Chapter Three: Signs of a Psychic

Ten years ago

Darla Bowes

When you find what you think you're looking for, sometimes it looks back into you with the ire of knowing you too well.

Darla had found the mother who had abandoned her running a psychic shop of horrors on 48th street with only a cheap neon sign lighting the window with bars on it.

Walking in slowly, the chime greeted her with a tinge of guilt. The adoption paper was signed as "closed", she didn't want to know Darla. By entering, Darla was voiding that document with the signature of her own will and determination.

Some piece of her had always felt inherently missing without a family.

And now facing that piece, Darla was deeply scared. The room around her ached mysticism in little beads and crystals and then there was a crystal ball in the middle of the table. To tell the truth, Darla had never believed in any of this shit she found out her mother peddled in.

But with a gulp she sat in the chair facing a woman with eyes that sparkled her own mischief so well it was almost iconic. Lines wore at her mother's face and a brilliant purple robe dangled over her along with a shirt that said, "I saw I would wear this shirt yesterday".

Her mother had fully turned this experience into a cheap psychic kind of museum that almost itself felt like satire. Like it was laughing at its own quirkiness and obvious hokey hoax-ism. 

And like every movie she saw with a psychic her mother played her part wonderfully.

Taking her hand, a jitter of a breath escaped Darla's lips as her mother began to stare intensely at her worn palms. Darla expected any number of bullshit lines to repeat from her mother's anchor tight lips as she had inspected Darla's open palms.

But finally fear took over her mother and she threw Darla's palms out of her hands with a sense of certainty and fear. Her mother gulped and finally spoke, "You will bring death to many men. Some will deserve it and some will not but you will bring it to them regardless."

Darla looked down to her hands, they started shaking now as she put them into her pockets.

Her mother took a deep huff of air then nervously started smoking a cigarette.

Not only had her mother seen her, but she had seen their was some evil in her

With one more shaky drag of her cigarette, Darla decided to fight her mother's prognosis of her with a question. I mean she couldn't really see her future by staring at her hands could she? "Okay, so-called psychic, then answer me this, will I ever fall in love."

Her mother shook off the ashes of her cigarette and answered darkly. "You will, he won't. You will torment yourself with the fact you were not enough and that he could only see the darkness, no light in you, everyday. But you should be more worried about the girl."

Darla's eyes shuddered and her brows fetched a sharp line of concern. "What girl?"

She answered abruptly, not even considering Darla's question as a question. She shook it off with a wave of her cigarette like it explained everything. "The one who does not die so easily, she is close to the destruction of you and everyone else you love."

Darla's eyes scanned her mother with intense insanity dripping out of every pore. This woman did not recognize any piece of her. Her mother snubbed out her cigarette like it pained her to do so, then she held out her hand for the entreatment of paper folded bills.

Shakily she threw the money into her mother's hands and walked out feeling like she had been robbed in broad daylight.

Her mother knew nothing, she was a nurse at a middle school. She would not be the cause of any death or destruction unless her students ate Mildred Fetunker's chili special surprise.

But as much Darla hated her mother's grandiose lies, her  prediction came to fruition in a couple years time.

Darla had lost the job as a nurse at the middle school because they fired her for punching a student to protect another student during a fight. Then with her record of battery she was forced to become a penitentiary nurse.

Forced to endure countless prisoners groping her because she didn't look like a lunch lady.

For most of her life she had cared so much about healing people because she would never be able to heal herself in any way. But these people did not deserve health care, all these men had raped and killed their way to these bars and now through useless brawls they filled their skin with scars.

Her first kill in the prison was a necessary one, a prisoner named Rickham had broken out of his chains and held a scalpel to her carotid artery so she injected him with a sleep concoction in a syringe that her operating officer had told her to keep around just in case.

Naively she had thought she would never have to use it.

