Between love, business, and politics: Exclusive interview with Darius Holt!
Burglary at over twenty apartments raises concerns regarding building security measures.
Something was ringing. Something quiet but still painful.
Noah rolled over and slapped at his nightstand until his hand landed on his phone. Then he grabbed it and held it close enough to his face that he could read the words on the screen without squinting too much. He dragged his thumb across the screen to answer the call, held it up to his ear, and kicked back the sheets, knowing that Chloe would not call him unless he was needed down at the hospital. "Hey. What's up?"
Chloe's voice came through, sounding a little scared. "Hey, Noah? This is Noah, right? Not some hookup he picked up last night?"
Noah rolled his eyes, sliding out of bed very unwillingly. "Yes, Chloe, this is Noah. And, for the record, Noah does not bring home male hookups."
"Oh." There was a pause and then Chloe seemed to remember that she had called him for a reason. "Hey, so you said to let you know when Camille LeVieux woke up. He's awake now, and he will not shut up about seeing you."
Great. Just what he needed while hungover. Noah smashed the speakerphone button, set it down on the bathroom counter, and splashed cold water up onto his face.
"Please tell me you aren't pissing while I'm on speakerphone."
"I'm not," Noah mumbled, before grabbing a towel to dry his face. "I'm washing my face, you pervert." He tossed the towel somewhere and headed back into his bedroom to try to find a matching set of scrubs. Good grief, he really wanted to take a long, hot shower to wash away most of the alcohol's side effects, but he had no time for that. He finally found his green scrubs and got into them, half-listening to whatever Chloe was saying. Finally, as he was grabbing his keys and a protein drink from his fridge, he interrupted her. "I'm leaving now. I'll see you in fifteen."
"Wow, ready to leave in five minutes flat! It's a new record for Noah Callahan!"
"Shut up, Chloe," he muttered, aggressively hanging up and shoving the phone into his pocket. Of all days to get called in, it had to be today. Considering Camille's volatile emotional and psychological state, it was likely going to turn into a full day, the one thing Noah really did not want to suffer through on his day off with a hangover messing with his brain.
When he walked into the hall where Camille was staying, Chloe ran up to him immediately. "Hi, thanks for coming. I'm sorry about being a jerk on the phone."
Noah shrugged. "It's fine. I know you were kinda freaked out, especially after what happened yesterday." He took a deep breath and turned toward Camille's room. "Has he calmed down at all?"
"He did when I told him you were coming," Chloe responded. "He's been perfectly silent for almost ten minutes now." She shivered like the AC was set too high. "It's honestly a little freaky."
Noah gave her a look and then pushed open the door. "Hey," he said by way of greeting, feeling that Mr. LeVieux was too formal and Camille was too casual.
Camille's expression was like a lake of ice cracking as his eyes focused on Noah in concern. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice so quiet that Noah could barely hear it. "I hurt you, didn't I?"
Noah closed his eyes briefly. How did Camille get under his skin so easily? If it were any other patient, he would have brushed it off immediately and moved into a discussion of treatment. But that felt callous and cruel with Camille, who somehow still looked like an angel after everything. "No," he replied, making sure to craft his sentence carefully, "you didn't hurt me. You did scare me, but I'm fine." After a moment, he added cautiously, "You did hurt one of the interns, though."
Camille had begun to relax visibly after Noah had denied being hurt, but he tensed at Noah's addition. "Did I kill him?" The question was far too quiet and calm for yesterday's event to be a first-time occurrence. What had happened yeaterday…how many times had Camille gone through that? How many times had he hurt someone? Had he…killed someone before?
Noah shook his head. "No, you didn't kill him." Out of the sudden thought that Camille seemed to want to know the whole truth of the situation, he continued, "But you did try to. Which is why you're stuck in bed for now."
Camille looked down, but not at the restraints. He just stared down into his lap.
Noah approached and leaned against the counter nearest to Camille. "Is this something that's happened before?" he asked as gently as he could considering the ruthless headache pounding against the backs of his eyes.
Camille did not glance up like guilty people often did. "Yes." The answer was simple and all the more frightening because of it.
Noah leaned forward to try to look at Camille's face, but the omega's long blond hair did an excellent job of hiding his expression. "Camille?"
Camille still kept his head down. "I killed my brother."
Noah's face went slack. "Say what?" he asked in a disbelieving whisper.
Camille hid his face in his hands. "I shouldn't have said anything," he whisper-screamed into his hands. "I shouldn't have said anything!"
Noah tried to stay calm and forced himself to keep breathing normally. He did not like the idea of having to turn Camille over to the police. After a moment, he asked quietly, "Is there any proof that you killed your brother?"
Camille dug his hands harder into his face, as if trying to dig out a painful memory with his bare hands. "The house burned down, and he was still inside."
"Okay…" Noah said slowly. "Were you the one who set the house on fire?"
Camille wrapped his hands over his head. "Yes. No! I don't know! I think he used my hand to turn on the lighter, but I think I was the one who dropped it! I don't know!"
"Sh," Noah murmured, half of his mind focused on calming Camille and the other half intensely analyzing all of the possible reasons why Camille might have the compulsion to hurt people. Maybe he really was a psychopath. "It's okay if you don't know. That's a very scary thing. Your brain is probably still trying to make sense of it, so you're confused because your brain is blocking some of the memories from you. It's a standard case of PTSD. If you keep talking about it, even the things you're not sure of, your brain will give you the true memories back." At least he hoped that was all that was going on. PSTD was fixable with therapy. Psychopathy was not. Psychopathy was only tameable, and that was only in the best cases. Noah could only hope it was something fixable or that Camille was a best case scenario.