The echo of the loud banging of the door vanished as Diana fell on her knees beside the inert form of the only man she had come to love, carelessly tossed into the room she was kept in, a moment prior. He didn't seem to be breathing. Her throat closed as her hand went to his neck. After what to her senses seemed like an eternity, she had felt nothing. No, no, no, no… She struggled with his clothes, opening or tearing apart what she could, not enough to uncover him; so she placed her ears on the inner layer –he is so warm…- and held her own breathing as if she could hear a heartbeat that simply wasn't there. When she closed her eyes, a tear slid down, falling on him. She could perform Cardio-pulmonary Resuscitation, but it required moving his thoracic box to push the heart inside, and Vincent was too much of a giant for her slight form to weight enough.
There…
She had felt a beat –a powerful pump- and his chest rose in a shaking breath. He's breathing. Thank God he's breathing. She had never believed in God until that moment; but then, as she curled up into a ball -listening to the beautiful song of his being alive- all she could do was pray.
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Catherine almost pressed the trigger before she saw it was just a tree… again. "With a relieved sigh, she turned around, to the door. It was open, as the perimeter had been. That this was a trap, was obvious; what upset her the most, was the way they toyed with her. As she walked, as lights wavered, every tree in the garden seemed an enemy; every time, if she shot, she would announce her presence –in the remote possibility that they didn't know of it already-, but if this tree had been an enemy she would have been dead, just for hesitating a moment too long. Damn she thought.
She breathed deeply, the smell oddly reminiscent of her childhood –orange peels and spearmint, and occasionally the intoxicating perfume of violets-. Crickets could be heard all around, and she tensed as she perceived a hoot, very aware that enemies could communicate with it.
When she walked into the dark building, she actually felt safer.
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The timeless bubble of the room where the redhead cried, was at long last broken.
"It's all right, Diana" vibrated under her ear, a late answer to her tears, to the question she hadn't dared speak, to her prayers.
She straightened at once, her face a half-perfect mask of coldness as she looked into his eyes, now open. There was no need for showing her helpless, unrequited love, of burdening him and shaming herself with it.
"Catherine is listening…" she warned.
The man flinched and tested his bond with Catherine. Her anguish hadn't wavered by hearing him speak; so Diana wasn't right. Besides…
"Catherine is on our way…" he commented.
The giant tried to sit, but fell back, dizzy, and the woman shushed and held his shoulders to the floor.
"What did they do to you?" they both asked at once.
A heartbeat, and then:
"Nothing" she answered.
"Merely drugged" he informed her in turn, his voice too weak to translate the nightmare he was in, the echo of memories of being put on a cage after suffering effects very much like this one. The helplessness.
Relief washed over her, despite the instinctive tightening of her chest, knowing they weren't out of the woods yet, for she had no way to know whether or not his unique physiology would respond well to the drugs, despite his being awake at the moment.
"I have to…"
"Nothing" she answered, steel in her voice. "If you aren't strong enough to shake even my hold, the best you can do is rest."
"Diana…"
"No"
Fear gave her strength, and as he looked into her eyes, he recognized defeat. He was himself more scared of the light he saw there, than of this cage. Love was the enemy over whom no one had dominion.
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Bright lights welcomed the blonde, and she scrabbled for the wall and clang to it, still blinking, dazzled.
"I told you she would come".
Catherine faced the voice –female- on instinct, still blind; there was a cry of warning –from Robins, she thought-, and the shadows she had just started to see moved quickly. Then, there was a crystalline laugh.
Catherine shivered.
She recognized the man she had seen through Bennet; the woman behind him stuck out over Robins' shoulder, a gesture that was that of a girl's.
"Not the best way to meet your sister" she commented, her voice light.
Catherine blinked, and the image came clearer. The woman was a pale black-haired twenty-years-old girl. Max. She resulted familiar. There was something strange in her eyes.
"Put the gun down, Miss. Chandler" the man ordered. "You won't get out of here alive if you hurt any of us."
Now she could see behind him, where four or five men stood, their arms aimed at her.
"You have my friends."
"They'll die with you."
She wavered, then her head lost alignment behind the weapon. Carefully she bent and left the gun on the floor.
"Kick it"
She did, berating herself. Not for having come, not really, for Vincent needed help and she had nowhere else to find it as fast as he needed it. But for getting caught. Whatever detective skills she had once possessed, were clearly long gone; she had let herself grow much less than acute in these months. I shouldn't have come alone she scolded herself, honestly what did I expect to achieve?
Robins gestured and everyone lowered their guns.
"Now come" Robins invited; there were big purple rings around his eyes. "There is someone who has waited centuries to meet you"
"Dad…!" the woman behind him exclaimed, but he turned to her and interrupted her:
"Wasn't that the reason why you did all of this?"
