Summary: The opposite of love isn't hate. It's apathy.
Disclamer: I'm just a fanfiction writer. All hail the rightful owners
Story Info: Set shortly after "Curses Foiled Again."
Dark trees and macabre shapes streamed past. Her feet beat relentlessly against the ground. Forceful sporadic breaths crested and tore their way out of her chest.
The rough rocks of the Adirondacks scratched and bloodied Carmen's bare feet, but her sprint merely picked up in response to the cutting pain. Her arms swung and pumped, with her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Her teeth ground like those of a caged animal.
Then, the greenery evaporated around her, stripping back her cover, and the ground sloped down. Carmen pitched forward.
The frigid water hit her, a cruel stunning wave, driving the air from her lungs. The pitch-perfect dive made no concession to the driving cold.
As suddenly as she had entered the water, Carmen became calm. The hasty steps that had responded to the counterfeit of pursuit gave way to long and steady strokes.
It was foolish to swim alone, at night, in October, in a cold dark river known for its deep currents. However, recent events had left Carmen restless.
The steady splash of black liquid, the cold wind, and her own shivering from the temperature created a blessed state of shock in the master thief. It would be sufficient, she hoped, to force her out of herself.
Carmen had wanted to be alone, and her employees had granted her that. To the last, they knew to scurry when they saw that look in her eyes.
Kicking her legs, the master-thief moved out into the fast flowing water.
She hadn't wanted her lackeys to see her, especially with the way she'd been rubbing her wrists all day. That seemed a cliché reaction anyhow. No one had hurt her. The Americans had even put the cuffs on over her gloves, when they would have been just as well-served ripping them off. Those officers could have been a great deal more forceful, given that she was known for resisting arrest. Their self-restraint was almost surprising.
But they still managed to bind you, didn't they?
Swallowing hard, Carmen turned her face into the water and fought against the current.
I lost.
No, you let them win.
I did no such thing.
Really now? You say everything depends only on good planning. So tell me then, how is it that you had no contingency plan for something as simple as a jammed pulley?
There were half a dozen ways out of that situation. She could see that now. Devices she hadn't used and moves she hadn't tried all became painfully obvious in hindsight. Carmen could have vaulted here, jumped there .It was practically a henchmen's training run. Yet she'd simply stood there and let them capture her.
Why?
It was because of Hannah. It was her first time being captured, and she was afraid. I wanted to stay with her. I did not want it to be traumatic.
Why, that's almost a clever answer.
"It's alright, Hannah."She had said. "Relax. They are not going to hurt us. Go where they tell you. Use courtesy words and stay in sight of a guard if there's another inmate that makes you nervous."
That had been good advice for Hannah, given that they were in Hawaii.
Wasn't such a hot notion in Morocco though, was it?
Morocco has nothing to do with it.
Her breath picked up, and it wasn't from the exercise. Arms hitting roughly against the water, Carmen swam faster.
Carmen couldn't do that again.
She might not have a choice. Most governments bore little resemblance to the United States with regard to prison systems and she'd stolen from every one.
Game getting too hot for you, Carmen?
At first, her detectives had been young and naïve. They had been easily led. A hint of insight here, a turn of phrase there, and her plans had turned out exactly where she wanted them. However, with a perhaps fatal hubris Carmen had been unable to resist teaching them. She attached lessons to every heist, and, after a while, they practically had a handbook on how to defeat her. They were keeping pace with her. Any margin of safety left for a bit of error here and there had long disappeared by the time they learned to predict her.
Carmen had been fettered after that mistake with Lee Jordan, and only their preference to stop the more evil villain had saved her there. Had they chosen to keep her and let Lee go, she would have been bereft of options.
After that inexplicably hurtful business with Ivy's impersonation, her detectives had restrained her even more thoroughly. The ruse had even gotten her into the transport. Were it not for a sudden last minute improvisation, they would have beaten her completely.
You're getting too dammed good at wearing those cuffs.
Feeling suddenly exhausted, Carmen moved onto her back and started floating, as the current dragged her along.
After those two near apprehensions right in a row, Carmen had approached a state of panic. Her capture had felt sickeningly imminent. Worse, she no longer trusted her instincts. With her arrogance worn low, the master thief had slipped into a series of self-comforting gestures. She hadn't wanted to give that teddy bear back, though she was over thirty.
That itself should have been a warning sign. Carmen had never intended to tell the detectives about her background. She considered criminals who constantly referred to disadvantaged childhoods weak. That explained nothing and excused even less. Yet she had insisted on advertizing what was best kept secret.
