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Rachel wants to leave. She really does, but she really doesn’t. Flames dance in front of her eyes, and she almost swears she can hear someone screaming inside. She can’t look away- it feels like the fire is everywhere, burning inside her, turning whatever’s left of her soul into a pile of dark ash. If there even is anything left. Maybe it all abandoned her when she let her magic rip that man’s throat back open and felt nothing but pride.
Maybe she hadn’t ever had one in the first place. She’d hurt enough people in the last couple weeks for that to start feeling uncomfortably likely.
“Rachel.” Kory says, snapping her out of her head. She turns. “We need to go.”
She’s strapped to an operating table, looking over at them with terror in her eyes that Rachel has never seen on Kory before. There’s a pale scar on her stomach that wasn’t there this morning, and a tube in her mouth, and Rachel has no idea what they might be pumping into her right now. They have to get her out of there, but Rachel doesn’t know how to even start. What if they’ve hurt her somewhere they can’t see?
“Rachel.” Kory says again. “Are you okay?”
“Fine. Leaving. Yes.” Rachel nods, blinking away the intrusive memory. Kory’s right. While they might not be in danger of any asylum staff hunting them down- the explosion had taken care of that- there would probably be cops here soon, and having their little ‘alliance’ at the source of two explosions in as many weeks wouldn’t exactly be a good look. Kory walks over to Dick, who’s staring blankly at the ground- Rachel looks away from him, ignoring the pang in her chest, and puts an arm around Garfield, who looks equally out of it. There’s still blood on his face. She remembers the electricity burns she’d noticed when he was shirtless, and readjusts her arm, hoping she hadn’t touched anything sore.
When they get back to the car, Rachel realises the problems aren’t all sorted yet. Dick’s pupils are dilated to all hell and back, and he drops the keys three times just trying to unlock the door.
“You’re not driving.” Rachel tells him. He makes a face, but nods. Thankfully, his knowledge of what happens when someone drives under the influence apparently overcomes his stubbornness. Dick holds the keys out to Kory, but she’s shaking, and the cut on her stomach, while healed, is apparently still sore, given the way she’s holding an arm over it. Rachel decides that maybe only the skin has healed, and there’s still internal damage. She looks at the others. Angela shakes her head, mumbling something about how five years imprisonment doesn’t give a woman a lot of confidence in her abilities. Garfield doesn’t even look at her. He hasn’t spoken a word since they got outside. She feels awful for not talking to him yet, but she’s just been focused on getting everyone out alive. “Guess I’m driving.”
“You have a license?” Kory says. Rachel isn’t sure whether or not to be offended at her tone. She decides it’s probably not worth the energy.
“Not… exactly. Melissa wasn’t exactly keen to put me and my… abilities… in control of a 2 tonne metal killing machine.”
“You can’t drive, then.” Dick says.
“I’m the only one not injured.” Rachel says emphatically, gesturing around. “You can teach me.”
All three adults try to argue, but Rachel reaches in and snatches the keys from Dick. His reflexes aren’t exactly quick enough right now to stop her.
“We don’t have time for this.” There’s a pause, and then Dick sighs.
“Fine. I’ll teach you. Get in the car.”
Kory doesn’t argue, which surprises Rachel until she realises Kory wouldn’t exactly remember being taught how to drive. Muscle memory is probably the only reason she can. So Rachel climbs into the driver’s seat and spends a moment adjusting the seat while the others all get in as well. Her feet don’t even reach the pedals at first, and she has to slide forward what feels like a mile. Why is Kory so tall?
“Okay.” Dick says, leaning over the centre console to point. “So. That’s the accelerator to go. That’s-”
“I know what a brake does.”
“Right. That’s the brake. And that’s the clutch. This is the gear stick. Only move it when you’ve got the clutch in.”
Rachel knows the parts of a car. Well, kind of. She did a driving theory class at school, before realising she’d never need it. She turns the car on and pushes the clutch in. It’s already in first gear, so she slowly lifts off the clutch, and nothing happens.
“Handbrake.” Dick mumbles.
Oh. Right. She knew that. She takes the handbrake off and tries again. The car lurches forward and stalls, and both Kory and Gar make pained sounds. Rachel swears.
“You’re okay. Just- more accelerator.” Dick tells her. She nods, turning the car back on. This time it revs too much, lurches forward too quickly, and she slams the brake on.
“This was a bad idea.” Kory groans. “I should just-”
“Shut up, I can do it.” Rachel says, frustration building. She tries again, and this time the car starts smoothly rolling forward. Dick laughs, and pats her shoulder.
“Yeah you can.”
She grins at him, slowly building speed, and he helps her switch into second gear, and then third. It’s dark, and the headlights don’t illuminate much of the road so she feels a little claustrophobic, but she’s driving. She glances at Garfield in the rearview mirror. There’s a hint of a smile on his face. Thank God. Kory is wiping at the blood on his face with a cloth she’d grabbed from somewhere, and it reminds Rachel of Melissa. She wonders if Kory has kids she can’t remember. She definitely seems like a mum.
