This chapter is also very graphic and very intense so please be careful with yourselves while reading. With that in mind, please enjoy!
Jason
The child's mangled hand lay pulverized on the cement floor. Bones and ligaments that should never be visible making their debut as the hand twitches brokenly. The hammer comes down again, but the child has stopped crying long ago. Jason, however, has not.
"Just fucking stop!" Jason screams again, "STOP!"
"What. Is. Your. Name?" Spiky screams, hands clenched tight around Jason's knees, nose to nose.
"I- I-" Jason chokes off, he's staring past her into Charlie's watery eyes.
"Hey!" She grabs his face and turns his attention back to her, "You don't look at him, you look at me!"
Rage flushes Jason's cheeks. "Bet you feel really tough torturing a kid. Let him go! He has nothing to do with this!" Jason growls.
"That's where you're wrong." Spiky says slowly, then turns and nods to Frank who brings the hammer down hard on the boy's wrist, shattering the joint on contact.
Charlie screams out, the pain momentarily bringing him out of his shocked haze, and Jason jumps at the sound.
"For fuck's sake, STOP!" Jason screams. His eyes locked with Charlie's.
Spiky's trying to get Jason's attention, but his senses have been submerged in static again. All he can seem to focus on is Charlie's face, pressed sideways onto the cold ground. Eyes glazed with shock, gasping for breath. The tape has fallen from the child's lips, adhesive loosened by tears. And Jason can only watch as they mouth out words his body is too frenzied to speak.
Help. Mister Hood. Help. Help. Please.
Spiky punches Jason, hard, and his head whips painfully to the side. There's a vague awareness of the sickening crunch of his nose breaking. The pain is blinding for a second, but he relishes in it. This is something he can handle, and the longer she's focused on him the more time he's giving Dick and Cassandra to swoop in and save the day.
He closes his eyes briefly and sends a silent prayer to his brothers and sisters and to whatever cruel force might be listening.
Please. He prays. Please, just save the boy.
Opening his eyes, he snorts out a blood clot and turns back to glare at his captor. She's shaking with rage, sweat gleaming on her temples. Jason raises an eyebrow.
"I'm sorry," He starts, "Was that supposed to hurt?"
She flushes and hits him again, this time with the opposite hand, the one she wears her brass knuckles on. She lands the punch squarely on his cheekbone and he can feel it splinter when she hits it. The world erupts into a galaxy.
His mouth is pooling with blood, and with his nose broken he's really having a problem catching a breath. He spits out the blood into her face. She responds in kind, uppercutting him with enough force to knock the chair he's tied onto onto it's back.
As he lay there for a second, reeling, thinking about how his sound and picture wires must have gotten mixed up, he comes to the conclusion that even if big brother swoops in there's a very slim chance he'll survive all the damage he's sustained. The air he had managed to hold onto was swiftly evicted from his water-logged lungs when he tipped over and it takes him a second to realize he's gaping like a beached fish. He coughs hard, gasping, and leans his head to the side and spits out a tooth.
Spiky is behind him, hoisting back upright. He's panting, trying to suppress the whines that are stuck in his throat.
"You know," Jason pants, "If you break my jaw I won't be able to answer your questions."
"You don't answer my questions now." Spiky growls, wiping his blood from her face.
Jason takes the chance to glance over at Charlie, his eyes are still trained on Jason's. Jason tries to reassure him in some way, a small nod, a small smile. But he knows in his current state, mostly naked, covered head to toe in blood and sweat and bruises, that nothing about him is reassuring.
"I'm getting really tired of this, Hood." Spiky says, drawing his attention back to her.
"You and me both." Jason agrees.
"Then why don't you just tell me what I want to know and I'll drop the kid off at a hospital and put you out of your misery." She says.
"C'mon. You can't really expect me to give up my partners, can you?" He counters.
"I'll admit, I didn't at first. But this," She points to Charlie, "Is this shit really not motive enough to give up the people that sat by and watched while you got your ass handed to you by The Bat?"