But as that 210lb man went down easily like puddy in her hands, Darla felt like she finally had power in a powerless situation. However, in dropping to the floor the man had a seizure and the echo of his teeth hitting the tile floor and cracking stifled through her ruined humanity entirely.

At first, panic had riddled through her like a bullet wound from the inside of her heart. But when her operating officer had given her an approving nod, Darla felt a shift. When she processed his death paperwork, that was when she had found out what Rickham was and what she had stopped.

He hid in the walls of unsuspecting families' houses and waited until the dead of the night to slit their throats. Toddlers, full grown adults, children foolishly sleeping over the occupants' homes, they were all victims of Rickham. But Rickham was a narcissist and that's what got him caught.

He would collage himself into photos of the victim and then call the police on himself only to escape minutes before police sirens would lull by. Until one night a neighbor heard her neighbor's scream and reported it to the police before Rickham could get all "Arts & Crafts" with murder.

After Rickham, Darla realized a lot of these men had similar stories of being the most horrible humans to live, being arrogant just enough to get caught and wanting that stripe of evil to carry them to their death.

And that was why when her operating officer asked her to kill for him she agreed.

It was a secret between them. Killing the worst killers before they could get paroled early by corrupt judges and make it back out onto the streets to commit more heinous acts. But the fruttition of a mystical "girl" causing Darla's destruction was nonexistent.

So her mother's predictions were bullshit.

Well that was until immortal girl "Barbie" was huddled into their van with Dawson's handcuffs gingerly dangling off her unsuspecting wrists. As the driver of this "mystery machine" of sorts, Darla frequently eyed Daisy who was calm and collected in the back of the van.

Finally her mother's words periscoped over her, littering her with thoughts and worries deeper than an endless bottle of moonshine.

Collins was the first one to speak after they had all entered the van quietly like everyone knew what they were doing. Poking Daisy with a stick in hand he said, "So, do you have any other super powers besides not dying."

Daisy studied Collins and nodded. "Yes, I shoot lightning bolts out of my hands when I make a finger gun gesture."

Collins excitedly glared at her and she admonished his stupidity with a trilling laugh.

Darla charged out a sigh as she turned the corner with a skid. "She's not Thor Collins."

Collins's jaw tensed up in humiliation. "She very well could be," he replied sternly. "When's the last time you saw Thor die in the movies, huh?"

Dawson rubbed his eyelids in annoyance. Daisy just grinned in that fiercely winning way she did when it looked like she had one over on them without even lifting a finger. Darla gave a quick once-over to Dawson. Their kiss had looked enigmatic like something was between them.

Darla hoped it wasn't the friction she was thinking it was but she could never tell with Dawson.

He was always too far away, in his own world editing history right in front of them. Hopefully he could rewrite their failure at this mission before they got back to Wayne later. For now though, Darla needed answers that she knew Daisy wouldn't give, even under threat of torture.

So, Darla went to the only place that could warp her mind in both bullshit and truth alike.

Stopping their van in front of the neon psychic sign everyone was confused and marveled at Darla with their brows lilting sky-high. Even Daisy had this look about her like she wasn't all too sure what they were planning for her. She probably expected some sort of cage for her.

But the future built in front of them was a sort of cage, Darla knew this by heart.

Every time she had told herself she would quit the penitentiary job of killing the worst scumbags of all time, her operating officer would back her in saying he would rat her out to the district attorney.

Her operating officer said they were a team.

But they were a team that would stab each other in the back faster than they could say "hello".

Finally, Darla had enough and killed her operating officer, changing her name and foolishly attempting to live a quiet life. But Wayne had found her. Gave her a family in this team. Now she was facing the family that didn't want her with the family that did.

Even with their immortal "Barbie" attache, this still felt like walking into a burning building with a fireman coat rather than a gasoline shield.

Dawson, her hero that looked at her spell of wonderment of her plans at first, had softened when reached a point of trust in his hazy eyes. Darla's heart squeezed past him as he tailed Daisy along with just enough force to not hurt her but bring her astride like they were a couple.

