Page 61 of Brainwashed

I take a moment to think. “Well, yea. I think so… Maybe not just to comfort me, but to be with me. I wanted him to stay, and he was refusing. So something inside me took over, and I killed him. I think it’s pretty obvious what that means.”

“Is it?” Dr. Love’s head tilts.

“I think… I think so?” It comes out like a question, because this guy has me second-guessing everything. The way I’ve always thought I felt about my kills… Two words from the hot doctor and suddenly I’m unsure.

Damn… He’s good.

He straightens in his chair. “You say you killed Emmanuel because you didn’t want him to leave, right?” I nod. “Because you wanted to keep him…” I nod again, more hesitantly.What is he getting at?He stays quiet for a moment before saying, “You wanted to possess him.”

I can feel how round my eyes are while I stare at him.

“He was an object to you,” he goes on. “Like your mannequin. Something for you to dress up and treasure. Someone to keep you company, who would never leave because hecouldn’t. You needed to be in control of him.”

“Well… yea,” I state surely.Of course I wanted to control them.“To keep someone is to control them.”

His eyes sparkle. He reaches for the notepad on the table, a faster movement than I’ve ever witnessed from him, immediately jotting something down.

When he looks back up at me, there’s a vibrant fascination in his gaze. I’m not sure why he’s so entranced by me telling him about all the nonsense I’ve done for the sake of fulfilling my dark urges, but it really seems like my words are giving him life right now.

The warm fuzzies in my stomach are intoxicating.

But then he says, “So you didn’t truly love Emmanuel.”

And a bucket of ice water is dumped on me.

My jaw clenches and I grip the couch on either side of me. “What the fuck does that mean?? Obviously I loved him!”

My outburst elates him even further. He’s loving this.

And I’m freaking pissed.

He crosses his arms. “How do you figure?”

I’m practically seething. “He was my first real love… He was myeverything. I couldn’t let him leave me because I loved him so much. What kind of moron are you if you can’t see that??”

His lips twitch. It’s so slight it’s barely a movement. But I still caught it, and it jacks me up even further.Why does he enjoy pissing me off so much? Is he sick or something??

“Felix…” The way he sighs my name settles my rage just a tad. It just sounds so nice coming from his mouth in that smooth, rumbly voice. “Infatuation isn’t love. Just because you were enamored with Emmanuel, it doesn’t mean you were in love with him. You can’t fall in love with someone in a span of a few days.”

This time, I cross my arms over my chest. “Oh yeah? How would you know? Are you some sort of expert on love?”

“Well, it is my name.” He makes this pleased little expression, still not quite a full smile, but it’s smirk-adjacent, his head cocked like he’s insanely proud of himself for that stupid joke.

I can’t help the laugh that bursts from my lips, and his eyes light up even more; an intense burn, though to me it really looks like he’s overjoyed.

“I don’t know, Doc.” I shrug teasingly. “You seem like the kind of person who’s never been in love before.”

In the blink of an eye, he darkens. His eyes, his features… They all seem to go from jubilant to scary in seconds flat. It has me swallowing hard.

“What would make you assume that?” he asks, quietly luring, like he’s daring me to say the wrong thing so he can attack me.

You’d totally forget that I’m the serial killer in the room right now.Unfortunately for him, it just makes me want to poke some more.

“I have an intuition for things like this,” I tell him casually. “I’ve seen a lot of love. Hell, I’ve fallen in love more times than I can even count.” I pause. “Actually, I could count. It’s at least half of my victims…”

“I told you already, Felix…” he sort of growls at me. “Infatuation isnotlove. Just because you want to control someone, that doesn’t mean you’re in love with them.”

“It doesn’t??” I gasp sarcastically. “Oh, deary me! How will I go on?!” I pretend to pass out with my hand to my forehead, slumping back on the couch. Then I laugh and sit up straight. His face is the picture of unamused. “You’re not me, Doc. Clearly.” I scoff, looking him up and down. “As much as you want to, you can’t feel what I’ve felt. You’ll never know what was going on in my heart with my exes. You can’t just say I’ve never been in love…”