A/N: My dearest readers! My apologies, I meant to upload this before I left New York last night, but airport wifi was not cooperative =( The result is I'm uploading from London! So- cheerio, and I hope very much that you'll enjoy! I'm loving how these sections are coming together and I hope I delight you even a fraction as much as I'm delighted in writing them.
As always, many, many thanks for reading.
i.
January 14
He doesn't bother with his coat as he crosses the short open space between the door of her building and the door of his limo. He slides in and slams the door harder than he means to, still groggy from the furious sleep he's just had, stirring hardly at all for six hours.
Just once, really: a sharp gasp in the dark, waking to her arm tensing, shying away, only partly conscious herself.
Up on his elbow at once, breath still.
Relief in her exhalation when her eyes adjusted to the dark, followed by a few more deep breaths. She'd pressed her good hand, on the other side of her body, against her face. Rubbed it over her eyes.
He was still waiting, blinking at her now too.
"I hate these pillows," she whispered, finally, and shoved one onto the floor, settling back more horizontal with a muted yelp. A sidelong glance at him. "Sorry."
Eyes closed.
The arm slid back toward him.
He rubs his own eyes as Tyler waits.
"Are you tailing me?" he asks drily.
A tired smile. "I had a feeling this might be where you'd disappeared to."
Tumbling back to consciousness with a nervous feeling in his stomach, he got to his feet as softly as possible – he was on top of the covers; she underneath – letting go of her arm last of all.
Two missed calls, four texts from Tyler:
"Apparently she can't be disturbed. Her parents turned away the NYPD."
"Update- have a tentative ID of him at GCT morning after. Think he skipped town days ago."
"Want to meet tonight? I'm available until 11:30."
"I'm downstairs. In your limo."
"So," he says with a sigh. "What's the DNA issue?"
ii.
January 15
She frowns dubiously, morning light cascading through the window pale and dull against the white robe from The Palace that she's wrapped around her sweater and lounge pants.
"Honestly, do they need my undivided attention?"
Eleanor wrings her hands, one finger coming up to stroke the wedding band she no longer wears, tracing her own knuckle instead.
Old habits die hard.
"Darling, it's just that they came last night when you were sleeping…"
"I'm not sleeping now," she points out, smiling up at the aesthetician who approaches with a footbath filled with steaming water that smells of essential oils. She has to brace her hands on the sides of the chair to support the effort of lifting her legs and placing her feet in the bath.
Her mother's eyes tick to and fro.
She sighs. "I have the mental capacity to have a conversation while getting a pedicure, mother."
Dorota is pressing a china teacup into her hand, also steaming. Loose-leaf chamomile with grated ginger and fresh lavender, a fixture for mani-pedi house calls. Blair didn't even ask for it.
Old habits die hard.
And so she is when the NYPD step off the elevator for the second time in just over twelve hours, same taut, bright smile in place. Would they like a cup?
iii.
January 14
"The DNA samples were largely not viable. They weren't able to get a clear read."
Though it's not Tyler's fault, he finds himself glaring. "How can that be?"
She had semen in her hair, for God's sake. And obviously there would have been some trace of something between-
He backs out of that thought.
"Whatever there was, and there definitely were traces," Tyler says carefully, "she was out in the rain for several hours, and- " he glances away- "it would appear whatever parts of her body had… were left exposed. Just based on the degradation of the samples."
He looks like he's going to say more, explain himself, like Chuck might not understand. Might not already be biting his tongue almost to bleeding in fury.
So dosing her with the intent to kill wasn't enough? Forcing himself on her wasn't? Breaking bones and cutting her face? He didn't humiliate her enough by marking up her leg and finishing in her hair- he had to leave her like that to be found?
"I see," he manages at last. "And the positive ID?"
iv.
January 15
The detective's face is apologetic as he explains it's only a verbal confirmation; there's no security camera footage that confirms it, as yet. Grand Central is apparently ill-equipped in the closed circuit surveillance department.
