TEW Fanfic - Chapter 7: Revisiting Beacon Mental

The burning desire in his eyes melted the last bit of resistance that was left in her heart.
There was no use in denying anymore- she had fallen for him and he, too, had been smitten the very moment he laid eyes upon her. With his strong arms wrapped around her tiny waist he pulled her close to his muscular chest. Her porcelain fingers cupped his face as she leaned in, her eyes closed, ready to lose herself in a passionate kiss….

“Next stop: Telegraph Street, this is our final stop, all passengers must leave the train.”

Helen looked up from her book. ‘Heartstrings’. She had been reading another one of those cheap novelettes. Romance.  Nothing that couldn’t be saved by the magical powers of love…at least in those books.

She sighed and stuffed the thin, pink paperback deep into her bag. No one needed to know that her favorite ‘guilty pleasure’ involved reading about strong men and the women they had to save from fiery dragon’s breath…or other men. Telegraph Street was only a few blocks away from the KCPD. The redhead peeked at her wristwatch.

‘Still late…crap.’

As if coming late wasn’t enough already, her clothes were a complete mess. Living out of her suitcase like this had to stop. She would have to put more energy on the apartment hunt than she had done until now. Simply circling small ads in the newspaper surely didn’t help. At all.

‘Well, it’s not like I didn’t try…’

She had left the subway station and made her way through the streets. One turn left, two turns right. Leave the small grocery store behind you; ignore the small kiosk with the smokes and the dreaded newspapers. Don’t read the headlines. You already know who they are about.

Helen kept a fast pace until the office building came in sight. They would be waiting for her, she thought to herself. Sebastian had told her to come at 9’o clock to get some sleep before they had to leave for yet another shady operation he wouldn’t tell her more about. Now it was almost 11…

Upon arrival she jumped up the stairs and pushed the heavy doors open. The air inside the building was warm and welcoming. Goldfish Larry looked up from his desk as she entered the foyer, slightly out of breath from her little powerwalk to work.
“Good morning, Larry.”
“Good day, Detective…” He grinned sheepishly over his glasses and then resumed working on whatever it was that he got paid for.

What a way to remind her of being late. She entered the elevator and pushed the third floor button.

‘Ugh…and I know at least one more person who will make sure I feel miserable for coming late…’

Cheering on the lift didn’t help and so Helen made a run for it when she finally reached the third floor and the doors had barely even opened. Half running half tip toeing, she made her way to the office door and then came to a halt in front of it. An excuse. She didn’t have an excuse.
“Are you kidding me? I don’t need to apologize- I almost got my butt kicked by some shady guy last night…well…’almost’ almost at least.” She rubbed her arm and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Maybe another approach…

‘Hey, I am late- it happens! Get used to it!’

No, that didn’t sound childish at all… Helen shook her head and stifled a yawn.
‘Still sleepy although I overslept. Good thing they didn’t see this. I bet they—‘
She couldn’t end the thought. The door opening in front of her to reveal Sebastian look right into her puzzled face were a pretty efficient way to distract her from doing so.

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The sound of a door creaking disrupted her thoughts. She tilted her head to get a better look at the direction the noise had come from only to be buried yet again under another crushing wave of pain.
A curtain of welling up tears obscured her vision, but she could faintly make out Leslie at the other end of the room. Sebastian’s flashlight danced over the Albinos figure, who was just now peering into the room behind the newly opened door beside what seemed to have been some sort of reception desk.

“Sebastian.” His voice rang through the pain. Was it just now starting to fade? No… “She’ll be fine by herself. Besides, we won’t take long anyways…if what I expect to have happened here is true.”

There he went again. Leslie ‘I will not wait for anyone- nor care for anyone’ Withers. Helen couldn’t keep herself from smiling at this. Boy was he impatient. And arrogant. And too smart for his own good.

‘But then again… not smart enough to accept that you are pretty much helpless, dude…’

“She will be fine.”

“Helen, we will be right back. You wait here and if anything happens- call me.” He put the flashlight she had left on the floor earlier beside her on the bench and gave her shoulder a light, reassuring squeeze. She mumbled affirmatively and made a slight waving gesture before resuming to clasp her head in her hands. It would be okay.
Sebastian took a last look at the redhead before he walked over to Ruvik. The certainty in his voice had given him away.  Should he be thankful for the interruption?

They entered the back office and storage area of the facility and made their way past the still heavily packed shelves. Hundreds if not thousands of documents could be inside those, who knew. Left and forgotten, abandoned to rot away just like the rest of everything inside this house. It could crash and burn for all he cared. But not before he had made sure. Not before he knew why they had sold it in a rush so suddenly.

Sebastian looked at the Albino in front of him. Was there even the slightest hint that he, too, felt uneasy coming back to this place? If so, he didn’t let it show. Ruvik silently walked onward. His gaze locked onto his destination he was solely focused on what lay ahead. The detective followed his stare and instantly felt a lump in his stomach.

The elevator. 

As if he had sensed Seb’s inner turmoil, the young man turned halfway around when he stopped in front of the lift. “It’s the only way.” He simply stated.

Had there been the tiniest hint of a smile on his face, the smallest bit of satisfaction to see him literally cringe at the thought of stepping inside this thing, Sebastian wouldn’t have hesitated even a second to punch this sadistic piece of shit in the face right then and there.
But there was nothing.

Ruvik stood there. And waited. His face stern and expectant, demanding as always but nothing else.

Fine. Not today then, he thought.

