I leave the kitchen before I can respond to that. Before I can examine why his constant deflection irritates me in a way I can't explain.
The evaluation room is on the second floor of my place, a space I've used for asset processing before. Clean white walls. Adjustable lighting. A desk with two chairs facing each other, a tablet for recording observations, and nothing else. No distractions. No variables.
I spend the hour preparing. Organizing trigger materials. Reviewing protocols. Building a framework for assessment that will yield useful data while minimizing the risk of a complete psychological break.
I should want him to break. That's how extraction works. You push until the walls crumble, then you sift through the rubble for what you need.
But every time I start designing pressure points, I think about the way he looked in the detention center. The fear underneath the bravado. The defiance that should have been beaten out of him years ago.
Unbidden, his laugh in the interrogation room surfaces in my mind. Broken and bitter, but still a laugh.
I close the file and stare at the blank wall until it’s time to go down and bring him up to the room he will be in for the next few hours.
"Cozy," he says, taking in the room. "Very minimalist torture chamber. I like what you've done with the complete lack of windows."
"Sit down."
He sits in the chair across from me, folding himself into it with exaggerated casualness. His foot immediately starts tapping against the floor, a rapid staccato rhythm that betrays the calm he's projecting.
I notice other things too. The way his shoulders hunch slightly, protective. The way his hands keep moving, fingers tapping, knuckles cracking, never still. The way his eyes dart to the door, calculating distance.
He's terrified. Underneath all the bravado, he's absolutely terrified.
Something about that bothers me more than it should.
"So how does this work?" he asks, voice steady despite everything his body is telling me. "You show me inkblots and I tell you about my childhood? Because I should warn you, my childhood is gone, much like everything else."
"That's not in your file. The stuff I gave you should have only erased your short-term memory."
"Yeah, well, my file was written by people who only cared about what I knew, not who I was." His smile goes sharp. "But you're not like them, right? You're different. You actually want to understand me."
The mockery in his voice shouldn't sting. It does.
"I'm going to show you a series of photographs, documents, and names," I say, ignoring his comment. "Tell me if anything triggers a response. A memory, an emotion, a physical sensation. Anything at all."
"And if nothing triggers?"
"Then we move to the next set."
He drums his fingers on his knee. "What if I lie? Say nothing triggers when something does?"
"I'll know."
"Because you're psychic? Or just incredibly arrogant?"
"Because I've spent many years learning to read people." I meet his eyes. "Every micro expression. Every shift in breathing. Every change in pupil dilation. You can't hide a reaction from me, Jonah. You can only choose whether to explain it or let me draw my own conclusions."
He holds my gaze for a long moment. The tapping foot slows, then stops. The bravado falls, and then he shrugs.
"Fine. Show me your pictures. Let's see what's left in the wreckage."
I start with baseline images. Generic photographs with no connection to his investigation or The Silent. A city skyline. A coffee shop. A crowded subway platform. A few different universities. A cop shop. His responses are normal, his body language unchanged. The control set establishes his default state.
I make notes. Heart rate steady. Breathing normal. Pupils reactive but not dilated. He watches me write, curious despite himself.
"You're very thorough," he says.
"It's my job."
