Willing Victim

A/N: OK... so i finally figured out the username and password... thanks to our illustrious webmistress! Thanks!!! Again, thanks for everyone who reviewed and keep encouraging me! Also, you know the drill... i don't own any of this-- except Darcy/Siren of course.

Chapter 8

“I-- I was just-- I couldn’t sleep,” she stammered, stumbling to her feet and turning around, hiding the mask behind her back. He walked towards her slowly, his eyes narrow and glaring as he waited for explanation. Darcy pushed herself to her feet, trying to look casual as she made her way around the desk, trying to get away from him.

“It isn’t nice to nose around in other people’s stuff, Darce.”

“I didn’t--”

“Didn’t what?”

“I wasn’t--”

“Wasn’t what?”

“Well… I found your keys… and I…”

Crane came around the desk, backing her up against the wall, their noses almost touching. “You’ve been a very… very bad girl, Darcy.” She tried to sidestep out of his line of vision, but he slapped his hand up on the wall beside her, blocking her path with his arm. “Where ya goin’ Darce?” She tried to duck under the other arm, but he sensed it and blocked her path again.

“How--- how could--- I don’t understand…” she stuttered, her voice a strangled whisper.

“There isn’t anything to understand… you’ve been snooping around in places you shouldn’t be.” He swept a single strand of hair from her eyes, running an ice cold fingertip across her cheekbone. “Did you find out anything interesting? Jump to any bizarre conclusions? Get what you were looking for?” His iridescent eyes burned with a terrifying fury.

“I wasn’t looking for anything…” her voice was quivering audibly and he could almost hear her heart rate quicken. “I just stumbled on it…” She glanced down at the mask, still clutched in her hand. His eyes followed suit and widened with restrained anger.

He reached out, jerking the mask from her grip. “How dare you touch my things!”

“I didn’t mean---” She stopped short, pushing him away and slipping from his grasp, attempting to get away. He turned around fast and grabbed her wrist tightly, pulling her back against him and dragging her over to the mirror, one arm around her neck. He used the other arm to pull the mask over his face. “Here! This what you wanted to see, Darcy? You wanted to see who I really am!”

“Why are you doing this?” she croaked out, his arm squeezing her throat tightly.

“I’m not doing anything, love. Just giving you what you wanted… Does this pose seem familiar?” In a bizarre mimic of seduction, he rubbed his burlap covered cheek against hers. She could feel his breath against her cheek and she tried to struggle away. “We’ve been here before, haven’t we?” he whispered. “I think deep down, you’ve always known it was me.“ He wound his hands in her hair, pulling her face to the mirror, forcing her to look as she tried to look away, “What’s the matter… do I scare you? Afraid to hear the truth?”

Darcy hardened her expression and drew her eyes away defiantly. “No.” She jerked her shoulder against his, trying to knock him backwards, but he never budged. “I’m not the one who’s scared--- you are--- scared that I found out what you really are!”

“And what’s that? Do tell me what I am…” he whispered dangerously in her ear.

“You’re insane---” she rasped, fighting back tears.

He laughed coldly, “Sanity is all relative, Darcy.” Her fingertips secretly reached for the table beside them, her hands closing over a small syringe. “I may be out of my mind… but at least I don’t hide from my true nature. Or make excuses for my impulses.”

“Neither do I,” she growled, raising the syringe carefully and jabbing backwards into his side. He screamed in pain and pushed Darcy hard away from him, groping for the needle stuck fast in his side. Her forehead struck the mirror, breaking it into a million tiny shards that rained down over her cheek. She didn’t notice the pain but started to run. It didn’t take the doctor long to recover and within seconds he was close behind.

She ran out of the exam room, turning over gurneys into his path as she ran. He leaped over them with almost no effort. “You can’t hide from me, Darcy!” he shouted, following her into the darkened corridor. He ducked into a doorway, letting her get ahead a bit. “Time to play…“ he murmured.

The darkness slowed her down. She knew that the stairs were lurking around here somewhere and breaking her leg would only add to her troubles. Only a few tiny dots of light seeped into the hallway from the narrow cracks in the walls. She was disoriented and he moved so stealthily that she couldn’t hear him. She tried not to breathe, knowing that he was somewhere so close. He was playing a game with her. He could reach out and grab her at any time, but he wanted her to panic. The infected smell of her fear permeated the air, oozing from her pores and saturating his senses. Her quickening pulse and labored breath were like a drug that intoxicated Crane completely. Her sheer terror was more arousing than any touch could ever have been. His fingertips reached out and brushed her hair, ever so slightly, then ducked back into a corner. She turned around quickly and he ducked into the shadows. He laughed, an evil, quiet laughter that echoed through the deserted ward. “Where are you?!” she screamed, desperation creeping into her voice. She turned around and around like a child playing “pin the tail on the donkey.” She knew that she had to keep moving forward, but she faltered, stumbling over various instruments that littered the floor.

