Chapter Text
The hospital was dark, save for the crimson lights that ebbed through the hallways. It appeared as if the building had suffered deep internal wounds that pulsed with an agonizing ache. The effect gave off an eerie atmosphere which heightened Malcolm Bright’s senses. His hands no longer shook. One of them gripped the taser at his side while the other held the camera to his shoulder.
If his therapist had been present, she would have asked how he was feeling in this moment. He would have answered that he felt at peace, which was very rare for him. The threat of danger-- specifically, danger that he knew he could face and had at least some control over-- seemed to be the only remedy that could calm, harness, and overpower his anxieties and the tremors that accompanied them. That was why he enjoyed his work.
He knew that it wasn't normal to feel that way. But it didn’t disturb him, because he knew that his head was in the right place. He was not currently facing this danger to seek an unhealthy thrill. He was facing it for his sister, and for her boyfriend who needed medical attention. Professional medical attention. The kind of medical attention that was not serving multiple life sentences for homicide. The kind of medical attention that was not The Surgeon’s.
In a way, Malcolm was doing this for their father too. He was doing this to end the man’s suspiciously coincidental opportunity to save the day and appear like the good guy in front of his daughter. Because he wasn't the good guy. He never was, despite what Malcolm used to believe, a long time ago.
Malcolm Bright stalked through the vacant halls as if they were his own hunting grounds. He was ready to face yet another killer.
Or at least, he thought he was.
Ainsley took a steadying breath as her fingers curled around the handle of her Sony camera. The piece of equipment provided a familiar heaviness that balanced out the quaking of her adrenaline-fueled arms. Her hazel gaze was locked onto the camera’s field monitor as she angled the device to frame The Surgeon-- and the body he operated on. Her brother had offered to help Jin first. But the scalpel had shaken so much in his trembling hand, it’d been a blur. He hadn’t been prepared to partake in anything so gory and meticulous as this.
But The Surgeon had.
Malcolm couldn’t handle being there, with their father, watching his performance. The profiler had hated it. He’d demanded for her to stop filming, but she hadn’t stopped. She’d sent him away so she could focus on collecting her footage without interruption. Now, in the private silence that Malcolm had left them in, the reporter became captivated by the man on her screen. Unlike Malcolm’s hands, Dr. Martin Whitly’s were steady. He manipulated flesh the way an artist manipulated wet clay. Gently, almost lovingly, but with an efficient and knowledgeable authority. Sure, the work was messy, but it was also fascinating to watch. Strangely enough, it was even soothing.
The man’s calmness was contagious, and it easily infected Ainsley. Her heart stopped drumming, her breathing settled, and her mind grew clear. Miraculously, the young woman was taken-- if only temporarily-- to a place of peace. She may as well have been filming a serene nature documentary.
While The Surgeon worked in his element, Ainsley also worked in her own. She kept her subject in frame. She minded the thirds, particularly the lower one, in case the editors put a banner over her shot in post. She adjusted the iris to accommodate for the light that descended from the windows and gave the man the effect of an angelic halo. Above all, and without necessarily meaning to, Ainsley made him look good on camera. He was easy to interview now, when there wasn't any contention strung between them. When neither of them were intent on securing a biased angle to the story. When they were each occupied with the brutal, truthful reality of the situation they’d found themselves in.
Somehow, as Ainsley filmed him and his precise MacGyver work, she forgot about the mental institution. She forgot about the escaped patient, and forgot about her brother who had gone out to apprehend said patient. She even forgot that her own boyfriend was the one under The Surgeon’s knife.
“The goal is to drain as much blood as we can.”
His voice was soft and pleasant. He spoke as if he was leading her through a meditative session. Contrary to the chaotic circumstances, he appeared completely at ease and in control.
That was because he was.
So far.
The coffee pot beside him filled with red liquid as the tube attached to it dripped with the blood that was previously pooled in Jin’s pleural cavity. If one looked at the improvised contraption long enough, it almost appeared like Dr. Whitly was making an early morning brew, freshly squeezed, which only Hannibal Lecter could appreciate.
“...create a negative pressure system….”
He spoke of Jin as if he were just a body. A soulless object. Not a person. Perhaps it was wrong of Ainsley to feel comforted by such an emotionless perspective, but she did find some solace in it. When a body that was so profusely bleeding, on the verge of death, and being sliced into like a Thanksgiving dinner happened to be one’s romantic partner, one almost had to cling to a sense of separation-- or else succumb to utter panic. Ainsley much rather preferred to be comforted by her disassociation than to be consumed by her fear.
Ainsley wondered if-- in order to perform the kind of work they did-- it was necessary for all surgeons to balance their compassion with a sense of unempathetic callousness. She also wondered if it was a learned talent or a natural one, specifically in Dr. Whitly’s case. She wondered a lot of things specifically in Dr. Whitly’s case.
She had an insatiable amount of questions to ask him. She knew that no amount of time, privacy, or hard-earned trust could provide her enough opportunity to ask them all. Her questions churned in her subconscious, forming a bottomless ocean that threatened to sink her raft and drown her. Ainsley had long ago accepted the fact that she’d spend her whole life floating on those questions, wondering about the monsters that lurked in the depths of their darkness.
