Split the Skin and Bleed Again

It felt extremely different to be in the police station alone, no coffee to warm her hands and no soulmate to sit at her side. She'd let Barry know that Montez had wanted to meet with her but being stuck at work until 9 that night meant he nor the others would be able to come with her this time. Left

to sit alone in wait, her fingers tapped at her thighs or pulled her phone out to look at it with expectation of seeing something waiting for her.

"Iris?"

Unable to control her reflex, Iris jumped in place as she turned to look at the officer in front of her. He offered a soft smile to try and soothe her momentary fear, but her heart continued to hammer in her chest. "Office Montez," she breathed out. "Sorry, my nerves are a bit-"

"No worries, Iris. Why don't you come on back and we'll get you settled at my desk. Can I get you a coffee?"

Rising from her place, she tucked her phone back into her pocket and followed behind the familiar cop as he led her from the waiting area. "No, thank you though. I don't think I need more caffeine to make me more jittery than I already am," she smiled to ease the reality of her words, but Montez could see that she was shaking and looked incredibly tense even just from sitting in the waiting area.

"Have a seat, hun. I'm just going to go and grab the file we started after the incident at the store," he directed quietly, motioning to the chair next to his desk while he diverted off his path to head to a back room. Iris did as he said and settled into the uncomfortable plastic chair, fingers beginning to pick at the edge of her coat.

It had been a slower start to the day for her, Barry lingering around for as long as he could before heading home to prepare for work. They'd enjoyed their coffees and she had made them a late breakfast. As Barry had been cleaning up, his insistence since she had cooked, Iris had called the number Montez had left with Barry. Once she had explained what had happened, he had arranged for them to meet as soon as she was able to come in. The anti-mark group had been causing more and more issues lately, but for them to be targeting someone directly was an increased concern.

Barry had his back to her while she was on the phone, but she could see the way his back tensed and his arms locked up when she had been retelling what happened. He hadn't known the full extent of what took place—only what BT had told him—so it caused his rage at her father to come alive again. This woman deserved the biggest break in the world, but it seemed they weren't done with torturing her yet.

She looked up around the office to try and distract herself, taking in the other few officers and detectives that occupied the space as they were doing their own work.

A young man, a teenager if she was to guess, was sitting at another desk in the pen that had a dark glare on his face as he looked at the floor in front of his feet. The way he looked down at the floor with such disdain made it look like all of the hatred in the world was carried within that gaze.

Iris looked away quickly before he could glance up. Tension was already high within her; she didn't need the additional anxiety caused by a troubled youth that already looked so angry and hateful.

Montez reclaimed his seat across from her before she could spiral further into her own fears and anxiety, flipping open the manilla folder that had her name tagged along the edge. Try as she might, the younger couldn't stop herself from jolting slightly at his sudden reappearance. Montez looked up with a slightly wide-eyed look at her reaction, before his gaze softened and he offered a soft and reassuring smile.

"Sorry," she mumbled before she could stop herself. Apologizing had once been so commonplace for her; fear immediately drew that urge to the surface.

He only shook his head. "Nothing to be sorry for. So, why don't you tell me about this concerning phone call you received that bring you in."

Montez was patient, watched as she swallowed thickly with her gaze fixated on the desktop. "My parents are unmarked," she started, keeping her tone low but still enough for him to catch her words. "They always had me hide my marks when I was younger. Even after I left home, it stuck for a long time. I know if they reacted badly to my marks, there would be others. It's been years since I've seen them, but when I met one of my soulmates, I stopped worrying so much about hiding them." She took a moment to pause, glancing up to meet Montez's gaze. If he had any thoughts on her revelation about multiple marks, he gave no outward reaction. "My father found out where I lived and he taped a note to my apartment door, telling me to cover my marks. There was also a voicemail, but I deleted that.

"I received a call from a private number. The man introduced himself as someone who worked for Mark Sans, and he had a message for me from Howard. My father's name is Howard Mayfair."

