Chapter Text
Nicole was expecting to encounter complete liars. Con artists. Charlatans. She was ready to prove that Jensen McCarthy had not only not healed six people, but that he had also elaborately conned a group of people who were only searching for hope and faith. She was almost sure that it was going to happen. But after they interrogated the six people who were healed, she realized there were two possible options:
- Either these six people were the greatest liars she had ever met, or…
- Maybe healing was possible and that Jensen McCarthy defied all science and reason.
She didn’t like the second option. In fact, the second option terrified her. Because if the second option was real, then everything else she had ever learned could be wrong. And she didn’t know how she would handle that. Or if she could handle it.
“Raise your hand if your mind feels like it’s about to explode,” Shapiro attempted to joke and then raised her own hand.
“There’s more investigating to do before we confirm that there’s anything… supernatural going on here,” Nicole stated firmly, not ready to go down the rabbit hole or take the red pill until she knew all the facts. And confirm that the facts were indeed facts.
“Yeah, but… that was strange, right? I mean, if they’re lying, those are six of the best liars I have ever come across,” Shapiro commented as they walked back to the car after their last interview. “And I have interviewed more serial offenders and people with ASPD than I can count.”
Earp just shrugged. “Maybe consider the scenario that they aren’t lying. Maybe that’s the simple answer here.”
“How could that be the simple answer?” Nicole blurted almost bitterly.
Before Earp could even explain herself, Shapiro interrupted. “Shit, we got to go to the tent revival. It’s about to start.”
Eliza sped to the revival as Earp played “It Ain’t Easy” by David Bowie. Nicole just looked out the window and kept thinking of scenarios in which those people were not lying but still weren’t healed. She thought a lot about the placebo effect and wondered if these people were so convinced that McCarthy healed them that their minds tricked their bodies to heal. She knew it was all a stretch, but she was sure those explanations made more sense than the existence of magic. Or worse, magical powers that came from God.
There was a buzz of excitement when they arrived at the tent. She was sure that everyone remembered McCarthy’s promise of healing the day previously. It almost reminded her of the kind of buzz before a concert. Like people were prepared for once in a lifetime performance.
Also, like a concert, people were almost fighting for the best seats. Shapiro almost ran into someone and a person even rammed into Earp without apologizing. Nicole would have said it was ridiculous, but she was sure if she was a believer in this healing, she might be excited too. If anything, she just really wanted to be able to debunk all of this. For her sake and for everyone else who was being duped by this scheme.
Other than the initial fee for entrance, an alms box was passed around this time. Nicole rolled her eyes, unsurprised. She would be surprised if this money really went to the poor. She watched as some people put twenties and tens into there. She shook her head knowing these people weren’t wealthy in the slightest.
She spotted Dave Gant, the man who McCarthy said he would try to heal, in the front row. People surrounded him, telling the sick man that they were so glad that he was going to have the chance to live. To marry. To have children. Nicole’s heart sunk. This man, who looked to be in his early thirties, really did look sick. She just hoped that this man wasn’t going to be manipulated into thinking he was going to live only to then die tragically.
It didn’t take long for McCarthy to come out. People started to cry, to shout, to chant. Nicole looked around to see if there was anything strange or out of place. She wanted to find something that proved that there was something going on here that wasn’t supernatural, but highly illegal (or at the very least, immoral).
“I’ve been praying all night and day,” Jensen told the crowd, barely silencing them. “Dave Gant has been on my mind for every second during the last day. God has heard me. He wants to heal you, Dave. He knows that you’ve been fighting for so long. Not just with this illness, but for all those years fighting for our country.” Jensen started walking away from his podium and toward the sick man. “Dave Gant. Are you ready to live?”
The man started to cry when McCarthy put his hands on him. It went very quiet, but still, Nicole couldn’t exactly hear what McCarthy was saying. His eyes were closed, but it was obvious that he was murmuring something.
“I think it might be Latin,” Wynonna whispered to her. “Or Latin with a mix of something else. Maybe he’s speaking in tongues too.”
Nicole didn’t know how Earp came up with that, but she trusted that she knew what she was talking about. The “ceremony” of some sort lasted a lot longer than Nicole would have expected. She looked around at the audience, wanting to make sure that no one was being stabbed with anything in their thigh, but there was just stillness. No one spoke and no one moved but McCarthy.
