Work Text:
One
Penance simply hadn't been in her usual cohesive state of mind. Once Lucy had given her permission, she had seen no reason why she shouldn't flee the Bidlow estate, and she left in a hurry, a temperate breeze drying the tears that made their way stubbornly down her face.
Augie had simply confused her, the entirety of the male persuasion confused her, which is why she felt so blessed to have no need to interact with it on a daily basis. But Augie had seemed kind, his intentions innocent, and Penance thought she had found in him a sweet, kindred spirit. A friend. A friend outside of the orphanage, which was something she had yet to find. But then he had changed course on her so abruptly, reminding her of the casual cruelty of that classist caste that she had spent her whole life admiring from afar and attempting to avoid.
His sudden callousness disoriented her, and she felt incredibly stupid and naive, her attention to him being so utterly misread. Barring her standing atop the dessert table and professing to him and the whole of society that she had no romantic desire to sully his aristocratic line, considering her heart belonged solely to another woman, her only option seemed to be to take Lucy's advice. She had left under a storm cloud of confusion. And this was not a state of mind in which she often found herself. It was unpleasant.
If she had been in her normal state of mind, she wouldn't have blown the trumpet so tempestuously in the midst of a brood of joyless London men working for paychecks that would barely cover their tabs at the pub. If she had been in a calmer state of mind, she wouldn't have acted so frustratingly human, so unlike a woman of her time. Then perhaps she wouldn't have found herself presently being set upon by those very same men, who turned their dissatisfaction with the world directly onto to her, approaching her like a wolf pack discovering an injured lamb.
"Fuck," Penance hissed, another misjudgment on her part, indicative of her continued distress. She doubted that was the sort of prayer that would win her any favors with God, and it seemed at the moment that she was in desperate need of divine intervention.
Instead, she took matters into her own hands, glancing up at the approaching pack with a diplomatic smile, wholly unenthused by another need to appeal to the male ego. "My apologies, gentlemen. I'm late for an appointment with the tailor." Her attempt at mimicking Lavinia's impeccable accent embarrassingly missed the mark, her Irish roots as apparent as if her entire family tree loomed behind her. Nevertheless, she kept going. "I'm picking up a dress for a dinner party. My male partner---husband---is a parliamentarian---one of the good, very important ones---and is hosting several dozen powerful men at our estate later this evening and I simply cannot be delayed. I must pick up my gown and then the swans---ice swans." She was losing steam and confidence. "So please forgive my indiscretion and kindly disperse."
They continued to encroach, however, their eyes drifting toward her electric car, and Penance faintly closed her eyes, cursing quietly in her head, convincing herself that God might forgive her if she kept her choice words to herself.
"This your husband the parliamentarian's fancy car, then?" one of them asked. He wasn't a part of the carriage drivers causing the hold up, but instead one of a group of men ogling her, one of those go-getters that spent his time doing nothing but looking for people to torment. Penance eyed the telltale ribbon around his arm, knowing all too well this man's loyalties didn't reside with her nor any of the Touched.
Clenching her teeth, realizing lies wouldn't help her, she decided to take full credit for her own inventions. "No," she retorted back to him, enjoying the way the declaration felt. "The car is mine. I invented it."
He sneered at her, his cap falling down over his forehead. "You're one of the corrupted. The Tainted. Got your registration card on you?" He was at the car now, leaning over her.
"My what?" she asked.
"Your Tainted card," he jeered, his lip curling in a sinister smile. "You don't have one?"
Penance darted a look at the passerby on the street, most of them willfully oblivious to her predicament, and a few of them stopping to stare, but none of them offering to help. "I'd rather be on my way, if you please." Penance was nervous, her accent fully on display now, as another of the ribboned men meandered to the other side of the car. Penance gave a startled jump at the sound of a third pounding a fist on the back of the car.
"Get the fuck out of the car, Tainted." The first man opened the door, as if chivalrously escorting her to the dinner she had just lied about, or to some other consensual destination. Penance didn't move, not out of some deliberate protest, but because her legs were heavy, like two rolled up rugs, rigid and immoveable. In fact, her whole lower torso had gone sluggish, as if sending all of her electrons to her heart to help power its too-rapid pace.
The man, a boy really, reached in and yanked her out of the car, and Penance stumbled, her wrist wrenching as she fell to a knee, dirtying her dress. Grunting in pain, she attempted to jerk her arm from him, her wrist smarting, and managed to pull free and scrambled backwards.
