Valentine's Day

Rachel Lindt/ Bitch

February 14th, 2013

I don’t like this room.

I think that’s the point of it, it’s tight and cramped and it’s too gray but that’s the point. It’s supposed to be nice to be in, it’s supposed to make me antsy, supposed to make me easier to read for the cameras.

Knowing that doesn’t change anything. I don’t like this room.

It’s a holding cell.

I don’t think the other Undersiders would call it that. I think Diane, Victoria, Amy, all the ones that were PRT or whatever the fuck before coming to us would probably call it something stupid, a Master/Stranger Quarantine.

Some of them would be more honest, Chrissie, Trevor, and Ray would probably call it a prison. It doesn’t matter what the fuck you call it though.

It’s still cramped. I hate it. I can stand up and touch either wall with just a bit of leaning. The bed in here isn’t big enough for me and if I sat in the chair in here, my knees would bump against the corner of it or the wall.

I hate it… but it’s the only place in the tower that will actually hold me if I’m fucked in the head.

It used to be one of Ubermensch’s cells, before Heartbreaker made him into a zombie.The walls are thick enough, made of some Tinker shit, that even if I tried to bust it down, I wouldn’t make a dent.

The others are probably in similar cells but I know they aren’t anywhere near me.

Codependency. That’s the shit Diane called it when we made it back to the tower, she said she didn’t want any of us to be codependent and that the best way to keep us not that was to lock us up far away.

I think we’re all still in the Tower though, with how bad shit’s going to get with Heartbreaker’s thralls, it wouldn’t be safe to put us all over the city. If I were betting, I’d say Lisa’s probably locked in her room upstairs, maybe with Imp to make sure she doesn’t do anything. Taylor’s probably in the basement, away from the bugs in her jar. Brian… he might be far away actually, I don’t think we’ve got anything to hold him.

Maybe he’s in Shatterbird’s old cell.

My knuckles are still itching from the fight I just had.

I don’t think the others are gonna think I’m normal after what I did. I didn’t have to be as brutal as I was, I shouldn’t have been as brutal as I was. I just… I was angry, I was so damn tired and when the Horsemen tried to fight me I just saw red.

That’s no excuse though, even if I could've killed them, I should’ve just done that. I didn’t need to do what I did. Maybe killing them would’ve been worse, would’ve…. I can’t remember the word but it’s the thing Taylor usually does, stepping the game up.

I snort, taking a seat on the bed and putting my knees up to my chest. I did her job for her already, maybe not as bad as what she would’ve done but I doubt the Horsemen see it that way.

The second Grue and I made it to the fight, most of them started running away, the few dumb enough to stay were either taken down by him or one of the Heartbroken. But I got my chance to fight one of them, even if it wasn’t much of a fight.

Death is supposed to be one of the stronger Horsemen. Maybe if he was fighting someone else, I would’ve seen that but his power didn’t do shit to me. He’s a Striker/ Shaker, his power acting like an aura around him that gets stronger on skin contact.

He’s able to age things, even living things. The effects are permanent too. He can make things rust into dust, make people old and gray and needing to serve him if they want their youth back. He’s a creepy fuck like that, making some woman’s child a twenty five year old with a kid’s head, make her serve him if she wants her kid back.

He’s a bastard and according to Lisa, a lot like Coil. He might give back the years some of the time but mostly, he strings people along.

He’s dangerous to fight up close but not for me.

I thought my power just made me and my dogs bigger, that the muscle and bone I made was just that and according to the samples Lisa looked at, that’s all they are. But to powers, the shit I make is different.

It’s the same reason Alec could never make my dogs twitch or why Amy can’t affect me or my pack when we’re grown. The muscle I make is dead, the bones too. Death’s power worked on objects and living flesh but when I grew to be ten feet tall, I was neither.

He tried to kill me, said some stupid thing about how I was his in, that if he fucked me up, the Undersiders would do whatever he wants. His power works through his hands better than anything else and when he tried to grab me, tried to make some old woman he could kill, I took both of his arms.

