Gestalt
Chapter 7: The Hooded Girl
Disclaimer: I do not own The Blacklist, or the characters, and I make no money from this.
Author's Note: My sincere apologies to anyone who tried to read this when I first published it! I wrote this on a plane in a different program than I usually use, and the formatting went completely haywire when I cut and pasted into the Doc Manager.
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Liz sat quietly in the back seat of the car, next to Reddington. They'd been waiting, parked along a street of mixed shops and apartments for almost twenty minutes, and no-one in the car had uttered a word. Liz was bored, and tired, and desperately wanted to complain about the amount of time they had spent in silence so far on this trip, but after the castigation she'd received from Reddington last week, she had attempted to be more civil with him. Their interactions had been strained since then, to say the least, but after Golovkin died without providing them with the next piece of their puzzle, there hadn't been much to do. The team had been twiddling their thumbs for days when Reddington finally called Liz earlier in the afternoon and requested she make herself available by six that evening. Dembe would pick her up. She asked him if he'd made some progress on the case, but he'd ignored her questions, refusing to explain if this was a new lead, and instead repeated the time and place Dembe would be expecting her.
It was now dark, and she watched Reddington stare out his window, his face lit strangely in the glow of the street lamps. She had gotten into the car fully expecting either another thinly veiled lesson, most likely relating to her recent behavior, or a frank paraphrasing of the admonishment at the motel. She'd gotten neither. Dembe had driven in his usual silence, and Reddington had remained just as quiet. Now she watched him openly, having realized soon after they stopped that he was paying little-to-no attention to her, and instead seemed to have his full concentration directed at a specific point somewhere down the block along which they were parked. Liz wondered idly if he was ignoring her as a form of punishment, but dismissed the thought quickly as too petty of a response for Reddington.
A slight twitch of one eye changed his features momentarily, before his face returned to complete composure. "Lizzie," Reddington began, finally breaking the silence but not changing the direction of his gaze to look at her. "Please join Dembe in the front seat."
Liz's brow creased. "I'm sorry… was—"
"Now," Reddington interrupted her, his voice neither gentle nor cruel.
Perplexed, but intent on continuing to allow him some latitude, Liz frowned and exited the car, walking around the back to the front passenger seat. As she climbed in, Dembe was nodding at Reddington in the rearview mirror, and when her door closed with a soft thump, Dembe started the engine and pulled slowly away from the curb. After a half block, he stopped the car, double parked in front of a coffee shop, and calmly got out, leaving the sedan running. Liz watched as he approached a woman on the sidewalk. She was wearing a hooded jacket, and Dembe crossed in front of her to get her attention, though Liz couldn't hear what he said from inside the car.
"I need a favor from you." Reddington's voice drifted forward from behind Liz.
"And what might that be?" Liz replied, still watching Dembe and the woman.
"When Dembe and the girl get in this car, I'd rather you not say a word until she leaves. Can you do that?"
Liz frowned. "I don't understand. Who is sh-"
"Can you do that?" Red interrupted firmly. "For me. Can you do that? Not a word."
Liz swallowed before nodding. "Yes, I can do that."
The hooded woman on the street suddenly stepped to the side as if she were about to walk away, but Dembe extended a hand, offering her an envelope. The woman, whose back was still to Liz, hesitated before taking and opening it. As soon as she did, she took a quick step back from Dembe and he held up his hands, as if proving he would not hurt her, before gesturing to the car and looking in their direction. The woman spun quickly to follow the direction of Dembe's gaze, and after a moment's pause, strode purposefully toward them. She was younger than Liz had expected her to be. Reddington lowered his window.
"What is this? How do you have this?" the young woman demanded angrily, brandishing the paper in her hand.
Reddington calmly passed a second sheet of folded paper through the open window, and when it was quickly snatched from his hands to be read, he cleared his throat. "There's more. Let us give you a ride home, and I'll hand you the rest when we get to your apartment." With her head turned in the front seat, Liz could see the young woman's face through the window, but not Red's.
After a moment the hooded girl narrowed her eyes, set her jaw, and allowed Dembe to escort her around to the other side of the car and open her door for her. She got in, and pushed the hood from her head, shaking out her dark hair as she did so. Dembe got into the car and pulled out on to the street.
With better proximity, Liz was able to study the woman, who was really more of a girl. They appeared close to the same age, with similarly dark hair, though Liz had none of her curl. Her long face was set in a hard, angry expression, and she shifted her bag on her lap as she snapped, "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm not going to hurt you," Reddington began calmly.
"Damn straight you're not," the young woman replied immediately, smoothly pulling a gun from her bag and resting it on her thigh, aimed at Reddington.
Liz's hand flew to her weapon, and in a split second she had it leveled at the woman in the back seat. "Drop the gun," she demanded.
Before the other woman could respond, Reddington's hand shot forward and wrenched the gun from Liz's grasp. He dismantled the weapon quickly, dropping the pieces at his feet. He lowered his window and tossed the amunition out into the cold as they sped along the street.
"What do you think you're-" Liz began, spinning to look out her window as if she expected to be able to pick out the shape of her magazine on the ground behind them in the dark.
"Not a word," Reddington reminded Liz firmly, his eyes still on the girl seated next to him. Addressing her, he went on, "As I said, I'm not going to hurt you, and I won't let anyone else, either. You can continue to point that at me for the duration of this ride, though, if it makes you feel better."
"It does," she said matter-of-factly.
