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The Secret	By : Keen Category: 1 through F > Dexter Views: 4873 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Dexter, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
A/N:
Thanks to Toki
Mirage for commenting and thus
giving me incentive to push this next chapter out. I�m caught up on all the
seasons and realise this is probably an already explored/worn idea, but I�m going
to continue with it anyway just for completion�s sake.

�� Jeezus, what are you doing here, Dex?�
�� Deb,
leaning on the nurses� kiosk, looked up. Her eyes widened as I approached. The
pen laced through her slender fingers almost fell as she stretched out her arms
to hug me.
�� I
heard they found her,� I say quietly.
�� Deb
let me go and sucked in a breath, putting her fists on her narrow hips. The gun
that was slung around it, strapped down securely with a thick leather belt,
suddenly looked too heavy for her with the child-like pose.
�� I
don�t know if you really want to see her, Dex. Col�n
did a real number on her. Batista almost puked.�
�� I
explained to Deb, I heard that too. I had been listening to the police radio
since she was abducted; I kept up with nearly every communiqu� and post. I knew
it was too much for Batista and made Doakes angrier
than usual�if that was at all possible�but I had seen more than they could ever
hope to. More than I hoped Deb would ever see.
�� I
put my hand on her shoulder and looked her in the eyes, �I�m a big boy, Sis. I
can handle myself.� Deb still looked sceptical but I added the standard
platitudes most expect at a time like this. �She�s a friend, this is what
friend�s do for one another,� �I won�t be able to rest until I see her.� They
mean nothing to me but they have the desired effect, unlocking Deb�s hard shell
enough for her to bend the rules.
�� With
a sigh she shrugged, �Alright. Follow me...�
�� Deb
took me by the hand, because touch, I had gathered, was important in these
kinds of situations, and led me down the quiet halls of the hospital. It was
way past visiting hours so the halls and general hustle and bustle of the
hospital was absent, leaving punctuated silence in its wake. It felt like a
museum more than a place of healing, even more so when Deb pushed open the
door. Moving to the bed we stared in reverent silence, like many museum patron,
casting a critical eye on what was presented before us
under harsh lights.
�� Harper�s
still body spoke volumes of her ordeal. Hidden under the neatly pressed and
folded sheets was evidence that Col�n tried to excise his pound of flesh for
every woe the woman had caused him in the five years of pursuit. Taking the
magnetised notebook at the food of the bed, I glanced over the pages. Abrasions
to her hand�most likely from it being dragged for a mile before her kidnapper
pulled her back into the car, excessive bruising and lesions from the sound
fist beating he gave her. Cuts to the back and face, from the
sound machete beating. Defensive wounds on her forearms, torn
fingernails and the topper�a slit throat.
�� He
finally got tired of her fighting him...�
�� When
Deb turned I knew I had said that part aloud. It was a truthful assessment but
I sensed, an unwelcome one. I closed the clipboard and
slowly raised my head.
�� Deb
was furious. �Jeezus, Dex!�
�� Damage
control was needed, �She put up a helluva� fight.�
�� Success. Deb slumped a little again, here eyes glittering
with held tears. They fell when her eyes widened.
�� Damn
right,� a voice scratched.
�� Deb
blinked, �Christ almighty.�
�� I
looked down and Harper�s eyes stared back at me, reddened and swollen,
surrounded by rings of black. My sister, ever the paradox, immediately
abandoned her scowl to fall at her side. Deb took her hand, smoothing back the
wild brown curls from her face with a soft smile. �How are you feeling?�
�� Like
I look,�
�� Deb
tried to say something positive, but we all knew there was nothing. She
snickered seeing Harper�s busted and stitched lip curl into a smile. �Like
shit,� she said with a laugh.
�� Harper
laughed too. It was a raspy rattling sound, totally unbefitting the woman but
uniquely hers still. I could make out the softest inflection of that Southern
lilt everyone loves so much. �What are you still doing here, hun?�
�� Making
sure you�re alright until your family gets here, of course.�
�� And this one?� Deb looked where Harper motioned to me. I
stood at the foot of the bed, my arms folded.
�� He
wanted to see you,� she said, her voice still carrying a trace of her anger.
But her mood was interrupted by her vibrating hip. She slid her hand into her
pocket and produced her cellular, flipping it to open with little to do and
striding out the room leaving the battered Agent and myself alone.
�� While
waiting for Deb to come back, we stared at one another in silence until I asked
her if she would rather I left.
�� Harper
shook her head, �It�s fine.� She waved a slender hand
and struggled to sit up.
�� Without
thinking I took her hand as she reached for me, pulling her upright and
stuffing a pillow behind her naked back. I paused then,
skin sliding against skin, holding her down as much as I did up. The gown she
wore was split open in the back, exposing her bottom and what Masuka called �side boob� but my interests were not on
those features. My fingers, strikingly pale against her skin, traced the
stitched wounds that ran down her spine and criss-crossed her soft sides. She
turned slightly and I lifted my head to stare back at her.
�� With
a shiver, Harper faced forward again. �He didn�t do that� I got that sliding
under a chain link fence.� Wordlessly I stuffed another pillow behind her back
and helped ease her back. She winced but her expression softened as her head
touched the soft bedding. For some reason it drummed up memories of my mother
just before she fell to cancer but I was not nearly as moved. I still felt
anger and to my surprise, so did Callianne.
�� Her
eyes, swollen and inflamed as they where, darkened�hardened as she remembered.
I knew that look all to well, what desires it spoke of but I held my tongue as
I took a seat on the edge of the bed, only listening as she talked.
