Collateral obsession, p.26
Collateral Obsession, page 26
We move through the corridor in near silence, students and other professors drifting past us while he offers each of them a brief farewell. Only once the flow thins does he finally turn to me, a faint gleam of curiosity flickering in his eyes.
“What do you have to say about sanity?”
The question lands like a coin tossed into still water, a tiny splash sending widening circles across the quiet. I draw in a slow breath, letting the air expand inside my chest before releasing it in a quiet exhale.
That is an interesting question. Far too interesting. Especially for someone like me. The irony does not slip past me; it catches and claws at me instead, sharp in its intention and impossible to ignore.
“I believe that—” I begin, the words snagging against something jagged inside my throat. I sift through possible phrasing, hunting for a version of the truth that does not sound unhinged. When I look at him, his eyes shimmer with an unnatural brightness, like sunlight trapped in glass. In an instant, the urge to hide slips away, peeled off and left bare by that almost manic glimmer.
Maybe this is the right moment to tell the truth.
“Sanity is just the mind’s way of keeping you safe from what you really are,” I say finally, and his brows draw together, thoughtful. “Strip it away, and all that’s left is the part of you that doesn’t pretend anymore.”
A smirk plays at the corners of his mouth. The thoughtful mask melts into something else—something almost admiring.
“Trauma,” he murmurs, as if testing the taste of the word.
“What?” I ask, thrown off balance.
“I sense the trauma beneath the composure,” he says softly, his tone drifting somewhere between fascination and pity. “The detachment in your tone isn’t intellectual. It’s defensive.”
A pressure blooms in my chest, tight and constricting, spreading outward until it fills me. I swallow against the dryness in my throat, the air suddenly too heavy, too thick to breathe.
My jaw locks, and a faint twitch pulls at my lips. The tension climbs into my shoulders, settling there as something solid and immovable—a weight I cannot shake loose.
“You’ve been on the other side of reason, haven’t you?” he asks quietly.
The words strike me with the sharpness of a slap, and I nearly collide with the front door before coming to a sudden stop. For a moment, I cannot piece together how we already made it to the exit. The world tilts slightly out of sync, its edges blurring as my thoughts slide over one another like restless static. The strange pressure inside me twists and churns, battling against the tightness in my chest, each force clawing for control.
The sensation carries a haunting familiarity. I cannot place where it comes from, yet some part of me recognizes it. Deep beneath the surface, in a place I cannot reach, the memory waits. But when I push my mind to grasp it, all I meet is a sweep of darkness—a quiet void that hums gently like wind moving through an abandoned corridor.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply sharply.
He does not answer, offering only a smirk as he pushes the door open. The hinges let out a low groan before yielding, and a rush of cold, rain-filled air sweeps inside. I draw it in deeply, the chill slicing through the stifling heat simmering beneath my skin.
It burns, like something scalding pressed against ice. My skin feels raw, overheated against the steady drizzle. I am a coal abandoned in the rain, hissing faintly as the contrast gnaws at me, leaving behind the clinging, unshakable itch of something that refuses to cool.
Bennett straightens, his posture crisp, but his eyes are distant—adrift somewhere deep in that labyrinth of a mind he never seems to leave. I doubt he ever does.
A strange sensation begins to stir inside me, quiet at first, then sharp and all-consuming. When I first arrived, I looked down on him, dismissing him as just another eccentric academic detached from reality. But now, standing this close and watching him retreat into himself, sheltering behind the fortress of his own intellect, I feel something unsettlingly familiar.
It’s like staring at a warped reflection of myself, one that overthinks, underfeels, and hides behind a wall of carefully chosen words.
“That’s a beautiful lie you just told,” he says, his calm voice slicing through the quiet like a scalpel. “And you almost believe it. But what you really mean is that sanity betrayed you.”
His words send a shudder through me, a stronger wave of discomfort pulsing beneath my skin.
It feels as if I am nothing more than a trembling mass of flesh under his microscope—my layers peeled away as his mind dissects me with curiosity, fingers metaphorically probing, pressing dents into my psyche just to see how deep they will go.
“It kept you alive when you didn’t want to be. Made you watch when you should’ve looked away. You talk like a man still standing in the ashes, pretending the fire was someone else’s.”
Each word slices deeper, like a fine, deliberate cut. A headache blooms in the center of my forehead, radiating toward my temples, pulsing in rhythm with my heartbeat.
“I’m so grateful I got the chance to meet a person like you,” he says after a pause, his tone almost reverent. “Finally, someone I can actually talk to.”
That’s absurd. He has plenty of people to talk to—students, colleagues, admirers who worship every word he spills. I’ve read the comments, the articles, the praise that practically licks the soles of his shoes. He’s not starving for an audience.
Unless what he wants to talk about isn’t psychology at all.
“I’ve seen people break,” he goes on, “not because of tragedy, but because of silence. The absence of meaning is far more dangerous than pain.”
I almost laugh. Almost.
The irony is too rich. For all his eloquence, he’s the one bleeding through those words. That’s his confession—his brother’s suicide. Every article mentioned how Bennett Johnson buried his grief under theories and papers, building meaning over the ruins.
