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Dark Obsession	By : jracklesfan77 Category: 1 through F > Dark Angel Views: 4878 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 13
- 14
Chapter
Fourteen

Part One
____________________________________
Killing
rain falling down from the sky

crying with nightmare tears
~Master
of Insanity, by Black Sabbath
____________________________________
A/N: Chapter 14 is the final chapter of this story, but I broke it into two parts. I hope you enjoy! Please drop a line to let me know your thoughts! ~Shay

“A nomlie?
A monster?” he repeated, in a low, menacing
growl. “No,” he shook his head vehemently. “I’m not a monster. It’s monsters
that made us, Max.”
His eyes
darkened and glazed as he looked over her shoulder at some point beyond in the
woods.
Ben had
had years to think about how he came to be as he was. A combination of having
been trained from birth to be a soldier and a killing machine by people who saw
him as nothing more or less than a tool, later suffering abuse – at the hands
of those who should have been protecting him – and his own descent into drugs
and self-hatred were what had shaped him into the man he had become. But he
continued to believe that he was a victim; not that he would admit as much, for
to do so would be admitting he was weak.
He was a victim of circumstance, a product of his environment and the result of
years of torture, abuse and neglect.
But he’d survived; and that made him stronger,
proved him to be better.
“Call me
what you will, Maxie, but you were there that day. You were just like me.
Relishing the chase, the kill, the taste of blood in your mouth. If I’m a
monster,” his eyes glittered at her, “so are you.”
“No. No,
Ben. You and me? We’re different. What happened that day,” she paused and he
saw her eyes harden, “happened because we didn’t know any different. I’m not
like that.”
“Who’re
you trying to fool, Max? Yourself? You can’t deny that you liked it. We all did. It’s a part of us, Maxie,” he
purred, inching closer while she pressed further back into the rock slab. Ben
leaned over her, one hand on either side of her body, pinning her in place.
“Deny it
all you want, but bloodlust is just as much a part of you as it is me.”
Max shook
her head angrily and snarled in denial. “No.”
“We’re
predators, Max. Hunters.” He stared intently into her eyes and added in a low
hiss, “Killers.”
“No!” she shouted, wrenching her arm out
from between their bodies and punching him in the face. Ben stumbled backwards
and then righted himself, wiping his split lip and licking at the blood oozing
from the wound. He chuckled darkly and smirked, raising bloodied fingers before
him.
“See?
Proof. You’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Max. No matter how strongly you deny
it, it doesn’t change facts. You’re just good at controlling it.”
“And
obviously you’re not,” she spat, neither confirming nor denying his statement.
Max couldn’t help the rush she got when she put down an opponent, couldn’t
ignore the way she enjoyed her special skills and abilities. The difference
was, she didn’t use them to hurt people who didn’t deserve it.
“You
murdered all those people, Ben. Murdered.
In cold blood.”
Ben
frowned and shrugged. “Not exactly.”
“So you
didn’t kill Logan? That’s not your designation tattooed on his neck?” she
asked, incredulously, voice rising. “Look at him!” she demanded, glancing at
the waxen face of her dead friend and swallowing the bile that threatened to
escape, “You butchered him, Ben!”
Ben took a
step forward, but Max quickly darted around the corpse, putting Logan’s body
between them.
“He knew
too much,” Ben explained, nodding at the dead hacker. He sought her eyes and
she saw the pleading look they held. “He was the last one, I swear.”
“What, did
you have a quota or something? The last one?” Max asked, her features flooded
with horror and incomprehension. “You killed our friend, Ben, a good man!”
Ben didn’t
understand why she was going on about Logan. Couldn’t she see? Why didn’t she
understand? Zack would have understood, Alec, too, but Max…
“Don’t you
get it? He knew. What do you think Logan would have done? Let me go
with a smile and a pat on the back? I did
what I had to do.”
“No, you killed him! We could have –“
“Could
have what, Maxie!? Talked to him? How do you think he knew? It wasn’t just
conjecture! He had pictures, for
god’s sake! He had proof.”
Max took a
deep breath, trying to calm her whirling thoughts. Okay, so maybe Logan
wouldn’t have just let it go, but…
“We could
have worked it out,” she insisted.
“He had surveillance footage that placed me
at the scene, Max! Logan was a threat!”
“So what,
Ben, did you kill Matt Sung, too? Logan would have gotten them from somewhere.
Is that what you did? Did you kill him, too?”
Ben
stilled, staring at Max as her words set in. Then he cursed, “Fuck!”
