A/N: Ohhh yeah. Finally, the big moment. I know you've all been waiting for this. Me too, my dear readers. Me too.
Props to my beta, Denebola Leo, for helping me make the big scene extra juicy and just being awesome in general.
Trigger warning: Graphic violence. References to bad things happening to young girls. If you've made it this far, you know what I'm talking about.
Chapter 23: Confrontation
When Jenova took over, Cloud had a pretty limited window of visibility into his life. When she took over forcefully, when he was too weak or tired to resist her, he blacked out. He knew nothing until she let him back in. But this was different. He was this close to Tifa and Ricky and Jo, and he didn't trust her enough to give her complete control.
But understanding what was happening was difficult. It was like jumping to see out a window that was too high, getting only a second each time to look through it, and then trying to piece together a movie from the disjointed images. He saw his wrists snapping through the ties. He saw the green stuff floating in the air. He saw Nara getting up from the floor, looking more terrified than ever. He saw the grass and the dogs and the entrance gate.
'Wait! Where are you going?'
It was odd to know that he was speaking but not making a sound.
"Back to Edge, of course. She was the last one here."
It was even odder to hear her using his voice, sounding like him but not like him.
'That wasn't the deal! You promised to return control after—'
"I promised no such thing. I simply said I had no desire to live out your dull life. Which I do not. Once we are on the boat to Junon, you can control it again."
It? Like my body is some kind of vehicle that anyone can drive? Cloud pushed forward aggressively, wrenching back control of his body and mind. Her consciousness faded into the background.
'My, my. Testy, aren't you? I was only trying to keep us moving in the correct direction.'
She sounded annoyed, but not particularly angry or surprised. It was easier than he had expected. Cloud was glad to know that he still held the majority in his own body.
"No. We're here to save Tifa and Jo, and we're not leaving this town until we have."
He turned back toward the mansion and started back up the walk. A twinge of pain in his wrists drew his attention. Around the outsides of both wrists, there was a deep, reddened groove. Apparently Jenova wasn't too concerned about injuring him when she snapped through those zip ties. At least it hadn't torn through his skin.
He didn't want to waste the magic points to heal them, but they were tender enough to affect his sword fighting, so he used a low-level cure that dulled the sharpest of the pain. He had no idea how much he was going to need to get through this place. These people were just other employees like Echo, everyone with their own reasons to work for this organization, and he didn't want to rack up casualties here if he didn't have to. Not unless he knew they deserved it.
When he reached the inside hallway, he looked around for Nara. The empty marble floor gleamed up at him. He continued on to the staff room where he'd been chipped and out the doorway on the other side. There, farther down the hall, he saw the crumpled form of the girl.
"Shit. Nara." He ran toward her, his footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. He rolled her onto her back and scanned her for blood or any sign of injury, but he couldn't see anything. Then he looked at her eyes, and he understood. They were moving.
"You ran into a fence," he said with a twinge of guilt. "I'm sorry. I couldn't tell you ahead of time. Here."
He bent down and picked her up from the floor. Her limbs were loose and floppy, but her eyes watched him carefully.
"Don't be scared," he said, turning back the way he had come. "I know you don't understand what's happening, but…the abilities you had…they came from your geostigma. The disease came from alien cells that infested your body. They're gone now."
He brought her back into the chipping room and laid her down on the couch. Her eyes asked a million questions, and he couldn't just leave her without answering them. He sat down next to her with a sigh.
"Yes, that means your abilities are gone, too. I'm sorry," he said. "But trust me; you're better off without those in your body." Then, feeling another surge of guilt, he reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the zip ties. Gently, he brought her hand down to the floor and secured her wrist to the leg of the couch. He didn't want her to suffer any more because of him, but it wouldn't do to have her setting off the alarm before he could get Tifa and Jo out of there, either.
Cloud stood and returned to the computer with the floor plan, revising the model in his head with the updated map. It was slightly different than the one Echo had shown him, and the rooms weren't labeled, but there were many more fences here, in many more colors. Unfortunately the colors weren't labeled either, so he had no idea what any except blue would be. There was no legend or key to be found.
The Wet Room would be someplace highly restricted. He wouldn't want too many people knowing about it. Cloud followed the lines from every entrance on the floor plan, counting the number of different fence types they would have to pass through. He assumed that they would move inward from the doors, with increasing levels of security the deeper one went within the house. Finally, he traced an area that would require someone to have all seven levels of security to reach. There was a lot of red around that area, blocking off every doorway and the entire hallway. There were several rooms there with the potential to be the wet room. He would just have to check them all.
Finished with the computer, Cloud turned back to the unmoving shape on the couch. He couldn't just leave her without at least a warning. "Listen…this isn't a good place. Bad things are being done in this mansion, and if you knew, you wouldn't want to be a part of it. Besides, things are going to get hairy here very soon. Nicky…" he hesitated. "Nicky won't be your boss anymore. As soon as you're free, you need to get out of here. You should go back to your family and try to live a normal life."
The pleading in her eyes was torturous. Cloud supposed he should probably be grateful that she couldn't talk and make him feel even worse.
He left her behind and returned to the back hallway. It appeared that Mick hadn't spent too much time getting replacements in for the evening crew, because the halls were pretty empty.
He approached the place where he had found Nara on the floor. Kneeling down, he searched for some sign of the fence Nara had tried to pass. There was nothing like the blue lights that clearly delineated the level one areas. He held his hand out in front of him and took several cautious steps forward. He knew the fences had the potential to throw the intruder back a bit, but after he had moved a good twenty feet forward with no reaction of any kind, he started to think he was mistaken about where it was. Jenova didn't have much to say after he wrenched back control of his body, and she certainly wasn't bothering to explain how it worked.
