ATTN: This chapter contains self-harm, suicide, death, violence and other graphic themes/situations that may be triggering. Reader discretion advised.
Me
"Edward Morgan Jacobi is dead. Who did you call?" Jonathan whispered, beginning to lose his patience with Brigid. Her skin was clammy now, her pulse jumping erratically. Saying nothing, her dark eyes stared blankly, not seeming to see him. He pulled off the mask, his grasp on her face tightening as he pulled her closer. Muscles were jumping under her skin, her arms were stiff and uncoordinated as she tried to twist away.
"Tell me what I want to know, and this will stop," Crane said, shaking her roughly. She was terrified, her face was pinched.
"Eddie." Brigid repeated.
Dr. Crane released her face, keeping an arm clamped firmly on her arm for good measure, and ran his hands through his hair. Jaw clenching, he tried to think of another Ed or Edward or Eddie that she could've spoken to, but he couldn't think of anyone. Whomever she had been working with, was not part of the list of their contacts in the police department. Tzin, who had come up the stairs, looked at her dubiously.
"Are you sure she even called anyone?" Tzin asked him uncertainly.
Crane frowned, holding up the ruined phone. "Of course she did. Why else would she have destroyed this?" He eyed Brigid contemptuously, going over the possibilities of who she called. I suppose you were a better spy than I gave you credit for.
Shaking her again, her limbs felt as if they were made from stone. Stiff, she resisted the movement as much as possible, not giving up trying to keep him as far from her as possible. Lowering his face close to hers so she'd have nowhere else to look, Jonathan tried one final time to get her to answer him. After a few more minutes being exposed to the toxin, if she did manage to speak it would be incomprehensible.
"Who did you call, Brigid?" He asked her slowly. Brigid's black eyes skittered back and forth between his own.
Her lips parted, letting a shaky breath escape before she spoke. "What's wrong?"
Dr. Crane leaned back slightly, looking down at her vacant expression, the terrified tremor in her limbs. The toxin was in full effect now, there was no telling what she was actually seeing or hearing anymore. Jaw tightening with slight frustration, he addressed Tzin coolly. "Go to her apartment. Get everything, even scraps of paper might be important. We need to know everything she's found."
Tzin nodded, handing his gun over to someone else to take over his shift, called out a few names, directing that they follow him. Abbott was still upstairs, nursing his shattered arm, and would be leaving in a few hours to join Mr. Ducard. Jonathan remembered Brigid and Ms. Dawes, their familiar manner with each other. She'd probably at least tried to call Ms. Dawes, but at this hour it was very unlikely they actually spoke. Just as planned, even by tomorrow morning the entire police department would be investigating the D.A's murder. Dawes potentially wouldn't be able to act on any information Brigid until tomorrow afternoon.
Catching Tzin's attention before he left, Dr. Crane said quietly to him, "There's going to be a slight change in plans. When you get back; take Abbott and the rest. You'll meet with Ra's Al Ghul, leave only about fifteen or so people here to finish dumping the rest of the toxin."
Tzin nodded, giving him a quizzical look, "That plan?"
Smiling humorlessly, Jonathan said, "Exactly."
"Alright." Tzin sighed, taking his leave and passing through the doors out of the room into the hallway. Crane was aware that Brigid had stopped struggling, her head was limply lolling back staring up at the overhead lights. Her wide eyes were tracking from left to right, as if she was reading a hidden message written on the ceiling. She was still silent, though her pulse was beating so quickly he could see it jumping under the skin of her throat.
Now to deal with you, he thought, forcing her to walk further into the basement, her movements jerky and unwilling.
Me
The bear was staring at her with one blue eye, and one green eye. Black legs of insects poked out from behind its lids as it bellowed at her. She didn't know how she die right then from the sheer terror of the thing. With each second she looked at it, felt its slimy appendages touching her skin, she prayed for it to end. Even if the fear of it killed her, she didn't care, as long as she never had to see the creature again.
You were dying-
"Eddie." She whispered wide eyed, remembering distantly the creature had asked her something. Her answer however, only seemed to make the creature angrier. The cold black parasites feeding off it went into a wild frenzy under its dark fur. Some voices seemed to whisper again, but she didn't understand the words. Terror painfully tore into her chest, paralyzing her. Brigid thought she recognized the voices as they continued to speak, but it was so faint... Her worst nightmare was in front of her, and the world was slipping away from her grasp, she couldn't focus on the voices anymore. Brigid had fallen off the path, stumbled down into a dark abyss.
