2.
~ Like a caged animal, the Red Queen howled with rage.
"You horrible girl! You horrible girl! Let me out! I'll cut you!"
Ariadne could feel the creature with in her own mind rattling her bars in fury. Looking for a weakness in the Architect's defense.
"Let me out!" The Red Queen screamed again.
"Ariadne?" Arthur said soothingly. His warm hands finding hers. Long fingers wrapping comfortingly around hers.
She snapped back into the real world. Her mind had wandered off again.
"I'm alright." She said brightly. He smiled. That slight grin only she was allowed to see.
"Your hands are cold." He said softly as the lift pulled them slowly up to the top floor of the warehouse.
"It's winter." She said simply. Her fingers feeling like ice inside his warm palms.
Inside the elevator, they were blissfully alone. No one saw the tender, chaste kiss the Point Man planted on her temple. Soothing the screeching of the Harpie inside.
Ariadne blushed and her gaze fell on her other hand. The one not held protectively by Arthur.
She was transfixed.
Her skin smooth as cream. No scars or wounds of any kind.
'There had been blood.' She thought. Such an odd thing to pop into her head at that moment. 'Blood all over my hands. Warm and sticky. Red blood dripping on the black floor. Arthur, calling me'
Her hands and wrist looked perfect as always. She sighed. It had been another dream. She had been having a lot of very strange dreams lately. None of them following any narrative. Nothing memorable about them but the feel. Her heart racing as she woke up each night.
The sound of the Red Queen in their apartment. Stalking them. Her maniacal scissors cutting through the air. The eerie snipping as the demon hunted for the Architect.
"I'm so proud of you." Arthur said suddenly. Forcing her back to reality yet again.
"What?" She asked. Confused.
"You have really come along way. I mean it's only been a few weeks since the thing in Gotham, and your sleeping with the the lights off." He told her. His voice soft and pleasant. The nice tone he used with her and her alone.
"Oh. Yeah. I guess I came out of it." She said feeling awkward.
"I know it was hard for you." He said sympathetically.
"Yes. It was. I'm fine now." She said robot like.
How could she tell him she no longer feared the whispers in the dark because she had started to listen to them? All the time she could hear them. Hissing. Screaming. Their haunted voices lulling her to sleep.
And then... blood on the black floor. Her hands... bleeding.
"Ariadne?" Arthur's voice came back to her like a light in the dark fog.
"Yes?" She said. Pulled from her reverie.
"Are you sure your alright?" He asked.
"Of course I am." She said trying to act like herself.
"We can go home if you want. You can rest." He offered.
"No." She said stiffly. She forced herself to smile. "No. Someone has to teach you the new maze."
~ Inside the maze of the dream, Ariadne could feel something was lurking. Creeping out of the hidden places.
"Ariadne?" Arthur asked.
She turned and looked at the Point Man. His gaze hard but concerned. He was all business right now. As the team listened to Cobb describing their new mission.
"What this will be, is a general extraction. I'll need to bring Yuseff in again. It requires a lot of work. It's the extraction of an... unsavory individual. Similar to the job we did at Arkham." The Extractor said.
The Architect's head snapped up. Her heart beating fiercely in her chest.
"Another nut job?" She questioned. "You said no more maniacs."
"I know I did." Cobb told her. But this nut job has kidnapped tortured and killed seven women in less then three months. Two of them are still unaccounted for." Cobb smoothed out his hair and looked at each of his Team members.
"Arabella Marks." He sighed wearily.
"The Spider Woman?" Arthur said doubtfully.
"Who is that?" Ariadne asked.
"You don't watch a whole lot of news do you?" Eames teased.
"It's very rare to find a woman serial killer. Arabella Marks earned the nickname The Spider Woman because of how she would string up her victims. Their arms and legs prostrate. Cut a hole in their neck and drain their blood dry. Like a spider." Arthur told them.
"Oh my God." Eames said. "She was as bad as the Joker."
"Were not mentioning that name." Arthur chastised. "Wayne had us all sign a confidentiality contract."
"Right." Eames said rolling his eyes.
"Marks says the other two women are still alive. That they won't be for much longer unless we get the information as to where they are." Cobb said.
He showed the Team photographs. Two young women. Not unlike Ariadne. Happy and beautiful.
Arthur looked darkly troubled.
"Cobb, we all know these girls are probably dead already." He said.
"We don't know that." Cobb said. His voice angry.
"Cobb." Arthur said, giving his old friend a stern look. Ariadne sucked in a breath at seeing the grizzly crime scene photos. Blood. Everywhere.
Those poor women had been slaughtered. Their bodies looked cannibalized.
Something turned over in her at seeing the red. Feeling the sensation of that color. Something wishing to claw itself out of her.
She looked in the corners of the maze again. Whispering coming from the darkness. Beckoning to her. Irrationally, she wanted to run to it.
Cobb was briefing them in a dream. A place the Team could be certain to be alone and not overheard. A place where anything was possible.
It was a world she had designed and dreamed. A place where dark things still hid.
Wayne had taught her to become immune to her fear of the dark. She had found a bravery inside herself to the things hiding there. But she knew, they were still there.
In the dream, anything was possible.
"Cobb, no." Arthur said looking worriedly at the Architect.
"Arthur, what if one of these women had been someone we cared about? What if it were Ariadne she had?" Cobb said.
The Extractor clearly had lost sleep over the idea of what Marks had done.
"Remember what happened last time?" Arthur barked. "Things didn't work out very well." the Point Man reminded him.
The Team's decent into the mind of Gotham's phantom, the Joker, had ended with that monster taking possession of the dream. The Team never knew about Wayne becoming a beast or Ariadne splintering herself again and letting loose the Red Queen. It was a closely guarded secret. One that if they knew about, would cause Cobb to pull her off all dream extractions.
"Were prepared for that." Cobb said. "We'll be ready this time." He assured them.
"We better get hazard pay out of this one." Eames huffed.
The Forger shrugged.
"It's just a dream Arthur. What's the worst that could happen?" He laughed.