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blooblooded · 5 years

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Dana Vs Evil

Helplessness is really one of the big themes huh. Anyway. Dana would be 3 steps away from uncovering Yancey if she wasn’t hobbled by her depression and alcoholism. Oh, I know Ben was the one who killed Dr. Bellamy in previous versions, but I’m thinking Yancey is the one to do that now A) bc he wants to get to Quentin B) I don’t think Ben is a killer. I need to get better at writing Silas.

In Eden, rights were granted by the state and were thus subordinate to the state. Sure, in theory the Colony was a democratic republic, but in practice it was a totalitarian police state. It was like East Germany, if East Germany was controlled by out of control capitalists rather than workers and if the Stasi agents were teenagers with superpowers. Not much evidence was needed to make an arrest or to root through private property, which was great if you were a cop, but terrible if you were a normal citizen.

So when Police Commissioner Dana Nguyen heard a loud crash from the inside of the Spartan 2-story Bellamy ancestral home, she had all she needed in order to let herself in without permission. The crash, combined with the message asking for help that Quentin Bellamy sent her 15 minutes before, lead her to believe that she was finally going to have confirmation of her nearly two decades old suspicions.

It was 1:00 in the morning and the Residential Upper Levels were completely empty. If Dana had wanted to, she could have kicked in the door. Maybe. She was 52 years old now and if she lifted her leg up like that, she might not pull something, but she would be sore later. Luckily, she did not need to entertain that option for long, since she still had a key-card to the house; a remnant of when all the kids were little and she would have to cart Esther and the twins back home. It was doubtful that the locks had been changed since then-- why would they have been? Nobody in their right mind would break into a place like this.

Banishing the thoughts of Esther from her mind, since they came inevitably hand in hand with her own lost children, Dana swiped the key across the lock, shoved the heavy metal front door open, and stepped purposefully inside.

It had been a long time since she had been inside this house. It was just as she remembered it: pristine metal and white marble. It was beautiful but it did not look lived in. It looked like a tomb.

The house’s staircase was right in front of the door. It quickly became clear what had made the crashing sound: Quentin was at the bottom of the stairs with his left arm at an unnatural angle. He was in his pajamas, did not have his glasses on, and upon Dana’s entrance into his home, he looked up at her like she was a terrible stranger. Halfway up the stairs stood Dr. Bellamy, clad only in fancy underwear and a silky black robe.

Dana swallowed a rush of anger that threatened to do something stupid. Immediately, she crouched down next to Quentin, close so that he could see who she was. “I got your message,” she said. “I’m here.”

“Dana,” said Quentin, in a voice like a little boy’s. He tried to hug her but when he moved his left arm, his soft face screwed up in pain. Dana was not a natural hugger, nor did she think she had time for hugs, but she put her hand on one of his shoulders and hoped that he would find some comfort from that.

“What are you doing in my home, Commissioner?” asked Dr. Bellamy coldly. She fastened her robe and did not come down the stairs.

“Your husband messaged me,” replied Dana, as calmly as she could, even though her heart was beating fast and her blood was flowing hot. “He said something was wrong.” She felt Quentin flinch beneath her touch and instantly regretted revealing that much information. Stupid. She was so stupid, of course this woman didn’t allow him to use his own comm. She probably kept it locked in a drawer or something. But it was too late for tippy-toeing around the issue now. It was too late to play these little games.

She had been playing this game, after all, for 20 years. It was what she always had to do, because nothing was ever overtly wrong, was there? It was only ever Dana’s suspicions and fears. You can’t arrest a person off of a suspicion, even a valid one. You need evidence. And here was evidence.

This was finally her chance to actually do her job, to actually bring some justice to this family. There had been so many times she had the chance to do something, but she always looked away. She had looked away when it came to Quentin and she had looked away when it came to the miserable children, and she hated herself for that. She could finally stop being a coward. She could finally drag this woman to jail and set the bond so high that it would actually be a punishment.

Dana tried to swallow that thought as well. What was she thinking. These days, her leash was shorter than it ever had been. Silas would lose her mind if she arrested such a prominent member of the intelligentsia. The punishment would be severe.

The thought that came next bordered on suicidal: do you care what Silas does to you? What else could she possibly do?

Dr. Bellamy took a single step down. She was still made-up, despite the late hour. Her lipstick was slightly smeared, which was unusual for someone generally so put together. “There is nothing wrong here,” she said. “You can leave.”

It was the same tone of voice she always used when talking to Dana. She had used it when they first met and she thought Dana was there to clean her home and she had used it ever since.

“What happened?” she asked Quentin.

He did not look at her. “I fell down the stairs.”

That was the kind of shit she hated to hear. Fell down the stairs. Everyone in the room knew exactly what had happened, but nobody would dare use the word ‘pushed’.

“OK,” said Dana, still ever so calm because the second she stopped being calm, she would lose all semblance of control. Over the years of grief, loss, and humiliation, she had perfected her mask. She got to her feet. She did not look at the other woman because she knew she would fly into a rage. “Come on. Your arm is broken. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

Dr. Bellamy descended another step. “I can take care of my own husband.”