How could
he have been so stupid? He’d been so focused on eliminating Cale that he’d
completely forgotten the man’s source. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he repeated
desperately.
Max
flinched with each utterance. Ben’s face was white, his eyes flashing
dangerously. If he hadn’t thought of it before, Ben certainly was thinking about
it now. At least Max knew that Ben hadn’t hurt the good detective yet.
“Damn it,
Maxie,” Ben growled, pounding the slab with his fists. “Not another one! It was
supposed to end with him,” he pointed
towards Logan before running his hand through his hair. “I don’t wanna do this
anymore! It’s not who I am, I’m better than this!” Recalling her earlier words,
he spat, “I’m not a monster!”
Max took a
deep breath. She needed to soothe his raging fury, calm him into a semblance of
the brother she once knew. Volatile Ben wasn’t something she was used to, and
she honestly feared for her own safety. Max could handle herself, but Ben was
acting crazy, and crazy was unpredictable. So, she approached slowly and laid a
hand gently on his arm.
“Of course
you’re not,” she said softly.
But Ben
was having none of it. He shoved her to the ground and stood over her
menacingly. “Don’t fucking patronize me, you bitch! You just called me a
fucking Nomlie! ”
Max tried
to dig a way out of her current hole. “Ben, I was freaked out and angry… I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
Ben
laughed coldly, the sound sending shivers down her spine.
“Oh, you
meant it. And I thought you of all people would understand.” He shook his head
in disgust. “But you’re just like the rest of them, always judging before you
have all the facts.”
“Then
explain it to me,” Max entreated softly, climbing slowly to her feet and not
making any sudden movements that Ben might misinterpret as hostile.
“I didn’t
want to kill him,” he stated. “I just couldn’t let him hurt me, Max. I couldn’t
deal if they took me away from you.” Ben locked eyes with Max to try and convey
how strongly he felt. Her face was impassive though there was a hard glint in
her eyes, and when she failed to comment he continued, “I knew it was wrong, but
it’s not like I did it for fun.”
He paused,
the look in his eyes unfocused and sad. “They weren’t all like Logan. There
were accidents…”
Max
ignored the first part of his confession and focused on the latter.
“Accidents?”
“I-,” he
bit his lower lip and closed his eyes, thinking of Jinx, unable to escape the
image of her bulging, lifeless eyes. “I, sometimes...God, Max, you have to
understand!
“You had
it pretty easy on the outside, ya know? Things were different for me.” Ben
dragged his hand through his unruly hair yet again and rubbed the back of his
neck in a nervous gesture.
“Sometimes
the memories are too much.”
Max,
normally one to attack without trying to see the other’s point when she didn’t
agree, tried to think before she spoke. She tried to read between the lines.
“So you’re
saying that…some of the…deaths were by accident.” He nodded. “And it has to do
with whatever happened to you before you came to Seattle?” He visibly swallowed
and nodded again.
“Okay,”
she breathed. “And the others?” Max asked as calmly as she could.
Ben
reached for her hands and grasped them firmly within his own. “I’ve seen
things, done things...” his voice trailed off and he faltered, before gathering
his thoughts and continuing, “The Nomlies were victims of Manticore, like you
and I. They made me like this. I did what I knew how to do, what I had to do.
To protect myself.”
“You’re
trying to tell me that these people you killed were...” Lost for words a
moment, Max opened and shut her mouth before finishing, “...threatening you somehow?” Her voice rose
with anger when Ben just looked at
her, and she yanked her hands from his, taking a few steps back. “Well?”
“Maxie,”
he pleaded softly, shoving his now free hands deep into his pockets and looking
at her with that vulnerable expression that used to make her want to hold him
tight, soothe his fears and chase his demons away, but now only left her
feeling cold and empty.
“Why, Ben?
Tell me why?”
Ben knew this
was his one chance to make her see; to open her eyes to the driving force
behind his thoughts and actions, but he didn’t know how to open up, how to
voice what hid inside him. How do you
tell the woman you love that you were...used?
“I’ll tell
you, Maxie. I’ll tell you because you’ll understand, but this is,” he ran a
shaky hand through his hair, “difficult for me.”
Max shook
her head, her jaw tightening. “Difficult? So it’s easier done than said?”
Ben’s arms
fell to his sides, fists clenched. His nostrils flared in anger. “If you’d let
me explain-“
“Do you
honestly think you can rationalize murder?”
His eyes
narrowed to slits, lips pursed tightly. When he spoke, it was in a tightly
controlled, quietly furious manner.
