OK, being that I'm on vacation at the moment I had to save this HTML in Word, so the formatting may come out a little, shall we say, awkward? I apologize in advance if it does.
Part 6
"Mr. Minosa, it was an honest mistake," Darien said, thinking of a number of very choice curses he would like to be rattling off at the moment. He was standing in Richard Minosa's plush living room, trying to appease the irate scientist. However, Minosa was having none of it.
"How is arresting my son an honest mistake?" Minosa bellowed, giving Darien a stern glare.
"He climbed over the fence like a criminal. I'd say it was a pretty damn easy mistake to make," Darien snarled, his discipline failing him momentarily. He took a moment to calm himself, then continued, "I'm sorry about what happened with your son. But you have to admit, he's as much at fault here as we are."
Minosa's gaze was about as warm as chilled steel. "I don't have to admit anything. Yes, my son snuck out of the house in the middle of the night. But you still overstepped your bounds." He walked over to the front door and opened it. "I can assure you, Edward will be properly punished. In the meantime, I suggest you get the hell off my property."
Tension radiated throughout Darien's entire body as he nodded curtly, then walked out of the house and over to the car, where Bobby and Sophie were already seated inside.
"How'd it go?" Bobby asked curiously as Darien opened the driver's side door and slumped into his seat.
"How'd you expect it'd go?" Darien replied dully, slipping his key into the ignition. "We blew it. Minosa's going to call the Fat Man and we're gonna get a royal ass-chewing. Not to mention the fact that we're gonna get our pay docked low enough that the best apartments we'll be able to rent out will be made of cardboard."
Sophie frowned. "It can't be as bad as all that.... I'll talk to him, see if I can't straighten things out."
Darien shook his head. "You really think that'd work?"
The despondent look on Sophie's face was the only answer he required.
The engine turned over and Darien pulled the car out of Minosa's driveway. For five minutes no one spoke. Darien had nothing to say, and the others seemed either too deep in thought or too intimidated by the admittedly reckless driving he was exhibiting at the moment to bother with saying anything themselves.
Bobby was the one to speak first; after the long period of silence his voice seemed extremely loud even though he barely spoke above a whisper. "We must've missed something."
Darien stared out at the road ahead of him, seeming to ignore Bobby but in actuality thinking along exactly the same lines. If Minosa had been Allianora's next target, she would have tried something already. She was very impulsive... and very quick to do something once she made up her mind, if what he had seen of her actions in the past 24 hours was any indication.
"Whatever it was," Bobby continued, "I don't think it's in the files. I think it's personal." His lips pressed into a thin line. "She's not gonna go for Minosa, not yet."
Darien blinked once, twice, as Bobby's words sunk in. Then he yanked hard at the steering wheel, ignoring Sophie's protests as he made an illegal U-turn and began to drive at an ever-increasing speed. After all, if Minosa wasn't the target.... "That leaves Sampson."
**********
Rick Sampson's place of residence could hardly be called a house. It was obvious that he had managed to acquire a great deal of money at some time in his life, whether through his own work or through an inheritance, and had invested a good deal of it into his home. It was a small mansion, with Greek influence visible in the architecture and any number of expensive accoutrements used to decorate the house and surrounding grounds.
If Bobby weren't trying to kick his long-time thieving habit, he would have been tempted to list this place as a potential mark... and a very profitable one, at that.
"Hey, Hobbes." Sophie's voice cut into Bobby's reverie, effectively shattering it. "Get out of the car. We're supposed to scout the perimeter."
Bobby groaned. "Not again...." He looked around, berating himself for not paying enough attention to protest Darien's decision. It was too late now, though; Darien was already walking up to the front door. Bobby got out of the car, stretched in an attempt to reduce the tension that had built up in his muscles and followed Sophie as she started to move out and investigate the grounds.
They had only gotten about 100 feet away when Darien called out to them. "Wait! Come back."
