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Anyone who says they aren’t afraid of the dark is a liar. Artemis truly believes this.
She has always had trouble sleeping. The pills for that are helping less than they used to, when her mother first returned home, before she joined the team. The boys like to joke that she is a vampire, and her Halloween costume certainly doesn’t help quiet their conspiracy theories. She always says her insomnia is a side effect of being ever-vigilante, but really, she knows, it is a side effect of constantly being afraid.
People are ruled by their vices and virtues. For some, it is curiosity. Others are motived most by their insecurities. A desire for revenge. A desire for peace. Kaldur acts out of responsibility, bound by duty to both the land and the sea. She watches Dick struggle to live up to the legacy of his father, while simultaneously trying to shake the shadow off himself so he can make his own mark. She and Wally are both constantly on the move. However, he runs with his arms outstretched, always reaching towards something wonderful just ahead. He is fueled by his optimism, and she is propelled by her fear.
She has never been allowed the luxury of slowing down.
M’gann once tells her she is the bravest soul alive. Of course, anyone who would challenge a Lord of Darkness with nothing but a bow and some sharpened sticks must be incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. She hopes everyone believe it’s the first one.
She loves Wally West because he is the only one to see beneath the bravado of Green Arrow’s niece, to see through the dark circles that ring her eyes, to see her recklessness as its own form of self harm. In the infirmary, he studies her eyes and her dark circles and thinks they are bullseyes she has put on herself. She actually tries to talk about it later, to make him understand, and for the life of her, for the longest time, she doesn’t know why it matters so much that him of all people get her. Him, with his freckles and family dinners and freakish ability to sleep anywhere anytime without a care in the world. He is the last person who could understand what it means to be traumatized by your family. The most thoughtless thing his mother has ever done is forgotten to pack him a lunch.
Her head is full of voices, all fears vying for her constant attention. Her aim is not true. Her hands are not quick enough. She will never be a hero like the rest of them. How can she be? No amount of lives saved will be able to erase the blood on her hands. She can fight every day to save the world, but the first voice she hears in her head is her father’s, the one telling her she should burn it all down. Artemis has to work twice, no three times as hard as the rest of them, to be one the good guys. Even Superboy was basically a blank-slate when he joined the team. By the time she was twelve, she already had a lot of tallies going against her.
When Red Arrow rejoins them, all her fears rush forward, beating at her with double the strength. It causes her to stumble, to slow down, to let her mask start to slip. She forgives Wally for everything he said, but she never forgets a word of his rage either. Afterwards, when the truth comes out and her world has imploded, she sits at the kitchen table with Wally, chugging coffee, trying to explain why she kept her true identity a secret. He sits across from her, listening. She thinks. She says, I didn’t think you would understand. It’s always been easy for you, Kid Miracle. You couldn’t be anything other than good. You never have to try.
Even years later, as she lies beside him at night, she finds herself consumed with jealousy. And pride. And admiration. Artemis can’t sleep. The voices are so loud.
They force her to turn her head to look at him. He is a god. Faster than light. Brighter than it, too. Her hands are shaking, clenched fists pulled at her sides. Here is what the voices say to her: He will see you for what you really are. You will never be one of them. You could kill him, cut his throat, before they all turn on you. Cut it to the bone. Go to the kitchen, get a knife, do it. It wouldn’t be that difficult. He would never see it coming. By the time he is awake enough to stop you it will be too late. It’s every girl for herself, Artemis.
She doesn’t want to. It chokes her. She turns away, gets up, looks for a light, and he snores blissfully as Brucey curls up beside him, eager to slide into her spot. Artemis loves them both more than anything. She tries to remember if her parents ever shared a bed when she was growing up. No, they could barely stand cordially in the same room, even before her mother’s accident. Artemis used to wake up to find strange men in her room. Tests, her father called them. If she was successfully able to fight off one henchmen, the next night, her father would send in two. She sits at the kitchen table, listens to the newscaster, and thinks about how it is a great wonder that there isn’t more murder in the world. Sure, people have come to expect it from their archrivals and supervillains, but nobody else on the team has ever had to consider putting one of their parents in the grave. Does Batman hang from rafters like a real bat at night, or does he have a bed? Does his brood of found children see him as dad or demon? She’s always been curious.
When they were kids, once they all came back from a mission all beaten and bloody. Connor and M’gann snuggled on the couch in the living room, folded into each other like creases on a fan, and the sight of it was deeply stirring to her. In her teenage years, even after her father disappeared, she slept in a chair. She watched the people she loved sleep around and beside each other like it was nothing and she wanted to shout: Do you realize how much trust that requires? How much faith you are putting into each other? It would be so easy for them to turn on each. She doesn’t know why every bedroom wall isn’t painted with blood. God, it takes her so long to let Wally hold her, and he never even asks her why.
