The Raven
Chapter Twelve: What Was Wrong is Right
{It seems I've been running in the wrong direction.}
When Lucy woke up several hours later she had a killer headache—you have no idea how much it hurt. It felt like her skull had been cracked open again. It had happened once before, when she was around fourteen or fifteen. Her father had been drunk and she had stayed out late without telling him and the lamp had been sitting right there. Her father had left her lying there all night, bleeding. The next morning he woke up, now mostly sober, and called an ambulance. She needed five stitches over her right eye and she had a concussion. It was always the same excuses after that. "I fell down the stairs" or "I slipped in the shower". No one really thought anything of it until she started falling down the stairs two times a week.
Her eyes opened, quite painfully actually, and her head lolled to the side limply. She stared blankly at the wall for a few seconds, still completely disoriented for the most part. The first thing she noticed was that she was not where she was supposed to be. The second thing she noticed was that there was blood running across her face and dripping into her eyes.
Why was blood dripping into her eyes? Was she hurt somewhere? Maybe, she was bleeding after all. How had she gotten hurt in the first place? Was it even her own blood? That was an important question, but what if it wasn't her blood, what then? Where was she? The questions bombarded her at once and her headache grew even worse. She needed to stop thinking. She needed to stop thinking now.
Lucy winced and, with a groan, rolled over onto her side, moving a hand up to touch her forehead. She pulled back with a hiss, pain spreading through her body like fire. One glance at her hand showed her that, yes it was her blood, and, yes she was hurt somewhere, but, no, she didn't know how she had gotten hurt nor, possibly the most important thing, where she was.
Her automatic guess was that she had pissed off her father again, but no, that wasn't right. She hadn't even seen her father since before Gray had been shot at, which was over a week ago. She hadn't heard anything from her father, heck she didn't even know if he was still in Magnolia, or alive for that matter. Not that it really made a difference to her. He was not her family. He had never been her family and he never would be. So it wasn't her father. She didn't care what happened to him anymore.
Her second guess, which was a bit better than the first, was that there had been another brawl at Fairy Tail. That was a logical guess. The bar was a magnet for trouble, attracting at least one fight every few days, sometimes more. She wasn't exactly a stranger to having chairs launched at her head or the occasional body of Elfman slamming into her from out of nowhere, which hurt like hell by the way. Yeah, that was it. There was probably just a fight and she had been knocked out. But, no, that wasn't it either. She had distinctly remembered leaving the bar, she couldn't quite remember why she left or where she had gone, but she had left. Plus if she had been hurt in a bar fight she doubted that she would be lying on the floor bleeding. Someone would have helped her. Laxus would have helped her, and then he would have called an ambulance, because he was responsible like that. So, no, she wasn't in a bar fight.
Her third guess was probably her worst and she regretted even thinking about the possibility. Her third guess was that Natsu had finally snapped and wacked her upside the head more than a few times. It was bound to happen at some point. Natsu had a temper that was both extremely short, and incredibly explosive. If she had done something to really piss him off and things had gotten way out of hand he might have hit her without really meaning to. If her memory served her correctly she had said something to him about her sleeping with Bixlow, which was in no way true. That could have pissed him off enough to hit her. Hell, she should smack herself for saying something stupid like that.
That wasn't right though, she knew that it couldn't be right. Natsu would never hurt her. She thought that a lot, but it was true. It was true. Natsu may have been brash and temperamental and violent—God he could be violent—but he was loyal, and kind, and one of the most gentle people she had ever met when it came down to it. Natsu hadn't hit her. She was so sure that he hadn't done anything to hurt her. She refused to believe that he would ever hurt her.
Maybe she had gotten attacked on her way home? That could have been plausible. Magnolia was normally a safe place, but there were still a number of bad people in the town. Not to mention the crazy man that had been killing and then mutilating women in the area. No, wait, she never finished her shift. She never even left work. Plus Laxus was going to give her a ride home afterwards, or maybe Natsu was going to. Or maybe she really did walk home alone. Lucy wasn't entirely sure. Her head was all fuzzy and there were little white lights moving in and out of her vision. They were pretty, but they kept floating away from her.
You know what, maybe she was abducted by aliens. That was more likely than everything else she had been thinking up. Maybe it was just her writer's brain coming up with all of these completely ridiculous ideas, or maybe she had finally gone crazy. Lucy chuckled at her ludicrous thought and tried to sit up straight, instead of lying down on the cold ground.
The key word there being "tried" of course.
