Hello again! The eighth chapter already! It might take a while before I upload the next, but maybe not. I'll see about that.
Shout outs: not to any one in particular, but to everyone who has visited this story, there are already over a hundred visitors! Thank you!
And now onward with the story!
Chapter 8: Tension and a lot of dark looks
I woke up when I heard knocking on the door of the motel room. The room was pitch dark, except for the few rays of sunlight that managed to beam through the curtains. I was still in Wills arms, him holding me tight. He looked peaceful, maybe he hadn't had any nightmares this night either. I crawled out of his arms when I heard the knocking again. I walked up to the door and peeked through the spy in the door to see who was there. When I saw who it was, I backed away, trying to catch my breath again. I walked over to Will, who was still asleep.
"Will! He's here!" I hissed, shaking him. He slowly woke up and tried to see my face in the dark room. "Will, he's at the door!" I hissed again.
Suddenly wide awake, he jumped out of bed and walked over to the door.
"Will, he can't know I remember!"
He mumbled a soft 'I know', before opening the door, to reveal Hannibal standing there with his hands raised, as if he was about to knock again.
"Good morning Will, may I come in?" I heard him asking.
Will kept him talking while I quickly grabbed some clothes and locked myself in the bathroom. I took a shower and got dressed, putting on jeans, a black tank top and the plaid shirt, which I left hanging open, and pulled my hair up in a high ponytail.
Standing in front of the bathroom door, my hand on the knob, I tried to steady my breath. He can't know, he can't know, he can't know, I thought, over and over again. Turning my expression blank, I walked out the door.
When I re-entered the room, I saw that they were sitting at the table, having breakfast. I don't know why I did, but I felt a bit nauseous as I saw Will putting a piece of what looked like sausage in his mouth.
Turning my gaze away from him, I looked at Hannibal, twitching my lips into a polite smile.
"Good morning Dr. Lecter" I said.
His eyes looked me over, before he pierced them into mine. It was as if he was looking for something, recognition maybe, but dropped his gaze as he didn't seem to find it.
I was proud of myself for not shivering as he looked me in the eyes, and was glad when he looked away.
"Good morning Tori" he said, still using the short version of my name. "I have told you before, call me Hannibal. You might not be comfortable with this, but I'm afraid I insist. It might help you retrieve your memories about me."
Oh, if he only knew… I thought.
"Is that why you keep calling me Tori?" I asked him, to which he simply nodded his head.
"Here, I've brought some breakfast with me. Sit down and eat." He said.
I shook my head and said "No, I don't want any, I'm feeling a bit sick." Which wasn't a lie. I was feeling sick because of his presence in the room.
He looked at me with a dark expression. This time I couldn't hold back the shiver that ran down my spine. I saw from the look in his eyes that he had seen it, which made him narrow his eyes at me.
I sat down on the bed and looked away, angry at myself for letting him see that.
It was quiet for a while, and I still didn't look up to him, but I could feel his gaze burning on me.
He suddenly asked Will "Have you finished your breakfast?" I looked up at Will and saw him nodding. "Then I suggest you go and make yourself ready, we have things to do." Hannibal said.
Will looked over to me as we realized at the same time what he was trying to do. He wanted Will in the bathroom, so he could be alone with me for a few moments. Knowing it would be suspicious if Will asked Hannibal to leave the room or something, I nodded my head at Will, letting him know it was okay.
He nodded his head, stood up, grabbed some clothes and went to the bathroom.
I still didn't look up at Hannibal, although I could feel his gaze again. I heard him stand up and walk over to me. He crouched in front of me and grabbed my chin with his hands, forcing me to look at him. Unable to move, I looked in his eyes and I saw from the look in his eyes that he knew that I had remembered something.
"Tori" he whispered. "What do you remember? And don't lie to me, don't tell me you don't remember anything, because I know you do. I'm a psychiatrist, I read peoples expressions for a living." He said, his accent sounding very thick.
I looked him in the eyes and was confused by his expression. He didn't look angry or had that dark look in his eyes. He looked at me with a kind and soft expression.
"Tori." He said again.
"I… Um… I don't really remember anything, I just feel like I've met you before. There's something very familiar about your voice and the way you say my name. But that's it." I said. Maybe it wasn't clever to lie to him, but it wasn't a complete lie, it was a half-truth.
He looked me in the eyes for a very long time. I looked back, knowing that if I dropped my gaze, he would know I wasn't telling him the entire truth. So I stared back until he let go of my chin and stood up. He went to sit back on his chair, but kept looking at me.
Unable to hold my eyes open any longer, I closed them for two seconds. When I reopened them, I froze as I saw the dark look in his eyes had returned. His mouth curled up into a snarl.
"I told you not to lie to me" he almost growled.
