Too Soon Chapter 25 – Meanwhile

And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon.

The lunatic is in my head.
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'til I'm sane.
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
Brain Damage - Pink Floyd

Tiffany
Tiffany Ross sat quietly in her cute little garret on the top floor of an old row house in North Dublin. She had no idea where she was – even which country she was in – but she was pretty cozy, all things considered. The couple looking after her were older, chubby, friendly-looking people. They fed her six times a day. With little exercise, she'd been putting on weight with alarming speed, and they didn't even blink when she complained, just provided her with sweats - and sweets - in progressively larger sizes. She had no idea why she'd been kidnapped. It wasn't like her mom had any ransom money.

The woman, short and cute with watery blue eyes, was named Miss Krystow (privately Tiffany thought of her as Miss Crisco... she was droopy-round and very pale). Whenever Tiffany asked, she always said, "You were in danger, dearest one. We brought you here for your own safety. Papa and I will look after you until coast is clear." She had some sort of accent that Tiffany couldn't place. Maybe Russian.

"Then why am I locked up?"

Murphy was a big man, the remains of his hair a faded greying ginger, his cheeks pink, his eyes brown and beady. "For your own safety," he rumbled. "No way of knowing who's out there." He wasn't quite as warm-fuzzy as Miss Krystow. He sounded sort of Scottish to Tiffany.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but it's really boring here!" She had no access to TV or radio or internet, and the windows were shuttered, only letting in the faintest of gray light. But there were at least a couple hundred of books: all mystery and romance novels. Tiffany wasn't much of a reader, but there was little else to do. And in each romance novel, the beautiful, slim and feisty heroine was conquered by the smoldering love of a big, brave man whose initial attraction she resisted, and in each mystery novel, the sleuth nailed the perpetrator in the end. Tiffany rather liked this orderly little world, but she missed home: her mom, the condo with the pool and jacuzzi in the courtyard, their three cats. Taking their Corgi mutt for walks to the park. She'd been just about to start veterinary assistant training. "When can I go home?"

But they were blandly firm. "Believe me, Sweetheart. You don't want things too exciting." Murphy backed out and closed the door, locking it behind him.

Tiffany didn't know how long she'd been there when they brought her a black-and-white kitten to play with. The kitten had tidy little white toes and formal-looking tuxedo markings. She named him "Fabio" after the romance cover model. From her rather extensive experience with animals, Tiffany could tell that Fabio was about seven weeks old. She found herself watching the kitten's growth, day by day, and using it as a sort of clock.

She fed him regularly, played with him, groomed him, and talked to him. Fabio never said much back. In his estimation, Tiffany was rather short on conversational material.

•

Small
In a soft red world, a little being was swimming, tethered by a thread not much thicker than a human hair, and from that tether, life flowed in, growing incrementally hour by hour, day by day. Once a spirit outside time, now attached by that little thread, now its own tiny clock began to beat like a heart. A thought that didn't quite yet have a mind to think it, the little being sang a joyful song that didn't yet have a voice.

"Fwimming, fwimming, fwimming. I'm fwimminnnng...!"

That little being had almost nothing to do with Jerry Tyson, and everything to do with Kate Beckett and Richard Castle. That little being was literally swimming in love. And Kate Beckett, who had returned from her "vacation" or "honeymoon" or "family emergency leave" or whatever the hell it was, was swimming in something else: paperwork. And honestly, as she sat there cogitating over casework and gestating and preparing her depositions and following up on court appearances, the tedium was something of a relief.

If anyone knew she was catching naps in the supply closet, they never let on, though the pillow and blanket should've been a giveaway.

•

Betsy

In the three-plus weeks since finding Pillow Case Rick, Betsy the Wonder Dog had been working her waggy tail off. Mo took her out daily, sometimes to two or three sites. In between? Car rides. Naps. Things to smell. She was busy, and needed. Nothing made her happier. But a part of her was sad, too. Most of what she found was centered around Pillow Case Rick's evil brother and the evil lady, too. They'd left a trail of death and destruction all over the Eastern Seaboard. Betsy knew too much about tears, about bad smells and sad smells and, more and more recently, evil smells. She didn't know there were other dogs, looking all over the country, down into Mexico, up into Canada, from New Hampshire to Miami, from Virginia to New Orleans, in Buenos Ares and Dublin, Galway and Cork, Paris and the ancient lavender-scented back-roads of Provence, Sao Paulo and Cartagena and in the jungles outside Cabo San Lucas for traces, traces, traces, sometimes decades old. But Betsy was also looking for something very special – two young women. And she found hits in a gas station in South Shore. In a parking garage in Queens. Then nothing. This was on Betsy's mind, and her nose... well, the wind was on notice. Betsy was ready.

