The Prisoner Project

EIGHTEEN

He paused to laugh incredulously, shaking his head as though it easy a fond memory. "She dropped dead immediately, and I wiped my hands on my jumper and continued my stroll to the police station. It was so quick, sickening, but it felt so good."

"You didn't scream or cry." I whispered more to myself than anything.

He opened his hooded eyes and peeked down at me. "No." He moved to the table and placed his hands on it. "Not a single tear drop, Aria. She was my move. My pawn. The best player in my game. The pigs began to investigate her death soon after, thinking it was a new offender because it was so unlike the way I killed. I didn't kill in the daytime. I didn't kill and not cry. I didnt kill just like that."

I shook my head, violently repulsed. "So they never suspected you." I wasn't going to question where this was going because I had learnt that Banshee never spoke without a direction.

"They still don't. Her investigation went on for months and I smiled all the way to the cell knowing that I had won this one. It's funny because while I gloat, her parents live in constant pain, unable you find closure." He finalised, and I noticed the smugness in his voice. He was still proud.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I tell you this, Aria, because you're that 5 year old girl. You're someone's power move."

His words dropped like an icicle on glass and shattered on the table before me.

There it was, the familial cold hand of fear gripping my heart and squeezing squeezing it so tight I was finding it hard to breathe. "W..what are you talking about?"

He shifted in his seat. "You accused me of writing letters to your sister, and I told you that I didn't. Someone in SSCD wants to know more about you. Enough to risk contacting your relative. Why?" His eyes slid down from my eyes, to my chest. It was because I was trembling. "I have no fucking clue."

The lights above us flickered ever so slightly, it reminded me of how much shambles this place was in. "How do you know the person receiving the letters is within this building?"

"Because of what I see." He deadpanned. "What I hear. What I know."

I waited for him to finish and explain what he heard, saw and knew. But just as he always did, he left me on the edge, grabbing at the loose ends of all his sentences.

I slumped forward in a sigh, letting looseone of the braids I had done earlier in the week. "Nicholas..."

Slowly and quite unexpectedly, his eyes grew darker once his name escaped my lips. He trailed his deep green eyes over me, from the loose braid, to my facial features. I held my breath because of how deep set his eyes had become.

I was the only thing he was focusing on in that moment.

Suddenly, before I could react, he reached forward with his less-bruised hand and his icy fingers grazed my cheek. One never truly experienced fear until they had become catatonic from the sheer amount of it. I was almost certain that my heart had stopped beating.

His calloused fingers felt like fire against my skin. My subconscious made me feel like his fingers scraped across my skin like a match. Trying to burn me down. With one swift motion, he brushed my hair away from my cheek.

All I felt was absolute torture.

His eyes were serious, his face taut. I knew he had not touched another woman, another person, in decades. I knew that he was viciously trying to control himself from the way his eyes sparked. He looked maddening. His breathing sped up. His hold on my hair was tightening. I was unable to breath.