Fruit of The Vine

There was no waiting anymore. No avoiding the inevitable. When Kaden mentioned that Lydia should be leaving town, Ariana knew this was the only chance they had to get the humans she’d taken hostage out of there. How many humans Lydia currently had living in her basement was unknown, but they needed to be out. They needed to get their life back. She hadn’t been able to do it for Ace, but she could help these people. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she had the worry she felt for Athena shoved away. She was capable and she had people on her side helping her against Lydia. She would be okay. She had to keep telling herself as much. Being on separate sides of this mission did little to squash her worries, but this was bigger than that. These people needed them, so she’d step up and went over everything Athena told her about fae promises in her head over and over. She’d only seen Agatha once before, so she turned to Kaden and asked, “You’re sure she’ll be out?” 

 Kaden had been grazed with a fucking bullet earlier tonight. He shouldn’t even be out here but he couldn’t sit back and let this lie. Not when he had a shot at actually making this right. For once. “Positive,” he told her. What he failed to mention was why he knew that. What he’d failed to do. What it might have cost. This was his mistake. He should have waited for the fucking plan. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, readied himself to push past the pain. It wasn’t like it was anything new. “Keen was a last ditch effort. She’s banking on her promises,” he assured them. Not to mention the ones he bound her to himself. Part of him hoped she’d be there waiting and she’d see him again and feel a fraction of the pain she caused others over the years, selfish as that hope was. Reality set in. This wasn’t about him. Or even Lydia. This was about protecting humanity, always came down to that. He peaked around at the entrance to the house in question. The garden was trashed, glass everywhere, the windows were either gone or covered with tarp. Regan’s work if he ever saw it. “It looks like security’s gone. Maybe.” He shut his eyes a moment, tried to listen harder, make sure. “I can’t tell one way or another. We should be careful,” he said, looking back at both Ari and Keen before reaching down to unholster his gun. Better safe than sorry. 

 Agatha stood beside the pair. Staring into the void, she recalled what had happened over at Kaden’s flat. She still couldn’t make any sense of what had happened to her, but if what she had understood was real, as nonsensical as it seemed, then there were people being kept inside Lydia’s house, against their will, just like she had shot Kaden against her own. The mention of her name managed to draw her out of this day dreaming. She gave her co-worker a glance, worried, and feeling as if she would never forgive herself for what she’d done. She had shot an innocent, and it felt like the right thing to do. How. How. All she wanted now was to get in there, and make sure that Lydia would not harm anyone ever again. But first, they had to get her captives out. Kaden seemed sure of himself when he claimed that she was not here, and wouldn’t be here in a while, still Agatha worried of what would happen if the woman came home early. She had put on her bullet vest, and prepared herself for what she understood would not be a piece of cake. Following after Kaden, she glanced at the kid with a frown of disapproval. Perhaps Ariana was capable, but what was she doing here? This was going to be intense, dangerous perhaps, and she did not want to babysit while she was working.  

 Somehow even though Lydia wasn’t home, the house seemed daunting. Ariana wasn’t sure she was ready to see the conditions Sammy lived in. Where he had spent his final days before Lydia had done the unspeakable. She bit back the wave of emotion that threatened to spill over. She could be sad later. Right now, the other people in Lydia’s home still needed their help. There was only one way to go from here. She closed her eyes momentarily and concentrated on what she could hear and smell in the home. There were only a few people in there, tops, and they smelled vaguely familiar. Outside the door, it was still too difficult to tell. “I don’t think security is here. There are a few people from what I can smell.” She had no idea what Agatha knew about all of this, but it was too serious a situation for her to mince her words and not communicate clearly with Kaden. Let the detective think she was weird for all she cared. She turned to Kaden and asked, “You up for breaking down the door with me?” She waited a moment for confirmation before charging the door. A few sturdy slams and it busted open revealing the lavish mansion that Lydia called home. Something about it sent a chill through her. It was nicely decorated and there was art there, but knowing where the art likely came from only served to make her stomach turn. She took a few sniffs and pointed, “We should start upstairs, I think.” 

 Couldn’t smell them? Kaden’s face scrunched a moment, trying to push away any discomfort trying to burrow its way inside him. He wasn’t exactly used to working with a werewolf. Funny enough. Still, he trusted Ariana. He had to remember that. Still, he paused and shut his eyes a second, listening for any heart beats. He heard his, Agatha’s was pounding, and so was Ariana’s. He didn’t hear anyone immediately nearby. Didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone inside; even combined their senses were only so good. “Breaking down the door?” He didn’t see any reason why not to. It’s not like the house was in good condition right now. Maybe they’d get lucky and the previous banshee destruction would work in their favor. With a quick nod, he turned and threw himself into the door right alongside her. Putain. He forgot how much he still hurt, how recent his fight was. His face contorted and he took a deep inhale before slamming into the door with her a second time. Shit. He was going to regret that. Hell, he already regretted that, cradling his arm in his hand a moment as he winced. At least the door broke down relatively easily. No doubt Lydia wasn’t here considering how simple that was. That and the fact that there were no security guards waiting for them on the other side. The house was strangely normal. He wasn’t sure what he expected, honestly. Something darker, maybe? Danker. More like the prison and torture chamber that it was. He waited and listened some more. There were traces of something, but it was hard to pinpoint. “Sure, might as well.” It was a big place, it would take a while to comb through. His hand still gripped his knife as they climbed the stairs, shoes occasionally crunching on shards of glass. There were plenty of doors. Even with the destruction, the house was bright, clean and almost inviting. It sent a chill down his spine, knowing what he did. “Should we split up? Or stick together? This place is big.” 

 The ache of Lydia’s absence was beginning to sting in Chloe’s chest. She worked quietly, occasionally tapping a rhythm against the table to test how the words of her lyrics would flow. Todd and Kelly had calmed down enough, although she couldn’t help but occasionally glance over at them whenever they were in the same room. Lydia had left them with lots of carefully prepared meals in the kitchen, as she always did when she planned to spend some time in fairy rings. It was better when she didn’t come back for a few days, even when it hurt. Chloe was jarred out of her reverie when the door downstairs banged and clattered. She glanced at Todd, in the music room with her, but Kelly was elsewhere. Swallowing, she gestured for him to hide, walking silently over to the door of their room and turning the lock. You won’t ever let any guest of mine know you’re here. She retreated a little further back, remembering the red eyes of the last man who had broken into this hellscape sanctuary. She looked around cautiously, but Lydia’s upstairs office was the only place she could creep to with another lock on it, so she backed into it, locked that door too, and sank down against the wall, cradling her knees against her chest as the promise gnawed at her skin. 

 Kelly panicked, the moment she heard people smashing through the door. She looked around wildly, before scuttling into the one place Lydia didn’t take most of her guests - her bedroom. It was only once she was in there that Kelly realised that Lydia had several guests she did bring in here. Oh god, could she maybe hide in the bathroom? With a squeak, Kelly locked herself in Lydia’s bathroom, and clambered into the warm towel cabinet, pulling it closed behind her. 

 The days that had turned into weeks since Todd first found himself trapped in Lydia’s home, they’d passed by in a daze of confusion, longing, and pain. Pain, because he didn’t understand what Chloe and Kelly tried to tell him. He couldn’t make sense of the words that bound him to this place, didn’t understand any of it. Magic? It was magic? But, magic wasn’t supposed to do things like this, right? He had been in the sound studio when he’d first heard the door being knocked down, the impact shaking the otherwise still house. And, for an instant, he’d wanted to scream. But, the sound died in his throat, the promise that bound him to Lydia searing his vocal cords shut with a sharp lance of pain. Clutching his throat, Todd felt his body move, seemingly on its own, looking for a place to hide. Because that was one of the many promises he’d made-- he would hide, he would stay out of sight, and he would remain quiet. Rising from his chair, Todd locked the door of the room, the pain easing slightly as he did so. He tip-toed across the floor before squeezing himself in the gap between the wall and the desk. His hands pressed against his face, teeth biting into his fingers to keep from shouting. He had to keep quiet. He had to obey.

