Despite her best efforts, despite fighting with every bone in her body and with every ounce of strength...
He still managed to catch her.
He still managed to win.
Kidman could feel the weight of his body on top of hers; his hands pinning her wrists to the dirty floor beneath them. It felt like she could barely breathe as every choked gasp for air only brought sharp pain to her crackling ribs. Her entire body ached from having to fight him, from having to throw him off every time he grabbed her. She had struggled to keep him from killing her every chance he took- and now she was paying the price for it.
...
He was faster than the other Haunted she had encountered; he was far more agile, articulate, and he possessed a more centralized and intact intelligence.
Sometimes when he caught her, he would put his hands around her neck- determined to kill her right then if she didn't fight back. Other times, he would punch her, throw her into things, as though he was toying with her- and having fun while he did it. It was almost like he wasn't ready to kill her just yet.
It was more like he wanted to spend as much time as he could beating her down until there was nothing left to do but end her life.
But, perhaps the worst of it came from the fact that he could still recognize her- even despite the possessed state of his consciousness.
That alone made the violent taunts that spouted from his throat all the more nightmarish.
...
Her heart swelled into her throat as she was forced to look up into the faded, bloodshot eyes above her.
It hurt to see how every characteristic that made him who he was... was gone.
... All because of her.
"It's over, Agent Kidman," Joseph spoke.
His voice was stiff; it sounded like it was being forced out from strained vocal cords. There was an unnerving roughness to his once smooth voice- ripping out the calm and collective tone he always spoke with. Gone was the subtle curiosity in the voice that was the first to analyze a crime scene, or the first to ask witnesses questions. Or, in some cases, the first to remind everyone of rulebook protocol, or the first to shoot down an offensive joke someone drunkenly started to tell at an office party.
Or, in a very specific case... the first to offer comfort and reassurance that things were going to be okay; and that they were going to make it out of here alive.
No.
She did not come this far only for everything to end here!
She could still save them.
... She had to.
"You're not real," Kidman bit back, as she struggled to get herself free from his tight grip once more. The movement only pulled at her broken and battered ribs though; it sent hot pain up through her cracked and already agonized collarbone, which roughly shifted beneath her skin. He had thrown her earlier and she hit one of the lab counters on the way down- fracturing, if not completely breaking her collarbone in the process.
Her injuries were real.
The pain sure as hell was real, but... he wasn't; he couldn't be.
And if he wasn't real, then this situation was nothing more than an illusion- a fucked up, twisted nightmare.
All she had to do was break herself free from it and end this Godforsaken illusion.
"I'm not real?" he repeated; his tone peaked with temporary curiosity- as though he himself was just now considering such an odd scenario. But it didn't take long before that broken, bitter laughing escaped from his bloodied chest again. It came out in a shattered rhythm that shook his already trembling shoulders, making his twisted form look almost fragile as it did so. She briefly wondered if his Haunted state had looked so broken when he was laughing and hunting her down.
In a way, it almost looked painful for him to laugh as he did- as though it was the driving force that held him under the waters of insanity. The corroded sound of it made her stomach churn, and she had to push down the painful memory of how she used to love his laugh- as rare as it was to hear at times. Or as rare as it used to be anyways.
She tried not to remember the tired laugh he'd give in the mornings whenever she refused to get up with him for work.
"Maybe none of this is real, Agent, but it still begs to differ why the hell it's happening!" Joseph snapped, causing her to flinch underneath him. "And why the hell you did this to us?!"
His grip tightened as the laughing came to a stuttering end.
For a moment, she was almost convinced that he was crying instead as his voice shuddered and broke under the transition. His body still shook with the heavy breaths that escaped his trembling throat, as air seemingly wheezed in and out through his clenched teeth.
"... why the hell you did this to me..."
Kidman felt a chill run down her spine as she heard the hard trail of his voice- noticing that he forced himself to stop before he could finish his statement.
His mutilated features tensed up at her silence, and for a moment, she swore he looked more hurt than angry.
"Answer that for me, Agent," Joseph continued; his voice was low now, as though he was certain that he would hurt himself if he spoke any louder. "You did this to us. You strapped us to that machine and personally flipped the damn switch yourself. So why... why am I here? You're responsible for both of us, for Sebastian and I, and yet... he's gone, and it's just us." he paused for a second; his eyes seemingly searching hers for a reaction, for an answer. "... What do I represent to you?"
She held her breath at the troubled expression on his face; she couldn't understand how he could possess such emotional instability. This wasn't just despair, or some kind of animalistic anger that was desperately clawing itself out of his chest.
At the peak of his bloodied victory, he didn't want her to beg for her life, or have her beg for a quick death.
