A/N: Thanks for reading! Y'all are just the sweetest and I appreciate all of your reviews immensely. This chapter is a little lighter...or is it? You decide. :)
"I can tell just what you want. You don't want to be alone. And I can say it's what you know, but you've known it the whole time."
Raven's fingers were curled tightly around her mug of herbal tea. Her knuckles were white. Her hands shook.
"RAVEN! WHERE ARE YOU?" Robin's voice shrieked at her.
She flinched.
His despair and fear were as clear as bells as they traveled down the psychic line. It took all of her dwindling concentration not to respond to him, whether in feeling or thought. She hadn't slept, had barely eaten, for two days now. Every time she tried to rest, Robin would howl at her through the mind-link. His feelings ebbed and flowed, spiked and flat-lined. She couldn't establish a pattern. One second he was shrieking like a banshee, begging for her help, and the next he was as stony and silent as a mountain.
The few impressions she witnessed were horrible enough to make her toes curl and her stomach churn.
A particularly bad episode was plaguing her at the moment.
"RAVEN! PLEASE! YOU SAID YOU WOULDN'T LEAVE ME HERE! YOU PROMISED!"
A strangled sob escaped her clasped mouth. It was not her own.
"NO! I DON'T WANT TO! I DON'T WANT TO! I DON'T WANT TO!"
The image of a raised katana sprang into her mind's eye. The silver blade sparkled ominously as it swung through shadows.
"RAVEN!"
"Raven?"
She snapped her head to the side, a wild look in her lilac eye.
Beast Boy stood behind her, his green paw on the back of the couch. As soon as he saw her face, he came to sit beside her. She didn't protest.
"It's him again, isn't it?" he asked softly.
She nodded, unable to speak. Beast Boy placed a heavy, sympathetic hand on her shoulder. She didn't swat it away.
"You gotta stay strong," he encouraged in an unusually subdued voice. "We can't tip Slade off."
Raven heaved a mangled sigh.
"I know," she whispered, closing her shadowed eyes.
A sudden spike of terror plunged into her heart, yanking her back into Robin's mind. She jerked forward as if she had been struck. She gasped and was transported to a completely different setting. Back at Titans Tower, her face went blank, her eyes went black, and her body went slack.
"Raven!" Beast Boy cried, but she was gone, hypnotized.
She saw a room of shadows and blood.
A decapitated body lay sprawled on an embalming table. She couldn't find the head.
Dark ruby drops trickled serenely to the floor, conglomerating into a puddle of gore. A scrawny boy stood beside the leaking, disfigured corpse. Raven could see his ribcage, could count each rung. His emaciated skin was as pale as the cadaver in front of him. The black of his hair blended into the gloom.
His back was to her, but she could feel misery pouring off of him in waves.
Slade had his glove on the boy's slumped shoulder as if he were a proud father.
Suddenly, the boy turned in her direction. She expected to see sorrow, but what she got was hostility—directed solely at her.
His face was monstrous.
She could see the skull protruding as shadows threw his bony head into relief. Blood was painted across his furious brow, his chin. His leer was evil. His teeth were yellowed. The blue of his eyes was bleached, practically white. They sparkled malevolently in the dark.
"Your fault," he spat at her.
The vision dimmed.
It was replaced with dawn-kissed windows and an open, homey living room. The gentle breath of the sea could be heard as it crashed against the rocks. Seagull squawks pierced the quiet morning every now and then. The faint notes of a song teased her ears. The exotic aroma of strong, perfumed tea wafted up to her nose.
Raven's entire body quivered like an earthquake. Her cloak stuck to her sweat-covered back. Magical black leaked out of her eyes. The pupils contracted and the irises faded back into lavender.
The ochre-colored, Jasmine tea splashed over the edge of the cup. It burned her fingers and stained the sofa.
With the tranquility of a bedside nurse, Beast Boy plucked the mug from her savage grip and placed it on the coffee table. He held onto her hands, refusing to let go. The Titans were already growing accustomed to Raven's recent, violent visions. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do to help when she slipped into a painful reverie. The best they could offer was support, staying beside her until she regained equilibrium.
She hadn't expected the mind-link to be this powerful; it was hilariously difficult to sift between their shared sentiments. They blended together like complimentary paint pigments. Her brain was perpetually muddled by his rage and agony.
Regardless, if this was the price she had to pay to secure Robin's safety, she would gladly suffer it.
Cyborg was still upset by the nuclear threat, but he couldn't deny the hard evidence Raven had provided. All the puzzle pieces clicked into place, much to his chagrin. The Titans were, for the moment, reunited.