Iris was nervously scratching her nail along her thigh, following the fine grooves in her jeans. Not quite sure where to look, she found herself staring at Montez's hands as he sat with them calmly steepled atop her file.

"What was the message?" he prompted after she remained silent for a moment. The thickened tone of his voice caused her to look up and see that any softened or soothing appearance in his eyes was gone. The mention of Mark Sans had immediately shifted the man's reaction from comforting concern to acute, professional focus.

Iris shook her head. "I panicked and hung up before he could get another word out. The second I heard the name it all clicked, and I remembered hearing about the anti-mark people using Mark Sans as a type of alias. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, Iris, don't be worry," he soothed, reaching out to gently pat her knee before he pulled up a legal pad that was filled with messily written notes. Tearing away the top page, he turned the now blank surface over to her. "I need you to write down everything you can remember, okay? From the note, the voicemail, the phone call. Even if you could hear an accent in the man's voice, if it was deep or high, anything."

Nodding along, Iris accepted the pen he offered as well, shuffling to the edge of her chair so she wasn't so far from the desk while writing.

The shaking of her hands must have been more obvious than she realized because he stopped her short of pen touching paper, cupping her hand between his to stop the shakes. "Take as long as you need. I'm going to go get some more paperwork that I'll need. Are you sure I can't get you a glass of water? Or a tea? I know we've got some green tea in the break room."

Iris smiled faintly. "Just a water. Thank you."

Taking the time to write everything down, dredging up what she'd much rather have kept compressed and forgotten, was like pulling scabs off of fresh wounds.

As painful of a process as it was turning out to be, she made sure to put down every single piece of information that came to mind. She could vividly remember the sound of the paper crunched in her hand once she'd ripped it off her door, the sound of her father's voice hissing at her, enraged, through her voicemail. It felt like she was writing down one of her nightmares, but this was an unfortunate reality.

Montez rejoined her, a glass of water placed in front of her, but without a word. Although she nodded her thanks, nothing was said as they fell into companionable silence to work through their given papers. Her writing became somewhat illegible a couple times, recounting the events causing her hand to tremble no matter how hard she worked to keep it steady.

She sipped periodically at the glass of water, giving her hands time to rest and her heartbeat to calm.

Several pages were filled by the time she came up to present time, finishing with the details from her phone call at work. Braving the consequences, she included that she has several soulmates (though not stating the exact number) and had been targeted by anti-markers many times.

Thinking of her soulmates made her wish they were here with her, even just told sit next to her in silent support. Maybe even hold her hand.

Instead, she got a text from Barry once he reached his break at work.

Remember to breathe, Sweetheart. Love you.

It helped her to get through the last pages.

Montez never rushed her, even when she had to sit and take a moment to do as Barry said and breathe. Once she was finally finished and offered the pages to him, her name and signature sitting at the bottom.

"You doin' okay?" he asked calmly. She must have been quite the sight, obviously rattled.

"No," she answered with complete honesty. "At least not right now," she clarified after a moment. He gave an assuring smile in return while taking the pages from her and tucking them into her existing file. "Is there anything else I need to do or…"

"No, you're all set. Go take a nice bath or something, just relax. We'll get this sorted out."

It was times like this that she wished she had a bathtub, but her small little shower would have to do. Instead, she just nodded and offered a tight-lipped smile while gathering her meagre belongings. No one else spared her a glance as she left except for the officer that released her back into the waiting area. It was little more than an hour that she had been sitting there, but it felt like a lifetime since she'd stepped back into that building.

She never expected to be spending so much time in the police station. It wasn't exactly a place she'd frequented at any point in her life, but it seemed that it would be a constant in her near future.

Taking a stop at the café where she was steadily becoming a regular, Iris took the time to send a text back to Barry while she was waiting for her tea and muffin.

"Here you go, hun!" the older woman behind the counter offered with a bright smile, the joy she exuded helping to calm Iris's nerves a bit. "Have a great day."

"You, too," Iris returned in a much more subdued tone, but her smile was authentic as she accepted her drink and snack.

