Participants:
| Scene Title | The Hate I Hate Believing |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Bill Dean finally comes to deliver his plan to his two captives, and struggles with a revelation of his own. |
| Date | October 13, 2009 |
The Midtown Bunker
Wednesday
Concrete is a cold and unforgiving substance, it holds in moisture when not sealed properly and smells of must and mold. Here in the near lightless depths of this vault that Wendy Hunter and Helena Dean have been sealed in, the memories of Moab seem almost forgiving to one of the prisoners. At least there she was fed.
6:17 am
By now the passage of time has become impossible to judge, watches, jewelry, personal effects of all kind have been stripped from the two hostages, and no demands for interrogation or information have been made of them. Only the absolute silence of this place, and the injection of Morphine for Helena only every four hours to keep her sedate and pliant.
Day Two of Captivity
When the vault door that seals this large and empty concrete room shut makes its creaking groan of opening, when vault bolts slide back from the frame and into the door, and a too-bright sliver of artificial light spills in through the opening, it feels like four hours came far too early. The broad-shouldered and tall man standing in the doorway isn't the usual masked man who comes to deliver the injections, he isn't the man who took their possessions. No, the balding man who leaves a dark and large silhouette in the vault door isn't any of them.
Helena recognizes him at a glance, face not even visible from the contrast of the interior darkness and exterior light. "Good mornin' pumpkin." There's no mistaking William Dean.
"Chestnut."
Helena is tired. Tired and bleary and weak, from lack of food and the cold that she's just barely managing to stave off lest they freeze to death down here, which means it's not comfortable per se, just not so cold as to kill them.
"You nickname for me was Chestnut." Her voice is raw and cracked from lack of water, and though she's weak, she manages to turn her head and look him in the eyes. Bill Dean's daughter has never been afraid to stare right back at Bill Dean, and that is probably Bill Dean's own fault.
Wendy's eyes clamped shut at the issuing of light into the dank room, averting her eyes and staying that way when she saw that it was Bill. She'd felt Bill coming, Helena would have had no problem knows that either as when the salesman came into range, her head snapped up. If the woman had any doubts about her father's status, it might have been shattered then.
But for now, the brunette huddles in her uncomfortable position, watching the floor instead of the pudgy man who shared Helena genetics.
"It's almost Halloween," Bill argues, stepping in to the vault and at a better angle of light ot be seen. Sunglasses — worn underground — hide Bill's eyes and the dark circles from sleepless nights beneath them. A tall coffee cup from a Starbucks is clutched in one hand and a click of his tongue punctuates his sentence. "Seriously, can't a man change up a thing or two for the holidays? I was thinkin' of callin' you Prancer for Christmas, but m'not really sure we should be plannin' that far in advance." Bill's brows go up with a lopsided smile, and now in the face of the man that raised her for so many years, it's hard to see — save for present company and surroundings — how anything's changed.
"Oh bugger-fuck there's not a goddamned— " Bill's brows lower as he turns to look back at the vault door. "Fuckin' Mitch!" He calls back out the door, "Gimmie a fucking chair in here you dipshit!" There's a sniff at the air, and one of Bill's brows rise up as he looks down to the two handcuffed women. "God you two smell like the backside of an' Elephant you do. Well, ain't much a'matter anyway…"
"Am I gonna be around 'til Christmas?" Helena challenges, sitting up as best she can, despite her morphine filled haze. Clarity is fought for, one of the things that's keeping her spine straight being that there's no way that her father can be worse than the biggest boogeyman she's faced so far. Agent Verse would run rings around Bill Dean. If she can survive him, she can survive anything. Or so she tells herself.
"You're not one to waste time, Dad. Let's get to the deal, shall we?" It could be a phrase from his own playbook. A lot of the best parts of Helena are the better parts of this man, incredibly enough. But the way she's looking at him right now, that expression, the way her brow is wrinkled, that's pure Evelyn. "What are you going to do with me?"
"Well, subtlety was never your thing was it darling?" Bill brings his coffee up to his lips and takes a long sip of it, looking over to Wendy after a moment with his head cocked to the side. In that time, an unmasked Humanis First operative — no older than nineteen — comes walking in with a folding chair, setting it down on the floor after opening it. He looks, warily, from Helena to Wendy and back again, and then slips back out into the hall as Bill settles down in the chair. The creak of metal under Bill's weight is subtle, he actually looks like he's lost five or six pounds since Helena last saw him — terrorism is a fantastic diet and exercise regimen as she's learned.
"What I've got planned for you, chestnut," his head dips into a nod, "is special. Sort've like the surprise at the bottom of a Cracker Jacks box. Maybe it'll be a decoder ring, maybe I'll strap a bomb on you and roll you out into the middle of the NYPD headquarters." He shrugs his shoulders and looks over to Wendy.
"What little miss muffet here is going to get, however, is a nice big heaping helping of do whatever I fucking tell you." There's a hesitant smile Bill offers as he looks back to Helena, quietly sipping his coffee again. "But, before we get down to brass tacks," blue eyes narrow, "I wanted t'ask the both of you something." Left, then right, then back again. "Which one've you called the cops?"
"Wow." Helena breathes, staring at her father. "It wasn't the fact that you were fucking your secretary, was it? How is Jacqueline, by the way?" Her tone takes on the contemptuous edge that is garunteed to grate a parent's ears whenever a child utilizes it. "Is being married to you everything she ever dreamed of and more? God, it wasn't that, that's not what Mom left you for. She must have seen what's really inside you, what a horrible, vicious monster you are." Helena shudders. "I can't believe I'm related to you. You vile, desperate old man." No, she'll never be as good at wielding the hurt as he is, but she can give it the old college try. Even if it earns her nothing but a kick in the face.