As soon as she had managed to peel her face off of the ground—she was lying on her stomach and blood was coating most of the right side of her face, which was currently pressed against the floor—her head started to spin and she felt vomit rise up in her throat.
She wanted to stand up. She wanted to get to her feet. She wanted to walk this off and figure out what the hell was going on. Deciding that she was not going to sit here and be helpless, Lucy grit her teeth and pushed herself up onto her feet, swaying dangerously for a moment before gaining her footing and glancing around, bringing her back to one of her earlier questions.
Where the hell was she?
From the looks of it she was in a basement, but not the basement of anyone she knew. Well, unless one of her friends had moved within the past few days, knocked her out, kidnapped her, and decided to mess with her for awhile. That was unlikely. Well she thought it was unlikely, but she could never tell with the people she hung out with. There had been several times that her friends had broken into her house and practically kidnapped her. Normally it was the guys, or Erza. She wasn't sure which was worse.
Her brow knitted together and she panted as she started to unscramble her thoughts, trying to remember what exactly had happened to her. She squeezed eyes shut tightly, pressing a hand to her face and digging the palm of her right hand into her eye. "Dammit," she hissed out, pain lacing the single word.
She had woken up early that morning, way earlier than necessary, all because of her phone, she had talked to Wendy and Natsu for awhile, the girls had finally cornered her and asked her several dozen questions about her relationship with Natsu, Natsu had taken her to work and refused to let her out of his car, Laxus had found out she and Natsu were dating and had taken it pretty well actually, she had worked for a few hours with Bixlow and Freed teasing her about her new boyfriend, Igneel had arrested her—
Igneel had arrested her—Igneel had arrested her. Well great. That was not going to look good on a college application.
Everything started to come back to her.
Igneel had arrested her to try and keep her safe—which apparently hadn't worked out so well considering the fact that her head was bleeding—and then he had left her with the creepy cop named Zancrow, who wouldn't stop flirting with her and making sexual comments, so that he could go get Natsu, and then Zancrow had smashed her head against the cell bars, which had hurt like hell, and all she could see was his red eyes and he had thanked her for giving him a name and—
Her blood ran cold, practically freezing in her veins. For a second she forgot how to breathe. Zancrow was the one who had killed those poor girls. He had murdered those poor girls for his own sick reasons. He had shot Gray. Her right hand clenched into a tight fist at her side. Her nails broke through the skin and she was vaguely aware of the blood sliding through her fingers.
She was going to kill him.
Lucy nearly growled. How could one person be so disgusting? If Igneel and the other Magnolia officers didn't do something about Zancrow then she would. She was not going to let him get away with murder, not when she could do something about it.
Lucy quickly swept her eyes around the basement, looking for a door or a window or something that she could use to get out of here. There were no windows, which might explain why it was so damn dark and cold, and there wasn't much of anything in the room, well, nothing she could see anyway. She didn't really want to start stumbling around in the dark when she had no idea what might be in the surrounding area just to look for something that might not actually be there, but there was a door. A door, that was nice, that was a good start. She bolted towards the hard wood object, nearly toppling over because of what she could assume was blood loss.
She grasped the doorknob in her hand and gave it a hard tug, twisting it. She half expected the door to fly open and smack her in the face. How dignified would that be? She gets out of the basement only to be taken out by the door. Lucy bet that Zancrow would have a laugh at that.
Nothing happened though. The door didn't even budge.
"Dammit. Please?" she hissed again, her voice sounding oddly loud in the otherwise silent room. Why wouldn't the damn door open? Lucy silently chided herself, it was probably locked. It would only be logical if the door was locked.
She heard someone snort behind her and she froze. "Did you honestly believe I would leave the door unlocked?" a voice asked from behind her, laughing at her as they said it. Normally she would have thought that it was merely a teasing tone in their voice, but she could hear the blatant mocking that was there.
Her eyes narrowed and she whipped around, glaring at the man that was the cause of all of her current, and even some past, problems. "I believe you would do something that stupid, so, yeah," she snarled at him. She probably shouldn't have been so snippy with her kidnapper. Was that some sort of taboo? Making the "bad guy" angry? It didn't matter, she shouldn't have done it. This guy had already killed people with no remorse whatsoever. If she wasn't careful she could very well become just another bloodstain on the ground, or possibly something even worse.
"Ouch," he put a hand over his heart in mock pain, crimson eyes flashing with mirth and something she couldn't exactly place, "That hurts, Sweetheart." He pretended to pout at her and she wanted to smack the look off of his face.