 There was something eerie about Lydia’s home even though she knew the woman wasn’t home. Maybe it was because she knew all too well what happened here, but on the surface, it looked like just an ordinary home. Like Lydia was just an ordinary albeit wealthy person. The art that hung on the walls was a bit pretentious, but homey in its own way. How someplace could look so welcoming and yet be so dark was a lot to digest. Ariana knew better than to get too caught up in any of the small things lying around. Getting these people out alive was their priority here today. She closed her eyes and focused on the smells around her. There were two that smelled familiar, but one pulled at the heels of her feet. “Wait,” she said as she reoriented herself to follow what she was smelling when realization hit, “That bitch.” There was venom in her voice as she could smell Todd. That was why he had been taking time to work on projects and not perform. She felt her fists ball up at her side as she stomped forward toward an office. “Someone’s this way. I-- Kaden, I know who it is.” It only pushed her forward further only to push right into a locked door. “Fuck,” she grumbled as she grabbed a bobby pin out of her hair. “Don’t worry, I got this one,” she told Kaden and Agatha. She pressed her ear against the door and fiddled with the pin until she heard the click of a lock. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and softly said, “Todd? I know you’re in here, it’s okay, we’re not guests.” She hoped that statement somewhat helped work around Lydia’s promises. 

 Please just go away, please just go away, Todd thought to himself as his body continued to contort in pain, filling his bones. What had he done wrong? He was hiding, he was doing what he should, he was doing what Lydia wanted-- as he tried to figure it out, the doorknob rattled and he heard a voice. A… familiar voice. Megan? No, her name was Ariana, wasn’t it? No, no, no, no, no, please, he wanted to say. But, he still had his hand pressed firmly against his mouth, trying not to make a sound. If he kept quiet, if he kept quiet, the pain would stop, wouldn’t it? When she said his name, when she specified they weren’t guests, the awful feeling lessened and he let out a breath. “Y-you can’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. Sh--” His throat closed as he tried to say Lydia’s name, the promise that had originally gotten him into this mess reminding him of its presence. Gasping, he shook his head. “No, no, no, no.”

 Kaden’s mouth pulled into a thin line as Ari went off by herself. Something about this house, he didn’t like the idea of leaving her behind. What if Lydia had added layers of words binding the humans since Sammy was killed? What if there was something horrible waiting for them in each of these rooms? No, there wasn’t time for that. He didn’t think. And either way, he had to trust Ariana could handle herself. She’d proven that much. “Okay. I, uh… Left it is,” he said with a shrug and went towards the door across the way. He tried the knob and it opened easily enough. It almost unsettled him more to know he was entering somewhere that wasn’t off limits. He gulped back the uneasiness that had settled in since stepping through the threshold of this place and walked into the room. “Woah.” The words left his lips without a second thought. The room was huge. Possibly bigger than his apartment. And this was just the master bedroom? 

 Kaden shook off the awe. This was nothing to be jealous of. And it wasn’t why they were here. He wandered in, quietly and carefully. There weren’t any signs of movement, not yet. He couldn’t hear any new heartbeats just yet but he kept moving through the room. It felt like a home. Normal, almost. Queasiness dropped into his stomach. Still, he found his feet moving towards the dresser in the corner, practically drawn there by something, like there was a string pulling him along. There were pictures of smiling faces, Lydia with what had to be friends and family. She looked so normal, so much like any other human. His eyes drifted down to the bones sitting on the dresser, arranged lovingly even if in the corner. His fingers ran over them, feeling the smooth, cold surface. Banshee gifts if he ever saw them. Were they from Deirdre? Regan? Maybe both. He clenched his jaw against the tears pricking at his eyes. This was too complicated. It couldn’t be. This couldn’t be about Regan or even Lydia. He shut his eyes and concentrated, pushed past the barriers he put up around his senses and listened. A new set of thudding pounded in his ear. He tried to the right, quieter, then the left, louder and louder as he went. “Hello?” he said tepidly, opening his eyes as he walked slowly towards what looked like the bathroom. “I’m not here to hurt you. And I already know you’re here so it’s not breaking any promises to answer.” He didn’t know if that was true, but it didn’t hurt to try. He tried the knob. Locked. “I won’t hurt you. At least-- I’m not a friend of Lydia’s. Please. Let me in.” He tried the handle again. Nothing. He waited for a response, anything. If nothing changed in a few seconds, Kaden had no issues wrenching the handle open himself. 

 Kelly pressed her hand over her mouth, trying to suffocate her whimpers and hummingbird fast breathing. She heard Lydia’s bedroom door open, and imagined some creeping, monstrous shadow of a creature creeping through the room, like the Mindflayer in Stranger Things. Hello, it called, and the image in her head shifted. It was something bipedal, its limbs distorted and a voice like an angel only to disguise a maw full of teeth. Lydia wanted her to stay hidden. She whimpered as the closet door whimpered, the promise burning her lungs. She was going to stay quiet. She would be good. 

 As the two others decided to stick together, Agatha chose to go the other way. Just like them, she climbed up the stairs, but when they turned left, she went to the right. Alone now, she had gotten her weapon out, ready to fight back should she be there, somewhere, waiting to get them one by one. She arrived in one of the most spacious living room she had ever seen. She moved around grazing the walls, checking on every door. Some of them were closed, while others were not. Although, upon inspection, she had found, aside from a large amount of beds in one room, not found anything shocking. She noticed that there was not a single computer in sight, nor was there a phone, or anything that could have facilitated communication with the outside world. Will there was an obvious and expected lack here, there were none as far as the bookshelves were concerned. She couldn’t help but gaze for a short moment at the book spines, wondering what those were about. Her eyes were drawn toward some of the names. “The Eyes to the sky?” Her brows furrowed as she picked up one of the books that bore Lydia’s name. Wait, she was that Lydia Griffin? Under her breath, the detective muttered one particularly surprised what the fuck as a photograph of the woman on the other side confirmed it. “Well now you gotta tell me what face cream you use,” she commented, dropping the book back on its shelf. Now perhaps was a good time to see what all these doors were hiding. One of them was a recording studio, kicking the second door open, she did not expect to get so lucky on her second try. In there, hiding in a corner, there was someone. Remembering what the other two had said, she put her hands up and calmly, she explained: “I’m not a guest, I’m... “ Well the badge certainly helped get her point through. Damn, this room was busy, she thought to herself, for a split second turning her attention toward the rest of the office. “It’s going to be okay, I’m just going to talk with you, alright? As a not guest.” 

 Police officer. Chloe stared at the badge, trembling. Hives were beginning to raise along her skin as the blonde woman stared at her. No one ever came up here, not without Lydia. Remmy hadn’t come in here in the months they’d been here. It was only ever business associates. But she’d heard the wood of the oak door splinter downstairs. The door in front of her had been kicked open. Something had changed. Something was changing. As a not guest. The emphasis was weird, strangely knowing. Chloe felt a horrible ache in her chest. If there were police here, Lydia wouldn’t come back. She’d never knowingly betray herself. Chloe had known for years that Chloe needed Lydia more than Lydia needed Chloe. That was the way her brand of intoxication worked. Fuck. “Why are you here?” She asked hoarsely, pushing herself onto her feet, pressing herself against the back wall as hard as she could. “Who are you?”

 Seeing Todd’s pained expression sent a fresh wave of rage through her body. While it stood she didn’t have it in her to deal the final blow, Ariana could only hope Luce and Athena made it painful for all she’d done to these poor people. Her heart sank realizing she hadn’t even known Todd would be here. She should have been a better friend, reached out and checked in on him more. She’d been so caught up in her own shit, that Lydia managed to get yet another one of her friends. “Hey, shhh,” she assured him as she reached out a hand for him, “It’s going to be okay. I should be here, you’re not doing anything wrong.” It was hard to gauge what his promises were, but he was in pain and she could only hope Lydia would be dead sooner rather than later. “I’m going to make sure you’re safe, I promise.” She looked to him with pleading eyes using a word she had promised herself to never use again, but she planned on delivering. There wasn’t another option. She refused to let Lydia take another friend from her. “Lydia’s not here. I’m not a guest, friend, or company-- Well, I’m your friend but-- Please come out, Todd. The pain should fade soon, but don’t push too hard.” 

 As Ariana came into view, a wave of relief rushed over Todd as he saw a friendly, familiar face. Well, friendly wasn’t quite how he’d describe how she looked at him. Worried, more like. Really, really worried. And, he was too. As she kept talking, he could feel the sharp edges of the promise start to dull, the pain lessening. She wasn’t a guest, she wasn’t a friend of Lydia’s. There was wiggle room with the magic, like the silence between notes of music. And that was what he could use to-- Swallowing, he didn’t dare let himself think about that, knowing full well what the promise would do to him. “How are you here?” He managed to say, his hands shaking with fear and dread as he stared at his friend with wild eyes. “I-- I’m trying. I’m trying.” He repeated as he managed to pull himself from the corner he’d shoved himself into. Ariana wasn’t a friend of Lydia’s, she wasn’t a guest, this wasn’t covered by the promise, which meant it was okay. The mental gymnastics of the magic were hard, but they were all that allowed him to stand upright and take a shaky step forward. “Kelly. And Chloe. They’re here too.”

