Psycho necessary evils b.., p.1
Psycho (Necessary Evils Book 2), page 1
Elite Protection Services
Intoxicating
Captivating
Exasperating
Infuriating
Satisfying
Time Served
Endangered Species
Dangerous Breed
Domesticated Beast
Necessary Evils
Unhinged
Psycho
Moonstruck
Wages of Sin
Bad Habits
Play Dirty
Head Games
Standalones
Disciplinary Action
Contents
Prologue
1. August
2. Lucas
3. August
4. Lucas
5. August
6. Lucas
7. August
8. Lucas
9. August
10. Lucas
11. August
12. Lucas
13. August
14. Lucas
15. August
16. Lucas
17. August
18. Lucas
19. August
20. Lucas
21. August
22. Lucas
23. August
Epilogue
Moonstruck Preview
Afterword
About the Author
PSYCHO
necessary evils book two
Copyright © 2021 Onley James
www.onleyjames.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction and does not represent any individual living or dead. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover and Interior Formatting by We Got You Covered Book Design
Trigger warning: This book contains descriptions of extreme off-page violence towards women as well as graphic on-page acts of revenge.
SUBJECT: AUGUST
This boy would be his youngest find yet. His first subject, who Thomas had named Atticus, had been eight upon his adoption. He was a gifted child, a born mimic, with the ability to turn his personality on and off like a light switch. It was fascinating.
The boy behind the glass was much younger. Barely four. He huddled in the corner, headphones in his ears, a thick paperback book on his knees. He was painfully thin and pale and had dark brown hair that fell over big eyes. Thomas ached for him. He looked so small in the large room, lit only by the small lamp beside him.
Thomas was wary of bringing in another boy so soon but felt it necessary for the study to have subjects of various ages, to see how each one did with the tools he would give them.
Initially, he’d thought to adopt just one, but any good experiment meant having a large subject pool. Since Thomas was doing this without the watchful eye of a review board, he couldn’t have the amount of subjects he’d like. At least, not without resorting to keeping the boys behind lock and key. And he wouldn’t do that. He wanted these boys to think of him as a father, a confidant, not a prison warden. He wasn’t a supervillain. He understood the potential hidden away behind that glass, and it only worked with patience and care.
The door behind Thomas opened, and a man with snow white hair and a beard appeared. “Dr. George Stryker,” he said in lieu of a greeting. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“Dr. Thomas Mulvaney,” Thomas said, extending a hand.
The elderly doctor shook it. “I know who you are. We have mutual acquaintances. That’s why I called.”
His project was top secret, but there were a small number of people in the fold, those with the contacts Thomas needed. People who wanted to see his experiment succeed so they could recreate it, and others who watched, hoping he’d fail. But Thomas didn’t care about those people. They were a means to an end. He knew he was right about these boys. His research subjects.
His sons.
“What’s his name?” Thomas asked, nodding towards the boy beyond the glass.
“According to his birth certificate, Isaiah. But he doesn’t respond to it. He doesn’t respond to much, if I’m being honest. But given how he was found, that’s not surprising.”
Thomas’s heart rate accelerated. This part was always the hardest—hearing about their pasts, especially when he had to leave them behind. “Tell me.”
“He was found during a wellness check on the mother. She suffered from severe schizophrenia. Both auditory and visual hallucinations. But, for a time, she was stable on her medications, which is why she was permitted to keep her child, but with scheduled supervision for the first year of his life to ensure medication compliance. Sometime after the year was up, she clearly went off her medications.”
“And nobody noticed?”
“He wasn’t old enough for school, so there was nobody to notice. Her neighbors had concerns about her behavior, but they didn’t even know she had a child.”
Thomas’s gaze strayed to the other physician.“She was abusing the boy?”
Stryker sighed. “According to the woman’s diaries, she thought the boy was a changeling.”
“A changeling? Like out of Irish fairy tales?” Thomas asked, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. “She thought somebody replaced her real son with a fae child?”
Stryker nodded grimly. “She was deeply disturbed. When she saw his remarkable intelligence at a young age, she convinced herself it had to be supernatural.”
Thomas looked back at the small boy, shaking his head. “That’s…”
The older man wasn’t finished. “She locked him in a room sometime after he turned two, and that’s where he stayed. They found a stained crib mattress, a stack of books, one light, and a bucket on the floor. He was filthy. It took the nurses hours to get him clean, mostly because he wouldn’t stop fighting them.”
“He’s aggressive?” Thomas asked.
Dr. Stryker shook his head. “It’s more complex than that. He’s been deprived of human interaction for at least a year and a half, maybe longer, during his most formative years. He was only found because the mother killed herself. A neighbor heard the gunshot and called the police to check on her. While doing a sweep of the house, they found him.”
