Who: Ender and Melissa What: Where’s that annoying dripping sound coming from? Where: Melissa’s apartment in NYC When: Saturday, October 31st; 2:03am Warnings: Animal death, general terror and trauma
The sounds of the city didn’t bother Ender while he slept. Even when he’d first started spending the night with Melissa, sometimes, they hadn’t kept him awake. Now, it was just soothing background. Almost like white noise. He and Melissa had gone to bed before midnight, for once, bedroom door cracked open so that Lady could get in and out as she pleased. With just the two of them there in the apartment, there was no reason not to leave it open for the night. Mostly, Lady stayed with them, but sometimes she decided to get up and roam in the middle of the night, and Ender wasn’t going to try to make a dire wolf stay on a human schedule. He was just going to let Lady do Lady, and if that meant her knocking the door open even wider in the middle of the night while she wandered, that was just fine.
Ender had never had a dog, growing up, so getting used to sleeping through Lady wandering around had been way harder than getting used to sleeping with the sounds of the city. It had kept him awake, at first, laying there staring at the ceiling with Melissa’s head on his shoulder, her hair tickling his cheek, his arm curled around her waist under the covers. It could have been annoying, but it was mostly just nice. Really nice. He’d never done the long term relationship thing before, either, not the kind that meant sleeping over on a regular basis. That, he’d taken to pretty fast.
Eventually, the sounds of the dog wandering, and the heat of another body under the covers next to his, they’d become part of Ender’s normal night. Signs that everything was well in Ender’s world. He’d gone from falling asleep in spite of them, to not being able to fall asleep without them. None of that was what had woken him up at… he flailed out with the arm that wasn’t wrapped around Melissa, grabbed his cell phone off of the nightstand on his side and pressed a button to light up the screen, squinting at the suddenly bright display. It was a few minutes after two in the morning, and he had no idea what had woken him up.
At least, he had no idea until it happened again, a faint dripping sound coming from… somewhere. Somewhere outside their bedroom. He groaned, wiggling the phone free from the charging cable and pulling his arm out from under Melissa as carefully as he could. He didn’t know if he could avoid waking her up, too, but he was going to try. He’d known that something was wrong with the kitchen sink. If he had to, he’d just shut the valves under the sink off for the night and deal with them in the morning.
For Melissa, feeling safe wasn’t something that came easily. Plagued with Sansa’s memories, the ones riddled with constant torture and abuse, made it difficult for her to feel comfortable in her own skin sometimes. Even being in a city as far removed from Westeros as it was possible to be, she found herself avoiding conflict with people by weaving her words carefully, as though she expected every person she came in contact with to pull the rug out from under her. The appearance of the Lannisters only made her feelings of unease worse, and she worried more often now that Liam seemed to have a personal vendetta in mind with them. There were very few people she trusted implicitly in spite of this. Elliot, her very best friend for the longest time, was one of them. The other was Ender.
She knew she couldn’t ask him to spend the night every night. He had his grandmother he had to look after, and Melissa loved the woman too much to take her grandson away from her constantly. She couldn’t deny the fact that she felt better with him there, though, curling into him in the large bed they occupied a small portion of. She slept better, with fewer nightmares, and less tossing and turning. To her, Ender was the type of love that Sansa had craved and been denied over and over again.
She felt him move, somewhere in the purgatory between sleep and awake. The bed shifted as he climbed out of it, and Melissa adjusted herself accordingly, curling up further under the blankets with every intention of going back to sleep. She let her arm drape over the edge of the bed, searching for the comfort of Lady’s fur. When Ender was over, Lady wandered more, content herself with the idea that Melissa was safe. But when he wasn’t in the room, her direwolf stuck close to her, either on the bed or right on the floor beside where her owner slept. Her nose wrinkled as the wet tongue loped across her palm, letting out a groggy groan as she rolled back onto her back. Awake now, she slipped out of bed and padded out into the kitchen where Ender was, rubbing at tired eyes as her vision attempted to adjust to the dim light that was still brighter than her bedroom.
“‘s alright?” She mumbled, stepping up to hug him from behind. She rested her chin on his shoulder, not awake enough to try and comprehend what they were doing out of bed. “What time is it?”
“Two.” Ender would have been startled when her arms slipped around him, if he hadn’t been expecting it once he heard her footsteps. “It’s fine, just a leaky faucet. Woke me up.” The kitchen sink looked fine, but Ender knew he’d heard something dripping, somewhere. Maybe he should go ahead and shut the water off anyway, just in case. Now that he knew it was a problem, he wasn’t going to be able to sleep while he was still listening for it. Putting it out of his mind and dealing with it in the morning wasn’t going to be an option. Besides, it would be fast, and it wasn’t like they were going to need water running to the kitchen sink before morning, anyway. He’d done it a million times for his grandma, when the old pipes in their apartment had driven their water bills up past what both their paychecks could cover.
