A/N - Thank you so much for your lovely reviews to the first chapter of this fic. I hope you enjoy the second chapter. Don't forget to review :) x
A Fairytale By Another Name
"Hey," she hisses at him, "Shut up!"
The guy doesn't seem to get her memo though, and continues thrashing around, testing the strength of the wire which doesn't look like it'll hold too well if he keeps it up. She repeats her words, voice a little louder and a little more aggressive, but he still doesn't stop his movements. He sounds pained: breathing ragged and laboured and it's only when Erin inches just a little closer that she realises he's not fully-present. In body he is of course, but his mind has to be somewhere else, she figures. That being said, he's currently being held in a basement so she supposes maybe his mind has retreated somewhere else. Somewhere else though that's possibly worse than this.
"Halstead!" she says, even louder still as she kicks the bottom of his left boot with her own. It appears to do the trick and his head snaps up in her direction revealing bloodshot eyes and agony etched into his forehead. Erin swallows, feeling her stomach lurch as she watches him take in his surroundings and realise where he is.
"Quit making so much noise."
He just stares at her and he looks so much like a small child in that moment that she considers untying him, telling him to run and not look back. But she can't do that of course - can't even attempt to clean up this mess that Charlie's created for them because it's always going to come back on them. Jail she could take, she figures. Charlie going to jail, she could cope with - it's not like it would be the first time - but leaving Jack? That would break her, and so she silently chides herself for even thinking about the man in front of her as a person. It's not going to help anyone.
"What does he think he's going to get from keeping me down here?" Jay finally says, his voice rough and scratchy.
Erin clamps her mouth closed, refusing without words to be drawn into conversation with him.
"He going to kill me?"
Again, she remains stoic, absently running her fingers along her arms. It's damn near freezing down in that basement and she doesn't miss the fact he's only wearing jeans and a t-shirt. He's got to be even colder than she is. Still, she figures it won't matter much anyway after a few days or whenever it is that Charlie decides to end this.
"Stay quiet," is all she says before turning to leave. She's almost at the top of the stairs when he calls out to her.
"If he's going to kill me anyway, what's it matter?"
She clicks off the light and shuts the door without an answer.
By the time she returns to the livingroom, Charlie's near to passed out and she seriously considers running. Packing a bag upstairs quickly, grabbing Jack and the car and driving until the gas runs out. But the practicalities of it all keep her firmly in that house: there's nowhere to run to - not without money at least - and Charlie's never given her any more than what she needs for diapers and formula and other essentials along those lines.
She wants to go to bed. Wants desperately to stretch out beneath the sheets, drift off and then wake to realise this was simply a vivid nightmare, and yet she knows it isn't possible. They can't both possibly sleep at the same time - not without a lock on that basement door at least - and it's obvious that Charlie's not going to be the one on watch tonight.
Looking at the man now passed out on the couch, Erin makes her way to the kitchen, and more specifically, to the drawer next to the refrigerator. She takes out the 9mm Glock and turns it over in her hands, dusting her forefinger over the trigger. It's heavier than she remembers - it's not often she's had it in her hands but ever since the day she had the barrel of a gun pressed up against her own cheek, she's made target practice a priority. When Jack came along, it was the one thing she made Charlie get for her.
She carries it upstairs with her towards the room where he's sleeping, puts it down on the changing table while she lifts him from the crib - careful not to jostle and wake him. He barely stirs, just nuzzles his head against her chest somewhat subconsciously, and she feels such a rush of love for him in that moment that it's almost overwhelming. Nobody had told her much about what to expect about having a kid. Mountains of dirty diapers, sure; an endless drain on money you don't have; a constant interruption of sleep, but never this. Nobody ever said she'd feel so incredibly protective and afraid - always afraid that someone or something might come and steal him from her. Jack came too, with the question of why Bunny clearly hadn't felt the same towards Erin; why it had been so easy for her to walk away without a second glance.
She breathes a kiss into his dark curls and grabs the blanket from his crib, draping it over him before picking the gun back up and heading back downstairs. She settles on the couch next to Charlie, Jack snuggled in against her chest in his navy sleepsuit, his tiny eyelids flickering with the indication of a dream. Erin hopes it's good; hopes that his world - especially in sleep - will always remain safe and happy.
The gun stays by her side in case Jay manages to break free of the wire binding his wrists to the radiator. She hopes more than anything it won't come to it, but she knows if she needs to keep her son safe, she won't hesitate in cocking that gun and pulling the trigger.
X
Dawn breaks weakly, the sun barely stuttering out enough light for the streetlamps to turn off, and before long it's snowing again. Erin feeds Jack, changes him and dresses him warmly enough that they can go to the store for cable ties and rope without him catching a cold, all with the gun by her side.
He smiles when she bounces him, squeals and giggles at the raspberry she blows against his stomach while he's lying on the changing table, and protests with only minimal fuss when she tries to force his arms inside of the snowsuit.
By the time she comes downstairs, Charlie's waking groggily and so Erin flicks on the coffee machine, Jack balanced on her hip so she can wrap the scarf around his neck to hold the hood of his snowsuit over his head.
"I'll head to the hardware store," she says flatly. "Get some rope and cable ties."
