My Control

Chapter Four

Perry wondered if it would ever end. Broken and silent, he sat curled in the corner of the dingy room and stared at the fire in the middle that Josh had built for warmth. Perry felt sweat running down his face as it was, and struggled to keep his back from touching the wall. When he did that, however, the sweat ran down his back and stung the wounds.

Time meant nothing. He hadn't been able to have a sense of time since he'd woken up on the floor in a struggle. Josh brushed his hands over the flame, and extended his arm over the licking bits of orange.

A grin spread over his face as the skin blistered. He pulled his arm back and poked at them like a child sometimes pokes a small bug.

Perry watched him through dazed eyes, his head leaned against the wall. He smelled the wall, taking in the scent of charred wood and drywall. It all smelled the same, and it was more pleasant than smelling urine or vomit.

Josh turned and looked at him, that grin firmly in place and a crazed delight in his eyes.

"They'll be here soon, butterfly," Josh said to him as he hopped up. "My clients love you more than any other pet."

Perry thought dimly how many other "pets" Josh might have had in the past, and whether or not they had died or escaped.

Escape was a dim hope now, and he saw black at the edges of his eyes as Josh walked over to him and kneeled in front of him. Perry stared at the floor, wishing he could find the will to struggle as Josh jerked his arm forward.

"See, butterfly? It feels so much better when you don't struggle," Josh said casually as he pulled a needle out and inserted it into Perry's elbow. The bruises and track marks stood out against the skin. Just below it, scars from the burning contrasted the dark marks.

Perry looked at him. "Why can't you just let me go?" he rasped.

Josh shrugged and tilted a water bottle into Perry's mouth. "I can't let you go. You're a good butterfly. Now that your wings are gone anyway. I couldn't have you flying away."

The lights began to dance and Perry stared at the fire. His body ran hot and cold at the same time and the flames danced in front of his eyes in some sort of hedonistic sway that matched the chanting of the stars.

The door opened then and a blur of faces came in to crowd around Josh.

Josh grabbed a hold of Perry's arm and dragged him over to the fire.

"You've still got your butterfly? Can I touch him?" a voice asked.

Perry let his head roll to the side in an effort to find the voice. It only made the lights brighter and the fire dance faster.

Then a hand was trailing down his side, running cold, shaky fingers over the scars and wounds. Perry winced and cringed as more hands joined it.

Broken was a word that Perry had thought of only when speaking down to interns and residents. Lost was a word he had forgotten as a child when family services had finally taken him and his sister away. Alone was the word he has associated with his life before Josh had taken him away.

And now, he only felt abandoned and shattered. So many lights reflected back the glass walls of a house he hadn't known he'd built until now. In a blur of flames and blood, the house had shattered around him and sliced everything to shreds before he'd known it was gone.

Now he was just vulnerable as someone ran a knife down his left upper arm where Josh had first sliced him before.

"It's a cross…he's a holy butterfly, Rip!" someone laughed.

Josh took the knife away. "Now, now…he's my butterfly. You want to stay here, you don't touch him unless I say."

Perry dimly stared at the stars and for the first time in a long time, prayed to something that he wasn't even sure was there. He let his head roll back to gaze at the wall.

Newbie was there again, looking lost and alone this time. He stood still, fists clenched to his sides and his face desperate. He mouthed something that Perry couldn't catch.

"I can't hear you," Perry said drunkenly to the hallucination. "And you can't hear me."

The dark-haired resident stamped his foot and looked as if he were shouting. Then he slowed his words down in an effort to make Perry read his lips.

Perry licked his dry mouth, wincing at the chapped skin as he struggled to focus on Newbie's mouth.

Don't give up.

A harsh laugh that sounded shrill to his ears escaped his throat. But Newbie kept standing there, unmoving as he mouthed it over and over, and proceeded to look as if he were shouting and screaming.

Perry blinked slowly and nodded to the image. "I promise I won't give up, Carol, if you promise too."

The image seemed to breathe a sigh of a relief and nodded back to him. But then Josh was saying something now and dragging a knife across his stomach, letting someone else trail a cigarette after it to burn it closed.

"Pretty little butterfly; I've trapped you in a jar," Josh chanted into Perry's ear. "Trying to fly away, but you're not going to get that far. Pretty little butterfly, I don't think it's time to go. You're mine now forever, I dare you to say no."

Josh jabbed Perry's elbow again. The lights sang louder, the fire danced faster, and the stars chanted along crazily.

Perry tilted his head back and listened. If he listened hard enough, he could make out the song and music that the lights struggled to tell him.

Screaming was beyond him anymore. It only served to make his throat sore and make him feel sick. Crying did even less.

"If you don't scream, butterfly, how will we know?" Josh whispered tauntingly into his ear.