He craned his head awkwardly to the side to kiss her cheek, giving her a small, tired smile. “Why don’t you go back to bed? Just gonna shut off the pipes under the sink.” All of them, if he had to, until that dripping sound went away and he could get to sleep again without worrying about it. He didn’t think that it was going to make a big difference in whether or not Melissa could pay her water bill, but old habits died hard. Ender would probably always get up in the middle of the night to take care of any leaky faucets, even though he might never have to worry about whether he’d be able to pay the bill and still eat that month again. Maybe he hated feeling like he was taking advantage of Melissa being okay, financially, but he also knew that she wasn’t going to let anything happen to him, or his grandma, and that it would be insulting to her if he argued.
After they’d been dating a while, more than just clothes and a toothbrush had found their way to Melissa’s place. Ender had started keeping a box of tools under her kitchen sink, just in case she needed minor repairs. He grasped her wrists gently, pulled them up to press a kiss on first one hand, then the other. “If you want a drink, go ahead and get it now.” Otherwise, she’d be out of luck until morning, unless she wanted to get it from the bathroom… and that was if he didn’t shut those pipes off, too, just in case.
Maybe Ender had a little too much of a grudge against leaky faucets.
Two AM. That explained why she felt so exhausted still. At least they would be able to sleep in in the morning, with no pressing engagements that required alarms or getting up early. Depending on how Ender’s current mission to find the leaky faucet went, she would even go so far as to suggest a day in. Pajamas, popcorn, movies, and other indoor activities for the entire day after blissfully sleeping in. Yes, that sounded like the best idea she’d ever had, standing in the middle of her kitchen in the middle of the night while a dripping noise kept them awake. Now that she was alert, she could hear it as well, and it would drive both of them to insanity.
“No, it’s okay, I’ll wait for you.” She smiled at him, nuzzling her nose against the back of his shoulder after he kissed her cheek. She wasn’t ready to let go just yet; the apartment was unusually cold, and he was warm. Normally the thermal shirt and shorts she was wearing were enough to keep her warm with what they set the thermostat at, but she could feel goosebumps rising on her skin from the cool air. The smart thing would have been to go and grab a blanket, or even to listen to Ender and go back to bed under the blankets, but they both knew she was too stubborn to go without him.
“There’s bottled water in the fridge,” But Lady might need water. Reluctantly, she let go of Ender to go in search of the direwolf’s water dish, returning a few moments later with it. There was still a little left in it, but she turned on the faucet to fill it the rest of the way. If Ender was determined to fix whatever was leaking, there wasn’t a guarantee that it would be fixed before she needed more. After setting it back down she went over to the thermostat, her brow furrowing at the numbers. It was set to its normal setting, but the temperature in the apartment was reading fifty, well below what it should have been at. And there was definitely a draft, which, after further investigation, she discovered was an open window.
“Hey, E?” She called out, grasping hold of the window to tug it closed. “Did you leave the window open?”
Ender wasn’t going to argue with her. If she wanted to stay up until he was done, he was just going to enjoy having the company. It wasn’t like shutting off the water to the sinks was going to be an interesting job, or anything. Easy, but not exactly something that took a lot of attention to do. He liked even just listening to her moving around the apartment, doing whatever it was that she’d gone off to do after she filled Lady’s water bowl. Hopefully it involved fixing the thermostat—Ender hadn’t bothered putting on a shirt or jeans once he’d climbed out of bed, so he was kneeling on the kitchen floor poking around under the sink in just his boxers.
Maybe Ender had superpowers, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed being cold any more than the next guy. He was just going to pretend like it didn’t bother him, also like the next guy. He couldn’t remember the apartment getting this cold at night before, but it wasn’t normal for them to wake up in the middle of the night. Maybe it had just started to warm already by the time they got up in the morning, and they didn’t notice because they were curled up sharing body heat under the covers all night. Heating and cooling systems weren’t one of the things he was familiar with enough to guess what exactly the reason it wasn’t working right might have been.
That just meant, he thought with a shiver, he’d have to do this fast. He finally found the valves that controlled the flow of water. Nicer than the ones in their apartment, rusty knobs that he’d needed a wrench for. These had handles, and it looked easy enough to twist by hand. He reached under, twisted the knob for the hot water first, and then over to the cold. When he heard Melissa calling out, he paused, pulled his head out from under the sink to answer her. “I don’t think so. Is it open?” Dumb question. If she was asking about it, that meant it probably was. It was two in the morning, Ender got to ask dumb questions. “I don’t remember opening it for anything.” That didn’t mean he hadn’t, though. Had he cooked that night? Or, more accurately, burned anything that night? He couldn’t exactly remember, which didn’t mean that he hadn’t needed to crack a window to get the smoke out of the apartment. But he’d have opened the window over the sink, wouldn’t he have? That would make more sense… “Which window?”