Her dark brown eyes narrowed in absolute disgust. "Don't ever call me 'Sweetheart'," she snapped back at him with an almost inhuman snarl.
A light flicked on above her and she was momentarily blinded. Once she stopped blinking away the harsh light Zancrow took a step closer to her, moving into the light, and she got a better look at him.
He sort of, as bad as it sounded, looked like Gajeel.
He wasn't as tall or built as her dark haired friend. His hair was blond, not black and his face was void of all piercings. They both had that type of teasing smirk on there face that she knew would only cause trouble, but Zancrow's had more of a malicious twist, and they had red eyes, though, in her opinion, Gajeel's eyes were a much prettier shade. Dear God, her friend would kill her if she ever told him he had pretty eyes. That would not be manly at all.
Lucy shook her head, she was getting way off track and she sounded vaguely like Elfman. How was she even able to think about the color of Gajeel's eyes—and how incredibly pretty they were—while some extremely psychotic man was standing several feet away from her, after bashing her head against metal bars and then kidnapping her?
The realization hit her so hard it was almost like a solid blow to the chest. Lucy just barely caught herself from stumbling backwards as if she had actually been hit.
It's because he was like her father. He had that same grin on his face and dark look in his eyes that made her want to curl up and just cry. It made her feel small and vulnerable, which, admittedly, she was. She didn't like to say it, but she wasn't the strongest person around. It was uncanny, how Zancrow was so much like her father.
Sure her father hadn't killed anyone that she knew of, but he had beaten her to the brink of unconsciousness, brought her back, and then beat her again just for the hell of it. There was no real reason behind all of it, just like there was no real reason behind Zancrow doing what he did. Lawyers could tell all of the lies and sob stories that they wanted, there was no reason for people to murder others. There was absolutely no reason.
Lucy nearly laughed. All she was to her father and Zancrow was some sort of play thing to be used for there enjoyment. She wasn't a person to them, she was a toy. She was dispensable. She could deal with that. She could use that.
Zancrow tisked, "So ill-tempered," he chided her, a smug smile spreading over his face.
She was done letting men like her father and Zancrow push her around. He could do whatever he wanted to her, but she wouldn't let him reach his real goal, whatever that may be. She wouldn't let any of them break her, not ever again.
"What do you want with me, Zancrow?" she spat, pure venom dripping from her tongue.
He didn't answer her for a long moment, only stared at her. He took his time in letting his eyes, which now she thought about it were definitely not like Gajeel's, rake over her body, causing her to shudder slightly at the disgusting look he was giving her. He flashed her a grin that was all white teeth and sharp canines and she was beginning to think he hadn't heard her when he took another step towards her and started to speak. "Are you afraid?" he questioned her.
Her eyes narrowed into thin slits, "No," she was surprised by the truth of that one word. She wasn't afraid. Not of him. Not of dying. "Not of you," she told him. She licked her suddenly dry lips, tasting copper on her tongue. It must have been more blood, not that she was really that surprised. "I'll ask you one more time, Zancrow." His name was like acid on her tongue, it left a bad taste in her mouth. She took a brave step towards him, her eyes meeting his. "What do you want with me?"
Their gazes stayed locked for what seemed like forever to her, neither of them wavering the slightest in their impromptu staring contest. She was the first to blink, her eyes had slipped shut involuntarily and he smirked, "All in due time, Sweetheart."
She was about to snap at him again, but she didn't have time to do so, Zancrow moved like a snake. She didn't know when he had gotten in front of her, but he had. The next thing Lucy knew his fist was slamming into her jaw and her head was snapping around so fast that she knew that she was going to have whiplash later, amongst other things.
She was so shocked by the sudden punch that she didn't have time to comprehend what was happening at first. By the time she regained her bearings it was already too late, she didn't have time to block the second blow, which was a kick to her stomach that had her doubling over in pain, a small cry coming from between her lips.
Zancrow stopped whatever it was he was planning on doing at the sound of pain that flew from her lips without her permission. His head cocked to the right slightly and a miniscule smile formed on his face. His eyes twinkled brightly with satisfaction. "I like that sound…" he trailed of. "Why don't we try and make it again?"
Before she had time to react he had already slammed his fist into her jaw, a foot launching out and sweeping her feet out from under her at the same time. The dual attack had her tumbling to the ground on her back. She bit her tongue to stop herself from crying out when her head smashed against the concrete floor. She may have slipped up the first time, but she was not going to give him the satisfaction of making her cry out a second time. She was not going to let him win. Not while she still had some fight left in her.
