If there was somewhere Clara could've gone to be alone, she would have. But nowhere was truly private. Even if there was such a place, she didn't even know what she would have done, her throat had burned and her whole body shook. She had thought she was going to puke.
Now, she sat in front of Robin. It was just the two of them this time, no false mirror or cameras. Clara sat on edge, her hands clasped tightly together, while Robin remained uncharacteristically silent, slouched with his head bent uncomfortably to the side, staring at the wall behind her. There were new bruises littered on his arms, and a cut just above his eye, causing a tear in his mask.
"Where's my friend?" He said finally, still not bothering to meet her gaze.
"All of you are too valuable to harm, if that's what you mean. She's most likely with one of the others." She answered stiffly, eyeing him.
"And why am I alone?"
Clara pursed her lips, not answering.
His eyes shifted to her first, and then his head lolled to the other side, before he lifted the rest of his body to face her. "So we can have some quality time alone?" It could have been a joke, but he said it with such hate it felt like a burn.
This wasn't fair. This wasn't supposed to happen. It was like he had opened Pandora's Box inside her, the curiosity of it all was eating her alive.
And now she was risking any sense of trust she had built with her father for an explanation from a boy who rightfully despised her, and had every right to lie to her.
He just stared at her.
"They want to know why you know so much about me." Clara said finally, quietly, forcing herself to keep his gaze. "They" being her.
"They, hm?" He started to pick at his nails. They had taken his gloves, along with anything else that could've been used to try and escape. "Who's they?" He said each word sharply, with both annoyance and boredom.
Clara stayed silent again, debating how to answer. "My father." She said finally.
With that he stopped, and looked up, an eyebrow raised. "Father? This a family business?" He drawled, looking down at his hands again. "I'm surprised your father knows so little about his own daughter's life." He sighed dramatically. "When we first met, you 'father' wasn't the best person," He let out a humorless laugh, as if he was reminiscing whatever he was talking about. "That's an understatement. B was pretty pissed when he found him."
"What are you talking about?" Clara's spine felt stiff, she had been sitting so upright for ages. She had no idea what he was talking about, she wished he would stop.
His gaze snapped to her, his mouth slightly open, eyebrow raised again. "I haven't seen that other girl in a while. They stopped sending her once they got me alone. Your father must really want us alone. Is he hoping I fall in love with you?" He scoffed.
"Do you not believe me?"
He closed his mouth, tossing her a bitter look. "This is a bit much for a family business. Talk about generational crime and such." He waved a cuffed hand in a lazy circle, with what she assumed would have been paired with an eye roll. "Is he even your real father? Or is he a man who's just saying that to get you to work for him?"
"He's my father," She said quietly. "He wouldn't need to say such a lie to get me to do this."
He didn't really seem to care. She didn't know what they did with him or the others once they were done talking, but it must be getting to him. He looked like he was going insane. His dark hair clung to his forehead with sweat and blood, and the edges of his mask had begun to peel from wear. She could tell something in his eyes had changed, he seemed almost deranged in the way he looked and talked to her.
He turned his attention back to her, frowning. "So you really don't remember anything? No recollection of me before we became sworn enemies?"
"No." Clara said slowly, at the bottom of her stomach, something began to brew inside her. Frustration and anger and confusion were all about to come to some sort of fruition. She looked down. "I don't know why you keep expecting me to understand you-" She stopped, her voice beginning to wobble. She took a breath.
"None of this makes any sense to me. You know too much to be lying, but you could so easily be using me to escape. There is a big degree of trust missing between us for your story to work." This all had to be a big trick, he wanted information out of her, or he wanted to use her to escape.
But that didn't explain the things he knew about her.
Spiraling had become a common pastime for her, because of this boy. He knew too much to lie, but had too high of a stake to tell her the truth without gain. They could have known each other once, and he could be manipulating it to get her to trust him and let them go. Maybe this was one big joke, and Father was just testing her.
He stared at her, annoyed, and shrugged, as if to edge her on to continue.
She looked down, eyebrows knit. "Are you trying to ruin me for your escape? To use me?" She gripped the edge of the metal table hard, her knuckles turning white. Her throat was close to closing, and her eyes were burning with unshed tears. This was too much.
