Fffc Bingo Card - Betrayed

[m_findlow]

Title: Betrayed
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Bingo Card Prompt 5 - Betrayal at fffc
Summary: Suzie's research on the resurrection glove has Jack feeling troubled.

Jack didn't like to stick his nose in the ordinary everyday affairs of Cardiff's residents. It was partly a lack of interest and partly a lack of available time. With a rift in time and space hovering once the city virtually unchecked and unchallenged, his days were filled simply with the things the rift dumped on the city, good, bad and otherwise. Some days it was remarkably quiet but there were other times when he and the team went days on end without sleep, trying to sweep up after the chaos it caused. 

This latest series of murders around the city troubled him, if only for the fact that some rookie policewoman had made it his business to care. He might not have paid it any mind but now that she'd said something, he couldn't shift the idea out of his mind. Cardiff and crime were not uncommon bedfellows. Find a major city anywhere in the world that didn't have its share of bad behaviour. That was just what happened when you put hundreds of thousands of people in the one small space together. It was that old survival adage of every man for himself. 

But whilst crime was the norm, this series of murders was definitely not run of the mill for a city like Cardiff. No one could say for certain whether it was one killer or just a whole bunch of coincidences, and whilst Jack might not have delved too deeply into them beyond what was reported on the news and in the papers, this team had made it their business to visit each and every crime scene of late. It had nothing to do with the murders as such, but it was the opportunity to extend their knowledge on the metal glove they'd hauled out of the bay several weeks ago. It's ability to bring a person back to life, even for just a few moments, was revelatory. Jack, who himself knew far more about life, death and resurrection, wasn't quiet as enamored with it as his team. Some things ought to stay dead, he decided, himself included. But he was their leader which meant that if they were going to research the glove's capabilities, he was going to keep a firm eye on proceedings. 

So far nothing any of the victims had to say was of any use, either to them in their research on the glove, or to any murder investigation the police were running, and yet something nagged at the back of Jack's mind. Torchwood knew about each and every one of them almost before the police did. Twice they'd managed to arrive before SOCO had even rolled out the incident tape, and on the other occasions they'd broken the police cordon within minutes of it being established. That in itself wasn't so unusual. Their systems flagged all the major emergency services communications. It was their job to be there before anyone else, in the event that it was alien or dangerous. 

On a whim, Jack decided to open up the police files on the matter. They were treating it as a serial killer from the looks of things. Nothing so far connecting the victims in terms of age, background or location, but there did seem to be an inference that the killer was a coward. Always stabbed from behind, from what the crime scene photos depicted. If you got in a fist fight with a thug, you didn't defend yourself by knifing them in the back, that much Jack knew. You only came from behind if you were the one doing all the attacking. 

He dug a little further into the files. There was an autopsy report for each confirming the same details: stabbed from behind, assailant believed to be of short stature on account of the angle of the entry wounds. There was a link to a secondary file within the report - computer reconstruction of the murder weapon. He clicked it and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. He'd seen a knife like that one only once before. The day they'd dredged up the glove from the bay. It was one of a kind and alien in origin, suspected as having some connection to the glove. 

‘Oh no,’ he murmured, bolting up from his desk. 

He ran across the hub, turning Suzie's desk upside down. Neither the glove nor the knife were anywhere to be found. She had them. She was the serial killer. Using the knife to kill them and then the glove to experiment on how to bring them back. 

There wasn't time to feel hurt and betrayed by the person he'd considered his second in command. He needed to find her and put a stop to this. 

He flipped open his vortex manipulator, tracing the signal on her mobile phone. He frowned at what it was telling him, casting his gaze skyward towards the roof of the hub and the Plass above. He spun to activate the CCTV cameras on his computer screen, only to get a perfect shot of Suzie standing by the water tower, holding a gun to the head of the young policewoman Gwen. Something had happened to make her remember this place, to break the spell of the retcon he'd given her, but that was a mystery for later. Suzie somehow knew that Gwen knew. Suzie was dangerous and desperate. She might kill her but there was no way she'd be using the glove on Gwen to bring her back. 

Jack had mere moments to do something to save not just one life, but countless more. Suzie had to be stopped before she killed again. Staring up at the roof again, Jack knew it was not only the quickest way to reach them, but also the one chance he had to surprise Suzie and take her from behind. He didn't want to kill her but he took his gun just in case. It was a choice he prayed he wouldn't have to make.