bad dreams
SATURDAY, JULY 14 — 12:12 PM
It’s noon, and the food slot is open.
There’s a face in the hole—two blinking, brown eyes—and the slow scrape of metal against concrete. Two little tubes roll her way. She jumps backwards— what is that? But when it rolls to a slow stop just a foot from the door, she finds it’s not a knife or a severed limb or a syringe. It’s a can. It’s two cans.
She pokes at the first one gingerly. There are letters on the metal cylinder—and numbers, too. How long has it been since she’s seen numbers and letters? In the old days when they first got here, Peter used to dip his fingers in the running sink-water and write on the concrete walls. He’d teach her multiplication tables and new words and the lore of Star Wars.
But Peter is tired now, and they don’t do that anymore.
She hasn’t seen words like this in so long that it’s hard to focus enough to read them. C-H-E-F. Chef? And then another word, this one much longer, and she almost forgets that she knows letters like y and r . Boyardee . Chef Boyardee! Her eyes drag downwards, and there’s an image of delicious pasta that she can’t remember the name of—a meat-filled pocket that she and Mommy and Daddy used to eat together, in red sauce with yellowy garlic bread.
It’s getting harder and harder to remember the taste of garlic butter, the crunch of toasted bread, the stain of marinara sauce.
She’s so confused. What is this? A trick? The can felt heavy enough to be full. Were they aiming for her head through the food slot? Trying to kill her? Trying to kill Peter? She can’t smell through it—there could be anything could be inside. But if it truly is as the picture says…
….oh, Cassie’s going to get this can open. She wants to sink her teeth into a ravioli. That’s the word, there on the can. Ravioli . B-E-E-F R-A-V-I-O-L-I. She drinks in the words one at a time: new words, words she hasn’t seen since she was home with Mommy and Daddy and Jim.
Peter’s asleep—well, not asleep, but they just hooked up another round of sedatives to his IV, so he’s acting weird again, half-sleeping and half-waking, muttering about different people and places through his chapped lips. His head lolls to one side, then to the other, and there’s drool coming down the side of his face, drying in a white line.
If Peter can’t help her open it, then she’ll have to do it herself. Cassie picks up the other can and shakes it; it’s a green can with a red brand name and words that read: CANNED CORN.
She wants ravioli. Cassie wants ravioli.
This time out loud, she reads it again in a whisper so she doesn’t have to wake Peter: Chef Boyardee: Beef Ravioli in Tomato And Meat Sauce. She pries at the lid of the can with her fingernails—she pries until her nails split and crack and bend and she starts banging it on the ground instead. It clinks and clinks on the concrete floor but she only manages to dent the metal and scratch the label.
Next, she gets the edge of the can in her mouth, wedging her tooth under the aluminum lip in an attempt to pry it up. Nothing—just a strain on her small mouth. She tries again, biting down harder this time, and she pulls with her hands and with her teeth— pop! A flash of pain, and like the blinding white flash of a camera, the pain’s gone as soon as it came, replaced by a rush of heat in her mouth. She cries out, clapping her hand to her lips, and there’s a little stone rolling around on her tongue.
Cassie spits it into her palm: a tooth .
She feels around in the gap—it’s just that, a gap in her mouth, and she’s suddenly so startled that she forgets to breathe. Maybe it’s the sudden smell of blood or the sound of her crying, but Peter wakes up, lifting his heavy head from their mattress-less bed to look around in a groggy panic. He’s scanning the entire room, each corner—sink, bed, toilet, door—and she doesn’t wait for him to get up. She launches herself onto the bed, climbing up to him and hugging him so tightly that he makes a gurgly, pained sound.
He finds the source quickly, mostly because she’s got her good hand clasped tightly over her mouth; “They get you?” he says, and his words are still a little slurred from the drugs. He’s checking her for more wounds, touching lightly at her arms for marks, tilting her neck to look for bruises, and searching her legs for scrapes. Even half-asleep from sedatives, he knows what to do.