Without a second thought she pushed herself back onto her feet, standing up on shaky legs that threatened to give out at a moments notice. Without really realizing what she was doing she had already met his eyes and sent him a large grin. "You hit like a little girl," she barked at him, letting out a strangled sound of amusement followed by a wheezing cough. "You'll have to try harder."
That really pissed him off. She didn't even have time to blink before she was on the ground again, blows raining down over her face and torso. Her arm was twisted at an awkward angle under a heavy foot that threatened to snap it as if the limb was nothing. More blood spilled over her face and down her throat after a well placed kick that may or may not have broken her nose. None of it was as bad as the hand that wrapped around her neck like a python and squeezed, constricting around her airway until she started to turn different shades of blue.
She didn't make a sound.
"Why don't you scream for me, Sweetheart?" he asked her, sounding significantly less friendly than he had before, crouching down so that he could lean over her body, a sick smile spreading over his face. She should have been scared, terrified even, but the pure adrenaline coursing through her didn't even process that fact. Zancrow caressed her face gently and she flinched away from him. She coughed up what she thought was blood and he moved closer to her. "Maybe a kiss instead?"
She ripped her head away from his hand and spat in his face, enjoying every second of his dumbfounded expression as red liquid dripped from his eye down to his lips. She never expected what came next, not even in the slightest.
He chuckled.
He laughed. It was a deep, throaty sound that promised pain. She was sure of that much. Then he smiled at her. "Now you just made things a hell of a lot worse for yourself." She wanted to say something back, she wanted to spit at him again or do something besides just lie there, but she couldn't move.
He stood back up and looked down at her, smile still firmly in place. Lucy could only lie down and take it as he stomped on her ribs with enough force to break them, before reeling his foot back and then sending it straight into her temple.
~The Raven~
The second time Lucy woke up that day—or she thought it was the same day, she could have been wrong—her headache was worse, there was still blood dripping into her eyes, and now she was tied to a chair. So there wasn't really that much of an improvement other than the fact that she wasn't lying on the ground. Apparently Zancrow could be considerate when he wasn't beating her half to death.
Oh, and Zancrow was staring at her with the biggest smile she had ever seen on somebody's face. Well, maybe it wasn't as big as Natsu's smile, but Natsu's smile was in a whole different category—namely one that wasn't completely psychotic and that didn't send shivers down her spine. Actually Natsu's grins did send shivers down her spine, but they were good shivers, they were really good shivers, unlike the ones she got from Zancrow, which were far from pleasant.
She tried to speak, but her mouth was too dry and, honestly, she had no idea what to say in the first place. She tried a second time and found herself able to use her voice. She spat out the first thing that came to mind. "You won't get away with this," she whispered. It was cliché, she knew, but even the writer in her didn't have the heart to care anymore.
Zancrow scoffed at her before laughing for what seemed like the millionth time. If Lucy didn't already hate that sound she certainly did now. "Why do you think that?" he asked her, clearly finding something funny about her assumption.
She licked her lips and ragged breath spilling from her mouth. "Igneel will stop you," she choked out, holding back a cough.
Zancrow made a small sound of amusement in the back of his throat. "Igneel is none the wiser," he told her, bending at the knee to get right up in her face. "He has no idea that I'm involved." He smiled at her. "I'm going to get off scot-free."
She spat out the blood that had been collecting in her mouth. "What?" she chuckled. "You think that just because you're a cop you can get away with this?" Lucy shook her head. "I didn't think you were that delusional, Zancrow."
"Sweetheart—" She snarled at him once more not to call her that, but he only ignored her. He leaned in incredibly close to her face. "—it's because I am a cop that I will get away with this." He spoke slowly, as if he was speaking to a small child.
Lucy glared at him. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She hated cryptic messages. She hated them so damn much. She hated them almost as much as she hated her father, and that was saying a lot. "What do you mean by that?" she asked.
"Well, you see," he laughed. "I told Igneel exactly what had happened three days ago, on Saturday." He shrugged half heartedly. "On Sunday, which was two days ago," he explained mockingly. "I told a lot of people what happened to you and me."
So she had been unconscious for a few days, three to be exact. Meaning it was Tuesday. Well, that was assuming that Zancrow wasn't lying to her. Which he probably was…
Lucy thought about what Zancrow had said. He had told people what had happened? "What did you tell them?" she asked softly.
"I told them something that wasn't entirely true," he told her. "I was knocked out," he tapped a closed fist against the side of his head. "I didn't see anything."