I didn’t need to. I know I didn’t.

But I did anyway.

This room is cramped and I hate it but remembering the way he screamed, the way he rolled on the floor and shouted before he went unconscious… I liked it. He was a bastard, a horrible fucker that used his powers to manipulate people, make them his slaves. I didn’t get a chance to hurt Heartbreaker and I took that out on him.

I don’t think he died, Amy wasn’t too far away and with Lisa saying his power was off when he was unconscious, I think she could’ve healed him.

Then again… maybe she was smart enough not to.

The thought of that fucker dying, even if it meant fucking over all the people he manipulated… it’s a good thing to think about. It makes the room feel less cramped.

Most powers don’t go away when the cape dies, most stay long after they’re dead but maybe I got lucky, maybe his is the kind he needed to keep focus on for it to stay, maybe the Horsemen are down members they can’t force into staying.

Maybe.

But I doubt it. That’s a constant in my life, if I want things to go right, I should be prepared when they don’t.

Still, the way he screamed, shook his head in fear when I had my hands on his elbows… it makes me smile.

I wipe the grin off my face when I hear something outside, footsteps I think. I try not to look at the door, I know that if the guy watching me through the camera sees anything funny, the others will probably wait to talk to me.

This cell was designed for Ubermensch and that shows in the gaps. He couldn’t hear like I can, he couldn’t smell like I can, my senses are at their peak, beyond what a normal person can understand.

That’s just one of my perks I guess, the only Undersider brave enough to let Amy fuck around with my DNA.

The door in front of me clicks, the heavy bits inside of it shifting loud enough that I think it’s okay to look at.

It swings open slowly, the hydraulics on it are strong but I don’t think anything no-Tinkertech can lift up that much metal quickly.

It takes about ten seconds to open fully and when it does, I see that Diane is standing in the doorway, wearing a pair of thin glasses, a dark green sweater and a pair of pants that make my eyes raise. It’s not that they’re short or the wrong color or anything like that, it’s the fact that they’re pants that surprise me.

Since Amy made her a girl— sorry, since Diane transitioned— she doesn’t usually wear pants. Most of the time, she’s wearing a long dress or a skirt or something flowy, something that guys aren’t supposed to wear. I remember Alec made a joke about it but I can’t remember how it went.

“Hey Rachel,” she greets. She’s tired, I can tell by the bags under her eyes and the sag of her shoulders. Even still, she’s trying her best to be nice. I snort as I wave to her. She’s just like when she was a Ward, a goody two shoes. “I figured you would want to stretch your legs—” she turns a bit, gesturing to the hallway with one hand. “—do you—”

“No.” I answer and when she looks into my eyes, I sigh. I might not be the smartest but I’m not dumb, I can see a test when it’s this obvious. “This room is the only place you guys can keep me, if I step out there, the guards will probably tranq me before I can get big.”

Something sounds from either side of the door, the sounds of shifting metal, gun parts clinking together. I close my eyes and focus entirely on my ears, smiling a bit when I hear a pair of heartbeats pick up speed.

“Sorry,” Diane apologizes and steps into my cell, the door closing behind her as she takes the chair. Her legs are thin enough that they don’t bump the bed as she smiles, the door clicking closed as she speaks. “Just been… a long day but I have to do these tests, y’know?”

I grunt. I know she has to do them, I know it’s necessary and that if she didn’t do them right, she might accidentally let out people that aren’t supposed to be out. Diane is quiet for a few seconds and when I look at her, I see that her eyes are scanning me, darting all over my body as she looks for something I can’t see.

“I never got a good look at the fucker,” I tell her, leaning back a bit until my back hits the wall. “He never got a good look at me either.” She nods at me but when she doesn’t say anything, I try to fill the silence with more information. “I got hit by a lot of other shit though but Lisa says that none of it was permanent.”

“Thank you,” Diane acknowledges me but her voice is a bit tight, she doesn’t believe me. “It’s not that I don’t believe you or what Lisa told you—” fucking hate Thinker mind reading, “—but you have to understand, until I give the all clear, everything you tell me is unverifiable and even if Lisa is clean of any influence that doesn’t mean you are too.”