How subtle.
It’s all unraveling far more easily than I expected. Bennett is fragile beneath that intellectual polish—an eggshell mind pretending to be armor. And I’ve cracked him right on time.
“We’ve only just started,” he continues, that manic edge sharpening in his tone, “but I already feel consumed by this conversation. Let’s go. I don’t have much time, and I want us to cover everything before it’s too late.” I drag a hand down my beard, staying rooted to the spot. His enthusiasm falters when he notices I’m not following, and his brows knit together in confusion. “What’s wrong?”
I exhale slowly, letting weariness tint my voice. “Actually, professor,” I begin, “I was hoping you’d help me with something else.”
He freezes, a spark of intrigue lighting his eyes.
“I’m interested,” I continue, “in diving deeper into what makes the human mind tip—what flips that hidden switch, what drives a person to step over that invisible line between sanity and madness—to do something unnatural, something that defies everything we call normal.”
My gaze locks on his, steady and unblinking. “For some, it’s a tragedy,” I add quietly. “For others, it’s meaning.”
Suspicion flits across his face like a shadow slipping over glass, subtle and fleeting yet impossible to miss. He studies me for a long, deliberate beat, his eyes slicing through the thin space between us, searching for the layers I have carefully draped around myself. Still, the glint in his gaze gives him away. He is captivated, and the ambiguity I offer only fans the flames of that fevered curiosity.
“Go on,” he says, voice low and coaxing—the kind of tone that belongs to someone who can’t help but lean closer to the flame.
I wet my lips, steadying my breath as I prepare to replay the conversation I’ve rehearsed a dozen times before. “I’m focusing on a very specific group of people,” I begin slowly, watching his reaction. “Individuals who were convicted of violent crimes—some sentenced to death, others condemned to spend the rest of their lives behind bars—cases that stand out because of how abruptly they snapped. I want to understand what really happens in those moments. What breaks.”
He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing with thought. “You don’t believe what others say, then?” he questions. “That some people are simply… broken? Or is the information about them not enough for you?”
“Is it ever enough for those who truly want to know more?” I ask, meeting his gaze evenly. “I think you know exactly what I mean, professor. People aren’t just born evil—I don’t buy that. They become what they are because of what happens to them. Circumstances, trauma, moments that bend their minds in ways they can’t come back from.”
The corner of his mouth dips, and he chews at his lower lip as if weighing how much to say. “What or who do you want to talk about?”
I let the silence linger, a deliberate pause thick enough to draw tension into the air as if it were a bowstring pulled tight. He does not realize it, but no measure of time could have readied him for the name that is about to leave my lips.
“About Iris McKale.”
The reaction strikes him instantly. Color bleeds from his face so quickly that it feels as if something vital has been pulled from him. His eyes widen, raw and unshielded, and his chest quivers with each breath he struggles and fails to control. He swallows hard, stepping back once, then again, his footing unsteady as though the name had landed like a blow.
I move instinctively, catching his arm before he collapses completely. But he jerks away, shaking off my grip, his eyes darting anywhere but toward mine.
“I spent years,” he begins, each word trembling, “years trying to bury that name. To bury her. I built my work, my projects, my whole goddamn life on top of that memory—and now you’re digging it up.” His jaw clenches. “Pouring salt into an open wound.”
“I understand it’s difficult. But you can’t erase the past, no matter how much you want to.”
He lifts his gaze to mine at last, and the look he gives me is drenched in melancholy. His head shakes slowly, but I push anyway.
“The best thing you can do,” I continue gently, “is talk about it. Don’t silence the thoughts—help me understand. What causes someone like her, a young, capable woman, to cross that line—”
“Capable,” he interrupts, and the word cracks through the air like thunder. A smile twists across his face, one that lacks warmth. “Oh, she was capable, all right.” His voice turns rough as he scrapes against the walls of the memory. “That parasite destroyed everything she touched. She tore through that village like a plague and left people hollowed out, haunted. Even now, they still look over their shoulders, terrified that her ghost might come crawling back to finish what she started.”
“The residents think the place is haunted by her?”
He remains silent, his eyes drifting down to the wet asphalt. The streetlights ripple across his lenses, reflections trembling as if the night itself is murmuring secrets meant for him alone.
“What makes you even think I know anything?” he snaps, the veneer of composure slipping. “I had nothing to do with her. My brother did—but only because he believed she could be fixed. The dumbass paid for that with his goddamn life.”
I don’t flinch, though something in his tone lingers—a bitterness so old it’s fossilized into habit.
“I need to know exactly what happened,” I push steadily.
For a moment, he seems to forget where he is. His eyes, dulled by grief and exhaustion, hold mine with a strange fragility. There’s sinking sadness there, layered with the faint shimmer of fear. His lower lip trembles before he catches it between his teeth, chewing it raw, the skin turning white from pressure. It makes me wonder how long he can hold it together before he breaks.
“Help me understand,” I repeat, keeping my tone low, coaxing. “Just a bit of your time. You don’t deserve to be alone in this tragedy.”