 Shit. There was no response. Kaden knocked again just to see. Alright, guess there was no other choice. He yanked the door knob and forced it open, breaking the handle and pushed the door open. Shit, the bathroom was huge, too. He peaked around the corner and saw the huge jacuzzi tub and vanity. Right. He approached and… no one there. He looked in the actual bathroom. Nothing there. Not in the shower, either. “I know this is probably terrifying but I’m not going to hurt you. I pr--” Shit. That word. That stupid fucking word. Whoever was here had heard enough of that word. “I know you’re probably bound a million different ways but I’m going to help. I’m… I’m with the WCPD.” Kaden wasn’t sure if that was going to help or make things worse. There was only one place left to look, though. One door. He opened up the door to the linen closet and saw a terrified, shaking girl. Shit. Shit. His heart shattered and he wanted nothing more than to haul her out of there and make a break for it out of this fucking house. Instead, he took a deep breath and held up his hands in surrender. “See, not going to hurt you. Can you speak to me? Are you able?”

 Kelly screamed as light flooded into her cupboard, jerking back so ferociously she banged her head against a warm pipe, and tried to pull a towel over herself to hide. The promise was broken, it was already too late, Every muscle felt like she’d pulled it without warming up, but she still tried to hide. “I don’t know. Please- please go away!” Kelly scrambled forward, reaching for the cupboard door, and tried to pull it shut to hide her back in the dark.

 She had to be careful about what she would tell that woman. Since Agatha did not fully understand the extent of the manipulation, she felt like she was a tightrope walker, 30 feet above the ground. Her hands still up, she lowered them to place the gun back in its holster. At least that woman allowed herself to speak with the detective, she realized, relief making her shoulders loosen down just a little. This was good news, although it did not look like she saw Agatha as her savior, or like she wanted to leave the place. While having never encountered this in the past, it reminded her of those articles she read on Stockholm’s syndrome. All she hoped was that this was not bad to the point of attacking the people who were here to save her. 

She did not move closer to the other woman immediately. That woman was terrified, and nothing good would come from forcing her out of the room. This was Agatha’s ultimate resort, and one she did not intend to use. Lowering her voice, her tone was a bit calmer, soothing like a caress.  “Do you mind if I have a look around?” She asked. An excuse to get closer, as well as an excuse to talk to her. “I’m Agatha, it’s nice meeting you,” she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, doing her best to appear as friendly and welcoming. Slowly, she moved toward the desk. Each and every drawer and cabinet was closed. Great. Her eyebrows raised and she glanced at the woman. “Do you know how I can open it? I really don’t want to damage anything,” everything in here was evidence, and she was sorry in advance for ruining the room for forensics. “Do you think you could help me perhaps?” Agatha had had a promise in her head for just a few hours, and it had been hell, she could not imagine how that woman felt, and she wondered for how long she had been there. 

 “You’ll get us in more trouble,” Chloe replied, still hard against the wall. She didn’t match Agatha’s gentle demeanour, but mouthed the name back at herself. Agatha. Agatha, the cop, rummaging through Lydia’s home. Something prickled in Chloe’s chest. “I don’t think I should help you. She’s coming back. She’ll come back. You can’t- She would want me to stop you.” But Lydia had never said anything about a police officer rummaging through her things. “Under the books. Nineteen forty nine.” There was a keypad. Chloe looked away, her insides churning. Just as quickly, she added, “We chose to be here. We want to be here. She’s going to come back, you know, and that- that’s good.” Two sides, always struggling. Lydia was going to be so upset when she came home to all this damage. The other two didn’t know better yet, but Chloe- Chloe watched Agatha and felt a tiny match in the darkness of her despair. She couldn’t think like that. “It really would be best if you just left, or talked to Lydia when she’s back. It’s not what you think, whatever you think it is.”

 Something akin to relief washed over Ariana as he stepped out from his hiding space. Working within the bounds of everything Lydia made them promise wasn’t easy, but she so desperately wanted to get them out of here alive. It wasn’t a guarantee, but hopefully once Lydia was dead some of these promises would be released. She knew better than to ride on that though. She did her best to hide the nervous energy that was pulsing through her. Unlike her, he didn’t have the advantage of supernatural hearing and probably couldn’t even tell that her heart was practically racing. How she was here was a loaded question and there was hardly enough time to explain. “It’s a long story. Lydia had another one of my friends hostage before, I got help. She won’t be keeping you or anyone else like this anymore.” Her eyes nearly dared to plead with him, but she kept herself confident. Todd needed to believe her. He needed to think he wasn’t breaking any promises to find that small space between them. He needed to believe he could go back to his normal life. The certain brightness and enthusiasm he had possessed before seemed so diminished now and it only served to further her hatred for Lydia. Then he said the name Kelly and she felt herself turn queasy. Not her too. That absolute bitch. “Kelly? Singer who is about my age- she- what?” It had only been a few weeks since she last watched her open mic night. How had she forgotten to check back in? “Okay, okay. I didn’t come here alone. We’ll help Kelly and Chloe, too. We just have to find the others.” 

 He could walk, he could follow her, Todd thought to himself, willing himself to take step after step behind Ariana. It hurt, all of this hurt. It would just be so much easier to stay here. He could hide himself away, tuck himself back in the corner and wait for Lydia to return. It would be better than this pain, wouldn’t it? Swallowing, he stared at Ariana as she talked to him. She knew someone else who’d been here? Someone else who’d been trapped in this house? “I-- Okay. Okay. Chloe, she, she was here with me before, but I don’t know where she went now. Maybe the office? But I want to,” His body contorting in on itself as he let out a wince of pain as he forced himself not to think about leaving, not even dare to hope for it. “I’ll follow you.” He said shakily, the words just enough of a loophole for the magical pain to stop clawing at him. Would this work? Would any of it work? He just wanted to be free.

 Shit. She hit her head and Kaden’s first instinct was to reach out and help her, apply pressure, check the wound. But he had a feeling that would only make this worse, cause more pain than he already was. “Sorry, I’m--” Putain, how could he help? He had to-- “What did you promise? We’ll-- Is it that I can’t see you? I’ll shut my eyes or, or-- If you have to hide, we’ll-- put a towel over you and you’re hidden. Right? I-- Just please. Please, I’m going to help. I just want to get you out of here.” He put his hand out for her to take, wedging himself between her and the door, wishing it was enough. She looked so young and so broken already. And he didn’t know what to do. But he had to try. “I know it hurts. It’ll be over, soon. Please. Let me help.”

 Kelly just shrank even more deeply into herself. “No, no! You’re lying!” Some part of her knew, deep down, that Josh wouldn’t want her to be like this. Her brother would want her to reach out and take his hand. She knew, god, she knew that leaving was the right choice. Everyone had explained so much, but it still didn’t seem real. Was it really wrong to want the stability and warmth that Lydia offered? As long as she did the right thing, it would be okay. It would be awesome, the music she’d already written in the last couple weeks would more than catch the attention of a crowd bigger than the local bar.  But she didn’t know this man, and if she did the wrong thing… well, Chloe’s scars told a story of their own, didn’t they? “I’m being good. Please go away.”

 Agatha, her heart heavy in her chest, looked Chloe in the eyes and with all the assertiveness she could muster, assured her that Lydia was not coming back. Never.  She made sure not to promise anything, but rather spoke just as calmly, explaining everything she was doing as she moved across the office. 1949. Agatha repeated the number in her head and searching through the books, found a concealed safe. The code provided opened it, and within it, Agatha found what she was looking for. “Thank you,” she gave her a warm smile and sat down at the desk, opening the cabinets one by one. “Do you have any free will left?” She glanced up from the drawer she inspected, once again searching for a hint of anything in the other woman’s eyes. “I do not think anything. I find evidence, and then I draw conclusions,” and what she was seeing was not comforting. In a box, within the drawer, she found a stack of identity papers, some expired, some dating back to a few decades ago. All of those belonged to different faces, and Agatha had to take a deep breath to stop her head from spinning. What the fuck had happened here. Who the fuck was Lydia? Well, at least now she knew who the other woman was. “Chloe, you’re Chloe,” she had a small sigh of relief and a sunny smile for her. “It’s good to meet you Chloe.”

