#byline: 1batch2batch

[seven-times]

Violent Ends

[[ @1batch-2batch-pennydime​ // you asked for violence and pain ]

Her head is throbbing so badly that it doesn't just hurt to breathe or blink, it hurts to have hair.  Or eyelashes.  She doesn't usually notice either of those, and yet she can feel her lashes flutter against her brow bone, and every single hair that drifts in the dim, bilgewater-scented breeze causes agony.

Every so often, she hears a drop of blood hit the concrete with a wet noise, and if anything could make her laugh, it's the thought of forming stalagmites out of her own blood.  It's melodramatic, of course, and yet the thought won't go away: drops of red falling slowly forever, congealing and drying just enough to start forming a pile.

She smells nothing but salt, and copper, and bilge water, and every so often she tries to take stock of her situation.  Tries to remember how she got here -- but that's tied up in remember what they did to her right wrist and hand, once they got her gun away from her -- and think about how she could free.

But she won't get free.  If she so much as raises her head or opens her eyes for too long, if they notice her, someone delivers a round slap, and it's like turning her entire torso into a church bell.  It rings, and echoes, and she's lost in the radiating burn-and-stab of her brain rattling in her skull, jarring her spine.

[seven-times]

prove me wrong

@1batch-2batch-pennydime

Maybe it was stupid -- she should never have expected to return to New York without being noticed.  She'd counted on Ellison's help --

She shouldn't have thought it would be the kind of anonymous she'd needed.  Maybe she should have dropped the name Isabel Shaffer, never touched the alias again.

But he was here.  And when Karen looked over her shoulder, she saw that Bennie was still on the couch, resisting sleep, no matter how heavy it made those deep-set dark eyes.  Curly head bent close over an unnerving Deep Sea coloring book, turning an anglerfish's teeth bright red.

"Frank," she said, soft, and stood aside.  "I didn't expect..."

She should have known he'd find her when she came back, after she'd vanished from the city like a ghost, like she'd never been there, with only a message left for him in Foggy's hands.

"Come on in," she said, after a moment.  There was someone he deserved to meet.

[seven-times]

❛ what doesn’t kill me better run. ❜

Karen laughs, and tips the bottle of whiskey over her coffee mug.  She’d already been planning on having her coffee Irish, but she pours in a more generous tot than she’d intended.  It’s going to be one of those nights, apparently.  She looks back up at him, and says, “Words to live by, I guess.”

[seven-times]

'bang!'

It’s just a few minutes before the all-night bodega’s sandwich counter opens.  The owner and his son are both in the little shop, chatting amiably with their few late-night customers -- mostly early shifters -- and with each other, in a language Karen doesn’t speak.

It’s a neighborhood space, one of those bright spots in the city that Karen had mentioned to Frank, a long time ago.  She wants a sandwich; he’s just there for coffee.

Neither of them is there for the man in the ski mask who walks in the door. 

The first words out of the masked asshole’s mouth are, “Open the safe.”  He punctuates them by pulling a gun out from his coat pocket, pulling back the slide with shaking hands, and then repeating, “I said open the fucking safe!”

The kid behind the counter raises both his hands, and Karen feels rather than sees Frank tensing up beside her, his hand going for his own sidearm.  She’s raising both hands out of instinct, when the owner snaps, “He doesn’t have a key.”

The gunman whirls to face him, and Karen is stepping just slightly, to try and stay out of his sight -- something Frank has succeeded at.

But the gunman must catch some flicker of movement, and he’s so jumpy, so furious, that the barrel of the gun swings in the air.

It’s probably a good thing that she doesn’t really know it’s coming.  There’s no warning, just the barrel of the gun pointing at her and then a bright white spark, and the walls of the bodega are rushing away. Or maybe it’s her who’s moving?

She didn’t hear the gunshot, but she hears the noise Frank makes as her breath rushes out of her and she hits the ground.

[seven-times]

❛ we carry our own loneliness with us. ❜

Karen arches her eyebrows as she pours herself another cup of coffee.  It’s not the kind of thing she’d expect him to say, although he has always had his moments of poetry.  She flashes back to his speech in the diner.

And then she finishes her pour.  Her momentary flight of fancy ends as the cup fills.  “Sounds like something you heard that crawled into your head.” A pause, as she realizes, “And now it’s in mine, too.  I guess there’s… I guess there’s something true about it, maybe?”