Chapter Thirteen: Normality restored?
And I won't hold you back
Let your anger rise
And we'll fly and we'll fall and we'll burn
No one will recall. No one will recall.– Muse, Stockholm Syndrome
This is the last time I'll abandon you
And this is the last time I'll forget you
I wish I could
My hands are still clutching the other, still trembling, as Jonathan's wiry fingers tilt my downcast face upwards, using my chin as leverage.
He does not speak. Instead, his eyes observe my features, an almost tender emotion glimmering beneath all that ice of facts and experiments and goodness-knows-what-else.
I cannot –and not for the first or even the second time- disregard just how handsome I find Jonathan; and not to mention the effects (blushing? Again?) he has on me despite his odd looks: too gaunt, awkward and lank for conventional beauty; yet somehow the sharpness reflects his personality... Kind of like the way everyone's favourite aunt is overweight; yet no one would think to call her fat- it's just the way she is and she is just liked that way.
"Cara," He starts, sounding both annoyed and amused, "you're staring."
"Uh, s-sorry about..." I trail off, unable to stop myself from intensifying the nervous grip on my hands when I see the slight smirk on Crane's lips.
Izzy's dead and all I can think of is how- how pretty her murderer is? A piece of poetry –too far away to actually read- proves something else to focus my attention upon; despite Crane's steady hold upon my chin.
"Something's wrong with me, Jonathan." My voice quakes, even as his warmer hand retracts back to his side. There is confusion drawing down the doctor's brow and a sudden urge to cry almost overwhelms my senses as the grief of Izzy's death washes over me again. "I-I feel lost," my hands release the other and cross across my battered body. How long will it take everything to heal? "I sh-should hate you, want y-you dead for what you've done to- to Izzy... I... I can- can't bring myself to dislike you anymore. But... I don't feel numb either."
Jonathan's body shifts, causing my attention to snap to his intentions. He freezes in mid-action of almost embracing my shivering form, before moving slowly closer, keeping eye contact, before totally stopping moments before we touch.
Crane inclines his head, unusually... submissive?
"If I may... Cara?"
This annoys me for reasons unknown, perhaps because I am so used to the way which Crane usually behaves? With all of his arrogant, self-assured, 'I am the God of Fear!' type thinking, seeing the dark haired man act so... meek is, well, disappointing: like seeming a tiger trapped in a cage- you know the creature is dangerous; but there is no real threat to yourself really. A disappointment. A letdown. Yet probably safer. I do want to be safe, alive, don't I?
Jonathan trying not to be scary is just like seeing that tiger try to be vegetarian. In other words, pretty unnatural, don't you think?
"Jonathan," I start, my voice quite level, although quite breathy from the awkward closeness, "I wouldn't even care if you kissed me right now, just please stop trying to be so-!" Considerate? Gentlemanly? My mind throws at me, my ideals of a good, healthy relationship suddenly feeling more like restricting red tape. I'm not sure what to think about this feeling. "S-so-! Whatever you're trying to be right now and hug me!" By now the shock must be affecting my brain or something, since I suddenly point to my temples with both hands. "This whole ordeal has messed-up my head, my life so much and, bloody hell, I've just remembered that you just killed one –my only- friend this side of the Atlantic! So please, a hug, a proper, confident, damn manly hug would be bloody brilliant right now."
The feared, villainous, man stares down at my antics for a moment before chuckling under his breath.
"That... I can do." Embracing me, his breath tickles in my hair as he chuckles again. "I was never any good at allowing others control of my interest, anyway."
"Sorry?" Did that even make sense?
Jonathan shakes his head, making a swishing sound as the tip of his chin catches some of my loose hair.
"Ignore me. You have enough on your mind at the moment. Tell me, however, how did the two you become friends?" His hand rubs my back affectionately in a linear motion. "Perhaps it will help."
Separating myself from him, I wipe a sleeve against my eyes, nod and sniff. "S-sure," walking out of my room and into the kitchen area to hunt down the last of my kitchen paper (seeing as my tissues seem to have all been used already...), I can feel Crane's eyes following my movements carefully, as he waits for me to join him next to his, no, the sofa.
Finding the kitchen towels, I clean myself up before splashing some cold water across my face.
The trickling of water on my face feels like the legs of roaches. I squeeze my eyes shut against the sensation, reaching for a something to dry off with. The dryness of one of the few (thanks to my old 'bandages') remaining tea-towels left is most welcomed.
Turning back to look over the counter at Jonathan, he motions to the leather couch as I walk towards him.
"Shall we?" His frozen eyes seem to glimmer at the expression on my face. I touch my cheek as he sits down, no longer watching. Cold, colder than usual, faint... pale: I must have reacted more violently to that tiny relapse than I'd realised...
At the sound of me sitting down next to him (as far away as possible, might I add: I'm starting to already regret hugging him, thanks to his creepy expression), Crane examines me out of the corner of his eye for a while as I fiddle with my hands, scratch at my neck and struggle not to immerse myself in Izzy's passing.
Eventually, Crane snaps off his glasses.
"Jonathan, I-!"
