This isn't real, raced through Malcolm's mind as he stared into Watkins whiskered face. It isn't real.
It couldn't be.
There was no possible way Watkins could be there.
He's not here, Malcolm decided as the shadow creatures laughed and jeered. He's not here.
He repeated the words until they became just another in a long line of never-ending loops he couldn't shut off no matter how hard he —and the litany of drugs he swallowed on a daily basis — tried.
This was just another of his hallucinations.
A byproduct of his grief over Eve's murder, stress from being arrested, and cracking his head on the stair outside.
John Watkins wasn't standing in front of him.
He was locked away somewhere he couldn't escape from.
Even as he tried to convince himself there was no possible way Watkins stood framed in the doorway, smiling that smile Malcolm saw whenever he closed his eyes, he knew it was a lie.
Watkins was there.
He wasn't imagining it.
Watkins was there in the cabin his father and him had brought Eve's sister, Sophie.
The same cabin they brought him.
Bands formed around Malcolm's head.
His throat.
Chest.
Tightened, tightened until he could barely form a coherent thought, much less draw a decent breath.
A simple camping trip they told his younger self.
Only, it wasn't.
They brought him there to that cabin for the same purpose as they did Sophie.
He wasn't a plaything, though.
No, his father brought him there with the intention of getting rid of him.
Why?
Because he had become a liability to them.
Poised a danger to them and their murder games .
I'm still a threat, Malcolm realized as Watkins took a step forward. To him, Endicott, and especially the Court of Owls.
The ones behind it all.
"See, I had a feeling you'd come here, Malcolm." Bile foamed, hot and frothy into Malcolm's mouth. Sheer will was all that kept it from bursting out from between his clenched teeth and splashing across Watkins boots. "Knew you couldn't resist…" Watkins paused; grinned, "temptation."
Malcolm's hand, the one with the psychogenic tremor, shuddered from the tips of his fingers all the way up his arm in one long, continuous ripple. He buried it against his thigh and did his best to school his features.
"I need to know what happened here." Flippancy was excruciatingly difficult but the only weapon he had to wield. "And since you refused to tell me…"
"You're still a broken record." A shadow of annoyance passed across Watkins face. "Fixated on things rather than appreciating them as a whole. Last time you were fixated on the girl in the box. This time you're fixated on what happened on that camping trip." He cocked his head to the side. "Tell me, little Malcolm, is this fixation because of what you did…" another pause. "Or did not do?"
Slippery innuendo coated that lethal purr.
Hinting at the answers to the multitude of questions swirling around inside Malcolm's head.
Offering them to him in the same way a fisherman tempted fish with bait on a hook.
A deadly trap.
One Malcolm fell prey to before.
The first time resulted in cracked ribs.
The second time?
He barely escaped with what little sanity he possessed intact.
"What did you do on that camping trip, little Malcolm?"
The million dollar question.
One Malcolm longed to answer despite fearing what those answers might be.
"We have time to discuss what happened that night. Get a few details ironed out." Watkins stepped closer, only a few inches taller than Malcolm but towering above him. "Then you'll finally take your trials."
Malcolm shot a wild look over his shoulder, hoping; praying to see Jason burst through the front door, guns drawn, and aimed at Watkins head.
He wasn't there, though.
Nobody was there.
It was him and Watkins.
Alone.
Same as they had been down in his father's murder room.
"Ah, but you weren't exactly alone down there, now were you, my boy?"
He wasn't but he didn't have time to revisit what happened in that murder room.
He had to keep himself here in the present.
Focused on Watkins.
On getting himself out of this situation.
Without getting stabbed or any bones broken, preferably.
"Why don't we start by discussing the Court of Owls?"
"There you go again." There was a bite to Watkins tone. A dangerous one that told Malcolm clear as day that this was a sore subject with Watkins. "Fixating on one subject rather than seeing things as a whole."
"What can I say? When I get fixated on a subject, I get fixated on it."
The words were light, airy, nonchalant even. Opposite of the emotions threatening to immolate him. Malcolm did his best to keep the blaze contained. Becoming the Human Torch wouldn't get him the answers he craved with every fiber of his being.
Not that Watkins was inclined to give them.
No, he did what he had the other times they had spoken: stirred the conversation to what he wanted to discuss.
"Have you accepted your father was going to kill you, Malcolm?"
The question knocked him off balance.
As Watkins intended.
Images whirled around Malcolm with the force of a category five hurricane before he could stop them.
Scenes from his childhood intersected with ones from his years at the boarding school he got expelled from, Harvard, the FBI, to his conversation earlier with Jason.
Other images followed.
His father and Watkins arguing over something his father promised they'd do together.
Him stabbing Watkins for reasons unclear to him.
Running blindly through the woods, a bloody knife clutched in his fist.
Surrounding those images were Watkins crushing his ribs in that abandoned service tunnel.
Owen Shannon bleeding out before his eyes.
Chained like an animal in that murder playroom.
Your father was going to kill you.
Those words played through Malcolm's mind as he stood there, hands spasming at his sides, legs threatening to buckle beneath him, and belly cramping violently.
Of all the things he expected Watkins to reveal to him while they were in that murder room, his father killing him hadn't been one of them. It had made no sense to Malcolm at that time. The one thing he had always been reasonably sure of was his father's love.
The Court being involved, however, changed everything.
"Was it because of the Court and their prophecy?" Malcolm managed around the shards of ice jabbing him in the throat. "Is that why my father was going to kill me? Because the Court ordered all firstborn children killed so they could bring Barbatos here?"