He thinks this was Charlie. She shakes her head furiously, still crying, and he pries her hand away to examine the damage. A hole where her front tooth used to be—was she ever going to have a tooth there again? She cries harder, hugging Peter around the belly, and he’s talking now, sitting up against the wall. He’s rocking her and speaking in soft, gentle tones, “It’s just a tooth, it’s just a tooth…” Her sobs calm into hiccups and her hiccups into gasps—yet the whole time, Peter holds her and lets her bury her face in his bloodstained jumpsuit. “You never lost a tooth before?”
She keeps crying.
Peter’s holding her and rocking and patting her back and she feels like she’s back in her Mommy’s arms, which only makes her sadder. His arms are skinny like a skeleton’s, skinny like hers. “It’s okay… It’s normal, it happens to everybody, happens to everybody…”
It takes a while for Cassie to calm down. Losing a tooth is scary. She points him to the cans—one with yellow corn, the other with meat ravioli, and she watches his face warp into something like excitement. It’s rare she sees his face like this.
They sit on the floor: Peter sitting against the wall like always, Cassie sitting close to the bed. He turns over the cans in his hands, and he pulls each can up to his face and inhales deeply, just like she did, and smiles—he’s happy . “Ravioli,” he says, like he’s in church and he’s praising it.
He tries to open it, but he only manages to bend the metal cans. “I used to be stronger,” he says, as his smile fades.
Cassie remembers. He did use to be stronger. He could make cracks in the concrete walls and break people’s arms with one hit and stick to the ceiling to surprise their captors. But now, he didn’t have the energy to hit the wall or break bones or stick to anything.
Peter slides over to the door and slaps against it with his open palm. “Hey! We need a can opener!”
There’s some scuffling on the other side, some arguing, and some more scuffling—but after a couple of minutes, a shiny metal object slides through the food slot, followed by another can. More cans! More food! She reads it, too: Baked Beans.
Cassie watches in awe as Peter clasps the can opener in his hand—his wrists are bandaged from those metal cuffs they put him in. They’re always bandaged—he keeps opening up those wounds every time he goes for one of Charlie’s sessions. Peter twists and twists the handle until at last he pulls the opener away from the can and then pries the lid up with his fingernails.
They stare at it together—it’s a treasure trove, the most glorious thing she’s ever seen, and they’re careful not to spill it. Peter says, “Careful, the edges are sharp,” and she nods, just taking in the delicious smell.
They eat it by the handful, scooping out each piece of ravioli in turns, tracing their fingers on the inside to get the last traces of red sauce. Then Peter opens up the can of corn—they eat each yellow kernel, chewing and chewing, and take turns drinking the leftover corn-flavored juice at the bottom of the can. Then the baked beans, scooping it out with their bare hands and sucking the leftovers from beneath their fingernails.
When they’re done eating and their tummies are mostly full, they lay on the ground and play a game Peter made up called ‘When I Get Home.’
“When I get home,” says Cassie, after a moment of thought, “I’m gonna put my tooth under my pillow. So the Tooth Fairy can find it and give me a present.”
Peter hums. “Good one, Cass. Um…. When I get home, I’m gonna… I’m gonna text all my friends.”
“When I get home, I’m gonna get a dog!” says Cassie excitedly.
“Me, too,” says Peter.
“And I’m gonna let him eat whatever he wants.”
He laughs. “Me, too.”
She can almost see the dog in her head—a big one, with a slobbery pink tongue and a wet nose and a pair of soft ears. “He’s gonna be huge and chubby and bigger than me and he’s gonna protect me from all the bad guys and he won’t poop on the carpet.”
Peter laughs again; he’s got a hand on his tummy. “When I get home, I’m gonna go to the Cheesecake Factory.”
“I love the Cheesecake Factory!”
“And I’m gonna eat and eat until my stomach is so full it hurts—“
“—and then cheesecake!”
“Yes,” says Peter tiredly, with a pleasant lilt to his voice, “and then cheesecake.”
“Chocolate cheesecake!”
“Chocolate and raspberry and key lime and whatever you want, sure.”
