I wanted to attack him for the absolute nonsense that had left his mouth. I wanted to punch him, push him, something. But I couldn't. I curled my knees up to my chest and held them tightly with my bruised arms, tears streaming down my face as I audibly sobbed.
I cried into my knees harder than I had ever cried before. Henry was gone. In the moments I had been the most scared in my entire life, I called out for him. Yet, when I thought my life was really ending, when Jack had strangled me, he didn't enter my thoughts once. I had thought about my past boyfriends and how I would be standing up my best friend because I had received the news about Henry. Almost as if he was an inconvenience. Was he?
Grief was such a confusing thing. Did I love him? Did I hate him? Did I love him for who he was, or for what he provided me with? Did I hate him because of things he had actually done, or for leaving me like this? Did I really hate him at all, or did I hate myself?
"You had fire in your eyes for a second, (Name). I thought you were going to do something ill-advised," Jack chuckled. I could feel his unwavering gaze on me, even from across the room. Such a strange aura he gave off. It was like the human body knew that this man was a predator, and would react to him as if he was. But, against my better judgement, I didn't think he was a predator. I thought he was a monster. Not for the obvious reasons, but because he had said and done hurtful things without caring about the damage he'd caused. I shouldn't have expected him to, though. A creature such as him shouldn't be assumed to be anything but what he was; an abomination.
"I k-know,-" I bit my tongue before I could do something irrational. I wouldn't use the minimal knowledge I had about him against him yet. I had to gather more against him to make the reveal more shocking. The only ammunition I would even have against him at the moment would be based off of a dream. I so badly wanted to throw it all in his face. How helpless he was as the group killed him. I wanted to expose him for his weakest moments as he had done to me, but, though I badly wanted to retaliate, I'd have to wait.
Though I didn't fully see it in my dream, or more precisely, nightmare, I had enough common sense to see the relation between the bloodied spoon and his eyes missing. How badly I wanted to say, "I really don't need therapy from a man who was killed with a spoon,".
Don't do it. Not yet.
"You know? I'm sure you know not to cross that line with me again, but I'm not exactly sure that that was what you were going to say," His head tilted as he crouched down, his hands outstretched in front of him on top of each other, his fingers fanning out.
I lifted my head slightly to look at him, and he noticed the small movement. He raised his hand, and lifted two fingers to give me the 'come here' gesture. I refused, lowering my head yet again.
Why would I go to him just to get kicked or punched again? I wouldn't humiliate myself for his own sick pleasure.
"Did I strike a nerve?"
Suddenly, his voice was alarmingly close. My head rose quickly, just to see his face inches from my own. Except, he didn't have a smug look on his face, nor a mocking smirk. He looked serious, almost as if he was genuinely concerned that he may have crossed a boundary.
I took a moment to clear my throat, and went to wipe my eyes with my hand, but his own hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.
My eyes widened at the sudden movement as I stared at his other hand as he slowly raised it. He hesitated for a moment, as if he was deeply thinking about his next moves before he made them. He extended his index finger, his hand nearing dangerously close to my face. His nail barely brushed my cheek before he retracted it. I watched in absolute horror as he raised the nail, freshly wet with a single tear from my cheek, to his mouth.
His tongue, which I had failed to notice from the previous time I had seen it, was pointed. It trailed from the second knuckle on his finger to the very tip of his nail, his gaze never leaving my own. Had it not been an inhuman creature doing it, and had it not taken place in a situation of kidnapping, it would have been slightly erotic.
"Your heartbeat is picking up," He commented casually. He lowered his hand again, resting it on his leg in his still-crouched position.
"Tell me, have you ever been this afraid before?"
I pulled my legs in closer to me, restricting my breathing a little bit. I wanted as much distance between him and I as possible. He took satisfaction in me being terrified of him. He liked having complete control of things. It would be hard for him to not have control. His advanced senses would almost always give him an upper hand in any given situation. I had to start testing him, seeing how far I could get him to bend before he would break. Maybe if I hinted at knowing things about him, his reactions would confirm or deny how true they were. It would only be fair to do it back, seeing as how he was doing it to me.