I grunt again, just like everything today, everybody’s making good points, shit that makes sense no matter how you look at it and it still pisses me off.

“If you and the others had gone with—” I start and the sheets are balled up in my hands before I realize what I’m doing. “—you wouldn’t have to do this fucking evaluation, we would’ve been in and out, that bastard would’ve died so much quicker and—”

“I’m sorry?” Diane interrupts me and for a second, I think she’s gonna be pissed, like she was the night we ran from the tower but instead, when I look up, I see that she’s just surprised. “You said he’s—- that you were successful? That Heartbreaker is… dead? You killed him?”

“Yeah,” I answer, tilting my head, Why the fuck would we come back if we didn’t finish the job we left for. “We killed him, Brian killed him I mean. We had a few fights with some of his kids after that but we mostly got it calmed down.”

Diane doesn’t say anything for almost a minute, her hair falls out from behind her ears in wild black curls. Her glasses fall a bit too and looking at them just reminds me why Diane is floored.

“She— Lisa…” Diane sits up, tucking her hair away and pushing her glasses back up her nose, the light in here making them too dark to see through. “She told you something I’m betting.”

“That you’re one of his kids?” I ask and when Diane flinches a bit, I turn my head away, trying to tell her that who she is no big deal.

“Yes… that.” Diane sits up a bit straighter, her own eyes turning to the thick door. “Nikos Vasil is my biological father, he and my mother met long before she knew my actual father and… to be honest, I think he forgot about her, the plan she told me he had for the Stansfield fortune. It… I don’t know whether it was his DNA or the brief amount of contact we had in my mother’s womb that gave me my powers but… yes. Technically speaking, I am his daughter.”

There’s a long awkward moment of silence hanging between us and I wish I knew how to break it without coming off as an asshole. I don’t know what to say. Her being Nikos’ kid doesn’t mean shit to me, the two never really met, he didn’t fuck her up like he fucked up the others. But saying that might be the wrong move, might make it seem like the shit she has gone through doesn’t matter.

I know it’s a big deal, I remember being surprised when Lisa told us on the drive back, when she found some old file on Nikos’ computer. It was a surprise then, I hadn’t realized how similar she and Alec had looked until that moment but when Lisa gave the all clear it became… I don’t know. It didn’t matter as much.

“Anyway,” 

Thank fucking god.

“Lisa shared some other information I imagine,” Diane changes the subject and I look back at her, finding her eyes to be a lot harder than before. “Something that justifies attacking Crucible.”

Her question reminds me of that. We had just gotten done fighting the Horsemen, Death’s arms were still in my hands when I turned around to look at the rest of the fight.

Everyone was there, most of the Undersiders, Blasto, a few independents and him. To be honest, I never liked Alexi. I know that’s not fair to him, it’s not his fault his power freaked me out and it’s definitely not his fault what happened to him.

But still, Heartbreaker was more prepared for us than he should’ve been. Lisa confirmed it after we put the bastard down. It didn’t make sense that all of his children were at his house, according to the shit Lisa dug up, he almost always had half of them away on jobs.

He wasn’t prepared like someone who actually gives a shit should’ve been but still, it would've been easier than it was. And that’s because somebody warned him we were coming.

The memory of that still pisses me off and I almost let myself grow before I think better of it, there’s sprays on the ceiling that will lock me up in foam if I let my power out.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him that bad.” I apologize, remembering how his ribcage shattered when I grabbed him in the dark. “I… he wasn’t himself. Lisa was wrong, Heartbreaker didn’t just get to us, he got to Alexi too, made him a slave. He helped make things worse between Alec and us, made Alec go out to fight so he was away from us, fed Heartbreaker information, he… he should be fine if Fullstop hits him with her power. But he… his power was dangerous Diane. I had to take him down fast.”

The reason I give is weird to my ears. It is and isn’t enough. I needed to take him down, I wouldn’t change that but how I did it… I shouldn’t have hit him so hard, it’s a fucking miracle he’s still alive.

