Chapter 1
? Arden ?
PRESENT DAY - EIGHT YEARS AFTER THE EXPLOSION AT THE NYPD; TWENTY MINUTES AFTER MEETING WITH OFFICER MORRIS AT THE RAVEN TOWNHOUSE
I told you from the very beginning that I’m guilty.
Blood stains my fucking soul at this point.
I’m not proud of the lives I took. At all.
Well, except maybe Halden’s. And those Buyers.
And…yeah, I deserve to serve my sentence, but we all do—including S.I.N.
Shit happened to Creed, but that didn’t give us the right to hurt anyone.
Telling you our story, officer, was about being understood, not about making excuses.
When all is said and done, you think you’ll have your criminal behind bars—and I also know you think that person will be Rafe Creed.
Don’t worry, I’m taking you to him. I promised I would, but…
I guess I’m asking for mercy, whatever degree you’ll give.
Because it hurts. It still hurts. It will always hurt.
At the end of the day, I’m as human as you, and I do tell myself sometimes, Well if they were in my shoes, they would get it.
They’d see everything I did, all the lives I took, but they’d also know why.
You’ve seen the footage, and now you have these recordings, and again—I don’t expect absolution.
I hope…fuck. Here I go hoping again, but I need you to know that at the end of the day, we’re still just kids at heart, bleeding out, begging for someone to hear us screaming, just once.
It’s a lot to ask. I know it is. Up until you agreed to let me take you to Rafe, to make these recordings, I’m sure you lived a relatively normal life.
You may have seen shit like I’ve told you in the news, but it’s always been distant, right?
This far removed thing that you were sad over and have empathy for but still a thing you really couldn’t do anything about, and now…
you can, officer. Rafe’s confessions were never given to the public, but I know there isn’t an officer at the NYPD who didn’t read them.
Am I wrong? No. I know I’m not. You read them.
You know. And the footage? You saw that too, right?
I mean, the entire world saw that after Mick released it.
But that was eight years ago, so let me ask you this: why am I still bleeding, still screaming for someone to hear me?
Why am I having to record these confessions and bargain with you just to be heard?
There’s so much proof. So. Much. Fucking.
Proof. And you want to tell me the system isn’t broken?
That you’re just doing your job? You dare to say that to my face when I was put in cuffs for eight years, separated from the only family I had again, while S.I.N. continued to thrive?
The world was outraged. They demanded I be given a public trial, that they be given the truth after that thumb drive, and do you know what your precious system did?
They threw me in solitary as a mass terrorist, and I had to pick a death corner again.
One corner to due myself in if I couldn’t hold out, and the only thing that kept me from doing so was bribing the guard covering my cell.
He fucked me, and for every use of my body, I was given information on whether my family was alive.
I just succumbed to the only thing I’d ever had to offer—myself.
I had to beg again: Please don’t. I have money.
Get me a way to communicate with the outside, and I’ll have it wired.
He raped me, got me a cellphone, and took my money.
A simple transaction, I guess, at that point in my life.
Twenty-one years old at the time, carving lines into the wall of my prison, counting the days again, counting always.
Waiting, officer. I was still waiting on hope to buck up and give me a fighting chance.
So yeah, I’ve got this gun to your head now, and we’re going to go get Rafe, and if I choose to shoot you, just know I take full responsibility but that the system is fucked.
Only the guilty have something to hide. Don't you realize that?
They're withholding evidence because it's the force, the feds, the fucking politicians—every corner of this world is crawling with Buyers.
The only thing bigger than them is the public.
I can assure you, if the Ravens hadn't hacked in and distributed that footage, it would've been buried with the rest of it.
Too many important people with very deep pockets were unmasked in that footage, and if I had to guess, not a single one of them has spent the last eight years rotting in a cell like I did.
I get it. You want to preach to me because you still believe in good, but I believe in good too, just not in the same way.
I believe in wronged people making right, because that seems to be the only way shit gets done.
Do I want to live in a world where kids don't have to be raped for someone's greed to be wiped out?
Of course, but we don't live in that world.
We live in a world where I've been sent to kill people with badges, suits, and all kinds of things our system claims is armor against 'bad' and 'injustice', when in reality, the very people buying me wore those things too.
We're all just biting each others' heads off, trying to make something of ourselves—even if it's evil—as if this world is only big enough for one.
I'm trying, officer, to believe the world is much bigger than that.
It might not seem like it with the prison break and the murders, but exactly how far was I meant to be pushed and still remain a Doll?
I refuse. I will not be silent.
It all connects back, you know? It’s not all bad. Nothing ever is. I get that. But the bad sometimes is really fucking bad, and I’m tired. Aren’t you? Don’t you just want to see it all…burn?
You’re crying. Trembling. Eyes on the road, officer.
You're safe as long as you keep driving. Until we get there, I’ll give you the last of it.
All of us corpses—we just need you listening today, okay?
After that, do with us what you will, and if it’s a burial, I ask that you cremate us.
Ashes on the wind. Little particles drifting and flying and being. It sounds nice. Doesn’t it?