p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-family: Arial;"span style="font-size: 13.3333px; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick/span/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Things had been going so well./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Sure, they were in mortal danger, and their precautions didn't have the potency they'd hoped, but that's a Tuesday. Nightwing being blind was a curveball, but they'd had worse./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"More important than that was Dick barely remembered most of his Gotham Prep teachers, but Jason did. The whole conversation was terse and distracted and everything Dick had been hoping for since his parking lot proposal./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Well, maybe not /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"everything/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;", but a start./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"And now /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick was white-knuckling his crumbling optimism because/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" they'd fumbled into /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"this /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"territory. He should have seen it coming. Hell, he'd /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"imagined/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" having this conversation so many times, but weeks, months, maybe years down the road, when Jason trusted him. He'd pictured them talking over takeout food, something mindless on TV, easing into the conversation naturally when Jason volunteered it./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Now his voice had gone rough with strain and set off warning bells that brought all of Dick's attention to the fists clenching and slowly releasing, almost imperceptible by the light from the crusty windows. The shadows from their metal bars stretched across the room to reach up Jay's body as he paced through the haphazard furniture and refuse./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick was confident walking a tightrope, but he couldn't tell if this was a lifeline or a fuse./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What do you remember?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason shrugged, repeating himself brusquely. "Nothing that could matter."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"You don't know that. /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick's throat closed up with suppressed frustration, and he tried to tell himself he wasn't hitting his limit fighting the urge to delve deeper and reassure the man. To tell him that /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"yes, it mattered/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" more than any stupid mission./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He looked down at the discolored fabric in his hands, so thick it might as well be canvas. He had pictures of the missing victims back on his bike, not all the bulky paperwork, but the photos of teenagers lost on dares, barely old enough to drive themselves to climb the gate, of one little girl that disappeared from the back seat of her car, her father arrested for the disappearance. There was so much pain in those files, he thought he'd fortified himself, but not against the visceral feeling of fragile bones fluttering inside those sleeves./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He held a moment of silence before wrapping those thoughts tightly and setting them aside. It was one too many things. Jason and the mission both needed his focus now, both he could /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"help./spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" Somehow. Though he was almost out of de-escalation tactics and the night could only get worse, he moved decisively further inward, leaving droplets of the unknown seepage from the showers in his wake as he positioned himself in better view of Jason's periphery./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Nightwing was capable of keeping his body language neutral, clinical. Jason always responded better to physicality and demonstrations than words, especially after that direct interrogation. He had to smooth this over. Maybe this way could be better for both of them, Dick hoped, if they could go on to /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"really talk /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"while having the mission to focus on rather than everything that couldn't be said quite yet. /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Enough/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;", he thought. He was being selfish./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He laid the straight jacket across the end of the first intact mattress, smoothing out the wrinkles, letting his hands wander over the seams while he reeled in his diverged focus. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Forcibly peeling himself away from the fabric and burying the helplessness that clung to him, he raised his chin and reluctantly accepted that he would not get any more answers before turning back to suggest they move on however the heck Red Hood damn well pleased and oh well if they got possessed or eaten./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason's eyes were on him, vacant and dull in a way Dick had never seen before. They moved down to the straightjacket and then to wherever his flashlight splashed haphazardly across the floorboards./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick didn't follow it. His gaze stayed locked on Jason's face. Before tonight, he hadn't seen those eyes since they'd come with a gap in a snarky smile, and finally there was enough light to catch washed-out details. The complex jumble behind them fled his features as they slid into an expression of absolute disdain for the objects he used to avoid Dick's focus. It was incredible really, that hardly a muscle in his body moved, and yet his whole bearing changed with that one glance./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick had made a mistake. He wasn't working with Tim. He wasn't working with /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Bruce/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Jason didn't need cover at his back or a hand on his shoulder, he needed someone to share the load he'd been forced to take on, traversing the unfamiliar territory that Dick had unknowingly tricked him into. For all that Dick had struggled to remain passive, amiable company, to let Jason call the shots and keep his distance, he had been utterly and completely wrong./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He gave Jason a moment of pseudo-privacy, appalled at his own stupidity, and turned his attention to the door on the far side of the room. Considering strategic options, he felt like he'd just woken up and buzzed with new forward motion. He had a plan before looking back at where Jay had continued his thinly veiled fidgeting, running his hands along anything he passed in a bizarrely familiar way./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His light stilled where it filtered through the bare springs of a mattress half-dragged to the floor, illuminating through the fabric gap a tuft of curly hair and the dull speckled plastic of an old Barbie doll. Its limbs were wrenched into a stiff Y-pose with its arms raised and legs bent backward and an angle even Dick couldn't pull off. Its eyes were painted in a cruel side-eyed disdain with dark makeup."I sure as shit didn't haunt any dolls."