Hold.
Out for six.
My pulse refuses to listen.
Pull your shit together, Emily.
I swallow. “He has a split personality,” I say. “One is charming. He disarms his victims and earns their trust. The other is aggressive. Violent.” I exhale. “The one who kills.”
The words come out too smoothly, like I have practiced them over and over in my head.
Detective Collins doesn’t answer right away. She watches me instead. I recognize that look. I use it on patients when they cling to explanations that feel safer than the truth.
“You mean Dissociative Identity Disorder,” she says finally.
“Yes,” I reply too fast. “D-I-D. Marked dissociation. Identity compartmentalization. Memory gaps. It explains the behavioral shifts. The contradictions.”
She folds her arms. “DID doesn’t automatically mean violence.”
“I know that,” I snap, then soften my tone, aware of her and the nurse listening to me now more than ever. “But in rare cases, when paired with severe antisocial traits, trauma, and a lack of integration, it can present this way.”
What I don’t say is that it also gives me distance.
Suppose two Zayne Mercers are living inside his brain. The one who could be gentle, who could make my pulse rise as he touched me, making me want to spread my legs. And the one who would slit my throat before he ever got the chance to touch me.
My chest tightens at the thought.
Fuck.
“That’s your professional opinion?” Collins asks.
I hesitate, just for a second.
“It’s a working hypothesis,” I say. “It requires extensive evaluation.”
Because if I’m wrong, if there is no split personality, and he was just playing me, then all of this was for nothing.
She looks at me, then pulls me away from the reception desk and further into the corridor. Her hand slides under my arm, dragging me slowly toward the nearby wall.
“Emily,” she says, “what the fuck is going on?”
I try to breathe. “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I don’t know,” I repeat.
“Figure it out,” she whispers angrily through her teeth. “All eyes are on us to close this case and get Mercer to court so he gets convicted. The media is pressuring the Chief, and we will both lose our jobs if we don’t have anything within two weeks.” Her grip on my arm tightens.
“Then fucking get someone else,” I say, pushing her hand away.
She takes a deep breath and straightens her posture.
“Tell me something, Emily,” she says. “And don’t give me a lecture.”
I look into her eyes as she squints at me.
“Can you take Zayne Mercer to court with what you have?”
The question lands heavier than I expected.
“What I have,” I repeat slowly, “is clinical observation. Behavioral patterns. Recorded interviews. Psychological evaluations conducted over the past few days.”
