Title: Beautiful Monster
Author: DOZ89
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Season 5 in general, I guess
Disclaimer: If this were mine, Lumen would be kicking it in Miami with Dexter.
Summary: Moments in the life of Lumen Ann Pierce - from the murder of Jordan Chase, her imminent return and everything in between and beyond.
Author's Notes: When I first watched the season finale, I was fuming, but after re-watching it several times I now have a somewhat newfound appreciation for how Lumen left. It was bittersweet and gut-wrenching and beautiful. But I wanted to write something that helped me accept why she would leave him so abruptly. This story is kind of disjointed, but that's due to it following Lumen, whose thought process (I think) would be rather chaotic. There are some really good fics that depict Dexter's thoughts, emotions, etc which is another reason I thought it would be interesting to do one with Lumen in mind. Please let me know what you think. Good? Bad?
Only months ago, she looked darkness in the eye and saw their faces.
Now, after everything, she looks into their blood-red depths and sees her reflection.
With clarity as sharp as the knife she currently wields.
She feels flesh and bone yield to metal, the edge of the handle biting into her palm. Her blood sings as his own stains her fingertips.
Jordan's lifeless eyes stare blankly into the void. Just moments before they were gleaming in unabashed rapture, his chest puffed up in an impossibly dignified way, his lips twisted in malicious pride at his greatest creation.
Her.
Transformed. Beautiful. A monster.
No longer was she the unflaggingly obedient girl from Minneapolis who ran away from the stifling constraints of what was purportedly the American Dream, but a hardened and undeniably shattered woman driven only by her thirst for vengeance and the man who aided her in exacting it.
They had broken her, robbed her of all she had (in every way she could possibly fathom, more so in ways she couldn't), and when they had finished they did it again (and again), leaving behind an empty husk of a human being. But despite her bruised and battered body, her crushed spirit, she – like a phoenix – rose from the ashes, promising herself and the men who had destroyed her that she would inflict upon them the same destruction.
Only Boyd's occupation alluded to their depravity, the tightly coiled darkness hidden behind the carefully-constructed facade of husband, father, protector, a figure of inspiration for so many who were too afraid to take it.
If only they knew.
Jordan Chase. The puppet-master and revered leader of a perverse circle of men who brought to life their warped desires by ruining those of women who bore her likeness, greedily eating away at any goodness they had to offer until death became a welcomed reprieve. But even then, once his men had had their fill and their carnality had temporarily abated, electrocution was surely as painful as the horror from which the women had been recently freed.
Hardly a fair exchange.
She too had yearned for death, cried for it (please stop! let me go! kill me now!). She had pleaded and screamed until her throat grew hoarse and dry and the coppery taste of blood choked her. But her captors showed no sign of granting her the mercy of eternal oblivion, ruthlessly continuing to batter her to within an inch of her life.
Then he had saved her.
And that had changed everything.
In breaking her down she was left with nothing but brittle, jagged pieces that formed a feeble mimicry of the woman she once was, the woman she could never be again.
The doe-eyed girl she had been was gone, replaced by the beast that snarled and clawed and thrashed within her, begging to be unleashed upon the ones who created it.
Dexter may have given her the gift of freedom, but her will to live was overshadowed by her want (need) for retribution. Her resolute single-mindedness to avenge what was done to her was matched only by his futile attempts to send her away.
He couldn't kill her.
His Code wouldn't allow it.
But his letting her live was a direct violation of the fundamental principle upon which his entire Code was based: not getting caught. She'd seen him kill, watched as he stabbed a secured Boyd Fowler, wearing a kitchen apron and rubber gloves.
And still he'd chosen to keep her alive.
His mind grappled between the natural instinct of self-preservation and an entirely new emotion: guilt. Could he bring himself to wear the responsibility of another innocent's death for the sake of the Code? A code he has broken more than once and for far less altruistic reasons?
So she lived.
Only to descend back into the darkness he had freed her from, to deal death against the ones who had broken her.
Against Jordan who now lies immobile before them, his blood pooling at their feet.
She touches her face, pushes her hair behind her ears, gasping, "I'm sorry." She sucks in a breath. "I know that's not how you're supposed to do it."
She hears herself speak, almost faint and far away. To anyone else (anyone normal), they would have recoiled in disgust, in shame at the twisted perversity of her words.
She feels nothing.
Nothing but the animal inside her screaming for moremoremore.
TBC
Happy new year everyone!