“The one by the fire escape,” Melissa answered him with a light grunt as she finished shutting the heavy window and locking it. She suddenly felt incredibly uneasy, which motivated her to move back to the kitchen quickly, her arms hugging herself in an attempt to warm up against the brisk air. Now, however, she wasn’t sure if her body was chilled by the cold air, or the fact that her window was open. It wasn’t the one Ender usually came in through--that one was in the bedroom--nor was it warm enough outside that either of them would have been likely to be craving fresh air in the apartment. And while she was sure she was just being paranoid, now the shadowy corners of the apartment seemed more sinister.
“Lady?” She whispered, calling for the direwolf as she settled herself into leaning against the counter by the sink, close enough to Ender to feel a little more comfortable, but giving him enough space to work unhindered. She looked around into the darkness of the rest of the apartment, searching for Lady’s tell-tale white fur that should have stuck out in stark contrast to the black around them. When she didn’t immediately come, Melissa’s brow furrowed, and she tucked her hair behind her ear. She was nervous and fidgeting, even as she attempted to tell herself that she was overreacting.
“Where is she?” She whispered to nobody in particular. Ender had his head under the sink, he wasn’t going to be able to answer, even if it was odd that Lady hadn’t come the second Melissa started to feel uneasy. She wasn’t sure what exactly caused it, but the direwolves all seemed to be linked somehow to their owners, and Lady always knew when Sansa--and therefor Melissa--needed her. She was a gentle creature usually, but very protective. It was unlike her to not have come.
Even worse, she could hear the dripping now, and it clearly wasn’t coming from the kitchen sink. She crouched down and gently put a hand on Ender’s shoulder, trying to see past him into the cupboard. “I don’t think it’s coming from this sink. I can still hear it.”
Since Ender had just finished shutting off the water under the sink, and he could still hear the dripping sound, too, he was positive she was right. “Must be the bathroom sink. I'll go take care of it, too.” They'd sort it out in the morning, because Ender wanted to get back to bed where it was warm. Shutting the window hadn’t taken care of the chill in the air, not completely. It would get better, but it was going to take a while to even out.
The fact that it had been the window by the fire escape worried him, too. Maybe he should have told Melissa to get back to bed again, that it would just take him a second, the thought that the window by an easily accessible way in had been open made him keep his mouth shut. It was probably nothing. They'd probably just opened it for some reason and forgotten to close it. The fact that they hadn't heard Lady growling at anything had to mean that no one was in the apartment that shouldn't be. Lady was better than any alarm system when it came to protecting Melissa, and if she hadn't stirred, nothing was wrong. Still. He waited for Melissa before he headed toward the bathroom.
As far as he could see when he got there, the sink wasn't dripping. The sound was from inside the room, though, which left one option. “It's the shower,” he told her. “Must be something up with the shower head.” If they were lucky, it was just that they'd forgotten to switch the water back to the tub instead of the shower when they were done with it. If it was the actual pipes themselves… Ender had no idea how to turn that off. “I'll check it, but we might have to put up with the sound.”
He reached for the curtain, fingers clenching in it, as he looked over at her to reassure himself that she was still right there.
Even if Ender had told her to go back to bed, by this point Melissa was far too wide awake to even contemplate settling back into sleep without him. Her heart was pounding with an anxiety she couldn’t quite place. She was in her own home, and yeah it was weird the window was open, but it wasn’t like it was impossible that they had left it open. She was in the penthouse apartment, anyway. What kind of person had the stamina to climb all of those stairs on the fire escape? No, there was no reason to be this nervous over a leaky faucet and an open window. And yet, it was there. That nagging feeling that something was off.
She followed behind him closely, barely containing the urge to reach out and take his hand for comfort. It would be stupid to do that, right? It went along with that whole overreacting thing. Of course, Lady still hadn’t made herself known, and she was still sure that that was strange. She was supposed to come whenever she was called and just be there, a staple in Melissa’s life as long as Sansa.
“I’m okay with dealing with the noise if we have to.” And she was, if it meant going back to bed together and hiding under the faux safety of her blankets. Her feeling of unease didn’t get any better when they entered the bathroom. It felt sinister in there, even evil, which was just as ridiculous as her being scared at all because it was her same bathroom, with the same expensive shower curtain, and the whole thing decorated by the designer her father had hired for her. She stepped back when he made a grab for the curtains, cursing when she accidentally knocked the soap dispenser off of the sink so that it smashed on the ground and made her jump, quickly stooping down with a towel in a mad dash to clean up her mess.