Cassie lights up. “You mean I can come with?”
Peter finds the little girl’s hand beside him. “Of course you can come with. I wouldn’t go without you, Cass.”
“Can I have some of your cheesecake?”
“Cassie Lang,” says Peter with a smile, “you can order whatever the hell you want.”
Cassie’s grinning so hard that her face is beginning to hurt. “Chocolate?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“Can I have pasta? Two bowls?”
“Sure, Cass. You can have two bowls.”
“Three?”
“As many bowls as you want.”
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18 — 8:59 AM
Officer Paz and Agent Woo have been waiting at the Pentagon for over an hour when Secretary Ross finally arrives.
“Sorry for the wait,” he says. His hair is nearly all white—his groomed mustache, his side-parted grays—yet his face is relatively taut for someone in his late sixties. He smiles, and the Secretary shakes both their hands in a firm grip. “Phil sent you?”
With a slight annoyance, Woo answers, “Director Coulson did, yes.”
“Good, good. Follow me, please.”
The Pentagon is full of long, tiled hallways and decorated soldiers in uniform. Julia Paz finds herself nodding politely to everyone who walks by, although most of them barely make eye contact with her.
On their way to his office, they pass a teenage girl in a violet collared dress—perhaps a secretary?—who waves them in with a nervous smile. Her nametag reads Kate.
First, Ross addresses the reason they came. “Phil mentioned something about a missing persons case?”
“That’s right.” Julia gives Ross the same spiel that she gave Coulson before: a large group of addicts went missing, many of whom are now turning up dead, with a tattoo matching the HYDRA symbol on their bodies. And, most importantly, that one of the remaining addicts had told her they were staying in a ‘dungeon’ of some kind with snake-like symbols. “…so we assumed he meant HYDRA bases.”
“Former bases,” Agent Woo chimes in.
This office is much more sterile than Phil Coulson’s—every wall is white, and his massive desk is all made of gleaming marble. “Yes,” agrees Officer Paz. “Coulson told us that only the Department of Defense had jurisdiction over former HYDRA bases.”
Ross gives a mustached smile. “Yes, ma’am, that’s true.”
There’s something slimy about the way he talks, like he’s prepared the whole conversation ahead of time. “It’s Officer,” she corrects.
“Right,” says the Secretary, although he doesn’t correct himself or apologize.
“Well,” she continues, “given the evidence we’ve collected on our case, we were wondering if we could get access to the HYDRA bases. Just to check up for our missing people.”
“Missing junkies,” adds Ross with a chuckle.
At once Julia wants to punch the mustached man; Jimmy Woo nudges his shoe against hers as though to say calm down. “Addicts are people, too, Mr. Secretary,” she says stiffly. “When they go missing, they deserve a search party as much as anyone else. If you could just take a look at these names, these faces… Maybe you recognize some of them. It would be a great help if you did.”
Officer Julia Paz pushes forth a stack of papers: mugshots of some addicts, family photos of others, and rehab ID photos for even more. Names for each of them.
Ross denies knowing each.
“What about this one?” she prompts. “Charlie Keene?” She doesn’t mention that Charlie’s her brother; with their different last names, how would Ross ever know?
“I told you, I don’t know any of these people—I don’t associate with junkies and criminals—do you know who I am?”
“Secretary Ross, sir,” she starts; her aggression’s seeping into her words, and Woo nudges her again so she’ll stop. “I’m simply asking if you’ll take a look—”
Secretary Ross clearly does not like being challenged, because he sits up straight and gives Julia and her partner a hard stare. “Unfortunately, no matter which homeless screwup you’re looking for, I can’t allow every rent-a-cop this side of the Mississippi to go through highly classified HYDRA locations.”
“Former HYDRA locations,” adds Woo for a second time.
Aggravated, Ross blinks with gritted teeth at Agent Woo. “Yes, former HYDRA locations. They’re classified, they’re dangerous—I can’t just let anyone who asks inside!”
