Stockholm Syndrome? ✔

S.S 8

Felix's POV

I had lost my kindness growing up. The forever-smiling face was all but a distant memory. Mother would be disappointed, but perhaps she would understand. I could remember just how much she liked pinching my cheeks which always ended with me smiling and blushing very hard. It made her smile.

Sometimes I wondered if it was because I stopped smiling that she did too. If I had known I would kept on smiling, even if it was painful to do so. I could have given her hope, held her hand a little tighter. Maybe all she needed was to see the mischievous grin on my face.

Needless to say, there was nothing amusing in my life. Life took its toll and the smiles disappeared. It didn't help that I chose a rather morose job. It really was unfitting to smile at people when you knew you were going to kill them. I spared them that levity. It didn't make me a good person –I knew that for a fact – but I killed them with dignity.

The boy was different. I already knew due to the personal nature of the mission that my interactions with him would be different. There was something else besides that. I found him amusing. There was something about the way he talked and the fear he tried to hide that amused me. For once in a long time I was smiling genuinely. My smiles at art events didn't count, they were as fake as smiles could come.

I expected the boy to cry and beg. That wouldn't have been amusing at all. It wouldn't have gotten any sympathy from me but it would have been a fitting reaction. He chose rather to insult me. It was a foolish act, but also a brave act. I'd seen grown man cry and beg. The boy was clearly braver than most of my targets, a testament that bravery was not a product of age.

He was also very foolish, a quality I surprisingly liked. Rather than cry and beg to be let go, he was tempting me to kill him sooner. It was an act of bravery, and I held bravery above all else. He reminded me of a younger me in Russia, scaling walls 30 feet high without any support. Of course I doubted he'd do that, but he'd impressed me nonetheless

*

The next morning I woke up in high spirits. Phase 2 of my plan was due to begin that day. Unlike Phase 1, phase 2 was more of a wait-and-watch. It required no input from me.

I woke up early and wondered if the boy had slept at all. His body had experienced floods of hormones which had probably kept him awake all night. It was unfortunate. I wasn't sadistic –contrary to what he thought of me –I had no desires to see him suffer. He was after all not the main target.

When I got to the kitchen, I figured I would make him breakfast. It was a challenge. I had zero cooking kills. I was also not so much into grocery shopping.

The interior decorator had insisted on a large floor to ceiling pantry in the kitchen, which was a waste of space considering how empty it was. I grabbed the first thing I saw, which was a tin of beans. Within a few seconds I had the beans in a plastic bowl. I grabbed my half eaten loaf of bread and went down to the basement.

The boy was awake, staring at the wall my paintings were lying against. He huffed when he saw me. It seemed like he was sulking that day.

I put my items on the floor, first making sure that the bread was sealed properly. Locating a pair of handcuffs, I shackled the boy's leg to the chair and released his hands.

"Breakfast is ready!" I said in an amused tone.

"I hate beans!" he snorted.

"Well, that's all you are getting", I said.

"Couldn't you make something better?" he grimaced.

"This is not a hotel", I said simply.

I walked over to a chair on his right, just a little away from him and sat down lazily in it. Minutes went by without any movement from him or me.