•

Michael

Somewhere in Hell, Michael Allen Jerald McGowran Tyson, aka 3XK, was surrounded with rope. And none of it was the right color, and the rope wound around him, faceless and cold. He couldn't fight or run or scream, and it hurt so very much, until he could finally feel it, feel what he had done as his eyes and lungs burst. Until he could finally realize he was sorry. That there was pain as great as his. Greater than he could even have imagined. Over, and over, and over.

•

Rose

In the Charybdis Psychiatric High Security Ward, Dr. Rose O'Shaunessy was crying in her sleep, clutching desperately at a blanket that didn't feel enough like a doll. In the dark place behind her eyelids, her mother crawled on the floor, begging. "Don't hurt Rosie. Don't. Please."

Da towered over Rosie, his face like stone, talking to Mum over his shoulder. "I knew you'd turn on me if you found out. I just assumed you were too stupid to suss it so early in the game."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see anything."

"Didn't see anything where?"

"ANYWHERE!" Mum was hysterical now. "We didn't see anything, did we, Rosie?"

"No, Mummy." Rosie was lying.

She'd been playing in the garden whilst Da was out on a call. Da always turned the compost heap. But, digging for worms to feed the birds, Rosie had found something near the bottom of the pile, a round thing, hard, stained brownish. At first she thought it was a ball, until she turned it over and saw the eye sockets. She brought it to Mum. "Look," she said, enchanted. "A little Halloween skull." Mum had snatched it away, her eyes wild, then smiled a fake smile.

"Rosie, that's lovely. Thank you. Now, I have a special game I'd like to play, and I need your help. We're going on a little trip, and we have to pack. Very quickly." She'd hauled Rosie into her room, grabbed a small suitcase, threw in a few changes of clothes and Rosie's favorite doll, and a copy of Goodnight Moon. Then Mum had packed a few of her own things in the same small case, and they'd been halfway down the walk when Da drove up in the car. Rosie couldn't remember, until that point, ever having been afraid of him. But her mother had wilted like a wax flower under a butane torch, and Da had smiled coldly, his hand clamping Rosie's arm as he swung her up against his shoulder. "I've got you, my little lass. Let's just go back inside," he'd said gently.

And now here was her mother, crawling on the floor. "I don't know what you're talking about. We didn't see anything."

Da stalked away from Rosie, still holding the knife. "Well, you're gonna see something now."

Rosie watched his arm slash down in a long, slow arc over her mother. She couldn't scream. If she screamed, she would die. She shrank back into a corner, into a tiny corner of herself, and disappeared, a diamond too small to see, pressed hard and hidden beneath a thousand miles of blackness.

The orderly gave Dr. Patel a call. "Looks like Dr. O'Shaunessy's catatonic again."

Dr. Patel sighed. She wondered what Castle had said to Dr. O'Shaunessy, so quietly that they didn't pick it up over the mic. She hoped he hadn't triggered this latest bout.

•

Petros

When you arrive at the Pearly Gates, you're alone. Everybody dies alone, on one level. But then there's another level. Just as Mephistopheles has infinite parasites on his tongue, with infinite nasty little biting mouths, so are there infinite pearly gates, and infinite Lights, and infinite Petros. E pluribus unum. E unum pluribus. Ad infinitum.

Infinite souls upload to their own cloud banks to have their deeds assessed by iSoul1.2 (which was once and evermore shall be in beta). But there will always be Infinity, and her Plus One - her date for dancing and champagne at the wedding of impermanence to eternity. I think we can also safely assume there's an open bar at the reception.

And so Petros had time to play a game of Crazy 8s with Mephistopheles. You really can't cheat at Crazy 8s, although it was Meph's nature to try, which Petros actually found endearing. The sheer consistency of evil makes it sort of predictable. Whereas goodness is sometimes a lot trickier to see, meaning that the road to Hell really should have been equipped with one of those parabolic mirrors that lets you see when you're about to turn a corner.

"Diamonds," said Meph.