The knife grew sharper; the flames grew hotter.

And Perry's screams drifted throughout the room once more, drowned out completely by the laughter of the addicts around him.

XXXXXXXXX

JD entered the police station apprehensively, clutching the newspaper article in his sweaty fist. He wasn't sure if it would even help the officers, but he knew he couldn't just act on his hunch alone.

The officer at the front desk looked up warily. "Come to inflict some more verbal abuse?"

"Ah…no, no I'm not," JD replied, his voice a little uneven. "I just…uh…found this newspaper article that I thought might help with…uh…the case about Dr. Cox."

"Let me get you Lieutenant Renicki."

JD nodded and tried to smooth out the crumpled, slightly smeared paper in his fist. The ink was a little smudged now, but it was still legible.

An older, balding man of round stature came from behind the front desk. "Can I help you, Dr. Dorian?"

"Uh…I don't know." JD shifted on his feet and thrust the paper forward. "I found this article, and when I was speaking to Mr. Andrews, he kept talking about saving people from a fire. I wasn't sure if this would help you or not."

"Mr. Andrews was never a fireman, I believe," Lieutenant Renicki replied as he looked over the paper. "We'll be in touch."

JD felt the frustration building in his stomach again. "Aren't you even going to check it out?"

Lieutenant Renicki turned around. "We'll do what we can, Dr. Dorian. For now, you just need to let us do our job."

JD sighed and left the station. He stood outside, leaned against the wall. The minutes ticked by slowly as he struggled to calm himself down. Sighing, he headed for his scooter to drive back to his apartment.

XXXXXXXXXX

What was a rescue but taking someone away from the place where their horrors had begun? What was hell but a place where someone was tortured without end or reprieve?

Perry had thought that had been the hospital. That endless building of nightmares and pain, he had thought the hospital was his only personal hell. And it didn't bother him that much.

The hallucination was still there hours later when he woke to silence. His body shook as the drugs left his system and he stared at the wall where Newbie was still standing.

The image began to fade and Perry's head came up.

"No, don't you go away too, Shirley," he snarled as he struggled to scramble towards the wall.

Newbie mouthed something again, but Perry only caught "can't stay".

"You've got to stay, Jessica, I can't keep doing this," Perry hissed in uneven tones. Still, the edges grew blurry around Newbie's body, and he began to fade. Perry stared around in an animalistic fashion for Josh's messenger bag.

Perry crawled as best he could to it and opened it with his bound hands. He dug around before a needle pricked him in the pad of his index finger. He turned his head to try and find Newbie again, but he was almost completely gone.

Lifting his arms as best as he could, he shoved the needle into his elbow, wincing at the slight prick of an uneven hand. As the lights grew hazy again and the stars sang, Newbie slowly came back into focus.

With an utter sigh of relief, Perry fell back to the ground and continued to stare at the wall where Newbie stood.

"Bravo, butterfly. Bravo."

Perry's head jerked to where Josh stood.

"You're catching on, butterfly. What do you stare at, I wonder?" Josh asked, looking at the wall where his pet kept staring. "Some long ago image that you can't forget?" He kneeled down and circled his fist around Perry's neck, squeezing tightly. "You might as well. Whatever it is, it's not going to save you."

"Josh wanted to save me," Perry rasped out.

"Josh is dead."

Perry rasped harshly, feeling his lungs begin to ache. Josh pushed back from his neck.

"Take the drugs all you want. Makes it easier when I don't have to inject you like some sad little reject," Josh replied with a wave of his hand.

Wondering when he had begun to lose it, Perry stared at Newbie's face, struggling to focus himself into being strong. The hope was there, Perry knew it was.

The more he stared at Newbie's face, the more he knew somewhere it was only a hallucination. Just under that earnest face telling him not to give up, he knew something uglier was behind it that wanted him to throw it in. There was no laughter shining on Newbie's face, and only tortured, desperate blue eyes implored him to live.

Perry rocked slightly on his place in the floor. "I'm trying, Newbie. I am."

Newbie only tried to smile, and nodded back to him in affirmation.

XXXXXXXXXXX

JD nursed a cup of coffee in his room late at night. It was vaguely cloudy, and the moon had disappeared at some point behind the haze. He stared at the psychology book he'd borrowed from Elliot (who had borrowed it from Molly), struggling to make sense of Josh Andrews' twitched ramblings.

"I'm missing something; I know I am," JD muttered, scraping against his face. He picked up the coffee and drank from it. His system felt like it was jangling from nerves.

A knock on the door made him jump and spill said coffee down the front of his shirt. He swore sharply.

"Bambi, you okay?" Carla called, poking her head in.

