Stay in Scarlet

I can still salvage this Scarlet thought to herself while she walked towards the cell block, All I need to do is confront him about it. He doesn’t know what I did with the video. I’ll just tell him I recorded it and that I’m going to send it to Macey.

But still, as she reached the cell block, she froze at the sight of his cell. Her nerves were still ever present as they were yesterday. She looked around the room for a bit, her eyes landing on the camera in the corner of the cell block. Henry She thought. If anything happens to me, Henry will see and send people to come get me. That knowledge gave her just the boost of confidence and safety she needed. The idea of falling under someone's control was fun in fantasy, but in reality it was terrifying. She hastily approached the door to Falls’ cell, opening up the latch to the door and looking inside. Just as had happened the other night before, Falls was still awake, however this time he turned around and sat with his legs crossed staring at the wall on the opposite end from her.

“Falls”

He didn’t answer back.

“I’m done playing games with you, Falls. Tell me what you did to Tiffany now.”

Once again, her demands were met by silence.

“I have the video of what you did to her. I recorded it. Tell me what you did now, or I will send it to Masey.”

He began to laugh quietly.

“I’m being serious, Falls. If you don’t explain to me how you did what you did in the video, I will send it to the higher ups at this facility. You know what they’ll do to you? They’ll **** your eyes open and perform tests on you. You’ll be made into a lab rat. Tell me what you did, and I won’t send them the video.” Scarlet looked at the camera in the corner of Falls' cell, hoping that Henry didn’t turn on the audio and listen to her speech.

Her long pause was once again met by silence. Scarlet was running out of options on what to do. Her frustration was growing inside of her. She decided to do one final bluff.

“Alright Falls, your choice!” she announced as she audibly grabbed the latch.

“Wait…” He commanded.

She paused. It was the first time he had spoken to her. His voice was just as smooth and soothing as it was in the video of him she saw. He turned around to look her in the eyes, a grin plastered across his face.

“If you really did have the video, then why would you not send it to Macey immediately”

Scarlet paused, trying to think of an excuse while looking right back at him. She moved her gaze to the floor instead.

“Because I figured I could learn more about it from what you tell me about it.”

“Well if that were the case, you would send it to Masey anyways, no matter what I said to you.”

“No.”

“Am I supposed to believe that you wouldn’t tell her out of the goodness of your heart? After you just threatened me with ****?”

Scarlet's face was becoming red, but this time it wasn’t because of how he had looked her in the eyes. It was because she was scared shitless.

“But also, if you were to send it to Masey anyways, you’d have enough common sense to know that there are trained interrogators who could interrogate me properly. Not like some discount security guard” Falls insulted as he gestured towards her, “So the options that I am left with are that either you just wanted an excuse to come talk to me, and considering how you’re clearly scared shitless of me because you wouldn’t come to my cell all of last night to check up on me, I seriously doubt it's that.”

Falls squinted his eyes at her.

“Which leads me to conclude its option B”

By this point Scarlet’s heart was racing. His logic was sound, and she realized her mistake. She had said too much. Spoken too much. He let her talk herself into a corner, and she was stupid enough to fall for it. She tried to think of some lie, any lie that could get her out of this, but she was left with nothing.

Instead, all she could squeak out with her shaking voice was “What is option B?”

“You fucked up. You watched the video instead of giving it to your boss like an idiot, and after it deleted itself, you made the stupid decision to come to me, and ask me about it. You tried to salvage a bad situation, and you made it ten times worse.”

She paused, looking back to the camera once again, and praying to a higher power that for some reason, Henry had either ignored, or missed the situation going on in Falls’ cell. She returned her eyes back to his, staring into them as he spoke.

“Now, here we are. I could tell your boss about what you did. You’d be fired. Possibly jailed for tampering with evidence.”

His voice was less soft. It was a commanding voice that kind of scared her. It was much different than how he had talked in the video. How he had talked in that smooth calm relaxing tone. She almost missed it. She tried to think of the perfect words to say, but her thought was interrupted by his voice.

“But, I’m willing to let all of that go… on three conditions, okay?”

She felt a slight relief from knowing there was a way out of the mess she had dug herself into, but she wasn’t out of the woods yet.

She closed her eyes and began to protest, "If you think I will turn myself into-”

“The first condition,” he spoke over what she began to say, “is trust. You don’t lie to me, and I promise I won’t lie to you. And trust me, I will know if you lie.”

She opened her eyes as he spoke, looking into his, and nodding slowly once he was done.

“Condition number two, is that you won’t tell anything that I say back to Macey or any other guards, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Finally, the third condition is that you come to my cell, and talk to me every day during your shift at the block.”

“Why?”

He looked like he was almost ashamed to admit it “...I can’t keep up this quiet act anymore. I haven’t had a meaningful connection since I was put in here, and I need someone to talk to, less I go insane.”

Scarlet paused, gaging the sincerity of what he had said. If he was lying, she couldn’t see it.

“Fine,” She spoke, looking away to the floor as she did, “but no hypnosis or tricks like that whatsoever. If you do anything to me like you did to Henry, I'm pulling the plug on this. Okay?”

“You have my word.”

A silence filled the room as Scarlet looked to the floor, avoiding eye contact with the prisoner.

“Why do you do that?” Falls’ asked

“Do what?”

“Why do you constantly look away from my eyes?”

“If you know the answer to the question then why even ask it?”

“Well I think I know the answer, but I want to hear it from you.”

Scarlet paused, remembering the deal that they had just made. She wasn’t allowed to lie, so instead she told the truth.

“Because every time that I look into your eyes, something weird happens to me.”

“What happens?”

“I don’t know… I feel warm in my head… I get all nervous… It was the same thing that happened to Tiffany in the video she gave me.”

Another pause of silence filled the room.

“I thought I realized that's what was happening, but I found it really odd…”

“Why?”

“Because, when I did that to Tiffany, she wanted it to happen, so her mind let it happen.”

“What?”

“Every girl that I did what I did to, they wanted it to happen. They asked for it. That’s why it's so bizarre that it was happening to you.”

Scarlet looked down at her shoes and contemplated for a long while.