Turning, she sought to flee, for the second time that day, but found herself slamming into a large, broad chest, two strong gloved hands gripping her arms. This fourth man, not that she was counting, glowered down at her, an orange beard covering his jaw line and chin, giving him the look of a fox that had been given a growth serum. She was too close to him, and caught the pungent mix of dried tobacco smoke, sweat, and oil. Penance tried to pull back from him, letting a plea slip from her lips, less so to him than to the observers placidly eyeing them.
"Let me go," she tried, but her efforts only made him grip her arms more tightly, pushing her from the street and towards a side alley. Now she found her lungs, and screamed, making his job slightly more difficult. A short, stout woman carrying a basket noticed her, and moved toward them, raising her voice, but two of the men moved from the electric car over to her, blocking her view.
Penance caught the eye of a man who stood only a few feet away, simply watching, and she wasn't sure what made her more despondent, the man harming her or the stranger watching him do so. Penance continued to struggle, the fox man growing more and more annoyed, and he spun her, trapping her back against his front. He snaked one arm viselike over her chest while sliding the bulk of his gloved fingers into her mouth, hauling her like a hooked fish further into the alley.
Penance gagged, the dusty leather pressing against her tongue, her cheeks, and she bit into his gloves on instinct, but it wasn't enough to startle him. Before she could catch her breath, he shoved her hard, sending her reeling across cobblestones, her knees smarting and her hands scraping loose stones, the sting radiating up her arms. She heard a voice in her head, a bodiless, floating wise voice: keep moving, keep moving.
Footsteps sounded behind her, too many of them, and as she attempted to get to her feet she heard one of them call out to her. "Come on, show us your turn!"
Penance felt her spirit drain from her like rainwater from a gutter; she had left the girls at Lavinia's, had gone off on her own. And the one thing the world had taught her, even before her turn, was that solitariness was not a luxury a woman could afford. Her choices had led her here; a conclusion that felt wrong, but what else but shame had been bred into her? What Penance was feeling was a not an uncommon terror, but one felt by women a thousand times over, those that found themselves in the path of aimless rage and debased power.
A hand gripped her hair, pulling her back, and Penance let out a doleful scream, but then she was shoved inexplicably forward, this time catching herself against a wall. Turning, she watched, stunned, as Amalia tossed a punch at the bearded man, then spun and landed a vicious kick to his groin, dropping him. He let out a garbled groan as he clutched himself, writhing into a fetal curl on the ground.
Not missing a beat, Amalia picked up a discarded piece of jagged wood, tossing it up and catching it easily, glancing at the other two men as if they had just witnessed the opener to her one-woman show. "Want to see my turn?" she asked with a broad smile, but then moved like a coiled snake at them, catching the first across the jaw with the wood, his cap sailing from his head as he fell to the ground. Before she could turn for the other man, his face dumb and lower lip dropped, he simply fled, stumbling around the corner and out of sight.
Amalia turned back to Penance with a concerned look, keeping the wood in her hand. "Are you okay?" she asked, her eyes still aglow from the fight.
"What?" Penance asked, shock still blocking her from forming full sentences. Staring back at Amalia, she tried to make sense of her sudden presence. "How did you know where I was?"
"Fortunate coincidence," Amalia replied quickly, her head turning toward the bearded man who was still moaning on the ground. "Come, let's get you to safety."
Penance eyed her, none of the past several moments stacking atop one another in any logical sense, but the bearded man was righting himself, if slowly, and she only knew that she wanted to be far away from him. Amalia grabbed her hand and led her back through the alley, skirting the sidewalk and heading for a carriage parked several yards away.
"My car," Penance said, attempting to slow their brisk pace and reverse course, but Amalia only pulled her wrist harder.
"Don't be daft, we'll get it later," she insisted sharply as they closed in on the carriage.
Penance's eye drifted toward Amalia's hand, which held her own tightly, and the sidewalk and the passerby and everything else blurred as a realization make the skin on the back of her neck prickle. Penance had grown familiar with Amalia's small, deliberate hands: strong, firm, with ever present scrapes across the knuckles, and definitely not larger than her own. But the hand gripping hers enveloped it entirely, its knuckles pristine. Penance slowed to an almost stop, eyes trailing up Amalia's back, searching for the cloth choker she wore, but it wasn't there. It had been around her neck this morning, hadn't it?
"Wait," Penance stuttered, but they were at the carriage, the door opening from the inside, and Amalia shoved Penance into it, slamming the door behind her with a satisfied grunt.
