Page 5 of Psycho
She rushed to keep up with him as he made his way back towards his office to grab his things.
“You can’t just say no offense after saying something offensive,” Bianca said, though she didn’t seem offended in the least.
Nobody could afford to worry about feelings in a field like theirs. Half the professors on this side of campus had brains far too complex to hold even the simplest of conversations. They were all varying degrees of neurodiverse. The sad truth was, the smarter a person was the less they bothered with societal expectations. They spoke in blunt terms without any worry about sentiment.
Scientists couldn’t afford ego. When you dealt in theory, there was always somebody standing in line ready to tell you you’re insane or trying to debunk your research. That was the nature of their work. August was only as…domesticated as he was because his father had insisted on it. Being a quirky genius was fine. Being an unfeeling, uncaring psychopath was not—not in public, anyway.
“There’s a faculty meeting at four. Will you be there?”
“Is it mandatory?” August asked.
Bianca nodded. “Yes.”
August shrugged. “Probably not. I’m having lunch with my brother before he leaves for the airport.”
“August…”
“I’m a tenured professor. What are they going to do? Fire me?” he repeated, shooting her a grin.
August went left to the hallway where his office lay, and Bianca went right to take the long way to the other side of the campus. When he was alone once more, he replaced his headphones. Vivaldi had finished, and Chopin now filled his ears. He let himself disassociate, mulling over his research assistant’s topic for her thesis.
He didn’t see the other man until they collided. Hard. August’s phone flew from his fingers. The other man’s hands shot out, grasping for anything to keep him upright. August grabbed the man’s forearm just as he gripped August’s shoulders.
That was when August got a good look at him. Lucas Blackwell. The moment they touched, the other man wrenched away with a gasp, falling to the ground and scrambling away from August like he was a serial killer.
Which, technically, August supposed he was. But Lucas Blackwell didn’t know that.
Though it was beside the point, August couldn’t help but notice the terrified man was even more beautiful up close, like a sculpture come to life. High cheekbones, square jaw, full lips. Lips that were pulled back in horror.
August extended his hand to help him up, but Lucas flinched away. “Don’t. Don’t…touch me.”
Apparently, it wasn’t just the physics department that lacked any sense of decorum. He pulled his now useless headphones from his ears. “I’m sorry. I was so into my music that I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
Lucas said nothing, flushing when he noticed the other faculty members staring at him. He stood, giving one last panicked look over his shoulder before all but sprinting down the hallway.
August picked up his phone, sighing at the now cracked screen. He’d been called off-putting before but usually only by his brothers after a particularly gruesome kill. And there were many. August liked the wet work. Liked getting his hands dirty. Killing gave him a thrill like nothing else did.
He was almost to his car when it hit him. Bianca said Lucas Blackwell was clairvoyant. That he could see the past—or the future, August supposed—simply by touching an object. August was a logical man. While he found the paranormal fascinating, he recognized it for what it was, pseudoscience. There was no way Lucas Blackwell was actually clairvoyant.
He couldn’t be.
Yet, he’d looked at August like he was a monster. Which he was. But there was no way Lucas could know that. It was impossible.But what if he did?What would that mean for him?His family lived by a code. They didn’t kill the innocent. But they’d only ever run into this situation once before, months ago when his brother had decided to fall in…not love, but maybe obsession, with a little wounded bird named Noah.
Noah knew their secret, had figured it out before he’d even met Adam face to face. But Noah was like them. He understood some people just didn’t deserve to live. Noah had killed alongside them. He had an investment in keeping them all off the police’s radar.
But Lucas was a former Fed. He probably believed strongly in trials and justice and the long arm of the law. He probably wasn’t a fan of vigilante justice. Which didn’t bode well for his life expectancy if he truly had somehow figured out exactly who August was when the mask was off.
Shit.
As much as August loved killing, the idea of chopping up the pretty blond professor into bite-size pieces left him feeling hollow. August had never met a problem he couldn’t solve, but Lucas Blackwell was going to be a problem. A big one. And August had no idea what the hell he was going to do about it.
Lucas couldn’t get to his office fast enough. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he shut the door and locked it, as if the devil himself chased him. Maybe he did. The things Lucas had seen when he’d touched him, the man he’d thought attractive just moments before... He blinked the sweat from his eyes, willing his heart to stop thundering in his chest before he lost consciousness.
It was his first day. His first fucking day. There had to be some sort of explanation for the blood and the screaming. Maybe he’d been in the military and seen combat? Maybe he worked in law enforcement? No. That didn’t make any sense. Those screams… Those men were being tortured.
He brought his knees up, bracing his elbows on them to cradle his head in his hands. Lucas knew better than anyone that serial predators hid in plain sight. Sometimes, right under your nose. He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes until little sparks of light danced behind them. This was his first. Fucking. Day. He couldn’t go accusing a coworker of being a murderer. Not after last time. He couldn’t handle anybody else looking at him like a…crazy person. He’d just left that environment.
“Have you thought, perhaps, you’re projecting your impulses onto your co-worker?”
