OH MY GOD! OKAY, IT'S HAPPENING! EVERYBODY STAY CALM! what's the procedure? what's the procedure everyone? STAY FUCKING CALM! EVERYBODY JUST FUCKING CALM DOWN!
Okay, so there's going to be a lot to say in this author's note. First of all, I am alive, hello, how are you? COVID, right? Pandemic? So, I have not updated until now for a few reasons. The pandemic hit and while I have been fortunate to not get sick, it did affect my writing schedule. I usually got my writing done during class, but with classes being online, I wasn't writing during class. Which school is another reason I have not updated. If you don't know, I am in college, I'm a senior this year. With how my classes are lately it is a lot of conversation, so I can't really write. I am also going to have less time to write in the near future because I am applying for graduate school. With my master's program, I am going to be really busy with school and work so I won't have as much free time. Lastly, I just haven't felt like writing. I've been doing other stuff creatively and while I still love writing, I don't push myself to do it when I don't feel like it.
Anyways, this chapter, other than editing today, has not been touched since December 2020. This is not all I had planned for this chapter, but it already has the length of the three previous chapters. Therefore, I decided that I would just split the chapter I had planned in half and give you guys something after 2 years. Consider it an early Christmas gift. At the end of this chapter, I will be answering some common questions I have been getting, what I have been up to, and all that since this one is so long already. I hope you like this chapter, I think it is pretty good, which is why I was so eager to just get it out.
The sound of the news droned on in the background as Courtney sat up, removing the piece of paper that had been stuck to her cheek during her slumber. It was the quietest of sounds from her front door that had awoken her. It was the questiest of clicking, a metal on metal sound. It was dark in her apartment, except for the blinding light of her TV, but even through the darkness she could see the slightest movement coming from her front door knob. Courtney stood from her couch cautiously, making sure her eyes never left her door. She tiptoed across her living room, her bare feet silent against the tile of her entry way. She watched as her door knob turned a bit more before stepping into the kitchen and grabbing one of the butcher knives from her set.
Courtney knew how the city worked and she knew how the criminals of the city thought. Crime was always present and ongoing. Some would argue that their city was no worse with crime than any other. Courtney could see it being possible, the stats didn't seem to be too far off from any other city. However, it was hard to believe that the city was no worse than others when she saw the multitude of cases dropped off at her desk daily. Numbers be damned. She saw the people each crime affected. She saw the tears of those being interviewed in the police station as she passed by. She saw the photos of the dead of the city.
Crime was awful in the city, but it always became worse after the Killer Bass did...well, anything really. If the Bass were being chased by police, were pulling off a heist, were being plastered all over the news, then it was safe to say crime rates were quickly going to increase. There were more robberies, more break ins, and even more simple things like traffic violations.
It had been theorized that criminals believed that the police would be too busy with the mayhem that was the Bass to do anything about the other crimes. The fact that the Killer Bass always got away seemed to inspire criminals to believe they could do the same. An even morbider thought was that the criminals believed they could impress the Bass with their criminal antics and get some sort of invitation into the most legendary gang of the city.
Who knew all it'd take to get an invite was to be a sassy lawyer who just so happened to stumble across an injured gang leader and save his life? Courtney was very willing to trade places with anyone else. She would be glad to hand over her invite into the Bass to someone wanting, as if it was some kind of concert ticket she could just pass off.
Courtney had her own theory that it wasn't just criminals that followed this statistic. While no one wanted to admit it, the people of this city admired the Bass. Everyone has dreamed of being bad and sticking it to the man, but the Bass did it. Constantly. They were a Bonnie and Clyde dream. They were a real life fantasy. Everyone fantasized about the electricity of doing something bad, imagining how it would be to be in the city's notorious gang. While the rest of the city was stuck in their everyday lives, struggling to make it by, the Killer Bass were starring in their own movie. They were being the badasses of the action movies. The ones walking away from the explosion. The thing that people didn't realize was that it was going to get them killed in the end.
Courtney moved from her kitchen back into her entry way, knife gripped in her hand like something out of a stereotypical horror movie. She could have been calling the cops. She probably should have been calling the cops. God knows it would have been easier than this. She could have easily hidden in her closet long enough until the police could arrive to arrest who ever was stupid enough to break in. At least then if she was murdered someone would know to check her apartment. She wouldn't be left decomposing in her home until someone from work decided she had skipped too long and someone needed to go check on her, or the owner of the building wanted his rent paid and would climb up the stairs to her apartment only to discover a horrific scene that to him would only mean issues renting out the unit in the future.
