A/N: I know it's an evil story, and it's only going to get more and more evil. This chapter chops and changes a bit for scenery and POVs, but we get a bit of everything. Angst lovers among you... enjoy... and the slightly more delicate ones out there might want to get a cushion ready to hide behind ;)
LotRseer3350: Everybody loves plot twists! Muahahaha!
Sethoz: You should see my keyboard! Poor thing is in pain, keeps begging me to let it be! And it's all your fault :P Hehehehe.
Capt. Cow: Tragic isn't it? Bad, Mina, bad! *pokes Mina with a stick, and then runs away*
Graymoon74: That must have been the first time in ages that you haven't yelled at me. Yay, but aw, need your jabbing!
* * *
His eyes looked across to his companion, and saw the other man's cocky smile. His tousled dark brown hair was everywhere, all over his brow and in his dark mischievous eyes. "What are you so happy about?"
Huckleberry Finn chuckled lightly, and shrugged his lean shoulders, pistols held in his hands skilfully as he spun them using the trigger guards whilst they waited in the rain. "I'm happy for the both of us, Sawyer... someone's gotta be optimistic around here."
"Huck... we're soaked... it's stormy and cold; why are you grinning?"
"Am I not allowed to be happy now?" Huck challenged, slotting his pistols into his holsters at his sides, and leaning casually on the building facing his friend. Tom looked down at him, a good few inches taller, and sighed.
"You never were one for gloom," Tom noted, patting Huck on the shoulder. "I don't think he's gonna show."
"Sure he is," Huck replied, still with the smile. It amazed Tom that the grin could remain when the circumstances were so heavy. They had been tailing this guy for days, and only now had they been given the go-ahead to 'take him out'. "Actually..." He pointed through the rain, looking out from underneath the peak of his wide cap. "I think that's him... you see?"
Tom squinted through the sheets of rain, and nodded slowly. "That's him all right. Come on, let's go." Tom started across the street at a brisk walk, his clothes dripping, Huckleberry right behind him with an annoying spring in his step as always.
"Dammit, Sawyer, try smiling for once when you're on a case," Huck sighed, "frowning wasn't in the job description, you know. Everything's fine."
They followed the man into a building, and drew their guns. "Trust me, Tom... when have we ever failed before? You and me... we've never been foiled yet."
Tom saw the light in Huck's eyes, and nodded. The two stepped into the large entrance hall, and froze immediately.
They had been expected.
* * *
The American screamed abruptly, and then went limp against his restraints, his knees losing their stability all of a sudden, his chest heaving as he fought for air. Gregory took a step back, and glanced to Amelia.
"He is ready once again, dear Amelia."
"I have warned you about your pet names, Gregory," the woman replied haughtily, and strode up to Sawyer, "and I was not teasing. If you persist, I will be forced to hand you over to my daughter."
Gregory seemed to consider this for a moment, before backing down. Almost reluctantly, he sank away into the shadows before leaving the room altogether, and Amelia could faintly sense the thrill he had gained from seeing the American Agent's latest memories.
"Look at me... raise your head and look me in the eyes, boy."
She felt the same resistance as before, but it was lessened now, part of his will broken and torn away, useless.
His head rose from its resting place, and their eyes met. The link strengthened at once, and Sawyer seemed to flinch, visibly weakened by his ordeal.
"Do not fight me... it is futile. I will succeed, and you know that. Let me in..."
"No... I won't let you hurt her."
"She hurt me... now stop fighting, and submit."
A solid glare. "I won't."
She knew she was fighting his subconscious, and its unwillingness to be submerged again after last time, but she would not lose. She was too used to succeeding now to not have her way, despite how childish that was. "Stop fighting, or I will make you stop, boy."
"Do what you like... I won't let you hurt Mina."
Amelia's hand shot out and slapped him across the face. In the blink of an eye, she had his jaw in her grip again, and she clasped it so tightly she almost broke the skin with her fingernails. "Hurt her? You think I want to hurt the beast?" She laughed, a hollow, dead sound, abrupt and chilling. "I want to destroy her, Sawyer... I want her broken, submissive, begging for her pathetic life on my knees before I make it end!"
Sawyer closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.
"You cannot resist me forever! You know I will win, and I will have my revenge sooner or later, whether you like it or not. There is no way for you to stop me... you are not strong enough by far. You are a simple, weak, useless human made for one purpose, and that is for me to use you as a puppet to do my bidding. Do you understand?"
She shook his head as she emphasised her psychic words, his hair falling all in his face and around his brow, limp and damp with perspiration. He gasped lightly, and growled, "No... she's changed... she's not like that anymore."
"Liar!" she screamed in his face, and he flinched at her tone. Still she did not release her grip, and pushed her mind into his again, prying her way in as if scrabbling for purchase on a slippery rock face. "You will watch her suffering, and I will know peace at last for seeing her in pain after what she did to my family. She deserves nothing more than the slaughter she forced upon my loved ones! What gives you the right to judge me, to think other than what I have told you? How dare you? You cannot know the pain I have been through!"
