All that is dark | ✓

15| truth

HELENE DIDN'T LIKE GAMES. She never had played them, not when she had been forced to hold books as soon as they discovered how clever she was. To be honest, it was fine like that, she wasn't the type to run around anyway. Mainly because her stamina was terrible, but also because she didn't like the idea of people getting too close to her, of them seeing her bruises. That was before she had learned how to use them. Pain was just another currency in this world, if you knew how to trade with the right people.

She was even trading right now.

"My mother is dead," she said," she hung herself when I was fourteen. I was the one who found her."

"How did you feel?" Nathan asked, smiling as if they were talking about the weather.

She paused for a moment, knowing all the guards in the room were trying to keep their pokerface, but failing. It would almost have been amusing to see their terror, if it had not been mixed with pity, that was.

"Relieved."

Nathan's smile widened.

"My turn," he drawled," it'll be more fun for you if we create suspense this way, won't it?"

"I didn't know you were so concerned with my fun."

He smiled at her, almost gently, like he wanted to place his lips on the wounds on her hands. Knowing him, he'd most likely would be happy at the taste of blood.

"You're the only one I'm concerned about, Helene."

He pushed the hair out of his eyes then, not minding the way the chains were marring his wrists red.

"I let myself get caught," he said," and I'm only staying here until my interest wears off."

"No prisoner has ever escaped from here before," Helene said.

"None of them were me," Nathan smiled.

He waited, staring at her like he could determine the truth of her words by the movement of her lips alone, like he would catch a slight tremor as she spoke about grief.

"I was on medication for years," she said," my mother got it for me. I had no idea what it was."

"What did it do?" Nathan asked.

She remembered the constant shaking, the insomnia that had started then and which was still not leaving now, the way her heart had been beating like it would break her ribcage open. Whatever it had been, it had kept her awake enough to make her take up all the projects her mother had wanted her to. The occasional sleep was only important to keep her pretty, her mother had said. Dolls were only pleasant to look at when they were beautiful.

"It did enough," she said," you're next."

"I walked in on my mother's death as well," he said," I remember how her footsteps thudded through the house every day, but that night there was a spring to it, like she knew she had one less burden to bear."

"How did she do it?" Helene asked.

He swiftly moved his thumb across his neck, smile wide. "Cut her throat."

"That's a lie," Helene said.

Her accusation didn't faze him that much as he leaned forward, chuckling.

"Okay, you're right, she hung herself."

"Lie."

"Took a bottle of pills from our bathroom and swallowed them all, until her organs failed."

"Lie."

He smashed his chains against the table, the sound so loud it alarmed all the guards around them, his eyes fully focused on her.