 Agatha’s words hit Chloe like a waterfall, crushing her. She didn’t believe it, not at first, but the whiplash sting of Lydia’s biggest rejection hit her right in the chest. She wouldn’t have. She couldn’t have. Chloe hadn’t always behaved, but Lydia wouldn’t lie about going to a fairy ring, would she? Why wouldn’t she- Chloe covered her mouth and stifled an unwelcome sob, determined not to fall apart here, not under the force of toxins she had no control over. That didn’t make it any less real now, her brain could not separate the ache as clearly as it could the intent. “How do you know?” She breathed, scratching at the hives on her neck as Agatha began digging through Lydia’s desk. Finally, she summoned the courage to step away from the wall, staring at the box Agatha pulled out. “That’s a loaded question. I’m still me. It’s- it’s not like I’m just a puppet.” The instinct to protect Lydia even now left an acrid taste in Chloe’s mouth. As Agatha opened the box, her mouth ran dry. Right on the top was Todd’s and Kelly’s drivers licenses, but as Agatha began to sort through, there were more faces than Chloe could begin to recognise. Some, she did. One was a very young Anneliese, who had been taken seven years before her death, barely twenty at the time. Sammy, who looked almost the same, except there was a sparkle in his features in the dull photobooth photograph that she hadn’t seen in his real smile for months. Owen, too, and then there she was. Four years ago. The face there was almost unrecognisable. Agatha smiled warmly, and Chloe could barely force a half smile on her lips. “I guess I’ll find out if it’s good to meet you, Agatha.” There were voices coming from beyond, catching her attention. “Who else is here? More police?”

 The pain so clearly etched on Todd’s face only furthered her desire to see Lydia dead. Well, perhaps not actually see her, but at least know she was stopped. Everything in Ariana wanted to grab him and just run out of here. She couldn’t be that reckless though. A broken promise could do more harm than good and she had to get him out of here. Everything about Todd had always been so genuine and sweet from the moment she’d met him. He was the absolute last person who deserved to be trapped here. She should have noticed something sooner. She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and assured, “You don’t have to say anything else. I know it hurts. Kaden and Agatha will find the others.” She couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her stomach as she wondered if Kelly was her Kelly. If her decision to not trade her to Lydia to free Sammy or break her promise had been all for nothing. She put on a brave face anyway. Todd needed to believe in her right now even if she didn’t quite believe in herself. He agreed to follow her so she led him out of the room, not daring to leave his side. 

 Ariana took her time with him and listened for the others until they walked by a room with an open door. Curiosity compelled her to peek inside and she felt her breath hitch in her throat. “I-- we need to go in here first.” The room had a decent stock of pottery along the shelves and she knew they had to be Sammy’s. Her fingers ran along some of the vases as if touching the same clay he once touched would connect her to him again somehow. Her hand stopped on one that had some motifs of the moon decorating it and a sad smile crossed her face. Sammy had to have made it. Without thinking about whether she should, she grabbed it off the shelf and looked back to Todd with strengthened resolve. “Okay, let’s get to the others. Are you-- How are you feeling? We can go slow, just tell me if it hurts too much and we can stop. Figure out a way around it.” 

 Todd trailed behind Ariana in mute silence, because if he did not talk, he couldn’t lie. He just focused on putting one foot in front of the other, keeping pace with the girl. If he didn’t think about what he was doing, he couldn’t break his promise. If he could just keep his mind clear and just let it happen, the nightmare would end, right? He would be free. Shoulders hunched over, he thought about all the things he would do when he got back. He’d call his parents. Call his siblings. Let them know how much he missed them. Tell them he was sorry for not talking to them more, for not listening to them. He’d call Winston and Ricky and tell them that he hadn’t wanted to lose them. He’d tell them that he hadn’t wanted to cut them off. He’d tell them the truth, that magic was real and that he wanted nothing to do with it anymore. He just wanted to be free. When Ariana turned to look at him, he realized she’d asked him something. Rubbing his arms nervously, he nodded, “I’m… It’s okay. It’s okay right now.” He said. It wasn’t true. He’d been thinking of what would come after all this, and with the thinking, the pain had returned. “We should-- do this. It’s gonna be okay, it’s gonna be okay.”

 “I’m not. I know it must-- But I’m not lying. Please. Let me help.” Kaden’s hand stayed there, outstretched and untaken. He knew this wasn’t going to be easy, but he hadn’t prepared for this. Not in the slightest. He was used to dealing with tough scenarios between police and hunting work, sure, but there was a reason he preferred animal control to standard jobs. Dealing with people was hard. Especially when they were going against their best interests so painfully. He knew he must look like a monster, coming in and dragging her out of what was, unfortunately, her home. He couldn’t even imagine how he appeared to her, his face beaten and worn, half of him bandaged and certainly worse for wear. “I’m sorry,” he said before he reached in and pulled her out of the closet, trying to sling her across his back in a fireman's carry. Kaden winced, the pain of everything that came before settling into his bones as he did. It didn’t matter. He pushed it away, he could hurt later. For now, he was sure she was going to resist and fight him tooth and nail. He was going to get her out of here. She could thank him later. “I’m sorry. She’s not coming back. We have to get you out of here.”

 Kelly screamed, her voice hoarse from all the singing she’d already been doing the past few hours. She tried to grab the inside of the cupboard, but no matter how hard she pulled it didn’t even slow him down. Terrified of him and terrified of breaking the promise, she trashed her legs and squirmed, but he wasn’t letting go. “Stop it! Let me GO!” She screamed. “YOU’RE HURTING ME! TODD! CHLOE! HELP!”

 “That’s my job, dear,” she had a hint of confidence in a smile as she glanced at Chloe, one that matched the light in her eyes. Knowing things was something Agatha had always done quite well, and she did not care for those who called her a Know it all. As if it were an insult. Better a know it all, than a know nothing at all, she had always told herself. Still the look on Chloe’s face took its toll on the police woman’s morale, and she approached Chloe carefully, putting her hands on her arms, and looking her in the eyes. Truth was, the detective was not feeling too great herself. She had just shot a coworker, found out that some people could make you do things, put you in some sort of trance, and now, she had to deal with a case that was getting more horrific the more she found out things. And yet, she kept her chin up, no matter how heavy her heart felt in her chest, no matter how much she wanted to cry and scream as she remembered how scared and helpless she had been back at Kaden’s. She kept her chin up, and she looked at Chloe with a look on her face that said everything is going to be okay, you’re under good care. With Chloe by her side, she had looked at the different IDs and would have kept doing so, had it not been for the screaming. “I’m with another police officer, and a …” She frowned. “Someone who’s great at finding missing people,” well that covered it. “Let’s go have a look, alright? Stay behind me,” she closed the drawer, locked it and took the keys with her as she went out of the office.

 “That not an answer,” Chloe replied, squaring her jaw, as if she could make herself immune to Agatha’s gentle demeanor. She didn’t- couldn’t believe it. Lydia had made herself the center of their universes, the sun and stars set at her beck and call. It wasn’t that Chloe missed her, it was that a world without her was impossible to imagine. It was impossible not to want to sob about the pain they’d caused Lydia just by being caught. Chloe was about to ask more about the police officer and the person find her when Kelly began to scream. “Wh-” As soon as they were through the door, when Chloe saw Kelly being hauled around, she didn’t stay behind Agatha at all, running over to Kelly. She almost lost her balance at the last second, staggering slightly as she got close to Todd. It wasn’t a fae promise to Lydia that propelled her forward, but a promise to herself. It had admittedly been about not letting the two kids absorb any of Lydia’s wrath if she could avoid it, but considering Kelly was currently slung over a stranger’s shoulders- she swallowed, grabbing a pencil from a nearby table, as if it could serve against any kind of weapon. “Please… please put her down! You’re hurting her, she doesn’t understand!” Chloe’s head whipped around, looking at Todd, and the girl standing next to him, away, and then blinked. It couldn’t be. Sammy wasn’t that good of a sketch artist.   

 Okay was such a relative term for Todd to use here when it stood that absolutely none of this was okay. He never should have been here. Ariana should have noticed he was gone. Should have checked in on Kelly more. “Good, just keep pushing forward. Everything is going to be okay,” she assured while placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. Was it to steady herself or reassure him? She couldn’t really tell anymore. The vase Sammy made was clutched tightly in her other arm though she nearly dropped it when she heard a scream echo through the hallway. It confirmed it was in fact her Kelly. The very Kelly she decided to keep away from all of this and yet here she was anyway. Fucking bitch. She hoped Athena got a nice stab in for her though immediately chided herself for that thought. “Don’t worry, Todd, she’s just scared. I know all of this is hard and scary, but I’m going to make sure everyone gets out of this, okay?” She desperately hoped she could live up to that statement. They quickly approached Kaden who had Kelly slung over his shoulder. She raced up to comfort Kelly and let her know a familiar face was here. “Hey,” she said softly, getting a good look in Kelly’s eyes, “It’s okay, it’s me, Ari. This is Kaden, he’s not going to hurt you. We’re going to get you out of here, alright? You’re not safe here.” 

