Inhuman Nature

MoshPit



She felt so small here, standing before this cold, forbidding building, its familiar gray bricks looming before her, dwarfing her, filling her mind with memories of him. Distantly, far in the back of her mind, she could hear his laughter, and shadows flashing across her eyes took her back to a Saturday morning, months ago, when they were all still a loving, happy family.


A crinkling of leather, and the cold of Richard's jacket sleeve on the back of her neck brought her back to reality.


"You don't have to be here, you know," he whispered into her ear, drawing her thin form close to his body, shielding her from the biting cold of the New York night. "I can handle this loser on my own." Virginia smiled, reveling in his concern.


"Yes," she confirmed quietly, hand sliding under his jacket to finger a holster, not nearly as empty as she would have preferred it. "I know just how you would handle him." She looked up at him, making no attempt to hide the dampness in her eyes. "You can't kill him, you know. I can't explain it, but I don't want you to hurt him." Richard, though visibly disappointed in her move for pacificist actions, swallowed his pride and reached for the call-button labeled 'Wolfson'.


"Yes?" his deep voice crackled out from the static.


"It's Richard. Let me up."


"Yeah, no. I don't think I'm gonna do that." Virginia struggled away from Richard's grasp, and slammed her fingers against the button.


"Warren?" Silence. "Warren," she tried again, with a little more force. Still silence, though she swore to herself that she heard the distinct hum of static, indicating that Wolf was there, listening, maybe waiting to reply. Minutes passed.


"WOLF!" she screamed into the speaker, ignoring the startled passers-by on the side-walk, as well as Richard's confused and concerned stare. She ran to the side-walk, and screamed up at Wolf's window.


"Wolf! I'll wake up every person in this building, in this city, until you let. Me. Up! WOLF!" She screamed his name again, ignoring the stares and the collections of "Shut the fuck up!"'s being hurled her way. She stomped her feet; she screamed and cried; she did everything short of scaling the walls to reach his apartment and forcing her way inside. It had to work, he had to let her in.


She sank to her knees, tears spilling from her eyes, still screaming despite her increasingly raw throat. He wasn't going to buzz her up. The bastard was going to make her scream until someone called the police and they carted her away and she'd never see her baby again...


"Virginia?" She wiped her nose with her sleeve, and looked up at Richard with red, watery eyes. He stood at the threshold, slightly shaken, holding the door open; in her rage she hadn't heard the buzz.


~*~*~*~*~


It was her silence that bothered him the most. She wouldn't talk to him on their journey up the stairwell; she flat out refused to tell him about 'Wolf', though the reality in his mind felt a lot worse than anything the truth could hold. He couldn't understand how someone who hurt so much could stay so silent.


It scared Richard that Virginia wouldn't talk to him. After all they had experienced together up to this point, he thought they could share just about anything, any hardships that crossed their paths, without feeling any shame. But hearing her cry, seeing her beat the pavement until her fists bled, and then not telling him just who Warren really was, and what he had done to her, it made him feel useless.


He had always told himself he would protect her. Ever since that cold New York evening when the brown eyed woman stumbled into his station, eyes full of tears, and clutching a bewildered child to her chest, he swore that she would never have to feel that scared again. Richard felt he failed, that she was afraid again.


Now they stood before Wolf's door, the little apartment he and Virginia had shared together, the very same one she and her father had lived in, before all that business with the Nine Kingdoms. Virginia didn't know what may lie behind the imposing oak door, and frankly, she was terrified of what she might find. Would Timothy still be in there, alive and unharmed? Or would it be like that night, with the tears, and the screams, and the blood, oh God the blood...


No. She couldn't break down; not here, not now. With a surprisingly steady hand, she knocked on the door. There was a quiet rustling behind the door, and a stifled cry. A sudden silence followed, and after what seemed like an eternity, the door opened. Virginia looked on, stare never wavering.

"Wolf."