Her vision went blue. Then red. A car horn blew in the distance.
She was sixteen again. In her Mom's old truck, sitting in front of a rickety wooden house. The house was covered in gray paint that decades ago had once been a crisp white, but now was tarnished and chipped. The porch, because of its cracked foundation, had begun to lean further and further left in recent years as well. The truck door slammed shut, and her Mom was there, sitting in the driver's seat gripping the steering wheel so tight her knuckles were white. She didn't have as many silver streaks running through her hair, the laughter lines were faint instead of deeply carved in this memory.
Her eyes were red with unshed tears, and her jaw clenched as they watched the police officers go inside the house. Eddie was sitting outside on the edge of the porch, speaking with another officer. Her mother swallowed, and coughed trying to find her voice. Brigid already knew what she was going to say, but she was trapped, she could do nothing but replay what she had done before. She knew, this was the first time she felt truly scared. It was a heavy feeling that wrapped its hand around your spine and squeezed until it was hard to breathe.
"Ms. Jacobi had an accident, and-' Mom's voice cracked, "she's not going to be okay."
The heavy understanding of death, which had always seemed so far away, was now and forever close by. Tears slipped down her face, and she looked at Eddie through the window, his face hidden in his hands while his shoulders shook with sobs. She remembered how scared she was for Eddie. How sorry she was, that his mother was gone.
"What's going to happen to Eddie?" Brigid asked, turning to her mother.
Mom looked at her, then Eddie. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes resolutely saying, "I'm going to see what I can do, but we're going to take care of him. No matter what happens after this, or where he goes. I promise."
The car horn alerted again, interrupting their conversation. The world was moving again, like the still frames flipping quickly to create a moving picture, spurred into motion by the sound of the horn. Eddie was sitting in her room now, frowning as he paged through one of her Cosmo magazines distractedly. She sat in her chair, taking off her glasses and rubbing the sore spot on the bridge of her nose from the frames. Brigid felt the fear build in her abdomen, its hand reaching upward between her lungs now. The memory she was trapped in though, took no notice of her agony, instead forcing her to continue on as she once had.
Eddie looked up at her from under his curly hair and fair lashes. There was a stormy trouble in the deep green of his eyes. This, she knew, had worried him so much. Had scared him so badly. This time she fought to say something, to get control of the memory and change it. But that's now how it works. Who did you call? The voice whispered, but shaking her head she looked at Eddie.
"What's wrong?" Brigid asked him, his eyes were suddenly cold and distant.
"My Dad," He started, sullenly. "My whole life he wanted nothing to do with us. But now, with graduation coming up, he's been…" Brigid's brow creased in worry. When Eddie's Mom had been alive, she had kept the man at arms length. But now, it had been almost a year since she passed and his father was constantly harassing them. From what her own mother had told them, he was some military hero or something. Their lawyer had found a long record of misconduct though, that had given them something to fight back with in the custody case.
Eddie's mom, Misty Jacobi, and her own mother had been best friends for a long time. They had met at a concert, she recalled. Her mother hated Eddie's dad, and Misty had as well. Whatever the circumstances surrounding their relationship, she would never know. It was an unspoken thing.
Eddie's voice came back into focus, his voice cracking. So similar to how Mom's had… she thought. The tears made his eyes different in the light. One was blue now. "He wants me to join the military. He already has the recruiter picked out; said he was some old war buddy of his., I'm really worried about this Bri."
Brigid smiled, trying to hide her own worry. She hadn't wanted to upset him more, but it had been something on the trio's minds the past few weeks. Sitting on the floor next to him, she leaned over, taking the magazine away from him before his shaking hands ruined it. She bumped her shoulder into his playfully, trying to draw his gaze up to her own. When his eyes met hers, Brigid said softly, "I know you're worried. Don't let him scare you into doing what he wants. We're not going to let anyone force you to do anything you don't want to."
Distantly, his eyes looked out the window, breaking away from her confident gaze. "I wish I believed that was possible."
Too young in this memory to know any better, she knew now she didn't say the right thing. She didn't see the warning signs then, as she did now, and being unable to change anything physically hurt. In this vision of the past, Brigid could see the darkness setting in between them. The distance is growing wider now, the path is leading you down deeper. Here is when you start to lose pieces of him. You remember this, but did you count how many pieces you're missing now? How many did you lose?
