Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The phone buzzed.

I stared.

It buzzed again. And again. It was ringing, and people started to stare. I moved my hand toward the phone, and gripped it. I could break it if I wanted to. I could snap it in half, and throw it out of the window, and scream until the bell was drowned out.

And it would still ring. It would still echo. It would still be there. Taunting. Waiting.

“Hey Meredith.”

People stopped staring. Meredith would take another fall for me. I was thankful she would even if she didn’t understand.

“Hey Taylor,” a nice voice that made me feel sick. I wanted to vomit. It was saccharine sweet and it made my gum bleed.

“Yeah, uh uh,” I muttered, “I’m at the study hall but I can pick it up after class.”

“I’ll be there. After class. Behind the school, where you usually walk. I’ll be waiting for you. You know that I love you Taylor, right? I miss you. I’ll try to talk you and I’ll try to know what happened. To your mom. To your dad. About Meredith. I’ll ask. I’ll ask a lot of questions.”

“Okay, I’ll pick up groceries. They’re already ready? Cool cool.”

“Are you ready for them?”

“Okay, love you.”

The line went silent. I hung up.

This afternoon I did not go behind the school.

Chapter Text

Lily was a pleasant girl. She was athletic, she enjoyed keeping to herself, and she was also my foster sister.

She liked to pretend that she went to track and field meeting after class. I taunted her sometimes, asking her if she wanted me to come cheer for her. She guffawed, and said she was too embarrassed.

She also liked to pretend she wasn't a cape.

I didn't mind. We both played this game. It was a pleasant game. We pushed and we pulled, and I enjoy pretending that she also knows I'm a cape. I wouldn't know how she knew, but I would assume she did. And I would assume that, perhaps, she also thought the same about me. That I was a pleasant girl. That I was perhaps athletic. That I enjoyed keeping to myself. And that I was, of course, her foster sister.

My phone buzz at 10. Lily raised an eyebrow. I smiled.

"I think it's my grandma."

She stared back. I wondered if her cogs were grinding the same way mine did when she came up with excuses. She looked back at her math homework.

"She calls this late?"

"Mhm, you know what they say about sundowning?"

"...uh, what's that?"

"I have no idea."

I pressed the button and put it against my ear.

A hum. A male's voice. I pretended to recognize him.

I didn't.

"Do you think you can hide in the middle of the crowd without being found, little mouse?"

"Mhm, no school's going great. How's the garden?"

"I do like your stride. Your confidence. How you dodge me. How you dodge this. It's interesting to watch you squirm, but that's not why I'm here today."

"Oh wow! Grandma', please don't flirt with the custodian. He's not paid enough."

Lily giggled.

"See, in five minutes, I might visit you at your apartment, but you keep throwing wrenches in my plans."

I didn't live in an apartment. I lived in a flat. One floor.

"So, I'll have to think of something. Just stay on your toes, little mouse. I don't know when I'll strike, but it could be tomorrow, or today."

I cocked my head to the side, staring out of the window. I did live next to an apartment. There was a car. Black. Hidden underneath a tree. He didn't know who I actually was, but I interfered with him. His plans. I giggled.

"In any case, I'll have a car in front of your home."

He didn't know where I lived. I closed the blinds.

"See you later, little mouse. Hopefully, you'll like how I treat my possession."

"Okay bye bye, love you."

The line went silent. I hung up.

"I think I'll go to bed early tonight."

Chapter Text

The phone calls became more distant. Less regular. I felt my reach lessening.

I wondered for a moment if something was wrong, but then I realized, it had always been wrong and there was no point in fixing it. It became more problematic, more insidious.

It would ring during my exams. During my doctor's appointment. When Meredith told me I wasn't allowed to stay up at night.

And it stopped telling me important things. I didn't really care. I treated this intrusive stalker like it was: an intrusive stalker. It didn't make any move. It didn't talk to me. It tried. It tried to see more than what it wanted, but it didn't do anything, really. It only harassed me. And maybe that was room for fear, or room for anger, or room to seek help, but I didn't feel any of these at the moment.

I only found restlessness.

"Meredith?"

"Yes Taylor?"

She was a plump woman. It was the best description I could give her without feeling disgusting. She was a nice foster mother, and I didn't particularly appreciate the way my mind treated her sometimes. Only sometimes. At other moment, the words described her perfectly, and plump was a perfect descriptor. From things I've gathered, she wanted a family, but lacked the tools. Both the reproductive tools and the relationship tools. She replaced the wrenches and the screws with a foster family, and in all honesty, it worked. She fostered kids that were... undesirable.

