The ride back to the apartment had been quiet, with Typhon focused on the road and Deici looking out the window, clearly thinking about something. Ayla thoughts swirled, trying to think of different ways to escape, though all came up short, discarding each plan one after the other. She knew they were not normal people. Deici had calmly threatened to kill not only her best friend but her family as well, even admitting he would do it for fun. Typhon was the opposite but he never protested or questioned his comrade's blatant threats of violence and seemed absolutely unfazed by them, so questions lingered in her mind; what exactly did they do to make them so indifferent to callously ending lives, and why did they have access to people's information so easily, and could she exploit it ? Were they assassins? Hitmen for hire? Or something worse... Her questions were slowly answered during the following months.
The revelations started as soon as they got back to the apartment. She had noticed how quiet all of the staff were as they walked to the elevator in the lobby, she had not noticed how strangely they behaved on her first visit , all of the staff, the cleaners, receptionists, everyone barely spoke. Not just to the residents but to each other as well. It was never this silent, there was always quiet chatter. Gossip girls would talk, huddled together in a corner, workers on break talking on their phones and normal workers giving suggestive glances to good-looking men and women who walked by. She saw none of that. The workers here all kept their heads down, avoiding eye contact with any and every passerby unless necessary, never talking to each other, not even a friendly wave or hello to those they passed, and those who did talk were quick, always to the point, only work and nothing more, and people on break, if they were any, seemed to vanish altogether. She hadn't noticed it much before now, having been too focused and excited on her first assignment to pay attention to anything but the task she'd been given, but now... everything just seemed robotic and automated, even high-apathy androids seemed livelier.
She and her two captors reached the elevator, no one had said a word or even looked up at them, not one word or glance. They entered the elevator, she felt stiff and an eerily silent dread filled her, she thought the strict rules she was given in her briefing were weird and chalked them up the usual perfectionist spiel that each big business gave that would, inevitably, be ignored, but as the elevator doors closed in front of her, she couldn't help but think 'does every single person here know something I don't?'
....
The next few weeks went by with Ayla contacting Arcadia almost every day, talking about how each other's days went and how well she was doing. She was always careful with her words not sure what constituted too much information and may trigger the little bug inside her and did not want to slip up and find out the hard way.
Keeping the place clean was a breeze, Deici and Typhon would be gone often although it felt like she was always under surveillance. She quickly found out they were more than just hitmen, as Deici readily discussed horrific acts of violence he committed when he did appear, speaking as if they were works of art and in agonizing detail, always with a sick grin on his face. Typhon meanwhile was the strong silent type, never saying much and keeping his distance from Deici. She followed his example retreating to her room when Deici was around. At least they paid well...for now.
She had made a journal, separate from the diary that Deici had oh so graciously returned, recording everything he talked about, the jobs he so callously admitted to doing and the murders he delighted in. She needed to find a way to get it to the authorities and escape. She sat on the edge of the bed in her room reading over some of the details she had gleaned from Deici. She had highlighted a job that he frequently referred to as his 'greatest masterpiece,' he talked about it so incessantly that she had become bored with his theatrics, but always acted interested, acting like the audience he obviously craved. She added a few new pieces of information he had relayed in his latest retelling, trying to link it to anything she read in the paper or saw on the news. She was about to go to her room, she was at her limit, when his icy gaze fell on her, a glass of the wine Typhon has brought for him in his hand, "Poor kitty, writing but never really listening, listening but not really hearing, this is your Achilles heel, and because of it you will never truly understand the stage you appeared upon."
She scowled and walked into her room closing the door, willing her heart to slow down. His gaze always made her feel like prey and her flight instinct always took over. She sat down thinking about his words, and slowly began to read the information she had compiled from him over the last few weeks. She focused on the one thing he always came back to, the big job that he loved to reminisce over. His last words really bothered her "the stage you appeared upon," her hands began to shake as she read the bulleted points, how easily he had gotten in, how fast he had gotten out, the mass causalities it had caused, highest number of deaths in one go, the media had covered it for weeks...how no one...knew who...was really behind...
She dropped her journal. Her blood ran cold as she started to shiver from fear "There's no way..." her arms rushed to her ears, as the screams grew louder, and her breathing became ragged. "THERE'S NO WAY!!" she fell off the bed to her knees, the look of utter pleasure he adopted talking about that job displayed twistedly in her mind. She crumpled completely to the fetal position as the smell of smoke hit her again. There was no mistaking it. The details were too similar for it to be just a coincidence, and he obviously killed for a living.
Tears streamed down her face as the realization set in...
The reason he looked at her when talking about it.
The reason for his surprise when he saw her again.
The reason she saw him get off at the eighth floor.
"That bastard was behind it..." she mumbled to no one as she curled closer into herself even more if that were possible. And now she was stuck under his roof.