Dana ignored her. She helped Quentin up, doing her best not to hurt him but failing. His eyes were wet and looking around anxiously since he was so nearsighted. His glasses were most likely still up in the bedroom. He gripped her hand with his own and that wordless show of emotional need made her heart clench. It had been a long time since anyone had held her hand, years probably. She squeezed his hand hard.

“Did you hear me?” asked Dr. Bellamy, who was growing angry. It was hard to tell with someone like that, someone who was carved from marble. It showed in the way she drew herself up taller, to appear more threatening despite her fragility. “Get out of my house, Nguyen.”

And there it was. The complete disrespect. Dana stopped swallowing her anger. She was not going to let some woman who had just broken her own husband’s arm treat her like a dog. The only person she let do that was Silas, and this woman was only a mere shade of Silas.

She was going to burn her to the ground.

Dana let go of Quentin’s hand. She made eye-contact with Dr. Bellamy. “You know what this means?” she asked, pointing at the badge she wore on a chain around her neck. “You understand how rank works?”

“Commissioner Nguyen.”

“That’s right.” Dana studied Dr. Bellamy’s smeared lipstick and the silk robe, both indications of a fun sexy night. As far as she knew, Quentin did not engage in such behaviors; apparently it had been an ordeal to conceive the children even though they were Artificials and all that would have been needed was a little semen. “Is there somebody else in this house?”

Dr. Bellamy’s face began to color. It started at her ears and then spread down until it reached her neck and chest. The color of blood.

Out of nowhere, Dana realized that there was another man standing at the top of the steps. She had not noticed him before, which seemed impossible since the lights were all on and there were no shadows in which he could have hidden in. He could not have been standing there the whole time, could he? He simply appeared out of nowhere. Dark haired, white, and unremarkable, he looked to be in his mid 30’s. He only wore a pair of black boxers.

“Er, hello,” said the alleged newcomer.

“I see,” said Dana shortly. “Sir, do you mind coming down?”

The young man obliged. He did not appear nervous or embarrassed and he stopped a step above Dr. Bellamy. He was relaxed and polite. Quentin’s body language grew more uncomfortable, he stared down at his feet and cradled his arm. And of course he was uncomfortable. It appeared that this guy had been sleeping with his wife and he got pushed down the stairs because of it. He was a complete stranger but Dana hated looking at him-- it does not say good things about a person’s character when they are willing to sleep with a married woman who is 20 years older than them.

But she only needed to know one thing.

“What happened here?” she asked him.

“My husband fell down the stairs,” Dr. Bellamy repeated firmly, as if reading from the same script that all people who are like her read from.

The young man raised his dark eyebrows in what appeared to be concern for Quentin, which was an obvious act. If he truly felt concern, then he would not have been lurking in the background for the past 5 minutes. Dana felt another surge of fury and had to wrestle back the animal thoughts that she kept chained in the back of her skull. “Well,” he said slowly. “It all happened so fast. There was a bit of an argument, over, well, I’m sure you can figure it out. Quentin said he was going to leave, then Lily shoved him. I tried to stop it.”

“Yancey!” said Dr. Bellamy shrilly, turning to face him. Her contained, elegant face was filled with hideous shock. Yancey gave a little shrug.

Dana felt a smile pulling at her lips. She could not help it. It was not the kind of smile one makes when they are happy. It was a shark’s smile and there was blood in the water. She could see her prey and she could see the path that she needed to take.

She had had a long time to hate this woman. She’d hated her for the way she always used to act like Kassidy was dirty when she came over. She’d hated her for the way she would insinuate Kip was violent. She’d hated her for the way she would drug and hospitalize Esther every time the child was defiant. She’d hated her for the way she made the twins feel bad about themselves and overworked them. But all those things were in the past and could be disregarded for the reason that Dana hated Lillian Bellamy in that moment: she hated her for hurting a person as vulnerable and kind as Quentin.

Beside her, he blinked in his confused way and looked down at the floor. Dana knew that he did not want to leave. Well, he wanted to leave. But he knew nothing else. He had nothing else. No job, no other family. She could not just leave him there, she could not just take him to the hospital and then let him go back.

Dana’s own fantasies of violence had formulated into something tangible, even years ago. In her mind there was a distinct and justifiable end for every person who had ever caused her or her loved ones harm. For the past 20 years she had been powerless to engage in these fantasies, but now...Now. Her children were gone and she was beyond saving, but here was a person who she could actually help. And a person she could actually punish.

There were handcuffs at her belt.

Dana took a deep breath, filled with a terrible desire for action. The dog was off its leash at last and ready to snap. She did not care about Silas, she did not care about consequences. Only action. Only finally doing something that mattered in a city that had beaten everyone in it down for so long. She was done with being helpless and done with the helplessness of others, at least for one night.

For one night, she could be better than her true nature.

Blood roared in her ears. “Lillian Bellamy,” she said. Her voice caught creakily in her throat but was loud enough for everyone to hear. “I’m taking you down to the station. You’re under arrest.”

Now Dr. Bellamy’s face was completely red. “What?!” Behind her, Yancey’s eyes widened and for half a second he smiled before remembering exactly where he was. “You can’t do that, you know who I am. You can’t do that.”

