SUBLIME, Hannibal Lecter

x. another version of me

Jack lowered his gaze, guilt eating away at him. "Can you identify him?" he asked, still hoping.

She shook her head. "I could hear his voice, but I couldn't see his face. All I could see... was light."

Silence blanketed the room. Jack didn't want to push her. Miriam was too fragile. The only one not afraid to press forward was Sloane. "Why do you think he didn't kill you, Miriam?" she asked. "Why were you spared?"

Sloane knew she hadn't been spared. She'd been kept. For show. A gift, for Jack.

"I wasn't spared," Miriam said gravely. "He was saving me for last."

. . .

Sloane sat in the interrogation room, lit by a cruel, sterile white light. She sat across from Hannibal, her hands calmly interlaced, her posture perfectly straight. No tremor. No crack in her voice. Her face was impassive, cold, polished, controlled. The same Sloane everyone had once learned to fear and respect.

As she'd walked down the corridor toward that room, tension had filled the air. Everyone had turned to look at her. Everyone recognized her. She was no longer the woman who had laughed softly with Beverly, Brian, and Jimmy in the halls. The woman walking through those corridors now was her most ruthless self, the one who had learned long ago how to separate her work from everything else, even her heart.

On the other side of the one-way glass, Miriam Lass and Jack Crawford watched in silence, the woman bracing herself to hear the voice that might drag her back to hell. Sloane inhaled slowly, a breath that didn't disturb her composure.

If she hadn't built that wall inside herself—if she hadn't carved that clean abyss between the woman and the agent she might have broken Jack Crawford's jaw for putting her in this position.

But she didn't.

She stayed seated.

Unreadable. Glacial.

And across from her, Hannibal looked at her as if that ice were just another challenge to shatter.

"They found a witness," Sloane said simply. "A survivor. The only victim of the Chesapeake Ripper who lived to tell."

Hannibal admired her, he couldn't help himself. There, before him, was the same woman who had caught his attention from the very first moment. The woman who had walked into his office that first day. The woman he had shared himself with. The woman who had made him worry. The woman with whom he'd shared case after case.

"Is this witness watching me now?" Hannibal asked calmly.

"Yes."

"It seems I am the usual suspect," he murmured.

Sloane met his eyes. "It's procedure. You've been accused, so this is part of the process," she replied, her tone perfectly professional. "I wish I could tell why this is happening," she added softly, losing herself for a moment in the eyes of the man she loved.

But Sloane knew Hannibal. He was far too intelligent. It wouldn't take him long to figure out why he was really there.

"His witness must not be able to identify the Ripper by sight," Hannibal said, his expression making it clear that to him, it was obvious. He stood, pacing. "Jack wants them to hear my voice. Otherwise, I'd be here alone." He turned toward the glass, his voice directed at his fiancée. "Right?"

Sloane couldn't answer. She just kept her gaze fixed on him, searching his eyes for something, anything, and finding her confirmation there.

"Still," Hannibal went on, "I appreciate your company. As always."