Smokescreen

14

"So that's your endgame, huh? What's your connection?" Ben poked for information, revealing nothing to get anything.

"What do you mean?" Cain took the bait.

"Corvus, of course. You ask for information, assuming they'll give you all they have. They don't have much- I've seen it. The case was covered up years ago. I inferred that the two of you had a connection, I just wasn't sure how close until now. So what were they to you?" Their body language didn't betray any reaction as Ben began listing names.

"Father? Brother? Sister? No, don't tell me- they were your sugar daddy." He gave a cheeky grin before the flat end of the knife slapped against his face.

"Don't ever talk about her like that." Cain growled, leaning in so close that Ben could see their eyes. They were wide and frightened, a strange hazel that he had only seen a few times before, but he couldn't seem to place them. He was pushed back in the bloodied metal chair by their hand on his cut-up shoulder, resisting the urge to cry out in pain as the cold backing touched his healing back wounds.

"Her?" He said, quirking an eyebrow and emitting the air of a rebel that had become accustomed to his surroundings and knew exactly what information had been withheld from him. They slowly left, releasing his shoulder from their grasp. Ben only closed his eyes once the door closed, shivering in fear.

He examined the room for what seemed like the millionth time. It wasn't so easy to pretend to caliver when someone's life was on the line. He distracted himself with why did Cain would want to draw Erica here?

"A poetic ending." Cain responded, and Ben realised that he had unintentionally spoken aloud. "From forth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; whose misadventured piteous overthrows..."

She continued to mutter to herself as she fiddled with the camera.

"I blame myself for his death." Ben started, staring at her back. Her muscles tensed. "You hadn't talked to him in years at that point. Are you still so obsessed?"

"Watch your mouth." Suddenly, there was a knife pushing at the scabs on his neck and spit flecking onto his face. He leaned back into the wall, glaring with his left eye nearly swelled shut and the blood covering it from the cuts on his forehead.

"Why'd you kill them?" He breathed, the corners of his lips turned up as the balance of power shifted. He could feel her breath on his neck through the mask, the wounds burning with the exposure to air. She growled, pushing herself off of him and standing up from the floor to stalk the room. The metal chair was kicked into a corner in anger as her hands shook.

"How many is it now?" Ben asked, watching her pace like a captured cat. "Let's see. Your brother... Hmmm, what did you call that? Poetic. Was he Abel? Those security guards, the assassin you sent to pick me up, and, indirectly, Dirk. That makes... five. Congratulations, one more and you'll be a bona-fide serial killer!"

"I'll be adding you, Benjamin Ripley, to the list soon enough." She hissed. Ben ignored the shiver that ran down his spine at the confirmation of his impending death, and instead chose to speed up the process.

"Does this conversation have a point or are you just trying to sell a screenplay for a subpar episode of 'Law and Order'? So far, not really hooked.... You can take off the mask." He stated. She halted, her bloody and gloved hands clasped behind her back, but she did not look at him. The air changed, and Ben knew that he had crossed a line. Had she taken that white mask off in years? The door slammed shut behind her, but Ben didn't dare relax.

The paranoid tingle ran up his spine. It was a familiar and uncomfortable feeling, but he knew it well. There was no time for him to break out; by the time he got to the school, Erica would probably be in Cain's hands and he would be dead, either from blood loss or the hound dogs after him. That is if and only if he decided to go back to school.