Penance stumbled onto the floor of the carriage, and only instinct made her reach fruitlessly for the door handle, where she caught sight of Amalia still outside the carriage window, stepping towards the box front as if to take the reigns. Amalia wouldn't drive her own carriage, she didn't need to, especially with Penance's electric coachmen. But this wasn't her electric carriage. Dread wafting over her like a fog, Penance tried the door again, but a voice spoke to her from the far seat and she jumped, letting out a startled yelp.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."
Penance turned slowly, a shuddersome alarm pooling in her belly, weighting her to the floor. Sitting in the seat opposite, hat tipped smartly to the side, was Bonfire Annie, a ball of fire nestled in the palm of her hand, which was making its way steadily towards Penance skirts.
"No," Penance moaned, folding her legs into herself and shaking her head, as if by sheer will alone she could rewrite the course of her day. The carriage took off, jostling her, and she caught a glimpse of the driver. From the back, it appeared to be Amalia's dark hair, but she turned, glancing over her shoulder and into the window of the carriage, and her face shifted, melting into a large, porous face, two chins appearing in place of Amalia's one, rough skin and a beard in place of her lips, small, beady eyes in place of her large, dark ones.
And at that moment, Penance did the work for her kidnappers, not enough oxygen reaching her brain, and she felt darkness shroud her mind, as if she were slipping underneath quicksand. She welcomed it, letting it take her, and collapsed in a heap at Annie's feet.
Two
The day had gone from bad to worse to indecipherable, panic escalating at each unexpected turn. Penance struggled to open her eyes, although she already knew she was far from her electric car, far from the orphanage. The air felt wrong, cold and cavernous. She heard heavy panting just above her, as if whoever it was had performed the hard labor of dragging her out of her imagined quicksand.
"Come on, pet," a raspy voice purred near her ear. "It's not nearly as fun with your eyes closed."
Penance's eyes finally sprung open, again not by her own choice, but by force of panic alone. She knew that voice, it had seared itself into her memory and her nightmares, the antithesis of the beauty she heard in Mary's song the night of the opera. Chaotic eyes met her own, surrounded by a black sheen, and Maladie stared down at her with a triumphant smile.
"What a good listener you are," Maladie cooed. "So obedient." Her arm came forward and Penance moved to back away from it, but had no leverage, as she discovered her hands were tied tightly behind her, and she was slumped against a factory wall with Maladie perched on top of her legs. Instead, Penance did the only thing she could, which was turn her head sideways, if only to avoid what she understood to be quite a dangerous turn. Her eyes widened as she caught sight of Mary, who sat a few yards from her, in the same predicament, hands tied, her hair mussed and cheeks dirty. But her blue eyes were open and alert. Penance released a sigh of misplaced relief at the simple fact that she was still alive. "Hi," she breathed. "Nice to see you."
Mary looked strangely at her, as if Penance had come on too strong on the first day of school.
"We're going to be okay," Penance offered, all too aware that in the current circumstances, perhaps it was best to skip the pleasantries and cut to the chase.
Mary gave her the slightest of nods, although her eyes were frightful, no semblance of the hope that had been in them when her song floated through her on the opera stage. Penance fought the urge to ask her to sing, if only to keep her panic at bay.
"Hey, I'm the hostess here," Maladie interrupted, her dirty fingers grasping Penance's chin and forcing her head back to her. "And to correct the record, one of you is most likely not going to be okay." She glanced up at the large man that had once been Amalia, now well-dressed, stout, and dapper in a light-colored suit. "String her up!" Maladie commanded, and the man reached down and pulled Mary to her feet.
"No!" Penance said, struggling as much as she could under Maladie's weight, watching helplessly as the man pulled Mary into the darkness of the factory. Neither of their circumstances were preferable, it seemed, but Penance almost envied wherever it was Mary was being lead, convinced it was preferable to having a serial murderer perched on one's lap.
"Now, now," Maladie said, caressing her jaw and angling it back to her, but Penance only squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to disappear back into the muddiness that had claimed her before. It was the wrong tact, and she felt Maladie's hand grip the back of her hair, tugging it forcefully, forcing her head up and back. Penance opened her eyes, straining to swallow, and watched Maladie's eyes roam to her neck, where she could feel her own pulse jumping.
A knife came into focus as Maladie held it up, and Penance struggled to keep her eyes open, following the blade as its point jutted against her pulse point, pressing uncomfortably. "Please don't," Penance whispered, ashamed at already moving towards a plea, knowing that it wouldn't work and yet having no other ideas.
Bonfire Annie appeared behind them, arms crossed, her voice stern. "May I remind you that your whole plan rides on keeping her alive for the time being?" She pointed at the knife. "Hand that over."
