Rachel Eos (runrachelrun) wrote in darker_london, @ 2020-02-21 20:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | harley dumire, rachel eos |
Oh let the river in, burst the dams and start again (Rachel, Imogene, Harley)
Blind with fury, Imogene rode. Immortality lent a certain amount of confidence to riding a bike, something she hadn’t done for over forty years. The thought of crashing or falling did not occur to her because crashing or falling would slow her down, and that was unthinkable. She must catch up to her husband, the liar. The cheat. The irredeemable bastard. She must catch up to him and tear open his whole life as punishment.
As she caught up with him, she forced clarity upon herself. Blind fury would not work. She need lucidity if she was going to come out of tonight on top. She needed to be clear sighted and goal orientated. Imogene took a long, deep breath, and asked herself what she wanted.
She wanted every lie he’d ever told revealed, wanted the weight of them to crush him, utterly destroy him. That had been her mistake, she realised. She should have destroyed him earlier, in order to rebuild him into the kind of man she wanted him to be.
Well, she would destroy him now, but she had no plans to waste any more of her heart in trying to redeem him this time. He was past help. Their marriage was in its death throes, and all Imogene wanted was to make it as messy a death as possible.
As he drove, Harley made frantic plans. London was over. London was done. He must get home and grab anything of value, and grab Rachel, and get them all back into the car and leave. He did not give a shit where they went, so long as it was far. Maybe America. You could really hide from your past, in America. You had the right to protect yourself properly there, too. Imogene wouldn’t have fucked with him if he’d been carrying his gun.
Harley was not immortal, but tonight, he drove like it.
The mess had been cleaned up, and although Rachel had managed to calm herself down, her hands were still shaking. She kept boiling the kettle, too, so Imogene could have tea when she came home. It made it easier to breathe when the water was boiling; Rachel could think of nothing else she could do to prepare for their arrival home.
It was hard even to think of what might happen when they did. Would they walk back in, and announce their break up? Would they come home separately, silent and cold, and throw insults at each other like daggers over the next few weeks till the bitterness faded into everyday life? She wanted to message Cai to come and get her, but couldn't, not till they came home and she got some idea of what home was going to be like, over the next wee while.
She sat in the middle of the couch and waited, watching the door, till the silence grew too loud and she stood up to put the kettle on, again.
Imogene wove through the wet streets after Harley, keeping her eyes on his taillights. Of course he was going home, running back with his tail between his legs. Well, good. Their block of flats was the kind of place where people hunkered down and tried to pretend they didn't hear screams through the walls.
He parked haphazardly in the carpark, back wheel over the line, but Imogene was off her stolen bike and into the building before he slammed the drivers door. Her hands turned to claws as she tore the wall plate of the lift, zapping herself badly, and creating a satisfying shower of sparks and twisted wires.
With a glance over her shoulder toward the carpark, Imogene turned and ran for the opposite door, shooting herself back out into the night, and then upwards, into the sky.
Rachel had jumped at every sound in the building, and there had been so many. Slammed doors made her gasp and the thumping of footsteps above made her hunch down into a small, tense shape. Once, someone upstairs had shouted and she'd actually shrieked, and ran to hide in her bedroom, shaking with both hands pressed over her mouth.
And yet, when the window in Harley and Imogene's bedroom shattered, Rachel's blood ran too cold to scream.
She froze, fear planted in her stomach, staring at her closed bedroom door, listening hard. Her first thought was that she'd missed them come home somehow, and they were fighting in the bedroom. Harley had broken windows before, but it was usually accompanied by a lot of shouting, and right now, there was no shouting.
But they weren't home, they weren't. There was no way she could have missed it without blacking out completely. Someone had broken in, which was ridiculous, because they were so many stories up, and the only windows faced out into the sky -
Either option - Harley, or a burglar - felt entirely insane, made Rachel doubt her (admittedly shaky) faith in reality.
She heard footsteps, light ones, in Harley and Imogene's bedroom, and the fear was too much. She grabbed her go-bag and shouldered it, creaked her door open and peeked out. She couldn't see anyone - their bedroom door was open but whoever was in their house was inside it - Rachel bolted for the front door and scrambled with the lock and had undone the bolt when a voice behind her said her name.
Her first thought was that she didn't recognise the voice and her second thought - that of course she did - was lost in shock when she turned around.