“I’m sorry,” Diane snaps me out of my thoughts and her eyes dart all over me, looking for any lies. “You’re saying that Alexi was compromised too? But I… no, I would’ve…”

She trails off, her jaw opening just a little bit as her legs slouch. She’s realizing it now. I asked Lisa the same question when she told us what that bastard had done to Alexi, why hadn’t Diane seen it?

It’s because Heartbreaker knew what Gallant can do, he put suggestions in Alexi’s head, the same kind he put in ours, to stay away from her, to only talk to her on the phone and never in person.

“That night you left…” Diane gulps, “That was the first time I saw Alexi in a whole year. He seemed normal, he… I didn’t get a good look at him. I thought he was just nervous as the newest Undersider but…”

“Yeah,” I fill in the blank.

“Did…” Diane’s voice sounds a little far away but after she clears he throat, it comes back twice as stern. “Did Lisa say anything else about potential spies.”

I shrug, trying to remember what she told me.

“Not anymore capes,” I answer, remembering that. “She said something about a list of nonpowered ones but I think there’s only two of those in our network, people high up but don’t interact with you. I don’t know their names, you’ll have to ask Lisa for that.”

“I’ll have to ask her about it,” she nods and then clears her throat, ready to ask me another question. “With Heartbreaker dead, do you think his thralls will come after us? How prepared should we be?”

“We’ll be fine,” I answer, remembering that first day after we killed the bastard. “Lisa got into his network, sent out a shitload of messages from his computer, told most of them that he wasn’t really dead and promised he’d return in a few decades.”

“And you think that'll be enough?” Diane asks and I can tell by her tone that she doesn’t think so.

“No,” I shake my head. “It’ll work for some of them, maybe half will believe it and stay quiet but the other half… Lisa thinks Heartbreaker fucked them up too bad, they’ll believe it for a while, maybe a month or two but they’re unstable. Eventually they’re gonna snap.”

The news isn’t great and in the back of my head, I can’t help but think about how shitty it’s gonna be for everyone. Heartbreaker didn’t keep a list of everyone he infected, probably figured that if anyone ever found it, he’d lose the leverage that kept him alive for so long.

Lisa didn’t even know how many of them were out there, most of them are in North America but some are in Europe. The number is… I don’t remember it exactly but it’s big, probably close to two hundred thousand people and even with only half of them ready to start killing… it’s gonna be a bloodbath.

Some will just start killing, they’ll start with their families and then move on to their neighbors or until somebody puts them down but others… there’s gonna be at least a fifth of those that will play it smart, wait until they’re able to kill a lot of people all in one go. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how they do it, we’re probably looking at least a million or two dying, like when the Simurgh first dropped down.

“That…” Diane swallows thickly and looks down at the floor, mumbling something under her breath before her head snaps up. “How many of them will be able to connect his death with the Undersiders?”

Diane’s question makes my mind fall short. I hadn’t actually thought about that. Mostly because I wasn’t really worried.

“Why are you asking me?” I answer her question with one of my own. “I don’t worry about shit like that, I’m just muscle. That’s all.”

“I—” Diane pauses and tilts her head at me. “I think that’s remarkably self depreciating, you know you’re not just the muscle, your opinions and ideas are valued by—” she sighs, the usual Gallant schtick falling off as she remembers what she’s supposed to be doing. “I— we’ll get back to that. I’m asking you though because I’m going to be asking everyone and I want to see if there’s consistency.”

I guess that’s a good enough reason.

“I don’t know how many are going to come after us,” I answer, turning a bit to look Diane in the eyes. “Probably half of the unstable ones are gonna think it was a cape that did him in, maybe half of those are smart enough to find out which ones, but I don’t think we’ve got anyone to worry about.”

Diane hums when I answer her and I bet if she had a clipboard, she’d be writing this down.

“Okay,” she places her hands on her lap, smiling faintly. “We have a lot more to discuss but if you don’t mind, could you start when you and the others left the tower?”