"But you have reason to believe he's left New York?"
"The employee who identified him was quite certain. He didn't remember what he was wearing, but sold a person who he thinks was him a train ticket going upstate. Cash."
Violent criminals, he explains the way a kindergarten teacher describes the importance of sharing, tend to take flight more quickly when they re-offend after having served jail time, in order to elude capture or at least get the best possible head start. As convicts, they're aware they'll be prime suspects just due to being in close geographical proximity to the crime.
Blair watches the sympathetic head tilt, the self-effacing hand gestures that punctuate his wisdom; her broken hand has been unsplinted and is in the process of being tenderly administered to by an aesthetician whose primary trade is in house calls to diplomats, celebrities and the one percent. There's little concern about her discretion. And it's time to get these flat-tipped, raggedly cut nails, courtesy of Annemarie, taken care of at last.
"Assuming a similar pattern to the suspect's last offense, it's likely he's fled at least upstate, if not over the border to Canada by now. Last time, he'd left the city within twelve hours of his attack."
The aesthetician blows on Blair's fingertips, scattering the white dust left behind by her nail file.
v.
January 14
His mouth is dry.
"The FBI?"
Surely not.
"Afraid so. The search crosses state lines. It's possible- and if you ask me, likely- that he's just fled upstate, to a city large enough that he'd go unnoticed, but small enough to fly under the radar of the search. But it's also possible that he's gone to another major hub in the tristate area – Philadelphia, Hartford. Maybe up into New England, but I tend to doubt that since…" he clears his throat awkwardly: "…he was in Boston. Last time."
Last time he raped and killed someone.
"But," Tyler pushes on, "I'd guess a smaller city within a few hours. Newark, Syracuse, New Haven at maximum."
He runs a frustrated hand through his hair, bracing one hand on the seat next to him as the limo takes a turn a little too wide.
"But the FBI?" There's no way this can be kept quiet now.
"It's just a matter of definition. The search now crosses state lines." Tyler lifts both shoulders. "Nothing to be done."
vi.
January 15
"That's unfortunate," Harold says, tone warning the detective as their eyes hold each other. "It would be much better for the sake of propriety if we could be a little more clandestine."
"I understand your feelings, sir," the detective nods, steadily avoiding looking at Blair, "but I would ask you to remember that this man is now a repeat offender as well as a convicted violent criminal, and it's imperative that he be taken into custody as soon as possible."
Eleanor is less buttoned up. "You're talking about declaring a public manhunt? Are you even considering my daughter's privacy?"
"We don't intend to name her in any capacity, of course. She'll remain a nameless minor."
Blair chuckles, a smirk playing on her lips, at that. The detective glances down then, at the dark-haired girl he first met at Mt. Sinai last Friday. Her light, almost playful stoicism today is something he's seen before; and he's not a therapist and he's not a social worker, but from what he's seen, it's something that's much more dangerous than the alternative.
But maybe she's just playing strong in front of him. If so, she's doing an admirable job. She hasn't said a word since he arrived. Just tracked the conversation between him and her parents as though watching a film – a film that is regularly less interesting than the ministrations of the woman who hovers around her, fussing over her nails with equal studied silence.
Eleanor has her forehead clasped in one palm. "This is ridiculous. Can't you find him without all this pomp and show?" She waves a hand vaguely. "Just- track him down?"
"Speed and prevention of another assault are of the utmost importance here, Mrs. Waldorf…"
"We understand," Harold cuts in. Stern. "Is there a reason you couldn't have spoken with us about this last night when Blair was unavailable?"
The detective turns to her now, dark eyes under heavy lashes sliding up lazily toward him.
"Yes," he says. "There is."
There's a slight tilt of her head, almost challenging, in time with the trickle of water that spills from the foot she raises into the aesthetician's waiting hands.
viii.
January 14
He's in the lobby debating whether to stop for a drink at the bar – not tired, now, after the deepest sleep he's had in weeks – when he glances up and sees the blonde hair and long legs of another Van der Woodsen.