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The hair on the back of Dick's neck was on end, but he was shocked into a grin. Trust Jason to crunch over all the eggshells he'd been walking on. "You seem like more of an old-timey bell tower or music box kind of guy."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason shrugged again, his voice smoother when he next spoke, not okay, but not so tightly wound. "We find a music box, I swear I'll unload into anything that tries to open it."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But you /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"know /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I'm a sucker for carnival tunes."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Oh well in that case," Jason snorted, but his gait shifted, looser in the knees as he resumed his walkthrough. "I'll save the bullets and strangle you with your own utility belt." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Both flashlights whipped toward the sound of something hollow clattering to the floor where Jason had been seconds before, revealing a popped Jack-in-the-box, its jester's cap sagging over its rust-warped edges. Jason nodded to himself and clicked his tongue with a resigned but milder expression. "That's worse."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Agreeing emphatically and refusing to risk returning to the previous tension, Nightwing jumped back to task. "Alright, so before something else pops out of that box," or before whatever knocked it over came calling, "We'll keep better pace if we coordinate entries. After you step in and do a visual sweep for hostiles, I'll come in with night vision and clear a path so you can keep our 6."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason studied him, eyes gaining back some of the resilience Dick expected, appearing to mull it over. "Could work." He started a slow nod just before he jumped a mile out of his skin and whipped his light and pistol up near the bookshelf before tearing his aim back to the floor. "/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Shit–/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick gasped as the light fell for a fraction of a second on a little girl. The reflection off her oversized Harry Potter glasses flashed back at them before she raised her arms to shield herself, huddled in a ball. Her yellow-knit sweater and skirt practically glowed in the gloom./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hey, it's okay." Jason's voice dropped seamlessly to a soft murmur. Taking one hand off his gun with a calming motion, he lowered himself to her level, his massive frame shrinking with his tone. "I know you. You're Grace Hale, aren't you?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The figure's head bobbed once, then rapidly, but she didn't uncover her face, staying as low and as small as she— /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"it /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"could. "That's what I thought. Hey, we're not gonna hurt you."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hood." Dick tried— fought— to turn off the urge to comfort the little girl, but if it could interact with them then it wasn't human and might be dangerous and Jason was just walking over to it squatted down with his gun stowed now and—/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Relax, it's a kid." Jason spared a glance up as Dick moved nearer to both of them, then hissed "For fuck's sake, put that down."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick hesitated, keeping the rifle set at his shoulder, but aimed away so the lighted sight threw shadows across the room. "I can see what it looks like Jay, but Z said she's not… there's nothing like what she looks like here." There /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"couldn't/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" be. God, he'd almost managed to forget he was running around with a gun but not if there were going to be people in the line of fire./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""She was taken. You gave me the dossier. If you can see her, that's proof enough something's different." He looked back at the child, touching his face as if to remove his mask but it was already gone. "Grace, this is Nightwing and I'm Red Hood." Jay paused and Grace, if it was Grace Hale, who fell asleep reading Where the Sidewalk Ends on November 2, 1979, brought her hands down cautiously. He gave her the smallest smile, exuding a gentleness Dick didn't know he possessed. The sight took tiny bites out of his heart. "Right, yeah." Jason soothed, though the girl's mouth never moved./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" "What's she saying?" He pitched his voice low too, exuding safety and protection through years of practice. He settled down to one knee, still trying to maintain readiness since Jason clearly wasn't, but her wide, fearful eyes darted to him to look momentarily as confused as he was. His off-hand rose automatically in a little wave with a tentative smile of his own./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason looked back. "So you can see but not hear her." He asked, not waiting for a nod before grumbling to himself. "That sure clears that up." He turned back to the ghost girl, and Dick's heart cracked when she dropped her head and shuffled her feet without standing, picking at the top of one of her white ankle socks nervously. "Grace— Gracie," he corrected seriously as the girl pouted at him, then continued, "maybe you can help us. We're looking for monsters."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick felt adrift as the conversation went on without him. He stood there, confused, with his heart still not slowing down at how close the entity was to Jason, but all the same, his finger on the trigger guard nearly made him retch and got worse by the second. The girl looked back and forth between them, then folded her arms over her knees, sitting back a little, relaxing./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Red Hood had a better read on the situation. Dick could trust that even if it did endanger Jason./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jay shifted on his haunches and gave him a significant look. Dick met his eyes briefly and had to blink, his eyes slow to focus after the glare of Grace's dress; his stomach gave a slight roll as he looked back at her. "That's right, like the Midnight Man. Can you tell us about him?