The asylum didn't scare Tahlia anymore.
The eerie feeling of something crawling it's way down her skin, the noir atmosphere that personified madness in itself - none of it bothered her, it seemed.
In fact, she almost didn't notice the cold air enveloping her body, as she stepped into room 159 this time.
She hated to admit it, but she was becoming used to it.
Losing her sanity, fragment by fragment.
"Good evening Natalia."
Instead of sitting on his bed like previously, she was greeted by a seated muscular form at the desk.
Unlike everything else, her name spoken in his raspy, daunting voice didn't fail to disorient her just like it had always done. That's something she could never get used to.
She sat down slowly, trying her level best to ignore how dry her throat had gotten all of a sudden, fingers braced against the red button.
She refused to look him in the eye. She just refused.
Maybe it was the fear of possibly seeing a feral entity in those eyes, waiting for the right opportunity to pounce and tear it's canines into an unsuspecting soul.
With hands still trembling in the slightest little motions, she turned on the voice recorder.
"Hello Mr. Hunt. Did you eat well?"
A bone-chilling chuckle escaped the mouth of the man sitting across from her.
"I think we've been over this, Natalia." He drew himself forward, "No games."
The irony in his words might have made Tahlia laugh hysterically, only if it wasn't for the deathly fear in the rift of her stomach. Instead, she kept her eyes glued down to her file.
"When did you first feel the compulsion to-"
"That's not what you want to ask me." He cut her off before she could even complete the question, mouth set in a cold, firm line.
"Yes, but this is what I need to ask. This is a legitimate assignment we're talking about, Mr. Hunt." Not your blasted mind games, she added mentally.
The pep talk she had spent an hour giving herself, seemed to have worked. She held her courage, taking pride in the fact that she hadn't stuttered once in his presence.
"Now," She emphasized again, "When did you first feel the compulsion to.."
Kill, she paused to say.
"...Violate laws?"
He looked straight into her eyes, no words spoken, merely smiling.
"As long as I remember existing."
Tahlia only hoped that the silence in the room wasn't too lucid for him to have heard the gulp in her throat.
As long as I remember existing
Of course, psychopaths are astronomically likely to have run ins with crime, because they lack basic reason, logic and most importantly, empathy.
But not all psychopaths are gruesome murderers.
The fact that the handsome male that sat before her, had just self admitted to being born a killing machine, whirled her mind on a whole different level.
It unnerved her, how she would have never seen his true self, had he passed her by the street any other day. Just an insanely attractive Adonis-like creature.
A raging murderer? Never.
Once she broke out of her little reverie, she let out a shaky breath, trying to get her brain to shake off the perturbation and focus on the next question to ask.
"Your- your victims were all females. Marissa Marano, the youngest was 18 and Moira Jackson, the oldest was 39. Was there a specific pattern you liked to follow?"
He kept silent, like the frail breeze that blows before the storm hits; turning his gaze away towards the plain white ceiling, choosing to stare at the most random of spots.
"Did they remind you of someone specifically? Why these women?" She stressed to his mute avatar. "Why women?"
Suddenly, his terror-brewing stare met hers, tongue darting out to lick his chapped lips. As much Tahlia hated admitting it, she couldn't help but find her gaze discreetly lingering over the small action.
"Women are easy."
She looked up at him, brow furrowed.
"Excuse me?"
He shrugged nonchalantly, "Women are easy. Gullible. Desperate. You don't even have to lay out a bait, they'll throw themselves at an attractive, mysterious man carelessly."
His lips, then, sported a vain smirk,
Tahlia couldn't believe what she was hearing. She fell silent.
"They didn't know who you were. What you were. They were innocent." Her voice came out a broken whisper, juxtaposing the harsh grit she'd quietly expected them to possess.
"Is that so?"
His tone dripped with arsenic, as if it had been smeared in gallons and gallons of acrimony.
So Tahlia decided on not replying, lest she should be poisoned.
"Open the drawer on your right Natalia."
She blinked, disarmed, "Why?"
"Because it's where I keep my knives."
Her grip around the red button stiffened.
The part of her brain that distinguished whim from reality seemed to malfunction for a small second, chilling her entire stance.
