Who says crack houses are dangerous?

[alicelogan]

Alice lay there on the cold floor able to see everything and do nothing. She watched the man in bandages leave, she heard him talk about the knife, she watched bugs scurry past her face and most importantly, she watched Crane’s laboured breaths across the room.

The amount of drugs in her system was putting her at risk for a heart attack or

Comments

[scream_and_cry]

Crane does have a cellphone on him, but it's switched off. As his mask is lifted off, Alice can clearly see that his face has been smashed several ways to Sunday. His glasses, that he was wearing beneath the mask, are broken. Shards of lenses are stuck in his face. His nose is broken, his lips are split, and many of his teeth are broken.

"Urrgghhhh..." He can hardly focus, but can almost certainly recognise the girl in front of him. His first instinct is to lash out, but his right arm appears to be broken, so instead he screams as he tries to lift it. "Get away.... Uurrrgh... I'll kill you... Momentarily..."

[alicelogan]

"You can kill me later. Don't move." She gently patted him down to get the cellphone and turned it on. "You're going to have to tell me the address. I have no idea wh---" Her sentence was interrupted by a sharp pain in her head and a vision of a banshee or something flying at her face.

She calmed herself with deep breaths and tried to focus on words, not the growls of hidden monsters. "What's the address, Crane?"

[scream_and_cry]

Crane groans, and considers his helpless position. This girl is clearly simple-minded, and could easily be manipulated or threatened after he was somewhere... safer. He murmurs the address to her, and then allows his head to rest on the floor.

Despite everything Hush had done. The surgery that made him think he was close to death, this cruel beating... It took more than that to scare the Scarecrow. If it was a game of fear that young Thomas Elliot wanted, he was playing with the wrong sadistic psychopath.

[alicelogan]

It was easier to push whatever the hell was in her head away at the realization that someone was in trouble and possibly near death. If she could prevent it she would. No more people would die in front of her.

She called for an ambulance telling them that Dr. Crane was attacked. They didn't need to know that he wasn't living as cleanly as everyone thought. As long as she hid the mask under her jacket, no one would know but her... and that strange man.

"Just lie still, everything is going to be fine." She smiled.

It was like seeing her father's broken corpse all over again. But this time, she was old enough to realize what was going on.

[scream_and_cry]

Dr Crane sits up in bed in the hospital a few hours later. The wounds were for the most part superficial, except for the arm breakage and lacerations around his eyes. Now with a pair of temporary spectacles, he focuses at the girl just beyond his feet. "Well... Did you have any further questions for me? Do you not feel you know me well enough?"

[alicelogan]

Alice had been glaring at Crane the entire time she was in the room. It was quite a feat considering the horrific things that kept intruding on her vision.

"How do I fix this?" Maybe it was the combination of drugs, but she seemed to be pretty lucid for a victim of Crane's.

[scream_and_cry]

"Fix...? Oh, the fear toxin." He brings himself to laugh despite himself. "It will pass in time." His mind wanders a little while. "Well, it would, if you hadn't been given such a huge combination of drugs. I have no idea what the long-term effects will be. Schizophrenia, perhaps. Sterility. Who knows. I'm a psychologist, and only a hobby chemist."

[alicelogan]

"So you shot me up full of stuff without even knowing what could happen!?" She stood, ignoring the head rush, and moved to the side of the hospital bed so she could glare at his face directly.

"You and that... thing, person-- both of you put stuff in me and I want it fixed. How can you not know? Maybe I should have just left you there..."