Maladie looked up at her, irritated. "Really cramping my introduction here," she seethed. "This is all my idea, remember?"
"Then keep the knife aimed at someplace less vital," Annie suggested. "It was a bit of work getting her."
Maladie glanced up at Annie, then back at Penance with a commiserate stare. "Women, am I right?" Shrugging Annie off, she focused on Penance. "What would you say is your least vital part, then, pet?"
Penance glanced at both of them, not having had hardly any experience in communicating with those on the precipice of acute insanity. Her pause was too long, and Maladie tugged at her hair again, eliciting a grunt from her strained throat.
"Would you rather I pick?" Maladie asked, letting the knife move toward Penance's right ear. "If your girlfriend is as much of a nag as mine, I bet I'd be doing you a favor getting rid of these."
Penance struggled again, her shoulders moving of their own accord, and she sighed in relief as Annie's voice cut in once again. "Goddammit Maladie," she breathed, leaning over and plucking the knife from her hand. "Have your fun, but I keep the sharp objects."
Maladie rolled her eyes. "Like I never left Strohman's." But she recovered, settling herself fully onto Penance's lap, wrapping her legs around her and clasping her hands under her own chin as if they were two friends delaying bedtime at a sleepover. "Did you know I spent some time at an asylum? Hard to believe, right?" She grinned. "My husband put me there because he found out that I had more of a taste for ladies than for him. You have a taste for ladies?"
Penance heard the echo of Bonfire Annie's boots as she left them alone, and she almost called out for her, wondering at how she had come to prefer one murderer over another so quickly. Maladie's hand flashed against her cheek, an efficiently stinging way to pull her attention back from Annie and back towards her. "Be polite, pet."
"I'm sorry," Penance uttered, believing modesty the best tact to take at the moment. Her eyes met Maladie's, and she was surprised at their lightness beneath the dark, shadowed shield around them: they were a light hazel, shifting in the sallow glow of the factory lighting. "Your husband sounds like a terrible man."
Maladie nodded sadly. "God rest his soul." She smiled, sighing. "I did kill him, after I got out." Her grin broadened. "With sewing scissors."
"I think you should let Mary go," Penance suggested, willfully ignoring the concerning confession. "You can keep me, but let her go."
"It's my directorial debut and I'll keep you both," Maladie stated firmly. "But you, sweet sparrow, are the real star. The leverage."
"Leverage?" Penance asked. "You must be mistaken, I'm not good for leverage. I've got nothing in the way of family or inheritance."
Maladie widened her eyes in excitement, wiggling her fingers in pleasure underneath her chin. "You've got Molly, don't you? You've wedged yourself into her."
"Molly?" Penance asked, hoping perhaps this whole frightful incident she had found herself in simply rested on a case of mistaken identity, and could be corrected in time, like being detained at a train station due to a misprinted ticket.
"Ah, right." Maladie nodded. "You know her as Amalia True, patron saint of your little children's zoo. Although I do question the sanity of whoever put her in charge."
And then Maladie's past became as clear to Penance as if she had lived through it herself. Amalia had shared her history, her time as a Stripe, her inexplicable arrival in another body and another time, but had kept her experience at the asylum mostly to herself. All Penance knew about her time there was that it was where she had first met Horatio. "You were at Strohman's with her."
"Bingo, little bird!" Maladie exclaimed, pinching Penance's cheek. "I may have been admitted by my dear, recently departed and dismembered husband, but I was only kept there because of your sapphic bedwarmer Mrs. True." Maladie looked down at her. "I guess she hasn't told you about me, has she?" She nodded, disappointed. "Why would she, though, right? If her only goal was to slip inside your skirts and hook her fingers into you, no need to tell you what a sleazy demon she actually is, unless you have a fetish for demons?" Maladie raised her eyebrows.
Again, Penance believed honesty was best. "She hasn't told me about Strohman's."
Maladie rested her hand in her chin, looking expectantly at Penance. "Tell me what you like about her. Your little Am-a-li-aaaa."
"What... I-I don't know."
Maladie wrapped a hand around Penance's throat and squeezed. "Sure you do. Is it her tiny feet? The weird freckles along her shoulder that look like a half moon?" She kept squeezing, and Penance found it harder to breathe. "Tell me what you like about her."
Penance wasn't prepared for this interrogation, and she struggled to name something so encompassing that she couldn't separate the parts from the whole. "Her strength," Penance wheezed, struggling to get out the word. "Spirit." Maladie's fingers loosened their grip just slightly, and Penance thought best to keep going. If she were going to die, she may as well die thinking about the person she loved most. "Her laugh. Rare as a sun shower. Her mind. I like me with her." Penance stared back at Maladie, assuaging whether she had leeway to ask a question of her own. "What do you like about her?"