They played on diamonds for a while. Petros said, "So how's Michael Allen McGowran, better known as Jerald Tyson, better known as 3xK?"

"Sucks to be him," said Meph, smiling evilly. That was the only kind of smile Meph had.

"Too bad," said Petros. "Kid never had a chance."

"Everyone gets a chance." said Meph. "He blew it."

"As soon as he's done feeling the suffering he inflicted on others, he'll be forgiven," said Petros serenely.

"Not by the ones left behind."

"Time is separation. Once they're beyond time, everything heals."

Mephistopheles looked at his watch. It had a million faces, and none of them were smiling. "You just keep spouting the party line, Pete. Skunks."

"What?"

"I'm changing the suit to skunks."

Petros looked down at the top card. It was an 8 of Skunks; this particular skunk sneered at him, and scratched at a patch of mange on its flank. He sighed. A tiny mushroom cloud of phosphorescent funk spurted up above the stack of cards. He laid down an 8 of hearts over it.

"Skunks can't be a suit. You have your choice of hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs. I'm going with hearts."

"But I like skunks."

"You don't actually like anything. You're just being perverse."

"All right, clubs." Meph pulled a club out of his ass and tried to hit Petros with it. He was blasted back against a cushy wall of cloud. Cards flew everywhere. Petros shook his head. "Unassailable good, remember?" He laid down a 3 of hearts. "This is turning into solitaire."

On the ground, amongst the pavers and shreds of cloud, Mephistopheles grunted, "Can't blame me for trying." Tiny, tarlike hands reached up from between the pavers, stretching like gum, and coated the demon in black creeping goo. He dissolved with a satanic guffaw. "Hurts so gooooooood!" he crowed, as his body hissed, bubbled, and seeped back down to the pit from whence it came.

•

Beckett

Dr. Burke got a call at four o'clock in the morning from his emergency page system. "A Katherine Beckett is on the line. She has an emergency."

"Put her through," he mumbled, half-awake. He sat up in bed, propped on pillows. His wife wore earplugs and a sleep mask, so it wasn't a problem. "Kate. How may I help you?"

"I'm so sorry to wake you, Dr. Burke. But you did say to call. I hope it's ok."

"Tell me what's happening with you."

"It's not me," she said. "It's Castle. He's having nightmares."

"Did he ask you to call me?" They'd discussed this, but Kate repeated it. "Castle doesn't want to 'see' anyone; he's already debriefing with Dr. Patel. But... I can't wake him up."

"What's going on?"

"Well, he's been talking in his sleep."

"Has he moved? That could mean night terrors. If he gets violent, keep your distance."

"He's not violent, just... weird. He sat up straight, said 'Hurts so good!' and lay back down again, laughing. It was creepy."

"What's he talking about?"

"First he was talking about skunks. Now he's barking. No – howling. No. Baying."

"Baying like a hound dog at the moon in June? I know I left my ukulele out here somewhere."

There was a long moment of silence, and then Kate heard a gentle snore from the other end of the line. "Dr. Burke?"

•

Maybe Betsy, but Probably Rick

Betsy was running in her sleep. She dreamed Pillow Case Rick was running with her, only he was a little boy smelling like leaves in spring and the plastic-wrapped chocolate marshmallow egg that she'd once gotten sick on when she found it on the lawn at the park. They were hurrying through city streets. She was late for school, feeling so small, trying to catch the bus and running as fast as she could on short little puppy legs. She was with him, looking up at things like the mysterious swing-down door of the big blue U.S. Mail box where Mother let him slide the envelopes in. Where did the envelopes go? Mother picked him up, he opened the heavy, creaking metal door, and the envelopes were swallowed whole by the rectangular mouth with its deep, metallic, croaking jaw. And Mother always seemed anxious about them. "Off go the bills with a wing and a prayer," she'd smile. Like there was something in them she didn't want to send away. For Betsy's part, almost every day a Bad Envelope Person came to Mo's house, and put new envelopes with scents from all the hell OVER THE PLACE right into the box on the porch. Betsy thought this the height of bad behavior. Sometimes when Mo or his wife opened the envelopes they would get all mad and scared and yell at each other about money. Betsy just hated the bad envelope mail person and the nose-burning spray from that one terrible time when she tried to bite him for making Mo's wife, Jamilah, cry. Bad, bad envelope spray man and his mean pieces of paper.