"You wouldn't understand." Jason says quietly, fighting through a wave of sudden dizziness.
"Maybe you're right," She says, stretching. "But maybe you'll understand this." She says, pointing to Frank who raises the hammer again, this time over the child's other hand.
"Wait! Stop!" Jason pleads.
Spiky holds her hand out to Frank who freezes, hammer still raised. She puts her other hand to her ear, like she's trying to make out a far away sound. "Hm, call me stupid but that doesn't sound like a name." She shrugs and drops her hands. The hammer comes down.
Charlie shrieks, this time a word.
Please.
Jason's blood runs cold. "You sick fuck!" He yells.
"This is all on you, Hood! All of this could have been avoided if you had just COOPERATED!" Spiky screams at him, veins bulging in her neck.
"You're a fucking monster!" Jason spits back.
"I might be!" She yells, throwing her hands up, "But so are you."
She creeps closer to Jason, leans down to his eye level, hands back on his knees. She stares, unblinking into Jason's blackening eyes. And he stares back, unwavering. She whistles, impressed for a moment, before frustration takes back over.
Without moving away she shouts at Frank and Ernie, "Guys, Hood here obviously doesn't get how serious we are. So the next time he doesn't answer my question, I want you to aim that hammer at that kid's skull."
"What?" Jason croaks, his stomach bottoming out. He looks over to the men, Frank is already adjusting his hold on Charlie while Ernie looks less than pleased. Jason looks back to Spiky, searching her eyes for something, anything.
"From one street kid to another, please don't do this." Jason whispers. Something flashes across her expression, then it's gone.
"What's your name, Hood?" She asks.
All of the pain, the symptoms of blood loss, broken bones, concussions, pneumonia, all vanish as Jason's anxiety skyrockets.
"You won't." He snarls.
"You don't think so?" She asks. She stares him down, and this time he looks away.
"One," She starts, stepping away from him.
"Don't do this." He pleads.
"I'm not doing it," she adds, "Two!"
"Stop!" Jason screams. C'mon Jason, think. Think! He pleads in his mind.
Charlie's screaming, sobbing. Frank's knee pressing his head into this ground. Jason's mind is swimming in syrup. He can't think, he can't- C'mon Jason, you have to do something!
"You won't like what happens when I get to three, Hood!" Spiky screams over the noise.
"I'm going to fucking kill you! Do you hear me?! I'm going to fucking KILL YOU!" Jason screams, snarling, panicked. He's a wolf backed into a corner, blood and saliva dripping from his fangs, but the hunter isn't deterred.
"Two and a half!" Spiky yells.
Fucking think Jason! Think! But he can't, his brain might as well be soup. Then something, a glimmer of hope.
"Charlie, look at me, buddy. You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay, kiddo." Jason says, his words choked with emotion.
"Three!" Spiky screams.
The hammer flies upward.
"I'll tell you everything if you let him go!" Jason screams. "Everything."
There's a moment where everything stops. Spiky's hand is out, stopping Frank from crushing Charlie's skull like an eggshell. But she doesn't believe him.
"Let him go. Let him go and I'll cooperate, I swear." Jason breathes out, lips quivering with the emotions built from panic and pain and exhaustion. "I swear."
Spiky glares at him for a moment. She's not evil, Jason knows this to be true, but she's also desperate, like him. Same goes for Ernie. But Frank, who still kneels on Charlie's back with the hammer still clutched in his meaty fist, he's not so sure about. Spiky glances to the boy, guilt simmering in her features, then back to Jason.
"We still have your warehouse surrounded, so if you're lying-" She starts.
"I'm not," Jason breaks in, shaking, voice thick with tears. "You have my word."
A moment, then Spiky nods and motions for the two men to get the boy up. Jason discreetly menuevers himself in his chair, the edge of the compression bandage catching on the frame and peeling away.
