Chapter 7: Sebastian

“It was just a flesh wound. Barely felt a thing,” She replied. “How did you know that I was here?”

His observation room was soundproofed, and the two-way mirror that ensured that he’d never know more than a moment’s privacy was activated. He shouldn’t have been able to tell that anyone was around, much less who it was.

“You ask a lot of questions, Dr. Paige.” His deep woodsy voice held a ruefulness to it despite the slight dragging to his speech pattern, a sure sign that he was still on some sort of heavy medication.

“It’s my job to ask questions, remember? And it’s yours to dance around them so that I look bad in front of my boss.”

She saw his chest rise and fall alongside the rough laughter that funneled in through the security room’s speaker. “The last time I made you laugh, you popped your stitches.”

“You’re charming, Dr. Paige. I’ll give you that. Just not enough to bust a literal gut.”

“Maybe you just haven’t gotten the chance to know me well enough yet.”

He let out a low, thoughtful hum. “Is that what we’re doing here? Getting to know one another better?”

“You’re the one who asked me to stay,” she breathed. “You tell me, Subject Alpha.”

The air between them went silent as she watched his shadowy form shift, the slide of his manacles rustling against the stiff sheets of his cot setting her on edge.

“Sebastian.”

The air in her lungs stilled at his soft admission. “Is that your name?”

She saw him nod. “It is. I figured it might be time I leveled the playing field. At least a little,” he said. “While it’s just the two of us.”

“What makes you so sure that I won’t report everything I say back to my employers?”

He laughed again. “Are you also going to tell them everything you found sneaking around in the middle of the night? I’m sure they’ll love that. They seem like the type to have a sense of humor about the little things. Like espionage.”

She smirked. “You have me there.”

“Did they teach you that in psychology school? How to be a criminal?”

No, she’d learned that all on her own. “Not quite. In my regular life, I work with a lot of people who’ve done a lot of unsavory things. It’s usually my job to help explain why, how, and whether or not they’ll do it again.”

“So, it makes sense that they’d want someone like you to do their dirty work,” he said. “You know all the ins and outs of the mind of a killer.”

Paige swallowed. “Are you a killer, Sebastian?”

“If you’re good at your job, I guess you’ll find out,” he replied. “But not tonight.”

Silence. Paige rolled that statement around in her head, testing its integrity. Whether or not there was any truth behind it, hidden behind his iron-clad walls.

“Someone is coming. You need to hide.”

The urgency in his voice spurred her into action without a second thought. Paige dropped to the floor and slid underneath one of the long desks that edged the length of the office’s back wall. She scooted into the darkest, furthest corner from the door, with her knees pressed tightly to her chest as the sound of the door’s lock beeping preceded the sound of heavy boots entering the office.

“This fuckin’ place, man. I haven’t had a station this boring since Basic,” came one guard’s disgruntled muttering as he stomped over to the cupboard directly on Paige’s right.

She bit her lip and forced her breathing to remain measured and soft. A second guard leaned against the desk closest to the door and snorted. “You’d best enjoy it while you can. Come Tuesday, shit’s getting real around here.”

“You know somethin’ I don’t?” The guard beside her paused his rummaging and turned to face his partner. “Have anything to do with the fucker in the box?”

“Wouldn’t know. I stood guard outside a meeting between the Director and the department heads. Heard them mention something about a demonstration that’ll hopefully kick off Phase 2 or some shit.”

“Good. The faster they get their research done with, the sooner I get to be restationed somewhere where the temperature rises over negative 20 degrees at any point throughout the year.”

The cabinet door shut, and both men’s voices receded as they exited the office and continued back to their posts. Paige waited another five minutes before she let out a heavy sigh and came from under the desk.

“You should get out of here.”

She jumped as Sebastian’s voice reappeared in the room.

“Do you know what they were talking about?” She asked him. “What happens on Tuesday?”

He didn’t immediately answer. “Seba–”

“Good night, Dr. Paige.” His tone had hardened in a way that told her he’d finished sharing for the night.

“Good night, Sebastian.”

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The next day Paige went to see Sebastian, he seemed in lower spirits than she was used to. Over the following few days, his mood only got worse.

They continued their song and dance – Paige would ask him leading questions that Sebastian expertly skirted. After nearly a full week together, she hadn’t managed to glean any real information on him but his name, and that she omitted from her reports.

Beyond the back-and-forth, however, hidden beneath the guise of study and observation, Paige and Sebastian had been slowly getting to know one another, piecing together each other’s personalities bit by bit.

“How did you sleep last night, Dr. Paige?”

“Are you ever going to tell me what you do for a living?” She countered. This was their dynamic. Always asking questions. Never giving answers. What information they gleaned was all in the subtext, far away from the prying eyes of Director Wen and Project Far Side.

Today, Sebastian was able to sit up, the stitches in his side having mended enough that Jared finally allowed for the chains on his cuffs to be loosened. He sat with his back resting against the wall, legs crossed beneath him, looking his usual, unnaturally relaxed self.

It’s as if he doesn’t recognize the danger he’s in, she thought. Like this was all just an inconvenience for him.

As if he’d read her mind and agreed, a slow grin spread across his sculpted lips. “You’ve analyzed me enough. Guess.”

Paige flipped through her notes even though she didn’t need to – they were mostly surface-level bullshit, the kind of stuff that would sound impressive at a cursory glance from an untrained eye. Everything important, she kept inside.

“You’re the self-sufficient sort, not one to panic in stressful situations. Adaptable. You aren’t squeamish, are capable of empathy, but you aren’t run by it. You’re pragmatic nearly to the point of being rude, and yet you’re not a pessimist,” she summarized. “On paper, I’d categorize you as the hero type. You’d make a good cop. Maybe a firefighter.”

“So, not a war criminal?”

Paige lifted a shoulder. “Personality doesn’t always dictate action. There are a million reasons why good people do bad things, especially if they don’t view what they’re doing as bad,” she said. “And that also why some of the world’s most heinous villains are often described as ‘nice guys,’ or ‘pillars of the community.’”

“Was the man who attacked you like that? A nice guy?”

“The nicest, if you ask his mom, his friends, and colleagues. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed – the real American dream up until the point he got his hands around your throat. Then he showed his true colors, what he and so many like him are beneath the surface – true monsters.”

Sebastian’s face darkened, clouded over by an expression she couldn’t place.

“What would you do if you found out that I was one of those monsters, Paige?” His voice was pitched low. This conversation was for them alone.

She returned in kind. “The same thing I do with all of the others,” she whispered. “I would pick you apart bit by bit until I found what makes you tick.”

“Does that frighten you?” A muscle in his throat jumped, drawing her eyes.

She could almost imagine that she could feel his pulse beating beneath his bronzed skin, feel her heart slowing to match the steady rhythm. It wasn’t smart of her to provoke him, especially during the times when he went out of his way to remind her that she didn’t know him.

That he was locked away for a reason.

Those were also the times when Paige’s pull to him felt the strongest. Some unrecognizable part of her was being called to an unknowable part of him, becoming for her to peel back his layers to unleash what lay beneath.

It did frighten her.

But she’d never been one to shy away from fear.

Paige leaned in, meeting his gaze straight on.

“I don’t fear monsters. Never have; it’s always been my biggest weakness,” she confessed. “The complexity…I’ve always been intrigued by a good mystery.”

Something like disappointment passed across Sebastian’s face as he let his head fall back against the wall. “That isn’t your problem, Dr. Paige.”

“Then, what is?”

“It’s that you’re the kind of person who monsters find intriguing right back.”