The Curse of M

by Stevie Barry

  He leaned back against the headboard, staring at the TV but not actually watching it. Logically he should just stop touching her altogether until she adapted to her situation, but dammit, he was a very tactile man. He was willing to content himself with just brushing her hair, but she balked even from that.

  And it was only because it was him. He had little doubt she would love having Duncan brush her hair, but the very idea horrified her when he himself tried it. And he knew damn well why.

  He should never, ever have done what he did to her mind. For once he'd ignored his intuition, and they were both paying for it now. Lorna associated all contact with him with what she probably considered rape, and he couldn't go into her head to undo it. His theory -- that brushing her hair might ease that -- was proving very false. Damn.

  Downing the rest of his drink with one gulp, he took the glass to the kitchen and went to check on her.

  She was out like the proverbial light, her face turned to the window. The snow was coming down even more heavily, and though it made his life more difficult, in a way he was also grateful. It trapped her here more effectively than anything else.

  He approached her bed, and let one ungloved hand hover a fraction of an inch above her hair. Dammit, he wanted to touch her, and not out of mere carnal frustration. At this point he'd settle for being able to hold her hand.

  Against his better judgment he let his fingers travel down over her face, almost but not quite touching her skin. Her body heat warmed his fingertips, her breath ghosting over them like the faintest flutter of a moth's wings. They moved down to the fabric over her left shoulder, just barely brushing the cotton.

  She stirred a little, and Von Ratched drew his hand away. All he could do was have patience, and tonight a little morphine would help him along. Lorna was so dead to the world that a half-dose wouldn't hurt.

  And the warm rush of the drug did calm him, even if it didn't make him sleep. He sat awake a very long time, staring at the television, and wondered what he was going to do.

  ----

  A week into their stay in the DMA, Katje came to Geezer with a plan. One he thought had a little potential.

  She brought a bottle of whiskey to his apartment, her blue eyes aglow. "Has Miranda located Institute yet?" she asked, plunking down on a kitchen chair. Unlike her, he'd made no effort to inject any personality into his living-space -- table, chairs, and couch were all standard issue. Only the hubcap-sized ashtray was his own.

  "We're not sure," he said, grabbing a couple glasses and some ice. "Weather's messing with the satellites, and we've gotta be careful anyway." The DMA, he'd learned, had no satellites of its own -- it hacked into several from four different countries. "Why?"

  Katje accepted her glass and poured, grimacing a little when she tasted the alcohol. "I know we talk about telling media what went on there," she said, "but what if we say where it is? If everyone knows -- if Von Ratched knows they know -- maybe he will try to run."

  "What the hell would stop him from killing everyone before he did?" Geezer asked, but he was intrigued.

  "I looked up word in dictionary," she said. "Arrogance. He likes people afraid of him, yes? I think he would leave them alive to tell world what he did. What he can do to people."

  "We're risking a lotta people's lives on that guess," he pointed out.

  "You do not know him like I do," she said, and Geezer twitched. No, he didn't, and he was damn glad of it. "He is…I think word is 'showoff'."

  "I don't want to ask how you know that."

  "No," she said, with a slight smirk, "you do not. But I see side of him you have not. He is a showoff. If he kill people, world would just see he is murderer. If he leave them alive, they can say how strong he is, how dangerous. If any flaw bring him down, it will be his ego."

  She had a point. She had a very good point, but it was still flawed. "There's no guarantee."

  Katje snorted, sipping her whiskey again. "There is no guarantee of anything with him. But if you were up there still, would you want outsider to give you chance, even if it mean you may die?"

  Reluctantly, he nodded. "I guess you're right. But if he does bolt, he'll take Lorna with him."

  "Which would be completely stupid. You think she would go easy? It would give her chance to bolt, and you know she would. We need to write out what we will say, find someone who will let us say it, and blow whole thing wide open."