Bobby turned and jogged over to the building, Sophie right behind him. "What's up?" he asked, although from the expression on Darien's face he already had a good idea.
Darien pointed to the front door. The lock was mangled in a similar fashion to how Fulton's had been. "No need to keep watch. She's already here."
Sophie squeezed her way in between Darien and Bobby so that she could have a look at the door as well, then drew her gun. "Let's get her, then."
Darien held up a hand, indicating for Sophie to wait a moment. "It's a big house, our best option here is to split up. Hobbes, you're with Sophie."
Bobby shook his head. "Forget it, Fawkes. With that hand, you're gonna need some kind of backup."
Darien considered for a moment. "Alright, Hobbes is with me. Sophie, you take the first floor, we'll take the second."
Sophie grinned. "If I catch her first, you are so going to owe me dinner and a movie, Fawkes."
Darien raised an eyebrow. "Sophie, this isn't the best time...."
Sophie stuck out her tongue defiantly. "I catch her first, you owe me dinner and a movie. You catch her first, I buy you Chinese take-out for a week."
Not willing to wait and find out whether Darien agreed or continued to protest, Bobby flung the door open and walked inside. After a few more seconds of bickering Darien followed, catching up to Bobby momentarily.
"I've had about as much of that as I can handle," Bobby grumbled.
"Try working with her for sixteen months straight," Darien replied. "I swear, my I.Q. dropped ten points."
"Only ten?" Bobby deadpanned.
The two men slipped into silence as they walked up the stairs and began a thorough search of the second floor. Bobby's eyes flickered left and right, searching for any indication that Allianora was there. He dry-swallowed a few pills, wishing that he had remembered to take them earlier, as he kept thinking he saw glimpses of a female figure out of the corner of his eye. This wasn't the first time low lighting and his paranoia had ganged up on him, but right now was definitely not a good time for it to happen.
Darien halted in front of a cherry-stained wood door and held up a hand, indicating that Bobby should stop as well. As Bobby leaned closer it became apparent that there were two people inside, holding a hushed but tense conversation. Darien turned the doorknob, easing the door open silently.
The door opened onto a bedroom filled with expensive furniture and wall-hangings. A king-sized bed had been placed in the far corner, and that was the area that drew the attention of both men. Allianora was standing at the foot of the bed, which was occupied by a singularly terrified Rick Sampson.
"...So you see, Rick, justice must be served," Allianora purred. "And after what you did to me, the fact that I'm only killing you is a mercy."
"What did he do?" Bobby asked. Darien's eyes narrowed into an irritated glare, but Bobby didn't care. He might have given away their position, but he had to know what he had missed, what both of them had missed. And they were high enough off the ground that Allianora couldn't jump out a window as she had last time; the only way out of the bedroom was the door, and Bobby and Darien were blocking that.
Allianora turned smoothly to face Darien and Bobby. She didn't look angry at their presence, simply peeved. "You two again? I would have thought you might have given up after last time." She raised an eyebrow as she looked Darien up and down. "Speaking of which, how did you survive?"
Darien shrugged. "I'm not an easy man to kill."
Allianora seemed to accept the statement, at least for the moment, and turned her attention back to Bobby. "I have no reason to tell you anything."
"But you and I, we're in the same boat," Bobby said, trying to distract Allianora from what she had been about to do long enough for him or Darien to do something. "We both got dragged into something we hate. We've both been treated like freaks and lab-rats. If there's anyone in here you should be able to talk to, it's me."
"What're you doing?" Darien hissed through clenched teeth.
"Buying us time," Bobby whispered.
As Allianora's temper rose, her eyes seemed to turn an even darker shade of crimson. "You think you know what I've been through? You have no idea. You haven't been subjected to training methods that would make a Marine cringe, been poked and prodded every day for ten years, been raped by one of the top members of a project you never volunteered for to begin with...."
"How's that?" Bobby asked, his mind boggling at the prospect of how a man could even manage to kiss a woman whose touch was deadly, let alone rape her.
