churbooseanon

Today we get to see where York’s life really starts to go downhill.

Key To The Truth [Part Two] - (A Guns for Hire Fanfic)

Turned out there was another kind of silence. One that came when the world had gone crazy, when there had been too much noise, too much light, too much flash and bang. A silence that came after the crackling roar of flames, the piercing scream of sirens demanding to be heard, and the sorts of sobs that tore through the chest so deep that they left a whole body aching like running a marathon up the side of a mountain. It was the silence that came after the put you in a sound-proof room after the sensory overstimulation of everything else that had come, and the bright white walls seared eyes and the smell of coffee and honest to god paper assaulted the nose and the chill in the air made every breath burn. A special kind of silence that Connor had never even fathomed until he was staring up at the police detective in shock, his hands chained to the table and his voice raw from his sobs, and the declaration delivered.

“You… what?” Connor rasped out as he stared up at Detective Tyrone Lambert of the homicide division. The words tasted like ash in his mouth, a taste he was far too familiar with now, even if he couldn’t remember the details of why. His eyes moved down to his wrist though, to his left hand bundled in gauze. He remembered why, knew the burn that was under it. A part of his mind whispered the reason.

The door to his sister’s bedroom with an antique metal doorknob, it’s pattern now burned into his skin. All the safety videos said to test doorknobs before opening doors. If it was too hot to handle then it wasn’t safe to open. Never touch with your bare hand, the videos said as well. Back of the hand, because there were too many fragile nerves in the fingers and palm. Back of the hand, or with a cloth wrapped around your hand, and even then…

“I said we found your other bank account, Mr. Danvers. And, of course, I have to wonder why a well established young man such as yourself needs to set up a secret account in Caspian’s notoriously hard to trace financial system, filled with half a million dollars. Tell me, Danvers, where did you get the money, and was half a million the going price?”

Connor blinked, shook his head, tried to figure out what the fuck was going on here. What secret account? Half a million dollars? An account in Caspian? What in the world was…?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered, his voice weak, and then the folder in the man’s hand was thumped down onto the table in front of him. He was left staring at paper records for a bank account in his name. Money transferred in from an account number that he recognized and it made him sick. Money transferred back out just a few hours later.

“Why did you have your family killed, Danvers?”

All he could do was stare in shock. They thought…

“That fire almost killed me too,” Connor protested, his throat tight. Dead? All of them? He… he’d figured Claudia. Her doorknob was so hot and she’d gone up to bed before him after dinner. After Roxanna had gone home she’d just fled to her room, probably off to work on her model building hobby like she did at night. Said it soothed her mind after all the stresses of the day. Connor understood that just as well as anyone. When he was alone at night he’d play with holo-puzzles, keep his mind sharp. Toy with the latest locks the company had, or older archived ones, see if he could crack them himself. He was getting good, and it was a nice, calming thing to do at night while still letting him work without really, you know, working. But his parents’ room was in another part of the house. The fire had kept him from getting to them, but he’d gotten out. Struggled with the paramedics on scene as they tried to heave him into an ambulance. Hadn’t calmed down until he saw his mother being put into another rig, her eyes open just a little bit.

Last he’d known, an hour ago, before he’d been put into this box, she was alive. Fighting, breathing, living and now…

“Is my mother…?”

The look Detective Lambert gave him had no speck of pity in it. But why would it when the man thought, for some reason, that Connor had his family killed? That he’d had his home burned to kill everyone in it? The very thought made Connor sick, and he had to swallow back his nausea, blink back his tears, and struggle to breathe through his nose, even though all he could smell now was the smoke. All he could hear was the scream of smoke alarms and terror or sirens and the horrid crackling roar of the fire itself. That was all there was, and all there would ever be again.

“I was in that fire,” he plead again, finally looking up at the detective. “And I loved my family. I would never…”

“Then why were funds transferred out of your division of DSS, in your name, to pay for an Adaptive based mercenary known by the name of The Pyro? We have surveillance footage of the man sabotaging exits, placing accelerants to keep people from exiting through windows, and even a cocky little image of the helmeted man saluting security cameras.”

