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Curiosity Killed

Breathe, Selina told herself, breathe.

Keeping her eyes shut, she swallowed, her body aching from being squeezed into that tight, uncomfortable space between the wall and the cupboard. She refused to let panic take over. She wouldn't let some stranger make her this afraid. And she wouldn't cry.

I have to get out, she wanted to wail, the words bubbling up in her throat but she pressed her lips shut. In the darkness that was almost choking her, she could hear him. She could hear his feet dragging, sliding along the floor. That crazy, strange laughter was filling her head, making her feel icy cold, despite the sweat pouring down her back. He seemed to dart between that soft, bubbling laughter and a wet noise that sounded like gurgling, like he'd been crying. Still unwilling to admit defeat, Selina gently, carefully lowered herself onto all fours until her stomach was flat to the cold, sterile smelling floor. Palms flat down, she slid along the floor, hoping that somehow she would be able to get past him and then bang on the door. She used her feet to push her along, her toes inching her forward slowly.

Where was he? He had stopped moving again and she found that more frightening than the sound of his feet on the floor. She wondered where he was and if he could see her. It must be impossible, she tried to reason. She couldn't see him.

Her head bumped something hard and she winced and drew back, stars exploding in her vision. She reached out her hand and felt that it was cold, metal and hard and she recognised it as the cabinet she'd seen in the light of the window when she'd first come into the room. Selina breathed a sigh of relief. She was nearly at the door. But what she intended to do when she got there was another matter.

One thing was for sure; whatever she did she was going to wake up the whole house. And she was in no way getting away with this! Jonah would have a whole list of punishments he could inflict on her, cleaning the toilets being one of them.

Selina reached up her hand towards the cabinet, hoping that she could find a handle that she could somehow lever herself up onto her feet. Her hand touched something soft and slightly damp. It was cloth, or at least it felt like cloth but it smelt….all wrong. Like mould and dirt. She felt along the length of the cloth as it fell into her hands, it was wet in patches. She was pulling it and it kept coming, parts wet and sticky, others dry and stale smelling. Finally she dropped it to the floor, her eyes wide and too late she realised what it was. Bandages.

A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and her heart lurched into her throat.

"I said….I see you!" the voice was too close, in her ear and the smell of blood and infection overwhelmed her. It wasn't the voice of a man, nor of a boy. It was strange and stuck in the middle somewhere and it made her freeze.

His fingers, dug into the flesh of her upper arms and she wailed, scrambling away underneath him. Selina, still on all fours, scrabbled across the floor, her knees slipping, still half blind from the dark and by fear. Her head collided with something very hard, the wall and she yelped, her neck twisting as she pushed her back against it. She kicked out blindly in the dark, wide eyed as he grabbed one of her ankles in his clammy hand and put the other hand over her mouth. Selina was sure that her heart was going to explode out of her chest like a bomb and she whimpered against his hand, cool on her skin.

"Don't make another sound," he warned. She swallowed the frightened noises in her mouth. She was glad of the darkness. At least he didn't have the satisfaction of seeing her face. And she certainly didn't want to see his. She thought of those disgusting, used bandages on the floor, the thought that she had been holding them making her gag. Why had he removed them?

The pain in her head was intense right at the front, at the spot above her right eye. She was sure that she was going to have a bump. Closing her eyes against the throbbing pain, she distantly remembered poor nurse Mandy, loosing her life in this very room, maybe in this very spot. Was this how she had felt when it had happened to her? Completely terrified.

"You can't do anything to me!" she hissed as he carefully removed his hand, "They will know it was you and you'll be locked up, away from everyone for always!"

The words coming out of her mouth sounded ridiculous as she heard them back in her head, especially as it only seemed to make him giggle.

"Maybe that's not a bad thing," was his reply. He took both her clammy hands in his and she wondered what on earth he was doing. She tried to snatch them away, but he seized her wrists, hard and firm and she felt him moving her hands upward.

What was he doing? Did he want her to scream out? Maybe he wanted to be locked away, to be part of the dark for the rest of his life.

Selina gasped as the tips of her fingers touched something cool and soft, realising too late that it was his face. She felt the bones of his temples, slightly waxy to the touch, as he guided her hands down over his cheeks. She felt his eyelashes on her hands.

"What are you….?" She choked. Then the shape of his face changed. After the soft indentation that was his cheek bones, the skin became sticky, wet and hot. In the dark, her eyes bulged, feeling the lacerations under her fingertips.

You're all ruined; Selina thought distantly, the sharp edges of wire stitching pricking her skin. She felt along the stitching. In and out, in and out. Selina imagined a torn rag doll that had been sewn back together, but badly. He was cut. His face was mangled. He increased the pressure on her wrists and she gagged, her fingers touching the soft, puffy flesh around his mouth.

"Stop!" she cried, his grip loosening so much that she could snatch her hands away. She could feel him close to her in the dark, could feel him breathing.

"I don't want to touch you," she said her eyes filling with tears. She thanked god it was dark. She wouldn't have wanted to see that face. It felt bad enough.

Then something else happened. He found her hands in the dark and slid his fingers up the sleeves of her nightgown, the cotton stretching as he did so. His palms were flat against her skin and she felt his own surprise, as his cool fingers brushed over her own bumpy, uneven flesh.

