Note: The following chapter depicts violence and abuse. Proceed with caution.
Chapter 6
Hunter Zolomon's home is precisely the kind of creepy, isolated place Barry had expected.
Tucked away from civilization, at the end of a winding road whose entrance seemed to be purposely hidden from the world by dense foliage, the house seemed out of place. Short steps led up to an empty front porch, lacking in its presence the usual things that decorated them, that made a place seem homely and welcoming.
The rest of the building had a modern yet rustic feeling to it, dark wooden paneling making up most of the exterior, save for the wide windows. It didn't seem like a place that belonged out here, amongst the wild untamed shrubbery and overgrown trees; it seemed clinical, austere, unwelcoming.
Barry sucked in a breath, hands coming up to clutch at the steering wheel, trying to dispel the ball of nerves that had settled at the pit of his stomach. Into the lion's den.
With steely determination, he got out of the car and walked the steps up to the front door. His body seemed almost to rebel against him, his movements sluggish as he raised his hand to knock. Part of him hoped against all odds that Caitlin was here. Another part of him wished she weren't in this situation at all.
Glancing back at the car, he went over the story in head. Behind him the door opened and he whirled, finding himself face to face with Hunter Zolomon.
Seeing him in photo, even ones professionally sharpened and focused in on like the ones from the lab, didn't compare to seeing him in person. For one, he was tall. It was a fact Barry had known long before he'd ever seen Hunter in person but not one he'd necessarily visualized.
Hunter stared at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion as he gave Barry a once-over and then peeked his head out the door to stare in either direction of the house.
"Who are you?" he asked gruffly, jaw clenching as he shifted to block the door with his stance, arms crossing over his chest.
Barry tried not to stare at the bulges of muscle in his arm. Laughing nervously, he scratched at the back of his head.
"Hey, man. I'm... Sam. I was just having some car trouble and I spotted your house, thought maybe you could help me out?" Barry rambled, gesturing wildly to his car.
Hunter didn't even glance, eyes fixed on Barry. An imperceptible shiver made its way up Barry's back as he recalled the photos, the way Hunter's eyes were always fixed on Caitlin wherever she went. Despite their inherent lightness, there was something about Hunter's eyes that seemed to suck all the warmth and light in, leaving only bleak coldness. Even now the way they stared at him, almost as if seeing through him, unnerved him.
"Call a tow truck then," Hunter responded, tone flat and uninterested.
Barry shakes his head, hoping he wouldn't get punched for what he was about to attempt next.
"My phone died. Seriously man, I'll just be in and out of your hair, I swear. Just need to call someone," Barry said, pushing past Hunter into the house. "Do you have any water, by the way, I'm s-"
Barry stopped, glancing back, Hunter's hand having clamped down brusquely over his wrist. Here, in the shaded entryway, Hunter seemed even more menacing, the light casting shadows on his face, sharpening the natural contours of his bone structure.
A lick of anger flickered to life in Barry's stomach, the pretense of playing stupid falling away just for a second as he stared into the eyes of a man that he could only feel utter contempt for. Barry wrenched his hand from Hunter's grip, massaging his wrist.
"Hey man. No need to get grabby," he snapped, genuinely annoyed. "I'm just trying to get home."
Hunter's face relaxed then, a glint of interest sparking in his eyes for the briefest of moments. With a sharp turn, he shut the door behind them and motioned for Barry to enter into the living room. He grabbed the home phone lying on the coffee table and handed it to Barry, eyes sharp as Barry glanced around the living room.
"This is a nice place you've got," Barry complimented.
It was a nice place, if a bit cold and impersonal. It seemed like something out of a magazine, Barry thought, finding no signs that an actual person lived here.
"I'll get you your water," Hunter murmured quietly and then stepped out of the room just as quietly, his footsteps silent on the floorboards.
Quickly, Barry dialed the number for the tow truck company he'd committed to memory before he'd come here, a little family owned place not too far from here. Calling it private so as to ensure they wouldn't call back, he let it ring once, twice before he ended the call. Phone in hand, he crept from the living room as quietly as he could, darting into the hallway on the other side of the living room from the kitchen.