"I hate her," Maladie spat, tapping Penance's head as if testing whether it contained any matter inside. But at least her hand was no longer wrapped around her throat.
"I don't think you always hated her," Penance said slowly, staring into her eyes, finding a current of calmness. "I think your instinct, before the asylum, was to love, wasn't it? I bet people loved you back." Maladie's eyes locked onto hers, settling slowly into them, and Penance thought it safe to press again. "What made you love her?"
"She believed me," Maladie answered slowly, quietly, and all too sanely. "I saw God the day I was admitted. No one believed me, they told me I was wrong, they told me that all of me was wrong. No one looked me in the eye." Her tongue trailed her lip, thoughtfully, her eyes deep in memory. "Molly came. She was violent. Weirder than anyone else there, for sure. She talked funny, but she didn't talk much. She was scared, though, it wasn't hard to see that. But no one helped her."
"But you did?" Penance breathed, confused, enraptured.
Maladie's eyes, deep down, showed a pinprick of remembered kindness. "They had her restrained, which was only making her angry."
Penance nodded. "Yes, I can imagine that. Terrible decision."
"She was like a chained dog. But a tiny one."
"Like a chihuahua."
"No, they're too small."
"Like a terrier."
Maladie nodded. "Like a Boston Terrier, the jumpy ones."
Penance was quiet, waiting to see if Maladie would continue.
"I slept with her that night, calmed her," Maladie muttered. "She couldn't even touch me, but I'd never felt closer to anyone in my entire life." Glancing at Penance, she bared a glimmer of self awareness. "What a shitty life, then, right?"
"No," Penance said. "Just the life you were dealt."
Maladie nodded. "People tell you you're stupid nice?"
"They usually leave out the stupid part."
"I was stupid nice to Molly, too. Because she believed me when I said that I'd seen God. She worked me up, told me she saw it, too." Penance watched her slow metamorphosis as she became Sarah again, underneath Maladie's costumed rage.
"At night, I'd tell her everything. I'd lay with her, and we'd just tell each other the truth, like we were coming out of the dark instead of going into it. She made me feel safe, like she'd seen the world a thousand times over and knew how to protect me from it. There was so much I didn't know... everyone always confused me so, with their rushing to all the places, to do all the things. But Molly taught me what not to say in front of the nurses, she taught me how to behave, to get extra jam on my bread. She was my friend."
"What changed?"
"The doctor came. He came for both of us. Molly said that he would help us, that he believed us and would help us find God again, and get out of that place." Maladie's eyes glassed over, and the tears were all too visible as they trailed down the shadows around her eyes. "She makes my bloody face leak."
"She betrayed you." Despite the circumstances, Penance felt her hand automatically try to lift itself to wipe the tears from Maladie's face, or at the least embrace her. One thing she couldn't stomach was witnessing pain and doing nothing about it. Instead, Penance went still, focusing on the warmth coming off of Maladie, the slow current flowing through her, as if sadness had slowed down her entire molecular structure. "I'm so sorry," Penance said, dipping her head forward, resting her forehead gently against Maladie's. If she were going to die, she wouldn't die being heartless.
Maladie's skin was cool, but dry, and Penance met her eyes. They glowed, briefly, but only for a second, and then Maladie leaned back, a curious but confused look on her face. "Where is your pain?" she asked her. "Why can't I get to it?"
"I don't know," Penance said, shaking her head. "It's buried so deeply, that I myself can barely get to it. I don't like reliving my own pain. I don't like seeing other people in pain." She took a chance. "I don't like seeing Mary in pain."
"Mary," Maladie muttered, with a shake of her head. "The songbird is fine, she's in one piece."
"She's frightened. That's a form of pain."
"She should be frightened," Maladie replied, leaning into Penance as if sharing a secret. "There are people trying to kill her."
Penance met her eyes again, patiently, trying to mete out her fear and instead process Maladie's remarks as if they were entirely logical. "Is that why you took Mary from the opera?"
"No, that was a total fluke, but a fun twist. I just wanted to shut her the fuck up. It was Molly who wanted Mary so badly. So I took her." Maladie clasped her fingers together, fidgeting them excitedly against one another. "Which brings us here," she said, her hands arcing wide above her head. "I'll have to leave you in a minute and let Annie get you ready for the show. And I must make my sign."
"What?" Penance asked, doing her best to follow, losing the thread once again.