"If you did not want to talk, all you had to do was say." His eyes stare me down, until I smile at him. "What now?" He snaps, before glaring at the television. The Wizard of Oz is not playing this time, unfortunately. In fact, the TV set is quite dead. Jonathan's lips thin as he leans closer to me, eyes narrowing likewise. "Are you... laughing at me?" The threat and danger in his low tone is so pronounced, that I wonder wherefore-or-not a caution sign should be used for when this... criminal goes outside.
Speaking of which, why is he still here? Please don't like me... no matter how damn attractive he is, he's still a killer.
"Maybe I'm hysterical now." I mutter under my breath, no longer able to neither keep smiling nor even look at the dark haired man.
"Probably." Crane replied evenly, apparently satisfied with the answer, he moves back to his previous, less imposing position now that he seems sure of my lack of teasing. How odd... Oh God, Izzy.
"Wh-why did you have to kill her?" The words have left my lips before I can even realise that I'm crying again. "I-Izzy would n-never..." I trail off, fighting to control myself as a shudder of unease falls down my spine. I pull my legs up to my chest, hugging them tight and resting the side of my grieving face against them, keeping my expression hidden from the man sitting beside me.
Speaking of which...
"J-Jonathan, please, d-don't c-come closer. I w-want to be a-alone, please." Everything feels so heavy. So... sad. Lost. Uncontrolled. Hurt. Just so hurt.
The leather creaks as the doctor's body settles close, touching mine; a long arm pulling me into another embrace. Protective, assertive, everything I need right now. Something tells me to be suspicious. I ignore it. Words are hummed, I try to listen. Everything feels so heavy. No focus. There's grief; but not as sharp: like the contact between us is sharing out the hurt.
More tears fall as I close my eyes; yet my muscles stay taunt, ready to defend myself against this murderer again if need be. I don't, can't, trust him.
As he's playing with my hair, I think I can hear Crane's heartbeat. My lips make a dreamy half-smile at that- turns out the Scarecrow does have a heart! No wait, that was the lion...
I think he was humming a rhyme.
Nothing much else happened until much later, well after the disgraced doctor had returned the sleeping woman to her bed. Well after the said man had finished watching a horror film which had been left in the DVD player (the open case next to the set had drawn his attention).
Nothing, however, could not be described as the conversation he had into his mobile phone.
The Scarecrow, it turns out, still has the majority of his muscle.
"... so is that all, Boss?" The grunt (funnily enough), grunts into the receiver, wiping away the sweat forming upon his brow. The grunt doesn't like to admit it, but he knows what could, what will, happen to him... should he mess up the Boss' plans.
The Boss' voice is chilling, purring; yet harsh through the weather-beaten phone.
"No," Scarecrow pauses momentarily, pondering of how to go about what he is about to say. Of how not to give away too much information. "There's something else. A girl- a hostage," he corrects himself, pacing briskly up and down the cool wood of the corridor. Maybe, Crane wonders, stopping outside the curtain door of the said hostage, maybe I'm starting to trust the safety of Cara's- her, apartment too much. The doctor glances at his socked feet. I can hardly make a rapid getaway without shoes...
The grunt barks a brutal laugh.
"What? Do you need us to clean up?"
Crane flinches at the other man's terminology; Scarecrow cackles.
Stammering a reply, the grunt is swiftly cut-off by his boss, who waves a hand absentmindedly as he resumes pacing.
"Dex'... do you really think that I would need a clean-up team? I believe that I did quite well with cleaning-up Miss Finch's apartment myself..." Trailing off, a grin spreads across Scarecrow's face as a short exhale of shocked awe comes from the other man's phone.
"Boss, you-?"
"Yes. Now shut up and listen. I need a secure location for both myself (including my work, naturally) and my... friend."
The grunt sniggers shrewdly, already his mind ripe with locations for such a place. Luckily, some of his 'safe houses' even had basements.
"I'll send you the address once I have it, Scarecrow."
"Good." The Scarecrow grins wider, once more stopping at the door of his hostage. If only she knew what's going to happen... The villain shakes his head, ignoring any words of protest from his alter. "I will need some muscle to destroy her apartment, you understand? I can't have the police sniffing around after a missing foreigner, never mind the Bat." At the sound of 'Bat', Crane's head throbs suddenly and Scarecrow's lips turn down in distaste underneath his mask.
At least we can agree on something... Mutters Crane under his breath, which is somewhat odd, seeing as his voice is coming from within his own head.
Scarecrow only mutely nods his agreement.
"I'll send someone right away, Boss." On the other side of the line, the grunt, generally known as Dex', conveys a series of hand signals to some of his colleagues, who grin and –almost zealously- begin cocking weapons, gathering masks, canisters... two keys to two none descript vans... The grunt rubs a quite average hand against the back of his tussled, raven haired head. "We'll pick you both up once we get there." Dex' bites his dry bottom lip fearfully, before catching himself and asking: "Is th-that good for you, Boss?"
Back at Cara's apartment, Scarecrow chuckles humourlessly.
"If it isn't, Dexter," the lanky man pauses to dampen his lips, "you would be the first to know."
And with that, the Scarecrow hung up.
