Chapter 2: Daisies

February

“You’re quiet this evening.” Hanes sat in an extravagant dining room, or as the home owner would have called it The Mess Hall. Though he was always speaking with an arguable sense of either eloquence or pretentiousness. “You must have much on your mind, you’ve spared me the details on recent calls.” 

Hanes was well groomed, his hair combed back and he wore a nicer button up with slacks and an overcoat. It was as formal as he could muster with recent occasions. “I’m just, worried.” He finally spoke, taking bites out of the expertly prepared meal his host had made for himself and Hanes. 

“Worried? What for?” The man was also well groomed, only everything about him seemed intricately put together. While Hanes came off as a normal person, his host was as complicated and intricate as a clock. Everything down to the buttons on his suit cuffs were chosen for detail.

 “Michael, he’s been, off.” Hanes furrowed his brows, his host brought his glass of wine to his lips with an equally cold and curious look in his eyes.

 “You speak of him often, and yet I haven’t seen him at our dinners. Unlike our beloved Margot.”

Hanes exhaled “He’s not an easy person, not a people person.”

His host took a slow bite of his food, savoring the flavors “It’s often difficult to tell when someone is off when they aren’t much for socialization.”

 Hanes took a long swig from his wine glass “Lately he’s been- Losing sleep. He’s been losing himself when we show up, he looks awful.” Hanes cared deeply for those he ordered around on a daily basis. He made sure they were taken care of, mentally and physically. He went out of his way to be friendly towards them, to be considerate and accommodating. To be whatever person they needed him to be. This was no exception for Anderson.

The two finished their plates and sat in silence for a moment, Hanes could see the cogs turning in his host’s head. He could see the rivers of thought behind his eyes. “Perhaps it’s simple nightmares, I can imagine this job is taxing on the average person.”

 Hanes nodded “It’s a lot, at times.” The host ran his finger against the edge of his now empty wine glass.

“Has he tried therapy yet?” 

Hanes exhaled with a chuckle “He’s, stubborn…” The host slowly cocked his head to the side.

 “Perhaps it would be easier on yourself and him to make it an official order.” His tone was matter-of-fact.

“I would but-”

“But what? Margot is a perfectly good psychologist.”

Hanes’s lips curled in for a moment as he thought, “Michael and Margot are friends. They see each other outside of work.”

The host exhaled “Then I’ll offer to do it.”

Hanes furrowed his brows “I can’t ask that of you-”

“Thus why I said I am offering.”

 Hanes’s rubbed his brows and inhaled long and deep, filling his lungs til they couldn't expand anymore. "Legally, he doesn't have to unless something happens. Unless he gets hurt or hurts someone else. I have no real power in this situation, Grohm.." Hanes once again watched as his host’s mind began to whir and spark. 

Grohm’s eyes lowered to his empty plate and glass. He raised his brows “Shame. He could benefit from it.” The cold eyes shifted and stared almost through Hanes, it was a stare he had seen before but couldn’t place what it meant. 

“A real shame.” Hanes finished the last of his wine with a lump in his throat.

That night stuck with Hanes, the stare that Grohm gave him, the way it looked through his mind and into his very core. The dread and anxiety he felt for the cases were quickly replaced with the dread he felt for that stare. There was nothing like it, no crime or action could compare to how Grohm could stare into one’s being. He could stare into the inner child and find your innermost thoughts, fears, secrets.

“What do we have?” Hanes approached with Anderson, the sterile room’s metal tables had all the victims splayed out. The most fresh one being a male, no older than 20, with his back skinned and reshaped to look as if wings had sprouted from the blades of his back.

Cali exhaled rather tensely “Well, I’ve got some sort of DNA. A few hairs left behind, both animal and…Human.” She had an uneasiness to her tone. She felt off about it, that now they were getting messy. “I sent it off but, I dunno I just don’t have a great feeling about it.” She admitted as her head hung and shook. Hanes put his hand on her shoulder and gave Anderson a look.

“It’s something. We’ll have at least a suspect, someone to question.” Hanes gave her a smile of reassurance. “We’ll be a step closer to catching this…person.”