The phone was ringing outside her bedroom in the kitchen. The shrill tone blurred in the distance, and as it became one sound it pierced the air. Brigid's ears rang, and getting up to walk forward, she found herself standing outside on bright green grass. Thunder rolled across the mountains, and the black garbed crowd was silent, their eyes cast downward respectfully towards the pine box. Eddie, dressed in black, came forward after the flag was unfolded over the coffin. Crouching, he scooped up the first bit of dirt, and tossed it into the grave. They were surrounded by stern faced strangers, One man caught her staring, and a cold chill ran up her spine at the frigid expression. Fear now was slipping further up again, spreading outward now from the center of her breast bone.
No one cried that day, though Brigid expected no one had cried for Eddie's father in a very, very long time. Everyone in the crowd was older, and she didn't see his half sister here. From her understanding, the girl had wanted nothing to do with either of them. As Eddie came back over to stand next to her, watching the procession with dull eyes, Brigid slipped her hand over his. She remembered that with each day now, Eddie was becoming a stranger. Trapped somewhere that she desperately wanted to reach, to help him find his way back. As his hand limply slipped from her grip, she had become afraid that this was a place that she couldn't go.
Death is not an easy thing. Sometimes, but not always, it is harder when it takes away someone that you hate. Eddie was as different from his father as the sky was from the earth, and as much as he hated his father, he always hoped that they could fix that. He never gave up, thinking one day his father would see him for who he truly was, and love him for it. After all, isn't that what every abandoned child hopes for in this lonely world? That one day, the person that everyone else seemed to have in their lives all the time, would reappear. Only the people that leave you, have the power to fill the void they left in your world.
He loved Brigid and her mother, he had been happy. That was what he put in the note, stuffed into a sketchbook. But, seeing him now standing at his father's grave, Brigid knew he was grieving the loss of that hope he'd held onto for so long. Eddie was struggling with so much; the guilt of grieving his father, when he felt he should hate him, when his own mother hated him. The guilt of not being what his father wanted. The guilt of being a tiny bit glad, the man was gone so he couldn't disappoint him anymore. Survivors' Guilt is a terrible thing.
As people slowly departed the graveyard, Brigid gently led him back to their car. Her mother had been too angry to attend, she was back at their hotel. Their flight home was leaving soon, Eddie hadn't wanted to stay longer than he needed to. On the ride, Eddie, his eyes shut tight, had whispered, "'There is no greater sorrow than to recall our times of joy in wretchedness.'"
Fear's grip squeezed harder around her heart as his meaning became clear. Brigid hadn't remembered him saying that, and she found herself whispering back, "'At grief so deep the tongue must wag in vain; the language of our sense and memory lacks the vocabulary of such pain,'" She couldn't remember if their quotes were out of order, but Eddie's green eyes looked at her meaningfully. Trying to take advantage of her new control, she reached out and grasped his hand again, not letting go this time.
An alarm started going off somewhere behind them. The car was slipping away, and she held his hand tighter trying to hold on.
"Your mom is burning dinner again-" Eddie said, laughing. Fear now had spread up into her throat, its fingers resting on her vocal cords like a master violinist pressing down strings.
"You're going to go out-" Brigid whispered.
"-and go to the creek. I have to work on building my portfolio, so I'll probably be down there a long time." Eddie finished without missing a beat, not noticing Brigid's interruption. Her mom poked her face around the doorway, her face smeared with soot and sweat, creased with worry lines. Brigid looked between them, watching her mom struggle internally with letting him have his freedom, or trying to convince him to stay home.
Eddie saw it too, and expertly said with another chuckle. "It'll be long enough for you to finish 'Dinner II: return of the roast'. And really, I have to get inspired and get some sketches done to bulk up my application."
They didn't want to let him go, but they did. Eddie went to Bear Creek, a few roads over, they had both been there many times. Rainfall had been scarce this year, the creek was shallow and safe as long as you kept an eye out for snakes. They found out how he had gotten the gun afterwards, how he had hidden it nearby.