By the time he had passed through at least three types of fences, he started to relax. He didn't understand how it worked, but it seemed that he simply wasn't triggering them. Maybe Jenova was grudgingly keeping her word.
Up to that point, the other security guards he encountered hadn't given him any trouble, either. They all seemed to be replacements as well, and had no reason to question an unfamiliar person wearing an employee jacket. It was nice not to have to fight anyone.
"Hey! Hey you!"
Cloud groaned softly and turned around. "Yeah?"
"Who're you?"
"Jacob Mack," Cloud said. "I'm one of the replacement guards hired for the night."
The man looked him over suspiciously. "I ain't never seen you before. I had to work here for years to get a level four security clearance. Why would they give some newbie that kind of clearance?"
"Maybe they just didn't like the way you looked," Cloud shrugged.
The man scowled and began reaching for something in his belt. Damn, they were twitchy here. He really needed to watch himself unless he wanted to make this difficult.
"I've never worked for Brother Nicky before," Cloud said smoothly, "but I have high level clearance with Brother Mitchell."
The guard hesitated with his fingers just inches from his belt. "Brother Mitchell?"
"Yeah," Cloud nodded. "They asked me to fill in. Seems like they were desperate."
"Ohhh." His face cleared. "Man, they really were, weren't they? I hear they only managed to get about a third of the security they usually have around this place." He leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. "One of the old timers told me they only have one guy working in the control room and he's sicker than shit, but they said someone had to stay." He laughed garishly. "He's probably been pukin' his guts up the whole time. Whatever they got goin' around, I hear it's nasty. That's why I demanded so much in hazard pay."
"Mm. Maybe I should've asked for more," Cloud said.
"Yup. Live and learn, my man. Live and learn." He clapped Cloud on the shoulder and leaned in closer. "Say, can I ask you something, just between us?"
Cloud stared at him warily. "Ok."
"Do you think you could put in a good word for me with Brother Mitchell? Or his chief of security or whatever? I hear it's much more laid back over there. To be honest, Mick gives me the willies." He shuddered for effect. "And I hear they have cake in the break room there, year round, whenever they want it. Free cake! Is it true?"
"Mm. Yeah. The really good kind of cake too, with the marbled frosting," Cloud said. "But let's be real, here. I don't even know you-" he checked the man's name tag. "-Zare. Why would I put my reputation on the line and recommend you?"
Zare looked back at him blankly. "Well, I'm a real good worker. I show up on time every day and I'm never a minute over my lunch time...well except that once when I had to pick up my wife from the dentist and then I guess I was late-"
"Zare."
"-that one morning that the weather was really bad but everyone was late that day so it didn't really matter and I always pick up people's shifts so they can-"
Zare."
"-go on holidays or like if the sitter canceled last minute or something so-"
"Zare!"
"..huh?" Zare asked, snapping out of his impromptu interview.
"Tell you what. I really don't have time to be stopped like this ten more times. If you can find a way to keep the rest of the guards in your unit off my back, I'll see what I can do."
"Oh yeah, totally!" Zare's face lit up. "I'm really good at improvising solutions like that, see like-" Zare turned around and cupped his hands around his mouth. "Cake in break room C everyone! It's my birthday! Cake in break room C!" He turned back once to grin at Cloud. "Everybody loves free cake." Then he continued down the hall, bellowing his announcement over and over.
Cloud chuckled and went the opposite direction. "Whatever works." A couple of guards passed by him with barely a glance, clearly headed to break room C. Surprisingly, he made it through the rest of clearance level four without being questioned once. It was a large area with quite a few guards, and he was making good time through the mansion.
Unfortunately, security was stepped up in level five. Cloud gave his "security clearance from Brother Mitchell" excuse, but it was wearing thin. The short, red-headed guard in front of him, for instance, didn't seem to be buying it.
"Really? What level clearance you got over there?"
"Uh, seventh," Cloud said.
"Is that so?" the man asked, reaching for something in the back of his belt. "Well Brother Mitchell only has three levels of security."
"Oh. Damn," Cloud said. The man didn't even see the left hook coming at him. He went down like a sack of potatoes, dazed but still conscious. Cloud took the opportunity to pull out those handy zip ties and secure the guard's wrist to a metal pole. "Sorry about that, man," he said, rummaging quickly through the guard's pockets. "Put some ice on it when you get the chance."
"What? What the hell? Hey!" The guard jerked against the zip tie, but it held fast.
"Nice phone," Cloud said, examining the model in his hand. Apparently, regular guards didn't get the same level of perks as enforcers, because it was just a basic, generic phone.
"Hey! Give that back!" The man swiped at him with his free hand, but Cloud stepped neatly out of his range.
He started to turn it over to look at the back, but he must have bumped a button because the screen lit up. The man's background was a sweet family photo that made Cloud feel homesick. The guard had his arm wrapped around the waist of a pretty brunette, with a little girl and boy each holding one of the adult's hands. Well, shit.
With a frustrated sigh, Cloud popped off the back and removed the battery before tossing the phone in the guard's lap. Smashing it would have been too cruel.
He knew first-hand how miserable it was to lose the life you had stored on your phone.
A group of kids was already milling around in front of the stables by the time Marlene arrived. Denzel was easy enough to spot since he was a head taller than most of the kids, but almost immediately, Reno whistled and everyone ran to line up in front of the doors.