However, the real issue was that Courtney knew it always took the police forever to respond to calls in her neighborhood. She admittedly lived in a rough part of town. Rent was cheaper and despite the location, it was one of the few apartment buildings that had some sort of guards and security cameras. If Courtney was going to be murdered because of the city anyway, then she would rather be murdered in a building that had cameras to catch the killer. Now that she thought about it though, maybe those guards and cameras weren't that good since she was able to drag a half dead and shot man from the alley up to her apartment. No matter what, her location was an issue. If the police were always in a rush to get to this section of the city, then they would never leave.
Damn, she needed to move. She was fairly certain she heard gunshots down the street the other night.
She reached over to her entry table, where her purse had been thrown, and pulled out a canister of mace she always carried. Courtney walked around the city too often to be going without some kind of protection.
Mace in her left hand and knife clutched in her right hand, she watched as the doorknob turned fully. The door creaked open slowly and carefully, the intruder making sure to not make any noise. Too late, she had already heard them and was ready. A figure stepped into the darkness of the apartment and once Courtney was certain the intruder was facing her, she sprayed mace directly into the person's eyes. She took a step back not only to keep herself as far away from the intruder as possible, but to also make sure she did not mace herself in the process.
"Son of a bitch!" the intruder shouted, rubbing at their eyes. Courtney didn't even think. She kicked the person in the shin to catch them off guard and get them down to her level before raising her right arm to stab. She aimed for the man's neck since he was bent over in pain and brought the knife down full force, with all of the strength, fear, and survival instinct she had.
A hand grabbed at her wrist rough and desperate, so as not to get stabbed, and pushed Courtney back into the wall. Courtney hit the wall hard as her right wrist was pinned above her, knife still in her grasp. Still unable to see her attacker through the darkness, Courtney reached up with her left hand, ready to spray mace in the intruder's eyes again. She knew at this close of a distance she would get affected by it too, but her lungs and eyes were already burning from the remains left in the air. She had nothing to lose if it meant survival. She went to press down on the canister, closing her eyes to keep them protected as much as she could, but the can was smacked quickly out of her hand. Before Courtney could even open her eyes to react, her left wrist was in the rough grasp of her assailant and pinned to the wall much like her other hand.
Arms pressed firmly into the wall, Courtney struggled to get out of the man's grip. Her wrists were held tighter, just enough to know that they would more than likely bruise, and pressed more against the wall. Courtney stopped struggling for the moment when she began to realize how much more her wrists were starting to hurt the more she struggled. She was surprised the drywall was not yet breaking from the force.
Once Courtney stopped trying to escape, the man loosened his grip, letting the blood feel like it was once again circulating through to her hands. Maybe she should've called the police. At least then they could've been on the way. Courtney knew she could fight for her life. She had taken too many self defense classes and martial arts classes all through her childhood to not be at least decent at defending herself. She was too strong willed to not fight for her life.
What she didn't expect was how quickly her adrenaline would wear off. Courtney could've sworn she remembered adrenaline lasting longer. Back in high school, Courtney had completely snapped two bones in her leg while playing a volleyball game, but she hadn't felt it because of the adrenaline that was coursing through her. She had gone on to sing and dance in the school musical that night, all on a completely fucked up leg. She made it through the entire performance and felt nothing but the sheer satisfaction of performing. It wasn't until she had woken up the next morning that she felt the extricating pain that was radiating from the break. It took her nearly a full day to even notice the pain, bruising, and swelling. All because of adrenaline. Well, it could have also been Courtney's body being afraid of what she and her hellish personality would do if she couldn't perform that night, but the doctors said it was adrenaline and possible shock.
However, it seemed that adrenaline from fear didn't seem to last nearly as long as adrenaline from trauma. Maybe her body was simply unused to being afraid. Courtney wasn't even sure she was afraid. Was she afraid or pissed off that someone was breaking into her apartment? She had done nothing wrong. Sure, some people might consider her a bitch who's set on getting her way, but she's done good things in her life. She became a lawyer to be the good. She had put bad people away. She deserved some good karma. What she didn't deserve was to get murdered in her apartment by some wannabe gang leader! All of this just because the Bass felt the need to pull off a bank heist. Duncan, Courtney thought, her inner thoughts adding more venom to his name then she ever could out loud, Duncan was going to be the reason she was murdered. Oh dear god, I do deserve this. Duncan is my bad karma. I saved his life and let the evilness he could let into the city stay. This is the universe's revenge for helping him and staying in contact with him. The fucking Delinquent is the reason I'm going to be murdered.
And with that thought, Courtney suddenly had a fire burning in her. She was pissed.
She refused to let Duncan, of all people, be the reason she left this world. She also refused to let helping Duncan make her seem like any less of a good human being. So what she helped him? Good people help others even when the other person might not deserve it. It was called mercy for a reason. Most importantly though, Courtney refused to let getting murdered get in the way of the biggest crossroads of her career.