“I can do whatever I want.” Dana bared her teeth. “You know who I am and you know who backs me up. I don’t have to have a reason for doing shit, I can do whatever I want to anybody I want. I should have called social services on you for child neglect 15 years ago, I have always fuckin’ regretted not doing that. But now? You pushed your husband down the stairs and broke his arm in front of a witness. That’s domestic violence, do you really think I’m just going to ignore that because you’re rich and smart and close to Silas? No, you’re going to jail and then you’re going to court.”

For a long second, the sterile white house went completely quiet. Quentin made a noise like a little gasp. Dana was not looking at him because she knew that he would try to protest her decision. In another life, before she had lost everything, she might have let him.

Love was a horrible thing and the kind of love that Quentin had for his wife revolted her. He was trapped like a dog just like she was but unlike her, he did not understand the nature of the leash. It was helplessness and brainwashing. He could not see that but she would help him see it even if it meant hurting him tonight. Was that not justifiable? Some people had to be forced into accepting their own autonomy.

Barb would say that she was being stupid and harmful. Barb would say that people had to learn how to make their own choices.

But Barb was not there.

“If you do this, Nguyen, I will end you.” For the first time, Dr. Bellamy looked frightened.

“Yeah, yeah.” Dana advanced up the stairs, propelled by the arrow of her anger. No time for second guessing herself. Dr. Bellamy was over half a foot taller than she was but as fragile as a bag of sticks. She grabbed her by the arm and dragged her down the stairs, ignoring the weak struggling and torrent of verbal threats. At that point, Dana’s mind was far away, so focused was she on her purpose. It was easy to manhandle Bellamy’s arms behind her back and handcuff her. She made the handcuffs tighter than they needed to be. When Bellamy tried to pull away Dana yanked down hard on the handcuffs to hurt her. “You don’t want to be fighting me, I would fucking love to tase you.”

She had been treated like shit for so long, surely it was within reason for her to act out with a little cruelty.

“I’m not wearing any clothes!” Bellamy protested. Her lingerie was opening up at the front again due to her struggles.

“Hm,” said Dana, who didn’t care. This cold proud woman deserved a little humiliation after all the times she had humiliated her children and her husband over the years. She was upset about getting marched down to the station in her robe, for everyone to ogle? Tough shit, it was just deserts for all the times Dana had seen her unfortunate children reduced to tears because of her treatment. “I wouldn’t worry. The jumpsuits in the Prison District are quite modest.”

“You can’t do this to me. Yancey, say something!”

Dana yanked down on the handcuffs again so that she shut up.

Up on the steps, Yancey was smiling. It was not a nice smile. His mouth was too wide for his face, his lips almost sensual, and it gave him a hungry look. Dana did not have time to parse out his role in all of this. He was a witness and that was all.

She needed someone to send her a shuttle to pick them up so she did not have to use public transportation to take Bellamy down, as well as a medical shuttle for Quentin. Still, there were few at the station she could trust not to go behind her back before she even got there. Vega did not work nights, but luckily Sashi Mahajan was the 3rd Shift Lieutenant. Lieutenant Mahajan may have been deep in the pockets of Romeo Prospas, but she was married to one of the day shift Captains, Kelsey Mahajan, who was one of the few who were completely loyal to Dana. Because of this, she knew that Sashi would not betray her.

She paged her on her communication device. “Lieutenant? I need a shuttle at the Residential Upper Levels ASAP.”

“Why are you still awake Dana?” Sashi usually called her by her first name, since Kelsey did due to their closeness. Usually that was fine, but not in this company.

Dana ignored the question and sent her coordinates. “That’s Commissioner to you, Sashi. I need a medical shuttle for a civilian as well.”

“On it, Commissioner...” She could practically hear the eye-rolling.

“I could take Quentin to the hospital,” Yancey said eagerly, descending a step. He was completely comfortable and unashamed despite only wearing his boxers. “I work there sometimes.”

There was something too enthusiastic in the way he said that. There was something greedy that Dana could not see past, something that craved harm. The way he said it made her believe that his intentions were bad and that he was not simply part of cuckolding Quentin Bellamy. When she tried to look closer at him to understand him through his expression, his body language, she found it hard to focus. It hurt her eyes to look at him, like she was looking through glasses that were the wrong prescription.

There was no time for wondering about that.

“No,” said Dana. “Thank you. Come down to the station in the morning and I’ll take your statement.”

“You sure?” Yancey’s hungry smile did not reveal his teeth. His eyes were black and empty.

She did not answer him. Beside her, Quentin was still frightened and had frozen in shock and pain, cradling his broken arm. He needed comfort but Dana did not know how to do that. She could not even comfort herself. She was bad with emotions, bad with being kind. Her true nature was angry and chaotic but the decades of mistreatment and loss kept her from even understanding that. She struggled with love because she had lost the people she was supposed to love the most: her wife, her children. Her...friends ...Cihad, Barbara Church, and even that complete bastard West were so good with people and so good at being compassionate and empathetic. What would they do in this situation?

They would tell him that everything was going to be OK. They would make him believe that everything was going to be OK.