She bore his gaze for a moment, then she lowered hers; but Catherine could see she loathed it.
"Come"
The former nurse bent a little as he walked, and his back was that of an old man. Catherine hesitated, looking at her weapon and around her; but the squad's eyes followed her closely, and they weighted as if they were deciding her future; which they were.
"Come!" the girl ordered.
Catherine's gaze defied her, but she obliged.
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Sighing, the man finally sat down, at the third attempt; then stood, wavering, Diana half helping half trying to hold him down. She didn't expect his charging against the door, in fact she recognized the bang only in retrospective, as he tried again with the wall. When he finally fell, she had done nothing but stare at him. Beyond the blood his face seemed paradoxically calm.
"Catherine would come for you" Vincent concluded, "but they've made sure of that by bringing me here" Anger slid in his tone, just for a moment, as he dug in his clothes to retrieve the small darts where the drug had been. "They were waiting for me."
Their gazes met in silent understanding.
"They know."
"I don't know how, but they do. They were targeting Catherine, if they know about me then they know everything."
"That explains why the door and walls are reinforced."
Diana stood suddenly and started to pace before Vincent's silent gaze. He could do nothing, and knew it. It was frustrating and overpowering and made him remember the cage. And he couldn't do a thing, except for saving his energy. So he took hold of himself and sat silently, braced on his still weak arms.
He knew what her question would be: "How much everything is?"
"How have I hurt you, Diana" he said quietly, and looked down, his mane covering his features. Not that a recognition or even an apology fixed anything.
He heard her pace stop, her breathing coming to normal by sheer will.
"You have done nothing" she said, "nothing that I haven't accepted or even encouraged. I should have stopped you… the first time… Even before… I should have…" Her next words came muffled by her hands. "You were right. I showed no respect for myself."
"I should have left you… let you go back to your life… Instead, I drew you to me… used you. And for that, I'm sorry…"
"We could have been so much more, Vincent… so much more…" she said, her voice lifeless.
He was shaking his head. Only had Catherine not existed, they would have stood a chance. And he meant no disrespect to this admittedly beautiful, courageous woman, but Catherine was the one for him. What he had with her went beyond anything he would have had with Diana.
"What I have made you do… bear my memories… bear Catherine's constant ghostly presence…"
"You couldn't avoid remembering…"
"No… but I must have spared you the pain of meeting her… that, at least…"
"You were afraid for her life…"
"I put her way before you…"
"Could you even avoid it?"
He went silent, and she didn't speak. A heartbeat, and she dared look at him, and her gaze grew hungrier with every passing moment. He felt it. He didn't look at her. He was a coward.
"You have never loved me like you do now" Diana stated.
"My soul was removed" the scholar explained. "In a way, I am getting it back, by being with her."
"By loving her."
He didn't answer for such a long time… Diana bit her lower lip as the first sob shook her.
"You loved her."
For a moment, there was just the silence, and her tears. She cried mutely, always. A memory came to his mind; a memory of them, lying side by side, afterwards. She had cried her soul apart as he remained awake and silent. That had been when she had understood that he wasn't meant to love her.
"Can you judge me?" he asked quietly. "Can you judge any of us?"
"Oh, I can."
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Robins' residency seemed enormous, they would be on the same corridor where Vincent and Bennet were locked up and she wouldn't notice. The lady counted one corridor, two, three… One brown door, two, three… Every place seemed identical to the former one. At the stair she paused and looked up.
"They aren't there" the girl offered as she walked past her; Catherine hated her smile. With a last look at the stairs, she kept walking. Just then she saw the wall chart: "5th floor".
"Keep walking" a man ordered; she hadn't noticed she had stopped.
It was possible, of course. She was assuming that they were on the first story; but they had slowly moved up on tilted surfaces. It's a labyrinth she thought; interchanging floors, identical light-yellow walls, identical brown doors… who are they trying to confound?
"Here we are" Robins stated. "You must go in, alone"
"Dad…!"
"Sorry, girl"
The squad stayed still. Catherine looked at every one of them; there was no weak link.
"We can't be here all day" Mr. Robins protested.
As he opened the door, he grasped the younger one's arm to keep her near. With a last challenging gaze, she entered…
… into the warmest embrace she could remember.
She stiffened, almost waiting for the woman to strangle her; but this was nice. She smelled like candles, she felt like Mary, and after a moment Catherine understood why: she was wearing clothes much like those of the dwellers Below.
She was crying.
Catherine put her hand on the woman's shoulder, the unexpectedness of the encounter strongly recommended to put at least a bit of personal space between them until identifying the woman and establishing her intentions while empathy told her to wait. She looked around over her shoulder, at the warm-colored room, with nice though not showy furniture. There was no portrait. No poster. No clue.