She didn't say it, but it didn't take a lot of thinking to understand that. She fostered kids that were older. Kids that had more issues. Kids that struggled with things that families who wanted a cute baby didn't want.

And yet, she wanted them.

So, I smiled.

"I just wanted to tell you that I'm glad that you are fostering me." My voice didn't feel mine, but it felt good. "Thank you, Meredith."

"Aww, you're so sweet Taylor."

I stopped smiling. I felt my phone buzz.

"That phone. You're really popular, aren't you?"

"Usually, it's just my grandma'. You know... after everything."

"I- yeah. I'm sorry."

My grandparents have all been dead for years. I was glad she didn't have the insight to ask to talk to them. Or to research them. Or to ask why I was a ward of the state instead of living with them.

Maybe she was just kind. Empathetic. Didn't want to push and tug on a wound that clearly affected me. Or something. I didn't bother to ask.

"It's okay. I'm... fine now. You know? I feel better than before. About things. About my life. And... I'd like to thank you for that."

The phone rang again, and I smiled harder.

"You sure you're not going to answer that?"

"If it's important, they'll leave a message."

Chapter Text

I expected to hurt more.

Being shot and all. They didn't hurt Meredith, because Meredith wasn't here because I asked her to go. Because I needed something. Because I needed... what did I need again?

It didn't matter. They had shot me. There was a hole in chest. Well, my abdomen, if I had to be precise. I stared down the barrel. It was still in front of me. The man was still there. The guns flickered. They were twisted. They weren't guns, actually, they were something else. Which explains why the hole had burnt through my clothes and into the skin, and burrowed something in it.

I assumed it was a bomb.

But when they picked me up, I realized it was probably completely different from that. Since, usually, you didn't carry someone with a bomb inside of them on your shoulders on the off-chance that it exploded right there. Or at least, if I had to put a bomb inside of someone, I would stay faraway from them. But that was just a personal opinion. I clearly wasn't an expert on the matter.

The van was the same as the one from last week. My phone buzzed. I didn't pick up.

They threw me in the back. It was small, and crowded. There were other people inside. The phone buzzed again. I didn't pick up.

Whatever was inside was doing something. The tips of my fingers started to grow numb. Perhaps, this wasn't whatever the weapons were doing, and more because of the blood loss. I stared down. There wasn't any blood. I looked up at the man in the black suit. It looked black in the darkness. But everybody knows that, at night, all the cats are gray.

And he seemed particularly gray.

My phone still buzzed.

"Hello." I spoke first. "How are you doing?"

I couldn't gauge his reaction. His mask. His demean our. His body. They were cloaked. By the darkness, and the costume. My phone still buzzed.

"So you are the little mouse who's been scurrying around."

"Sorry, I think my mom's busy. Do you want to call later?"

Nothing else. I stared blankly. He stared back. The car had started some time ago. Maybe a hour? Maybe a minute? I didn't really care.

"I think she's autistic, boss."

Maybe. The therapist never tried to go that way. He was going the Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder route. I preferred to pretend that I didn't hear what he was saying to me. But I was always open to suggestion for names.

"You're doing it right now."

"Please leave a message about the beep." I cocked my head to the side. The darkness seeping in.

Nothing.

"Beep."

Darkness.

Chapter Text

She was mousey. Scared. Her eyes moved around the room like a broken clock, scanning something I couldn't see. I only smiled at her. It was the best I could do. Pretend. Pretend that I cared. Pretend that I cared that she didn't care. Pretend that I cared that she didn't care that I actually cared.

And that, perhaps, I was also as frightened as she was.

But there was always the problem that she wasn't that scared. She wasn't that terrified. She was doing something. That something was somewhere hidden behind my reach, and sometime, I reached out to her. And we connected. We talked when words weren't needed and in a space where the world didn't spin around at the same speed.

I smiled, because, while I didn't fear what they gave me, she clearly was horrified of what the drugs were doing to her. I saw her, do this ritual before taking them. Her eyes looked up and down, as if she was staring at a giant screen before blurting out more numbers. And I smiled, because sometimes, that smile made her numbers go up or go down, and usually when that happened, the day was better.

