Hello, dearest readers! Thank you for joining me for this very important chapter. It's almost twice as long as the usual ones, and I hope very much that you'll enjoy and possibly let me know what you think- I've been dreaming about writing this one for a while. =)
i.
January 18
Early morning
She may sleep well that night (she does, he finds out later), but he tosses and turns. The nightmare recurs, Blair's bare feet arching around rib cage- ribs seven and eight- in her red coat with the black velvet lines, headband missing, mouth already bleeding, silent, the guy on top of her in his- Chuck's- bed. Over and over. He tries to reach her, but he can't, because she's silent and it's silent and he can't even hear himself yell her name, but he knows he's yelling, knows it by the strain in his chest.
Her stockings come off the second time, feet struggling, flesh of her leg still beautifully unbranded.
The third, her face is bloody. The next time he rises to consciousness after this, he can't let himself sink back down.
He can't face what happens next.
A good two hours before dawn, he gets up, lungs still closer to bellowing than not, and pours himself a drink. The city seems unusually beautiful, gray and frozen before his windows. Maybe it's always like this, but he never notices because he's drunk- at least- if he's up at this hour.
He can't look at his bed.
He closes his eyes. He wants to hear her scream. He wills it into his ears, finding her voice, memories splintering into him of her shrieking during pool splashing and Serena tickling her and the delighted squeal when her phone lights up and it's her father.
Drink in one hand, he sinks down on the loveseat and rests his forehead in the other.
"Scream, Blair," he whispers. He finishes the Scotch slowly, fatigue clouding him, almost nodding off several times.
Scream. Come on.
In the end he can't walk back to bed. He slumps to his side and closes his eyes, not willing to even look at it, not willing to even approach it to get to the closet where the blankets are. He'd rather be cold.
He visualizes it differently, hands over his eyes before he lets himself slide away again.
His back tenses in his sleep, which could be because he's in boxers only and bare-chested in the early morning, if not for the taut flexing of his feet against the side of the love seat.
This time, she screams. This time, he's there when she needs him.
This time, he has her in his arms still in her coat, before her legs are spread, and they leave the guy behind them: carved open, bones broken, joints bent at odd angles, blood trickling from the mouth that lets out one last wispy breath.
It's Nate's fault that his phone is on silent. In his exhaustion, he forgot to turn the ringer back on before slipping away to his first nightmare, and so it is that he misses it- that distinctive chime that should nudge him awake, if ever a Pavlovian reaction existed- a few hours later, while he's saving her for at least the dozenth time, catching the guy earlier and earlier in every iteration, perfecting his movements so he kills faster and gets her away sooner, so that this time her headband is still in place and she muffles her scream into his shoulder-
Good morning, Upper East Siders.
ii.
8:01 AM
Her heart sinks when she hears the chime; it's the first one in a week. Over a week.
Dorota has just gone back downstairs, leaving a tray of tea and a shrimp omelette with spinach and fresh dill and crispy asparagus perched, bridgelike, over Blair's lap. She's pouring Mariage Freres when the chime skips up from her tangled duvet. The first decent sleep she's had in days- since Monday, with a hand firmly cradled in her elbow.
It's probably something stupid. Definitely.
She keeps pouring.
Probably something about Penelope and Hazel getting stir crazy from missing school, or someone throwing a rager upstate this weekend to let everyone escape lockdown; the Adirondacks are charming this time of year, or-
It chimes again.
She breathes deeper, clenching her teeth and forcing every stroke of air in and out her nose. The tea is perfect and she lifts it to her lips, splinted hand coming up to clumsily cut into the egg, because she may be slightly limited but she's not broken, and she can certainly handle her own breakfast, and can handle anything, any stupid insignificant-
And again.
She closes her eyes, taking a long, satisfied sip before carefully putting down the fork. She places the teacup back onto its saucer with tender attention, ensuring that its base fits into the circular rim.
Clears her throat.
Reaches for her phone and flips open the first part of the blast.
Her lips part softly as she reads the words.
Good morning, Upper East Siders.
I'm sorry to hurry you out of your silk pajamas, but I come to you this morning bearing an APB. The dark foe who brought down our queen has been identified and is believed to still be alive and well, and lurking on our fair island.
We can't have that, can we?
iii.
9:21 AM
Erik's breathing is heavy under his robe when he opens the door and leans in.
"Have you seen it?"
Serena pauses, lavender-scented sleep mask pried away from one eye with a palm-out index finger, and squints at him. "What?"
"Where's your phone?"
The urgency in his voice is like a string pulling her spine upward to straight. He's climbing on her bed while she scrabbles for her phone, almost knocking it from her nightstand. She flings the mask away.
"What…"
One hand rubs over cheekbone, browbone, pushes her hair behind her ear.
She flicks through notifications: Dan, Dan, Nate, updates from the Constance portal-
"How long ago?"
Finally she finds it, just as Erik answers: "An hour. I missed it. I was asleep."
"Oh, God."
"Make sure you read them all." His eyes are hot on her face.
Serena's frowns, surprised, at the second message of the blast:
The NYPD is in hot pursuit, but no one ever called us ineffectual. All good Upper East Siders love to talk business, and I'm prepared to sweeten the deal.
So I'll cut to the chase and lay my cards on the table.
She reads them over and over. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God." Her gaze turns inward. Her eyes flutter closed for a minute, and then she snaps her phone open and her fingers descend on the buttons like gunfire.
"Do you think Blair's seen it?" Erik's gaze flicks from her face to the phone in her hands.
"I hope not," she murmurs.
She stops and looks up.
"Where's Mom?"
"Meeting with the designer. With Bart." Erik shifts, glances through the open door behind him just in case he's wrong, but there's no Lily Van der Woodsen in the living room.