Beast Boy had been particularly attentive since the revelation. Raven supposed he felt guilty for not believing her before. The exhausted Empath didn't read too deeply into his motives, nor did she fight his incessant ministrations. She would never admit it, but she needed the crutch he provided.
With a sick moan, she sunk heavily into the cushions. She felt drained, sore.
"What is it?" Beast Boy pondered and he gave her hands a comforting squeeze. "What'd you see?"
"A dark room," she began distantly, furrowing her violet eyebrows. "The same one from before."
"Anything new?"
She glanced quickly at Beast Boy, reading him.
If he was suspicious, he didn't look it. His impish, elfin face was curious and kind. His cropped, dark emerald hair was disheveled in the usual way—the spiked cowlick wobbled, bobbed. His pointed ears were alert and upright like a cat's as he waited for her to continue.
It was hard to lie to him, but she was resolute in her decision. No one was going to find out about the killings.
Robin's closeted skeletons were not hers to expose, she reasoned, but the pile of bones was growing larger with each passing hour. He already had four victims under his belt. How many would he have in a week? How many people would Slade force Robin to slaughter? She felt helpless, hopeless, but what could she do?
A migraine pounded behind her eyes as she contemplated these dark realities.
Plus, even though Raven required no further explanation as to why Robin did what he did, she knew the others wouldn't see it the same way. Oblivious thievery they could justify, but cold-blooded murder? That would be too bitter to swallow. It would re-divide them and she refused to let that happen again—Robin wouldn't survive it.
So, she kept silent on the grotesque subject. Robin would be back under their roof soon enough.
Whenever the Titans questioned her about a vision, she described settings and vague moods that might aid them in pinpointing a location. They seemed content enough despite the lack of gory details.
Now, however, she bit her lip as she deliberated what to divulge. She took another look at the changeling and decided he deserved some truth.
"Robin thinks I—we've abandoned him," she admitted with a tired groan.
Nodding, Beast Boy rubbed warmth back into her clammy fingers, radiating compassion. She basked selfishly in his honey-sweet energy. He was easy to talk to these days. Cyborg was always looking for a fight, despite their agreement, and Starfire was too keen. She wanted to know every single detail about Raven's visions, which was something the Empath couldn't deliver.
This left Beast Boy—an unexpected, but welcome, surprise.
Acting as her only confidant, he was the first one to rush to her side when he saw her fall into a trance; his boyish face was the first thing she woke up to; and his worried words were the first to reach her unplugged ears.
There was no irksome condemnation or unbearable angst in his steady stare. His feelings emitted concern for her and nothing more. Despite the fact that he could morph into a thousand different forms, his mind and emotions were incredibly singular. When he was happy, he was only happy. When he was sad, he was only sad. Even better, he kept his annoying, bravado quips to a record low.
She actually began to like him.
As the two opposites sat upon the sun-bathed sofa, Robin's frenzied feelings began to fade from her like smelted iron set out to cool; the boy wonder's thoughts went quiet on the psychic front. Exploiting this rare opportunity, Raven closed her eyes and her weary head sagged against the soft, linen couch.
"Uh, do you want me to leave?"
Raven's lid peeked open. Before all this insanity, she would have replied with an enthusiastic "Yes", but Beast Boy's easygoing presence was particularly comforting at the moment. The pulse of his wrist thumping against her helped keep her heart steady.
"That's ok," she replied, almost too low for him to hear. "You can stay—if you want."
He grinned his dimpled, Beast Boy-patented, grin and continued rubbing her slowly thawing hands. A faint blush bloomed on her cheeks.
The rising, pale light made her translucent skin sparkle and his fangs shimmer. Her burning eyes dimmed into a pleasant buzz. Her dusky lids grew heavy. The painful aftereffects of the vision melted away into the morning.
She re-shut her eyes and drifted into semi-sleep with Beast Boy's warm paws still wrapped around hers.
Far away from this touching scene, Robin was on all fours on the floor of the haunt's atrium. There was a soapy bucket and a bottle of bleach beside him. A red-hued sponge was in his hand. He scoured the stained concrete viciously, but there was always more blood to find.
With each push and pull of his tired shoulders, he hardened his heart.
The body and head were gone. He knew not where. Slade did not leave evidence. There would be no funeral; this victim would have no casket. The family would search the earth, but they would never find their lost beloved.
As if in answer to Robin's inquiry, the stench of something awful tickled his nose: burning hair and flesh.
He scrubbed harder and held his breath.