The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

It’s a late Thursday afternoon and Daniel’s eyes are reading the note that he will soon be delivering to Hannah’s apartment, to Andrew.

You’ve been sloppy. And cruel. We need to talk. And if you won’t I’m pretty sure the federal government will. I don’t demand your acquiesence.

The number underneath the note. His cellphone number.

He continues to stare down at it. He knows what it means. He knows what’s implied in the strong worded language. It was a challenge. It was a challenge after Andrew thought that he had everything under control. It was him taking the lead and forcing his opponent to react to him. Daniel could only imagine what Andrew might do.

Andrew might follow it. He might get that phone call. He hopes that he can get a chance to sit down with Andrew and just figure something out.

He shakes his head at the naive thought. He knows better. He had to plan like he won’t. He had to look at it from Andrew’s perspective. Why would he sit down with someone that he believed was in a weaker position than him?

The sheet of paper is lifted in his hand and neatly folded. The contents are placed into an envelope with “For Andrew” written on the front of it. He seals it, his head facing down towards it and the table.

Jim looking back at him with a smile, “You’re so overly dramatic Daniel, you know that?”

Amusement crosses his face for a moment, but is quickly forced back to solemn, “Sharon’s taking care of her family?”

Jim nods, “Yeah it’s all taken care of man, Malarkey’s wife will be with friends, and Detective Bernake is going to stay away from his office/apartment as much as he can for the next couple days.” His friend walks up beside him, his eyes looking down at the letter, “It’s all gravy dude.”

Daniel’s eyes turn towards Jim, “It’s not going to be gravy pretty soon.”

Jim shakes his shakes his head, smiling, “Chill the fuck out. You’ve read the books. You’ve done your due diligence. Now it’s in the hands of God or whatever else might be up there.” He lays a hand on his friend’s shoulder, “We have some time to kill, how about showing your dear friend some love and helping him get laid?” he says with a smile.

Daniel just looks at him and laughs.

Friday evening. Nearing the zero hour.

The conversation playing between their radios.

Charlie: “I see them Phil, heading up towards the building now.”

Bernake: “Roger Charlie, how many?”

Charlie: “I count seven total. Looks like he’s leaving two behind to cover his back.”

Bernake: Pause, “Is Julie or Alyssa in the group?”

Charlie: “I have a negative on Julie, positive ID on our double agent.”

Bernake: “You got the tranqs ready?”

Charlie: “Loaded and on target.”

Bernake: “Alright Charlie, you sure you got this?”

Charlie: “Some of us still practice regularly at the firing range Phil.”

Bernake: “Stop being a smart ass.”

Charlie: Silence for several moments ,“ Alright Phil, he’s walking into the elevator, taking the shot.” Several long moments more. “Alright they’re down. Rest is up to you and your wonderboy Phil. Good Luck.”

Bernake: “Roger, radio silence here on.”

The detective’s finger releases off of the transmit button. His head turns down the hallway behind him. The lights over the elevator slowly blinking upward. His eyes turn back forward. The twin metal doors. The only possible place that Andrew could be heading. Professor Malarkey’s laboratory.

A revelatory smirk crosses his face as he opens a classroom door running along the main hallway. The kid had guessed right. Daniel had been completely right.

The lock on the door falls into place with a click just as he hears the elevator doors open down the hall. Detective Bernake pulls himself away from windows staring outward. His back presses against the wall as he pulls away from view. Steps heard on the tile floor outside.

His eyes turn towards Daniel and the others bent down on the ground. Their eyes stare up, shifting back in the direction of the elevators. He nods his acknowledgement as the sound of people slowly pass by them.

Daniel smiles back at the Detective.

This was it. This was where it started. He hoped this was where it was going to end.

It’s late Wednesday night.

Alyssa stands in a semicircle surrounded by them; Daniel, Sharon, Carol, Jim, Carmen, Azuma, and his mother Catherine. The eyes of the group shifting between the new addition and this eighteen year old man. Wondering about the plan that their lover/son/mentee/master/ stranger/friend has come up with.

