Page 17

Vivienne

Vivienne’s father confessed in court to finding pleasure in the fear he saw in his victims’ eyes while holding a knife to their throats. And he said it with a gaze so gaunt, Vivienne had to double-check if that was really her dad, the kindest man she ever knew.

Yet his confession, delivered without remorse and with a calm demeanor, did not sway Vivienne. A part of her still believes he was lying. He was always a skilled actor. He even told her one time that if he hadn’t made it as a successful college professor, he would have made it to the movie screen.

Ten years have passed since his sentencing. Ten years since Vivienne was forced into premature adulthood for survival.

She was only nine when it all happened. Now nineteen, you will think she knows now how to separate truth from lies, deceit from sincerity, and a conscious act from manipulation.

But no, she is still so adamant on believing he did all those killings because he wasn’t in his right frame of mind.

Something happened to him then. A voice in his head, perhaps could have compelled him.

And if a voice was in his head, then Clement Baudin isn’t the killer the court charged him with being.

A prominent psychologist could have come in handy.

Or it can be that Isadora Rivera was right all along and Vivienne is as depraved and psychotic as her father—trying to excuse a serial killer’s villainous and morbid actions.

Maybe her father’s black blood really is flowing through her veins.

Back in front of her laptop, its screen displaying the Marseille prison’s visiting room, she waits, as always, for prisoner 4156 to appear, cuffed and chained.

One year has passed since their last conversation. Ten years prior, she had secretly left school to see him in prison. She had just turned ten then, two weeks after his trial.

That day, she had longed for a hug, a retraction of his words, an apology, and a return home to her and Isadora.

But he couldn’t really do much. He just promised that he would come back home soon.

But it was obvious he was lying, just trying to make her feel better.

The guards were really mean and their eyes were cold.

It was obvious they wouldn’t let him go home so soon and so easily.

She had been so unashamed that day, she cried all the way to the train station. And so unbothered that people were watching as she blew into her neon green sweater.

That was their final physical encounter. Isadora moved to the States with her two weeks later.

Each year following that, a video call connects them. She consistently visits Kenji’s house for that because Isadora will wring her neck if she ever stumbles upon her talking to that man. She has specifically forbidden that.

Now in front of her, Vivienne almost blurts out “Dad” when Clement Baudin appears on her laptop screen, exiting a gated hallway.

In contrast to other nations, France does not enforce uniform policies for its prisoners.

So he shows up again in his typical white sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. It might as well be a uniform now.

“Juliette,” he drawls.

Hearing her long-forgotten birth name, tugs painfully at her heart. Her eyes itch, and she thinks she wants to cry.

They made her change her name to Vivienne Marchand a few weeks before they left France.

Though she understood it was the only way to shield herself from the frenzy targeting Clement Baudin’s relatives, it felt like a vital part of herself was being violently taken.

Her late mother, Elodie Anne Baudin, had given her that name.

And she grew up loving it, for reasons other than her childhood reading of Romeo and Juliet.

“Hi,” she whispers.

Watching her dad through the camera, she feels cheated thinking about the easy communication, home visits, and proud mentions of fathers she’d had to witness among her schoolmates.

Whereas, her father’s imprisonment has prevented her from mentioning his name.

And she dares not stay in a conversation where people talk about their dads.

Because she will be too ashamed to say her dad was convicted for multiple murders.

“It’s always a pleasure to see you, little rosette ,” he says, a twitch at the corner of his lips hinting at a smile that belies his cold-blooded nature.

She notices how his once luscious hair black hair, full of sheen, is now dry and marred with breakages.

Across from her, he stares, his blue eyes as still and lifeless as a river. Not a flicker of emotion can be seen in them. Is the love she used to see in those eyes really just an illusion?

Can this really be the same Dad who would take her to amusement parks, make her breakfast, go on drives with her, and tell her countlessly how much he loves her?

“How have you been?” Vivienne asks. But it’s obvious how he has been. He is fading away, getting noticeably thinner in the face.

He scrubs a hand down his face, his fingers dragging over the years-old stubble shadowing his jaw.

“I’m stuck in a building filled with fools of different kinds, the food tastes like cardboard.