Coat still draped over his arm, tie with its knot intact- looking like a noose- looped on his wrist, he takes a seat next to her.
"Charles," she smiles, looking down at the bar even as she greets him. "What were you doing out so late?"
He hides a smirk. If she thinks coming home shortly after eleven is late, she'll be in for a shock if the Basses and Van der Woodsens ever fully combine households.
Thumbing through excuses, he decides on the truth. "I was with Blair."
She turns at once, and he's startled to see she's been crying. Not that it's surprising under the circumstances, of course, but he's never even thought of warm, laughter-like-a-bell Lily crying. It unexpectedly stabs at him.
"Oh, my God. How is she?"
"She's…" She's afraid of me for a few seconds when she wakes up and doesn't know who I am. "She's very tired."
"Poor darling." Lily opens and closes her mouth twice before continuing: "I've known her since she was such a little girl. A laugh a minute, I'll tell you." She smiles fondly, eyes crinkling, no doubt imagining small headbands and tight ringlets, Peter Pan collars primly folded over perfect miniature navy cardigans and a child-sized sense of bored superiority.
"I believe it," he says.
He remembers a few years ago, arguing with Blair over some piece of chemistry data they'd just been tested on – ionic bonding, HOBr FInCl flashcards spin through his mind – when, in comparing notes afterward, they realized they'd given different answers. She'd scoffed and mocked and rolled her eyes, and in the end he'd produced their class textbook, deadpanning: "Moment of truth, Waldorf." When it turned out that he'd been right, she'd stared hotly at him for a moment, knocked the book out of his hand and told him prissily that he was a moron, then turned with an impressively grand hair flip- especially for someone who'd just been proven undeniably wrong- and stormed away, extravagant bow on her headband flouncing along after her.
A laugh a minute.
His eyes crinkle too.
One of her underrated qualities.
Lily is silent for a few minutes, and then: "Her parents' divorce must have hit her hard. I… I'm afraid I didn't do much in the way of reaching out to her."
"Your attention was needed elsewhere," he reminds her. Wayward Serena being hidden away at school, not to mention Erik spending all his free time in bed, and finally, not coming out one day until he was carried out on a stretcher, arms bandaged and soft restraints at the ready.
"And now this." She takes a long drink of the glass of white in front of her, and licks her lips in a way that suggests the wine is drier than she'd like. But she's almost finished with the glass. "She's certainly not had a good year. I can't imagine what she must be feeling. Or how she'll ever recover." She shudders.
He takes the single malt that Matthew pushes across the bar at him- wondering, not for the first time, if the bartenders at The Palace go by their full names in daily life, or if they're Matt and Steve and Vince and Andy- and fights the urge to tell Lily, then, what he said to her at Bemelman's last week. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to tell her, narrate it word for word, everything from the dull ache in his heart thinking about her up until she walked in to the moment he realized what a grievous mistake he'd just made.
He suppresses that urge, with effort, but what comes out isn't much better: "I found her."
She snaps her head around and stares. "You?"
And this story, he does tell her. The walk home- she raises an eyebrow but, refined to the core, doesn't ask which friend's apartment he was leaving- the call to the front desk for a car, the coat fluttering to the ground like an empty wrapper, the dried blood and the stumbling and how the way she went limp in his arms scared him.
And the missing stockings.
Her eyes are dull, glazed and lashes lowered, when he comes up for air. Gulps his drink.
"Charles," she breathes. "Thank God you were there."
He's tired of hearing that. Why does everyone want to focus on that?
I don't want you anymore, and I can't see why anyone else would.
His jaws clench, and she sees, and understands. Or thinks she does. She murmurs his name again and wraps an arm around his shoulder, drawing him in. He hesitates, stiff, before putting his head on her shoulder. It's the mirror image of the way Serena dropped her head onto his shoulder on Saturday- the way she's done so many times. It must be a Van der Woodsen thing.
