AN: I've actually posted a new chapter after Reconciliation (and it's not this one), it's called Judgment. So just in case check the previous chapter before this, else… when you read this chapter, you might be quizzical with Pariah's behavior.
Apparently, FF didn't send the email alerts when I posted the chapter up back then.
New arc, let'sago! Also thanks Gidora for your encouragement. This chapter wouldn't have been like this if it weren't for his opinions shaping it.
Chapter Ten: The Progenies
"So?" Dana waited as she watched her brother standing on the other end of the empty apartment, duffel bag over his shoulder. He let it fall, caught it by the straps last minute before dropping it to the ground.
He looked at her, blue eyes filled with concern as his lips thinned. "I'm sorry, Dana. I didn't know."
She sighed but smiled. "When you say that, I feel like an ingrate for asking you this."
"You shouldn't," he told her, copying her look then his face fell grimly with a frown between his brows. "You're scared."
"Well, not scared," she corrected him quickly. "Just… worried. I should be scared, shouldn't I?" she asked him.
"Have you told Dave about this?" he said.
"No." She shook her head. "Not yet. I will. Just wanted to know your opinion about this."
He stared at her then looked away. "I don't think it's a good idea," he finally said.
She frowned. "Wha-" She stopped as a firm thin line of a grimace formed on her lips. "Why?"
"Pariah…" Alex said, a somber look spread. "He's not in the right headspace."
Dana blinked at this. "W-wait, what do you mean? Is Patrick okay?" She walked up to him.
"He's fine. He's the Pariah, after all," Alex said. "But he hasn't been… there lately."
"What's wrong with him?"
"I don't know," he told her. "But I think it's something you shouldn't ask of him. Not right now at least."
"When will it ever be the right time, Alex? When I finally snap? When there's a pile of dead bodies? Or worse." She sighed, the stirring of their old arguments coming back up again. "I don't understand. I thought you wouldn't have a problem."
"I don't," he said quickly. "I'm… if you want to do this, then I'll stand by your decision. I just… don't think it's a good idea."
She grimaced.
"Trust me, Dana. Do not ask him of this."
"If this was seven years ago, he wouldn't have a problem treating me with his virus. What's the difference now?"
"Because now… he cares about these kinds of things," Alex said grimly.
"And that's bad?" She looked at him incredulously. "Well, good for him for developing a conscience over what he can do. You should be more worried if he doesn't give a shit about moral obligations since this is the same guy running around with brainwashing powers!"
He sighed. "He cares a lot more than he should, about things… he shouldn't, Dana. And when Runners care about things it doesn't end well," he said bitterly.
Sounded a whole lot of bullshit to her. "I'm missing something, am I?" Dana asked concernedly at the worry on his face. "You're the one who hangs out with him the most." She then gave a joking smile. "Never thought to see the day you of all people watching out for him."
Alex scowled.
"Fine, I'll drop the subject," she said. "I'll trust you on this. But I kinda need an explanation here."
"It's hard to say," her brother confessed.
"Should I ask his kids?"
"They wouldn't notice."
"Of course." She snorted. "Control freak with a perfect poker face." She then paused and glanced at him. "Is this about how he doesn't deal with emotions well?"
Alex gave her a questioning look.
"Mandy," she explained. "We had… I think a conversation about this. How he couldn't feel happy, or sad… or anything before. Never knew considering what he's like now, an insufferable prick who thinks he's funny." She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "I don't see why my problem would bother him though."
Alex stared at her before he opened his mouth then closed it, grimacing when he finally admitted, "Because he could have done the same for his mother, and he's realizing that."
"And is this how you guys deal with your issues?" She pointed at the duffel bag on the floor with a raised eyebrow. "A one-month getaway trip for boys only." She gave a wry smirk.
He glared.
Dana just laughed then raised her arms. With a dignified surrender, Alex wrapped his arms around his sister.
"I had hoped you were doing this for yourself, Alex," she muttered into his shoulder.
"I am."
She slipped away and pulled back, hands still firmly on his shoulders. "Yeah, but you're also doing this because... you're looking out for him."
"Something like him should be watched, Dana."
She sighed. "I would've thought your prejudices and paranoia over him would get better. But… I guess even someone likes him needs a hand to catch him," she said softly. "Even if the hands catching him is doing it for the wrong reasons," Dana added drily.
He gave a thin smile at that.
"When you guys come back, can we all meet in Manhattan?"
The frown was immediately back on his face. She pursed and replied with an equal glare. "I'll be careful, Alex. You know that."
"I sometimes think you do this on purpose."
"What, taking advantage of you out of the States, leaving me doing whatever I want without being dogged on or protest against?"
Alex glared at his grinning sister.
Manhattan
How many lives were lost in fighting the infection? Hundreds, thousands? Soldiers armed and packed with ammo, the guns in their arms and back, then they were shipped off to the frontline of the apocalypse, shooting down numerous amount of bodies that could soak bullets more than the guns hold in them. Every bullet, every gun, every shot counted.
Desperate civilians running around blindly in the Red Zones with the most opportunistic of New Yorkers taking advantage of the chaos as they lurked and hid. Properties were lost and stolen in these moments, guns and military grade weapons were one of them, especially the deadly explosive kind like the Javelins and the grenade launchers.
After the Outbreak, New York criminal activity and gun violence had increased to a level of street war. It had died down in its insurgent post Outbreak, but stray grenade launchers and military-grade weapons still circulated and passed around.
Manhattan was never the same even after these years. A million of lives gone less than two weeks with three hundred thousand feeling the impact of their absence through the economy and the unrest it brought out amongst them.
Dave gasped as he laid on the cold concrete ground of the abandoned building. The soft finger of hers continued brushing between his brows as the empty gaze stared back at him.
"You're her… are you?" he said haggardly at the woman lying on the dirty ground right beside him. "This is really cute, but… I'm dying here."
Being shot multiple time in the guts was not an experience he would want to make fun of. The ground beneath him pooling red, his clothes and hands soaked with his own liter of blood, his vision wavering as he tried to focus.
"Ah, fuck," he swore at the intense pain. "Can you…" he swallowed and exhaled. "Can you grab the phone?" And make a call.
Dana Mercer smiled serenely back at her boyfriend, her index finger softly twitching in a repetitive motion as they brushed in a playful ticklish manner, stroking wet warm stains down the bridge of his nose. The empty warehouse was awfully silent, gone were the screaming in the background, gangsters… hoody cults on the ground; copycats of the Monster of Manhattan and the legacy the urban legend left.
The criminals dead from their heads twisted or broken to pieces under pale hands, if not from the hand-sized holes in their chest.
Dave stared at her arms covered in the blood of insane maniacs. There were bullet holes in her clothes with a small splatter of blood around the edges, but no bleeding. None of them managed to shoot her in the head.
It was like out of a fucking movie when she shot her arm through as if it was some kind of shotgun. He recalled a fact he stumbled across, a tiger's paw could break a skull and bones easily with a swat. But her? She moved so fast she could rip a head off by flicking her arm across the neck.
It was fucking terrifying. This was the woman he has been with for years and she was smiling at him like an angel and playing with his nose. If this was any other day, this would have scared him shitless and have him run for the hills, change his name and move to another state, heck another fucking country without further thought on what his action would do to her. But Dave was no bitch and no asshole, he was no longer the sane man that he once was.