Serena snaps her phone shut and drops it, tossing the covers from her legs and maneuvering herself off the bed. She starts looking through her closet and yanks first at this dress, then that, shoving them to the other side of the open space in her closet so hard that some slip off the hangers. Erik watches, silent, and eyes her phone, wondering if he can slide it open and see who she just texted.
Because he's pretty sure it wasn't Blair.
iv.
8:03 AM
He's wolfing down his second egg sandwich, slick with sweat from his early morning sun, standing in the kitchen and trying to keep all his crumbs on the napkin underneath him. He sees no need to dirty a plate every single time he eats, now that they no longer have daily maid service.
His chewing slows when he hears the chiming he's accustomed to rolling his eyes at. Gossip Girl has, admittedly, commanded more of his attention with some of her recent posts.
Still, his sandwich with spinach, tomato and hot sauce on lean turkey is first priority. He takes another mouthful, second to last, and then hears his phone prattle again in his pocket.
He frowns, fishing it out. Swallows. Puts the last bite, too big- it really should be two- in his mouth at once to free his hands.
Keys his passcode in and opens it, just as it sounds off a third time, insisting on his attention.
He finishes all three messages before he realizes he's stopped chewing.
He runs a hand over his sweaty hair, pushing it back, sweat turning cold now that his exertion is thirty minutes old, and flips back to the last message, reading it over and over.
If a Gossip Girl reader turns the man who raped Blair Waldorf into the police, I'll reveal my identity via live stream at the stroke of midnight the following evening.
All hands on deck to avenge Her Majesty.
XOXO.
v.
9:12 AM
Jenny rips her phone from the charger cable and rolls onto her side, looking down for Dan, but he's gone. Pillow and quilt are left in a mess by her bedside.
She powers the phone on, bare feet picking carefully over the quilt, and puts it in her pocket.
He's in the living room, mug of black coffee in hand, in sweats and a white t-shirt. There's an open book on his knee, which is hiked up, foot pressed casually on the corner of the coffee table, which tells her they're the only ones who are home, or he wouldn't want to be caught like that.
"More coffee?" she asks sleepily, rubbing at her eyes.
"Yup, still hot," he throws over his shoulder, casual, routine, his foot nudging his laptop further away. "Dad got fresh orange juice, too; if you have some, I'll take a glass."
She gives him a sleepy smirk, to which he replies with a winning brotherly smile.
"Anything else you need while I'm up? Souffle? Breakfast quiche? Roast leg of lamb?"
"Some toast would be great," he indulges.
"You'll take your juice and you'll like it." She yanks the refrigerator door open and sets up two glasses.
His eyes track back to his book, and his temple flexes, but she doesn't see. "I mean, I did make the coffee…"
She rolls her eyes and chuckles. "When I'm hungry, you can have toast." This is their routine: whichever of them gets hungry first feeds the other. Usually it's on weekends only, though, and today is Day Three of no school, and therefore Day Three of Food Stakeout-
Her phone chirps suddenly, finally awake and catching up itself, and she freezes.
Dan's eyes stay on his book.
Then twice more, the notification noises almost sounding on top of one another.
Blinking rapidly, she puts down the orange juice and digs out her phone, flips it open without a sound.
Dan's still reading.
He's so engrossed in his book that he doesn't notice when Jenny is silent for a full minute. Doesn't ask where his orange juice is, or wheedle her about toast again.
Doesn't even look up as she lifts her head and stares, openmouthed, at him.
"Did you see the Gossip Girl blast?" she finally asks.
"Hmm?"
Great book. Fantastic book. Can't tear his eyes away.
Never mind that he's never had a particular affinity for Edgar Allen Poe before.
"Where's your phone?" she tries again, at a whisper.
Suddenly, The Telltale Heart is all he can think about.
Casual flick of a finger. "By my bed." His eyes swivel up now, lazily, deliberately avoiding the laptop that's a few inches from his foot, appropriately misaligned with the edges of the coffee table, since it was placed there without a second thought after completing some totally innocuous online activity earlier this morning.
She comes around the counter to hand him her phone. He blinks up at her before he takes it.
"Why? What does it say?"
vi.
9:26 AM
Serena pulls on lounge pants over the shorts she slept in and yanks a sweater over her head, stuffing the two winning dresses- both nighttime, going-out dresses, and completely unseasonable- in the first duffel bag she finds. She curses under her breath and turns to look at the racks of shoes she so meticulously rearranged not twelve hours before. Erik watches her with a mounting sense of quiet dread.
She's run away before.
Where is she running now?
"What are you doing?" he asks, finally, when she looks around and jams her feet into the loafers that overlap in the corner, stowing away behind her door and missing last night's organization spree.
She grabs her phone and shrugs into her peacoat.
"Going out." She doesn't meet his eyes. Starts to move around the foot of the bed.
Panic spikes in him.
"Where?"
He jumps down to follow her.
"Don't tell Mom until she gets back."
"Where are you going?"
She stops and turns back to him. "Stay here, okay? Promise?"
He splutters, incredulous. "No, I don't promise. What's wrong with you? Where the hell are you going?"
"I have to go out."
They stare at each other, long lithe Van der Woodsen stubbornness standing off.
"Please tell me you're going to see Blair."
She licks her lips slowly, cheek quirking as her tongue pushes against it, evaluative. "I'm going to see Blair."
His cheeks quirk up, angry, knowing. "Liar."
She shrugs, eyes flat, and it's a version of her he knows, a version that has struggled up and taken control periodically for the last few years, a version that ran away from him and all of them and only came back for him, because he almost died. Tried to die- and if she leaves him again he will see to it that he succeeds this time.
"I aim to please," she says by way of explanation and excuse, and turns away from him again.
