Chapter Text
Reddington left the unconscious guards behind and walked briskly out of the jail. Any minute now, Dembe should engineer a distraction to take the police to the other side of town. He kept an ear out for sirens as he veered in the direction of the meetup point. The aroma of fresh pastries teased him as he passed a small bakery, and he thought longingly of the sweet treats he hadn’t had in weeks. He shook his head; time for decent food once he was safely out of reach. He really should be hearing sirens by now. His shoulders tensed and he cursed the need for haste that had precluded him from taking a weapon from one of the downed guards.
A klaxon split the air – not Dembe’s distraction; the prison breach had been discovered. He forced himself not to start running. Any of these parked cars could be undercover police, and bolting would attract their attention. He continued towards his destination, eyes straight ahead. His ears told him when a nondescript vehicle began slowly rolling up behind him. He shot into an alley just a moment before the car door opened. “Raymond Reddington, you are charged with unlawful escape from federal custody!” He knew well enough what the officer would say next, so he concentrated on gaining what speed he could; aerobic exercise had never been his favorite activity, unless it involved a beautiful woman and a lack of clothing. Dodging onto a narrow service corridor, he heard the officer catching up. Desperate, he frantically tried doorknobs as he passed. And almost tripped as his momentum carried him forwards while the opening door pulled him to the side. The door was painted black, with a pair of demonic-looking eyes in a red too bright to intimidate. Some kind of nightclub, most likely, mistakenly left open during the day. Well, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Reddington ducked in and shut the door behind him. Outside, the red eyes closed, leaving a solid black – and locked – door.
The room was dim and cavernous, though not fully dark. The walls resembled rough-cut stone, but a quick touch showed them to be extremely clever tromp l’oeil. Someone had invested a lot of money or time. A dark plaque with an obsidian texture caught his eye. Engraved in silvery script were the words “Scito te ipsum”. “Know thyself,” he muttered. Sound advice, though odd for a nightclub. He started moving forwards, but the sound of other footsteps stopped him cold. The last thing he wanted was to be found and returned to the police. A figure started around the corner a good ways ahead of him, and Reddington turned to leave. Hopefully, the police would have moved on by now. He went to open the door and found it locked, with no indication of the mechanism. Standing here fighting with the door would only call attention to himself; better to look like he belonged here. He straightened and headed towards the stranger.
From this distance, he could tell the other was a man, walking with a gait that seemed oddly familiar. “Excuse me,” Reddington began, intending to explain that there was a problem with the door. Instead he froze in place and almost stepped backwards in shock. The man approaching him had a face Reddington hadn’t seen in the mirror in over twenty years. His first thought was that Dr. Koehler had had another client. But why would anyone choose his specific face, the face of a man living a normal life, before he had become a player in the criminal underworld? There was no avoiding the stranger now; might as well meet the question head on. Reddington put on a disarming grin and proceeded as if that was what he had intended all along. “Excuse me,” he said again, “and forgive me for being so forward, but I notice that you’ve had some work done. I’ve had a bit myself; otherwise I’m sure I’d never be able to tell. I’m looking for a new surgeon who’s capable of discretion. Would you mind sharing the name of yours?”
The stranger shook his head. “Your manipulations and deflections won’t work here. You’re unnerved because I look like you from twenty-odd years ago. That’s because I am you from twenty-odd years ago. You might think of me as the ghost of Christmas past. You’ve chosen the Tunnel, and now the only way out is through. Scito te ipsum.” He walked past Reddington and headed towards the locked door.
“I didn’t choose to be here,” Reddington protested. “I just ducked into the first hideout I could find. The police were after me.”
“Running from your choices is itself a choice, and desperation forces us to take the true measure of ourselves. Good luck.” Without turning around, the stranger lifted his arm in a wave and then passed through the closed and locked door.
Reddington blinked and shook his head. That hadn’t happened. Obviously. People did not move through solid objects. He’d have to check in with his doctors again once he got back; he hadn’t heard of hallucinations as a symptom, but things might be getting worse. Meanwhile, he’d better look for another exit from this building.
As he turned the corner, the walls narrowed, becoming less like a room and more like a corridor. The air grew chill, and the floor became slightly slippery beneath his feet. Without a clear transition from hallway to open space, he found himself in the ice rink, eighty-six bodies spread out on the ground before him. “Your dead,” a familiar voice said at his shoulder. He turned quickly, expecting to see the stranger returned, but no one was there. “Not all of them, of course. These are only the ones Kate handled for you. In some ways, the least personal of the lot.”
Reddington’s gaze fell on the nearest corpse. A man, as most of them were. Early-forties, mustache, still dressed in the green polo shirt, blood soaked from a double-tap to the heart. An electric frisson seemed to pass over Reddington, and he was that man, alive but on the run. He felt the exhaustion of sleepless nights, the tension of crossing and recrossing his tracks to throw Red off the scent. He felt the elation of finally approaching the safe house, legs aching from the miles he had to cover on foot. He fumbled the keys with cold-numb fingers, heard he creak as he opened the door, felt his body flood with adrenaline all over again as he saw the figure seated cross-legged in the living room armchair. Through the eyes of this man, now dead and cold on the ice, Reddington saw himself stand, draw his pistol, and wordlessly fire two shots. He felt the sudden, searing pain and the brain’s confusion at irreparable damage. Felt his fingers sticky with blood as he lifted his hand to the wound. Smelled the sharp tang of his own blood and the stink from emptying his bowels. Felt the terror as temperature dropped and his vision clouded, the regret over loves unfulfilled and words unsaid. He’d give up this path, go clean and honest, if he could just have a little more time to live. Reddington felt the last dark moments as life ebbed away.
And he was on the ice again, standing over the bodies. Before he could begin to make sense of experience, another body caught his attention. Another fear, another death, another regret. He died eighty-six times. Gunshots more often than anything else, the violation of a bullet followed by the bewildered ebbing out of his life. Poison a time or two, the promise of comfort or nourishment turned to panic and cyanosis. He was garroted, stabbed, pushed off a building, run over by a truck. He felt bones crack. He felt his lungs fill with water as he drowned. And always, the desperate wish for a different outcome, for more life.
At last, Reddington lived his eighty-sixth death. He had almost become accustomed to horror and pain, but he still felt relief when he checked his count the second time and realized he was finished. Then came the secondary effects. He felt the anguish of spouses and lovers, friends and parents. Sometimes total shock and betrayal that one they loved could be taken so violently. Sometimes aching resignation to the misdeeds of the one killed finally catching them up. He felt the panic of those who were left exposed – to unpayable bills, to pointed questions from law enforcement, to the predators of the underworld, eager to exploit anyone left undefended. The children were the worst. The young ones who didn’t understand why their parent was gone or why they no longer got enough to eat. The older ones who knew what death was and who listened fearfully at doorways, trying to think of ways to protect their remaining parent – or who were hauled off to live with strangers, sometimes taken away from their siblings. The teenagers, some horrified at a world they’d been sheltered from, some already forming the connections to seek vengeance of their own. When at last he reached the end of the suffering he’d caused by those eighty-six deaths, Reddington dropped to his knees. He cradled his head in his elbows, knowing himself to be a loathsome and hideous creature.