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason snapped to attention, his hand flying back to the butt of his pistol as he turned so the girl couldn't see. "Nightwing," he warned. Dick switched his aim gratefully to the closed door Jason focused on so intently./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Gracie moved lightning-quick, jumping up to wrap her slender arms around a shocked Jason's neck, nearly giving Dick a heart attack, but the man didn't hesitate for one second to throw an arm around her and stand up to face the threat, wrenching his wrist at what must have been an uncomfortable angle so he could reach into his jacket./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick lined up his sight and moved his finger to the trigger, unsure of how much kickback to expect. His ears were already ringing with the anticipation of the gunshots./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Ahead of him, Jason twitched to incline his head toward where the girl had burrowed her face into his neck. His stance shifted minutely, and Dick could see the tension corded in his neck before he apparently came to a decision, running his thumb over the weaponlight./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Off/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"." He ordered, barely audible and not checking in to see the questions all over Dick's face before he dove low and around the nearest shelf./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Cursing quietly, Dick reached for his light to do the same, quickly beating a retreat toward the opposite side of the room just in case, ducking down and rolling out onto his back beside the sinister doll. The spots of the mattress that had worn to springs provided him with options for peepholes, but staying in a position to fire left him vulnerable./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason tucked himself beyond the reach of the windows so that even Dick couldn't see him except by the whites of his eyes. He slowed his breathing, then stopped altogether as the click of a doorknob catching shattered the silence./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick's heart skipped a beat, shock sending a jolt through his system. He froze to listen for any more, but there was only silence./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Except he was closer. Jay would have to break cover to fire first. If Nightwing moved now, he could fire at the door and probably hit something, but that chance diminished every second that passed after the long creak of the hinges. Dick could see Grace and heard /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"something/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" at least. Hopefully that was a new pattern forming, or maybe it was the room, but he should look out and check, he should do something–/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Scooting down to peer through the closest hole in his cover. Coating himself in the dust he shimmied through brought into bright contrast a series of shallow scratches inches from his face by the legs of the bed. His thoughts hiccupped. Horror kicked him in the chest./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The bed won't move anymore. My shoulders hurt, my ankles hurt, every muscle cries out, and I yield to the exhaustion saturating every knot in and around my body. Somewhere in my head comes treacherous whispering that it's my fault, that I managed to do this to myself. The voice doesn't sound like mine. A sob bubbles up my throat again when the /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"thing/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" that wears a woman's face invades me to hiss in my ear when I'm empty and alone. The jacket is damp with cooling sweat and I want to move again, to alleviate the prickling, too sharp, I just want to peel off all the bad skin and—/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His fingers twitched along the cold steel of the muzzle of the rifle he was clutching, disoriented by his night vision flashing like a firework before his eyes adjusted, focusing on the door through his peephole. He blinked to clear the fog in his head that muffled cracking gunshots./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason was up. He was facing where the entity had been advancing, squeezing off shot after shot. "Nightwing!" The word took too long to find meaning in his brain. It didn't sound like the first time Jay had said it. "Beat it!"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He felt disconnected from his body as he threw it forward and caught his feet, firing back the way they came./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-align: justify; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His ammunition puffed in a collision less than four yards away. There was a form there, like a heat mirage. Pain splintered through his skull as he tried to concentrate. it rippled like liquid where it impassively ate two more of Jason's bullets. The only solid detail Dick could make out was a reflective shimmer at chest height. He aimed for it and fired again./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The shotgun blast struck home, sending a roiling pulse through the air, buzzing like a swarm./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason took that as the sign to fall back for the door, still clutching the little girl with almost no light to lead the way. Dick fumbled to follow on rubber legs, but the solid wall of static advanced on them again, closing the distance on Dick between one blink and the next./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He slammed down on his hip and elbow, sprawling but managing to roll his free leg out from under him to kick blindly at whatever appendage had his leg pinned. A wet, sucking screech cut through him. His view of the source sharpened as it made contact./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The thing trying to envelop him glinted wetly and had edges that fused into the surrounding darkness in shifting, amorphous undulations. He tried to focus on knocking the damn thing off without letting it take half his calf with it, a sharp grip hooking deep into the muscle with protrusions that suddenly felt gelatinous./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The rifle was under him but his boot was connecting with something solid so he kept pumping his legs while scrabbling to get the weapon up and around his body for all the good it did./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Three more shots rang out in rapid succession over Dick's head and the being shrieked louder as Jason came flying back to follow them, throwing a fist straight into the miasma. Dick could feel a massive lurch back and couldn't choke down the cry of pain and indignation as the talons took him with them, dragging him a full yard across the cold hardwood. