Scorpia Rising

the head. But that was crazy. He had to be careful, do this one step at a time.
    There was a second note folded into the book. It was much longer and more detailed than the message he had received the night before. Julius read it very carefully. Whoever was helping him, these were serious people. He knew he couldn’t make a mistake. Finally, when he was ready, he closed the book and got up. It was half past twelve, exactly the right time. He knew what he had to do.
    The subject has made no progress at all since his arrival in Gibraltar. It is clear that Julius Grief has a pathological hatred for Alex Rider that is deep-rooted and permanent. And yet, at the same time, surgery has made him identical to the object of his hate. It must surely follow that subconsciously, some of that hatred must be directed against himself. In my view, there is a very real danger that this psychological turmoil could drive Grief over the edge and that he could plunge into depression, suicide, or total nervous breakdown. Indeed, it is surprising that it hasn’t happened yet.

    Dr. Flint looked at what she had just written and felt a deep sense of gloom. She had been working with damaged children for her entire professional life, but she had never met anyone like Julius Grief. On the one hand, she wanted to feel sorry for him. He wasn’t responsible for what he had become. He had been manipulated from the moment he was born—in fact, even his birth had been manipulated. He was a freak, created for one purpose only: to help his father take over the world. She had read the file on Hugo Grief and it had made her shudder. All sixteen boys had been drip-fed a diet of hatred and insanity, and all of them (apart from two who had died) had ended up in institutions like this, locked up for the rest of their lives. It wasn’t their fault.
    And yet no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t avoid the fact that she had a deep dislike for Julius. She knew it was unprofessional, but at the same time it was almost instinctive. He was a horrible person. And she wasn’t fooled by him either. Although he went along with her methods—the discussions, the word association, the different psychological tests—she knew he was toying with her. And he was keeping something back. Even this morning she had been aware of it. He had tried to hide what he was thinking in his expressionless face and his flat, formal answers. But there had been moments when she sensed it, flickering in the corner of her eye like a moth in candlelight. There was something he wasn’t telling her. She wondered if she should mention it to the warden but decided against it. She was the boy’s therapist. She had to respect his confidentiality. She went back to her notes.
    I recommend that Julius be put back on medication with immediate effect. Although I do not like drugging young people, I feel that in his case—

    The doorbell rang. That was surprising. The warden never came back before two o’clock, and his wife was out for lunch. Dr. Flint went over to the small television screen in the hallway and saw a black-and-white image of Julius standing outside, holding a bunch of flowers that he must have picked himself in the prison garden. She was tempted not to open the door. He shouldn’t be here. It was against regulations. She remembered how he had tried to attack her in one of her first sessions with him. And then there had been the time when he had gone berserk and smashed the mirror. She should tell him to go away.
    But then she reconsidered. All that had been a long time ago, and maybe he really was trying to make amends for his behavior that morning. Maybe he had come to tell her what was on his mind. The flowers were a sweet touch. And anyway, there were dozens of cameras that would be trained on him even now. There was no danger. She opened the door.
    “What is it, Julius?” she asked.
    “It’s a bit difficult to explain, Dr. Flint.”
    “Do you want to come back inside?”
    “No. As a matter of fact, I’d like you to come with me.”
    “Where do you want to go?”
    “We’re leaving here—together.”
    He dropped the flowers and there it was, in his hand, pointing at her. Dr. Flint stared in shock. Julius Grief was holding a gun, his finger curled around the trigger, a glazed look in his eyes. It was like something out of a nightmare. First, it made no sense at all. How could he possibly have gotten a gun? And yet at the same time there was something horribly