She growled in her sleep. Then she went back to waiting for the bus with tiny Pillow Case Rick and his mother, whom she couldn't see in her mind's eye, but who definitely smelled like a redhead. Yes. Some humans dream in black and white, some dream in color. Some remember nothing, some remember everything. Betsy dreamed in a range of black and white, and she dreamed in smells.

She stood at the bus stop with him, wagging a tail she couldn't feel. Watching him read it at almost-four-years-old: the B16.

"B-1-6" said the little boy.

"B-16. That's right, Richard," said his red haired mother. She was so young, so beautiful. Just a blur. Betsy saw him taking a giant step up into the bus and getting to put his own coins in the slot, clink clink clink. She saw the old bus driver in his neat uniform and cap, smiling from beneath his big mustache, giving Rick one of those little enamel tie pins: "Safety first, little man."

In dreams it's ok to take a puppy on the bus. She was struggling to climb up on the slippery, chrome-tube-edged seat to stick her head out the window. She couldn't tell if she was tiny Richard himself with his big blue eyes, leaving a nose-print on the clouded bus window glass, or herself, leaning her head out to catch the elusive scent of the missing girl, her jowls flapping in the rich, nuanced city breeze. They came to a stop, and the little boy got off the bus with his mother. Dream-puppy-Betsy followed them. And what Betsy smelled was something like the preschool smell that Mo's daughter came home with five afternoons a week, only Mo's daughter had sunscreen and no peanut butter. The faint menthol scent of finger paint, mac-and-cheese with cut up hot dogs, the corner where someone (not him) peed, the Lysol, the metallic smell of sweaty monkey-bar climbing, the sunflower left in its vase a day too long, the teacher's perfume, the little boy named Mikey whose weird light-haired mother hit him when he didn't want to go home. Poor Mikey. He seemed really familiar. Richard said, "If you want, you could come home with me and my mom. She's pretty. We could watch cartoons and eat ants on a log."

Michael. It was Michael who peed in the corner.

And of course, to top it all off, Betsy wasn't wearing any pants. Typical school nightmare.

Maybe she'd grow up to be a writer after all, if only her paws could type.

And maybe Rick would find the girl.
•

Dr. Burke

In the morning, Dr. Burke awoke with his phone to his ear, and no idea why. His last call had been from the overnight answering service, who had a record of Kate Beckett-Castle calling him at 4:23 a.m. He tried calling her, but she didn't pick up, because she was crying in the shower. People kept telling her that stuff like this is normal.

•

Small
Kate's tiny passenger doubled in size, flexing tiny stem-cell buds that would someday be arms and legs, sprouting a tiny tail that would become a spine, then apparently fade away to nothing. Fwimming in thircleth.

•

Mo

Betsy was asleep on the kitchen floor while Mo rubbed her belly with his foot and read the newspaper. There was a slightly damp circle along one fold, where Betsy had picked it up from the porch and carried it in for him. Why she loved the newspaper delivery lady but hated the mailman, he'd never know.

He read out loud to her and she twitched in her sleep with a soft groan.
"RICHARD CASTLE ALIVE. Mystery author kidnapped by 3XK serial killer, multiple accomplices still at large. Two arrested at press conference..."

Mo grinned. "That was a hell of a thing, Bets."

His phone rang, "Caller ID blocked." He answered it on a whim, hoping for extra work, hoping it wasn't a bill collector.

"Hello, uh, my name is Richard Castle, I'm looking for Mohammed Atah?"

"Speaking. Wow, hey, Mr. Castle, I wouldn't have thought to hear from you!"

"Please, call me Rick. Or Richard. Or Castle. Just no Mr."

"Well, all right then, if you'll call me Mo."

"Mo." The writer sounded pleased. "I saw you at the Twelfth Precinct yesterday. I just wanted to thank you and Betsy personally for your part in helping me..." he hesitated, "uh, in rescuing me. Her name's Betsy, right?"

"Yeah."

"I hear she has quite the nose."

Mo laughed. "You could say that. She's been a busy girl lately."

Castle could tell from his tone that all was not completely well. "You've been busy too?"

"Yeah. Normally she's not a body sniffer, but she's got a good nose for cold trails as well as hot, and we've been all over the country, last two weeks."

Atah didn't talk about the things she'd found, the things he'd seen. Horrible artifacts from lives ended in cruelty and despair. It had been hard and sad for both of them. He had friends play hide and seek with her, so she could find live people who loved her.