I kept staring at him, frozen, unable to move. Anger was slowly filling his expression, together with irritation. But I also saw hurt cross his eyes for a moment, and I almost thought I had imagined it.
The tension in the room was slowly building up as his face got darker and darker. He suddenly stood up, almost knocking over his chair, and just walked out the door, slamming it as he left.
Not realizing I had held my breath, I let it leave my lungs, trembling. I remained sat, shaking, until I heard the bathroom door open.
I turned to Will and he shot one look at me and instantly knew I was terrified. He paced to the bed and sat down next to me, throwing his arms around me.
I hugged him back tightly and calmed down a bit.
"What happened, where is he?" he asked me.
I let go of him to look at him. "He left, he's probably waiting outside." I said. "Will, he knows I remember something. I tried lying to him, but he saw right through me and now he's angry, very angry with me."
He embraced me again and said "It's okay, I meant what I said earlier, I won't let him hurt you."
I sighed and closed my eyes while I rested my chin on his shoulder. We sat like this for a while, enjoying the silence that surrounded us, until it was interrupted by knocking on the door.
We looked each other in the eyes, before Will got up and opened the door. It was Hannibal. I got up and went to stand behind Will, looking at Hannibal over Wills shoulder.
"Will, Victoria, are you ready to go?" he asked us, pretending as if nothing had happened.
I noticed he had said my full name, instead of 'Tori', and wondered why that had changed.
Will and I looked at each other for a moment, before turning back to him. "Give us a minute" Will said and closed the door after Hannibal had nodded his head.
I pulled on my biker boots and packed my stuff, as Will did the same. We didn't say anything, knowing there was nothing to say. We both didn't understand why he pretended nothing ever happened.
After we were ready packing our stuff, we checked out of the hotel and walked over to our rental car, where Hannibal was waiting for us. We put our stuff in the trunk, and got in the car. I was sitting in the back seat, Hannibal in the passenger seat and Will was driving.
We drove in silence until we pulled up at a construction site.
Will was unbuckling his belt as he noticed Hannibal smiling.
"What are you smiling about?" he asked.
"Peeking behind the curtain. Curious how the FBI goes about its business when it isn't kicking in doors." He answered Will.
Will was surprised, just like me. He really was acting as if nothing had happened. But I didn't mind, at all, to be honest. If he wanted it to be this way, that was fine with me.
Will seemed to agree with me, because he said "We're lucky we're not doing house to house interviews. We found a little piece of metal in the clothes Elise Nichols was wearing. A shred from a pipe threader."
"Jack Crawford wants me to make sure you're of sound mind and body… to look for metal pipethreaders?" Hannibal asked with raised eyebrows.
Will smiled at him and said "That's between you and Jack."
Hannibal then looked outside of the window. "There must be hundreds of construction sites all over Minnesota." He said.
"Certain kind of metal, certain kind of pipe, certain kind of pipe coating,… So we're looking at construction sites that use that kind of pipe." Will replied.
"And what are we looking for?" Hannibal asked.
"At this stage, anything really. But mostly anything peculiar" Will said before getting out of the car.
Hannibal smirked at what Will had said. He then seemed to notice I was still in the car too, because he turned around to me. He didn't look angry, he just stared at me with a blank expression.
Starting to feel uncomfortable, I unbuckled my seatbelt and followed Will.
I heard him getting out of the car and following me. I almost ran to the small building where Will had gone into.
I stepped through the door, and Hannibal followed suit. I walked to stand beside Will and he stopped in the doorway, eyeing me for a while. I ignored his look and helped Will go through the files, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I heard him sigh and he started to help out as well.
Will found a name of a worker which he found suspicious, because there was only a phone number, but no address. The secretary looked up the address for Will and after that the fore of us started to load the boxes full of files into the car.
I was walking back to the building together with Will, when I saw Hannibal passing the secretary a box, but let it slip out of his hands, causing the box to drop to the ground and the files to spread out over the ground. He had done that on purpose, I realized. Will ran up to the woman and told Hannibal he had it, so Hannibal went back inside the building and closed the door behind him, but not entirely, leaving it open ajar. I found this strange and walked up to the door, standing behind it to listen what he was doing.
I peeked inside and saw that he held the phone with a tissue around it to prevent leaving finger prints. I saw he dialed a number with his knuckles, which didn't leave any fingerprints either.
"Mister Garrett Jacob Hobbs?" I heard him ask the person on the phone and felt my blood freeze. He was calling the man Will thought was the serial killer.
"You don't know me and I suspect we'll never meet. This is a courtesy call. Listen very carefully." He paused for a moment. "Are you listening?" he asked.
Then he just simply said "They know", before hanging up and throwing the tissue away.
I saw him standing still for a moment, and I quickly backed away, not wanting to let him know I had heard him calling. He had just warned the serial killer we were coming.