He's hot on her heels, trying to yank at anything- her coat, her elbow, the strap of her bag- he bats the phone out of her hand and they both go after it; she gets it first and wrenches their front door open.
"I'm calling security," he cries out after her, shaky.
Just as he reaches for the receiver of the landline that's nestled in the corner of the kitchen counter, it rings.
vii.
She pushes the elevator buttons frantically, hoping there's a diversion in the lobby and she'll get out before Erik somehow convinces security to stop her. As Bart Bass's future stepdaughter, she's an asset that needs to be protected, and she's not exactly inconspicuous looking.
Her phone buzzes in her hand, and she opens it, straight to the screen where she left it.
Outgoing text message.
To: Nate Archibald.
I need you.
She clicks open his reply.
You ok? You see it?
She sighs, striking the elevator buttons again, vaguely irritated because they're not lighting up.
Yes. Meet around the corner from the lobby, on Madison?
She resettles the dresses in the bag. She'll freeze to death if she wears these outside, coat or no. She doesn't have stockings. She pauses and shifts the contents of the bag to put the heels underneath, so they're not protruding. Carrying an ambiguous garment in a bag is much less suspicious, she's learned over the years, than toting around a change of shoes. Especially come-fuck-me heels.
Nate: Great minds. I'm two blocks away.
Then: Can't get ahold of Chuck. You want to get him?
She strikes the buttons again; they're still not lighting up.
She doesn't have time for this. She'll take the stairs, she decides, and spins on her heel, dashing off a reply and pocketing her phone again.
We don't need him.
She turns back into her own hallway, heading the opposite way from her suite, toward the stairwell. A door clicks open behind her.
"Serena."
The tightness that is totally foreign in Erik's voice stops her. Almost unwillingly, she turns. They're ten paces apart.
"The elevator's not going to take you downstairs," he says, quiet. She sees that he's holding his own phone now.
"I'll take the stairwell," she says sharply, but even as her foot lifts to take a step, the lights in the hallway flicker and die. It's just the two Van der Woodsens in a dim corridor, half-lit by the pale January light.
Erik lifts the phone to his ear. "I've got her. We're going to the penthouse elevator now. Can you send it down, please?"
He snaps the phone shut.
"Stairwells are sealed off."
She rolls her eyes. "I didn't realize Bart loved me so much," she mocks.
"The building is being locked down." He stares at her. "They're sending down the penthouse elevator and we have to get into it in the next sixty seconds before they deactivate all the badges and go to generator power."
He steps toward her; she steps back, hand on her strap.
"I'm going out," she repeats, slow, desperate.
"We're not safe here," he levels, low and final, trying to make her understand without saying it. When she still hesitates: "Serena. Now. Upstairs."
She grips the gilded railing in the penthouse elevator all the way up.
viii.
9:36 AM
He wakes like someone jarred him physically, though of course no one is there.
The first thing that registers, even before he opens his eyes to the white-gold of a January midmorning in Manhattan, is silence.
True silence. Not companionable silence, not pensive silence, not even solitary silence. Just silence.
Silence is an elusive state, even an elusive concept, in Manhattan. Most New Yorkers don't understand the term, though they all think they do. There's almost always noise in New York City. The beeping of a truck backing up to a loading dock; the hum and guffaw of foot traffic; the low drone of planes gaining altitude over the island as they take off from Newark and White Plains and LaGuardia and JFK; the exclamation points of honking horns and the long question marks of a train howling in the distance. (The Metro Transit Authority could really afford to be more creative with their whistle sounds.)
This, though, is true silence, and he shakes himself awake, wild-eyed and stiff from the labor of nightmaring, trying to snap his senses back to normal.
It's then he realizes it: the electricity is out. The Palace is nothing more than a shell, steel beams and concrete planes. He can almost feel the building sway in place, as all steel structures must; there's a necessary flexibility in metal, his father explained to him once when he was a little boy, watching a new Bass skyscraper go up. You don't see it until you know it's there, Bart said then, gaze lifted at the top of the growing structure, his pride and joy, while his son's gaze was lifted to look at him. Once you see it for the first time, though, you'll see it for the rest of your life.
And he doesn't just see it, now, he feels it. He swears he does.
As he gets to his feet, the electricity clicks back on with an indecipherable, almost inaudible whir, that, again, one would never hear if one hadn't experienced the silence that preceded it.
He finds the pants and shirt he discarded last night and tugs them on, looking outside. A blizzard taking out The Palace and forcing it to generator power is unlikely, but not inconceivable. But it's not snowing.
He picks up his phone, turns the ringer back on, heart dropping when he sees a handful of missed calls- Blair, Nate, Tyler, his father, Front Desk (just a few minutes ago)- and a slew of missed texts- same group, minus Front Desk.
And three updates from Gossip Girl.
He steps into the shoes he pried off last night and reaches for his coat, draping it over his arm.
Stops when the door to his suite won't budge for him.
He stares at it, then tries again. The handle turns, but the door won't move. Although he knows it's not, he checks the chain, the deadbolt.
Braces his foot against the wall.
His heart starts to pound, because…
He reaches for his landline, flipping open the texts with the other hand-
Nate: You see the blast?
Any ideas?
You awake?
I'm coming over.
What's going on?
Blair: Looks like the sniper army just grew to include the whole GG readership.
Note to self: taking down GG is next order of business.
Are you in your suite?
Are you okay?
CALL ME ASAP.
Tyler: Call me. News.
If you're awake, get out of The Palace ASAP.
If you haven't gotten out yet, stay where you are.
Please confirm your location.
Bart: Under no circumstances are you to get involved. Understood?
Charles, answer me.
Son, tell me where you are.
Kathryn picks up, a rush of breath in his ear: "Chuck, thank God."
