The Prisoner Project

TWO

"You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You're looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!"

- Ted Bundy

TWO

I WAS SO SHAKEN UP that I followed behind the old woman in silence. I didn't have to ask, I knew her name was definitely not Mirabel and the entire conversation had been a facade. It still blew me away.

We were walking through a dimly lit hallway that resembled the main hall decor. It was grim and the smell of sherry and hairspray was replaced with mildew and dust. Mirabel - or whatever her name was - tilted her head back to face me. "The State gave up on trying to maintain this place. No one has the compassion or time to give funds to a place like this."

I knew she couldn't see me but I still nodded. Talking proved too much of a chore. Once we passed through the hallway, we reached a dead end that was made up of three doors. One read Do not Enter, the other two didn't have signs on them. She pushed open the first door.

The inside was a different place altogether. It was a large room with white walls and several surveillance camera screens tethered around the room. There were men and women in uniform peering over the screens, some tapping in words and numbers into their monitor screens. Vaguely, I wondered how many prisoners were in this building to need so much security staff.

We walked past the room in silence and I noticed a flurry of activity at the other end. A man in an expensive suit talked animatedly to one of the workers. They pointed at a surveillance screen that reflected a woman crouched in the corner of what looked like a cell.

Heck, it could've been a cage.

The screen was dark, I couldn't really see.

Mirabel followed my gaze to the men. "That's the lawyer for Belladonna. She's on death row and today is her last day." She said it as though she had asked me if I wanted milk or sugar with my tea.

"Mrs Black—" she continued.

I cringed. Mrs Black was my mother. "Aria, please."

She waved a finger at my face, pulling my eyes from Belladonna on the screen. "Aria. Keep walking, curiosity doesn't sit well with this building."

Belladonna. Belladonna was here. She had beat her lover to a lick of his life and then stabbed him over 30 times, disemboweled him, slashed his throat and left him still breathing with a knife in his skull. The police found her with his fingernails, teeth and eyeball hidden in her purse at a nail salon. He had been dead thirty days since then.

Belladonna's crime hadn't even happened here. Why was she at Stockholm? Her name alone sent an icy shiver down my spine, I wanted to run but my legs were rooted.

"Aria?" Mirabel repeated, more firmly. "Are you OK?"

I jerked out of my trance and turned my attention back to her. "What? I'm perfectly fine." I intended for my voice to come out natural but the sharpness of my tone revealed my true feelings.

Mirabel only nodded and kept walking.

I followed her out of the large hall and into a much smaller office, with an empty desk. I assumed this was the job interview room and so when she gestured to the seat at the other end of the table, I sat down with a sigh.

"I'll be back with the person in charge of this section. Good luck."

She was leaving me?! I had already become used to her presence and it acted like a safety net for me. I didn't want to be alone in this place, even if the walls were clean and it smelled like citrus.