Dave was a man bleeding and dying from three shots in the guts, simply because he just wanted to be there for her when she finally decided to face the past that had changed both of their lives. He still struggled despite having moved on from the crazies she brought into their lives, and yet he wanted to know more of the woman that she was, the woman that was Dana Mercer despite the scary stories, despite how the city was slightly bleeding from sore wounds left behind by the Outbreak. It was just wrong to let her go alone to confront…
This. This unlikely hell of a future that they dreaded and at times joked around, leaving it in the back of their mind, that she left it all behind and said farewell and fuck you as this trip should have been.
He inhaled deeply, only made it more painful when he did, and he was going to die with her watching him. When she finally comes back, Dave started laughing only to choke at the coppery taste welling up at the back of his own throat. When she finally comes back, he bet her brother was going to blame him for all this shit while she put herself in self-made hell.
The finger brushing between his brows stopped. Dave stared at a pair of empty green eyes… not the clear crystal blue, but green eyes that slowly closed when her face slid close to him. She placed a warm hand on his cheek when he felt her lips on him, and the fingers gouging in, prying into the bullet holes.
That was one way to distract a man from dying and having his guts fingered. He held back the urge to whine and groan from escaping.
Jesus Christ, he preferred drugs and properly sanitized, sterilized medical tools over whatever she was doing. He needed stitching and surgery, and lots of blood, not a game of Operation on the bullets in him because no doubt, the bullets were embedded in concrete with his blood not far from him.
"Call… the bloody-" hospital, he tried to pull back only to moan into her mouth as his words come out as a sleepy mumble.
He was going to die while getting fingered in the guts by his girlfriend.
Dave inhaled sharply. He blinked and stared at a yellow stain left by an old plumbing leak within the ceiling. Slowly he sat up, his hands resting on a rickety unfamiliar couch that was not their hotel. It was clear from the silent watchful people minding their business, to the strong body odor he could smell from here that this was a poorly-maintained shelter of a sort. From their clothes to their reserved but distant expressions that hardly acknowledged him, Dave wondered if he had entered a junkies' hangout or a place for poorly housed mentally ill individuals.
His hands settled on his stomach, feeling no bandages nor stitches, just smooth skin, and new clothes, second hand freshly ironed worn clothes.
"Wh-where am I?" he said loudly.
"Steady, son," a man called out.
A bottle of branded clear water was handed to him, he hesitated but reached out to grab it. Dave uncapped it with a loud crack and gulped his water down quickly, gasping and coughing when he stopped. He frowned then turned to look up and stared at the man.
He was in his late forties and wore a cross over his simple grey shirt. There was a slight tinge of greyness in his hair and had a serene face when he smiled.
"You are a very blessed man, you know," he said cheerfully at him.
"Thank… you?" He frowned. "Have you seen a woman that came with me?" Dave asked quickly. "Blonde hair, plaited. She has a very pale skin and probably… have holes in her clothes."
"Oh yes, her." That same smile broadened, and a look Dave couldn't quite put a finger on settled on his face. "She's waiting for you in our hall. I'll show you to her."
He got up as the priest waited beneath the doorway of the exit only to wince at the pale afternoon sunlight spilling between the blinders. How long has he been unconscious? David squinted and rested his hand briefly on the armrest of the couch.
"You're alright, there?"
"I'm fine, just rush from the blood getting up there," he said to him when he finally stood behind the man before he glanced at the debilitating state of the wood of the doorway. The white paint cracked and falling apart, the corner edges above clung almost loosely with large gaps between the frames, and there were smashed holes and rusty stains in place of hinges. Like something had smashed through the door.
Would explain why there wasn't a door on it.
"Quite old," Dave commented when he noted the granny wallpapers were even peeling off and the worn out wooden floorboard. "I'm surprised this building is still standing. Since… shouldn't this be part of the rebuilding project?"
The old man smiled. "Considering many buildings like these were lost in the Outbreak, it deserved its stay."
"Yeah," Dave muttered. "Helicopters and shelling tend to help set them apart from places like these."
The priest actually chuckled. "People still speculate how could cars end up inside people's homes. I think they plan to keep one in a building, make it into some feature like an art deco or something," he said, laughing while walking ahead. "Reality is far more strange than fiction." He smiled and shook his head.
"I know."
The man glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. "I'm quite surprised, since… you don't carry the look many of us locals do."
"Well, I wasn't there, but I know people who do."
"And you believed them?"
"I had to." His soon-to-be in-laws were monsters, after all. Dave was still quite at odds with himself at that thought, he wondered if there was a part of his brain writing HELP in some coded form, lost and hidden in a forgotten corner of his mind. The image somehow amused him even now. "I would've thought the state of New York would help out with the homeless you have here," Dave said as they passed by opened doors with people lingering in the room of mismatching furniture.
Odd people, almost catatonic. Some staring in space, others repeating an action, picking up and putting a book down, standing up and walking around before sitting down. Their joints stiff in their motions, suffering from atrophy, some with parts of their body bloated with abnormal growth. One foot larger than the other, tumors on faces, swollen limbs, gnarled hands with pinkish new skin trying to meld fingers together.
"They try, but with our current economic standing, places like these tend to get… overlooked," the man said, still smiling. "Truth is, people are afraid of us."
"Why? Do these people think you guys are like some disease-carrying rats?" He couldn't help but be angry at that.
"We were once infected, yes," the priest admitted, ignoring the falter in his step. "Considering how media likes to paint the virus as the worst modern-day disease of mankind, many don't like us." He sighed. "Can't say I blame them. The Outbreak took many; mothers, fathers, family, friends… our homes, our lives, everything. Even our minds. Fear is still fresh in our heart what with the disease still lingering amongst us even today. It's a miracle that we are still alive and standing here, I thank Mary for watching us," the man muttered the last part reverently.
"It's no excuse. I would've thought institutes have been built for situations like these."
Was it so hard to take care the few hundreds within those three and a half hundred thousand? Especially the ones who lost their lives and unable to rebuild them back because of Redlight fucking up their brain. People who couldn't even stitch together a proper thought, let alone move at will. Their hands and arms shaking with only a frustrated blank stare as their answer to a question.
"They have." The man's smile fell a bit. "A place for us and for the infected carriers. But many have disappeared behinds its wall and never heard again."
"You don't trust the Institute?" David asked. Considering the whole debacle with the infamous medical company GenTek, he was not surprised, to say the least.
"I don't trust what goes on in there," the priest muttered coldly. "But I will not stop those who wish to seek help. God knows I could be wrong in my judgment."
They went down three flights of stairs only to be greeted by the sound of a loud sobbing from a man. Both of them paused when they walked into the sight of a group lingering in the corridor.
"What's going on here?" the priest asked.
One of the women, a short pudgy fifty-year-old turned around. "It's Carlos, reverend."
"Merciful Mary, tell me someone took away his gun," the priest muttered before he rushed in.
No, no, Jesus no. Let it not be Cara in there. David hurried after, pushing through the people and following right behind the old man himself.
"Move aside," the priest snapped at the crowds as he shoved right into the room.
Dave stumbled in right after then stopped and breathed rapidly at the sight before him. Was this their shrine or something? It was a small room lined with the color red and black. Was it wings, the rays of holy light? Or perhaps pipelines, the flow of veins that came from the woman who slept serenely behind the altar, holding the Sacred Heart and carrying a baby in her arms. He could not tell due to how abstract the art was. Was her hair short, or was she wearing a cowl?
