Scorpia Rising

returned to society. After all, it wasn’t entirely his fault that he was what he was. That was how he had been made. Someone in British intelligence hoped that he could be turned around and that one day he might lead a normal life. But as far as Dr. Flint was concerned, that day was still a very long way off.
    She led him into the living room and gestured toward a large, comfortable sofa covered with a fabric showing a pattern of flowers. There was no need for the gesture. Julius sat in the same place every time. The warden’s wife liked flowers. The room had flowery wallpaper too, and there was a vase of roses, cut from the garden, on a low, dark wood table. The curtains were thick and kept out much of the sunlight even when they were open. An antique mirror had once hung on one of the walls, but Julius had smashed it in the middle of his third session. The warden hadn’t been pleased, but Dr. Flint had insisted that there be no punishment. In her view, the boy wasn’t responsible for his actions. She thought of him, at least in part, as a victim. A painting—a view of Cadiz—now hung in the mirror’s place.
    “Would you like some orange juice, Julius?” Dr. Flint asked.
    “No, thank you,” Julius said. He never drank or ate anything during these sessions. Dr. Flint had tried cookies, chocolates, Coke, and cream cakes—all without success. She knew exactly what was going on in his mind. To have taken anything would have been to give her power over him. She might set the rules, but he was playing his own game. One day, she hoped, he might accept a Jaffa Cake. Then, at last, she would know that the healing process had begun.
    “So how has your week been?”
    “I’ve had a very good week, thank you.”
    “Are you reading anything from the prison library?”
    “I’ve just started War Horse. ”
    “That’s excellent, Julius. You should try to read as much as you can.” She smiled. “What’s it about?”
    “It’s about some stupid horses that get killed in the war.”
    “Aren’t you enjoying it?”
    “No. Not much.”
    Dr. Flint sighed. The boy was lying. She knew every book that he had borrowed and every book that he had read. He was the only teenager in the prison and there weren’t a great many things he could do with his time. He devoured books. But when he was with her, he pretended otherwise.
    “Have you thought more about what we spoke about last time?” she asked.
    “We discussed a lot of things, Dr. Flint.”
    “We were talking about anger management.”
    “I’m not angry.”
    “I think you are.”
    Julius didn’t answer, but he could feel something burning white-hot inside him. It wasn’t anger. How could this stupid woman describe it like that? It was like molten lava flowing through his intestines. It was like acid. He looked down deliberately, knowing that he would be unable to keep the emotion out of his eyes. Dr. Flint would see it and she would write it down in that notebook of hers. She wrote everything down as if she could even begin to understand him. It was lucky that she couldn’t see into his imagination. Julius dreamed of killing Alex Rider. Slowly. Painfully. He should have done it on the school roof a year ago. He had come so close.
    And he might yet get another chance. For a brief second, Julius thought about the note he had found the night before. It had been waiting for him, hidden in his room . . . incredibly, impossibly. He had read it so many times that he knew every word by heart—but he quickly forced it out of his mind. The woman was still examining him. He didn’t dare give anything away.
    “I thought we might try some word association today,” Dr. Flint said.
    “Whatever you say, Dr. Flint.” It was her favorite game. She said one word. He had to say another, instantly, without any thought. It was supposed to demonstrate what was going on in his mind.
    “Right.” She looked around her. “I’m going to start with something very ordinary. You know what to do.”
    There was a pause. Then she began.
    “Dog.”
    “Bone.”
    “Kitchen.”
    “Knife.”
    “Handle.”
    “Blade.”
    “Grass.”
    “Dead body.”
    Dr. Flint stopped. “I don’t understand the association,” she said. “When you said ‘blade,’ I said ‘grass’ because I was thinking of a blade of grass.”
    “And when you said ‘grass,’ I thought of burying someone underneath it.”
    “Who do you want to bury, Julius?”
    Julius didn’t answer. They both knew