 Even though Todd was doing his best to keep himself together, it felt like his brain was going to explode as he tried to keep himself calm. And then, he heard Kelly screaming, heard her yelling, heard her begging for his help. Then a man, who was carrying her. Terrified, Todd felt the pull of the magic begin to curl in the back of his throat, choking him until he reminded himself that they weren’t friends, that they weren’t guests, they weren’t invited. Which didn’t count, it didn’t count, this was a loophole. Even so, he’d heard the fear in Kelly’s voice. He hoped that Ariana was right, that he wouldn’t hurt them. But, what choice did he have? He knew he couldn’t stay here, even though every inch of his body wanted to curl up and hide and wait for Lydia to return. He had to do this. The very thought sent another sharp wave of pain stabbing through his side and Todd staggered a bit, leaning against the wall. “We… We’re not safe here.” He repeated, because it was true and it wasn’t bound in magic. “Hurry. Hurry.” He urged the others. This nightmare, this hell? He just wanted it to end.

 Chloe looked from Agatha to their other rescuers, to Todd, his face scrunched in concentration. Her stomach churned, her insides turned inside out at the thought of how disappointed Lydia would be, at the promises that she was so close to breaking with every breath. “We’re not going anywhere special, okay? We’re going to go look at the Magritte. If you lied to me-” Chloe turned to Agatha, her voice trembling, “If you lied, you could be killing us. But, we’re not doing anything special right now this second. We’re just going to get some inspiration from the Magritte painting. Without Lydia around- Without Lydia around we can just get some second hand inspiration from one of her ancestors.” The painting downstairs, near the front door. She looked back at the blue haired girl, and thought about the glaze Sammy had ordered in just that shade of blue. Could it be?

 Kaden was used to screams in his ears. And she wasn’t even a banshee. Not that it stopped her from trying to rival them, that was for sure. He winced under the weight of her kicking and thrashing against his back. If he clenched his jaw, maybe he wouldn’t feel the pain shooting through his arm, maybe he could just ignore it. As he entered into the foyer, he saw Ari and Keen along with two others. They must be the other hostages. His brow furrowed as the woman begged him to put Kelly down. Guilt seeped deeper into him as he did as he was told, placing her down gently as he could and taking a step back. “Sorry, I-- I’m-- She wouldn’t leave the closet and I didn’t know what else to--” Before he could apologize any further, he felt the pain flashing through his arm again and rubbed the wound. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I--” As Ari said his name, it occurred to him that he never introduced himself, either. Why the fuck was he even here? He certainly wasn’t fucking helping, was he? “That’s right. I’m Kaden. Officer Langley. And this is Detective Keen. And we’re--” His face scrunched up in confusion again when Chloe explained even further. “Just…. here to… admire the, uh, the art.” Was that right? Was that what she was suggesting? There must have been layers upon layers of word binding and fae magic at work. And certainly she’d know how to work around it better than him. “So let’s all head downstairs and make sure we get a good look.” He held out his hand and gestured for them to go ahead of him. He’d make sure they made it down the stairs one way or another. As much as he didn’t want to have to carry on as he had been. 

 Kelly almost bolted the second she was set down, and would have if Ariana hadn’t been right there, alongside Todd. “I don’t understand. Ariana? Are you here too? Did she get you too?” She looked from Ariana to Todd to Chloe, who was slowly lowering her pencil. She looked at Todd, then Chloe, her face wrinkling. “I-... I don’t want to go. We should be staying here, for Lydia.” She looked at Kaden Langley, who was apparently a police officer, which meant… which meant… “Just… Just looking at the art, right. Um, okay.” She agreed, and cautiously walked down the stairs, to look at the Magritte. 

 Shit. She rushed after Chloe, and stopped in the foyer, where the rest of them were. So there were two other hostages then. At least two, she corrected herself, observing what was going on. She almost said something about Kaden’s way of handling the issue, but decided against it. Agatha refused to demolish his authority in a situation as unstable as this one, even if she did not like this. “Well now she’s out of the closet,” this was not intended as a joke, and she kept her upper lip stiff. “Alright, yes. We were going to go downstairs to look at the Magritte,” wait they had a Magritte in here? What the fuck. Her face remained neutral, but the cogs in her heads were starting to hurt, as it seemed that she was hopping from surprise to surprise in this house. As one of the people in the room mentioned that Lydia could come back, she looked over at Chloe and shook her head, to remind her that no, Lydia was gone. Apparently the person Kaden had been carrying was not ready for that, and it was probably best to persuade her out of here through other means. She approached her coworker and, her eyebrow raised, she commented: “this is even worse than we imagined, isn’t it?”

 Magritte? Who was that? Todd wasn’t sure what they were talking about; hadn’t Ariana told him they were going to get-- A fresh spike of pain had him leaning heavily against the hallway, grasping at his side. No, no, no, no. No, they were just going to see Magritte or whatever and they were… he was being good. He was listening, he was keeping his promise. He wasn’t disobeying. He was here, he was here, he was here. “Uh huh. Uh huh.” He nodded, trying to keep his mind as clear of this as he could. But, it was getting harder and harder to not think of the circumstances when he realized that the two not-guests Ariana had were police officers. “Let’s go look at the art.” He nodded in agreement.

 The inclination to run was evident on Kelly’s face and she couldn’t ignore the guilt churning in her stomach. Ariana should have figured out a way to warn her, she did know she was perfect prey for Lydia. She reached out to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “It’s me,” she said softly, “She didn’t get me. I figured out what was going on here.” The other woman had to be Chloe. Sammy had mentioned her and she had hoped she’d still be here. That she hadn’t been too late. There was something akin to relief running through her, but they weren’t out of the clear just yet. She nodded, “Chloe’s right. We should all get some inspiration from Magritte.” Whoever the hell that was. It hardly mattered if it helped them out of here. It was only a matter of time before Lydia was dead if she wasn’t already. Kelly didn’t seem ready to face that news so they’d focus on one thing at a time. 

 Magritte was a painter Lydia liked to show off several times a year, because his bizarre art style was often popular, even in the less expensive and famous pieces that she owned. Had owned, if she had abandoned it all here. Chloe paused the group in front of the painting, her hand curled in a tight fist to distract from the pain of thinking about this. “She’s not coming back,” Chloe said softly to the other two, taking Kelly’s hand in her own. Sickeningly, it reminded her of how Lydia comforted them from time to time, so she dropped that hand just as quickly. “It’s going to hurt more the longer we wait.” Chloe had been here too long. Her bones felt stiff, her body weary. She couldn’t frighten them off, especially Kelly, who was struggling to understand so much. “You’re going to have to break a promise. These-” Chloe looked at Kaden, who Lydia had once described as the most monstrous french creature in town, with frightening strength, and then to Ariana, who was a werewolf, that Sammy had waxed lyrical about. “These people can help, but it’s going to hurt, okay? But you’re going to go first, both of you, and it’s going to be -ah,” Chloe curled in on herself as the promise against lies pulled a stitch in her side. “We’ll figure it out. She’s not coming back, leaving isn’t disappointing her.”

 “And it’s not over yet,” Kaden said quietly to Keen. He lingered behind in the foyer, let everyone go down ahead of him, hand hovering by his pistol, just in case. He knew there was no one else here, but something about this place made him worry that anything could jump out at them at any time. That it couldn’t be as simple as walking right out the front door. When they got down there by what he assumed was the Magritte, he turned the door handle and pushed. It was nearly silent, and yet the sound of the door swinging open on its hinges echoed around them. He took a step past the threshold of the house like it was simple. For him, it was. “She’s right,” he said after Chloe spoke. “This isn’t going to be easy. Even if Lydia’s gone and never coming back.” There was no guarantee this would work, that the promises wouldn’t hold post death. As far as he knew, they did. That’s what the fae all said, at least. Words were more powerful than mortality. “Is there, uh, any more inspiration outside? On the grounds, maybe?” he asked tentatively, trying to catch Chloe’s eye for some confirmation that he was on the right track. There wasn’t much left in the garden that wasn’t destroyed, not now. But that wasn’t the point. “Kelly? Are you okay to find out? Maybe take a look?” he asked, shifting his focus to her and tentatively holding out his hand. 