Reno glanced over the clipboard in his hand and then scanned the kids. After a moment, he tossed it on the ground. "Ok! You," he said, pointing at the first kid, "You're on feeding." Then he pointed to the girl next to him. "You, grooming." He continued walking down the line, assigning jobs. When he reached Denzel, he smirked. "You're shoveling shit."
"Again?!" Denzel protested. "Come on! It's not my turn again. You're not even going off your sheet."
"Nope. I just don't like you," Reno said, continuing on to the next boy in line.
When he reached Marlene, he eyed her critically. "You know, your pops kept me entertained for hours the other night. He finally left after threatening my firstborn child and everyone I've ever loved." Reno laughed at that. "Ah, well, I was gonna have you fill the water troughs, but I dunno if you can carry those buckets, half-pint."
Marlene pouted. "I'm stronger than I look," she said.
"Ah, watering sucks anyway. Why don't you go help Jazz with grooming? You get to pet the pretty birdies!" he said condescendingly, patting her head like a dog. "Tools are on the right side, just inside the main door."
Marlene scowled and waited for him to walk around the corner of the barn before settings her sights on Denzel. Her mouth pressed into a hard line as she marched over to him with determination. He was standing near the corner of the barn, glowering at the shovels. He was so tall now. She wouldn't be able to get in a good swat from where she stood, so she climbed up on the bench beside him.
He looked over at her, puzzled. "What are you—OW! What the hell, Mar?" he asked, rubbing the back of his head.
"You told me you and Alicia were just friends. Do you always…" she lowered her voice to a hissing whisper. "…have sex with your friends?!"
"Wait, what?" Denzel's hand dropped away from his head. "What are you rambling about?"
"Lexi says she walked in on you and Alicia in her dorm room."
Denzel laughed, and Marlene had to resist the urge to smack him again. "It's not funny, Denzel! I don't like being lied to!"
"Ok, I'm sorry for laughing," he said, eyeing her twitching hand warily. "But I didn't lie to you, Marlene. That never happened. Maybe Lexi had a really vivid dream and thought it was real. Or maybe a hallucination. Weird stuff happens at Hubble House."
Marlene narrowed her eyes, studying his expression. She had a pretty good bullshit detector, and he really did seem sincere. But then again, so had Lexi. So if neither of them were lying, one of them was mistaken. It seemed unlikely that Denzel would be mistaken about something like that.
"So…nothing's going on with Alicia?" Marlene asked, her tone gentler. "You could tell me if there is, you know. I mean, I'd think you were stupid, but I'm not gonna get mad or anything."
"Nothing. I swear," Denzel said, his blue eyes clear and wide.
Marlene huffed and hopped down from the bench. "Ok. I believe you." She pointed one small finger up at him. "But you're gonna have to explain it to Lexi. I'm not your dang messenger."
Jo didn't dare peek out from under the bed skirt. The screaming had finally stopped, but so had Tifa's voice. Nicky was breathing harshly, coughing and groaning. Someone was moving around out there, but not very easily.
"Jo-o-o…"
Jo clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. It was hoarse and rough, but it was Nicky's voice.
"You're so predictable, Jo. I knew you would give her that water. She fought that pretty hard…" he coughed again and something crashed to the floor. "…but she couldn't stay awake forever."
Something was being dragged against the carpet. She could hear unidentifiable thumping and clattering sounds, and she tried to curl herself into an even smaller ball.
"But…it's ok. Baby girl. Daddy's not mad at you." His words were slightly slurred. "I jus…need you to help me…get Tifa back…to her cage." The moving sounds finally stopped, but his voice did not. He panted heavily. "If you do that…I won't punish you. S'not your fault…"
Happy place, happy place!
Jo's happy place was in her best friend's basement, three years ago. They sat in beanbag chairs and ate junk food and watched R-rated movies and giggled until the sun came up. She went there when things were too much to handle, and she could block out the sounds and thoughts and feelings of the present. She was very good at floating away, but it seemed that she couldn't muster the strength today. Nicky's voice invaded her happy place, poisoning it.
"Enough…fooling around now…Jo." His voice held an underlying urgency – no longer calm and soothing, but at least he didn't sound angry. When he got angry, she always knew things were going to get bad. "I know…what you're thinking," he panted. "I know you like Tifa. I know you don't want to do anything to hurt her." He coughed once, but it turned into a pained gasp. It was several moments before he spoke again, and his voice was strained. "But…Tifa hasn't been a good girl. She needs to take her punishment. I don't…want to punish you…for what she did…" He wheezed again. "Fuck!"
Jo's hand clamped over her mouth. Tears squeezed from her eyes and dripped down her cheeks.
"Fine." His tone changed, and there was the anger she'd feared. She'd hesitated for too long and now it was too late. "Charles will be here in a minute. He'll take care of Tifa, and then he'll come for you. And when it's time for Tifa's punishment, you'll be right there with her."
Jo curled herself more tightly into her little ball. She wouldn't betray Tifa. She couldn't.
"That's what you want, isn't it?!" he called hoarsely. "To be with Tifa?!" His fist slammed against the wall.
Her shoulders shook with sobs. She shoved her fist in her mouth to muffle the sounds.
Suddenly, Nicky's voice grew quiet. "Well, at least Mick will be happy. He's always wanted two girls at once."
A surge of terror shot down to the ends of her toes. Not him! Not Mick!
