The fabric was pushed over her shoulders, a hand around her waist lifted her up, before the dress was swiftly pulled off.

She wondered how hard it was, to undress a tied up stranger. How often one had to do it, to become efficient at it.

She wondered, if it was the first time she'd tasted Frankie's blood on her lips.

She wondered, if she grieved him. 

"She's dissociating."

Her hands were wrestled onto her back again, wrists zip tied again. Had she been free in between?

She didn't think it mattered.

"Good. Hold her down." 

Somebody approached her, twisted her arm slightly. 

Cold steel broke through her skin. Dany gasped. "Shhh," a voice hissed, as a hand pressed onto her shoulder. "Shhh, we're not hurting you, just drawing a little blood." 

Wasn't there enough blood already? Not hers, she figured. Hers was more important, somehow. Better than Frankie's.

She felt the blood leave her body, watched it run into a clear bottle. It filled up fast.

Dany was dizzy.

The needle was pulled out. "Good girl," someone whispered, and petted her cheek. "All ours, already, aren't you?"

They turned around, left, vanished. There was no plaster being put on the wound. Strange.

"Where's the decoy?"

Dany blinked. Long golden hair caught the light outside the van. Hair just like hers. Hers, before it had become stained with her ex' blood. She wondered if it'd ever be clean again.

The hair belonged to a woman, tall and lean, who stood outside the van. She was naked. Then again, so was Dany. 

The woman stared at her. Restrained panic spoke from from wide blue eyes. She wasn't a mirror. Dany's own eyes were light brown. Brown and empty.

There were more differences, on second glance. The woman's skin was lighter than Dany's. No freckles. Instead - scars. Over and over. On her breasts, her stomach, her thighs. Most were older, fading. Some weren't. 

On the woman's wrist, stark black against pale skin, was a bar code.

Dany's stomach turned.

"No," she breathed. "No no no no."

"Well, Ms Hammond is back," the masked man next to her stated. "Don't worry, sweetheart. It'll pass."

Dany tugged at her restraints. "You can't do this," she begged. "They'll know, my Dad will know, he'll fucking obliterate you."

"That's why we make sure he won't know," the man replied. 

"Don't do this to her. Don't to this to me. I have money, whatever they pay you, I can match it. Please."

The woman - pet - no, woman, held something in front of her. Short, white, spattered with red. Dany's dress. The woman swallowed. "Sir?"

"Put it on."

The pet didn't hesitate. The dress fit her perfectly.

Dany twisted to her side to get up, her bound feet scratching over the slick floor of the van uselessly, unable to find any footing.

"Tsk. I thought you were a clever one." All it took was a boot on her shoulder to pin her down. "No need to fight, Danielle. Your life is over."

"No," she yelled, tears springing to her eyes. "No. Run. Run, pet, please."

The pet just tilted her head. 

"Don't listen to her," the man said mildly. "She's a pet, too."

"Run! They'll kill you!"

The pet remained silent, just tugged at the hem of the bloody dress.

Dany kicked at the man with her bound feet. Missed, by far.

With a sigh, he reached down and easily lifted her up, pressing her close to his body, as he stepped out of the van and into the garage. "In your line of work, princess," he mumbled into her ear. "I thought you'd have known. Death can actually be a mercy."

He pressed her elbow down, before she could jerk it into his face. "If not, you'll learn soon enough."

"No," she sobbed. 

"Pets don't say that," he whispered. "But that's a lesson for another day. For today, your lesson is way simpler."

He stopped in front of a SUV. Hydraulics hissed, when the trunk opened, laid out with plastic.

"Good girl," a voice echoed, from back at the van. "Camera on. Now. Turn around, and run for the exit. You've practiced this, haven't you? Seen the videos of her? You'll do so good. Run, just like she would."

"No," Dany's voice broke. 

The man's hand curled up into her hair and slammed her head into the edge of the trunk. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Her vision swam with tears.

A shot rang through the garage. Then another, a third.

Dany couldn't breathe.

"You don't get away from WRU," the man said softly. "That's your lesson, princess. Safe ride."

The hood slammed shut over her, plunged her in darkness, cut her off from the outside world. Left her alone, with her pain, with the taste of blood on her lips - and with the dawning realisation, that behind them, on the concrete floor of a parking garage, Danielle Hammond had just died.

