I barely slept.
Every shadow in my apartment looked like a threat. Every sound made me think of Hunter watching from the darkness. I'd checked the locks three times, drawn all the curtains, even moved a chair in front of the door.
Sammy had slept peacefully through it all. Like a child who didn't know there were monsters under the bed.
When morning came, I'd made breakfast and watched him eat with the enthusiasm of someone who didn't get many home-cooked meals. He'd thanked me seventeen times before Alexander's confused voice replaced his sweet one.
"Erica? What am I doing in your apartment?"
I'd explained about Sammy's visit, watching Alexander's face cycle through confusion, embarrassment, and something that looked like grief.
"I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it."
"That's okay."
"No, it's not." Alexander had rubbed his temples. "It's getting worse. The gaps. The lost time. Sometimes I feel like I'm disappearing."
Now I sat in my office, waiting for our three o'clock appointment. My notes from last night were scattered across my desk. Everything Sammy had told me about the others. About Hunter.
About the women who didn't move anymore.
I'd called the police before coming to work. Anonymous tip about checking the basement of the Blackwood mansion. They'd probably think it was a prank call.
But what if it wasn't?
The intercom buzzed. "Dr. Roberts? Mr. Blackwood is here."
"Send him in."
The door opened, and I knew immediately this wasn't Alexander. The posture was different. Straighter. More controlled. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that hadn't been there yesterday, and his hair was slicked back with mathematical precision.
"Dr. Roberts." His voice was clipped. Academic. "Thank you for seeing me."
"Victor, I presume?"
"Perceptive." He adjusted his glasses with two fingers. Precise movement. "Most people don't notice the transition immediately."
Victor moved to the chair across from my desk, but didn't sit. Instead, he studied my office with analytical intensity. His gaze catalogued everything. The books on my shelves. The diplomas on my walls. The coffee ring stain on my desk that I'd never quite managed to clean.
"Fascinating," he murmured.
"What is?"
"Your space. It tells a story." Victor finally sat, crossing his legs at exact ninety-degree angles. "Columbia Medical School degree. Impressive, but not Harvard. Second choice, perhaps? Or financial constraints?"
I kept my expression neutral. "What makes you think that?"
"The frame. Good quality, but not custom. The kind you buy at a department store." Victor's eyes moved to my bookshelf. "Your psychiatric texts are well-worn. Multiple editions of the same books. You upgrade when necessary, not when convenient. Financial prudence."
"Very observant."
"Observation is the foundation of analysis." Victor pulled out a small notebook and a fountain pen. "Which brings us to why I'm here."
"I thought you were here for therapy."
"I'm here to conduct a psychological evaluation." Victor clicked his pen. "Of you."
The words hung in the air like a challenge.
"That's not how this works, Victor."
"Isn't it?" He tilted his head. "Tell me, Dr. Roberts, when did you last maintain appropriate professional boundaries with a patient?"
Heat crept up my neck. "I maintain appropriate boundaries with all my patients."
"Do you?" Victor made a note. "You had dinner with Alexander three nights ago. Expensive restaurant. Intimate setting. Would you categorize that as maintaining professional boundaries?"
"That was..."
"A violation of medical ethics. Yes." Victor's pen moved across the page. "You also allowed Sammy to spend the night in your apartment. Highly irregular."
"He was frightened."
"He was manipulating you." Victor looked up from his notes. "Sammy's fear responses are designed to trigger maternal instincts in women. It's a survival mechanism he developed in childhood."
"He's just a child."
"He's a personality fragment with the emotional intelligence of a seven-year-old but the knowledge base of a thirty-year-old man." Victor adjusted his glasses again. "He knows exactly what to say to make you feel protective."
The words stung because they held a grain of truth. Had Sammy been manipulating me?
"What's your point, Victor?"
"My point is that you've lost objectivity." Victor leaned forward. "You're emotionally compromised. Professionally compromised. And yet you continue to treat us. Why?"
"Because you need help."
"No." Victor's smile was sharp as a scalpel. "Because you need to be needed."
The accuracy of his statement hit like a physical blow.
"That's quite an assumption."
"Is it?" Victor flipped a page in his notebook. "Let's examine the evidence. You specialize in treating difficult cases. Patients others have given up on. Your entire practice is built around being the doctor who fixes the unfixable."
"There's nothing wrong with wanting to help people."
"There's everything wrong with using other people's pain to validate your own worth." Victor's pen scratched across the paper. "Tell me about your mother."
"My mother isn't relevant to this discussion."
"Isn't she?" Victor leaned back. "Woman suffers from chronic depression. Multiple suicide attempts. Daughter becomes a psychiatrist, specializing in saving broken people. Classic pattern."
"You don't know anything about my mother."
"I know everything about your mother." Victor reached into his jacket, pulled out a manila folder. "Margaret Roberts. Age fifty-three. Diagnosed with major depressive disorder at thirty-five. Three hospitalizations. Currently on a cocktail of medications that costs eight hundred dollars per month."
My blood ran cold. "How do you have that information?"
