Daniel felt a vague sense of unease.
Her eyes flashed with ruthlessness as she pulled the trigger on the gun she had obtained from Dean, only to be shocked to find that, for some reason, the trigger wouldn't depress!
"Sorry, it tends to be uncooperative with others," Dean said, slowly raising his head.
As his voice fell, it seemed as if afterimages streaked by.
Detrov, standing nearby, saw only the flashes of gunfire, flickering repeatedly—four shots merging into one roar that filled the hospital ward.
With a clatter, Daniel fell to the ground, gun and all. Blast wounds had appeared on her limbs, turning her into a heap of flesh that could only wriggle on the ground, suffering the same fate her accomplice had three days prior.
Detrov looked dazedly, first at Daniel, who was equally stunned, then at Dean, who was calmly preparing to peel an apple with both hands. For a moment, he wondered if his eyes and ears were failing him.
I vaguely saw gunfire flash four times but heard only one gunshot! I can see four gunshot wounds on Daniel's limbs, yet I didn't see where Dean's gun was hidden! How can anyone in the world shoot that fast?
CRUNCH. Dean finished the apple in a few bites and expertly tossed the core into a distant trash can. Then he said, "Agent Detrov, are you just going to stand there like a statue instead of calling the bomb squad?"
"Oh, oh, oh." Detrov snapped out of his daze. He reached for his waist, but his hand trembled so much he couldn't get it into his pocket.
He finally managed to get his phone out. But because his hands trembled as if he had Parkinson's, it took him a long while to make the call.
Fortunately, he didn't stutter when he spoke. After explaining the situation, he hung up.
Detrov forced an unprecedentedly warm smile and walked awkwardly over to Dean's hospital bed. "Detective Dean," he began, "how do you think I should write this report?"
"Just write it as it happened. Now, please go evacuate the patients and doctors. And while you're at it, have a doctor come here to attend to her bleeding."
Dean dropped the pretense and sat up in bed. He stretched, revealing the white bandages crisscrossing his body, then got up and crouched beside Daniel.
The woman was almost in shock from the pain of her gunshot wounds.
After checking the explosive pack she wore, Dean let out a breath he'd been holding. This woman wasn't bluffing. It was real TNT.
Sophisticated electronic devices connected the explosive packs, and an inconspicuous red and green light blinked among them.
It seemed that as long as the trigger conditions weren't met, the explosive vest was still relatively safe.
This made it clear that although these highly educated individuals were indecisive and their methods clumsy when committing crimes, they possessed genuine skill and intelligence.
Perhaps, if not for their past experiences, these people could have had bright futures, enjoying warm families and enviable careers.
A pity. They couldn't go back.
They had already become Mike Smith's pawns.
Dean was curious about this kind of psychological change. After a doctor, trembling with fear, had controlled Daniel's bleeding and bandaged her wounds, Dean sent away Harry and Robert, who had wanted to stay with him. He lit a cigarette for Daniel, who was now somewhat relieved of pain, and sat beside her as if they were old friends. Then, he lit one for himself.
Daniel, her limbs numb, puffed dazedly on the cigarette. Smoke stung her eyes, making them red, yet she was reluctant to let go of the cigarette.
She knew this might be her last cigarette before prison.
"Want to talk?" Dean flicked the ash from Daniel's cigarette and then lit another one for her. "You know," he said, a touch of wistfulness in his voice, "you have a very intellectual aura. If I'd met you when we were students, I probably would have pursued you."
His mastery in persuasive dialogue and his level-two Mind Reading Technique told him that the woman before him currently had an extremely fragile psychological defense, ready to crumble at the slightest touch.
His words struck a chord with Daniel. A flicker of reminiscence crossed her eyes.
Before meeting Mike Smith, she had indeed been well-read, loved books, and even had a bookish boyfriend.
Unfortunately, all that ended after she attended Mike Smith's lectures.
A healer cannot heal themselves.
After gaining some expertise in psychology, Daniel realized she had a psychological problem. But by then, apart from clinging to her pathological beliefs, there was no turning back.
Because to deny those beliefs was to deny the very meaning of her existence.
This might sound rather philosophical, but that was the reality of it.
After a long silence, she let the cigarette fall from her lips. Her voice was hoarse as she asked, "What do you want to talk about?"
"We can talk about your group of... equally unfortunate individuals. Or how you killed Mike Smith. Anything, really," Dean said casually. "Perhaps you could try talking about it. Things can't get any worse for you now, can they?"
Dean knew his prey had walked into the trap.
Memories like hers were often painful, but sharing them could be like a sweet release, allowing her to vent the otherwise unbearable anguish in her heart.
It was just like training a dog.
Daniel, herself an expert in psychology, was not in a good mental state.
Upon hearing Dean's words, she didn't refuse but began to ponder.
After a moment's thought, she nodded. "Alright. I'll tell you how we killed Mike Smith."
"Mike Smith was very knowledgeable. Many of his theories were actually quite twisted, but when he explained them, they somehow sounded convincing. Step by step, he turned us, his intellectual captives, into his slaves.
It was only later that we realized Mike Smith was treating us as subjects in something like the Stanford experiment."