Darkness.

All Tahlia Meyers could anticipate standing in front of Room 159, was darkness.

With the previous encounter from two days ago still vivid in her head, Tahlia found herself wishing for time to go by slower.

She wished Michelle, who stood at her side with the black pass ready, would take her sweet, sweet time opening the door and pushing her inside the monster's den.

She glanced backwards harrowingly, running her gaze along the hallway she had walked into here, trying to deflect from the anxiety sinking it's jaws into her frail flesh.

Was it too late to go back? She questioned her subconscious.

In reply, she was only reminded of the very displeased email she had received from a very displeased Turner, in response to her appeal of changing her case subject.

'Miss Meyers, had it been someone else who had the nerve to write that mail, I would have asked them to drop this course and take up something like sociology or gender studies.

Seeing that your case is different, I will let you off with only a reminder of how this assignment accounts for a generous proportion of your grade.

You will do the assignment with no exceptions, seeing how a future criminal psychologist shouldn't be afraid of speaking to actual criminals.

Please refrain from wasting both of our times in the future.'

She sighed internally, knowing there was no way out. She had to do this.

She needed those grades.

Tahlia turned back around, positively macabre, looking at Michelle quietly as she swiped the card across the little machine.

She wondered why Michelle, or even the rest of the staff hadn't given her any weird looks yet. It's not everyday that someone runs out of a hallway screaming bloody murder.

But then, again, this was an insane asylum.

Surely they had seen worse.

With a small beep, her attention was brought to the newly unlocked door. Along with only a sympathetic smile to go along, Michelle gave her the damn button, it's deep red color resembling every alarm that was going off in Tahlia's head at the moment.

A nervous wreck, she took a baby step inside, knowing what awaited her.

The icy confinement filled with nothing but darkness; a maniacal laughter ricocheting off the thick walls.

A possibility of being choked to death by pair of hands out of nowhere.

She had quite the grisly picture painted in her mind.

But instead, Tahlia's sight was met with beaming incandescent ceiling lights, paralleling stars, almost blinding her unprepared eyes.

For a millisecond, Tahlia questioned if she was, perhaps, in the wrong room.

The undisturbed atmosphere only added to her doubt.

Until her vision landed on a familiar figure.

There he was, seated behind the desk, not on top of it, unlike their previous meeting.

Not that it made his demeanor any less intimidating.

He looked at her in a manner she had only seen people in the library look into an engrossing book, head tilted at a slight angle.

He was, in a way, reading her.

"Won't you take a seat?" His voice, crafted with the sound of rhythmic tides and calloused grit, came for her in a mocking tone, making her still.

But he had done nothing, merely spoken a few normal words and she was already disarmed.

"Mr Hunt, I, well.." She gulped.

His face while still expressionless, had an eyebrow raised in wicked play.

"So you're going to stand there the whole time?"

"No-I uh.." She awkwardly staggered to the chair across from him, sitting down apprehensively. Would that be it? Would a murder sit a few hands away from her at free will?

Fear ran through her arteries.

Leaving no time for any spoken words, she started going through the first file of paperwork with her head kept down and eyes forced on the text, trying her best to ignore the heat of the man's prolonged gaze on her.

She mentally rebuffed herself for acting flustered and cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Mr. Hunt, I -"

"Mr. Hunt sounds awfully professional."

She swore she could feel her heart pick up pace when he leaned forward on the table, never breaking the intense eye contact between both of them.

"Call me Logan."

'Logan', She muttered to herself under her breath, warily, as if it were an ancient chant meant only to be preserved for sacred rituals.

"Right, Logan.." She spoke his name out loud, a foreign feeling washing over her stomach with the name rolling off of her tongue; gulping she began, "We met a few days ago and I told you about this assignment I had, I'm not sure if you remember-"

"Of course I do Ta-Tahlia Meyers, I don't have amnesia."

The corner of his mouth curled upwards into a full blooming smirk.