Castle said, "I wonder – I mean I know you're busy – would you like to meet up with me for coffee? Or, I dunno... a dog biscuit?"

"Uh..." Betsy must have noticed his change of mood. She got up from her snooze and shoved her nose under Mo's elbow, looking for all the world like she was listening in. Mo humored her, setting the phone on speaker mode. Castle's voice made her tilt like the dog in the old HMV ads. Mo took a sip of coffee. "I'm not sure what you're lookin' for here, Rick."

"Sorry, I'm- ok, what I'm really wondering is if maybe Betsy can help me find someone? I mean, I can pay, you know, whatever your rate, expenses, whatever..." his voice trailed off, but there was a desperation in it. Mo thought of Castle as he'd first seen him, sitting broken and filthy in the lady detective's arms, high as a kite, barely clinging to reality but taking a moment to be kind to his dog. Mo knew Betsy's judgment of character was impeccable, and that she'd taken a shine to Rick and Kate Beckett-Castle-whateverthehellnameitwas. He also knew that his overtime had paid a lot of bills, but that he and his wife hadn't taken a real vacation together since the baby was born. A little extra cash would be a welcome thing. Mo turned to the dog, whose tail was now thumping on the kitchen floor. "Hey, Betsy, you want to find Rick?"

She was at the door barking before he even had his shoes on.

•

Martha
Her hand was shaking. It had been weeks since the crash, and she still awoke from nightmares of life-or-death battles and endless searches, lost little boys, menacing Stage Door Johnnies lurking in the shadows backstage... Sometimes Jackson - Alexander - was there, and when he was, she was surprised at his steady, drily humorous, comforting presence.

In this particular instance, however, Alexander was off doing whatever the hell he did, and she wanted a drink, desperately. Even though she knew she wasn't an alcoholic, and she didn't really need it to get by, and the shaking was nerves, not withdrawal. She was fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.

She found her phone in the blackout-shaded darkness, and touched the speed dial. He picked up, answering sleepily. "Jim Beckett."

"James. I'm... sorry to disturb you."

She heard the anxiety in his voice. "Is everything all right? Katie..."

"Katherine's fine," Martha said. "Me, not so much."

"What's the problem?"

Martha hesitated. "I know you're going to think this is silly."

"I've heard a lot of silly things. I never would have expected you to say anything silly between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5:30 unless you were on Good Morning New York."

Oh, he'd seen that little debacle. What, twenty years ago? She blushed. "I was wondering, if..." she paused. "If you'd ever consider taking me to one of your meetings."

"We can catch the Tribeca 7am if you like."

"Seven!?"

He chuckled. "Sorry. So uncivilized. Let me look at the schedule... 8 am, Westside Episcopalian Meeting Room."

"I think I can make that."

"Good. I'll swing by in a cab and pick you up."

"It's not that I'm an alcoholic, I just..."
"You don't have to figure it all out, Martha. Especially not before noon."

•

Elise

Elise Mowrey had, for a moment, thought she was coming out of a nightmare - grabbed in a mini-mall parking lot, drugged and thrown into the trunk of a sedan. She awoke, and a red-haired angel of a woman stood over her, beaming.

"She's coming around." The cool hand on her cheek felt motherly. "I'm Dr. Nieman. What's your name, Sweetie?"

"Elise." Her mouth was dry. Dr. Nieman gave her a sip of water. She looked around; although she was on a bed, she wasn't in a hospital but rather a sort of curtained alcove in what had to be a very large, echoing room. She lay on an old-style cast iron frame bed, with a faded chenille spread and some patchwork quilt peeking out from beneath that. It was vintage shabby chic, somehow feeling more like a set than a bedroom.

"You've been out for a while, Elise." Dr. Nieman checked her eyes with a scope light. "No harm done, I think. Do you know what day it is?"

"Uh, Thursday?"

A tall, handsome man came to stand by Dr. Nieman's side. He had brown eyes and thick, wavy hair, and there was strange swelling to his face, as if he'd had some kind of operation and the inflammation hadn't gone down yet. Elise was reminded of her own sweet-16 nose job, noticing just the very faintest bruising below his eyes. He reached down and ran a gentle finger through Elise's blonde hair, tucking it back behind her ear. "No, it's Friday. May 9."

Elise struggled to sit up. "Oh, my God, I'm missing rehearsal..." She realized, dumbfounded, that she was strapped down to the bed.