“How can they be dangerous?” the officer presses. “They’re abandoned! If we could just get a military escort to visit each location—”
“It’s out of the question!”
“I’m not asking to open them up to the public, Mr. Secretary, I’m just asking to look inside for these missing people—”
“Missing junkies!” shouts Ross, and his rush of anger is so noticeable that Julia Paz wrinkles her nose. “What do you care about a few addicts?”
“Sir—” she tries.
The man lets out a hiss of aggravation through his nose. “Wherever they are, I’m sure they’re not up to anything good! So, Officer, I’d drop it if I were you. Because neither you nor anyone else is getting inside those bunkers.” He stands up, giving them both a hard grimace of a smile. “Thank you for coming, but I’m afraid your trip was for nothing. Good luck on your missing persons case.”
They’re escorted out by Ross’ secretary, that dark-haired girl named Kate. She leads them through each winding hallway until finally they reach the front doors. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” says Kate, and oddly, she gives them both a hug before she goes.
It’s strange, but she’s young—Julia’s seen teenagers do stranger, so she dismisses it.
They say goodbye to the secretary and head for the parking lot, where their unmarked NYPD car awaits—a blue mid-sized sedan. After shutting the car doors and buckling, Woo starts to rant about how much of an asshole Ross is, complaining about unprofessionalism and anger management issues, when Julia spots something odd.
Inside Woo’s chest pocket is a small piece of paper. It’s visibly poking out of the blue pocket, and she plucks it out, much to Jimmy Woo’s surprise. “Whoa—what the hell?”
Officer Paz waves the paper at him. She unfolds it quickly—it looks like the ripped corner of an empty form. On the blank side of the torn paper is a series of words written in a purple-ink pen. Woo leans over to read it, too.
It reads: Meet me at Wendy’s. Saturday—7pm.
There’s no signature and no name. Plus, there’s only one person who got close enough to them to slip something into Woo’s pocket: Kate , that dark-haired secretary.
But why would Ross’ secretary want to talk to them?
FRIDAY, JULY 20 — 3:14 PM
Life’s getting better for Peter and Cassie. She knows because they get to eat more now—three or four cans for every meal. Usually, Peter eats three and she eats one (or, if there’s only three, then she eats one and Peter eats two), but they taste really good.
Because he’s eating more, Peter’s healing much better, and he stops sleeping so much. He plays games with her more, and he is able to stand again as his bad leg heals, to hobble to the sink and back without Cassie’s help. They’re playing another game—Tea Party, filling the empty cans with water so they can sip royal tea out of them—when Peter hears footsteps down the hall.
Cassie’s good at listening, but not as good as Peter. The older boy freezes so abruptly that he drops his cup of “royal tea” and Cassie has to catch it so it doesn’t spill everywhere. “Iron Man,” he alerts.
Cassie wants to keep playing, but she knows what that means. Hide. Now. She takes her can with her and slides beneath the bed as far as she will go, and Peter goes, too, blocking Cassie underneath with his body.
A few seconds later—there’s the sound of the key in the lock, the metallic jingle of a key ring, and the screech of the heavy cell door against its frame.
Beck.
He’s in the doorway, closing the door behind him; in the cell light, his brown hair looks almost like copper. It’s brushed and washed and swept to the back of his head. Cassie doesn’t have a brush anymore. Or shampoo. Or conditioner. Why does he get it and she doesn’t? It’s not fair. Mommy used to do her hair in the morning before school—in braids, in pigtails, in buns—now, Cassie combs daily with her fingers and feels it fall out in bunches.
Cassie watches through the barred legs of the bed. Beck’s got a plastic bag dangling from two fingers and he holds it out to Peter like a prize pig. “Got a little present for you, Peter,” he says, in a light, sing-like tone. “You want to come out from under there?”
He sounds gentle and nice; Cassie pokes Peter in the chest. “Peter, look—” she starts.
“Cass,” says Peter, a warning.
“But he has presents—”
Peter shakes his head sharply, just once, and Cassie shuts up.