But with this chance to interview him, she’d found a sign of solid ground. She’d found a way to get answers from him. This chance had greeted her in the form of a rock peeking through the waves of mystery, perhaps providing evidence to the peak of a buried mountaintop. Ainsley had to believe that-- as her questions were answered, as she learned more and more about him-- then maybe her ocean would recede enough that she’d finally be able to step onto dry land. She had to believe that then her world would be uncovered. That then her world would become stable. That then, her world would make sense.
SLAM.
The camera shook as Ainsley startled. Her blonde curls whipped over her shoulder as she glanced behind herself. Mr. David, who was standing at the cell’s open doorway, had jumped as well. He craned his head to look down the hall at the red door, which somewhat muffled the escaped patient’s impatient yelling, but not as much as they would have liked it to. Tevin’s manic voice was incoherent, loud, and frantically demanding.
Dr. Whitly glanced up for a moment, but remained wholly undisturbed. A cool, perhaps slightly sarcastic murmur of, “Well, look who's back,” purred from his lips as he concentrated on his work. A layer of plastic crinkled under his wet hands while he applied it as a dressing to the surgical site on Jin’s ribs.
SLAM.
“I wan’ my innerview!”
Ainsley’s heart rate skyrocketed again. If the inmate was here, then where was Malcolm? She set her camera down beside where she knelt and leaned to glance down the hall. She flinched at another SLAM.
“I wan’ it! I wan’ it!”
With every smack and yank of the door, the camera pan handle that was wedged in it jostled and loosened.
SLAM.
Dr. Whitly murmured in the same cool, sarcastic tone, “You have to admire his persistence.”
Mr. David stepped into the hall, his hand moving to his belt. But his holster was empty. “Malcolm took my taser,” the guard fearfully reminded them.
“As he should have. Shame he didn't use it,” Dr. Whitly grumbled with a hint of irritability in his warm tone.
SLAM.
Ainsley looked up at Mr. David with wide eyes. “What are we gonna do?”
SLAM.
The guard didn’t appear to have an answer for her, so Dr. Whitly provided him one. “You have one job, Mr. David. Keep my guests safe.” The Surgeon rested his unshackled, glistening, ruby-coated wrists in the air as he looked up from his work. “So, I suggest you do your job.”
SLAM!
The pan handle fell from the door. The sound of it clattering to the vinyl floor echoed through the hallway like doomsday bells. Luckily, Mr. David had enough courage (and common sense) to act fast. “Stay there,” he ordered the reporter as he left the cell and closed the door behind him. Before it shut with the harsh click of an electronic lock, Ainsley heard Tevin enter the hallway shouting, “I WANNA BE ON TV!”
Mr. David’s own shouts sounded like whispers in comparison. Both men’s voices were muffled by the wall-- which Ainsley pressed her back against. She packed herself into the space where olive brown paint met that of red brick, hugging her camera close. Her breath was uncontrollable as she fumbled to angle the lens up at the dingy windows behind her.
Shouting turned into screaming as the sounds of a struggle commenced. Like the tremors of an earthquake, she felt the reverberation of a body falling against the wall behind her. Ainsley jumped and shut her eyes tightly as she bowed her head. She told herself that the barrier separating them from the maniac was impenetrable, that the glass was built to withstand the violence of unruly patients.
The noise did not distract Dr. Whitly, who continued tidying up his work and ensuring the edges of the dressings were secured with enough medical tape.
While risking a peek at the field monitor in her lap, Ainsley witnessed what her camera saw above her. A blood-streaked window.
It was now impossible for her to forget that she was in a mental institution. She tried not to listen to the terrors outside the door, yet she heard it all crystal clear. Every scream, every gargle, every cough. The sounds of a body repeatedly being hit, the sounds of a wet gasp repeatedly being sputtered. She knew better than to hope that those were the sounds of Tevin dying, and not Mr. David.
Then, for a moment of reprieve, she heard nothing. She dared to believe that perhaps she’d been wrong. That perhaps Mr. David had been the victor. The yawning silence was equally as frightening as the prior savagery.
She stared at the field monitor in her lap, taking a shaky breath and readjusting her camera to point up at the window above her. The blood-streaked panel was empty, and the silence hovered. The young woman looked up from the curtain of her blonde curls, debating whether or not to stand up and take a glance into the hall. She almost did, until another SLAM spooked a gasp out of her lungs.
“AINSLEY?”
She shriveled against the wall again, balled tightly around her Sony with a fearful tension as another trio of SLAMs shook the cell. Squinting through teary eyes, she saw Tevin in her camera’s monitor, banging on the window above her and scanning the far side of the room with wild, asymmetrical eyes.
“AINSLEY! IT’S MY TURN!”
Ainsley shivered as the cacophonous demands continued. She closed her eyes, allowing a couple of tears to run down her cheeks as she clamped her palm over her mouth, pressing her sobs and terror deep within herself.
“AINSLEY! I WANT MY INNERVIEW!”