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason was piling on a ferocious torrent of punches and kicks but was hampered by the limited iron on his shins and knuckles, roaring as nothing loosened the pain in Dick's leg./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"But his thoughts were clicking back into place. Jason stood as the only solid point through the swirl of chaos above him, the unpredictable jerking and weaving./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick had started to grow used to seeing the man in action: brutal where Robin was graceful, explosive where he had been sharp, but never from this angle and it struck him again. He looked unassailable./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"For a moment, an inappropriate, incongruent second, he felt his shield was impenetrable. He thought /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"wow/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Before Red Hood's neck snapped to one side. Jason clamped a hand over the ear and stumbled a single step back./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He seized the opportunity to swing the rifle under his ribs up and around between the two. He tightened his grip around the barrel and twisted his torso to strike at the thing's main body. The second he felt the weight lift from the follow-through he twirled the weapon like his escrima stick, tucked the butt of the rifle back to his shoulder, and aimed to fire at something small and white at the creature's center./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The gun was unbalanced. A bend in the barrel./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Nightwing dropped the weapon and rose onto his elbow to reach the compartment on his belt with modified wingdings. They were steel but edged with iron. Jason was back to using fists but his body dipped as his knees started to give under the strain, Nightwing grit his teeth as the weight on his leg increased suddenly with the creature's step. He grunted and plunged the edge between the creature's claws, ripping straight up. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The pressure vanished. Its deformed excuse for a leg releasing its grip on his calf as it retreated./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Nightwing scuttled back and lurched to his feet in the direction Jason was trying to hurl him, spinning to launch his remaining weapon back in a fighting retreat, reflexively switching off as they made their run./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The static swelled to a roar. Dick's ears popped. He recoiled, throwing an arm wide to cover Jason's back on instinct. White light exploded from the ice-cold threads around his wrist, the flash dazzlingly bright through his lenses, the cold running like water to his elbow./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"A figure flashed, not in the light, his senses were too clouded and confused, but he knew the face of what was bearing down on him./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He had to call it a face. It had a mouth, nothing else. Veined teeth wedged in rings down its abyssal gullet. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Another scream, this one grinding through the air as it threw its head back and forth./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Shrinking from the light melded it back into the amorphous shape that pained Dick to concentrate on, but he could. No arms sprouted from its torso, giving it a worm-like appearance that fit with the wriggling of its bulging body, until it split in two to a pair of muscular legs that had pinned Nightwing a second ago. One of them disfigured with a gray-purple crack that looked luminous./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The vision faded, leaving Nightwing with nothing but black as his eyes failed to adjust. Dick felt around wildly for where Jason had been, panic spiking when he found nothing./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick felt himself being hoisted to his feet and didn't give his own wounded leg a choice whether it wanted to take his weight. Rough hands hauled him in the direction of their retreat but then they were gone. After a heart-stopping moment, Dick groped at a fistful of the fabric he thought was a jacket collar, and when Jason's fingers locked around his own wrist to keep them latched together, sprinted in whatever direction it took him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They made it just a few yards before his lifeline was wrenched out of his grasp and something struck him in the chest, knocking him backward and off-center and shoving his entire body flat into a wall. A large hand pinned him in place. The door slammed beside his head, its echo fading so that the only sound was the hard panting inches in front of him./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick hurriedly blinked the spots from his vision, both hands ready at his utility belt for when the door splintered inwards but nothing came for them./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason's fist was raised, his forearm pressed to the wall beside his head with his bicep blocking Dick's head; his face was turned away, eyes shut before twitching back to the door, suspicious of the stillness./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick dropped his head back to take long, deepening breaths through his nose, heart slowing as the danger apparently faded. The weight of Jason's hand lessened and fell away, Dick became hyper-aware of the rifle strap constricting his chest./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Exhaustion dragged him down in a rush, sending a shiver through his knees that made his injured calf throb, but it was another distant sensation that he was too dizzied to make sense of./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He tried to string his fleeting thoughts back together. He could see water stains on the ceiling, hear their shuddering breaths mingling, feel chips of paint when he splayed his fingers against the wall for something grounding, he smelled sweat and dust and vetiver aftershave./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and not open them again, his head was all turned round and even though that useless, unwieldy rifle dug into his back and the strap constricted around his chest with every hitching breath, he wanted to stay hidden from the horrorshow in Jason's shadow. Just for a few moments./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The tension bled out of Jason and Dick swallowed as the man shoved himself back off the wall, his nostrils flaring with the same breathing technique Dick was currently failing at. Failing worse when the warmth that had been surrounding him yielded to the freezing temperature of the rest of the asylum./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Reloading."