The explanation.

Nodding their heads, thoughtful, troubled, smirking, sighing at the work in progress. The time frame that lay before them. A lot remained to be done. A lot had already been figured out. What mattered was that they were involved. What mattered is that they would help him.

He’d needed to know that.

Carol’s eyes turn towards Daniel, “It’s a good plan” she says placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder,“Do you think you can do this?” she says looking into him.

Daniel swallows hard, nods. It had to be done. As far as he could tell it was the only way it could be done. “Yeah...yeah I think so.”

Carol smiles,“Than I think we’re here for you Daniel.”

Nods of ascension pass around the semi-circle, wane smiles, energized exclamations.

The woman sitting silently still, new and seperate, awkwardly staring down at the ground, Alyssa.

Daniel looking over at her. Of all the people there she was the newest to the group. Like Azuma and Catherine she had been forced into this. Or at least, he thought, that must be how she was thinking about it. He walks over towards her and places his own hand on her shoulder, looking on the head turned away from the others,“Do you think you can do this?”

“Do I have a choice?” she whispers, her head away from him.

“Of course you do.” His eyes fall back on the crowd behind him, his thoughts drifting to everything that had come to pass, everything that had needed to happen.“But I’ll admit” he begins, turning back towards her “the whole plan does rest on you being committed to this.”

She nods her head, still staring at the ground,“And if this does work...if you win...I just go back to school and it’s business as usual?”

“That’s the way I’d like it to be.”

She nods her head, scoffs quietly, “ Then I guess I’m in.”

Daniel shakes his head. He understood what those words really meant. The doubt and helplessness contained in the way that she said it. How Simon had called him on doing the exact same thing in his past. He picks his words carefully, “Alyssa, ask yourself this, if I didn’t want all of this to go back to some kind of normal would you have any room for doubt?”

For several moments he doesn’t hear a reply. His head strays back towards the crowd, Sharon, their eyes meet and she smiles back at him. Daniel thinks about Sharon, Lydia. He thinks about Andrew. He sighs. His eyes turn back towards her, “You’re not a sex slave Alyssa. That’s about the last thing that I would want right now.”

Her head turns up to face him suddenly, her eyes search his, as if trying to divine some kind of truth from the facial features that stare back at her. His slightly furrowed brow, the eyes looking back and forth across her face. The worry, the hope, the fear playing all too clealy across it. It wasn’t the look of someone trying to conceal something. It wasn’t the look of someone who lied easily.

After several moments she nods staring up at him, “Okay. Okay I’ll do it.”

Alyssa’s eyes wander back and forth down the hallway, looking at the rooms as she passes by them with Andrew. Each window, each door, each closet and space, wondering if they’re there, hiding, Daniel and the others. She tries as hard as she can to keep her looks from being obvious, suspicious. She hopes the other girls don’t notice. She hopes Andrew doesn’t notice.

Her attention moving towards the twin metal doors at the end of the hallway. Professor Malarkey’s laboratory. The creatures, the water parasites, whatever; dead and sitting in the ethyl alcohol, asleep in the bodies of the chimpanzees. She can feel her body quivering slightly as the doors slowly near. As her steps bring her closer with them.

She tries to stay calm. She tries to look calm. She doesn’t know how well it is working, but everyone else seems not to notice. Somehow it’s easier than she remembers it being for her. Alyssa had always known herself as a little on the nervous side, especially when it came to big decisions and tough moments.

Maybe it was Daniel’s handywork. He’d never denied that he’d made some changes. He couldn’t have her too afraid. He couldn’t risk Andrew finding her out too early. That had been his biggest concern. And...Her attention shifts outward at that thought. Andrew’s hand on the laboratory doors. A Ms. Such and such pulling out the keys that they’d procured from the lone janitor on duty, placing them into the lock.

