บท 31: Turn off the Light ch.31
"I assume you're still wondering how it all fits together. You've figured out the Tisiphone bit, of course, what with Raymond and Eleanor. I'm sure you've read about the fire, but they're all just dots on a page, aren't they? You haven't connected them, not yet. You don't see the big picture."
Peter waits. There's a wet spot on the leg of his jeans from the condensation on the glass of scotch. He swirls the liquid around. If he waits long enough, he won't have to say anything.
"What do you want to hear about first? There are a few options. There's the bit about what Mal was like back in those days. There's the part about Mal and me.."
"And there's the story of how we spent the summer before senior year—what we did, what we discovered, and how Mal played with fire and burned everyone but himself." Charlie shrugs. He's still smiling. "It's your choice."
Peter swallows. His throat is dry. He looks down at his scotch, swirls it around again, realizes that the ice has melted.
He sighs. His eyes flicker shut.
He raises the glass to his lips, swallows it all at once, relishes the burn in the back of his throat. He opens his eyes to see that Charlie is still staring at him. Calmly, he nods.
"I want to know everything. I want to hear it all. I want to understand." Because honestly, that's all he has ever wanted (except Leight's love, but that's another kettle of fish).
"Brilliant," Charlie flashes his too perfect teeth.
"We grew up together. Our fathers worked together, and we were the same age, so it was only natural that we spent time together. When we were little, we created adventures. We'd run through the grove of trees on his parents' estate.."
"We wreaked havoc. We were the best of friends, and then we started to grow up. Things started to change, except they didn't. We were each other's first everything—first kiss, first time, first love. We were brilliant together."
Everything about those words hurts, and Peter doesn't want to believe any of them. Everything seems, feels, sounds slow.
Slow motion.
Out of sync with the pace of reality. His brain hurts. But he's tired. He's tired of this case. He's tired of these feelings. He's tired of a love that each day proves more hopeless.
He's tired, his muscles ache, and his bones are heavy; he's fucking exhausted.
He doesn't want to listen anymore, but he can't not.
"So we got older," Charlie goes on, "and before we knew it, we were too old to play make believe. We couldn't invent our own adventures, so we went looking for real ones. Unfortunately, that was synonymous with looking for trouble, danger—all the old clichés."
Peter doesn't want to listen. He can't. He's tired.
"There was this case. It was all over the news. The police had found a code in relation to this triple homicide. It was supposed to be the key to solving the case, but their best cryptographers couldn't crack it. Mal solved it in twenty minutes."
Peter is tired. His eyelids are drooping. The cushions are soft. Charlie's face is blurry. The lights are dim. His head is heavy. Everything is fading, fading, fading—
Fading to black.
.
When Peter opens his eyes, everything is upside down.
Literally.
He blinks, think it's a trick, a mirage, a symptom of insanity brought on by a particularly vile case of heartbreak, but it isn't any of those things.
The ceiling, with its dim lights and their purple and red paper mâché shades, are at the bottom of his field of view. Then there's the wall, and the floor above it.
He thinks it must be a dream, but it can't be a dream because he can feel the sofa soft against his back, can smell the incense in the air, can hear the pulse of music above (or is it below?) his head, and his dreams are never this detailed.
He isn't thinking clearly, and he knows it. His head is aching, and everything feels just a little too heavy. There's too much blood in his brain.
That's when he realizes (too damn slowly) that it isn't everything else that's upside down.
It's him.
He's mostly lying on the sofa, but he has either slid or squirmed (or been placed) in such a position that his head is hanging off the edge.
He tries to sit up, and though his movements are slow, shaky, unsteady, his muscles do move. He isn't bound, and he seems to be alone for the time being.
Small victories, he thinks to himself, as he runs his hands over his face and massages his temples.
He was drugged, clearly, but he doesn't seem to have been harmed. It's difficult to think because there's music blaring all around him, the floors are quivering and quaking, and there are bright multi-colored lights flashing through the window.
The Fury is open now.
He has been out for hours. At least nine. That's when. There's still how and why to be considered.
(Who and where are non-entities.)
So, how? It had to be in his drink—it couldn't have been anywhere else—but it also couldn't have been his drink because he saw Charlie drink his own scotch without the slightest ill effect.
