A television was secured to the wall a few feet from the foot of the bed, the remote for which was just out of reach on the bedside table. If he stretched, he might be able to reach it and turn it on mute. Reaching as far as he could, his fingertip narrowly missed the edge of the remote’s black plastic.
Cathy stirred, a small moan passing through her lips.
He frowned, then settled back down into place. There was a line of drool seeping out of her small mouth and onto her chin. Once again he had to turn away from her to keep from laughing out loud.
Seconds passed. After a few minutes with nothing to occupy his mind, thoughts started coming into his head like clockwork. Thoughts that he had known were there but had been trying so hard not to be conscious of, like a bad song stuck in your head.
Fucker, he thought bitterly, his lip curling as he thought of Xander’s face grinning back at him from somewhere just in front of him. The memory-Xander laughed at something, no sound coming from his lips. She’s so scared. She’s so scared that you’re coming back that she couldn’t even sleep and then you have the nerve to traipse in and out of here whenever you want. Talking about getting answers to things that you already know. Just because you don’t like the answers doesn’t mean they aren’t true. Doesn’t mean that you get to come in here and pretend everything all right when it’s not.
His head started to hurt and he became aware that his face had gotten hot. Although he couldn’t see it, he knew that he was turning red, his freckles fading away in the anger. Every muscle and joint in his body had become stiff. Next to him, Cathy cooed softly as her brow crumpled for an instant before turning back to its natural, perfectly smooth state. He wondered briefly what she was dreaming of, if it was him or something weird... or the Womb.
He sighed, flopping his fist down onto the bed. His knuckles had been clenched so tight that they had turned bright white, the color now bleeding back into them slowly. He felt helpless and scared and useless all at the same time.
Slowly, a sparkle grew in his eyes and he looked up, a smile brimming across his thin lips. “Maybe I can get the answers you’re afraid to,” he whispered to himself before turning to give Cathy a small kiss on the head.
“Okay people, I know it’s getting late but it’s going to be a busy week here and I need to know what we’ve got. Go,” John Tyler said quickly as he sat behind the massive oak desk that dominated the majority of his office, popping a handful of Rolaids into his mouth as he did. Don and Drake sat across from him, the former trying to stack his papers so that the tops all lined up and the latter checking under his nails for grit.
“Got some new stuff on the murders,” Don offered, flipping over the page of his clipboard and scanning down it, one finger lifted into the air. “Ah, an angle that they might have been racially motivated.”
Drake slowly turned his head toward him, his left eyebrow raising a little more with every degree. “How in Christ’s name do you figure that?”
“Well, there were no Blacks or Asians killed, just Caucasians.”
“Racially motivated crimes are racially motivated because they’re against minorities or by minorities. White is not a minority. It’s barely a race.”
“But the killer could be a racist.”
“Could also be Jewish! All people killed were Christians, too!” Drake yelled, running a hand through his hair.
“The murders have been done to death,” John interrupted finally, just loud enough to shut them both up. “Pardon the pun. There’s gonna be lots on them, we don’t need to reach. Any luck on the Genblade interview yet?”
“No,” Drake answered, a small growl accompanying the word from deep within his throat. “Insane prick keeps saying we did this. Won’t talk to us. Even told the secretary at the Pen not to bother forwarding the messages anymore.”
“Son of a bitch,” John sighed. “You know if he gets moved to state we’ll never get our hands on him again, right? I’m surprised Newsweek and Time aren’t camping on our front lawn as it is.”
“They’re not gonna move him to state,” Drake scoffed.
“What makes you so sure?” Don mumbled, almost under his breath as he thumbed through the rest of his notes.
Drake snarled at him, his cheeks turning read. “They got half their staff going round the clock just to keep him in that cage as is. You think they’re gonna try to move him, fucknuts?”
Don did not respond, turning back to his notes. “Some follow up on the Phillip Masters case, needs an interview or two and maybe an extra source, but I can have it for this weeks.”
“Good. Get it,” John nodded, scrabbling something onto the large paper calendar that doubled as a placemat over his desk. He paused a moment, then looked up at the both of them. “What else, people, the pages aren’t going to fill themselves.”
“Someone should cover the Memorial coming up at the high school this week.”
“Fuck it,” John rebuffed, waving the idea away distastefully. “It’s sidebar to the trial story. Don’t need to be there, just need to know it happened.”
“Been some gang violence again lately,” Drake piped up, cocking his head to annunciate his point. “Been seeing a lot of graffiti the last few months. Most of it Omegas, some of it Snakes. Might be escalating.”
“Look into it, but try and not