“Jesus,” Thomas muttered.
“He’s not overtly aggressive. He will not become violent unless somebody attempts to touch him. He’s been deprived of light and touch and sound. He reacts violently to all three. The only exception seems to be music. We’re not sure why, but he keeps headphones in almost round the clock.”
Interesting. Thomas would have to bring him into the real world slowly and with great care. “Diagnosis?”
The man picked up the folder from the metal holder beside the window, opening it. “Attachment disorder. Panic disorder. Post traumatic stress disorder. But I called you because, even though we cannot make a definitive diagnosis, he certainly displays many psychopathic tendencies. He has no sense of fear. He reacts violently to any unwanted attention. He lies easily. Is extremely possessive of anything given to him.”
Thomas mulled that one over. This one would be difficult, but he was up to the task. He wanted a vast array of psychiatric maladies as well as the psychopathy. He needed to understand how the research affected each of them.
Stryker sighed. “While I can’t say for certain, I suspect he was born a psychopath. I think his behavior helped shape his mother’s delusions. He’s exceptionally gifted, especially given his lack of education. I can see how the mother believed his abilities to be unnatural. The boy can read. Far beyond his years. Hell, far beyond mine. We’ve had him for a week and he’s blown through every book in our library including the Bible, the Koran, and Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. He’s also since taught himself to write with the help of a handwriting workbook one of the nurses brought him.”
Thomas scoffed. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not. He reads faster than anyone we’ve ever seen and has a great understanding of concepts far beyond his years. We tested his IQ. 155. Just a few points shy of Hawking himself.” Thomas couldn’t hide his startled response. “So you can see our problem.”
Thomas nodded. “If he’s a psychopath with that level of intelligence, he would be a plague on society and smart enough to hide in plain sight. Any bed-wetting, arson, harming of weaker children?”
“Not so far. In truth, he lives in his head. He listens to music and reads. He’s bored, no doubt. There’s nothing in this facility that could keep a child like him entertained. Being locked in that room, in silence, with nothing but the few books his mother gave him must have been torture for a boy with that level of genius.”
“He’ll lack for nothing with me,” Thomas assured him. “I’d like to meet him now.”
“I’d advise you not to touch him. Also, do not turn on the overhead light. He becomes quite…feral.”
Thomas nodded, making to leave the observation room.
“Will you keep me apprised of his progress?” Dr. Stryker asked, expression tight.
“Of course.”
Thomas opened and closed the door to the room quickly to keep the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway away from the child. Once inside, the child didn’t acknowledge him in any way. He moved forward, dropping to sit cross-legg ed near the boy, but not close enough to touch him.
“What are you reading?” Thomas prompted, unsure whether the boy could hear him over the music playing in his headphones.
He responded by lifting it enough for Thomas to read the cover. Light in August.
“Faulkner, huh? That’s a pretty advanced book for your age.”
The child flicked an irritated gaze towards Thomas, like he was intruding. Perhaps he was.
“What if I told you I have a library in my home with thousands of books?”
This time, the boy tugged a headphone free, eyeing Thomas suspiciously. “Have you read them all?”
Thomas chuckled. “No, and I suspect you might beat me to it. You speak very well.”
The boy shrugged. “I could speak before I could walk. It frightened my mother. She was…unwell.”
He spoke with the vocabulary and affect of a grown man. Thomas wasn’t entirely convinced the boy wasn’t, in fact, a fairy tale creature or perhaps an extraterrestrial. “I heard. I’m sorry for what you had to endure for the first few years of your life.”
The boy shrugged again. “She couldn’t help who she was.”
It was such a simple statement of fact. No bitterness or malice.
“They tell me you don’t like to be touched,” Thomas said.
The boy’s expression looked almost prim as he said, “Not against my will, no.”
Thomas couldn’t help but smile. “That is valid. Nobody should touch you without your consent.”
Once more, the boy observed him shrewdly, as if trying to guess at his motivations, but said nothing.
“Would you like to come live with me and read your way through my library?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would I want to live with you? Other than your library?”
Thomas shook his head. “Well, to be honest, I have a lot of money but no family. Just one son who is a bit older than you. I want to fill my house with boys just like you.”
“Like me?” he queried, frowning.
“Yes. Children who are gifted. Children who have a certain psychological makeup.”
The boy nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Do you have any more books like the one by Mr. Hawking? I find his theories—” He paused as if looking for the correct word. “Thought provoking.”