"That's the least of your worries, Elise."

"Who - who are you?" she breathed.

"My name's Jerry Tyson," he smiled. And he gestured across to three other men, who appeared from out of the shadows beyond a curtain. "These good people will be looking after you until I kill you."

He spoke to the three men. "See that you get Castle's key and carry out the plan, no matter what happens to me. I want him running scared. I want them all chasing their collective tails. I want to make them look like the morons they are."

"I don't see much use in that if you're dead," said the one with the thick glasses (later known as Bob).

"I'm not going to die, and it's what we agreed to. Go back on that, and you might be the ones running." The three men blanched, white as poached chicken.

Jerry walked away from the bed, leaving Elise panting with fear. She looked up at the doctor. "You're a woman. How can you do this?"

Kelly Nieman smiled coldly. "I believe in equal opportunity." She glanced over at the three nondescript men. "You have your instructions, and you can take full advantages of the perks until then. Just remember, any DNA you leave on her is your problem, not mine."

Elise lay back, wild-eyed, listening to Dr. Nieman's heels clicking away into the distance, then the whoosh of elevator doors opening and closing. Ding. Whir.

She looked at the three men standing over her. They introduced themselves quite politely: Bob Jones and Bill Smith and Ronald ("Call me Ronald!") Brown. They were so nondescript as to be nearly invisible to a girl like Elise: all of them late-forties, average height and build, greying, thinning hair, puffy skin and a bit grooming-challenged. She was struck with the realization that they had been watching her for weeks – at the laundromat, on the bus or the metro, at the post office and coffee houses, even the beach. Because they were ordinary and seemed shy out in public, she hadn't noticed them. Being young, blonde, athletic, and long-legged, she was sadly accustomed to rude attention from strangers. Handsomer, louder, stupider men hit on her all the time. These three men – whom she had trouble telling apart - had just glanced over, then glanced away, unwilling to expose their lust in public, hunting her, learning her routes and routines. They'd swiped her out of the parking lot at a dance supply shop on Long Island. She wondered if anyone even knew she was gone. She'd been known to cut a class or two.

Ronald said, "We knew by your walk. You're the one."

"What do you want from me?" she quavered.

"Oh, we want you to dance for us. And model. We have all kinds of sets. Clothes and stuff. It'll be fun."

Bill said, "We're filmmakers. Photographers."

Bob said, "I'm just a hobbyist." He snort-chuckled.

They let her off the bed, and she explored the studio. She was still a bit dizzy from the drugs and had trouble balancing; Bill took her arm and led her around. He smelled somewhat metallic. No. It was antifungal cream. He probably had athlete's foot.

At the end was a small stage, its curtains long gone, and above the stage a hand-lettered sign:

"SOUTH BRONX DANCE COLLECTIVE!"

It was almost as large as a high school gym, and clearly underground, with high clerestory windows that had been boarded up. The floor was old and a bit scratched, but fairly smooth and swept clean. The walls were rendered colorful, even chaotic, by graffiti.

Ronald pointed out a ballet barre, still affixed along one wall, backed with a mirror. "We got you the best mirror we could get. So you can keep an eye on your technique. We'll be having shoots almost every day, so you'll have a good reason to stay in shape."

"Every day?"

"You're gonna be here for a while."

"Can I talk my way out of this?" she wondered. She could hear the sound of buses and the occasional car horn from a street level ten feet above her. "I'm not a model," she said.

Bill stared at her. "Of course you are. We picked you."

There was a huge rack of costumes, and an intriguing pile of props, and on the stage a backdrop rack contained roll after roll of different scenes.

They had so many costumes, and there were drapes - filmy, gossamer drapes, lacy drapes, velvet and brocade and crisp, spare linen. They made it clear that she was expected to model the costumes and drapes for them. Sometimes she wore full costumes as she danced; sometimes she posed in drapes; sometimes she wore only shoes, or gloves, or a mask, or ropes. Of course she balked at first, and Bob, the quiet one, picked her up by her head, surprisingly strong, her skull pressed between his hands, her arms and feet flailing. "If you give us any shit, I'll kill you," he said.

"Okay. Okay. Don't..." She could barely speak, his hands clamping on her jaw. He set her down and said, "I think you should wear the blue dress first." He grabbed it off the rack and handed it to her.

She stood there crying, holding it. "Is there a place to change?" she whispered.

