Chapter Twelve: "Set Me Free" by Casting Crowns / "The Lightning Strike" by Snow Patrol.
When Kory opened her eyes, it was blissfully dark and a comforting, continuous air blew over her sweltering skin. A monotonous droning played around the killer and his prey. While Kory tried to maintain some sort of mental consciousness, the Felon pulled the supplies needed from the van. First came a polymer-coated length of chain and then a mushroom anchor followed. He settled both on the cart Kory lay on below him and pushed onward through a set of double doors.
Large glass cases of aquamarine light shone down upon the two. Various objects in the cases darted about in a hasty way, so quickly that it took Kory's hazy mind a few moments to process they weren't a side effect of the drugs. These were fish- regal blue tang, emperor angelfish, and sandbar sharks- and quite an amount of them there were.
"Bruce Wayne's newest project. I must thank him when I'm finished." With his hands so close to her body, she shivered and tried hopelessly to make herself smaller. In her deeply inhibited fantasy, she grew tinier and tinier, a real-life version of Alice. The air conditioning and expansive amount of blue froze the vision, though, and Kory was forced to return to reality.
Her life would end tonight. She knew what this man planned to do to her and there wasn't a doubt in her drug-influenced head that he would go through with it. The Fairytale Felon would be her demise. Nothing could be done, as pathetic and weak as the statement sounded. "Lily would have liked to gaze at the sea turtles. They were her favorite marine creature." Kory remained silent, not fully trusting her voice. If and when she found the ability to speak, it would be meaningful and important. Her last words could not be useless.
The droning sound from earlier kicked in and she assumed it was some sort of generator. Always being the perceptive type, she had assumed correctly and used what little energy she could muster up to face the noise. The shimmering liquid of the tank sparkled at her, dancing merrily near the open edge.
"What… happened to her?" Kory knew she was pausing the inevitable, but there was always the Chance card lying in wait to be used. This time, she pulled as many as she could and hoped they would be able to deter him from his goal. Luckily, her first card worked and the glazed eyes faded to their normal sheen. This wasn't the killer.
This was a man who had lost a daughter and drove himself mad because of it.
"Rhonda wanted her in those goddamn beauty pageants- said that they would look good on college applications. I told her that a college looking for that type of stuff wasn't a college worth applying for, but, like everything with her, she didn't listen. She never listened to me." The cart jostled slightly as he shakily deposited the weight to the tiled floor, "I found my little girl in the bathtub. She was so cold and clammy; I thought she had fallen asleep. When she didn't wake up… the doctor said she had starved herself and we hadn't even noticed. I hadn't known that my own eight year-old hated herself so much that she would rather die than eat food. Lily told me a few weeks before that if she could be anything, she wanted to be a princess. When I saw that book on her shelf… I knew what I had to do."
"And you believe killing innocent… women will bring… her back?" Kory struggled with the question and nearly collapsed from exhaustion afterwards. The glaze returned to the Felon's eyes and she knew that she'd lost the battle before it had ever even begun.
"No, but she deserves to be surrounded by them. I let her kill herself. I gotta make it up to her, Ariel."
"By drowning me?" He nodded tiredly and she vaguely listened as soft thumps decorated the air around them. Whoever was coming would be too late. The heavy metal of the chain pressed against Kory's exposed body. A door creaked somewhere out of her line of vision. There would be no fight to the death with him tonight. The chains smothered her. The Felon came closer. He smothered her. Feeling a sudden shift in gravity, Kory sucked in what might possibly be her last breath. Never be afraid, malareal'ta. Her mother's words crawled back to her in this moment of suspension.
I am not afraid.
"Yes, by drowning you." The words melted off of her like burning lava and fell to the floor in chunks, slipping away to destroy again.
Do not fret, mother. We all pass on when the time comes.
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Easing the door open, Dick slipped into the aquarium's lobby and barely noticed as his team filed in behind. Several of them split from the pack and cleared the first floor. A proverbial clock ticked in his mind, the sound hovering over everything else. Another level cleared. If he had any sense of humor at this point, he would be comparing this mission to a video game. Unfortunately, this was reality and there would be no do-overs. No second chances. If he did this, he needed to do it right.
"By drowning me?" His footing faltered slightly at the sudden feminine voice. Kory, he whispered to her silently, I'm coming, Kory. The aquarium stopped at six levels and as they ascended to the last- the only one that hadn't been fully completed- Dick sent the team through the final door. The light glittering off the top of the water momentarily blinded the detective.
"Yes, by drowning you." A solid object connected with the water and the splash decorated the tiled floor with dark splotches. Dick watched in horror as the bound form of his girlfriend disappeared into the water. He heard the loud gasp for air she made and knew she wouldn't receive another breath if Marty committed his final act.
"Freeze, Grimes!" His former partner stood next to one of the tanks, a weight dangling from his fingers.
"You don't understand-"
"The hell I don't! Now put the damn anchor down before I take you out."