Instead of choosing to comfort Quentin and making him feel better by assuring him that his frigid abusive wife would be OK, she had to take the more difficult path. She had to remove her from his life so that he could be happy and safe. Maybe that was not the kind thing to do in this moment, but it was the right thing.

It had to be the right thing.

Dana did the only thing she could do: she stared grimly ahead and thought about her next steps.

###

It was 2:00 in the morning when Dana got the notification that Quentin was at the ER. By that time she was hiding in her office, waiting for Lieutenant Sashi Mahajan to come in and let her know that Bellamy was done being processed and was safely in the jail section of the Prison District. She’d be allowed a phone call then, and would call someone to bail her out. Dana herself had set the bail at 50,000 credits, twice the usual rate for domestic violence cases in Eden.

It occurred to her that she needed to call the children before long. They would be the ones called to bail their mother out, as well as the ones called to pick up their father-- since protective orders were automatically granted by law in Eden, he would not be able to return to his home. It was the right thing to do to notify them but she did not want to.

Dana opened the bottom drawer of her desk, where she kept a bottle of rot-gut whiskey. These days she went through a handle twice a week, which wasn’t so bad. Things had been worse. She could not even remember the 6 months after B-Day, after they took Kip away from her and put all the blame on him. Kassidy had moved out during that time too, and the only things the black-outs had not taken from her were the screaming fights. So two handles a week was not bad. She knew she had a problem, but what else was she supposed to do? Deal with her hellish situation? Process her misery?

She steeled herself and pulled up Evangeline Bellamy’s contact information on her comm. She was the likeliest one to wake up at this hour since her twin brother had always slept like he was in a coma. As the device rang, Dana poured a generous amount of liquor into her coffee mug. It burned going down and instantly numbed her feelings of fear and helplessness, pushed down the animal desire to hurt others.

Why had she wrenched down on Bellamy’s arms like that? Lashing out. Transferring her rage onto someone else. It was Silas’s fault.

Evangeline picked up on the 5th ring. Her pale pointed face appeared on the screen of Dana’s comm. She was in bed, limp orange hair sticking up at odd places. The twins had moved out of their home as soon as they were able, and lived in the dorms of the Education District. “Ms. Nguyen?” she said, blinking away sleep. They both called her that, even though she had acted as a 2nd mother to them since toddlerhood. “What’s wrong?”

There was no good way to say it. “I’m sorry,” began Dana, and immediately regretted it because Evangeline sat straight up in terror. It had been less than a year since Esther had been lost. Poor Esther. Not everyone was as practiced at losing people as Dana was. “Nobody’s dead, but you need to wake up your brother and get down to the hospital. Your dad needs you right now.”

“What happened?” The most dynamic and energetic of the three Bellamy children, Evangeline was already getting out of bed and pulling a sweater on over the t-shirt she slept in. “His TBI? Another stroke?”

“No. He--” Dana didn’t have the words. She took another drink, then tightened her lips. “Your mom got mad at him so he messaged me. When I got to your house, he’d fallen down the stairs and broken his arm. So he’s at the hospital now. He needs you two, I couldn’t stay.”

There was a long pause. Evangeline was 22 now and not an idiot. She had been raised in that household. Her cough-syrup green eyes looked right through Dana, already growing glassy in preparation for the inevitable emotional blow. A sacrificial lamb. “And Mother?”

“One of you will be getting a call soon. To-- you know. For bail.”

Evangeline’s lower lip trembled in what was either anger or sadness. She put one hand over her face.

“I’m sorry,” continued Dana, hating herself. She was bad at being a person. She was bad at everything. Barb was right, she needed therapy. Her choice, her desire for vengeance qua justice was going to cause people she cared about pain. It was going to cause Quentin pain, and harm the twins. Again she was taken by self-doubt and fear. There was no way around it. “I’ll meet up with you two as soon as I can. I have some things to do here.”

“Are Dad and Mother going to get a d-divorce?”

Dana did not know what to say to that either. Here was a young woman who needed simple comfort that she was not capable to give. “Probably. I don’t know.”

She watched the video of Evangeline’s face change as she composed herself. How could people just do that? Even though it had been 10 years since she lost Kip, she was still a wreck, she could barely function. She could barely shower. It was all she could do was keep the snarling beast that lived in the back of her mind on its chain every day so she didn’t snap and do something stupid.

Which Dana realized that she had failed at.

“One of us will go be with Dad, the other will wait for Mother’s call.” said Evangeline. She sniffed, swallowed. “I’ll call you back in a little bit, Ms. Nguyen. There’s too much to think about right now.”

“I love you,” Dana said awkwardly. Those words never sounded right coming out of her mouth. Even when she said it to her kids, it had always sounded stilted. There was something wrong with her. Why was she like that. She could not express herself in the right way because she did not feel her feelings in the right way.

Evangeline just nodded in response and turned off her communicator without saying goodbye.

To dull the sadness, Dana poured herself another drink. Would it really be that bad if she got drunk? It was the middle of the night and she sort of deserved it. What reason did she have not to? In the morning she was supposed to have breakfast with Barb, who had the uncanny ability of always knowing when she had been drinking. And Barb would be disappointed.

Why did she care so much about what some Church woman thought of her anyway?