"I've protected you from him for a long time, you know," Nicky grunted. "I didn't want that barbarian touching my little girl. But once you've betrayed me…well, I guess you're not my little girl any more, are you?"
Mick was his head guard. He was a giant slab of meat and muscle with a mean face and an even nastier reputation. He had escorted the girls to the red room a couple times, glowering down at them the entire time. Despite the fact that he had delivered them to Ricky without incident, it made them both uneasy. And when Mary had started to get more combative, when Nicky had grown impatient with her attitude, he had threatened to send her to Mick. 'After he's done playing with you, he'll snap you like a pencil.' That was the last time Jo ever saw her.
A sob slipped past her hand.
"I see you there, baby girl. Under the bed. Come on out." His voice was full of warmth and understanding. "I really don't want to punish you. I know, she can be convincing. It's not your fault. She tricked you. She manipulated you. She used you."
She…tricked me. Used me. There was a part of her that knew it wasn't true, but still she latched onto the excuse.
Slowly, hand over hand, Jo pulled herself forward. Her head poked out under the bed skirt.
"Hey, sweetheart." Nicky smiled at her, but Jo melted back in horror. Nicky's pants were mostly pulled up but unbuttoned. He had his shirt pulled over the top, but everything, from his thighs to his stomach, was soaked with vivid red. One of his front teeth was crooked, hanging on with one side, and his nose had traces of blood underneath.
"I know, I know," he said hurriedly. "It looks scary, but I'll be ok. Just help me get things back in order and I'll have Charles bring me to the doctor to get fixed up."
Trying not to look at the horror, Jo pushed herself out from under the bed and stood on shaky legs.
"That a girl. Come on, baby. Just grab her under the arms, ok? Lift her up a little and you can just drag her over to the cage."
Jo forced herself forward mechanically, seeing nothing but the woman on the floor. She was lying face up with her eyes closed. She was truly the prettiest lady Jo had ever seen, and she couldn't help thinking that she would have made a fortune on the streets.
But for all the violence Jo had heard, Tifa appeared to be sleeping peacefully. A lock of hair was flopped across her face. Jo reached down and brushed it to the side.
"Just stand above her head and grab under her armpits," Nicky nudged. "There's nothing you can do to help her now. She earned her punishment."
Slowly, Jo bent down, carefully wedging her hands beneath Tifa's shoulders. I'm sorry, Tifa…I have to do this. When she thought she had a good grip, she tried to lift. Her right hand slipped out like she was covered in slime. At that moment, the rectangular panels around the room slid open and emergency lights began to flash.
Jo had only seen the silent alarm tripped once before, and it had caused a flurry of activity that time. Nicky's security people had suddenly been everywhere, hustling her back to her room and speaking to Nicky in hushed voices.
There was no flurry of activity this time. Nicky's nostrils flared and his eyes flickered from side to side. "He couldn't already…there's no way he…doesn't matter, he'll be paralyzed…guards will bring him in…I can show him…but just in case…" Nicky mumbled to himself.
There was a wild look in his eyes as they snapped to Jo. He reached behind his back and pulled out a small black pistol that Jo hadn't even known existed. And he was pointing it right at her.
"Forget the cage. Bring her to me. Now, Jo."
By the time Cloud reached level six security, he had accumulated a decent collection of cell phone batteries. His excuse held less water the higher he went.
"Hey, you!"
Cloud sighed. Here we go again. He turned around to look at the newest guard to challenge him. "Yes?"
"You don't have clearance to be here."
Cloud stared him down. "I got past all the fences, didn't I?"
The guard frowned as he approached. "Can I see your chip?"
Wearily, Cloud held up his arm, glad he'd at least gotten that far before Jenova butted in. The guard pulled a device from the back of his belt that looked a bit like a grocery store scanner. A red line of light passed over his forearm where the chip was placed.
The guard looked down at the screen. "This says you only have level one clearance."
"Weird. Must be defective," Cloud said. "Hey, your collar's messed up." The guard was slow to react. Cloud grabbed the back of his collar on both sides of his neck, his arms crossed, and then pulled his elbows together, compressing the arteries on both sides.
The guard's eyes bulged and his mouth moved.
"I know," Cloud said apologetically. "Just give it a few seconds."
The guard reached up, scrabbling uselessly at the arms cutting off his blood flow. His eyes rolled back into his head, and then Cloud was holding his dead weight. Moving his grip underneath the guard's armpits, Cloud carried him to a side hall and propped him against the wall. Mentally thanking Nara for the absurd amount of zip-tie cuffs she'd given him, he secured the unconscious guard to a water pipe running along the wall.
He really needed to speed things up. He was leaving a pretty visual video trail, and even if the lone control room guard was spending a lot of time in the bathroom, he was bound to be caught eventually. In fact, he was pretty surprised no one had sounded the alarm yet – either coming across one of his incapacitated friends or someone getting free.
Cloud moved up to level seven and walked right through the fences without meeting single other soul. It seemed that Ricky had so few people that he trusted with his secrets that he couldn't replace them when they got sick. Of course, knowing some of his secrets, Cloud could understand why his inner circle was so small.
He stood looking at the first of the doors in level seven security. A placard with "Control" in blazing gold letters was secured at eye height just to the right of the door. Well that was easy. Getting the control room out of the way first would make the other rooms much easier.
Cloud crept up to the door and listened intently. He could hear the buzz of tiny fans cooling electronics, but nothing else. Not a chair creak or a slosh of coffee or a sigh. Crouching down, he eased open the door a tiny bit. Nothing happened. He eased it open a little bit more, and then Ricky's paranoia did the work for him. There were corner-mounted mirrors on both sides of the room, and from his angle, he could see the every empty chair on the rectangular control panel.
