Chapter Text
The rain had been falling steadily for some time. A dull yellow sheen clung to every surface, streetlamps reflecting against the gleaming wet pavement. The road was mostly deserted at this time of the night, though Red still kept his head down against the rain and his movements to a minimum. Although if he made for a strange and suspicious sight to the occasional passerby with both his overdressed attire and seeming disregard for what the weather was currently doing to the state of his clothes, well, he really couldn’t be bothered at this point.
His attention was focused on the telephone booth further down the block. In the several hours since he had made his escape from the abandoned church building that Anslo had appropriated for the precise purpose of exacting his revenge on Red – or at least, the abridged version that Fitch had constrained him to - he’d spent the time idling in shady hideouts across the city to wait out the pursuit. It had been a few extremely unproductive hours.
Although Garrick was dead now and Fitch had more than likely felt he’d made his point, there were still the hired guns to consider – both Garrick’s mercenaries, and whatever team the FBI had managed to clobber together to send after him.
He can’t say he’s too keen to have either side get their hands on him again – after all, even Cooper might have decided after the losses he’d incurred that Red was too much of a liability for them to continue playing good cops. That it might be more expedient to simply lock him up and attempt to interrogate the information out of him. Not that they would get anywhere with that, but he wasn’t about to wait around for them to find out. Lizzie, he was inclined to forgive, but really, he’s had quite enough of people sticking sharp and pointy objects into him as of late.
Red slowed down his steps when he approached the phone booth. The last thing he wanted to do was put any of his people at risk again after everything that had happened, but he was running out of options at this point. The recent events had taken their toll and he found he was fast approaching his limit. It would defeat the purpose entirely for them to find him simply by virtue of having succumbed to unconsciousness in some dingy back alley.
He cast a quick glance about him before slipping inside the booth, taking precautions to knock out the single bulb that shone dimly in the interior of the booth and plunging his immediate surroundings into darkness. He hunted for several of the quarters he kept in various pockets and dug them out, dropping them one by one into the coin slot. As a rule, he usually made sure to keep a few coins on his person in the local currency, for just such occasions as these. People rarely deemed coins threatening or valuable enough to confiscate.
Bone weary and nerves still stinging from the residual drugs that remained in his system, Red slumped against the side of the telephone box as he punched in the number. He let it ring for a few seconds before hanging up. The call would go through a router box to a burner cell, and the recipient would then telephone him back from another location, the call being routed again.
Red kept a wary eye on his surroundings as he counted down the minutes waiting for the return call. Catching himself feeling admittedly more paranoid than usual, he had to acknowledge that the swift execution of Anslo’s attack had thrown him off-balance. Something had gone very wrong that day. Probably things had been amiss for quite some time now, if he were being perfectly honest with himself. With his primary focus being elsewhere these days – namely, Lizzie – he had missed a crucial detail somewhere, something that must have been right in front of him all this time.
Red pressed a palm to his temple in an effort to alleviate the dull pounding in his skull. He had to get out of the city and buy himself some time to think until he could take care of the pressing business that had led him into this mess in the first place. No matter how much he’d loath to leave Lizzie, this proximity to her was clouding his judgment. He needed distance, but first, he had to make sure Lizzie would be safe in his absence, and for that, he needed Dembe.
Red closed his eyes briefly. He had to believe that the other man had safely made it out of the firefight that had no doubt gone down between the FBI assault team and the rest of Garrick’s forces after Anslo’s team had left the compound with him. He refused to think otherwise.
The jarring ring of the telephone was startling loud and Red snatched it off the hook before it could disturb the silence with a second ring. He held the receiver to his ear and waited. The caller would speak first, that was the agreed arrangement.
“Hello?” Dembe’s voice, cautious and unsure, filtered in over the line. Relief flooded over him, and Red loosened the stranglehold grip he had on the phone. It had been much too close a call for both of them. The last few weeks – it’s just been one thing after another, and he hadn’t even had room to breathe and now Luli was gone. And Dembe had come so close. He knew that Luli’s death would hit him hard later, when he had time to let himself grieve - but right now he held fast to the fact that Dembe was there. He was okay.
