Sanctum
"Now boarding for Washington, D.C.!" the intercom announced into the dull roar of conversation and wind in the tunnels of the train station.
"Don't forget Amie's recital tonight – "
"You wanted low-fat, right? Oh, whole, good thing I asked – "
"Train's boarding now, I'll be there as soon as I can – "
"Be safe, love you – "
Seven resisted allowing a smile to tug at her lips. She always eavesdropped on other people's conversations, catching a glimpse into normalcy. She turned a page in the small, worn poetry book she was reading. The tenseness in her shoulders relaxed a tiny bit.
A tall, thin man flipping intensely through a notebook sat down on the bench opposite her. She glanced at his files and the words 'profile' and 'skin' stood out to her. A man stomped by, smelling of cheap beer, and he stopped in front of Seven and the tenseness was back in her shoulders.
"Hey," he growled and Seven looked up from her book, irritated. "My car broke down and I need cash for a tow. Think you can help me out?"
"I don't have any cash. Sorry," Seven replied, attempting to go back to her book.
"What? Lil' Virginia Tech girl can't be bothered to help out some hick? Huh?" the man slurred, trying to focus bloodshot eyes on Seven.
"I don't have any money on me," Seven repeated. "I can't help you."
"Where're you headed?"
Seven inwardly sighed. "Nowhere."
He bared yellow teeth in a rancid smile. "That so?"
The man on the bench was listening to them now, and Seven hoped he wouldn't intervene.
"S' that book?" he asked, making a grab for it.
Seven snatched it away from his grimy fingers. "It's mine. Leave me alone."
The man barked out a laugh. "Or what?"
"Or I will escort you out," the men sharing Seven's bench chimed in. rising to his feet and presenting a badge to the drunk man. "Dr. Spencer Reid, FBI."
Now that the man, Dr. Reid, was standing, it was hard to miss the pistol on his hip. The drunk man sneered at him, but lumbered away, spitting on the floor.
Seven smiled politely at the agent, not allowing her pulse to quicken. "Thank you."
"Of course," Dr. Reid replied, sitting back down. "Shocking how rude people can be."
Seven agreed and opened the yellowed paper of her little book, hoping the conversation would end.
"HEY! YOU!" a loud shout grabbed their attention.
Without looking at the agent, Seven swiftly stood and weaved through the crowd getting off an arriving train. The man shoved through the crowd after her, bellowing out a curse, but Seven had already slipped out of a utility door.
Only later when Seven had removed her pursuer's left thumb, (the right having been removed months prior by Seven herself) did she notice that she had dropped her little book in the escape from the station.
Seven was a criminal, of that there was no question. A thief, an assassin, a wallflower, a driver, a drug dealer, she was a matter of circumstance. Whatever they needed. She couldn't remember what life had been like before Osbourne and his acolytes got a hold of her. The short, lithe woman who Seven was now had been very young when she had been taken; she had barely begun to understand the world around her when it became cold, hopeless, and methodical. Experiment number seven. She never learned what happened to the six before her.
Osbourne, weeks after the station incident, sent Seven to Miami for surveillance and eventual assimilation into the local gangs there. Seven did what she had to and became a leopard of purple and green bruises, prowling alleyways and watching, waiting…
There were a lot of overlooked crimes in Miami; drunk college girls on vacation were snatched from the streets what seemed like every week and it wasn't unusual for sex workers to be found strangled and dumped into the midnight waters of the Atlantic. Since Seven had gotten the tiniest foothold in the city, these sorts of crimes no longer went unpunished.
Hitting your spouse now cost a thumb, sometimes more. Attempting to kidnap girls was worth two weeks in 'the cooler'. Touching kids was the costliest; all your fingernails, genitals, lips, eyelids and tongue. It was a public service, really.
Seven woke up early one morning to a text from a girl named Toni who worked at the same 'club' as Seven. Apparently, the FBI were in town.
A minor inconvenience. Easy enough to avoid. They were probably after the same sorts of people. Work went on. A woman whose sons were far too skinny and dotted in bruises and burns disappeared from the streets and the boys received a small backpack full of cash and tickets to fly to their relatives in the west. A man who enjoyed catching and torturing cats was found wandering the beach, mumbling about 'four eyes'. A hissing cat had been branded onto his forearm, a sear that would never go completely away.
The main front Seven hung around was a club called Cat's Eye. The girls who worked there were evidently unused to being treated well and they all liked Seven for her kindness. In turn, they were all eyes for Seven, whispering interesting bits of information to Seven. Toni overheard, and relayed to Seven, that a man who had recently moved into a nice condo had been following one of the girls around, but the boss wanted to wait and see if anything would happen because he was rich and would be missed in a sudden disappearance.
A week later, Marcella, a sweet, quiet girl who also worked at Cat's Eye was found mutilated behind a dumpster.
Rage got the better of her. Seven couldn't allow it to go unpunished. The other girls and the boss agreed. A sneaky, small girl named Eloise was dispatched to keep an eye open for an opportunity to snatch him up.