---

[Next]

---

Angel tag list:

yeah. for almost three hours, him + his wife.

Luna gaped at the screen. He’s married?

that’s what he called her. Liam stalled for a moment, then: 2 kids too, they’re in the photos. just an fyi.

Luna’s heart almost stopped. A wife? Two young kids? What in the hell had Jacks been up to for the last thirteen years?

Getting busy, apparently.

Liam James sent her the link to the published newspaper article, then one for a private cloud folder of all the photographs he took the day of the interview. Nearly eighty still and candid shots of a gallery opening and the artist at the center of it; a young couple with two small children in their arms. Luna went cross-eyed trying to commit to memory each and every detail. 

Hair fell into her eyes from her sloppy top know. She rolled a chewed-up lollipop stick in her mouth. Picture after picture. A young man in front of simplistic charcoal and watercolor pieces, a plaid button up with rumpled sleeves rolled to the elbow, a soft smile on his lips only in the presence of a delicate looking young woman with a baby in her arms.

Luna sniffed and rubbed her eyes. She pulled up a photo of her Cesar from the previous Christmas to compare. The nose was the same. The curve of his jaw resembled Cesar, looked like their father in childhood photos. His smile had the same smug sarcastic edge to it that she remembered -- the very smiled Jacks had always flashed her before he did something bad.

She returned to the chat. What is he going by?

the name?

Yeah.

emmett kerr; he kind of showed up out of nowhere, married in. wife’s family has been local since the 30s, dust bowl people or something. he said Pittsburgh but who really knows.

Luna rolled the name around in her head, then her mouth. Emmett. Emmett Kerr. It didn’t sound right, not while she was still set on Jackson, Jacks, Jay. It wasn’t the right name. She didn’t know how he had come up with it. It wasn’t close to anything he had ever called himself or anyone they had ever known.

Luna realized with a blink that she wouldn’t know all that much about Jackson at this point. It had been nearl a decade and a half. Brother or no, he would be a total stranger to her. She would be a total stranger in his life.

Her heart sunk. Hey Liam?

yeah?

Is the gallery show still going? The article is from February.

I think it goes to the end of April.

Cool. Thank you

do you wanna meet him? i could set up a meeting or something if you like.

Luna bit her lip. She did but she didn’t. She wanted to see him, to hear his voice, see him take up space in a room. That’s the only way she’d know for sure if it was Jacks. That felt too close, too dangerous, running to close to an edge she had imagined all on her own.

She quickly typed back: I’m going to say no. I just want to see the art. He never drew when he were kids, if it is him I mean.

what did he do?

Soccer and skateboarding. Luna rubbed her eyes again. Damn dust on the photo frames was getting to her. Hey, thanks for all this. I know its weird but I’ve never felt so sure.

Liam took his time responding. As tired as she was, Luna wanted to end this the right way. He could help her later. His last message was longer than she expected it to be. More heartfelt than she had wanted, perhaps.

Hey, I know it isn’t my place and I might be getting too personal here, but I know the feeling. I’ve seen people go through the same thing. My brother went missing when I was really young. I hardly remembered him, but my parents never gave up. It took years but we found him and, when we did, he didn’t remember us. We’re close now but it wasn’t like that in the beginning. Just remember this is a guess, a really hopeful one, but be prepared for anything. As long as you’ve been waiting to see him again, be sure to protect yourself too Luna.

Luna smiled. It was too personal for her liking, but it made sense. WHy he was bending over backwards to try and help her. I will, Liam. Thank you. If I’m ever in time, we should get lunch.

~*~*~ She wasn’t expecting him to be there. Luna didn’t know much about art galleries and how they worked but she hadn’t thought the artist would be there, sitting around to greet visitors. Waiting around for someone to walk in, someone just like her.

Or maybe that was just him.

He had Jacks’ smile. “Afternoon. Welcome. I’m Emmett Kerr.”

Her hand quaked as she shook his. “It’s nice to meet you. I love your work.”

“You’re kind to say so,” he replied, smooth and warm and kind, if not a little shy. Kind and shy weren’t words she would have every applied to her brother. Smooth, yes; warm and inviting, sure when he wanted to. But shy? She let herself wonder what had happened to him. “Just looking or..?”

“Just looking,” Luna answered, suddenly feeling unsure. 

