"I always had a desire to inflict pain on others and to have others inflict pain on me. I always seemed to enjoy everything that hurt,"
- Albert Fish
TWELVE
TICK TOCK, TICK TOCK. The clock chimed behind me. It sounded to me like a proverbial clock, ticking down the amount of seconds before I lost control. Before the ultimatum that life had given me had expired. I was irrevocably frustrated.
I tucked my hands underneath my thighs to prevent me from revealing my emotions, or punching the glass. It was truly a battle of the two. I watched him like a hawk yet I remained silent. Not moving my lips, or my eyes. The only sound one could hear from me was my breathing.
"Did you know that someone commits suicide every forty seconds?" He said quietly, as though he had asked me my thoughts on the gloomy weather.
His eyes were dark, leading me to places I had only ever been in my nightmares. His hair was longer, draping across his forehead and mirroring his inner angst. He might have looked patient but the tick of his jaw and the drumming of his fingers revealed his annoyance.
I stayed still. My anger, fear, and frustration from the weekend was building up to a crescendo. I knew this wasn't the time to explode, because he would burn my anger with the force of his. He would kill me.
"Aria." He gritted out. My name came out like a bitter taste in his mouth. "About 6 people just died while you were sat here in fucking silence."
I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Your silence is disrespectful. You're not only wasting time. You're wasting lives."
His lips were pulled into a grimace and his eyes were seemingly bigger, more readable than ever before. I glanced at his hands, still freshly bruised but not as badly as the last time I had seen him. Dragging my ardent eyes back to his chiselled face, I put on a face of impassivity.
That was the only response he got.
Boring his gaze right back at me, I felt anxious. His eyes still terrified me. The silence drew closer for a minute, and then pulled apart like pulled raw pork.
He leaned closer to the glass and flicked it. Then tapped it with an index finger. "One stuck a lit stick of dynamite in his shirt pocket. Blasted his guts through his heart."
I snapped my head up in horror. What?
He withdrew his hand and lifted two fingers. "One tied one end of a rope round her neck and the other end around a tree. She got into her car and stepped on the gas."
He wouldn't stop until I talked. This was horrible.
"One took a long, warm, bath in petrol and gaslighted himself from the inside." He drawled, toying with the bruised third finger that poked out to join the slender two.
Feeling sick, I twisted away from him. My initial plan was to not say a single word to him the entire meeting, and then speak to Frank afterwards. For some reason, Frank had stood me up last night.
Watching Banshee slide his fourrh finger up slowly, I gulped. If I opened my mouth, I'd ask him about the letters. I didn't want to ask him yet until I had spoken to Frank. I wanted to catch him off guard.
"Stop it." I muttered,
"One is lying in a bathtub, using the blood from his slit wrists as a bath bomb." He whispered, dark humour laced in his voice.
I placed my hands on the table, letting it slam down in finality. I wanted him to stop. "Nicholas!"
He stopped. He lifted his eyes to mine and challenged me, twinkling with mischief. "One died in utter, blackened, silence. A bullet to the head."
And then smiled with his teeth. "She speaks."
I straightened like a rod had replaced my spine. "What is wrong with you?" Considering he had been chained in a cell for gruesomely murdering mass amounts of children and adults, that question had immediately become rhetorical.
He chuckled lowly and rested his back against the hard metal of his chair. Everything about and around him seemed to be in a constant state of hardness. His chair, chains, his eyes, his face, his heart. Was he ever soft? Had he ever been?
I couldn't fail to notice that he was in a weird mood, patient enough to let me sit in silence even as I had ignored his signature hello. His tongue darted out to part his rosy lips. "Your eyes, Aria. I can't read them today."
Involuntarily, I closed my eyes. "They're not for you to read."
"They're troubled."
I peeked up at him and his eyes were on me, sultry. "What does it matter to you?"
His voice was a breath. "Everything."
I heaved a heavy sigh, looking away.
His eyes narrowed. "Enlighten me."
"Frank told me that prisoners have pen pals." I started, eyes darting between and within his ardent eyes. A swirl of brown and a fleck of golden. Dead, hollow, no flash of recognition.
He rose an unruly eyebrow, it had a clean cut parting it slightly into two. "Frank?"
"The superintendent."
He clicked his tongue. "I wasn't joking when I said you're one of the first persons I've spoken to in ten years, love." He muttered. "But whoever he is, I'd love to snap his jaw for talking to you about me."