* * *
Tom, determined and suddenly filled with more energy than he thought he possessed, threw his head backwards, twisting it out of her grip, and kicked out at her with his still-booted feet, throwing her back and to the ground. She landed with a shriek not unbecoming an enraged animal, but before she could stand up again, Tom yelled at her, "You're wrong! You don't know anything about me... though you do know my name... my association with Mina and the League. You talk about rights and vengeance... how can you try and justify yourself to me? You're no better than the Mina Harker who killed your family!"
It was not the right thing to say, he knew, though the events of the next few moments continued to puzzle him for days afterwards. The speed with which it all happened astounded and frightened him.
The thick metal door slammed open on its hinges with such force that Tom started violently, green eyes meeting the icy gaze of Elizabeth Kendrick, the hatred and fire in them unnerving, sending an inescapable chill down his spine.
Something shot across the room at him with such speed that he would have missed it had he blinked during its journey... and then the only thing he knew was pain. He gave a long agonised shout, and then fell very quiet.
He didn't have to look to his right shoulder to see the thin stiletto blade protruding from it, fresh blood seeping out of the wound around the shining weapon. He gasped for breath, and winced, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw began to ache. Tom groaned loudly, and gave another gasp.
Amelia Kendrick was off the floor now, standing beside her daughter with slight triumph lighting her lined features. She paced up before him like a victorious predator before its fallen prey, and sneered. "You think you are so noble... you cannot see past your own naïve perceptions of friendship and the world you live in. How small... how pathetic..." she laughed, "... how American."
She tore the blade out of his shoulder, letting the blood flow freely. Tom gave an abrupt, but loud cry, and then went very quiet again. All energy had seeped out of him, as he hung limply and helplessly from his chains again, surely a pathetic sight to look upon.
"Now," the disturbingly calm voice in his mind began anew, "look at me..."
* * *
Elizabeth's mind raced with the thrill of harming a man again, and her heart pounded in her chest madly, threatening to break out of its confines and leave her body entirely. She looked momentarily to her mother, and then left the room, the sight of the American suffering almost too tempting to resist.
She walked down the corridor, the sounds of her mother's voice travelling along with her for a time as she forced her consciousness into that of the captive, and Elizabeth's thoughts wandered.
The first thing she thought of was her father. He had been an abusive terrible man, and she had taken only joy in knowing she had killed him in that terrified moment when her abilities had shown themselves full force, abruptly and destructively.
She remembered the shaking and smashing of objects all around her as her father had approached, a drunken mad glint in his eye, and a grin on his face. She had known his intentions, and could no longer stand his treatment of her.
Everything around her had hovered as she sat in her bed -a place where she never felt safe after years of being in the same house as that thing- shortly before they had all shot off towards her father, many of them impaling him and driving him to the ground in pain. After seeing what she had done, though quite shocked, Elizabeth had used all of her mental strength to make her own wardrobe collapse on the man, subsequently crushing his head, and freeing her and her mother from his abuse forever.
But those years with a drunken horror of a man for a father had scarred Elizabeth; though she herself did not know the difference it would have made to have a normal loving husband be with her mother. She no doubt would have been a sweet, kind lady, not a tortured, battered soul who loved to wreak havoc and pain upon the other sex.
Sighing lightly to herself, she entered her room, and closed the door. Elizabeth moved over to the window, grimy though it was, and stared out of it into the early morning light that was just breaking over the horizon.
* * *
Rodney Skinner had never quite understood why it was that he loved to explore so much. Perhaps it was because of his confinement when he had been just a boy, the way his father had treated him... perhaps not. Maybe it was just an instinctual curiousity he had never quite managed to suppress. All he knew was, the morning air of New York felt somehow refreshing as he strolled inconspicuously along the streets, something in the American atmosphere lightening his mood.
He hummed lightly to himself as he went, glancing up at a clock to see that it was almost eight o'clock. He would have to be getting back for breakfast soon, but oh how happy he would be this morning after this escape from the Nautilus, no matter how brief.
Dodging his way through the crowd, Skinner grinned at their lack of awareness, though no one saw the expression. He had neglected to dress or paint himself before leaving what he had come to call home lately, and so now was quite invisible to the naked eye.
As he walked, a sudden spring in his step, he caught someone moving through the crowds on the opposite side of the street, and he made his way over to them carefully, so as not to bump anyone and frighten them.
Skinner gave the familiar figure a light nudge in the side, and he was amused and shocked when they started visibly. He touched a hand to their arm, and pulled them aside discreetly, trying to make it look as though the person was walking quite of their own accord.
"Easy, Sawyer, a bit jumpy this mornin', eh?"
Sawyer looked to the rough area where Skinner's face would have been, and said, "What are you doing out here? You startled me."
"I noticed!" Skinner furrowed his brow, another useless but instinctual expression. "I could ask you the same thing."
Sawyer revealed an object from the inside of his coat, and showed it to Skinner. "I needed to get this... didn't feel right without it." He smiled.
Skinner nodded at once at the sight of the Winchester rifle and chuckled. "Heh, of course. I should've known." Giving his friend a pat on the back, he said, "Well, come on then, or Nemo and the others will start without us."