I tell her everything she needs to know, I tell her that we had to fight Trevor out in the woods, that I was the one who left him stranded in a suit too heavy to lift. I don’t regret doing what I did but I do regret how I went about it.

He just wanted to help, all of them just wanted to help but we… we should’ve— no. What we did was what we had to, They were in our way and if I had to do it again, I’d be okay with that.

I tell her that the trip there was some of the worst days of my life, that I was exhausted but I couldn’t sleep, that the nightmares were getting worse, that every second we were away from Alec was like poison and that I think I was going insane.

I tell her that when we actually got there, it might’ve been the hardest fight of my life. No one there was able to physically hurt me but they didn’t need to do that themselves, they slowed me down, bogged my head, confused my senses. By the end of it, I was scared, angry, sad, desperate and when I was finally able to snap out of it, I was full of holes.

That’s how the next hour goes, I tell her what I think she needs to know, she asks maybe a dozen questions about it and then I move on to the next thing. It’s… it’s not nice to be drilled on this shit and after today, I’m hoping that I can put all of this shit into a locked box in my head and never open it.

“And…” I fall to the bed, the words literally exhausting me. “That’s about it, after that, we packed up, took the Heartbroken that wanted to come with, and made our way back here. Nothing happened on the way, at least, nothing I had to deal with.”

I close my eyes and when some of the light from above still gets into them, I put my arm over my face. There’s a good few seconds where I expect Diane to leave but the door doesn’t open and she doesn’t say goodbye.

“Why are you still here?” I ask, trying not to growl. I already spilled my fucking guts, what else could she fucking want?

Diane doesn’t answer immediately, instead she does that weird clicky thing with her tongue. It’s the same shit Victoria and Amy do when they aren’t sure what to say.

“I… I’m going to be interviewing everyone today, both you and the other Undersiders but also the Heartbroken. I think I wouldn’t be a good teammate if I just stopped with the official questions.”

“Uh huh.” I sit up, the crappy bed creaking underneath me as I rub at my eyes.. “And what do you wanna ask?”

“How are you doing?” Her question comes a lot quicker than I expected and for a second I’m stunned.

“The fuck do you mean?” I ask back, angry enough that I almost snarl. “Can’t you tell?”

It’s a stupid fucking question, most of the ones anyone asks me are stupid fucking questions but this one is especially fucking stupid. She can actually see how I’m doing with just a fucking glance, the fuck does she need me to spell out something she can tell?

“I can,” Diane answers me and it pisses me off that she isn’t afraid, her heart hasn’t picked up at all despite being locked in a room with me. Can’t she tell I’m mad? Can’t she tell I’m too fucking angry to— “But I find that actually talking it out, can help. So, let’s talk. How are you doing?”

Before I can say anything, she puts her hands up again, palms out in front of her and her voice gentler.

“Before we begin, I want you to know… I know we’re not exactly close so if you need me to leave, if you don’t want to talk right now or if you don’t feel like you can talk to me, I can go.” she gestures to the door and I can tell in her voice that she means it.

And she’s right.

I don’t know her very well, even though she was one of the first Undersiders to join up after Leviathan, she and I aren’t close. She might’ve helped out here and there, shoveled shit in my shelters before we had people on our payroll, but I still can’t say if we’re friends or not.

I like her, I guess. She watched some movies with us when the team was more grouped up and she hosted the Halloween party but still. I don’t know her well enough for this.

But… the anger in me, on the tip of my tongue, it wants to form into words. I need to tell someone.

The anger trips into something else, something that makes me chuckle as I lean my shoulder on to the wall, my eyes settling on a random tile. 

“Honestly?” I shrug but it isn’t real. “I’m worried.”

The words don’t surprise me, I’ve known about this shit since the second we had Heartbreaker dead on the floor.

“What are you worried about Rachel?” Diane’s trying to be nice but it doesn’t make me any less angry, any less worried, any less… afraid.  

“Alec…” I answer and draw my knees up, wishing I had any of my dogs here with me. “He… I told you, he second triggered.”