When my phone rang, the focus was on me, but she was always right there. Doing her ritual. Calculating.

It rang.

Once.

Twice.

A man came in.

Thrice.

He untied my hand. I pulled the phone to my ear. I pressed the button.

"Hey."

The man didn't speak. He was recording. Another man entered, a plate in his hand. The food was bland, but it was better than suckling at the sweat on my skin. I smiled, because Dinah smiled too for a second. I stopped smiling when the voice started to speak.

"I can smell you. Through the vents. Through the air. I can smell you. I can smell you squirm, move. I can smell you as if you were on my tongue, as if I could crush you, as if your body was already in between my teeth and you were ready to be swallowed whole."

The message was engraved in my head. I spoke, softly.

"The girl in the sewers."

She wasn't a girl, and she wasn't in the sewer, but it was easier to call her that. Her real name was long. Painfully so. It was also broken by numbers, by digits. I didn't bother to add them up yet. I didn't want to shake up the dial tone more than I wanted to. A comment. They knew what I meant. They asked a simple question if she would escape. Dinah blurted out a number. It was higher than usual.

"I wonder how'll you taste once I have. They'll forget to lock the door. Your door. It'll be forgotten. Do you think you'll be forgotten too? I doubt so. Because once I have you between my jaws, I will crush and maim until there's nothing left but that scent of your skin on the back of my throat."

I bit my lip. "Doors are going to be unlocked." I didn't specify mine. I didn't think it'll matter which door would be unlocked. Simply the fact that she believed that they were unlocked meant more than the fact that she was aware of it. It meant a leak. "Someone told her something."

"You're quiet. I wonder why. You're usually quipping. Muttering words that doesn't make sense to anyone other than us. Our little songs? Do you miss them? I would love to hear you sing again."

"Taunting."

The line went silent. The plate of food was on my laps. Dinah was dragged away somewhere else, and I transcribed the message. I omitted the last line.

It was my song.

And as long as it increased the numbers, I would keep singing it.

Chapter Text

He knew when I lied, but he didn't know when I told the truth. It made Dinah's job easier. It made my job easier. It made the girl in the sewer's job easier. It made the girl with the blonde hair's job easier.

And he knew that part. He knew we were all singing our own tunes, hidden behind a wall he couldn't reach. His fingers tried to reach us, but he could only manage to reach the two girls he had hidden from the world behind his own walls. And so, Dinah and I had the task to increase the numbers, but lower his. To help, but not to help him too much. To push and to push, to play that game I used to play with Lily.

Some days, I feared for Lily. Others, I feared for Meredith.

"They think you ran away."

I shrugged. I didn't know this, but I had learned it another way.

"And they increased your reward."

She shrugged.

Dinah and I got along. She was pleasant. Like me. More pleasant than Lily, but less pleasant than Meredith. We had to get along, or else the time spent in this miserable cave would be less than ideal. We both stared at the ceiling, our faces blank with any emotions. Softly, the vent dripped of something. I almost hoped it was the girl from the sewers. Numbers were increasing despite our lack of attempts. We were blowing out the smokes, pretending that we weren't dancing on the coals.

I giggled.

I could feel Dinah raise an eyebrow.

"Would you like to leave a message?"

"One."

"You can leave your message after the beep."

I giggled again.

"Beep."

Dinah didn't speak, but I could hear her smile. We could all hear the rumbles from coming from miles away.

A siren echoed.

And my phone started to ring again.

Chapter Text

I hummed a tune. They were numbers. Dinah understood numbers. She moved them around in her head. I didn't understand her back, but I followed along. The numbers kept echoing. The dimensions kept pushing.

Coil didn't understand. He was busy. He was busy a lot. My hands were still against my ears, blocking out the song of the siren echoing from the speakers. Dinah pointed the lights at the ceiling, and mouthed something. Another set of numbers for me. I hummed back another tune, and she understood. She added them up and pulled my hands from her ears.

"92.35%."

She smiled. It was lopsided. I had never noticed from the angle of my bed. I smiled back.

"Tonight?"

"Tonight."

I hummed another tune. More numbers for Dinah to extrapolate from. My phone rang. It wasn't my phone, but it worked for the moment. I reached out from the chord descending from the ceiling, and pulled it closer.

"Hello?"

There was water in the background. "I've missed you. I thought you were dead. And yet, you're there. You're wet and you're dying, but you're there. I was so scared. Why did you leave?"