The nightmares are the worst around her birthday. In the dreams, she peers through the dark, and sees her father’s face very close to hers. Inches. Its appearance changes, but the most horrifying part of it is the suddenness, the closeness, the realness. In her nightmares things move in ways they shouldn’t. Her friends’ corpses are stilted, jerking, stumbling too fast. Then, she sees Wally standing like a broken marionette, dancing on a string.
Artemis, like Alice, has gone mad.
Wally wakes her when he shakes her, and after nights of the waking and the screaming comes the doctor and the pills, and him holding her in the dark, whispering, You’re safe, you’re safe, I’m here.
The villains they fight during the day are easy to defeat, but the real danger comes when they both take their masks off. For a while things are better. Now, beside him, Artemis lies awake and stares at the open bedroom door. It’s like a wall of darkness, and she feels certain that any moment something might emerge. Someone might be there, and then she will blink, and it will be next to them. It will be staring at her. Artemis shuts her eyes, and reaches for the mind link. Opens one eye again. Nothing is there.
The window is slightly open, letting the cold breeze in to counteract the unholy heat Wally gives off constantly. Artemis hears the darkness whisper.
Don’t you love us? Don’t you want us anymore? Do you think you’ve outgrown us, babygirl? The voice sounds like Jade. We made you. Everything you are we helped you become. Who put a bow in your hand the first time, little archer?
Then there’s Cameron, Icicle Junior, Well, don’t you? Don’t you remember how alive we made you feel? How much fun we had? Don’t you remember that?
Were you really that arrogant, babygirl to think you could outrun your past? You can beat down the rest of it, shove it in a closet, and lock up the door in padlocks and chains. But that doesn’t erase it. You’re a liar. You’re a murderer. And what you try to forget can still follow you, so you better start running.
Wally and Artemis have the ability to distract themselves by bickering through almost anything, but at night, he finds himself almost constantly speechless. He knows that she hasn’t slept in almost a week. Or it feels like she hasn’t. That she slips in and out of something somehow more and less than a doze, and she doesn’t like the dreams she’s having. Wally is almost certain they’re not just dreams, but he would have to involve M’gann to find out anything more.
Artemis thinks maybe she is haunted. That something has found her. But the truth is, she has always been in its clutches.
When she was younger, when she was afraid, she would cling to her father. Now that’s she’s older, when she is terrified, it is because in some ways, she is still clinging to him. Kids do that, clasp the object of their fear lovingly, like they can’t bear to let it go. Her father was the most dangerous thing in the world. He is her boogeyman. Part of her mind tries to distract itself, tries to forget, but a greater part craves the electric adrenaline jolts that only her father gives her. She stills feels traces of terror when she looks in the mirror and sees his features reflected back in her own face.
Some people want the light left on at night. But others want to surrender to the darkness. Artemis fears shadows. What they represent. What they are. She has been tired for so long. She has been afraid all of her life.
But she has failed to notice that in her terror she has become terrifying.
Artemis is the predator, the Goddess of the hunt, posed and ready to strike. Her father is not the master of her anymore. He is just an old man who cannot keep up the chase for much longer.
Eventually, Artemis runs for so long that she leaves some of her fears behind. Her sharper edges dull. She abandons her guilt and shame to make room for the new emotions that blossom in her life as she grows. It hurts, when people do that. Change. Gain clarity. She stops making excuses for her sister, stops seeing Jade as anything other than a coward. She does not forgive, and she does not forget, but she stops stuttering when the West Family mentions meeting their in-laws. She does not cringe through excuses. They are not people worth knowing, but that is nothing for her to be humiliated about. They are irrelevant. She has chosen a new family.
She is not there the final time the team faces Sportsmaster. Somehow, she knows it will be their last match, and part of her is furious to be missing it. In the dream, Artemis can’t see her Father’s face. She knows, she knows, if she could, she would see two ink-ball eyes and a blade poised ready to stab her. In the dark, he is always watching her. He is ready. He is waiting.
What do you want? She shouts.
Get moving, babygirl, he whispers like rustling leaves. Come outside and run.
She wants to. She leans against the backboard, and closes her eyes. She hasn’t slept well in days. Maybe weeks. Maybe, she thinks, I’ve never slept well ever.
She has been too busy running. If Artemis runs, she will only want to run faster. It will never really end. She sucks in a breath, and waits for an update from Robin. She won’t run anymore.
In the end, Lawrence’s body is buried in the ground, and Sportsmaster’s mask gathers dust on a shelf in forgotten room in the cave.
When she goes inside, down the rabbit hole of the souvenirs from their life, it is only because Wally forgot to turn off the light on his way out.