"I was ten. I'd only been on the project two weeks," Allianora said, her eyes cold. "I wasn't toxic yet, they'd only just started to feed the poisons into my system." She gestured toward Sampson, her face contorted into a snarl. "This man is a child-molester."
"I don't know what she's talking about!" Sampson said, sitting up in bed. "She's lying. She's insane! You're not going to believe some crazy woman, are you?"
Bobby looked over at Darien, filled with disgust at what Sampson had done. Allianora might be insane, but Bobby had experienced the madness and he knew that while it manipulated his perception of the truth it had yet to make him depart from reality. And judging from Darien's expression, he too was more inclined to believe Allianora than the frightened, tired old man lying in that huge bed.
"We could lock him away for that. Put him in the slammer for the rest of his life." Bobby was improvising; he had no idea whether or not it would be possible to find any tangible proof of what Sampson had done. But it sounded just convincing enough that Allianora might buy it.
The sneer on her face made it apparent she didn't. "You expect me to believe that?"
Bobby sighed. "It was worth a shot."
Darien spoke, his tone sarcastic. "Am I allowed to arrest her now?"
Bobby nodded. He had the information he had wanted, although he was now wishing he had never found out.
Darien stepped forward, careful to keep a safer distance than he had during his last encounter with Allianora, and said, "You're under arrest. Again. You have the right to remain silent--"
Allianora leaned forward and then leapt at Darien, quickly crossing the distance between them. Darien yelped and tried to step back, but lost his balance and fell over backward. His gun skittered across the floor, and Bobby rushed to pick it up. However, by the time he had it in hand, Allianora was poised above Darien, her lips inches from his. Darien lay unmoving on the floor, every muscle in his body tense.
"Crap." Bobby tried to think of a way to reason with Allianora, unreasonable as she was at the moment. "You're never gonna get out of here alive if you do that."
"Who said I wanted to get out of here alive?" Allianora droned calmly. "I'm perfectly fine with leaving in a body-bag as long as I take someone with me."
Darien decided to risk speaking. "Look. We can work things out, here. I have a friend who might be able to find a cure for that whole red-eyed insanity thing."
Allianora laughed. "No one can find a way to cure me, and I wouldn't care if they did. I like being this way." Still, despite her words there was a sadness in her eyes that Bobby could not ignore.
Bobby took a step closer. "I think you're lying. I think there's a part of you that can't stand what you've done over the last couple of days. How you killed all those people...."
"They deserved it." Her jaw tightened.
"Did they?" Bobby asked forcefully as he took another step. "You didn't think Jimmy Deharty did. How many of those scientists were just following orders? How many of them really knew what they were doing to you?"
Allianora took a shaky breath. "Stop it."
But Bobby wasn't about to let up. "If they deserved justice, what about you? You've killed eight people. Eight! And now you're about to kill someone else, someone who hasn't done anything to you. If those others deserved to die, what do you deserve?"
"Stop it!" She sounded desperate now.
"No, you stop it." Bobby looked directly into Allianora's eyes, refusing to flinch at the sight. "You can stop all this. Just stand up and move away. You don't have to kill Fawkes. You don't have to kill anybody."
"You... don't... understand...." Allianora gritted her teeth. "The more I fight it... the worse it is when it gets loose. I've been... fighting it for years. I... I can't any more."
Bobby bent down beside her, sure that he was close to helping her make a breakthrough. "You can."
Allianora closed her eyes, her breath coming in quick gasps. She started to pull away, but stopped, sweat appearing on her brow. Then her eyes snapped open and she glared at Bobby with utter hatred. "I CAN'T!"
Before Bobby had the chance to pull back she ripped the gun from his grasp and aimed it at his head. Bobby flinched, his eyes closing reflexively.
"So long, freak-boy."
And then the sound of a lone gunshot filled the room.
End Part 6
Ain't I so evil?