Despite the pain that was pulsating from her wrists, Courtney began fighting against the grasp on her right arm, trying desperately to stab her assailant with the knife she was refusing to release. "Get the fuck off of me!" Courtney yelled, kicking out her legs.
The man's body pressed into her's, making her legs useless in her attack. Close enough to feel hot breath against her face, she refused to stop attempting to stab. "Jesus fuck. Relax, Princess, it's just me," her intruder, better known as her annoyance, finally spoke with irritation. There was no anger in his voice, just irritation, which made sense since Courtney maced the hell out of him and almost stabbed him to death. Which was justified!
Even the sound of a familiar voice did little to keep Courtney from continuing to fight against him. Duncan leaned forward, pressing up against her more to keep her from beating the shit out of him, which he fully knew she was capable of doing.
"Would you stop? You're safe. It's just me, Duncan," he told her. God, did she want to punch him in the face just one good time.
"That doesn't make me feel any better nor does it qualify as safe," Courtney snapped angrily, but stopping her struggle nonetheless. She glanced up to him, ignoring how pressed up to each other they were. He stared back down at her with bloodshot, watering eyes. Courtney cursed the universe for making his eyes even more blue in the darkness and after being maced. Only a damn criminal would look more attractive after being maced.
Duncan still held her knife arm as he looked down at her. Her eyes were dilated to huge black orbs, and he could see her pulse beating at her throat. The adrenaline and fear must have still been running through her body. He stared at her as they both tried to catch their breath from their struggle. Though he would never admit it, Duncan felt in his gut that he could have been bested. Courtney could have easily stabbed him to death. The Delinquent stabbed to death in the apartment of an attorney who he had actually grown fond of. Even more ironically, killed by the hands of the attorney who saved his life despite knowing that he was the monster of the city.
Duncan always thought that he would go out in a blaze of glory. That SWAT teams and police officers would bust down the door to the Bass hideout, demand him to come out, tell him there was no point in resisting because he was surrounded. No matter the odds, Duncan would fight back. He would come out guns ablazing, like something out of an over exaggerated action movie. He would take down so many with him, but in the end, they would have to take him dead rather than alive. He never imagined himself being caught alive. Blaze of glory, he always said.
He would be a legend.
That or he would end up getting shot in the head in his sleep, courtesy of a rival gang's hired hitman. Then the legend of the Delinquent and the biggest mystery in the city of who he was would die with him. Even if he was dead, if no one knew his name behind the mask. They would always fear he was simply hiding in the dark, waiting like a monster to raise hell again.
He didn't mind how it went down either way. Go out like a badass or go out as a nightmare who could always come back, both would write him down in the city's history books.
Courtney cleared her throat with an amount of sass Duncan didn't even know could be conveyed through throat clearing, as she glared at his hand still squeezing at her knife arm. Duncan gently removed the knife from Courtney's white knuckled grip. He stepped back from her, raising his hands in surrender. He was still certain she might charge him at any moment. Another step back and Duncan placed the knife on her entry table, showing her his hands again to prove he had no weapons or intentions to hurt her.
They stared at each other through the darkness, Courtney's heavy breathing becoming angrier. Courtney stepped forward and punched Duncan's arm repeatedly. "What the hell gives you the right to break into my apartment!"
"Can't I come visit my girl?" Duncan questioned sarcastically, but winced as he was punched once again. Fuck, that girl has good aim, Duncan thought to himself, as Courtney continued to punch the same point on his bone.
"I vividly remember you saying the next time you needed help, you weren't going to show up at my place."
"Well, obviously I didn't mean it!"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Courtney growled through clenched teeth, "My apartment is not your fucking safe house."
"Obviously not, cause I don't feel fucking safe. First, you mace me, then you try to stab me, and now you won't stop hitting me," Duncan said, swatting at her oncoming hit before she could make contact once again, "Seriously, why do you always have a knife every time I see you?"
"Maybe it's because you're a fucking criminal who robs banks and murders people! You also broke into my apartment, of course I'm going to stab you!" Courtney shouted at him as he brushed past her, "Where the hell are you going? You're not staying here! I want you out."
"I'm going to rinse the burning from my eyes, if you must know. Oh, and a word of advice, I'd wash your hands and whatever else too since you fucking got it all over your entryway," Duncan told her, walking to the kitchen and bending over the sink.
"Duncan—"
"Call us even. You maced me and beat the shit out of me and I gave you advice from feeling the pain I am currently feeling," Duncan interrupted her as he turned on the sink, ending their conversation. Courtney let out an irritated shrill before stomping her way to her bedroom to wash off any diseases Duncan had left on her. Or pepper spray. That too.