It was just a woman sleeping and smiling, offering one beckoning hand bleeding of black words; Latin phrases, nonsensical lullabies, broken songs that spoke of love, blessing, and family. She was surrounded with various size of red halo serving her, pointy balls of stars spread throughout over the vein lines of the room as if she was gifting the same holy light that she held in her heart and son. The largest was behind her, shining onto the black cityscape that made the lower portion of the wall, taking up her lap and waist. He was sure it was Manhattan spray-painted below her if the Empire State Building were a clue.
But it was not the art that made David's heart stopped.
It was her taking the man's cheek into her own hand as she smiled gently in his crying, the same hand, the same face that had crushed men's skulls into a red mess. A Glock laid on the floor at the side of her feet as a man kneeled before her, clinging to her body fiercely, grasping that same hand with his own in his desperate moment when he bowed and rested his head against her leg. Something silver, metal glinted and slid from between their hands.
A dog tag dangling by its round balls of chain, wrapped around his fingers.
She quietly brushed through his hair absentmindedly in their embrace as he whispered stifled words of a broken man's wailings to her clothes.
He felt like he had stepped into something private, something he should not have seen. Something only for her. She, in turn, murmured something into his ear. He heard a wheeze and a gasp, a smile formed from the former Marine before he collapsed. Four other dog tags clattered onto the floor, held by the same chain glinting within his hands.
"Carlos," the priest called out gently to the man on the floor and rested a hand on his head. "I'm sorry, I'll take him off you," he told Cara.
David rushed forward towards her, brushing by two other men who came in to help the priest. She stood waiting between the rows of bench and seat, her blue eyes lowered before she slowly shuffled on her feet, turning around to stare at the Mother of God.
No explanation came, she said nothing when he waited by her side while she curled her head towards her chest and held her hands close to her heart in prayer. Her plaited hair slid away, exposing the back of her neck where the blue bruised marks burned on her pale skin.
They disappeared before his eyes.
He hesitated when he reached out to her.
"Cara," he whispered.
Was this really her, or was he dealing with something else? His hands finally settled gently onto her shoulders.
"Cara," he called out to her again. "Do you want to sit down?"
She didn't respond, but a small guiding pressure was enough for her to move towards the bench at her side with David studiously looking for signs of injuries and anything else on her. She was wearing a grey woolen jumper that wasn't her own, her pale hands cleaned from blood, even under her nails. Did they clean her? Shouldn't they be suspicious or something, instead of welcoming a woman with arms covered with blood? At the same time, he was glad they didn't turn her away, but he couldn't help but wonder why, until he remembered a thought.
"Phone," he said aloud. "W-where's our bag?" He glanced past her, noticing their neglected black backpack on the bench, probably given back to her earlier.
He lowered his body and leaned over her, snatching the dangling straps and pulling the bag over.
"I called for him," she rasped when he unzipped the front to search the pocket.
He paused and looked at her. "You did?"
She nodded. "Pariah."
Pariah? "Who?"
She just quietly pointed at the mural before her. David gave her a confused look when she pointed at the child in the arm of Mary. She called for Jesus? That can't be right. He frowned, trying to recall where he heard the name before then remembered what Mercer referred his brother as.
"Gordon?" he whispered.
Why him? Why not Chase? Wasn't Chase her… real brother? Well, that wasn't technically correct, but he was the preferred brother. He supposed it didn't really make any difference with whom she contacted first since last he remembered, the two of them were on a trip of a sort. Part of him still wondered if she really did tell the two of their plan to visit Manhattan just to hunt down cult-following artworks, especially in an auspicious time where the two were away.
She was interested in city graffiti, especially from a particular artist deemed as a prophet of a sort, but he suspected the man was infected when he made those works, works that spoke of his and Manhattan's descent as the infection progressed. He wondered if the artist was even alive and aware his spray paintings were like the modern Triumph of Death, that even his Virgin Mary had become a shrine for the people here.
"Did you tell him where we're at?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "Don't need to," she whispered as she sat hunched, her head tilted almost sideways in an unnatural pose he was sure to cause neck ache. David grimaced and carefully he placed his hand on the other side of her head.
Catatonic patients were known to resist movements in proportion to the force applied to their body, what made it hard to reposition them, but she was like a doll, compliant when he made her turn and lean towards him. He only sighed at this, it wouldn't make any difference to her neck anyway, even if she was resting her head on his shoulder.
"Have you eaten?" he asked concernedly.
She shook her head again. He offered his bottle of water instead, but she turned her face away from it. David sighed once again and leaned back in his seat. Guess he was going to wait here for who knows how long and in God knows where until her brothers finally arrive here.
He should be afraid of her, after what she did, especially when she was in this state where he wasn't sure what she would do next. She had… killed those criminals with her own bare hands, granted she was also the reason he was alive and those killers dead in their place.
All he knew was what to expect at the very least and what not to do, a thorough conversation with her brothers taught him that, and he had experience dealing with Altered Mental Status patients. The best he could do for her right now was watch her and restraint her… if he can, until proper help arrive.
He was actually glad he came with her on this trip than leaving her to go alone. God knows what could have happened.
David pulled the phone out of the bag and turned it on, its greeting chimed loudly in the prayer hall. Codes were entered and it just took a few swipes, he found where they were. Not particularly far from the abandoned warehouse they were exploring, one of those broken down military buildings south of Harlem. He wondered if it was wise to wait here, especially in a place known for its bad neighborhood with those fucking hoody cults lurking around.
They were the same fuckers that got on the news report, especially of hate-crime and vandalism, particularly drug stores, clinics, and shelters like these. Always attacking what Manhattan deemed as the Yellow Zone, places rife with paranoia where its people had brief-touch with hell from the long-gone Red Zones seven years ago. Home for those who still carried the scars and marks of Redlight. He wondered why they would gravitate together in an area like this.
It was kind of scary thinking about it. Just one street away from here, a whole city block was lost and destroyed just to get rid of the infection. A stark contrast he could easily feel. He only needed to walk a street filled with new and developing buildings, then to a place like this right next to it, poorly maintained with a bit of scar and weather left from the Outbreak.
"There are days that I remember, Dave," Dana finally murmured and looked up tiredly with her blue eyes. "Days that I wonder if there is a difference between me… and her," she said, standing up and walking slowly towards the altar.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, getting up as well. "What happened just now, with the man?"
"I don't know," she answered, shaking her head slowly and still avoiding his gaze. "He said many things, that he killed his friends, that he missed me, begged me not to leave."
"You know him?" Dave asked accusingly.
She shook her head again. "A part of him cried out for me, and I merely answered."
He frowned and walked over to her, searching into her blue distant eyes. "Who am I talking to?"
"I don't even know, David. Me… her, or both," Dana whispered as she lowered her eyes, staring at her hands. "I could give back what she has taken from them."
"Can you, Bee?" A man's voice called out from the back.
David spun around and stared at the thirty-nine years old man leaning against the door of the room, wearing a long cream-colored raincoat over a black turtleneck with army pants and boots, a red halo star rested right behind his head covered by a woolen beany.
"I know you can," she answered back.
Gordon stared at her deeply for that before he walked over.
"Where's Chase?" David asked.
"Doing Manhattan a favor," the older man said before he brushed past him and reached out to Dana.
She immediately moved away from him, and David frowned at this exchange. "When did you arrive?" the EMT asked.
"She called for me five hours ago," Patrick answered but his green eyes were still on her. "Well, I'm here now. What do you want?"