The woman's dark hair was loose around her face, the t-shirt she was wearing looked soft from a hundred washes, and familiar. Rachel recognised the t-shirt before she recognised the rest of her. There were probably hundreds of copies of that shirt still in the world, even though Rachel hadn't seen anyone else wearing it in a decade.
She hadn't seen her mother in a decade, either, but she was as skinny and her eyes as bright as they were in her memory.
"Your father's coming, you have to listen to me," said her mother.
Mum, thought Rachel. My mother. Honey, to other people. Just mum, to her. To her brothers. Mum. Rachel's legs stopped working and she slid down the wall, staring.
Mum crossed the room toward her and Rachel froze even colder, and Mum held out her hand to pull her off the floor and Rachel could not lift her own arm to grasp it. Mum crouched and wrapped her hands around both Rachel's arms and lifted her to her feet with ease, with the kind of strength she'd had when Rachel had just been a skinny little kid. Rachel didn't question the strength. Of course her mother could lift her to to her feet. "Your father's been lying to you," Mum said, her hand tilting Rachel's chin. Her fingers were wet.
Her fingers were cold and wet because it was raining outside.
Or... Her fingers were cold and wet because she'd crawled back out of the river.
Something in Rachel started screaming.
"It's time to make it stop," said Mum, and pressed cold metal into her hand.
Mum's hair did not look wet. It looked soft and dark, and her brows were the same shape as the brows Rachel saw in her mirror. She heard a small, trembling sound come out of her throat as she looked at her mother's face. "You're not dead," she whispered.
Mum shook her head, and Rachel could not take her eyes off the movement. "I'm not," she said. "Your father is coming, and he's going to tell you everything. You're going to make him tell you everything."
Mum looked down, pointedly, and Rachel's eyes followed her. Rachel was holding Harley's gun. She could tell it was her hand from the pink nail polish she recognised as her own. There was a pearly sheen to it, a little chip in her right thumb. "Come away from the door," Mum said, sliding a hand behind her shoulder to guide her away and turn her round. Rachel's go-bag sat abandoned on the floor.
When Harley yanked the door open, his daughter was standing in the middle of the living room holding his gun and her mother was standing behind her.
He was out of breath, thirteen flights of stairs out of breath. "Fucking fucking shit!" Harley swore, reaching out his hand toward Rachel, gasping through it. "Get away from her, Rachel, come here right now."
"She's not dead," Rachel said. The gun was in her hand but it was not raised, it hung at the end of her arm, waiting. "She's not dead."
"Explain me," said Honey, her eyes flashing at Harley. "Explain me to your daughter."
"You twisted, fucked up bitch," Harley growled at her. "Rachel, come here NOW. We have to GO."
"EXPLAIN ME!" Screamed Honey. "Explain your lies!"
"Rachel. Here. NOW."
"No," said Rachel. "No. I want - I want to know."
"Good girl," purred Mum.
"Shut UP!" Rachel snapped at her too, stepping away. Triangulating herself between her parents. Bench at her back and gun in her hand. "I need to think-" she said, to remind herself that thinking was important. Thinking might stop the world spinning out of control between these two people.
Mum was not dead. Dad was not surprised. Something in her head was screaming and making it so very hard to think. Mum was not dead, and Dad was not surprised.
Mum was not dead, but Dad was not surprised.
"Why... did you tell me... she was dead?" Rachel asked, staring wildly at Harley.
"You need to trust me," Harley was speaking through gritted teeth. "Everything I have done I have done for your own good."
"You made me think I'd killed them!!" Rachel screamed at him suddenly, her voice vicious as she pointed the gun at him, focusing everything on him. "You didn't want me to remember. What happened? WHAT HAPPENED?!"
"I'll tell you," Harley said. "Just put the gun down and step away from her."
"He's stalling," said Mum.
"You're stalling," said Rachel. Cold water, she remembered cold water, and a face through the water. This was the only piece of the story that belonged to her. "Are my brothers alive too? Are they alive?!"
"Listen to me," Harley said, and stepped toward her. Rachel could not back up any further but she pushed away anyway and the bench bit into her back. "Listen to me carefully, Princess. I love you. You're my everything. I'll tell you everything, I promise, but you need to put the gun down okay? You can trust me, I promise, I swear. Okay?" he stepped forward again and Rachel lifted the gun, but her arm shook, and shook, and only steadied when he wrapped his hand around her wrist, pointed her hand down, and took the metal from her hand. "Thank you," he told her, pulling her close to kiss her forehead. Rachel managed to freeze her shaking arms into a barrier, holding him back.