Squatting by their hiding spot, Beck shakes the bag by Peter’s head. “Come on, Petey… Don’t be a poor sport. I brought you something.” He fishes through the bag, and there’s the sound of a crinkling wrapper. “Pop-tarts. You want one?”
She swears that when the wrapper rips open that Peter’s eyes dilate to full black circles. She can feel it in her belly, too—the hunger . They’re both so hungry that a couple of pop-tarts make their mouths fill with pools of hungry saliva.
“Strawberry,” Beck says, and Cassie can smell them, too. Strawberry. “My favorite. Does little Cassie want one?”
“No,” says Peter rigidly, before Cassie can say anything. “She doesn’t.”
But Cassie does want some pop-tarts. She would do anything for some pop-tarts. “But I want—”
“Cassie,” says Peter, and his voice is like the serrated side of a steak knife. “I said no.”
Beck is smiling still. “You’re real fond of that girl, aren’t you, Petey?” He shakes the bag again— crinkle, crinkle, crinkle. “Come out here and I’ll give some to you and her.”
Cassie knows how hungry Peter is; after all, she does fall asleep to the sound of his growling stomach every night. Peter licks his chapped lips, glances at her, and says, “Stay here.”
Then he slides out from under the bed, dragging his bad leg behind him, and struggles into a standing position—Beck stands with him. With the bed in her way, she can only see the bottom half of their bodies now.
They’re talking—whispering, really—hushed enough that Cassie can’t make any of it out. She watches as Beck’s shoes come closer and closer to Peter’s bare feet, Peter standing heavily to one side so as not to lean on his broken leg.
Beck’s hand and the bag move closer; when Peter’s grimy hand reaches for it, the brown-haired man snatches it back before he can touch it. “What do you say, Petey?”
Peter stands completely still for a second. His legs don’t move, not even the messed-up one. He doesn’t say a word.
She can’t see their faces, but she can see Beck take another step towards Peter, so now their feet are nearly touching; Beck’s shoe scuffs against Peter’s toe, and he jerks his foot back so fast that he trips and falls backward onto the bed with a yelp.
Now Peter’s above her on the bed, shifting over the concrete bed frame.
Above her, Cassie can hear Peter’s breathing—too fast, way too fast—as Beck moves even closer, legs between Peter’s, bending over him. She can’t say Beck’s hands, but it sounds like a struggle—like the scuffle of arms against arms and legs against legs—until finally they both stop moving.
There’s a whimper, and it’s followed by a stretch of silence so loud that Cassie holds her breath.
“I said, ‘What do you say? ” repeats Beck, deathly quiet.
Peter’s voice is high-pitched and coarse. “Thank you,” he says. Peter always sounds so weird whenever Beck comes—maybe because he’s not used to people being nice to him, or maybe because he doesn’t like Beck very much. Peter didn’t like Ava very much, either—he doesn’t like any of them, not even the nice girl Riri.
“You’re welcome,” Beck says, sounding pleased, and then he lets go of the plastic bag.
In only seconds, he’s gone, and Peter slides onto the floor and he starts shaking. She’s seen him do this many times—curl into a ball on the floor making shudders, suffocated noises until he’s calm—but this time feels different.
Peter doesn’t cry. He doesn’t hug himself, either. His arms hover above his calves and his legs are slightly parted—both his knees and his feet separated—like he doesn’t want his body parts to touch. He looks weird, and his eyes look even stranger—his gaze is entirely blank, like if Cassie waved her hand in front of his eyes he wouldn’t see her. His hair sticks to his forehead; she calls out, “Peter?”
It’s in moments like this that Cassie remembers people aren’t supposed to look the way Peter does all the time: skinny as a Halloween skeleton, mottled by a rainbow of bruises, bandaged around his wrists, exhausted by each coming day, paled by the lack of sun, stitched in every limb, and scarred in white lines and dark spots and knife-marks beneath his chin.
There isn’t a part of him unscathed.
