Chapter 18 Dante
London, UK
When I took this job, I knew I’d be wearing masks, sliding into borrowed skins, each one teaching me a fresh shade of deceit. Today’s skin is an odd one—a so-called expert researcher with a taste for unconventional psychology.
Tracking down Bennett Johnson wasn’t difficult. According to his schedule, his lectures have ended for the day. I close my umbrella with a sharp snap, flicking the rain off its edges before taking in the damp sprawl of London around me.
The city breathes in grayscale. Students hurry past, shoulders hunched beneath umbrellas and raincoats, their movements a rhythm to the low growl of traffic that thrums through the mist. A distant clock tower chimes, its sound cutting cleanly through the drizzle.
There’s an odd kind of electricity in the air, a static born of intellect and decay, ambition and fatigue. Books are clutched to chests like shields, breaths turn to ghosts in the cold, and every hurried step slaps against the slick cobblestones, echoing off centuries-old stone.
This is London in its truest form—a city of secrets and intellect, of rain-streaked windows and minds too heavy with thought. For a moment, I feel as though I’ve stepped into a scene from Sherlock.
Turning away from the street, I press my palm to the heavy door and push it open. Warm, dry air greets me, faintly scented with paper and polish. I wipe my feet on the worn brown mat, my fingers tying the umbrella into a knot and looping it loosely around my wrist before I lift my gaze.
Inside, the university feels like a place caught between eras, an institution suspended in amber. The corridors are long and reverberant, lined with portraits whose painted eyes seem to follow every movement.
Light spills through stained glass in muted shards of blue and gold, tinting the world in a kind of quiet solemnity. Coffee cups, half-full and forgotten, sit like tiny monuments to exhaustion beside stacks of open books.
I move through the labyrinth of hallways toward the psychology wing, rehearsing my lines under my breath. My approach was spontaneous, but I’ve learned that impulse can often mimic authenticity better than any script.
When I first reached out to Bennett, I played the part perfectly—a passionate, obsessive researcher with a fixation on the precise areas of psychology he’s known for. It hadn’t taken much to convince him. After all, I’ve always been skilled at sounding like a lunatic when I need to.
The man lives and breathes his work. Every second of his life seems consumed by it, devoured by a hunger only obsession could feed.
He has no family, and if he does have friends, I’m willing to bet they don’t exist outside the confines of this university.
The small portion of his free time goes into the same cycle of plotting, researching, and building on his private fascinations.
It’s not passion. It’s compulsion. That kind of extreme, single-minded dedication always borders on psychosis.
There’s a strong chance that when he realizes the real reason I’ve arranged this meeting, he’ll tell me to fuck off.
I’ve thought of a plan B.
But I’d rather not use it. I want this handled quietly, cleanly, with no theatrics, no unnecessary noise. Not because I’m tired, and not because I’ve lost interest.
It’s because I’m overstimulated, and that, in my case, is far more dangerous.
After my call with Estella ended, I sat there, staring at the darkened screen, its glow fading into black. I must have spent an hour like that—frozen, hollowed out, my pulse a steady drumbeat of want. The silence was unbearable. She lingered in my mind, warm, feverish, and impossible to ignore.
Then, I repeated what I did while we talked.
And again.
And again.
And fucking again.
I’ve lost count of how many times, but I don’t need the number. I feel it in every part of me, the aftermath still clawing through my body—I’m wrung out, my palms throbbing from how hard I rubbed them against my dick. Right now, I’m the clearest symptom of the madness she’s awakened in me.
I feel like a fucking teenager again—restless, reckless, unable to control the flood of want. A grown man, undone by a dangerous obsession that’s dug its teeth too deep to pull out now.
This trip doesn’t make it any easier.
There were moments when I almost canceled the flight to London entirely—moments when the thought of Barcelona, of her, clawed at my chest so hard I nearly gave in. I could see it so clearly: walking into her space, touching her, doing exactly what she’s been daring me to.
But I forced that urge down. Bent it. Contained it.
First, London. The professor. The meeting.
Then, when all of that’s done, I’ll go to Barcelona.
A small part of me keeps trying to be rational, to find something positive in this distance. It’s a dim light, flickering and fragile, but it’s there. Maybe it’s good that we’re both forced to wait.
