Hell's Angel: Devil's Backbone (BK 2)

Aftermath

Alison's POV
(bellamysgirl)

As if my week couldn't be any more depressing. The only people coming to the Café today were wing nuts that supported Frank. Everyone and everything else had suddenly vanished. I finished refilling a customer's tea and shuffled back to the counter. It was inevitable, I suppose. No one wants to come hang out with someone that fell in love with a psychopath. And I was lucky enough to do just that. I put back the tea and started wiping down the counter.

I looked up at Chase absentmindedly. He sat at a table with Lizzie in his lap, feeding her soggy Cheerios from his cereal bowl. She was literally eating out of the palm of his hand. It was slightly uplifting for at least a moment. The bell above the door chimed and I looked up. Three men in semi-dark clothes walked into the Café. The man in front walked to the counter, while the other two hung back a bit. "Can I help you?" I asked, turning to face the man in front.

"I'm with Child Protection Services. Alison Fletcher, I have direct orders to remove Chase Mathew Fletcher from your care," he said, formally. My eyebrows rose just as I heard Chase's voice. He was shouting. I instantly looked left. The other two men were hauling a thrashing Chase toward the door and Lizzie was starting to cry in the chair, left behind. "Hey!" I shouted, my heart lurching into overdrive. I hurried around the counter.

The man that spoke to me grabbed my arm to hold me back. "Ma'am, we really don't want-"

I spun and sent my hand across the man's face. "Don't touch me!" I yanked my arm free and turned back around. The door had just slammed shut on a dark SUV parked just out front, and I could no longer see Chase. My eyes full of water, I whirled to the man behind me. "Who told you to do this?" I demanded, my blood boiling.

"Due to your uncovered relationship with Frank Castle, you've been declared unfit by the state to remain the legal guardian of your son," he explained, calmly. He was completely overlooking the part where I slapped him. "I'm afraid this is the way it has to be, Miss Fletcher. Here is the official notice." He held out a folded piece of paper and I quickly took it.

I unfolded it, but I couldn't read it even if I wanted to. All I could see through the haze of the tears in my eyes was the government header and logo. He wasn't lying. The man promptly walked around me and, a second later, I heard the door close. My chest was burning now. It felt like I'd just been stabbed through the ribs with a butcher knife. And now the knife was spinning, and spinning, and spinning.

Dani's POV
(Nightwing27th)

"Well, what else?" I asked. "I mean, you guys are just done?"

"Pretty much," Foggy said dropping a stack of papers into a box on his desk. He opened a desk drawer and sifted through it. "I don't know what you said to him, Dylan," he shook his head. He looked at me. "But suddenly, he's...I don't know. He's says that he and the vigilante are the same person, and that I'm better off without him."

"Are you?"

"Are you?"

I sighed. "Good point." I sat in the chair in front of his desk. "I don't know. Part of me thinks that none of this would've happened had Elektra not shown up. But the other part...knows it probably would've."

"You know about her too?"

"Yeah. I didn't know you did. I was just assuming."

"You know, one of the things he said was that he was done apologizing for who he was," Foggy said. "What brought that on?"

"Me," I said, looking up at Foggy. "The other night when we...talked, I was basically telling him that about me."

"I didn't know you two were having problems."