“I’m not meant to be in here.”

It wasn’t the first time Sylvan had insisted on this fact. Not to you, not to the police who dragged him to this facility and locked him away in a cell as if he were a feral animal ready to bite at any living thing that came close. Sure, he’d thrashed and screeched like one when he was locked away, but he was scared then. Now, he was angry.

They said he was a murderer; he said he was a savior. In his eyes, the blood that stained his hands was holy. His parents were monsters, and when his sister cried out for help, the monsters had simply… tripped onto his blade. Again and again, eight times each — his father a little more, because he hated him the most.

He’d done the world a favor. And now he was the one in the wrong—the one locked away in a mental hospital, where everyone but him was utterly mad. And you were the one tasked with peeling apart his mind before the court would decide if he would ever see freedom again. He hated you for it.

You had told him you couldn’t get him out, that it wasn’t your place. He did not believe you. He thought you a coward. A liar. Another thing worth burying deep in the earth beside his wretched parents.

“If I hurt anyone, fine! Fine! But I didn’t!”

He surged to his feet, the chair’s screech on the concrete floor rising like an animal’s cry. Sylvan thought he saw you flinch, and that filled him with deep satisfaction. Until you lifted a hand, calmly, and motioned for him to sit.

“I don’t want to sit down!” he snarled, face twisting in anger, voice cracking against the walls. “You don’t tell me what to do! I’ll stand if I damn well want to! This—this is a joke, and you fucking know it!”