“You know,
Maxie, I had issues with all the lives I’d taken. I even spoke to a priest who
assured me that sometimes taking a life wasn’t the sin I’d thought. He even
told me it was okay. Father Costanza said that taking a life to protect people
is okay. So you tell me, Maxie, am I not allowed to take a
life to protect myself? You know
better than a man of God?”
She
regarded him skeptically. “You still believe in all that?”
“Yes, no,
I don’t kno- That isn’t the point!”
Max
snorted in derision. “Whatever. You think I’m gonna buy that it was self
defense? ‘Cause I’m not stupid, Ben. You murdered a priest. A doctor. And our friend.” She shook her head in
disgust. “And who knows how many others?”
Ben
thought back to his time with Father Costanza. He didn’t really have a good
reason for killing the man, come to think of it. Just bad memories associated
with the Church; the kind of memories that resulted in self-loathing and
blinding rage; the kind of rage that made him lose his head and all rational
thought, sometimes to the extent where he couldn’t remember what he’d done or
why. The Church had made Ben weak,
and that was something he could never forgive. Besides, he hadn’t planned to
kill the man when he’d set out that night, but...
“The
priest was a...” he searched for the words that might help her to see, “an
unfortunate mistake.” Seeing that she meant to speak, Ben hurried to add, “Look
Maxie, things were...I was...” he licked his suddenly dry lips, eyes flicking
to and fro as he tried to express the horrors of his teenage years. “It wasn’t
easy, Maxie. There were...a lot of shit happened to me. Caused by people like
Father Costanza. The church, the memories, I-," Ben looked deeply into
Max’s eyes, willing her to understand. “It was like I couldn’t help myself,
Maxie. Sometimes I can’t help myself,” he repeated shakily.
Max’s
heart twisted at her brother’s words. He seemed so lost, so vulnerable, so…sincere, that she wanted to hold him
close and tell him it would all be okay. But the fact remained that the man she
had thought to be so gentle and quiet was an obviously disturbed individual and
a self-proclaimed murdered. She just couldn’t bring herself to touch him.
Ben
could see the emotions flickering in Max’s eyes, could imagine the inner
struggle as she tried to understand the reasons for his actions. He knew, too,
that he hadn’t explained nearly well enough for her to accept what he’d done,
and from the look she currently wore, he feared she never would.
“We
never should have left. Everything made sense there,” he whispered brokenly.
Silence
stretched between them.
“You
loved me then.”
“Oh,
Ben, I still, I-,” Max struggled to show Ben she still cared, but couldn’t say
the words. She watched, horrified, as she saw the effect that her inability to
assure her brother of her love had on him. His eyes darkened and his face
hardened, his jaw tightening with anger and hurt.
“Save
it,” he snapped. “You’re always so high and mighty, Max. People make mistakes,
and yeah, they even feel regret sometimes. But you always take the moral high
ground, don’t you? Doesn’t matter if we screwed up and we’re sorry, huh? I did
something wrong, I’m trying to stop; but you only the see the bad guy. Forgot
about the brother you loved, Maxie? Only see the monster now?”
“That’s
not true!” she exclaimed. “Ben, you’re my brother and I love you. We’ll…figure
something out, I promise.”
“Make
up your mind, Max. Either I’m a monster or I’m loveable. It’s one or the other.
What’s it gonna be?”
Max
was struck with the thought that Alec might have said something about Monsters
Inc. and cuddly little monsters to lighten the mood. But Ben wasn’t Alec and
this really wasn’t the time for jokes.
“Ben,
let me help you. I may not understand why you did this, but I can help you.”
Ben
shook his head. “I used to think She would protect me,” he let out a short,
humorless laugh. “That she sent me to them, that they were good people. I
thought Joe and Marianne would help me because She was watching out for me. And
when that went to hell, I thought Fenton would help me. But he was just like
the others. Everyone who promised to help me lied.”
“I’m
not them, Ben. I’m not her, whoever she is. You know I won’t hurt you,” Max
pleaded. “Let me try.”
Ben
appeared not to hear what she was saying. He was caught up in memories, painful
memories of a past that never seemed to let go.
“No
matter what I did, it wasn’t enough. I gave Her everything and She abandoned
me. I thought I wasn’t good enough.”
Max
laid her hand on Ben’s arm, squeezing gently. “Who, Ben?”
“The
Blue Lady,” he said hoarsely. “Nothing I did was enough. Jack, Eva, Manticore,
Joe. It was never enough.”
Max
forced herself to gather Ben into a hug, pulling his head onto her shoulder and
rocking him gently in her arms.
“Oh,
Ben, I know you believed in Her, but She wasn’t real.”
“She
was. She was real, Maxie. She just didn’t care.”
