The mask doesn't slip—not exactly. I see through it. One predator seeing another. He's learned to wear harmlessness so well that most people stop looking past it, but I'm not most people and I've been reading men who hide what they are since I was old enough to watch my father do it.
His eyes find me and hold, and in that fraction of a second I see everything. The obsession. The fixation. The absolute certainty that whatever story he's telling himself is the only story that matters.
He thinks we're the same.
The recognition is there. I see you, and you see me, and we both know what we are. He wants the acknowledgment. Wants me to nod, or smile, or give him some sign that predators share a language the prey don't speak.
I give him nothing.
I look past him. He's nothing. A mark on the window I've already forgotten.
The line moves on. He turns away. The moment passes.
I've seen enough.
I'm still at the table when Kent arrives twelve minutes later, briefcase in hand, suit immaculate despite the early hour. He settles into the chair across from me and sets a folder on the table between us. Thick, organized, months of legal work in one place.
"The motion's filed," he says without preamble. "Formal request for a security classification review. Hope's documentation gives us everything we need to argue your current restriction level can't be justified."
"When?"
"Hearing's next month." He flips open the folder. "Forty-seven pages of protocol violations, eighteen instances of backdated authorization, a sedation pattern that would make any medical board uncomfortable. Civil commitment means the facility has to prove their restrictions are necessary. Her reports make that argument collapse."
"What happens if it goes through?"
"Classification downgrade. Reduced sedation. Expanded privileges. It's not release, Jude, but it's the first real crack, and once it's open I can build through it." Kent's eyes meet mine. "Everything we've been working toward is in that hearing room."
Next month. Four weeks and a hearing room. I've been building toward this for three years, and it's closer than it's ever been.
But all I can think about is Casey's eyes through the window.
"There's a patient," I say. "Ward A. Casey Robin."
Kent's pen stops moving. "I know the name. The guy with erotomania, if I remember the file. Transferred in eight months ago."
Erotomania. The clinical word for a man whose brain rewrites a woman's warmth into proof she wants him. A held door becomes desire. A smile becomes a confession. Rejection becomes a test he has to pass. The delusion is total, and nothing she does or doesn't do will change the story he's already written.
"He's fixated on Hope."
I don't let Kent hear what's underneath. The want. The rage that's been building since I first noticed how Casey's body oriented toward her in the corridor.
"Fixated how?"
"The way I was fixated on Frederick's victims. The way every man I ever killed was fixated on the women they thought belonged to them." I lean forward. "He thinks she wants him. Thinks her warmth is invitation. And his medication is slipping. I can see it in the way he tracks her now. Less controlled. More certain."
Kent sets down his pen. His expression shifts—the lawyer replacing the friend.
"Have you reported this to anyone?"
"Who would I report it to? Kennedy? Hudson? Don't be stupid, Kent." My voice stays level but the edges sharpen. "The system that's supposed to protect her is the system that's trying to destroy her."
"Then we work within the system." Kent's voice is steady. "I can file a privileges restriction request. Flag Casey as a potentialthreat, get his movement limited, create documentation that shows the facility was warned."
"How long?"
"I can have it on Hudson's desk by Monday."
Monday is four days from now.