"Oh. Ok then," Cloud said, standing up and strolling right in. There were dozens of monitors in here, lining the three walls and all facing the center. It took some time to look at all of them; there were far too many screens for one person to watch at once. Cloud started scanning them. There were definitely cameras he had missed along the way. A lot of them, in fact. He'd disabled any he saw, but there were at least two active video feeds showing guards fighting against zip ties. He came across a third zip-tied guard, but he didn't seem to be in any distress. He was bouncing a small ball off the opposite wall and catching it with his free hand.
There was only one other video feed of interest. He was drawn in by the flashing red lights. There were dozens of them, flashing out of sync on six racks. It was an epileptic's nightmare. It was the server room.
"What's he storing that needs that much space?" he asked the room. There was more than enough to store all of the security video for years. Decades, even. He'd have to make sure to drop by there for some necessary sword practice.
Every other video feed showed something innocuous or was just an empty room. There was no Tifa, no little girls, no cages, and no Ricky.
Cloud continued looking around the control room. There were six chairs facing the monitors; two on each side. Between each pair of chairs were solid landline phones, all flashing with emergency messages. That probably explained why he hadn't seen the remaining force of Ricky's security coming down on him. The guards may have been found or freed, but there was no one in the control room to take the calls. It was hard to mount an organized response without an organizer.
With the lack of resistance in level seven, he may have gotten a bit lax in his surveillance. He was startled by a click of the door handle behind him. Cloud spun around to see a woman staggering through the door with a towel held over her mouth. She had short, spiky grey hair and thick glasses. She looked incredibly pale and haggard, but her eyes came alive when she saw him.
"Hey! What are you doing in here?"
"Oh, hey. Jacob Mack," Cloud said quickly. "I've been sent to relieve you."
"Bullshit. You don't have clearance to be in here," she said. Her stomach must have lurched again, because she brought the towel back over her mouth, but after a moment it passed and she fixed her gaze on him again. "Let me see your chip."
"Oh, sure... sleep," Cloud said.
The guard collapsed into his arms. It was worth spending the magic points for one sleep spell. The poor woman was having a bad enough day already. He zip-tied her to one of the computers and left an antidote on the floor next to her slumped form.
Before he left, he worked his way around the edges of the panel until he located the main power cords. His sword came down like a judgement, severing the life of the monitors.
Soon enough, that would be Ricky's head.
"So…do we need to leave the room or something?" Marlene asked uneasily.
"No," Lexi said, still looking troubled. "I can direct it. I want you guys to be here in case Ms. J needs help."
"We'll stay," Denzel said, nodding.
The three of them sat on the floor, facing Lexi's bed. Ms. J. was perched on the edge of the bed, looking as determined as Denzel had ever seen her.
"Are you absolutely, positively sure you want to do this, Ms. J?" Lexi asked. "You can back out anytime."
"My mind is made up, my dear. I can't just sit back and watch you get sick again. Mothers are supposed to take care of their kids. I'm going to make you get better," Ms. Joya said firmly.
"We're here for you," Marlene said, taking one of Lexi's hands. Denzel grasped the other hand. Lexi looked at both of them and smiled gratefully.
"Ok. I guess we're going to do this," she said. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
She didn't sing this time. She let the air out slowly through her nose. A red, translucent fog began to form in front of her chest, concentrated in that one spot. It became denser and darker, but stayed contained within a safe area, away from Marlene and Denzel.
Lexi opened her eyes and blinked, looking up at Ms. Joya. "I'm sorry," she whispered. Instantly, the red blob became a focused stream, shooting into the housemother's body.
Ms. Joya jerked like she had been moved by the impact, but when the red fog disappeared, she seemed unharmed – physically, anyway. The faint colors that Denzel now saw everywhere, the auras that he tried to ignore and refused to talk about, were usually pretty static. But now, the light green that always surrounded Ms. Joya began to darken. Red began to bleed into the green, until it was a dark, dark red. Her aura was the color of blood.
Denzel was the first to rise. He put a hand on the housemother's shoulder.
"Ms. J? Are you alright?"
She looked up at him with pain etched into her features. She attempted to smile. "I'll be alright," she said.
Lexi was beginning to fret. "I shouldn't have done it. I knew I shouldn't have! I'm going to take it back."
"Don't you dare!" Ms. Joya ordered, suddenly focused and stern. "I said I'll be fine, and I will." She used the bed to heft her bulk up and stood. "I need to get downstairs to make sure the kids don't destroy the kitchen now," she said shakily. "Don't you all have workgroup to get to?"
"This is my free one," Denzel said.
"Mine too," Lexi said softly.
"Well it's not mine!" Marlene huffed. "I'm stuck cleaning the bathrooms!"
Denzel laughed, and Marlene pouted as she followed Ms. Joya out the door. He looked over at Lexi. There was a sparkle in her eye that had been absent for a long time.
"You look like you're feeling better," Denzel said, examining her critically. "Are you?"
Lexi nodded hesitantly. "I do, but…do you think Ms. Joya will be ok?"
"Of course!" Denzel assured her. "She's a tough old bird. She was just a little shaken up, but I'm sure she can handle it."
"So shaken up that she forgot to kick you out of my room," Lexi said.
"Oh yeah!" Denzel glanced at the door, then back at her. "Do you…want me to leave?"