Instead of ruminating on this any longer, Dana leaned back in her chair so that she could stare at the ceiling. There was an interesting stain on the ceiling that resembled a cupcake if she squinted the right way. God, she hated her office. She hated how much time she spent there. But it was better than going back to her empty home.

She did not know how much time passed before her door swung open, but it made Dana jump out of her skin and nearly fall out of her chair. The person who walked inside was supposed to be Sashi Mahajan, but it was not. It was Silas.

Silas! The woman was just so plain and normal, there was nothing about her appearance that betrayed her true malevolence. This was the person who had Eden under her thumb, the person who had murdered her wife, the person who had taken Kip away, the person who had covered up Kassidy’s disappearance, the person who had tortured Dana for two decades. Somebody like that was supposed to look impressive. Silas wore frumpy sweatpants and thick square glasses. Her calm, high-cheekboned face was framed by long unstyled hair. She was as unchanging and cold as petrified wood. There was nothing frightening about her.

Behind her was the hyperactive secret police boy she liked so much. The teleporting one. Dana only knew him because Silas allowed him to take his helmet off in front of her. The rest of them could be...anybody.

Those thoughts were treacherous. Dana did not allow herself to linger on them often. She did not allow herself to hold onto hope when it could be snatched away from her again so easily.

“You’re up late,” said Dana, who knew that she was in serious trouble if Silas was here to harass her at 2 in the morning. She did not get up out of her chair. “Were you watching me again?”

“I was informed that you arrested and humiliated one of my best contractors in the middle of the night,” said Silas, ignoring the comment about watching her. It would not have surprised Dana if she had cameras installed in her home and in her office; she knew that Silas liked to watch people. In particular, she knew that Silas liked to watch her. She was one of those weird people, the kind that like to look and never touch. What do you call those kind of people? Voyeurs. “What do you think you were doing?”

“My job.” Dana drank another mouthful from her mug and wondered if it looked like she was drinking coffee. Then again, why did she care? Silas knew everything about her and chronic alcoholism isn’t exactly easy to hide.“The job that you make me do. That job.”

Years ago, she had figured out that the many public figures appointed secretly by Silas were incompetant. It was another method by which she maintained control over the Colony. If they were incompetant, it was easier for her to pull their strings. It was why that idiot Jay Malena was Mayor. It was why Cihad was head nurse. It was why Oksana Hax (FIGURE OUT HAX’S NAME) was the Warden of the Prison District. It was why she was Police Commissioner. Who knew how many other underqualified morons were on the loose because of her.

Silas advanced into Dana’s office. She stood on the other side of the desk, towering over Dana, who leaned back in her chair to maintain some kind of distance between them.“So doing your job suddenly means arresting someone whose research is vital to the scientific development of our Colony? Not only that, but doing it in the middle of the night? And letting her be paraded down to the Prison District without proper clothes on? Is that the job you’re talking about, Dana?”

Being stressed, liqoured up, and exhausted gave Dana courage that she didn’t usually have. “Bellamy broke her husband’s arm in front of a witness,” she snapped. “What do you want me to do, look the other way when it comes to domestic violence?” Her own upbringing hadn’t exactly been gentle, it wasn’t until she married Harry that she fully understood that people aren’t supposed to smack their family members; this was a sore topic for her to talk about out loud.

“Of course not,” said Silas. She put her hands on Dana’s desk so that she could lean ever so slightly. “That is terrible. That is very upsetting to hear. But you can’t snap and do impulsive things like that. You have to go through me first when a situation involves somebody who is essential to making Eden a better place.”

Geneticists did not make Eden a better place. Geneticists only created pretty babies for the ultra rich. Blood pounded in Dana’s head and the alcohol burned in her stomach. Helpless. Helpless. Was she really so helpless? Was she really just Silas’s dog, just like the secret police teleporter was? The animal part of her urged her to do something, to say anything, but it was like she was stuck to her chair.

Again the thought came to her: what else could Silas possibly do to her?

“You’re going to have to answer to the press in the morning,” Silas continued. Behind her thick glasses, her eyes were unlined. When Dana first met her, she looked like she was 40, and now 20 years later, she still looked like she was 40. Somehow she did not age. Either she was a monster or she was involved with the same sort of blood magic Cihad was. At this point, Dana figured she was just a monster walking around in human skin. “They’re going to rip you apart. Worse than usual.”

“I don’t think I’ll talk to the press tomorrow,” Dana replied. She sat up a little straighter in her chair and relished the confused look on her enemy’s face. “I’m tired of getting publicly gangbanged by them. I don’t think I’m going to do that anymore, if I talk to the media I’m not just gonna sit there and take it. I’m not apologizing for doing the right thing.”

Behind Silas, the loyal teleporting agent furrowed his eyebrows like he couldn’t stand to hear his master being talked to like that.

It felt like the office got chillier. Dana swiveled her chair back and forth. It was not a power move, she was just tipsy. For some reason she did not feel afraid like she normally did. Her adrenaline wasn’t pumping. It was easy for her to stand up for herself when it came to blowhards like West or self-righteous freaks like Cihad, so why had she thought that Silas would be any different? This felt normal. This felt good. This felt like breaking free.

