His Fatal Mistake.

Dull thumps of pain reminded him of what had happened. Had he really been stupid enough to walk straight into a trap and let himself be caught like this?
Clenching his eyes shut for a second, he felt something trickle down his cheek. It could be blood or sweat. He guessed it was a mixture of both liquids.

As though waking up to reality, he opened his eyes and looked around himself, breathing rapidly. His heart went wild in his chest and he swallowed several times before he managed to calm down again.


His eyes adjusted.
The room could have been brighter, not to mention cleaner. Not that he thought the person who had tied him to the chair he was sitting in, would care about that.
Judging by the looks of it, he was in the fifth or maybe sixth storey of the large block he had been dumb-witted enough to walk into, following a fresh lead. No one knew he was here.

This wasn't exactly what he had had in mind when following her, but the whole case had been at standstill for nearly two weeks. The media had even been making fun of them when they couldn't find the murderer.
His name was Oliver Middletown. Now he was a prisoner, bound on hands and feet. His name didn't matter much to the person keeping him captive.


At the moment she was looking out of the grey window. The sky seemed so far away and so incredible blue. An innocent picture far away from the situation Oliver was in. A cloud drifted lazily past a pipe far away. It was going to rain tonight. She had timed it well - the rain would erase her trails.
Outside, everyone else continued their peaceful lives in sweet ignorance. Oliver, who often enough had cursed them for their way of being, now wished he was among them, ignoring whatever happened outside their fragile bubbles.

The ropes around his wrists were cutting off the blood-circulation to his hands. His fingers already felt awfully numb. He tried to loosen the ropes a little, but then the woman sitting in the window suddenly turned her head.
"Don't move," she commanded, sliding out of the window-sill where she obviously had been sitting a long time waiting for him to wake up.

"It took you darned long to wake up." Her voice surprised him a little. It was so dark.
She could be in her mid-twenties and she would have been pretty if she had taken better care of herself. Her hair could need a wash and her face was in need of cleansing.


Moving quickly and silently, her face showed no emotion. Her face was blank.
Brushing some hair-strands out of her face, she looked at him. "Try anything funny and I'll make sure you die screaming like a pig." Her brown eyes told him she wasn't kidding.

Oliver swallowed, remembering the crime scenes he had been to and how messed up the bodies were. This woman had caused it. It was strange, really. He couldn't really see how she could have done it - she was rather petite but she had cut up a thirty-four old man because he had cheated on his wife, strangled two hookers and hung them from lamp posts and set up a deadly trap for a well-known businessman. It was a wonder that the man didn't die.

She bent down, clasped a set of handcuffs on his hands and quickly untied him.
"I guess that's a bit more comfortable," she smiled.
Baffled by her behaviour, Oliver shifted in his chair. At once she sent him a stern gaze, but returned to her place on the window-sill. It irked him - how could she be so calm?


Oliver cleared his throat, "Why am I here?"
Eyeing someone down at the pavement, she only chuckled. "You followed me. I can't have coppers like you running around when I'm cleaning out the scum of society."
He couldn't help but answer; "Cleaning out the scum of society? You're nothing but a murderer," he spat.
"I didn't expect you to say something like that," she turned a little, seeming a tad amused. She turned towards him, "Like you are any better."

Insides suddenly freezing to ice, Oliver forgot to breathe for a moment or two. "I am not a murderer!" he hissed through clenched teeth. How did she know?!


"I'm not a murderer," she mimicked him. "Are you trying to make me laugh?" she snorted. Again a person outside caught her attention - maybe a future victim.
She looked at him again. "You are a murderer. Don't you think that I have read your file?" She stated it lightly, knowing she was right. It wasn't like her hours of research had been in vain, and she knew.

Sliding down from the window-sill again, she stepped up close to him. "Have you forgotten poor Jack O'Connell? The criminal you should arrest, not shoot."
The tiny hairs on Oliver's neck rose, and he shifted again, looking away. The roll he had eaten earlier this day, seemed to jump in his stomach, and his heart made attempts at leaping out of his chest.
Why had he followed her like this?