"I'm sorry."

"But you're back. And you're coming from where the second monster was hiding. Were you working for them? Who were you working for? Was that why you ran away? To sell yourself to the most expensive buyer? Taylor, please. You deserve more than that, but I'm not surprised. You always struck me as the type to be lost in your head and pretend that nothing was wrong, when everything was crumbling around you."

"I know."

"And I'll die for you. You'll be there, crushed by debris and I'll come and I'll die. I'll die with you. And I'll be terrified, mortified that I'm dying because of a girl that I met less than a month ago. I didn't consider you my friend because you were my foster sister, but I considered something else than that. Something less than someone to die for. I wanted to die for someone else, you know that Taylor? Our bodies will stain the hospital floor for months, and we will rot there until they rebuild. And they will see the skeletons of two girls, and wonder what they were. Friends? Sisters? Lovers? And then they'll learn we were nothing else than foster sisters, and that I was a Ward and that you were a villain, and they'll ask what was wrong with me."

"Dinah. Hospital." I hummed a new number for her. "We don't go there."

"I just hope it was worth it, Taylor."

"Talk to you later."

I pulled out the shiv, turning my head toward Dinah.

"Uhuh." The girl spoke. Her head hurt. She pulled out hers. "95.45%"

I hummed a number. My name. My life.

"Increased by 5%"

We ran down the hall.

Chapter Text

Meredith had fashioned herself an armor from the years of working as a foster mother. She didn't like to admit that it was work, but it was. It paid her house. It paid her bills. It paid everything that made her live, and while she thrived, she still hated to call it her job for multiple reasons. The first one was the paycheck: it didn't pay enough. If it was a job, it would pay twice as much, and she wouldn't have to scrounge up everything around her like a rat living in a dumpster.

The second point was that nobody was supposed to cry because of their job. And yet, she curled up in her bed at night, thinking of her latest runaway. She had runaways. There were always kids who didn't want to stay who knew they had real parents or the kids who didn't want the attention or the kids who never wanted to be here in the first place. She had thought that Taylor was different because, well, she was.

Taylor was different, and Meredith didn't feel the need to push on her issues more than the world had already pushed on her. The psychiatrist had been clear: she was traumatized. Of course she was. Nobody would shatter like her and come back in one perfect piece after. Her mother passed. Her father followed. The details for Meredith were blurry because, frankly, with Lily's, she honestly didn't want to pry more. But Taylor had witnessed it. Not physically, but she had heard it all. Through the phone that had forgotten to hang up, through the noises locked behind smothered cries.

She had heard her father end his own life. What was supposed to be a message was a long phone call, and Taylor had stayed glued to it all along. Listening. Hiding. She was found there, still glued to her phone. Or rather, she wasn't found. The EMT had found the phone, and he called into it. And he was surprised to hear a girl was on the other end.

Every since then, she had shattered into something else.

And that was where Meredith was left to pick up the pieces.

Of course, with Lily being added to the mix, Meredith wasn't able to keep her eyes on the girl. She was obedient, and she followed her routine. She woke up at 6 AM, waited for Lily to wake up, ate breakfast and the two girls headed at school together. One went to the regular classes, and the other was sent directly to the special's needs sector. She did her classes, she attended them and did the work. She cooperated. She ate her lunch, sometimes with Lily and sometimes with her favorite teacher, and then started again. Then, Taylor either went home with Lily or came home alone.

Usually, the 'phone calls' would start then.

Meredith wondered if she had started a monster along the way. If she had let that habit take over her foster daughter's life. It was clearly a mean for her to escape, to withdraw, to hide. To put something between her and the world, and then come back to normal. It was noticeable when she froze up and she started to hum. She hummed a tune, the notes changing between quick breath like someone dialing a phone. The doctors were more focused on her PTSD than her developmental disorder, and while Meredith was thankful she had help when it came to that, this habit had became out of hand until...

Well, she ran away.

Meredith writhed in her bed. The alarm started. She jumped out of bed and toward her ward. Lily. Already in costume. She reached out to hug her. Meredith hugged Lily and smiled.

"You know you don't have to go..."

"Taylor could... be there. Alone. I don't want that Endbringer to..." Lily's breath caught in her throat. "She's still out there. Maybe... maybe she'll show up now?"

She ran into the darkness, and Meredith slumped against the back of the wall, her shoulder slumping down. She sighed.