Diane lets the words hang for a bit and I hug my knees, knowing that she wants me to keep talking but I can’t. I don’t know what to talk about, I don’t know if I can keep going. I try anyway.

“He…” I gulp. The words feel like mud in my throat, clogging it up. I swallow and there’s still enough of it that my voice sounds wet when I continue. “He second triggered, Diane. He… that’s the same shit that happened to Brian, the shit that made him… change. He was so alone then, terrified and afraid and the only person he reached out to for a while was Taylor and… it took years to get Brian back to where he is now and it’s still hard on him to see any blood.”

Diane stays quiet but this time, the words just keep coming out. Before it felt like I couldn’t get them out but now it feels like I can’t get them in.

“That shit… that horrible shit, it… it changed him. But we were there, we did what we could, we let him cool off when he needed to, talked to him when he could talk back but… Alec. We left him alone. We left him alone for almost a year. A year with that fucker, turning his mind to fucking mush and—”

Something in my voice snaps like a twig, my voice coming out like a fucking girl’s.

“I don’t know how to help him. I-I don’t know if I can help him. I just want him to be okay, I want to fucking fix this however I can but— but—” It cracks again, turning into a meaningless cry as I squeeze my knees to my chest.  “I don’t know how. I just— why didn’t I help him before? My dogs… fuck, my dogs probably still hate him, they— Fullstop can fix them but fuck— I trusted them before I trusted him and—”

It’s all meaningless, I can’t hold on to any thought long enough to say it before it changes. I just keep crying, my hands ripping at my jeans, my vision going fucking blurry, my breath coming out like hiccups.

I don’t know how long I go on like that but I know eventually, something in my head turns solid enough that I can focus on it. The crying stops and the anger gets hotter.

“I fucking hate myself.”

My words finally get Diane to speak up, she tries to interrupt me, tries to do her hero shit and tell me that I’m not all bad but I just bulldoze over it.

“I fucking hate myself. He… I hurt him so much. He came to me, he needed my help and I told him to fuck off. He tried to help me, he picked up dog shit, just to be near to me, just to feel like we weren’t stepping on him and what did I do? I fucking spat on him, I told him to go and I—”

“It’s because there’s nothing inside of you, no hate, no love, nothing. You’re sad and empty and if we died today you wouldn’t have even cared.”

The memory of what I said creeps up on me like a mugger, sticking a knife in my brain as my sobs break through the rage.

“I said he wasn’t a person. The one time he actually tried to fight back and I— and I—” I hold in the cry, the sound turning into a whimper against my lips as I shut my eyes tight. “I said he wasn’t real, I said there was nothing in him, that the shit we did… he didn’t deserve to be angry about it.”

Diane lets the words sit again but they feel like acid against the air, burning it down and sizzling with something sad. 

“It’s because of me… I did that to him, I’m the one who made him hurt the most, I’m fucking sure of it. I.. what do I do?”

The silence tries to stretch again but this time I don’t let it, I lift my head up to stare at the girl in front of me. Her face is stone cold, impassive, fucking emotionless and… the eyes. They’re just like Alec’s, not because they’re blue but because of the… I don’t know what to call it but they’re the same, for just this second, they’re both… haunted.

“What do I do?” I ask Diane again, looking into her eyes just as she blinks, the emptiness filling up as she takes a breath. “What the fuck do I do to make this shit better?”

“The road to fixing this…” Diane starts before she sighs. “It’s not an easy one.”

“It never is,” I nod. “But I’ll do it, I’ll fucking do whatever it takes to—”

“It isn’t your fault,” Diane interrupts me and when her words actually hit me, I tilt my head, ready to tell her that’s a lie when she cuts me off again. “It isn’t. That’s the first step Rachel. You need to internalize that the things that happened, the things Alec went through, you did not do them.”

“What kind of bullshit is that?” I ask, sitting up and letting my feet fall back to the floor. “The things I said—”

“You didn’t say them.” Diane cuts me off again and she lifts a hand to shut me up when I try to yell. “You didn’t. The things that happened can not and should not be attributed to you. You weren’t yourself.”

