Page 62 of Psychopath

“You scare me more,” Quinn fired back.

“I shouldn’t have done that last week. I’m sorry, but I have no desire to hurt you.”

“How do I know that?” Quinn pushed Zane’s chest to get distance.

Zane obliged, retreating a step. “I’d never—”

“You say the right things, you look at me the right way, but I don’t know who you are, Zane. I don’t know what you want from me.” Quinn swallowed. “Look. I’ll talk to the prison officers about Mackie.”

Zane rolled his eyes. “They all just think he’s some soppy mutt, all eager to help and needy of their attention, but I see it. I see it when the others talk about their sessions; I see the jealousy and the betrayal in his face. He thought something happened between us last week—”

“He was concerned you had hurt me.”

“No, he was concerned I had got there first. Touched you first. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”

The words tugged at Quinn’s fragile heart. He scrunched his face and closed his eyes. He couldn’t risk Mackie and Zane coming to blows, so he had to choose who to believe and who to keep on the study.

A warming sensation crept up his cheek, and he slowly reopened his eyes and looked into Zane’s. They were no longer swamped by raging black but were soft brown, and they held Quinn’s gaze.

Zane had cupped his face, and instead of jolting away, Quinn leaned into his palm and breathed out steadily. The touch was gentle. Zane’s thumb ghosted his cheekbone, then his mouth. Quinn’s eyes fluttered when Zane traced the ellipse of his slightly parted lips. His skin tingled, and he couldn’t stop the shiver that quaked him. Zane stopped with his thumb over the mole by Quinn’s eye.

There was no cocky smile from Zane.

“Trust me,” Zane said softly. “Please, Quinn.”

Quinn nodded and stepped away from Zane. Zane didn’t protest. He let Quinn go.

“I’ll—I’ll see if I can put some other measures in place when I’m talking with Mackie.”

“Like what?”

“Have an officer inside the room like I do with Virgil.”

“The prison is short-staffed enough as it is. They can’t spare someone for that every Monday. You have to remove him from the study, say he wasn’t a good fit, say whatever you need to say, just don’t be alone with him again.”

Quinn winced and returned to his chair. Other than the high-flyer’s, Harris and Virgil, Mackie had been a promising participant, but unlike Harris, and even Virgil, Mackie had made his blood run cold.

“Okay,” Quinn breathed.

“You’ll remove him?”

Quinn nodded. “Now can we get on with this?” he said, gesturing to the stack of paper on the table.

“Sure, can I make one more suggestion?”

“What is it?” Quinn sighed.

“When you tell him, make sure someone else is there with you, two officers preferably. He might attack you.”

Quinn cocked his jaw left to right, then nodded.

Zane reached for the empathy test and began filling out the questions straight away.

Quinn frowned as he watched him.

Zane Black didn’t fit comfortably into the category of psychopath, either that or he was just a bloody good one.

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