 The moment of truth was upon them. They were coming up on the door and this was where things would get difficult. Ariana took in a deep breath to keep herself steady as she spoke. “That could work, I know the promises are varied,” she said in a hushed tone mostly meant for Kaden and Agatha to hear. She stood closer to Agatha, but she hoped Kaden’s handy dandy hunter hearing would come into play here. “She usually makes them promise not to leave her home. Not to make any sounds when guests are present, they can’t even sneeze. She’ll turn anything they say that she can into a promise. I’m not sure what our work around should be.” 

 Agatha still didn’t understand how this worked, it was most likely hypnosis, but there was a way to go around those, as she’d found out earlier, as she shot Kaden without causing too much harm to him. As Ariana mentioned Lydia’s home, the detective had a small, and yet malicious smile. There might have been a way for them all to get out of here, and no one getting hurt, she thought to herself. She felt her heart lifting in her chest as she took a deep breath. “This is not her home anymore,” she glanced at Ariana, then at her coworker and added. “She left, and this is a crime scene. This place is now under custody of the police department,” her smile brightened and she gave Chloe a look full of hope, nodding at her.

 Kelly stared at Kaden’s hand, as he offered it, and took it cautiously. She was pretty sure it didn’t work like that, and one look at Chloe’s face suggested it wasn’t very convincing. But Ariana… Ariana just knew, apparently, she knew things about Lydia that Kelly hadn’t until it was way too late. Finally, she looked to Agatha. “It’s- A crime scene? But, I want.” Chloe swallowed. “She left. It’s not her home. I- okay.” She turned back to Kaden, grit her teeth, and tried to move. Her joints locked up, freezing her in the doorway.  “Help,” she breathed, her muscles beginning to burn as if she’d run a marathon rather than just walked down the stairs. Everything in her strained to stay inside the house, to drop his hand, to return to their bedroom and curl away from the world. It felt like it was breaking a promise, it felt wrong, even if this wasn’t Lydia’s home. She didn’t even know if her hesitation was psychological or the promise itself. It was embarrassing, all these people watching her. But suddenly her muscles moved and Kaden pulled and she had to put her foot down just so she wouldn’t fall on her face, and… she was outside. Kelly stared up at Kaden with the biggest look of confusion, then back through the door. “I’m… okay? I’m okay!”

 This all sounded way too easy. Kaden wasn’t sure if they could just walk out the door and be perfectly okay. Would Keen’s idea even work? He held his breath and waited, watching Kelly take tepid steps towards the door. It felt like she stood there forever. Maybe she couldn’t do it on her own. And when she asked for help, it was clear that she couldn’t. Help. He was trying, but he didn’t know if he was doing the right thing. That didn’t stop him from trying. He reached out and pulled her across the threshold. He braced himself for her to collapse into pain or try to run back, something, anything. “You’re okay?” he repeated. The tension held in his chest dissipated as relief started to wash over him. One down. This would work. They’d be okay. They could save them. “You’re going to be okay,” he assured her with a smile before looking back to see who was next. 

 A tiny ball dissolved in Chloe’s chest as Kelly’s eyes lit up properly in the outside floodlights. Kelly looked from the door to Kaden and the outside again. It would start to ache soon enough, she knew. Not the promise, perhaps, but biochemical need to be with Lydia. Chloe just didn’t point that out. She also didn’t point out that Kelly and Todd only had a couple dozen promises between them, far fewer things to trip over than Chloe’s hundreds of promises. She looked at Agatha briefly, and tried to match that smile with one of her own. Maybe Lydia being gone meant Lydia being dead. Chloe swallowed, and tried to smile even more brightly for Todd. “You next, tough guy.” She gave him a quick hug, just in case she didn’t make it to the other side with them. 

 Thankfully, Agatha seemed to say the right thing and with a little push, Kelly was over the threshold. Ariana felt like she could breathe a little easier. This could work. They were going to get everyone out of here. She wasn’t going to fail all of them the same way she failed Sammy. She just needed to keep herself steady and confident to give the other two the push they needed to get out of here. They were relying on her so she did her best to hide her shock. “You’re okay,” she said with a soft smile before turning to Todd. Chloe had given him a quick hug and she stood beside him. Ariana placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You got this, we’re almost there,” she explained and offered up her hand if he wanted to take it. 

 Listening intently to the others, Todd tried to reassure himself that they were right. This wasn’t Lydia’s home anymore, it wasn’t hers. It was a crime scene. And he’d be able to leave a crime scene, right? She didn’t live here, it wasn’t her property, it wasn’t hers anymore. She didn’t own this place and she didn’t own him. He watched, with bated breath, as Kelly stepped over the threshold and out into the yard. And, for a long moment, all eyes were glued on her. But, if the punishment was going to come, wouldn’t it have happened already? A rush of relief washed over him as Kelly celebrated. Swallowing, he nodded at the others around him. “I got this,” He mumbled, cheek pressed against Chloe’s head as she hugged her tightly. “I got this. We’re getting out of here. We’re getting out of here.” He said and looked at Ariana with a nod. 

 Todd took a deep breath, steadying himself. This wasn’t her home, it was a crime scene. It was a crime scene. Those were the words he kept repeating to himself as he leaped forward, forcing himself to push through the pain that threatened to bring him to his knees. It wasn’t hers, he wasn’t hers. He was going to be free, just like Kelly and then Chloe would join them and they’d all be free. He’d be able to tell his parents how sorry he was, he’d apologize to Winston, he’d tell them everything about what had happened, he’d make it up to Ariana for having to rescue him from this. He’d do so much, once he was free. And, as he staggered upright in the front yard, he looked around with wide eyes.

 But that’s not how Fae promises work.

 Excruciating pain stabbed through his chest, starting in his heart and exploding outwards. It felt like someone had injected liquid metal into his body, boiling hot, and burning him from the inside out. A choking scream escaped his lips as Todd’s knees buckled underneath him, unable to keep him upright. He collapsed onto his stomach, body shaking with tremors as his hands reached up to grip his skull. His head felt as though it was imploding, like someone had stuck his brain in a vacuum, like it was going to collapse in on itself. His fingers clawed at his chest, his forehead, scraping at the flesh in an attempt to relieve the pain. He scrabbled against the earth, screaming, weeping, bleeding as he tried to crawl back to the house. But, he’d broken his promise.

 With a shuddering gasp, Todd’s eyes rolled to the back of his head. A final violent tremor ran through his body and then, the DJ was no more.

 “You totally got this,” Ariana assured as he prepared himself to step outside of Lydia’s home. Kelly making it over the threshold had given her confidence that Todd would be okay. That he’d leave here and she could tell Winston they’d need to look after him from here on out. She’d be a better friend. She’d check in on him more and make sure no more vile women like Lydia went near him ever again. If she hadn’t completely erased the word from her vocabulary, she would have promised him as much. She stood just outside the doorway now, ready to give him a hand if needed. There was a momentary proud look on her face as he began to step out of the house that was quickly replaced with one of horror.

 “No,” Ariana whispered to herself, “No.” She quickly knelt down to try and hold Todd up, but the way he was clawing at his own chest made it impossible to do so. The pain on his face and in his screams was enough to make her feel sick. She reached out unsure of what to do. “Todd, no, breathe.” Come on, just breathe. Please don’t. “You’re over, it’s over, you’ll-” Her voice was strained and her hands felt useless trying to find a way to keep him upright. There had to be something she could do, but she was paralyzed by trying to find the answer, hands still extended hoping he’d reach for them and find a way to steady himself. Grip to her through the pain, she could take it. What she couldn’t take was what happened instead. 

 Defeat was evident in the way her features contorted on her face. Ariana dropped down to the ground beside Todd, hoping against all better judgment that this wasn’t it. That he just needed to be carried out of here. Her ears felt as if they were about to pop with the pressure that was building up as she bit back tears. Still, she listened for any sign of a heartbeat, but there was none to be found. Shaky hands reached down to feel for Todd’s pulse even though she knew better. She knew she failed Todd just like she had failed Sammy. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed out soft enough that no one with ordinary hearing would be able to hear. She was frozen in place, staring down at the damage as if she could will it to change. Will Todd to move again, to stand up and say this was all some sort of joke. She wanted to move, wanted to remember that Kelly and Chloe still needed her, but she couldn’t find it in her to stand back up. They were better off with Kaden and Agatha anyhow. All she seemed to do is make this whole thing worse. 

 Kelly watched Todd with wide eyes as Todd stepped over the door, her own smile cautiously watching him. For a second, when his foot touched the pavement, he was fine, and Kelly was about to be ready to celebrate with him when he contorted. She jumped back as he screamed, her hand flying over her mouth as he clutched at his head. “Do something!” She cried out, but stood frozen on the ground as Todd collapsed to the ground. “Do something!” He tried to crawl back, but it was too late. He shook, once, twice, as Kelly leant against 

Kaden and wept, but the silence after his last scream was so much worse. Watching Ariana, Kelly found the courage to move forward too, cracking her knees against the pavement as she knelt over him. “TODD!” Kelly shook his shoulders, and then did the only thing she could think of, a move half remembered from a training video she’d watched years ago.  Pounding on his chest, Kelly begged him to come back, or anything. 

