Foretold

#2

I came out of the cell after calming Brian down a little. I was holding my hand tight to constrict the bleeding. Mark saw it and rushed to me at once. "Caroline. This is the second time that he's hurt you. I don't know why you don't just hand the case over to Mr. Know-it-all." He said, his eyes full of concern.
"Brian deserves good care, Mark. And I doubt Cole will look at him in any way except how he'd look at any crazy prisoner of his. Everyone is aware of his harsh ways. Brian will shut up, Mark, but he'll never be cured." I said.
"That doesn't mean you come back each night to get hurt." Mark said, angrily.

I sighed. The pain was unbearable. Driving would've been impossible with how my hand was. "Drive me home, Mark?" I said.
"Hey, you don't have to ask, Carly! Come on." He said, walking out. I looked at Brian one last time, who was still staring at me, and his grin was back. Any sign of sanity that had appeared in him wasn't there anymore. I smiled at him and waved, even though I doubted if it made sense to him at all.

Mark took the driver's seat, I took the one to his side and Jim took the long backseat. "You think he's going to get better?" Mark asked while starting the ignition.
"Maybe, Mark. I'm doing all that I can. If there's no improvement in the next few weeks I'll be forced to hand it over to Cole. I just hope Brian stops creating havoc at the asylum each night. That'll do for now." I said.

"I know this must be difficult for you. It is, for all of us. Brian can't be recognized as the person he once was." Mark sighed. I didn't respond.
I'd known Brian for over three years now, back when I joined the NYPD as a criminal psychologist. My job was to talk to the criminals, the murderers, the serial killers, try to read their minds, basically try to understand what they'd do in the future or why they committed a crime.

It's very important to do when you're setting a murderer out of jail after his punishment period is over, just to make sure they don't go wrong again. Knowing what a criminal will do, having the ability to read their minds makes the person a perfect detective, so holding a degree in criminal psychology, that's what I opted for.

Why was I counseling Brian? Isn't that what a counselor is supposed to do? I can read minds to an extent, but not cure them much. Cole didn't read minds or cure minds. He was the professional correctional counselor, yes, but his ways weren't of my liking. He was very harsh with the people.

Most criminals however, did leave jail to never commit a crime again after they went under Cole. But they weren't happy people who felt liberalized, it was more like Cole traumatized them enough that they were scared to commit crime again. Anyway, what mattered is that they never did it again, so Cole was at the top of his profession.

But Brian, he was an exception. Nobody wanted to hand him over to Cole, and there were reasons. Brian was the best we had three years back. Brave and honest, everyone wanted to be like him. I assisted him in my first few cases, and I'd seen how great an officer Brian was. However, everything changed after he went on a leave for a week. He didn't join back on the day he was supposed to.

And when his housekeeper knocked on the door, he didn't open it. She had a spare set of keys for emergency, which she used. And she saw something ghastly, which made her run all the way to the police station. She'd seen Sienna, Brian's fiancee lying on the floor, a pool of blood around her. Brian was sitting on the sofa, with that same grin, staring at a bloodied knife. He'd noticed the housekeeper, but just gone back to staring at the knife.

When we reached there, Brian hadn't moved, he hadn't tried to run away. We had to arrest him and take him to court. Since there were no witnesses to Sienna's murder, except Brian himself, Brian couldn't be proven guilty. Even though the knife in Brian's hand matched with the wound Sienna had, because of Brian's noble past, it was very difficult to announce him a murderer, considering all the evidence and witnesses.

Brian had not spoken a word in the court, he hadn't spoken for three years now, since that day. The court decided to send Brian to asylum, hope for his recovery and his statement about Sienna's death. The case was closed for then. Cole never liked Brian, and the captain didn't want to assign him to counsel him. Brian could've had a counselor from the asylum, but the captain wanted someone from the police.

The only person left was me, so I was assigned to Brian, and I'd been seeing him for almost six months. And then these started. Brian started going crazy late at nights, banging his head to the wall, hurting himself, laughing like a maniac. I'd been rushing to the asylum every night for 16 days in a row.

I really wished Brian would get better, because if there was any way to find the truth about what happened to Sienna, it was through him. Somewhere deep within, I was sure Brian couldn't have killed someone. Or could he have? I wasn't so sure anymore.