Taylor was probably never coming back.

Chapter Text

We stood over the broken body of the man in front of us. I put myself to work. The girl with the freckles handed me a knife. I cut. I pulled. I stuffed the evidence in a ziploc bag, also handed by the girl with the freckles.

“I’m Lisa.”

I didn’t reply. I cut another piece of skin. A tattoo. 

“We need to leave.”

Dinah didn’t speak. She stared at the cameras.

“Now.”

I shook my head.

“We’re safe here.”

“Not from everything.”

“Safer than outside.”

“Noelle is rampaging and-”

The girl in the sewer with a long name. “No. She’s not coming here.” She pointed to the body. “She smells his dead body. Not us.”

“My teammates are outside.”

“Then go.” I pulled another slab of skin. “Two monsters though. Not safe.”

“Yes. Leviathan and Noelle.”

“She dies today.”

“How do you know?”

“She told me.”

The body squelched. I cut off a piece of the costume. More evidence. 

“We need to get you to the hospital”

“No. I go to the hospital, I die. Under rumble.” And other people would die, but I didn’t feel the need to point that out since the world was dying around her. “Need another phone call to make sure where to go.”

Lisa sighed. 

“I’m your boss now.” I spoke softly. Queen of the Underworld. Persephone. I was becoming just that. Mom would understand. Dad wouldn't. “And I give you the job to… get your teammates back here.”

Dinah nodded at the statement. She pointed something on the cameras. I looked. 

“Noelle left.”

“Chances of her dying?”

“Higher than earlier.”

“Good.”

I went back to work.

Chapter Text

The phone rang. I picked it up. Lisa stared. She did the same face of Dinah when she received numbers. She understood. 

“Hello,” a voice I didn’t recognize.

A third phone call. I usually got one. Or two. Three were an exception when bad things were happening. I felt the buzz in my head when I picked it up.

I hummed a number to Dinah. Dinah gave her response.

“43.72%.” 

Lisa’s eyes skirted on Dinah and back to me. She understood more. 

“You left us broken at the hospital. Do you really believe you could get away with it? That the consequences of your inactions would be benign? That you could forget the world when you hide beneath the ground?”

I turned my head toward Dinah.

“Hospital. Again.”

Dinah nodded. The office wasn’t quiet now. Lisa was talking to people. 

“I spent my life dying for the world, and when someone needed to step up, nobody did. How does that make you feel Taylor? Empty? Lonely? Scared? I felt terrified when the water flooded the third floor and suddenly froze over. Do you know how it feels to have your legs broken by the sheer cold? Feeling like you’ll never be feeling ever again in your life?”

I pushed the briefcase on my lap. Blood dripped down on my thighs. I needed to take a shower. I moved my head, trying to avoid the greasy strands shaping themselves into thick worms on the sides of my face. The girl sounded insufferable. 

But I listened. 

Connected dots.

I handed the briefcase to Dinah. “Put it in the freezer, please.” She did just that. Evidence for later. Thank you insufferable girl.

“The world’s broken, and you’re hiding underground. People know you’re there. People know you’re hiding underneath the city, pulling on strings you can’t really see. They’ll come. They’ll find you. People know, and soon, people will learn.”

Not much information even if my head hurt. The line went dead.

“They’re going to find us.” I spoke softly, my hands pressing on buttons. “I don’t know who.”

“PRT?”

I shrugged. It didn’t matter for now. I turned the screen toward Lisa. I put a bloody finger on the screen. “Banking info.”

She grinned.

I copied her.

Chapter Text

He was a pretty boy.

He was tall. He was muscular. He had nice hair.

And he listened. He listened to me. He listened when I talked even if I forgot what I meant to say in the middle of the sentence because he had pretty eyes behind his visor that I preferred to look at. I smiled.

Dinah knew. Dinah also smiled, but she smiled differently. She wriggled in her seat as I spoke. Her head was hurting, and I wouldn't blame her. We found something for her ears, something to block out the noises. Usually, it would have went to me, but I preferred giving it to Dinah. Hearing questions made her power fire off, and her power was a painful one. So I smiled to her, and she smiled back. I moved my head back toward the Undersiders.

"I'd like to hire you for protection."