Ender heard the soap dispenser crash to the ground and break, but he’d already started tugging the curtain back by then, turning back to look into the shower and see whether it was the shower head dripping, or the faucet in the tub. It wasn’t either of them.
At first, Ender couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even breathe. No. No, this couldn’t be happening, he couldn’t be seeing this. Melissa couldn’t see this. “Melissa, don’t look,” he choked out, knowing it was useless, that she was going to see it. She couldn’t avoid seeing it. “Don’t look, just… call 911.” He should close the curtain. He needed to close the curtain before Melissa could see what was inside.
Lady was hanging from the showerhead, the showerhead itself starting to pull free from the wall with her weight. Whoever had done it had used her collar and leash to suspend her from it. She couldn’t have been there long, or it would have broken--Lady was big, she weighed as much as a human. It wasn’t built to take that much weight. That wasn’t what had… that wasn’t all that had been done to her. Not even the first of the things that had been done to her, he thought, because the fur around her neck was matted with blood. They’d slit her throat. Whoever had done this, they’d slit Lady’s throat, and then her stomach, from her powerful chest all the way down to where her hind legs met her body, her intestines starting to sag from her body. As he watched, another drop of blood trickled from the gash and hit the bottom of the tub with a splat before sliding, slowly, toward the drain.
Ender was choking, blinking back moisture in his eyes and fighting back the sob rising from his chest. “Please, Mel, please don’t look.”
It was almost enough to make him miss the smears of blood on the shower wall, deliberate smears. The message was simple: ‘PEOPLE CAN LICK TOO’. It hadn’t dripped enough to ruin the letters. It wasn’t dried. This had just been done, while they’d been walking around the apartment looking for the source of the drip, and the source of the draft.
At first, Ender’s words didn’t register. Why would they? They seemed so out of place there, in the comfort of their own home, while she cleaned up the broken porcelain mess on the floor. Don’t look? Don’t look at what? She was sure that whatever was wrong with the shower couldn’t be that bad, and if it wasn’t something he could fix she could always hire a plumber. There was a super in the building who did repairs all the time; she was sure he could do it. It wasn’t until his tone sunk in that her head automatically did exactly what he’d told her not to do--she’d looked up, slowly, gaze locking onto the blood only at first.
“I..I don’t have my phone,” She stammered out. It was a stupid statement; she could have gone to get it from where it lay plugged in, charging on her night stand. Instead, she was transfixed, eyes wide and staring as she pulled herself to her feet and moved next to him where the view was complete. There was no way to mistake what she was seeing, not standing right next to the tub where the once-beautiful direwolf was strung up like meat in a butcher shop. She couldn’t take it all in at once, instead focusing on small pieces of the whole puzzle. Lady’s fur, matted with blood in stark contrast with her normal snow-white. The blood dripping in the tub. The wounds. She swallowed, unable to move or look away from the horror in front of her.
When Lady had been executed on Robert Baratheon’s orders, Sansa’s father had carried out the execution in order to guarantee that she had a quick and respectable death. What Melissa was staring at was what the Lannister’s would have done if they’d been granted the right to do it, and it was that thought that made her move, blinking back tears furiously that refused to fall.
“We have to get her down,” She croaked, her voice betraying the steely resolve she was trying to force. Her hands fumbled, reaching for the leash that tethered the body to the shower. She was so determined she didn’t see the message on the wall, unable to look past Sansa’s beloved pet. “She deserves better than this. We have to get her down. We have to…” She swallowed, choking down bile, before looking at Ender with sad eyes. “I can’t get… the knot’s too tight.”
They had more important things to worry about than getting Lady down. There was someone in their home, and this was the part of the horror movie where everyone would be screaming at them to get the hell out, to get out of danger. The voice of common sense in Ender’s head was screaming it, too, even while he was climbing into the tub and wrapping an arm around Lady, holding her side to his bare chest while he used the other hand to fumble with the knot, using his grip to heft her up a little to take the strain off the leash, off the knot, to make it easier to work with. He didn’t think about what he was touching. He didn’t think about the blood smearing on his skin.
It could have taken seconds to get the knot undone, or it could have taken hours. Time seemed to be moving strangely, the only way to measure it by the pounding of his heart against his ribcage and his own ragged breaths, the only thing outside of the knot he was scrambling at with clumsy fingers that registered to him was the sound of Melissa breathing. She was still there, still safe, and the knot was just about…
It gave all at once, the arm he had wrapped around Lady the only reason she didn't fall to the bottom of the tub in a heap. It was still a near thing, and he let go of the leash to wrap his other arm around her, too, the painful sob he'd been holding back escaping as he knelt, going down to the ground with the limp weight of her body. His ducked head was beneath the area of the wall the note was scrawled on, leaving it almost impossible to miss.