"My house isn't just a stop for misguided criminals. I'm not here to take care of you," Courtney told Duncan as she walked out of her bedroom. She was hoping that he would have taken a hint and been gone once she came back out, but she knew he was never that easy to get rid of, and she was never that lucky. Duncan didn't exactly take hints even if they were in the form of flashing neon signs or getting maced and stabbed. She watched as Duncan made his way around her living room before plopping down on her couch, grabbing one of her leftover Chinese food boxes. Courtney made a face as he carefully tried to hold a pair of chopsticks and started scoffing down food, dropping more food back into the box than he could get in his mouth.
"What?" Duncan questioned, using his chopsticks to enunciate his question, "Running from the police can really make a guy hungry.
"I can only imagine," Courtney said sarcastically, crossing her arms, "And I wasn't judging your eating habits, despite the fact that you have the table manners of a chimp and the chopstick skills of a toddler." Duncan stuck his tongue out at her childishly as Courtney rolled her eyes. "I was making a face because that food has been sitting out like that for hours. Completely unrefrigerated or even closed."
Duncan paused and looked to the food for a moment before giving a shrug and continuing to eat. "I've tasted worse," Duncan mumbled out through a full mouth. He leaned back to lay horizontally on the couch, his shoes propped up on the armrest.
"Could you get your gross shoes off of my couch?" Courtney scowled, moving to pull off the muddy shoes he was wearing. She threw them to the floor, away from any carpet before turning back to a smirking pain in her ass. It was the first time she had gotten a good look at him since he showed up. His normally mohawked hair was matted down, from his mask or the sweat clinging to the sides of his face, she wasn't sure. He had thrown the dark leather jacket and gloves he had been wearing onto one of the bar stools to her kitchen countertop. Falling out of one his jacket pockets was his mask. The Delinquent mask.
It all just felt too casual. Duncan was making himself way too much at home for her comfort.
"Have you been keeping an eye on me?" Duncan asked sickenly sweet, giving her a cheeky smile as she focused back on him. The tv shined with headlines about the Delinquent being wanted and that for the safety of the city, it would be best to stay inside homes. Courtney turned back to him, giving him a glare. She wanted nothing more than to punch him in the throat.
Before Courtney could say anything, Duncan was balancing the Chinese box he was eating from on his stomach as he reached for the remote. "Can we change the channel? Only someone like you would want to watch something so boring." Courtney turned to look at the tv again, making sure all the headlines were still about the Killer Bass bank robbery. "Besides, they always get their facts wrong. We didn't pick that bank because they just got a new client with a shit ton of diamonds. I don't even think we took any diamonds. I picked that bank because their security sucks ass and the police never have a regular patrol for that area. Plus, they say mean things about me and always pick the worst security stills of me." Duncan gave Courtney puppy dog eyes, as if he was actually hurt by what the media had to say about him. Courtney glanced at the tv where a grainy image of Duncan, dressed fully as the Delinquent, was on display. He seemed to have been crossing the street, stolen items in his arms.
The channel was changed to one of the reality shows Courtney previously had on. The newly bright colors of the tv made her blink a few times before she reached out and grabbed the remote from Duncan, turning the tv off. Duncan threw his hands up in outrage as Courtney set the remote back down on the coffee table.
"You're not supposed to be getting comfortable—"
"You're the one who took off my shoes for me," Duncan interrupted.
"You're not even supposed to be here. You're not welcome here," Courtney continued, poking her finger down into his chest. Duncan winced slightly, rubbing at his chest.
"I thought you loved taking in wayward gang leaders. Doesn't it make you feel good about yourself?" Duncan questioned.
"No, it really doesn't. It makes me feel like a bad, hypocritical person," Courtney told him, "Besides, I don't want to make a habit of you showing up to bleed on my couch."
"That was one time!"
"It was enough times!"
"I gave you money to get a new couch," Duncan spoke, pointing at her accusingly as if that simple fact would simply end the entire argument.
"Yes, because your blood money to replace my blood couch makes me feel so much better about everything," Courtney said with an eye roll, crossing her arms in a huff, "And it still does not change the fact that I do not want you here."
"There was no blood on that money. I double checked," Duncan said nonchalantly, waving her off.
"Blood money doesn't have to literally mean there is blood on it," Courtney growled through her teeth. She wanted to keep on punching him until he left. Punching him felt right.
"Whatever. It obviously didn't make you feel that bad. At least not bad enough to not buy a new couch," Duncan pointed out, gesturing to the couch he was laying on.