“Ben-,”
“No.
I get it, you never learned, so you don’t know. But I did. I lived with…them, and they sent me school, Maxie. I
went to school. Like a normal kid. I loved being a normal kid, Maxie.”
Max
sensed there was more to the story than Ben was letting on. His voice was a
combination of whimsy and bitterness, and whoever they were, Ben obviously had issues with them.
“I’m
glad you got to have that,” she said finally, rubbing circles on his back.
Ben
slid his arms around Max’s small frame and held tight, burrowing his nose in
her neck and inhaling the sweet scent of her skin.
Max
recalled happier days from their childhood where she and her siblings used to
beg, ‘Tell us a story, Ben’. She smiled and caressed his hair. “Tell me about
it?”
Ben’s
shoulders tensed and he stiffened in her embrace. Max felt the shiver that ran
through him and she pulled back, causing her brother to turn his head at the
change in position.
“Ben?”
she asked, concerned at the cold, faraway look in his eyes.
He
knew he owed her at least a little background, something to help Max to better
grasp the circumstances that changed him into the man he was. But the shame of
his past wasn’t something he wanted to share. He hung his head, shaking it
lightly to signify his unwillingness to speak.
Max
wasn’t stupid. She sensed that this piece of Ben’s past was key, and though she
was never one for touchy-feely, sharing emotions crap, she figured it would
help them both to get it out into the open.
“Please?”
“It
didn’t last,” he said with a shrug.
“Ben-,”
“Drop
it, Max,” he snapped, meeting her eyes briefly before looking away. The concern
there was unnerving. “I can’t.”
“But-,”
“Look,
Max,” Ben growled, pulling away and glaring, “You can’t have it both ways. You
don’t get to attack me, freak out on me and then be all nice about it when you
want something. It doesn’t work that way. I had enough of that shit to last a
lifetime.”
“That’s
not fair. I just want to understand. I want to help.”
“You
don’t get it, Maxie. You can’t help
me. You haven’t been there, you don’t know what it’s like.”
“So
tell me!”
“Tell
you what? That I had a crappy childhood? So did you.”
“Something
happened to you, Ben, and I can’t help you until you talk to me.”
“What
do you want to know, Max? That I was beaten? That I was…molested?” he admitted,
his voice breaking with shame and hurt. “That I whored myself for drugs because
I was a fucking junkie?”
Max’s
eyes reflected horror at Ben’s admissions, and then welled with tears that fell
silently. She raised a hand to cover her mouth, choking back a sob. Her
brother, a sweet-tempered boy with a quiet, gentle nature had suffered abuse on
a level she couldn’t have imagined. She wasn’t a stranger to it, having lived
for a short while with an abusive foster father herself, but never to such a
degree and Max hadn’t experienced it first-hand. Not only had Ben suffered this
abuse, but he’d gone through it alone, out in an unfamiliar and unwelcoming
world without friends or family to support him.
“Oh,
god, Ben,” she gasped quietly, reaching for him.
He
flinched and shook her off. “It was all Her fault,” he said quietly, his voice
as distant as the look in his pained, hazel eyes. “I gave Her everything and
She-,”
Max
felt a wave of annoyance wash over her, threatening to drown out the sympathy
she felt. Ben was still obsessing over The Blue Lady, a figure she felt was
just a wild fantasy.
Max
tentatively questioned him. “Did you really think giving Her teeth would do
something? I know you believe in her-,”
“Believed,” he corrected harshly. “I told
you She was real and She is, but I don’t give a flying fuck about Her anymore. The
Blue Lady and the Church and all the fucking hypocrites attached to it can burn
in hell.”
Max
took a step back when he turned blazing eyes on her. “You see, She mocked me.
Made my life a joke. At first, they were all priests, men of the cloth, soldiers
of the Blessed Lady. It was,” he cocked his head thoughtfully, a chilling smile
twisting his lips, “the best revenge.”
Goosebumps
raised along her arms at the cold, lyrical tone Ben adopted. Max wasn’t sure
what to say, if anything, or whether it would be safe to move at all.
“A
poser, a fake. The prissy little bitch looked so…angelic,” Ben chuckled darkly, his thoughts obviously not in the
present. His darkening features sent a wave of fear through Max, but she stood
silent and unmoving as her brother ranted about his former idol.
Until
his gaze moved over her face. Max gasped at what she saw there; Ben’s hazel
orbs were burning into her, but they were glazed and feverish. His eyes were
staring vacantly, looking straight through her, or possibly seeing something
that wasn’t there.
