I hover outside the room for a moment longer, just to make sure. At Lawson’s silence, I take off through the parking lot.
Maybe I’m going soft. Before London, I wouldn’t have left Lawson alive.
I understand what love is; the emotion, the feeling. Chemicals in the brain—the same chemicals that make up personalities and disorders. At a certain age, it’s nearly impossible to change who we are and how we behave.
But if something significant occurs—chemical-altering emotions felt for the first time—would that impact the chemistry of the brain? Would that change the person, the disorder?
People wake from comas. People who have never been violent suddenly commit murder. And psychopaths feel love for the first time.
What the fuck is the world coming to.
I suppose these are questions for a psychologist.
I just happen to know one. Intimately.
10
DEPENDENCE
LONDON
The low hum of the fish tank fills my office.
Without the usual noise from the waiting room, the sound becomes pronounced—loud in the too-quiet room. I recline in my chair and close my eyes, letting the drone settle over me, soothing my thoughts.
The patients are gone. The day is done.
After an intense afternoon, I’ve successfully escaped the officer detail Agent Nelson sent to retrieve me at the airport, the two FBI agents he has escort me on occasion. The ones I know are always watching. They’ve gone from trying to be politely inconspicuous, to downright unavoidable. Hovering in the building lobby, near the reception desk. One even tried to camp out inside my office today.
Thankfully, the agents were called to Rockland for a more urgent matter. No allowance for babysitting a psychologist in the FBI’s budget. Apparently, they’re also too economical to spring for plane tickets, leaving Agent Nelson on a slow commute backto Maine. Which could be my only chance to make contact with Grayson.
Maybe that was Agent Nelson’s intention. After everything that happened between us in Hollows, I doubt he has much trust in me. Which means there may be a chance his patsy agents are still lurking nearby, watching.
I could go now. Right now. Don my disguise to the Blue Clover. Hope that Grayson senses my need…
Or I could be patient. Trust that Grayson and I are still working in tandem.
Yet are we?
Ever since I learned of Lydia, a sort of disconnect has fallen over me like a gauzy veil, a feeling of detachment from Grayson that’s frightening. The more I wonder about the girl—the woman—who could’ve been, the more I allow myself to see and experience through her.
I’m fascinated.
And I’m terrified.
I tighten the string around my index finger to the point of pain. It relieves some of the tension pressing at my head as I swivel my chair back and forth, gaze cast out the window overlooking downtown.
Before I can proceed with any plan, I need some reassurance. That’s reasonable. I’m not some love-struck teen fretting over her boyfriend’s lack of communication; I’m suffering the pangs of withdrawal. Like with any drug, lust-sex-love floods the brain with endorphins. And when it’s stripped away, the craving doesn’t linger, it claws.
I’m addicted to Grayson, and the way he makes me feel.
And yet, I fear him just as powerfully.
It’s unhealthy, but there’s no such thing as a healthy relationship. Any interaction with another person that alters chemicals in the brain is going to be risky. Our behavior changes when in a romantic relationship. That’s just the science of it.
Love—that all-consuming love artists pen sonnets about—is a short-lived emotion.
That kind of love can’t be sustained. It’s wild and passionate and consumes you like a wildfire tears through a forest, burning hotter and raging rampant until its only course is to die out. That’s what Grayson and I are, a wild brushfire. And we’ll burn through each other until our resources are expired.
