PART 1: VINCENT – Chapter 4

Marielle found Sasha waiting for her when she stepped off the elevator at Cellblock Two, three floors down. He stood straight and tall, his gun at the ready. When he saw her, his body relaxed a bit, and he holstered his weapon.

“Did they call it in?” she asked, stepping toward him.

“Yes, they did,” he said with a quick nod. Then he gave her a brief once-over before extending his gloved right hand. She took it reflexively and the two shook, then turned and began walking down the long white corridor. “We’ve been keeping him in Room 207.” Sasha gestured to the long line of rooms. “They told me you wanted to see it?”

“Yeah, I need to get in there for a bit.”

“For how long?”

“Maybe thirty minutes?” She shrugged and glanced at the Russian, admiring his striking features and long blond hair, which was shaved at the sides and partially pulled back from his face. She’d admitted to herself several times since she’d started working at Valorant that if any of the male agents were “gorgeous,” Sasha was at the top of the list. The name “Thor” came to mind. If that perfect blond hair didn’t get you, his smile would. 

He turned to look down the hall and took an arrow from the quiver hanging on his back. Then he lifted his bow from his belt, nocked the arrow, and shot down the length of the hall into the wall at the end. Sonar radiated down the space, revealing the silhouettes of four other people lying down or sitting on the beds in their rooms. All of them looked bored or subdued. Marielle knew nothing about these other prisoners, but she could tell that three of them were male, and the fourth was female. 

Sasha turned to her and nodded once. “I can allow that.”

Marielle stroked her chin for a moment, raising a brow at him. “I think you were just showing off.” She gestured to the small screen to their left with the images of all four inhabitants separated by thin lines. “You’ve got them on camera.”

Sasha gave an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t have much going on down here.”

“Must get boring,” Marielle commented. Sasha opened Vincent’s room, and she went in before him. “Close me in, okay?”

He offered her a diminutive smile and a swift nod that made a small tendril of blond hair fall into his face. “Thirty minutes.”

She smiled back at him and turned as he shut the door. She could hear his boots tapping the ground as he went back to the monitor, where she pictured him putting his feet up on the desk as he whittled some wood he’d been working on for weeks. It was starting to vaguely resemble an owl. 

Marielle turned and took a deep pull of air into her lungs, letting the anxiety of being shut into a cell envelope her. She closed her eyes, allowing it to swirl around her head, her heart, her stomach, her bowels. She held the air in for a moment before releasing it slowly through pursed lips. 

“I’m trapped,” she breathed. “I’m a prisoner.” She swallowed. “Confined… Claustrophobia?” She paused, thinking as she continued to take in the nonvisual details of the room, then cocked her head to one side. “But… I want to be here?”

Opening her eyes, she took in another deep breath, which she held as well. She could smell him. “Pheromones… Sweat…” She let the air out, then sucked it in again, this time all through her nose. “Fear… Betrayal?” She tilted her head a second time. 

After a moment of orienting herself, she finally started to take in the room visually. It was small, about twelve by seven feet. There was a cot, no more than two feet wide and six feet long. At the end was a perfectly folded stack of pristine clothing consisting of a large white T-shirt and a pair of gray sweatpants. A pair of socks sat next to them.

Marielle went to the cot and examined it. Although it had obviously been used, Vincent had straightened the blanket and tucked it under the mattress, and the pillow had been neatly placed and fluffed as well.

She lay back on the cot, folding her fingers on her upper chest and staring at the ceiling. It was white and flat, and there was the faintest stain of something—water damage?—just to the right. The smell of his sweat was thick on the pillow, along with the remnants of a cologne that was too faint to identify at this point. It wasn’t something fruity or cheap, so whatever it was, he’d spent quite a bit of money on it. This didn’t shock her, since the suit he wore appeared custom-made and expensive, as did his glasses and jewelry. He had money; Marielle was certain about that. How he’d gotten it was another story. 

With a sigh, she closed her eyes, trying to sense or feel anything. She became uncomfortable with her eyes closed but refused to open them. Adrenaline raced through her veins, and she twitched nervously. 

Opening her eyes, she turned her head and looked down at the pillow. It was obvious by the indentations on the mattress and pillow that he slept on his left side facing the wall. There were five small marks in the pillow on the right side, mostly smoothed out but still visible if one looked hard enough. He had gripped the pillow and squeezed it as if draining the life from it. Not more than a few inches inward was a small discoloration where he’d cried. 

“Nightmares…” She sat up. This struck her as odd. He didn’t seem like the kind of person to have nightmares for any reason, and these seemed to be not one night, but many. He’d faced away from the camera so he could conceal them from everyone else. “Okay, so you have nightmares. What about?”

She put her back to the wall and gingerly touched first the sheets, then the finger marks and the stain where his tears had fallen. Closing her eyes again, she rested her head on the wall behind her. Images, intense but steady, flooded her mind’s eye. 

Vincent, squeezing the pillow, creating the marks.

Flash.

Arching his back, sucking air in between his teeth. Pleasure? Pain? She wasn’t sure.

Flash. 

Vincent, face down on the bed, pounding a tightly clenched fist into the mattress over and over again, a silent, horrified, rage-filled scream plastered on his open mouth. She looked down, and sure enough, there was a small, knuckle-sized indentation just below the pillow that implied exactly this. 