He didn’t want to leave Lady there, in the tub, but… where else could they put her? He wasn’t going to move her, not when blood was still draining, sluggishly, from her body. It was the only place, for the moment, the only thing he could do, and later they would… they would…
Melissa was never going to get over this.
Melissa had been staring the entire time Ender was working on getting Lady down. Part of her knew that getting her down wouldn’t change anything; Lady was...dead. There was no possible way that she survived what that killer had done to her. Half of her wasn’t even--she whimpered, finally pulling her hands back from where they’d stayed hovering by the leash even after Ender started working at it. One clasped over her mouth to stifle the offensive sound, shaky and unsteady. She felt like she was going to vomit, but she had to keep herself together. She couldn’t just fall apart uselessly, as tempting as it was becoming to do just that. A few stubborn tears dropped to roll down her cheeks, cheered on by Ender’s own sob that acted like a catalyst for her to release her own emotions.
But it was finally seeing the message on the wall that sent everything crashing painfully down with a terrifying dose of reality that left her feeling dizzy. She’d read it, immediately thinking about laying in her bed with Lady licking her hand--who obviously couldn’t have been Lady since she was already gone by that point. Wasn’t that what had woken up Ender up in the first place? Lady’s blood dripping? Which meant it was the psychotic intruder, the one who had done this, was the one who had licked her. He’d been under their bed while they slept, in the room while she was by herself.
Suddenly feeling dizzy, Melissa’s knees hit the tile floor hard enough that they would likely bruise. She looked at Ender, her eyes wide with terror as it all started to click into place. The open window. Their bedroom. He was in their bedroom. She felt sick. “Oh god. He was--he licked my hand. I thought it was La--” She choked on the words and curled forward on herself, her hands clasped to her chest like she was trying to hold herself in. That’s what it felt like right then, like she was losing a piece of herself, and of Sansa.
Ender didn’t understand what she meant at first. Who’d done what? There was no one in the apartment but them and… and whoever had done this to Lady, that was who Melissa was talking about, whoever had done this to Lady had been closer enough to his girlfriend to lick her hand, which meant he’d been close enough to… to… fuck! He’d been right there under their bed while they’d been sleeping, hadn’t he, right there after he’d killed Melissa’s dog, and why? Why had he done that, what was the point? And if he’d done that, then…
“He’s still here,” he muttered, and then stood and jumped out of the tub, stumbling to avoid running into Melissa. He was still in the apartment, wasn’t he, right there with them and he’d been close enough to put his tongue on Melissa, and he might still be right there under their bed. He raced out of the room, bare feet smearing blood, Lady’s blood, on the floor as he ran. The fucker who had killed Lady might still be under their bed, and Ender was going to kill him, he was going to kill him for hurting her, and for touching Melissa. He was going to kill him for making his girlfriend feel like she wasn’t safe anymore. For making her cry.
He dropped to his knees next to the bed, ignoring the burn of carpet on skin, and ripped up the bedskirt to find…
Nothing. Nobody was there, just a vast empty space. Which meant he was still somewhere in the apartment, and they didn’t know where, and he’d just left Melissa on her own. Cursing, Ender stumbled to his feet, already trying to leave the room. He grabbed her phone off the charger as he went, as an afterthought, letting the cord rip free as he moved instead of pulling it out carefully. “We have to go, we have to… we have to get out.” He didn’t know if Melissa heard him, he didn’t know if she understood, but they had to get out of there. He managed to pull up the screen to dial with unsteady hands and punched in the numbers. When the dispatcher picked up, he barely recognized his own voice as he said, “There’s. Someone’s in my girlfriend’s apartment.”
“Wait! Don’t leave m--!” Melissa started in a panic, but it was too late. Ender was already out of the room, probably out of the range of her voice, and she was alone in the bathroom that was marred by Lady’s blood and broken porcelain. She nervously pushed herself back away from the tub, not quite steady enough to stand just yet, and continued until her back was against the vanity. To her right lay the broken soap dispenser, and she immediately wished they could go back to when that and a possible leaky pipe were their biggest worries.
This wasn’t Westeros. She and Ender weren’t supposed to be worrying about being killed in their sleep, or surrounded by dangers on all sides. Instead, they were being attacked in their own home. The silence surrounding her now felt smothering and ominous, and every creak in other parts of the apartment made her stomach clench in fear. She wasn’t a fighter. Not physically. She and Sansa, they were better with their words, and their strength was in their resolve. This was beyond her.