It dawned upon him that he was next. She had tricked him. He was next on her list. Murder is a sin, and she didn't like people who did things they shouldn't do. Oliver remembered the chat he had had with the psychiatrist, who had told him that the murderer most probably was a psychotic one.


Looking into her brown eyes, they showed no mercy, only wicked passion for what would happen to him the next hours. She smiled, "O'Connell. Isn't he the reason for the cigarettes you destroy your lungs with?"
Digging a pack of the cancer sticks out of one of his pockets, she threw them away, disgusted.


Walking out of the room, she fetched a large knife. Seeing his face, she put it down at a table that had seen better days. "Take it easy, I'm not gonna hurt you yet," she said dryly, enjoying the effect this had on him. Even the toughest could be forced into submissiveness.

She shrugged, as if remembering something, "Not that I have anything to say, I know. I kill people. At least I have the guts to admit it. I don't hide in shame like you do."
Closing out her dark voice, Oliver started to look around. There had to be something around that could help him. He had to get away if he didn't want to go the same way as the man who cheated on his wife.

Swallowing, he realised he had got to keep her talking. He needed to buy some time.
"So, you're just..." the words got lost somewhere on the way.
"I already told you," she reprimanded slightly, getting frustrated with him. Would she have to explain things over and over again for him?!

"I'm no 'avenger', although that's what they've been calling me in them newspapers," she interrupted herself, staring longingly at the knife. "I have plans of killing a journalist one day. I've never been able to like them. They lie too much," her voice faded and she looked dreamily out of the window, as though already planning the murder.
"You kill people for what they do wrong," Oliver stated, not daring to look at her.
"Took you long to figure out."


Oliver didn't know what to say.


"Are you gonna kill me?" He didn't mean to utter the question. One moment, it was a thought running through his mind, the second, a question that would decide his fate.
For the first time she seemed a little surprised. "No one has ever asked me about that," she let her mask fall for the first time. "They just beg me not to kill them."
Sighing, she halfway smiled, "But the answer is yes. Yes, but not yet."


She's gonna kill me.
The realization was like cold water running through his veins. Somehow, his breath increased again, his eyes desperately searching for an escape. Tugging at the handcuffs, this only made her grin widely, enjoying his pointless struggle. "It won't work. Don't make a fuss about it."
His eyes darting to her, she had sat down, leaning against a wall. Again she had taken on her mask and regained her cool. She sat, breathing silently, enjoying herself, as if she had planned every moment of this situation. Obviously things were going the way she wanted.
She hadn't even put down much effort in him. Of course did she have reasons to feel satisfied with her work - she stated that to herself, watching the dried blood on his face.

He didn't know what to do.
The pain he had felt seconds ago seemed so far away. He couldn't get loose. He couldn't escape. He couldn't get away. Could he talk her away from doing - no, he didn't want to know what was to happen to him. He didn't even dare to think about it.
The images of what her first victim had looked like flashed through his mind. Would he end up like that? There was no mercy in her eyes.


He opened his mouth again. The desperation of a doomed man was mirrored in his eyes. "You don't have to do this." He knew his words were spoken to deaf ears. The headache returned.

"You know what annoys me when it comes to you?" she suddenly spoke, looking at him with sudden hate in her eyes. "You're a murderer, still you are... in lead of a team trying to find me because I've killed someone. That's just not fair."
"I'm not a murderer," he nearly growled, perhaps reliving a fatal evening almost two years ago. "I am not a murderer!" He looked up, staring at her with hate. If looks could kill, she would have fallen to the floor, expiring.

Deciding the time for fun had come, she rose, making sure to invade his personal space when speaking to him again, "You killed him. You didn't have to pull the trigger."
Placing her hands around his throat, she giggled a little, "I have never killed a murderer before." She squeezed slightly, enough to make him gasp for air.

"I'm not," he gasped, "a murderer."

Letting go, she only smirked, and picked up the knife. "We'll see, if you want to change your mind, darling."


Oh, she had plans for him.

------->
Can you erase your demon, or will he take your freedom?
What will our tomorrow hold
If we can't even save today?

I'd be very happy if someone bothered to tell me what they thought?