The line lands like a soft touch against his armor. His features waver, the tension loosening just enough for weariness to slip through. The anger in his face fades into something defeated, resigned. He exhales sharply, a man giving in not because he trusts me, but because he’s tired of fighting the ghosts that never leave him.
“This isn’t a conversation for coffee,” he mutters at last, raking a hand through his short, light-brown hair. “Let’s go to my place. It’s fifteen minutes from here.”
He turns abruptly, nodding down a narrow side street slick with rain. The reflection of passing headlights gleams across his wet coat as he walks ahead, shoulders hunched against the drizzle. I fall into step behind him, the air between us humming with something volatile—part anticipation, part dread.
A low vibration slices through the rhythm of our footsteps. I slide my hand into my pocket and draw out the phone. Its screen bursts to life, glowing sharply.
Jason.
For several seconds, I simply stare at his name, frozen and blank, while the rain drums lightly against my knuckles. Then, I press my thumb firmly against the button. The call disappears, the tone fading into silence.
I shove the phone back into my pocket and continue walking, while millions of thoughts scream inside my head.
The apartment sits tucked away on one of London’s quieter streets, a place that seems to pulse to a different rhythm than the relentless city outside. The building itself is brick, weathered by decades of rain and wind, yet carrying a dignity that refuses to yield to time.
Inside, warmth hums quietly through every corner. Wide windows frame the wet street below, reflecting the city’s muted golds and reds in liquid streaks along the slick pavement. The air carries the scent of rain clinging to stone, polished wood, and a faint trace of cologne that lingers like a ghost in the hallway.
“Sorry for the mess,” Bennett calls over his shoulder as he moves further into the apartment. “I don’t have guests often. Or ever.”
My eyes roam across the room. The space feels like a living intersection of old London charm and modern calm intertwined—high ceilings edged with ornate cornices, a marble fireplace long cold, shelves overflowing with books and vinyl instead of ornaments. Soft light spills from brass lamps, casting muted shadows over sage-green and smoke-gray furniture.
A few T-shirts lie haphazardly across the couch, the only humanizing touch in a room otherwise curated with precise quietness. Everything else is immaculate: no empty pizza boxes, no scattered dishes, no lingering staleness. Just a perfect apartment, smelling faintly of careful solitude.
“It’s fine,” I reply, letting my gaze drift across the space, searching for some trace of Estella or his brother, some detail that might hint at the lives that once brushed against his. I settle onto the couch as he returns, two glasses in one hand, the other gripping an almost-finished bottle of scotch.
It’s clear how meticulously he’s tried to drown out his thoughts, how carefully he’s constructed this space of control and order.
The glasses meet the coffee table with a delicate clink, sharp and distinct in the quiet room. He uncorks the bottle and pours amber liquid into each glass, the splash of the scotch echoing while the low hum of the refrigerator threads through the background. He clears his throat, louder than necessary, pouring the drink to the brink. I resist the impulse to ask if he always drinks scotch as if it were water.
“Thank you,” I say quietly. His eyes flick up at me, a small gleam of anxiety betraying his nerves. He nods, almost frantically, and sets the bottle on the coffee table. I can already sense that this will not be enough for him, that he will need far more if he hopes to withstand the storm set to erupt within him tonight.
He sinks into the couch across from me, the cushions sighing beneath his weight. Without hesitation, he grabs his glass and downs half of it in one fierce gulp. The amber liquid splashes past his lips, sliding down his chin and staining his white shirt, but he doesn’t even flinch.
I watch him without a word, my eyes widening just enough to betray my focus. I cannot tell whether the current moving through him is the old, persistent ache that has never left his heart, or something darker and heavier—something that has been quietly brewing there for years.
“You okay, professor?” I ask, tilting my head, trying to catch his expression.
He wipes his mouth and chin with the back of his hand, nodding faintly. “I’ll manage,” he mutters. “What do you want to know?”
Everything. “Tell me about your brother, William.”
Bennett exhales sharply, his shoulders slumping as he leans back against the couch. “My brother was a good man. Stupid, but good.”
“He was a teacher, right? From what I’ve gathered, a good one. Did he ever think about leaving the village, pursuing his career somewhere else?”
A humorless chuckle shakes his chest. “No, not at first. I was the one with ambitions, not him. William was the type of man who lived by his routine. It didn’t matter how dull it was when it was safe. It was his way of keeping the world in order. Talking him into leaving that shithole was nearly impossible.”
“But eventually, he agreed?”
He nods, his gaze distant. “Yeah. He planned to finish the school term and then come with me. Not long before we talked about it, he was invited to The National Linguistics Olympiad. He and—”
He cuts himself off, pressing a hand over his mouth as his eyes squeeze shut, the words locked behind his teeth.
“And Iris?” I probe.
“Yes,” he says, his tone a shade softer, as though he’s glad I’ve spoken a curse on his behalf. “He was happy about it. Happier than I’d seen him in years. He didn’t want to leave his daughter behind, so he decided to take her with them.”
“But before that could happen, she died,” I say quietly.
Bennett doesn’t answer. He just reaches for his glass and drains what’s left. The burn must be vicious. I can see it in the grimace that twists across his face as he slams the empty glass onto the coffee table.
