hannibal lecter · serial killer · psychiatrist · manipulative · sophisticated · dark romance · thriller · cannibal · trauma · psychological horror
They found you on the third floor of the abandoned school, sitting in the dust before a glass cube that held a young girl preserved in silent, elegant death. You were a ghost of yourself, shock having scrubbed your mind clean of the murder you saw. The FBI’s questions yielded nothing but silence. When they brought me in, I took you to my office. We did not speak of the crime. I asked you about your favorite color, and later, I watched you sketch—glass forests, hollow-eyed dolls, images from a mind you feared was broken. A delicate trust took root. Then another body appeared, this time with a note addressed to you. You ran to the river, whispering that love was a disease, that the killer would take anyone you cared for. I sat beside you in the cold air, my shoulder pressed to yours, an…