Title: Infusion
Author: Anya
Fandom: The Inside
Rating: 18+
Character: Rebecca Locke
Category: AU
Spoilers: Not really.
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine. No infringement intended.
---
Almost. On her morning run.
Broken beer bottle on the sidewalk, not exactly an uncommon sight, except this time instead of small bits of glass, the neck of the bottle is intact, with sharp, jagged edges. A nearly perfect weapon.
And with this, she could do it.
Jab at her wrists, moving enough to make it look anything but self-inflicted. Hit the right arteries, slice all the veins, stumble up and collapse in the bushes. Nobody would find her for a good fifteen, twenty minutes, probably. She'd drop the bottle neck, stomp on it, kick it around. (No, wait. One of the trash cans ahead. Stick it in there. Jam it down into rotten tofu and bean sprouts, botox needles and Diet Coke cans, just make sure you don't get blood on the can, don't linger too long to make a technician suspicious.)
They hate dumpster diving.
A car rushes by, much faster than the posted 25 MPH speed limit. Her ponytail flutters a bit.
No.
Someone would see. Even at 4:30 in the morning, someone would see. There's always a crack addict, a hooker, a homeless person who was 'Obnoxious Child #3' in Daisy's Big Day or 'Rude Customer' in Death Comes in Paper or Plastic, a pathetic loser who would do anything to get back in the spotlight, even if it's only to tell all the major news outlets how he saw an FBI agent in ill-fitting running gear slashing at her wrists.
No, she would fall out of her own story. Dateline NBC would cover the sad, sad tale of the ex-actor who fell prey to the horrors of drug abuse and prostitution. Oh, yeah. And some FBI agent died, she was a victim before, blah blah blah, let's go back to the before and after pictures.
So she goes to work instead.
-
They don't really have a term for this.
There's suicide by cop, sure. So maybe this would be suicide by unsub.
Paul won't fire, not while the suspect has her in his grip. Danny might. But he's good enough; if he takes a shot, he'll hit the suspect, and her moment will be gone. And if this guy keeps moving the way he is moving, Danny'll have a shot soon. If she wants to do it, she has to do it now.
Dig her nails into his thigh, maybe. The surprise could get him to fire. Except the gun isn't perfectly pointed at -
A gunshot. Her ears are ringing. Paul is yelling. Danny is annoyed. Webb, as usual, is stone-faced.
"... even if he had gotten a chance to fire, with the angle of his gun, she likely would have only lost an eye."
An eye. That's not good enough.
There's blood on her face.
-
She sees him in the supermarket. In the bottle of pickles. Warts on a cucumber make it look too much like his face, when she's working on two hours sleep and hasn't eaten something since 10 AM.
The jar doesn't start to talk to her until she's picking out milk. (Fat free, lactose free, probably actual milk free.)
-
This, this has to stop.
This is why she has to stop.
-
Blood on her face again, and she wonders if anyone saw her driving home.
Like anyone would notice. Or care. They're probably think it was a new beauty treatment. Smear pig's blood on your face to shrink pores, reduce fine lines, diminish wrinkles.
There's a cut on her arm that will be hard to explain tomorrow. Harder, still, if she didn't manage to get all her blood off the floor. The bleach should have degraded her DNA, even if she didn't. The case probably wouldn't even get much attention; they still haven't figure out that all the murders are committed by the same perpetrator.
She takes the pickles out of her fridge, dumps them in the trash.
-
Her toothbrush whispers to her.
-
Now, in the shower. A punch to the shower door. Might even look like an accident.
(fin.)