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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the tag to "Yang 3 in 2D" that actually qualifies this story to fit into the challenge. :-D This will come back up later, though, so keep your eyes open.
December 2010

Shawn stared up at the face of Mr. Yin, watching the shadows around the man’s eyes. He’d seen that face before, he realized suddenly---only once, from across a crowded room. But he’d seen that face before. A sense of clarity crystallized in his mind. He had never quite understood Yang’s motives---but he might, now, understand Yin’s. Defiantly, he stared into his captor’s deep-set eyes. “Why did you pick me in the first place?”

Shawn suspected that he knew the answer, but Yin’s reply was evasive: “Because you were pretty good. You were interesting. You had a black sidekick, and that felt fun.”

That was the kind of answer that Shawn himself might have given if he were in Yin’s place, but he wasn’t going to buy any of it. “No, it was more than that. You’ve been obsessed with me since I was a kid.” Ever since I graduated high school, probably...

Yin’s face was contorted into a look somewhere between disappointment and disgust. “No, Yang. Yang was obsessed with you, Shawn. Yang. I didn’t even know who the hell you were until you started doing this shtick. Yang took notice of the pre-pubescent you, and developed an unhealthy crush. Feelings are the enemy of efficiency, Shawn. She betrayed me to save your mother, and that threw a serious wrench into the cogs of my career plans. She broke my trust, and she broke my heart, and for that, I blame you, and now it’s time to die. Satisfied?”

“Absolutely not,” Shawn answered stubbornly. “No, I’m not satisfied. You’re leaving out a big part of the truth, aren’t you? Yang may have taken notice of me when I was really young, but you’ve seen me before too, so don’t use her as a smokescreen.” Shawn’s eyes narrowed in anger, all the previous jocularity of his stalling mode gone. “You may not have known my name before I got involved with the police as a psychic, but you have seen me before and you can’t deny it. You know exactly who I am and I know exactly who you are.”

Yin smoldered with a rage that he didn’t bother to conceal. “You’re right. I do know who you are. And you know what? Right now, you should be thanking me. I’ve been in this game long enough to have learned that the kind of death I’ve got planned for you---even the death I’ve got planned for your friend here---why, it’ll seem like a mercy killing compared to what you’ll get in the end. I can promise you that.”

“I don’t believe you and I never will,” Shawn hissed. In his peripheral so, he could sense Gus frozen in his seat, tense and terrified and confused. A spasm of guilt rippled through his nerves. Gus truly was innocent in all of this. Shawn hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that he wanted to die first; couldn’t bear to watch someone he loved die right before his helpless eyes.

Yin’s lips stretched in a tight smirk. “Good, because you won’t have to. You’re not going to be leaving this room after tonight---except in a body bag.”

Just then, Yang shuffled into the room, taking all three men by surprise. “Hi, Daddy…”

*********************

Despite shrugging off the trauma with some “yeah, yeah, yeahs” (and despite the gentle restorative powers of the sweetest moment of his life with Juliet O’Hara in the interrogation room later that night), the memories of Yin continued to haunt Shawn’s nightmares for years afterwards.

What truly terrified Shawn more than anything were Yin’s last words, just a gurgle, a quiet strangled sound, barely heard over the voices of Yang and the police: You’re not so different from me...Shawn...you’re next.

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