So Peter thinks through it, puzzles over it, pretends he's Malcolm Leight and that mysteries like this aren't the slightest bit mysterious to him. What was the difference between Charlie and him? He replays the conversation in his head.
Charlie poured the drinks. He proposed a toast. He chugged the scotch, assuring Peter that it was perfectly safe, then he started talking.
Peter didn't drink right away. He waited. He waited, and he listened. He waited, he listened, and then he drank.
His eyes flicker to the leg of his pants, where the ring of condensation has vanished. He sighs at the revelation. It was in the ice.
There it is, he thinks.
The only question that remains is why.
He came to the Fury voluntarily. He wasn't intending to leave in the middle of Charlie's story. He still doesn't understand why Charlie wanted him to come here in the first place. Unless—
Peter stands up. His legs are still a little wobbly, but it's passing. He takes a few steps over to the window, places his palms against the glass, and surveys the dance floor below. It's full of men and women dressed in skimpy clothing (at best) dancing sweating writhing grinding fucking.
He was out for at least nine hours. Maybe that's the why. He turns his back to the window and quickly discovers that his (Leight's) messenger bag isn't in the room.
He knows he left his cell phone in it. Sam should have called the Captain by now; the Captain should have responded immediately.
He tries the trapdoor that leads to the spiral staircase. It's closed; locked.
The Captain should have come in, guns blazing, doing whatever was necessary to apprehend Charlie (and rescue Peter). He should have. He would have. He really should have. He really would have, unless—
There are two possibilities, and Peter doesn't want to think about either of them. Either Charlie went after Sam or the Captain, or—
Or the Captain left this for Leight to handle.
Either way, Peter is surely screwed.
There really isn't anything Peter can do but wait. He's locked in, and he isn't going to try to break the window glass.
So he sits on the long sofa, and he waits.
He tries not to worry about Sam, the Captain, or what (or whom) Leight is or isn't doing. He tries not to worry, but god knows it's futile.
All he does is worry. And whine. And wish things were just the slightest bit different. It's all futile. He's sitting right-side up, but the world is still upside down.
It doesn't take long.
There's a sharp click, the trapdoor opens, and there's Charlie bright-eyed and grinning as if he never drugged Peter or killed Raymond and Eleanor or set into motion this chain of events that is anything but right.
"Good," he announces, studying Peter without climbing into the room, "you're awake."
Morosely, Peter stares back. "Apt observation," he snaps.
He's itching with anger, rage, fury, and the indignation makes him quick, bold, sharp, more volatile than he has felt in ages. "The question is why I wasn't awake until a few minutes ago."
"Apt question." Charlie doesn't look the least bit fazed. "I'm afraid I can't answer it at the moment, but apt all the same. I'm sure you've figured out enough of it on your own, regardless."
"What do you want?"
Charlie's grin disappears in an instant. He's serious now, and all the more dangerous for it.
"I want Mal dead." He pauses. "But more than that, I want him to hurt."
Peter doesn't want Leight dead, and he doesn't want him to hurt. He goes still when he realizes this. His anger isn't what it used to be.
Charlie is insane; he can't stop grinning, even when he drugs and kidnaps and tortures and kills people. Maybe, Peter thinks, (just maybe) Leight was right to force him away.
"Don't look so shocked, Peter. I haven't asked you to pull the trigger."
"I don't understand. You wanted me here as bait, but why? You know that Mal has been looking for you. He didn't need bait."
"Well, he can't get very far in this club of mine without an engraved invitation." Charlie shrugs (his shoulders are just barely visible through the hole in the floor). "This way, he's emotionally compromised."
Peter shuts his eyes, takes a breath, centers himself. The thought of Leight being emotionally compromised on his behalf is too much.
When he opens his eyes, he says firmly, "He won't fall for it."
Charlie shrugs again. "You said yourself that it wasn't a matter of him falling for anything. He's been looking for me. Now I've invited him. Everything is going to work out brilliantly, just according to plan."
"What exactly is the plan?"
"You'll see soon enough. Now, if you would be so kind as to follow me." Then he climbs into the room (and Peter doesn't have the faintest clue as to why Charlie insisted on having that entire conversation in such an awkward position), and he goes over to the liquor cabinet.
He pushes it to the side to reveal a would-be hidden door. He opens it. There's another spiral staircase, just like the first one.
.
.
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