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick watched, absorbed in the swift motions, forgetting himself until Jason finally turned away from the door, and him./spanspan id="docs-internal-guid-329abaf0-7fff-157e-025c-2cfae0883e1f"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Things had been going so well./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Sure, they were in mortal danger, and their precautions didn't have the potency they'd hoped, but that's a Tuesday. Nightwing being blind was a curveball, but they'd had worse./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"More important than that was Dick barely remembered most of his Gotham Prep teachers, but Jason did. The whole conversation was terse and distracted and everything Dick had been hoping for since his parking lot proposal./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Well, maybe not /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"everything/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;", but a start./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"And now /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick was white-knuckling his crumbling optimism because/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" they'd fumbled into /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"this /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"territory. He should have seen it coming. Hell, he'd /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"imagined/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" having this conversation so many times, but weeks, months, maybe years down the road, when Jason trusted him. He'd pictured them talking over takeout food, something mindless on TV, easing into the conversation naturally when Jason volunteered it./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Now his voice had gone rough with strain and set off warning bells that brought all of Dick's attention to the fists clenching and slowly releasing, almost imperceptible by the light from the crusty windows. The shadows from their metal bars stretched across the room to reach up Jay's body as he paced through the haphazard furniture and refuse./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick was confident walking a tightrope, but he couldn't tell if this was a lifeline or a fuse./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""What do you remember?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason shrugged, repeating himself brusquely. "Nothing that could matter."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"You don't know that. /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick's throat closed up with suppressed frustration, and he tried to tell himself he wasn't hitting his limit fighting the urge to delve deeper and reassure the man. To tell him that /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"yes, it mattered/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" more than any stupid mission./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He looked down at the discolored fabric in his hands, so thick it might as well be canvas. He had pictures of the missing victims back on his bike, not all the bulky paperwork, but the photos of teenagers lost on dares, barely old enough to drive themselves to climb the gate, of one little girl that disappeared from the back seat of her car, her father arrested for the disappearance. There was so much pain in those files, he thought he'd fortified himself, but not against the visceral feeling of fragile bones fluttering inside those sleeves./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He held a moment of silence before wrapping those thoughts tightly and setting them aside. It was one too many things. Jason and the mission both needed his focus now, both he could /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"help./spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" Somehow. Though he was almost out of de-escalation tactics and the night could only get worse, he moved decisively further inward, leaving droplets of the unknown seepage from the showers in his wake as he positioned himself in better view of Jason's periphery./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Nightwing was capable of keeping his body language neutral, clinical. Jason always responded better to physicality and demonstrations than words, especially after that direct interrogation. He had to smooth this over. Maybe this way could be better for both of them, Dick hoped, if they could go on to /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"really talk /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"while having the mission to focus on rather than everything that couldn't be said quite yet. /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Enough/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;", he thought. He was being selfish./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He laid the straight jacket across the end of the first intact mattress, smoothing out the wrinkles, letting his hands wander over the seams while he reeled in his diverged focus. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Forcibly peeling himself away from the fabric and burying the helplessness that clung to him, he raised his chin and reluctantly accepted that he would not get any more answers before turning back to suggest they move on however the heck Red Hood damn well pleased and oh well if they got possessed or eaten./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason's eyes were on him, vacant and dull in a way Dick had never seen before. They moved down to the straightjacket and then to wherever his flashlight splashed haphazardly across the floorboards./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick didn't follow it. His gaze stayed locked on Jason's face. Before tonight, he hadn't seen those eyes since they'd come with a gap in a snarky smile, and finally there was enough light to catch washed-out details. The complex jumble behind them fled his features as they slid into an expression of absolute disdain for the objects he used to avoid Dick's focus. It was incredible really, that hardly a muscle in his body moved, and yet his whole bearing changed with that one glance./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick had made a mistake. He wasn't working with Tim. He wasn't working with /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Bruce/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;". Jason didn't need cover at his back or a hand on his shoulder, he needed someone to share the load he'd been forced to take on, traversing the unfamiliar territory that Dick had unknowingly tricked him into. For all that Dick had struggled to remain passive, amiable company, to let Jason call the shots and keep his distance, he had been utterly and completely wrong./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He gave Jason a moment of pseudo-privacy, appalled at his own stupidity, and turned his attention to the door on the far side of the room. Considering strategic options, he felt like he'd just woken up and buzzed with new forward motion. He had a plan before looking back at where Jay had continued his thinly veiled fidgeting, running his hands along anything he passed in a bizarrely familiar way./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His light stilled where it filtered through the bare springs of a mattress half-dragged to the floor, illuminating through the fabric gap a tuft of curly hair and the dull speckled plastic of an old Barbie doll. Its limbs were wrenched into a stiff Y-pose with its arms raised and legs bent backward and an angle even Dick couldn't pull off. Its eyes were painted in a cruel side-eyed disdain with dark makeup."I sure as shit didn't haunt any dolls."