“You,
with your soulful eyes, meant to inspire guilt. Big brown eyes,” Max’s breath
caught as Ben stepped forward and cupped her cheek, his other hand tracing her
eyebrow and trailing down her nose to her plump lips. “Mmm, and soft, sweet
lips. You sit pretty and lie to our faces.”
Max
squashed the urge to inch backwards, away from his touch, her skin beginning to
crawl.
“Ben…?”
she whispered warily, swallowing hard. Her fingers came up to touch his wrist,
prepared to wrap around it should his explorations become threatening.
Ben’s
hand came down to gently encircle Max’s throat like a collar, mildly caressing
the smooth flesh of her neck. “You think you’re special, do you? People should
worship you? Follow you? Bring you offerings and promise you their undying
loyalty? Like you’d ever do anything for them in return, you lying bitch!”
That
last statement was punctuated with a hard shove, sending Max sprawling on the
ground. She realized that Ben was locked in a painful memory, and coupled with
the emotional strain and psychological damage, he was obviously trapped in his
own mind. Jumping to her feet, she took up a defensive position.
“Ben,
it’s me, Max.”
He
slowly began to circle her, like a jungle cat, his eyes never leaving her, following
her every movement, no matter how small. He cocked his head and grinned, those
empty eyes still blazing with some strange inner fire, glowing eerily in
darkness.
Where
had the day gone? She wondered suddenly. The moon peeked through the trees, illuminating
the clearing where they faced each other.
Ben’s
mind was clear. Before him stood the former icon of his long-waned faith, an
unearthly light shining upon her hair like a halo. It was almost as if St.
Joseph’s’ chapel windows had come to life.
“Finally
decided to face me, bitch?”
“The
fuck?” Max retorted, her temper rising. “Where do you get off calling me a
bitch?”
“Naughty,
naughty, Mother,” Ben taunted,
“That’s two bucks for the swear-jar.”
“Ben!”
Max yelled, her heart racing. “Stop it! It’s me, Max!”
“Don’t
you bring her into this, you whore!” Ben cried as he launched himself at the
phantom. His foot connected with her stomach and Max fell back.
Flipping
to bring herself upright, the fight began. The duo exchanged blow for blow,
dancing around each other, kicking, punching and ducking, each getting in a few
good hits. Max wasn’t sure what to do; she didn’t want to hurt Ben, but he was
leaving her little choice. By mistaking her for The Blue Lady, he was trying to
tear into her and rip her apart. His mode of attack screamed ‘take no
prisoners’.
That
split second of consideration proved dangerous. During the brief moment that
Max’s focus faltered, Ben sent a vicious kick to head, spinning Max mid-air and
sending her crashing to the ground where she caught her head on the edge of a
jagged rock.
Her
vision clouded and she felt lightheaded. Every drowsy blink, each shallow
breath sent shockwaves of pain and nausea through her body.
Ben’s
tall frame loomed over her but she couldn’t make out his features. She reached
out for him, silently begging him to help her to her feet, to realize who she
was and what he was doing, but he seemed unaffected and unaware of what was
real and what was imaginary.
“Ben?”
she called in a voice that sounded feeble to her own ears. “Ben, don’t-,”
“Shut
up, bitch,” he growled angrily, yanking her outstretched arm and twisting it
until it snapped.
More
pain shot through her, up her arm and straight to her bruised and battered
head. She struggled, but the waves of dizziness and the bile rising from her
stomach made it difficult to concentrate her efforts.
“Move
again and I’ll break your legs,” he threatened quietly, kneeling beside her. If
she’d been in the right state of mind, Max might have heard the steely timbre
of his voice, or seen the hard glint in his eyes. As it was, the thought
prevalent in her mind was escape but to do so meant moving despite the pain and
stars dancing all around her.
So
when her knee cracked and splintered, immeasurable and blinding pain ripped through
her once more. Max raised glassy, unfocused eyes to her brother, her lungs
straining in her chest, mouth open in a silent scream.
Ben
looked down on the woman broken on the ground and incoherent with pain, a
triumphant smile on his face. He watched the uneven rise and fall of her chest,
breasts straining against the tight cotton material of her shirt.
He’d
never remembered The Blue Lady in anything other than modest attire, but she
was at his mercy now, and finally showing her true colors. The Blessed Lady was
nothing but a whore, tits pointing up in his face, begging for his touch. He
knew it! Knew she was trying to tempt him to forgive her, to take comfort in
her body and set her free.
He
would have her, there was no doubt in his mind. But Ben had no plans to let her
go. The Blue Lady would pay.
- 13
- 14
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Dark Obsession