Dana stood there and avoided his gaze, her eyes on the black and red mural. "Alex said I shouldn't ask you this. But I sometimes wonder…" She glanced at their surroundings. "Did you ever regret at having done nothing in the face of all of this?"
Silence, Patrick Gordon exhaled before he sauntered past the altar.
"I asked mother if she wanted to go away, away from a life of being prodded, watched as a thing day in and day out," he said as he walked over to the mural. "She couldn't even give a proper answer, didn't even have the will or want. Rather stay for the sake of her children," he added with a hint of resentment at his surroundings.
"So you abandoned her," Dana said this quietly.
"I did, didn't I?" The older man laughed before he tilted his head at the art. "I couldn't stand my own mother. She was so… weak, so pitiful. Nothing more but a husk who repeats thing, singing songs of memories and dreams she has forgotten." He reached out with his hand, fingers hovering right above the baby.
"But you loved her, didn't you?"
He was quiet at that. "I tell myself that I do. That I loved my mother, but what kind of son abandon his own mother when she needs help? When he could've done something, could have… fixed her. Could have… prevented this." His hand closed into a fist and rested itself onto the child, spilling a web of black veins. "I know better now. I was… selfish, I didn't care. I didn't care for a lot of things, to be honest."
"So why do you do nothing in the face of this, Gordon? You could fix this, you can make this right," Dana told him earnestly and stepped forward towards him. "There are people here who can use your help."
He only sniffed and laughed, smiling down on her. "Do you hear yourself, Bee? I would've thought of you as one who would be repulsed by anything to do with my mother. But… they're calling out to that part of you, aren't they?"
Patrick tilted his head and looked at her concernedly.
"What the virus can do is nothing more but a series of flukes, Dana. It wasn't meant to be that way, you weren't meant to be this way, but you are and I'm sorry for that," he said, shaking his head slightly.
"It should've stayed sleeping within you like all those dormant genes, but it didn't. Redlight was meant to be… this revolutionizing super serum, but we know Hope proved that wrong as well. What looks like a solution is a ticking time bomb," he told her. "You're asking help from a weapon here."
Bullshit.
He was doing it again, that thing he usually does whenever his own feelings were being inconvenient. He wipes them away, rids of it, shuts it down and he was back to not giving a shit, spouting excuses. Mandy had warned her of this habit of his, but people change, right? People could learn.
Alex had told her how the infallible Pariah was starting to feel regret, that he was starting to care about these kinds of things, even guilty about all of this. But the way her brother said it like it was a bad idea. That the son of Greene shouldn't develop some moral obligations and conscience over what had happened, over what he could do to correct this. This was the same being who had the power like his mother, the same being who had no qualm using it on people, even to himself.
She couldn't understand.
Dana slapped him loudly across the face, and David inhaled sharply at the sudden stab of a headache.
"A part of me should be scared, you know," she said, standing her ground as Patrick placed a hand quizzically on his cheek.
"That there is a part of me that wants to answer them, and the worst thing about it." She glared at him. "After coming back here to Manhattan, seeing all of this, I find myself agreeing. But I know, I know that same voice was what made Manhattan turned into hell." She turned away, her hands wringing through her hair.
"Once, I wanted you to get rid of it," Dana whispered to herself, her voice shaking. "But what's the difference? What's the difference between what I want and that part of me? And even then." She looked up and turned to him. "When I see the man that stands before me and how he deals with that part of himself, I tell myself I'm better off without that option."
"You are upset and angry, Dana. I get that," he called out towards her gently and reached out with his hand.
"How could you not want or care, Patrick?" she cut him off, shoving that hand away as she stepped back. "Have you seen those people!"
A look of frustration settled on his face and a pair of amber eyes glinted.
"What my mother did is proof of what happens when you act on that instinct," he told her coldly.
"Bullshit," she snapped. "I stand here alive because of you, you made me this way. And I ask myself why every time, why am I alive while others are not, why am I like this while others are worst off and still suffering. If you are a weapon," she said scornfully. "What does that make me, then?"
He said nothing and just glared at her.
"It's inconvenient," she whispered. "My brother and I… are inconveniences to you," she added as she looked directly into his amber-green eyes of his mother's. "You don't like inconveniences. You could have ignored Alex's issues he had with you, you could have bugged me to correct these little mistakes you missed in curing me since you love being mister fucking perfect," she hissed and breathed rapidly. "You could've left me to die, you could've turned away from us. But you didn't." Her voice softened.
"You tell yourself you didn't care, but you do all of these things and yet… you still walk away from what happened to Manhattan. To this..."
There were black webs of vein lines seeping away from beneath Gordon's shoes. David blanched and stepped back. Something wet and warm dropped down onto his hand, and he narrowed his eyes, quickly pressing his hand beneath his nose, only to find more red instead.
Shit. He was caught in a family argument between biological weapons of war.
"A priest who has no powers, no cures was still able to help these people. My brother, who didn't know better, still managed to do the right thing in the end," she said, stepping forward towards him regardless of what her words were doing to the older man. "While you, you who has nothing to lose, who can make people forget, can easily disappear off without a trace, tell me you won't extend a single finger for these people who lost everything because of your mother."
"What do you want, Dana?" His voice was quiet and bitter.
"I don't know," she admitted before him, shaking her head softly. "I don't know what I want, and when I do, I know I shouldn't," she said, looking down at her own hands as they closed into fists. "That it's wrong."
"Then you know now why you shouldn't ask more from me," Pariah said hoarsely.
"Is this why you like running away? Hiding behind a fraud of a man. Pretending who you are not." She stared at him. "You couldn't admit your own mistakes, even to your own goddamn guilty conscience that you were wrong? Did you make me this way, so that you could dump all your obligations, your issues onto me?"
For once, he turned and looked away from her. "If I had cared more than I did, I would have brought Manhattan to its knee for my mother," he said, green eyes falling back onto her. "Is that what you want, for me to admit that part of myself?" His voice hollow when he moved, stepping forward towards her with black veins spreading at each step.
She shook her head slowly, moving away from him. "But you didn't, and it wouldn't make any difference now, Gordon."
"I once thought of it, you know," he told her. "Give them what they want, let Blackwatch have their serum. When they finally spread it to each and every one of their members, I would do what my mother did to Hope," he said softly as he cornered her. "I could do it right now, give them the cure to their problems to that Institute."
"And what of those people in there?" Dana demanded. "How can you tell the difference?" She glared at him but a flash of panic hit her when her back met the wall, her fingertip crawling with the hot black mass.
She flinched, snatching her hands away.
"Their thoughts, their dreams, their creed are ingrained in them. I would be ending an ideal," he answered her. "Their ideal, and we would be rid of a stain. All it takes is time," he murmured, stopping one foot in front of her.
One whole sub-section of the US Army, a nation's first and foremost defense against biological warfare gone just like that.
"He cares a lot more than he should, about things… he shouldn't, Dana. And when Runners care about things it doesn't end well."
"Genocide is…" Her breathing deep and rapid. "Is not a fucking solution, it wouldn't fix any of this!" she hissed.
Stop it, stop it right now. Get away.
The familiar pull was there, drawing her away, making her world red briefly. Her hands moved at her own will, and she waited for that awful squelch and the familiar snapping, the sound of crushed throat gasping, for the feeling of warm blood clinging under her nails and running up her arms beneath her sleeve.
The moment never passed, her wrists were firmly in his grasps, burning warm, unshakeable but never tight to the point of pain.