"You mean you lied to them," she clarified, glaring at him harshly. This conversation was going downhill rather quickly because, apparently, officers of the law are dumbasses, well maybe not Igneel, but still. Seriously? How was it not suspicious that the cop that was supposed to watch her was miraculously knocked out and she was kidnapped while there were cameras in the room, that were probably disabled now that she thought about it, during the exact hour or so Igneel was gone?
He shook his head, waving a hand in the air in front of him as if to dismiss the accusation. "Lying is such a crude term." He smiled brightly at her. "I merely gave them a push in the wrong direction," he explained, rather poorly in her opinion. Not that her opinion really mattered in the current situation.
Lucy decided to voice her confusion. "Meaning what exactly?" she asked him. She was a bit surprised that she was having an almost civil conversation, she used the term "civil" very lightly, with the man that had killed several women, brutalized her, and kidnapped her, but if it meant that she could get answers and possibly use them to get out of this mess then she would do what ever it took.
"Meaning I came up with an alibi." He smiled again and she wanted nothing more than to wipe the stupid thing off of his face for the rest of his life. Unfortunately she was still tied to the chair and her hands were tied, literally. So that option would have to wait for a later day.
"Yes I know," Lucy hissed at him. "You told me that already," she grumbled. "You were 'unconscious'."She forced as much sarcasm into her words as she could muster. "What else?" she spat. She really needed to learn to watch her mouth around the men that had no qualms with smashing their fists against the sides of her face.
"My, my," he chastised. "You are quite the temperamental little thing aren't you?" He stroked a hand down the side of her neck in an affectionate way. She forced back the urge to flinch away from the soft touch.
She scoffed. "I've been dealing with guys that had no issues with hitting me for nearly my entire life," she laughed dryly, humorless eyes meeting his. "You are no different," she growled out, proud at herself for not taking any of his bullshit.
She figured she must have pissed him off when his eyes flashed dangerously and his closed fist smashed against her jaw, leaving another black and blue mark on her already beaten body. "I'm plenty different," he snarled against her ear, letting his tongue flick out to swipe across her skin as he did so, making her shudder in disgust. "By the time I'm done with you," he growled low in his throat, "you won't know the difference between me and that little boyfriend of yours."
Lucy didn't miss the utter rage and contempt that came with the word "boyfriend" and immediately grew defensive. "You leave him out of this," Lucy hissed. "He has nothing to do with you."
Zancrow laughed. "He has more to do with this than you will ever know." he smiled against her skin, placing a light kiss on the soft skin of her throat much like Natsu had done several days earlier. She couldn't help but think how much had changed in such a small amount of time. It had only been a few days since she had last seen Natsu and Laxus and almost everyone else. She hoped that it wouldn't be the last.
Zancrow breathed out against her skin, sending out a puff of hot air directly over her collarbone. "Everything that's wrong is about to become extremely right."
Her skin was crawling everywhere he touched her and all she wanted to do when this was over was peal her skin off so that every filthy place that he had and would later touch was gone, permanently. "Are you going to answer me or not?" she whispered, silently praying that he would just back away from her.
"Answer what?" he chuckled. His fingers started sliding down her leg, running over the bare skin that wasn't covered by the shorts she was wearing.
"You said you have an alibi," she murmured, incredibly irked by his show of "playing dumb", not that he really needed to "play". Okay, that was a lie, he was actually incredibly smart. He knew how to cover his tracks and twist everything out of shape so that he could get away with whatever it was he was trying to get away with. "What is it? Your alibi that is."
He smiled brightly against her skin. "It wasn't very hard to tell the others the description of the man that walked into the precinct, attacking me and rendering me unconscious, when I tried so hard to protect you, and then took you while I was knocked out."
She was confused for a moment and then the realization hit her and she couldn't help the small gasp that tore out of her throat. "You're going to frame someone," she breathed out.
He smiled and kissed her cheek, backing away from her a few inches, meeting her gaze with his own. "Correction," he held up a single finger. "I already have."
Lucy could only think of one word to say to him. "Who?"
~The Raven~
AN: I couldn't stop laughing as I wrote this… I went back and reread some of the first few chapters… and in chapter five there's a little NaLu moment near the end and Gray interrupts, saying something along the line of "You two are so adorable it makes me want to shoot myself" in chapter seven Natsu and Lucy get together… and Gray gets shot.
Oh God! I can't stop laughing at that because it was a complete accident!
Killer headache… puns all around!