He found the bathroom, door ajar, and another door, which opened up into what seemed to be the master bedroom. Finding nothing amiss, besides the eerie absence of any personal belongings, Barry shut the door quietly and hurried back into the living room.
He pretended to end the call just as Hunter re-entered the living room, glass of cold water in hand. Barry smiled tightly, thanking him.
Hunter nodded, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a ghost of a smirk. The expression seemed mocking, smug almost.
Barry sipped at his water, eyes darting around the room, trying to mentally catalogue as much of it as he could. He's about to open his mouth, explain to Hunter that the tow truck people suggested he try jump-starting the car when he catches sight of something over Hunter's shoulder.
Down the same hallway Hunter had disappeared down to go to the kitchen, there was a door. Barry could only see a sliver of it, his line of sight blocked by Hunter and in no way, aided by the weird angle he was looking at it from. The door, made of solid steel, seemed almost innocuous, sitting there in plain sight. Barry tilted his head surreptitiously, trying to get a better angle on it, see if it had security measures.
As he moved, he tried to distract Hunter with his speech, his words coming out haltingly and distracted.
"The uh… the people from the tow truck company…" Barry fleetingly caught sight of a keypad, which he quickly lost sight of as Hunter shifted, "they said I should um- I should jump-start the car, yeah?"
A steel door. With a keypad. That had to be enough, when combined with the photos, for a judge to sign off on a search warrant for probable cause. There were no coincidences in this line of work.
Barry straightened, smiling brightly.
"I have some jumper cables in my car so I guess I should go fish those out! Thanks for the help, man. Really appreciate it. I'll get out of your hair now."
Placing the water on the table, he slipped past Hunter, opening the front door.
Feeling eyes on him, he fished the spark plugs from his car and went through the motions of hooking them up under the hood. Internally, his mind was racing.
Only someone with something to hide would have a door of reinforced steel with keypad technology in their home. Perhaps it was a lab, that would once in for all explain the serum that Caitlin had been working on. Or perhaps, Caitlin herself was down there.
Leaning in to start the car, he peeked back up at the house through the windshield, not surprised to find that he could see Hunter's face watching from beyond the glass.
He was definitely hiding something and Barry was going to find out what.
Caitlin stared down at the tools before her, eyebrows knitted.
"You want me to lift the DNA from this?" she asked, shifting her gaze from the glass on the counter to Hunter, who stood beside her impassively.
"That's what I said," he replied evenly, eyes boring into her.
Caitlin bit her lip. She knew it wasn't wise to ask but she was curious. In her three years of captivity, he'd never asked her to do anything like this. It wasn't like she was a CSI.
Hesitantly, she spoke.
"Why?"
"Do it," he compelled, stepping closer to emphasize the unspoken threat at the end of his order.
Flinching back, she nodded, hands reaching out for the gloves he'd provided. Grabbing a hold of the adhesive powder, she grabbed the brush, holding the glass up to the light.
Some part of her wanted to break the glass, destroy his search in its track. But she was curious. He was potentially handing her information that she could use to escape. Or an opportunity to communicate with the outside world, she thought, the computer at the corner of her eye seeming to beckon her.
Absentmindedly, she grabbed the tape, covering the fingerprints she'd brushed over with powder.
Briefly, her mind offered a horrifying thought. What if he was using this to find someone new, someone else he would kidnap, someone else whose life he would destroy?
Staring at the tape in her hand, she blinked as her eyes welled with tears.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't.
Hunter, seeming to sense her sudden change of heart, grabbed the tape from her hand, shoving her aside unkindly.
As he ran the analysis, Caitlin stood to the side, arms hugged around her middle, a pit of despair trying to swallow her whole from the inside. She could feel blood on her lip, from where she'd bit too harshly, trying to choke back tears.
What would he do to her, when he no longer needed her?
