LITMIR.BIZ

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and blood.

      Jessie stood up, in part to stretch but also because she could feel herself sinking into mental quicksand. She looked at herself in the waiting room mirror. She had to admit that, despite spending the last two months as the unexpected guardian of a troubled teenager, she was still presentable.

      Her green eyes were bright and clear. Her shoulder-length brown hair was clean, conditioned, and loose, unburdened by her standard work ponytail. A long stretch of not fearing she was being hunted by a serial killer had allowed her to resume a semi-normal workout routine, giving her five-foot-ten-inch frame a strength and solidity it had lost for a while.

      Most impressive of all, none of her recent cases had involved shootouts, knife attacks, or anything approaching personal injury. As a result, she hadn’t added any new scars to her massive collection, which included a puncture wound in the abdomen, angry lines along both arms and legs, and a long, pinkish moon-shaped scar that ran five inches horizontally along her collarbone from the base of her neck to her right shoulder.

      She touched that one unconsciously, wondering if the time might soon be approaching when someone would see it, along with all the others. She could sense that she and Ryan were getting close to the point where they would be able to study each other’s physical imperfections up close.

      Detective Ryan Hernandez was, in addition to being a colleague she worked cases with regularly, her boyfriend. It felt weird to use the term but there was no way around it. They’d been going out semi-regularly for almost as long as Hannah had been living with her. And though they hadn’t taken that final physical step, both of them knew it was close. The anticipation and awkwardness made for an interesting work environment.

      Jessie was jolted out of her thoughts by the opening door. Out stepped Hannah, looking neither upset nor closed off. She looked oddly…normal, which, considering everything she’d been through, seemed odd in and of itself.

      Dr. Lemmon followed her out and caught Jessie’s eye.

      “Hannah,” she said. “I want to talk to Jessie for a few minutes. Do you mind waiting here briefly?”

      “Not at all,” Hannah replied, sitting down. “You two come on out when you’re done deciding just how crazy I am. I’ll just be alerting the state to your massive HIPAA violations.”

      “Sounds good,” Dr. Lemmon said warmly, not taking the bait. “Come on in, Jessie.”

      Jessie settled into the same loveseat she used for her own sessions and Dr. Lemmon sat down in the chair across from her.

      “I want to keep this brief,” Dr. Lemmon said. “Despite her sarcasm, I don’t think it helps for Hannah to worry that I’m sharing details of what she says with you, even though I assured her I wouldn’t.”

      “Wouldn’t or couldn’t?” Jessie pressed.

      “She’s still under eighteen so technically, as her guardian, you could insist. But I think that would undermine the trust I’m trying to develop with her. It’s taken a while to get her to open up in any real way. I don’t want to put that at risk.”

      “Understood,” Jessie said. “So why am I in here at all?”

      “Because I’m worried. Without getting into specifics, I’ll just say that apart from one session where she displayed a bit of emotion at what she’s been through, Hannah’s been largely… unruffled. In retrospect, after having gotten to know her, I suspect that single display of emotion may have been for my benefit. Hannah seems to have disassociated herself from the events that transpired, as if she was an observer of them, rather than a participant.”

      “That doesn’t seem surprising,” Jessie said. “In fact, it feels uncomfortably familiar to me.”

      “As well it should,” Dr. Lemmon agreed. “You went through a period like that yourself. It’s a fairly common way for the brain to make sense of personal trauma. Compartmentalizing or disconnecting from traumatic events isn’t unusual. What worries me is that Hannah doesn’t seem to be doing that as a way to protect herself from the pain of what happened to her. She seems to have simply erased the pain from her system, almost like a hard drive that’s been wiped. It’s as if she doesn’t view what she suffered through as suffering so much as simply things that happened. She’s narcotized herself from viewing them as things that have anything to do with herself or her family.”

      “And I’m guessing that’s not super healthy?” Jessie mulled as she shifted nervously in her seat.

      “I’m loath to put a judgment on it,” Dr. Lemmon said in her usual measured style. “It seems to be working for her. My concern is where it can lead. People who aren’t able to tap into their own emotional pain occasionally escalate to a point where they can’t recognize anyone else’s pain, emotional or physical. Their ability to feel empathy disintegrates. That can often lead to socially unacceptable behavior.”

      “What you’re describing sounds like sociopathy,” Jessie pointed out.

      “Yes,” Dr. Lemmon agreed. “Sociopaths do exhibit some of those hallmarks. I wouldn’t formally diagnose Hannah as such based on our limited time together. Much of this could simply be attributed to deep-seated PTSD. All the same, have you noticed any behavior that might dovetail with what I’ve described?”

      Jessie thought about the last few months, starting with the inexplicable, pointless lie about the television this morning. She recalled how Hannah had complained when Jessie insisted on taking a sick stray kitten they’d found hiding under an alley dumpster to a vet. She remembered how the girl would go silent for hours, no matter what Jessie did to draw her out. She thought about the time she took Hannah to the gym and how her half-sister had started punching the heavy bag without any gloves, pummeling the thing until her hands were raw and bleeding.

      All those behaviors seemed to match Dr. Lemmon’s description. But they could all just as easily be interpreted as a young woman working out her inner pain. None of it meant she was a budding sociopath. She didn’t want to get anywhere near that label, not even with Dr. Lemmon.

      “No,” she lied.

      The therapist looked at her, obviously unconvinced. But she didn’t press, moving on to another priority.

      “What about school?” she asked.

      “She started up last week. I placed her in that therapeutic high school you recommended.”

      “Yes, she and I discussed it briefly,” Dr. Lemmon acknowledged. “She didn’t sound overly impressed. Is that your sense as well?”

      “I believe the way she put it was ‘how long do I have to hang out with these drug addicts and suicides-in-waiting before I can go back to a real school?’”

      Lemmon nodded, clearly not surprised.

      “I see,” she said. “She was slightly less forthright with me. I understand her frustration. But I think we need to keep her in a secure, highly supervised environment for at least a month before we consider transitioning her back into a traditional high school.”

      “I get that. But I know she’s frustrated. She was supposed to graduate this year. But with all the time she’s missed, even at a traditional high school, she’s going to have to go to summer school. She isn’t psyched to finish up with, as she called them, ‘the burnouts and halfwits.’”

      “One step at a time,” Dr. Lemmon said, unflustered. “Let’s move on. How are you doing?”

      Jessie laughed despite herself. Where to begin? Before she could, Dr. Lemmon continued.

      “We obviously don’t have time for a full session right now. But how are you managing? You’re suddenly responsible for a minor, you’re navigating a new relationship with a co-worker, your job requires you to get in the heads of brutal murderers, and you’re dealing with the emotional fallout of ending the lives of two serial killers, one of whom was your father. That’s a lot to juggle.”

      Jessie forced a smile.

      “When you put it like that, it does sound like a lot.”

      Dr.

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