Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rheda
The viewing room hits me the same way it always does, too clean, too controlled.
I pull my jumper tighter around myself and press my chin briefly into the fabric, breathing in the lavender scent. I hold onto it for a second longer than I should, as if it might settle something that hasn’t stopped shifting since I woke up.
Mike is already halfway through a coffee when I enter, one foot hooked around the leg of his chair, talking around a mouthful of something I don’t look closely enough to identify.
Sean stands beside him, leaning over the monitors, one hand braced against the desk as he scrolls through something on the screen. Their voices overlap, low and steady.
I take my seat without interrupting, arranging my hands carefully on the desk.
Mike glances over at me briefly. “Morning.”
“Morning,” I reply quietly.
Sean lifts his cup slightly in acknowledgment, already turning back to the screen.
I keep my gaze on the guards as if that will steady my pulse but it’s nearly impossible. My whole body is acutely aware of him sitting behind the glass. I brace without even realising, failing when I try to drag in a controlled breath.
The seconds tick by.
I can’t look away much longer.
I turn to look at him, and I hate that I react before I’ve even properly seen him.
Heat climbs up my throat first—sharp, uninvited—spreading into my cheeks so quickly it almost stings.
I feel it happen, feel the flush bloom under my skin like I’ve been caught doing something I shouldn’t. My stomach dips just as fast.
I catalogue him before I can stop myself.
His head is tilted slightly backward, just enough that the line of his throat is visible beneath the collar of the jumpsuit. The fabric is still damp in places, clinging and drying in uneven patches that reshape him in ways I don’t want to notice, but I notice anyway.
His hair hangs loose today, darker where it hasn’t fully dried at the roots, pushed back from his face just enough to expose the sharpness of his jaw.
For a second, one sharp, irrational second, something in my chest seizes.
It’s brief, almost non-existent, but it looks almost...
familiar. Like I’ve been here before. Like I’ve seen this before.
My thighs press together, and immediately guilt drags through me.
I shouldn’t be thinking like this. Not here. Not about him.
This isn’t a lingering clinical curiosity; there is no analysis here.
I press my lips together, forcing my expression back into something neutral, but I know it doesn’t sit right across my face. My pulse picks up like it’s trying to betray me from the inside out.
Get a fucking grip.
The quiet hum of the monitors fills the space, pressing in around the edges of my focus. I try to anchor to it. To the screens. To the structure of this—watch, assess, record.
Not feel.
“Alright,” Peter says eventually, voice cutting cleanly through the stillness. He doesn’t look at us when he speaks, eyes still fixed through the glass. “That’s enough for tonight. Log what you’ve got and go. Rheda and I will take over from here.”
Mike exhales first, long and relieved, like he’s been holding it in without realising. He leans back from the desk, dragging a hand down his face. “Finally.”
Sean pushes himself upright beside him, rolling his shoulders out, working the tension free. He doesn’t say anything, but I can see the relief as he collects his belongings a beat too fast.
Chairs scrape softly against the floor as they move, the small, ordinary sounds of packing up filling the room—keys, a muttered comment, the rustle of fabric. It’s routine, practiced, easy in a way this never should be, and I lean into it.
The door opens and a brief spill of colder air pours into the room.
“Night,” Mike says, leading the way. Sean follows quickly but doesn’t say anything. He just lifts his hand and gives a jut of his chin. The door shuts with a dull, final click.
Peter turns to me.
“You look pale.” He says almost immediately like it’s been on his mind since he entered.
I blink, refocus, drag myself back into the room. He’s standing beside me, arms crossed, his gaze moving between my face and the glass.
“I’m fine,” I say. The lie comes out smooth.
His brow furrows slightly. “You sure?”
“Yes.” I meet his eyes this time, steady. “I’ve always been pale. I work too much.”
I force a smile, but he doesn’t return it. His gaze lingers for a beat too long, and then he exhales, dropping into his chair; the tension in his shoulders is visible even when he tries to settle.
His attention shifts back to the glass, jaw tightening.
“I can’t wait for the sixteenth,” he says, a faint smile touches his mouth. “Then we’re done with him.”
The words hang in the space between us, too neat for what they mean.
There’s a quiet shift beside me before I can respond.
He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, fingers searching before closing around something small.
A soft crinkle follows as he pulls out a packet of cigarettes, tapping one loose with practiced ease.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” he asks, already reaching for his lighter.
“Go for it,” I say.
“Nasty habit,” he adds, almost as an afterthought, slipping the cigarette between his lips. “Wife made me give it up about ten years ago.”
He flicks the dial; the flame flares briefly, sharp in the dimness before settling. The tip catches, ember blooming as he draws in slowly. The inhale stretches a second longer than it needs to, before he leans back into the chair, shoulders easing. Smoke leaves him in a thin, steady stream.
“Want one?” He tilts the pack toward me.
I shake my head. “No, thank you. I tried it once and it made me sick.”
A faint smile tugs at his mouth before it slips away as his attention pulls back to the glass.
“What did you make of yesterday?”
“Which part?” I reply quietly.
“True.” He huffs before dragging in another inhale. He holds it between his lips for what feels like an eternity before slowly exhaling. “All of it.”