He didn't remember a lot of the smaller details from that night. Shock and blood loss would do that to you. He remembered her. He tried his very best to memorize every detail he could about her. Once he had healed up at the Killer Bass base, he wanted to remember her, and make sure she was not some blood loss induced dream.
He remembered how he felt drunk, his vision was blurred and he was more tired than he had felt in a very long time. Duncan remembered the lights of the apartment blurring together in his vision to make a halo around Courtney. He remembered talking to her, about what he tried to hold onto the best he could but some of it was missing from his memory. Even if he couldn't remember every little thing she said, he remembered hanging on to every word she said like his life depended on it. Maybe it did at the time. But less important things like the details of her apartment, more specifically the couch he had bled out on, were fuzzy to him.
"Well, if you must know, it is the same couch," Courtney told him as he looked up at her like she was crazy.
Maybe she was.
Duncan had left her enough money to buy a really nice—fancy even—not bled on couch. Hell, he gave her enough to buy whatever else she needed or wanted too.
"I don't want your money, I don't need it," Courtney said as an explanation, catching the look he was giving her.
"Well if you don't need it then you should've bought a new couch with your own money instead of keeping the couch I almost died on. Now it feels like fucking bad luck that I'm laying on it like this again."
"I've been busy! Not all of us get to live our lives like reckless criminals, taking what they want and never having to work because they're taking from others. I have the biggest case of my career to prepare for. The case that will finally get me off the bench and playing the actual game. I don't have time to go couch shopping," Courtney tried to explain to him, despite knowing in the back of her mind that he did not care, "Besides, I didn't invite you here! If it's bad luck then leave!"
"Are you seriously that stuck up that your pride is worth sitting on a blood soaked couch?" Duncan asked.
"This has nothing to do with pride! It has to do with having a clear conscience. Taking stolen money from you as some form of payment doesn't make me feel any better about the decisions I've made recently."
"You're so concerned with your moral decisions that in protest you're going to keep using a bloody couch? I never expected you to be so uncaring towards a sanitation hazard."
"It's your blood! Besides, I deep cleaned it numerous times and I flipped the cushions. You can't even see any of the blood stains," Courtney said, gesturing to the couch.
"Well obviously you didn't clean well enough, cause there's a blood stain right here," Duncan said, pointing beside him on the couch.
"No there's not," Courtney argued, taking a step forward. When she did, she saw it clear as day. Beside Duncan was a dark red spot on the couch, maybe the size of her hand. Courtney could have swore she checked numerous times to make sure there were no stains on the other side of the couch cushions. This doesn't make sense, she thought to herself, stepping closer to the couch, I know that wasn't there earlier today.
"It's you," Courtney said out loud with realization before pulling at Duncan and his clothes to figure out where he was bleeding from. Typically, Duncan would have soaked in the physical contact, maybe given her a flirty compliment or two about how she just couldn't keep her hands off of him, but Courtney was being rough and he was beginning to feel pain coursing through his body.
"Fuck, Courtney," Duncan hissed out, "Would you let me do it?" Courtney glared at him but stepped away slightly as Duncan sat up on the couch. With a wince, he gently pulled his shirt over his head by the back of the neckline. Courtney tried her best to ignore the way Duncan's tattoos moved with his muscles tensing in pain as she looked him over for wherever he was bleeding.
Courtney examined his left side and quickly found where the bleeding was coming from. Right above his lowest rip was a gash. There was blood coming from it, but luckily it was not much, definitely was not as much blood as the last time Duncan ended up at her apartment.
"Oh yeah, that's a bullet graze," Duncan said through clenched teeth as he looked down at his wound, "I'm a professional, so I'd know."
"How the hell do you not feel getting hit by a bullet?" Courtney questioned, looking him over once more to make sure he was not hit anywhere else.
"I wasn't hit by a bullet, I was grazed by a bullet. There's a difference," Duncan corrected her.
"I'm sorry," Courtney said sarcastically, "How the hell do you not feel getting grazed by a bullet?"
"It's the adrenaline, baby. There's no pain with that." Courtney grabbed a napkin from the table, unused since she had a better conscience than to kill Duncan with an infection, and pressed it to his side. Duncan inhaled sharply in pain as Courtney tried to keep from smirking. "Besides, I've been shot before. This isn't much," he added sheepishly.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're an idiot?" Courtney questioned.
"Yeah, Bridgette does all the time," Duncan answered as Courtney rolled her eyes.
"Hold this there while I go get my first aid kit for you. Again," Courtney told him, placing his hands over the napkin. She stood up and disappeared to her bathroom, muttering about him being a dumbass as she went.
