Chapter 11
Dr. Trystan, who was normally the picture of calm, sat in Clare and Ares' living room as jittery as a child on sugar. The woman bounced her knee impatiently as Clare poured her a glass of wine and offered to take her coat.
"No, thank you," Dr. Trystan said. "Where is your husband?"
"He's dropping our daughter off at my parent's house," Clare took a seat. "We didn't want her to accidentally hear any of this. She grew up with Kiara."
Trystan slowly nodded.
"Dr. Trystan -"
"Please, call me Hannah," the woman said, taking a sip of her wine. "This is really good."
"Thank you, Hannah," Clare smiled. "It's from Dionysus. He has a habit of dropping off wine to piss off my husband."
"If you don't want them, send them my way."
"I'll keep that in mind," Clare nodded. "So tell me again....what makes you think Kiara was in your house?"
"Well, for starters, our baby monitor was turned off," Hannah shivered. "My daughter, Ava, she sleeps in the room down the hall from us and we never turn off the monitors."
"Could that have been a camera issue?"
"That's what I thought at first," Hannah shook her head. "But then I saw the bunny in the crib."
"The bunny?" Clare raised a brow.
"Yes," Hannah nodded. "During one of our sessions I had mentioned to Kiara that Ava likes bunnies. That is not true, by the way. I was just trying to get her to start talking to me about Lila. She's always in a good mood when she talks about Lila. But....this morning, when I saw the stuffed bunny in Ava's crib....I just...."
Hannah shivered once more. Her eyes glossed over for a few seconds before she composed herself.
"Clare....I know she was in my house," she said. "And she wants me to know she was there. She knows I'm trying to dig through her mind."
"It's okay," Clare moved closer and patted the woman's hand. "I understand. I know how frightening this is."
Just then Ares walked in through the portal in the living room. His eyes fell on the look of distress on Dr. Trystan's face and his wife comforting the poor woman. He cautiously made his way over to them and took a seat.
"I can't believe this is happening," Ares said. "Clare, we need to tell Tobias."
"Going to Tobias without a solution will be a mistake," Clare said. "He will whisk Kiara away to the underworld."
"And that won't help," Hannah said. "Because she can now portal without the rings."
"Oh for fuck's sake," Ares rubbed his forehead. "How did this go unnoticed for so long? How did we not pick up on this?"
"Because psychopaths are very good at imitating human emotions and empathy," Hannah explained. "They're charming and very adaptive to their environment."
"But surely I would have felt something," Clare frowned. "The girl grew up around me."
"Well, demigods are not usually like this," Hannah said. "Their minds are stronger than the average human. Kiara was able to glide by for so many years because she was functioning at a very high level. Demigod minds are strong and in this case it masked her true nature."
"So you're saying she was born like this?" Ares asked.
"Yes and no," Hannah sat down her wine glass. "Psychopaths are a combination of biology and the environment. Kiara would have been just fine if she had a normal childhood. Yes, she would still be very manipulative and cunning, but it wouldn't have escalated to this."