But it feels good. It's the first human touch that's infused with warmth, warmth that's only for him, since-
He backs out of that thought, too.
Lily smooths his hair, pats his shoulder, like he's a child. A laugh a minute. Miniature silk ties and sport coats with tiny elbow patches. Meanness already lurking in his repertoire, but less refined, not yet able to be employed as a weapon – but with all the time in the world to learn.
When you were beautiful.
"You're a godsend, Charles," Lily murmurs, as if on cue. "I'm sure Blair knows how lucky she is to have a friend in you."
It's so flawlessly, painfully timed and executed that it could have been said by either one of them, with an expression of practiced innocence to accompany it.
ix.
January 15
As it turns out, what they need is her.
The DNA testing was inconclusive, the detective had explained.
It was all Eleanor needed to hear to propel her into a frustrated lecture about how the NYPD is employing third-rate… scientists, or whatever they are- and they ought to stop spending so much money on educational programs for inmates and refocus all their resources on providing swift justice for those affected by their crimes-
"Enough," Blair had cut her off, quietly. Exchanged a look with her father.
They'll need her to identify him by sight once they catch him.
Harold's gaze darkens, though he understands due process. "I assume this would be in a completely secure situation where he has no awareness of her presence or identity. Not just a one-way mirror," he adds, as if the idea was akin to leaving Blair chained naked to a rock. Blair Andromeda Waldorf.
Pause. "We'll work with you to find the safest and most secure method."
"What if I can't remember?" Blair asks.
All heads turn toward her.
"What if," and her foot flexes against the fingers of the aesthetician, who has stilled and is looking up at her- get a move on- "I'm not sure when I see him?"
Eleanor's eyes flick to Harold, but his gaze is riveted on Blair.
"My love," he says quietly, and slowly, slowly sinks down next to her. "It's important that he be put away. That he can't do this to someone else. I know you understand that."
The world falls away, and it's just a girl and her father.
There's vulnerability in her gaze now. "But maybe I don't remember."
"Blair." It's a whisper.
Low, with wetness in her throat behind it: "Maybe I'm not sure."
His hand- also no wedding ring- comes up to fit perfectly against the curve of her jaw. His thumb dutifully avoids her stitched cheek.
"It won't take it away."
Her temple flexes and softens and flexes and softens as she clenches her molars together, willing the wetness away.
She closes her eyes, turning her face into her father's palm briefly, and then straightens her spine and tells the detective that of course she'll identify him.
x.
They hold the press conference at noon.
The chief commissioner of the NYPD faces the camera and speaks directly to him- no details of the attack, just that a minor was sexually assaulted last Thursday night- and appeals to him to turn himself in.
To think of the greater good.
To seek the help he needs.
And he steps down from the podium after fielding a few softball questions from the media, hands the notes for his prepared remarks to his chief of staff, and passes the case file that he's been gripping since yesterday back to the detective assigned to the case.
Two sets of photographs. One a lifeless body, pale in the morning autumn light, swollen joints and bitten collarbone and carved lower quadrant. The other, what was supposed to be a lifeless body, according to all signs and logic. A set of ribs, bruised and broken, quite obviously from a hard kick while she was lying down, if one is experienced in seeing these types of injuries. And spread thighs, torn flesh, a faint smear of blood.
Think of the greater good. Seek the help you need.
"I can't wait to nail this guy to a wall," he says to the detective as soon as they're a safe distance from the cameras.
xi.
No one at Constance or St. Jude's is under any illusions about the anonymous victim.
The usual bubbling of conversation and phones buzzing and giddy excitement about this weekend's party or what to wear to the gala next month is deafeningly silent. Instead of quips and jabs, the most elite students in Manhattan nod politely to one another, say "please" when they need to borrow a pencil and "thank you" for leaning backward to keep a door propped open for the next person and "oh, I'm so sorry" when they bump into someone in the hall. They glance around slowly, instead of exchanging dirty looks and secret smiles of glee.
