Holding cells, Titans Tower.

[jla_extras]

This is hardly what Tara wanted. Expected, yes. Wanted, no. She still felt like she's been hit by a truck. Cyborg packed a wallop with that stunner.

She's on her way to the cells, probably. She hears the wheels of a stretcher and the feel of an inhibitor collar as she's pushed down a corridor...

Comments

[gar_logan]

As he pushes the cart along, he can't help but both disbelieve Tara's actions, hoping she was unbalanced for some reason, medical or otherwise.

The only thing making him contain her in the cells is his sense of duty and friendship to both the other Titans and the city also, just to be sure, to make everyone safe.

This all weighs heavily on his conscience though.

Especially the collar.

God, the irony. He berated himself, You're treating her like some kind of animal! Complete with cage!

[jla_extras]

Feign being knocked out still? Naah.

She cracks open a blue eye. "Hey."

[gar_logan]

He slows down, but doesn't stop, wrestling with both sides, wanting her out of the collar, but also knowing the consequences if he's wrong.

"Tara!"

He can't help feel relieved that her first impulse wasn't to explode and scream at anything and everything.

Nor, in fact, any actions like the reports seemed to indicate.

Reaching forward with a hand to smooth her hair from her cheek, he keeps steering her to their destination.

"How's your head chipmunk?"

[jla_extras]

She thinks a moment. "There...someone in my head."

Yo, hippie? Hippie?

that's when Tara notices. Oh, hell. Hippie's gone. Gig is up, game over. She needs to haul ass and soon! Only a matter of time before even salad-head figures out she's not his sweet little girlfriend anymore.

Somehow, this causes her to scowl. Why did this feel like a bad thing, other than just survival odds? Maybe it had been a little bit of fun, to be paid attention to, just like it had been before...

She shook her head. Forget it. She had to plan a strategy.

[jla_extras]

It's at the end of a hall, at the end of an L-shaped corridor. Tara's abilities might be curbed by the collar, but Slade was always about the back-up plan and so was Dick.

As soon as he undoes the top strap, she strikes like a snake, jamming the dart in his shoulder. The neurotoxin goes right to his head, making his muscles feel twice as heavy.

Before he can react further, she undoes the bottom buckle and tries to get up.

[gar_logan]

He can't form words properly, stunned, grabbing at his shoulder, pulling out the dart, eyes locked on hers.

A look of suprised hurt crosses his face, especially in his eyes, and the sound of his unbelieving mind garbling words cross his lips.

Tara?! But...why?

He stumbles, falling to a knee, supporting himself with the stretcher, trying desperately to hold on to it, hand leaving his shoulder, his arms wrapping around the surface, hands clinging to bedsheet and side as his head leans to the side on the surface as his legs wobble unsteadily.

[jla_extras]

She's taken aback for a moment. The usual snarks and insults don't come. She starts to run, but stops, and turns back, prying the collar off.

"Can't be anything but me, Logan." Why is it hard to speak? "Another time, 'nother life, maybe we coulda been something," she admits.

Than she takes off down the corridor, headed for the lab and the closest exit.

[gar_logan]

He can feel something jabbed into his gut, through his spleen and liver, up to his ribs, like his torso was just made hollow.

For a second with the disorientation he wonders if she's finishing him off somehow.

Then it occurs to him.

It's no physical weapon, nor injury. His heart was just torn in two, the remnants crushed under her heel.

He's so numb right now, he can't even feel the tears running down his cheeks as he activates the alarm on his communicator.

[jla_extras]

The closest exit is through the lab, and there isn't much time for sublety. Gar may be dense as granite, but he's a resiliant bastard.

She's just about home free, at the hole she blasted in the wall when she gets an idea. There's just enough time to get in a parting shot.

She smashes the cabinet open with a chunk of concrete. There are several discs in the cabinet. One of them contains...

She takes the first one and shoves in in. Nope, security back-up files. It's coming with. Second...Who cares about Cyborg's diary anyhow?

On the third, she hits jackpot. She places both hands on the keyboard to make sure, and an evil grin stretches across her face. The computer reads for a moment, and Terra yanks the disk out.

"Guess you won't get another shot to fuck things up, will ya, Joey."

She casts it to the floor and crushes the disk under her heel.

[vic_stone]

Vic is running down the halls, heading for the cells. "Sure as hell, Terra -- or whoever's in there -- pulled a fast one. Why did I send Gar?"

He comes around a corner to see the flash of Terra's costume turning a corner.

[jla_extras]

She goes out the hole she made in the wall and a chunk of concrete works as a makeshift platform.

"I'm gonna take all of you out!" she says as the plaform starts across the bay. "I started with Joey, but all of you are gonna end up dead when I'm through!"

[vic_stone]

Vic begins to line up a shot with his sonic cannon, but then stops. Even if he manages to hit her, he'll just knock her into the Bay, risking her life or enabling her to get away.

Vic mutters to himself,

What the hell has gotten into you, Tara? You told us you were past this double-agent crap.