"I wouldn't- I'm the good guy."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," She pursed her lips. "This is all I have. I'm a ghost, I do not exist outside of this. To say something like that would destroy me. They'll probably dispose of me like an old tool. I don't know if I could go on after a lie like this."
He stayed silent again for a very long time, just staring at her. Even with the mask, his eyes pierced through her, shining a light on her like a deer in the headlights. He looked at her like she was an equation, he was studying her.
"When we were young," He said, finally. "Some deadbeat tried to sell you near Crime Alley. We intervened and helped you not fall victim to whatever sick thing that man wanted."
Shifting in his seat, he pulled himself towards the table, resting his elbows on the cold metal. "We tried to help you," He sighed. "Then, poof." His hands spread out in a mock explosion. "You disappear, never hear from you again until a couple years later where you turn out to be a serial killer."
She tried not to flinch, but the anger began bubbling inside of her. "I didn't choose this-" She seethed, before stopping abruptly in an attempt to calm down.
He eyed her, mouth pressed in a hard line, as if to say "indulge me", before he continued. "It always confused him. It confused us. We could never figure out how you just disappeared like that." He stopped. "Imagine the...the absolute horror we felt when we realized who you were, who you've become." He seemed to be closing in on himself before her very eyes, anguish written so clearly on his face.
"I don't choose to do this!" She tried not to shout.
"Are you sure he's really your father? Because it seems to me like you've just been trafficked." He shot back, voice raising sharply, cutting through her like knives. They were both getting increasingly aggressive.
"You know nothing about me or my family!" She seethed. "Before this I lived in Russia-"
"Yes!" He argued, "Your English was terrible, no one could understand a thing you were saying!"
She grit her teeth.
Then, as if a switch had flipped, as if he had some profound idea, he sat up again, lips twitching into a smile, eyes wide. "Don't be fucking stupid." He seethed, leaning forward, so close she could almost feel his breath on her face. "I know what I'm talking about," He started grinning madly at this. "Clara."
It hit her like a blinding light, the sickening realization that he knew her, he knew her name. It felt like all the air had been sucked out of her, like she was in a vacuum of space. You can't fake a name, he knew her, he really did.
There was no point in trying to hide her reaction, she wanted to throw up. "Shut up!" She bit out through clenched teeth. "Shut up, shut up-" Her chair screeched backwards as she pushed away from him. It felt like a black hole had opened up right in the middle of her brain.
"I don't know what lies your dad has been telling you, but its bullshit."
She dipped her head, dark hair falling into her face as she collapsed forward over her lap. "Shut up!" Her voice was rising. "You don't know anything about me!" Blood roared in her ears, and it didn't take long for her hands to grab at her hair in fistfuls.
Maybe she was crying. Her face felt hot and cold and her mind just refused to make any sense of the matter. He was destroying her, she thought. For his own gain, came immediately after, like a sick and dying reminder.
She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to let the shock wash over her, to gain some sense of composure before she really lost it. He hadn't said anything else. She had lost the fight; he had gotten to her first when that wasn't even supposed to be an option. Father was going to kill her; no- he'd give Elena the pleasure of a final victory.
"Fuck you." She said finally, looking up at him. Her glare met his own icy gaze as he looked down at her. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."
"It sounds like I know more about yourself that you do."
She lay her hands flat on the table, fingers spread as far as they could. Closing her eyes, she took a breath, before standing up, and walking as quickly as she could out the door.
Someone had caught her in the endless hallways, and escorted her to medical. "The boy's a liar." They had said. "He overheard someone while being transported. We'll deal with him shortly. He's not worth the trouble" They were probably going to kill him.
(Distantly, something whispered inside of her, "But you don't want him dead, he's won and now you want to help them.")
He's won he's wonh e'swonhe'swonhe'swon
A man grabbed her roughly by the arm, and dragged her into a dimmed room, ordering her to lay down as he got a syringe ready. "To help you sleep."
She was out before he even left the room, and when she finally awoke, she was for once alone. Whatever they had given her, it was obviously too much. The dimmed lights still managed to shine too brightly, and everything felt groggy, but no one came to get her. She felt too relaxed, and time felt like thick jelly as she tried to get up. (Had they forgotten her? Was this what it meant to be disposed like she feared, finally alone?)