The creak of a floorboard nearby made her heart kick up, and Melissa went to scramble to her feet, uncharacteristically cursing as the flesh on her palm got torn by a shard of porcelain in her haste. She ignored the pain and the drip of blood sliding down her hand in favor of backing up from the bathroom’s door further into the room towards the one window. It wasn’t easy to get to, and it wasn’t large, but...but nothing. There wasn’t a fire escape or a ledge on the other side of it. It wasn’t a plan at all, but an out if the other option was torture by crazy person. They were on the top floor of the building.
But it was Ender, and the instant relief she felt over seeing him, even a scared and urgent-looking him, made her rush forward to hug him tightly. She didn’t know what the dispatcher on the other end of the call was saying, but she did know she heard more creaking. And this time there was no way it could be Ender.
Ender wrapped the arm that wasn’t holding the phone to the ear around Melissa, tightly, as soon as she pressed against him. The dispatcher was asking questions, questions that Ender could barely understand, not because her voice was unclear, or the phone’s volume was low, but because he couldn’t think. He’d faced down criminals. Delsin had faced down actual superpowered villains. That had been different, though, that had been trouble that they’d sought out. That had been in places that were supposed to be dangerous.
This was home. Melissa’s home, yeah, but practically Ender’s too, as much time as he spent there. This was supposed to be a safe place, a place where no one could get to them, and someone was there. Ender had never been so afraid before in his life. Not for himself. He could take care of himself. Maybe not in his boxers, in nothing but his boxers, but mostly, he could take care of himself. The problem was Melissa. The problem was that he’d already killed Lady, already done something to hurt Melissa that Ender couldn’t fix. That, that was the terrifying part.
The creaking of the floor in the other room made his breath catch in his throat again, his brain even forgetting the process of breathing while he froze, froze and tried to hold still enough that the person in their home wouldn’t hear them. It was too late, though, wasn’t it? It was too late, he’d already heard them. He already knew exactly where they were, and there weren’t any other doors out of the room. The only way out was out there. Out there where he was.
“Hurry.” Ender was whispering, but it was impossibly loud. “You’ve gotta get here, hurry.” He dropped the phone on the counter, not bothering to hang up, and squeezed Melissa one more time before letting go, pulling away from her so that he could press her behind his body. His feet hurt. He must have stepped on shards of the broken soap dispenser that Melissa hadn’t gotten cleaned up, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. All he could worry about was making sure that he was between Melissa and any danger, because Lady wasn’t there to do it anymore.
Melissa felt mildly calmer with Ender in the room, especially with him close enough that she could feel for herself that he was alive and mostly unharmed. At least physically. She was sure that neither of them were going to be anything resembling okay if they made it out of the apartment and away from whoever the hell was in there with them. Whoever it was who had killed Lady, and clearly had similar intentions for them. Whoever had licked her in the bedroom.
Now, they were trapped in the bathroom, as another floorboard creaked out in the hallway, this one closer to them. She could hear the dispatcher saying more in a tinny voice from the discarded phone, even as Ender moved in front of her as a human shield. Her heart was thumping painfully against her ribcage; would they hear the person on the phone? Would they hear her heart? She gripped onto Ender’s arm by his elbow as she stared at the dark doorway and silence encompassed them for what seemed like hours. No creaking, no dripping, just eerie silence.
Which was then broken by a whistle, the type of tune that somebody would associate with a person working and trying to pass the time. Melissa let out a choked sob in fear that she quickly tried to stifle with her hand. “Oh god…” She whispered, trying to pull Ender further back from the door, even though there wasn’t much more space to go.
“Eenie, meenie, miney, mo…” The male sing-song voice rang out, clearly taunting them from just out of sight. “Who is gonna be next to go?”
She didn’t recognize the voice, not that she thought she would, but this only cemented the fear of the unknown, of the faceless crazy man who was now taunting them with their pain and fear. Melissa took in a sharp breath as the whistling started again. Oh god. He was going to kill them. Her brain was screaming at her that they were going to die, and as much as death scared her for herself, she was more scared over the idea of Ender being killed. “We have to go. We have to--” There was a slamming noise, like something being thrown against a wall, and Melissa screamed. She hadn’t meant to; it had come out in reflex, and it wasn’t something that could be taken back now.
He’d known where they were anyway. Ender didn’t have any doubt about that. He’d known exactly where they were, and Melissa screaming? That didn’t put them in any more danger than they’d been before. It had been stupid, hoping that being quiet, being still, would keep them safe. Not when they hadn’t known to be quiet and still, before. He’d probably known exactly where they were the entire time they’d been moving around the apartment, before they’d found Lady.
That didn’t mean that Melissa’s scream didn’t make Ender jump. It broke through the fog that had taken over his head, and he sprang into action, jumping forward to slam the door shut and lock it. It wasn’t going to do much. It wasn’t going to do anything. He’d be able to… he could break through, if he really tried, Ender knew that. He wasn’t stupid. It wasn’t that hard to kick down a door, and even in nice apartments like Melissa’s the inner doors were flimsy. They were meant to be broken, almost.