"No, it wouldn't, wouldn't it?" He gave a pained smile as he looked down on her gently.
He unclenched his hands, she quickly pulled away and avoided his gaze. She held back a shuddering exhale when he turned, stepping back from her. The crawling black mass slipped off from the wall and slowly returned to him.
"Why did you come back here, Dana?" he asked her without turning. "What is the point of looking back?" he whispered the last part so softly.
"What do you have to be afraid of, Patrick?" She glared back. "Why is it so hard for you?"
He turned his head slightly, his green eyes narrowed on her.
The door at the back slammed loudly. Both of them stopped in their place from the corner of the room, they turned their head as Alex Mercer walked in with a quizzical frown beneath the ballcap he wore.
His future brother-in-law stood beside him with a bloody hand clutching his newly soaked shirt to his nose. The man was haggard and pale, breathing heavily when he hunched down to a seat, coughing rapidly. If this was any other day, David would have called himself crazy for thinking he was glad Alex Mercer arrived in time.
"David?" Dana asked worriedly and finally saw the state he was in.
"I'm fine," he said quickly between heavy breathing when she rushed over to him. "Just… really feeling light-headed right now. My gut kinda hurting though, and I think I want to vomit."
Alex frowned before he slowly looked around. Gordon stood at the other end from where he was at, his amber-green eyes distant as he glowered at them. There were vein lines of scars surrounding the man as if someone had decided to bleach the area clean, ruining a portion of the black-painted Manhattan at the corner of the wall… in a pattern that Alex recognized far too well.
"Shouldn't you be fixing this?" he called out to his brother carefully, briefly glancing at David.
The older man shook his head, and actually curled his lip in contempt. He marched towards him, walking immediately past them and leaving the room with a slam.
Alex merely glanced after him at that, the frown deepening before he looked down to his sister whose shoulders were slumped. She purposely avoided his gaze while she attended to her fiancé.
"What happened?" he asked.
He heard snippets of their conversations, but it was the anger coming from Pariah that distracted him from listening. Anger that spilled and was pulsing back from his sister as well, briefly greying his vision, distorting their words beneath a layer of meaningless static whispers and stirring a headache out of him as well. Alex wondered if the feedbacks were influencing them, feeding each other their own anger and regrets, creating a never-ending cycle of their negative emotions. Knowing Pariah and how long he had been dealing with the hive, he doubted he was one easily influenced by this effect.
It has been quite a while since Pariah lost himself to his own emotions and to the voices of the hivemind.
That was not a good sign.
His sister didn't answer him. David wisely kept his lips and eyes shut, leaning back into the bench and tilting his head up while pretending to have a migraine, which was easy considering his head was pounding uncomfortably.
"Dana," Alex called out again, this time his voice was stern.
"I said things that you told me not to," she admitted.
Alex sighed, knowing where this was already heading. "What did you ask from him, Dana?"
"Nothing," she said too quickly. "Just… just how could he turn away from all of this."
"We know the answer to that already," Alex said grimly. "It's better this way."
If it meant dealing with an unfeeling bastard whose motivations were purely logical and for his own conveniences, then so be it. Because there was one thing that Alex didn't want, and it was someone with the same power as Elizabeth Greene having an emotional meltdown in the middle of the city. That was a recipe for an outbreak to happen.
"That doesn't mean it's right!" his sister snapped. "And the worst thing about it, Alex." She exhaled in frustration. "He's gonna do that thing he always does, and I just… I just got angry at him." Her breathing was deep and rapid. "It makes me glad I didn't ask him to… fix me," she added the last part almost snidely.
"Y'know, Cara," David grunted in his leaning back. "You could've told me about wanting to get help with your… can I say D.I.D here?" The EMT frowned, wasn't sure what she had was extensive as a dissociative identity disorder.
"I was going to," she said before she bitterly added, "Until today happened."
"If it makes you feel better, I find… brainwashing, and I guess killing a part of yourself?" He gave her a look. "Kinda a shady way to do it?" David finished weakly. "D.I.D is often a coping mechanism for people who suffer trauma. A way to remove themselves from the bad and painful experience, even separating memories of their self. The same person, in the end, they just… carry a different set of memories and emotions at a time, one who carries all the mental scars and issues while the other is free from any of it and able to pilot the day-to-day life."
There was an ugly connotation behind that. That his sister was only here because Elizabeth Greene wanted her to hide what she had left within her, easier to blend in with people and linger amongst them, while the other… the other was just as much his sister but with all the acute memories and dreams of her time in the hive. That she was something Dana developed to cope with the changes left within her and not just something Greene had put inside her.
Considering the virus and what it did to people, Alex disagreed with that interpretation.
"You guys are fine waiting here?" Alex asked them. "Or do you want to go back?"
"I'd rather go back to our hotel considering the neighborhood and all," David said drily. "But…" He looked at Dana. "We can stay here for a while."
"We're probably a nuisance to them anyway," she said quietly.
"I've done my fair share of volunteer service before, so I'm sure he won't mind if we stay to help around," he said and smiled. "I'm just worried about those… hoody arseholes out there."
"They won't be a problem anymore," Alex said stiffly.
The man was immediately quiet at that. "I supposed that doesn't involve with lugging those assholes to the cops and pulling a superhero on their asses?"
Alex didn't answer him, just turned around and walked off.
"Alex," Dana called out.
He stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
"Are you angry at me?" she asked.
"No." He shook his head and sighed. "Some things are meant to be said, sooner or later. I'll go talk to him."
It wasn't hard to find him, his mind was being noisy after all, which was a far cry to the man's usual and unnerving silent state. He moved fast, from south of Harlem to the Midtown of Manhattan, which was a good five miles away, on the other side of Central Park. It was a grim amusing picture, the one thing that would make the cautious Pariah willing to use his powers, just to cross the other side of the city quicker, was his sister.
He found him at the formerly known James A. Farley Post Office, now called Ground Zero, Penn Station. Alex wasn't sure what to feel when he stood before the very place of his birth, the very place where his creator decided to damn thousands of lives. It was a similarity that he shared with the oldest Runner, the day of their birth was the day hundreds died, their birthplace suffered under the damnation by another's action.
It was a reason why he never celebrated his birthday.
In the late evening, past the white classical Corinthian columns, within the front hall of the entrance of the station, the monument to the millions of Manhattan and Marines lost in the Outbreak scrolled slowly on the encompassing black glass wall of hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth digital screen. He stood there in front of them, a hand in his trouser pocket, his long raincoat wrapped and folded in his other arm.
Alex slowly walked up to him and stood by his side.
When Dana gets upset, she rambles on and spills her frustrated thoughts that plagued her, she would then ask for advice or look to him for his opinions. Frankly, he was the last guy on Earth she should go to for advice. He gave half-assed ones. She would smile and laugh, point out they weren't great, or wrong but would viciously admit and even envy his violent honesty to problems, before being subdued by her thoughts.
With his colleagues, it just took alcohol and lower inhibitions then they would talk about their personal life, bitch about it, complain and make jokes at each other expense. Human beings talk to let out steam, to regulate their pain, their emotions. They were social creatures after all.
But Pariah, Pariah moves on. If it was too troublesome, he would just shrug and went on with his life. He was a solitary being who needed no one, would not lean on anyone. He gets angry, annoyed, frustrated once in a while, but the emotions would never spill, would never consume him. He would always calm down and then he would ask curious questions, meaningless questions, amusing odd ones. Questions that Alex realized was the man's way of trying to understand.