"C-can I ask a question now?" Adrenaline coursed through my body as he tilted his head left, then right, still staring directly at me. I rebutted his question with my own, I had to finally go through with it.
He nodded, not saying anything, but looked intrigued as he waited for me to ask my self-dreaded question.
Don't do it. Don't say it. Not yet.
"D-did you know the girl that sacrificed you?"
I felt triumphant as his face fell, his guard completely down as the question left my lips. His entire form was visibly shaking, even if only slightly.
"What the fuck did you say?"
Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it.
His threatening words held no meaning as he trembled in his spot. His gaze still didn't dare break mine. I knew if he had eyes, it would be his turn to have hellfire behind them.
"Did I strike a nerve, Jack?"
At this point, killing me would be a mercy. And I knew that something like him wouldn't provide mercy. He'd probably beat me until I was a sniveling mess of broken bones and blood, but to taste even a sliver of victory was well worth it. If he wanted to hurt me using a situation that wasn't in my control, I would do the same. Except, I had no idea if it was true. But as he had said before, sometimes lack of an answer is all the answer you need. Though, his unspoken confirmation only brought up more questions within myself. I hadn't been at the killing of Jack. The sacrifice. How did I have such a vivid nightmare of something I never witnessed? I had never heard about anything like it in the news, either, so there was no way that my brain had dreamt up a scene based on it. This nightmare had purpose and had a reason for being recurring.
He broke me from my thoughts as he stood, sighing deeply. He just stood, unmoving for a few moments. His exhales were deliberately harsh; he was pissed.
I followed suit, standing on my new-found legs. For the first time since being in his presence, I felt almost powerful. I had affected him. A gray-skinned, inhuman creature who could kill me any second stood before me, and I, a human, had affected him.
Finally, his breathing slowed enough to where I couldn't hear it, yet he remained unmoving. The silence between us grew eerie; the room was completely silent save for my own breathing. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears as the adrenaline died down and the fear set back in.
I fucked up. I should have waited.
"I never told you my name, yet you know it. And as I calmed myself down just now from the overpowering urge to kill you where you stand, which is most definitely still present, I thought about all the ways in which you could have come to know that name. I only landed on one,"
He lunged forward, pinning my back against the wall behind me, both of his arms encasing me from either side. My breathing quickened, and every time my chest raised it made contact with his own.
"Were you there?"
I shook my head from side to side violently, earning a snarl from him. His bared teeth parted behind his lips as they pulled taught into a ferocious, predatory sneer.
"Then how the fuck do you know my name?"
How would I explain it? There was no way he would believe me if I told him. And a small part of me didn't want to tell him. If two things from the nightmare had been true, being his name and him being killed, what else was true from it? I wanted to save that information for myself in case I had to make him freeze again. With how he had reacted to just a small mention of the nightmare, I wondered what his reaction would be to the whole story. I knew it wouldn't be wise to tell him now with how visceral he was already behaving.
I finally landed on an answer. It was a lie, but it was an answer. If Neil was a part of their schemes, he wouldn't be for long.
"Officer Neil mentioned some names i-in the interview," The words came out quickly as I rattled off the lie I had just thought of to save my own ass and put Neil's in the doghouse.
"H-He said that he suspected foul-play with Henry, and had mentioned 'Jack' as a name. H-he asked me if I knew it, and muttered something under his breath. He thought I didn't hear him, but I heard what he said,"
Jack backed up slightly, his face smoothing out from his once angrily contorted features.
"What exactly did he say?"
He was buying it.
"Like I said, he thought I couldn't h-hear him, but he said, 'Of course not, he was sacrificed. By a girl, at that,'."
I threw in the last bit just because I could. Just because I knew it would dig into him.
Jack backed off completely, his arms falling at his sides. His fists bunched up beside him so tight that his blood started creeping down his fingers.
His face scrunched into that terrifying expression yet again, except this time, his voids were aimed at the floor.
"I'll be back," His voice sounded exactly like it had in my nightmare; laced with malice and heavily underlined with an even deadlier demonic, terrifying quality than it usually held.
Relief washed over me as he stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. All I knew was that, for the moment, I had saved my ass, and Neil was going to get what was coming to him.