Seth smiled when she was escorted into the room. It was an almost naked room. Boring, white walls. All there was in the room was a table and two chairs. He was already seated while a guard with the name tag Randy Orton walked her over to the other seat. She sat down and had her hands cuffed to the table. The chain was long enough for her to reach around a bit but not for her to get to the other side of the table.
"Is that really necessary?" Seth asked.
"Precautions," Randy answered.
Seth nodded. He was on death row. He was in a place full of murderers and half of them were bat shit crazy and would try to use him to get out if they got the chance. He didn't have a bad feeling when it came to the woman he was about to interview and he had learned to trust his instinct after being a reporter for little over a decade. Randy nodded at Seth and then left them alone in the room and closed the door.
"I hope you don't mind I record this," Seth said.
He pointed at the tape recorder in front of him and she made a small wave with her right hand to tell him to go ahead. He pressed record and took a deep breath.
"This is Seth Rollins interviewing Charlene Shooter," he said.
He looked up in her ice blue eyes and forgot how to breathe for a second. Her havana brown hair wasn't anything special but those eyes pierced right through his heart and soul. There was a story hidden behind those eyes. A story he wanted to know.
"How are you doing, Charlene? Are they treating you okay in here?" He started soft.
"The food's alright but the bed could have been better," she said.
He let out a small chuckle and wet his lips. He tried with a smile but there came nothing in return. Just those icy eyes that stared at him.
"Why don't you get to the point?" She said.
"Straight to business, eh?" He said.
"I wish I could say I got all day but they only gave us 30 minutes," she said.
"I can always schedule to come back another day so we can continue for a longer interview," he offered.
"Not interested," she said. "You got today and that's it."
He nodded. She had just laid out the ground rules and he had to follow. It was her choice and her life, no matter how little time she had left to live.
"Okay, first of all I'd like to thank you for letting me speak to you. I know you've been a wanted woman all around but you've turned everyone down but me," he said.
He held a small pause, giving her a chance to tell him why. Mostly because he was curious himself why she had picked him out of all the reporters that had been dying to hear her story. She didn't say anything. She just nodded and waited for him to continue.
"So, let's start with the hard, cold facts first. You murdered your father," he said.
"Guilty," she said.
"Guilty," he smiled again. "You confessed right away but you never gave a reason. And that's why I'm here. I wanna tell your story. I wanna tell the world why you killed your father."
"I felt like it," she shrugged.
"You felt like it?" He asked.
"Yeah, I had nothing better to do that day," she said.
His mouth dropped open a bit. He had never misjudged anyone before. He had always been proud of his talent of seeing through people, knowing within a second who was really good and who was really bad. He hadn't believed for one second she was evil or crazy but what she had just said, she had nothing better to do that day, made him question his talent.
"So you just went to visit your parents and chose to stab him nine times because you had nothing better to do?" He asked.
"I would have repeated stabbing him if that fucking knife hadn't gotten stuck in his body. I couldn't pull it out again after the ninth time," she said.
He knew she was lying. Not about the stabbing but about the reason. There was a deeper story there but she wasn't about to share it with him.
"Do you know why I said yes when you asked to come interview me?" She asked.
"No," he answered.
"You've been here before. Five months ago. You interviewed Sarah Logan," she said.
"I remember," he said.
"I saw you that day and I found you beautiful. There isn't much beauty in this place so you sure lit it up," she said.
She gave him a little smile that quickly dropped again. He couldn't help but smile back. For a second the ice in her eyes had been broken and she had looked soft, warm and likeable.
"But the most important thing is that you told her story like it was supposed to be told. You didn't lie or twist her words around and I know that would have been easy to do. That chick is not normal," she said.
"Most people killing eight men aren't normal," he said.
"She told me that day what you had talked about and I thought for sure you'd twist it around. We've seen it happen many times in here. Who gives a fuck about a bunch of murderers on death row, right?" She stared directly into his eyes.
"I care," he said.
"You published it the next week and it was all there, word for word," she pointed at the tape recorder. "You put the entire interview up on your webpage so people could hear her voice, her words, her story. For that I respect you."
"I wanna put your story up too," he said.
"You got it now," she said.
"There's nothing there that the world doesn't already know," he said.
"Because there's nothing else to tell," she said. "Turn it off."
He turned off the tape recorder without a second thought. He still had his phone recording in his pocket but she didn't know that. As far as she knew, everything was off record. And it was. He would never use a personal recording for his job.
"When I was 9, my father started coming into the bathroom when I showered," she said.
He looked up from the tape recorder but she was looking down at her own hands.
"When I was 10, he raped me for the first time," she said.
"I'm sorry," he said lowly.
"When I was 13, I told my mother. At first she was like, yeah sure honey, I'm gonna fix this. But she wasn't gonna fix anything because she already knew. As long as he was focused on me, it meant less beating and rape for her. That was all that mattered to her," she said.
He broke protocol and leaned across the table to take her hands in his. She looked up into his eyes. Those ice blue eyes were no longer cold. They weren't even sad. They were dead.
"When I was 15, I started partying. I got to choose the men and it didn't hurt. I fucked around like a bunny, trying to feel something other than pain. Everytime I laid down with a man, it felt like someone cared about me for those few minutes. It was fake and all in my head but I needed it so badly," she said.
He squeezed her hands and then raised a hand to stroke her face. She leaned back, not allowing him to touch her face. He dropped his hand again and made good with holding her hands. She allowed that.
"I grew up, moved out and tried to go on as if nothing happened. My sister didn't know because he never touched her. I don't know why. She married young and got a daughter herself. When she came to me one day and told me her daughter had said that our father had done things to her, I snapped. That was the final day in his life. I didn't think. I drove straight over, barged into their home during breakfast and stabbed him to death," she said.
"The world needs to know this," he said.
"No, it doesn't. Mom has become a media darling, always crying over her loss and saying she doesn't understand why her daughter did it. My sister isn't talking either even though she knows. She stands by my mother's side. And I'm okay with that. I want them to live their lives without having the shadow of me hanging above their heads," she said.
"But you'll die. You're on death row, for crying out loud. If people knew the truth, you could get a life sentence instead," he said.
"I don't wanna spend 40 years in jail, Seth," she said. "I found my peace with all of this. You know my story now and I trust you won't ever tell anyone. Even if you do, who's gonna believe you? You're just a journalist that was mad about me not giving you anything so you came up with your own version."
He let go of her hands and leaned back in his chair.
"I would never do that to you. I'm not one of those asshole journalists that want a story at any cost. I only publish the truth and I would never break your trust," he said.
"Thanks," she nodded a bit. "You know how we get to decide our final meal in here. If only we got to decide a final man to be with too. I'd choose you in a heartbeat."
He couldn't help but laugh and she actually smiled at him. A bigger smile and it lasted longer. A few seconds later the door opened and the guard Randy entered again. Her smiled dropped and back were those ice blue eyes.
"Time's up," Randy said.
"Thank you for listening," she still looked at Seth.
"Thank you for sharing," he said.
Three hours later he watched as his friend Roman listened to the secret recording on his phone.
"Poor woman," Roman said.
"We're getting her out," Seth said.
"What?" Roman stared in shock. "No, Seth, this is not like the others we busted out. This is death row. The search for her will be so much bigger."
"So?" Seth was getting annoyed. "This is why we got men inside every fucking prison. We always knew there was a chance that one day we would have to use those on death row as well."
"Fuck!" Roman ran a hand down his face. "Yeah, I knew. I just never thought it would actually happen."
He looked at his friend. A man he considered a little brother.
"So we're getting her out?" He asked.
"We're getting her out," Seth was determined.