  Almost in spite of himself, Geezer was intrigued by the idea. It was risky as hell, but so far it was the only idea they had that had any chance of success, however remote. "Let's talk to the others, and take this to Miranda. We've gotta be sure we know where the place even is, but lass…I really think you might be onto something here."

  She grinned, a full-blown, dazzling Katje grin. "Gerald will be in hospital," she said. "We get him and Ratiri at once."

  ----

  Gerald agreed with the idea, but Ratiri thought they were all insane. Even the painkillers in his system wouldn't make him see the idea as anything but lunatic.

  "No," he said flatly. "I won't be a party to that."

  "If you have better idea, I would like to hear it," Katje said peevishly. She was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed, regarding him with a look that said very clearly she wouldn't stop until she got what she wanted. It was probably, he thought irrelevantly, why she'd been such a successful prostitute.

  "I haven't got one," he admitted. "But I still think you're all mental."

  "Look at it this way," she said. "The longer we take here, the longer Lorna is stuck with Von Ratched."

  Dammit, she was right. Ratiri didn't want to leave Lorna with that bastard any longer than they absolutely had to. And she was the one person they could be sure Von Ratched wouldn't kill. "If he does run, he'll drug her," he pointed out. "He's not stupid. He'll drug her and drag her off God knows where, and we'll never find her."

  "Lorna would kick you if she know you underestimate her like that," Katje retorted. "He would not drug her forever."

  "'Sides," Geezer put in, "she does escape eventually. I seen it, and whatever else these damn visions are, they're never wrong. We gotta give her a chance."

  Ratiri sighed. "If she was hurt too badly, she won't be able to run."

  "Yet," Gerald said. "Give her time."

  "Von Ratched probably think he can Stockholm Syndrome her," Katje added. "And when it comes to Lorna, Von Ratched is total idiot."

  That was true enough. But the others…they didn't care about Lorna the way Ratiri did. They didn't know how hard her life had been already. She was a strong woman, but everyone had their breaking point, and if anything could make her snap it would be Von Ratched. And if he shattered her, she might never be whole again.

  She's not whole now, a small voice pointed out. Give her a chance. You know she'll take it.

  She would. She really did want Von Ratched dead, and if anyone had a chance of actually taking him out, it was her. The question would be whether or not she would be able to live with herself later. Von Ratched unquestionably deserved death, but that didn't mean she'd be able to truly accept being the one who doled it out.

  But they might have a very slim opportunity to spare her from it. And however insane the plan sounded, Katje was right -- so far, it was the best one they had.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Four days later, Von Ratched put a cast on Lorna's leg. It was a deeply unpleasant experience, but it was mitigated by the fact that he finally agreed to let her get up. Her shoulder meant she could only have one crutch, and had to do a lot of graceless hopping, but at least she could make it to the bathroom on her own.

  It also gave her a chance to case his apartment while he was away. The ever-present nurses meant she could never take long about it, but at least she learned the general layout.

  She read a great deal, and was given a spiral notebook to write in. Knowing Von Ratched would read it, everything she wrote was in extremely colloquial Irish, filled with slang he wouldn't be ab
le to translate with any dictionary. She wrote until her hand cramped, the ballpoint pen leaving globs of blue ink on the paper. He'd tried to give her a nicer pen, but it felt awkward in her hand, too fine and expensive.

  Nothing of her escape plans went into the notebook. Lorna was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to translate it, but she wasn't willing to literally bet her life on it. Instead she eased her homesickness by writing of the past, coding everyone's names, and then turned to her future plans, what she wanted to do when she did escape. And she would, no matter how long it took.

  I want a garden, she wrote, a big garden with everything I can grow. I want to live on that mountain the Lady showed me, with Ratiri and everyone. I'll adopt a couple kids, give them everything I never had. We'll be well away from the stupid conflicts of bloody society, safe in our own little world. I'll never be trapped inside again.

  Having plans helped, and made Von Ratched's presence easier to bear. Let him think she was starting to resign herself to her situation. Her little notebook helped her mostly keep her temper in check.

