The shadow Hunter

Chapter 44

The black metal felt tight and uncomfortable around my ankle as an officer secured it. It beeped as he pressed a button- locking it and then pulled on it sharply to check if it was secure. It was. "This is a location tag meaning if you leave stark towers it will beep and alert your probation officer of your breaches." Ross explained. My probation officer- the man who just attached the electronic tag to my ankle. Officer Jimmy Woo. The same officer Woo who questioned me after I was arrested. 

"You have three strikes." Ross told me and Tony. "If you breach the confides more than 3 times you will be put in prison." It didn't matter if I was in prison or here, either way they were locking me up, keeping me away from citizens. "I'll be visiting you every two weeks for our bi weekly meetings- seeing how you are adjusting and how you can improve yourself so when you are released, you can readjust." Woo told me. He seemed to be considerate at least. "This here," Ross gestured to the black box they had fitted on the wall next to the elevator entrance to the penthouse. "Is the receiver. It will beep and notify us if you leave the building." I didn't even have free will to leave the building anymore. 

"So what am I meant to do when me and Pepper are working, just leave her alone all day in the house?" Tony asked, his frustration creeping into his voice. "She's a big girl i'm sure she can look after herself." Ross told him with snark. But I knew Tony was worried if I was stuck alone inside all the time I would get desperate again. "If you break or attempt to destroy or tamper with your tag- it will alert us. So don't." Ross said sternly. "You need to cover the tag whilst showering so it doesn't get wet." Officer Woo added. Tony folded his arms, "How long do you expect her to stay on house arrest?" He asked. "Two years." Ross said. Two years? Two years of not leaving this place, not going out. I would be 20 by the time I was allowed out again. "But in a years time we will review the case and with good behavior and all of your strikes left, you could be let go sooner." 

I didn't understand what I could do for the next two years. How could I be expected to watch everyone else get on with life, watch everyone else do something whilst all I could do was wait? How could I watch Peter move on with out me? "Am I allowed visitors?" I asked, desperately hoping. "Once a week you are allowed a personal visitor, for 4 hours." Woo told me. Only once a week? Only 4 hours? What about the other 164 hours every week? He then told me he would be here in two weeks time for a meeting, then both Jimmy woo and secretary Ross left. 

Me and Tony sat in silence at the kitchen table. I felt the new weight of the tag around my ankle pulling me down. "I'm sorry." I muttered quietly after a while, not quite able to catch Tony's eye. "It's not your fault kid." I looked up sharply. "If you hadn't stood in front of that gun, if you hadn't used your shield, a lot of people would be dead." He said. But then why was I the one to get in trouble? Why did all those policeman have their guns pointing at me?  "You know what that makes you?" He asked, a small glint in his eye as he leant forward. "A hero." He said. The word hung in the air and I tried to grab it, tried to hold onto it but every time I did, it slipped out of my fingers or disappeared. "They won't ever see me that way- no matter what I do." I told him. Maybe they were right for that. Maybe I didn't deserve to be seen as a hero. "I do." Tony said firmly. "And they are stupid not to." 

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"Clara? Will you answer the question please?" Officer Woo asked, sighing impatiently. "I didn't know that this was a therapy session." I told him. Jimmy Woo put down his clipboard. "It's not. But as your parole officer it's my job to rehabilitate you so you can return to society safely." Return to society. Like an outcast. "I'll ask again." He said. "Did you like killing people?" He asked for the third time. This was the second meeting we had had and at first it was general questions- how are you getting on? Are you following the terms of your house arrest? But then he'd started to ask more questions, about my past, my feelings, my friends. All in an attempt to rehabilitate me, like me truthfully answering some questions would make me safe to be around.

"No." I said after a long pause. "So after the red room, after you weren't forced to anymore, why did you continue?" He asked. I shrugged, looked down at the ground and then focused on a small speck on the kitchen wall behind him. "Look, I don't enjoy killing people. But at 8 years old it became all I was worth." Jimmy wrote notes down which made me feel unsettled but still I carried on, hoping this might put an end to his questions. "It became engraved in me, like my brain had been coded a certain way. So when I attacked Dina it wasn't because I wanted to kill her it was just my natural reaction." I didn't enjoy killing people. I had once enjoyed the success of it, the achievement it had been. But it wasn't an achievement anymore- the achievement was fighting the switch in my head. 

"what was it in the red room that made you so determined to kill?" I heard the grating laugh in my head. I saw his sagging eyes behind his glasses every time I blinked. "I don't have to answer this, I already said everything in my trial." I said. Jimmy sat back in the chair and tapped his pen on his clipboard. "You don't. But I'll keep asking." I crossed my arms curtly. "How is this rehabilitating me?" I asked. Woo smiled. "If you talk to me, if we understand how you think and feel and why, we can understand you better, when we understand, we can let you go." They would never understand me. I didn't even understand myself so how were they meant to. It didn't matter how many questions they asked me it wouldn't reverse anything.