The Dripping
To Dean and our vocal chords after screaming so much last night.
And to Suz who still loves me.
Kate didn't think that she'd ever forget the way that Neiman's eye's bulged in surprise, and her breath stuttered when she twisted the scalpel out of her unprepared hand and dug the hard metal into the creamy flesh at her neck. How her heart seemed to be beating in her throat, adrenaline a seemingly tangible entity in her bloodstream, as she sat up from the table and poised to strike. How, as she raked the metal through Neiman's skin, it peeled open like a blooming flower and blood bubbled from the veins she butchered on her jagged way down Kelly's throat.
She would later liken the feeling to that of summer's spent with her dad cleaning and gutting fish. How there was a slight resistance to the initial pierce into the flesh, but the drag was the more elegant and simplistic part; utterly ruining those memories.
She didn't stop until the scalpel hit Neiman's collarbone and refused to budge any farther. Beckett had then ripped the scalpel out, feeling the hot, sticky blood coat her right hand, not yet ready to relinquish her only weapon.
At this point, Neiman reared back, making a gargled, choking noise as she tried to distance herself from Beckett. Her hands clasping as her mutilated throat as her life-blood sluiced into her clothes and onto the floor.
It's the sloshing noise on the cement floor that Kate knows she'll dream about later. The noise of liquid hitting a hard surface from over a foot off the ground—usually created from spilt drinks. Now it would plague her memories as the sound of blood seeming to gush from the flayed skin at her attacker's neck that just didn't seem to stop.
Kate stumbled from the operating table, after undoing the restraints, and felt her bare feet meet the cooling blood that had pooled. She fought her gag reflex, suddenly realizing how terrible the smell was becoming, and slipped her way over to where Kelly had finally fallen over.
Her body seemed to be twitching, lungs trying to expand against the blood that was now pooling in her mouth. Kelly's eyes were still wild as the focused on Kate looming over her.
Kate had wanted justice, but this—this was torture.
And yet the part of her that was in this moment relished the notion that the last thing Kelly Neiman got to see was her face.
It took forty-seven more seconds until Neiman had bled out and the gurgling noise from her throat had stopped. All the while, Beckett stood over her, knuckles white against the scalpel still clutched in her bloodied hand; adrenaline seeming to join the blood that coated floor of the lab.
And that's how Castle found her.
Blood still dripping from her encounter while some of it had begun to dry into the creases of her skin, and the stench beginning to seep into her pores.
An image of gore and an embodiment of violence who he met with reverent affection.
Her mind had been a reeling black void until his utterance of her name brought her back. Her eyes don't focus—can't focus, until she's sees his so full of concern and adoration. There's a slight flinch as he cups her face in devotion, but she soon finds herself leaning into his hand then into his body. She's so tired, and now she can rest knowing she's going to be okay.
Because Castle will always find her.
She doesn't remember getting home, just that Castle had insisted that she get cleaned up first before making her statement and coddling her into his car. She was wrapped in a sweatshirt that looked like one of Esposito's and she remembered letting her mind go blank as she stared past the trees on the drive back into the city.
Their drive was silent, but he kept her left hand in his as he drove. Seemingly unable to physically be without her, even in such a close space.
As he opened her door when they arrived back at the loft, she realized that this car was always going to smell like blood to her now. Kelly's blood.
She threw up right outside the passenger door; Castle barely quick enough to hold back her hair as she wretched.
He came into the shower with her after she'd been in there for an hour. She had huddled herself on the warm tile, directly under the spray, and was braking and picking at her nails.
"Kate," he had murmured, and she had startled so badly that he stopped moving.
"Sorry, I just—I just can't get the blood out from my nails, Castle. It won't come out," she blanched, rocking into her action of gouging into her nail bed.
He helped her up from the ground and cradled her hands between them.
"There's no more blood, Kate. You got it all, it's all over."
There was a deafening pause as she buried her face in his chest and his arms wrapped around to secure her to him.
She dare not say anything about still being able to smell it.