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The hair on the back of Dick's neck was on end, but he was shocked into a grin. Trust Jason to crunch over all the eggshells he'd been walking on. "You seem like more of an old-timey bell tower or music box kind of guy."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason shrugged again, his voice smoother when he next spoke, not okay, but not so tightly wound. "We find a music box, I swear I'll unload into anything that tries to open it."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""But you /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"know /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"I'm a sucker for carnival tunes."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Oh well in that case," Jason snorted, but his gait shifted, looser in the knees as he resumed his walkthrough. "I'll save the bullets and strangle you with your own utility belt." /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Both flashlights whipped toward the sound of something hollow clattering to the floor where Jason had been seconds before, revealing a popped Jack-in-the-box, its jester's cap sagging over its rust-warped edges. Jason nodded to himself and clicked his tongue with a resigned but milder expression. "That's worse."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Agreeing emphatically and refusing to risk returning to the previous tension, Nightwing jumped back to task. "Alright, so before something else pops out of that box," or before whatever knocked it over came calling, "We'll keep better pace if we coordinate entries. After you step in and do a visual sweep for hostiles, I'll come in with night vision and clear a path so you can keep our 6."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason studied him, eyes gaining back some of the resilience Dick expected, appearing to mull it over. "Could work." He started a slow nod just before he jumped a mile out of his skin and whipped his light and pistol up near the bookshelf before tearing his aim back to the floor. "/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Shit–/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick gasped as the light fell for a fraction of a second on a little girl. The reflection off her oversized Harry Potter glasses flashed back at them before she raised her arms to shield herself, huddled in a ball. Her yellow-knit sweater and skirt practically glowed in the gloom./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hey, it's okay." Jason's voice dropped seamlessly to a soft murmur. Taking one hand off his gun with a calming motion, he lowered himself to her level, his massive frame shrinking with his tone. "I know you. You're Grace Hale, aren't you?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The figure's head bobbed once, then rapidly, but she didn't uncover her face, staying as low and as small as she— /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"it /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"could. "That's what I thought. Hey, we're not gonna hurt you."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Hood." Dick tried— fought— to turn off the urge to comfort the little girl, but if it could interact with them then it wasn't human and might be dangerous and Jason was just walking over to it squatted down with his gun stowed now and—/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Relax, it's a kid." Jason spared a glance up as Dick moved nearer to both of them, then hissed "For fuck's sake, put that down."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick hesitated, keeping the rifle set at his shoulder, but aimed away so the lighted sight threw shadows across the room. "I can see what it looks like Jay, but Z said she's not… there's nothing like what she looks like here." There /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"couldn't/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" be. God, he'd almost managed to forget he was running around with a gun but not if there were going to be people in the line of fire./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""She was taken. You gave me the dossier. If you can see her, that's proof enough something's different." He looked back at the child, touching his face as if to remove his mask but it was already gone. "Grace, this is Nightwing and I'm Red Hood." Jay paused and Grace, if it was Grace Hale, who fell asleep reading Where the Sidewalk Ends on November 2, 1979, brought her hands down cautiously. He gave her the smallest smile, exuding a gentleness Dick didn't know he possessed. The sight took tiny bites out of his heart. "Right, yeah." Jason soothed, though the girl's mouth never moved./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" "What's she saying?" He pitched his voice low too, exuding safety and protection through years of practice. He settled down to one knee, still trying to maintain readiness since Jason clearly wasn't, but her wide, fearful eyes darted to him to look momentarily as confused as he was. His off-hand rose automatically in a little wave with a tentative smile of his own./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason looked back. "So you can see but not hear her." He asked, not waiting for a nod before grumbling to himself. "That sure clears that up." He turned back to the ghost girl, and Dick's heart cracked when she dropped her head and shuffled her feet without standing, picking at the top of one of her white ankle socks nervously. "Grace— Gracie," he corrected seriously as the girl pouted at him, then continued, "maybe you can help us. We're looking for monsters."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick felt adrift as the conversation went on without him. He stood there, confused, with his heart still not slowing down at how close the entity was to Jason, but all the same, his finger on the trigger guard nearly made him retch and got worse by the second. The girl looked back and forth between them, then folded her arms over her knees, sitting back a little, relaxing./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Red Hood had a better read on the situation. Dick could trust that even if it did endanger Jason./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jay shifted on his haunches and gave him a significant look. Dick met his eyes briefly and had to blink, his eyes slow to focus after the glare of Grace's dress; his stomach gave a slight roll as he looked back at her. "That's right, like the Midnight Man. Can you tell us about him?