“Dembe, it’s me. I was wondering if you might come pick me up. I…seem to have misplaced the cab fare.”
The pause from the other end of the line told him that his bodyguard was not amused. And okay, sometimes he really couldn’t help himself, but he needed this, the normality of it – Dembe being annoyed at him was infinitely better than the alternative he was unwilling to consider.
“Raymond? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Dembe. I just need you to come get me.” He gave the other man the location and ended the call.
Red made himself walk a block further, scouting out a spot in the shadows against the side of an old apartment building where he could keep an eye on the phone booth and still remain relatively hidden.
Putting his back to the wall and letting himself slide down until he was sitting on the damp sidewalk, he closed his eyes and waited with shallow breaths for Dembe to arrive.
Alone in the semi-darkness, Red let his thoughts drift – a dozen plans formulating and subsequently dismissed with equal disdain – exhaustion making it near impossible for him to pick. The numbness that threatened to steal over him wasn’t due to the cold, or the pain. It was a much deeper, unsettling one, as the darkness inside him threatened to rear its head, faintly thrilled at the prospect of being unleashed again.
Red leaned his head back against the wall. He had no compunctions about who he was – what he wasn’t was a good man, he knew as much. But at some point he had to decide where to draw the line.
The people in his life that he cared deeply about – Lizzie, Dembe, Luli, Sam, and precious few others – had kept him grounded, kept him from truly crossing that line. But with each loss, he felt himself closer to spiraling out of control, the dangerous kind where he no longer chose to take responsibility for his actions. He’s been down that road once and he hadn’t liked who he’d become. But with the cold anger settling deep within him, he was finding it more and more difficult to care. Monster, Lizzie had called him, and he wholeheartedly agree. Though Lizzie had no idea just what sort of nightmare a man with resources like Raymond Reddington could become, if he so chooses.
After a while, he tuned out his thoughts and just listened to the sound of the storm hitting the ground in thousands of sharp bursts. It was a loud kind of silence, like white noise, almost. A good place to think. Or not to think. Whichever one’s preference.
Moments later, the sight of an unfamiliar car rolling up to the telephone booth stirred up a brief moment of panic before he spotted the driver exiting cautiously and glancing around. It was Dembe.
Red exhaled shakily and pushed himself up from the ground, blinking water droplets out of his eye. He really must be out of it – he hadn’t even remembered to tell Dembe to ditch their usual cars, as Fitch’s people must have some means of tracking them. Dembe, being Dembe, had surmised as much from their brief conversation over the phone and taken care of matters with his usual efficiency. Still, exhaustion was no excuse for carelessness and he should have known better. Mistakes like these are what get people killed.
He headed towards the bodyguard. Dembe met him with long strides and surprised him by throwing an arm around him as soon as he was close enough, and Red couldn’t find it in him to protest despite his aching ribs being squeezed a bit too tightly for comfort.
“You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” he mumbled into the other man’s reassuringly solid chest and leaned into him for a brief moment, feeling the tension drain out of him at Dembe’s presence.
After a minute, Dembe pulled back and gripped Raymond’s shoulder, eyes scanning Red’s face intently and frowning when he didn’t like what he saw there. The rain had washed away most of the blood but Red was sure he didn’t make a pretty sight regardless.
Dembe stared at him unhappily. “What did they do?”
“Nothing worse than the usual.” Red shook his head tiredly and gestured towards the waiting car. They needed to get out of the area.
Dembe’s frown deepened even more at that, if possible, and Red knew he was going to have the story out of him sooner or later. But for the moment he was grateful that Dembe obliged him with the temporary reprieve as he slid into the car.
Dembe shut the door for him and got in the driver’s seat, though he continued to cast him worried glances through the rearview mirror.
Red leaned his head against the door. The glass felt blissfully cool against his forehead and he closed his eyes, trusting that Dembe will get them where they needed to be.