She notices the smile in the master’s eyes.

This was his moment. He thought this was his plan coming to fruition. Andrew wanted to destroy them, the creatures. He wanted all evidence gone that might support Daniel’s story if he did try to go to the federal government. Even now other slaves of his were converging on First Presbyterian for the Sanchez family, the homes of Alexander Malarkey and Detective Philip Bernake. Whatever Daniel had planned Andrew had every intention of putting a stop to it.

But that wasn’t they way things were really going to go. Daniel had planned for this, and it was going to work.

At least...that was what she hoped.

With a two handed pull the twin metal doors opened before Andrew. The way was cleared. The four of them enter the dark and empty laboratory.

Alyssa casts a last furtive glance behind her. There was no turning back now.

It was all up to Daniel.

It’s the afternoon, Thursday

A journal of Andrew’s. Collected from Andrew’s home. Collected from Andrew’s father.

Simon sitting in the kitchenette of Daniel’s apartment, a lit cigarette, his eyes pouring over the gray cloth bound book , the handwritten text in front of him. He sits with his legs up on the chair’s support bar, his body huddled over the written work. The cigarette ash extended far outward from the butt in his hand. It was a sign that Daniel knew meant he was deeply immersed in what he was reading.

Simon’s plane had come in earlier that morning. The journal had been almost the first thing that he’d seen since coming off. And it had been an interesting read.

Daniel arches his head forward from across the table,“Well?”

Simon nods his head slowly,“This could work.”

“What could work?”

He turns to Daniel,“What you’re talking about is an intervention Daniel, a hostile one.”

Daniel shrugs,“Yeah...yeah I guess so. I figured you’d know how to do something like that Simon. I mean, you’ve had to do this kind of stuff before.”

He scoffs,“Daniel, I work with drug abusers and alcoholics, not megalomaniacs with super powers. If this doesn’t work we’re going to have to fight him, and we’re probably going to lose.”

“Are you saying that you can’t put together a speech to reason with him?”

“Is his father going to be there?”

Again Daniel shrugs,“I don’t know, why?”

Again he scoffs,“You didn’t tell him everything, did you?”

“No.” His head turns away from Simon, his eyes looking out the window, reflecting, “You don’t-”

“I do, but he’s one of the most prominent figures in Andrew’s journal. If this is going to be a real intervention we need family there.”He pauses, his tone shifts, softens,“And they need to be there with both eyes open. ”

Daniel turns his head from the window,“But Simon, what can I tell him?”

Simply,“Just the truth.”

His head lowers. He was afraid. Afraid because he knew that Simon was right. Afraid because he didn’t know how the father would react. Maybe he’d be angry. Maybe he wouldn’t believe him, sure that could be proved, but...

<You’re plan can go so completely wrong on so many little things Daniel.>

And here was just another one of them.

Simon continues to stare at him long,“Are you brave enough?”

They can hear the laboratory’s heavy metal doors closing from their hiding place.

Bernake pulls the radio out from its holster: “Carol do you copy?”

Carol: “Everything is set up into the vent system. I’m pretty sure I know how to work it.”

Bernake: “Roger, we’ll let you know if it comes to that. If we don’t you know the time frame.”

Carol: “Sure thing Detective.” The tone shifts on the other end, “Tell Daniel, good luck. This is going to work.”

Bernake’s eyes scrunch in a look of scorn. Of course it was going to work. This far in they didn’t have a choice. His head turns to the young man staring up at him, “Did you get that Daniel?”

His face grave, he nods, “I got it Detective.”

“Good.”

Daniel turns to the people behind him. The silent understanding passes around the group. They all rise from their hiding places, pulling out bludgeoning weapons, wearing long pants and long sleaved shirts, gloves. His eyes fall from person to person.

Azuma and Catherine their eyes to their Daniel, nodding, knowing that they would follow him anywhere and into anything.