"I don't trust you," her voice quavered.
She wanted Danny at her side. She wanted Zoe and Cai and Nonnie and Wolf, Liz and Emma, Lydia and Dylan and Abby and Lee. She wanted the ghost of Dom standing with her. She wanted her army. She needed her army.
"She doesn't trust you, Harley," Mum said, coldly, smugly. "Funny how easily that facade shattered."
"Shut your face," Harley growled, wrapping a tight arm around Rachel despite her protests, pointing the gun at her mother. Rachel ducked to get away, putting all the strength of her imaginary army into it, and her mother laughed.
"Not going to be easy to convince her you're the good guy this time, is it, Harley?" Imogene growled through her angelic mask.
"I'm better than you," Harley growled back, grabbing Rachel's wrist again before she could duck too far. "She would have died, with you. You nearly killed her!"
Rachel twisted. "Let me go!"
"Better than me!?" Imogene laughed as she shook her head, and smiled at the pair of them. "A better liar, maybe. A better cheat. Better at twisting her little mind. What do you think, Rachel, is he better than me at those things?"
Rachel was not answering. Rachel couldn't break the grip Harley had on her wrist and had gone still, trying to calculate another way out of here. She had her phone, in her bag, but no opportunity to call for help.
A better cheat, she'd said. Harley bristled all over. "You've been talking to fucking Imogene," he muttered, disgusted. "You fucking cunts are working together." He'd heard stories of women doing this, ganging up against their partner. How long had this been going on under his nose? Every time that Imogene went out, seemingly to look for her daughter, had she been finding Honey instead?
Fucking women.
He started to drag Rachel toward their door and, since it was out, Rachel didn't put up a fight as Harley hurled abuse at her mother, backing out into the hall.
They had an audience of neighbours. Imogene's reading that the denizens of the building would simply stay in their own rooms wasn't entirely correct. They weren't Rachel's army, but maybe... "Help me!" she shouted. "Call the police!" She was not a fan of the police but getting away from her parents right now was more important. She could call Danny from the police station and he'd launch a rescue missing for her.
Harley pointed his gun down the hall and their audience disappeared back into their doors. "Keep out of it!" he roared. "This is private! Get in the lift," he shoved Rachel toward the end of the hall, turning round to keep the gun trained on Honey, who was following them out into the hall like she wasn't afraid of getting shot, but she'd always been a little removed from reality. Rachel slammed her hand onto the lift button and watched her mother step toward them. Harley's hands were wrapped around the gun like he was strangling it.
"You're going to lose everything, Harley," she promised. "I swear to you. I'm going to rip everything you love away from you. I am going to destroy you and no one will save you!"
"I will shoot you," Harley said, though somehow her threat felt like it carried more weight. Her conviction, that was it. She'd never spoken with such conviction, like she could do it.
Rachel hit the lift button again, but still nothing happened, it didn't even light up.
"It's broken," she whispered, and then screamed as Harley spun around and pulled the trigger on the lift button. It shattered, all their ears shattered. Harley grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her toward the stairs.
Rachel didn't know how far down they'd got before she started to hear the alarms going off. And then other people were pouring into the stairwell too. She reached out a hand toward a woman's arm to ask for help, but stopped herself. Harley had a gun and she didn't know what he would do with it.
If she asked someone for help, would Harley shoot them?
Rachel kept her hands to herself and let the river of people take them down toward the exit. They spilled out into the wet night, and Harley started running toward their car, splashing through the puddles. He opened Rachel's door for her and pushed her toward it, and Rachel's hands came up automatically to brace herself against the door and stop him.
"Fucking hell Rachel, get in!" Harley roared, and put a hand on her head and shoved with all his desperate strength.
Rachel felt her cheekbone collide with the car and white light - white pain - exploded across her vision. Her hands scrambled but couldn't stop her father pushing her into the car. He slammed the door on her and the noise petrified her, as if she couldn't even remember how to use her body to move.
Harley was still very out of breath, but he was moving fast and he was in the drivers seat before she could swim through her shock and make a break for it.
