Chapter Fourteen

Someone's fingertips were tracing Patrick's right wrist. He could feel them running over all of his self inflicted scars. His eyes still closed, he maneuvered his right hand around to grab whoever was touching him. With a flash he bolted up and held the wrist of his assailant behind their back. He opened his eyes. In front of his face was the back of a familiar head.

"Starfire?" he said quizzically, freeing her wrist and releasing his left hand which had managed to find its way to her throat. He stepped back and looked around the room. It was the medical ward. He had been here before when he had been shot. "Where's Raven?"

Starfire turned around and looked at him. Her eyes were full of tears; it was obvious she had been crying for some time.

"Star… where is she?" Patrick repeated with a more cautious tone, still determined to get an answer.

Starfire began to cry more intensely. "She is gone," she said, her voice meek and quiet as if she was afraid to speak what she had just said out loud.

For a moment, it looked like Patrick was about to loose himself in the emotions that occurred from hearing such words. He closed his eyes and regained his composure, looking at Starfire. "I see." Patrick said as he sighed and turned around, walking out of the medical ward.

Everyone seemed to be taking the disappearance of Raven rather hard. Beast Boy and Cyborg were nowhere to be seen in the living room. Quite the opposite of the normal shouting and bickering about some pointless video game and whose turn it was.

Patrick walked on to Robin's room and knocked hard on Robin's door, the hollow clank heard throughout the hallway. He took a few moments to get to the door, but it felt like an eternity. Finally, there was the relieving sound of pistons opening the door to Robin's room.

Patrick spoke before Robin could even open his mouth. "Please tell me you have some leads," he said desperately.

Robin silently shook his head. "When that mech teleported, it left her cloak and with it, her locator. According to the detector, she's sitting right over there on the table."

"Fuck," Patrick said as he sighed heavily, "how long's it been?"

"About a week," Robin replied, "That beam hit right above your lung. For a while… we didn't think you were going to make it."

Patrick nodded and turned, ready to walk away. I was close to impossible to find her. She had disappeared without a trace. "R…Robin?" he asked, stopping on his way out.

"Yeah?"

"Mind if I hold on to that cloak?"

Robin smiled and walked over to his desk, grabbing the gossamer cloth and handing it to Patrick. Patrick then turned and walked out of his room. Down the hall, he entered his own and hung the cloak up on his coat rack.

With a passing glance, it almost looked as if Raven was standing before him; the coat rack was the perfect height. But after looking at if for a split second, it became apparent it was nothing more than a shell of who it belonged to.

"I can't believe you're gone," Patrick said silently, holding back the tears he refused to allow to escape.

He stood and began pacing. He went from one corner of the room, to another, eyeing Raven's cloak each time he passed, looking a the jewel that acted as a connector to keep the cloak wrapped around her neck. It was an entrancing red; deep, captivating. Even if it was not the black which Raven so commonly wore, the color, in a way, was Raven. Her very core essence seemed to be part of the gem.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, he sat on his bed, still staring at the cloak that hung so hauntingly on the rack next to the door. He had been sighing heavily for the past hour, wracking his mind for any plan of action. There were no leads, no traces of Raven, nothing. She could be anywhere, even outside of the city, even off the planet.

Frustration finally getting the better of him, he let out a loud roar-like yell as he grabbed one the metal chairs in his room. He raised it above his head and sent it reeling towards the ceramic plate glass of the large window that took up a large portion of his East facing wall. The glass that was struck shattered, taking much of the surrounding glass with it.

With yet another heavy sigh, Patrick cursed loudly and looked out over the calm water. In the distance, even in the dark, he could see the lighting of the bridge that spanned the body of water Titan Tower was located on. There, silhouetted on the dark water was a small island. It was a familiar plot of land that Patrick had been to before; countless times in the past months. Though no one knew of his return visits. As far as the team was concerned, that island did not exist and nor did the evidence of all of Patrick's deeds.

He began pondering the reasons it was there. Why would someone make a facility so close to the tower? His face seemed confused for a moment, as if often looked when he was deep in thought. Within three seconds of posing the question, he knew the answer. Reality hit him like a ton of bricks.

"They were studying us," he said out loud, standing and walking to the now broken window. It had a clean break at the point where the glass met the floor. The entire sheet seemed to have come off without a sharp edge. He sat down on the ledge, looking out on the water, his gaze still fixed on the island. "The cameras, the building schematics, the bios," he said, "They were watching us. Like were some damned lab rats!"

His head continued to think over his recent revelation. His hand was bleeding, but he didn't notice or care for that matter. He was too far gone in his thoughts. Running through all his experiences following the incident on the island. In all the aftermath, he thought everything was over. He was certain that destroying the facility had ended the possible threat.

Patrick stood up very quickly, knowing what needed to be done. He walked slowly through the deserted hallways of the tower. It seemed everyone had turned in early for the night. He was the only one awake in the whole complex. He passed by Raven's room for moment, hesitating and looking at the bland colored door with her name plate on it. If it were not for that title, he would have never known if it was her room or a broom closet. He hung his head, making sure to mentally kick himself. It was his fault Raven was gone; or at least that was what he had convinced himself of.

It didn't take him long to reach where he was going, even at the pace he was walking. He stood still for a moment, looking at the door that was exactly identical to Raven's, excluding the name on it. Reaching forward slowly, he knocked. A familiar voice was heard mumbling and groaning, apparently being roused from a rather deep sleep. The door slid open mechanically and behind it stood the tall robotic man Patrick knew so well.

"Patrick?" he asked sleepily, somewhat confused as to why Patrick was knocking on his door so late at night.

Skipping directly to the reason Patrick was there, he spoke calmly. "Cyborg, I need a device that can track a wireless uplink from source to any receivers."

"What? Why?" Cyborg asked, caught entirely off guard from the question.

"Do you have one or not?" Patrick repeated, sounding much more impatient.

Cyborg paused looking at him. After a few seconds, he turned and walked back into his room, the door shutting as he walked off. Patrick was about to walk away assuming that Cyborg had gone back to sleep, but just as he turned his back, he heard the sounds of rummaging in Cybog's room. Patrick smiled and stood at the door, waiting for him to return.

"I think this is what you need," Cyborg said as he walked out, "You'll need to find the exact frequency though." Patrick nodded and said a small thank you before walking off, not to his room, but towards the roof.

The breeze outside was very cool. He walked towards the ledge and looked out on the water once more. The island seemed to be lit up with a deep red from the lights of the city. With a flinch, he raised his power and hopped off the roof, falling for a few moments and then taking flight, destined for the island.