He frowns. What is she doing here? It's nearly 9:45. She's normally gone by nine in the morning, latest.
"Good morning," he manages, clearing the sleep and confusion from his throat, scrolling through the texts again. "Can you send someone from maintenance up, please?"
She pauses. "Someone is already on their way, but the elevators are moving really slowly-"
"To fix the door?"
"What?"
He blinks, mind shuffling as slowly, apparently, as the elevator. "My door won't open. Did we have a power outage?"
There's a long pause and he feels his spine prickling with unease. "No… we're on lockdown."
"Why?"
"Have you looked outside?"
Well, yes. He clears his throat again and shuffles across the room, drawing back the curtain. "I'm looking now. It's not snowing," he offers, still sleepy.
"Look down."
And he does, discomfort starting to burn in him.
NYPD cars swarm on the street in front of the building, the otherwise-empty street; it's blockaded. And between them, officers themselves, dark ants that scurry back and forth.
Are you in your suite?
Please confirm your location.
Son, tell me where you are.
"I tried calling you…" she murmurs in his ear. "But we couldn't wait any longer."
"I was sleeping. My phones were on silent," he says back, absently, eyes trailing the detectives below.
"I needed to make sure you were safe." And for the first time, he hears the relief in her voice. "But we had to comply with the police- and we're running on limited systems power now to control the security system, and I need to have someone escort you up to the penthouse; he's on his way, but…" There's frantic typing and shuffling of paper in the background.
"What…"
He swallows down the hot acid that's in his throat. "What the fuck is going on?"
But he already knows.
She takes a breath, then another.
Then, without preamble: "They found him."
His heart slows, foggy, and he feels like he's going to be physically sick. He looks out the window again, and sees, in the distance but about to make a pass closer to his side of the building, two helicopters- news and NYPD- hovering, silent, like dragonflies.
It occurs to him then that this is all happening here, very close to his window.
"Where…?"
It's all he can manage; his mouth is dry. He's seeing spots. He screws his eyes shut.
She starts to answer but stops.
"Kathryn," he grinds into the phone, "what room is he in?"
"I c… you need to get out of your suite," she replies weakly.
His chest tightens. "What room?"
He hears a gulp and a quick bite of static as she wraps her hand around the mouthpiece, and then says, soft yet magnified, in his ear: "1712."
He forgets how to breathe.
She's rushing on- "So we need to get you out of there, right now, okay, because…"
1712. He looks down at the plush carpet beneath his feet. He's just a few feet from the guy. He's been dreaming about killing him the last few hours- well, the last week, if he's being truthful- and he assured Blair on the phone last night, and-
His heart sinks even further.
"How long has he been here?" He barely manages the horrified whisper, cutting off her nervous rambling.
The fifteenth through twenty-first floors are suites. Extended stays. Executives and the like.
"I don't know."
"Longer than a night?"
She shifts her hand on the mouthpiece and the friction hurts his ear. "Much longer."
He makes his way to the bar, leans on it, even as he white-knuckles his cell phone in his other hand. While he made sours the other night and he and Serena shot nasty comments at each other; while he pounded the wall until his knuckles were bloody.
With Nate, and Serena, and the Humphreys, as they plotted to counteract the tabloid sensation- Jenny was up here all alone. With the guy one floor down. For hours.
Walking Serena home the other night.
We could use me as bait.
I'm surprised how nervous I am…
If you tell anyone, I'll kill you.
… knowing he's here.
Never will he come near you again.
I can't even shut my eyes long enough to fall asleep…
Did you care about her?
Can you just make it go away?
Would you agree to that, if it were Lily?
I've never seen someone in so much agony as she was.
He's silent, unable to even open his mouth as adrenaline explodes in him. He storms back to the door and starts yanking on it violently, pounding a fist against it in frustration when it won't yield. "Open my door."
"As soon as your escort gets there. I'm- I'm not to let you out of your room or anywhere else without an escort."
His nostrils flare. "Directives from my father?"
"Yes. And a detective at the NYPD. I didn't catch his name."
Kathryn is extremely observant. She knows very well who Tyler is, and is probably under no illusions about his identity.
But she's also extremely dutiful, which is why his father loves her.
"Just open it," he says, calming his voice with effort. It still comes out too gruff. "Where are the Van der Woodsens?"
"Ms. Van der Woodsen is out with your father. Serena and Erik just got up to the penthouse."
He lets go of the door, mind clicking.
"As you might be aware, Erik has been dealing with some emotional stability issues," he intones smoothly, sympathetically.
Like she wasn't the one to guide the ambulance into the service bay when Erik was found bleeding in his bed, discreetly holding her master key badge in front of the sensor to keep the freight elevator door open and averting her eyes while the stretcher maneuvered tentatively inside, stepping around a crying Lily to give them privacy on the way down.
"I'm concerned about Serena managing the stress of this situation and making sure he's okay. You may be aware that she's very close with Blair Waldorf. She's not in the best condition herself."
The number of times Blair has walked through the lobby of The Palace during Kathryn's shift has to be in the triple digits by now. (Not all of those were visits with Serena, but Kathryn doesn't need to know that.)
Another thought occurs to him then: surely, surely the guy was not beneath them when she slipped on his gray sweater, pressing herself against him, I'm cold, not when he woke, happy, half-conscious, and out of his mouth tumbled, Come here…
Not then. Surely the guy was not beneath them all the way back then.
Kathryn pauses. "If you can just wait for a few minutes…"
"I'll wait as long as you want," he agrees, amenable. "I'd just hate to think of Erik as good as alone up there, possibly having a panic attack. Possibly a danger to himself or his sister. Possibly…"
He lets it linger.
"Your father…"
"I'm sure my father hasn't considered the possible consequences of leaving Erik alone in his condition, given all he must be trying to manage at the moment," he reasons, dipping his words in just the right amount of concern and uncertainty, not too sugary, not too hot.