 For all the misery in Kelly’s scream, the sound Chloe made was even more wretched. She choked and gagged after trying to scream herself, silent tears spilling down her face. “Don’t ever scream again,” Lydia had once told her, and Chloe had promised without hesitation, Sammy’s blood still soaking her clothes. Her tongue swelled up as if stung by a bee. Chloe clutched her chest until the coughing subsided, but when she looked up, Todd was already dead. “No,” Chloe breathed, sagging against the wall. Surrender was so much easier. “No, no.” She could clean it up. She could fix the door and sweep up the glass and make everything fine, so Lydia wouldn’t be upset. Todd wouldn’t have to bear the weight of Lydia’s wrath if Chloe was- She swallowed. Todd was dead. It was too late.

 Kaden stood and watched as Todd started to walk forward. He knew he shouldn’t be as hopeful as he felt, and yet, he was sure this would work. Up until the kid collapsed. Part of him wanted to reach out, but Ari was already there, so he held Kelly back instead for the moment. The last thing they needed was for her to go back into that place. And Ari had it. Didn’t she? He would be-- But he wasn’t fine. He seized and Kelly and Chloe screamed. Kaden wasn’t sure what he did because the world seemed to stop and stand still. His grip on Kelly fell and all he could do was watch as she and Ari tried to bring Todd back to life. The sounds finally hit his ears and the world was turning again. He didn’t need to feel his pulse, he saw Ari check it and he could hear that his heart was no longer beating. There was no more hope left for Todd. He thought about pulling Kelly away, Ari, too. But he thought better of it. There was nothing more he could do there and they were okay as they could be. But Chloe. What was going to happen to Chloe? His pulse spiked as he looked over at her. “Hey,” he said trying to catch her attention from the other side of the doorway. “Chloe, I know-- Don’t give up. Not yet. Don’t--” He wasn’t sure he was any help. His eyes darted to Agatha, hoping she might have an answer. Forcing Chloe out of the house seemed so much more dangerous now. But she couldn’t stay, could she? Putain. What did they do?

 All she could do was watch, watch Todd drop to the ground, Kelly beg, Chloe turn back to the state she found her in back in the office. She’d never been one to stand and watch as things happened before her, and yet, here she was completely speechless as she tried to make sense of what had happened here. Elation had given room to death and despair much too soon. If her heart once again felt heavy in her chest, she put it aside, refusing this desperate situation to take control of them all. If Kelly had managed to get out, then maybe Chloe would be fine, or maybe Agatha would regret this. Sourly. Gathering all the softness that she could muster, the detective squatted down, sitting just a little lower than Chloe, and with hope in her eyes, she looked straight into Chloe’s and reached for her hands, slowly. She would have usually gone straight to the other side of the door, see if she could do anything to help save Todd, but there was something inevitable, almost prophetic about the way he had died. Brutal, ruthless, with no chance of survival. Yet, Agatha believed. She looked at Chloe as someone who believed, and when she spoke, if it felt like walking on a line high above the ground, she made sure not to look down. “We’re going to try. You and I, we’re going to try, because we know she’s gone for good, and I know there’s a lot for you out there, so much more than in here. Think of all the places you’ll go, and see. The beauty,” there was a quiver in her voice the more she spoke, but she did not break. “Let’s try, please.”

 “I gave up years ago,” Chloe snapped at Kaden, instantly regretting her words as Kelly whimpered. She rubbed her face, trying to get the tears against her face. She pulled a face that she hoped looked like an apology to Kaden, but her gaze slid back to Todd, dead on the floor. Like Sammy, trying to escape in his own way. Sammy had meant to come back, but it hadn’t made any difference. Chloe had cleaned his brain off the wall because of it, and she had thought then that she was proud of him having tried to escape. Maybe a quick death was better than what Anneliese had had in the end. Taking Agatha’s hand, she stood up shakily. Every atom in her wanted to split itself into two: the part that needed to stay, and the part that had seen Lydia for the viper she had been from the start. She didn’t listen to Agatha’s pretty words. Pretty words held lies and half truths. Everyone was looking at Todd’s dead body, and wondering how hers would survive if his hadn’t. They all used different words, which to fae made all the difference, but Chloe could barely remember what words she’d used before this. Hell, a single tense could kill her or save her. She just… couldn’t say that. She couldn’t tell them that she’d resigned herself to dying in this dragon’s lair years ago. She couldn’t extinguish the hopes on her rescuers’ faces before trying.

  “Look away,” Chloe said to Kelly, and didn’t even try until Kelly had. She took a deep breath, nearly throwing up with the effort of pushing her muscles over the edge. It was like trying to get through tar. Maybe it wasn’t worth the fight at all. She could live here comfortably until her natural death, which was what Lydia would want. She could avoid the pain of breaking this promise. She grit her teeth. Life in a gilded cage was still caged. Then, like an elastic band snapping, she was over the threshold and felt nothing trying to pull her back in. Chloe inhaled the chilly, winter air, and thought maybe she should have grabbed a coat before all this. Then lightning tore through her mind, blood spilled on her face from her nose, and Chloe went the same way Todd had, right to the ground. 

 Everything around her kept moving, but Ariana remained frozen for a moment, staring at Todd’s lifeless body. If she stared at it long enough, maybe it would distort back to how it was supposed to be. Kelly and Chloe’s screams barely even registered in her ears until Kelly was beside her beating on Todd’s chest. Kelly. She’d wanted so badly for her to never know this kind of pain, so much so she put herself through more just to avoid it, but it had all been for not. Hadn’t they lost enough? Seeing Kelly’s panic awoke something in her and she took a shaky breath. She could be strong for right now. She could be strong for Kelly who needed someone to be strong for her. Kaden and Agatha were already with Chloe. After her failed attempt with Todd, it only seemed right to leave that to them. This, she could do. She placed her hand gently on Kelly’s shoulder and softly said, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but he’s gone. We need to keep moving and help Chloe now, okay?” 

 “Well I haven’t,” Kaden replied, not combatively but with no room to argue. He knew hope hurt like hell. He didn’t know how long she’d been there or how she got there, but he could only imagine that trying to hold onto any spark of hope in the situation she found herself in would have torn her apart. He was getting used to holding onto hope for someone else, carrying it for them when they couldn’t bear to conceive of it. He’d do it for her now if he could. And thankfully, so would Keen. He was grateful she was there, keeping them level and together, standing beside Chloe. He nodded and waited on the other side of the door, just in case anything went wrong. Now that there was no doubt just how possible that was. 

 He watched her closely, monitored each step she took. He saw the struggle on her face, but there was a brief pause where she looked like she was just fine, like she would face the same fate as Kelly. And then the blood poured from her nose. “No. No, no,” he started and she tumbled down towards the ground. Kaden lunged out for her, catching her before she toppled to the ground, stumbling down to his knees as he did. “Chloe! Chloe, no,” he shouted, giving her one shake to try and revive her. She couldn't die. She couldn’t. They were going to fix this, they were supposed to save them. Losing Todd was horrible enough this-- “Chloe, please, don’t--” He could feel his own breaths get shallow and then remembered to check her pulse. Her heart had slowed, but it was still beating. “I think she’s alive. She should be--” Please wake up, please. These people deserved so much better and Lydia didn’t deserve a single victory, even in death. 

 For a short moment, Agatha had wondered whether Chloe would step over that threshold or not. Perhaps she should have, she thought to herself. No, no, absolutely not. A life spent in this house was not a life, and the detective was both proud and full of sorrow as she reflected on Chloe’s last action. No, this could not be her last. No, no, no, no. The detective repeated the word under her breath, exiting the house last to rush to Chloe’s side. “I’m calling an ambulance,” she declared, glancing at everyone around her as she dialled the number. She would call for backup next, but for now they had to save Chloe while they still could. “Put her on her side,” she commanded, standing up and walking aside to speak to the 

Operator. 

 “No,” Kelly said, tear tracks on her face. She looked over to Ariana. “No, I can’t- I don’t understand. I don’t understand what happened. He- he was fine. Chloe- Chloe, don’t!” She stared at Chloe before nodding and squeezing her eyes shut. She whimpered as she heard Kaden yell, her eyes flashing open to look at Ari. It wasn’t until Agatha said she was calling an ambulance that she dared look back okay. “Is it over?”