There were drawers next to the door, drawers that could pull out far enough to cover part of the door. Ender ripped them open, one and then the next, two drawers partially barring the door. It wasn’t enough. It still wasn’t enough. “The shower rod,” he hissed at Melissa. He didn’t know why he bothered whispering their plans. Didn’t know at all. It just didn’t seem right to talk out loud, didn’t seem right to give away any more than they already had. He turned to the next set of drawers, started pulling them off their rollers to stack in front of the door, extra weight to move.
Three sharp raps on the door. “Come out, come out, wherever you are…”
Ender turned, ignoring the mess on the floor even as he slipped and slid in it, reaching up to start helping with getting the shower rod down. If he could just figure out how to brace it, if they could use it to help bar the door shut…
Then what? How much time was it going to save them?
Somehow, the door slamming shut was enough. It wasn’t enough to keep them safe; Melissa wasn’t naive enough to believe that a flimsy interior door was going to keep them from being killed by the intruder, especially since he was an intruder who clearly had incredible patience. Even if they could keep him out, they would eventually need to get out of the room for other things. And when he eventually got tired of waiting them out, there was no telling what he could do. A fire? Oh god, what if he had a gun? That door was definitely not bulletproof. No, the door hadn’t provided them with a fool-proof shield, but it put a barrier between her and her fear, at least enough that she could move into action.
As soon as Ender was pulling out the drawers and asked for the shower rod, she had the bar gripped tightly in her hands and was tugging with all of her might. It was a curved rod, which meant that the ends were drilled in rather than the usual rods that were just pushed against the wall. She cursed under her breath; if they died because she had to have a higher-end shower curtain, she was never going to forgive herself in whatever afterlife there was. The price of vanity shouldn’t have been death.
She jumped, freezing in her mission at the raps on the door before pulling even harder in a panic. As soon as Ender added his strength, the bar ripped from the wall, screws and all, from the one side, which just made the other side easier to get off. “The corner,” She whispered, already pulling the curved bar towards the desired area. If they jammed the one end against the wall, and pressed the curve into the corner so that part of it was in front of the door… It wouldn’t be a permanent fix, much like the drawers, but maybe together. Maybe together they had a shot at buying themselves enough time.
Almost immediately after placing the rod, there was another bang on the door, with enough force that the entire thing vibrated. It was more angry and violent than the other three raps, and she jumped back, taking care to pull Ender with her away from the door. There was nothing else to put in front of the door, which meant they had no choice but to wait.
It wasn’t going to do them any good to hide, if he got past the door. Ender knew that, but he drew Melissa back to the corner of the room furthest away from the door, anyway, sat there and drew her down with him, pulling her into his arms. They’d done all they could do, and it might not be enough. Ender hadn’t charged up enough, had decided that he’d wait for morning and go out when it was less crazy to grab some energy. He could probably manage one burst, maybe two, and then he was out. He wouldn’t be able to heal himself if something went wrong.
He tucked Melissa more tightly in his arms, held her closer and whispered in her ear. The pounding on the door might drown him out. He hoped it drowned him out. “If it looks like he’s going to get in, I’m going to rush him. You get out while I have him distracted.” It was the only way left. The only way that he could save Melissa, if the door gave way. He wasn’t going to have both of them sitting there, just waiting to die.
Another harsh pound on the door, another taunt, and Ender did his best to shield her body with his, to keep her safe and out of sight. He didn’t know if Melissa would agree to it, if she’d let him do that for her, but what could Ender do but try to protect her?
He hadn’t just said that. There was no way that Ender had actually just suggested to her that a viable plan was for him to sacrifice himself so that Melissa could survive. As if not having him in her life anymore was any type of meaningful living. She pushed herself back enough that she could see his face, her eyes welling with angry tears. She was already pushed beyond her breaking point; there wasn’t enough steely resolve in her or Sansa that could keep any kind of emotion in check at the moment. She was not going to lose him. She just wasn’t.
“Don’t you dare,” She hissed at him, swiping angrily at the moisture on her cheeks. “Don’t you dare get yourself killed, do you understand? I need you to be alive.” As if her anger wasn’t pointed enough, she gripped his chin with her good hand to make sure he was looking at her, and rested her forehead against his. “I’m not letting you rush him. It’s not an option. You’re too important to me.”
There was another loud bang that rattled the door, and she whimpered, pulling Ender into a hug as the wood began to crack. At what point did the overwhelming fear devolve into numbness? Because if the psycho man was about to burst in to kill them both, she wished for nothing short of numbness for both of them. Taking a deep breath, she let go in favor of holding his hand as she arched her body to face the door.