The craving keeps evolving, turning meaner, sharper, more insistent with every minute that slips by.
That hunger is its own twisted paradox—pain laced with pleasure, a slow, intoxicating torture neither of us intends to outrun.
At his office door, I knock, forcing my mind into clarity. I give myself a quick, silent slap on the cheek, as if I can knock the haze out of my skull. A muffled voice answers, granting permission. I twist the handle and step inside.
The office greets me with an explosion of quiet chaos.
Books everywhere—stacked on the floor, piled on the desk, even balanced precariously on the windowsill.
None of them are arranged, yet somehow the disorder feels deliberate.
The air smells of old paper and bergamot tea, with a faint undertone of rain seeping through a cracked window.
Dust drifts lazily in the warm light, tiny golden flecks suspended like thoughts that never quite landed.
“Ah, James!” Bennett’s voice breaks through the stillness, bright and unrestrained as I close the distance between us.
A wide smile spreads across his face as he stands, sweeping the clutter of folders and loose papers into his bag.
“It’s so good to finally meet you. I’ve been counting the minutes to our meeting. ”
Oh, me too.
I return the smile, measured and professional, the kind of expression that conceals rather than reveals.
He extends a hand, and I take it, noting the too-firm grip and the faint tremor beneath the enthusiasm.
Up close, he looks almost identical to the man in the file I studied, but the glint in his eyes tells a different story.
That’s where the madness lives—a feverish gleam of devotion that has gone too far.
He moves with erratic energy, words spilling from him in restless bursts. He talks about his latest project, about breakthroughs and theories, about sleepless nights chasing brilliance.
If he only knew.
Before I can shape a single response, he is already nodding toward the door, urging me forward with a quick sweep of his hand. I fall into step behind him, though a brief pulse of confusion stirs in my chest. He must notice it, because he lets out a laugh that rings high and nervous.
“I thought we could take our conversation somewhere more private,” he says, locking the office door behind us with a metallic click. “Somewhere more comfortable.”
“I agree,” I answer with a tone that feels flat and almost bored, even though my pulse is tightening beneath the surface. His constant stream of chatter scrapes against my patience, stirring something dark inside me—a reckless urge, pressing in close and whispering for a way out.
My mind has been unpredictable lately, so I can’t tell how long I’ll manage to suppress it.
“There’s a cafeteria near the university. A beautiful place. Always manages to focus me on my work. Quiet, cozy, just right for us,” he explains, adjusting his glasses with the practiced motion of a man who has done it a thousand times, a subtle glint flashing across the lenses.
We move through the corridor in near silence, students and other professors drifting past us while he offers each of them a brief farewell. Only once the flow thins does he finally turn to me, a faint gleam of curiosity flickering in his eyes.
“What do you have to say about sanity?”
The question lands like a coin tossed into still water, a tiny splash sending widening circles across the quiet. I draw in a slow breath, letting the air expand inside my chest before releasing it in a quiet exhale.
That is an interesting question. Far too interesting. Especially for someone like me. The irony does not slip past me; it catches and claws at me instead, sharp in its intention and impossible to ignore.
“I believe that—” I begin, the words snagging against something jagged inside my throat.
I sift through possible phrasing, hunting for a version of the truth that does not sound unhinged.
When I look at him, his eyes shimmer with an unnatural brightness, like sunlight trapped in glass.
In an instant, the urge to hide slips away, peeled off and left bare by that almost manic glimmer.
Maybe this is the right moment to tell the truth.
“Sanity is just the mind’s way of keeping you safe from what you really are,” I say finally, and his brows draw together, thoughtful. “Strip it away, and all that’s left is the part of you that doesn’t pretend anymore.”
A smirk plays at the corners of his mouth. The thoughtful mask melts into something else—something almost admiring.
“Trauma,” he murmurs, as if testing the taste of the word.
“What?” I ask, thrown off balance.
“I sense the trauma beneath the composure,” he says softly, his tone drifting somewhere between fascination and pity. “The detachment in your tone isn’t intellectual. It’s defensive.”
A pressure blooms in my chest, tight and constricting, spreading outward until it fills me. I swallow against the dryness in my throat, the air suddenly too heavy, too thick to breathe.