Charlie runs a hand over his face and nods.
"I'm going to need some money."
"There's money in his wallet. Take it from there," he tells her, groaning as he rises from the couch. She does as Charlie instructs, slipping the two twenties into her pocket and then adding a couple tens too - just in case. Maybe she should take it all but there's something stopping her: a warped sense of right and wrong, maybe, whispers of a conscience fighting its way to the surface.
She almost leaves without asking the question, but the words manage to fight their way out of her mouth.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'll figure it out."
And yet, she's almost certain he won't - that blind faith she had in him back when she was a teenager and looking for any kind of guidance he was willing to give, having slipped away over the years since, eroded by increasing evidence that he's calculating, yes, but not calculating enough. Not clever enough.
"Okay," she tells him, because it's easier than we're screwed.
She buys the rope and the cable ties with Jack's innocent eyes watching her movements, watching as she becomes even more complicit in this kidnap-cum-hostage situation. She wonders whether this will become something that will screw him up later in life: one of those childhood experiences you don't necessarily remember but that is stored in your subconscious so you end up conditioned to act in a certain way. And if it doesn't, Erin decides, she's certain she'll screw him up eventually anyway, because who is she kidding? Love alone will never be enough to ensure he'll have a good life.
The snow doesn't let up for the return journey, nor does it cease when she reaches the house and closes the door to the freezing air. She hands Charlie the supplies first and then proceeds to unbundle Jack from his snowsuit, setting him in the little pen in the corner of the room so she can take off her own coat.
"You'll have to buy the lock," she says. "It would've looked suspicious if I got it with the other stuff."
"Uh yeah," Charlie agrees, like he hadn't even thought of it, and that's what worries Erin more than anything: the lack of planning. "I'll head out later."
She nods and stifles a yawn. It's approaching thirty hours that she's been awake now and she knows there'll be at least another couple before she can get some sleep.
"I'll go re-tie him. Bring the gun."
She does as he says and they head down into the basement together. Jay's watching them as they descend, his eyes showing that he, too, has had minimal - if any - sleep in the past day. There are bruises rising on his skin - purples and greens and yellows littering his arms to display the results of being half-thrown down the stairs last night.
"Stay still," Charlie instructs him. "She'll fire if you try to make a run for it."
Jay focuses his attention on Erin and she feels her skin burn under his stare. His eyes fix on her finger - the one that's resting on the trigger - and she wills it not not shake; not to betray the hammering of her heart. She might've shot before, but never in circumstances like this.
She stares at him and is almost certain she sees his lips twitch - not a smile (barely a hint of one really) - but it's enough of a movement to register in her sleep-deprived brain. His eyes return back to hers and she swears there's something in them that isn't the hate there should be: a plead, maybe, or hope that she'll be the one to rectify all of this. And so Erin takes a step closer to him; angles the gun just that little to the left so it's pointing right between his eyes now.
She isn't weak, and she won't allow him to think she is.
Jay doesn't move when Charlie secures the first cable tie around his wrist, nor does he when the second one is secured. Next, Charlie binds his feet with the rope and Erin mentally notes the way his breathing increases and grows shallower. It's a small victory, she supposes - noticing this. The rope a trigger she can use if need be, and yet for some reason she tells herself it's information for her, not Charlie.
He makes to head back upstairs and she notes the fact he hasn't removed the original wire binding Jay's hands to the radiator.
"You going to bring the wire?" she asks, instantly regretting her words. His face darkens but he seems to consider it for a moment. She's only thinking of what-ifs. What if he somehow breaks free of the rope and the cable ties? What if he uses the wire as something to strangle them with?
But then she realises it's signalled to Jay that if there is a plan here, it hasn't been fully-communicated. It's her first error: one she'll pay for, she knows, on several accounts.
And then she hears a noise. It's only faint, but her ears are attuned to the sound: Jack's cries. She tries not to draw any attention to it; creates more noise than she usually would as Charlie decides against untying the wire and they head back up the stairs, but this guy's a cop. He'll almost certainly be trained in picking up the tiny details - honing in on them so that what might be considered a snippet of information to some, becomes the nail in the coffin for them.
"Get some sleep," Charlie tells her once they're back in the livingroom and she's comforting a teary baby. "I'll watch him."
Suddenly, she's overcome with a desperate need to stay awake. To spend every last minute with her son. "It's okay."
"Erin, we can't both be asleep at the same time. If you're tired, you'll slip up."
She rages silently at that. At the suggestion that she'll be the one to bring about the inevitable awful end to all of this. And yet, she knows he's right, and she can't risk Jack being hurt, so she hands him to his dad before dropping a kiss to his crown.
Her bed, unsurprisingly, isn't the comforting haven she needs. It's cold without Charlie there to warm her up, and the room's too bright - even in the pathetic excuse for daylight. Every time her eyes close it's a different image, but each equally as haunting as the last: Charlie whacking Jay with the barrel of his gun; him tumbling down the stairs into the basement; the bruises on his arms and face; Jack's innocent stare as she bought the supplies at the hardware store; the raw redness of Jay's eyes; her own shaking finger poised over the trigger.
If anything, her bed and the fitful almost-sleep it's bringing, is hell.