“If you can call them that.” Anderson spoke up as he took close, almost invasive looks at the bodies. His eyes became glued to the most recent one however. The wings that looked so delicately carved, each missing strand of flesh was intentional. Each curve and groove in the muscle and layers of skin was done with precision. How engrossed in this process were they to have found themself leaving something this crucial? 

As Anderson looked closely through the body’s state, he had come to the realization “This body isn’t even a day old.” He looked up at Cali and Hanes with furrowed brows and widened eyes. “How long ago were the samples sent off?” 

Cali blinked, she rubbed her eyes with her index and her thumb “Uhm, about an hour ago? Why?”

“Because he isn’t far. We need those results now.” Hanes sighed, watching Anderson dive deeper into this case. In the back of his head he understood what he was seeing, this was the case that would break him. He knew that there was no stopping the descent into the craze. He himself knew what it felt like to be consumed by this job, by a case to which captivates you and your entire being. 

The rush that the three felt seeing the DNA match, the face they stared at, the face Anderson stared at. A veterinarian, married with two children. It was as if it was giftwrapped specially for him, for Anderson. 

The next 45 minutes were a blur, the tunnel vision of knowing where this person would be, the thrill of after months having something to hold onto. After months of dead ends, of meaningless questions and fighting by rules, Anderson could finally put a name and face to something. 

As he and Hanes approached the quiet house, they could hear a loud clash and thumping followed by screams. Anderson drew his gun, and it was as if he was dreaming once more. Entering the house he heard the gunshots, he heard the cries of children and the sudden lack of a woman’s plea.

As he turned for the kitchen Anderson saw the son crouched over the mother as she bled out. His stark white face looked up at Anderson and Hanes with wide emotionless eyes “My dad- My dad he-” He choked through his words “He has my sister.” Hanes motioned Anderson to continue, he drew his gun. The only sound grounding him in the moment was fading out as Hanes’s voice of comfort to the boy fled to the back of his mind. 

Suddenly it was quiet, just his breathing, just his heartbeat. He could feel it’s eyes on his back as he walked, he could smell the rot. As he turned the corner he could see it’s open jaw beside his head. Anderson stared at the father, the gun to his daughter’s back. “Not another step officer.” Anderson’s expression was lack thereof, the familiar feeling of long fingers on his chest, he was grounded. He was in this moment, overridden by fear and adrenaline. 

Slowly, one step, and another. “Put the gun down.” Anderson finally mumbled.

“And give myself up?” The man pressed the gun further into his daughter’s back, her eyes closed tightly. Her breathing staggering to keep calm.

“Put the gun down…” Anderson said once more. It was all he could say, staring between the girl and the man, his eyes frantically shifting between the two.

“He has plans for us. He always had a plan for us.” The man’s voice cracked as his emotions began to rise. Why was it that he was already prepared to take this family down with him? How would he have known that Hanes and Anderson were on their way there?

“Who does.” Anderson kept himself still, his gun still pointed at the man.

“The Host.” There was a certain way he said the name that struck every pin and needle in Anderson’s nerves. He felt the claws dig into his skin, the feathers against his chest.

As Anderson took another step, that step became a lunge. The sounds of two gunshots echoed through the house, followed by thuds and yells of the two men. As Hanes and the boy ran through to the kitchen two more shots were fired,the first going through Anderson’s abdomen, and the second nearly piercing right through Hanes. However, behind him he heard a sickening thud. In front of him two men wrestled to disarm the other, in front of him a girl lying bleeding out on the floor, and behind him…Was a now dead young man.

It took watching Anderson struggle and finally lose himself in the moment to bring Hanes out of the trance, the complete and utter dissociation he experienced watching the scene play out. It took watching him beat the man into the lack thereof, to bring him into reality. “Anderson!” He finally yelled, pulling him off of the barely breathing man. “Take care of her!” Anderson’s eyes looked glazed, as if nothing was there behind them. No rivers of thought, no gears to turn against one another. Hanes felt his heart drop, he yelled a few more curses at him before taking off his coat and wrapping the bleeding girl in it. He held his hand firmly against the wound on her abdomen, hoping that Anderson would come back to reality as he sat in it.

Hanes watched as Anderson’s hands shakily put pressure down on the girl’s wound. He listened as he muttered words of reassurance and comfort, listened as his voice, which was full of panic, tell her it was going to be okay. 

