"God's creatures who cried themselves to sleep stirred to cry again."
― Thomas Harris, The Silence of The Lambs
TWENTY SEVEN
IN THIS MOMENT WE SHARED, I knew that I had to let all my guard down to get what I wanted. Yet, I wasn't foolish and understood that I had to be tactical first, before anything else. In watching Banshee readjust his cuffs against his damaged wrist, I realized that he could be incredibly still. There was something charged and restrained in the slow, casual way in which he gestured and moved that was disturbing. I could barely listen to everything that had left his sordid lips at that point. The very thought of describing this interview, of trying to overcome the inertness of mere words, fills me with bitter, impatient, fear.
I watched his lips pull apart and his eyebrows draw together. His voice was softer, yet still sounded loud in my ears. Everything he did, to my fragile psyche, was loud. He could whisper in my ears and I would deafen as though someone shot a bullet by the shell of my ears. I could hear him breathing, and feel faint. This was the man who murdered. The psychopath. His face was irrevocably charming, but his insides were darkened with dirty, pure, unadulterated evil. Banshee was dirty, and earthy, and oh so clever.
I instantly knew that this would be most difficult. More than I had ever imagined.
"Sometimes, you look at me like you loved me."
Says the man who doesn't know what love is. I spat. "That's vile."
Banshee chuckled, and rested his matted head against his palm. "Don't question it. Go straight to the point and tell me all the nasty things you've done."
"You first."
Banshee looked at me, smiled as though sated, and nodded. "Taking charge? Okay. I'll let you steer the boat for now."
I wanted to roll my eyes but instead raised my hand dismissively towards the glass to wade away his comment. Banshee's hand lifted just at the same time, and he caught it in mid-air. Not actually touching me, he mimicked the gesture of pulling my hand down. "Don't dismiss me."
"I'm simply eager to get you talking."
I stopped him with a finger in the air when I noticed he was about to speak. I leaned close to the glass, so close that my breath created fogs against its surface. "Nick, I'm almost certain our conversations are being recorded."
Just then, his face became unusually blank. "You called me Nick."
"Did you hear what I just said?"
He heaved a sigh and his head drooped. I could lie to you and say he looked angry, but I couldn't reduce his expression to anger. It was a mix between distress and resignation. Like when a lover is torn apart by the choice of strangling his cheating wife or himself; for loving her so easily.
When he spoke again, it was emotionless. "What gave you the idea that we're being recorded?"
I, perplexed at his earlier reaction, spoke calmly. "It's a long story but I'm certain that someone is listening. It could be anywhere."
He didn't look up at me, not yet. "What could be anywhere?"
"The microphones."
"I don't care, Aria."
"Well, I do."
There was a short pause. It was amused, and cunning. "Because you're about to say very scary stuff?"
"No. Because I don't want to incriminate myself."
I could hear the alleged mischief in his smile. "So let's whisper."
I considered his idea for a minute before realizing how ridiculous the prospect was. We weren't children, and whispering wouldn't contain the things we wanted to say. They would be intended as whispers, but would come out as screams. Being smart, I offered. "Better yet, let's write."
Show me your handwriting, Banshee. Are you as much a liar as you claim to be?
Banshee didn't even consider the option as feasible. He still was yet to look at me and I was still waiting for an explanation for his earlier expression. His voice was stiff. "Ah. Interesting. You want me to do the one thing I opted out of. Letter writing. Fucking no."
"Christ. I'm trying to give solutions here." I was exasperated and desperate. "Why aren't you listening to me? Or looking at me?"
He was quiet for a short moment, and then he looked up at me, finally, in a kind of rage. And I felt as though I was in a cinema. I told myself that this was not the time to be detached from things but I had the impression of living in an alternate universe. For when he spoke, it was ultimately unrelated to what I was saying. "You called me Nick...Why did you call me Nick?"
I was taken aback initially. "That's not the answer to my question."
"Your eyes are repressing a lot of fear and you're holding back on a lot of emotions. It's hard to listen to your words when your eyes are saying something different. That's why I wasn't looking at you. Now you fucking tell me." He stressed, "Why did you call me Nick?"
Jesus. I frowned. "I don't know."
"Huh." He nodded, then suddenly looked relieved. "Fair enough."
When I didn't reply him, he satisfied my curiousity. "The woman before you called me Nick."
"That explains your reaction."