 There were warm arms around her. A chilly breeze tickled her cheeks. Grey winter light streamed through her eyelids. There was more pain than Chloe had felt in months, but there was more than that too. She blinked open her eyes, and tried to sit up. That- that was a bad idea. “I think- I think I’m going to stay down here,” Chloe murmured. She squinted up at the three of them, Agatha walking away with her phone, Kaden holding her and Ariana holding Kelly. That blue hair... “You’re the one who tried to save Sammy, aren’t you?” She asked Ariana softly, her voice croaking. Her eyes drifted back over to Todd, his eyes shuttered. No one home. She moved just enough to take his hand. There was so much pain. There was also something else. 

 Ariana couldn’t refrain from outwardly cringing when she saw the struggle Chloe went through upon exiting the home. Prison. Whatever someone would call it. This couldn't be happening. Lydia couldn’t be having this much of a victory. Not in death. Her stomach turned as she was unable to take her eyes off the scene in front of her. A comforting hand remained on Kelly’s shoulder though at some point she had to wonder which one of them she was even supporting. The blur of sounds around her stopped mattering as she remained hyperfocused on the sound of Chloe’s heartbeat that wasn’t quitting. She was still there. Still fighting. Hope wasn’t lost yet though the fear of it being crushed yet again was far from gone. An ambulance was on the way and Kaden was supporting Chloe, keeping her on her side. The storm had died down and she calmly said, “It’s over.” As much as it could be over. She knew better than to believe they wouldn’t be living with the scars long after this. “You’re free,” she assured Kelly as she still stared at Chloe. Her voice sounded strained, but Sammy’s name rang out in her mind. She nodded slowly and said, “I-- That’s me. I’m sorry I didn’t. But you’re getting out of here and she’ll never do this to anyone again.” She knew Athena would make sure of that. Everything still felt like hell and she could hear the sirens approaching in the distance, but it was over. This was finally over.  

 Kaden tried to get Chloe on her side before she pulled herself up. “Hey, wait, don’t--” Thankfully she figured it out before he had to pull her back down. He nodded at Keen as she went over to call 911. “We have to call in the death,” he added. It was meant to be nothing more than matter of fact, procedure. It hit him harder than he expected. They were supposed to save them. All of them. He wasn’t even sure if Chloe would remain okay. If she had broken free from all of the promises. But she was here. And breathing. And out of that prison of a house. He looked up at it, most of the windows broken or covered. It was shattered, just like the illusion of who Lydia was. Forever. He wanted to burn the place down, be rid of it and her once and for all. But they needed the evidence still left there. They’d make sure that no trace left of Lydia Griffin would be praised or lauded ever again. And make sure that Kelly and Chloe got justice they deserved, some compensation or retribution for this. And that meant leaving that awful place intact. “It’s over,” he repeated. “You’re safe,” he said, looking from Kelly back to Chloe. He hoped that was finally true. 

Now that her arm was healing and her wing was taped together, walking was almost bearable. Lydia was also running high on painkillers, so her entire body felt like it was wrapped in cotton gauze, numb to both the outside world and the inside one. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and with a wince, she pulled it out. It was Deirdre, calling again. It was practically muscle memory at this point to tap decline and put it away again, as it had been for the dozens of calls she’d gotten from the Banshee. It must have been the mushrooms or something. Deirdre was ever so susceptible to them. Lydia pursed her lips, before looking at Rio. “I can’t stress enough how grateful I am for all of your help. My, uh, my friend will be here in an hour. You don’t mind waiting that little bit longer, do you?” She looked around at the crowded evening streets from the passenger side of her car. “You probably need to eat, right?” She asked him. 

 Orion knew nothing about this friend of Lydia’s, but figured that waiting around until they got here wouldn’t kill him. For now, Rio was pretty sure that Lydia was safe from the hunter at least. That wouldn’t stop them from coming after her again, but Lydia must have felt safe with the friend who should be coming to get her or she wouldn’t have reached out to them in the first place. Rio wasn’t sure how long it had been since Lydia had first contacted him but he knew that he hadn’t gotten any sleep. He had pulled enough all nighters in the Scribrary to know how to function with little to no sleep, but that didn’t stop his stomach from growling. “It’s fine. I’m happy to stick around.” Rio smiled at the woman and leaned his head against the car window. “It’s not a big deal, I’m not that hungry. I can wait.” He was lying obviously, his stomach growling enough proof of that. But right now his only concern was making sure that she got away from here safely. He could worry about eating later.

 Winston had not been having a good time since dealing with Bloody Mary and the Sandman; Orion had gone missing and it had been a rough ride to track him down (which Winston wouldn’t normally do with their boyfriend because CREEPY but these were unprecedented times). To make matters worse Todd had fallen off the surface of the Earth. He’d cut Winston off. Winston wasn’t sure what they had done to receive this sort of treatment, but there it was. It had been hard. Picking between going after Todd and going after Rio, but Winston hadn’t really had to think that much about the choice, it had sort of come naturally and Winston was sure that they had made the right call. They were weighed down with all manner of magical gadgetry as they followed the blinking light on their screen. “I don’t think they’re too far from here,” they whispered as they crept forward, knowing that Rio couldn’t be that much further away. Thank God for technomancy. 

 Of all the people Luce had expected to go up against Lydia with, Athena and Winston were pretty far at the bottom of her list. In fact, they were probably at the bottom. But, when she’d gotten the message from Athena, telling her about the situation, Luce had been only too willing to help. Help. That was… one way of describing what she was hoping to do. Murder, that was another word for it. A more accurate one. Fingers curling around the iron spear that she’d brought with her, Luce followed closely behind Winston. Who would have thought the neighbor kid would be leading the charge to fuck up a lady. “Mhm.” Luce nodded, the familiar grip of Lydia’s magic creeping up on her as she tried to figure out how to word things. She knew about Lydia, knew about her home and what she could do to people. But when Athena had told her about the situation, it had circumvented the fae magic that bound her to her promise. If the others already knew about Lydia , then it didn’t matter. “What’s our game plan, once we get there? I’ve got this,” She held the spear up, “But I can’t exactly just light up a bitch without there being some fall out.”

 She knew this had to be done. Whatever came of all of it, Lydia couldn’t go on living. Not because of who she was, not because of what she’d done to Ariana and now, according to Winston, possibly to her brother. Athena couldn’t help but let the iron in her blood concentrate periodically to her fingertips, her lips in a firm line. She had a couple more knives on her body than usual, because whatever was going to happen, she couldn’t leave room for anything to go wrong. She was glad that she’d asked Luce to come along - working to take down that Cù-sìth those months ago had solidified Athena’s already present respect for the woman. “I think we should avoid the fire for now - we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. She’s lived a super-duper fucking long time,” she knew her words were biting and she didn’t care, “and that means she’s got to have ways of getting out of tricky situations. So I say we go in there, make sure my brother - make sure Ri’s all safe, and kill her. Plain and simple.” Even though she had to admit to herself that it was anything but.

 “If you’re sure,” Lydia said softly. He was perfectly tolerable as far as humans went, and she’d rather keep the promises in her back pocket and keep her slate as clean as she could, at least in the eyes of those she still loved back in White Crest. She shifted, looking over the bandage on her arm to see if it needed changing. Nothing. When Lydia looked out the window, surveying the people on the road, she spotted someone she couldn’t believe was here. Lucinda Vural. Lydia looked out the right side of her window, clucking her tongue in frustration at the sight of traffic all around them. There was no easy way to drive out of here. The last thing she wanted was for Luce to find her smeared in her own blood and weak, for another way to be hurt by the Vurals. Being in a car in the vicinity of a fire spellcaster also frightened her. “We should go for a walk. Quickly, Rio. I’m so sorry.”

 “A walk? What about your friend?” Orion found himself asking, but that didn’t seem to bother Lydia much. She was already climbing out of the car in a hurry. Rio only let himself rest for another second, letting out a held breath and staring up at the roof of the car before following her out of the car. She seemed shaken. Was the hunter back around? Was that what she had been freaking out about? Immediately, Rio began looking around the place, spotting a familiar face from a block or two over. “Luce?” Rio asked aloud, glancing over at Lydia. Could that be who she had spotted? Luce was scary but she wasn’t exactly a hunter. “Last time I saw her she punched me in the face.” Rio touched at the spot on his face on reflex, a ghost pain reminding him of how strong one of her punches could be when she was mad. But the memories dissipated quickly when the traffic broke, revealing two more faces with Luce that had previously been blocked by a car. “What the-” