MS - Rav's newest story

[Friðbjörn]

definitely runs in the family

[woodyloveslinkin]

Damn and I thought it was another update....

[Ravynlee]

Damn and I thought it was another update....

You wish haha

[woodyloveslinkin]

I did!

I missed the bus from uni and I came on here and I was like, hey! Another update to pass some time until the next hour or so until the next one comes! And then I was like nawww no update, I'm depressed now.

[crazy robster]

Oh my sweet you certainly had your reasons for doing it, I'm not saying you did it for fun I'm just saying it's a matter of perspective and I myself as Joanna wouldn't have done it if I wrote the story, that's all. Opinions are purely subjective I was just expressing my feelings and my thoughts about what I read <3

[Ravynlee]

Oh my sweet you certainly had your reasons for doing it, I'm not saying you did it for fun I'm just saying it's a matter of perspective and I myself as Joanna wouldn't have done it if I wrote the story, that's all. Opinions are purely subjective I was just expressing my feelings and my thoughts about what I read <3

No sis sincerely that's good! I appreciate the feedback I do, and I didn't mean to sound defensive, I reread my response and I know it sounds it, I just wish I could convey future plot without giving too much away! oh well, no matter... soon enough it will all come together then we an move on and leave it behind us for something bigger and better, 'eh?

Thanks again my beloved. I really appreciate the feedback!

 

And Sarah, sorry to disappoint again... no update tonight. Been at work, sorry... more later.

[Pheonix791989]

understadable mum. im off work with nothing to do but sit around and watch disney movies all day. think i might watch nemo later or summat like that. i dunno. if I feel bored enough i might break out the Nintendo. im on vacation so yeah... just update when you can mum

[andrea]

Okay. Wow, did I have a lot to catch up on, huh? Glad school is official over, so now I can stay up to date. For the review of the story I can't say anything because I'm speechless right now. And to let you know it all in a good way, lol. I love the sudden twist in the direction your going with the story. Can't wait for more to come.

[Ravynlee]

Thanks guys! I'd love to write something endearing to each of you that reviewed personally but the sun is about to come up and my eyes are all screwy from staring at the computer screen for so long! I finally have an update for you, and while I actually started another chapter before this, this is the one I just finished, so I thought I may as well just share this one. It breaks a rule of mine where I TRY and intersperse scenes for each chararacter, so hopefully no one feels any more important than the rest, but it doesn't always work out that way, sorry.

 

So anyway, while I could go on I won't. I'll just post the update and pray it all comes together. Have been sick with pnuemonia for the last week so you'll have to forgive the tardiness. Oh and of course the end. I know some of you may read the end of this chapter and freak out... to be honest that one came out of the blue too. See if I can clarify what Rob meant when he exited the end scene (again this is NOT the end, just another very long continual chapter tonight - apologies again for the length... as always hope it ties in to the start. You guys might have a better idea than me at this point my head's all everwhere with this story... haha)

So yeah, thanks again and... more in a day or two!

As always feedback and comments welcome. Promise to constrain myself

 

---

 

Frib sunk backwards and huffed out a sound. It was one of shock mixed with equal amounts of awe.

“So…” he said carefully, “you’re telling me… you’re a… hit man, for the mob?”

Raising his eyes he turned his head towards the other man sitting on the other side of the room. They were in his bedroom and the lamp on the bedside table was casting an ominous gloom across his ex partner’s face. But Rob wasn’t looking at him. Though he had wiped most of the little girl’s blood off of his skin it still clung to his clothes tainting the air with its pungent odour. What little remained of the older man’s face beneath the haggard beard and dull shadows was still weighed heavily with grief and misery. His tears had long since dried but his eyes told another story. Sniffling into the back of his hand Rob lowered his eyes to the floor and nodded in acknowledgement.

“Were,” he clarified. He cleared his throat. “I was. Once.”

“How?” Frib wondered.

Rob shrugged. He stirred uncomfortably outstretching his long legs across the carpet. Over the sound of sirens forever wailing outside the window and the general noise of life the atmosphere and stillness of that little bedroom was like that of a morgue. In many respects it was. A few feet in front of them the body of Ava lay wrapped in blankets in the centre of the bed. It hadn’t been the ideal place to lay her but in hindsight Frib hadn’t been thinking clearly. With a head full of alcohol he still didn’t feel like he was. Having listened to Rob’s confession Frib felt the surreal quality of the night bearing down upon him even more than he had before. Part of him, in the back of his mind, still seemed to think that he was going to wake up in his oh-so-boring everyday life where all this was nothing but just some horrid dream, but on another level the young detective knew that it wasn’t. The sight, the smell, the overall knowledge that a young child lay dead a few feet away on his very mattress somehow made all those uncertain thoughts less tangible. Drawn by that morbid sense of curiosity Frib found his eyes roam towards her once again before he forced himself to look away. The visual imprint however was already scored into his mind as he impulsively thought to himself that he would never lie in that bed again, not after this night, not after what he had seen – maybe he would never be able to sleep peacefully again either. Beneath the bedspread the shapeless lump barely resembled anything that had once been human, let alone a once happy breathing laughing child. Tasting vomit when he swallowed Frib looked up again, at the blooming rosette of coagulating blood stained into the material. He felt the urge to hurl come and go again like a cresting wave.

Across the room from him he could feel Rob’s eyes turn to him briefly, but Frib could only look away. That growing sense of unease didn’t get any better when he felt Rob look away too. He cleared his throat again making ready to talk but the words when they came were hesitant and uneasy.

“How could you do that? You’re a cop, man. You were a cop, a good one. We all looked up to you; you know… what the hell happened to you?”

Rob shrugged. It was clear as expected as the question and that reception had been that his guilt still weighed on him heavily. For a big man Rob Bourdon couldn’t have looked more like a battered child had he tried. He shook his head again, clearly not knowing what to say. Maybe there was nothing he could say, as he continued staring off into the distance with his broad shoulders rising and falling soullessly.