A long series of beeps pulls her from her thoughts. The computer has finished analyzing the prints. Glancing over Hunter's shoulder, she sees as he runs the results against a database, one he definitely ought not to have access to. It makes her wonder just who he has contacts with.
The thought is fleeting however, as an image crystallizes on screen. The identity of whoever those prints belonged. She gasps when the image finally renders.
Hunter turns, face like thunder as he towers over her.
"What did you do?!" he snarls, throwing out a hand to gesture at the screen.
"I don't - I... " Caitlin stutters, mind racing.
Barry was here? At the house? Why?
Too quickly for her to react, Hunter was in her space, a fistful of her hair in hand. She cried out in pain, hands coming up to claw at his arm.
"I know you did something. Because I don't think it's a coincidence that your little friend there is with CCPD. So who is he? How do you know him?"
Her head ached as she registered that information.
CCPD. Barry was with CCPD. Could it be that someone had actually gotten her letter? That somehow her case had made its way into the hands of someone who actually knew her, who could help?
"ANSWER ME!" Hunter yelled, pulling roughly on her hair.
"I went- I went to school with him," she cried, clawing desperately at his arm. Her scalp felt like it was on fire and it hurt.
Pulling her by the hair, he led her back to the glass encasement. Brusquely, he shoved her in, the door sliding shut with a hiss. His face seemed shadowed by a darkness she'd never seen before and his next words sent a chill down her spine.
"What happens next is on you."
He left the basement, Caitlin's yells falling on deaf ears.
Barry gets the call in the middle of the night.
He jolts awake at the sound of his phone ringing, a crick in his neck from having fallen asleep on the couch. He'd spent most of the afternoon and evening in Captain Singh's office, trying to speed-rush a search warrant and putting together a breach team for the door in Hunter's home, in case he wasn't feeling very cooperative.
All in all, it had been a long day and Barry was feeling all the stress and exhaustion now.
Groggily, he answers his phone, his greeting a mumbled, sleep-slurred mess.
"We need you down here immediately. CCPD is under attack."
The line clicked off and Barry sat dumbfounded for a brief moment, processing that. As soon as the words registered, he was up and rushing out the door, keys and phone in hand, still wearing the clothes from yesterday.
The precinct was a mess when he arrived, cops rushing to and fro, phones ringing off the hook, Captain Singh barking orders from the head of the room.
Barry spotted Joe and Eddie off to the side, conversing. He headed for them first.
"Joe. Eddie. What's going on? You said we were under attack."
"Someone lured 15 of our officers into a trap. We don't know who we're dealing with, what kind of injuries they've suffered, we've got eyes in the skies canvassing the area and Captain Singh is putting together squads to get boots on the ground but… things are bad, Barry. Things are bad."
Joe rubbed his hand over face, looking haggard and stressed. Eddie didn't look any better, skin sallow and pale, dark bags bruising the skin underneath his eyes.
"Fifteen? What - how?" Barry asks, struggling to make sense of his thoughts.
"Allen!" Captain Singh calls.
Barry turns, surprised when he realizes the captain is beckoning him over. Hurrying over, Barry's heart sinks as he takes in the tear-streaked, determined faces of the officers around him. Who had they lost tonight?
"Captain," he greets, coming to a stop before the man, who didn't look any less tired than Eddie or Joe.
"Follow me."
Still confused, Barry obeys, following the captain into his office. The moment the door is shut, Singh begins to speak.
"I got his records unsealed. Hunter's…" Singh says quietly, the silence in the room as he pauses unnerving Barry. "Barry, I have an unsettling suspicion that this attack wasn't random."
Barry takes the file hesitantly, eyebrows knitted as he stares at the Captain.
Flipping through it, his stomach revolts. Pictures of grisly crime scenes stare back at him, words jumping out. Hunter was only eleven when he killed for the first time. His own father, responsible for killing Hunter's mother only shortly before. Throughout his adolescence, he'd developed a penchant for harming small animals, neighborhood pets and strays that meandered too close to the orphanage he'd been put in.
At 15, he struck again, killing two classmates who'd dared to tease him about the second-hand rate clothes supplied to him by the orphanage, strangling them with their own shoelaces. He'd been tried as a child then, his lawyers pleading an insanity case, and institutionalized for a year afterwards.
At 17, he'd been the prime suspect in an investigation concerning the disappearance of a local girl from his former high school. Insufficient evidence and a trail gone cold, the case remained open long after Hunter had moved away from his hometown.
For a good decade, he'd been silent, virtually no traces of him on the grid. Then, finally, about 5 years ago, he'd resurfaced in Central City. There didn't seem to be any more indications of criminal wrongdoing but these kinds of people, textbook psychopaths, they didn't change. Once they started down the path of bloodlust, there wasn't much that would dissuade them from it.
He glanced up at Captain Singh, a dawning sense of horror growing as he realized what the captain was implying. Singh stared back, eyes firm and steady.
"Can you think of any reason why he would possibly attack CCPD?"
Barry's mind whirred, working furiously as it provided him all the clues he'd been too stupid to see. Hunter's smug face. The glass of water, his fingerprints perfectly preserved on its surface. The way in which he'd shifted to block Barry's view of the door. The emptiness of the house, its lack of personality, the sense of easy abandonment one got. He never put down roots, roots made it harder to leave, especially if one was in a hurry.
Barry's eyes rounded.
"It's a distraction…"
Hunter was skipping town.
Caitlin's voice was hoarse. She'd been screaming, pounding at the glass for what seemed like ages.
Now she could only sit and stare at the camera in the corner, the steady red light mocking her with its constant glare.
What happens next is on you.
Hunter's words seemed to loop around in her brain, conjuring fresh new horrors with every loop. Caitlin didn't want to think of what Hunter was capable. It was true that he'd never really hurt her (at least not until recently), always having had a soft spot for Caitlin, a lingering affection from a time when there had been a possibility of a relationship between them. But she wasn't blind to the signs of psychopathy he showed.
She'd worked with Hunter for months before he'd kidnapped her; it was why she'd begun to take precautions in the end, after she'd tried to break off their partnership. She'd started fearing the worst.
She wondered now if Barry had found any of her files, if indeed he was the one that had been assigned her case…
Barry Allen. There was a name she hadn't thought of in a very long time. She remembered him though, only too well. She'd spent the better part of a semester or two crushing on him after all.
Now he was assigned to her case. Funny how the world worked, she thought derisively, hands curling into fists. The prick of glass in her palm was a welcome distraction from the maelstrom of thoughts in her head.
The door to the lab opened and Caitlin stood immediately, alert and anxious as she watched Hunter come down the steps. Taking in his appearance, she couldn't see any signs of struggle, of violence. He seemed as nonplussed as ever, if not perhaps a bit more dour than usual. Catching sight of a metal suitcase in his hand, Caitlin spoke, struggling to keep her voice even as she watched him place the suitcase on the table.
"Hunter… what did you do?"
His silence didn't do much to assuage her fears.
She could tell when he opened the suitcase, silver edges peeking out on either side of his torso but she couldn't see what was in it. He was blocking her view.
"Hunter…" she tried again.
"If the police are onto you, hurting people won't help your case. They'll find a way to stop you," she reasoned.
"Because they've done a bang-up job these past three years," Hunter mocked, turning his head slightly so she could see the smugness on his face. "CCPD is a little distracted at the moment so I wouldn't count on seeing Barry any time soon."
Caitlin shifted, uneasy. "Is that your plan then? Distract them while you get away?"
Hunter turned then, a strange expression on his face. "You mean while we get away."
Caitlin scoffed, in disbelief. "You don't honestly think that I would willingly go with you… I am never going to be with you."
She watches his face for a reaction that never comes. When he steps closer to the glass, she steps back instinctively, hand flexing around the glass in her right palm. He glances briefly at her hand, mouth twitching.