"Richard." A small voice called from the water. Kory struggled to stay afloat, trying to keep as far away from the sea-life below. The clink of the chain hooking to the weight drove Dick's sights from Kory and back to the madman.
"Wrong choice of words, partner." The clock ticked slowly now, coming to its end. The Felon stopped suspiciously and Dick tightened his fingers on his weapon. How many times had Marty and he stood precisely like this, facing down criminals? Now he was alone and facing down the criminal who had invaded his dreams for the past few weeks. Instead of rising with the anchor, the barrel of a gun flashed into the detective's vision for a split second.
The clock ticked even slower, the dull thuds of the hands no longer hovering over the other sounds. An unfamiliar, searing pain spread across Dick's thigh and he staggered backwards into the glass tank. From behind, the team fired off rounds at their former colleague. The bullets clipped and spiraled away from the metal cart the Felon was using as a shield.
"Rich-" Kory was silenced mid-scream and Dick noted the distant sound of a flat hand slapping the water. Her small tanned fingers vanished underneath the bright aquamarine light. The detective rushed forward in the hail of bullets, tossing the cart aside as if it were threaded from silk. Satisfied when an audible crack emitted from the Felon's skull, Dick withdrew a pair of handcuffs, another wave of satisfaction curling through his blood at the click of the restraints.
Down below the surface, Kory blindly struggled against the heavy chains. She squirmed and wiggled, kicking at the liquid that was currently invading her airways. The heartbeat in her ears slowed. She'd told herself earlier it was useless to fight, but now she was trapped like a wild animal. The first instinct was the one of survival. Right now, that meant breaking free of these chains.
Without a second thought, Dick leapt over the barrier of the tank and dove into the saltwater. Knowing he would be too late if vision-deprived, he endured the stinging as he searched for the familiar mane of red hair. Directly to the right, a blood stain appeared in a blur. Immediately, he rushed to the color as if it were the North Star. That stain of crimson would bring him home. Another kick surged him forward and with it, a trail of sea creatures followed, curious of the foreign object creating such a disturbance.
His lungs ached from the little amount of oxygen left. Resisting the urge to inhale, he swam onward and finally reached out with a single hand, meeting the supple skin of her bare shoulder. When he'd touched her like this last, it had been intimate. Now it meant life or death. His pale hands yanked at the chain coiled like a hungry snake around her body, but to no avail. Holding onto her to keep from floating away, Dick retrieved his weapon and aimed. Firing two shots, the chain gave free from anchor. Wasting no time, he wrapped his arms around Kory, brushing the snake off, and towed her to the surface.
Bursting through the water, he sucked in two deep breaths before hauling both of them over the wall and immediately eyed her unconscious form in panic.
"Kory? Babe?" He brought up a trembling hand to brush the soaked crimson from her pale face, "Kory, stay with me." Softly, the eyelashes quivered and lifted, revealing the emerald jewels for him to see. "Oh, thank God, Kory, I-" She frowned; angered that she was drowning out his lovely voice by so much coughing. Opening her mouth to apologize, she realized the darkness from below had returned to steal her voice. The terrible storybook irony wasn't lost on her and she might have chuckled at the situation if she wasn't being torn away from it. The fingers were coming again. Kory could see them just beyond the halo of Dick's worried face.
No, not him. Don't take him. They whisked away, swirling in a cloud of ink, before descending upon her form. "Kory, damn it, don't give up on me. I love you and you've gotta stay awake." The fingers scraped across her lips and the tingling reaction caused her chest to throb painfully.
There's too much fluid in her lungs, someone spoke from behind the darkness. Hospital. Ambulance. Stay. Stay, please. Dick's voice taunted her, calling from above the thick cloud she was succumbing to slowly and agonizingly. As hard as it was to admit, she knew he couldn't save her. "Come on, Kory, come on!"
Her life was not a cliché Hollywood movie. It was her life, nothing more. It was ordinary. She was not an invincible superhero or an immortal creature of the night. Kory would die just the same as everyone else- pleading to have more time. More time to say what her heart was beating for, to know what her mind was searching for. In this short expanse of time she had left, though, the darkness had acted too quickly. She couldn't find the voice to tell him that she loved him. She wasn't strong enough to stay awake and she wasn't strong enough then to fend off Grimes.
When she told her mother she wasn't afraid, she had lied. She was afraid for Dick and what would happen when she passed. These thoughts rushed at her in the split second the darkness snatched her away in a swirl of unresolved wishes and heartache. "No, no, you've gotta stay with me." Unshed tears laced the words as Dick cupped her cheek, running his thumb over the smooth skin.
He watched as her eyes flashed brightly, the entire orbs seeming to drown in those emeralds, and then they were gone, faded to a dull luster. "Listen to me, Kory: I'm here. I'm right here. Don't think about leaving me." A supernova, a star that burned too bright and finally gave in to the darkness of the universe. "I'm not going anywhere, so just… just stay with me."