She falters, but she's stopped typing, and the only sound in the background is of footsteps and quick, hushed verbal exchanges.
Right where he wants her.
She knows, everyone knows, about his mother, dying behind glass operating room windows, while a younger and warmer Bart held his newborn son and watched her go. Helpless.
Jugular.
He lowers his eyes. Force of habit.
"Please unlock my door," he murmurs, playing up and down the scales, and delivers the words, letting them crack in just the right place: "so I can get to my family before anything happens to them."
She sighs. He can almost see her brush her hair back from her face, behind the simple diamond studs she always wears.
"Just for five seconds," she mutters unwillingly into the phone. "The penthouse elevator is running at normal speed; I'm sending it now. But I can't open your door for more than a few seconds or I'll have to open them all."
I don't know about you, but I plan on killing the guy.
The door clicks, softly, and he opens it. The hallway is empty. Only a skeleton-key badge can open any door in The Palace, and only a master badge can open any door when the hotel is running on a generator or on security lockdown.
And there are only four master badges in existence.
Serena's arms clasped around him in the hospital lounge, cheeks wet, eyes clouded with nerves and tears: You're not serious.
The penthouse elevator is waiting for him.
Watching his reflection in the polished brass wall, he reenacts the way he turned his smirk into a smile to reassure her. Of course not.
ix.
Nate calls while he's in the elevator. His mind spins, trying to find a clever opening line, but it falls flat. "Yes?" he manages, after a moment of silence.
"I'm outside. A block away. I don't- Jesus Christ."
"Blockades up?"
He watches his face in the brass.
"Yeah, I…" Nate pauses and speaks closer to the phone. "Any chance I can get in there?"
He stifles a snort. "If you can talk the NYPD into admitting you, be my guest. The bar might not be open, though."
There's a deadly pause that is uncharacteristic of Nate. His eyes lower, a sideways glance at the phone he holds to his own face, brushing his jawline.
"I saw what he did to her leg."
He licks his lips, at a loss again. "I see."
"I'd really like to break a few of his bones," Nate says, offhand, thoughtful. Like he's saying, we should really make reservations if we're going at seven.
A fond smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
Nate the Hero.
'Break a few of his bones.'
How… wholesome.
"I don't think I can get you in," he drawls, apologetic. "My father even has me restricted."
"Where's Serena?"
"Safe in the penthouse. Erik, too." In case you were wondering. "It's fully secure; basically a big panic room. I'm on my way there now."
But she's going to be staying there, and he is not.
"You sure…" Nate sniffs; it's freezing outside. "No way I can sneak in? Freight entrance? Staff door?" He chuckles, strangled. "Trash chute?"
"Best if you stay out of it, Nathaniel. The situation is being handled. I'm about to lose signal; I'll call you later." Nate starts to protest, but he cuts him off: "Go home."
There's full signal in the penthouse elevator, but he's done with Nate the Hero. They don't need a white knight.
x.
She clutches her phone tighter in her good hand, other hand wrapped carefully around her father, mother standing behind her, mechanically stroking her hair.
"This can't be real," she says again. She hasn't shed a single tear. Not when she got the blast, not when Dorota burst in and all but pulled her from bed, supporting her as they made their way downstairs.
Not when… there he was.
"She doesn't need to see this," Eleanor said then, one hand curving against her own waist, other palm resting incredulously on the top of her own head.
The shot was far away, a long-range news camera, breathless female anchor prattling on about the NYPD's search having intensified overnight as they narrowed in on additional tips, the possible areas where the suspect might be located dwindling, until- at last, at last- an employee at none other than Midtown's Palace Hotel alerted police to an extended-stay guest who had ordered room service around four in the morning. Who looked, even in the absent silence with which he accepted the tray, familiar.
"Of course she does." Harold was quick, silent, reaching an arm for his daughter without tearing his gaze of barely contained fury from the television screen.
xi.
Black coffee long forgotten, orange juices warming to room temperature, Jenny is curled up on the sofa next to Dan, arms clasped around her knees. Dan is leaning forward, elbows on knees, like he's going to reach out and touch the guy.
The female anchor's voice announces that the NYPD have secured and closed off a block-wide radius around The Palace before locking down the building, and are now establishing contact with the suspect, who, it has been confirmed through a review of the hotel's badge system, hasn't left his room in several days.
"How can this be?" Jenny murmurs to herself. "All this time, he's been right… there?"
Dan lifts the hand closest to her, without looking, and bends it back, palm up. She untangles her arms, without looking, and lays her palm against his.
xii.
"This is ridiculous."
Bart's jaw is clenching as he grips the soft leather of the chair in front of him as though it's the furniture's fault that the NYPD won't let him into his hotel.
Lily is silent beside him, clutching her small purse in one hand, bakery box of sweets for the Waldorfs wistful on the conference table before them.
They're two blocks from The Palace, in the closest building to it that Bart owns, where he hustled her, insisting she double over and covering her back with his own body, arms wrapped around her shoulders as they shuffled the ten feet from limo to revolving door.
The room is dark, the motion-activated lights having flickered to life and then died when its inhabitants stayed stock-still for more than five minutes, and neither of them moves to turn them back on.
Lily swallows, listening to the anchor prattle on, the lens pointing through the suspect's window retracting and zooming back in.
"You put out word to everyone to be on their guard…" she murmurs. "You distributed all the photos you could get your hands on."
It's not your fault.
"I should have had them comb all our security footage."
His voice is quiet, grievous.
She turns her head then, and the motion-activated lights stutter on. He looks back at her.
"That's a Herculean task. It's not your job to track down criminals that might or might not even be in the city."