I woke with a start. Now that nightmare had felt so... real, so... vivid. I rub a hand back and forth against the warmth of my neck, trying to focus on something other than...
Why am I in bed? My head ticks over for a moment, trying to get it's bearings, a grasp on what happened. A side effect of the fear toxin must be forgetfulness... unless that nightmare has made me-?
Oh yes, I fell asleep on Jonathan.
"Bugger!" Slipping out of the warmness of the duvet, I curse again (honestly, later I had better wash my mouth out with soap! Or I'll join the bandwagon and blame stress...), and start to leave my room, noting how my shoes had been left on.
Well that's strange... at least he didn't re-dress me this time...
"Jonathan!" I call upon brushing through the curtain of cloth (yep, defiantly my kitchen curtains) and into the corridor. "Jonathan, are you in here?" With no reply, I can feel a bubble of hope rise upwards within me. I'm free! He left! I'm free! I even find myself smiling. Actually smiling a happy, not an anxious or generally worried or nervous smile; but a simply happy smile! I could even pinch myself and not wake up. Brilliant!
Singing quietly 'sunshine, lollipops', my feet automatically wonder in the direction of the kitchen, since all I need to do right now is to properly grieve Izzy's passing and what better way to do that than to get high off sugar from ice cream and watch one of those dreaded 'chick-flick' films she always wanted us to watch together? I struggle to think of a better way which doesn't mean a lot of tears and depression- surely Izzy would want the people she left behind to be all depressed over her death (and to not celebrate a certain friend's freedom from a certain creepy doctor...)?
Regardless of the 'best' methods of grieving, I now have a plan and I intend to stick-!
Voices.
Correction: lots of voices.
I freeze, then cautiously move towards the low male tones. Had Jonathan not left after all? My stomach flips when I fail to hear Crane's voice amongst the men's. I swallow forcibly and slowly begin to back away.
Someone grabs my shoulders painfully tight.
"Hey! I found her!" The man (thief?) shouts. The other men stop chattering and lazily walk closer.
One, two, three... All together, I can count seven of them. Bloody hell... Nervously my fingers stop trying to prise the hands off me and instead scratch at my neck. I recount the men. There's still seven. I blink. Seven. Bite my lip. Seven. Still no Jonathan. No! That's a good thing, right?
"Are you sure it's her?" One asks; the lack of switched-on lights in the apartment and the ski masks the men all seem to be wearing, makes it impossible for me to know who spoke.
The beefy man gripping my shoulders shakes me lightly, surprisingly (thankfully) carefully for a man who had just broken into my home.
"Of courses it's her, Dex'! Who else can it be?" A few sniggers, and a murmur of voices follow the thug's words. The man who I'm guessing is Dex' coughs, shifting from foot-to-foot before grunting a reply.
"Can't be too sure, Alex. Let's go then." Dex begins walking towards me and my captor, drawing something out of his jacket as he goes. The other men carry on looting (?) my apartment.
"No! Wait! What are you doi-?" I splutter, instinctively shying away from whatever weapon the ski-mask clad Dex is reaching for.
Dex pauses mid-action, staring at me oddly, before resuming rummaging in his coat, talking as he does so.
"Listen doll, it's nothing personal but I-"
"Don't," I struggle fruitlessly against the wall of muscle holding me. No wait, he's taking me out of the apartment now? What the-? "Call me that, please."
Dex stares, drawing out a phone and starts typing in numbers into his battered mobile. Not a weapon. Well at least that's a start for the positives here...
"Well, the Boss wouldn't tell us your name. Scarecrow told us that you're a hostage and-"
Oh, bugger.
"You work for-? H-hey! What's that? What're your men pouring all over my apartment?" My nose tells me the answer long before Dex can reply. Funnily enough, all I can think of is how grateful I am for not many other of the tenants being in the block still, thanks that corporate holiday at Wayne Corp. And that Jay, my... quirky landlord, is going to kill me.
"Why," the raven haired man sneers, "that's gasoline, Miss Hostage, and we have instruction to burn down this place." At catching my bewildered stare, Dex shrugs, slipping his mobile back into his grey leather jacket. "Destroy if the evidence and all that, you know... Orders."
We reach the door, despite my struggling against the heavy handed man holding me. The sloshing of gasoline continues and I can hear some more of his men laughing at some joke behind me. Dex fumbles for a moment, then opens my front door, the wood dark in the lack of light. Had they been studying the schematics of my house? I shiver. Creepy.
The window at the end of the apartment corridor shows snow, swirling in the city's night air. I remember then that it's still January. The goose bumps on my skin tell me I'm an idiot for not demanding for my jacket before the kidnappers, well, kidnapped me.
Or maybe they don't want me alive... No, Jonathan could have-!
"Isn't it a pleasant night, Cara?" My neck snaps around at the sound of his distorted voice. The mask. The thug holding me makes a snickering laugh at my response. Yet before I attempt some sassy comment, Jona- Scarecrow reveals a needle, sauntering closer as he uncaps it. "Quite a perfect night to die."
"N-no! L-let's think a-about thi-!"
Dex mumbles something undecipherable just as I'm passing out. The needle already in my arm. I flinched and missed him move...
Frankly though, I feel sick of needles.