There was a long silence, during which the girl seemed to be waiting for Reddington to speak, while he seemed to be in no particular hurry to do so. Finally Reddington tilted his head with a slight smile and said, "I have a daughter. When she was very little, I would tell her stories. She loved to listen to me talk... I could tell her just about anything-read the newspaper, recite Shakespeare-it didn't matter. I think she just liked the sound of my voice." Reddington paused, as if waiting for something, but shook his head after a moment, and continued. "But there was one story she loved in particular. I had an encyclopedia of insects, and one day I found her crouched on the floor with the book, completely enthralled by a picture of the Orchid Mantis. A beautiful creature; native to south Asia. Looks just like a pink orchid flower.
"The brilliance of this particular bug, I'd always tell her, was that it could hide while still being seen. Unlike other animals that blend and try to disappear into their surroundings for camoflage, the Orchid Mantis pretends to be an entirely different, entirely visible thing. It's a very elegant solution. The problem is... to a trained eye, once you know what you're looking for, they're relatively easy to spot."
Reddington smiled. "Now, she was much too young to ever understand any of this. But I'd still tell her about the way it caught its food, that it was bigger and stronger than its male counterparts, and the fact that it could change its coloring from light to dark as necessary." Reddington's eyes slid from the girl's face to her dark, curly hair, and he sighed. "I think she just liked the idea of a beautiful pink flower bug."
"What does this have to do with me?" she asked.
The muscles in Reddington's jaw clenched briefly. "It's time for you to move on," he said after a moment. "If I found you, others are not far behind me. If one knows what to look for, you've become easy to find."
"How did you find me?" the girl asked. "And why were you looking for me at all?"
"Jason has started using again. And dealing. Drug addicts talk, and stories make their way very quickly through certain circles," Reddington explained, his face impassive.
"No," the girl said with confidence, shaking her head dismissively. "Jason hasn't sold anything in over five years, and he's been clean almost as long. He's a good man now. He has a good job, he goes to meetings... This year he even became a sponsor. I'm actually really proud of him, and there's no way that he's-"
"I'm aware that's the story he's told you," Reddington replied gravely. Reaching into the seat back pocket in front of him, he withdrew several large photographs and passed them across the back seat. "These were taken last Sunday. I'm sure you recognize the red flannel shirt he's wearing? It was a recent gift, was it not? From you?"
As she stared at the photographs, the young woman seemed to forget about her weapon entirely, laying it down in her lap and reaching for the pictures Red held. Her face fell, and Liz felt a rush of empathy for the girl.
Reddington watched in silence for a long moment before speaking up again, his voice quiet. "He's not home right now. I suggest you pack what you can in the next hour, and go. Don't leave a note. Don't ever contact him again."
The car slowed to a stop along the small, one-way street, as Dembe brought the driver's side of the car up to the curb in front of an apartment building. The girl looked up from the photographs and realized where they were.
"You know my address," she said in a low voice.
"Pack just what you need," Reddington repeated, "and go."
The young woman tilted her head to the side and squinted at Red. "Why are you doing this?"
Reddington ignored her question. "I have another piece of advice for you, before you leave." He studied the girl's face as if he was trying to memorize it before continuing earnestly, "The next time someone approaches you with information like this, don't bother threatening them with that gun. And for God's sake don't get in a car with anyone. Just shoot them. You shoot them, and you run in the other direction and don't look back. Do you understand me?"
The curious look on the girl's face broke momentarily as she gave a nervous laugh, "Gunning people down in the street isn't—"
Reddington shook his head, unwilling to entertain her arguments. "Jennifer—" he interrupted sternly, but stopped immediately at the look on her face. She looked stunned, and horrified. Liz opened her mouth but bit back her words, clenching her teeth, her eyes skipping quickly between the two faces in the back seat.
After a long moment, the girl was unable to maintain eye contact anymore, and her gaze slipped to the side, her eyes unfocused, as if looking very far away. She sat for another beat before turning to fumble with the door handle. She flung the door open and jumped from the car, still holding the photographs in one hand. Once she was across the sidewalk, at the foot of the stairs to her building, she turned back to look at Reddington. The car door was still open wide, and he was leaning across the backseat on one hand, watching her retreat. The girl's expression melted from anger to a tired sort of sadness. She shook her head as if to reprimand Reddington for ever speaking to her at all.
Reddington dropped his eyes and nodded, accepting the rebuke. He looked back up after a moment to submit a final request. "Be careful," he said with a miserable smile.
Without another word, the girl turned away slowly and walked up the stairs to her door, slipped the key into the lock, and disappeared inside without a backward glance.
Reddington looked down at the upholstery of the empty seat next to him. Dembe quietly exited the car long enough to close the back door, before slipping back behind the wheel and pulling away from the curb.
Liz twisted around in her seat as much as possible without releasing her belt, and murmured, "Red—"
"You've done almost exactly as I asked so far tonight," Red interrupted softly, turning his head to look out the window. "But I'd appreciate silence for just a bit longer, please."
Liz's face was anguished as she nodded.
"Thank you," Red said, his voice tight.
Liz turned back around in her seat, and said nothing.
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You know you're in trouble when you're giving YOURSELF the Feels as you write. No joke, I feel like my lungs hurt right now. Sorry this one was so monstrously sad without any humor!.
Jennifer will be addressed more in the next chapter! Hold on for a few days, okay?
Let me know what you think, people…