Carmen, lithe and lively, steely eyed smile as she hefts the long metal baton out. The metal ball tip extended out from the handle. She casts this smile at Jim sitting beside her, the cold sweat evident on his body.

Professor Malarkey’s eyes looking inward, silent. His eyes jumping towards the window and back. His thoughts already down the hall at his place of study, at the past with Andrew. Thinking about the way that things had become.

Beside him is a thin older man with wrinkles coverd by thick framed glasses; grayed hair once blonde. Once cold eyes thawing as they look away from him into space. Andrew’s father,Morgan. A messenger’s bag wrapped around his shoulder, but he carries no weapon.

Simon’s, sitting in a chair, cool and careful eyes passing along the gathering of people. His eyes nodding at Daniel. He pauses on the woman leaning against the wall in the corner away from the others. His eyes pass again towards Daniel.

Nikki Pappadakus, contemplative like so many others in the group, but still in a world all to itself; quiet, almost despondent, a faint and mysterious smile at the edge of her lips.

Daniel’s eyes stay on her for several moments, wondering. They were there. They were all there. Even Carol and Sharon sitting in the climate control room on the basement level. But Nikki...he hadn’t expected her there. He hadn’t thought she would come. Of those there she was the last to arrive.

Daniel’s eyes move away from the crowd, caught by Bernake’s deadpan stare on him. The detective leans against the wall, his hand on the door knob. “Are you ready for this kid?”

He smiles meditatively. He nods his head. His eyes stay on the detective as his head turns back towards the congregation of people behind him. He forces back his own fears and doubt, the fluttering in his chest. His lips press together as he looks one last time on the group behind him,“Are we ready for this?” He calls out to them.

The responses are mixed. From Carmen, Azuma and Catherine it’s almost a cheer. Most others it was just a nod, or a smile,firm spoken words of confirmation.

From Nikki it was almost nothing, saying nothing, barely reacting to his words, even as the others filed out, moving towards the door at the end of the hall. Bernake leading the way.

The classroom was mostly empty, save for Daniel, her, and Simon.

Daniel just stands and stares across at her.

Simon’s eyes pass between them, watching the interplay, knowing their story, surprised himself at Nikki’s presence. He gets up in his chair, standing in the space seperating them, “Guy’s” his head turns to Daniel “, this is not the time or place to settle this. Whatever happens you need to do it quick.” His head turns to Nikki, catching her eyes, “Or you just have to get the fuck out of here.”

He leaves the room suddenly, the door closing with a harsh snap. Nikki’s eyes straying towards the doorway after him.

Daniel looks at her for several seconds more, “I-“

“I don’t know why I’m here, but your friend is right.” She swallows, her eyes on him,“And you were right about me.” Her head moves about the room slowly, her mind trying to find the right words for the mess running in her head,“I’ve just never been in this kind of place before.” She grins ironically, “It’s just so complicated.”

His mouth closes. Daniel nods,”We should go.”

She nods her head, her thoughtful eyes,“ I’m coming with you.”

It’s Friday afternoon.

Nikki Pappadakus has just hung up her phone. Carol Brennan was on the other end. That’s how she knew.

Nikki in her car, driving down the highway. A soft drizzle pattering against the windshield. The wipers brushing the flecks of water away every few seconds. Her eyes on the road. Her mind somewhere else. She’d never spent so much concentration thinking about one thing in her entire life.

His memories passing around her and through her.

The scared little boy, hiding in his bedroom as he hears his mother screaming in the other room. His father beating the hell out of her. The thoughts running through that little boy’s mind wanting it to stop. Not sure if he could stop the father. Wanting to stop the father.

But what he did was wrong. How he violated her. It was rape. There was no other word for it. And what he could do with those powers of his. What he probably did do. What he probably would do.