Ignoring the meaning behind his words, I focused on what was at hand. This was serious. I was desperate to know if it was him, and if it was, why he was doing it. If it were to manipulate me, what did he want to manipulate me into doing?
I looked at the skin peeking from underneath his orange tracksuit. It was clean, pale skin. Years of being away from sunlight. "Do you write letters or not?"
My tone wasn't harsh but it was demanding. It made his bushy brows furrow. I could see his jaw tick. You'd think he'd be accustomed to my outbursts by now, but it was the fourth interview and it still affected him.
He shifted his weight from one elbow to another. Then he pushed his unruly hair from his face. "I'll humour you with the response you want. But it's not for free."
I heaved a heavy sigh.
On seeing the light fade in my eyes, he released a wolf in the form of a close-lipped smile. "You expected it."
The Devil never did things for free.
"I did." I muttered. "What do you want in return?"
His eyes widened infinitesimally at my less reluctant answer. I hadn't expected Banshee to answer any question I would ask which was why I initially wanted to speak to Frank first. But I had already started questioning him and if I backed out now, Banshee would fester and pester me until I said what I had wanted to.
He ran a hand across his stumbled chin. "The real question is, will you do what I want in return?"
For some reason, his question irked me. It sounded distasteful. My voice became less emboldened and more careful. "Depends."
"No, Aria. That was a yes or no question. Answer the fucking question." He taunted, lips jerking into a smile that I immediately disliked.
Wary, I whispered. "Will it hurt me?"
He shook his head slowly. "No,"
"Will you hurt me?"
At that, his teeth glistened. He found my question humorous and twisted it into something poisonous that fucked with my head. "That would do me no good. I haven't killed in ten years and I certainly am not compelled to kill my only companion."
So he was compelled to kill, but just not me?
"I'm not your companion." I shook my head. "Just promise you won't hurt me."
I knew psychopaths are compulsive liars. Savage beings. A promise would be broken without so much of a bat of an eye. If he wished to, he'd wring my neck like a dishcloth when I wasn't paying attention.
"Don't make me promise anything I might break. Take the risk."
"N..no."
Abruptly, he pushed his chair back. He flexed his knuckles and rose one unkempt brow. The small gesture revealed his anger in such dangerous levels. "There's that word again. If you have nothing else for me, I'm leaving."
Why did that word irk him so much?
I contemplated letting him go but then my thoughts drifted to Diana and I heaved another dreadful sigh. Whatever. If he killed me in the end, no one but Diana would care. Diana could handle losing me. I knew it.
"Yes. I'll do it. Yes."
He watched me for a few seconds. "Will you?"
I nodded. "What do you want?"
He watched me for a few seconds and then blinked. Once. Twice. I tried to read his eyes and failed miserably.
And then he grinned. And if you looked past his barbed wired teeth, you'd see that it was genuine. Someone was finally doing something he wanted. Something that was his choice. He had been inprisoned and dehunanised for more than a decade. Perhaps my agreement revived that feeling of control, of genuine belief and it struck him hard against his cold blackened heart.
His grin was real.
Voice like a slither, he answered. "What do I want?"
He lifted a hand to pat the glass twice. "This. Gone." His fingers trailed across the clean sheet of glass and then lowered to the speaker hole that allowed us to hear each other. "This too. Gone." And then his eyes slowly dragged across my face. From my exposed collar bones, to my neck, my lips, my nose, and then my eyes. It stuck there like adhesive. "You. Without the barriers."
If I had let it, my jaw would've dropped hard and fast through the foundations and then down to the fiery pits of Hell.
"I....You..." I gulped, my heart hammering against my rib cage forcefully. "You want what?"
"I want you." He stated. "I want you without the barriers. Talk to me, Aria, like I'm a man you just met."
Impossible.
What kind of request was that? What fuelled it? It was nothig that I had expected him to ask for. He was speaking jargon. He couldn't possibly think that I would do that.
"You said it won't hurt me. You lied."
"I don't lie. I wouldn't hurt you. And if I wanted to," He flexed the chain on his hand so hard that it crooned in protest. "I would have done it really easily a long time ago."
I wasn't going to do it even if he swore with a bloody oath that he'd sit a hundred miles away, which would give me enough chance to escape if I triggered something violent within him. I wouldn't let myself be that close to him.
The glass had become a literal and mental protection for me. If it were removed, I'd be utterly vulnerable.