Darla gulped at the sight and Collins opened the door for her. That same damn bell at the door trilled and the place looked almost the same except dusted over with this sense of dread this time. Her mother eyed them looking a bit older but just as wise and eccentric as she did before.

Skimming her eyes over to Darla they both acknowledged each other with a shrug. "So many years of destruction and you finally come back here?"

Darla nodded and handed her mother a box of cigarettes and lit the first one that she held between her lips like words unsaid between them. "So which one of your friends is in need of a reading," Her mother shook her cigarette in a gesture to her psychotic teammates and "Barbie".

Her eyes flitted over to Daisy immediately. Her mother nodded slowly and walked over to Daisy. Holding her hands out for her palms, Daisy's cuffed palms reached out unsurely to the psychic. Collins held his breath. Dawson waited with a bated expression tearing at his features.

He probably believed this to be a crackpot idea.

And to be truthful, Darla was sure it was too. But a little sliver of hope caught in the gaps of her teeth that the answers would show themselves in a quick way like they had not done with her last predictions.

Just as Dawson was about to start heading out with Daisy to the door though, the room shook.

Her mother's eyes skimmed back and forth like they were reading a book inside her mind and all the pages hurt and curled her up in fear. "You..." her mother heaved in jagged breaths while she held Daisy's palms tightly. " You are the dead girl."

Collins blew out a breath. "Yeah, we kind of already knew that."

Her mother's eyelids searched and pulled out screams of agony and hurt through the shaking walls. "You..." she pulled out with another heaving breath, "will kill them all. Your...husband, he deserved the hell he is in... you are a righteous dead girl, but your past is chasing you."

Daisy's eyes finally sparked that one feeble breath of panic that they were all waiting for.

"Chasing you...", Her mother continued fearfully, "chasing you, chasing you, it's chasing you..." The walls shook even louder, shattering the fake glass relics and crystals behind them.

Finally, the psychic took her hands off Daisy's and the room stopped shaking.

But it was too late. The psychic's eyes dripped blood from the corners as if they were tears. The psychic whispered a couple words back into Daisy's ears but the blood kept dribbling out of her eyeballs. Littering the carpet floor with red specks of answers without questions.

Darla trembled as Daisy took hold of her mother's sullen shoulders, "What do you mean, who's chasing me, who or what is chasing me, goddammit please," she smacked Darla's mother in anger. Darla's first tears in years drew pangs from her corrupted soul.

At last, the psychic's sullen shoulders dropped to the floor as she exclaimed in a whisper shout, "It's here!"

A hard knock cluttered behind them all but the dead psychic in front of them grabbed all of their attention. Darla was frozen in tears and muddled anger she could not bear to express.

Collins, trying to lighten the mood just laughed and said, "I guess she didn't see that one coming?"

Darla sucker punched Collins and he hobbled over in pain fighting saying, "Well it's true she didn't". Darla's eyes torched Collins in fuming anger as her jaw chiseled him into the ground with an expression that said "stop talking or I will drill out your eyeballs."

Collins finally retreated holding his hands up in surrender and Darla let go a sharp breath.

Knocking still persisted at the door but each of them were not eager to confront Daisy's past.

Collins finally looked to the door and fished out a black ball from his pocket. Dawson looked at him like he had grown a third eyeball when he started shaking the black magic 8 ball. When the knocking became more insistent a voice yelled for them to open it up, he rattled the magic 8 ball.

He juddered his head to Dawson yelling to the voice outside, "It said try again later."

Collins took the detonator he held in his pocket and ignited the charges he had set on his way into the psychic's office. Both the dead psychic and her poorly decorated shop were a smithereen confetti party now even though there was no celebration.

Darla sighed looking at Daisy intently, "want to explain what you did to my mother?"

Daisy, looking still rattled and dazed with fear, shivered her reply in an eerie but definitive retort, "not particularly."