"Alex is very thorough in his research." Victor opened the folder. "Your mother's psychiatrist is Dr. Jennifer Walsh. Competent, but unimaginative. Your mother's condition has plateaued under her care."
"Victor—"
"I could help her." Victor's voice was matter-of-fact. "I've studied her case files. Her medication regimen is outdated. Her therapy approach is ineffective. With the right treatment, she could be significantly improved within six months."
Hope and revulsion warred in my chest. "What do you want?"
"Your compliance." Victor closed the folder. "You're going to sign Alex's contract. You're going to become our exclusive property. And in exchange, your mother gets the best psychiatric care money can buy."
"That's blackmail."
"That's pragmatism." Victor made another note. "You want to save us. We want to save your mother. Mutually beneficial arrangement."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then your mother continues her slow decline while you struggle to pay for inadequate care." Victor's pen paused. "How long before the guilt destroys you, Dr. Roberts? How long before you follow in her footsteps?"
The question hit too close to home. I'd thought about it. Late at night, when the bills piled up and nothing I did seemed to help anyone. How easy it would be to just... stop.
"You're a bastard."
"I'm logical." Victor resumed writing. "Emotion clouds judgment. Sentiment interferes with decision-making. I operate purely on facts and data."
"What about love? Where does that fit in your logical worldview?"
"Love is a chemical reaction. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin. Evolutionary mechanism designed to encourage pair bonding and reproduction." Victor looked up from his notes. "Hardly mystical."
"Then what's your excuse?"
"My excuse for what?"
"For loving me." I leaned forward. "Because that's what this is about, isn't it? All of you love me, according to Sammy."
Victor's pen stopped moving. For the first time since he'd arrived, he looked uncomfortable.
"Love is an inaccurate term."
"What would you call it?"
"Obsession. Fixation. Compulsive behavior patterns." Victor adjusted his glasses. "You represent a puzzle to be solved. A problem to be analyzed. That's intellectually stimulating."
"That's not love."
"What is love, Dr. Roberts?" Victor tilted his head. "Alexander thinks love means possession. Elliott believes it means worship. Gabriel equates it with protection. Ryan confuses it with corruption."
"And you?"
"I think love means understanding someone completely. Knowing every thought, every fear, every secret." Victor's eyes went cold. "And then deciding whether they deserve to live."
A chill ran down my spine. "Is that a threat?"
"It's an observation." Victor made a final note and closed his notebook. "We all love you, Dr. Roberts. But we love you in different ways. Some of those ways might be considered... problematic."
"Problematic how?"
"Alex wants to own you. That's manageable. Elliott wants to immortalize you. Artistic, but harmless. Gabriel wants to protect you. Misguided, but well-intentioned." Victor stood, smoothed his jacket. "Ryan wants to corrupt you. Dangerous, but survivable."
"And you?"
"I want to understand you." Victor moved toward the door. "But understanding someone completely means exploring every aspect of their psyche. Including the parts they'd rather keep hidden."
"What about Hunter?"
Victor's hand froze on the doorknob. When he turned back, his expression was unreadable.
"What about him?"
"Sammy mentioned him. Said he was the worst."
"Sammy talks too much." Victor's voice was flat. "Children rarely understand the complexities of adult relationships."
"Is Hunter dangerous?"
"We're all dangerous, Dr. Roberts." Victor opened the door. "But Hunter is... different."
"Different how?"
"Hunter doesn't love you at all." Victor paused in the doorway. "Which makes him infinitely more dangerous than the rest of us."
"Why?"
"Because the others want to keep you alive." Victor's smile was colder than ice. "Hunter has no such constraints."
"Victor, wait—"
But he was already gone. The door closed behind him with a soft click.
I sat in my empty office, staring at the space where he'd been. My hands were shaking. Whether from fear or anger, I wasn't sure.
Victor had dissected me like a lab specimen. Laid bare my motivations, my weaknesses, my desperate need to save people who couldn't be saved. And he'd been right about all of it.
I was emotionally compromised. Professionally compromised. Completely out of my depth.
But I couldn't stop.
Because Victor was right about something else too. I needed to be needed. And right now, Alexander needed me more than anyone ever had.
Even if it killed me.
My phone buzzed. Text message from an unknown number.
The scholar thinks he's so smart. But intelligence isn't everything, beautiful. Sometimes instinct matters more. And my instincts tell me you're ready for the next lesson.
See you tonight. -H
I stared at the message until the words blurred together. Hunter wasn't waiting anymore. Whatever game he was playing, it was accelerating.
I thought about calling the police. About running. About taking Alex's money and disappearing somewhere safe.
But then I thought about Sammy, sleeping peacefully on my couch. About Alexander's confused grief when he couldn't remember losing time. About Elliott's gentle hands creating beautiful horrors. About Gabriel's desperate need to protect. About Ryan's angry cry for attention. About Alex's cold desperation to control something, anything, in his fractured world.
And about Victor's clinical dissection of everything I thought I knew about myself.
They were all broken. All dangerous. All completely wrong for me.
But they were also all I could think about.
Hunter was right. Instinct was more important than intelligence.
And my instincts were telling me to stay.
Even if it meant facing whatever lesson he had planned for tonight.