Mostly Dead Girls

the night he got the call

It took Alec what seemed like hours to push himself upright, fight through the pain swimming around his head long enough to tug off his shirt and tie it around his leg. The bullet had struck somewhere on his hip, and through the nausea and panic he couldn't tell whether it had torn all the way through or was still buried in the flesh. He managed to get the cloth to cover the wound, get a little bit of pressure, fought back another wave of sickness.

Faye had said something in the hall outside, a minute ago, but the house was silent now and he didn't know where she or Kelly was. He sucked in a long breath, trying not to panic. It was hard; his brain was already primed for it after hearing Caine's voice earlier. Plus—he forced himself to his feet and limped for the door—he was still baffled by Kelly's appearance. He had been faintly aware of her; a name on the list of survivors who rejected Safehouse's job offers, a pair of ice-blue eyes by the side of an article about modern horror games and how they interacted with real-life events. She had been harassed a lot, he faintly recalled. People had dug up some witnesses who had seen her speaking with Mickey before the incident, that kind of thing. Seems that there were truth to those rumors, at least. He felt a sudden, hot flash of anger at her. He should be focusing on the situation at hand, but he kept on thinking about how much harder this would make things. Anyone who had associated with 'their' killer in the past would be re-examined, attacked and questioned.

That, he forcefully reminded himself, was a problem for later. After he, and hopefully everyone else, had survived this.

He found Renari in the kitchen, not moving and a bruise slowly blooming across her forehead. Greg Harding was on the floor too, but he was moving and groaning; Alec ignored him for the moment in favor of dialing 911. He had to raise his voice to be heard over Julia crying in the closet.

"We were attacked—one woman, with a gun. She's still outside, I think." He gave the address. "There's a DSAC agent and she's out cold, I think it's been three or four minutes. Yeah, I know the recovery position. Me? I've been shot. Sort of in the thigh. I think Harding got his nose broken, but it didn't get his brain."

Renari's phone began ringing.

"Do you need to know anything else? Good. I'm going to answer that." Alec hung up before really thinking it through. The pain was still making his brain jump sluggishly from one idea to another. He hoped that whoever was calling was helpful; maybe there was another DSAC agent in the area. Something worth hanging up on 911 for.

He answered it while shifting Renari into recovery position, and was so relieved to find her breathing and her eyelids beginning to stir that he barely noticed the silence on the other end of the phone at first. It was only when he'd finished positioning her, had checked that Greg Harding was getting to his feet and was going to let his wife out of the closet, and had checked the phone screen thinking he'd missed the call that he realized the caller hadn't spoken.

There was someone there—he could hear them breathe. They just weren't talking. He felt a trickle of fear begin to work its way through the pain and said 'Hello?' again, as if that might fix everything.

"Oh, my Lord," the man on the other end said, in his pleasant forgettable voice. "Forgive me, Cassie, it's just been so long since I heard your voice."

Alec sat frozen for a long moment. He ought to be freaking out. He had the feeling that he might be, he just hadn't caught up to the fact yet. He moved the phone away from his ear and told the Hardings to please keep it down and then finally found something to say.

"That's not actually my name."

"You've changed a lot of things about yourself," Caine said, chiding. "I don't have to like any of them. You'll always be Cassandra to me."