"It's Ta-"

"I must say," He interjected smoothly, "Watching you run for the hills, scared shitless, was truly one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen during my time here Miss Meyers."

She swallowed down hard, looking back at him to only see him watching the ripple in her jaw, intently.

She hated the way he looked at her, looked into her. Whatever guard she had up, was crumbling to the ground in dust.

"You're scared of me." He stated out of nowhere, almost as if, to himself.

Tahlia chose not to reply. His stare felt like, what could only be described as, soul piercing. As if he was looking right through her.

"I won't hurt you."

His words were spoken artless.

"I know." She replied in a small voice.

"You know?" He snapped, drawing himself forward in his chair menacingly, "Do you now? Are you so fucking sure I'm not going to hurt you?"

Tahlia exhaled a shaky breath, positioning her finger on the panic button under the table, ready to press down on it any given moment.

For an unprecedented amount of time no words were exchanged as they sat still in their predicaments. She looked at his face, seemingly serene, yet she couldn't miss the hints of the malice brewing underneath the facade.

The golden silence was broken only when Logan leaned back into his chair, sheerly holding up both of his hands for Tahlia to see, his face impassive.

Maybe it was disbelief, maybe relief that washed over Tahlia, when she spotted the piece of metal cuffs binding his hands together.

The faint sound of metal clinking over the marble floors rang through Tahlia's ears, louder than ever.

She inched her chin further to his side of the desk, raking her eyes along the chain from the cuffs, which was bolted to the steel table.

That's when she fully understood his words.

He couldn't hurt her.

She ran a hand through her dark hair, shaking her head. It was too much.

"We should get on with the- the assignment." She said, tipping out the blue file towards him.

He gripped the file gently, assessing it. His eyes skimmed through all of the text quickly, lingering on the part of the duration. He then closed the leaf, about to push it back towards her, when his cat-like eyes caught on to a small set of text on the front page.

"Natalia Meyers?" The upturn of his lips was on full display.

He placed his shackled hands over the desk, crossing them in mock delight.

"Natalia."

"Don't call me that." She snapped.

It was a peculiar thing, for the ever so soft spoken Tahlia Meyers to snap.

But even more peculiar was, perhaps, the fact that Tahlia didn't disclose her full name to people often.

But now that the beautiful psychopath in front of her knew her full name, only made it feel like the strings to a part of her were in his command.

"Then what should I call you Natalia?" He cocked his head to the side, mockingly.

"Tahlia would be just fine." She breathed out quickly, exasperated.

"Shame." His frosty tone sent a shiver down her shoulder blades. "Natalia was truly the most beautiful name I'd ever heard."

The flush on Tahlia's face could, in no way, go unnoticeable. She lowered her gaze down to the file again, bringing herself to focus on the printed words.

"You need to sign here before we begin." She made a rushed attempt to draw him away from their earlier piece of conversation.

"They can only give us a pen under supervision, at the recreational room." He rolled his azure eyes at the last words.

"Oh. I'll just..uh..give it to the front desk then. We can begin with the questions in the next session."

"And what if I told you that I don't want to answer your questions."

"Wait-what? But you just agreed to-"

"I never did. You should pay more attention to people's words Miss Meyers. Maybe college doesn't really make one smart."

Tahlia couldn't help but huff at this, "You don't understand Mr Hunt-"

"Logan."

She sighed, "Logan. Look, It's just a few questions, nothing out of the ordinary. Please my whole grade depends on this."

"Believe it or not, Miss Meyers, I've done a lot worse than turning down volunteering for a lab experiment."

Whether it was his infuriatingly complacent demeanor to blame, something snapped inside Tahlia and before she knew what she was doing; she slammed her hands on the desk, getting up with her vision clouded with pure chagrin.

"You think I want this?! To be inside a sealed room with you, alone!? You know what- screw you and your attitude. I'll manage this thing on my own." She fumed with newfound boldness.

The scene before her was unmoving. Everything in the room went quiet.

You see, it took only a second for Tahlia's predicament to sink in.