“You’re telling me that shit’s real? Everything they said about him, all those allegations on the news and stuff, that was for real?”

“No,” Rob uttered. His voice was so low and so lifeless it could have been automated. He shook his head and raised a leg to relax against. “No. It’s not like that-”

“Then what is it like? Like Marlon Brando or the Soprano’s or something?”

Rob scoffed. Beneath the beard he even appeared to smile, but it was too small and too brief to be anything more than an impulse.

“No. It’s worse. So… much worse.”

“But how did you-?”

“You have to understand something Kris,” Rob said, taking his time to meet the other man’s eyes, “It’s not just about Mike. It’s not. It’s so much… bigger than him. If it was just one man do you really think…” he stopped and groaned. The sentence he had been formulating died along with it. “I tried telling you once but you wouldn’t listen.”

“I’m listening now.”

“Yeah, now when it’s too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Forget it,” Rob dismissed.

With his fingertips he rubbed at his eyes. He appeared physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. When he looked up again he was staring towards the tiny body on the bed with a rueful pout. For an instant Frib actually wondered if he was seeing Ava or his late son and felt his heart sink along with his eyes towards the floor – the enormity of grief was bad enough but the young detective didn’t want to know what it must have been like for a parent to lose a child, but he was starting to get the idea.

“Did anyone else know?” he braved.

“A few.”

“How long?”

“A year. Bit more.”

“While you were still… in uniform? I mean, how did you get away with it for so long? Surely someone knew, didn’t they? I mean, how did he even-?”

“Draft me?” Rob intercepted with a cocked brow.

Frib nodded watching Rob sink back against the wall beside the door with another sigh. It was slow and heavy and burdened with the feeling of a confessional. In many respects that’s just what it was. The room was still and silent within as Rob took his time in answering. The secret he was about to share had been kept so long and so fervently that it appeared even as he spoke Rob was fearful about doing so. Staring across at Ava Rob drew in a breath as if ready to speak and for a moment he held it, clearly struggling on how to word it. Then the big man dropped his eyes to the floor.

“He… called in a favour. He gave me Chester… and he asked me to get rid of a problem… permanently… so I shot her.”

“Her?”

“Jammer.”

[Ravynlee]

Rob rolled his eyes aside to meet Frib’s directly. There was no change to his outward façade whatsoever.

“That one found in the park right? The prostitute? Why?” Frib shrugged. He frowned in consternation. “Wasn’t she going to testify against him or something? Wasn’t there some court case-?”

Rob nodded.

“But… why? Those charges were dropped. He was never going to go to jail anyway from what you told me, like before, before you went away. Wasn’t it all just a ruse? I mean, he has friends remember, the commissioner, the… chief. I don’t-” the young detective shook his head. He opened his mouth to continue speaking but for a moment no words came out. He winced, struggling to mentally, as well as verbally, process this information. “I thought she was Ravyn’s friend, your ex wife, remember? You knew her?”

“I did.”

“But- but I don’t-”

“You’re not supposed to,” Rob told the floor somnolently. “No one was. That’s how he is. It’s what he wanted. He called me up and told me what he wanted me to do and we arranged for her to come out and meet us. We made it sound like a business proposition, she was a… you know, hooker, after all,” Rob skirted with a sharp sniff. He smiled. It was weak and miserable. “Mike told her that he brought me along to watch. She was… always looking to please him. She was fanatical, crazy… she didn’t even hesitate. We went to this place. He told her to get on her knees, close her eyes. She did. He stepped back. I put the gun to her head. Pulled the trigger. That was it. Problem solved,” Rob uttered.

Bent over a knee he continued to stare at his lap sadly. Guilt was etched like gouge marks into his face. Even without the amplification of shadow and gloom coming from the surrounding environment Rob looked exhausted. Though only afforded a profile view of his face Frib could well see that his ex-partner was reliving the crime - undoubtedly there were countless others – but for now, for that one harrowing moment, the thought of that one alone was more than enough.

“You killed Dave Farrell and his family too didn’t you?” he asked quietly. “He found out so you had to silence him.”

He heard Rob sniff. He saw Rob nodding. He watched Rob rubbing at his face again but from what he could see there were no tears falling from his bloodshot eyes. There were no tears he could shed, this self proclaimed murderer, because they had already been spent on others. Rob had spent so long living a lie that he had effectively learnt how to distance himself from it, from the pain he had caused. But then Frib rationalised he had to. As a student of the criminal mind he had read so many times and from so many textbooks that it was basic human psychology, it was a self-defence mechanism, there was after all only so much trauma the human mind could take – and it set the distinction between a killer and the rest of society – but never in a million years had Frib thought it would apply to someone he knew, let alone once trusted so well. Feeling overburdened by this thought and of their implications and all that had transpired since until recent, the young detective could only stand there against the wall, feeling the cold glass of the closed window at his back, holding his face gravely.

“They trusted you, Jammer, Phoenix, Lindsay… Jesus Christ, they had a baby. How could you-?”

“I told you,” Rob said still speaking in that low dry monotone, “It’s what he wanted. It’s not like I had any choice-”

“You could have said no-”

“No. No one says no. Not to him. You can’t.”

“Yes, you can. The man’s a killer-”

“No. He’s not. I’ve known him for years. The man’s never taken another life since I’ve known him, even before that. He hasn’t. I have. That was my job. More than I ever wanted, than I… thought possible.”

“Rob,” Frib said. He spoke the other man’s name as if imploring him. Maybe he was begging him to see reason where there simply was none to save his own sanity, maybe he was begging him to stop. “How? Just- how? How could you justify it, any of it? So what, he did you a good turn, so you just pick up a gun and shoot whoever he wants you to? How does that make any sense? You were a cop for god’s sake, it was your job to protect these people, you swore an oath, you made a promise, they trusted you-”

“Because I fucked up okay? I made a mistake! I don’t expect you to understand-”

“Understand what? It’s not like you can accidentally execute someone-”

“I cheated okay?” Rob barked.

His eyes were slitted, wet and dangerous. His scruffy jaw was set tight, his brow savage. For an instant Frib was back in that locker room back at the precinct around the time of the other man’s demotion, before he left, before any of this was yet to be brought to Frib’s attention. It was like a whole alternate reality had been coexisting along side him and Frib had been blissfully unaware if not ignorant of its existence, but with eyes locked across the room he was literally forced to confront it. Whether it was the shock news mere hours ago back at the club or the haunting distraction of a child’s dead body growing cold atop his bed, Frib felt as if the walls were starting to close in around him. With hands to his mouth, his fingers weakly smothering the bottom half of his face, the young detective began a slow and unsteady descent towards the floor as the sound of Rob’s voice followed him down.

“I had an affair, a woman; a dancer at his club,” Rob explained desperately, “her name was Vanessa. It was just after Nicky died. Rave was so cut off we were barely even speaking by that stage, not that it mattered. Like, everything always came second to her writing, me, Nicky, our marriage, you name it - It was dumb but I… I wasn’t thinking you know? She always made me feel like an idiot, like what I did was… wasn’t as important as hers, you know. I just wanted… I needed something, someone to connect to… I knew if Ravyn found out it would kill her. She’d already been in and out of therapy, cut herself and shit… By the time Nicky died she was so far gone I couldn’t reach her anyway… I think I wanted her to know, you know, get some sort of reaction. Like, I wanted her to hurt… but I couldn’t tell her, I don’t know why. I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“You told Mike.”

“I didn’t have to. He knew. She probably told him, I don’t know. I never saw her again. He took care of my problem, I took care of his, that’s how we were,” Rob said, drawing both of his knees up now to recline against and wrap his arms around limply. “We were friends. We were like brothers. We understood each other. More than anyone else I’ve ever known. That’s why I did it... and that’s why I left. He was already in my head. I knew if I stuck around too much longer I was going to end up just like him. I couldn’t hurt anyone else… I can’t.”

[Ravynlee]

Slowly raising his eyes up Rob was looking at Ava again but the look on his face had saddened. It looked as if mere will power was keeping him going in his exhausted state. Left sitting alone together as the silence and the stillness enshrouded them, the two men sat staring off distantly but not towards each other. Rob couldn’t hold Frib’s eyes and Frib was almost glad for it. There was too much now left to say that would never be said between them that Frib felt physically heavy and sick inside thinking of it. The man in front of him wasn’t anyone he knew, not visually, not mentally, not emotionally in any way. Mike Shinoda, and the crimes he had enabled another to comit for his own agenda, had driven a defining wedge forever between them. All Frib could see when he looked at his ex partner was defeat. It was failure. It barely seemed real to reminisce on the times at the academy and in his formative beginning in the force that he had looked at Rob like the once golden star he had reportedly been. It was a cruel and unforgiving burden he had been dealt to see that perfect façade crumble into dust in front of his very eyes and the illusion blow away. What was left wasn’t even worth pitying anymore. Rob was a ghost roaming the earth now utterly lost and incomplete. He was in all factuality the young detective’s enemy – but Frib could only flick his eyes up briefly and smile. His smile wasn’t one of genuine joy but grief. Rob was as dead inside as the little girl wrapped in the covers on his bed – the only difference was Ava really had passed on to a better place – Rob was forever condemned by his own hand and he knew it.

“So… what now?” he wondered eventually. His voice echoed off the dull empty walls with amplified importance as Rob pouted and slumped back against the wall with a shrug. “You know they know you’re alive, right? Word on the wire, I mean.”

“I figured it was only a matter of time,” came Rob’s matter-of-factual response. He swallowed loudly. “Joanna?”

“She knows too.”

“God damn it-”

“Rob… there’s something you should know-”

“She’s with Joel now, I know, Ravyn told me.”

“No,” Frib said.

He was mirroring the other man’s body language with his knees drawn up and his arms draped around them, clutching at his wrist with his head back against the cool hard wall. He was marvelling at the subtle shift in Rob’s demeanour, how through the untamed beard and beneath the wild mop of hair that he had gone from miserable wretch to defensive with barely a shift of his brows, but for a moment Frib was at a loss to really say anything further. Was it his place to? How much should he really tell, he wondered, then decided against it. The sight of Ava lying mere feet away was like a mental smack in the face, reorienting him against the petty trivialities of life – as only death can. With a self-depreciating snort Frib sighed and looked at his lap, catching sight of his ex-partner’s hand in his peripheral vision. Something inside of him sunk like an iceberg to see Rob was still wearing his wedding ring on his finger – and with that Frib shook his head again sadly.

“Rob… I don’t know if it’s my place to say anything or not, but you should probably know… Joanna’s pregnant. To Joel. They think she might be carrying twins.”

Rob nodded. His head remained back against the wall with his face inclined towards the ceiling but appearing to visually see little of it. He nodded again, his mouth pursing tight to keep the words that he obviously wanted to say from purging out. Even distanced by a few metres Frib could see the muscles on his face twitching. He sniffed sharply, cleared his throat, and nodded once more.

“Yeah,” he said.

Frib waited. Nothing else was forthcoming.

“I know, I probably shouldn’t have said anything-”

“No. No, you’re… It’s all good. I’m supposed to be dead remember? That’s what she’s supposed to do, move on with her life. Marry, settle down-”

“Rob-”

“How’s Haily?”

Frib hesitated. “She’s fine. Good. She looks like you. Or she did, last time I saw her. It was at… some… work…”

His words trailed off watching as Rob rubbed at his brow again and a moment later smother his eyes with his palm. His shoulders shuddered. Then he sobbed. He was clearly struggling not to but the events of the last twenty four hours, if not months, had finally taken their toll as he broke down and began to cry. Frib just sat there unnerved but unable to say or do anything to console him. He was torn between obligation and loyalty, on one hand looking at the rogue cop as he was supposed to, as a criminal, as a felon, as a murderer that by his own admission had taken at least four lives and undoubtedly more, but beyond that Frib only saw him for what he was, a man in obvious distress and pain. His insides churned at the force of his thoughts and emotions, all exacerbated of course by the copious amount of alcohol still working it’s way through his system, as he looked away from Rob to the body of Chester Bennington’s daughter lying cold a few feet away. There was no relief as he pulled his head back to stare at the ceiling and try to mentally grapple with all that confronted him. That’s when he heard the melodic tune echo back from somewhere unseen and it took Frib a moment to realise it was the sound of his cell phone ringing out in the hall. He must have dropped it when he helped Rob and the cold limp form of Ava from the bloodied scene of the bathroom. Immediately he frowned towards the door and caught Rob smearing his eyes and glaring accusingly at him. Frib cursed. What was the time? The raid! Shit! That was probably the captain demanding to know where he was. How long had they been sitting here? Instinctively Frib began pushing himself up on to his feet. Rob was joining him.

“Who is that?”

“I don’t know. Probably the team.”

“They can’t know I’m here,” Rob said.

His voice was still wretched and unsteady but the stern look on his face demanded Frib’s compliance. Frib nodded, making his way towards the door as Rob made his way over to the bed to delicately manoeuvre Ava’s body into his arms. Frib stared, his brow furrowed and his mouth agape in disapproval. He had a brief yet unsettling thought that Ava wasn’t dead but merely asleep (even with a sheet over her entire body and head) and that the events of the last hour or so hadn’t happened, but the nausea in his throat and stomach reminded him otherwise. He let out a wince rather than speak as Rob drew back upright nursing the child looking like a mummy in his arms. There were still thick pools of blood encrusted to his shirt and jacket and sleeves as he sniffed, wiped his cheek as best he could on his shoulder, and manoeuvred his way past his bewildered ex-partner.

“Rob, what are you-?” Frib began, following Rob out into the hallway. “We can’t take her- she has to go to the-”

“Her mother’s in the hospital,” Rob uttered.

[Ravynlee]

Emerging in the living room he turned to watch Frib approach and pluck his cell phone up from where it had obviously fallen from his pocket when he came home and kicked his shoes off. Frib began to argue it but the look on Rob’s harrowed face silenced him. The fact that Rob had been so candid recently persuaded the younger man that there was obviously no reason for him to lie now, as much as Frib wanted to believe otherwise. Too pressed for time, too anxious about whether or not to answer his phone still ringing, and unsure on what to say with Rob’s eyes upon him, Frib swallowed his arguments and simply agreed with him. He didn’t question as to how Rob knew about Sarah’s fate deciding after what he now knew of his ex partner’s criminal past that he didn’t feel comfortable asking questions anymore. But Rob was still talking. He mentioned something about having nowhere else for the child to go, but given the sudden frantic atmosphere from the wake of mere moments ago, Frib barely caught a word of it.

“It’s Benji. Shit, man. The raid-” Frib said, glimpsing at the screen on his phone. Rob was frowning down over him, silently demanding answers. “We have to leave her here.”

“And if we do that and someone comes here and finds her they’re gonna think you did it,” Rob stated.

Frib rolled his eyes exasperatedly.

“Then another hospital.”

“Then they’re gonna think we did it. CCTV, remember?”

“Well what do you think? Where do we go?”

“How the hell do I know? That’s why I came here, remember?”

“Think, damn it, think! There has to be somewhere where we can go where we won’t be seen. Where’s the last place someone would think to look?”

“I don’t know,” Rob confessed. “But if you wander in off the street carrying her they’re gonna ask questions and what are you gonna tell them? That I did it? I’m not supposed to even be alive remember? They’ll lock you up in the funny-farm and throw away the key. Besides we’ve also got to worry about-”

“Chester,” Frib intercepted flatly.

He was looking at the white bundle in Rob’s arms at where her face would have been had it not been covered thankfully by so much material. The young detective swallowed loudly and raised his eyes up to face Rob’s. Rob had fallen silent. There was a strange kind of vulnerability about him then that put his previous credence as some cold-blooded mercenary in serious doubt – but all that was dashed by the sudden silence that had settled. Frib blinked down at the phone clutched tightly in his hand. He swore at the screen as if Benji had been able to hear it. Benji had hung up. He was probably on his way over now figuring Frib was too drunk to organise himself and berate him for not falling as he well should into line.

“What are we going do? They’re going to come. You know how they are. They’re going to think something’s wrong.”

“It is,” Rob said seriously. “Rave knows I’m alive. She’s the one that did this to Ava, I mean we did, even if it was an accident, and now she’s running straight to him. If word gets to him first he’ll kill her then he’ll come after me, and Joanna, Haily too. I can’t risk it.”

“So what are you going to do?” Frib asked. Feeling anxiety and adrenalin coursing through his veins he watched as Rob laid Ava’s body on the sofa. Frib rushed forward and grabbed his arm to stop him. “What the hell are you doing? No, man, you can’t do that! She needs to go to a morgue. You have to get the hell out of here. If anyone sees you-”

“Listen to me,” Rob demanded, shrugging his arm loose.

Laying Ava down he turned to the other man and dug a fist into his back pocket withdrawing a set of keys. He sorted through them and held up the appropriate one as Frib glared back, trying hard not to keep looking towards the front door as if expecting Benji of Joel or any one of the NYPD to come bursting through it and get the wrong impression about what was taking place here – Frib was almost certain were he not even partially inebriated he wouldn’t be able to deal with any of it himself. Rob shoved the key into his palm and slapped his other hand over it. The look on his face had changed again and Frib could only stare back indignantly. There was a car parked a few streets back Rob was explaining, along with the make and model.

“Take her, put her in there. Take the car to Sacred Heart. Leave it in the car park if you have to. Out of the way. Keep an eye out for security cameras-”

“Where are you going to go?” Frib asked, but Rob was already making his way towards the door.

“Where’s this raid?” he muttered, ripping his bloodied jacket off.

Frib shrugged. His frown continued to darken as he clutched the key inside his fist. He could feel himself shaking as much from adrenalin as the prospect of what lay ahead – and the fear of getting caught with the body of a missing child literally in his hands.

“Why?” he asked.

He watched Rob stop, study his stained shirt, then wrench that off over his head too. He scrunched it in his fist before throwing it aside. Frib watched it land on top of Ava. In true cop-style Rob wasn’t leaving such noticeable races of himself behind for anyone to scrutinise later. Bare-chested Rob was striding down the hall again making his way back into the other man’s bedroom. Anxiously leaving Ava on the sofa Frib quickly gave chase catching Rob rummaging through his closet as if he had every right to do so.

“Don’t suppose you have anything here that would fit me do you?”

Frib shook his head and repeated his question as to Rob’s next course of action, dubious as to whether or not he wanted to actually hear it and thinking of the repercussions if later it was discovered Rob had been here and Frib had willingly let him walk free. But Frib was too anxious to form much of this into coherent thoughts let alone sentences, watching Rob rip one of Frib’s long sleeved tees over his head and fist it from the inside to stretch it much to Frib’s annoyance.

“Look, Rob, if you go out there any number of people could see you, anything could happen, then what good are you?”

“I’m no better off sitting here crying about it,” Rob stated.

Tugging the shirt into place Rob made his way past and made a quick stop in the bathroom to compose himself. When he re-emerged a few moments later Frb was waiting for him. Rob came to a stop, blocked in the doorway by the smaller, shorter man and his determined stare. Rob frowned.

“Do you have any idea how many laws I’m breaking if I let you walk out of here?” Frib asked.

Rob pouted. He went to step forward but again Frib blocked him.

“I can’t just let you go like this.”

“You can’t stop me, Kris.”

“I don’t want to,” Frib said.

[Ravynlee]

He looked more certain than he sounded, glaring up at the six and a half foot giant with his nerves firing anxiously. Rob snorted. He shook his head and took a step back putting a manageable distance between them.

“If I have to kill you I will. Don’t force me to do something I’m gonna regret.”

“I’m coming with you,” Frib said.

Rob’s frown, that had been darkening ominously, was now pinched with surprise.

“What?”

“I can’t let you go, at least not alone. If I go now people are going to ask too many questions. I have to know. I already know too much, don’t I? I can’t just walk away and pretend I don’t. Besides, I want him to pay as much as you do-”

“Who?”

“Mike,” Frib said, mirroring Rob’s incredulous smile briefly.

The young detective glimpsed over his shoulder, towards where the body of Ava lay, to where the rest of his normal average somnolent life still was, before he returned his attentions to his old partner. Rob was studying him suspiciously and Frib was doing his best to appease him. Confronted with the prospect he was standing in the literal shadow of a man that broke bones and blew holes in people at another’s say-so, Frib could only swallow his cresting anxiety and smile back in appeasement.

“He’s gotten away with it for so long, if there’s anything I can do to help bring him down count me in.”

“Who said I was going after Mike?” Rob asked.

His frown and conflicting smile hadn’t shifted as he stared back down over the other man with his arms now folded.

Frib stared at him. He blinked dubiously.

“But- what he did to- to Rave, remember. He tried to kill her. Don’t you want to make him pay for what he did to you? To your family?”

Rob opened his mouth to speak then stopped and shifted to the basin where he rinsed his face and the back of his neck again. He sniffed as he smeared his face with a towel. Tossing it aside he swirled it around on the floor with his foot. The blood beneath it rendered the towel red as Rob reached in to the shower recess within arm’s reach and turned the water on, washing the blood away. The room was infused by the applause of running water as Frib watched on in a kind of hypnotic daze. The pink-tinged water swirled as it gurgled down the drain. He only glimpsed up when Rob shut the water off. That’s when he had an epiphany.

“It wasn’t Mike was it, what happened to her; to Rave. All that work trying to make it look like a home invasion, all that water, the lack of DNA, only a cop would know how to do that, wouldn’t they?”

Clearing his throat Rob snatched a cap hanging from a brass hook beside the mirror and assessed himself putting it on in the mirror. He sniffed and sighed to himself heavily. Then he turned around and walked past his ex partner, without so much as a passing glance.

“You’re never gonna learn,” Rob uttered. “You always did ask too many questions.”

Reaching out Rob slapped at the wall, snapping off the light, leaving Frib alone in the darkness. For a moment Frib couldn’t move. All he could smell was blood.

 

---

 

Ahh... see, now it's NOT the end, still so much to explain! Haha. Yeah Vanessa deserved a mention there somewhere. I was hoping it might go some ways as to describing this tension that always seems present between my character and Rob - or him and just about every other female character in this story. That's a start anyway. Just came out of the blue too. Probably reading Sarah's story triggered that, damn you woman! haha, anyway, hope all's good. And how's Frib now walking that nebulous grey area with Rob?? Rebel! Yay for Frib, finally his eyes are open to the truth, but feel sorry for him now that he has been exposed to more information than he ever trully wanted (or asked for) Guess I can rationalise Frib's behaviour as empathy somewhat, and that in spite of Rob's past Frib still has those old bonds of 'brotherhood' that comes with being a cop. Aww. But you draw your own conclusions, I just write this chit, it's up to you to mentally process it. Hopefully it sits well with your collective conscience.

Anyway, more when I can manage it Must sleep now. Sky's getting light outside my window.

Thanks again.

Night.

[Pheonix791989]

good update!! a great update and my very first pay check!! celebration time!! i cant wait to read more

[woodyloveslinkin]

^ I'm with Mel on the good update line

But make my day and tell me that you're going to twist Ava's death like you did with Rob's death and hit me with a update (haha not literally I would totally own you in reality height has its many advantages *and disadvantages lol* back on topic now) that Ava suddenly and somehow the doctors made a mistake and she gets brought back to life! I'm still gonna kill that son of a bitch...in fact, have a face off! Ravyn VS Sarah....lmao. Gotta love Sacred Heart, it's such a lovable dramatic hole.

Again, kudos, such a relief from stressing out about upcoming exams and assignments that I have barely started. Hope to see an update some time in the future and keep the updates coming please

 

Lol. December's Shadow is a catchy son of a bitch story to get addicted to ain't it? I've got MSS - MS Syndrome (it's like me normally lmao and that's the last thing I think everyone wants to become...individualism <3) and you've got DSS - December's Shadow Syndrome. Oh well. We can be sick together. Just make keep an eye on Rob. I have a bad feeling something is seriously going to push him into spastic crazy guy mode (think Dan as a fine example *sigh* *men*).

 

BTW. I saw the time of that chapter/posts (and I know I am the only that has the correct time in this thread other that you Rav) and I was like WTF? I know your a night person, but you're sick (and get better dear as well and that makes two of us...smokers cough + some shit thing Dan's little sister gave me) and you need to start going to sleep at the appropiate time try 1 am instead of that stupid time you stayed up to writing that update (I do appreciate the effort btw). I'm dead tired so I'm gonna have a nap and I even missed a class today cos of it, but take care of yourself! I worry about you sometimes.

[andrea]

You know what just a cured to me as I was reading this update just now? This story really need to be made into a movie. I loved Rob's confession and his "break down" for everything that he had done in the past. I also had the feeling that Mike couldn't have done anything to Rav (the Rashell character insistences are kicking in, hehe). I'm so looking forward to the ending of the "mob war" between Mike and Chester and like Jojo, I'm cheering for Mike (obviously ).

[Pheonix791989]

to be honest with the mob war.... im not sure who i want to win. I don't like confrontation so yeah. but if anyone has to win i guess i'd go for mike like every one else seems to be rooting for.

[woodyloveslinkin]

I didn't mind the confrontation. *shrugs* probs anything doesn't matter to me after the shit of the night I had last night......fever...vomiting and fucking everything else. But somehow reading this over settled my stomach then threw up again thirty seconds later....lol.

[Friðbjörn]

very intense, veryy good

I'm excited about how this will go

[Pheonix791989]

my dear sarah i believe that's what they call withdrawal. you're having withdrawal symptoms from lack of MS. wel atleast it makes senst to me. cheers.

[woodyloveslinkin]

Lol. withdrawal symptoms. And I thought it was just some piece of shit thing Daniel's little sister gave me.

Yep. Withdrawal symptoms all the way, now it all makes sense to me....and Daniel was going to take me to the doctors...In fact, 4 am not tired! Been sleeping for like forever!

[crazy robster]

Brilliant! Though I could never think Rob in his always calm and polite manners could commit such crimes!! I still feel so sorry for him His confession was the strongest part of the update! Really great sis! Adrenalin is on high levels and not only for the characters, trust me <3

[Ravynlee]

Hey guys, sorry it's been a while, I have been pretty sick this last week, so haven't had the strength to do much let alone write. Still not thrilled with what I've penned but had to get something done, just to keep this alive (in my head) and so you all know it's kicking... Apologies for keeping y'all waiting

So... just a few pages tonight. This was the chapter I started prior to the previous update but had to switch them around. In my copy of this story this update goes before the one I previously posted where Rob's having his confession with Fribs. Shouldn't confuse you too much - bearing in mind I'm still a little unsteady with this pneumonia so what makes sense to me might not make sense to you for real this time. Just have to pull me up and say something if something you read doesn't seem to cut it. Hopefully all's good.

So without further ado here's what I have tonight. Working on more as we speak. See what I can pull together in the next day or two

Enjoy - if you can.

 

---

 

Beneath the golden statue Mike stood staring at the inscription with his eyes tracing the words reverently.

"Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire to earth that hath proven to mortals a means to mighty ends."

He snorted. Shifting the cap’s brim closer against his brow Mike lowered his eyes to the cascading water with an introspective smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“M?” said a voice behind him.

“Yeah,” he acknowledged.

As he turned around his shoulders fell noticeably with relief. Facing his friend he reached out accepting Tak’s hand. The two embraced briefly and slapped each other’s backs. Tak nodded and stepped back allowing Ryu to take his place. Uttering a few words of greeting the two men embraced before retreating, and Mike’s eyes narrowed a little as he watched Ryu pull away. Though the weather was pleasant out, invariably still for a spring night, beads of sweat glistened on the other man’s temples and brow. He uttered something of a guilty sound, apologizing for his and Tak’s lateness as he smeared the back of his neck and face with his hand. Mike nodded returning his fists inside his hooded jacket with his focus unwavering. Around them a handful of eyes lingered saying nothing. They didn’t have to. Though crowds as always had gathered on the sunken plaza to stroll beneath the lit trees or to take in the ambiance of one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, the few familiar faces of Mike’s crew stood out to those who were observant enough - they were tense anxious faces amidst a chorus of laughter and sea of smiles.

“So, we all here?” Tak asked.

“Who’s missing?” asked another.

Mike rolled his eyes aside, scanning the crowds that had stopped to take photographs, to laugh and regale with the naivety of tourists, and met Jared’s eyes seriously.

“Bam,” he said.

His voice was so low only the few closest to him actually heard him over the din of the surrounding noise. As nervous glances were exchanged someone bravely uttered another name.

“Where’s Phi?”