"No." Lexi looked up shyly from beneath her lashes.
"Good. Because we need to talk."
"We do?" Lexi raised her eyebrows, then sat down crossed-legged on her bed. She patted the quilt in front of her, and Denzel mirrored her position.
"Marlene told me…something interesting yesterday," he said.
"She…OH!" Lexi's face colored with the sudden realization. "I didn't think she'd actually…Um, Denzel, I didn't mean to…" She grimaced. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything. And I should've knocked. It's fine, really. I'm actually glad you didn't notice, because it would have been really awkward." She forced a laugh. "Probably about as awkward as it is right now."
She started to get up, but Denzel stopped her with a hand on her wrist. "I don't know what you think you saw, Lexi, but…nothing like that happened."
"Nothing like….what?" Lexi asked. Her voice squeaked on the last word.
"Nothing happened between me and Alicia. I mean, I'm glad that I'm done being angry. I feel a lot better now that I'm not carrying that around anymore. But we're never going to be a couple again. I can't look at her the same way anymore." He looked down at his scrub pants and picked at the seam. "Besides, I…like someone else now."
"You do? Who?" Lexi asked. Her voice was tight and unnatural.
Denzel looked up shyly. "You really don't know?"
Lexi met his eyes for a moment before looking away. "Well, I mean, I thought maybe…after the kiss, but then…" She sighed, finally getting the courage to look at him directly. "Denzel, I'm not experienced like her."
Denzel grinned. "So? She wasn't either when we first started—"
"And I don't want to…do that. Not yet. I'm not ready."
Denzel's smile faded. "Is that really what you think of me? Like that's all I want from you?"
"I don't know!" Lexi said. "What I saw when I walked in—"
"Never happened," Denzel said, exasperated. "Maybe it was Bethany making you see things again. I don't know what happened that day, and I know you believe that what you saw was real, but…" He shook his head. "I don't know how to convince you. You'll just have to trust me."
Lexi stared at him for a long moment. "Will you be honest with me? If I ask you something personal?"
Denzel took a deep breath. "Sure."
"Did you…do that with her?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she turned her head away, like she couldn't bear to look at him when she heard the answer.
Denzel swallowed, his fingers tightening around the fabric of his scrubs. "Yes. But it was before. Before we…came to Hubble. Before she betrayed me."
She was quiet for a long time. He watched her, trying to read her thoughts on her face. Now that she knew, he was afraid that she wouldn't want anything to do with him. He wanted to say more. He felt like he needed to defend himself, but what could he say? Anything he thought of only made it sound worse. So he waited.
Finally, she spoke. "I'm not like her."
"I know!" Denzel said, taking her hand. "That's one of the things I like most about you. You're not like her, and I don't want you to be! I just want you to be you."
She smiled slightly.
"I'm not going to try to push you into anything. We'll take it as slow as you want. Just give it a chance. Ok?"
She nodded and squeezed his hand back. "Ok. But there's one thing…"
"What is it? Anything," he said, radiating elation.
"Will you…kiss me?"
Jo was still hiccuping through her tears, but survival was an instinct that heeded no conscience. Trying not to look at the weapon that could end her life in a second, she grabbed Tifa's hands. They were thankfully undamaged, although her wrists were pretty raw from the cuffs. She lifted them over Tifa's head and began pulling her toward Nicky.
She grunted and tugged, moving the dead weight forward inch by inch. A streak of saturated carpet trailed behind them. At least she only had to make it to Nicky, and not the cage across the room.
"Sit her up," Nicky said impatiently. "Put her right here in front of me." He was leaning against the wall, his legs partially spread, with the lake of blood pooled between them. "Up here. Between my knees," he ordered.
Jo went around in front and pulled Tifa into a sitting position. Her limp form slumped forward onto Jo's shoulder like the weight on her heart. Jo began crying again. With an irritated sigh, Nicky leaned forward a bit to pull her back. His face turned dead white and he gasped in pain.
"Damn it, girl, can't you do anything right?"
Biting back her sniffling, Jo pushed and struggled against the stiffening carpet, moving Tifa back inch by inch. Tifa's head rested on her shoulder. Jo told herself it wasn't creepy. It was comforting. It almost felt like she was holding her.
'I'm still the same. And we're still breaking out of here.' Tifa's reassuring words echoed in her head, but instead of being comforting, she burst into tears again.
"Please don't hurt her any more, Nicky. She just got scared! She's not used to taking her punishment. You don't have to—"
But Nicky didn't even get a chance to answer. Something loud slammed against the door and Jo yelped in surprise, pushing Tifa's weight off of her. She ran back to her little hideout under the bed. The smashing came again. Pieces of the door splintered into the room. She curled into the tightest ball she could imagine, trying to block out Nicky's labored breathing and whatever monster was coming through the door.
What she heard instead, with the final explosion that sent chunks of wood skidding across the carpet, was Nicky's hearty, fake voice – the one he used when he wanted to distract someone while he was screwing them over.
"Fluffy! What a treat to see you again," Nicky announced. "How…uh…you had no trouble with my security?"
"Nope," a strange voice said flatly.
"That's…great. How did you manage that, if I might ask?"
"I'm special," the strange voice growled.
Nicky gasped. "Fluffy Bunny! She was just a child! How could you—"
"Don't even start," the voice said with disgust. "I've seen what you do to kids."
Finally, Jo's curiosity overcame her fear. With Nicky distracted by the new visitor, she felt it would be safe to lift the bed skirt to peek.