She was in a room, all alone with a psychopath, who also happened to be a cold blooded killer, and she just went off on him.

She didn't mean to.

Logan stood up too, matching her position.

Tahlia instantly flinched back a little.

The only thing keeping her sane was the distance that the table put in between them.

That newfound boldness disappeared just as fast as it had come.

She cowered back slightly, waiting for him to erupt.

But he never did.

Instead he just looked her dead in the eye.

"I like this side of yours, Natalia. You should unleash it more often, I daresay," He smirked sinisterly;

"It makes me feel things."

Tahlia gulped. Knowing quite well what he was trying to do, she nevertheless held herself together.

"Psychopaths aren't capable of feeling that way, Mr. Hunt."

"Is that so?"

She averted her gaze to the floor, feeling the goosebumps rising on her skin.

"Well, I'll let you in on a secret." He leaned in closer.

"You have intrigued me Natalia ." He breathed it out in a hushed voice.

She didn't like how he said her name with every sentence he spoke, as if to remind her of what it came with.

"So I'll do it, I'll cooperate for your project."

She looked up in a flash. Relief and surprise, both flooded her system, "Thank you Mr. Hunt, it means a-"

"On one condition."

Of course.

The traces of the smile that was forming on her face, faltered at once.

Tahlia should have known.

Psychopaths love playing games.

It was all just a giant, sick game to him.

When she didn't say anything, Logan continued,

"For every question you ask me, I in return, get to ask you one." He insinuated in a low voice.

"You know, quid pro quo Clarice."

"No. Absolutely not." She crossed her arms. She was not going to be a pawn in his twisted game, and sure as hell play no Hannibal Lecter games.

"Alrighty, then." He said in an almost sing- song tone, shrugging.

"It was truly a pleasure meeting you Miss Meyers. I wish you well for you future, as well as your degree."

She didn't fail to catch the ice in his words. The mockery.

Tahlia exhaled grippingly.

She was no stranger to the fact that Logan Hunt was manipulating her, playing her with his words.

He must have caught on to how desperately what Tahlia's degree meant to her.

It was at that moment, that the door was opened with a small, but unmistakable sound.

A man in the periwinkle staff uniform walked in with a tray, motioning for Tahlia to leave.

He set the tray on the desk, then walked over to his bed, wavering a beeping device all over it.

Tahlia realized it was some sort of a metal detector. Wouldn't be unusual in an insane asylum, after all.

Then the orderly came over to where he sat, scanning the table and then the man himself; only then undoing the cuffs.

Not even attempting to put up the fight Tahlia thought he would, he turned around mechanically, making his way straight to the bed behind the table wordlessly.

She got up from the chair, sparing one glance at the body of the man behind her restlessness.

She pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.

If she didn't do the project, everything she had worked for all these years, everything she had put essential years of her life into, would all go to waste.

She would be disappointed.

Tahlia let out a low grunt in agitation, "Okay, fine! I agree."

There was no response.

"Mr Hunt, I said I agree to your terms." She stressed, waiting for him to say anything. She looked at the nurse, who just shrugged in response.

Still, there was nothing but excruciating silence in the room.

Tahlia could see Logan lying on his back, with his eyes closed. But it was too soon for him to humanly fall asleep.

Which could only mean that he had made up his mind and was disregarding her words with intent.

Which in turn meant Tahlia was going to fail the semester.

The nurse walked over to her side of the desk, speaking in hushed tones, as he picked up a pill from the tray, "I'm sorry, you'll have to leave now."

Tahlia nodded, doing her best to ignore the moisture pooling in the corners of her eyes and reached for her files on the table, snatching them with an extra force.

She couldn't stand the place anymore, so she turned to the door to leave for good, forever.

That's when a low voice sounded from behind her.

"I'll be waiting on your questions Miss Meyers."

She paused in her tracks and swiveled back, to see him still lying with his eyes closed.

Yet the small upturn of his lips was ever so visible.

"Good Night Natalia."

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