.

“We’re done,” Quinn told him.

“Good,” Virgil replied.

Doctor Hart leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “You really know how to pick them, don’t you, Quinn? I know who Virgil is, what he did… I think everyone knows, but I wasn’t expecting that. I thought his emotions would be muted like Harris’s, but it was the opposite, if anything they’re overactive, untameable. He doesn’t appear to have any control over them, but when he thought of Luca…” He blinked. “You saw the difference, right?”

Quinn nodded.

Luca dampened it all.

Cleo tapped on the window, startling Quinn. Virgil stood behind her with Simon, cuffed and eyeing the two police officers that had entered the room.

“We’re out of bottled water.” Cleo said upon opening the door. “Could you buy us a couple of bottles from the canteen?”

“Sure,” Quinn said, gathering his things and the print-offs from Doctor Hart. He turned to Doctor Hart and gave him a warm smile. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Doctor Hart said, shaking his hand. “I look forward to reading your findings once it’s all written up.”

Quinn thanked the nurses, then hurried ahead of Virgil and his escort to buy some water. He got back to the van first, and Clint slipped out of the driver’s seat, flapping a leaflet in his face.

“About time,” Clint said. “Zane’s been bitching his head off.”

He unlocked the back, and Quinn jumped inside. He knelt down, grabbing a bottle from the bag, but whipped his head up at the startled cry from Clint.

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