The smoke alarm was becoming unbearable now, the shrieking almost making her double over in pain as the memory of Eddie, smiling, walked out the front door, leaving them behind. Her hands clutched her ears, the room spinning and it felt like the noise was so loud it had turned her brain into liquid. Brigid couldn't force her eyes shut, though she wanted to so badly. The world was older now, the afternoon sun cast long shadows on the dancing water of the Bear Creek. Eddie was kneeling in the icy water opposite her. Tears fell down her face, she didn't want to see this again. She tried to say stop, but Eddie's green eyes regarded her sadly from under his sandy lashes, as if he understood that she wanted to change this memory. But she couldn't change anything, and his hand tightened around the gun across his lap. Jumping forward to stop him, anticipating the impact her eyes shut instinctively. Her hand reaching for the gun, eyes shut tight in fear, she waited for the thunder of the shot. It ripped through the air and trees surrounding them, and something hot ran up her left arm burning.
"Eddie-" She gasped, looking down at her arm. Muscle and flesh were hanging out, split open wide in a mess of gore. The wound was partially submerged in water, turning the creek an ugly red. Eyes wide, she tried to move but everything hurt so badly from the gunfire, her legs refused to support her, and her head spun still ringing from the bullet. This was different, she noticed, than what had happened back then, because this time it was only her that was crying. He serenely looked at her, not seeing her injury. I poison everything I touch. You tried to help me and look at what I did. I'm sorry, that's what he had said, she thought numbly, that day. Those were his last words.
"Do you remember?" He asked solemnly.
Brigid, choking back a sob, said between gritted teeth. "Yes, please, don't-"
Eddie shook his head. She tried so hard to get up again, reach him. But she couldn't. She fell and the final crack of the gunshot extinguished the entire world, darkness was tossed over it like a blanket over a lamp.
A different voice whispered near her ear again, she almost thought she could feel them standing behind her in the darkness. "But the stars that marked our starting are falling away. We must go deeper, for it is not permitted that we stay. Through me you go into a city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go amongst the lost people."
Me
Awareness began to slowly creep back to her as she heard a loud click, like a door closing. Her head ached, her body felt sore and exhausted as if she had run ten miles, and half of her face was cold and numb, pressed against a smooth floor. Footsteps approached her, and something skittered against the floor unpleasantly. She heard someone exhale, and tried not to react as she registered the familiar sound as Dr. Crane. Brigid had no clue how long she'd been out, or what the hell Crane had sprayed in her face for that matter. Remembering the horror, it had to be some hallucinogen, though none she was familiar with.
"Tinker tailor, soldier spy," Crane said, eerily pleasant, his voice very near. "No point in faking now Brigid, I know you're awake."
Brigid had hoped, maybe, she could have faked being asleep until Ms. Dawes and the police arrived. But Crane's voice for all it's pleasantness, carried the soft promise of a threat. All of the games before, all of their conversations up until this point, she considered mere child's play. Now, with nothing to hide, Dr. Crane was unbound by the fragile rules he had to play by before, and that made him significantly more dangerous.
Rotating her wrists slightly, she felt the metal cuffs digging tightly into her skin. She was lying on a floor. Sighing, she sat up awkwardly, squinting in the bright light of the room. Dr. Crane was seated in front of her, watching as she slid back to lean her back against the wall. Her arms were behind her, and there were metal chains running from the cuffs to an archaic steel loop in the floor. Dr. Crane was kind enough to make the cuffs extremely tight, she couldn't even try to slide them around, and the weight of the chains only made it more difficult. She looked at them with a raised brow.
Crane followed her gaze, explaining in a calm, matter of fact tone, "Those were left over from the original structure."
Brigid tilted her head back in disbelief, scoffing. "Oh, well isn't it a good thing you kept them around."
"It is, isn't it?" Smile widening, she noticed his jaw clenching under his skin. He could act casual all he wanted, but Brigid knew that she had posed a serious problem to whatever it was he was doing here. In a way, he was just as displeased at this turn of events as she was, albeit for different reasons. Crane reached down, pulling out very familiar looking folders stuffed with papers.
"Brigid you've been very busy," He commented, holding the folders up for her to see clearly, his eyes boring into her own. She looked at them blankly, her throat tightening at the sight and said nothing. Silently she cursed herself for not just shredding everything, she had given him her address weeks ago, he knew where to look. And she had been out long enough for them to search her apartment and bring what they found back here. Hours…Brigid must have been sick for hours. As Crane's intense stare dug into her, gloating, despair grew in the pit of her stomach as the reality of her situation sunk in.
Without breaking his gaze from hers, Dr. Crane set the files off to the side, and leaned down bringing his face level to her own, cruelly smirking as he whispered, "Now, I think you need to start being a little more honest with me."