"Oh my god…" Steve was clutching his trembling shoulders, hunched over under the blanket, eyes staring somewhere three feet through the table. "That thing's coming for me. It saw me and now it won't let me go. I can't get away. You all need to run."
"Steve, look at me," said Briggs, leaning across the table. "…Steve?"
Steve looked up, but only far enough to stare at the slowly congealing pile of fast food. Briggs sighed, and took his head in both her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye. She may have heard something crack, but she must have been imagining it.
"Now look at me!"
"I'm looking I'm looking!" Steve gasped out, his face pale. Briggs let go, and Steve rubbed his neck.
"I need to know what you know, Steve," she said, the intensity of her brown eyes keeping Steve's gaze locked on her. "You're the only person who's seen one of these things and lived. And if that… that thing that happened was right, you survived this exact creature. I need to know what you did Steve, because that's our only chance of getting you out of this alive."
"I… I don't know!" Steve said, clutching the table so hard his nails dug into the finish. "All I remember was that it was dark and that thing was chasing me. I ran into the main burial chamber, the one we had just uncovered. I… I had this stupid idea to hide inside the sarcophagus. Then… then I don't know what happened. There was this blinding light and then everything went black, like a solid fog of darkness. The next thing I remember I was coming out of the cave and you all were pointing guns at me."
"Wonderful," Briggs said, burying her face in her palm. "Of course this can't be easy. Jimenez, we're going to need to get Steve here into protective custody."
"You want me to take him down to holding?"
"No, we shouldn't move him yet," said Briggs, standing up. "Not until we can get him under guard. You keep an eye on him, I'm going to round up some uniforms to babysit him."
"Wait, you can't do this!" said Steve, jumping to his feet and grabbing Briggs's shoulder. Instinctively she jumped back away from his touch, and they both looked a little embarrassed. "If… if you try to protect me, that monster is going to go through you and your partner and anyone else that stands in his way. Nothing you can do will stop him!"
Briggs stared at him for a few tense seconds. Nothing could be heard in the room except for Steve's panicked breathing. The ice settled in the soda cup. Jimenez stifled a cough into his fist. The beetle on the table frantically waved its legs in the air, trying in vain to roll itself off of its black shell. Finally, Briggs opened her mouth.
"Do you want to die that badly?"
"…w…what?" Steve had no idea how to answer that.
"Listen to yourself, Steve," Briggs said, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Do you really think you stand a chance against that thing? Any more than any of us? You don't have a gun, you're like a hundred and five pounds, and you haven't eaten in days. Going out there would be nothing less than suicide, and I didn't get into this business to let people go off and kill themselves. But if you let us protect you then all of us, you, me, all of these officers, we at least have a chance of saving all our lives and stopping this damn thing before anyone else gets hurt."
Steve looked away, his eyes falling to the floor.
"You feel weak, Steve," Briggs continued. "That monster made you feel like you'll never be strong again. But you don't need to be strong right now. I became an agent to protect people like you from monsters, whether they look like giant spiders or not, and so did every cop in this building. Let us be strong for you."
Steve raised his head to meet her gaze, but he kept silent.
"I'm going to take that as consent," she said. "Alright we've wasted enough time with motivational speeches. Jimenez, here. Me, backup."
"Copy that," said Jimenez. Briggs slammed the door behind her, Jimenez stood in front of it, pistol in hand, and Steve found himself staring at the agent's mirrored sunglasses. He turned around to escape that reflection, and found himself looking right at the interrogation room's wall-sized one-way mirror. He sighed.
The beetle was still squirming on the table where it had rebounded off Briggs' face. Steve reached down for it, the insect's legs latching on to the tip of his finger. He scooped the bug up into his hand, and from there into the pocket of his jeans. It wormed its way down and curled up in the darkest corner like it was making a tiny nest.
"So… Jimenez, right?" said Steve, wrapping the blanket closer around him as he approached the other agent. "…is there a first name with that?"
"Not at the moment, no," said Jimenez. "Listen, kid, the truth is, we need you as much as you need us. You're the only witness and the only one with even the damndest idea what happened. You may be the only person who can break this goddamn thing."
"You may be right," Steve sighed. "Listen, I'm sorry about this."
"Sorry about what?" asked Jimenez.
Faster than Jimenez could see, Steve's hands shot out and grasped the agent by the temples. He felt a tiny spark where Steve's fingers touched his head, and then –
Fear.
Pain.
Fear. Pain.
Fear. Pain. Fear. Pain.
FEAR. PAIN. FEAR. PAIN. FEAR. PAIN.
FEARPAINFEARPAINFEARPAINFEARPAINFEARPAINFEARPAINFEARPAINFEARPAIN!
Jimenez cried out, clutching at his head. In his mind, he was six years old, and Hector LaVonne was holding him down, dangling a scorpion over his eye. He was nine, watching his dog snap the leash and running out in front of a pickup truck. Shattering his femur in high school. His grandmother, frail and ravaged by lung cancer. Coming home early, finding Stephanie in their bed with another man. The first time he had to shoot a suspect, watching him collapse to the ground as the bullet went through his chest. All of these and a thousand more went through his mind in a matter of seconds, every one as vivid as if he was living through them for the first time. He collapsed into the corner, a stream of saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth.
"…for that," said Steve, patting the agent on the head. "You'll be okay… you won't even remember that… I hope."
Steve first tried the door, but it was locked. Then he tried the door five more times, and continually found it to be locked.
"Okay, not working," said Steve, looking around the room for another option. He saw the mirror and stared, tilting his head to one side. "No… no no no… that's crazy. That is not going to work."
His reflection stared back at him. The two shared a private thought.
"God dammit," Steve said. He took the blanket from around his shoulders and wrapped it around his right arm, making a foot-thick cocoon centered on his fist. He took a deep breath, and then another, and then a third. "I am going to regret this…"
He wrenched his eyes shut and punched the mirror. His fist went clean through it, shattering the ballistic glass like it was balsa wood. Steve barely had a second to disbelieve what he had just done, vaulting into the empty room beyond, finding the door unlocked and running out into the hall.
Roughly thirty seconds passed, and Steve ran back into the room, jumped back through the broken mirror, grabbed a Big Mac from the table and shoveled it into his mouth in two bites.
"Oh my god yesssssss," he said, secret sauce dripping from his chin as he upended a carton of fries directly into his face. "Oh yes, this I will not regret."
He grabbed the 20 piece chicken nugget box and jumped back through the shattered mirror.