Peter doesn't respond to her calling his name; his eyes are locked on a spot on the wall. When she twists her head to look at it, she can’t find anything. What’s he looking at? “Peter?” she says again. He hasn’t told her it’s okay to come out yet. Is it safe? Maybe it’s not safe. Maybe that’s why Peter’s so quiet. She whispers his name this time: “Peter?” The door is closed, and there are no footsteps—so they’re safe, aren’t they?
Peter has fallen onto his side now, and his knees are drawn towards him.
The plastic bag is closest to Cassie—it’s half-spilled where Beck dropped it. There’s the open pop-tart! It’s a bright blue wrapper and inside—oh, that smell. It’s strawberry and frosting and pastry and sprinkles, and the first bite is like a mouthful of liquid paradise. The pop-tart is so sweet that it hurts her teeth, but she keeps eating, biting into the blissfully red insides. She catches any fallen crumbs in her hands so she can eat them from her palms.
When she’s done, Cassie licks the wrapper clean and bites at her fingernails for any semblance of sweetness that remains.
There’s more in the bag, too: four more packages of pop-tarts—each with two strawberry tarts inside—and a bottle with a hand-pump dispenser, like for shampoo or lotion or hand sanitizer. She pulls it out of the bag; inside sloshes a purple fluid. Sweet Lavender Body Wash , the bottle reads.
Why's Peter acting so weird over a bottle of soap?
It takes hours for Peter to pull himself out of his weird trance; by the time he lifts his head, Cassie’s still under the bed. She’s eaten all the pop-tarts but has left the soap alone. She doesn’t like the smell.
Her tummy is full—pleasantly, painfully full—from all the pop-tarts. She could probably eat a hundred more if Beck gave them to her. She hopes he comes in tomorrow with more.
SATURDAY, JULY 21 — 7:08 PM
They go to several Wendy’s closest to the Pentagon; inside the third restaurant, they find the young secretary engrossed in her phone, dressed in an NYU sweatshirt and high-waisted jeans. Kate , Woo remembers. He’s spent enough time with teenagers to know that she’s not doing anything in particular on her phone—the girl’s just trying to look busy.
Woo orders a couple of meals at the front; Paz slides into the booth across from the girl, who’s currently gnawing her bottom lip into a mess of blood and skin. “Hey,” she says, like they’re meeting for a chat and not to discuss one of the most powerful men in America. “You got my message.”
Julia nods, setting her bag down beside her. “I’m Officer Julia Paz. Up there” —she gestures generally to Jimmy Woo, who’s still waiting for their food— “is my partner Agent Woo.”
The girl gives a nervous nod. “I’m Kate. Kate Bishop. I’m sorry about the location, I—I wanted somewhere public, but… ” There’s a sudden flush to her cheeks. “I wrote it, like, so last-minute… I literally didn’t have time to think of anything good.”
“That’s okay,” says Julia. “I’m glad you came to us at all.” She addresses some of the more important business—identifying Kate, setting up a tape recorder, and signing immunity from testimony forms—before they question her. When they’re done and Woo has returned with the food, Officer Paz asks, “Is there something you wanted to tell us?” She and Jimmy Woo had discussed how they were going to address this—Kate hadn’t given any cue on what she was going to tell them, so they planned to ask only open-ended questions.
The girl digs her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt. She’s got food in front of her: some half-eaten bacon fries and a frosty. “I think I’ve got some information that might help you with your…missing persons thing.”
“Okay,” says Julia, settling deeper into the booth.
The young secretary shakes her head slightly, like she’s telling herself to stop. “But I’m only supposed to do this job for, like, a semester and a half, and I don’t wanna get caught up in anything shady. I figured—you guys are police, right? Maybe you could do something about it.”
Agent Woo: “Do something about what?”
“The thing is,” Kate continues, “I think… I think my boss has been up to, like, some really shady shit the past few months.”
Officer Paz prompts, “Why’s that?”