Nicole didn’t know how much time passed. She could tell that at some point both McCarthy and Gant started crying. Gant’s family was just watching, some of them gaping, some of them looking so nervous that she thought they might get sick.
But then McCarthy took a step back and took his hands off the man. Nicole heard gasps from around the room; everyone was waiting to see if he was healed. Even Nicole felt the tightness in her chest. She didn’t want McCarthy to be a healer, but she did want this man to not be in pain anymore.
Dave Gant, with color returning to his cheeks, pulled out his oxygen tube and turned to a woman next to him and hugged her. People started cheering. Screaming. Nicole suddenly felt nauseous. She watched as people surrounded him, wanting to shake his hand, wanting to ask him how he felt.
Nicole wanted it to be a trick. She wanted it so bad to be a fucking trick.
“Haught.” Earp nudged her shoulder and pointed to one of the exits of the tent. McCarthy was huddling with two older people. They looked incredibly serious. As if something was wrong. Nicole didn’t know what this meant, exactly, but she had hope that it alluded to something else going on. Something that explained this all away.
Despite the celebration, McCarthy and these two older people looked like they were heading out. Wynonna nodded toward them and Nicole knew what that meant. They were going to follow them.
If it was a performance, Wynonna thought it was a good one. It wasn’t very dramatic or overly put on. She was surprised that it felt so real. Besides, she couldn’t help but think that McCarthy was speaking some kind of incantation. Him sneaking off at the end with the people Wynonna presumed were his parents was even more suspicious. Suspicious of what, though, Wynonna still wasn’t sure yet.
When they saw the three of them get into a BMW, the gang of FBI agents all headed to their car. Wynonna felt a rush of adrenaline. She was hoping that they were driving to find answers.
“Anyone else suddenly need to pee?” Shapiro said as she trailed behind the car, doing an adequate job, Wynonna decided, at tailing the car without being noticeable.
Wynonna snorted. “Haven’t been in a hot pursuit for a while, then?”
“Not in a few months,” Shapiro commented with a short chuckle. “What about you, new partner? You’ve ever chased someone like this?”
“Uh,” Haught started with a sigh, “no like this, I would say.”
Wynonna couldn’t help but think about the beast who was in hot pursuit of Nicole in their last case. Her stomach hurt just at the thought of it. That fear was something she didn’t want to remember. It reminded her of the fear she had when she walked into Willa’s room and found it empty.
When the car pulled into the driveway of a house, Wynonna figured this must be the place where McCarthy lived. They didn’t have very close neighbors, which Wynonna thought made sense. If they lived in a neighborhood, they would be constantly bombarded with people seeking their help. At least here, they had a resemblance of privacy.
“What’s the game plan?” Shapiro asked, still a good few hundred yards away from the driveway so as to not look suspicious.
Wynonna had been thinking about that a lot. “If the parents are the ones to open the door, we need to have a cover story. If they think we suspect McCarthy with anything related to a possible crime, they won’t let him talk to us. But if we use the same story like the one we had for the people who were healed, it should work. Though, if this all is a sham, they might be super unwilling to talk at all.”
“Guess that means going with the flow,” Shapiro commented with a shrug. “I just hope the kid is the one who opens the door. Then we have a shot at more direct questions, right?”
She nodded, agreeing completely. “We probably still need to use the cover story at first, but yeah, we should ask about the victims. See how much it freaks him out. We need to know if this is homicide we’re dealing with.” She turned around to look at the redhead, who was staring at the house with a look that Wynonna couldn’t quite decipher. “You ready, Haught?”
“Let’s do it.”
The three of them got out of the car and made their way up the long driveway. There was a huge seven-foot-tall cross in the front lawn. Wynonna felt shivers go down her spine. For the first time since they started trailing them, she got a bad feeling. Not like she thought that they were in danger, exactly, but that they were approaching people who might be capable of things that could make her piss her pants.
Shapiro knocked three times on the door. It didn’t take long for the door to open. Wynonna felt a rush of relief hit her square in the chest. Jensen.
“Hello? Were you all at the revival? I think I saw you all there. I’m sorry, but I don’t have any energy to do more healing today.”
Wynonna shook her head. “No, Sir. We’re not looking for you to heal one of us. We actually work for the US government. The government is interested in your healing abilities. Do you mind talking to us for a few minutes?”