Mike’s frown disappeared beneath the shadow cast by his hood and his cap. His broad shoulders squared themselves determinedly to match the sharp sting in his eyes. Strolling towards the crowd and careful not to stray too far amidst it, Mike wandered over towards a small escarpment of foliage and loitered as his retinue soon followed suit. Here away from the general prying eyes of the patrons and pedestrians steadily flowing from the assortment of café’s and stores above, Mike’s attentions quickly turned inwards.

“Man, she should be here by now.”

“They both should be.”

“Unless they got something to hide-”

“Enough!” Mike snapped, smartly silencing their growing unrest.

When he looked up the look on his face was dangerous. After news on Brad, and before that Rashell, Mike was a hair’s breadth from losing what tentative hold he had left on his temper and was primed to go off like an atom bomb if someone was stupid enough to provoke him - and no one particularly wanted to be in that firing line if they could at all help it. But as the seconds ticked down and the sound of conversation and revelry of the rest of the NYC crowds - enjoying the splendorous weather and without so much as a clue as to the underlying tension simmering beneath the city streets like a volcano set to erupt – grated away what little joviality was left with Mike and his crew, the eventual doubts that the duo’s now noticeable absence created came out in the open in the form of questions and speculation and now could no longer be ignored.

“No, she wouldn’t do that,” Mike defended to their distrustful stares. He shook his head and dug his fists deeper inside his jacket pockets to keep himself from swinging them in insult. “There has to be an explanation. I know, Mel, alright. If there’s a traitor here she’d be the one hunting it out. I won’t buy for a second she had anything to do with it. Bam on the other hand…”

“Yo M, man, we just like not long saw them,” Ryu said.

He was by now sweating profusely and his quick discreet gestures were now drawing everyone’s attention rather than diffusing it. Frowning sceptically Mike opened his mouth in rebuttal before he stopped, appeared to reconsider, and approached his taller friend with a less than hospitable look scored upon his face. But Ryu didn’t appear to be seeing him. Maybe he was trying to appear subservient and came off shady instead. His face was pale and his eyes, on the brief occasion they met Mike’s, were wet and glazed. To anyone else he might have appeared feverish, but to Mike, and to the worrisome stare of his big ebony counterpart beside him, Ryu looked disoriented and scared.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mike asked, stopping a few mere inches from his friend’s sweat-slicked face. “Are you sick?”

“I think I’m comin’ down with somethin’, man,” Ryu uttered. His teeth were beginning intermittently to chatter.

Beside him Tak was explaining how Ryu had been like this on the ride over, and even suggested, with the absence of other immediate tell-tale signs like a breath free from the reek of booze, it might have been, among other things, food poisoning. Mike pursed his lips dubiously and studied his friend. Half way through asking what Ryu had eaten Mike’s cell phone began to ring. With an irritated little hiss Mike swept his face and dug a fist inside his hip pocket. Already walking away from his posse he glimpsed down at the screen and stopped.

Phi.

“Shit.”

Digging his tongue into his cheek Mike glimpsed up at the many flags that gartered the plaza all lying still for the most part like dead life forms slumped against their poles. He glimpsed higher up towards the sky but his eyes never made it past the imposing bulk of the skyscraper before his focus fell once more back to Prometheus. He sighed and raised a hand signaling privacy. Jared, Tak, Ryu, Celph, and a handful of others fell back uttering words amongst themselves. When Mike raised the phone to his ear his voice was vastly different from the scathing stare to which he gave the ancient Greek Titan several meters away. Clearing his throat he readied himself to speak.

“Where are you?” was the first thing he asked her.

He listened to her explain that she was nearby, that she had information, and that she had something he needed to see, and his fingers gripped tighter to the phone. He was practically rendered mute as he clenched his jaw and slowly, carefully, turned on the spot to face his old friend Ryu.

[Ravynlee]

“Is that a fact?” he asked, as eventually, one by one, what remained of his crew too slowly raised their eyes to face him. Only one person wasn’t looking back in Mike’s direction, too preoccupied with sweeping his eyes or his mouth or struggling to remain upright though there was no external force by which to assault him. When everyone else realized Mike’s stare was fixed determinedly on Ryu so too did each one of them curiously and cautiously follow suit. Realizing that he was now under scrutiny Ryu blinked up and chuckled. It sounded nervous.

“What, man? Is that her?”

Mike sighed and throwing his eyes aside in disgust he shoved the phone in his pocket and cleared his throat once more.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

“Well where is she? What did she say?” Tak wanted to know.

The others were speaking but for the most part their words were garbled and drowned out in the general drone of surrounding conversation.

For a while Mike didn’t speak. With his head low and his face for the most part obscured by shadow he was studying the ground as the rest of them threw questions and comments between them. Mike didn’t appear to be hearing any of it but in true form the look on his face set like stone assured he was absorbing everything. As his companions spoke Mike took a moment to collect his thoughts and intermittently scan the crowd just to make sure no one recognized him before he looked up and stared at his friend intently.

“What?” Ryu croaked. His stance was unsteady, made all the more prominent by his attempts at masking it. “What are you looking at me like that for?” he asked as Mike continued to stare at him. “What did that bitch tell you? Yo, M, man, she’s fucking crazy, alright?”

“I doubt it,” Mike uttered.

But Ryu kept talking right over the top of him.

“I don’t know what she’s saying but- her and Bam, right- man, they jumped me, before-”

“Just stop it.”

“I’m fuckin’ serious man!”

“When?”

“Before Tak showed up.”

Mike turned his attentions to Tak. “Did you see anything?”

Tak slid his eyes aside to Ryu. Ryu looked back at him.

“Don’t look at him!” Mark barked, thudding himself in the chest. “Look at me! You tell me! Did you see it?”

“No.”

“No,” Mike repeated. “Are you sure?”

“Come on, man, M, Mike, you know me man,” Ryu said.