Shoulders are tense underneath navy jackets; skirts are worn lower than normal; ties are knotted tightly and readjusted upward every period.
Not a single headband is seen.
He missed a text from Nate last night, and ignored it when he saw it: "Have you talked to Blair?"
Does sleeping beside her, anchoring her to reality, as much for himself as for her, count?
By lunch, just after the press conference- turned on without comment by a handful of teachers, turned off just as passively, and now let's please turn to chapter sixteen- the paparazzi are beginning to gather out in front of the gates. They can't come onto school property, but that doesn't stop them shouting, beckoning, bulbs flashing and audio recording devices hitched up on their shoulders.
Serena sits down beside them at lunch, posture wound tightly under a loose crew neck sweater. Hair in a ponytail, uncurled, unbrushed. She doesn't say a word, but reaches for Nate's apple, pausing when it's an inch from her mouth to glance at him. He barely spares a glance back. She doesn't need his permission.
"My mom is a mess. She's just going on and on about how she's known Blair for so long and how cute we all were when we were little," Nate mutters.
Chuck eyes Serena, wondering if she'll mention her mother's doing much the same, but she's crunching into the apple like she's on a deadline.
"Well," Chuck shrugs. "We were pretty cute."
That at least gets a curling of one corner of Serena's mouth. It flickers and dies, though. Anxious Serena is the quietest Serena, other than Sleeping Serena (although Sleeping Serena snores sometimes).
The paparazzi know her name and are using it. Nate's, too. Their shouting can be heard all the way in the side courtyard, where the three are now. Thank God for the brick wall between them and the street, or the idiots would be able to photograph them eating lunch.
Nate Archibald, one of them calls just then.
Nate rolls his eyes. "Can't they just go away?"
"Not when there's money to be made."
Finally: "I need a drink." She says it with her mouth full, and it's plainly directed at Chuck.
He tilts his head, chuckling. "Sorry, Van der Woodsen. My valet forgot to strap on my ankle flask this morning."
She rolls her eyes and flicks her wrist, offering the half-apple that remains to Nate. He glances from face to apple to face, and takes it.
She pulls her ponytail over one shoulder. "Gentlemen." Then she's on her feet and gone.
They watch her go.
Humphrey's entering the courtyard from the opposite side, and sees, too. He breaks into a jog after her, rounds the corner she turned seconds before, and Chuck and Nate are exchanging a glance when a roar goes up from the paparazzi assembled on the other side of the wall.
"Serena!"
"Miss Van der Woodsen!"
"What can you tell us about Blair Waldorf's health?"
"How's Blair doing?"
"Do you have a statement for us?"
"Is Blair recovering at home?"
"Any idea when we'll see her back in public?"
"Is her father in town?"
Nate freezes midway through his bite of apple. Chuck is on his feet, and Nate follows, back of his hand swiping his mouth. They stop at the corner and peer around discreetly. Serena's blonde ponytail jerks as she shoves through the crowd, who tangle and surge behind her in hot pursuit. Her shoulders are high against her neck, drawn in like someone crocheted her and pulled the stitches too tight. Chuck is willing to bet there are tears in her eyes.
Humphrey is returning from the halfway point near the gates where he stopped chasing her, and takes his place beside them, watching her trudge up the block.
Nate takes another bite.
"What's with her?" Walking into the storm?
Dan's eyes don't move from the blonde ponytail- all three sets of eyes are trained on her. "I was about to ask you the same thing," he replies.
xii.
Bart Bass pulls out the chair to her vanity almost as effortlessly as his son.
Almost.
The flick of the wrist isn't as reflexive; it's clear he hasn't done this before. But he settles himself on it with the same ease, and even crosses his leg and folds his hands over his knee the same way Chuck does. Which earns a slight smile when he turns away to thank Dorota for bringing in the flower arrangement he's brought in with him.