Then, Silas smiled at her. It wasn’t a natural smile, just the slightest turning at the corners of the mouth. The kind of smile an adult wears when they are indulging a child. “You’re drunk.”

“Not yet.”

“Do you think you’ll regret talking this way in the morning?”

Always with the fucking questions. “I really don’t.”

Silas looked down at the messy contents of Dana’s desk. The empty coffee mugs. The cracked tablet. The crumbs. She looked back up and didn’t say anything. The smallest of lines appeared between her dark eyebrows as if she was contemplating something.

And Dana kept swiveling the chair. She cocked her head so that she could look at the secret police boy and caught him concealing a yawn. God, she hated what Silas was doing to those kids.

“I see what’s going on,” Silas said at length. “You spend too much time with Cihad and you’re picking up on his defiance. It is not a good trait for you to latch on to, it’s just going to make you more miserable. Before you started associating with him in your free time-- not to mention that rabble-rouser Agapama-- you listened to me more. You never fought me on things. You and I had a better professional relationship.”

“So you have been watching me.”

“I always watch you.”

Shivers ran up Dana’s back when she heard her admit that. She stopped swiveling her chair.

Silas continued. “I think you need to put an end to your little meetings with Cihad, with West Agapama, with the woman from the Church. It might seem harmless to you right now, but it’s putting subversive thoughts in your head. I want to find you trustworthy.”

Subversive. Subversive, not traitorous. Despite everything, she still did not know the extent of what they all thought about her, what they all wanted to do to her. If she did, she would have already put an end to it. All of their doors would have already been kicked in if Silas knew how badly they all wanted to harm her.

It still didn’t matter. Dana shrugged. She raised her eyebrows and looked her enemy in the eyes. “What are you gonna do if I go ahead and ignore that?”

“Excuse me?”

“If I completely fucking ignore you.” Dana had to keep crazed laughter from rising in her throat. She kept herself rooted in reality by staring into Silas’s eyes, through the barrier of the glasses that shielded them. Her eyes were heavily lidded, long-lashed, dark brown with flecks of black. Maybe she was drunk. “What are you gonna do? Pay me less than you already do? I’m sorry, you have nothing over me any more. What-- what are you gonna do, kill me? I don’t care. There’s nothing you can take away from me now. This isn’t like the old days where you could just threaten my kids so I’d do everything you told me to. I’m gonna go ahead and keep doing what I want to. I’m gonna do my job the way I want to and if you don’t like it, you can just do whatever you want to me.”

The words hung in the air between them. The secret police boy behind Silas had his mouth open; he did not seem very smart.

Dana realized how hard she was breathing but she did not want to look away. She did not want to be the first one to show weakness.

A flush rose to Silas’s smooth, tan face. Bullies don’t like it when you stand up to them. She took a little step back from Dana’s desk. “Nothing I can take away…” she said slowly, and took her big square glasses off so that she could wipe the lenses on her shirt. “Is that honestly what you think?”

There was no way in hell that Dana was going to answer any more of her fucking questions.

She realized that she was smiling, which made her look insane. Dana did not have a pretty smile, it was always so forced and tight-lipped. Being forced to wear lipstick so that she looked feminine and presentable on television didn’t exactly help. But she could not stop smiling at Silas.

Sometimes she fantasized about hurting her. About violently killing her. This was one of those times.

“Take the picture of your son out of your desk drawer,” Silas said unexpectedly. “I know you hide one in there.”

That made the smile drop from Dana’s face. She froze. There was a picture of Kip in her desk. Nobody was supposed to know that, not even Vega. God, so had Silas been going through her desk now too? It was the last picture she had of Kip from before...before Silas had him shot. His senior prom. Kip had rented a suit and was so happy, so excited, but when Dana looked at it she always wanted to cry. He had been unbelievably sick during those last months and she had failed to see it. It showed in the deep circles underneath his eyes and the manic way he held himself.

It was too late to feel guilty over not catching that he had stopped taking his meds, it was too late to feel guilty over not realizing the kind of people he was hanging out with at the end of his life. All Dana could do was look at his pictures.

“Take it out now,” said Silas. “You’ll get it back.”

Hesitantly, Dana opened her top desk drawer and removed the picture of Kip then handed it over. Silas looked at it for a second and something about her face hardened. She showed it to the secret police boy.

He flinched back and his gaze flitted towards Dana. There was guilt all over his face. Like he felt sorry for her.

“Do you know who this is, BG?” she asked him softly.

BG (and what kind of stupid name was that?) nodded. “Yeah. That’s Smiles.”

Dana’s stomach flipped. Her suspicions had blossomed when Silas would not let her see her son’s body, much less have a funeral for him. She knew what the secret police were, as an agency just like she knew that Kip had abilities that would put a target on his back for recruitment. Even though she had seen the execution video, even though she had nightmares about hearing the gunshot, she had all these fucking doubts. It was just one more thing. And now...now….

She realized that she was standing up and she couldn’t remember doing it.

“When was the last time you saw him?” asked Silas. She kept holding the picture of Kip.

“Yesterday, when he bubbled Echo and threw them into a wall for no reason. I had to threaten his psychic to make him stop.”