A stranger stood just inside the door. He wore the familiar gold jacket of the Brothers' employees, but for once, he didn't seem to be kowtowing to Nicky. In fact, he had two very deadly-looking swords pointed at him.
"Oh come on now, don't be petty," Nicky said. "That's water under the bridge. Can't you see I've moved on to older women?" His fist was wrapped up in Tifa's hair, and he bobbled her head a few times like an unskilled puppet master.
The man started to move forward.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Nicky said, "unless you'd like me to put a hole in her lovely head." The revolver he'd threatened Jo with earlier was pressed against the base of her skull.
The man froze.
"Good," Nicky said smugly. "Now, how about you put down those oversized kitchen knives?"
The other man's face was hard to read. It was almost blank, and Jo would have thought he wasn't affected at all if not for his eyes. His eyes were…creepy. They were an incredibly bright blue, almost like there was a light coming out of them.
But he lowered the swords, then leaned forward and set them on the ground. Jo wasn't sure how to feel about that. She was afraid for Tifa. She definitely didn't want Nicky to win this little showdown, but the man at the door was just about the scariest thing she had ever seen.
With the weapons out of the man's hands, Nicky seemed to relax a bit more, reclaiming his role as Master of Ceremonies. "Good. Now tell me. What brings you here? You didn't have to come for her. She's already had all she can take. Filled to the brim. You know, I don't think she likes it very much. She screams every time someone touches her." He said it lightly, as if observing that it might sprinkle today.
The man's eyes positively flashed at his words, but he still didn't move. He muttered something to himself and Nicky laughed.
"I'm sorry, what was that, Puffball?"
"I said you're mine."
Nicky chuckled again. "So you say, cotton tail, but you have no weapons and Tifa's life is in my hands."
The man took a slow breath. "Tell me what you want. Let Tifa go. You can do whatever you want with me."
A slow smirk spread across Ricky's face. "Nice threads you got there," he said, his eyes roaming over the man's jacket. "How did you manage to land a job with the Brotherhood?"
The man's eyes narrowed. He looked like he was debating whether it was worth the bother to answer, but finally he responded, "Seraphim offered it after I took down one of his…special enforcers."
Nicky's smile grew wider. "You're an enforcer! That means you've been living here on the compound, in those swanky apartments right down the block!" His mouth formed into an O. "You've been this close to her the entire time, living in the lap of luxury while she was here with having fun with me!" He laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. "What a loser. No wonder she kicked you to the curb."
Jo was watching the strange man closely, looking for some sign of a reaction. How could he be so calm?
"What do you want from me, Ricky?" He said evenly. "Let her go and we can negotiate."
Nicky snorted out loud. "How stupid do you think I am? If I let her go, I have nothing to bargain with. No, no, Tifa will be staying with me. But I can make a promise not to harm her any further...as long as you do what you're told. I'll even let you stay in your nice apartment."
The man didn't answer right away. Finally, he nodded. "Fine. Put it in writing. I need a contract."
"I'll have my lawyer draft it up," Nicky said with a wave of his hand. "Now why don't you—"
Jo couldn't quite understand what happened next. It was too fast to follow, but the man lunged forward and grabbed his weapons, and the next thing she knew, the gun was sitting on Nicky's lap, along with the hand that had held it. The man was still across the room by the door, and one of his swords had a smear of blood that wasn't there before.
Nicky began shrieking. There was blood squirting everywhere, and he grasped the stump of his forearm with his left hand. "You fuck! You crazy fuck! You cut off my hand!"
The man seemed completely unfazed. He approached Nicky in no particular hurry. After kicking away the gun, with the dismembered hand still clinging to the handle, he knelt down calmly in front of him. Nicky tried to squirm away, but his back was against the wall, and the movement only seemed to cause him more pain from the injuries Tifa had inflicted.
"Did I? Sorry about that," he said calmly. He reached into his pocket and pulled out something that looked like a giant zip tie. Nicky tried to push him away with his good hand when the man reached for the stump, but he might as well have been a fly. The man wrapped the plastic band around Nicky's stump and pulled it tight. Nicky screamed, but the gush of blood slowed to a squirt almost immediately. "Wouldn't want you to bleed out…yet."
Nicky continued whimpering and grabbed his arm just above the plastic band. "You're going to pay for that, asshole. No, no wait. She will pay for that. I'm gonna make sure she—"
The blond man didn't seem to care. He ignored him completely, turning Tifa's face toward him and pressing his fingers against her neck. He shook her gently. "Tifa. Teef." He looked up at Nicky again. "What's wrong with her?" he demanded harshly, cutting off Nicky's tirade.
Nicky smirked painfully. He let go of his stump and put his hand down at his side. "Maybe she's just taking a nap."
Without any change in expression, the man grabbed one of his swords and stabbed it through Nicky's remaining hand, deep into the floor. "Stay put," he said.
While Nicky screamed and swore, the man scooped up Tifa like she weighed nothing. He turned toward the bed, and Jo instantly dropped the bedskirt.
She curled back into her ball, praying he hadn't seen. The carpet muffled the sound, but she heard the soft *shoosh, shoosh* of his footsteps. Not so long ago she had lain on top of this very bed with her eyes squeezed shut, dreading that *shoosh* of Nicky's steps. These sounded different, but they struck just as much fear in her heart.
They stopped only inches away. Jo lifted her head from the shelter of her arms just enough to see the toe of heavy brown boots, splashed with wet blood, peeking under the bed skirt. She held her breath. Was that Nicky's blood? Tifa's? Would hers be joining it?