But when, she weighed his words with the leverage of reality; realization and relief were quick to flood her system.
He's just trying to screw with your mind.
She glimpsed at him once, at his maddening grin, then turned to her right. And indeed, there was a drawer in the desk.
With wary hands, she pulled the compartment open.
She looked at the contents of the drawer, then back at Logan Hunt's face. The look in her eyes said it all.
You bastard.
It was just bundles of paper, racks of plain white envelopes to be specific.
"Do you know what those are Natalia?"
She shook her head in negation, still miffed.
"Fanmail."
She flinched visibly, unconcealed to the monster, the word fan not making comprehensive sense together with 'Logan Hunt' in her psyche.
He leaned in closer, "There are women out there who write to me everyday, telling me all about how it would be a privilege to have their pretty little bodies dismembered by me."
She ran a hand through her hair, suddenly finding her chest contracting, slowly losing out on the ability to take in oxygen, as if.
But when her gaze met the impassive, but devilishly pleased face of the man in front of her, she understood- it was exactly what Logan Hunt wanted.
To intimidate her, to fuck with her composure
She cleared her throat, attempting to ignore the uncomfortable knots her stomach had twisted to.
"Were you born or brought up in Westfie-"
"I believe it's my turn, Natalia."
She frowned, but nevertheless, didn't voice her exact thoughts.
She lowered her stare to his fingers, which tapped away at the wooden table in haunting decibels.
He began, softly, "Why don't you like being called your real name?"
It took a second for the question to sink in. Her name. Her name.
"No reason, I just..I don't like the sound of it."
Her reply came out too throaty for her own good
"Liar." The gleam in his eyes, the smirk on his lips, all mocking her in unison.
She shook her head, taking a look at the next question, ignoring how the word liar was now ringing in her head,
Leaving no space for any possible furthering of that piece of conversation, she began with the next question as if it was her life that was on the line.
"Are you from Westfield? I did a little research and-and there are no records that indicate the existence of a Logan Hunt, or any family named Hunt for that matter, at least since the year 1916."
His eyes narrowed slightly, his shoulders rising and falling in a nonchalant shrug, "I don't know."
"What do you m-"
"Why are you still a virgin?"
The file intertwined in her fingers fell on the marble floor with a loud clink, pages flying out like white doves all over the flooring. Her eyes threatened to pop out of the sockets, hot blood rushing to her face instantly.
"You- you c-can't just ask- wha- you- just-" She stuttered for a second. Her eyes met his twinkling ones. Once again, the azure in them mocking her. Laughing at her staggered form.
She cleared her throat, "That's none of your business."
Her words had been hissed, hints of spite laced in her otherwise calm tone, amusing Logan further.
She was mortified. How could he just assume that?
Tahlia was so wrapped up in his appalling words that she almost didn't notice the sudden chill moving down her shoulder blades.
Almost.
It wasn't until a second later that Tahlia realised what had happened.
Logan Hunt's fingers were laced with her own.
He was still cuffed;
she, however, was too close.
Akin to a curious child in a zoo, leaning in closer towards the lion's cage, testing the metal bars with it's fleshy arms.
And now, the lion had its jaws enclosed around the little kid's hand.
Logan leaned in closer, with the intent of the most catastrophic of storms. "Is it because you're shy? Is it because you haven't found the right one?" He was teasing her, eyes sparkling with flirtatiousness. And of course, a hint of insanity.
She parted her lips to tell him off, but her brain too dumbfounded, and mouth too dry to utter a sentence.
His fingertips traced circles on the back of her hand, intoxicating her mind with utter fear.
"Maybe it's because you think you're too pure for this world."
She attempted to withdraw her hand, only for him to hold it down more firmly in place. If only her head wasn't clouded, she might have paid heed to the red button in her hands.
"Or is it because you haven't found someone man enough to fuck th-"
"MR. HUNT, PLEASE!"
She yelled frantically, her voice ringing in her ears like the shrill sound of chalk on board.
Yet, in reality, her voice merely came out as a broken whisper.
She knew what he was doing.
Sick, sick, twisted games.
