The walls are too white. So painfully blank, Shawn thinks. They go against his nature, as his mind is filled with swirling colors all the time. Those colors forming images, those images being memories. This place is filled with memories, and not pleasant ones. Flashbacks rudely invade his mind: a finger hovering over a deadly switch, the life draining out of the victim that moments before he had thought was a killer, and most of all, the gripping fear of failing to protect those he loves most. But that is all in the past now; the game is over. He just needed to return here one last time. For closure.
Suddenly feeling the need to find a distraction from the intense emotions boiling in his chest, Shawn turned to his escort.
"Ever think about painting these walls?" he quips.
She doesn't respond. Figures.
They round a corner, and suddenly Shawn is staring right at who he came to see. She is sitting down, her hands chained to the table in front of her, and is smiling wider than his dad on the rare occasion that he manages to catch even the smallest of fish.
"Shawn!"
"Hello Yang." Shawn tries his best to counter her enthusiasm by being as stoic as possible.
"What brings you here on this fine evening?"
Shawn chooses to ignore the fact that it is 11:00 in the morning, and simply leans forward, his hands folded in front of him. "I want to hear your story."
"My story?" Yang tilts her head to one side. "Why Shawn, I've already told you my story. Didn't you read my book?" Her tone turns accusatory.
"Your book was more fictional than Gus's girlfriends."
Yang opens her mouth to object, but Shawn continues.
"I want to know your real story. The story of you and Yin. How you two took to torturing cops by making them chase after clues to find their victims."
Yang's expression sobers. "You don't want to hear about that Shawn." She meets his eyes with such stoic seriousness that Shawn is beginning to question how much of her insanity isn't just another mask.
Refusing to back down, he stares back with just as much intensity. "I do."
"Why?"
"Why?" Shawn echoes.
"Yes Shawn, why do you want to know? You've come crawling here for answers long enough to know that I don't just give them away for free. I only open my pie-hole if you tell me why."
Shawn swallows. He knew he would probably have to give Yang some sort of compensation for her to talk, but he wasn't expecting something as difficult as honesty.
"I guess... I guess I just need to know exactly how much you're responsible for."
Yang smiles, apparently satisfied. "Poor Shawnie doesn't like being in the dark does he? He's used to having all the answers effortlessly." The crazy look is back. "Lucky for you, we're the same. I don't like not knowing the full story either. So I'll tell you mine."