Actually, it's not even really a flower arrangement. It's a lot of fuzzy-looking greenery, and ferns and graceful arcs of what appear to be bamboo layered in a somehow decadent way. To be fair, there are flowers in it, but they're dwarfed by the non-floral items.
"I hope you don't mind," he says, gesturing at it. "I chose it myself. I wasn't sure what your favorites were."
"They're beautiful. Thank you." She's nothing if not a good hostess.
"I wanted to see you and offer my support. I don't just mean with what was unfortunately an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to keep your name out of the press, but just to let you know that…" he falters now, clearly not having planned well enough what he'd say. "Well, I think highly of you and I'm confident you're strong enough to overcome any obstacle that comes your way."
He barely knows her, she thinks. Certainly less than a parent of one of her friends should.
Her smile is automatic. "Thank you, Mr. Bass. That's very kind of you to say." She pauses. "It was you who kept my name out of the press?"
"Charles asked me to. He asked me to try, anyway. He had his hands full, I understand, with collecting all the physical copies of the Post that he and the rest of your friends could get ahold of."
The smile twitches, but doesn't falter. "He did what?"
"Oh- I thought you knew." He pauses, but appears to decide there can't be any downside in telling her. "Charles and a handful of your classmates- Serena, Nathaniel, a few others- spent most of yesterday running from store to store and buying up their inventory and throwing it out."
She's quiet then. "I see."
There's a slight smirk on Bart's face. It's familiar. "After he commandeered the entire staff of The Palace to collect and destroy every copy that existed in our building, that is." He smiles. "I suppose he had a busy day."
How was your day?
Enchanting.
She supposed he did.
xiii.
Her first thought when she thumbed through the pictures was how much the girl in Boston looked like her.
Hours later, after having looked at them maybe hundreds of times- flipping through robotically, feeling twinges of pain in the parts of her body that were injured on this girl- her thought is that she could have, should have, ended up like that.
Idly, the freshly manicured fingertips of her good hand brush against the stitched word on her leg. Alone in the dark last night after Chuck left, she'd nudged her hand past her waistband and the softness of her underwear to brush against the sutures, trace the letters, with the utmost tenderness.
The sutures were not prickly, as she'd imagined they'd be. She'd also expected she would have to be careful not to catch them on anything or jar them in any way, but it seemed that they'd begun to heal quickly- no raw edges anymore, just a puffy pinkness lining the joints of split flesh. They didn't hurt, really, unless a finger was pressed in.
Not that she tried.
But she grazed them up and down countless times, stroking letter by letter or the whole word in one straight pass.
Perhaps she was growing fond of the word that was carved, fond of its ugliness, its boldness and the way it had made Chuck speechless and Serena whimper and her mother turn white and grab her around the shoulders, with such uncharacteristic swiftness that she yelped and had to remind her that she did have two broken ribs, and Dorota say nothing like only Dorota can do, and her father… her father cried right there, on the spot, trembling lips not leaving her forehead for at least a full minute. "Mon ami, mon ami," he'd murmured against her hairline. "My darling love."
And she'd cried too. "Take it away, Daddy?"
"I'm trying, my love. I'd give anything for this to have happened to me," he'd vowed, a harsh edge in his voice that she'd never, ever heard before.
She'd pressed her face into his sweater then.
And later, pressed her finger into her stitches, just to see if it hurt. Until she squeaked.
And now, in bed with the copies of the photographs that she'd demanded the NYPD detective give her- prepared to burst into desperate sobs for them; she hadn't practiced emotional responses for the past several years only to lose them when they might come in most handy, after all- she stroked them gently through her pants. Long gray pants today, with a gray sweater. Where Dorota was producing these outfits from was a mystery. Blair Waldorf certainly had not owned this many sets of lounge clothes a few days ago. Blair Waldorf lounged in lingerie, silk pajama sets, soft cotton dresses- not long, single-colored pants that were too long for her and pooled in folds at her ankles, and conservative tagless sweaters, cut wide to obscure her figure, and suspiciously well-matched with the pants.