Tevin stalked the length of the cell wall, which felt very thin to the reporter, and no longer protective. He smacked every window before he poured his desperate rage into a series of mighty yanks upon the door handle.
As he did this, Ainsley prayed. She prayed for Malcolm to run in and shoot the maniac straight in the back with that taser. Alternatively, she prayed that the SWAT team would run in and shoot the maniac straight in the back with a powerful tranquilizer. Or, at this point, whatever they had to shoot him with. More than anything, she prayed for God to allow her, Jin, and Malcolm to return home safely.
“AINSLEEEEY!”
She assured herself again and again that the cell was locked. That Tevin wasn't getting in. That she was safe in there. Or at least, that she was safe in the very claustrophobic, small sliver of space marked out for her. The wall and the red line on the ground trapped her between two monsters.
Ainsley struggled to breathe. Her knuckles were cold, clammy, and pale as she gripped her camera-- clutching it to her body as if it were a very expensive, very bulky, and ultimately ineffective shield. She wanted out. She wanted fresh air. She wanted to embrace her mother, who had always been more of a cold, condescending sort of person than a warm and protective one. She wanted Jin or Malcolm to hold her in their strong arms and convince her that everything was going to be alright. More than anything else, she wanted to believe it.
“I SEE YOU!”
She sniffled as her lips trembled.
“I SEE YOU, AINSLEY!”
She didn’t look up. She didn’t look at her screen. She didn’t try to hold in her sobs anymore. She removed her hand from her mouth and placed them both to the sides of her head, closing her palms tightly over her ears as Tevin continued to pound the glass and scream.
“OPEN THE DOOR, AINSLEY! OPEN THE DOOR!”
Her camera slumped between her knees, and she gave up holding it. The footage, the documentation, even the interview-- none of it was worth this. It wasn't worth Jin getting stabbed. It wasn't worth losing Malcolm. It wasn't worth her terror. As much as she wanted answers, as much as she wanted to get to know her father, it wasn't worth--
Tevin was no longer banging on the wall or shouting. Ainsley only realized this because she was able to hear a gentle, muffled, “Sweetheart,” in her father’s voice. Magically, it brought a calmness into the atmosphere again.
She hesitantly removed her hands from her ears, ready to clap them against her head if Tevin made any more racket from the hall. The woman opened her eyes to peer into the field monitor in her lap. It showed her what her camera saw; Jin’s chest, wrapped in plastic with a tube sticking out of it-- and breathing. Ever so subtly, his rib cage expanded and deflated.
The reporter raised her head, her blonde curls swaying to the sides of her damp face. Dr. Whitly knelt beside Jin, thoroughly wiping his hands on the corner of the cameraman’s plaid shirt as if it were a towel.
Martin smiled at her. It was a warm, knowing, and perhaps even sympathetic smile.
“Everything’s going to be alright,” he reassured.
For a second, she believed him.
Until his eyes flickered to the cell door and he eased a conditional, “But…"
Ainsley’s heart drummed in her chest.
Martin gave her deep nod, warning, “You need to get behind me."
Ainsley’s panicked breath shuffled through her throat in an arrhythmic pattern as she hissed, “What?”
“He's going to come in,” Dr. Whitly glanced down as he slid the bloody coffee pot closer to Jin’s body. “Any moment now.”
Ainsley looked over to the locked door, then up to the windows. Somebody was scurrying around outside the cell, fumbling with something. Then, she looked to the floor and stared at the crisp red line that stretched from one end of the room to the other. The line that ran underneath Jin. The line that served as a border to the afterlife. The line that one did not cross, unless they wished for a painful death.
She had been shocked by her father’s absurd request to traverse that forbidden line. Forbidden by law, and even more binding, forbidden by the internal government of her own instincts for survival.
No, she was not crossing that line. No fucking way she was crossing that line.
“He's getting the key...” Martin dragged out a cautionary tone as he tucked the medical tools back into the no-longer-white case at his side.
Ainsley remained frozen. She strained to listen to the quiet sounds of shifting and rummaging outside the cell. She was only able to vaguely register what he meant; that Tevin was getting the cell’s special key from Mr. David’s corpse.
Doubt seized her next, and she shook her head as she told herself that he was lying. That it was a trick. That maybe Malcolm was the one out there rummaging around, not Tevin. Still, she was too afraid to stand up and see for herself.
“You need to get behind me,” he repeated, growing terse.
She continued to weakly shake her head, her eyes locking onto his.
The sounds of shuffling changed. Less rummaging, more stepping. Someone was hurrying toward the cell door.
“Now.” Martin’s voice snapped with a sharp bite, no longer soft. Instead, it erupted with the same scratchiness that it’d bore when she’d provoked him with accusations of being a bad father. It was another glimpse of something raw, honest, and threatening inside of him, and it lasted all of one second.
The door’s buzzer punctuated his demand as the digital lock unlatched.
Ainsley did not move.
That is, until the door was yanked open and she was deafened by a scream of her name, no longer muffled by the barrier between them.
“AINSLEY!”
The woman abandoned her camera and lunged for that red line.