Do You Fear The Reaper?

f i v e

He watched her for a moment, his eyes glistening brightly at his perfect woman. He watched her squirm against her restraints, watched her jump and move her head back and forth whenever he'd make a sound.

It was one of the things he valued most really, the impalpable feeling of having someone else's life in his hands, how he can control it wholeheartedly despite their unwillingness. To hear them cry was a bonus. To hear them plead was a gift. And to see them suffer, he chuckled softly at the thought, was a pleasure.

"I've always loved the name Tanya," he said casually after a minute as he stood up from his seat and dragged it closer to where Maine was sitting. He watched her, quietly, silently. His eyes boring, his teeth showing, his nostrils flaring as he stood over the woman who barely had nothing to cover her.

"It was my mother's before she died, and then I gave it to this IT girl back in high school." He slammed the chair down on the floor and yanked the blindfold off her eyes. "But our relationship never lasted because she kept telling me over and over again that her name was Carla, which we both knew wasn't." Beau rolled his eyes and continued: "And so I moved on, after a couple of years mind you, to this Private I met when I was stationed in Washington. They're all dead now but you know that, right?"

He watched her once again and took in her battered and bruised body with utmost delight. The dress he donned on her on their first night together was now torn to pieces, her skin emitting a soft glow from the pallid moonlight that cracked through the small window to his right. He glanced behind him, nodding satisfyingly at the phrase he made Maine paint on the wall before his visit with Special Agent Faulkerson this morning.

"I love what you've done with the place!" he said as he circled around her like a predator would its prey, his hand brushing against her bare shoulders and feeling the blood that flowed underneath. His eyes went dark with all the possibilities he could with them, the sneer growing wider and wider on his face as one by one images of her writhing underneath him as he made her blood boil barred his mind.

He bent forward and rest his cheek against hers, breathing her in before he spoke. "I'm especially keen to the one posted right in front of us."

A beat.

"WELCOME TO HELL!" He suddenly bellowed, raising his arms up in the air after circling around her completely. She stared at him with a fight under all the tears in her eyes. "It seems so fitting doesn't it? You, stuck in here with the man responsible for all of those deaths. And then yours. " He slammed his hands on either side of the arm rest that bounded her, taking in every inch of her bruised body hungrily before locking her eyes with his. "Fuck, I would be scared too."

Maine spat on his face and he laughed, so loud that it made her heart sink. "They're coming you know. Faulkerson and everyone else. They're gonna come," she said, more to herself than to Beau. "And when they do, I won't even let them give you the satisfaction of being thrown in jail because I'll kill you. I swear to God I'll kill you."

"Oh, I know they're coming," Beau replied, waving his hand dismissively before reaching behind him to grab a knife. "Tomorrow actually. I think. While you were sleeping, I realized that I made a mistake by laying down on your bed."

The way Beau stood above her terrified her, and when he grabbed both of her arms forcefully, she felt far too trapped for her liking. She continued to struggle against her restraints and eyed Beau down even as he traced the tip of the knife down the side of her face. "Your hair," she said, doing her best to keep her voice steady. She yelped when he gripped her hair and forced her head towards the back of the chair, the bruises scattered along her neck and scalp screaming in discomfort. "They found traces of your DNA."

"Exactly. And once they look it up, my name will light up like tiny little Christmas lights in June," he said as he let go of her hair and began cutting the ropes that bound her. ""But I am going embracing this change. All this hiding and cleaning, it gets boring after a couple of years, you know? I kill, clean and then hide. Kill, clean, hide. Kill, clean, hide." He pushed Maine off the chair and threw the disgusting furniture off to the side before grabbing her wrist and dragging her to the end of the room, right next to the graffiti that made his heart leap. "It's a feat but the theatrics of this new endeavor excites me! None of it screams boring. Granted that the probability of my death has exponentially grown higher, I, frankly, do not care."

Beau released her and Maine caught her weak body with her hands before dropping on the floor entirely. "Stand up."

"No."

Beau rolled his eyes and pulled her up to her feet by her hair. "Why must you complicate the simplest things, Tanya?" he said, eyeing her knowingly and throwing her violently against the wall. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her in further, hearing the crunch of her head against concrete. He wrapped his fingers tightly around her neck and watched her gasp for air. "See? That wasn't so hard now was it?"

Maine tried desperately to get out of his hold but to no avail. She was weaker than she anticipated. Darkness was quickly closing in on her and she knew that she was about to pass out, and if that were to happen, it was untelling what he could to to her, what she might wake up to see, if she did at all. And so she willed herself to try, to fight despite her body screaming in agony.

"Stop." Small noises escaped her lips as her throat tried to expand, tried to open up her airways but it was no use. She grimaced and pushed a hand up to Beau's face, palming it harshly and smearing blood all over him. All it did was make him laugh harder and wrap his fingers around her throat tighter.

"Oh, don't fall asleep yet, Tanya," he said as he grazed the tip of his nose on the edges of her jaw.
"We haven't even reached the best part."

"M-M-Maine. My name," Maine trailed as her consciousness began to succumb to nothingness. "Is Maine."

"Maine's dead." He leaned in closer, his lips brushing the spot on her neck that was just right below her ear. "Remember that."