"Hmm," he said softly, almost thoughtful, "You have something to hide too,"

Too late and still in her innocent, this cannot be real daze, Selina realised what he meant. Anger engulfed her. Her body was private and nobody ever touched her!

Nobody had ever touched her. It was the last thing she thought before she snapped.

With a strange, almost primal need to get away, she brought her knee back and kicked out the ankle he had been holding. The force threw him sideways and he yelped as she scrambled over him. She was on her feet, skidding across the floor but with a jolt, she was back on her stomach the floor colliding with her chin, making her yell out in pain. He seized her ankle hard, his fingers digging into her soft flesh. She kicked out again and with a small triumph managed to get him in the stomach, hearing the breath whoosh out of him. Terrified and half mad, she kicked again as they wrestled in the darkness, legs and arms flailing all over the place. She heard him give a roar of pain as she kicked him squarely in the face.

Selina rolled over and made a mad, frantic dash for the door, letting out a real scream.

But to her relief the door crashed open and the lights flew on.

Selina had never been so happy to see Jonah before in her life. She squinted against the light, watching in a daze as he came in and looked about the room. Ally, her hair in curlers, her eyes frantic was moments behind him. She stared down at Selina, at the blood on her cut lip, as if she didn't know who she was.

"Selina?" her voice was confused, "What on earth?"

"Selina what the hell have you done?" Jonah roared. Selina struggled to sit up; she hurt all over but looked in the direction of the angry voice. The boy was curled up under his metal framed bed, hugging his knees to his chest, his back to Selina so all that she could see was his damp, curly hair.

Ally pulled Selina to her feet, checking her over with her eyes.

"Selina," she still looked so confused, "What are you doing in here?"

How could she even begin to explain what had just happened? She didn't even know herself.

"Its ok buddy," Jonah was on all fours, trying to prise the boy out from under the bed, his body was shaking, "Uh, Ally….he's ripped his stitches,"

Selina gasped. I did that.

She remembered kicking him in the face and the noise he'd made. She'd hurt him.

Ally groaned, just as Rene came bolting into the room, her dressing gown wrapped firmly around her. She stared in disbelief at the scene, her eyes wary as they crossed over Selina.

"What happened?" she cried, rushing to Jonah's side, "Oh….Ally, this isn't good. Get me something for the blood!"

Selina felt like she was standing in the middle of a crowded room where nobody even knew she existed. On shaky legs she stood and saw the full horror of what she had done. The boy was shaking uncontrollably, blood pooling around his dirty blonde head. Ally was red faced as she bustled past Selina, her apron soaked in fresh, red blood. Selina's lips began to tremble.

"I'm…I'm sorry," her voice shook and Ally stared down at her, half mad and half concerned. She pinched Selina's chin in-between her fingers, harder than she needed to be, obviously taking in her bloodied lip. Ally threw a confused look over her shoulder at the shaking boy on the floor and then looked back down at Selina.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," she said sternly, "But that can wait till morning. Go to bed Selina. We have to fix this now,"

"I didn't mean to…" her voice trailed away realising how pathetic she sounded. She hadn't meant to, what? She hadn't meant to pry? She hadn't meant to get locked in the white room? How could she possibly explain herself when she couldn't understand what had just happened?

"Bed!" Ally snapped, "You should use the time to think up a good excuse for this mess!"

Her eyes filling with hot, embarrassed tears, she left the room, her ankle throbbing. Both Rene and Ally, watched her limp out of the room and cast a quizzical glance at one another, then at the boy huddled under the bed.

Selina lingered in the hallway, her throat lodged with tears. She waited a few moments before taking a step back and peering around the corner of the door. Jonah had managed to get the boy on the bed, his legs that were hanging out of pyjama bottoms too short for him, dangling limply over the edge. Both Ally and Rene were huddled over him.

"Hold his shoulders," Rene told them both, the strain apparent in her voice, "We'll have to stitch him back up here,"

"Cant we take him to Gotham General?" Ally gasped and Rene snorted a reply.

"And how we will explain this? We'll have the child authorities in here by morning!"

Selina went cold. She had done this. She had done this!

"Sweetheart," Ally soothed the boy on the bed, "You have to be brave. We'll try and make this quick. You hold my hands OK?"

"Cant you give him something?" Jonah complained, the horror of what was about to happen, etched into the deep lines of his face. Ally and Rene looked at one another, their faces stony and full of remorse. It was a look which to Selina, meant something bad was about to happen.

They didn't have anything to give him. They were trained nurses, able to carry out this sort of procedure, but Humberside was a children's home, not a hospital. Selina realised that this was the purpose of the white room. It was where bad stuff happened sometimes.

Hot, sticky tears, trickled onto her face, stinging her cut lip. She turned away from the door, her heart like a dying bird in her chest.

"Hold him!" was the last thing she heard Rene say before she ran for the stairs, unable to take another second of this.

It wasn't my fault! She wanted to scream at them, He attacked me. He touched me.

More frightening than the boy's laughter, more terrifying than his strange voice and shallow breathing, was what came now.

He was having his face sewn back together. And he didn't make a sound.