“That doesn’t matter, I hurt him! Don’t you—”

“You didn’t.” She interrupts me a fucking third time and I stand up, the sprayers in the ceiling whirring for a second before Gallant points her hand at me, the edges of her palm glowing a heavy gray. “Sit down and let me explain.”

Knowing that she’s just going to blast me if I don’t, I sit down on the bed, pissed as I scoot to the wall opposite her.

“The things that happened, everything, every word that came out of your mouth, every step you took, all of it. The moment Heartbreaker looked at you and used his powers, you were not yourself. You were replaced, bit by bit by someone who looked like you, acted like you, and sounded like you. But that girl, the one who tortured Alec, who said all that stuff, she isn’t you. She was never you.”

Her words hang and it’s only because I don’t know what to say to that level of BS. That’s it then? I fucked up Alec to the point that he was… that he was at my feet, on his knees and crying, begging to not be sent back and I can just… say it didn’t happen? That the things he went through— no.

“I…” I look at her, trying to tell whether or not she’ll cut me off again. “I get that. I get it, I really do. I just… you don’t understand.”

“What do I not understand?” She asks and the calmness of her voice makes me rip at the sheets I’m holding. It should be fucking obvious!

“Because!” I yell and I force my voice down when her heart picks up, her arms twitching a bit like they’re about to come up. “Because… the things that happened. Alec thinks I did it, I don’t care what you’re trying to get at by saying I didn’t do it because I know I did. And he does too. He opened himself up to us— to me and…” there’s no more tears left to cry so I just close my eyes as I finish. “We pushed him away.”

I look up again, opening my eyes as the last of my tears drip off my chin. Diane’s arms are twitching but I can tell this time it isn’t because she’s worried she’ll have to blast me. Since she joined the team, way back before the Nine came to town, she was very friendly, always a hugger.

She wants to do that now, wants to physically comfort me but she can’t. She’s smart enough to know that right now… I’m probably too dangerous. Even if I wouldn’t try to hurt her, she doesn’t know that, all she knows is that for me… it would be easy, like breaking a toothpick.

“I…” I try to talk again but all I can latch on to is what she said, “I get what you mean… It's like… I don’t blame Alec for the shit he did as Hijack. That’s just… what he had to do and… the person he was then is… no. That’s not right. It’s not that he wasn’t— I…”

Fuck. I don’t have the words. I wanted to compare us, try to make it something that I could put on myself but it doesn’t fit right.

“I know what you’re trying to say.” Diane speaks up and I’m thankful someone better with words can lay it out. “Alec was in a similar situation and you’re trying to acknowledge the similarities without discounting the things he had to do, right?”

“Right,” I nod, thankful that Taylor’s tutoring let me remember a dumbass word like ‘discount.’ “But… I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can just… pretend the shit I did didn’t happen.”

“That’s not what I’m asking you to do,” Diane tells me, standing up and taking two short steps towards the door. “What happened happened. I’m not telling you to pretend it didn’t, I’m telling you to… to try and think of it like I’ve asked. Like the person who hurt Alec wasn’t you, wasn’t Brian or Lisa or Taylor, ultimately… it was Heartbreaker.”

“I…” I take a deep breath as the door whirs, whoever’s watching through the camera must see Diane wanting to head out. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” The door’s open but before she takes a step out, she steps back towards me, her hand outstretched to lay on my shoulder. “I’ve got to do the rest of my interviews but… I think you’ll be good to leave tomorrow. I’m not seeing anything like what I saw with Fullstop.”

I nod, silently thanking her when she steps away, back through the door, the steel closing behind her and locking me in… with nothing but my thoughts.

The lights above me hum like Taylor’s flies, buzzing loud enough that I’m tempted to put my pillow over my ears.

I want to think Diane’s right, that I’m not Mastered, that the shit he did to me is really gone but… I spent months with Lisa, both of us being twisted around like it was nothing. We didn’t know we were mastered then… how would we know if we’re being mastered now?