�� Before
Batista and Doakes, she had been visited earlier in
the day by her superiors. They didn�t come to see her as much as they did to
inform her she had been pulled from the case for medical leave and introduce
her to her replacement, Agent Dickerson. He would be back tomorrow to go over
her notes and help to start up where she left off. They also broke the news to
her that Col�n was still at large.
�� He
killed again.� She closed her eyes and put her fists over them to hide her
tears�but I could still see them, glittering around the edges of her black
lashes. �They showed me the pictures.�
�� The
hooker in Aventura,� I nodded. Masuka
called me to case that scene as well. The woman was torn up so much it looked
like she was near a bomb when it went off but the serrated nicks in the bones
of her face said a knife had done the job�Col�n�s weapon of choice.
�� Callianne threw her hands down at her sides, �The
ex-girlfriend. Johanna,� she corrected with a bitter snap. �It shouldn�t matter
what she became. He made her that way.�
�� You
think it was no choice of her own?�
�� Look
at me,� she said.
�� Her
hands clasped in her lap, she looked me in the eye with her honey coloured iris
and offered her body up for scrutiny. The slash that
traversed her cheek and nose, the busted lip and blackened eyes. �He had
me for a half a day,� she said firmly. �He had her for seven years�and no one
was looking for her.�
�� Seeing
her unshed tears, I put my hand on hers and stared into her eyes, offering up
my most sincere expression. �It was not your fault, Callianne.�
�� The
hell it wasn�t.� She wrenched away like I burned her and fisted the sheets to
pull it higher. I saw her knuckles blanch and my head tilted.
�� Rage
bubbled just under her battered but calm surface. Her thoughts obviously
centred on that moment, that opportunity in the condo where she could have
stopped Col�n permanently. She held so tightly to the principle that every life
was worth saving, that punishment and true justice could come without blood,
but I gathered she was re-thinking that position. The muscles of her jaw worked
as she struggled to hold back sobbing tears. When she clamed herself some, I
dared to ask, if she had it to do again, what would she do.
�� Harper
looked away, turning her head against the pillow to stare out the lone window
of the room but I could see wheels in her mind turning.
�� Would
you kill him?� I asked.
�� She
was silent.
�� Answer
me.�
�� Harper
snuck a glance at me and then closed her eyes again. I thought she would ignore
me when I heard her threadbare voice whisper a soft, �Yes.�
�� How
would you do it?�
�� I...
only had a gun...�
�� But
if you had more than that, what would you do?� Harper shifted in the bed, the
cover falling off her legs as she struggled to sit up some. My eyes trained on
the small cuts that vanished underneath the hem of her dress.
�� I
don�t understand.�
�� How
would you kill him?�
�� Harper
turned away with a scowl as if offended I would even think to ask her. She
wasn�t like me, or at least she wanted to believe that. But deep down, there
was someone everyone wouldn�t mind killing�even if they only entertained the
idea for a second. For reasons much less principled than ours, both hers and
mine.
�� I
need my rest,� she announced, laying back down.
�� I
leaned over her, my hip resting on the bed, my body twisted so that she was
caged under me. Harper turned away but I moved to stare her in the eyes. There,
I could see what she tried so hard to dismiss.
�� She
fought me because she didn�t like the answer. She didn�t like that she had
given it any measure of thought or that I was so eager to hear but it could not
be helped. We spend so much time trying to conceal it, hide it under civility
and philosophical ideals, but in the end, our nature, however savage and base,
would always make an appearance. And the time for Harper�s was just beginning.
�� Would
you shoot him still or cut him like he has done to you?� I pushed at her paper
gown, bunching it around her waist. My hands smoothed over the bumpy wounds
that slashed across her thigh, my fingers slipping over the long puckered marks
before tracing tiny rivulets over her smooth flesh. I could just see the path
her blood would take when the wounds were open and fresh, gushing to soil her
tattered pantsuit, pooling underneath her bottom. Fisting her thigh elicited a
moan and slowly I lifted my eyes to meet hers, �Or would you bleed him out slow
like he did to Johanna?�
�� I
squeezed harder and she jumped, �I don�t know!�
�� Harper
swatted my hands away and hid her leg, pushing down her paper gown and tossing
the cover over her hips. She glared angrily at me but I did not care. I would
have an answer. I needed to hear it. It
was like when I came before Harry for permission. He was my conscious, the sage
voice that told me right from wrong because I could not decide it for myself. At least not to his satisfaction.
�� What
would you do, Callie?�
�� Her
voice was a defeated whimper, �I don�t know.� She covered her eyes with her
hands again and I grabbed for them, stopping her.
�� You
don�t know or you can�t say?� She turned, hiding her face in the
pillows and in the resounding silence I had my answer.
�� Her
body, sagging limply in my fists, shook as she cried quietly.
�� She mourned the loss of her unnerving
principles and the revelation that we were more alike than she cared to admit.

�� I
left the bed just as the door cracked open. Deb held it open with a slender arm
while a trio of petite woman, sniffing into laced handkerchiefs, huddled
together moved inside. They cried and yelled to see Harper on the bed. Arms
outstretched, tears streaming down soft cheeks, I could still see and hear the
family resemblance as they rushed to near her.
�� Think
about it,� I said, patting her arm. She still looked away from me, but I knew
she heard me. �You will have the time.�
�� I
fell away from the bed just as her mother barrelled past, taking her withered
and shaking hands to her baby�s cheeks. Deb pulled me toward the door, pinching
my skin. The pendulum swung and she was angry again, for what, I would learn as
we stepped into the hall. Not to say I would understand at all.
- 7
- 8
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The Secret