  "What're you going to do, when I'm up and about again?" she asked him at dinner that night. "You can't keep me shut up in here forever. I won't stand for it, and you know it." There was still a tinge of hostility in her voice, because he'd expect that. She couldn't appear too pleased, or he'd get suspicious.

  "I will take you outside, when the weather permits. You will also have to make use of the gym -- once your wounds have healed enough, you will require intense physical therapy."

  Lorna made a face. "Do I have to?" she asked, putting a little whine in her voice. The fact that it worked kind of disturbed her.

  "If you ever want to walk properly again, yes," he said, a little sardonically. "By the time you can properly move again you will be very weak, and I know you would not like that."

  True. She'd need at least a little strength before she hared off into the wilderness.

  "Besides, you need to be in good shape."

  She almost choked on her tea. The intonation of that sentence made it beyond creepy. "Why?" she asked warily.

  Von Ratched arched an eyebrow. "Lorna, I do not intend to keep to this living arrangement indefinitely. I did not bring you here to keep you forever a roommate."

  She felt the blood drain from her face, just before searing rage took total possession of her. "Oh, really?" she snapped, using her anger to shove away her panic. "Thought you said you wouldn't rape me, areshole. If you think I'll let you anywhere near me like that, you'd best kiss your eyeballs goodbye." Gunshot wounds or no, she was three seconds from braining him with her dinner-tray, her hands itching to latch around his throat and choke the life out of him.

  "I won't," he said calmly, lacing his hands together before his face. "Someday you will cease finding me objectionable. I could easily take care of that now, if you would give me a chance."

  That horrible panic rose again, fluttering in her gut like a trapped rat. "Not a chance in any hell that ever was," she growled. "You've me as a flatmate because I've got no choice in the matter, but you'll get nothing more from me. Ever."

  Her words didn't faze him in the slightest, and that condescending confidence snapped what little remained of the tether on Lorna's temper. She flung the teacup at him, then seized the tray and launched herself off the bed, swinging it straight at his head. Pain jolted all through her, but she was so infuriated she barely noticed it.

  The overhead lights blew out with a high-pitched shatter, raining shards of frosted glass, and the tray made solid contact with something. Clawing fingers sought his eyes in the darkness, just before the window blasted into sand-fine fragments. Icy air and snow gusted in, but it did nothing to cool her rage.

  A hand like a steel vise seized her right wrist, but something hot and wet welled beneath the nails of her left hand, and the coppery scent of blood assailed her nose. If he wanted another scar at her hands, she'd damn well give him one. Her entire world filled with pain and a terrible juxtaposition of heat and cold, and her teeth sank into Von Ratched's ear, tearing and gouging. The faint moonlight that filtered through the broken window let her free hand find his throat, small fingers closing around his windpipe.

  The world tipped with nauseating speed, and her back hit the floor so hard all the breath went out of her. The breath, but not the fight. Even when he grabbed her other wrist she tried to bite, snarling worse than Ratiri's inner animal had ever managed. The tang of blood filled her mouth, and she spat it at him. Now the pain was making itself known with a vengeance, but it still didn't stop her.

  "There is no need to be so destructive, Lorna," Von Ratched said, sounding entirely too calm. "I told you I would not harm you like that, and I mean it." His eyes glinted in the shadows, unholy and inhuman. "But you must bear in mind that I could. I could do anything I wanted to you, but I will not. However much you try my patience."

  She spat at him again. "Try it and I'll kill everyone in this place," she growled. "I could, and you know it. Now get. Off. Me."

  "No."

  That did it. Pure instinct made her flip the nightstand, smashing it over his head, his back, wood splintering under the force of her telekinesis. Her telepathy lashed out at the same time, and he actually cringed, wincing at the force of her combined assault. It was enough to let her throw him off, though it turned her shoulder into a well of agony. He was a dead man, even if he didn't know it yet.