Admittedly, thinking back to and writing down what had happened made her hesitate as she left the stairwell of her building—peeking at her door to make sure there wasn't a note taped to it. She took a deep, steadying breath while leaving the odd-comfort of the stairwell door—her escape route, she realized belatedly.

It didn't stop her from squeezing her way into her apartment at lightning speed and immediately locking the door behind her.

Securely inside the safety of her small, enclosed apartment allowed the weight to finally lift off of her chest. It had started to grow there while she was in the station with Montez but stepping out into the open street, where she couldn't keep track of everyone around her, had the anxiety of the unknown putting a stranglehold on her chest.

Whenever she feels like she's improving, getting more accustomed to being herself, being free, she seems to take ten steps back as well.

Stripping off her outerwear and putting her muffin and coffee on her nightstand, Iris bunched her pillows into a semi-circle and grabbed her most recent book. Wanting to leave behind stress and responsibility for a while, it was a sci-fi novel instead of her usual non-fiction or textbook. It was a treat and a welcome break from her reality, sucking her into a whimsical, impossible world instead.

With her cellphone close by for any possible messages from her soulmates, Iris cuddled down amongst her pillows and duvet. Her tea and muffin warmed and filled her, helping her to better enjoy the fantastical novel that had recently come into the store.

The coffee worked well to keep her awake, since the comfortable position and the leisurely reading would have otherwise made her drowsy. She had neared the end of the novel by the time her phone began buzzing away, Kevin's name coming up on the screen.

With quick, practiced ease she stashed her bookmark back between the pages and had scooped up the slim device.

"Good evening," she greeted softly, subconsciously wanting to keep the quiet ambience of the apartment.

"Hello, Sweetheart. I didn't wake you, did I?" He was keeping his tone a bit low, and Iris could hear others speaking in the background; he was probably still in the staff room at work.

Iris sank back into her pillows and drew her knees up toward her chest. "No, no, just enjoying a book. I was way too jittery to sleep anyway. How was work?"

"Same old stuff, kids pulling stupid pranks and such." She could hear the exhaustion in his voice and her heart went out to him. Not that she had any way of gauging what his normal was before, but she knew that since they had met, he and her other soulmates had lost out on so much of their needed sleep. "Have you had dinner yet?"

Iris jolted, realizing that it had been hours since she'd eaten last. Apparently, the book had done a better job than she realized to distract her. "Oh, no, I honestly didn't even realize the time!"

Barry's soothing voice chuckled low into her ear. "How 'bout I grab something and swing by? Quiet evening in?"

The thought of him coming over caused a now-familiar fluttering sensation in her stomach. "I'd love that. But only if you're sure! I feel bad making you come all the way here when you could just go straight home."

"Don't even worry about that, Sweetheart," he soothed. "But if it makes you feel better, one of the guys was talking about getting some food on his way home, he offered to give me a ride. But that means he's picking dinner; Thai sound good?"

She smiled to herself. "I'll admit, that does make me feel better. However, I've never actually had Thai, but I'd be happy to give it a try."

"Really? You've never had Thai before?" Barry asked in genuine surprise. She had a feeling it was because there was a very highly recommended Thai place just down the street from where she worked.

"What?" a voice gasped in the background of the call. She wasn't sure what happened following the gasp, but she assumed Barry must have given the accidental eavesdropper a look because a soft 'sorry' came through a moment later. She could help but to giggle at the chastised sound of the other man's voice.

"Thai it is. I'll see you in a bit, love."

"See you soon, Barry."

Once she'd hung up, Iris jumped from her little nest of pillows and began to simple and quick task of tidying up her apartment. It was probably a moot concern by that point, but she still felt the need to put her best foot forward. It was the same reason she brushed her hair and teeth as well, giving a bit of effort in her appearance after having gone to the station looking barely more improved than someone just out of bed.

Her last job was to neaten her bed since she had made quite the mess of it while using her pillows as a reading nest for the past several hours.