Lost in Red [Jason Todd]

.01

"Don't think of it like that." Roy suggests wholesomely, in a light octave, "We're just trying to protect you—"

I slightly shake my  head, "I don't need protection, Roy. You out of all people know that."

"That's what you say now until you need me to come help your ass."

"I'm not going to ask for your help. Or anyone else's—"

"This isn't your responsibility, Jason." Roy still tries, "And it sure as hell isn't your fault."

But that's where he's wrong. It was my fault. He, like everyone, just has no idea...

"She was my responsibility and I let her down—"

"What, you think that because you loved her, that made her your responsibility!? Because if that's really the case, she was Isabella's responsibility. Mine, her parents', Dick's responsibility!" He argues sadly and I only shake my head as he continues, "We all let her down, Jay. We're all to blame."

More than almost anything, I want to tell my best friend the truth, but I can't. Just like I couldn't tell Brielle, like I almost told Bruce the night she passed... I can't. I'm too weak now. I don't have the courage I used to now that they took her away from me.

The only courage I had was to find them, get answers, and probably get killed in the process or at the end of it all. But I feared nothing anymore. I no longer feared death, or loneliness, or even fear itself.

She took all of that with her. Not like she ever knew she made me that way...guess I failed at showing her that: how terrified I was of dying out in the field and not being able to see and come home to her again; it drove me to fight my hardest to insure I'd leave the fight alive; with her, I had a sudden fear of being alone again; I'd been and felt alone my whole life— being the only child of a dysfunctional family that abandoned me anyway, to being alone in the streets, to feeling like I wasn't enough for Bruce and always being put as second best to Dick while feeling like I could never do anything right, to running away alone, to being beaten alone...to dying alone. With the exception of Roy and the Outlaws every now and then, I always felt alone. And she completely changed that. I felt welcomed, wanted, I felt like I belonged with her. She was my one and only home, and I didn't want that feeling to be taken away. And in this weird way, I was afraid to be afraid. That fear formed because I knew I wanted to protect her, and if fear ever stopped me from doing that, how could I live with myself? It pushed me to doing everything I could to keep her safe, kinda like I'm still doing now.

But she'll never know that.

Movement catches my eye in the room I was watching from this vantage point.

"I gotta go."

"Jaso—" I cut him off by hanging up and returning the phone to my jacket pocket. I put my helmet back on and reach down for my own-made hybrid weapon to prop it up to where my eye presses against the scope and I get a clear view of Uché Hamilton. I aim, steady, and shoot.

My gun has the mechanics of a sniper and arrows as bullets, a cross between a crossbow and sniper. The arrow shatters the window glass as it passes and lodges right into his shoulder, pulling him back til the arrow penetrates the wall and pins him to it. Without hesitation, I rocket into the open window and land with a roll to ease the impact.

I smoothly stand back up and glare at the criminal as he holds on to the arrow stuck in his shoulder, blood oozing from it the more he struggles to pull it out.

"What do you want!?" He yells at me as I slowly step closer to him. I see the pain written all over his face, but he hasn't even had a taste of what it's about to be.