Not a City of Angels

Chapter Eleven

"She left this for me to find," Barry dropped the small sketchbook on the lab table in front of Joe and Cisco, "It's full of more drawings. And not just Wells, but details about that night, diagrams of the speed force, equations, graphs, but nothing involving me as the Flash."

Cisco and Joe flipped over the cover, examining the book as Barry explained.

"And look," Barry pointed at the scrawled message, "Catch him if you can."

"What does she mean by that?" Caitlin was there too. She came closer.

"I think she wants me to help her," Barry guessed, "Maybe it's a challenge? And that's not all- read this..."

He flipped to a page halfway through the book.

"February 10th, 2008," Cisco read, "Dad and mom fought. February 11th, 2008, they died. I start to remember more and more each night, but Coop says I'm making it all up. What I wanted to go away is coming back."

Angry scribbles of two people joined the words in handwriting that the team were able to decipher after a few seconds. Lily, apparently, either wrote this at a younger age, or wrote it in a time of great emotions.

Barry read the child's words carefully, and if he squinted hard enough, they could have easily been his own. He suddenly could see himself in her situation all those years ago, furious, confused, and told that everything she knew was a lie. He could picture using a small notebook as an outlet, scribbling the truth, but no one would listen or ever read it. The nights, long and interrupted by nightmares, would make him cry and stare down at the desk, hard, longing for his parents back. His dad out of prison, and his mom out of the ground.

"The man came, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but somehow, there was lightning. But not the usual kind of lightning, it was the yellow kind," continued Cisco, his eyes hard as he worked out the spelling errors, "He came for me, and me only. But he didn't do it right."

"What does that mean?" Caitlin's voice was low. She and Joe had their eyes on Barry, who was leaning on a desk in the cortex, both hands on the cool surface.

Cisco turned the page. "In my dreams, it always happens when daddy is upstairs, and mommy and I are in the living room. Cooper says that what happened in real life was that they were both in the kitchen, fighting, which is where dad killed mom, and then hurt me when I got in the way."

Cisco paused, the words affecting him. "Does this match what the CCPD has, or what she said before?" He asked, putting the book down.

"The CCPD has no record of what happened," Joe said. "Just that the case was ruled a murder-suicide, and the Westerville police closed it up. I guess...there was probably no evidence left by Wells, so there were likely no other suspects besides the dead man holding a gun."

"Guns aren't like Dr. Wells," Caitlin said, shuddering, "They leave a trace."

"But that doesn't mean that he didn't have something to do with it," Barry was glaring at the floor, "We have to stop him."