"Your dear A-ma-liiii-aaa will be here soon," Maladie sang with a grin, then turned her attention to fluffing Penance's sleeves. "You already look like a million pounds, though. Were you coming from a party or do you always dress like this?"
Penance didn't answer for a moment, her mind calculating whether she should, but Maladie railed on.
"Never mind!" she yelled with a wave of her hand. "Of course, I already knew you were coming from a party." She leaned closer to Penance, not meeting her eyes, but instead letting her gaze drift over her face, visually tracing her jaw line. "Tell me, where did your Am-a-lii-aaa touch you last?"
"I don't want to tell you that," Penance whispered, not liking the turn in Maladie's eyes. The current beneath them shifted to a turbulent heat.
"So bloody puritan," Maladie muttered, rolling her eyes. "Then I'll show you where she last touched me."
Penance shook her head, attempting to shift backwards, to put as much space between them as she could. "Please, Sarah, I don't want that."
Maladie ignored her and put a palm on Penance's chest, making her stomach roil, but she kept her hand chastely over her heart, letting it rest there, and then put her other hand behind Penance's neck, pulling her closer and pressing a kiss against just above each of her eyes. Penance now couldn't avoid Maladie's gaze, and she met it directly, seeing and also feeling the pain inside her eyes.
Maladie looked deeply at her. "Molly said to me, 'Tell him what's in your head, Sarah, but keep your heart firm.'"
"That's the last thing she said to you?" Penance whispered. She wasn't entirely sure whether Maladie was in the present with her in the factory, or if she was lost to the past, imagining herself back in the asylum, only now with the knowledge of how Molly would betray her. Without warning, Maladie grabbed Penance by both shoulders and slammed her backwards, but with nowhere to go, her head cracked against the wall, and the world went white for a few seconds before pain began to emanate from the base of her skull.
"What kind of a bloody riddle was that!" Maladie yelled, and Penance blinked, trying to focus, or at the least square her body and prepare it as best she could for another blow. Maladie jerked forward, pulling her head against her chest. Penance couldn't help but feel Maladie's heart beating beneath the dingy, thin fabric of her dress, and it beat just as rapidly as her own, complementary, overwhelmed machines.
"They got to all of me," Maladie moaned. "My head, my skin, my nails, they got in everywhere. And all I heard was your voice the entire time, you telling me what to do with my heart, but the poison found its way into me."
Penance closed her eyes against Maladie's chest, her own terror and despair spilling out of her. It was too much to comprehend, this idea that Amalia, who she had come to love, had only come to her through this other person's pain, loss, and tragedy. And now it may come full circle. "I'm sorry," Penance said, her voice catching as she offered an apology that Sarah had most likely never received. "I'm sorry."
Maladie leaned Penance back against the wall, pushing an errant curl behind her ear with a surprisingly gentle touch. "Now that was fun," she said with a smile, sighing. "I needed that. Could use a smoke, even."
Penance closed her eyes, letting her head fall to her chest, no more left in her. She almost welcomed the adrenaline that fear would bring.
Maladie rose slightly, getting to her knees and planting one on each side of Penance. "Now you know the truth about your dear Mrs. Trueeeee. When push came to shove, she fed me to the wolves." She got to her feet and pulled Penance up, surprisingly strong for someone so much shorter, and looked up at her with a pitying glance. "Think she'll do the same to you?"
Three
Penance had welcomed the pulse of fear, but not like this, not this pulsating terror galvanizing its way through her like a scythe plowing a field. The only thing keeping her upright, from passing back into the suffocating quicksand, was knowing that Mary was across from her, and any move from either of them had a direct impact on the other. Penance tried to control her breathing, afraid that a stray sob might wrench her from the painful hands around her arms, the only thing keeping her from falling into permanent darkness.
Penance heard Maladie's bellows beneath them, but in the darkness she was unable to pinpoint Amalia and she was grateful for the gag across her mouth, knowing that without it she would be screaming into that darkness. The space quieted, only an eery murmuring resonating up to her, and then the lights came up, illuminating Mary, and Penance had to shut her eyes at the panic she recognized in her, visible even across the expanse of the factory. She watched Amalia take note of Mary, saw her posture change, saw her expression harden, as if she had counted on this turn of events and was fully prepared for it.
And then the lights blazed on Penance, blinding her and making the world flash away for a moment. But Penance didn't blink, couldn't do anything but look down at Amalia, who was staring up with the lost expression of someone who thought they were treading on level ground, but found that it was nothing but thin air. Penance looked away, straight ahead, unable to absorb Amalia's fear, felt it rise like lightning all the way up to her and crack her open. And she knew, like watching her failed propeller prototype fall from the sky, that they would not come out of this unharmed.