He wanted answers.
He wanted answers to questions he shouldn't be able to ask- questions that he never should've known to ask.
...
And yet, despite everything, he knew.
"Answer me, Kid!"
"I don't know," Kidman spat out of reflex. "You... don't represent shit, you sorry fuck."
For a moment, Joseph seemed caught off-guard by her profanity-laced, juvenile response. But the silence didn't last long, and it was quickly broken by that pained laughing again. "... Kid, you and I both know that's bullshit."
God, she just wanted to make the laughing stop.
She wanted to punch him in the goddamn throat, or rip his tongue out- whatever she had to do to make him shut up.
"You represented something I never had," she started, biting back the threats that balled up in her throat. He was still in a position of power here- he could still just as easily kill her if he wanted to. "Stability, control... consequences, everything I never knew I had, or ever cared about before Mobius came along. It was like a whole other life to live, except this one came with strings attached."
Joseph went quiet, as though working her answer over in his fucked up head.
It gave her a chance to re-evaluate what she could potentially do, which wasn't much- if anything at all. Her collarbone hindered her left arm, which was already in a state of numb pain from how he had it angled and pinned down; she could hardly feel her fingertips anymore. The heel of her right shoe had been snapped off in the midst of running away- although she had later armed herself with it and nearly gouged his eye out when he attacked her.
She had to come to terms that running wasn't an option, but... neither was fighting.
She frankly had no other options here.
"... That's right, that's what all of this represents to you," he whispered now. "But what about me? Was I nothing more than a life lesson to you? A lesson to remind you to look both ways before stepping into the street? A lesson to remind you to be aware of red lights and stop signs?"
His sharp question left her at a loss for words.
What kind of fucking answer was he looking for?
"We both know, Juli..."
Her stomach dropped this time at those four words.
Without having to say much else, she already knew what he was talking about- she now knew where he was going with this.
It wasn't possible though.
It wasn't possible for him to know anything about her connection to Mobius. There was no way that he would've known to call her Agent. He- no, she covered her tracks far too well for the real Detective to know.
Even a Detective as great as Joseph Oda couldn't have found her out.
He wasn't real!
... He shouldn't know to call her that.
This Haunted, fucked up version of him shouldn't know that the real him was the only one who ever called her by her first name.
"I spent a long time denying it; I kept telling myself that it was nothing more than loosely placed stress. Sebastian used to grill me about it; he was always claiming that it was too obvious to see- to obvious to keep denying. But I would... I would deny it every single time he brought it up," he started. "Because you were the rookie, and that wasn't how things were supposed to go. You were nothing more than a girl pulled straight out from the cult itself, and yet... you were all I wanted."
Kidman gritted her teeth and struggled once more- even more desperate to make him stop talking.
"Shut up!"
"Do you remember, Juli?!" he continued, completely ignoring her now as he simply pressed down harder on her wrists. "We used to go back to my place after work and just spend hours doing nothing, but... it never really mattered to us; we were happy to just be around each other. And we used stupid excuses to drive around the city just so no one at the office saw us holding hands. We used to volunteer to cover the late night shift, and you always wanted to make out at every red light- it was like a game to you. Do you remember that office party we had to celebrate the Commissioner's Person of the Year award? Do you remember how we managed to sneak away from the crowd, and barely got back to my office before your dress came off?"
It was hard to deny to sudden flush of her cheeks as the memories came back to her; she could feel her eyes burning now as tears came to them- and for once, they hadn't been summoned out of sheer pain.
He was a figment; he shouldn't have memories outside of STEM.
"Shut the fuck up," Kidman bit.. "None of this is real-"
"You're fucking right about that," Joseph bit back at her. "I was just some kind of fucking game to you, wasn't I?! I was just something you could use to pass the time with until you needed me here! All of that meant nothing to you... and I'm a fucking idiot for realizing it now."
"You-"
"But that's just how shit like this goes," he snapped, cutting her off once more. "Because hearts like yours don't break, Agent Kidman; they just bruise."
She stilled at the remark and fought back against the sick, churning feeling in her stomach once more. Every physical characteristic of his pointed towards him being angry, and vengeful; and yet, his voice shook with a sense of hurt vulnerability. She was like an open wound to him.
One hand moved from her wrist and grabbed her by the jaw, squeezing it until pain shot through her already fractured cheekbones.
"Fuck love, Juli," Joseph whispered, "... and fuck you."
She felt his hand release her, before it slowly moved down to her neck.
His fingers lined up perfectly with the dark bruises that had already blackened her skin.
"After everything you've put me through... I'm dying just to hurt you too."