Page 41 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Aaron stilled his pen over his notebook.Intimacy can become a weapon?Was that whathewas doing? With Kenny? He craved Kenny far beyond what he’d ever experienced before. It wasn’t just sex, either. Nor lust. It was more than that. He wanted him close. To touch him.Kisshim. He wanted Kenny to care about him. Wanted his warmth to seep into the cold places inside him. Wanted his affection, histenderness,to focus on him and him only.He wanted to consume every single thought Kenny had.

Wasn’t that an obsession? A craving? An addiction?

More importantly, was it a weapon?

“Take this case.” Vinnie pointed his red laser at the screen and rattled on about a real life case of a survivor turning predator, and Aaron switched off his own personal experience to learn that of another’s. Maybe it might help him understand some of his own lingering trauma. And so he listened intently for the next forty minutes.

“And therefore,” Vinnie concluded, “understanding theintersection of trauma and behaviour is crucial. Because if we can’t recognise the signs, we risk letting the cycle repeat.” He clicked to the next slide:Discussion Prompt: How can we prevent survivor trauma from evolving into harm?Vinnie scanned the room. “Thoughts?”

Somehow, Aaron got through that discussion. He knew firsthand the psyche of a survivor, and much of what Vinnie had said cemented his knowledge of howhefelt as one. The following seminar group was brutal, though, having to detach from his own experience. But he managed, unscathed, and emerged out onto campus at lunchtime. He checked his phone. No response from Kenny. Aaron sighed, slipping it in his back pocket to tuck in beside the folded report onChild Aburning a hole through to his skin.

“Fancy lunch?” Mel asked him as they stepped out onto the green. “We can go off campus.”

“I’m gonna go to the library.”

Mel widened her eyes. “The library? What for?”

“Getting a head start on this research project.”

“You are such a swot.” She shoved him playfully. “All right. How about I go get us some snacks from the campus shop and I’ll meet you in there?” She then pulled out her vape and handed it to Aaron.

Aaron took it with gratitude. He hadn’t had a vape all weekend, and it was only then he realised he hadn’t missed it. Barely even noticed not having a smoke. His addiction was fickle. He’d replaced one with another. His fixation with making Kenny break his own rules.

“Yeah. All right.” Aaron watched her trot off, then took a drag, blowing out the vape and making his way across campus.

The university library loomed at the far edge like a shrine to knowledge, its imposing art déco façade dominating the skyline. Massive, symmetrical, and framed by tall, slim windows, it exuded an air of reverence, almost as if it were a temple toacademia. Wide stone steps led up to heavy glass doors, through which hundreds of students filtered every day, voices hushed as they disappeared into its cavernous interior.

Inside, the library spanned five expansive floors, each one a maze of possibilities. The ground floor housed the essentials: the front desk, self-service kiosks, and rows of computers humming quietly from constant use. Further back, open-plan study spaces buzzed with whispered conversations, while larger tables strewn with laptops, scattered notes, and half-empty coffee cups were the standard view of a well utilised study space.

Aaron climbed the spiral staircase rising through the heart of the building, passing floor after floor of neatly categorised shelves stretched endlessly, spines a rainbow of titles promising to unlock any subject under the sun. Core texts for every course the university offered resided here, from dense medical manuals to obscure treatises on Victorian literature. Modern comforts punctuated the space. Ergonomic chairs. Communal study pods with glass partitions. Charging stations that seemed perpetually occupied.

The third floor, quieter and more secluded, was where he needed to be. The domain of criminal psychology, where rows of books promised insight into the darkest corners of human behaviour. It would have everything Aaron was looking for, and nothing he needed for his coursework.

His real objective lay elsewhere.

Aaron wasn’t here to research material for their extended project or to skim-read journal articles on contemporary forensic techniques. What he wanted, what heneeded, was every book, every scrap of information ever written on the Howell case. Kenny authored some of those books. Clinical, academic dissections of the case that Aaron couldn’t bring himself to read before now. The authorities had shielded him from the worst of it. The rest he’d avoided himself in some foolish hope to cling onto the rose-tinted view he had of his childhood.

But what Aaron truly sought was what he had half of folded in his back pocket. Kenny’s assessment. His analysis ofChild A. He needed to know what else existed, what other pieces of the puzzle might reveal themselves if he looked hard enough. Theories, parallels, other cases where children had been born into horror and what had become of them. So he ran his fingers along the spines of books, stopping on a familiar name.Lyons. The title below:The Psychology of Legacy: The Impact of Familial Crimes on the Innocent.

His mouth dried.

This was the real reason he was here. To find out who he was—or who the world thought he might become. He pulled it out, along with some random others, then headed over to a quiet table overlooking a window. With an intrepid inhale, he read.

He’d barely started before a shadow loomed over his table. Expecting it to be Mel, he didn’t look up from his reading. But when the shadow hovered, lingered, he finally peeked up from the book.

“Hey.” Taylor tucked his hands in his jeans’ pockets.

Aaron fell back in his seat, staring up at him. He seemed different now.Flawed. Blemished. Marred by what he may or may not have done and by the company he kept. Aaron twirled Mel’s pen between his fingers and waited.

“Can I sit?” Taylor pointed to the chair opposite.

“Shouldn’t you be at placement?”

“Yeah. Technically, I am. Said I was chasing a story here.”

“Better not be me.”

Taylor snorted as if what Aaron said was absurd, but there was still an undercurrent of uncertainty in his stance. “Can I sit?” he asked again.

---