"You think we're different, that you're not like me. But you forget, I'm always watching…" he pointed to the camera in the corner. "I've seen the darkness inside you, Caitlin. Tell me, what were you going to do with that glass in your hand?"
His voice was a smooth baritone without inflection. Caitlin went very, very still, stomach dropping as her thoughts came to a screeching halt.
"How - how…" she tried, shaking her head.
Hunter laughed a humorless laugh. "You didn't really think I wouldn't know, did you?"
"Then why let me think I'd gotten away with it?" she retorted, angry and feeling stupid.
"To give you hope, of course. So I could rip it away," he replied, matter-of-factly. Caitlin stared, horrified.
He turned back to the suitcase. "In any case, you'll be coming along. Willingly or not."
Pivoting, he came towards her, syringe in hand. Caitlin scrambled back, away from the door. It opened with a hiss, Hunter stepping through, determination clear on his face.
For a moment, they stood in a stand-off, Hunter filling in the doorway, Caitlin with her back up against the glass.
He lunged. Caitlin ducked, right hand swinging out to swipe at his torso, glass shard in hand. He cursed loudly. When she turned, he was holding a hand to his side, glaring at her. Her eyes darted to the open doorway and just as quickly as he'd lunged, she dove for the entrance.
A hand curled around her bicep, tugging her backward roughly. She kicked at his knee blindly, her foot finding air instead. Crowding her back into the corner, he pinned her, both with his body and the intensity of his gaze.
Chest heaving, Caitlin's mind whirred. He was taller, stronger. But he was also a man. With a ferociousness that at any other time would have scared her, Caitlin drove her knee up.
Hunter howled, dropping the syringe as he fell to his knees. Caitlin scooped it up quickly and ran. Darting up the stairs, she pulled on the door with all her might, smacking its surface in a burst of frustration when it didn't budge. Glancing back, she could still see Hunter on his knees.
Jogging down the stairs, she examined the lab, the adrenaline making her head pound and the blood in her veins sing. Her eyes locked onto the biocontainment unit at the end of the far end of the lab. Leverage.
She'd just reached the unit when her legs were swept out from under her and she hit her head on the sharp metallic edge. Pain blossomed across her forehead, warm blood dripping down her face and smearing onto the floor below her.
She twisted under him, feeling slightly feral as he leaned in to restrain her. Caitlin threw a punch upward, her hand making contact with his nose, the sickening crunch audible. Hunter growled, jaw clenched tight, teeth gritted.
Pinning both her hands, Hunter wrestled both syringe and shard from her grasp, tossing the shard far from them.
A loud bang made them both freeze, Hunter still leaning over Caitlin. The silence that followed, interspersed only by the harsh draws of breath, seemed to ring in Caitlin's ears. Again, the bang came, this time clearly coming from the direction of the door upstairs. Muffled voices followed.
Caitlin grinned victoriously as Hunter turned to look at her, eyes wide. "Guess they weren't too busy."
Before he could react, she leaned up and headbutted him. Hard.
Stars burst behind her eyelids, the pain in her head growing worse. Still, every moment of disorientation she could cause in him was a moment she bought herself, a moment she bought the officers busting down the door.
Hunter wasn't so easily dislodged however.
Slowly, with a hand in her hair dragging her up, he brought her to her feet. Her vision blurred for a moment, black spots fading in and out, then cleared. He brought her back to his front, curling an arm around her to keep her upright as she swayed. She could feel the outline of the syringe in his other hand, brushing her side.
"You're a monster," she whispered.
"And you're complicit," he murmured in her ear softly, just as the door was breached.
Officers swarmed into the lab, dressed in heavy gear, their guns all pointed at Hunter. They might as well not have existed. Caitlin's eyes were drawn to the figure coming down the stairs. Barry. Alive and well. Safe. Here, in the nick of time.
Barry's eyes were wide as he took in the scene, the glass prison, the blood streak behind them, Hunter's side wound and bleeding nose, Caitlin's bloody forehead. When his eyes fixed on them, Caitlin could have sworn his eyes softened for just a moment as he glanced at her but Caitlin's vision was also blurry, her pulse pulsating rapidly, so her observations didn't count for much.