None of those moments were strong enough to rile his mind though.
He was eerily still beside him, he did not speak or move, just watched the names went by. His mind loud, chattering and whispering, imageries, pictures, broken conversations passing by in a flurry, and crying, lots of crying and screaming. The sound of death by fire consuming Hope with the roaring static of voices, the lingering leftovers of the Outbreak drowning out Pariah.
And he spoke, words echoing in his mind, an angry man's voice, a resigned quiet child. "I understand now, of why you couldn't stand me."
Memories of their first meeting flashed, the attack at the office seven years ago. It briefly brought a smile on his face even if it wasn't the right response. It wasn't hate that caused him to attack him back then. Hating was tiring, it was exhausting, left bitterness in his mouth and if not, a dark burning indulgent he knew he shouldn't give in.
It was mostly for Dana's sake and mostly because, "I was angry at you, once."
Why didn't he save his mother, why didn't he stop her? Why didn't he stop Blackwatch?
How could a man like Patrick Gordon exist when a tragedy like Hope made something like his mother, brought Manhattan into ruins, and caused thirty-years of experiment and solitary on her child? He was angry, angry at the being almost similar like him could exist, who knew pain, knew when things were wrong, but did nothing to prevent it all. The hypocrisy was astounding as well, he came into their lives for the sake of his sister and spoke of wanting to prevent history from repeating.
"But I got tired of that as well," Alex added.
"I would hate myself," Pariah muttered slowly as the voices loudened.
Alex's fists tightened, he quickly glanced around, at the handful of people passing by. Manhattan even after everything remained the same in some way. The City That Never Sleeps. There were always people going to places in ungodly hours, drunk people, jet-lag businessmen, nighttime party-goers, backpacker tourists, all oblivious to the son of the mother of monsters that stood amongst them.
"I was the parasite growing in her and killing her," the older Runner murmured and bowed his head. "If my mother had not been pregnant with me, she would have been strong enough."
Greene wouldn't have been captured, Randall rightfully dead and Redlight deemed as a massive failure as it should've been.
"And Hope destroyed," Alex said.
Nothing would be salvaged from project Carnival II. No life of experiments, no Blacklight project, no monsters, no Manhattan. He wouldn't exist, and his sister… he wasn't sure if she would be happier or that her life would be better than it was now. One being's existence led to this series of tragedies, and all because the virus wouldn't give up on the child growing inside Greene.
"There is no point going down this hole, Philip," Alex added with a grimace. "We stand here and now because of them." He jerked his head to the black screen scrolling slowly with names. "They…"
Blackwatch.
His voice hardened as he spoke, "Are behind all the pains and tragedies."
But it was eating up the man beside him regardless of the truth.
"I'd terrified your sister today. Almost hurt her too…" Pariah whispered.
Red visions cracked into his sight, a lone woman backing against the wall - Mandy watching back with fear within her eyes as a pale hand gently caressed her cheek, the vein lines beneath her skin scarred black from those very same hand. Then next, she clung desperately on her deathbed - onto that same hand but avoiding his gaze nonetheless. A dark satisfaction lingered.
Dreams of a world that should never be spilled and chattered up his mind, and he heard it. A woman humming, singing without words and meaning. A broken lullaby, a mantra to comfort a lonely soul.
"She should have never come here. Today should have never happened," he continued to mutter under his breath and shook his head. "It should have never happened."
He really should get him out of here, away from people, away from Manhattan. When his sister gets stressed, she comes out to unload them. When Pariah gets stressed… well, Alex didn't want to know.
"Philip," he called him out warningly as the man just… stared emptily at his feet.
He put a hand on his shoulder and hid the wince when he felt the foreign parasite spreading up his arm. He swallowed the urge to just… reject it, only gripped tighter instead and hoped the infection would not show through his sleeve. Alex was actually glad he was wearing real clothes. If it was made of his usual biomass, it would have immediately shown.
"It gets tiring being Patrick Gordon," Pariah murmured. "Too much," he rasped.
Those weren't the words Alex wanted to hear.
"What will you do now?" he asked him.
Pariah raised his head and turned slightly towards him, green eyes briefly rested on the hand on his shoulder.
He has lived his entire life like this, smothering parts of himself, even the voices of their nature. Guilt and regret should be no different from his pain and frustration. In a way, a Runner shutting down, just as his mother had done when she remained non-responding to her captivity, even to her own son.
Why did he allow himself to care in the first place? It was counter-productive, inconvenient. Why did he even bother anymore? Was this truly better, the only way? And if so, what then?
He remembered the white dove he first infected, twitching feebly as the pustules of its flesh bound it down, his small hands had reached out, pulling and prodding. It wriggled pathetically in protest. He had wondered why didn't it fly to free itself? Why did it hurt? It was supposed to be better.
Right?
It was a great source of shame for him, he must have done something wrong, maybe he made a mistake somewhere.
Then Blackwatch put it into the incinerator since it just wouldn't stop growing. They said it was contaminating the place. But it was still alive, it still could feel - it wasn't dead! - and the pain he felt grew unbearable in its burning.
He should've ended its life earlier, before Blackwatch put into the fire, when it was obvious the bird will never fly, will never be better.
He was no longer that stupid little boy anymore who was ashamed of his own mess.
Those people at the shelter, with tumor growing on their head and swollen limbs as their arms or legs, who couldn't speak and even focus what was in front of them, the ones she asked for him to save.
They were nothing more than feeble white doves wriggling on the ground.
All he had to do was just simply extend his hands to those people. Just as his mother would have wanted. Then rip it out of them. It wouldn't hurt anyone, it wasn't going to trouble him either as he would leave no trace of the cause of their recovery. No different to the days of those unfortunate people that struck his curiosity when he was Philip Greene.
He could've done the same to her today. It was simply logical after all, she was feeling obligated towards those people because a part of her was being troublesome.
Just as his mother had felt for them. She had asked him to fix all the wrongs, and he could have started with her. All he had to do was rip that part out, but she had shoved his hand away, even openly admitted despising the method when she finally understood. It shouldn't be a surprise, she had always been afraid to ask him as it would mean welcoming the son of Greene within her mind and body, a disturbing intimacy she had yet to fully forget when it came to her experience with the hive and his mother.
He had taken hint of that and left her be to bear those changes his mother had left. One experience was enough, two… two would be harrowing even if he would make her forget after.
Change, fix, make it right.
It made him question, would his mother accept the parasite that was her son back into her body, would she even allow the change to overtake her, would it hurt her? What's stopping her from rejecting it entirely as Zeus' body had? How was this different from when he wished to scream and hurt her, so that she would only listen to him?
When even now a part of him still regretted at not having done so, still resented his mother's smothering love for her children, for humanity, and she asked him to help them?!
It made him laugh. It felt like he was standing in front of his mother again. Perhaps his mother knew that her son was hiding from her, so she sent this daughter of hers, not the stupid, deaf ones who would get killed left and right by Blackwatch, but the clever sharp-tongued sister of Zeus. If he will not listen to the hive, then he will listen to a voice of reason he cannot deny.
Like mother, like daughter.
It was just easier to leave all of this behind, go back to the simpler days of wandering, abandoning all what Patrick Gordon held close and had worked on to build this life of his. Running away from the consequences of making himself human.
To the days that he felt only nothing.
But would that be right?
You make yourself man, you shall be judged as man, by men.