She hadn’t told Andrew where she was going that weekend. At least not the truth. She had claimed to be meeting up with a few cousins for a girl’s weekend and would be back late Sunday. A knot forming in her stomach told her she wouldn’t confess it to him come Monday morning. The look he had given her when she showed him the photos read as tired, irritated, a little disappointed. He had thought she had gotten over it, the some stranger had gotten her hopes up without merit.

She wouldn’t tell him. She wouldn’t tell Cesar either. He had stopped caring years ago. He would only be snide and unforgiving now. Luna was alone.

“Well let me know if you have any questions or want to know more about any particular piece. I’ll be right here.” With that hauntingly familiar smile, Emmett Kerr sat back down and reached for an open sketchbook.

Luna returned the smile, heart clenching painfully in her chest. “I’ll let you know. Thank you.”

She didn’t want to walk away just yet, but she knew she was supposed to. She had a front to hold up. A chat with Emmett Kerr hadn’t been part of the plan. The art had been all she was there for, or at least that’s what she told herself. Whether it was true or she believed it in her core was another matter entirely.

She stared at the very first piece, positioned nearest to the door. She began working her way around the perimeter of the small gallery, becoming more invested in the hanging works with each passing second. Three in, she found herself inspecting each carefully placed line and smudge, each wash of water color and ink as if she could find something hidden underneath. As if she could find traces, faint glimmers of herself within them.

She knew she might over reach. His style was so clean and simple, the mind had ample room to wander. Each image was a gesture at something -- a feeling, a moment, a person. The torsos of ancient marble statues, headless and marked up and dripping green. The soft form of a sleeping woman, her hair a dark elegant curve across creamy white. That same woman in profile, in a sunset wash, holding flowers, one child, then two. A suite of hands in all manner of positions, small images set in. aline like their owners were sat at a diner counter.

Luna caught herself reaching out at several. She realized her instinct quick and tucked her hand into her jacket pocket to keep them still. One looked like their mother, another like a younger Cesar, another could have been her.

She shook her head.

They couldn’t be. She couldn’t pretend that, couldn’t lead herself into that most dangerous pursuit. They were just him, his wife, other people who had filled his life now that she wasn’t in it.

Not her. Not the family. Nothing recognizable.

Liam James’ words appeared again in his head. Be sure to take care of yourself.

Luna sighed and turned to the other wall. She would move through the last pieces quicker. She had to leave. This whole endeavor, the whole hare-brained trip was a mistake. An irrational fancy that she should have known would only hurt her in the end. She didn’t know what she had been expecting from this, what had compelled her to come here. Whatever it was, it would crush her before lunchtime. She had to leave.

“How’re you making out?” The man appeared at her side, startling her. He was still wearing Jackson’s smile. His eyes still show no recognition, no glimmer of acknowledgement that he knew who Luna was.

She tucked a stray curl behind her ear and offered him a frail smile. “Just fine. They have so much depth, you know?”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” Emmett Kerr chuckled, shoving his hands into his front jeans pockets. He gestured to the very next piece -- a four-square suite of hands, clearly his own, littered with streaking ink like paper cuts and bruises. “See this one?”

“Yes.”

“Guess what it’s inspired by.”

Luna stared at him. Her heart was doing flips over and over on itself. Her whole body tingled with elation, conviction, the deep-seeded knowledge that they had talked like this before, stood like this before, smiled at one another. Just like that, so many times before.

She shook herself from the grips of her fantastical hope. She looked closer at it and tried her best. “I... I get anger. Like someone punched through a wall or a plate glass window.”

Emmett Kerr nodded, then smiled. “I wish. I cut my hands up changing tire on the way home from a funeral.”

“You’re kidding.” Luna giggled. He nodded and she laughed more. “But, but it looks so, so.  I don’t know!”

“It looks deep, doesn’t it?” Emmett supplied. He turned a finger in a circle in the air and ran a hand up the back of his neck. “They all look deep, especially if you walk into it expecting that. All of these are really very simple. My wife, my sons, friends, et cetera, but people look at them and want more so they find it. And I let them. Makes less work for me, you know?”

“People see what they want to,” Luna said with a twist in her heart. Her brain voicing the buried truth and spreading the pain around. 

“I just realized I didn’t catch your name.”

“Luna.”

“What do you want to see there, Luna?”

“You really want to know?”

