The Prisoner Project

NINE

Hearing those words come out of his mouth made me see him in a way I hadn't necessarily looked at him before. It wasn't in a better light, it just told me to that I needed to be more patient in understanding him. It told me that there was something deeper within him than the granite surface he seemed to put out. 

Why? Because I knew one of his weaknesses. It was a small insight that Mirabel and the experts would feed on.

"I just want to talk, Nicholas." I tried again, careful not to say words that'll trigger a violent response from him. "Talking wouldn't frighten me any more than you do."

"Want. There's that dirty word again." He stated, leaning in. This time, he looked at me in a way that made it impossible for me to avoid his ardent gaze. This time, there seemed to be life within them. I couldn't look away. "What do you want to talk about, Aria?"

I tried to hide my victorious smile and racked my brain for the closest and most urgent thing I could think of. Why did you agree to do the Project? Why do you have so much bruises! How the heck are you so cultured yet so uneducated? Why do you not want to scare me? What was all that about yesterday? Why did you call yesterday an anniversary? Why did you kill your mother? Why did you kill anyone at all? Why do you sob violently afterwards? — were just a few.

I started with the centre of most of my questions. "Your mother."

His eyes widened infinitesimally.

There was a sudden silence, and then without warning, Banshee spoke again. "My mother." A small scowl danced across his taut face. "My mother. What a fucking bitch." He shook his head, as if nostalgic and then sighed. "Beautiful, like you. But colder, more stringent, than ice."

I felt my brows shoot up.

As if reading my mind, he quirked a brow. "If I could feel, I'd tell you that I loved her."

But you killed her, didn't you? — "Are you close to her?"

His eyes blazed.

When it lighted, it wasn't with the usual fiery anger.

He spoke, softly. "I am."

"Present tense?"

Then breaking all frightening thoughts I had of him, Banshee showed me he was human by chuckling. He chuckled lightly, like a man at a dinner party who laughed at the bland jokes of the host. It was not the laugh of a man who had to be handcuffed and chained in order to talk to someone.

He then said, "Fuck you, Aria. You used present tense too and you know she's fucking dead."

I didn't laugh with him.

Seeing him like this threw me off balance. Gone was the Banshee that had crudely told me that he'd break my fucking neck, or the Banshee that had laughed like the Devil when I had told him about God. This was another person, a Nicholas.

"I used present tense because I want you to talk to me like she's alive."

With that out there, I waited for his reply.

He sat in stony silence, watching me for a long minute. His eyes did the thing where it moved across my facial features slowly, as though he were taking me in. They said eyes were windows to the soul but Banshees eyes were tinted and locked from the inside. He could see you, but you could never see him. Indecipherable.