It was the only logical explanation Malcolm had for why his father would actually go through with killing him.
"They are killing all firstborn children to fulfill a prophecy," Watkins said, smirking. "But that is not why they want to kill you specifically."
"Why do they want to kill me then?"
"Malcolm. Malcolm. Malcolm." Watkins made a soft tsk-tsk sound. "Haven't you figured out the Court has chosen you for a sacred mission?"
That sent pinpricks of alarm cruising along Malcolm's already frayed nerves. Watkins had told him while holding him hostage that he had plans for him. Trials, he called them.
What those trials were, Malcolm didn't know.
He was sure to find out, though.
"What sacred mission have they chosen me for?"
"The broken man will extinguish the flame of the burning muse to keep the Darkest Knight from destroying all creation."
"Burning muse?" Malcolm's brow knit. "What burning muse? And who is this Darkest Knight the Court wants to stop?"
Watkins eyes became sharper.
His smile predatory.
Then he tore Malcolm's heart from his chest.
"The burning muse is Doctor Kean."
His world, already tilted, threatened to topple completely.
"No." His hand spasmed against his thigh. Hard enough to rattle his femur. "I will never kill Raya."
"Oh, you'll fulfill your sacred mission." A small smile creased Watkins lips. "After passing your trials, first."
"No." Fury rose up to smother the fear twisting his insides into knots. "I won't."
"You'll fulfill your mission, little Malcolm. You'll kill Doctor Kean just as the Court demands."
"Why?" Malcolm demanded. "Why does the Court need me to kill Raya?"
"Haven't you guessed?" A small smile curved Watkins lips. "They've chosen you as their perfect Talons."
It's the ultimate revenge, Malcolm realized, belly churning. Turning Batman's protégés into Talons.
Well, it wouldn't happen.
He wouldn't allow it.
"Yeah?" Malcolm squared his shoulders and cocked his head to the side. "Well, I'm not much of a team player. As you already know from our previous encounter."
"Oh, you'll fulfill your mission." A feral gleam passed through Watkins eyes. "I guarantee it."
Malcolm opened his mouth to issue another heated denial but something whistled by his ear, stopping him.
A sound, like that of a wet mop as it slapped on hard floor, broke through the static buzzing between his ears.
What was that? he wondered, brow furrowing.
A small, black perforation in the middle of Watkins forehead provided the answer.
Shot.
Watkins had been shot.
Malcolm didn't have to guess by who.
There was only one person there who could've shot him: Jason.
Watkins eyes widened in a mixture of shock, anger, fear and pain. His mouth formed soundless, inarticulate words. He took two stumbling steps towards Malcolm, fingers trembling as they stretched outwards, seeking his throat.
Malcolm tripped over the corner of the rug as he backed away.
His head bounced off the floor as Jason's gun barked once more.
Again came the sound of the mop as it slapped onto the floor.
A large red stain blossomed across the front of Watkins chest.
Came from a small, black perforation in the center of his chest.
A kill shot.
Watkins stared at the wound with a mixture of shock and disbelief.
"No," he mumbled before he slumped to the floor, arms and legs akimbo.
Malcolm thought him a marionette who had his strings released.
Watkins wasn't a puppet, though.
He was a flesh and blood man.
Who was dying right before his eyes.
Part of Malcolm wanted to do… something.
To help Watkins.
Save him some how.
Another part, the one he feared with every fiber of his being, accepted Watkins dying as the only way to keep the people he loved safe.
A wet rasping sound emanated from the man lying there in a growing pool of blood.
Then his body went limp.
John Watkins was… gone.
"Well, uh, glad to see someone was willing to do what needed to be done to protect their family," his father said from the bedroom doorway. "As I told you to do back in December. But, well, you." His low chuckle caused Malcolm's already frayed nerves to snap. "You're a, uh, well, you're a work in progress still."
The stress of everything that happened over the last seventy-two hours mingled with the miasma flowing through him until he thought he'd explode.
Malcolm squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out his father, and the world around him.
His breath came in icy rasps, loud to his own ears.
His body shuddered in one long, violent roll.
Malcolm felt himself slowly descending into the darkness where the shadow creatures waited to torture and torment him.
What he deserved after everything he had done.
Suddenly, Sorcha's voice was there in his ear, singing the words he desperately needed in order to ground himself back in the present.
"Here comes the sun…"
Everything inside Malcolm shifted.
His breathing eased.
The tremors ceased.
Even the shadow creatures slithered back to the depths of his mind.
Taking his father with them.
Everything became alright as he listened to Sorcha sing their special song.
He was alright.
Well, moderately alright, Malcolm amended as he slowly lifted his eyes to Jason's.
"Raya had you record that on your phone just in case something like this happened, didn't she?"
"Your girlfriend, actually."
It was on the tip of his tongue to say Sorcha wasn't his girlfriend.
He didn't, though.
What was the point?
Nobody believed him.
Even he didn't believe him.
Not anymore.
"We need to call Gil." Malcolm pushed to his feet. Glanced to where Watkins lay unmoving in a pool of crimson. Part of a nightmare ended. Yet, the rest was only beginning. "Tell him what happened."
"Already did." Jason's hand settled on his shoulder. Warm and comforting. "He said to wait outside for him and Kit."
All Malcolm could do was nod.
A/N: Hello, all! Hope this finds you well!
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