Banshee shrugged. "You share a lot of similarities with her. It's uncanny. I feel as though I'm living a dejavu and sometimes, it overwhelms me. Much like you, she had dark hair but her lips were always reddened." Banshee recalled. "The woman was in agony when I first met her. Her desperation was so sharp, it nearly gutted me."
"Do you know why?"
"Why? The same reason as every desperate person. She had lost something. Someone." Banshee's dark circles rivaled mine. "She had lost a great many things-- and she craved revenge."
"She must have left quite the impact. You speak about her without ill."
"She did." He muttered, and all of a sudden, he looked overcome with exceptional sadness. He looked displeased about what he was going to say. He looked absolutely repulsed at himself. "She was the first person I had met, and didn't want to kill."
If words could set you alight, Banshee was an incinerator. I fell back against my chair in shock. "Oh."
My reaction bounced off his solid demeanor easily. In time it had taken me to react, he had already shrugged off his earlier dismay and he looked utterly composed. An ill-sculpted Adonis. As though his artist had made a terrible mistake. Too many cracks on the surface, start again. "Aria, what did you want to know?"
I tried to compose myself as quickly as he had but it was impossible. I sounded winded. "What was the goal of the last project?"
Banshee pushed his chair back, and placed his legs onto the table before him. The chains on his feet rattled and I cringed at how trapped he looked. "Guess they were trying to get me to tell them why I did it. Completely foolish, in my opinion."
"Was it successful?"
He rose a brow at me. "Take a wild fucking guess."
I was suddenly overcome with frustration. It was so heavy that I couldn't contain it or carry it. My voice was icier than it had ever been. "Why did you not just fucking tell her why you did it?"
Banshee jerked his head back at my cuss, and boldness. He didn't look offended. Amused, more so. He dropped his legs and pushed forward to meet me in the middle. His voice was the anticipated silence after a lightning. "Because there's no fucking reason."
For a long minute, I couldn't comprehend.
I didn't want him to be right.
Mentally, I begged him to contradict himself.
"That's impossible. There's a reason for everything."
"Wrong." He tutted. He really did look unfazed by my confusion, as though he had dealt with this before. "That's what someone just like you would say. Listen. Reasons are mere justifications. Justifications for actions you performed at your own will." He tilted his head to face the ceiling. " 'I just did it' -- no longer becomes accepted in society and people poke and prod you for answers to things you do out of your own free will. It's not always easy to digest the fact that there are things we would never comprehend no matter how hard we try to. And us, poor unfortunate humans, violently fear what we do not understand. They label me as 'sick' but that's just another way of making it seem logical. I'm not sick, I'm not lying in a hospital bed. I'm just like you. Just built a little maniacally. That's why they locked me up, chained me to the wall, and took my life away because they fear me, just as they fear themselves."
"We're complex fucking beings and sometimes, we glitch and do shit for no reason. I did it. Not because I was motivated by some sentient voice inside of me. Not because of my mother, because killing her should have been enough to sate me. Not because I wanted to feel fucking euphoria again, no. Those are relevant, they're all plus signs. But there's no ultimate reason, Aria Eden Black, I just fucking killed them. Case closed. Put a bullet in my fucking skull and call it a death sentence. A life for a life, whatever makes them happiest."
Just as promised, he had completely wrecked me.
"Even you, love. I would kill you given the chance." Banshee grinned, in the face of my trauma. "Nothing is of value to me."
I don't know why, but I was sitting in silence as though I wasn't experiencing any distress. But even God knew that I wanted to die.
I had expected to handle this interview well. I'll let you steer the boat, he had said. Yet, he had somehow pushed me ten steps back and taken a fucking giant step forward. My voice was diminishing. "Why didn't you tell this to them?"
"Oh, but I did." He said. "That's what is so unbelievable about this project. About you being here." His eyes were akin to the moon, dark, dependent and brooding. "I'm going to die soon. Who the fuck cares enough about why I killed them to run this project again? Think about that, and then ask yourself why you're really here." He gestured to the entire room. "You're an oblivious rookie with a colorful past."
My silence screamed.
Silence, what an awful sound.
"Think about it." He whispered. "Are you sat here for me, or for your own damn self."
Boom.
My face crumbled as complete desolation shook me. And when I looked at him again, eyes agape with tears and terror, he was smiling.
And he mouthed to me. "My turn."