I pause, letting my thoughts run over each other until something close to clinical finally appears.
“Sex is used by offenders as leverage,” I say, keeping my tone even. “It’s a tool. Something that destabilises, that crosses boundaries quickly.”
Peter’s eyes flick toward me briefly, then back to the glass.
I pause, aware of how tight my voice has become.
“It was a performance,” I manage. “He was insulting us.”
“Right,” he mutters. “He is a sexual deviant.”
I still, the words burning a beat longer than it should. I smooth my posture before it can show, but my mind doesn’t follow as cleanly. Because the words....they drag.
Straight back to the Special Case Unit classifications.
Psychosexual deviant.
Sexual sadism.
They pierce me.
Peter...he would have known. This has just confirmed that he knew the labels.
So, why didn’t he tell me before?
This isn’t a minor detail.
Peter knows exactly what preparation looks like, what I should have walked in expecting, what I should have been ready for.
My jaw tightens slightly.
He didn’t forget. He chose not to say it.
“You think he’s playing us?” He shifts to face me.
“I think he already knows how this ends,” I say.
Peter takes another drag, slower this time, the ember flaring briefly before dimming again.
“And he’s not avoiding it.” I murmur.
Peter stills. “You’re saying he wants the death penalty?”
My stomach twists.
“I’m saying he’s not behaving like someone trying to escape it,” I reply. “There’s no real resistance, no attempt to disrupt the trajectory. He mocked us. That must mean something.”
Peter studies me for a beat, cigarette paused midway to his mouth. “What do you suggest?”
I finally look at the glass, at the rise and fall that hasn’t changed. He’s so still I’d almost mistake him for listening if it were not for the glass between us.
“I think,” I say, slower now, “we should at least consider why he might want it to end that way.”
The room holds still around that, because it’s not the kind of question we’re supposed to ask. The silence stretches for far too long before Peter moves. He drags a hand across his mouth, thinking, then shakes his head slightly.
“You’re giving him too much credit.”
I pull back. “Am I?”
“Yes.” He looks back at the glass. “He’s a man in a chair who won’t talk. A psychopath with no common sense.”
The dismissal lands too easily.
“He’s a man who isn’t breaking.” I counter.
Peter doesn’t respond straight away. I can feel his attention shift to me, measuring. He studies me closely. “That doesn’t make him suicidal.”
I consider it.
“No,” I agree. “But it doesn’t mean he’s lost control either.”
Peter lets out a short, humourless laugh. “Right.”
He turns back to the console, a smile still pulling at his face. His hand moves toward a dial, adjusting the levels. He brings the microphone online just long enough for us to hear it.
Drip.
A pause.
Drip.
Then he cuts the sound for our room. The room falls quiet again.
He smiles faintly. “Let’s see how long he lasts with that.”
Water torture.
The realisation settles heavily in my mind, bringing with it everything I know about it. The breakdown. The slow erosion. The way something so small becomes unbearable when it repeats without end.
My stomach twists violently.
I look back at the glass.
The chains lie slack around him, pooled on the floor. The light above him hums faintly, too bright, too constant. A drop falls somewhere in the room beyond the glass.
I don’t hear it, but I feel it. A slow, imagined rhythm begins to form anyway, my thoughts marking the space between each impact, counting without permission.
And then, something catches.
A phrase, quiet and out of place, surfaces without warning.
Turn the sound off tomorrow.
I still.
My breath slows.
No.
That’s not—
I look at Peter. At the console.
My throat tightens.
I didn’t know he was going to play the water drops.
I didn’t know that there was going to be noise in today’s interrogation.
And yet...Turn the sound off tomorrow.
My fingers press into the edge of the desk, grounding, searching for something solid enough to push against the thought as it unfolds.
How did he know?
No. He couldn’t have.
It was a dream.
My gaze drifts back to the glass.
He hasn’t moved, not even slightly, but something in my chest shifts anyway, a quiet, creeping awareness that settles deeper the longer I look at him.
I swallow hard.
He told me. Before it happened.
My jaw tightens slightly.
Peter leans forward. His attention shifts fully to the monitors. Away from the dial.
And something in me moves with him.
I don’t decide.
I don’t plan it.
I don’t think at all.
My hand is already there, already reaching for the dial. Already—Click.
The red light disappears. The change is so small it’s almost nothing.
I freeze. My hand stays where it is for a fraction too long, my pulse jumping hard enough that I feel it in my throat.
I didn’t mean that.
But I’m already adjusting the box, enough to hide the absence of the light, and then I’m withdrawing quickly.
I sink myself into my chair quickly, aware of every movement. My fingers curl into the armrest as the cold spreads through me properly now, sharp, violent.
Traitor.
My mind seethes.
My hand twitches toward the switch again.
I could fix it.
I should fix it.
But I don’t. I sit very still instead holding my breath like the air might give me away. My heart continues to slam so loudly it makes me faint.
Peter shifts beside me, saying something I don’t fully catch. He pulls another cigarette free; attention still locked on the monitors in front of him. Smoke fills the room, the stench curling up my nose.
I move slowly, drawing the notebook in against my stomach like it can shield me from it—from him, from myself, like I can press space back into existence if I hold it tight enough. My lips stay set.
God—what the fuck have I just done?