#twtoliver

No, Central City was not, by far, scarier than Gotham under the thick veil of the night. 

On the contrary -- it was far more lively. Instead of the streets whispering coquettish lies, drawing her in with promises of all that can make her beautiful and happy only to deliver despair and distraught, Central City opened its arms quietly, welcomed her with no promises, but with mere sights that spoke to her in small tones, leading the way to what she sought. 

Tonight, although no different at the start, Central City began transforming monstrously into something like Gotham, the further south she walked. The people were becoming scarce, the buildings that so spoke to her were suddenly silent, the brightness of the city dimming and fading behind her as every step she took lead her further and further into a part of the city she'd never seen before -- a part of the city that made her skin crawl, throat close, stomach churn. But the fear that began curling at her toes and begged her skin to quiver was swallowed down by pure resolve and determination: she had a destination to arrive to, and Iris West was no flake. 

Earlier in the day, when the sun was still up and the city still friendly, Iris had received a cryptic message in her inbox -- unsurprisingly, for all Iris ever receives in her inbox are cryptic messages, from multiple sources attempting to conceal their identity and cleverly trying to set up meeting times and places. Iris knows which messages to fish out; silly teenagers trying to get back at an enemy (or even a friend, sometimes), mentally unstable men swearing on their dead mother's graves about conspiracy theories from the White House -- Iris rarely ever trusted new sources,  because more often than not, they proved to be useless, and she had enough connections as it was: all around the world, one man or one woman for everything she needed, every story she sniffed out, every lead she followed; she was resourceful, and she had her father to thank for that. It was something, she knew, Lois liked about her: and Iris, always one to help find the truth (and not the extensive theories Lois Lane liked to come up with most of the time), was happy to direct her to her sources.

But this message; this one was different. It was from an ongoing -- and new, of all things, new -- source, one that had discovered Iris's off the book investigation and jumped in: I'll help, they'd said at first, and nothing else. It took little to peak Iris's intrigue, if done the right way, so she'd responded -- with what? The source replied with nothing but a blank message, and several file attachments, which, upon inspection, Iris realized were blueprints. Not -- not entire blueprints, but bits and pieces of some, almost as if they'd been torn apart and recovered by someone who'd been in the presence of said event. They made little sense to Iris, but one thing did manage to catch her eye, if nothing else--

In one devastatingly wrinkled corner, where the scanner had obviously drawn a too-sharp line, in small, capitalized letters, it read: © EOBARD THAWNE.

And wasn't that just what she needed.

The backstory of it was this: Iris's skin had always crawled at the thought and presence of Eobard Thawne. Though the man was much older than her, and proved to be much less wiser in some instances, his romantic advances towards her were -- well, bold, to say the least and to put it mildly. There had been times, in fact, where Iris had snapped on live television, as Eobard attempted to subtly place his hand atop Iris's own, or even, if he was feeling especially perverted, on her thigh. Whereas with other men, refusing advances was simple to Iris (one long-winded speech about sexism from her and they were usually very much over her and stepped back for good), with Eobard, it was almost impossible. No matter how hard she'd try, Eobard would always whisper to her that she was special, that he could show her so much more, if she'd only let him.

Others would simply believe Eobard was having delusions of grandeur, or that he was simply a very colorful man, with age rotting away his brain. Iris, however, knew better -- she trusted nothing if not her gut, and every offhand comment made to her by Eobard was always hiding a double entendre, whether or not anyone else decided to see it. So, as usual, Iris gave into her prying nature, and began looking further into Thawne's past, which was -- well, it was brief, to say the least. Almost as if a part of his life had seized to exist: like he jumped a few years into the future, disappeared, left nothing behind in the wake. It wasn't normal -- no matter how much digging Iris did (contacted the best of the best, because she knew the best of the best, then contacted the better of the best), only one thing about Eobard Thawne was certain: he was hiding something, and whatever it was, he was hiding it well.