"Are you a prisoner?" she asked before the idea froze her, her eyes widening and she forgot all prudence: "Did they take anyone else? From Below? Was it exposed?" Was it my fault?
There was a heartbeat before the voice came, sad.
"Can't you recognize me, child."
And she stepped back so Cat could see her.
The lady half smiled, remembering a woman she had met Below, if just briefly –a silent person, they hadn't exchanged a word before, or so she thought. Then the woman grabbed her hair forming a ponytail, and except for the lack of glasses… there was one of those many secretaries in his father's office whose name she had never learned. But if she looked at her profile, she could see one of the many gardeners of Cambridge.
And she smelled like violets.
The word came out before the idea had really registered:
"Mom?"
The woman smiled, and Catherine trembled violently. Wordless. Breathless.
"Mom?!"
She hadn't cried the day she had learned of her mother's death; it had taken some more time for her absence to be really felt, and many months to understand what the lack of a mother would mean for a girl. She had never cried her soul out, until now. This time, there was her mother to wipe the tears, as she hadn't done since… Catherine couldn't remember the last time. As her mother's warmth surrounded her again, Catherine felt as if she would never again be alone.
A long, long time later, she found herself sitting on the floor, her head resting on her mother's lap as she caressed her hair, arms around each other as well as they could in this uncomfortable position.
"Am I dead?"
"No, Cat" Caroline answered, "you are very much alive"
"How can this be?"
There was a silence, long enough for her to look up, to find her mother's lips pale and pursed together. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.
"This is a miracle" Catherine answered herself, and rose to her knees. "Have you been around all these years?"
Caroline smiled, and her daughter responded in kind.
"You saw me… You were in my graduation… Oh, how I wanted you there! I needed you to tell me…"
"Yes, Cat" she interrupted. "You made the right choices… though sometimes you lost sight of the way to happiness…"
"You saw me… with Vincent" she whispered.
"I did"
Her smile was happier, if that was possible.
"You met him the way I had imagined you would: when you were helpless and hurt, he came to you. Do you remember what I told you?"
Catherine didn't, but all of a sudden there was a fear in her whose origin she couldn't gather.
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All of a sudden, Vincent stood.
"We have to get out of here…"
"We established that we couldn't…"
"We must"
The door slid open then, and he covered Diana, but no menace came… just Mr. Robins, hands up and unarmed. They regarded each other.
"You are free" the man stated.
"Where is Catherine?"
"With her mother."
Diana merely blinked, her brain making the necessary connections almost instantly. That phrase, if true, offered only two possibilities; since Vincent wasn't mad with sorrow and grief, one of them was discarded. If Catherine wasn't dead, her mother must be…
"Is she free too?"
"She can come and go as freely as you can. This is her home, as far as I'm concerned."
"Is she with her?"
"She is."
And he was gone. Diana wavered when she lost his support; without him, she felt naked. It, of course, lasted just a second.
"Just like that" she addressed the man. "You'll let us go…"
"Yes."
"After so many deaths… after so much fear…"
"That was me" came from a point behind him, and the woman of the pictures –Max- stepped forward. "I guess I overacted a little; but if she had listened to the signals…"
"I'm talking about dead people…"
Childish eyes looked up at her.
"The prodigal child always gets the party. I'm sick of being the other one. My mother wanted to see Catherine."
There was such despise in her voice, when she pronounced the name… Such hate… At that moment, Diana understood that those who had died had been pawns in this woman's scheme. She had spared them no thought. Sometimes, crime is just someone having the power to play Diana remembered.
"No mother should be apart from her child."
"There is a reason why Charles sent Caroline away" Diana pointed out.
The male name made the man narrow his eyes, and he went silent for a long time.
"We all are talking about love. You, of all people, must understand."
She stepped back, but her expression didn't change.
"Now give me that microphone."
His hand extended, and suddenly she pulled out the small device, snapping the closest thin wire, and gave it to him. The rest of the cables tangled painfully around her. He looked at the piece of metal:
"You didn't resist"
"Do I have a choice?"
He looked at her, and she let him see her weakness, her bone-deep weariness. Had he known her –her strength of will, her never-surrender policy- he'd have doubted more.
"Where are they?" she whispered.
No one answered.
"You are free to try and find them" Max offered enthusiastically, as if it was a new game she was eager to play.
As Diana stepped forth, she wondered if she would ever leave this labyrinth.
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Preview:
The detective looked at their shapes, cut against the shadows of the garden they had reached without noticing. That was the last sight she would have of them. Strangely, the main element, the one that would remain forever in her memory, wasn't the momentary distress –his disguised dread, Catherine's anxiety-, but the everlasting light in his eyes, in hers –as eloquent as intertwined hands would be.
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