She definitely saw the dark glare he shot Hunter however, green eyes dark with contempt.
"Did you like the little present I left your friends at precinct, Allen?" Hunter crowed, voice cracking.
"You're going to rot in jail for the rest of your life, Hunter. I'm gonna make sure of that," Barry promised. "Now let her go."
Caitlin skimmed her fingers lightly over the syringe. It dangled loosely from Hunter's hand, no longer useful to him now that they were surrounded.
"Tell me, how many did I get? 10? 12?"
In a swift movement, Caitlin pulled the syringe from Hunter's lax grip and whirled, jabbing the needle into his upper arm and emptying the drug into his system.
She watched as he staggered back, eyes blinking rapidly, hands reaching out to her as the drug worked its way through. He sank to his knees, staring up at Caitlin, betrayal in his eyes. Finally, his eyelids fluttered shut and the rest of his body slumped onto the floor, where he stayed silent and still.
Caitlin stared, not quite believing it was truly over.
Three years of being held prisoner, biding her time, living in a glass cage with no privacy. Longing for the prickling warmth of sun on her skin, the soft brush of wind. Longing for air that wasn't constantly being recycled and filtered. It was over… just like that.
"Caitlin." Barry called softly.
She turned, feeling as if her body was not her own, her actions not her own. On either side of her, officers moved in to restrain Hunter and take him away.
Barry's green eyes were a welcome sight, gentle and inviting as they observed her.
As she moved to take a step forward, her body seemed to drain from all its earlier adrenaline, leaving her feeling light and off-balance.
She stumbled, Barry immediately moving in to catch her. His arms were warm around her, careful not to further add to her injuries, tender in a way that made tears prick at her eyes. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been touched like this, softly and with care.
Feeling suddenly overcome with emotion, she glanced up at Barry's face, finding only compassion and understanding. Quickly, wanting to hide her face as much as she wanted the physical contact, she surged up and wrapped her arms around Barry's neck, hugging herself to him, clinging to him as if he were her anchor.
Perhaps he was, in this moment. She felt adrift, unmoored, lost.
She didn't think she knew how to live a life outside of glass walls anymore.
Despite the chaos at the CCPD, Captain Singh was able to cobble together a breach team fairly quickly. Neither of them mentioned how most of the original breach team was missing, having been a part of the units that had headed out to the scene, unbeknownst to them that they were headed into a trap.
Within the half hour, they were on route to Hunter's place, Joe and Eddie sitting on either side of Barry.
Barry had been outfitted in minimal gear and given a gun, his inclusion a foregone conclusion (despite the fact that he wasn't trained for breaching). Still, he'd been relegated to the back of the breach team, advised only to come in once the room had been secured.
They arrived at Hunter's house in what seemed to be a record time, a hush falling within the car as they rolled up to the house. The sirens had long been turned off and now without even the crunch of tire tracks on the forest floor, the forest seemed eerily silent in the dusky light of pre-dawn. Briefly, Barry wondered if they were walking into another trap. Maybe Hunter was already long gone…
When they entered, however, the front door splintered apart beneath their feet from the sheer excessive force of the battering ram, it seemed as though Hunter was still in the midst of preparing to leave. In the living room, there were bags filled with clothes. Ballistics immediately started on the steel door, setting up muzzle contacts for the lock and central hinge. If the door still wouldn't budge, they'd target the remaining two hinges but Joe had assured Barry that the first two would allow them to breach just fine.
One of the officers reported that there was a car around back, probably what Hunter intended to use to get away.
By the time, they were able to breach, their ballistics expert making quick work of the muzzle contacts with two shots, dawn had arrived. The officers swarmed down below into the basement, which at a quick glance, Barry confirmed doubled as a lab.