Penance closed her eyes, reciting the lord's prayer in her head, or trying to, but once again, the very thing that had been bred into her to give her solace was not providing its promised serenity. So instead she put her eyes back on Amalia, told herself to focus solely on her, and that act of prayer, despite the fear, despite the panic, gave her a numbing peace.
And then she saw Amalia turn the gun on herself, and the world upended itself, a reversal of its creation in the split second it took for the gun to go off. Penance felt her own scream tear through her gag and reverberate against her temples, but it didn't overpower the sound of the gunshot, which echoed cruelly up to her. One shot, then another, Penance jolting with each as if they'd lodged into her own body.
There was nothing keeping her upright but the very hands that moments before had been too ready to let her go, and although Penance heard the chaos about her, she saw nothing but Amalia's prone form on the ground. She was screaming, unceasingly, and then the gag fell away from her and her screams pierced the air, and her mind managed to forge something helpful out of her terror: she yelled out Horatio's name and address. Then her feet found something solid and she was running, repeatedly screaming Horatio's name, as if she thought her terror might somehow reach him before the police. The scaffolding was unsteady, but she found her way to the stairs and pounded down them, stumbling, her tears stubbornly blurring her vision, but she couldn't make them stop.
Inspector Mundi was beside Amalia, both of his hands bloodied, and he was talking to her, but Penance wanted to silence him, to remind him that the sound of his voice would make Amalia flee toward darkness all the more quickly. Shoving him out of the way, she put her own shaking hands to use, covering the hole in Amalia's stomach and wondering how such a beautiful day could bend itself toward such horror.
Maladie was gone, the chaos had ceded to the quiet of looming tragedy. Amalia stared dazedly up at Penance, the color all but drained from her face, like a deathly warning of what may come. "Fuck... that smarts..."
"Shut up, True," Penance whispered, her hands already covered in blood. Wasn't it too much blood? What was too much blood? "Don't talk, just keep looking at me, okay?"
Amalia nodded, barely, but it was a promise her body couldn't keep, and her eyes slipped closed for more than a few seconds. "You can…"
"You're not listening to me, True."
Amalia continued haltingly, not listening. "… do this, love."
Penance let out a despondent moan, squinting her eyes closed, knowing words meant nothing at the moment, the only thing that meant anything at all was all the blood. Where was Horatio? All of this blood and only moments had passed?
"Yes! I can do any bloody thing, invent a fucking flying machine, but I can't keep you alive, so you have to do that for now," Penance pleaded. "Why did you do this?" she muttered. "Why?"
"I…"
Penance shook her head. "Don't bloody answer me!" she screamed, and saw Inspector Mundi creep back over to them, but she gave him a pointed stare that sent him back several paces. Still, he leaned forward and handed over his jacket, helped Penance press it against the wound, wind it around Amalia's midsection. Penance leaned her forehead against Amalia's, keeping her hands on the jacket, feeling warmth seep into it, that same warmth seeping out of Amalia's skin. After a few moments, Amalia quieted, eyes closing and this time not opening, but Penance kept up barely decipherable ramblings in her ear, the slightest, frailest of threads keeping her hopefully tethered to this world.
Four
Once again, Penance found herself barely able to stand, the only thing keeping her upright the post along the end of Amalia's bed. Lucy had been the one to help Horatio get Amalia upstairs, having had her own experiences cleaning up gunshot wounds over the years. Harriet had guided Penance to her own room to help her change out of her bloodied dress, the setting sun mocking them outside of her window. Harriet, ever intuitive, pulled the shade closed, helping in silence. Penance was shocked by the state of her room, all of her belongings strewn about in the same place that she had left them that morning, as if their trauma had been only a hallucination. Harriet had then led her back across the hall, placing a steadying arm around Penance as they watched Horatio work, Lucy handing him supplies, eyes on his healing glow. Everything was too quiet.
"She'll be coming back to us, eventually," Horatio said, his voice strained.
Harriet rubbed comforting circles on Penance's back, leaning into her. "Hear that, Pen, she will be okay." Penance didn't reply, but Harriet knew her well. "Instead of worrying about her, you can yell at her."
The comment did its job, and Penance let out a breath, realizing every one she had taken since they had left the factory had been a struggle. "I'm definitely going to yell at her."
"Let's all yell at her," Lucy joined in, looking up at them, a spark of tired relief dawning in her eyes. She motioned to Penance. "You first, though."