The little boy has grown, he’s in the school nurses office. The tears have subsided, but the streaks are still on his face. His face cut and bruised, his nose bleeding. He’d been in a fight. But that isn’t what he notices anymore. The hand resting on his back. The man sitting next to him, his eyes looking over him with concern. His eyes looking at him, but saying nothing. It wasn’t the other kid’s fault and even if it was he couldn’t change that. That’s what Simon said. That what he was saying now. He’s starting to believe that too. The warm arm wrapping around his shoulder. The boy leans into the soft comfort of the man’s gray shirt and closes his eyes.

The images, the feelings, they’d played in her head before he had come. She just hadn’t known where they had come from. She’d tried to ignore them. That was until he’d walked into that hospital room. Not until he’d told her those memories that she’d always held close to her.

Daniel.

She remembers everything. From the moment the creature entered into her to the lost fight in the jail cell that ended with her being almost strangled.

Her body laying naked on a bed, open to him, telling him that she loved him. Only to have it rejected again. But to see the shame in his eyes at those words.

But she couldn’t forgive him. She shouldn’t. For the pain that she felt. For the thing that he had done. But that wasn’t what he was looking for. Atonement, making right by an act of wrong. Daniel seemed to understand something that most men twice his age never did. Where did he get that?

Simon, Carol. The names and the faces resting so prominently in Daniel’s mind.

And it was in their examples to Daniel that she found her own reason for needing to be there.

This wasn’t about Daniel. This wasn’t about her. It was about something else that she didn’t know the name for. It was about something that she had never been in her life.

And the need to be part of it.

He could hear the metal bar sliding across the door handles behind him. He can imagine Sharon running back down towards the basement as the final piece was put into place. They were sealed in. Daniel’s head turns away from the door, and to the room before him.

Lydia standing in front of him. The shock and surprise playing across her face.

The door into the holding pens open. Daniel knows the chimps are gone. He knows the dead specimens of the creatures have been moved.

The sound of movement from within.

Lydia calling out Andrew’s name. Chasing after him into the other room. It doesn’t hurt like it did before.

The others and everyone all there before him.

<This feeling...It’s so hard to bear.>

It’ll be over soon.

Andrew stepping out, his eyes seeing the body of people standing there before him. Alyssa, Karen, and two others he didn’t know. The confusion in all but Alyssa’s face. The fear. Their bodies grow. They see the weapons in the people’s hands. They scramble for ones that they can find.

Black marble countertops and microscopes, Malarkey’s sixth floor laboratory at the new science building.

The whisper of an almost forgotten dream But you see she doesn’t want you...

But that didn’t matter anymore.

Andrew had it wrong.

It wasn’t time to fight.

That Thursday afternoon.

Simon staring back at him from across the kitchenette table.

“Daniel, you can’t say anything, not until every other person has had a chance to speak.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because the whole purpose of an intervention is to show the person how’s he’s harming the people around him; to show him that there’s people that care about him, and to show that he can take another path. None of this works if we can’t get him to reflect on these things.”

“And if I’m in front...?“

“You’re a point of contention Daniel, an adversary, he’ll probably think that you’ve used your powers on us first.”

“He’ll just want to fight me?”

Simon nods,“And he won’t be thinking about his actions, and the consequences of them.”

Daniel nods his head thoughtfully,“What happens if he doesn’t believe us?”

Simon, shrugs,“Than we’ll have to fight him, and I’d hate think how that’s going to turn out.”

He nods, he looks back up at Simon,“I should have another back up plan shouldn’t I?”

They stand as far back against the wall as they possibly can, as far away from the crowd of people standing out in front of them. They crowd around their master, holding beakers, microscopes, broken glass, what rudimentary weapons they could fashion in the long seconds that the crowd of people watched them.

This Daniel sees, creeping to the left of the door, trying to find that medium that Simon suggested between being there and at the same time not being the focus of Andrew’s attention. His eyes are on Lydia. His eyes are on Alyssa. She stands with Andrew, away from him. She hopes she stays there. She needs her to stay there. If Simon’s read on Andrew was right the last thing he wanted was for Alyssa to proclaim her side. That would only make him feel more exposed/cornered.