Courtney herself tried to keep from wincing as she pulled needle through flesh, connecting opposite sides of the wound once again. She never considered herself squeamish, her mother was a doctor who exposed her to the ugly and bloody of medicine even as a child. The educational kids shows she should have been watching as a child were replaced with recordings of surgeries whenever her mother was around. However, there was something uncomfortable about stitching up bullet wounds in her living room with whatever she had around. Luckily for Duncan, it was nothing more than a flesh wound, no matter how painful it looked and was, though Duncan assured her that he'd had enough nerve damage from bullet wounds to barely feel a thing. Courtney was able to get the bleeding to stop, not that there was much blood to begin with. Bullets tend to cauterize as they pass through a person. Red sewing thread, the only kind she had, weaved through skin, joining together where a chunk of flesh was now missing.
Courtney found herself glancing up at Duncan, who unlike her, did not even appear to be bothered at the moment. He was taking a long swig from the wine bottle Courtney had previously been drinking from. Courtney moved her gaze back to her work, with an eye roll, reminding herself to not continue drinking that wine unless she wanted some type of disease.
She had run out of suture kits after the first time Duncan was shot. Her mother only included a handful—three to be specific—in her medical supply gifting. Courtney doubted her mother ever thought she would need them unless for something like Courtney cutting her hand open on accident with a knife. She also thought it would be suspicious to ask for more and doubted she could get more with the way hospitals were counting inventory. After this moment, the need would no longer matter. She was never planning on saving Duncan or ever having him in her apartment again after tonight. She was going to change the locks, get a security system, and maybe even a adopt a dog and train it to hate Duncan.
Courtney stitched Duncan's skin back together with the red thread and was suddenly hit with a childhood memory of her mother sewing up her teddy bear. The family dog, a literally demon dog, had gotten a hold on her bear and ripped it open like it was prey. Courtney had a tantrum like no other, which was saying something coming from her. Her bear's stuffing guts spilled out everywhere, but her mom stitched it back together like a good doctor, of course after lecturing her about taking better care of her things. Courtney had thrown an even bigger fit when her teddy bear came back with a red sewed line across his stomach. Courtney did not want the memory of him being ripped open to be a part of him forever, she also argued about how easy it was to get brown thread instead of red. However, her mother had assured her that it was a battle scar. Sure, it was a memory of what he had been through, but more importantly it was a memory of how he survived.
Courtney stared at the red thread putting Duncan back together and all she could think about was that damn teddy bear. The red thread would not stay forever. She was certain that once Duncan left, he would get someone more qualified to put in actual sutures. Until then it was red thread. Duncan would have a gnarly scar from this, mostly due to her poor suture skills, but it wouldn't be unlike what he had already endured. Across his torso were multiple scars, some long and jagged, like a knife wound, and others more circular, like a gunshot wound. Who in their right mind would want to endure pain like these scars and keep coming back for more? A sadist? A madman? Duncan was definitely not a stable, right minded person, but was he so fucked up that he kept coming back for more as some sort of enjoyment? God damn, learn to dodge a fucking bullet.
Courtney knew she shouldn't have been spending her time with someone like this. Someone so uncaring for life. Obviously, this time it was an unwanted visit, but she knew if she kept letting this happen he would think she wanted him around. Maybe it was getting a drink with him. If she had just saved his life and blocked his number after he called, then maybe he wouldn't still be bothering her. Maybe if she had just walked away from him at the bar as soon as she saw him, then none of this would be happening.
She should move. She should change her name and move far away. Away from the city and away from him.
"See something you like?" Duncan commented, breaking Courtney from her thoughts. She glanced away from his scarred body and back to the wound at hand. "I know it's hard to resist looking. Women love the look, you know, with all the tattoos and the rock hard abs, it's human nature to be enthralled by it all. It's hard not to take a peek, but sweetheart, it's only polite to ask first before goggling at someone." Courtney pulled hard on the knot she was tying, sending a jolt of pain through Duncan. He winced in response, sucking his teeth. "You know, you have some god awful bedside manner."
"Don't talk shit about the person stitching you back together," Courtney said simply, tugging once again on the thread, this time to finish the knot and not cause pain. She cut the thread and examined the stitches, satisfied with her work. It would probably only take one more stitch to ensure closure. Hopefully she wouldn't kill Duncan before then.
"Yeah, well, the person stitching me back together is shitty at being a doctor. I'd be in better hands with a damn seamstress than with you as a damn lawyer playing doctor," Duncan complained.
"Maybe you should go to a hospital instead of showing up at my apartment. I'll gladly call you a ride. I'm sure the police would love to escort you," Courtney said sweetly.
"Well aren't you venomous today."
"I'm sorry that criminals showing up in my apartment like it's a damn Holiday Inn has put me in a bad mood," Courtney replied sarcastically, brushing a piece of hair from her face.
