DA Meadow: The Sinner and the Sadist (A Jason Todd/Red Hood Fanfiction) BOOK 1

Fifty One: Knowledge Is A Trap

"Papa!" 

When Caelan gets home, she tears through the house like a hurricane. She passes members of her father's gang, who jump out of the way as soon as they see her.

"Where are you?" She shouts, throwing a net of her mental ability through the house once she reaches its centre. From that, she realises he is in his secret place. 

Immediately she begins a war path towards it. Down the stairs, into his bedroom, over to his closet. Enter the code into the back wall and it will open.

"Papa!" She shouts again, coming to terms with the sight in front of her.

Her father. One of the most feared gangsters in the city. A friend to heroes... is wearing a dress and applying makeup using his glamour mirror.

"What is it tykva?" He asks, powdering his cheeks.

Caelan, used to the sight, shuts the door behind her to begin her raging.

"You know who the woman is in Venus' dreams are and yet you say nothing!" She shouts. Anton looks at his youngest blankly.

"How do you know this?"

"She told me!"

"Lower you voice, tykva," he sighs, turning around to his desk and placing down the brush and powder. "I knew you would find this. Perhaps if I tell you who she is you will understand why telling your sister may ultimately ruin everything."

Caelan feels a chill run down her spine at the words. She takes a deep breath and settles into the seat across from her closet-transvestite father.

"This is not first time Venus has had nightmares of a brunette woman with green eyes. When she became Sugar Skull, one of the very first missions she conducted was on a gang posing as a company, planning to bring drug trade into Gotham and Lightway. A woman and her husband were at the head of the plan. Venus was the one to confront them at their main facility. That was the first time she lost control. She killed everyone, the woman and her husband in particular."

"The woman in the dream...is the woman that was leading the operation?" Caelan asks.

"Yes. After the killing Venus withdrew for a few days, had nightmares. She would wake up screaming. You are too young to remember."

"How does she not remember?"

Anton sighs heavily, folding his hands in his lap.

"Your sister has killed so many and grieved so much it must all blur together."

Caelan nods, agreeing with that more than anything.

"I still don't understand. Why can't she know any of this? And, who is the woman?" She questions, leaning towards her father.

The old man takes another deep breath, as though summoning the answer is a great feat. He rubs his hands over his stockings nervously.

He tells Caelan who the woman is and how she relates to Venus.

Caelan has no words, hands shaking over her mouth, eyes wide. It is not the answer she was expecting, nor the problem she thought she'd have to deal with.

"Papa...that could destroy her," she whispers, after minutes of silence.

"Da, tykva. That is why your sister must never know."

Caelan has never had any reason to keep secrets from Venus, or Ginger. They knew everything. After being through so much together things were different between them.

"Show me," the teenager asks, holding her hands out to the father.

"Menolly-"

"Please. I need to know."