The intimate knowledge of Kip’s ability to create spherical force fields revealed that the young man was not lying or being prompted. Dana’s knees began to shake.

“Let me see him,” she said in a pitiful voice that made her hate herself. Did it take that little to make her weak? “Let me see him. I want to see him.”

“No,” said Silas, so cold and with-holding, who put the picture back of the desk, facedown. “BG, you may go back to bed now. I’ll be alright here. ”

The young man with the prosthetic arm gave Dana another guilty look that made her uncomfortable and suspicious. Then he disappeared. What an ability to have. What she wouldn’t give to be able to disappear.

Now Dana’s whole body was shaking. There was nothing worse she could imagine for her son; it would almost be kinder if he was dead. She tried to swallow but her mouth was so dry she could not. “So you’ve had him the whole time. I always thought...I always had the feeling you did. I know what you do to them, Cihad told me what you make them do. So what is this, you’re still blackmailing me? You take my kid away 10 years ago only to tell me you’ll give him back to me if I do whatever you want me to do?” The animal part of her brain kept telling her to shoot Silas with the firearm at her hip. It would be so easy. Just get it over with. Her fingers itched.

She walked out from behind the protection of her desk to stand in front of Silas, as if being close to her might make her have mercy. Mercy. Silas was not merciful. Dana looked up at her, feeling small and old and weak and powerless.

In her mind, she pictured Kip when he was a child, before Harry’s death. All 4 of them had been so happy back then. She could see the way that his hair stood up from his head and the way that his whole face lit up when he laughed. The way that he would always get into trouble. He had been the most loving and sensitive kid she ever met. What kind of man had he grown into?

“I want him back,” she said, still completely pathetic. Where was that fire she had mere hours ago. “You got me. You win. OK? You win, Silas. I’ll stop talking to Cihad and West. I won’t fight anymore. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Silas’s glasses hid her eyes. She raised one hand and hesitantly put it on Dana’s shoulder so that her thumb and part of her palm were touching the bare skin of her neck; the first physical contact they had made in 20 years. Her hand was clammy from sweat, there was dirt under her short fingernails. At no point was this threatening; she did not press down, she barely let their skin touch. The touch was gentle and awkward and filled with unspoken desire.

Dana recoiled from the touch like somebody had hit her. The corners of Silas’s mouth turned down.

It wasn’t as if Dana was not aware of this particularly unsettling facet of Silas’s motivation. But again, she did not enjoy the confirmation of her suspicions. This woman had ordered the murder of her wife two decades ago-- not because of Dana of course, since at that time she did not even know she existed-- and on that fact alone, she reviled her.

Wasn’t watching her on her cameras all the time enough?

The spell was broken. Silas drew away from her and any sign of vulnerability fell away from her once again. “You’re never going to get him back,” she said. “Your cooperation has nothing to do with it. I’m not bribing you. I’m punishing you. I’ve always been punishing you. Do you understand that?”

Dana’s hand twitched towards her firearm and half-pulled it from its holster before she froze again. The animal part of her brain was screaming at her to shoot. It was out of her control. Silas watched this movement and then looked into her face.

Helpless. Why was she so fucking helpless? She could end it right now if she wanted to. She could have ended it 10 years ago. The natural solution was violence, that was the only way she would ever be able to get away. One of them was going to die and that was how this drawn out dance was going to end. But just as some invisible, horrific force prevented Quentin from hating his wife, Dana was prevented from any meaningful action against Silas.

She couldn’t do it. In the end she was still a dog on a leash.

“Right,” said Silas, her eyes on the gun. “I really do appreciate these displays.”

“Please,” said Dana.

“Do you really hate me that badly? Do you want me dead?”

Her mouth was dry. It was pointless to say anything other than the truth. “Yes.”

It was shocking just to admit to it. There was no relief. All of a sudden Dana was empty on the inside. What did this matter? All Silas wanted to do was hurt her; why was she allowing her to have more control by dangling Kip in front of her because she needed more leverage? What did she think that was going to accomplish? Taking him away a second time? It was like she wanted her to drink herself to death.

Then Silas sighed and twisted the proverbial knife in a little further. “I’ll keep that in consideration as I decide what to do with Christopher in the morning. You know, he is nearing 30, he’s lucky. Usually I don’t let them live past 21.”

The emptiness engulfed Dana. It was all so much larger than she was. “You’re the devil.”

Silas gave her that small smile that she hated so much. That little ‘I’m more clever than you’ smile. “You and I both know there’s no such thing. Both of us are just people who have jobs to do. Drink some water, Dana. I don’t want you to have a headache tomorrow. Take care of yourself.” And she turned and left as quietly as she had entered.

For a while, Dana kept perfectly still, her mind blank. She could not let herself think. If she thought, she might feel something and that would be the end of it. Instead she let her body carry her back to her chair, back to her desk, and she slumped down there. The chair seemed bigger than it had been, or maybe she seemed smaller.

Her mug of liquor was still there. She took a big gulp and turned over the picture of Kip, feeling nothing. She looked at his face and his smile. The thoughts of how badly she had failed him were driven from her mind in her desolation. The thoughts of how she had lost everyone she had ever loved were a nonentity.