"In my hotel," he bites out. "Ten feet under the suite where my child lives."
Kathryn emailed them a few minutes before that she'd finally gotten ahold of Chuck and he was en route to the penthouse- that he'd gone willingly; asked to go- he was in the elevator, and the badge system successfully deactivated.
The anchor's voice dies in the middle of her sentence; she asks her audience to wait a moment, please, she's getting an update from the operation on the ground-
"Right under my nose," Bart murmurs, turning back to the television screen.
Yes- yes, she's just received confirmation that the NYPD has made contact with the suspect.
xiii.
Serena's sitting with her knees together, feet apart, in pajamas and peacoat with her duffel on the floor between her ankles as though her plan might still somehow work.
Bart's media room has numerous types of screens, most of which are hooked up to various surveillance footage systems and computer mainframes, controlled by a large flat control with color-coded buttons that the Van der Woodsens have no hope of understanding.
Thank God there's a normal big-screen television with a friendly-looking remote in the middle of one wall.
Erik's back is against her side, shoulder to shoulder, his legs stretched under his robe.
There's nothing new to report, so for now they're just watching the somewhat blotchy chopper feed from the news helicopter which, in a dark twist of irony, is flying up and down their very block, visible through the wall of windows at their backs.
"What were you going to do?" Erik says, finally.
Serena's arm doesn't stiffen; her breath doesn't catch.
She tilts and rests her ear against the back of his head, turning, nuzzling her cheek affectionately into his hair.
"Stop him."
He glances at the duffel.
"How, exactly?"
"I don't know," she whispers, lost. "But I had to try."
The anchor announces, choppily, and then repeats it because her audio feed is peppered with static: The NYPD's first order of business is to make sure the suspect has no one in the room with him who might be in danger, and that the rest of The Palace's guests are secure.
Erik reaches behind him, lifting his eyes back to the chopper feed. The guy, no more than a dark shape as he passes unknowingly through the camera's path of vision, is pacing, like an aggravated teenager arguing on the phone with strict parents.
Touches his sister's hair. "The only thing you need to do is not leave me."
Serena's head twitches up then, missing the raw moisture in her brother's words. "Did you hear that?"
xiv.
God, Chuck loves his father. He can't imagine loving another human being more than he loves his father.
If the man were here right now, he'd grab his face in between firm palms and kiss both cheeks.
He'd say, I love you for hating the noise of elevator chimes.
Stepping off the penthouse elevator, no Van der Woodsens in sight, just the dull drone of what he knows is the big-screen ensconced in the west wall of his father's media room. Stepsiblings ensconced before it, probably huddled together on the couch like a litter of puppies, if he knows anything about how they operate.
Through the foyer and up the stairs with no ding to announce his arrival; none the wiser.
Next he'd say, I love you for being obsessed with my mother.
Because his father never, never, not even when he knew his wayward son guessed correctly the combination to the safe, changed the passcode. All these years, no sequence of numbers could come to Bart Bass as quickly as those of his wife's birthday.
Maybe it's not too wishful to think he might have deliberately left his son with the ability to access what was inside, in case of an emergency. Trusted him, perhaps?
For an emergency just like this.
He shoves his hand into his left pocket, making sure there are no gloves or anything else that will take up room.
Then he'd say, I love you because you're always one step ahead.
There it is, waiting patiently.
And he's pretty sure (he knows his father, knows he wouldn't want to waste time if it were him in this position- if it were Lily), but checks anyway, because that would be most unfortunate-
Yes, it's already loaded.
Then he'd say, I love you for being a control freak.
Because The Palace is a fortress, really. In addition to the badges, there's a systemic security system that can be activated at any time from two boxes on every floor, from whose keypads the lights, sprinkler system, generator power and badge system can be manipulated.
These boxes are accessible via a 17-digit code that's changed every ten and a half hours, and presented to Bart on an index card, typed on an old-fashioned typewriter (in reverse order, for good measure) in a small sealed envelope that he keeps in his inside breast pocket.
It's all most elaborate, Bass-level attention to detail in every step of the procedure, layered intricacy like pairing a silk paisley ascot with a checked shirt under a pinstriped dinner jacket.
It's precisely why there are only four master key cards in existence: one is on Bart's person at all times, or within arm's reach; two are attached, with equal strictness, to the day and night managers of The Palace- Kathryn at night, and Xavier during the day.
The fourth is in the unassuming brown leather pouch, probably meant as a business card holder, that is- mercifully, yes, yes- still exactly where it ought to be.
At the back of the bottom drawer in the safe underneath Bart's passport and a memory card holding the passcodes to the hotel's surveillance mainframes, in case there should be any glitch on the various monitors in the media room in the floor below.
He took a gamble getting Kathryn to let him up here. There was no guarantee the master card would be here. He's not seen it, not looked for it, in years. But he banked on his father's neurotic thoroughness- one spare master key card, in case of, God forbid, anything- and that the man left it here, for him, in his moment of need, warms him with love.
He leaves the pouch empty on the top of the drawer's contents and pockets the revolver.
He's in such a hurry coming back down the stairs that he forgets to tiptoe, and Serena, who from the looks of it was heading away from the living room and back toward the media room, turns.
"Oh, thank God you're here," she heaves, hand coming to her heart. "Have you seen the feed-?"
He smiles, that smile he practiced, reassuring, you're not serious- of course not.
She doesn't move immediately, and when she realizes he's going for the elevator, it's too late.
"Chuck? Chuck!" Her voice sharpens as she starts to follow him, but the naked master key card is in his hand, and he double-taps it and it overrides the security system.
The elevator doors open with a soft whir.
"What are you doing?" She's coming after him now. He hears her footsteps check as he presses 17. He can almost see her glancing up the stairs to where he's just come from, wondering what on earth he was getting up there.