“You’re getting sloppy…” he answered in a sing-songy voice. “One for sorrow… two for joy….” He kicked a cart that stood by a doorway, rattling the metal instruments that laid on its surface. Darcy turned around quick, searching the darkness for some sign. Three for a girl… four for a boy…” Seeing nothing, she turned back around, continuing down the narrow corridor. She prayed that she could find the stairs again, but deep down she knew-- he’d never let her escape. He was hunting her… even now as she paused and swept both hands around her body, feeling nothing, she knew he was there--- waiting. Running out of the darkness, he pushed her hard into the opposite wall, knocking her to her knees. “Five for silver… six for gold…” She rolled to her feet and took an attack stance, expecting him to be waiting for the fight, but he wasn’t done yet.

“Come out, come out wherever you are…” she shot back. “I thought you were the master of fear… not cowardice…”

“You know nothing of fear--” Suddenly the sharp smell of camphor stung her nose and throat. She coughed and tried to hold her breath, desperately trying not to inhale the toxin that he’d sprayed in her face. “Seven for a secret, never to be told.” He watched her give in to the inhalant, breathing deeply. Her body went rigid for a moment and then the hallucinations began, but these visions much more vivid than the ones she’d had at the show. The walls were closing in and she could see him everywhere. She tried to run but it was like her legs were made of jelly. The more she struggled to run, the harder it became. She could feel the world turning black as he reached out and grabbed her, shoving the burlap hood over her head so she could barely see. The fabric so close that she felt claustrophobic. She screamed, trying to rip it off, but he pulled her arms behind her, pulling until her elbows met. “You wanted to play?!” he shouted in her ear, pushing her forward, banging her already injured forehead against the wall, making her go limp. She tried crawling away, but he grabbed a fistful of her hair and the sack, pulling her backwards into the open cell she’d seen before. She screamed, her limbs jerking wildly as she tried to fight him off. He only laughed, throwing her into a cabinet door and pulling the hood from over her head.

She shook her head, trying to clear her vision. Blood ran into her eyes, stinging them as she scrambled to her feet. The toxin made her movements erratic and she couldn’t seem to control her extremities. Splashes of color and light distorted the room and she couldn’t get her bearings. Crane stood back, smiling as he watched her struggle to regain composure. “Nothing is real…” she whispered, commanding herself to believe that the random images firing in her head were only hallucinations. She could see them far away, like splotches of black in a sea of red. She kept creeping towards them, trying to run but her feet wouldn’t move. The haze around them parted and she seemed to rush up to them just as Jonathan kicked Erik in the stomach and they both started to fall. She felt the floor beneath her give way and she was falling too. “Help me… please! Erik!” she reached out to grab his hand, but he only smiled and kept falling, far below her. She felt the skeletal hand of Dr. Crane close around her wrist, stopping her fall. “No! No! Just let me go!” she screamed, fighting him, beating her fists against his chest.

“Never… you will never get away from me,” he rasped into her ear, pulling her against him.

“It was you… it was you… in the mask…” She beat the heels of her hands against her forehead, trying to knock the realization out of her brain. “You killed him…” She went still for a moment and looked up into the icy coldness of his eyes. “You should have killed me too…” Catching him off guard, she bashed her head into his and rolled backwards away from him. He stood up, rubbing his eyes, his nose bloody from the impact. She ignored the visions still firing behind her eyes and went after him again, this time with a graceful kick that he caught in one hand, still rubbing his eye with the other, and pushing her backwards. “You’ll have to do better than that.” Something about the smug grin he wore infuriated her and she attacked him with a vengeance. Launching herself against him, both fists swinging He pinned her arms behind her back, holding them in place and laughing as she tried to break free. “It doesn’t quite work does it?” He pulled her hair, tipping her face up to his again and licking her lips. “Because… the thing that irritates you the most… scares you the most… is that you love me…” He laughed mockingly, pressing her firmly against his body. “That’s the part of my plan that doesn’t make sense. I never expected you to love me.”

“I don’t love you…” she whimpered, trying to writhe out of his grasp. “I’ll never love you.”

He cut her off with a sharp backhanded slap to her cheek. “Liar! You know its not right to lie….”

She sobbed and struggled against him some more. “How… how could you…” she choked through her tears and then screamed suddenly, “I trusted you!”

“Your mistake, baby… not mine.” He forced her head up, looking into her eyes. A single, clarifying tear rolled down her cheek. He watched it roll from the corner of her eye and down the slope of her cheek before wiping it away with his thumb. “As for me… I’ve loved you all along. I’ve haunted every step you took for the last year.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Because when I hear you sing… it’s the only time the voices stop. Everything I did…” He looked away from her, lifting his eyes to the ceiling. His jaw tensed and he swallowed hard. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this…”

“What---” she breathed heavily, tasting the blood on her lips. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m so sorry, Darcy…” He closed his eyes and closed his hand over her face, squeezing the nozzle on the aspirator until she stopped struggling. He held her against him as the terrifying visions took over. Her body shook and her screams died in his shoulder. He knew that pretty soon, she’d pass out and it would all be over. Only time would tell if she would be reborn.