"Nope, just go ahead."

Ronald had a camera out. He photographed the whole process, taking off her street clothes - ("Panties too.") - then putting the blue satin dress on.

"Now dance," said Bill. She was too afraid to move, but too afraid not to. She danced, jerkily at first, then fell into it. They put music on. Waltz of the Flowers.

As the days went on, most often she wore nothing, or just panties. The stale, temperate air of this basement was actually comfortable compared to the sweltering humidity of New York in late May. She told herself she'd get used to it. She told herself that she was biding her time, would make a break when it was safe. But they never left her alone, although when they hurt her, they gave her a little time to clean up and recuperate. There was a shower, with a bottle of Pert All-In-One and a safety razor and some dollar store shaving cream. They wanted her smooth for the photos. Sometimes one of them would come in with her. Sometimes they let her be, just watching.

They all seemed very much alike, but soon she was able to differentiate them much better. Bob seemed to have a nearly inexhaustible sex drive, and although he didn't say much, he could be really rough. She hated him the most.

Bill was twitchy, and tended even to giggle, like he was just playing around, like he didn't really want to hurt her but oops, there it was. "Sorry. Oh, come on, was that so bad?"

And Ronald? The man would not shut up. He talked, telling her everything he was doing, and always the question, "Do you like that? Do you like that, little girl? How about this? Do you like this? I know you like it. Smile."

He expected her to say yes, so she lied, because she didn't want him to hit her anymore. She just wanted to dance. They couldn't keep up with her. They couldn't touch her when she danced. Once she rolled herself in the Spanish Web, up by the ceiling, and refused to come down. They came with a ladder and she started gnawing and tearing at the silk. She thought it might be nice to fall and break her neck. But the silk only gave partway, and she swung down despite herself, crashing into the aluminum ladder, nearly sending Ronald flying. That felt good, until he recovered. "You think that's funny, little girl?"

It wasn't funny.

Her captors took pictures of her in sets, fronting painted backdrops: a Victorian boudoir, a Regency ballroom, a Tudor garden, a Roman bath. A great many of those pictures were nude. She could do nothing about this. When she resisted, they tied her up. They did things to her, sometimes together, sometimes one after another. Often they photographed or recorded what they did. They told her they were creating art: art of the moment, art of the human transcendence of adversity. They weren't artists. They were just consumers, vampires. They couldn't create a fucking thing. But they developed a following for the series of photos they put out on the internet: a small, faceless, fragile woman at the mercy of three men. Some folks will pay to see such things.
•

Arlene
If Arlene Perlmutter had known what Elise was enduring, she would have been furious. She would have switched places, because she was built for that purpose, offering a sexual and emotional outlet to unlovable men. But she couldn't know, could she? Arlene was too busy trying to support poor Sidney, who had his hands full with more autopsies and bits of bodies than any human being should have to deal with in a year, let alone a month. The NYC coroner's office was taking in overflow body parts to identify from all over the country. Lanie Parish was clearly feeling worn down by the sheer volume, and Sidney Perlmutter himself felt the strain as well. He was so lucky to have Arlene to talk to. She had a magical way of just listening, with that expression of kind concern on her face. He was lucky to have her. They were solving cold case after cold case, or at least linking them, and he felt grim satisfaction, watching the dominoes fall.

Lanie
At night, Lanie Parish sometimes woke sobbing, and Esposito held her. "Shhhh. Shh. It's ok, Chica. It's ok."

"I've never seen it like this, Javi. There's so many. Fucking bastards."

"Yeah," he whispered, and pulled her closer, stroking her curly hair. "I know."

•

Elise

Elise spent most of her time inside her own head, retreating in further and further as their violations went deeper and deeper. From the conversation amidst the three of them, she knew they were growing tired of their doll, with her tears and bruises and balky refusal to smile for the camera. After she was used up, they'd give her to 3XK, and he'd do the dirty work of killing her as planned, in his signature style. And if he never showed... of course there were contingency plans with Kelly, the red-haired lady who'd been there when she first awoke. At any rate, she overheard the phrase "This will go over big with the snuff market," and her heart froze.

She kept dancing.

•

This was VERY difficult to write, and I don't think I would have been able to finish it without the help of an imaginary dog and an imaginary baby. Even in the darkest stories, there is the possibility for joy.

Home stretch, peeps. Thank you for reading!