"A Holiday Inn? You give yourself too much credit." Duncan was met with a death glare. "Okay, okay, don't glare daggers at me. I promise to give you a five star rating on Yelp." She wanted to stab him. "And I hate to break this to you Princess, but you brought me up here last time. I was unconscious, remember?"
"Yeah, I do remember. I like you a lot better that way."
"You know, that hurts my feelings. Here I am just trying to bring you good company and my charming smile and you treat me like this. What would the Yelp users think about that?" Duncan said, narrowing his eyes at her and taking another drink from the wine bottle. Courtney took a breath, a pause, not allowing herself to respond to the Yelp comment. He simply wanted to start an argument with her, for whatever sick enjoyment he got out of it.
"Good company?" Courtney scoffed. "From what I've seen, you're about the exact opposite of what can be considered as good company. Every time I see you, you've been shot or stabbed."
"Hey, get your facts straight, babydoll. You've only ever seen me shot not—"
"Oh I'm so sorry, my bad. The point I am trying to make is so different because of that," Courtney interrupted sarcastically with an eye roll.
"I also vividly remember having a drink with you at a bar. I was nothing but good company then, especially after saving you from a drunken harasser," Duncan said, puffing his chest out like he was some kind of hero.
Courtney ignored him as he continued on about saving her and worked on her last stitch. Her hair fell from being tucked behind her ear, curtaining the side of her face. Despite the distraction and the hair ticking at her neck as she moved, she continued to focus on her work. It was unnerving how easy it was getting to tune Duncan out. She was becoming so used to him being background noise that it took no effort to keep herself from listening to him. In her focus and desperate ignoring of Duncan, she didn't hear him stop talking, a rare occurrence. She didn't even notice the silence or the fact that he was even paying attention to her until Duncan reached out and brushed her hair back, his fingertips lightly passing across her cheek. It was such a soft gesture and none she had ever expected to come from the Delinquent. Courtney glanced up at him, despite everything in her telling her not to, as he securely tucked her hair back behind her ear.
She met his eyes and all she could think was baby blues. Those baby blue eyes of Duncan's did not—should not— belong to such a hardened criminal. Baby blues were for wide eyed girls, innocent and kind people, babies. Baby blues did not belong on the Delinquent.
But she wasn't looking at the Delinquent. Those eyes were Duncan, solely his. Soft and blue.
"You know, I also vividly remember you holding my hand on the walk home from the bar and you not pretending to be disgusted by it," Duncan whispered between the silence. His voice was soft, nothing she would ever expect from the Delinquent. Maybe Duncan was right earlier, about the media. The media and the whole city, honestly, talked about the Delinquent as if he was some boogeyman, an urban legend. They talked about him as if he was a monster, something worse than what a human being was capable of. No one thought about the man behind the mask. Duncan was human. An annoying human, but still a human capable of softness and kind gestures. If she had met Duncan and not known he was the Delinquent, she would never think he was capable of the things he had done. Maybe the Delinquent was just a persona. A false person he put out into the world just to get by. Duncan was a person, not an urban legend and not some mystical monster.
The city needed to realize that there were no such things as monsters, just bad men doing bad things because they can. Except Courtney wasn't sure Duncan was a bad man. He had done horrible things as the Delinquent, but was he himself a bad person.
"Well, someone has to show you pity every now and then," Courtney spoke, voice as soft as his.
"Do you hold hands with every guy you pity?" Duncan questioned, moving closer to her.
"Only the ones I stitch back together," Courtney replied. Duncan breathed out a laugh and despite the fact that it was harsher than their soft tones, it did not break the silent moment between them.
"Well, do you let all the guys you pity and all the guys you stitch back up kiss you goodnight?"
Courtney let out a breath, a thought, and suddenly she found herself consciously in the moment. She shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't be talking to the Delinquent like she didn't know who he was, what he'd done, what he was capable of, and what he wanted from her. No matter how much she thought Duncan was a good person or the very least an okay person, she could not let herself do this. At the end of the day, he was still the Delinquent.
Courtney knew Duncan had some strange fascination with her, she wasn't blind. She had thought at first that he just wanted to annoy her and make her life a living hell, find some mundane pastime in his criminal life, but that wasn't it, not entirely at least. The way Duncan stared at her now and the way he moved to her told her something else. Something she didn't want to accept and definitely something she did not want to reciprocate. She knew she shouldn't be doing this, but the blue of his eyes met hers and there was something so soft and unrecognizable as the city's monster there in his eyes.