Clear and cut. It wasn't anything overtly complicated. I kept smiling. The pretty boy wasn't smiling, but it was okay. He didn't need to smile. Lisa was, however, smiling. There was another girl. She never smiled. She never looked at me in the eyes. She looked at the center of my chest, her eyes sometimes darting to my hands as I pointed the screen of the laptop. She was also pretty, but she'd be prettier if she looked at me. I kept smiling because, maybe, she'd look at me back.

"What do you think? Wanna' have Coil's second pet push you around?"

The boy with the white cloak talked a mean game. And that mean game bothered me. I stopped smiling, looking at the center of the table.

"Don't call her that."

"She was kept in a cage. She was made to do tricks to be fed. They even had her on a leash like come on. That's a pet to me. If she wasn't a pet then she was probably a-"

"Would you shut up, Regent?"

Brian said that. I smiled again. He was defending me. I smiled with all my teeth.

"We accept." He took off his helmet. He was prettier than I thought. A blush covered my cheeks. "My name's Brian."

But I already knew him.

"I'm Taylor."

But he already knew that.

Chapter Text

Dinah was already receiving phone calls.

Not from me, but from people who wanted to pay her. She charged high, but her clients charged higher. Business was a cog that kept turning around. She didn't want to stay at the base. Too many bad memories. I didn't blame her, but I would have preferred if she stayed right next to me at all time. Somewhere I could just sing a number to her so watch her smile. But she instead chose to live with a tall lady with a really bad mask, and friends shaped in forms that Taylor had never seen. I visited her everyday, but when we couldn't, we talked.

"Sonnerie."

I smiled. My name when I played the cape of being a cape. People thought I was Coil for a long time until I personally handled a rampaging Lung. He didn't last long. I just had to keep in the same spot for more than a second. He could have been my friend if he didn't try so hard to push me apart.

"Hello. Would you like to leave a message?"

"Sonnerie." She repeated. "Dinah wants to speak to you."

"Uhuh. Please pass her to me. I miss her. Are you treating her well?"

"You can ask her."

The phone jumbled hands.

"Hey Taylor."

"Hey Dinah."

We sat in silence for ten seconds. We didn't speak. I assumed she played with her power like I had played with mine earlier.

"Is Faultline treating you well?"

"Yes."

Another pause.

"Are the Undersiders treating you well?"

"I made many friends. Me and Rachel played a game where she said we can't speak for as long as possible, and I managed to win when Brutus started to nibble at the couch. My prize was that I got to hug her, and then we played the game again and I lost when a phone call came. She decided that my punishment was that I should help her clean the kennels. There were so many dogs. They were so nice to me. Rachel was really nice too! We played the game again, and this time I managed to win and so I got her a DVD for Benji and we watched it together. She kept commenting about how the movie was bad but I swear I saw her relax and she even let me hug her without having to win a game and-"

"So yes?"

"Yeah."

Another silence.

"I'm happy for you."

We didn't speak for the rest of the phone call. I hummed numbers, she hummed numbers back.

When it came to hang up, I whispered to her.

"Business meeting Monday?"

"Business meeting Monday."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

Alec raised his eyes from his book. He was smiling. We were going to the play the game, and I was going to win.

Chapter Text

Lily stared at the engravure on the statue. Names were laid there because people were lying underneath it. Bodies broken. All capes. Taylor wouldn’t be on it, but she still stared, looking at the names.

Wards dodged the heavy hand of death, but it didn’t mean it had shattered. Whatever that came from the sewer when the Leviathan came had ruined a decade of effort to maintain the Protectorate. 

Alexandria and Eidolon. Corrupted. Liars. Legend too, probably. Case 53’s stepping down. The entire world of heroes in shambles. Lily stepped down. In solidarity. She never really liked the Protectorate. They always felt wrong. Manipulative.

Moving her around like a piece of meat, selling it to the highest bidder. Meredith supported her. Lily didn’t know where she would go, but she knew where she didn’t want to be. She wanted to be a hero, but heroes weren’t meant to be in this city.

The New Wave was decimated. Crystal and Victoria. Two survivors out of an entire family. The perks of being a flier. 

The Protectorate holding on by the teeth of their skin. Vista stayed because she had nowhere else to go. Gallant left because Victoria needed him more than he needed the Protectorate. Clockblocker… was somewhere. She didn’t pay much attention to him. Their assistant director revealed to be Coil after a suitcase of meat and tissues arrived on their doorsteps. Corrupted and broken seemed to be the common trend for the Protectorate. Armsmaster still recovering from the attack. Miss Militia trying her best to keep things together. Shadow Stalker pretending that she was on a vacation when she was actually hunting down people. It made Lily sick.