This was just another method of torture. Why was it so drawn out? Who could stand something like this for twenty years? How could Silas do this to her? Didn’t she know she could torture herself just as well?

She didn’t know how much time passed, but Dana went ahead and got drunk. The right thing to do would be to go to the hospital. Quentin needed her. Quentin needed her support. But she knew that he was going to be mad at her and she wouldn’t be able to stand that. How can you go about hurting a gentle person by trying to keep them safe and help them? Dana was good at messing things up like that.

It didn’t matter what Silas was going to do. It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. Kip was already dead. Kassidy was gone, probably dead. Her wife was dead, long dead. There was only Dana left and the only thing left for her to do, the only way forward, was to keep fighting. Or if not fighting, moving forward.

But it was such a terrible thing to be alone.

Soon her communicator buzzed as the hospital called her. Quentin. Dana let it ring because she was too ashamed to answer it and speak to him. When it kept buzzing, she stuffed it into one of her pockets. What was wrong with her. Quentin was probably scared and upset out of his mind, his arm broken and without his family. That creepy Yancey guy who had been so ‘concerned’ about him would probably show up like he had insinuated. She had been so gung-ho over saving him only a few hours ago. Now she knew that she had just made things worse. She always made things worse.

She hated herself and wished that she could just let herself roll over and die. That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it? What was the point of this, of any of this if she didn’t have anything to keep fighting for?

In this daze, she pulled out her communicator again and lingered over her contacts list. West. Cihad. There was only one person who wouldn’t judge her or make her feel shitty about her failures. Dana pressed her name.

After a few rings, Barbara Church picked up. She was already awake, her hair damp from a shower. How strange it was to see her in an old T-shirt instead of her uniform, how intimate it was to see her with her hair uncovered. Dana did not know if she should look away or not, but Barb was the one who had chosen to answer her call.

“Dana?” she said. “It’s 4 in the morning. What’s going on, are you OK?”

There was a lump in her throat. Dana shook her head. She couldn’t talk. If she talked, everything would come pouring out. If she talked, she might start crying.

Barb must have known that she had been drinking, that she was a mess, but her expression never turned into that nosy and judgemental one that Cihad’s always did. It wasn’t a smug ‘let me help because I'm better than you’ look like West’s always was. Her face, lined and freckled from a life of painfully difficult work, was just...understanding. Compassionate. “What can I do?”

This tiny scrap of kindness was too much to bear. Dana’s eyes stung. She felt like she was going to throw up. “Babs,” she said.

“You can talk to me, Dana.”

“Can-- can you just stay on the other line for a while?” Dana asked. She was painfully aware that she was slurring her speech. Even asking for something as small as that made her feel ashamed. “I just need-- I need--” She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘I need support’.

Barbara Church wrung out her long wavy hair with a towel. She must have been in her bedroom, which Dana had never seen before. It was lit with warm light and there was a picture of some guy with a halo on the wall behind her. Her posture was comfortable, open. “Are you safe?” she asked.

Nobody had ever asked Dana something like that. She shrugged.

“Did something happen?”

“I-- I just don’t want to be alone right now.”

“Talk to me about what happened.” Barb propped her communicator up on her desk so that she could use both her hands to rub moisturizer onto her face. Here was a person who knew how to take care of herself, every day, because she actually liked herself. How did someone who had to wake up at 4 in the morning every day make time to take care of herself? “You look-- I’ve never seen you look like this. You’ve never called me about anything other than-- well, you know-- which makes me very worried about you right now. So before we move past this, I want you to tell me if you’re safe or not right now.”

Dana hesitated for a second that felt like a decade. “No. I don’t know. I mean, how, how can I be? Everything I do, I can’t get away. All I tried to do tonight was help there for someone who needed my help and I just made everything worse. For him. For me. I feel so fucking helpless, Babs. She won’t let me go. I can’t get away. I thought, tonight, I thought I wanted to shoot her just so I could make it all stop and she just stood and watched me because she knows I could never do it. I want this to stop. I can’t make it stop.”

Barb wrapped a rectangle of black and white fabric over her hair and knotted it in the back. Her constant calm movement seemed to be a strategy to keep her from betraying Dana by appearing to be sorry for her or judging her. “Who won’t let you get away?”

Again, Dana thought about Quentin and his wife. She thought about the invisible binds. Even though Barb was there, watching her, she took another drink because she couldn’t handle the realization that it was all the same. “You know who.”

“I’m coming over to you,” said Barb. “I think you need someone to be with right now.”

“Why are you like this?” Dana asked, miserable. “How do you have the energy when things are like...this?”

And Barb smiled at her. It was not full of pity and it wasn’t mocking. It was just a smile, a little tired, but completely genuine. “Oh. Well that’s the only thing I have the power to do, you know? The world is hard enough already, I can at least be kind. I used to think I could change everything by doing things that were on the macro-level, but it’s the little acts of kindness that actually add up. I can’t bust down doors and save people, but I can come over and have a cup of coffee with you, you know? You’re not as helpless as you think you are.”

Upon hearing that, Dana did not begin to cry. But she wanted to.

#writing

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