The Prisoner Project

AWARENESS

"Try to touch the past. Try to deal with the past. It's not real. It's just a dream."
― Ted Bundy

AWARENESS

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND IT." Frank mused, pacing back and forth the sparsely-furnished office. He had always wondered why she had an office that barely had any personality but he never asked. After all, she herself lacked personality. "One second, she's seeking me for advice and the next, she's looking at me like I'm one of the damned."

Mirabel leaned against her chair, toying her silver pen between her fingertips. She wanted to indulge, to smile, to ask, to know, but she held her lips together in a grim line. "And why are you reporting this to me?" She rose a brow. "Are you telling me you can't do your job?"

Frank frowned. "No." He couldn't see how his boss hadn't noticed the way in which Aria had changed. She had lost weight, she sagged as though she carried everyone's problems on her slender shoulders, she had half moons for eyes and her lips rarely tilted up. "Rita, listen, I think we need to...end this. Aria isn't doing well. Can't we send her home?"

"Send her home?"

"I mean, fire her."

Mirabel pursed her lips. She heaved a dramatic sigh and pulled her glasses from her lean face. She had known this day would come. "We can't do that and you know that. She has the power to leave whenever she wants to—"

Frank gritted his teeth. "Well, I think she's forgotten that."

"Or maybe she wants to know why." Mirabel said, exceptionally harsh and to the point. She was disappointed in Frank. She had known that he would be naive, but she hadn't expected him to care about Aria so quickly. She uncrossed her legs and put on a straight face. She wasn't going to let him ruin this for her, no one could. "Don't  you think that maybe Aria Black is just as curious as we all wish her to be?"

"Not that curious."

Mirabel stood, sauntering over to a sofa at the corner of her room as she spoke. "Why don't you sit down, Frank."

Frank wrapped his arms tighter around himself. He shook his head. "I'm good—"

"It wasn't an offer." Mirabel countered, pointing to the other sofa that sat before her. The coffee table was the only thing separating the two.

Frank took a second and then flopped into the chair hesitantly. "I really haven't got the time to talk. I just wanted to give you a suggestion. Aria's still in the interview room and I need to be there in case things go wrong."

"Give me a break, Trellis. When have things ever gone wrong?"

He threw his hands up in exasperation. "I don't know. Things could be going wrong right now."

Mirabel's lips pulled into a unknowingly curious smile. "Oh, I don't doubt."

Eyes narrowed into slits. "What does that mean?"

She waved his stare away with a slender, well manicured hand. "Nothing in particular."

Frank began to make a mental note of everything Mirabel said.

"Rita, I don't understand it myself but I feel like there's something terribly wrong with her." Frank leaned against the leather sofa and heaved a sigh. "She keeps talking about letters, and incrimination, and she always looks so scared."

Mirabel looked frustrated. "Well, maybe Aria just has a lot of secrets."

"Perhaps Prisoner 143 has manipulated her?"