She was right in a way about him, and that galled him.
"What I've always had done," he admitted bitterly before he returned his eyes back to the screen in front of them.
Old habits die hard, it seems.
Alex let go of his shoulder as the sound of the hivemind slowly drifted into a murmur, then to the silence that he was familiar.
"You had me worried there," he told the older man when he unfolded his long coat and slid his arm into its sleeve.
"And what would you have done if I had not come back?" Pariah said after sweeping the wrinkles out of his coat.
Even the smugness was back, should he be glad? Alex gave him a side-long glance. Besides the obvious, he would have punched him in the face then dragged him back to the shelter by the ankle if he had to.
"What would you?" Alex deflected.
He looked at him dead straight in the eyes before he lowered his gaze back down, his face resigned when he sighed.
"I don't even want to think about it anymore, Alex."
A lot could have gone wrong this afternoon, an awful amount of wrong that was close enough to make the man into someone else - someone volatile and in front of another, not just her. It was a dreadful feeling she could recall from her childhood, especially when dealing with her spontaneous mood-swinging mother, her explosive yellings, and her brother's sudden series of awful, vicious comments.
She wasn't sure what to expect from him, would he slap her, hit her, yell abuse at her, demean her, or worse? She didn't know. She didn't want to know. She doubted he was the abusive kind of man, let alone the violent type. He had remained eerily calm instead, his voice strained and yet devoid of emotions. Somehow that made it worse. Angry man didn't grow black tendrils all over the fucking place, angry man didn't have an empty expression like that. She wasn't standing before an angry man. She was standing before the son of Greene.
Dana gave out a shuddering exhale from where she sat, her shaking hand brushed her face when she rested her head on her palm.
Her real brother would have scoffed at her opinions, saying something how she wasn't in the right mind if knowing her messed-up condition. There was a part of her that agreed to that voice much to her chagrin. The things she babbled to Gordon this afternoon, maybe it was that Runner part of her that wished him to be more… proactive with this fucked up virus business. Oh, smart move there, Dana, let's enable the son of Greene to take up his mother's spot, especially when you know what kind of person he is.
Okay, she admitted there, she was angry at herself for that.
But it made her angrier when he tried to turn away. Was it so fucking hard for him? When this same megalomaniac would helpfully infect people to pull off his Jedi mind control trick. How was it different to what she had asked of him? She could understand why it wouldn't be wise to help treat these people, since someone was going to wonder how these people could recover from one of the worst man-made diseases of mankind while fucking millions were spent at the Institute.
She just couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to.
In some way, his demeanor reminded her a lot of her older brother, the real Alex Mercer. He didn't like being called out, he always liked being the one in control, making the decisions, manipulating people to like him, ease them into doing what he wanted, guilt-tripping her, and when things get too bothersome, he would just leave and fuck off, doing something else rather than deal with it… he even ran away from his past, spouting convenient excuses, telling her to move on.
If she was still that vindictive twenty years old college-girl from eight years ago, Patrick Gordon was the kind of person that would have put her off, maybe even robbed him and ruined his life out of spite.
Yet this was the same kind of man she had looked up to funny enough.
It wasn't fair to compare. He was his own being, he has his own giant bag of issues - mother issues, she suspected and had to restrain herself from pushing it. He shared certain… psychopathic traits, but he tries and does look out for others even if it was purely logical. A bit weird and creepy sometimes in a… joking way, a lot nicer and pleasant all around. It was why she was here, why they remained in contact throughout the years.
A part of her felt like being spiteful and wanted to cut contact with the man here and now. But how would that make her any better than her brother that had left her behind, simply because he didn't like how things were going and being a part of this, she could imagine, deadweight, messed-up family of theirs.
Running away wouldn't solve anything. She had promised herself not to become her brother for that, and to never excuse her brother's faults. Cause look where it led to.
David exhaled heavily and tightened his grip on her other hand. She squeezed back in return. He was none the better, in fact, worse than before. Pale and muttering under his breath, he laid on his side inhaling and exhaling deeply in a rapid motion, his body shaking and twitching, his clammy hand gripping tightly onto her hand.
He was like this because of her. The virus in him may have saved his life when he was shot three times, but now it was taking him away.
Patrick was right, she swallowed deeply at that. Even if it could cure and help these people, it was still a weapon in the end.
A knock on the door, she rose up from her seat beside the bed when they walked in, footsteps thumping the wooden floor loudly. Pariah had stopped a few feet before her.
Her teeth clenched uncomfortably, and her lips felt dry when they stood in silence. She did not apologize for her words, and he didn't say anything about what happened today. Instead, he offered his hand, gesturing at David. His face impassive and unreadable while at it.
She lowered her gaze briefly, stepping back and let him close.
"Your hand, Bee," he said.
"What?" She blinked and looked at him, his hand still up and waiting for her.
He didn't look at her, his distant amber-yellow eyes were on David.
"It's easier," he murmured.
Dana hesitated and turned to her brother quickly, Alex answered with a slow nod. An anxious look settled on her when she raised her hand and placed it on top of his. He was uncomfortably warm, feverish warm, just like David's when he closed his hand around hers and pulled her gently to David.
"W-wait," Dana said, looking at the man beside her. "Shouldn't you be the one doing this?"
"There's no need to." He shook his head. "No infection needs to be involved. David's body is strong enough to fight it off for the moment."
"And if things go wrong?" Her hand was shaking in his.
"Then we'll make his body strong," he said then finally, he placed her hand on the man's stomach with his slightly resting on top of hers.
Alex watched them as the infection, softly burning white and tinged red, receded its grips onto the man, slowly rewinding its progress back to the guts, back beneath their hands. It dimmed until it was no longer there, and David exhaled. His shaking had stopped when he moved and curled from where he laid, soundly asleep.
"It'll take a while, but his body will heal and flush it," Pariah murmured, slipping his hand away from hers before he moved to a respectful distance.
She kept staring dazedly at the man laid in front of her, blinking once then twice, her eyes fluttering awake as she raised her other hand to her head.
Dana opened her mouth, concern still on her face when she turned to him, "Than-Thank you."
He merely inclined his head awkwardly then left the room, and she grimaced, turning to Alex.
"He's still mad at me, isn't he?" she said.
Alex shrugged. "I wouldn't say so. You just… reminded him of things he wanted to forget."
"Should I be glad that he didn't-he hasn't… you know," she finished with annoyance in her voice.
He clearly hasn't moved on from their argument, the can of worms she opened still stewing inside him, within his thoughts. He wasn't unfazed, he wasn't the utterly controlling maniac that he was from before. Good, she wanted him to know, she wanted him to understand. Even if it was wrong, even if it would mean making the Pariah snap.
David was right about her, she was such a major bitch. Dana sighed.
"You want to stay here?" Alex asked concernedly. "I could bring the car over."
"It's fine, I've talked to Samuel," she said.
"Are you going to be alright?"
She nodded again quietly. "I just feel like shit from today." She blinked her eyes rapidly, annoyed at the fact hot tears had welled up.
Said awful shit, feel the awful shit, the whole day was an awful shit, the whole fucking trip was awful shit, Dana thought ruefully when she looked down at David. Her brother's hand rested on her shoulder and rubbed it gently.
"Get some rest, Dana. Tomorrow is going to be a long day."