Emmett inhaled, interest all over his features. He was handsome, a bit of soft scruff on his cheeks and jaw, all filled out in a way that looked right on him. He wasn’t the scraggily, lanky teenager she remembered. “Humor me. I like hearing what people think. I ask people a lot.”

“Alright...” She turned and pointed to a piece further back on the wall. It was the shape of a man, hands behind his back, his head tilted up, and washed in a brilliant orange. She walked towards it, hearing his footsteps follow behind her in short order. She stared up at it, feeling her resolve unraveling. “I see my brother in this one, when he was eighteen. Over-confident, kind of a prick, but he always had a way of spinning it so you couldn’t help but love him. He did stupid things, got in trouble, but was only apologetic once.”

Emmett was watching her intently, curiously. “Why that one?”

“The color,” Luna answered simply, reaching for her phone. She opened it and flipped through to a specific folder of old photographs. Jackson’s seventeen year old face beamed up at her, bathed in the vivid pinks and corals of sunset, Miami beach stretched out behind him. She turned the screen to him. “This is my favorite photo of him.”

“I see...” Emmett took the phone from her hand, holding it up so he could look at the screen and the art at the same time. He expression sobered as he examined them, his head tilting one way then the other. 

Luna’s heart leaped in her chest. She watched him, searching his face, hoping to find even the slightest glimmer in his eyes. Maybe this was the moment he remembered, the moment he knew. Maybe she could watch it come over him, see the moment the switch flipped and he knew her again. Luna felt as if she was standing on her toes, waiting to fall head first off a diving board. 

She couldn’t help herself. “He went missing a long time ago.”

Emmett glanced sidelong at her, eyebrows raised.

“He ran away from home, after a fight. We tried to find him but he’s... he stayed gone,” Luna didn’t know where her heart was headed and prayed her brain might catch up. “His name was Jackson and he was almost nineteen when he left. I don’t know what happened to him, where he went, what he’s doing now. I always wanted to see him again. He’d, um... He’d be about your age.”

Emmett blinked, his face draining. He didn’t speak.

Luna held her tongue, just long enough for the floor to fall away under her. She had stepped off the diving board, eyes closed; her body in true free fall when the next words left her lips. “You look just like him.”

“I don’t.” His voice was flat, a small quiver underneath. He held her phone out back to her, a full arms length from her. She took it, clinging white knuckled to it. “I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Luna said quickly. She stepped forward, unable to help herself. Emmett rushed to back away, nearly stumbling over his own shoes. “It’s been forever, all of it’s forgiven. You can come home now, Jacks. We want you h-.”

“I’m not your brother.”

“But you, you are.”

Emmett shook his head. He took another three steps back, putting at least ten feet between the two of them. “I’m not. I’m not your brother. I don’t know where you got that idea, but you’re mistaken.”

“I’m not!”

“You are. You are, you are, Luna. I was in foster care my whole life and I’ve been on my own since I was eighteen.” He spoke in a rush, all the words leaving him as fast as they possibly could. On the outside, he was a stone. Every word betrayed his shock. “I don’t know any family besides the one I’ve made. My boys, my wife. That’s it.”

“But--.”

“That’s. It.”

Luna swallowed hard. Swallowed all the words she had left to say, all the things she had planned and bottled up and waited to tell Jacks for thirteen years. They wanted to be said. They pushed at her, trying to get back out. She tore her eyes away from him, looking back down at her phone’s black screen. Tears clogged her throat, shame burned her cheeks.

“I just... I thought...”

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh god...” She coughed, inhaling deeply to recover. “I’ve just... I was so sure. I should go.”

“You should.” Emmett said quietly.

That stung. Her hope had gotten the better of her. Expecting comfort from a stranger -- a severely unnerved stranger, judging by his eyes. Wide and fearful, seeming to look past her instead of at her as he just had been. She wanted to reach out and touch him, rewind the clock and pull him back close again. Instead, she pressed a hand to her mouth and rushed past him. She all but ran to her car, brushing shoulders with a new visitor on the way out.

She had made a complete fool of herself. She shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have talked to him, shouldn’t have indulged the imagining that she’d wrapped herself in for years and years. She kicked herself as she dropped into the driver’s seat, tears pouring over her cheeks. She shouldn’t have done this, shouldn’t have come here. She should have done this better or just kept her mouth shut.