Clara (Part 13)

Clara beat the cops to the warehouse.  She had tried to convey the urgency, but it still had to go through a certain amount of beauracracy, she was sure, before a squad car or, as she would have preferred, several were sent out.

She used the opportunity to sneak around a bit, peak in windows, see what she could see.  The answer to what she could see was absolutely nothing, so she decided to just risk it and slip in through any unlocked door she could find.  It was somewhat disconcerting that the first door she tried was unlocked, but she knew for sure she was walking into a trap, as she had already expected, when all the lights in the warehouse seemed to turn on at once.  Now she could finally see what she couldn't see from the outside:  Chris tied to a chair, beaten and bloody, gagged and possibly unconscious, with a gruff looking man towering over him from behind, a knife drawn and at Chris's throat.  Clara took a step forward and the man called out, "Ah, that's far enough!"

His shout showed Clara that Chris was not unconscious as her former partner opened his eyes and looked up at her in terror.  He started to shake his head at her, but stopped when the knife the other man was holding grazed against his skin.

"It's so nice to see you again, Clara," the man with the knife said.

Clara did not even try to hide her genuine confusion.  "Have we met before?" she asked.

The man made a sound that she thought was supposed to be a chuckle.  "Not officially," he said.  "But I've seen you and heard about you and well, figured out who you were and then when your little friend here decided to fall on a grenade for you, so to speak, by convincing our paper to print his name instead of yours, well, I just couldn't resist."

"You work for the Globe," Clara stated.

"Well, not really work for so much as pull certain strings," the man stated.  "I admit, I would have preferred to have influence at a more prestigious paper, but you take what you can get."  He paused and then added, staring directly at her, "And when someone starts to take from you, you do whatever you can to stop them."

"What do you want?" Clara demanded, having to really fight to not rush at this man.

"I want either you or Chris dead," the man said.  "And whoever lives off the streets and warning anyone else who gets heroic ideas to stay off the streets as well."

"Well that's not going to happen," Clara stated.

He smirked.  "Oh, but I think it is, Clara.  Because you care.  You care about people.  You care about Chris.  I'm willing to bet that you're the one who's going to volunteer to die."

At this Chris started shaking his head vehemently, despite the blade just barely scraping across his skin and causing him pain.  Clara realizes then that this man, whoever he is, apparently the force behind some of the street gangs she and Chris had been thwarting or something, is right.  She'd been telling herself she didn't care, and she didn't, not like this, not personally, until just now.  And she realized, too, that she couldn't get out of this herself, not alone, and she found herself hoping against all hope that the ones she had spent years not trusting would earn her trust tonight.

"Okay," she said as slowly as she dared, knowing she had to stall for time as much as possible.  "You.. you're right.  I can't... I can't watch him die.  I do... I do... care... about some people.  I care about him.  If you let him go, then, well, I suppose I will let you... let you do what you want with me."

The man's face warped into a manic grin and she feels strangely relieved.  "I can't say I'm surprised," he said, "but I am certainly pleased.  You're the one I wanted to take out more anyway - more of a threat - more of a bother - and you've been around longer.  So if you'll just walk around to the left over towards that other wall, you'll find some rope you can use to tie yourself up, and when that's done, I'll let Chris go, I promise."

The way he said, "I promise" certainly gave Clara pause.  She already knew it was a very distinct and likely possibility that he was just going to kill them both anyway.  But she wasn't planning on either of them dying today.  Still she did as he requested, slowly as she dared, hoping, hoping....

And then what she had hoped for happen.  She heard cars pull up outside.  There were no sirens, but she just knew what this was.  The man's eyes darted around nervously.  Probably he knew, too.  "What the?" was all he got out before he was falling over backwards.  He had moved his knife away from Chris's throat in the surprise of hearing someone else approach and Chris, bless his heart, had used the opportunity to push himself backwards.  Clara knew that was only going to be a momentary distraction, though, so she rushed towards the two of them as fast as she could.

She got to the center of the room just as the man had stabbed Chris in the arm.  Nothing even remotely fatal, thank God, so she pushed Chris out of the way, in a manner that may have been comedic had this not been such a serious situation, and stepped on the other man's arm, causing him to release his knife, while also pinning him to the ground.

"I don't know who the hell you are!" she shouted.  "But you can't do this shit to people I care about!"

And before he could respond, the cops where there, pulling her off of him, and handcuffing both of them before they could figure out what on earth was going on.  She didn't care.  She was safe.  Chris was safe.  That was what she did care about.


In the end, the city did press charges against Clara for vigilantism.  They had a really tough time finding an impartial jury, but eventually they got one that ended up convicting her of the more minor charges brought against her and recommending a shortened sentence, which the judge seemed all to happy to provide.  They put her in a minimum security facility, far away from anyone truly dangerous who might have been angry at her, like the man who was her downfall and was now serving twenty-five years for kidnapping and aggregated assault.  Clara, on the other hand, would be out in less than a year if she behaved herself, which she had every intention of doing now that she recognized there were people "on the outside" that it was okay for her to care about.

Her family was shocked by her arrest and prosecution, to say the least, but she liked to think they were at least a little bit proud as well.  Her brother told her when he came to visit that he was sorry he had misjudged her and thought all of this was just due to some guy.  "Well, it kind-of was," she admitted.  "Just not in the way you'd expect."

That guy, Chris, somehow managed to escape any punishment whatsoever.  Probably because he hadn't actually be found in costume pinning a criminal to the ground, and because Clara refused to say anything against him under oath.  He told her he couldn't believe his name had been in the paper as the Ninja and yet she was the one in jail instead of him.  "It's because the paper lied," Clara said over the prison phone.  It amused her somewhat to lie about a lie.  She was sure she and Chris would talk about it more after they got out.  She had agreed to get dinner with him when that happened, though she insisted she had no romantic interest in him. 

He said that was okay, he was happy just being friends.

Clara knew enough about relationships to know that could be dangerous, but they were adults.  They could handle it.  Chris would be respectful of her boundaries, she was certain, and if her boundaries did change, if she found herself caring more or in a different way, that would be okay, too.  She certainly wasn't going to tell him, or anyone for that matter, about such thoughts of course.  One step at a time and all that, but she realized that if she did care about Chris romantically, that would be okay.  Caring wasn't a sign of weakness, she realized, it was a sign of strength.  Caring had given her the strength to call the cops, to incriminate herself in order to save someone else.  She might not be able to act as the Ninja anymore, but it was worth it in her book.  She would find other ways to help, other ways to show she cared.  Clara knew she could be a hero, even without a mask, especially without a mask.  And Clara could care.  That was what heroes do.