Barbara Gordon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
exitthewallflower) wrote2014-03-24 09:35 pm
exitthewallflower) wrote2014-03-24 09:35 pm
March 27th - Countdown Cornered
Jake Daniel Ellis.
Hindsight being what it is, it makes perfect sense. A troubled childhood, foster parents ranging from ill-equipped to worse, trouble with the law, violence and then calm. A time where people looked at him, beaming, thinking, how wonderful that's he's grown out of all of that. They were wrong. He didn't grow out of it, he just learned how to hide it better. I should know, my own brother was just the same.
Hindsight, she's a bitch all right.
And just like JJ seemed to, right up until the end, Ellis has the devil's luck. He disappeared just as we confirmed his identity. But not into the hideout we'd found, tucked away in the back room of a warehouse he reconstructed into his own private hideout, into the city, where despite all the APB's and citizen alerts, he seemed to disappear.
Just like JJ.
And like my dear brother, he seems to have found a hostage. I get the report when everyone else does. The police had sent uniforms to Erica Richmond's house. The ex girlfriend. The one who had gotten drunk and abandoned him for someone else at a party. Who announced their breakup via social media, not bothering to call him for twelve hours after to tell him it wasn't a joke. Like a bad country song, he thinks she started it all and according to the empty apartment and broken front door, it looks like Ellis wants to end it with her, too.
I'm pretty sure I know where he's going, I went through his online accounts pretty thoroughly and he likes to go on and on about the perfect impromptu first date he'd taken Erica on. His car had broken down so instead of a picnic in the park, they climbed to the top of the train station and watched the city below them as they ate. Beginnings and endings, over and over again it plays out like a loop of unending tragedy. I can't let her die.
I'm furious. All I can think about is JJ. He was a killer, there was never any saving him, I know that now as clearly as I can see him falling over the railing to his death. I'm starting to think there's no saving Ellis, either. I don't like these thoughts, but I haven't liked anything the last few weeks, it's just something that has to end. A cycle that has to be broken.
I call for backup. Cass and Kaine are close. Jason's closer. I think I'm okay with that.
Something has to break.
I think it's going to be me.
And I'm afraid I don't care.
Hindsight being what it is, it makes perfect sense. A troubled childhood, foster parents ranging from ill-equipped to worse, trouble with the law, violence and then calm. A time where people looked at him, beaming, thinking, how wonderful that's he's grown out of all of that. They were wrong. He didn't grow out of it, he just learned how to hide it better. I should know, my own brother was just the same.
Hindsight, she's a bitch all right.
And just like JJ seemed to, right up until the end, Ellis has the devil's luck. He disappeared just as we confirmed his identity. But not into the hideout we'd found, tucked away in the back room of a warehouse he reconstructed into his own private hideout, into the city, where despite all the APB's and citizen alerts, he seemed to disappear.
Just like JJ.
And like my dear brother, he seems to have found a hostage. I get the report when everyone else does. The police had sent uniforms to Erica Richmond's house. The ex girlfriend. The one who had gotten drunk and abandoned him for someone else at a party. Who announced their breakup via social media, not bothering to call him for twelve hours after to tell him it wasn't a joke. Like a bad country song, he thinks she started it all and according to the empty apartment and broken front door, it looks like Ellis wants to end it with her, too.
I'm pretty sure I know where he's going, I went through his online accounts pretty thoroughly and he likes to go on and on about the perfect impromptu first date he'd taken Erica on. His car had broken down so instead of a picnic in the park, they climbed to the top of the train station and watched the city below them as they ate. Beginnings and endings, over and over again it plays out like a loop of unending tragedy. I can't let her die.
I'm furious. All I can think about is JJ. He was a killer, there was never any saving him, I know that now as clearly as I can see him falling over the railing to his death. I'm starting to think there's no saving Ellis, either. I don't like these thoughts, but I haven't liked anything the last few weeks, it's just something that has to end. A cycle that has to be broken.
I call for backup. Cass and Kaine are close. Jason's closer. I think I'm okay with that.
Something has to break.
I think it's going to be me.
And I'm afraid I don't care.
no subject
I don't wait for Cass. She's fast, but I'm faster and I know she's right behind me. Right now ever second counts and I breath a sigh of relief when I spot Countdown, still alive with the girl.
I cloak immediately and land behind him, invisible and silent. He has the girl at gunpoint and Babs and another guy aren't attacking just yet. Don't know the other guy real well but I know a killer when I see one. Maybe he can get a shot off, put a round through Countdown's head. But, no need to risk it.
Besides, something tells me it's important to take this guy alive.
Quick as I can I reach over his shoulder and yank the gun away from the girl's head. Times like this I wish I had a Spider-Sense that could tell me if he's rigged himself with booby traps or something. I squeeze the gun until I feel it bend and then toss it aside, shoving Countdown out from the wall and over toward Babs.
I want to see what she'll do.
no subject
She's behind Kaine, too far behind as she lands on top of the wall behind Kaine. She drops down behind him silently. She doesn't say anything but she thinks it.
No.
no subject
I follow, fists clenched, breathing heavy and all I see is red. Red-tinted images of the bodies he's left behind, the scared faces of people on the street, all red.