There was a glass structure in the middle of the room, of which Barry didn't even want to think of the implications there; he could see a cot inside and a stream that made its through the entirety of the room before it disappeared into a crevice at the very back. He was guessing that was the stream which had carried Caitlin's note out into the world.
His heart ached at the sight.
At the far end of the lab, Hunter stood, arm curled possessively around Caitlin's middle. There was something unhinged in his expression now, the careful facade he'd presented to Barry long gone. Blood darkened his teeth, dripping down from his nose, which looked crooked and on the verge of swelling.
Caitlin didn't look any better, her hair mussed and messy, a long gash on her forehead spilling blood all down the side of her face and onto her clothes. She seemed dazed, pained, tired… Still, there was a fire in her eyes as they found his that made Barry's breath catch.
He could barely focus on Hunter's taunts, his eyes flickering back to Caitlin every so often. From the corner of his eyes, he could see her hand shifting back towards Hunter but he didn't realize what she intended to do until after she'd turned, having jabbed a syringe into Hunter's arm.
From the corner of his eye, Barry saw Joe lower his gun, eyes wide.
Hunter staggered back, looking shocked and betrayed, two expressions that didn't seem natural on his face. As he went down, his eyes locked on Caitlin, Barry got the distinct feeling that he was missing something, that there was more to their dynamic than he'd been led to believe.
The thought made him uncomfortable for reasons he didn't really wish to explore.
As the officers moved in to take Hunter away, others beginning to canvas the room for evidence to be logged away, Barry's eyes remained fixed on Caitlin.
He called to her, pulling her from her reverie.
When she turned, there was a haunted look in her eyes. Barry swallowed, finding it difficult with the lump in his throat. He'd spent so long looking for her, he didn't know what to do now that she was here, standing before him.
She took a step forward and stumbled, the adrenaline seeming to leave her body all at once. Barry caught her in his arms, taking note of how cold her skin felt and the thin fabric of her clothes. Her hair brushed against his chin, limp and greasy, but all those details fell away when she glanced up at him, misty-eyed.
As Barry scrutinized her face, he tried to reconcile three versions of Caitlin in his mind. The Caitlin he'd known in high school, bright and witty and innocent, the Caitlin he'd gotten to know through the case, cautious and sharp and breath-takingly real even if only in pictures and film, and finally, the Caitlin that stood before him, hardened yet fragile, a fighter in her own right.
Barry startled when Caitlin suddenly leaned up to hug him tightly. Hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her, his hands settling on the small of her back. She shivered, hugging herself tighter against Barry as she sniffed and tucked her head into the crook of his neck. He let her stay there for a while longer, letting her find the comfort she so desperately needed.
Over her shoulder, he could see Eddie and Joe breaking open the bio-containment unit. The serum, his mind suggested. There were still pieces unclear to him.
Pulling back slowly from Caitlin, he suggested quietly that he help her get upstairs. Nodding, she wrapped her arms around herself and allowed him to steer her up the stairs, glancing back down at the basement only once. They got as far as the front door and suddenly, she paused.
Recognizing what this moment meant to her, he stood aside, still ready to catch her at any given moment but giving her space to process nonetheless.
Shaking like a leaf in the wind, she stepped slowly over the threshold, gasping when the early morning breeze hit her. She stood there for a moment, head tipped back reveling in the fresh air, and then she crumpled onto the floor, sobbing.
Barry's heart cleaved in two as he watched her cry. Three years. She hadn't seen the outside world in three years...
He'd always thought the worst sound he would ever hear from her was the piercing scream on the recording call but he was wrong.
Caitlin's sobs were heart-wrenching wails that tore at the soul, interspersed only by the long draws of fresh air into lungs that had long forgotten what that felt like.
Note: So Caitlin's finally free... Hunter's headed to jail, Barry cracked the case but there's still a lot of questions left unanswered. Until next time folks! Leave a comment and let me know what you thought of the chapter!
Also shout-out to the lovely people over at the Snowbarry Discord server, especially Purpleyin, for being awesome and helping me iron out some wrinkles in the story!