"Buckle the fuck in!" Harley lunged across her body and grabbed the belt, yanking it across her. Rachel yelped in protest and tried to grab it from him and do it herself but he wouldn't relent, and swore so violently as he tried unsuccessfully to shove the buckle into the clip that it sent her back into shock and her hands wouldn't work.
"Jesus fucking Christ," he snapped, finally getting her belt on. He didn't bother with his own. Just started the car and shot it into reverse. Put his foot down hard to sent the car speeding out of the lot.
Rachel turned out her window, toward the council flat and the crowd gathered outside. A lot of people were watching them, a lot of phones out. She couldn't see her mother. And then they were all out of sight.
For a while there was only the sound of her blood rushing in her ears, though eventually, through it, she started to hear Harley's voice. He'd been speaking the whole time, she thought, though most of his attention was focused on weaving sharply through traffic.
"Jesus fuck - Who am I?" Harley cried. "Who am I if I can't protect my child?"
Rachel raised a shaking hand to touch her face. The skin around her eye felt hot and swollen, and wet, though when she pulled her fingers away to look at them, expecting blood, she saw it was only rain. She held a gentle hand over her eye, wondering how bad it would look, though she didn't reach for the sun visor to check the mirror there. She felt if she extended her arm away from her body something terrible would happen to it, so she stayed small and condensed and sore and in shock.
This was protection?
She looked out the window as he drove, lights blurring past, rain streaming across the window. She'd seen her mother...
Her mother, working with Imogene? Her mother, not dead. She scrambled for the connection - the memory of her father, blissed out a moment after he'd shattered a dish against Imogene - an angel thing. Imogene... summoned her mother from the dead? But Imogene had played with Rachel's mind before, coming to her in the guise of her father the night she sent her to jail. An angel thing...
Maybe it was not really her mother...?
But if Imogene had only summoned a vision of Rachel's mother, why hadn't Harley been surprised that she was alive?
Maybe Imogene had summoned her mother or maybe her mother was a vision but either way, Harley knew that Honey had not died.
But how - but how? Rachel, for the first time in years, for the first time since she left the Plymouth youth mental hospital - pushed her memory back toward the day she nearly died. The cold water and the face above her and she tried so hard to remember where her mother had been and couldn't tell if the images of a van going into a river were her imagination or her memory.
Her memory offered her nothing.
Rachel cast around desperately for more mental scraps. He'd taken her around Plymouth after she was discharged from hospital, her memory had offered her nothing there, either. Rachel heard herself speaking the words before she'd even realised she'd thought them: "You took me to the school in Plymouth and showed me my classroom," she whispered.
"What?" Harley said, barely listening, driving.
"And you took me to a house in Plymouth and told me we lived there, but I never really lived there, did I?"
"What? Rachel just - shut the fuck up, I'm trying to drive."
"You told me I'd forgotten but we never lived in Plymouth at all."
"Course we fucking did."
"What street? What number? What school?" Rachel's head was spinning. "You had to tell me what happened at the river. You told me over and over. That it was her fault. That it was my fault. I don't remember what happened. You told me. You were the only one that told me." Her memory never did. And Zoe never found anything in the news.
"I'll explain everything," Harley promised. "I'll explain."
"You'll lie," she croaked. The pain in her head or the shock or the realisations were turning her stomach. "You'll lie..."
"Shut the FUCK up!" Harley screamed at her, lashing out to take a shot at her head to drive his point home. "Just let me FUCKING drive!"
The pain in her head or the shock of the realisations or the fear of her father combined and Rachel could not hold it in - she threw up, the act sudden, stabbing another bar of pain through her eye, a fire through her throat. She only had enough warning to try not to throw up on herself, and the sick - there was barely anything in it - hit Harley's arm, splattered down the side of his jacket.
He swore again and almost didn't notice the brake lights in front of him, so when he finally did the breaks screamed under his foot - and he leaned viciously on the horn - and everything hurt all over again as Rachel's seatbelt dug across her chest.
The car hit the bumper of the car in front of them and another wave of shock ran through Rachel.
Harley, swearing constantly, yanked off his jacket to get away from her vomit and Rachel pushed the release button off her seatbelt, and had opened the door and all but fallen onto the road before he could notice and grab her.
He screamed her name, and all Rachel could do was run.