Dead End

CHAPTER 1

26th of November 2016 

White, an annoyingly excessive amount of white. The pearl walls, pasty skin, clammy hands and overwhelmingly strong scent of bleach paired with the immaculately shiny waiting room, everything was so clean. On the other hand, Finn was messy. Clear through his knotted eyebrows and his tightly drawn lips that when he released were left with a white fade. The waiting room didn't help his anxiety riddled body, shaky fingers, tapping on his legs subconsciously, fiddling with the black buttons on his tweed jacket, topped by the feeling that someone had put a corset around his chest making tighter to a point where he couldn't breathe.

But he could, and that was something that Finn was trying to remember. He snapped out of his trance of panic, he didn't gasp for air cause that would cause too much attention for Finn's liking, although any attention was enough for Finns liking. Hesitantly he started taking slow quiet breaths and counting to five then to seven then to five again, repeating to process until he felt somewhat calm, since he never could be completely reach that point.

He was nervous, he had all the right to be, as he was entering the interview room of the famous 'Hollow Man', a dangerously manipulative mass murderer that in some court cases, got off the hook. He was criminally the biggest person in Washington however isolated himself from other criminals like a lone wolf from its pack. He had heard rumours, from other interviewers and criminal physiologists that this man could twist and shape a supposed to be negative interview for him, into a win on his side. Finn thought about the fact that he had only just graduated and was put into this position, facing the biggest criminal in his state right now, the logic of it was very confusing, six years had prepared him for the worst, but had they really prepared him? All he remembers was long nights, tired eyes and a lot of coffee.

After a 10 minute wait, next to a mother with an annoyingly emotional child, the receptionist called his name. He pulled his sleeves to cover his wrists; a habit he had picked up when he was 15. Then shook his big Dc Marten boots so they hit each other a few times, almost rhythmically but not fully. Finn looked up toward the woman and she tugged her lips up, not into a full smile but a reassuring one.

Finn was attempting to calm himself down, listening to the now rhythmic steps of the stilettos of the receptionist and his big black worn boots, they were synced and this slowed his thoughts down, they were still there; taunting him but now they weren't so deafening and urgent. As they walked Finn's eyes followed the strip of green that was on the wall and carried on far down the hallway and onto a different section of the building. They reached the room eventually, has the strip came to a stop before the door with '10C' came into view. It was far back into the building. Further away from the bathroom or any other people, the room was blocked from the public too, the receptionist had used a pass to get past one door and had offered him one, he declined, although he would probably need one later when he left.

She gave Finn that reassuring smile again which he had started to notice was either patronising or sympathetic. Then in a swift movement swiped the card onto the door and walked away, he didn't look back but he could tell she was gone because the sound of the stilettos on the floor had turned non existent. Finn turned the now unlocked doorknob and pushed the door open, and was greeted by two cops with bulky black guns asking for his identification, Finn grabbed it from his right pocket where he also kept his phone and keys and showed it to them, they shared a douchey laugh between themselves probably because Finns photo was from his 3rd year in college when he had uncontrollable curly ginger hair and a set of very bulky nerdy glasses. They allowed him through quickly, then just when he was about to turn into the main room under one of the cops breath he heard in a very arrogant voice:

"Dude that guy looks exactly like Napoleon Dynamite"

That was definitely a new one.

He walked to the room with all the main criminal experts including his old professor Mr Conwell, now with a few grey hairs laced between his normal black ones, a few very famous people within the law community, advisers and a couple of cops scattered around, some even stereo-typically eating donuts.

"Ah the man of the hour! I have only heard great things! So Prince Harry are you nervous?" the head of the case said enthusiastically from behind him.

He had realised over the years that as a ginger anyone else who was ginger he was compared to, whatever the context, Ron Weasley was one that happened quite frequently and in all honestly it was extremely agitating but he would never say that, especially to his boss.

"A bit yeah, but it doesn't matter" but it did matter a lot, to his career especially.

"If your ready then just go in!" the head said in the same tone from before, way too enthusiastically for working on a mass murderer case.

He nodded to show that he was going to go, but his body didn't cooperate, his fingers became anxiety oriented, legs becoming shaky and knees buckling. But he carried on trying to push himself to move so he didn't embarrass himself in front of so many important officials, he focused on the movement of his legs, although it was like his brain had completely forgotten how to walk, and when he did it was only a few steps before he was in front of the door which, when he pushed open, was equal to opening the door to the end of his career, or the peak. There was no in between. He took a few long breaths and stared at his Doc Martens for some sort of reassurance.

Finn looked up from his boots, shifted the door open, and saw the the two guards on the right and left of the hollow man, they had even bigger guns then the men and the first set of doors.

Then there was The Hollow Man. Or in the surprising case, woman.

She had a wide grin for someone that was facing a life sentence, with dimples aligned on both sides of her mouth, and her eyes crinkled in the corners folding and causing his eyes to close slightly but not fully, these features added a sense of delicacy to the woman's face, a sense of forgiveness. Finn's eyes trailed to her nose where a very clear cut was going across the bridge and stopping halfway under the woman's eyes equally on both sides; they ripped the feeling of delicacy in half, like ripping a piece of paper; rough and unforgiving. The Hollow 'Man's' skin was scarred, mainly from acne that ran slightly over her jawline but this acne didn't make her seem unflattering, but added another layer to her, one that Finn had to uncover. The skin was painted with a few freckles; scattered across her nose, parallel to the scar, but still very messy and uneasy, like she was the canvas, and someone had shook a brush of paint resulting in a series of sloppy spots. The cuts however, were mostly old and not fresh, the one exception of the one that ran over her nose which was only just starting to heal. Finn moved his sight to the woman's eyes, they looked bare brown and hollow, but sometimes the light would shift when she moved her head you could see a spark of an idea or a plan.

This scared Finn, a lot.

Her hair was brown and curly with the addition of grease that the light also showed, that light showed all of her features in a intimidating way, even though she was most likely equally as scary without it. The 'man' was was strangely well dressed. Finn was expecting a orange suit like in all the crime movies he's watched when there's a criminal on trial, but it was far from it. The Hollow Man's suit was navy blue and had a lining of white on the inside, it peaked through when she looked towards Finn with that devilish grin. The suit also had a few stains on it, blood or other liquids that he couldn't really seem to match with anything else. Under the suit blazer was a white collared shirt that rubbed against her neck, leaving a line of rubbed skin tainted red. It was tight and was buttoned with only a few buttons, she hadn't used the top two clear ones, leaving the rest of the shirt flapping out. Finn noticed a large watch on her wrist which told the complete wrong time, and it hadn't seemed to bother the hollow man at all, nothing seemed to.

Then the hollow man spoke, in a red raspy voice that brought chills to Finn's freckle covered neck,

"So weasel-bee, should we begin?"

Another ginger reference, Finn thought, Great. 

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Hi!! Thanks for reading this chapter, hope you enjoyed it.

My name's Kate, I've been writing this book since November, and It's something I've put so much effort into its maddening.

Anyway, plenty more chapters to come, so enjoyy!!

Insta - @/dnpmalfoy