She assumed the city would be deemed a Hive Of Scum and Villainy.

It left Parian. 

Not a hero. But not a villain. She paid fine. It made Meredith happy. It gave Meredith another daughter to care about. She still cried about Taylor even if she pretended she didn’t.

Lily saw a girl with a ponytail and freckles from the corner of her eye. She was also looking at the monument. Lily turned around, and saw the girl smiled. Teeth shining. Predatorial. Lily’s hand wrapped around the knife.

“No need for that, Lily or, rather, Needlepoint.”

Tattletale crossed her arms.

“Sonnerie, or as you would know her, Taylor wants to speak to you.”

“You’re Coil.”

Taylor shook her head. “You’re the one who killed Coil and took his place.”

Taylor hummed in the van. Lily sat on the opposite side. 

“And you have powers.”

Taylor nodded. Her costume lacked details. It was a simple suit and a Domino mask. She looked clean, freshly showered. She nodded softly.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“Did he hurt you?”

Taylor nodded again. “He kept me in a room for… a long time. A month?” She looked at Tattletale. The Thinker raised an eyebrow, wobbling her hand as she lifted it off the steering wheel.

“And you made the Undersiders work for you.” Taylor nodded. 

“I’m paying them.”

Vaguely. They owed her. And she owed them. She preferred to call them her friends, rather than her employees. But she had to pay her friends.

“With what money?”

“Coil’s. He had a lot.”

“Are you going to talk to Meredith?”

Taylor shrugged. “Should I?”

“Yes.”

Taylor looked down to her notebook. 

“She might die. If I do. She dies sometimes. You die sometimes. You would have died when Leviantan struck if I left. By staying there, I made sure you wouldn’t. I don’t know if it’s safe for me to talk to Meredith. I need more phone calls.”

Taylor hummed a tune. Tattletale stopped the car. Someone entered from the passenger’s side. It was a man. Dark skin. Dreadlocks. Tall. She saw a blush on Taylor’s cheeks. It was bright, and she looked away from the road. 

“What are you planning, Taylor?”

“Rebuilding the docks.”

“What are you planning right now? ”

“I bought Parian.”

She deadpanned. Her eyes stared at her book.

“You what-?”

“Taylor.” Tattletale spoke quickly. “You hired Parian. You didn’t buy her.”

Taylor shrugged.

“Same thing. I gave her money to tell her what to do.”

“And you’re telling her to do what, Taylor? What the fuck are you doing?”

Her eyes skittered around. As if the world was shattering around her, her cheeks were flushed red and her mouth was stumbling on words. The car stopped. The door opened. It was a warehouse. Parian was next to the gate, her arms crossed as she spoke loudly with a girl with a brutish face. Parian looked at the car, and waved Lily toward her.

“I- I- I don’t want you to be hurt and I don’t- I don’t want Parian to be hurt because you care for her, and I keep receiving phone calls about you being hurt or killed or Sabah being- I mean Parian being taken and…” She shook her head. “I don’t want to lose you. I like hearing your voice on the phone. I just want to make sure you’ll be safe. Somewhere where they can’t hurt you.”

“Taylor…” Lily put her hand on her shoulder. “Talk to Meredith. And I’ll think about it. Don’t… do that type of thing without telling people.”

“If I told you, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“And that’s maybe because that’s what I ne-”

“You would be dead. You would be at the hospital. You would have been scalded. Burnt. Destroyed. We- we- I’m not letting you die. I’m letting anyone die. Not again, nuh uh.”

Fucking Thinkers.

“Still. Speak to Meredith. She’s worried sick. She’ll be worried sick about me. Tell her to come and help. You have kids around. She’ll help. She wants to help.”

The man Lily recognized as Grue stepped out of the car. She followed.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Taylor hummed a new tune. She picked up the invisible phone in front of her. It put things back into perspective. How long did she pretend to not have powers? What was part of her and what was part of her power? Lily didn’t know. It reminded her of Kid Win.

Tattletale put her arm over the seat. “Where are we going, boss?”

The last word sounded like a taunt. Taylor didn’t respond.

“Meredith.” Taylor smiled at Lily, flashing her a thumbs-up.