Anything before now felt warm and fuzzy, almost not real. Maybe that was the point, and she had just woken up too early. She stayed in the room in half-lucid haze for what felt like hours before it finally dawned on her what she needed to do. It felt like a sort of divine intervention through the form of some unknown drug.
When she got to the room (it was a new room, one with no cameras or mirrors, they probably were just going to kill him then and there), Robin had fresh bruises. His right cheek was an ugly fresh purple, and the skin surrounded it was a swollen red.
"They're going to kill you." Even speaking felt like a dream, her voice felt so high, almost like she was singing.
"What happened to you?" Her news didnt faze him, apparently.
She sat down, he just looked tired. Her own head was spinning, she felt drunk.
"Is this all there is?" She couldn't help but ask, the air around her felt like it clung to her skin like syrup.
"To life, you mean?"
"I don't know. This is all I've known. Does it get better?" Is there a point in going on (if I help you)? Will I be trading one prison for another?
A wave of nausea attacked her, forcing her to hunch over the table, arms draped over each other as she tried to clear her head, eyes screwing shut and opening, again and again. The boy just stared. The lights were too bright.
"There's too much truth in what you've told me for you to be a liar." He scoffed. "You realize what you're asking me to do?"
He eyes her, for the millionth time during his stay here. "It does get better." He says. "We'll help make sure it gets better for you."
"Do I deserve better?" He stayed silent, and nausea attacked again. It didn't take much to figure out the unspoken question. After everything I've done? You're still willing to help me?
"I remember staying in an awful apartment," She says. "In an awful city, but everyone spoke Russian. I never lived in a city in Russia, we always lived far far away from others. It's never made sense to me." Her brain felt like it was overheating, like it was two steps away from shutting down just from the absolute whirlwind of her admission. But the panic in her stomach from finally admitting the truth felt muted and dull through the nausea. "There were holes in the floor, mold on the walls." Her words slurred together, and the spinning of her head only seemed to get worse as time went on. "Yelling, lots of yelling."
Clara thought maybe she was mumbling now. "But then I remember a big house, like a castle more so." She slipped a look at Robin through her fingers, his gaze hardened quickly, his posture stiffened. You've unlocked something, her brain hissed. "That's all I know. The truth you wanted from earlier."
He didnt say anything for a while, neither did she. He sat up straighter, his gaze serious and brows knit together in thought. He wouldn't stop staring at her.
"What did they give you?" He said finally, his voice serious in a way she didn't think she had heard before.
It sounded kind of funny, after everything they had said to each other. It sounded too gentle. "What?" She looked up at him. "They don't tell me."
Then silence, Clara couldn't tell for how long, until he spoke up again. "Does this," He trailed off, looking at her intensely. "Happen often?" He looked sad.
She tried to laugh, but it felt like her body was pulling her away from consciousness. Maybe the nausea had finally made her brain reach its limit, and its solution was sleep. If she had laughed, it would have been bitter. She could have gone into hysterics over it. "Sometimes you act very naïve," She smiled. Every sentence felt too short, like there was an absence of a name at the end. You've unlocked something, her brain hissed.
"This is not the worst, maybe one day you'll see the worst." Clara said, still smiling. "I think they're going to kill me."
"Why?" He asks.
"I'm conspiring with the enemy" She wants to say, but instead: "I've thought wrong. I've lost too many times for me to be useful." She let her head fall into her hands, covering her eyes again, the light was too bright.
The door behind them slams open, and a man starts screaming in Russian, but neither of them move. Robin looks sad, still, and the man grabs Clara roughly by the arm and drags her out.
Its hard to understand someone when youve been speaking another language for too long sometimes. Its worse when youre barely awake, and they're speaking so fast, but she manages to catch "-They're going to have my head for-" And then a bullet hits his temple, and blood splatters all over Clara's face, his lab coat, and the pristine walls behind them. The body falls.
"What the fuck did you do?" Her father screams, angrily waving the gun, but theres a ringing in her ear that hasn't quite gone away yet. He grabs the hilt of the gun, and slams it on her forehead, and then she wakes up the next morning handcuffed to her bed again, and blood stained onto her cheek.
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I accidently took a break from writing, and when I returned, I completely changed the next four chapters, but things have a lot more direction now, so I hope you enjoy :)
Please leave a comment or like, if you enjoyed, it really means a lot <3