She didn't care, though, and that was jarring. Truthfully, she didn't notice until her mother complimented her that today was the first day she'd attempted to do something with her hair since the hospital, letting it dry in tangled waves the last two days since she came home. It had felt good: the bounce of the curls falling over her shoulders in that familiar way, and the aesthetician hovering over her hands and feet, had felt normal and familiar. She had felt like herself. She'd allowed herself, for a short period of time, to think that this hadn't happened to her. It had happened to someone else. What if I don't remember?
She could go back to being Blair Waldorf, fully, and scheme and manipulate and pillage her way back to her throne. With nothing dark lurking at the edges, no fear of sleeping and blinking in the dark, heart in her throat for split seconds before she confirmed who was looking back at her.
Maybe I'm not sure.
But she'd known that she couldn't go back, because those changes felt like part of her now, almost like she couldn't fully remember what had been before them: jerking awake in the dark, heart racing; letting her hair dry without so much as running a brush through it; not touching her makeup palette and brushes; not bothering to straighten her loose-fitting sweaters or even look at herself in the mirror.
She'd looked at the word in the mirror, though.
And there was a curiosity to it, then.
But she looks at the photographs now, and strokes her pinky in a slow circle around the "O," the center of it all, feeling a sting above her pelvis where the girl in Boston had her label carved, and there is- yes, there is: a trickle of fondness for it.
Because it's the worst of her injuries- the most shocking. The most unspeakable.
She was supposed to die. She had thought so, first grasped the reality in the emergency room when Dr. Lambright had explained to her that the level of exposure she had experienced was severe and, had she not been found, she would likely have had less than a few hours to live. She had thought, at the end of the rape kit while Annemarie photographed between her legs, face buried in Serena's coat while Serena ground out, as warm as she could be under the circumstances, every number between sixty and zero in her ear, that she'd gladly take death if someone offered it to her. Lying in her hospital bed, having sent Serena for Chapstick and a brush- like either of those was a dire emergency- she'd thought she might take out her IV that night when Serena was gone and leave, go back into the park, barefoot, and just let herself go. It wasn't passionate, or urgent, just… a viable option.
I need to die. Can you help me with that?
Somehow, though, the pictures of the girl in Boston light a different sort of fire inside her.
The closed eyes, broken bones, familiar purple bruise that hurts to look at.
The knowledge that she was supposed to die- according to him- filters through her. He had intended for her to die. He'd put enough of the drug into her drink to stop her heart. When he watched her finish the rest of her second glass, he'd been sure that was the last she'd ever have.
When he'd walked away from her, still and broken, he thought she'd never look at anyone else again.
It's disgusting, really. The finger trailing over the letters – on "E," now – was what saved her life.
She'd just dried her tears before she saw him, tall and quiet with an easy grace. Relaxed. He'd said he wanted to grab one last decent drink before the storm hit; they wound up at a table for two, with him ordering another and then her. She'd apologized, ever Blair the Gracious, for keeping him out later- it was starting to rain in earnest outside.
"You're worth staying out later for," he'd said, with a handsome, genuine half-smile.
Her smile had frozen. She'd eased herself out of her chair with effort and made for the bathroom.
Until she knew about the girl in Boston, she'd been sure this was when he had drugged her. Because she'd thought, naively, that he'd drugged her so he could hurt her.
Now she understood that when she gripped the faucet in the bathroom at Mark Bar, trembling, words delivered in a sharp, firm undertone racking her mind, and fought for control, fought to be something other than a weakling, fought for it to not matter, because he didn't matter, fought to forget the kiss on her forehead and all yours and the intertwining of fingers and laughing in the dark and sleeping, head on the other's chest, and then the reverse-
And lost-
That, in a way, she'd won.
I don't want to talk about what happened last night.
Because the red she'd vomited up had been the difference between being Blair Waldorf and being the girl in Boston.