” His jaw tightens when he exhales, his lips curling into something that isn’t quite a smirk.

“But it’s fine. I’ll be out of here soon. ”

Vivienne stills, her brow lifting at his words. He has said this before—too many times to be seen as a joke. And each time, it carries the same quiet certainty, as if his conviction alone can bend the bars of the cell.

It makes her wonder; does he actually have a way out? Some hidden plan the judge never caught a wind of?

When his case set the tabloids ablaze, there were whispers of a partner.

His killings suddenly bore an unsettling resemblance to those of the killer— The Crimson Artisan— who emerged in Russia eighteen months before her father was caught.

The authorities tried to fit the timeline together, cross-referencing his whereabouts with the bloodshed overseas.

But every time—every single time his alibi held up.

Either he was in lecture halls, at home making dinner or at a shareholders’ meeting.

He was always accounted for. It was logically impossible for him to be in two places at once.

These left two possibilities; either the Russian killer— The Crimson Artisan— has been his partner all along, or he was just a fan dedicatedly taking notes.

But after the father was sentenced, The Crimson Artisan went quiet for a while.

But every now and then, a murder is always documented in Moscow and some small towns in Russia with the same pattern as her dad’s and The Crimson Artisan’s.

This means The Crimson Artisan is still in business, but have just been laying low.

“Well…” Vivienne trails off awkwardly. “How, um, how do you plan on getting out?”

Her father tilts his head to the side, his brows furrowed as if in deep thought, then his lips curl. “Don’t worry about it. You just sit pretty and I’ll come get you when I’m out.”

“Where will we go?” she asks, playing along. Or maybe she really wants to run away into the sunset with her psycho dad.

His eyes glint with something dark. It sends a chill down her spine. “Somewhere very far. No one will find us.”

“Okay.” She nods silently.

They sit through an awkward silence for what feels like hours. Vivienne doesn’t know what to say to a possible psychopath. He already made it clear he is having the worst moments of his life. So she is just going to sit it out. In five minutes, it will all be over.

“So…?” He leans over the table where the laptop is placed, his raspy voice breaking through the silence. “You haven’t gone ahead and got a boyfriend, have you?”

Vivienne’s brow furrows. Is there a rule against that?

“Well, I had one, until about a month and some weeks ago. But apparently, a student isn’t supposed to have an affair with their teacher, so, yeah.

It ended.” Vivienne glances at him. His eyes have darkened, his jaw hard.

It feels like he is boiling from the inside and just struggling to keep it all together.

“And then there’s another one.” Ignoring the unmistakable change in his demeanor, she goes on. “He’s kinda way older than me. But he hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend yet. But I’ll say yes if he eventually does.”

“Foolish girl. Do you not listen?” His lips tighten, his fist slamming on the table.

“Sorry?” Vivienne recoils, eyeing him with caution, pulse racing.

“What did I tell you about boys?”

“Um, I don’t know—”

“I fucking told you to stay the fuck away from them!” He almost lunges at the laptop screen. “I explicitly said that to you, you idiot. Have you no sense?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Vivienne jolts to her feet, irritation humming in her veins. Who the hell does he think he is? Abandoned her and now making rules from behind bars?

“Okay, times’ up.”

With hands firmly on his shoulders, the officers pull him up from his seated position. Clement Baudin fixes Vivienne a dark, threatening stare before the officers veer him away from the laptop’s camera.

Vivienne rushes to slam her laptop shut as if he is going to jump out through the screen.

“What the hell was all that commotion?” Her gaze flickers to Kenji who is standing with a weary look at the entrance of the kitchen, a spatula in hand.

“N-nothing,” she says, quite disconnected. “He was just upset that the officer’s were dragging him.”

She has no idea why she lied. But Kenji already despises him. She guesses she doesn’t want more reasons for hate.

“Um, okay?” Kenji fixes her with a skeptical gaze, then shakes his head before disappearing into the kitchen.

She lowers herself to the floor, her mind reeling. She can’t grasp what just happened. This isn’t the first time he has asked if she has a boyfriend. She has always brushed it off. Maybe because he has never reacted like this, because today is the first time she told him yes.