That's precisely what psychopaths like Logan Hunt played to feed their vile fantasies.
"Still want to be here Natalia? Still want to talk to a lunatic with no sense of basic decency?"
For a second his eyes flashed with a tinge of somber, but as Tahlia gave him no reply, only a laugh echoed throughout the whole confinement, like a ballad. Beautiful and haunting. Leaving the most dreadful chills in the wake of it's symphony.
"What is it that want to ask me? I can tell you're dying to say something. Go on."
Even as his laughter died down, the smirk on his lips remained intact.
Tahlia's mouth was pressed into a firm line. She knew, in this game, he had the deuces.
But regardless, she did look up, caged within his steel gaze.
"Why did you do it?" She finally gathered the courage to say those five words.
"Why did you kill those innocent girls?"
He simply grinned, maddeningly, "Sometimes I'm terrified of my heart, of it's constant hunger for whatever it is that it wants."
She breathed in, vexed, "For once, please stop these games and answer the question Logan. Why did you kill those women?"
"There is no way to justify my insanity, Miss."
Even though her heart hammered against her ribcage, getting louder and more crushing by the second, she remained silent.
For a moment Tahlia felt hopeless. Helpless.
She couldn't help but recall the horrific images of the young dead bodies, thinking how it could've been with them living the rest of their lives happily. Alive.
She couldn't help but clench her fingers, feeling an emotion she had not felt in a very long time.
Natalia Faith Meyers felt anger.
She turned off the voice recorder hastily, barely breathing quickly enough to be unruffled.
"Is it about playing God?"
A sadistic smile curved up his lips, undeterred by the venom in her tone.
No words were spoken.
"Deciding who gets to live and who doesn't?" She gritted.
"Or is it because you see something in them? Something that reminds you of your past?"
He tilted his head, battling her heated stare, before rising up on his feet.
Déja vu.
"Bold." His silk voice rang softly.
She closed her eyes in an attempt to block the sound of his cold voice approaching her direction.
"Bold looks good on you, Natalia."
She kept her body still, composure unbroken, refusing to give him power over her. He already wielded enough as it is.
"Do you remember what I asked you that day?" He hummed, twisting her insides. "I asked you if you appreciated art."
His cerulean eyes morphed into a pair of dark, crazed ones, sending her brain into a frenzy.
"You said you did."
All of a sudden, a piece of paper was slammed down in front of her with a startling force.
"What do you see?" He mused.
"A rose."
And it indeed was one, a beautiful one at that. It was flaming red, the hues painted on it so aesthetically, so expressive to the eye. No doubt, created by the devil himself.
For a moment her breathing normalised, relieved at his words only building up to present a mere painting.
But her body stilled as she heard him laugh again. It was different than any sound than she'd ever heard before.
It was chilling to the core.
She watched with her breath held, confusedly, as he flipped the paper upside down.
And just like that, all the missing pieces of the jigsaw, fell together.
She watched, as the beautiful rose turned into something so vile.
The core of the rose now resembled a faint figure.
The petals now, a bed of viscous blood.
A woman in her own pool of blood.
"Look around you Natalia. It's all art."
Tahlia found her courage slowly withering away, every ounce of the dauntlessness fading, leaving her body shivering in her seat.
"Every blood spilt, tells a story." He bent down, gazing straight at her face from across her.
"The contrast of red against the dull cement, the smell of fear and copper against their expensive perfume, every little scream and plea for survival- all of it is more captivating than you could ever imagine, little kitten." She could feel the lunacy radiating off of his smirk.
"So inspiring."
Tahlia refused to meet the monster's eyes, instead, keeping her watery gaze fixed at her quivering hands in her lap.
She almost didn't even hear the nurse entering the room, scanning his bed, unlocking his cuffs.
Almost.
She heard their footsteps moving over towards the direction of the bed.
She didn't dare look up.
"The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetic topic in the world." His voice sounded from across the room.
That was the last thing Tahlia heard in the ethereal voice of the monstrous being, before a loud familiar creak sounded, indicating that the door had been open wide for her to leave.
Bringing an end to her nightmare.
For tonight.
✴✴✴