Facilis Descensus Averno [REWRITING]

9. Vile and Cruel

"You can sit this one out if you want to."

They were standing outside in the hallway, halfway between the door to the interrogation room they were just in, and a similar door almost adjacent to it, just a few feet of distance apart between them.

"What?"

Gilliam sighed, lips set in a hard line as he held a hand out to her. "We are doing Jack next, aren't we?"

"Didn't you hear what she said?" she reminded, tilting her head towards the room they just came from. "Gilliam, I think we have to consider the possibility of a copycat here."

"She's lied before, and she can lie again." He took a step forward, arms crossed in front of him. He didn't look like he was trying to threaten or intimidate her, however—his pupils briefly darted to the corner of his eyes, and her ears almost automatically honed in to the sound of footsteps approaching from the other end of the hall. "Can we really trust a fugitive on the run, detective?"

"Well, she's not on the run, is she?" She sighed, finding herself mimicking his posture. Her attention was only briefly taken away from him when the footsteps grew louder, and she felt someone gliding through the hallway past them, her eyes trailing the figure until they could continue their conversation outside of anybody's earshot. "You're not going to let them go, are you?"

For as far as the difficult questions went, she didn't expect this one to hit him straight in the bullseye, considering what he had been doing since the moment he got here—Gilliam turned his gaze away from her, air hissing through his gritted teeth as he shifted his weight from one foot to another, but without disturbing the safe proximity between them.

"I can't," he confessed, his voice just barely audible now. She frowned—no one else seemed to be within eavesdropping distance, at least not anyone she was aware of. "We can't just let them go like that, not when they pose as much danger as Eyeless Jack does."

"I don't get it," she scoffed, shrugging her elbows. "Am I missing something here? Because Skye and Toby—they seem pretty normal to me. I don't get why this SCP Foundation you're working for is after them in the first place."

Gilliam offered her a brief glare. "Looks can be deceiving, detective. Trust me when I tell you, you do not want to know the answer to that."

"Is it the 'tall man' you mentioned earlier?" she questioned, and immediately noticed the change in his posture—from mere cautious to alert and vigilant, in a mere blink of an eye. Her frown deepened. "What is it? Who were you talking about?"

"No one," Gilliam quickly uttered out without glancing at her, as he threw another wary glance over his shoulder and hers. "But yes, it is about that 'tall man' we were talking about. And as transparent as I've been with you for the past hour, detective, you really don't want to know who or what that is."

She wanted to sigh and roll her eyes, but it was getting late—it had been quite the long day, and she barely got enough sleep the night before. Of course, without the exhaustion, there was no doubt she would be kept awake tonight as well, but she thought back to what Skye just said minutes ago—about how she would exhaust herself to sleep because she couldn't even force herself to get some shut eye otherwise.

Oh, how she could relate to that feeling right in this exact moment.

"She seemed pretty honest to me," Bishop breathed out instead, holding her face in her palm as she began to rub her eyes a little. "And besides, we were already thinking it wasn't Jack. The M.O. just doesn't match up—not exactly, anyway."

"And knowing that his M.O. is being replicated for these murders—" Gilliam tilted his head, as if forcing her to look at him again. It wasn't as though there was anywhere else for her to focus her attention on otherwise. "We will need to question him all the same, detective. Maybe none of them have any direct involvement in any of the murders, but this is the only lead we have. Not until we can verify Martin's alibi from that security footage she mentioned earlier."