He winced. He was rubbing at his eyes so viciously that he was rendering himself blind from the force of it. But Mike wasn’t moved by his plight anymore. Whether it was his grief carried over from Brad, whether it was anger at what had happened to Rashell, whether it was something internal or something Mel had said, Mike was looking at his old friend now with fierce suspicion, and Ryu was making noises like he was sensing this tide now turning against him and felt powerless to stop it. He looked gravely ill now and he staggered backwards a step when Mike approached him. The others uttered amongst themselves. A few went to help him stand. Mike silently told them to leave him alone. He was following Ryu as the bigger man was retreating away from him, defensively at first but in a matter of seconds becoming so sluggish that he could barely stay upright. When he hit the ground people around them gawked, some even stopped and stared. Wary of the spectacle he was creating Mike strode the few meters up to Ryu and seized him by the collar. He tugged him close. Anyone else may have thought it to be nothing more than a friendly gesture in helping an obviously inebriated man. But the flash of Mike’s dark eyes screamed another story and the tension by which he held Ryu close and upright had his knuckles glowing white with the strain. By the time Tak had joined them, needling something in Mike’s ear about letting his friend go and needing to calm down and think, Ryu’s eyes were struggling to focus.

“Mike, man, don’t…” Ryu uttered. His words were low and laborious. His eyes were closing. With a fierce shake Mike forced him to open them again.

“Where were you tonight, huh?” Mike was hissing into his friend’s face as again he shook him. The rest of the gang were huddled close, making noise, conversation, causing a distraction to the wary eyes of those streaming all around them. “It was you wasn’t it? You ran down Brad, didn’t you? You come here and what, pretend you didn’t? Huh? Is that what happened? Is it? Say something!”

But Ryu’s responses, and garbled as they were, went ignored as Mike’s fingers were forcibly wrenched loose from the other man’s collar.

“M,” Tak said, his face like his voice like the look in his lowered and stinging eyes, implored him for composure. “Not here. We can’t do this shit here.”

With his jaw set tight Mike nodded and set himself right with another quick assessment of the surrounding crowds. But in that instant that he let go Ryu’s solid frame took a few steps backwards and pitched across the concrete with an arm splashing into the water. For a moment Mike stood watching as the rest of the team arced around their fallen own. He sniffed and nodded and flicked his eyes up once more at Prometheus, the titan who had risked it all for the fortunes of others. Again he snorted to himself before he looked away.

“You’re right,” he uttered, and motioned Jared and Celph to pick Ryu up. He smiled to himself but his eyes were averted. “Take him to the club. Wait for me there.”

Tak nodded. It was clear by the look on his face that he was torn between loyalties, but trusting Mike had insight enough to know what he was doing.

“What are you gonna do?”

“She tells me she has proof. I have to see it for myself.”

“Come on, man, this is Ryu! Ryu! He wouldn’t do that shit, you know that! You’ve known him for years-!”

“I knew Chester for years too,” Mike muttered, “Look at what happened.”

[Ravynlee]

Silent and scorned Tak kept staring at his shoes sullenly.

Reaching out Mike slapped a hand against his friend’s chest as if in consolation. He huffed his breath out in a sigh. It was dismal, yet angry, just as Tak’s was. He didn’t want to believe it himself but somehow, in some way, if he thought about it something about Ryu’s deception just seemed to add up. It had to, what he had witnessed tonight was just the proverbial icing in the cake.

“I can’t believe it. Not Ryu man. Anyone but him. He loves you. We all do.”

“I know,” Mike said, staring aimlessly in another direction as the others led Ryu back to the nearest available vehicle. “I know… either way I’ll soon find out.”

He nodded as Tak excused himself to join the rest of his companions. Reaching out again Mike stopped him. Shoving his fists in against his biceps Mike struggled with his delivery as he said, towards the dancing jets of water, “Get some bleach.”

“What?” Tak scoffed.

Mike rolled his eyes and his head aside slowly to face him. There was no humor on his face there, nor a hint there had ever been, any more.

“Bleach. What they use to clean toilets with.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Mike said, and sniffed sharply at the warm tantalizing air of the plaza. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this tonight if it kills us. If he has anything to hide we’ll flush it out of him. One way or another.”

“Yeah, but with that?”

“You have a better solution?” Mike offered.

Tak dubiously shook his head. After the events of the last few days it was clear he wasn’t sure which way to answer. He watched Mike begin to stroll away before Mike stopped and turned back around to smile at his friend again.

“Solution; You know they use it to cut stuff with, right? Acid, shit like that. I heard that somewhere. Not all of them, but some of them. Those like our redheaded friend and shit.”

“Yeah,” Tak said vaguely, “I guess.”

“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “Maybe we could just ask him when he wakes up.”

“But you don’t think Ryu’s into-”

“It doesn’t matter what I think!” Mike snapped, in close to Tak’s face viciously. “You saw him just now! You tell me! He’s been losing it for weeks, if it’s not his fucking temper it’s his constant wailing on Melissa! He’s going overboard, he put that chick on the hospital when all I told him to do was-” Mike said, then fell silent, realizing his voice was getting too loud and too heated and in the wrong environment of all places. Clearing his throat he studied the ground a moment before he looked up to where his friends had gone, lost to the gently streaming crowd. Again his shoulders rose and fell heavily.

“Look I don’t want to believe it myself,” he uttered, his voice low, dry and parched with angst. “But what choice have I got? I’ve already lost too much that’s close to me and if anyone around me is a risk I have to act and I have to act now. We’re only as strong as our weakest link, remember that. I can’t afford to lose anyone else. If I have to, I’ll get rid of him myself. I’ll just add him to the list of former friends who’ve turned on me.”

Tak swallowed loudly and nodded. His dark eyes trailed sadly to the ground. Mike could only mimic the gesture in kind, the memory and emotion of recent events too strong still to let him lose to grief just yet. His dark eyes still smoldered and his face was still blank. Without so much as a second glance or parting word Mike bowed his head and inconspicuously made his way through the milling crowd and disappeared from sight.

 

---