Chapter 13: THE DINNER TABLE — Part 2
The apartment door barely closed behind me before the performance ended.
I made it to the bathroom in time—just barely. My knees hit the cold tile, and everything came up: the wine, the vegetables, the meat that wasn't lamb. My body rejected what my mind had forced it to accept, convulsing with the knowledge of what I'd consumed.
Ten minutes. Maybe longer. I lost track while my stomach turned itself inside out.
When the heaving finally stopped, I sat on the bathroom floor with my back against the tub, breathing through my mouth, tasting bile and shame. My hands shook against my thighs. The tremors had started in the car and showed no signs of stopping.
I'd eaten human flesh. I'd sat across from a serial killer, complimented his cooking, discussed forensic methodology while digesting someone's loved one. And I'd done it well enough to survive.
The face in the bathroom mirror looked like a stranger—pale, sweating, eyes too bright with something between horror and hysterical laughter. I splashed cold water on my cheeks and forced myself to think past the immediate trauma.
The dinner had been a test. Hannibal wanted to study my reactions, probe for weaknesses, determine what kind of threat I might pose to his carefully constructed world. I'd passed—or at least hadn't failed catastrophically—but passing meant continuing to play his game.
I brushed my teeth three times, gargled with mouthwash until my gums burned, and went to my desk.
The notebook was where I'd left it. I opened to a fresh page and started writing while the evening was still raw in my memory.
Hannibal Lecter - Observations (Dinner 1)
The details came easily, my training kicking in despite the psychological cost. His body language during conversation—confident, controlled, genuinely engaged with intellectual discussion. The way his eyes tracked micro-expressions, cataloging responses I hadn't realized I was making. His questions: casual on the surface, probing underneath.
"You had an interesting reaction when we first met, Mr. Mikaelson. Most people don't tense when meeting a psychiatrist."
I'd deflected with professional explanation—fresh from Minnesota, violence leaves marks, processing trauma. He hadn't been fully convinced. I'd seen the slight narrowing of his eyes, the fractional tilt of his head that meant he was filing information for later analysis.
His interest in Will Graham: "Remarkable. A pure empathy I've rarely encountered. Fragile, but beautiful."
Beautiful. The word choice was deliberate. Hannibal saw Will as something to be cultivated, shaped, transformed. Art in progress. Raw material for whatever masterpiece he was constructing.
I'd pushed back carefully. "He'll need support after what happened." Hannibal's response had been smooth, reassuring, and entirely false: "He has it."
The support Hannibal provided would be poison dressed as medicine. Every therapy session would deepen Will's confusion, blur his sense of self, prepare him for the destruction to come.
Unless I found a way to intervene.
I wrote for an hour, documenting everything: the layout of Hannibal's house, the art on his walls, the books on his shelves. His kitchen organization, his wine preferences, his patterns of speech. Intelligence gathering disguised as dinner conversation. Every detail might matter later.
When I finally closed the notebook, my hands had steadied. The horror was still there, but it had been processed, compartmentalized, filed away with all the other terrible knowledge this new life required me to carry.
I showered until the water ran cold, scrubbing my skin with unnecessary force, trying to feel clean even though I knew I wouldn't. The meal sat in my stomach like evidence of crimes I couldn't report.
Sleep came eventually, restless and full of dreams I wouldn't remember. And in the morning, the world kept turning, cases kept arriving, and Hannibal Lecter remained exactly what he was: a monster in a well-tailored suit, curious about the new player in his game.
I had survived the first dinner. There would be more. I needed to be ready.
My phone buzzed at 6 AM with a message from Jack Crawford: New case. Bodies in the woods. Team briefing at 9.
I dressed in clean clothes that didn't smell like Hannibal's cooking, made coffee strong enough to strip paint, and drove to work wondering whose death would demand my attention today.
The answer, when it came, was worse than I'd expected.
A garden of bodies, buried alive, connected by fungal networks that fed on their dying flesh. Eldon Stammets. The mushroom farmer. Another case I knew the ending of before it began.
The drive to the crime scene gave me time to prepare. I'd need to control my Scene Reading better than I had at the Hobbs house. These victims had suffered longer, died slower, and the resonance would be correspondingly intense.
I could do this. I had to do this.
The alternative was letting Hannibal win by default, and that wasn't an option I was willing to accept.
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