"I was calling them, to turn your daughter in" Comes from behind the curtain of Wendy's hair, forehead resting against the wall after Helena's verbal outpouring. "She's a wanted criminal and it was my civic duty when I found out who she was" Her and Helena already discussed this before Bill had even waltzed in. She peers through the same curtain of hair at Bill perched on his chair. There's no sorry forthcoming from the tallest person in the room.
"Ahh," Bill notes with a raise of his brows, "you're one'a them civic-minded junkies? I've heard all'a 'bout them on the six-o-clock news." The sarcasm rolls off of his tongue as he takesa a slurp of his coffee and finally looks to Helena, eyes narrowed. "Yer mum isn't the problem here, neither is that dipshit I married either. Why d'you think I'm here and she's there. You ever get inta' one'a them relationships where the person means everythin' t'you, an' then you find out they're not that int'a you anymore because you're gainin' weight and gettin' old and boy the delivery boy looks good today doesn't he!?" Rising up out of his chair, Bill starts to turn red in the face.
"No, yer a fuckin' kid so don't fuckin' talk down to me!" Bill's anger is infectious, it builds like a vitrionic ball inside of both Wendy and Helena, a drunken and sick bubble of rage that starts boiling up from the surface the moment his blood pressure raises. "Your mum ain't the goddamned saint you think she was! Nobody's a goddamned saint!" He throws his coffee against the wall with a splash and a clatter of the cardboard.
"You!" Bill points a finger towards Wendy, "are gonna fuckin' do exactly as we tell y'to do or you're gonna' have t'keep watchin' chestnut here get all'a the drugs you want. You start playin' paddy cake with us an' we'll morphine you and maybe even get you some antibiotics!"
Helena tries to launch herself at her father, unable to staunch the tide of rage. "FUCK YOU!" she roars right back, adrenaline fighting off the morphine for a few seconds, though she's brought up short quickly by the extremely limited distance her cuffs permit. "You did nothing and you watched her get knifed and you stood by while the whole town covered it up! I saw the whole goddamn thing, I saw you standing there! I hate you! You're a bastard, a hypocrite who hates his own kind! You think I'm a monster, well there's nothing normal about you either, Daddy!" The last word comes out in a snarl.
"FUCKING BASTARD!" It burbles out of Wendy in a fit of rage that mimics Bill's and in unison with Helena. "Fucking hypocrite!" The pain already made her cranky, lack of drugs when she was wanting them - and had a valid reason for actually needing them - and the situation that she was finding herself in. She moves then, shifting quick and fast to sprawl out and lash a bare foot out at Bill, make contact with him in some fashion while Helena makes her own move. It wasn't planned like this and Wendy too wants to just get her hands on bill and strangle him.
Sidestepping away from Helena like a dog on a short leash, she jerks back from the cuffed position which only causes Bill to stumble over Wendy's feet in an awkward clip-clop of his shoes until he whumps up against the concrete wall. Blue eyes divert down at Hunter, then out to the door, then back down to Helena. There's a sharp breath, hissed, and as he takes a step back and fearfully begins to stagger away from the pair and their spitting venomous words, the ebb and flow of emotional manipulation only grows more obvious. Suddenly it's the fear that sinks in now, knotting up muscles and accelerating heart-rates just as much as anger does.
Bill edges back, towards the door, hands fumbling on the latch as he sputters out. "I— I've got something special for you two girls soon." There's a sneer in his voice. "Trust me, this girl I've got— she ain't as sweet as the name Candy sounds." He swallows, dryly, "She's gonna' put— put you two in a better fuckin' shape." Face red and vein bulging on his forehead, BIll hobbles back and away, tugging on the handle of the vault door and dragging it in a slow path towards closed.
Helena sinks back, clinging to the wall. The fear settles around her like a veil. "Dad…" she cries. "Dad, please." It's only in the moments of silence afterward that it occurs to her, that thing he said.
Candy.
Helena can't smile, but how many people named Candy are there in the world. They may yet get out of here. Helena guards that information with silent zeal. Time will tell if her hope will come to fruition.
Wendy goes from trying to kick Bill, from getting the information that she needed, wanted to curling up in the corner, bare feet scrabbling against the cement until she's huddled against her own embedded pipe and hiding her head, heart pounding from the fear. Empath. Empath. Holy fuck, not only that, projective? had to be, she'd been docile, co-operative till Bill had exploded. It's Bill's projection of fear that keeps her lips pressed shut and the gangly woman shaking like a kicked dog afraid of feeling another boot from it's owner.
The door finally slams shut, leaving out all light save for the battery-powered fluorescent bulb above the vault door that barely sheds enough light to discern shapes by. Outside, muffled shouting can barely be heard, something knocked over, a tantrum — but one that doesn't penetrate that thick door designed to keep everything out, and unfortunately at this time — people in.
Helena's eyes dart sidelong to Wendy for a moment. She doesn't actually say anything - but the question in her eyes is very clear: did she get it?
Wendy can't see the dart, the look and silent implore from the blonde. She's panting in the corner, trying hard not to cry and failing. She's not some phoenix operative with the mental training and conditioning. Hers is not a life of living off the graces of those sympathetic to their plight and oppression of the government. She's a woman who just killed any chance of getting drugs, or something for her fingers and her ear and for what? So some woman can know what her father can do?
"Empath"
Ever so quietly through the tears, she lets the words fall between them in the near dark.
"Projective Empath"