Revival ⚬ Barry Allen [2]

23. Lie Detector

"What is this?" Julian questions as he stands, finally waking up from the sleep I had put him in with my speed punch. "Where am I?"

"Let's just say you're going to be our guest for awhile," I spit, feeling some sort of pride coming over me. I guess for the past few months I've been sick of letting Julian get all of the punches on me at work...and now I get to finally strike back.

Julian shakes his head, and I knew from the look on his face that he was about to say something that was going to piss me off...and I was right. "You. Flash. I would have suspected you had your own private facility for holding metas...care to explain what I'm doing in it? Because last I checked, I'm not a psycho meta that runs around town causing chaos or wearing a suit and playing hero."

I roll my eyes. "Well while I'm playing hero, you're worshipping Savitar and turning people into metas. I know that you're Alchemy, Julian."

As I finish my sentence, he seems almost offended that I would dare to put his name near Alchemy's. "That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard of. You think I'm Alchemy? Right, and Santa Clause is real."

I pull out the mask I had behind my back, waving it in front of me like some sort of trophy. "Oh yeah, then what's this? I caught you wearing this mask!"

He points a finger at me, sticking it against the glass that separated the two of us. "You're setting me up. You're framing me, aren't you? Flash, of all the people to do so...the hero!"

I step forwards to shout at him some more, to let my anger out about the entire situation, but before I can do so, a flash of lightning separates the two of us, and the only thing left standing in its place is Raven. She gives me a look to calm down before I step back, lowering the mask to my side.

"Oh great, another so-called masked hero!" Julian shouts, spinning around in a circle with his hands in the air. "You here to tell me lies too?"

I grit my teeth as Raven turns around, taking a deep breath before speaking. "We just want to figure out what's going on, Julian. We want to help, so please...just let us." 

Julian bites his lower lip for a moment before taking a step back, his eyes scanning the both of us and the cell around him. "If this is what you call helping, then I might want to recheck your definition." 

Once again, I start to shout something back, but before I can, Raven is reaching forwards and closing the pipeline door. As the seal on the door shuts, I reach upwards and rip my cowl off, anger still radiating off of me. 

"Something isn't right," Raven says to me as I scoff.

"Of course something isn't right. That guy is literally insane...I still don't know how-"

"How you've worked with him? Yeah, I know Barry," she cuts me off while chuckling a little bit. 

I start to loosen back up. "I do say that a lot, don't I?"

"All the damn time," she fires back.  "But no, I just find it weird that he's not admitting to being Alchemy. You'd think someone like him would take pride in that."

My eyes drift towards the mask in my hands, trying to picture Julian doing all of the things that Alchemy has done the past few months. "Maybe...or maybe he's just like all of the other people we've trusted before that turned out to be liars-"

I stop myself before I can go any further, my eyes flashing back up to Raven's face. Her eyes fall to the floor, and I knew in that moment that I shouldn't have said what I said. "Raven, I'm sorry I didn't-"

"No, I know what you meant," she sighs, not sounding upset. "You trusted Harrison, Jay...and me. And we all turned out to be liars, especially me. So trust me when I say that if Julian is lying, he's doing a pretty damn good job. I thought I was the best liar out there, so he takes the cake if he is really lying. But if there's one thing you showed me, it's that sometimes even a liar can be telling some truth, and that they can be saved. Maybe we should consider that before locking Julian away in here for good."