I backed away, but forgot there was a little staircase and fell down. Pain shot through my bottom when I landed quite roughly on it.
I saw a hand reach out to me and I grabbed it, allowing him to pull me up. It was only when I was standing on my feet again, that I realized it had been Hannibal who had helped me get up. I pulled my hand out of his and looked at him. My eyes shot up to the building where he had just made that call and back to him. It was that what had made him narrow his eyes at me and I realized I had been terribly stupid, as he know knew that I had heard him.
His expression became dark again and I backed away, walking towards the car where Will was already waiting and got in.
He followed after a few moments and we drove off to the Hobbs house.
I was sitting on the bed in Wills house in Wolf trap, my back against the headboard, my legs curled up against my chest with my arms around them, and was staring into space. Will was at the hospital, sitting at the bedside of the daughter of the serial killer. I was all alone with the dogs and was thinking about what had happened at the Hobbs house.
When we had arrived there, Garrett Jacob Hobbs had pushed his wife out the door, her throat slit. Will and I ran up to her, but there was nothing we could do. We then ran inside, where Mr. Hobbs was holding his daughter with a knife on her throat. He had just started slashing when Will shoot him. And again, and again, and again, until he finally wasn't moving anymore. Will then went to the girl, trying to put pressure on the wound, but he was shaking too much. I bent down beside him and watched him, unable to do anything myself. Then Hannibal was suddenly there, and put pressure on her half-slit throat in the correct way. I looked up at him and saw he had a calm look on his face. I then got up and called the ambulance. It all went fast after that. Hannibal got on the ambulance with the girl, Will drove me back to Wolf Trap and went to the hospital himself.
I was starting to get really angry at Hannibal. I had enough of feeling weak and afraid of him. That didn't mean I wasn't scared anymore, it just meant that I didn't want to let it control me any longer. That's why I chose to be angry. The anger helped me to suppress my fear. I thought about how he had acted, the dark looks and everything else he had done. He had called to the Hobbs house, which had caused everything that had happened there. He had made Garrett Jacob Hobbs slash the throats of his wife and daughter, which had obliged Will to shoot him, where he was very upset about. And then he had the nerve to ride with the poor girl to the hospital to sit by her bedside. I was getting more and more pissed off and stood up, too angry to remain sat.
I started pacing through the room, feeling the sudden urge to punch something. I stopped in front of the window and stood there to look outside. It was already dark outside and you couldn't see much more than the shadows of trees and bushes. I squinted my eyes when I saw lights of a car approaching. I felt adrenaline rushing through my body as the car drove onto the driveway and I could see it wasn't Wills car. No, it was a car far more expensive. The car stopped and when the door opened, I saw in the lights of the car who the driver was.
I didn't hesitate and turned around, running towards the stairs. As I was climbing the stairs in a hurry, I heard the front door open. I had just gotten to the bathroom door as I heard footsteps on the stairs. When Hannibal reached the top, he paused to look at me. I stared back at him with a dark, challenging look and slammed the bathroom door shut, locking it.
Once the door was safely locked, I pressed my ear against the wood. I heard him sigh and coming towards the door, stopping in front of it. I backed away and went to the wall opposite of the door, sliding down against it, sitting down on the cold floor.
I went through my pockets and sighed when I didn't find it. Damn, I thought. How could I be so stupid to leave my mobile downstairs?
I watched the door, knowing he was still standing behind it. He suddenly cleared his throat and started talking.
"Victoria Harris, could you please open the door? I won't hurt you, I just want to talk." He said, his voice sounding very tired.
"The same way you talked to Garrett Jacob Hobbs?" I shouted through the door. This probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but I didn't really care anymore. I had decided I wouldn't let my fear control me any longer and I would stick to that decision.
I heard a small bump on the door, was he leaning his forehead on the door?
"Please?" he asked, almost begging.
I sighed, got up and walked to the door, stopping when I was a feet away from it. "We can talk through the door" I said.
Hannibal had probably realized this was the best he could get, because he started talking.
"Please tell me what you remember" he said.
I hesitated for a moment before I started talking. I told him about what I had remembered because of my second dream, telling him the entire dream, but that was all I told him. I didn't tell him about the first one, as I didn't want to give him any ideas.
"But I don't remember why I was afraid or why I ran off." I finished.
He was quiet for a while. "Is that all you remember?" he finally asked me.
"Yes." I said, glad he couldn't see my face.
He didn't reply and I heard him walking towards the stairs. I don't know what came over me in that moment, but I unlocked the door and opened it, causing him to look at me.
"Tell me, why did I ran off? Why was I afraid?" I asked him.
He just looked at me sadly, and said "That's something you must remember by yourself."
We stared each other in the eyes for a while, before he slowly started to walk up to me, his hand slightly raised. But then he changed his mind, and said "Good bye Tori. And then he descended the stairs, and left the house.