Placing a hand on her chest, she found that her heart was racing and took a moment to breathe deeply until the pounding lessened. Once she was calm, she looked around the room again. A desk with a single metal chair was fitted tightly against the right corner. On the desk sat five books, neatly organized from smallest to largest with their names and authors facing her. Seven more were stacked on the floor, arranged from largest to smallest.

She bent down and read each title and author aloud. The five on the desk were all fiction, while the seven on the side were a mix of fiction and non-fiction.

“The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald; Dracula, Bram Stoker…” She drummed her lip for a moment, mentally zeroing in on Dracula. For some reason, this book screamed at her, although it didn’t resonate with what she knew of Vincent’s character at all. The Great Gatsby, on the other hand, did. It was a tragic story about a wealthy man trying to seduce a former lover, which seemed to fit his personality and interests. But Dracula was more like something she’d read. In fact, it was her favorite book… and it stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the others. 

Her eyes moved on. “The Old Man and the Sea, Earnest Hemmingway…” The next also stuck out to her. “The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson…” She swallowed and raised an eyebrow. “Duality…? Two sides. There are two sides to every story…” Shaking her head, she mentally noted to come back to this later on. “The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas…”

Stretching to relieve some tension in her back, she closed her eyes and envisioned the books lit up in different colors: Dracula in red, The Old Man and the Sea in blue, The Great Gatsby in gold, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in green, and The Count of Monte Cristo in purple.

“One of these things just doesn’t belong here,” she sang softly, and in her mind’s eye, the colors began shifting from book to book.

“Hard… enchanting… make love… Masin…” she whispered, then focused on the first letter of each word and reversed their order. “M-M-E-H?” She shook her head. “No, it’s the right way. He said it that way on purpose.” 

The colors continued to shift in her mind until each book blinked out one by one and turned completely black, starting with The Count of Monte Cristo and The Great Gatsby. She sucked in air quickly, and her eyes popped open. 

“Wet… water…” She reached out and picked up the middle book. “H-E-M-M. Hemmingway. The Old Man and the Sea.” 

Smirking, she backed up and sat down on the bed. It was a small book, not much longer than a hundred pages, and it had been written and published a long time ago—the 1950s. Marielle cracked it open, breathing in the musky, woodsy smell of the old book. “Okay, Vincent, I got your message. Now, what else are you trying to tell me?” 

She turned each page, wondering if she should read it. Since she only had about ten minutes left, she quickly scanned the pages instead to see if he had marked any of them. A brief perusal showed nothing. Knowing that sometimes the best thing to do was take a break and come back with fresh eyes, she chuckled and closed the book. “You couldn’t have made this easy, could you?”

Glancing around again, Marielle spotted a small, almost undetectable scuff mark on the floor near the corner. She slipped off the bed to study it more closely, then dragged her gaze up to the space in front of the bed where he had walked back and forth many times. She stood and paced the spot, trying to understand his thought process. 

Sasha’s voice broke in from overhead. “Sorry, time’s up.”

She sighed in exasperation, then glanced up as if speaking to the ceiling. “Sasha, question: Does he ever wear the clothing at the end of the bed?”

“Only at night.”         

She thought about the next question, then shook her head, chuckling silently before she forced it out. “Boxers or briefs?”

“Is that important?” He sounded frustrated.

She looked up at the small camera, where she knew Sasha was watching her every movement. “Everything’s important.”

The mic clicked. “Boxer briefs,” he replied.

“Color?”

“I’m not exactly paying attention, but if I recall… black.”

She nodded and glanced around the room one last time, trying to commit everything to memory. “Okay, thank you.”

The door buzzed, letting her out. She walked to Sasha’s side and lifted the book. “Can I take it?”

His eyes flicked down the hall one way, then the other. “You’re not supposed to,” he replied with a slight wince. 

“Can I take it?” she repeated, waving it in the air before him and giving him the kind of smile she knew he couldn’t resist. He did think she was pretty, after all, even though he tried to hide it.

He took in a deep breath and sat back in the metal chair, crossing his arms and watching the four people on the monitor for a moment. “Screw it. Like I said, nothing ever happens here. Take the book.”

She smirked, tapping the corner of the book against her palm. Then, glancing at her watch, she realized she had to be in her office soon to talk to Jamie.

Starting toward the door, she paused and turned back to Sasha. He was sitting languidly, his hands behind his head as he observed the other inmates on the screen.

“Sasha?” She felt awkward asking him these questions. He glanced up at her. “Has he showered since he’s been here?”

“Yes, of course. Almost every morning.”

“Those tattoos… Do they cover his entire body?”

Sasha looked uncomfortable. “Um… Well, again, I don’t exactly stare.” He straightened his back; Marielle noted the subconscious connection there. “Straight,” Sasha was telling her without words. “But they cover at least his upper half.”

She thought for a moment. What else? “His suit… Has it been cleaned?”

“Three times.”

Marielle nodded to herself. That explained why Vincent didn’t totally reek, and why certain scents still lingered—at least, to her trained nose. She smiled softly on her way back up the elevator; she did like the way he smelled.