Very much NSFW fic continued from yesterday:
Fracture Twenty-Four: Chain Reaction
Coffee dripped off of Principal Kelly’s TV screen.
“Oh, *GOD*, no!” He knelt in front of it, where his newly-hired Gym teacher’s face was being broadcast, nationwide, under the lable of 'child abuser’. And she’d seemed so *nice*… So - *normal*. “I'm *ruined*! *Ruined*! God, why does this have to happen to meeeee… I'm not a bad man… Why? Why?”
He dissolved into hysterics when he found out that one of his students had a seven-year-old daughter by her.
*
“Scheisse…” Time to change her face, again. Time to move. Hess packed one suitcase of her essentials and left everything else for the police. She knew someone who could help with a new identity. She just had to move quickly.
Such a pity she had to leave her trophies behind.
She’d just have to get new ones.
*
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. We were watching the news and she just started screaming. It’s okay, honey. It’s just television.”
“Make her go away! Make her go away, Daddy…”
*
There were people hugging her from either side. Oma on her left. Daddy on her right. Bluebelle was grateful for the embrace.
She *knew* it was just a picture, but she was still scared of it.
Mistress had many more faces, but those eyes never changed.
Her eyes, and her cruelty.
*
“Nightmare, Mommy. Nightmare!”
Mrs Haldsman looked at the woman on the screen and held her six-year-old close. “That’s the woman that left you on the highway?”
Toby nodded. “Her face’s changed, but I know those eyes. That's Nightmare.”
There was a number on the screen. Mrs Haldsman started dialling it.
*
And in a state orphanage, a little girl who’d never made a noise before started shrieking the place down, pointing at a woman on the TV screen.
*
“…mmmm… MMmmm!”
Gerald looked over at his wife. He knew something had happened to her as a child, and he knew she didn’t like to talk about it. “Francine?”
“Her. It’s her… OmyGod, it’s *her*!”
“I thought we thought she was dead.”
Francine shook her head. “She just went away. She said she’d find me again. She’d hunt me down…”
Gerald picked up the phone and offered it to her. “There’s a number you can call to help stop her. Put her away for good.”
“C-c-c-c-c-could you d-d-dial for me? I’m-mm-mm sh-shaking…”
*
“Yeah, I just saw this woman on TV? I know her. She had a different face, but those eyes just get into your soul, y'know?”
“Thank you for calling,” said the understanding person on the other end of the line, “It’s a very brave thing to do. Do you wish to testify?”
“Is she gonna get the death penalty? Or locked away so deep she's never going to get out?”
“We’ll do our best.”
“Then hell, yeah. I’ve been running scared for too long.”
“That’s also very brave of you. We’ll need a few details for our database.”
“Sure. Go for it.”
*
“And the number of your party?”
“Er. Current numbers are in the late thousands. That’s going to increase.”
“Is this for a convention?”
“No. A trial. So far, Eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty people have come forward. That number includes members of the victims' immediate family who want to come along for support.”
Darrel whistled. “And there’s still people ringing the hotline, right? Wow. I saw that on the news. She got to *that* many people?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Have they caught her, yet?”
“I’m not permitted to say.”
“Damn. There won’t be a hole deep enough to hide her *now*…”
*
“Hey, is that –”
“Holy *shit*… It’s her! That’s the sick chick from TV!”
“Get her!”
Hess started to run. _Scheisse!_ When she was done finding her new face and name, she was going to *dissect* that little demon. Alive. And his little twig, too.
*
“And this is the last one for today, Bluebelle,” Hank readied the needle.
Bluebelle was pointing at the television. “Mistress,” she said.
Hank looked up. Hess was leading a car chase across the countryside.
*
“She’s ten years old and she matches your daughter’s description. Police found her almost three years ago, walking naked along route 66. Apart from her hysteria at seeing this Rosafarben woman, she hasn’t said a word in all that time.”
Claire nodded. It was hard not to get her hopes up. So far, this was the fifth child that matched Sherrie’s description.
The hospital orderly opened the door.
_OmyGod…_ “Sherrie?”
Her eyes were wide and shell-shocked. They looked years older than the rest of her. Like a survivor of the Holocaust. “M-m-mom?” Her voice was so soft. She used to be a loud kid. “D-d-d-daddy?”
*
“That’s the house.”
“You’re sure.”
Kurt nodded. He *knew* this place. He’d felt it when he ‘ported out of it. “Jawohl, mein Herr. This is the place.” He was glad Bluebelle was at home with the rest of his family. He was glad Kitty was along with him. He needed her near, right now.
They clung tightly to each other as they entered the empty house. It was abandoned.
The TV was still on, following the news of Hess’ own capture. A cigarette smouldered a hole in the table. Half a plate of something was swarming with flies.
Everything looked like Hess cleared out in a hurry.
Kurt found the remains of his holowatch, pounded to fragments with a hammer.
The police picked them up and bagged them, after photographing them. Just like they did with the cigarette butt.
Kurt lead them upstairs, pointing out both the closet with the clothes and the closet where Hess had hidden his son. Photographs were taken, items catalogued and bagged. Rooms explored.
Hess had other prizes. Locks of hair. Milk teeth. Pickled body parts and half-developed, aborted children floating in jars. The collection sent Kurt’s masks reeling, screaming to be let out to handle the dangerous situation.
Sparks of memory plagued him. The tile. Blood. Pressure, rotating against a certain spot on his spine, just where his tail began to depart from his back. Hess’ laughter. Hure screaming in terror.
He had to go outside to sit down.
Kitty held onto him. “It’s okay to be scared,” she soothed. “I’m like, terrified and I didn’t even like, get anything like, *done* to me.”
“Hank did a paternity test,” Kurt heard himself say. Anything to change the subject. Flight could be subtle sometimes… “Just in case there’s some other mutant out there with blue fur and a tail. Both Michael and Bluebelle are mine. There’s no doubt at all.”
“As if the physiognomy wasn’t like, a dead giveaway,” said Kitty. "Like, I could *see* they were yours.“
"Ja, I know. But someone was going to ask for proof eventually.”
“Idiots,” said Kitty.
“I’d rather a bunch of lines than parading around without the hologram, liebe. Wouldn’t you?”
“Okay, you like, totally have a point,” Kitty leaned over and kissed him near his ear. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know if I’m strong enough, geliebt… Just seeing those things, just now… I almost lost it. The Monsters are still howling. I don’t know if I can take the stand and face her.”
“I’m gonna do it,” said Kitty. “She like, terrifies me, but if it like, helps put her away, I’m gonna like, face her down.”
“If you can do it, I can do it, ja? Hank found a good story for my hands. The only trouble ist I can’t pronounce it. We’ve given the name of my 'condition’ to Herr Murdock. He should be able to handle it.” Kurt sighed. “Ach, I’m so tired, and it hasn’t even begun…”
“We’ll get through it, sweetie. One day at a time.”
*
The media swarmed. Hess stood proud.
“Frau Hess!”
“Frau Rosafarben!
"What’s you’re real name?”
“How many children have you abused?”
“Do you know what you’ve done to these people?”
“How many children have you had by *other* children?”
“Is it true about the collection of body parts?”
“Frau Hess!”
“Frau Hess!”
She struck a pose before the door between her and imprisonment and said. “You will never understand me. Not me, nor mein *art*.”