And how he got the elevator door to open.
"Chuck, what are you-"
And he'd say to his father: I love you for loathing indecision.
Serena lurches after him, coming into view now, and he double-taps the card again and the doors slide closed, and her blue eyes trace down from his smiling face to the coat he's wearing, inexplicably, indoors, to the hand that's still poised at the badge sensor, and then across, to the hand that's in his pocket, sort of, but not really, his fist enlarged and held oddly halfway out-
And she lunges forward like she can get between the doors, stop them, stop him, voice hurtling to a shriek-
"Chuck!"
And the doors slide closed, and it's silent, and he lets the smile go and leans his head back, and thinks he'd say to his father, I love you for being my father, because I am nothing if not your son.
xv.
He can't stop inserting the guy into every, single, solitary moment of peace he's had in The Palace.
Licking his lips, tracing Serena's bare legs as she leant her head on Chuck's shoulder at the bar last Saturday.
Studying the elegant lines of Lily's face as she wiped tears quietly over her glass of white on Monday night, right before Chuck got there.
Eyes roving over the demure sweep of Blair's cloche hat above her camel coat as she breezed through the lobby that early morning in December- no, he couldn't have been there then, he couldn't have- on her way up to his room, surprising him with a clang of the doorbell as he finished rinsing his toothbrush, a tortured groan in his throat when he put his hands up her navy skirt and found nothing- well, she murmured in his ear, his mouth on her neck, I would be wearing them, but in a cruel tragedy, they went missing yesterday- and he straightened in mock horror: oh, that's terrible. Are you doing all right?
No, he couldn't have been below them then, as they kissed their way toward his bed, Manhattan sky a cozy, promising indigo in the depths of Daylight Savings Time.
Bearing up. She attempted to keep her voice even while he went back to kissing her neck. Some pervert made off with them.
I'm sure he's just misunderstood, he chuckled, easing her onto her back and standing between her feet. Maybe he's some kind of alternative artist.
She squirmed, then, still in her coat, cheeks flushing, and hiked her legs up his back, then even further, feet draped over his shoulders- I have been called a work of art, she professed with a bright-eyed smirk that he returned, turning to kiss the insides of her ankles.
No, not then.
Not while they timed it because she had to meet Serena in eighteen minutes and they decided they could have sex twice without making her late.
Not while she threw him a condom as he went to pull away and find one, and he told her he was impressed, and she said, I only have one, and he smirked, rolling it on, yanking his shirt over his head with one hand, and said, no worries- I'm Chuck Bass.
The guy didn't exist then.
xvi.
He answers her call against his will. He's already ignored Serena's call twice.
"Are you seeing this?" It's almost not even words; it's barely more than a squeak.
"Yes," he lies easily. "You okay?"
"No," she bursts, angry. "He's- where are you? Are you in your room?"
"No," he tells her. "I'm safe. Don't worry about that."
His thumb strokes the trigger.
"Are you away from him?"
Sliding toward him as we speak.
"Yes. Upstairs." It's not quite a lie.
Her voice drops an octave. "They'll get him, right? They're- they're talking to him, but he's not cooperating and the reporter said he wasn't talking back anymore…"
"Definitely. Breathe," he counsels her, watching the pale yellow skip from circle to circle, a child hopping down stairs, illuminating where he is as the elevator glides to the seventeenth floor.
"He's alone in there," she murmurs, soft, like it was a real fear of hers that someone else was in the room with him. "He's not hurting anyone else. He won't." She's resolute.
I need to die. Can you help me with that?
So is he. "He won't."
No. He won't. (God, he loves his father.)
"I just want him to surrender, I just want…" She trails off and he pictures her, blinking as she takes it in, licking her lips.
He's not sure, when he asks himself later, whether he simply forgot, or whether he reasoned in some back corner of his mind that the elevator chimes on the lower floors would be turned off since they were running on generator power. But either way, the elevator creeps past the eighteenth floor- he gives a nod of solidarity to his suite- and settles on the seventeenth, and with a cheerful ding, the doors slide open.
"What was that?"
He can't see the way she pulls away from her father fully then.
He swallows and parts his lips. The doors will remain open as long as he needs; without a double-tap, or a remote summons from Kathryn, the elevator won't move. He stands rooted.
"Chuck? Where are you? Was that the elevator?"
"No," he lies, again, stepping forward gingerly like she might hear the sound of his trousers whispering as he moves.
"Like I don't know the sound of the elevators at The Palace," she retorts. "Oh, my God. Please tell me where you are?" She runs out of breath at the end.
"I'm… in the elevator," he replies. "I have to go, I'm going to lose service…"
He shuts his eyes as her protest pierces him.
"Chuck!"
He's really much fonder of hearing that floating up from underneath him, if he's being honest.
He steps off the elevator. "I told you I was helping."
She begins to pant now. "Not like this," she insists, and he can tell she's moving by the way her voice tightens- she's walking away from her staring parents across the room, though he can't see that. "Not like… what are you doing? You can't…"
"I was told room service won't bring me breakfast until this nonsense is over," he tries. "And I'm dying for a crab cake Benedict."
She completely ignores his attempt. "You don't-" Her voice breaks. She's starting to cry. "Please, you don't know what he's capable of. I – I do."
Maybe not, but he knows what he's capable of.
Rode hard and put away wet.
"I'll call you back," he promises at a whisper.
"No- no - they're negotiating with him." She's slipping into desperation now; he can hear her gulp for air, a slight twitch of vocal behind it, and knows she's hurting her rib by breathing too heavily.
"It'll be fine. It will be fine." He really should just close his phone.
"No…"
Her whimper dies with a suddenness, like someone cut off the line; but he hears an exclamation of a syllable from Eleanor in the background.