“Is it even powered?” he asked as he walked closer, reluctantly. A small grain of hope. If there was no power to run the elevator then they simply had to find another way. And Sebastian was positive that the white haired man in front of him would come up with at least something if it came to that.  He’d take any ladder, tunnel or even sewer over this elevator.

“And even if there wasn’t.” Ruvik pushed the button to call the lift. A deep humming noise started emitting from somewhere down underneath them. “That is nothing we would have to worry about.”

“About that…” The detective spoke up. Everything to distract himself from the unavoidable ride they’d have to take down that long way. “The headache just then. You did that.”

“We don’t need her here. She mustn’t know what this is about. Her presence here is detrimental to what we are trying to accomplish. After all- it was her who possibly alarmed them and forced them to act.”

“You know as well as I do that we can’t just do everything by ourselves. I am already getting asked questions by the higher ups. If she demands answers- we’ll eventually have to let her in on some things.”

“It seems much less of a necessity than a matter of personal interest. You resent me. For things I had no hand in doing. If you fully focused your hate on those who deserve it we’d be able to move much faster. And we wouldn’t need an outsider to ensure your ‘inward peace’.”

“Don’t play innocent. You had just as much to do with all this as them. Just because they turned on you that didn’t wash you clean of your own sins.”

The elevator doors opened and bathed both of them in the pale, artificial light of the fluorescent tube inside of it.

“I only did what needed to be done. And they deserved all of it.”

He stepped into the elevator and fell into frigid silence. Sebastian looked at the pale boy. It didn’t make sense to try and talk to the man inside of this body. He would keep justifying what he had done with what happened to him decades ago. And now he, himself, was working alongside this murderer, torturer. To get…revenge? For Myra? Lily? Himself?

He couldn’t answer this question but what pained him much more than that was something else.
How far would he go to get it? Would he become a monster just like him?

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A few minutes of heavy breathing and reliving all key points of her life had been enough time to realize that she would not going to die from a simple headache. Okay, she was in pain. Severe pain, to be specific. So severe that she wasn’t able to imagine ever feeling any pain worse than that. But still- she would get over it, right? In fact, Helen was almost certain that the pain was already subsiding.

Great. Now they’d think she was playing the diva.

‘Oh, woe is me! I, the helpless damsel in distress, demand to be the center of attention!’
Helen clutched her chest with one hand while dramatically gesturing into the air with the other.
The non-existent audience was …captivated.
‘I have to stop reading this stuff…’

That headache had come at the most inconvenient moment possible. Pretty embarrassing. The redhead leaned back on the bench as the last bit of pain slowly vanished and left her with a slight dizziness. It was eerily silent in here. She picked up the flashlight and let it illuminate her surroundings once again.

There were no windows. At least none that seemed openable. A humongous potted plant must have once stood in the middle of the foyer. Now only the dried twigs and old soil in the pot remained. The blood on the floor made her feel creeped out. Someone must have gone crazy in here. Nothing you wouldn’t expect in a mental hospital…

‘Should I follow them…or just…have a round of surely helpful navel-gazing while I am at it?’

She looked at the tips of her shoes, contemplating.

‘Or I’ll take a look at this place. Find something awesome. Show them that I am not just some dramaqueen….’

She stood up and dusted herself off.

‘Find something awesome, it is.’

Helen turned around and looked at the bench she had just sat on. No blood. Good. At least she hadn’t sat on the sad reminder of someone’s lost life.

The elevator had taken a while to get them down where they were headed.
Sebastian was the first to get out when they had arrived and he looked around in the corridor while the other one was seemingly deep in thought.

“I don’t remember it being this way….”

“Because you only saw what you needed to see.” The white haired man walked past him and lead the way through a maze like bunch of hallways and sets of rooms.


“That’s not what I meant- I remembered just now- when I left…there was another way. Another elevator, a shortcut to the main hall.”

“We could have went that way, yes, but I intend to pick something up. A memento if you want to call it that. We will leave on the way you took last time.”

A memento? So there was something he needed in here? Something Ruvik wanted to get into his possession. Curiosity reared its ugly head. Maybe seeing the item of interest would help understand some of the things that had to go on in this persons mind.

Ruvik could have walked through these rooms blindly. He remembered every object, every detail, every obstacle in his way.  So many nights in the dark. Alone. Left to his own devices in these laboratories.

He had wanted it that way.

There had been times with longing. A deep yearning directed at no one in particular. Just that vague wish to hold and be held. Giving in to those thoughts had brought nothing but frustration and dread. Best to ignore it altogether until it went away.

And it did. For a long time.

Two rooms more. He quickened his pace and ignored the Detective complaining behind him. There it was. Just another hallway. Cracked tiles on floor and walls. Nothing that seemed overly out of place. He could have just walked over and took it but he wanted to feel it.
The Detective stopped and watched him as he slowly took one step after another one hand running over the dirty wall tiles as if caressing the cold surface. Just a little bit further. The difference would be almost undetectable.

Almost. He snorted when he felt it. It might have been almost the same feeling to those numb hands of his back then. This body, however, was different. The change of texture was ridiculously obvious.
He bent down and disarmed the trap protecting this little hidden treasure.

“What is it?” Sebastian had observed his moves quietly up until now but he came closer when the albino loosened the wall tile and uncovered a small hole behind it. A plain notebook was the only object inside of it. They hadn’t taken this. They had taken everything, burned down the mansion, gotten rid of his body—
but not this.

“Something personal.” He stuffed the small paperback into his jacket. There would be enough time later to look at this.

“We should head to our main destination now. “

First, they had to see it. The thing that had brought them here.

STEM.