#web!sasha

“I’m heading out,” Martin….

No… Not Martin. She had to remind herself sometimes. She could only just remember him. A large man with a round face and kind eyes. The web inside her trapped the thoughts that the stranger tried to tug out of reality. She was determined to remember Martin. No one else would.

The stranger was thin and pointed and left briskly. He didn’t stay late. He didn’t make tea. He had a confident air and was unconcerned about everything.

She went to Jon’s office. Jon was worse than he had ever been. He knew there was something wrong, but couldn’t name it or know it. The spiders whispered and explained to her why that was so difficult for him. Why it would make things easier for her in the long run.

Controlling her co-workers for a greater plot, well… maybe it was evil. Maybe she was a monster, but she could make things easier for them. Kinder.

“Jon?” She asked softly.

He fumbled with his tape recorder quickly clicking it off.

“Sorry, yes, I was just… finishing up. Did you need something, Sasha?”

“I need you to go home Jon,” She said. “You slept here last night.”

He jolted. “How do you know that?”

“You’re in the same clothes as yesterday.” She pointed calmly at his rumpled shirt.

“I--I was working late.”

“And you need to leave Tim alone.”

“Tim?”

“He’s not doing well after what happened.”

“He’s been angry…”

“He’s been hurting,” Sasha corrected. “And he doesn’t know how to deal with what happened.”

Jon looked caught out. “Well… I don’t have any answers for him.”

“Jon, you don’t need to have answers.”

He looked at her sharply. “That-- yes I do. Yes I do. That’s why--I need to know. I found something. A letter in the rubbish bin--”

“Jon,” Sasha interrupted. “How can I prove to you we won’t hurt you?”

“I--I don’t think that you’ll--”

“I know you think one of us murdered Gertrude. Jon, I’m not going to ask you to trust me. I know that’s hard for you right now, but let me help you.”

“What were you doing when she was murdered?” His voice went low and… there was something behind it. Like a thread tugging her towards the web. But it wasn’t spiders on his tongue.

“I haven’t the foggiest. But if it helps I’ll find out.”

Jon’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry,” He mumbled. “I just… I can’t.”

“Here, I brought you some tea. Drink that and then go home. You’re exhausted.”

Jon gazed at the cup frustration welling. A memory. Maybe he could almost remember Martin.

“It would be Martin,” He had said to her.

-

He held an axe in his hands standing in front of the table.

“Jon!” She yelled. He gave her a vicious look and tried to bring the axe down. With no other choice she reached out and caught his wrist in a string. Jon shook. He was terrified now.

“You’re one of them.” He said. “You’re a… a spider. Just like--”

“I’m not going to hurt you Jon,” Sasha said. “I’m trying to save you. If you break that table you’ll release what’s holding that thing back.”

“It--it took Martin!” Jon shouted. “And you knew. You hid it.”

“I didn’t want you putting yourself in danger, Jon. I’m not your enemy.”

“You’re a monster.”

She winced. Takes one to know one probably wouldn’t be the best strategy in this case.

“I heard the tapes. He… I don’t remember him. I don’t recognise him. He sounded...so lost and I hated him. Why would I hate him?”

There were angry tears in his eyes.

“I don’t think you did,” Sasha said softly.

“He lied on his CV.” Jon went on. “I went to see his mother, about some lie he had written her about. She hadn’t seen him since… since Prentiss. She laughed and asked if we finally found out he was scamming us. I--it always drove me crazy his Latin translations. He didn’t seem to know how to format things properly, but he had never known, he was just trying to get by with a sick mother and I disliked him because I thought he should know better--and I don’t even remember him. Just… just the impression on a few cassette tapes.” He was babbling now. His arms were still strung up by her web holding up the axe.

“How long?” he asked suddenly.

“How long?”

“How long have you been one of them?”

Sasha sighed. “Since Prentiss.”

“How many people did we lose that day?” His voice broke a little. “Is Tim--?”

“Tim’s human. Just… angry and a bit broken. Jon, if I let you go will you put the axe down?”

“Is it yours? Did you bring it here so that it would--”

“No,” She shook her head. “I didn’t… we didn’t bring it here, and if you break it then the thing pretending to be Martin will be free to kill us all. Right now it’s trapped, tethered.”

“How can I trust you?”

“I’m still me, Jon.”

“Have you used your powers on me before?”

“Not until now. Will you let go of the axe, Jon?”

He nodded.

She let the threads fall.

He slammed the axe down hard on the table.

-

“Damn it.” The person living in the tunnels had somehow cut her off. NotMartin was trapped, but she was separated from Jon. “Hey, help me out,” She called to the spiders that had claimed the tunnels as their own. The spiders skittered to her and then proceeded down the tunnel in droves. She followed them. Her senses were messed up in the tunnels. There was no controlling the buried in its own domain.

She finally found the trapdoor back to the archives and lifted herself out. She heard metal hitting flesh coming from Jon’s office and ran to it. She was sure NotMartin had been trapped but--

Elias stood over the ruined body of a man holding a pipe. He was covered in blood.

“Ah,” he breathed heavily. “Sasha. Good. We should chat.” He threw the pipe aside and moved past her. “Quickly now, Jon’s going to come back any moment.”

“You--” Elias… had…

“The Mother of Puppets and I have an understanding. If you don’t want to break that understanding follow me to my office, now.”

She felt her own webs tugging. The Mother’s guidance. Damn. Damn it!

She followed Elias into his office. He threw his bloodied coat to the side. “Well, that could have gone better.”

“What are you? I thought…”

“The Web is very good about moving the players on the board. The Eye is good at knowing who the players are.” Elias said. “I know you’re here to make sure things continue on schedule. I don’t have a problem with that, but it will be hard to convince Jon of your loyalties knowing what you are now. He has a thing about spiders.”

“What’s Jon going to think when he sees that body in his office?” Sasha asked coldly.

“He’ll run. He’ll know it was me and think I want to kill him.”

“Won’t the police suspect him?”

“I’m not worried,” Elias shrugged. “Jon needs to go learn some lessons. We can keep the police at bay for a little while I’m sure. I know you’re going to help me Sasha, so I won’t ask.”

“I’m going to help my friends,” Sasha corrected. She felt it. Hate curling in her stomache because he must know he had to know about everything that had happened. He could have protected them from Prentiss properly. He could have saved Martin. He could have saved her. He had just watched.

“Control is the Web’s expertise. Not mine.” He plucked the thought from her head. “If the Distortion doesn’t keep him, Tim will be back soon. He’ll probably need some help.”

“That’s it?”

“Now we both know where we stand with one another. I think that’s enough for one evening. I need to--”

“Destroy evidence?”

“You’d be helpful in that, but I won’t ask you to do it.”

“Good.”

Sasha turned and walked out of the office. She went back downstairs to the archives just in time for Tim to burst through a door that had never been in the archives before. He panted looking behind him, terrified.

“No, no, Helen!?” He called out.

“Tim?”

“Sasha! Sasha we need to get out of here now, that--that Michael. It--oh… oh god.” He looked in through the open door of Jon’s office, seeing the corpse.

“He--I didn’t think… I thought he was getting better.” He stumbled over his words.

She hated getting tangled in someone else’s web. Elias had been setting things up for a long time though. She took Tim upstairs to the breakroom and called the police.

She was going to have a hard time convincing Jon to trust her. Right now she just needed to keep everyone left together.

oh gosh it’s so blurry.