“Then he’s who you should be after!” Connor shouted, his throat screaming in pain as he did so. The smoke had hurt him, badly, and while the doctors said he’d make a full recovery with time, that didn’t mean he was ready for this stress. “Please, this man must have killed…”

“He did,” the detective confirmed. “But your windows were untampered with, Connor. We found a wedge in your sister’s door, holding it closed. She wouldn’t have been able to open it from the inside. And there is the fact that fire in no way barred you from any exits to your room. Tell me what you think that looks like, kid.”

It looked like… He didn’t want to think what it looked like. So Connor just hung his head. They’d figure it out sooner or later. He had no reason to kill his family. No motive at all. And surely just a little poking would reveal this wasn’t his bank account, that he hadn’t transferred R&D funds to take down his family. He loved them. He was innocent. This couldn’t be happening…

“True or false, Mr. Danvers, you are now the sole heir to your family’s company.”

Oh. Motive. Connor paled at the very idea of it, and when he looked up again he knew he had hate in his eyes from the way the detective smiled at him. The man thought he’d hit a nerve, that he’d found some weakness to exploit.

“I couldn’t give a damn about the money, Detective Lambert. No amount of money in the world can bring my family back to me.”

This made the man snort, and Connor opened his mouth to continue when there was a knock on the door. The detective cursed under his breath as they both looked to the door, and Connor found a head peeking in through the barely cracked door.

“Uh, sir…” an officer in a regular uniform said as he moved forward more. “The captain would like to see you.”

“I’m in the middle of something right now,” the detective countered, no end to the disdain in his voice.

“Yeah, but the captain wants you now, and besides, the guy’s lawyer just showed up so…”

Detective Lambert huffed a sigh of disapproval and moved to the door, shaking his head as he went. Connor almost thought he could hear the man mumbling under his breath, but he couldn’t be sure. After all, his ears were full of the sounds of fire and sirens and screaming alarms. Again his eyes fell to the table he was chained to, and he didn’t even look up as he heard feet come closer.

“Connor?”

The voice was more familiar now, and when he glanced at the plain clothes, he found that face was one he almost remembered. A guy he’d gone to highschool with, the name that went with it was perhaps Roger?

“Hey Rog,” he sighed, his voice still a whisper, far too tired to raise it anymore.

“Did you do it?”

Connor looked up to him, confused.

“Did you kill you family?”

How did he put the denial into words that people would believe. So he just shook his head.

The jingle of keys shocked him, which made Connor’s eyes go wide.

“What…?” he started to ask, and then the cuffs were being unlocked.

“Don’t ask, just hurry up. We’re getting you out of here.”

* * * * * *

“What’s going on?” Connor asked as he was rushed into the back of the cliche black van. The question seemed far more important with the fact that Dr. Gonzales was behind the wheel. Roxanna sat beside him, and even as he spoke, there was a small bag of things being thrown at him.

“We’re getting you to the spaceport,” Dr. Gonzales answered.

“Problem, they think I killed my family,” Connor sighed, shaking his head.

“Yeah, it’s on the news,” Roxanna responded, her voice a whisper, and it sounded so damn dead. Which made sense. She’d lost a lot too. That didn’t mean he wasn’t angry to hear her so grieved. That wasn’t her family. She wasn’t being blamed for… “The goal is to get you off the planet. Because whoever did this…”

“They stole a large portion of the R&D budget, Connor,” Dr. Gonzales interrupted. “When I told the interim president about it…”

“It came back to me,” Connor deadpanned. “God, I feel like I’m being framed here.”

“You are,” Roxanna told him simply. “None of us believe you did this, but no one here is really going to get that. And so the only thing we can do is get you off planet to safety. We’ll send for you once we’ve got this cleared up. No one is ever going to get justice if they’re obsessed with you. And Claudia deserves justice.”

Connor just leaned against the side of the van. He didn’t have the heart to say that if someone had gone to this sort of effort to frame him, there might not be a coming back. And there definitely wouldn’t be anything like justice. All of that assumed, as well, that he even got off of this planet. How could they all risk so much over someone like him?