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason snapped to attention, his hand flying back to the butt of his pistol as he turned so the girl couldn't see. "Nightwing," he warned. Dick switched his aim gratefully to the closed door Jason focused on so intently./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Gracie moved lightning-quick, jumping up to wrap her slender arms around a shocked Jason's neck, nearly giving Dick a heart attack, but the man didn't hesitate for one second to throw an arm around her and stand up to face the threat, wrenching his wrist at what must have been an uncomfortable angle so he could reach into his jacket./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick lined up his sight and moved his finger to the trigger, unsure of how much kickback to expect. His ears were already ringing with the anticipation of the gunshots./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Ahead of him, Jason twitched to incline his head toward where the girl had burrowed her face into his neck. His stance shifted minutely, and Dick could see the tension corded in his neck before he apparently came to a decision, running his thumb over the weaponlight./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Off/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"." He ordered, barely audible and not checking in to see the questions all over Dick's face before he dove low and around the nearest shelf./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Cursing quietly, Dick reached for his light to do the same, quickly beating a retreat toward the opposite side of the room just in case, ducking down and rolling out onto his back beside the sinister doll. The spots of the mattress that had worn to springs provided him with options for peepholes, but staying in a position to fire left him vulnerable./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason tucked himself beyond the reach of the windows so that even Dick couldn't see him except by the whites of his eyes. He slowed his breathing, then stopped altogether as the click of a doorknob catching shattered the silence./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick's heart skipped a beat, shock sending a jolt through his system. He froze to listen for any more, but there was only silence./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Except he was closer. Jay would have to break cover to fire first. If Nightwing moved now, he could fire at the door and probably hit something, but that chance diminished every second that passed after the long creak of the hinges. Dick could see Grace and heard /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"something/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" at least. Hopefully that was a new pattern forming, or maybe it was the room, but he should look out and check, he should do something–/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Scooting down to peer through the closest hole in his cover. Coating himself in the dust he shimmied through brought into bright contrast a series of shallow scratches inches from his face by the legs of the bed. His thoughts hiccupped. Horror kicked him in the chest./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The bed won't move anymore. My shoulders hurt, my ankles hurt, every muscle cries out, and I yield to the exhaustion saturating every knot in and around my body. Somewhere in my head comes treacherous whispering that it's my fault, that I managed to do this to myself. The voice doesn't sound like mine. A sob bubbles up my throat again when the /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"thing/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" that wears a woman's face invades me to hiss in my ear when I'm empty and alone. The jacket is damp with cooling sweat and I want to move again, to alleviate the prickling, too sharp, I just want to peel off all the bad skin and—/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His fingers twitched along the cold steel of the muzzle of the rifle he was clutching, disoriented by his night vision flashing like a firework before his eyes adjusted, focusing on the door through his peephole. He blinked to clear the fog in his head that muffled cracking gunshots./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason was up. He was facing where the entity had been advancing, squeezing off shot after shot. "Nightwing!" The word took too long to find meaning in his brain. It didn't sound like the first time Jay had said it. "Beat it!"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He felt disconnected from his body as he threw it forward and caught his feet, firing back the way they came./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; text-align: justify; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"His ammunition puffed in a collision less than four yards away. There was a form there, like a heat mirage. Pain splintered through his skull as he tried to concentrate. it rippled like liquid where it impassively ate two more of Jason's bullets. The only solid detail Dick could make out was a reflective shimmer at chest height. He aimed for it and fired again./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The shotgun blast struck home, sending a roiling pulse through the air, buzzing like a swarm./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason took that as the sign to fall back for the door, still clutching the little girl with almost no light to lead the way. Dick fumbled to follow on rubber legs, but the solid wall of static advanced on them again, closing the distance on Dick between one blink and the next./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He slammed down on his hip and elbow, sprawling but managing to roll his free leg out from under him to kick blindly at whatever appendage had his leg pinned. A wet, sucking screech cut through him. His view of the source sharpened as it made contact./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The thing trying to envelop him glinted wetly and had edges that fused into the surrounding darkness in shifting, amorphous undulations. He tried to focus on knocking the damn thing off without letting it take half his calf with it, a sharp grip hooking deep into the muscle with protrusions that suddenly felt gelatinous./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The rifle was under him but his boot was connecting with something solid so he kept pumping his legs while scrabbling to get the weapon up and around his body for all the good it did./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Three more shots rang out in rapid succession over Dick's head and the being shrieked louder as Jason came flying back to follow them, throwing a fist straight into the miasma. Dick could feel a massive lurch back and couldn't choke down the cry of pain and indignation as the talons took him with them, dragging him a full yard across the cold hardwood. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason was piling on a ferocious torrent of punches and kicks but was hampered by the limited iron on his shins and knuckles, roaring as nothing loosened the pain in Dick's leg./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"But his thoughts were clicking back into place. Jason stood as the only solid point through the swirl of chaos above him, the unpredictable jerking and weaving./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick had started to grow used to seeing the man in action: brutal where Robin was graceful, explosive where he had been sharp, but never from this angle and it struck him again. He looked unassailable./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"For a moment, an inappropriate, incongruent second, he felt his shield was impenetrable. He thought /spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"wow/spanspan style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Before Red Hood's neck snapped to one side. Jason clamped a hand over the ear and stumbled a single step back./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He seized the opportunity to swing the rifle under his ribs up and around between the two. He tightened his grip around the barrel and twisted his torso to strike at the thing's main body. The second he felt the weight lift from the follow-through he twirled the weapon like his escrima stick, tucked the butt of the rifle back to his shoulder, and aimed to fire at something small and white at the creature's center./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The gun was unbalanced. A bend in the barrel./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Nightwing dropped the weapon and rose onto his elbow to reach the compartment on his belt with modified wingdings. They were steel but edged with iron. Jason was back to using fists but his body dipped as his knees started to give under the strain, Nightwing grit his teeth as the weight on his leg increased suddenly with the creature's step. He grunted and plunged the edge between the creature's claws, ripping straight up. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The pressure vanished. Its deformed excuse for a leg releasing its grip on his calf as it retreated./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Nightwing scuttled back and lurched to his feet in the direction Jason was trying to hurl him, spinning to launch his remaining weapon back in a fighting retreat, reflexively switching off as they made their run./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The static swelled to a roar. Dick's ears popped. He recoiled, throwing an arm wide to cover Jason's back on instinct. White light exploded from the ice-cold threads around his wrist, the flash dazzlingly bright through his lenses, the cold running like water to his elbow./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"A figure flashed, not in the light, his senses were too clouded and confused, but he knew the face of what was bearing down on him./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He had to call it a face. It had a mouth, nothing else. Veined teeth wedged in rings down its abyssal gullet. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Another scream, this one grinding through the air as it threw its head back and forth./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Shrinking from the light melded it back into the amorphous shape that pained Dick to concentrate on, but he could. No arms sprouted from its torso, giving it a worm-like appearance that fit with the wriggling of its bulging body, until it split in two to a pair of muscular legs that had pinned Nightwing a second ago. One of them disfigured with a gray-purple crack that looked luminous./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The vision faded, leaving Nightwing with nothing but black as his eyes failed to adjust. Dick felt around wildly for where Jason had been, panic spiking when he found nothing./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick felt himself being hoisted to his feet and didn't give his own wounded leg a choice whether it wanted to take his weight. Rough hands hauled him in the direction of their retreat but then they were gone. After a heart-stopping moment, Dick groped at a fistful of the fabric he thought was a jacket collar, and when Jason's fingers locked around his own wrist to keep them latched together, sprinted in whatever direction it took him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"They made it just a few yards before his lifeline was wrenched out of his grasp and something struck him in the chest, knocking him backward and off-center and shoving his entire body flat into a wall. A large hand pinned him in place. The door slammed beside his head, its echo fading so that the only sound was the hard panting inches in front of him./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick hurriedly blinked the spots from his vision, both hands ready at his utility belt for when the door splintered inwards but nothing came for them./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jason's fist was raised, his forearm pressed to the wall beside his head with his bicep blocking Dick's head; his face was turned away, eyes shut before twitching back to the door, suspicious of the stillness./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick dropped his head back to take long, deepening breaths through his nose, heart slowing as the danger apparently faded. The weight of Jason's hand lessened and fell away, Dick became hyper-aware of the rifle strap constricting his chest./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Exhaustion dragged him down in a rush, sending a shiver through his knees that made his injured calf throb, but it was another distant sensation that he was too dizzied to make sense of./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He tried to string his fleeting thoughts back together. He could see water stains on the ceiling, hear their shuddering breaths mingling, feel chips of paint when he splayed his fingers against the wall for something grounding, he smelled sweat and dust and vetiver aftershave./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and not open them again, his head was all turned round and even though that useless, unwieldy rifle dug into his back and the strap constricted around his chest with every hitching breath, he wanted to stay hidden from the horrorshow in Jason's shadow. Just for a few moments./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The tension bled out of Jason and Dick swallowed as the man shoved himself back off the wall, his nostrils flaring with the same breathing technique Dick was currently failing at. Failing worse when the warmth that had been surrounding him yielded to the freezing temperature of the rest of the asylum./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Reloading."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 12pt; margin-bottom: 12pt;"span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Dick watched, absorbed in the swift motions, forgetting himself until Jason finally turned away from the door, and him./spanspan id="docs-internal-guid-329abaf0-7fff-157e-025c-2cfae0883e1f"/span/p