I slowly lift the phone receiver and hold it against my ear, waiting for him to do the same. His eyes never leave my face and a few seconds later, he reaches for the handle of his own phone, the shackles on his wrists making him use both hands to bring it up to his ear.
Static crackles through the line for a moment, and then I hear his smooth, deep voice.
“Hello there, darlin’.”
The corner of his mouth tips up in a half-smile, and my heart thumps loudly in my chest. His voice fills me with needs and wants and a feeling of power that I can’t even explain.
“You know who I am?” I ask softly.
He chuckles, the sound warming my skin in the damp, chilly room.
“You look just like your mother, so it’s not hard to guess who you are,” he replies.
“But do I look like you as well?” I ask, holding my breath, waiting for him to confirm my suspicions.
“Could be, but you’d have to ask her that.”
“She’s dead, so that’s not really an option,” I reply.
“Let me guess: Tanner finally bored her to death?” he asks, laughing at his own joke. “My brother wouldn’t know how to have a good time if it jumped up and bit him on the ass.”
I stay quiet, waiting for him to keep talking. At this point, I don’t even care what he says; I just want to hear his voice.
“And here I thought he kicked me out of Gallow’s just because he couldn’t handle knowing his wife preferred the company of a killer over him,” he continues. “He didn’t just need to protect Claudia from my wicked ways: he needed to protect her bouncing baby girl too.”
He rests his elbows on top of the counter to lean closer to the glass between us, and my hand grips tightly to the receiver. His words make it hard to sit still, filling me with excitement and validation.
“Why did you kill your parents when you were eighteen? What made you kill all those other people you didn’t even know?” I ask, unable to hide the eagerness in my voice.
“They tried to say I was insane,” he replies with a shrug. “That I wasn’t of sound mind, and some even said the devil made me do it.”
I hang on his every word, knowing he couldn’t possibly be insane. Even after years of living behind bars, he’s more articulate and composed than my parents ever were.
“The devil can’t make you do something when he lives inside of you, and you welcome his thoughts,” Tobias says, his voice low. “I killed them because they made me angry. I didn’t like their rules, and they didn’t like it that I didn’t follow them. Once I got the taste of it, once I finally found something that made me feel alive, I never wanted it to end. The man at the gas station pissed me off when he wouldn’t let me use the bathroom. The woman walking her dog gave me a dirty look, and the teenager at the Food Mart made fun of the blood stains on my shirt, assuming I dripped ketchup on myself.”
He chuckles to himself as he relives his kills, his explanation sounding more like a simple chat about the weather than about taking lives. I have so many questions, so much more I want to know. Did he stare into their eyes as they died and smile when they took their last breath? Did he sleep soundly that night because the thoughts in his head had finally been quieted? Did the first pound of the hammer into his father’s skull sound like music to his ears, music that he still hears to this day?
“Tanner was a fool for thinking that keeping me away would stop what was inside of you,” Tobias says with a smile. “I see it in your eyes, little girl. I can feel it in the air. You like the way it makes you feel, don’t you? You need it just to breathe, and you want it just to feel alive.”
My heart beats faster with every word he says, and my head nods slowly in response.
“Don’t fight it, girl. Fighting it will only make it worse. Let it live and breathe inside of you until you can’t hold it in any longer.”
I feel the corner of my mouth tipping up into a smile, matching the one currently on the man seated across from me. My father, the cold-blooded killer.
The door suddenly opens behind Tobias, and the guard rushes back in and pulls him up from the chair. I’m not ready for our visit to be over, and I want to pound on the glass, beg the guard not to take him away. I need his voice. I need his words. I need to savor this feeling of belonging.
“You have my eyes,” Tobias suddenly tells me right before the phone is snatched from his hand and slammed down onto the receiver.
I keep the phone pressed to my ear and watch him dragged away. Smiling, he stares at me over his shoulder the entire way, until he disappears from sight.
Slowly lowering the phone and hanging it up, I rise from my chair and walk wordlessly away from the booth. I hear the scrape of Nolan’s chair against the tile, and he rushes to catch up with me as the guard standing next to the door holds it open for us.
“What did he say? Did he confirm that he’s your real father?” Nolan asks as I walk in a daze down the long hallway, back the way we came earlier.