Watcher in the Woods (Rockton #4)(95)

A look passes through Sebastian’s eye, a flash of hope, as if I’m saying this to him. Then he hears Dalton’s footstep and twists, hands still on his head.

“Got concerned when you didn’t make it to town,” Dalton says.

“Sebastian wanted to speak to us,” I say. “He startled me. So . . .” I wave at his posture. “We’re talking.”

Dalton stays behind Sebastian, off to the side. He’s become adept at hiding his feelings about residents. He has to be. I struggled with that, at first, knowing some of their back stories. I still do. Right now, though, with Sebastian, Dalton is the one who’s struggling, and he’s staying out of sight there until he can hide it.

“Sebastian knows what we found out,” I say. “He figured we’d go looking. That’s why he’s here. To plead his case for why he should be allowed to stay.”

Sebastian nods. Dalton and I exchange a look. It’s not up to us, of course. He will stay. The council let him come, knowing his backstory, and they aren’t going to allow us to kick him out. But if Sebastian thinks Dalton has that power, it makes things easier for us.

“We’ve gone through the whole ‘I’m not a threat’ routine,” I say, with a roll of my eyes.

I actually feel a little bad about that eye roll, seeing Sebastian flush, but this too is something I need to hide. I think about what it would be like, to do a terrible thing at such a young age, to realize there’s a crossed wire in your brain and that no amount of rehabilitation will undo what you’ve done. I know what it’s like to do a terrible thing, without the excuse of youth or mental illness.

If Sebastian had done this during a psychotic break, like from untreated schizophrenia, I would have complete sympathy for him. I have met suspects who’ve done that, and I have witnessed their horror on realizing it later. It is as if they’d been trapped in their own bodies, demon possessed; and now they are forever trapped with the consequences and the memories.

Alternately, I have zero sympathy for someone who murders while high or drunk. You chose to imbibe, and the outcome is on you, the same as shooting Blaine is on me, whatever my emotional state.

So where does Sebastian fall? He knew what he was doing. He was not experiencing a mental break. This is his mental state. I realize that it’s a mental illness, but he is still culpable. I need to think more about it. Research it.

There is also the very real possibility that, duh, Sebastian is lying through his teeth. He’s a sociopath. He shows what I want to see. He knows the role to play. Perhaps it should seem that obviously I wouldn’t believe him. Yet nothing I read in those articles led me to think he was that type of sociopath. Otherwise, why would he have been so quick to plead guilty when caught?

I know better than to believe his seemingly genuine displays of remorse and frustration. I need for him to understand that if this is a front, it’s not fooling me. So I must roll my eyes when I tell Dalton that Sebastian has been insisting he’s not a threat.

“Yeah, that’s a shocker,” Daltons says. “Usually, when we find someone here who committed a crime, they can’t wait to tell us how they’re going to do it again.”

“Sarcasm warranted,” Sebastian says. “But you may do anything—anything—to protect people from me. Put any restrictions you want on me.”

“How about making you take a roommate?” Dalton says. “To watch over you.”

“That’s not why I refused one, sir. It’s the opposite. I . . .” He takes a deep breath. “At the age of eleven, I decided that the only way to escape my parents was to kill them. Not because they were abusive. I had everything . . . except what I wanted. I was a spoiled, rich brat who murdered his parents because they showed him the world when all he wanted was regular school and friends and sports. That’s what you see. What I see? That exact same kid—I’m making no excuses for him. But in my head at the time, it made sense. To that kid, it was a reasonable solution to his problem. Up here”—he taps his forehead—“I can never get rid of that kid. No medication helps me grow a conscience. I needed years of therapy to be able to put myself in someone else’s shoes and say ‘How would I feel if that happened to me?’ You do that naturally. I cannot. I never will. It takes a conscious and—to be bluntly honest—exhausting effort. If you’re in front of me in the morning coffee line, and there’s one muffin left, I immediately think of all the ways I could get that muffin. Not kill you, of course, but only because it’s unnecessary and excessive. Before I trick you into leaving the line, I must stop and remind myself that you have as much right to that muffin as me. I can be trusted never to hurt you for that last muffin. I cannot, at this point, be trusted not to hurt a roommate who really, really pisses me off.”

“So you might smoother a roommate who snores too much?”

“I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, sir, but the answer is ‘I really hope not.’ He looks from Dalton to me. “I will take any room, if it means I’m alone. I don’t care if it’s a tent or a storage closet. Think of me as an alcoholic who doesn’t want to live next door to the bar. I know that sucks for you guys—one more person needing extra supervision—but I will help in any way I can. Speaking of alcohol, I’ll be nineteen in two months, but even when I’m legally allowed to drink, I’ll abstain. I took the chopping job because I wanted to pull my weight, but if you’re concerned about me with a hatchet, put me on sanitation. I have avoided being a ‘joiner’ because, frankly, I was terrified of giving myself away. Now that you know what I am, I would love to join in community stuff . . . unless you’d rather I didn’t. I know Ms Radcliffe was a psychiatrist, so please feel free to give her my full background—my therapy file, too, if you can—and I will see her however often you’d like. Therapy has helped. I’d actually like to continue, if that’s possible.”