Chapter Seven: Who Are You?
The water rippled from the cacophony of a helicopter that swooped overhead, its searchlight sweeping across the surface. The helicopter circled over the river before it moved on, the water becoming still once more. Beneath the surface a pair of yellow eyes opened. Vincent rose slowly out of the water. A stream of blood from a jagged cut on his face mixed with the water and fell in ruddy brown droplets from his chin. He looked to the sky at the receding light from the helicopter. It had been hours since the call for extermination had come, but Vincent had managed to evade Muirfield's search parties.
He swam to the shore and collapsed upon it, exhausted.
What's happening to me? he wondered for the hundredth time. The rage he had initially felt in his encounter with Zach had subsided, to be replaced by confusion and fear; the instinct to run.
"Who are you?" a voice said.
Vincent rolled onto his back, breathing heavily. "That's what I want to know," he muttered.
"You don't know who you are?"
Vincent opened his eyes. He was in a bed, in a sparsely furnished room. Morning sunlight streamed in through a window, setting the white stone wall ablaze. Next to the bed a young afghani man sat upon a wooden chair, watching him. Vincent leapt to his feet, keeping his back to the wall.
"Who are you? How did I get here?" His last memory was of the Muirfield laboratory exploding around him as he used all his speed to try and escape.
"My name is Aamir. My brothers and I found you," the man said, rising to his feet. Vincent backed away and Aamir slowly held up his hands. "It's alright. I don't mean you any harm. We heard the explosion, saw the smoke. That place is forbidden, but..." He smiled crookedly. "We are often too curious for our own good." His smile faded. "What were you doing there?"
"Looking for answers," Vincent said, simply.
Aamir narrowed his eyes at Vincent and tilted his head slightly. His gaze moved to the wall behind Vincent and his eyes suddenly widened. Vincent turned around. There was a mural on the wall. The paint was peeling and the color was faded, but the picture was still clear, portraying the face of a man. The man's eyes were yellow and a jagged scar ran down the length of his cheek.
"You're him."
The image of a barreling subway train and Catherine's voice echoed through his mind and Vincent spun around to face Aamir.
"You're him," Aamir repeated, awestruck. "Aren't you?"
Vincent shook his head slightly, unsure of what to say.
"You came to my village when I was a child," Aamir whispered. "Nearly ten years ago. You saved me. You saved all of us."
–
Drip... drip... drip...
The steady sound was like a sledge hammer that slowly brought Catherine back to consciousness and she groaned as her brain tapped back into the pain her body was in. Her wrists itched as something scratched against them and, when she couldn't move, came to the realization that she was tied up. She opened her eyes and found that she was in a small and dusty room. There were no windows; a single lightbulb swinging slightly on a chain was the only source of illumination. Against one wall there were several splattered, rust red stains. Not a good sign.
As she had surmised, Catherine was tied tightly to a chair. Directly behind her she could hear someone breathing and she turned her head to see Tori was tied in a similar fashion to a chair that was tied to her own, yet the redhead was still unconscious. She was about to try to rouse Tori, when a sudden movement in the shadows caught her eye.
"I'm glad to see you're awake," came a heavily accented voice. She couldn't see the face of the man it belonged to; the dim light didn't reach that far.
"Who are you?" Catherine asked.
"I think the real question is, who are you?" said the man. There was the quick flare of a cigarette being lit, followed by a puff of smoke. "You come sneaking around my home and you have the audacity to question who I am? How American of you."
By fact that he knew she was American with only the three words she had spoken, Catherine assumed he and his men had already searched them and found their identification. She wasn't going to play dumb, but she wasn't going to give up any information she didn't have to. "Why do you ask questions you already know the answer to?"
The man chuckled and exhaled more smoke. "True. I know who you are. Detective Catherine Chandler, citizen of the shining city of New York. And Tori Windsor." He flicked a bit of ash in Tori's general direction. "But I don't know what you want... Or what you are. Or, at least, what she is."
"She's an heiress to one of the richest businessmen in America. You'd do well to keep her alive for the ransom." Catherine knew she couldn't avoid the real subject for long, but it was best to make it clear from the get-go that there was value to keeping them alive. Or at least Tori, she thought. The girl wasn't her favorite person in the world, but Catherine was still a cop and had a duty to keeping others safe.
"Oh, you mean Curt Windsor?" Another chuckle as Catherine wasn't able to hide her surprise. "Yes, you've been out for awhile so I've had time to do my research."
The cigarette in the shadowed man's mouth burned red as he inhaled deeply and Catherine caught just a hint of his face. There was something wrong with it. But the minute light quickly faded and the man casually exhaled.
"It would seem Mr. Windsor is dead and there are no other living relatives. I don't think anyone is going to be paying for her. Besides, you know that's not what I'm referring to. The very fact that my men found you where they did means you know much more than you're letting on." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "And that they withheld more than I thought they did."
"They?" Catherine asked, eyes narrowing.
"The people that hired me to watch over that burned out military base nearly ten years ago. The people that told me if anyone ever came snooping around there to kill them on sight. The people that obviously didn't want me to know what they were doing there. What they had created. Because if I had, I probably wouldn't have taken the job, no matter how much money they offered. Because you see..." The man dropped his spent cigarette to the ground and stepped into the light, revealing his face and the large scars that ran across it, as if he had been mauled by an animal. "I have some experience in that area."