McCarthy looked almost confused. “How did you all find out about my healing abilities?”
She shrugged. “You aren’t really hiding it, are you?”
The fifteen-year-old chuckled. “Guess I’m not. But I don’t think my parents would let me be used by the government or, like, military or anything like that. So…”
“But you must know how powerful you are,” Wynonna said with a put-on smile, hoping the words went straight to his ego. “I mean, you’ve healed, what? Seven people? That’s incredible.”
The kid fucking blushed. “Thank you. Yeah, it is. It’s not my doing, but it is incredible. It’s a miracle, it really is.”
She grinned, knowing that what she was going to say might make things get intense pretty quickly. “I mean, what’s even more incredible is how at every event that you healed someone, someone else in the audience died right after. How’d you accomplish that?”
His jaw dropped and his face paled. “What?”
It was genuine shock. Wynonna just didn’t know if that meant he had no idea about the deaths or if he was just shocked that someone figured it out. She didn’t know how he wouldn’t know about the deaths, though, realistically. Unless he didn’t know that his actions (or magic) had consequences, which she guessed was possible.
“Six people died after those healing sessions,” Wynonna repeated, her tone as light as ever. “Do you need me to tell you their names? I figured you would know them by heart by now.”
He swept his greasy hair out of his eyes. Instead of cowering or backing down, he only stood up straighter. It was almost as if he took this as a challenge.
“You don’t believe in Him, do you? If you don’t believe in Him, how can you believe in me?” Before Wynonna even had the chance to say anything, he continued. “You wouldn’t be able to find redemption, even if you tried, could you? You’re too far gone.”
Wynonna crossed her arms and tried to shrug it off like she always could. People had been telling her similar shit as long as she could remember.
“So, what? You can hear God?”
He shook his head. “Sort of, but you wouldn’t get it.” He looked around Wynonna and pointed to Haught. “But she would get it. He’s still in your heart, isn’t He? Maybe you don’t even want Him to be, but he is. He hasn’t abandoned you. You shouldn’t abandon Him. He has a plan for you. Don’t forget it.”
Wynonna didn’t have to turn around to know that the redhead was probably shaken by his words. He was trying to get under their skin. It was pretty general information, nothing specific. Like a proper fake psychic.
“And God’s plan for you?” Wynonna asked him, wanting to get back under his skin again. “Heal people in exchange for other lives? That doesn’t really sound very love thy neighbor-y to me.”
“You have no idea what y—”
The front door flew open with Jensen’s parents standing right there. They looked confused, though, not angry.
“Jensen,” the woman greeted, “who are these people?”
Before Wynonna and her colleagues could introduce themselves, McCarthy said, “They’re from the government. They’re interested in my healing. But I told them I’m not interested.”
The parents glared at them before the father said, “He’s only a teenager! Who thought you could talk to him alone?”
Wynonna had to admit that she expected this. “I apologize, sir. We didn’t mean to intrude. We’ll leave you all alone now. Thank you so much for your time and I’m sorry again for the inconvenience.”
The parents slammed the front door, saying nothing else in the process.
“Well,” Shapiro breathed out with a sigh, “I don’t know if that was successful or not.”
Wynonna wasn’t sure either. She was hoping for proof that Jensen was either a cold-hearted murderer or a scared kid who didn’t know what he was doing. But she didn’t feel like she got that specific evidence that pointed in either direction.
“He seemed pretty shocked about the deaths,” Haught commented as they walked back to the car. “It seemed very genuine to me.”
Before Wynonna even got a chance to comment, Shapiro murmured, “He could have just been shocked that we knew about the deaths. He was kind of a cocky asshole.”
“Sure, but is that because he’s a teenage boy or is that because he’s a murderer?” Nicole asked, seemingly unconvinced that this kid was behind the deaths
“That’s an important question,” Wynonna agreed, “but I think we also need to ask ourselves this. Someone was healed today. Does that mean someone might wake up to their dead loved one tomorrow?”
They didn’t have a list of all those that attended the revival. And since the revival attracted people from across different towns, she didn’t know how they could ask around and find out who actually went there. They just knew that someone between thirty and forty might be in danger.