By the look on his face he already felt that way.

Andrew’s eyes are wide, fearful, confused, “What is this? What’s going on?” He’s already grown large, his mass doubled in the seconds between seeing the people gathered in front of him. His eyes scan the crowd briefly, but the moment they see Daniel they stop. “You!” he yells accussingly his attention locked “What is your part in this?”

He remained quiet, saying nothing. Daniel’s eyes stared back, but he says nothing. This wasn’t his show anymore. It couldn’t be his show anymore. Not with Andrew the way he was. Not with what he hoped to do.

That was when Bernake took two steps forward, standing between Andrew’s line of sight to Daniel. “What are you doing here?” He says to the man standing across the room from him.

At first Andrew says nothing. His eyes move up from where Daniel was, focusing in on Bernake who stands in front of him. His eyes drift down to the gun in the Detective’s holster, the badge hanging from his shirt pocket. Finally his eyes come up towards the face and rest there. He’d probably even seen him on the news. Skepticism splashes across his face, Andrew smirks,“Quite the group of people you’ve controlled Daniel.”

Bernake eyes close like slits,“You’re not talking to Daniel, you’re talking to me.”

Andrew just shakes his head. His eyes rise to meet the Detective’s, that smirk never leaving his face, “Do you know what that boy is capable of Detective? Do you know what he’s done to you?

Bernake’s eyes stare back coldly, “You’ve kidnapped a young woman, assaulted her family, and tried to kill her younger brother.”

Andrew hesitates, he tries to look behind Bernake, at Daniel, but Bernake’s large frame stands in the way. His eyes move away from the Detective, looking, really looking at the group of people behind him for the first time. He sees the men. He sees the women. He sees the weapons. He sees the long sleave shirts.

His eyes pause on his father.

“You’ve raped ten women Andrew,” Bernake continues, softer “you’re ruining their lives.”

“Well what has Daniel done that makes him beyond judgment?”

“This isn’t about Daniel! This is about you!”

Andrew’s eyes shoot towards his father,his words. “And it’s about me too” the old man continues as his son stares at him. Morgan pulls the messenger bag on his shoulder around him. His hand reaches in, pulling the gray cloth bound tome out of it, Andrew’s most recent journal, “I read this Andrew,” he swallows,“ and I’m sorry” he says, his voice cracking,” I don’t know if you can believe that.”

There’s water in Andrew’s eyes in the seconds looking towards his father.

It’s Thursday evening.

Daniel had gone back to the house of Andrew’s father. This time without the Detective. He didn’t know what he could say to Mr. Smythe. He just knew that he couldn’t use his powers against him. He knew that he shouldn’t.

Which is why he supposed that Carol and Professor Malarkey had been asked to come along. Carol had always had a way with words that Daniel envied, and the Professor knew Andrew.

It had only taken thirty seconds of blank stare to get Morgan to believe that Daniel wasn’t making it up.

But it didn’t seem to change a whole lot.

“This is not my fault or my responsibility” was how Andrew’s father had began.

Carol had stared hard at him, “You’re missing the point Mr. Smythe. This isn’t about blame. And it is your responsibility, if you care about your son at all it is.”

“He’s his own man. He makes his own decisions.”

She’d shaken her head then, “Again you’re missing the point. Your son needs you. Are you going to help him? Are you going to help us?”

But that hadn’t seemed to have swayed him,“My son is a fuck up.”

“Before all of this he was the best fucking assistant that I’ve ever had Mr. Smythe.” Malarkey barked suddenly, his eyes staring hard, almost accusing at the father , “ He had a truly brilliant mind for marine biology. Have you even looked at some of the articles that he’s written?”

There’s a long pause as bewilderment played across his eyes.“No,” he said, the word trailing long, like he didn’t know that, like maybe he should have known that.

Carol shakes her head, “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Daniel had been sitting in a chair just off to the side, trying to stay out of it. He saw the ice break in Mr. Smythe’s cold eyes, a sudden thoughtfulness, a sudden silence.