The girl grimaces, and she looks around, like she expects Ross to pop in through one of the Wendy’s windows. “I don’t know—like, everything. He has me calling people I’ve never heard of, but he doesn’t let me talk to them… He’s getting, like, a ton of anonymous packages all marked” —she puts the next couple words in air quotes— “‘Project Manticore.’ And, like…” She swallows. “And this is why I’m telling you guys, it's like… I heard him getting pissed at the news. The news. And like, I mean, that’s totally normal for old guys in politics, but he’s not getting mad at, like, CNN or FOX or whatever else. He’s getting mad at, like, local news. People dying. People overdosing. Like, the most random things. For the first time at like that girl who died—Amy Starr? The fugitive?”
“Ava,” corrects Julia gently.
“Yeah, her. And then at like those guys who crashed at the campground in New Hampshire—he just starts screaming and cursing, like it affected him personally.” She shakes her head. “I know that’s not a lot to go on, I’m just… He’s mentioned some people, too.”
Agent Woo scribbles in his notepad before asking, “What people?”
“I’m not sure…” the girl starts, stirring her frosty with a plastic straw. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be telling you this, but he’s said that guy’s name a lot. The guy he said he didn’t know. The guy you’re looking for.” She looks straight at Julia when she says it. “Charlie. Charlie Keene.”
Julia and Jimmy exchange looks. “How much?”
“I don’t know—um… Once a week, at least.”
She’s only a college student doing a summer job, yet somehow Kate Bishop has been their most valuable asset thus far. “What are some of these other names?”
Kate shrugs; her hair is tied back in a single braid, which shifts over her shoulder as she moves. “It's never anything useful. Parker. Lang. Nick. All, like, super common names. I could make you a list, if you want.”
Lang , thinks Julia. How funny. That’s the last name of little Cassie’s dad. It’s the back half of Cassie’s last name: Cassandra Marie Paxton-Lang. Julia tries not to mix up the different cases she’s working on, so she dashed the thought. “Did you hear any full names?” asks Agent Woo.
Kate shakes her head. She’s got a backpack too, and from it she pulls out a stack of crumpled papers. “But I’ve been keeping track of a few other things—because, I don't know, I guess my generation doesn’t trust anyone in power” —the girl laughs to herself— “but, like, I thought maybe I could use it against him. If anything ever came out about him doing something.”
“Thank you, Kate,” says Agent Woo. “That’s very helpful.”
Julia’s still hung up on the girl’s previous statement. “What do you mean—about him doing something?” she presses.
“I don’t know,” the young secretary responds. “I figured you could tell me.”
The law enforcement pair keep inquiring about what she knows—names, places, conversations—but she’s hesitant to tell-all in such a public place. When they finally get to the topic of the HYDRA bunkers, Kate shakes her head. “I’ve never been,” she says. “I’ve never even seen a map of those places. I don’t get access to that kind of information.”
“Do you know someone who might?”
“Maybe,” she says. “I mean, if you can’t get it from Secretary Ross, then… You could always try people who were there before him. There’s a lot of those guys on government watch.”
Before? “What do you mean, before?”
The girl shrugs again. Her frosty’s finished now, and Kate pushes the empty cup away. “HYDRA guys who got pardoned for turning in their bosses. People who were held captive and, like, tortured in their bunkers. There’s still a ton of them out there.”
“Do you think you could get some of that information for us?”
For the first time this evening, Kate Bishop gives a mischievous smile. “I think I could.”
MONDAY, JULY 23 — 3:49 AM
Peter’s dreams are sticky and colloidal, a pool of quicksand that clings to his ankles and drags him down.
He dreams of Skip. He dreams he’s a kid again and Skip’s sitting next to him in the library with gelled hair and a hand brushing against his knee. “ Hey, ” he says, in that sickly sweet voice. “ Haven’t I seen you around here before?”
He’s holding a book and he’s trapped between the aisles and he’s only eight years old. He’s too small to understand and he’s too shy to do anything other than shrug.
“ My name’s Steven,” says the older boy, “ but you can call me Skip .”
The boy is faceless with white-blonde hair and Peter is eight years old. He’s eight years old and he’s in his bedroom. His palms are small and his fingers are smaller and Skip’s got his large hand pressed against his bare stomach and there’s a movie playing in front of him but his vision’s gone blurry and sideways and he can’t tell what it is. “ Bet you’ve never seen pictures like those in a textbook.”