Each minute went by like a heartbeat. Each passing second is like a blink that you couldn’t bear to open your eyes from. The kind that sting and send tears to well in up and fog your sight. Each minute they sat there holding the girl, surrounded by her dead family, Hanes watched as Anderson fell further and further into the panic of his situation. It wasn’t as if he simply shot her father, it wasn’t as if it was fully self defense. Anderson killed him with his hands, Anderson bludgeoned him, beat him, mutilated his face till there was nothing left and Hanes just stood and watched. This realization set in as the sirens finally closed in on the almost quiet house, the only sound inside was the agony this girl in Hanes and Anderson’s arms wailed out.

“They said you broke two ribs, then there’s the gunshot- Michael why didn’t you mediate? You went in guns ablaze?” Cali sat beside Anderson in his hospital bed. He didn’t fully realize how much damage he had sustained in the moment, the adrenalin clouded everything, in fact he didn’t remember much of it at all. He remembered his face, or lack thereof, and he remembered holding the girl as she cried out.

“I didn’t go in ‘guns ablaze’.” He mumbled, his voice was gravled and tired. “I tried to- mediate. But..” He clenched his jaw, being in the land of the living once more came with it’s price. The pain that shot through him, that pulsated in every nerve of his body like cold aches, he wished nothing more than to see nothing. He wished nothing more than to be in some place of dream.

“But what? Hanes said the second you went in he shot his own daughter. Then you and his son.” Cali exhaled, shoving her face into her hands in a fit of frustration.

“Are, are they alive?” Anderson asked quietly, his voice coated in a melancholic hope. He refused to look at Cali, his eyes being glued to the foot of his bed. He couldn’t think of anything aside, Are they alive? Will they be okay?

Cali stared at him for a moment, her silence spoke volumes to him. “The girl, her name is Elizabeth Stevens. She’s, recovering.”

Anderson finally turned his head, his eyes following to look at Cali a few seconds after. “And the boy?” He already knew in the back of his head what the answer would be. There wasn’t a chance, Elizabeth being alive was a miracle to him.

“He died at the scene. He was uhm…” She paused, swallowing rather hard as her eyebrows furrowed. “He was shot in the head. We think he was aiming for Hanes.” She moved her hand to hold onto Anderson’s, he was cold, and yet it looked like he was burning. 

She still saw that scene, walking in to see Hanes holding onto both Anderson and Elizabeth barely able to hold himself together. She still saw Anderson’s blood soaked clothing, neglecting his own wounds in the moment to tend to another’s. The whole situation felt so emotionally charged to her that it was hard to rationalize any of it. Hanes should have taken note that his own agent was injured, he should have been looking at a bigger picture than simply the girl. “How are you feeling?”

“...Aware.” He held back his tongue, what he meant to say was that he felt Alive. Some part of him nagged his head, bragging about the brutality he inflicted upon that man. There was a part of him that felt so free that it wasn’t kept under wraps and chains, that it was able to surface, that it was able to make his mind go numb with violence. “Aware.” He repeated.

Cali’s hand lingered on Anderson’s, how would he take this? How would he react to meeting her? These questions among many ran through her head, trailing like a spiral staircase into a rabbit hole. “If you’re aware enough, Hanes issued an eval. And, therapy.” She leaned back, pulling her hand away from his. “Honestly it’s about time you get some help.”

“What do you mean by that.” He furrowed his brows and stared at her. He just didn’t have time before to indulge in things like that, he didn’t have time to spare to engage in things that otherwise are optional.

“I mean you’ve been spiraling for months.” She inhaled, running her hand through her hair. “You don’t sleep, you eat- shit food. You’re a hot mess Michael.” 

“Thank you for the compliment.” He managed a forced smile, it was crooked and required more effort than he would like to admit.

“I’m serious. You should have gotten help months ago. Like the beginning of the case months ago.” She folded her arms against her chest with a huff.

“I know…I just, I didn’t-”

“Didn’t have time?” She rolled her eyes and her shoulders tensed. After a few seconds she rubbed her face “We’ve all heard you say that. But just because you say something enough times doesn’t make it true.” 

“...I know.”