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Daisy doesn’t know what draws her towards the alley. She’s passed it before, more times than she can count. It’s right on the way to her favorite Thai place and Basira’s favorite bookshop. The alley looks just the same as all the other times she’s passed it, but when she stops on the sidewalk waiting for the light to turn, she finds her gaze drawn to it.
On impulse, she darts across the street just before the light changes, and stops in the mouth of it, considering. She can feel the Hunt, just barely more than the low-level hum it is nowadays. She doesn’t know what lurks in this alley, but she doesn’t feel like it’s particularly dangerous.
At least not yet.
It’s not too late to turn back, to continue down the road and finally see if the little cafe that’s opened up two blocks down has good pastries.
Basira would say to just leave it.
(Basira would check it out by herself anyways, because she’s kind of a hypocrite sometimes.)
There are no strange doors, or worms, or spiders. The sun is warm across her shoulders. (She’s not underground. She can hear people that aren’t screaming in fear. If she turns her head just a bit there’s a comfortable flow of humanity on the street.)
Daisy steps fully into the alley. If there is something here, she has more than a decade of being a police officer, detective, and avatar of the Hunt under her belt.
She walks with light feet, close to one of the walls.
There is someone up ahead.
Scratch that, two someones.
And one of them is very, very afraid.
Daisy can feel the Hunt sharpening, growing in the cavity of her chest, waiting to tear itself free.
There is a creeping-crawling-prickling sensation on her skin she can’t quite place.
The two figures are roughly three meters ahead of her, partially obscured by a dumpster. One of them is standing, head tilted down, dark hair falling into their face, while the other cowers low to the ground.
Neither of them has noticed her.
Daisy is tempted to label it a mugging, but she knows that this is somehow supernatural, tied to the fear entities that stalk humanity.
Daisy feels the weight of her phone sitting in the pocket of her jacket. She could call for help. She could call the police, she could call Basira, she could call Melanie.
Daisy continues forward. With every step, the scent of fear grows stronger.
She’s about to make herself known, maybe with a line that makes her sound like a superhero in a bad action movie, when she realizes the standing person is wearing a very familiar sweater vest.
Somewhere in the alley, a tape recorder clicks on.
“Jon?” says Daisy cautiously. She doesn’t know how far gone he is, and she doesn’t want to spook him. She doesn’t want to have to hurt him.
Jon tips his head just slightly in her direction.
She recognizes the feeling on her skin now. It’s the feeling of being watched.
“Out on a lunch break, are we?” Daisy remarks, purposefully keeping her voice light.
Jon’s shoulders curl down in a familiar motion.
The man on the ground whimpers, pulling Jon’s attention back, and abruptly Jon’s shoulders tilt back in poised, professional anticipation. He looks the same as when he’s just opened the folder to record a statement, the moment just before the words Statement Begins .
“Philip Graves.” He says to the man on the ground. “Something happened to you, in France three years ago.”
“ Jon ,” Daisy says more insistently, taking a step forward. When Jon sways ever so slightly toward her, she realizes he has entirely too many eyes.
“Go away, Daisy.”
“No.” she says.
“You don’t want to be around me.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
He goes quiet, and turns back to the person on the ground.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“...I don’t think I have a choice anymore.”
“Jon-”
“I’m a monster , Daisy.”
“You’re not the only one,” she says dryly.
There’s a beat of silence.
The man on the ground is crying, just a bit. Daisy doesn’t care. The part of her that is the Hunt sees prey, smells fear, and wants it to be caused by her .
She ignores it.
“Jon. We made a deal,” she says, and holds out a hand. “Listen to the quiet, remember?”
His gaze falls on her for just a second before it skitters away, before he can Look.
“Jon, this doesn’t have to be you,” she says, thinking of TooCloseICannotBreathe, of being left weak and realizing the strength she’d had wasn’t the kind she wanted.
Jon finally turns toward her, though he doesn’t look up from the ground.
“ Why are you here, ” he says, the words laced with power. She instinctively wants to snarl, to lash out, but he immediately flinches back. “No, no, I didn’t- I didn’t mean it like that.”
Daisy puts her tongue between her teeth and waits for the urge to tell to fade. She doesn’t draw her hand back.
She thinks of how, even though he thought she might kill him, he crawled into a coffin and pulled her out of the dirt.
She thinks of how when the delivery man came, he defended Basira. She thinks of how he pulled a ghostly bullet out of Melanie, even though he knew she’d hate him for it. Thinks of how she almost drove a blade through his throat, but he took her hand in the crushing earth.
“You’ve never given up on us, Jon. I won’t give up on you this time.”
The eyes close.
Jon looks up at her, and although the ever-present weight of his gaze is there, he’s not Looking.
He always tries not to.
He takes her hand.
She squeezes.
He squeezes back.
The man on the ground ( Phillip Graves ) is whimpering, and the Hunter in Daisy is restless. She turns her gaze to him, and lets just a hint of tooth poke out. The man presses himself against the wall.
Jon’s hand is in hers.
He squeezes.
“Daisy,” he says quietly. Listen to the quiet , she thinks, lets the blood roaring in her ears settle. Thinks of Basira’s quiet, never-ending trust in her.
“Get out of here,” she says to the man on the ground.
He scrambles to his feet and runs.
She wants to chase after him.
Jon’s hand is in hers.
She squeezes back.
“I’m hungry,” she decides out loud. “Let’s get something to eat.”
Jon’s gaze flickers towards where the man had disappeared.
“Human food,” she says, gently nudging her elbow into his ribs, and a smile plays around his lips.
They drag each other out of the alley and back into the world.
Somewhere behind them, a tape recorder clicks off.