He’s eight years old and he’s naked and he’s laying on his stomach but he can’t remember why. There are spots of blood on his Star Wars sheets and his teddy bear is on the floor.
He looks around and his clothes—he’s in a black prisoner’s uniform, and his legs are long and grimy and scarred. He looks up and it’s Beck standing in his bedroom—with his brown hair and his white teeth, but his face… His face is blurry. He’s faceless. He opens his mouth, and he says with a smile, “ Come on, Einstein, let’s conduct a little experiment of our own!”
And he’s backing up against the wall but he can’t move—he’s trapped—he’s in the Chair and Charlie’s grinning above him with a hammer in one hand, and he can’t move —
—he wakes up with a choked gasp, and he’s in bed next to Cassie. She’s still asleep. Her breath comes in raspy wheezes; she always sounds like that now.
He’s still breathing so hard he’s practically hyperventilating—still feeling a phantom hand around his wrist and a coil of dread in his chest—so he gets up, moving carefully around the little girl.
He limps to the sink; his knee is still fucked. It hasn’t been the same since Charlie hit it with that hammer. The doctor keeps fixing it up when he can, but according to him, ‘there’s only so much he can do for shattered bone.’
He rinses his hands and rubs his face until the dream starts to fade. Beside the sink is a bottle, a hand-pump bottle of lavender soap.
He can still smell Beck’s smoker breath and what he said while Cassie hid. Clean yourself up , he said, quiet enough that Cassie couldn’t hear, tapping the crinkly bag with his hand, and I’ll bring you more.
More food? he asked, and he hated that he sounded like he was begging.
Beck smiled. More food, more anything.
Peter lathers up a handful of the soap and washes his hands first, then his arms, then his neck and upper chest.
Peter’s not stupid; he knows what this means. He sees the way that Beck stares, with dark, hungry eyes. He knows what Beck wants. He just hopes that the soap will be enough until they can find a way out of here.
He does his feet next, his ankles and calves, and when he’s rolling up his pants to do his knees, he hears, “Peter?”
Cassie’s awake.
They always sleep like that—in the same place—so Cassie’s not used to being alone. Maybe that’s why she woke up. He looks over at the girl, and she’s rubbing her eyes and blinking at him. “Hey, Stinger.”
She’s still lying down, just twisting her neck to see him at the sink. “Peter, what are you doing?”
“Go back to bed, Cass.”
“Okay,” she says. But, of course, she doesn’t move or close her eyes or go back to bed. She’s seven and confused, so she keeps staring at him. “That’s the stuff Mr. Beck gave you.”
For some reason, it infuriates him that she calls him that. “Yeah,” he says.
“It smells weird.”
“Yeah, well, some people think it’s nice.”
He hears her sniff, and then cough, and then sniff again. “I don't think it’s nice.”
Peter really has no qualms about lavender. Not until today, he supposes. He keeps lathering up and washing, ignoring the girl in hopes she’ll forget about it and fall asleep.
Just when he thinks Cassie might’ve gone back to sleep, he hears a raspy little voice: “Can I try?“
They don’t get a lot of opportunities to try new things— or , thinks Peter, old things that they’ve long since forgotten. That must be why Cassie's so intrigued by the soap. “No,” he says.
“Why?”
Peter sighs. “Because it’s not for you.”
“But why?”
“Because Beck said so.”
“But why?”
“Cassie…” Peter sighs. Peter’s tired. Peter’s so fucking tired. He doesn’t want to explain this to Cassie; he doesn’t want to go to sleep smelling like sweet lavender . Finally, he says tiredly, “Cass, I don't want to talk about this anymore. Go back to sleep.”
“Okay,” she says, and she lasts barely a minute or two before he hears: “Peter?”
“Yes?”
“I can't sleep.”
“All right,” he says, as he washes the excess soap off. “I’m coming back.”