“Okay, slow down for the corner.” Dick’s voice is starting to sound more normal, and she looks at him.
His eyes are wide, and dark, and unseeing. He’s strapped down, but there are bruises on his wrists. He’s breathing, but he isn’t blinking, it’s like he can’t even hear them. Rachel feels sick. This is so different from the Dick she’s gotten to know, and with a sinking pit in her stomach, Rachel knows Angela is right. Dick is gone. He’s broken, just like that creepy murder family. He’s never coming back, and it’s all her faul-
“Rachel?” Dick says. Is saying. That’s probably about the third time he’s said it, actually, and she realises why when she looks down and realises she’s only going about 12 miles per hour.
“Uh- sorry. Got distracted.” She tries to accelerate, but the car makes an unhealthy groaning sound, and he grabs her knee.
“Change down a gear.” He doesn’t ask why she was distracted, thank God. Although, maybe that’s worse. Maybe they need to talk about what just happened to all of them, because Rachel is sure she’ll never get those videos out of her head.
When they get back to the safehouse, Garfield goes straight into the bathroom and locks the door. Dick and Kory look at each other with an expression that tells Rachel she should probably leave them alone. She shows Angela- her mother- to one of the spare rooms, and then goes back downstairs. The bathroom door is still shut, but the shower isn’t running. She knocks on the door.
“Gar?” She calls softly. “Can I come in?”
There’s a long silence, and she gets it in her head that he’s slipped on the floor and cracked his head open and is bleeding out inside, but then he opens the door. He’s shirtless, and the burns on his torso look even worse now. The blood has mostly been washed off his face.
“...You okay?” He says nothing, but his face makes the answer pretty obvious. Rachel nods. “Give me two seconds.” She dips into the kitchen, grabbing a first aid kit from above the fridge- Jason had shown them where they were, thank God for small mercies- and comes back. The door is shut but unlocked, so she lets herself in. He’s sitting on the floor, and he tilts his head, giving the first aid kit a puzzled look.
He’s huddled against the bars of his cage, and there are gory wounds on his ribs and stomach- burns, bruises, she doesn’t want to think about what caused it but she doesn’t need to, because she can see the giant stick tasers abandoned on the floor from here. He doesn’t move when she comes in, and she can’t see him breathing. He’s dead. She’s too late.
He’s touching her arm, his frown concerned now, instead of confused. Rachel shakes herself. Now isn’t the time for this. She gives him a smile as she sits on the floor with him. “I’m fine.” He’s still watching her warily as she unzips the first aid kit, pulling things out.
“Wow, that’s a lot of jellybeans. Does someone have diabetes?” She pauses, waiting for him to say something, but he only gives a half laugh through his nose. She finds what she’s looking for- burn salve- and opens it, scooping some onto her hand. “Okay. This might sting.” He inhales, and leans back against the wall, letting her spread it on the worst of his injuries with only a few winces and soft pained exhales. Once she’s done, Rachel goes to pack the kit away, but Garfield grabs a plaster and sticks it on the cut on her cheek. They stare at each other in silence for a moment.
“You don’t like to talk when you’re upset, huh?”
He breathes in, out, and in again. She’s just glad to see him breathing at all. “...Sorry.” His voice is raspy.
“No, it’s okay. You don’t have to, I can talk enough for both of us. Just… if you want to go over what happened… it could help.”
Garfield chews on his bottom lip, then nods. “I’ve read… people say that killing a bad person feels good. Worrying about why they didn’t regret it.” He’s fidgeting with a pack of jellybeans. “But it didn’t feel good for me.”
Rachel nods. “That’s a good thing, Gar.”
“No, I- He was really bad. He hurt me, and he wanted to hurt you. None of you guys are affected like this.”
“Hey.” Rachel takes his hands in hers, searching his eyes. “I promise, that’s a good thing. You’re a good person. Not to say Dick and Kory are bad people- they’re not- but they’re used to this. They’ve been trained to fight, and to hurt people when necessary, even if Kory doesn’t remember it. You weren’t raised that way. That doesn’t make you weak.”
“...You’re not a bad person either.” He says. Ah. So he’d noticed her conveniently leaving herself out of that little list. The truth is, she’s not sure. She still thinks something is really wrong with her. But he’s talking now, and she doesn’t want to risk losing that.
“Yeah. None of us are.”
There’s a moment of silence. “I can still taste him.”
Rachel knows that her worry shows on her face, so she tries to mask it with a grin. “Let’s make some food. I think Jason said there’s pizza in the freezer out back.”
Rachel doesn’t sleep that night. She can’t. Instead she paces between her friend’s rooms every half hour, poking her head in to make sure they’re still breathing. Well- she doesn’t go into Dick and Kory’s room, because now that the drugs are worn off he’s probably back to being a light sleeper, and she knows he needs the rest, so she just stands outside the door until she’s sure she’s heard both of their breathing enough times.
She feels terrible. All of their pain, all of their fear, was her fault.
At least she wasn’t affected.
She wasn’t affected.