"Chuck." She grinds into the receiver through tears he knows are flowing now; can hear them. "Chuck, he…"
She gasps.
He can't see her, can't see how she's backing herself against a wall, sliding down until she meets the floor, holding up a hand to keep her parents from coming too close.
How her face crumples, for an instant, before she forces her eyes open.
It dies in her throat, but then she forces it out. "He has a gun, Chuck, he…"
He can't see how the guy brandishes it, pointing it right at the camera that he must know is there now; how the anchor goes silent for a few seconds, how the lens moves, how the barrel of the gun follows it.
He can't see how she covers her eyes, curling further into herself, tears dampening the neck of her sweater.
"He has a gun…"
He clenches his left fist tighter, stroking it like a lover.
He doesn't think enough before he brings the phone in front of his face, elevator doors still gaping open behind him, and puts against it and murmurs in her ear, hot and low, like he's done so many times- the name of the NYU frat guy Penelope blew at last week's rush party; what time he'll be over to scheme; BlairBlairBlair.
Somehow this feels as intimate as anything else: "I have a gun."
It's like he pulled a lung out of her chest and other one has to work double time. She's gasping, and he's made her gasp like this before, and he knows her lips are getting cold.
"You have to get away from there," she manages, close to the receiver too. "Please…this isn't the plan…"
"This was always the plan, one way or the other. But I have to improvise because I gave the sniper army the day off." The teasing is ill-timed and he knows it, but his bandwidth for negotiating is low at the moment.
She flares. "We have the sniper army. They're called the NYPD."
"Waldorf, I have to go." He squeezes the badge and finally takes a step, out of the elevator alcove.
"Chuck, please…" She sucks breath loudly through her lips. "Please…"
"I'll call you back," he tells her again. "I promise."
And he still can't hang up on her, so he drops the phone on the tufted velvet bench in the hallway.
xvii.
The always-choppy feed jerked and cut out at one point, and when it came back on the audio lagged the video by a second and a half.
And so it is that they see what happens before they hear the gun shot. Just one- muffled but satisfying.
In Brooklyn, Jenny jerks, burying her head in Dan's shoulder from where she peeked out a few seconds before. "Dan," she shrieks, panic spiking in her.
"It's okay," he manages, staring at the screen. It's not okay. "It's over." He clutches her head with both hands, presses his lips to the top of it.
In the penthouse of The Palace, two blonde Van der Woodsens were already straining backward on the sofa as though to put as much distance between themselves and it as possible.
"Oh, God." Erik grabs at Serena's elbow; her hand comes up to cover his.
"Come here," she murmurs, and opens her arms.
In the conference room of the Bass-owned office two blocks away, Lily jolts back and Bart reaches for her, drawing her close, hand on the back of her head curling her against him and turning her so she faces the screen over his shoulder, which could look odd if one were to think he was trying to force her to look at it. But really he's putting himself between death- in whatever form- and the woman he loves.
In the Waldorf penthouse, Eleanor, Harold and Dorota are all focused on Blair, curled as she is, spine smarting against the wall. She's the only one who sees. Her lips part, wordless, and they all turn at the sound of the gun shot.
"Oh, my God," Eleanor mutters, reaching for her hair. Harold reaches for the remote.
Dorota reaches for Blair. "Miss Blair, is not good for ribs-"
"Don't touch me," she grinds, breathless with pain.
And on the seventeenth floor, he quivers, ten feet from those four magic numbers, weapons ready in both hands, as the shot echoes around him.
xviii.
Blair must have ended the call, because his phone is disconnected.
It's lighting up as he approaches, though- Serena again; her call illuminates texts, also from her; another flashes up from Nate. He lets Serena go, snatching up his phone and sending her to voicemail.
The penthouse elevator is waiting for him.
He steps in and dials, double-tapping and pressing PH.
She answers without a word, breath hard and fast and ragged in his ear, and he imagines easing her to horizontal, climbing on top of her and bringing her back to earth by pressing his lips over hers, letting their noses touch. He thinks that would make her feel better. Wants to offer.
Instead what comes out is: "See? Much ado about nothing." Glib, dry, like when she makes too big a deal about the dressing on her salad being mixed in instead of on the side.
She doesn't respond, just gasps unevenly. She tries to take a deep breath, but it cuts off in the middle and she begins coughing, dry and with whimpering peppered between.
"Blair?"
He looks around, uneasy at the sound of her struggling to draw breath to choke back out.
"I c…"
The coughing subsides, but she doesn't catch her breath.
Finally, she manages: "Safe?"
"Yes," he replies at once, not caring if she means her or him.
"I…"
But she can't get the words out. This isn't coughing now. His heart beats harder and fiercer for her than it has been with adrenaline all this time.
"Breathe," he tries again, hearing the rising voices of the Waldorfs and Dorota in the background.
"C… can you come over?"
"I- we're locked down, still- after?"
She tries to slow her gasping, but only succeeds for a few breaths. "As soon as you can?"
"Yes." He nods, watching the numbers skip back up the staircase.
He doesn't see how she flushes, lips darkening (or cheeks paling?) as Dorota moves in without waiting for permission this time, Harold on her other side and Eleanor grabbing for a pillow to brace against her daughter's broken ribs as they were told to do.
"Promise," she mutters under her breath.
"Promise."
She hangs up as she's gingerly lifted to standing, three adults around her, Harold's tears spilling over- mon ami, mon ami - phone lighting up in her fist with Nate and Serena, and lifted, limp and gasping, to be laid on the sofa against the adjacent wall, chenille throw pulled up to her neck.
The chopper feed is long dead when, The Palace still locked down, Kathryn hands over her master key card and sends a team of detectives and medical professionals to lift another body, silent and oozing, onto a stretcher, zipping a shroud up over his head.