There she was mesmerized by those eyes again. Duncan's eyes. Solely his. But they weren't solely his. Despite the softness in his eyes, he was the Delinquent and he had done all of the cruel and terrible things she had heard of. The Delinquent's eyes were not baby blues and that meant Duncan outside of the persona did not belong to baby blues either.
Ocean eyes.
The Delinquent was hard and cruel, the monster of the city. His eyes might have been blue as can be, but there was a harshness behind them. The Delinquent was terrible and capable of awful things. His eyes were a storm of anger, cruelty, and chaos. The Delinquent's eyes were oceans during a violent storm.
Duncan is everything the Delinquent is, but he's also soft. His eyes trick you into thinking they are baby blue, innocent and pure. There's softness in his eyes, like the softness of waves. His eyes look like calm waters. Still, his eyes are like oceans and oceans carry tidal waves and chaos.
The Delinquent and Duncan are the same person. Yet no matter how many times she kept saying it to herself, something in her wasn't believing it.
Against all better judgment, she spoke. "Only the ones who keep showing up at my door dying, which you really need to stop doing."
"What can I say, there's just something about this apartment of yours that keeps me coming back," Duncan said quietly.
"Maybe I should move," Courtney said absentmindedly and Duncan let out another chuckle.
"I don't think that would make a difference." And she knew what he meant. It was her he kept coming back for and despite her better judgment she somehow kept letting him.
It was then that Duncan was moving closer and there was no sign of stall. Courtney knew she should pull away. She knew this all had to be a part of her sleep deprivation and the adrenaline of the night, there was no other logical reason for her not to be pulling away. She knew she shouldn't—no, couldn't—she couldn't let this happen. Everything about Duncan went against her morals, the law, what she thought she knew. Most importantly Courtney knew if she let this happen, if she didn't pull away, that there would be no way out of it. Duncan would never leave, though she doubted she'd want him to if she went through with it, and she'd be a corrupt lawyer tied to the Delinquent.
It would be ride and die—there was no or, only when. Fucking Bonnie and Clyde till the end.
"Courtney," Duncan started and he was so close she could feel his breath on her cheek. "I—"
The shrill cry of a cell phone tore through the silence and interrupted whatever Duncan was about to say. Courtney jumped back in surprise, genuinely startled by the breaking of the moment. Her heart pounded in her chest, though she was unsure if it was from the interruption or the thought of what could have, almost, happened.
The ringing was coming from the pocket of Duncan's leather jacket, still thrown uncaringly over a chair.
"You're all good and stitched up. Ready to go," Courtney spoke quickly, getting up from where she had previously been.
"Courtney," Duncan said, moving to grab her arm and stop her, but she was already halfway across the room from him.
"It's probably your crew, friends, checking to make sure you're still alive. You should take it. They're probably worried about you," Courtney said, moving further from Duncan, "I'm going to go be...anywhere else." Courtney rushed to her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Duncan moved back down to the couch, sinking further into the couch with a sigh, continuing to let the phone ring.
"Damnit."
what? cliffhanger? kindof. I hoped you guys liked this chapter and it was maybe worth the wait. This chapter felt very guilty pleasure writing it. I did have more planned, which I will move to the next chapter that actually has some plot, so that's exciting. Sometimes I wonder if I should name the city or just be vague. me: what is this city called? where is this city? also me: GOTHAM.
SO QUESTIONS!
What have I been doing creatively instead of writing? A lot. Pretty much anything with my hands I have been doing. I have been crafting away. I do resin stuff, crochet, cross stitch, cricut stuff, just all sorts of crafts. I love writing still, it is still what I was born to do, but sometimes it feels too much like work. I already have alot of work and even more coming up with graduation and graduate school. If you are interested in what I am up to outside of writing, or making sure I'm alive, I do have an instagram for my small craft "business" that I post on much more often than here. It is bywritingkilledreality. Get it? The stuff I make is by me.
Am I abandoning this story? NO. The updates will be slow and sometimes it may take years, but I have not decided to abandon this story. If I ever choose to abandon this story, I will make sure to put abandoned or discontinued or something in the story summary.
When will I update again? I am going to be honest and say I do not know. I have chapters loosely planned, but it is about getting that motivation to write and I have not felt it recently. I don't want to make promised and not keep them. I will loosely say, I am going to visit family for Christmas in a few weeks and I hate being there so I might write.
thank you for sticking around this long. I'm going to try to get a chapter out sooner rather than later. Please comment! Your comments motivate me so much! It can be anything. About the chapter, about your favorite line, about who you want to see, about what you think will happen, anything. Your comments even years after an update I have been so great to read and I usually respond so we can have a whole conversation.
thanks for reading 3 i hope you enjoyed it!
comments make me a happy writer :) even a smiley is appreciated