Ernie nods at Spiky's command and immediately moves to pick up the child, but Frank intervenes. He stays with his knee pinned on the small boy's back, hammer raised in agitation.
"Just like that?!" He bellows angrily. "You're gonna give in just like that?!"
"Frank, what the fuck are you doing, get off him!" Ernie shouts back.
Frank is just adjusting his weight on Charlie's back, preparing to fend off both Spiky and Ernie who are moving in to subdue him when there's a noise. It's just a small cracking sound, almost lost in the rush of mad voices, but they all hear it and all fall silent.
It wasn't much of a sound, maybe akin to the sound a carrot makes when you bend it hard enough to make it snap in two. A sound you hear when stepping on kindling, or when you break a wishbone on Thanksgiving, or when you pull back a shoulder hard enough to pull it from it's socket, or maybe even just the sound your joints make when you stretch in the morning.
It was a small sound, just a small sound. But as Jason stares into the child's eyes which haven't looked away from him since the second he was dragged into this warehouse, he can see it. The fog comes slow and soft across the boy's pupils, a gentle tear pooling against the bridge of his nose. Lips, stilled.
"No." Jason whispers, something inside his mind breaking.
"Oh fuck." Spiky breathes, running forward and shoving Frank off of the boy roughly. He goes flying back into Ernie, who wrestles him from the warehouse.
The world begins to melt as Jason watches the color drain from Charlie's face. He feels bile in his throat and he doesn't have the mind to push it down. His head begins to roll listlessly trying to regain control over himself, light headed and dizzy. But he can't tear his eyes away from the child's face. His stomach churns and the bile forces its way into his mouth and he vomits blood onto himself. His breath quickens and his eyes are leaking tears but he feels a million miles away. Without the child here to fight for, Jason's body has given up on trying to save itself.
His hands and feet have gone cold, chest constricting painfully as his heart struggles to circulate the blood he still has left. With the bandage half torn from his side, there's nothing to stop his life from leaking out of him. He's hyperventilating, dizzy and nauseous.
His heart is breaking.
The boy- child- Charlie. Charlie, still stares at Jason, face pleading even in death. And Jason's chest feels empty with grief, mind forcing memories on him in cruel punishment. Charlie's laugh, Charlie's smile, the way he'd always tighten his fist around the hem of Jason's leather jacket, because Jason could keep him safe. Because Jason was supposed to keep him safe.
"I'm sorry." the words slip out as Jason begins to lose his fight with consciousness, as if Charlie could hear him.
He watches dimly as Spiky cover's the boy- Charlie- with a dirty tarp. She looks upset, tucking the tarp over Charlie's broken body with a tenderness Jason didn't know she possessed. She turns back to Jason as the blackness starts to take over his sight.
Eyes half lidded and still trained on Charlie's unmoving form, Jason can see Spiky rush to him. He feels her slap the sides of his face, dig her hand into the bloody mess of his side, as if she could stop him from bleeding out now.
She's saying something to him, but it's almost as if she's speaking a language he doesn't understand. He tries to look at her, blinking sluggishly, head falling into her grasp as she tries to keep him upright. He knows on some level that she really didn't mean for this to happen, and knows he should hate her for what she did to Charlie, but he finds he can't. Because he understands somehow, and he's done worse things, and there's no more hate or blame to go around as it all nestles squarely on his chest.
And anyways, something has caught his attention behind her left shoulder. A river of fiery hair. The tears come when he catches sight of her, knows she's not real, but warmth spreads through his chest anyway.
All sensations recede, his vision a milky way of stars and darkness. Then she turns to face him, a beacon of hope in all of this destruction.
She locks eyes with him, and he is found.
Let me know what you guys think! I think this isn't what a lot of you guys wanted to happen but if you've ever written you'll know that some times you don't really have any control over what happens and what the characters do. With that being said, I am still aiming for an ending where Jason survives, which is what you all voted for, but he's fighting back hard so we'll see what happens.
Until next time, MS