“Maybe we can, like, post something on social media or something,” Eliza offered as they ate lunch at the same place they ate at the previous day.
“Saying what?” Earp asked. “‘Check your back thigh for a mysterious mark. If there’s a mark there, you might die.’ I can’t see what we could post that won’t cause mass hysteria. Thousands of people will check themselves into the hospital when they just have a mole or freckle. That would be chaos.”
Shapiro frowned at her. “Okay, Earp. You got any better ideas?”
Earp sighed angrily and shook her head. “I fucking don’t. I don’t have any fucking bright ideas. Shit.” She dropped her fork onto the plate and got up from the table suddenly. “I’m going to the bathroom. Be back in a second.”
Nicole watched as the brunette walked to the restroom. She couldn’t tell if Earp was angrier at the situation or at herself, but Nicole could tell that she was suffering. Nicole was terrified, too, but she wasn’t blaming herself like Earp was.
“Now I’m feeling like shit asking you two onto this case.”
“Why did you ask us to help?” Nicole asked Shapiro. “I mean, you obviously don’t believe in unexplained phenomena. So what did you think would happen by inviting Earp onto the case?”
Shapiro shrugged and sipped her drink. “I don’t know, really. It was probably just an excuse to see her, you know? And maybe, I even thought I could change her mind and shit and bring her back to the BAU. I don’t know. But the second I saw the two of you interact, I knew she wouldn’t transfer back.”
That just confused her. “Why? She’s only acted like she’s hated me since we got here.”
The blonde just shook her head. “Look, I’ve known Earp a lot longer than you. She doesn’t hate you, new partner. The way she looks at you… she couldn’t hate you. I think she’s terrified of how much she doesn’t hate you.”
Nicole stared down at her plate, not knowing what to say about that. She would have maybe agreed with her if they had this conversation before this case. But she was sure that Wynonna couldn’t like her as much as Shapiro was alluding to.
“She likes you and she’s not all weird about it.”
Shapiro snorted. “Of course she’s weird about it, just not in the same way. Because she doesn’t see us in the same way.”
“What do you—”
“Wynonna’s a good person,” Eliza interrupted passionately. “She just doesn’t always know how to tell people how she’s feeling. You just gotta give her a chance. Even if she’s being an asshole to you right now.”
Nicole didn’t know what to say. Her mind was racing with thoughts from all over the place. Every thought was either on the case or Wynonna, and they just kept bouncing off of one another. So, instead, she just nodded.
They sat in silence for a few minutes before Shapiro muttered, “Damn, I hope Earp’s alright. She’s been in there a while.”
“Do you think she left?”
“She usually doesn’t do that. Maybe we should check o—”
Wynonna looked pale. At first, Nicole thought that she must have been ill or something, but when she stuffed her hands into her back pockets, Nicole could tell it had to be something else. It was the kind of paleness that Nicole had seen people have in hospitals. Not with people who were injured or sick, but with family members. It was like a mix between shock and fear.
Nicole stood up and tried to walk up to her, but Earp took a step back. “Wynonna? Are you okay?”
Earp pressed her lips together firmly as if she couldn’t open her mouth. It scared her. It scared the shit out of her.
“Earp, you’re kind of freaking us the fuck out. What’s wrong?” Shapiro sounded almost angry. It made Nicole think that the blonde had never seen her like this before, which was even more frightening.
The brunette gulped. “I-I have it.” Her voice was so quiet. So different than any kind of voice that Nicole had ever heard her use before.
“Have what?”
Wynonna shook her head and gulped again. “The mark. The mark that a-all of the victims had.”
Nicole felt like someone punched her in the stomach. She couldn’t breathe. She thought her lungs had stopped working.
Shapiro laughed nervously. “Shut up, dude. That’s not funny.”
Nicole wished it was a joke. More than anything, she wanted this to be a joke. But when Wynonna’s reaction didn’t change at all, she knew that the brunette was telling the truth. Or, at least, what she thought the truth was.
“Let me look at it,” Nicole blurted, trying to reassure herself in the process. “It might be nothing.”
Earp clenched her jaw and crossed her arms. “It’s not nothing. I wouldn’t make this up.”
“I didn’t say you would.” Earp still looked just as pissed. “Please, Wynonna. Please let me look at it.”
“I don’t want—”
Nicole instinctively reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Wynonna. Please.”