That made him more dangerous. But also, more pliable to outside influences. I had a shot at talking him out of whatever he planned to do to me.
I took the opportunity to take another step closer to my bag while he was distracted by the chaos in his mind. He was unstable and I was in clear danger. I had to get my keys. I quickly peered at my bag, trying to see where my keys had landed.
“I know what you’re thinking, doc.”
I snapped my eyes back to him, his sudden calmed voice raising my hair. He sat still as a statue. How did he regain composure of himself like that? It was unnatural.
“You’re thinking of getting your keys and making a run for it. But, here’s the thing. You’ll never make it to your car. Yes, you will make it out the door, feeling like you’ve won, but halfway to your car, and I’ll have you. And no, there is nothing you can do to get away from me. Trust me. I’ve already gone through every possible scenario, and you lose every time. So sit down.” He stood and gestured towards the armchair. “The scenario in which you cooperate is the only one you walk away from me with all your bones intact.”
I cleared my throat as it choked my air off and nodded slowly. “Mister Varon, I don’t know what informa—”
“Sit!”
I flinched at the harshness of his tone. It echoed a different kind of unhinged—a man with no moral compulsion for the preservation of the living.
I shouldn’t disobey him.
I moved slowly towards the armchair, not daring to take my eyes off him as I passed, then lowered myself into it on trembling arms.
He started pacing in front of me, a deep crease between his brows.
How was I going to get away from him?
He was significantly larger than me. I would be delusional to think I could fight him. Every part of his body screamed power, while every lithe movement of that body screamed danger.
I could suddenly understand just how scared and hopeless Ava had felt those first few weeks with this man. He was a menace. A deadly, calculated sociopath.
He stopped pacing, and I held my breath.
“You’re going to answer all my questions about Ava. Then you get to live. Understood?”
I swallowed hard. “Mister Varon, I am sworn to secrecy under the doctor-patient…”
“Don’t give me that shit! I don’t want to, but I swear to Ava’s gods, I will torture it out of you. Don’t fuck with me, doc.”
His hands were clenching and unclenching as he worked to control his anger.
I slinked a little deeper into the chair. “Okay, Mister Varon. Okay. I will tell you what you want to know. Just take a deep breath.”
He snorted a laugh. “I’ve been breathing through it my whole life. And it’s not working anymore. So tell me what I need to know.”
“Then ask your question,” I said in a soothing voice, hoping to calm him.
His jaw clenched and he shut his eyes. He was still for a while. “Tell me that she still loves me,” his voice cracked.
My mouth almost fell open, if my jaw wasn’t locked in absolute terror. I was taken aback. I expected questions of Ava’sknowledge on them, or how close she was at catching them. Not this. He almost sounded broken. Like he couldfeel.
No, it couldn’t be. This was merely an obsession. Which was disastrous for Ava. Obsessions of this magnitude never end well.
I made a split-second decision. I decided on saying something that would surely get me killed. “I’m sorry, Mister Varon, but she doesn’t.”
I held my breath, waiting on the crash-out, waiting for his hands to close around my throat. It went against my most basic training to antagonise an unstable man like this. I should have told him what he wanted to hear, to stabilise the situation, but even if it killed me, I would not be responsible for this murderer to re-enter Ava’s life. She’d been through enough. I couldn’t live with myself. I had a duty to protect my patient.
Varon hadn’t moved a single muscle, except for the tilt of his head as he studied me.
He was a deeply unsettling man. His stare stripped the meat right off my bones, laying me bare for an autopsy.
His low voice startled me, after the seconds of deafening silence. “That was a lie,Doctor. You should know, you’re not the only one who can decipher human behaviours.”
