I nodded once slowly.

“Have you learned anything?”

“I’ve learned a lot.”

“But you still don’t feel things?” She was curious but accepting.

“I don’t.” I gripped the arms of the chair and let them go again. “I don’t think that’s something that will ever change. It’s not why I do it. If anything, the more I experiment, the less I feel. Except with you. You…I don’t know.” It wasn’t that I didn’t want to share. I just didn’t have the words. “You’re too much like family, I think. So I have…I did feel…something.”

“You don’t know what, though?”

“No.” I’d tried to figure it out so many times. “Obligation, maybe. Responsibility.”

She fiddled with the edge of her bedsheet but kept her focus on me. “But with the others, you didn’t feel anything?”

“No.”

She let go of the sheet, turned and propped her head up on one hand. “Do you ever feel anything else?”

God, we were actually doing this, then? Examining all the pieces, letting all the walls down. Might as well get comfortable. I crossed an ankle over my jean-clad knee. “Not really. Anger sometimes. Disgust.”

“You’re never happy?”

“I’m often content.” I didn’t mention that the only excitement I felt revolved around the manipulation of others. I was stripping myself in front of her, but I didn’t need to be vulgar.

“What about sorrow?”

“It’s more like disappointment.” I cleared my throat. This was the closest to sympathy she’d get from me. “Right now, I’m disappointed for you.”

Though, there had been a moment—the moment that I’d learned Celia’s baby was dead—and the disappointment had been something else. Something more intense, more intolerable. It seemed to start in the center of me, the sensation so strong it sounded in my ears. Soon it reverberated in my bones, in my skin, until every part of me had…ached.

But all it took was a straightening of my spine and a decision to not feel it anymore. And with a whoosh, it was silent. Gone. I was hardened.

It had been a unique incident. One I’d never experienced. Perhaps it warranted a relabeling for Celia’s benefit. “Very disappointed for you.”

She bit her lip as if she were fighting a fresh set of tears. “What about guilt? Or compassion? Or love?”

I shook my head.

“You don’t love your mother? Or Mirabelle?”

“That’s more complicated.” It was difficult to explain my lack of emotion to someone else when I barely understood it myself. “I have a fondness for them. I feel an affinity toward them. But that’s all.”

She took in a ragged breath, and I could only assume this revelation disturbed her.

“Don’t get me wrong,” I added, “they do mean something to me. But it hardly measures the depths that I believe others feel for people they care for.”

“Does that bother you?”

“It intrigues me. Bother me? Not really.” I was grateful for the semi-dark room. It made the honest conversation less intense. “It actually makes me strong, I think. No one has the power to hurt me.”

This idea had itched at me for a while, but had never fully formed. Now that I’d said it out loud, I sat back in the chair and soaked in the revelation. This incident had actually been the best test of the notion. This had almost hurt me. Not quite, but almost. And watching the Werners and my mother and Celia bear the pain like a terrible fever with no relief was exhausting in itself. If I’d ever thought my impassivity was a curse, I didn’t now. It was my blessing.

Accepting this didn’t change anything—didn’t change me—but perhaps it propelled my interest in studying the human psyche. It gave me a mission. Because in learning why others behaved the way they did, I discovered more of my own strength.

“Hudson.” Celia’s small voice drew me from my reverie. “Teach me, Hudson.”

I raised a questioning brow.

“Experiment with me.”

“What? Why would you want me to…?” I didn’t know how to react to the insane request. “I’m not experimenting on people I know anymore.”

“Not on me. With me.” She sat straight up. “I want to learn how you do it. Teach me.”

Understanding her real intent didn’t make the request any less strange. “No. That’s absurd.”

“Please.”

“No.” But now she’d planted the thought, and I couldn’t help but explore it. “Why?”

“Because I want to be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like someone who doesn’t feel.” She fell back into the bed. “I don’t want to feel anymore. I said I felt numb, but there’s worse hiding underneath that. Jagged spikes of pain. I wanted that baby, Hudson. And before that, I wanted you. Not anymore, but I did. All that’s left from all that want is hurt. I tried to hate you, and I do a little. But mostly I can’t help but admire you. Your methods are impressive. Maybe you’re an example of evolution. Maybe a lack of emotion is what it takes to move the human race to the next level. Because I think you’re right—it is your strength. And I don’t know if you were born that way or if you turned into this over time because of your fucked-up family—sorry, but it’s true—but I think I could learn that. Or at least try. What’s the harm in letting me try?”

Her voice had strengthened as she talked, and now her words echoed in the quiet room. Honestly, there was little to refute. And the possibilities her monologue had inspired…

“Okay.”

She perked up in surprise. “Okay? Really?”

My mind was already swimming with plans. I never went looking for experiments. They’d arise out of situations and relationships around me that were interesting, that I wanted to explore. As it happened, there was a newly married couple that had just moved into my parents’ building. Though they’d recently pledged their lives to each other, I couldn’t help but notice the way he eyed other women. There was a lot I wanted to study there. Celia would actually prove helpful. “After Christmas. If you’re up to it.”

“I’ll be up to it.” She was excited.

My pulse kicked up a notch. How sick was it that her enthusiasm was a mental turn-on? I stifled my adrenaline rush by adding practicality. “There will be rules. Some we’ll have to make up as we go since I’ve never worked with a partner.”

“Of course. What’s the fun of a game without rules?”

“They aren’t games.” It came out harsher than I’d intended, but it was important to me that she understood the difference. “They’re experiments. It’s science.”

“Whatever you want to call it, Hudson. It’s semantics. There’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun with it. I know you do.”

So it didn’t matter that I hadn’t told her the games excited me. She already knew.

And Jesus, I was already referring to them as games myself. If I weren’t so looking forward to the new phase of my research, I might have been irritated.

“Maybe,” I conceded. “There is an enjoyment at correctly predicting how people will react.”

She smiled—the first sign of joy since she’d awoken in the cold, sterile room.

“What have I agreed to?” But I genuinely smiled back.

She took a deep breath. Then her expression eased into something more solemn. “Thank you, Hudson.”

“You’re welcome.” Also genuine.

We settled into a comfortable silence. My mind swirled with ideas and notions. Perhaps good really had come from all of the Celia mess. Though somewhere deep inside of me, a warning bell sounded, and while it was quiet enough to ignore, it was persistent and left me with the slightest niggle of doubt and dread.

After a moment, she chuckled. “You’re so ridiculous, you know. You’re like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. All the time he doesn’t think he has a heart and yet he really does.”

“An interesting comparison.” I’d always identified more with Hannibal Lecter from the famed Thomas Harris series about a psychologically curious sociopathic serial killer. Though I wasn’t a serial killer, the way the character molded and manipulated others, studying and predicting their behavior—reading him had felt like looking in a mirror. “Except I don’t really have a heart.”