“If he kills us,” She whispered, her voice cracking as though it were impossible for her to get the words out. “I want you to know that I really, really love you.”
Ender squeezed her fingers as tightly as he could without hurting her, still thinking that maybe he should charge the door, no matter what she said. She’d be mad, but she’d be alive to be mad, and that was more important to him… but him being alive was more important to her, so he stayed still, as pale as his skin could get, fingers twined with hers. Maybe they still had a chance, maybe… but the crack in the wood was getting lighter, and he turned to face the door, too. At least he wasn’t going to die with his back turned.
“I really, really love you, too.” Ender loved her so much, the way that everyone seemed to think love and wanting to be with someone should work. He hadn’t known it actually worked that way, hadn’t grown up around happy couples or guys that stayed and did the right thing. At least if he was dying, he’d gotten to have that, first.
The thuds against the door were louder, harder, each one followed by the sound of splintering wood. If he was going to break through, Ender almost wished that he’d done it fast. No time to think about what they could have done differently, or better, how they might have been able to get out if they’d just tried something else, if they hadn’t let themselves get cornered in the bathroom.
This was going to break his grandma’s heart.
The door could only last so long. Ender tried not to wince away when it finally broke completely, shattering inward with a crunch.
Melissa nodded at him, offering a small smile through the steady stream of tears. She knew. How could she not know? He’d just offered to rush a murderous mad man to give her a chance to get away. In Sansa’s world, a knight like that who gallantly saved his love would be revered with high honor, and it was that kind of love that Sansa had craved than anything when she was a young and naive girl. In their world, the reality was that that just meant that one person was dead, and the other was left to shoulder the horror of a world without them. She didn’t want that. She naively still wanted them both to live.
Melissa shielded her eyes in Ender’s shoulder as the door splintered and burst inward. The sound of the wood cracking made her release a breath she’d been holding, a final sigh of acceptance. The door wasn’t holding anymore. There was no way out of the bathroom. They were going to die, but they would die together, which in a way was better than only one of them surviving. Maybe if she concentrated on Ender it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe it would be a quick death.
There was a delay between the door bursting in on itself and the shouted commands permeating the fog that was her mind, and then it immediately felt like everything was in double time. Instead of a crazy man with a weapon, several police officers flooded into the bathroom with their guns drawn, commanding them to put their hands in the air. Once they complied, and once it became obvious that they weren’t the intruders, the police lowered their weapons and began talking amongst themselves, sending somebody out to get a medical team in there.
“Where’s…?” She whispered, looking at Ender in shock. She wasn’t sure the extent of horror she’d expected when the door broke, but being saved by the police wasn’t even on the list. She’d been sure they were going to die.
When was the question that Ender wanted to ask. When had the man who’d killed Lady disappeared, when had the police replaced him as the ones trying to burst through the door. “He… he must have heard sirens, or something. He must have run.” How long had they been huddled in the bathroom? Time moved strangely, when you were waiting to die, he guessed. He reached for Melissa’s hand again, since the police were satisfied that the two of them, Melissa in just shorts and a shirt and Ender almost completely naked, weren’t hiding a weapon somewhere.
The police were looking over Lady’s body. He could hear more people moving, talking, somewhere else in the apartment. Looking for how he’d gotten out, maybe, or any traces left of the psycho who’d terrorized them. It wasn’t over. Ender knew it wasn’t over, but they were alive, and for the moment at least they were safe. For some reason, that safety felt even more surreal than the danger had. Part of him couldn’t believe that they weren’t still cowering, waiting for the man outside the door to come kill them. Adrenaline, he guessed, adrenaline that wasn’t quite ready to let go in case they needed to run, or fight, again. His fast healing had already kicked in, pushing the shards of the broken soap dispenser out of his feet, healing the punctures they left until the only sign that he’d been hurt at all was the blood. Except that wasn’t a sign of it at all. The soles had been covered in Lady’s, first.
No matter how close they were to actually safe, the body in the bathtub was there as a reminder that they weren’t, not really. Lady was still gone, Lady would always be gone, and there was nothing that Ender or Melissa could do to bring her back. He hadn’t looked much into Melissa’s source, she hadn’t wanted him to, but he knew that Lady could never be replaced with another pet. The police were talking, like they couldn’t hear them, about how the scene was compromised.
When someone next approached them, it wasn’t part of the team of police that had first busted into the room. A new arrival, maybe, or someone who’d been waiting outside. She crouched down by where they were sitting, waited for them to make eye contact. “I’m Detective Tafoya. I’m going to need to ask the two of you a few questions.” She looked at their joined hands, added, “I can talk to the two of you together.” The ‘for now’ wasn’t said out loud, but it was implied.
That was fine. As long as Ender didn’t have to let go of Melissa, or let her out of his sight any time soon, it was fine.