  She brought the chair around with as much force as she could, and was rewarded by Von Ratched's hiss of pain. "You said you wouldn't underestimate me again, arsehole," she snapped. "Too late."

  Her fingers closed on something cold and metallic -- her butter knife, knocked aside when she swung the tray. With a feral snarl Lorna brought it around and plunged it right into his chest, sheer strength making up for its bluntness. It drove through skin and muscle with a sickening, tearing squish, but he still didn't cry out.

  "Die in a motherfucking fire, you twat," she snarled, twisting the knife with all the force she could summon. Hot blood poured over her fingers, smearing halfway up her arms as he thrashed, and she grinned savagely. All thought, all rationality, all Lorna was gone, replaced by a being of pure fury.

  Somehow Von Ratched managed to grab her hair, his fingers winding into the strands at the crown of her head and pulling so hard it felt like he was trying to tear it out. She twisted the knife around again, feeding his pain with her own, and --

  Oh.

  Her grip on the knife loosened, her muscles suddenly unwilling to support her. Even her shoulder didn't register any pain when she hit the floor -- there was simply no room for it. What she felt was as far from pain as it was possible to get. This felt just as good as the last time he’d done this to her brain, and yet infinitely more horrible, because it was familiar now. It was something beyond the physical, more than anything she’d managed with poor Liam.

  "How -- you can't get into my head anymore," she somehow managed, just before she lost the capacity for speech entirely.

  "I cannot get into your mind," he clarified, before all her rational thought fled. "This is merely a matter of synapses. I might not own your mind, but I do own the rest of you, brain and body. Be grateful I do not intend to use it against you. Now sleep," he ordered. "I will not harm you."

  She didn't have a choice. Unconsciousness hit her like a brick.

  ----

  Von Ratched eased Lorna's head down as soon as she was well out, and struggled to sit up. It was surprisingly difficult, and not just because of the pain. She'd hit his mind like a jackhammer, with a force even he hadn't expected.

  Quite honestly, he hadn't expected that at all -- had he anticipated it, he wouldn't have a butter knife hilt-deep in his shoulder. She was right -- once again, he had underestimated her.

  Getting up was something of a chore, made all the worse by the fact that he had to take Lorna with him. He kicked the door shut behind him, blocking away the cold, and managed to deposit her on his office couch. She would live,
though she would be rather unhappy when she woke.

  He actually staggered on his way to the bathroom, and had to lean against the doorjamb to turn on the light. Hot red pain radiated all through his chest, and he knew now what Geezer had meant. He did literally have a knife in his chest, but bloody though it was, he wouldn't die from it.

  With great difficulty he pulled off his bloody shirt, tearing the fabric to pull it away from the knife. Good God, Lorna hadn't been merely defending herself -- she really had meant to murder him. Blood still welled around the knife's handle, but it was thick and sluggish and reassuringly bright. She hadn't hit an artery, but she'd come perilously close to his lung.

  Detaching himself from the growing pain, Von Ratched ferreted out his first-aid kit, laying his supplies neatly along the white marble counter. His blood left streaky red smears where it dropped into the sink, but he was methodical about his work, rinsing his hand before opening a suture kit. A spray of Lidocaine wouldn’t do much, but it would dull the pain at least a little.

  He gripped the knife, and with a deep breath and one strong pull drew it out. More blood poured, but it didn't spurt, and he dropped the blade into the sink with a faint clatter before clamping a towel over the wound. The blood was still bright, with none of the darkness that would signify organ damage. It meant he could take care of the injury himself, however unpleasant that would be.

  He eyed his reflection as he waited for the pressure to staunch the cut. His throat and chest were smeared with gore, four deep scratch-marks gouged through the scar tissue she'd already left on his neck. His left ear was a bloody mess, and his throat was already developing bruises in the shape of small fingers. Yet again he would have to be careful who he allowed to see him, a fact that annoyed him immensely.