Two large men, Lock and Barrel, were sent to gather the vile man when an opportunity presented itself. Seven was anxious to meet him and paced the concrete basement of Cat's Eye, worrying behind her mask about the competence of the two men the boss had sent out. The fluorescent bulbs flickered with the beat from upstairs. One masked girl stood guard from each corner. They had been friends with Marcella. Everyone had been. The bastard had gutted Marcella while she had still lived. Wrapped her intestines around her throat and ignored her gargled pleas. He had removed her lower half and the cops hadn't even found the rest of her yet. He wouldn't be able to die for this. Dying was an escape, an end to his suffering. He would beg to die, and they would ignore him.
"They're bringing them down." Toni rasped from behind a panda mask.
"Them?" Seven repeated.
"Idiots," one of the other girls mumbled.
"Shut the fuck UP!" Lock roared from down the hall and the sound of striking flesh echoed into the room.
Lock and Barrel dragged two figures with sacks over their heads into the room and dumped them at Seven's feet.
"Thank you, gentlemen," Seven's voice disguiser chirped. "Although, this is one more than I had expected."
"Civilian got in the way," Lock grunted, nudging the smaller figure with his foot.
"Alright, We'll shout if we need you,"
They nodded and left. Toni jumped forward to rip the sack off the fat figure. There was the sweaty, piggish face of the man who had brutalized Marcella.
"Can you take mine off too? It's sort of stuffy," the thinner man asked.
Seven paused. There was something familiar about that voice. She reached down and tugged the hood off his head. Her heart sank.
It never occurred to her that she could be so unlucky as to run into the only FBI agent who knew what she looked like. Dr, Spencer Reid blinked up at her mask, curious more than afraid.
"He's a cop," Root, one of the girls, hissed.
"He's a federal agent," Seven corrected, reaching down to pull his badge from his pocket. "They didn't search him."
"How is Lady coming along with the file on this?" Seven asked, walking over to where the fat man lay.
"Austin Dixon, 46. Recently moved into 1480 Sugarpalm Drive," Dr. Reid chimed in.
Lady strode in, wearing sweatpants and a bunny mask.
"He stole my thunder, but he's right," Lady said, handing Seven a file. "They're also after him if you haven't guessed. Marcella wasn't his first."
Lady lashed out, kicking Dixon in the back and sending him crashing flat onto his face. His nose broke with a snap and he howled.
"FUCK YOU!" he screamed, and Toni ran up to land a hard kick in his ribs, making him cough blood onto the concrete floor.
Seven crouched down in front of Dixon, grabbing a fistful of his hair to force him to look up at her.
"This girl," Seven's altered voice chirped as she held up a picture of Marcella. "You killed her. Gutted her. They haven't even found her lower half yet."
Dixon gave her a bloody sneer. "Yeah and they never will – " Seven interrupted his bragging with a sock to his jaw and the sound of it breaking made Dr. Reid flinch.
"Give him to the boys in whatever condition you see fit," Seven spat. The other girls wanted his blood more than even she did, so she was satisfied knowing he would suffer. Toni and Root had been waiting for this, they jumped into action, digging their nails into his skin and mocking his moans as they dragged him away.
"Would the two of you sound the alarm? His friends will be here for him soon and we need to be long gone by the time they get here," Seven said, turning Dr. Reid's badge over in her hands. The two girls paused, startled, then hurried from the room.
"Dilaudid?" Seven asked after a brief silence.
Dr. Reid's head snapped up. "What?"
"You've got the marks on your arms, but your face isn't picked at," Seven replied. "It's a waste. Fight. Live."
"You're one to talk. Working at a front like this. Getting chased by gang members in train stations."
"… I was hoping you wouldn't remember me."
"I have an eidetic memory. Could you take these zip ties off of my wrists, please? They hurt."
Cautious, but sure Dr. Reid was too smart to try anything, she cut him loose.
"5 minutes," a voice in her earpiece warned
Seven paced over to the black ornate chair in the middle of the room.
"You can't have your killer back," Seven said. "But rest assured that he will face justice."
"You don't want a life like this. You long for freedom, I can see it in the poems you've visited and revisited," Dr. Reid said, very quickly as though someone might interrupt him. Seven heard tires screech overhead.
"Building's comp'd, Seven," Toni alerted her through the earpiece.
"They call you Seven?" Dr. Reid repeated. "Listen, Marcella's parents wont get closure if they never know what happened – "
"They know." Seven kicked open a hatch in the floor just behind the ornate chair. "I hope we don't run into each other again, Dr. Reid. Persevere."
With those words Seven stepped into the open hatch and it snapped shut behind her. She could hear his shout echo against the walls of the pipe as Seven slid far below the city. Seven cursed to herself as the pipe leveled out, depositing her into the storm drains. A three minute sprint brought her to a ladder she climbed to find Toni waiting in a car for her.