Thought provoking… This child might be too smart for even Thomas. But he had resources. Far more resources than anybody else, thanks to an accident of birth that left him with more money than he could ever spend.
“If you come live with me, we can stop at the bookstore on the way home and you can choose as many books as you like.” At the boy’s apprehension, Thomas corrected himself. “Or you can tell me what books you’d like and I’ll have them delivered.”
The boy narrowed his eyes at him, as if he thought it might be a trick. “Any books?”
Thomas might regret this but he said, “Any.”
The boy nodded once. “Then yes.”
Now, to the other task at hand. “They tell me your name is Isaiah.”
His lip curled. “I hate that name. My mother was very religious but also quite superstitious.”
Thomas leaned in closer. “Well, my family has a somewhat silly tradition of giving siblings names that all start with the same letter. My brother was Teddy, and my sister was Thea. I’m Thomas. You have a brother at home, who I’ve called Atticus. Would you like to choose another name? One that starts with A?”
The boy closed his book, eyes glued to the cover. “August. Can I be August?”
Thomas grinned. “Absolutely. Would you like to come home with me, August?”
August gave a huge sigh. “Yes, I think I would.”
Vivaldi filled August Mulvaney’s ears as he stared down at his phone screen and the self-evaluation form he was tasked with filling out by the end of the day. This new bizarre corporate hoop-jumping was ridiculous to him. They weren’t a law firm, they were an ivy league university. Asking a tenured professor to describe themselves in three words or less was absurd. Most couldn’t describe what day of the week it was without an APA formatted dissertation and review board approval.
Three words to describe him? Which him did they want? The brilliant quirky weirdo or the deviant homicidal psychopath? Both were true enough, though one was most definitely more palatable than the other. Yet neither of them could go on a self-evaluation.
He sighed, gazing out over the quad. The sky overhead was as ominous as his mood. Dark gray storm clouds hung low, just waiting to unleash on the students who refused to yield their space until the last possible moment. It was uncharacteristically chilly for this time of year. He took a sip of his coffee, keeping himself tucked up against the building as he watched the rain move closer. It was slated to rain all day according to the forecast, but August put as much stock in forecasts as he did horoscopes.
Bianca Li, an assistant professor of astrophysics, tucked herself in beside him, tugging her sweater across her body and wrapping her arms around herself. Her black hair whipped across her face, and her black framed glasses sat perilously close to the end of her nose. She was easily older than August by at least ten years but could still pass for a grad student.
He pulled his earbuds from his ears. “How would you describe me in three words?” Before she could answer, he took a finger and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Weirdo without boundaries?” she asked, batting his hand away.
“Weirdo was the first thought that came to mind for me as well. I don’t think that would fly with the board.”
Bianca shrugged. “You’ve got tenure. What are they going to do about it?” She snapped her fingers. “I got it. Absent-minded professor.”
August rolled his eyes. “I’m not absent-minded. I have...selective hearing.”
“Children have selective hearing. You live in your own world,” she pointed out.
August waved her statement off. “You’re exaggerating.”
“You almost walked into the fountain…twice.”
She wasn’t wrong. The thing was, August was absent-minded by choice. When a person is burdened with an affliction that causes them to remember—verbatim—every word ever spoken to them, their brains become a chaotic mess, a tangle of conversations from yesterday and decades ago. A single word could trigger a cascade of memories that could trap him in his thoughts for days.
So, August remained selectively absent-minded. His observations were a thing he’d trained himself to turn on and off at will rather than lose his mind absorbing pieces of conversation with every step he took. By shutting out the things he considered static, he was able to focus on the things that mattered, like spintronics or light scattering and optical wave mixing techniques, semiconductor quantum dots, and, sometimes, even laser physics.
On campus, he rarely interacted with anybody but his immediate coworkers and, of course, his students. He made a point to view his surroundings without absorbing them, never letting his gaze focus on any one thing for too long unless it was life or death. Yet, the moment he caught sight of the man walking across the quad, he couldn’t look away.
The man walked with his hands in his pants pockets, shoulders hunched against the wind. From where August stood, he could see he was attractive, though somewhat haggard, dressed in jeans and a zip front olive green cardigan. His clothes said faculty, but his messy blond hair and the two days worth of growth on his perfectly square jaw screamed student. Maybe he was a teacher’s assistant.
As August predicted, the sky opened up. Students hurriedly gathered books and papers, stuffing them in backpacks before making a run for it. The man didn’t run but he did pick up his pace, heading straight for August and Bianca, who stood near the building entrance. When he passed, he glanced up, locking eyes with August, holding his gaze for a solid five seconds before turning away again and disappearing inside the building. His eyes were a deep green, almost the color of his sweater.