Then finally, today, it had all spiraled lethargically out of control. It wasn't that she'd lacked the options to pull off that escape, but that she'd lacked the heart to try.
When her limbs had gone heavy and the adrenaline failed to rush, Carmen should have found some force of will and managed to run twice as fast. Instead of just… standing there.
When had capture become an option?
Coming out of Morocco, Carmen had been desperate. She would have been willing to do anything, short of kill, to stay out of that hellhole.
Now she h had just allowed herself to be captured. Why? Because she didn't feel like bothering to escape?
That was just it… Carmen thought as the dark waves splashed water into her eyes… she'd been lazy.
Seven or eight years ago, she never would have dared.
So, somehow, this had become… safe.
She'd had this notion that Ivy or Zack would…
Would what? Protect you?
I had expected…
Expected what?
Carmen had expected Ivy to be angry and demanding, worried and protective, calm and steadying, or pleased and taunting.
Carmen had expected Zack to be joyful or concerned.
Anything but apathetic.
The thief's chest felt tight. Icy water could do that sometimes.
Truth be known, she had anticipated her detectives as intensely curious. Carmen had awaited a cruel and exhausting interrogation, unrelenting pressure to speak about things best left alone.
Thus, Carmen had felt intrigued by the idea. Capture felt less like a terrifying end than … another game … a game where she might be able to interact with them for more than a few stolen seconds here and there. She supposed that her mistake had been something of a coping mechanism, her way of understanding what was bound to happen eventually.
The water smelled of algae and lilies, nauseatingly sweet.
The notion of a protracted conversation with Zack or Ivy had called her like a siren song. It was tempting to the extreme and just as deadly.
Ultimately, she had misunderstood the whole situation. She had assumed that her capture and accompanying availability would spawn an intense interest from her erstwhile pursuers.
Whipping wind drove down the temperature of the air, leaving the water soothing and warm by comparison.
Instead, there had been no reaction, not anytshing at all. Neither of her detectives had so much as raised an eyebrow at her capture.
Zack took more notice of that silly rabbit's foot than of me.
Now you're just whining.
The water rippled and splashed, as though trying to drown the still woman.
The currents pulled aggressively around her feet, but Carmen lacked the heart to fight back. Much as she had lacked the heart to resist her own arrest.
That all had changed when she realized that Zack asnd Ivy had gone to some luau instead of to the police station with her.
Ivy's singsong 'goodbye Carmen' still rang in her ears, harmonizing with the splashing rapids.
Then, suddenly, Carmen couldn't get out of that place fast enough. The scenario had become intensely wounding and all the terror had rushed back in one sick gush.
Carmen had escaped.
Narrowly…
And when the detectives startled her later, she'd found the energy to pull off a daring flight.
Oh yes, very skilled… fascinating choice of method by the way. Tell me, do you usually use five-year-old half-rusted gliders on uncalibrated cliff dives?
There had been a moment there, a terrible moment, when Carmen hadn't been sure that device was going to open.
She'd risked it though. With the sudden withdrawal of the children's participation, being left in prison had… burned.
Today had to be an aberration, a moment of weakness never to be repeated. Because that Hawaiian prison was… soft.
Especially if the detectives didn't watch her, other places would not be so genial.
China, for example. She had a heist planned there in a few weeks. There was something in her plan that… didn't feel right to her.
You were a fool.
I thought the game was different with them, but it's exactly the same.
Ivy and Zack were not going to protect her. They were children and her natural enemies. If she had somehow, abnormally, developed affection for them, that didn't obligate them to return her erroneous feelings.
This wasn't a resolution. The pain wasn't ending. The affection that Carmen craved beyond all else was indefinitely out of reach. Now she realized that. So she didn't feel better and probably never would. Yet, the time had come for her to snap out of it and force herself to go on.
Carmen knew where she stood now.
In a sudden burst of strong movement, she pulled herself up over the riverbank, against the sharp rocks. She stood, and the water ran off her in slick streams. The chill of the witching air and the pain of the jagged sand went unnoticed as her eyes shone with determination.
If she wanted to live, then this impulse needed to be repressed. For even a counterfeit of happiness, she needed to deny it ever existed. However much it came out in her work or her dreams, Carmen could not… would not… ever admit to this fundamental need again. She could not reveal it to the detectives, and she could never confess it to herself.
So be it. Lesson learned.