Five
Penance had yelled, indeed, pent up worry bubbling out of her as if she were a dormant volcano unexpectedly spewing molten admonitions. The explosion left her broken, and she could do nothing but perch on the side of Amalia's bed, unable to look at her. But Amalia had clasped her wrist with the gentleness of an unspoken question, and Penance took her rightful place at her side, still fitting into her after the terror of the day. Amalia, ever focused, wanted to explain, like a soldier wishing to reexamine the steps leading to a failed mission.
Penance had put a stop to it, not yet able to excavate the misgivings she had buried after her encounter with Maladie. Unearthing them now would only cause her more confusion and she merely wanted Amalia as she knew her, not as Maladie saw her. Pressing her nose against Amalia's neck, she searched for her scent, her usual amber now mixed with antiseptic and the copper taint of blood. A low current came off of her, as if her body had spent itself with living, and couldn't muster her usual vibrancy. As their hands intertwined, Penance let the quiet surround them, welcoming the calm that came with nothing, but soon all of the terror and worry burst forth from its cage, and she couldn't stifle the tears that came from her, wetting Amalia's neck.
Amalia pulled her closer, groaning as she reached her other arm across to rub Penance's shoulder, to trace a few of her curls along her neck. But she remained silent, letting Penance release everything she needed to, until her breathing leveled and the quieted floated around them again.
"How are you?" Amalia asked, her voice faint. "I know it's far from okay. What can I do?" She tried to right herself, to meet Penance's eye, to regain her usual composure, but this was an impossible feat with her insides feeling like creme brulee that had been sealed with a torch. "What can I do to help you through this?"
Penance swallowed, grateful for the question, knowing that she had no answers. Some of what she had experienced, all of her confusion, would be best processed with Harriet, the most neutral of parties, a friend with no expectations, no guilt. What Penance most wanted from Amalia was the Amalia that she had parted with earlier that morning, who had given her a playful smile and a teasing kiss, who had laughed about their jaunt to Lavinia's society party.
"People can be so cruel," Penance said, her head still at Amalia's neck. She didn't bother to explain, or to summarize that moment on the street, how much the assault had affected her, how it had opened up a trap door to the darkest depths of humanity.
"I didn't know what else to do to get out of there," Amalia replied, her voice still weak, raspy, and Penance didn't bother correcting her misdirected assumption. On some level, she needed to hear what Amalia had to say. "I told myself if I got out, then I could help her, too. I didn't know where they took her." Amalia put a hand to her eye, wiping it. "But I let myself stop looking."
Penance believed in redemption. It was what had allowed her tap so deeply into Maladie. And it was what would allow her to continue to love Amalia so wildly. "Today I put my trust in complete strangers to help me," she began, her voice cracking. "And they didn't. They just stood there, watching... Until today, I don't think I understand how horrific that is." She let her fingers trace a trail of dried blood on Amalia's slip. "We can't be those people. Our girls can't be those people. No matter what." She leaned up on one elbow, looking down at Amalia, steadfast. "You, of all people, know what that leads to, True."
"Penance, we can't save everyone. Sarah is gone."
"No, she isn't. She's damaged. And not by her own doing."
"And now she's damaged you." Amalia's voice broke at the end, her voice fading into a whisper as her eyes slipped closed. "I caused all this?"
Penance pressed a chaste kiss to her lips. "Oh, love, you're a soldier, not a God. Get over yourself." Her eyes roamed to the round scar at her abdomen. "You didn't kill Maladie today. Your aim may be terrible with these tiny hands of yours, but it isn't that bad. You easily could have and you made a choice." Amalia didn't reply, but her shoulders eased again as Penance pressed back into her.
After a few moments, Amalia spoke. "When you are ready, I'm here. I know you have Harriet, I'm grateful for it. But I'm here, too." Penance felt her turn to look at her. "But in the meantime, I'm so sorry. But I'm so fucking grateful you're here."
Penance swallowed. "I think it's time for me to yell at you again. You've turned sentimental."
Amalia stifled an attempted chuckle, and Penance felt her body tense as she tried to hide the pain it caused. "What I did to Sarah was terrible. It's not the only terrible thing I've done. I can't change it. But maybe by helping all of us, we can help her... let the healing trickle down... from a far distance."
Penance let her eyes close and draped her hand across Amalia's skin, its warmth reassuring. "Not killing her is a good first step, then, towards some kind of redemption." She sighed, resigned, and so tired. "I don't know. It's a start."
Penance felt Amalia nod, felt her press her lips to her temple, mumbling against her. "It's a start."