So the e-mail she'd received had been a blessing in disguise; before that, all she'd been able to receive were coordinates, which, when placed on a map, lead to nowhere other than the ocean, no speck of what could be land to be seen. Perhaps they'd been wrong, she thought, but before she could send the coordinates off to the one man in Japan that could figure it out, the e-mail came in, and she'd forgotten all about them. And this started a ripple: every week, she'd receive more intel, ranging from small, unintelligible messages ("Over twenty years ago") to larger attachment of files, usually more parts of the ripped blue prints -- that were somehow -- they almost looked like--

And she couldn't put her finger on it, not without a shiver running through her spine. Because it could be anything, really: but then the latest message came, and her mystery source decided it was finally time they met in person: it was finally time she heard the whole story, because time was running out.

Which is what lead her to where she was now: the darkest part of Central City, if she'd been following the directions to a tee, now in the middle of an alleyway, smelling of dead rats and cat piss, the only sound the dripping of water somewhere behind her, unnoticeable to her eyes. She cleared her throat, forced her heart to stop racing (it was so very loud, in the quiet of the alleyway, in the silence of the night). "Hello?" She called out, swallowing thickly and fiddling with a small pocket knife in her back pocket (gifted to her by her brother, who said he hoped she'd never have to use it -- and she hoped so, too). "TimeLeft?" Her voice was quiet, but sounded loud and foreign out in the open as she called her mystery source out by his electronic screen name. "Iris West."

"Yes." The word was drawn out, the voice icy and thin from somewhere in front of her -- she first saw the man's eyes, an icy blue stare, before she noticed the smirk as he stepped into Iris's view, body thin but swift. "I wasn't sure if you'd come." A snake. That's what Iris was reminded of. The man spoke like a snake would -- drawing out every possibly syllable, voice taunting and condescending, turning her blood into ice, skin into stone. 

"I'm here," she forced her voice steady, begged her pounding heart to quiet. She took an unnoticeable step back, hand still stroking the pocket knife. "Say what you need to say and let's get it over with."

"But where, my dame, is the fun in that?" The man hissed with glee that was fearful, almost damned, almost--evil, if Iris could go so far with an adjective. Pure, unadulterated evil. "We have all the time in the world."

Her breath hitched -- not at his words, for they held no meaning to Iris, but at the sudden sight of more men reaching from the shadows. Just as lithe as the first one, just as cunning, with identical smirks etched upon their lips and the same icy, cold gaze. Almost -- almost identical, if it weren't for the defining color of their hair, they could be twins, triplets -- there were four more, quintuplets. 

And Iris wasn't dense -- she knew exactly what was happening now. This was a set-up if she'd ever seen one, and one that wouldn't end with laughing teenagers or interned mentally unstable men: there was only one outcome to this, and Iris wasn't walking out of it -- not alive, anyway.

Her one thought, ironically enough, was how angry she was she wouldn't be able to report her own death.

She drew the small pocket knife swiftly, sure it would do little to stop them, but acting on instinct anyway. "I suggest you stay back," she spat, feigning bravery in the midst of pure fear. "I'm not below stabbing multiple times."

The five men laughed -- identically -- icing Iris to the core, locking her feet to the their place on the ground, and before they came nearer, they spoke to one another as if Iris was no longer in their presence, no longer a threat to their existence (which, if she was being honest with herself, she never was). "He said not to hurt her too much -- just scare her enough so that she backs off," the man she'd seen first hummed with mirth. To his left, the other man's eyes shone with amusement. 

"We're not going to listen to him, are we?" he hissed, drawing closer and closer to Iris, enclosing her against the alleyway's cold, brick wall. "She's already seen too much."

"Of course not," the man to the far right spat. "But she should know why she's dying."

And she closed her eyes, and she didn't dare breathe -- they asked her, then, if she wasn't going to scream as she felt one hand take the knife from her own and another hand stroke her hair, softly and disgustingly. She didn't grant them an answer -- if she was going to die, tonight, she was going to die with dignity. She wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of hearing her scream, or writhe, or struggle. Iris West wasn't going to let them have fun with this; she was going down the way she'd always lived: knowing the truth, and standing still with it.