That night she dreamt of gunshots and David's fearful face as he fell to the ground. She dreamt in red, of lost men and women screaming, of hands placed gently onto their face before they pressed together to crush it. She dreamt of Manhattan as the Outbreak swallowed it all in its wailing, of Alex as his snarl and roar echoed throughout the hive while he cut them down, and she flinched.
Her childhood flashed, of the dreaded days from before, of her brother no longer there. She was back in the warmth of the hive, in the stifling darkness as her voice shook in her cries. The disjointed humming of Elizabeth Greene, her watching eyes, her enveloping presence missing. She was crying, she didn't know why, only that she was at lost with herself, grieving for something gone, reaching out for something not there, crying out for someone, yelling angrily at them.
No one was there. No one came for her. No one, only him. He loomed over her as he reached out with his hand. Small, thin, curious fingers of a child met her skin, feverish warm when they softly ran up the side of her head.
Then a smothering silence came.
This place stank of a hive, a slumbering hive. Its residents oblivious, but the scars in their mind, the marks within their body never forgotten their purpose. They were here to fall, to bind their flesh to its walls, to join their voices to a sickening call that had fallen silent seven years ago. It was calling out to her, they were calling out to her.
"Thank you, you know for helping us out," he heard her say to the priest.
Samuel smiled. "No, thank you. You and your family have done so much for us, brought back the life in us."
Alex tapped the steering wheel repeatedly as he kept waiting with a stony face. He didn't like this man. He didn't like his smile. He didn't like everything about this. They called themselves a family, more like a cult with a fixation on a matriarch figure. No surprises there as they were like this because of Greene.
He could understand the disdain Pariah held for them, and knowing him, he had expected him to leave and wait for them in some other place.
"We don't get many specialized doctors willing to volunteer their time here." Samuel glanced over her shoulder, looking directly at the car and the man in the seat beside him.
But he attended to these people instead, pretending to be a doctor as he examined their limbs, he talked to them and asked about their days, smiling with a kindly face. It was almost like Gordon did actually wipe away his emotions and went back to the days where he only emulated them.
"Usually we have to go through a special procedure before they can attend to us."
She followed his gaze at that and slightly frowned. "I… I didn't know about this."
Pariah didn't seem to notice, he was dozing in his seat or pretending to be, Alex wasn't sure. His breathing pattern seemed to say he was.
He fought against the urge to slap the man awake.
It was hard to imagine the older Runner was helping out with goodness in his heart considering if he didn't care, there was only resentment. Yet fingers that no longer twitch to their owner's wishes did so, blank face that only stared emptily into space actually turned and focused on the man before them. Those who would not speak slurred with words, and he understood them perfectly.
Feeble minds brought back to life.
Did they know? Could they sense who he was?
Or did he infect them?
As for why, Alex suspected it was one way to shut their voices while she stayed close to them. Distract their minds, bring them out of their dreams, out of the state of where they would only keep yearning and calling, the other option involved an empty building.
"Most couples would spend their holidays relaxing, not volunteering their time at a shelter." Samuel laughed.
"Most shelters wouldn't accept a bloody woman without question," Dana muttered.
"My dear, I was more worried for you and your partner when we found you with those monsters," he said concernedly. "Whatever happened, happened. You're alive and safe, and we're glad for that."
That was it? No questions asked about those bodies with a twisted neck, smashed skull and a hand-size hole in their chest. He was kind of proud in some way when he watched those criminals found their friends in that state. The fear he smelled in them was nostalgic.
His sister did that to them… well, that part of her did it. She, Alex gazed at her as he waited behind the wheel, she managed to protect herself, protect Dave as well.
She also infected, and that almost killed Dave later in the same evening.
"You know, an ambulance call would have been the right response," Dave said sternly from beside Dana.
After hurling his guts out and drinking thirty packs of branded water the whole day, the man was as fine as he could get. A certain paleness still clung onto the Texan, but at least the nausea wasn't gripping him as strong as before.
"Would you rather I did?" Samuel smiled. "I should be asking you two what you were up to in an abandoned warehouse notorious for its reputation. I doubt it's some romantic rendezvous," he said gently.
"Well… about that." David feigned an awkward cough.
Dana just elbowed him for that with a crossed look. "We were after someone. Well, we were after their works, the graffiti he left all over the city. The one in your hall is one of them we've been looking around for."
"Ah," Samuel's face grew reserved. "And what are you seeking from him?"
"Who was he, what happened to him, how did he know…" Dana trailed off. "Is he… even alive?"
Samuel pondered for a moment, gazing off deeply then he said, "He was a man I've left behind a long time ago." He looked up as he recalled. "Once lost, but found his way here, under the guidance of Mary. He was never a religious man, mostly thought of those people as odd." He laughed and raised his hand, clutching his head.
"He… I was supposed to die in the streets when hell decided to claim its place on Earth. My neighbors, my colleagues, my friends turned into those things, and I thought to myself I was going to be next. In many ways, I had almost given up if I had not thrown myself into my works. If I was going to die, I would die doing what I loved, but they turned more into a mess, really." He sniffed and smiled, showing his shaking hands.
"I prayed for salvation, for hope, and as much as people don't believe, as much I've doubted and told myself it was the sickness growing inside my head, she answered my prayers and protected me throughout my journey to safety while I was lost within myself," he said reverently. "I saw many people like me, forgotten, afraid, scared, doomed to this hell they imposed upon us. And that's when I realized my true calling, but I had nothing to give them, merely the comforting words of Mary." He sighed with a sad smile.
"Have you ever thought of yourself going crazy?" Dana asked quietly.
"Oh, plenty of times! Still do." He laughed heartily before he shook his head. "But I cannot deny that I'm alive if not for her. This place, this building was to be our final resting place." Samuel looked behind, the only standing rowhouse in the shadow of the tall modern developing buildings. "But… as you know, the military came in time."
"I can no longer feel her presence anymore, nor her voice, and I've long since passed those days of mourning," he said softly. "She was my muse, did you know? It broke my heart when she left. Sadly to say, there was a time I almost abandoned my purpose. But I know now that it would be wrong of me to turn away from these people," he murmured.
"Not many are willing to give up their entire life for another, let alone a cause," David commented.
"Well, I guess when you've lost everything, it makes it easier to start all over again." Samuel smiled and looked to Dana. "Farewell, Miss Kendrick. You're welcome to come here again if you want… but I understand if you do not wish to though," he added, noticing her downcast look. "Not many have the strength and heart to do this job for long."
"Are they going to demolish this building?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Maybe not a complete demolish… but a revamp would be nice."
"Well, it's been good knowing you, Samuel Delacruz." David raised his hand.
"And you, Mr. Manny." He clasped his hand and shook it. "And you too," he said to Dana, shaking hers.
"I'm sorry if we had caused your family any heartache," he told her softly, glancing over her shoulder, at him and… Alex frowned, Pariah. "We didn't mean to cause any rift between you and your brother."
"It's… it's okay. We'll get over this in time." She sighed.
Finally, Samuel let them go, turning around and went up the steps of the shelter. The door in the back opened and David sidled in with Dana.
They all sat in the car for a moment in silence.
"We're good to go?" Alex asked, glancing into the mirror.
"Yeah," Dana said softly, her eyes briefly rested on the back of the front seat by his side.
A day's worth of awkward family road trip, here we go.
AN: This chapter can be summarized as, and Dana crashed Patrick . exe so hard it rebooted PARIAH OS which said Fuck This Bitch.
You know a family is a clusterfuck when Alex Mercer is the most stable out of the group.