I shook my head, picking at stray lint on my trousers. "They wouldn't let me do it even if I asked. I signed a contract."
"Excuses." He hissed out. His head was resting on his palm.
"How do I know whether what you're going to tell me is worth the risk?"
He looked taken aback.
I looked down at my hands. My nail polish was chipped, from biting on them for too long.
I heard his voice. It had softened. Significantly. "Do I truly frighten you that much?"
Not looking up, I shrugged. "If I said yes, would that be hard to believe?"
A moment of silence.
"No."
I let him let that sink in.
After a while, he tapped the glass, calling for my attention. "Look," I peeked at him from under my lashes. "I'll tell you whatever you want now if you promise me that someday, you'll speak to me when I'm unchained."
That seemed fairly agreeable. Promises could be broken.
I nodded.
"I promise."
And with that, he leaned back against the chair with a creak. "Ask me what you want."
Finally. I sat up, searching his eyes for secrets. "Do you write letters?"
He shook his head.
"Do you?" I pressed.
"No." He finally said. "Haven't been a fan of the whole prison pen pal idea. I think it's sick. People fascinated by my murders writing me about how life is outside my cell. How the fuck does that help me?"
My murders. He was claiming it.
Curiosity creeped into my head. "Then how are you still sane?"
"You think I'm sane?" He said, surprise registering on his features. "Don't judge a book by the first page, love. I'm not okay."
"You don't write letters?"
He rose two brows. "The last I touched a pen was in high school, and I didn't even graduate."
I knew he was only partially educated. The letters Diana received were clean, clear and eloquent. Unlike anythig I imagined Banshee writing.
"Please, be honest with me." I practically begged. "Give me this one thing."
He froze, noticing the desperation and fear in my features. Sitting up slowly, he leaned closer to the table. "What's wrong?"
Hanging my head, I frowned. "I think someone is stalking me. I think it's you."
His brows furrowed. "Elaborate."
"Are you writing letters to my sister to find out information about me or...or for some other twisted reason?"
"You have a sister?"
Involuntarily, my hands slammed down hard against the table. "For gods sake, Nicholas, just tell me the fucking truth!"
Silence reverberated the air.
It was a long and painful silence.
I expected a violent and impulsive retort. I expected something harsh that'd make me wince and cry about the mental abuse. But he only blinked. His eyes were till soft, as if registering my fear for the first time. His voice was a small one. "It scares you, doesn't it? Being helpless?"
I remained silent.
He leaned so close to me that in mind could see every mark, indent and bad scar on his chiselled face. His warm breath fogged the glass slightly. "I'm telling you the truth. I have no reason to write letters to your sister about you."
For some reason, I believed him.
"Then who could it possibly be?"
"Someone who knows you have a sister." He said, with a hint of sarcasm.
"You know stuff about me."
"The only thing I knew about you when you walked in was your name."
I let let my guard down completely and leaned closer to him. "Who told you my name?"
He frowned, clearly not enjoying my interrogation. His willingness to answer was based on my promise of talking to him without the glass barrier. He was opening up to me too much to let it go without a price for it to be of his own freewill. "It was a woman."
Mirabel.
"Why would she-?"
"She said she ran the place."
Mirabel said she ran the place? She ran it? Ran the prison or the Project? I knew she ran neither so why would she lie? Why would she tell him my name? What did that mean?
There was something going on and accepting the job had opened me up to it. I was stuck in a game, and I was the pawn. I was being used.
"Believe me when I say, I'm not the one writing letters to your sister."
I looked away. He knew about my mother and now my sister. I was surely spilling my spineless guts to him. But he was making me trust him. In a very dangerous way.
He leaned away from the glass and smoothed his overalls against his thighs. "But, Aria, the next time you come in here, without this," He tapped the glass. "I might tell you what I think is going on."
He was a psychopath. A manipulative, twisted, murderous, pathological killer. Why should I believe him?
Because he could possibly hold the truth.
"I know a lot more than you think." His height increased and he towered over me like a beast. His eyes were intense and nothing crossed his face. It was empty, a void canvas of platonic eyes, nose and lips.
"Trust me." He muttered, walking away.
"Why would I do that?"
"Because I've been here long enough to know that there are people in here you shouldn't trust." As the metal doors slid open, he tilted his head toward me. "I'm not one of them. I've got nothing to lose."
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Vote + comment! Decided to update quicker but it might be shorter. Whoops!