JD winced. "I'm fine." He brushed the liquid off of the text book in front of him. "Just reading."

Carla entered the room and sat on the end of JD's bed. "This isn't going to help him; you know that."

"I've got to do something, Carla."

"The police will find him, JD."

JD looked up. "I already gave them that stupid article because I thought it might help…but I don't think it will. There's some connection I'm missing about this guy."

Carla sighed and decided it would be best to just let JD get it out of his system. "What do you think is going on then, Bambi?"

"You're not just humoring me, are you?" JD asked with a skeptical face.

"I think it'll help you if you talk about it. I don't have to beat things out of you usually."

JD laughed harshly and drank what was left of his coffee. "I know the guy has some kind of psychological disorder. The cops say he was never a fireman, but somehow, that fire affected him, so he must've been there as a volunteer first responder or something."

"So he was there."

"He kept talking about trying to save people, the kids. When he dragged Dr. Cox out the door, he was rambling about having to pull him away from the flames or something. So I know he was at that fire. Someone with his last name died in that fire, along with seven kids."

Slightly interested now, Carla turned the text book towards her. "Something's there."

"I think Joshua Andrews is just disassociating himself from what happened that day. I think he might have even created other people who are either stuck in that day, or who can forget about it all together."

"You think he's DID."

"Yeah." JD rubbed a hand over his hair. "I think he was disassociating that night, and I think he did it twice. The guy I talked to kept asking about his dad. The tweaker that had Dr. Cox was just the drug addict in him that wanted his next high. But it was him again when he was dragging Dr. Cox out. God knows what else is hiding in there."

Carla nodded. "So why the newspaper article? It just says everything else that you already knew, possibly everything that the cops already knew."

"I know, I know…" JD muttered. "But something's missing."

"Hmm…what building was it? It had to have been an apartment building that burned for so many people to die."

JD shrugged. "Just that condemned one across the street."

Carla looked up, eyes wide. "The crackhouse across the street?"

"Is that what it is?" JD's eyes grew wide and he jumped off the bed to grab the phone.

"JD, wait…you don't…"

JD's fingers numbly dialed the number of the station. "Hey…let me talk to Lieutenant Renicki…now!"

"This is Lieutenant Renicki; how can I help you?"

"Lieutenant, this is Dr. John Dorian again."

"Dr. Dorian, I said we'd call you."

"No, listen! There's a burned out building across the street from my house. I think that's where they're at!"

"We'll look into it, Dr. Dorian. We've got a lead elsewhere."

"The man's got Disassociative Identity Disorder! If he took Perry Cox anywhere, it'll be there! That's where he feels confident!"

"Dr. Dorian, we'll look into it. Please, just let us do our job." The phone clicked.

JD hung up the phone with angry eyes. Then he punched the wall as hard as he could.

Carla jumped from where she was standing. "Bambi…"

"Save it." JD grabbed his jacket and walked out the door.

XXXXXXXXXX

Even as Perry injected himself again, Newbie's face grew more desperate and alone. A small smile finally fell on Perry's face as Josh kneeled behind him.

"Still staring, butterfly?" Josh asked idly and pulled Perry to his back. He smoked a cigarette idly and dragged the tip across Perry's neck. "It must be interesting. Tell me."

"No," Perry ground out. "He's mine."

"You're not allowed to have anything." Josh wound back and punched Perry hard across the eye. "What do you see over there?"

For the first time, Perry heard real anger in Josh's usually calm, composed voice.

"Nothing."

Another blow landed against his jaw. "What is it? Who is it?"

"It's no one at all," Perry coughed out, spitting blood into the floor.

Josh's face twisted and he pulled the knife out again and began to slice across Perry's arms without looking.

Perry closed his eyes, almost too high to feel the pain at all.

It was day when Perry woke again. Newbie's body had begun to fade again. He looked around for Josh.

Josh lay in the corner without moving. Without caring why, Perry dug around in the messenger bag until he brought up a needle.

Newbie's fuzzy image shook his head no.

"I have to," Perry hissed. "If you disappear, then nothing's worth it."

Newbie started crying even as the hallucination started to fade. He still shook his head no.

Perry didn't watch and only took another solid jab to his elbow. Newbie's image came back into focus.

"See…if you're still there…" he drifted. "You're going to save me."

Newbie sagged where he stood.

"You're going to come, Carol. Someone has to. I can't die here, not like this," Perry groaned as the lights began to dance in front of his eyes. "I just can't, not here." The tears running down his face stung at his grimy face, and he struggled to try and sit up and move to the wall where Newbie stood.

Exhausted, he gave up and just leaned against the adjacent wall beneath the window, staring listlessly in Newbie's direction, mumbling incoherently to himself.

Continues with Chapter 5