The bed creaked softly above her, and she heard the murmur of the man's voice. She couldn't understand what he was saying, but it was the first time that the sound didn't fill her with fear. Then the boots were gone, and Jo released her breath. The *shoosh* was moving away from her now, but she waited until she heard Nicky start yelling before peeking under the bed skirt again.
"You crazy fuck! You deserve to be locked up!"
The man squatted in front of Nicky again, and with one sharp jerk, pulled the sword out through his hand. Nicky screamed through his teeth.
"Let's try this again," he said over Nicky's harsh breath, still refusing to raise his voice. "What. Is wrong. With Tifa."
"It's just a sleep potion! You just cut off my hand over a fucking sleep potion!" Ricky snarled, cradling his aerated hand against his chest.
"Let's not pretend I don't know what you've done to her," the man said, leaning in closer. The sword that left the hole in the floor came up to Nicky's neck, tipping up his chin with the flat side.
Jo saw Nicky's adam's apple move as he swallowed, moving precariously close to the sharp side of the blade.
"What are you going to do?" Nicky said, his voice wavering. "You promised that little girl you wouldn't kill me."
"I never would have made a promise I couldn't keep, Ricky," he said softly. "You know how this is going to end. But in the meantime, I don't think you need all of these…extra things." He twisted his wrist and made a flicking motion.
Over the renewed screams, there was a wet splat directly in front of Jo's face. It took her a moment to comprehend that she was looking at an ear.
She gasped out loud, and those scary eyes flickered in her direction.
She curled herself into a ball and tried to bury her head under her arms. She held her breath, listening for the sound of those slow, heavy steps coming to get her, but Nicky seemed to have his attention again.
"C-Cloud. Wait. You don't want to kill me."
"Mm. You sure about that?"
Something was dragging lightly against the carpet. Nicky started breathing even faster.
"Look. Tifa's—she's fine, ok? I haven't even touched her!"
The man's voice dropped even lower, and Jo peeked her head out from her arms to listen.
"…sure you haven't? With this hand? With…this finger?" There was a gentle thump, and then the wailing started again.
Jo could only hear pieces of the next sentence over Nicky's yells. "…some touching …video you sent me."
"It was fingers! It was just my fingers, ok? I was feeding her an x-potion with my fingers!"
"Ah. So you definitely touched her with these fingers." *Thump*
"Fuck! It was just a joke!" he howled. "I was just messing with your head!"
There was a part of her that hated this. Nicky wasn't awful to her, at least not all the time. And as he frequently reminded her, he did give her a home and a warm bed and kept her belly full. She still hadn't forgotten how it felt to be so hungry that she'd had nightmares about her stomach eating itself.
But there was another part of her, a dark, angry part, that felt like he was getting exactly what he deserved. The tears had hardly dried on her face from watching Tifa hang from that hook, barely awake, and then scream and jerk when the whip tore into her back. She would never forgive him for that.
Jo dared to peek her head out again. Nicky was holding his left hand against his chest, which just looked like he was making a weird sign with only his pinky and thumb still attached. His right hand was somewhere over by the chests with all of his toys. The right side of his face was puffed up pretty badly, and blood dribbled down his chin from the hole in the side of his head. Those, of course, were in addition to the damage Tifa had done.
He was having a very bad day.
The man pinched Nicky's jaw between his thumb and forefinger and forced him to look up at his eyes. Jo thought they were only blue when she saw them first, an icy ocean blue, but now it was clear that there were strong tints of green.
"Why did she need an x-potion?" the man asked, deadly calm.
"She…she got into it with some guards, ok? I was just trying to help her."
"And what part of that help required a cage?"
Nicky didn't have a good answer for that. "I…I just…wanted to stay safe. I thought she might lash out. And look, she already got her revenge!" He gestured to his ruined groin.
"Good for her. I haven't."
The man released his chin and moved down to his feet. He began untying and removing Nicky's shoes as if it were an everyday thing.
"My security guys will be here any second, and they'll fill you both full of holes," Nicky warned. He couldn't seem to even lean forward without suffering immense pain, and moving his legs was out of the question. There was nothing he could use except his words to fight back. "If you really care about Tifa, get her out of here before they come."
"Your security guys?" The man didn't even bother to look up. "Nah, I don't think they'll be bothering us."
"And those kids at Hubble House?" Ricky panted. "I'm the only thing keeping them alive. Rufus wanted to roast them all. The army was my idea."
The man actually did pause for a moment at that, but then pulled off the remaining shoe and sock, tossing them carelessly over his shoulder.
"I'll deal with Shinra."
"Y-you don't know who you're messing with, Cloud."
The man gave a tiny smirk. "That's funny," he said, separating Nicky's baby toe from the rest.
"I'm serious! The whole family will come down on—" his words melted into a scream. Jo thought she might get sick.
"Ahhhh you crazy fuck!" Slobber sprayed from Nicky's mouth. "I knew from the first minute I saw you that you liked hurting people for no reason. No wonder Tifa was so glad to get away from you."
Something in the man's cheek twitched, and Jo was astonished to finally see some emotion. What did it mean? Did he really hurt Tifa? What if they were just getting away from Nicky to go to something worse?
"I always have reasons, Ricky," the man said softly.
"Ok! Ok," Nicky panted. "I'll give you anything you want. Anything Tifa wants."
He cracked his neck and stood up. "You only have one thing I want. Pretty sure the same goes for Tifa."
Jo clamped her hand over her mouth. She couldn't watch any more.