✍︎ 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞-𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐢𝐚𝐧 [dark psychopath x FBI romance] | 𝟏𝟖+

𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟤𝟢

ᴄʟᴀʏ

TW: explicit sex scene intro (oral s*x) & extreme tension

After that afternoon, when I find Sybille staring blankly out the window and crying, I genuinely start to worry. I'm surprised by her careless flicking of cigarette ash onto the wooden floor, but I'm much more concerned by the way she stares out the window. 

Her glazed eyes don't blink; her hands mechanically flick the lighter against her knee, leaving a burn mark on her skin. Whatever she's thinking about at that moment, I try to approach her quietly – for some reason, Sybille's apathy reminds me of her sleepwalking state or perhaps something even worse...

The old saying in the 'Altius fid timidity' dialects remains one of the main encrypted codes in my notebook.

I spend nearly an hour trying to get the unbreakable Sybille to speak, but I get nowhere – she just lies against my thigh, occasionally sniffles, and lets her salty tears soak into the blanket.

Despite spending the entire hour trying to engage her, my mind is on the video Ernie sent. Before finding Sybille, I had already watched it three times, patting myself on the back at least five times, proud that a decade in the FBI's anonymous witness protection program hadn't dulled my skills.

Everyone lies.

I was right in thinking she was hiding something.

'Trust that instinct, the one that gnaws at your conscience in the depths of your heart when you look at someone who's wronged, broken by fate, or crushed by life.'

Those were some of Natalia's core words, guiding her investigations into people with psychological disorders. And yet, no matter how much I want to press Sybille to the wall, to extract a confession from her that would explain the incident in the video, I hesitate – how do you break someone who's lied pathologically to the police more than once?