Page 17 of Two for Joy

“You’ve never talked about him.”

Romeo shrugged.

“He’s the reason you didn’t finish your countdown … don’t you hate him?”

“Hate him?”

“For stopping you.”

Romeo flexed his hands. They were cuffed behind his back, but he could still curl his fingers. The desire to conclude his countdown hadn’t gone away. He still looked at everyone through the monster’s eyes, needing his next fix, knowing they could be it, they could set him free.

He still wanted his number one, as much as he wanted to escape.

“Chad’s complicated.”

Holly widened her eyes and scribbled more down on her sheets of paper. He didn’t bother trying to read it, he stared at the light behind Holly’s head, it looked hazy from his side of the barrier.

“So you still have this need to complete the countdown, to finish it so you can end your life.”

Romeo didn’t answer, but he saw her pen moving fast, scribbling down more rubbish.

“The police arrived just as you were strangling Chad.”

That’s what it had looked like, Chad helpless on the mattress, Romeo pinning him, squeezing him, killing him. But in that moment, he had been the helpless one, Chad had flipped the situation on its head and had been the one in control.

“You were arrested and confessed to everything.”

“That’s right, they’d caught me. The countdown, the challenge, whatever you want to call it, difficult, but doable, but ov—on hold, because of Chad.”

“Difficult in a moral way?”

Romeo laughed. “We’ve been talking for months, and you’re so desperate for me to feel guilt, or regret. When you gonna realize it’s not there? I can’t feel those things, and you can hate me for it, find me repulsive, disgusting, but that’s just the way I am. I can’t change it, and you can’t change it either.”

“You don’t feel guilty, or regretful about any of your victims?”

“No. That part of my brain doesn’t work.”

“You don’t know that for sure. Those feelings could be there, but repressed by bad experiences, bad memories—”

Romeo shook his head, then leaned forward, willing her to stare into his eyes. “I’ve got low functioning emotions, and in the case of some, I don’t have them at all.”

“You say you don’t have guilt or remorse, what about anger?”

“What about it?”

“Have you ever felt angry before?”

Romeo looked away, and really thought about it. There were two times in his life when he felt the bitter build-up of anger in his gut. Once when the magpie refused to leave him, and the other when Chad chased him into the trees near Audrey’s home.

“Yes.”

“Are you angry that you failed?”

“More disappointed.”

Holly nodded, noting something else down.

“And how do you feel when Chad visits you?”

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