Carol’s eyes turn from the professor to Daniel, to the father. She pulls the journal out of her handbag, sliding it across the table towards them. “I know this is your son’s, but I think that you should read it. “

Morgan looked down towards it.

Carol just nodded, her hand pulling out a piece of paper and scribbling something on it. “We’re going to be in Harris Park for most of the day. You can reach me at this number if you change you’re mind.”

The three of them left the house.

Andrew shaking his head, the tears in his eyes, but still just shaking his head, “No,” he forces out, his eyes turning like ice towards Daniel, “My father would never do this” he barks ,”What did you do to him!” His eyes flash across the room, his steps pulling him away from Daniel, his voice bordering on the hysterical, “How dare you play with my emotions!”

And then there was the hissing sound. A look of surprise registers on Daniel’s face, on everyone’s face. Daniel looking down at his watch, seeing the time, knowing that it was early, knowing that it was very early. His eyes shoot with everyone else towards the ceiling, the vents, the gas he knew was coming out.

What the hell were Sharon and Carol doing? They were supposed to have more time.

Andrew’s eyes follow Daniel’s, follow the eyes of the people in front of him. He knows what’s going on. He has to know what’s going on. He begins to laugh hysterically, “You see? I was right. This was all bullshit!” His eyes turn suddenly towards Daniel crying, shouting at him without saying a word.

It was already starting to get hard to breath.

“You’re complete bullshit!”

And then it was chaos. Andrew was charging forward at them. Alyssa was struggling with the women around her. People were screaming. Bernake running forward, pulling out his gun. Daniel pushing past him, charging to meet Andrew.

He could only guess at everything else going on around him.

It was getting harder to breath.

What was Carol thinking? What was Sharon thinking? What about the plan?

Daniel wanted her to be there with him when they confronted Andrew. He wanted Andrew to see what he had done, to see the kind of suffering that he had inflicted in others. He’d just wanted her there with him if everything went to hell. But Sharon had refused Daniel’s appeals, her reasons she couldn’t tell him.

The reasons were sitting there in front of her. Immanuel, comatose in a hospital bed, the IV sticking into his arm, the heart monitor’s weak and regular beating. Her father sitting stalwart at his bedside. The rings around his red eyes, the plain tears that seemed to never stop coming out of them. Anna’s vacant stare.

Uncle Cui and Aunt Mercedes, and her mother.

And she was telling them that they had to move, that they had to hide.

How could Daniel know? How could he ever really understand?

Andrew wouldn’t stop. Andrew would keep following her. How could Daniel believe that he could talk him out of it?

Her family had suffered enough. She’d suffered enough.

Daniel had told them about the back up plan, the gas he’d procured from the chemical’s building. And she saw what she could do. She saw what she had to do.

She wouldn’t tell Daniel. And he trusted her enough to accept her wishes.

Daniel Bates is on the ground, his whole body shaking. He’s finding it hard to breath. The pool of blood stretching out underneath him. His eyes staring with a macabre fascination at the wound in his chest, the gaping hole. But he can’t feel it.

Why can’t he feel it?

Sharon Sanchez standing over him, the gun, Detective Bernake’s gun still smoking in her hand. The shock and surprise in her face. The pure and undeniable horror playing out in her distorted features. Her eyes jump from Daniel to Andrew and back.

Why had he jumped between them?

That same face almost mirrored in the groggy eyes of Andrew Smythe. His hands not even bound. His eyes sliding back and forth between the two people in front of him. His clouded mind still able to wonder the one question that changes everything for him.

Why?

Daniel is suddenly so tired. He’s just so tired. He feels his body shivering, as his head falls back on the ground. Sharon staring back at him, staring down at him, the tears in her eyes.

I understand he mouths to her, but there’s no wind in his lungs.

The tears, all those tears in Sharon’s eyes.

And then everything is dark.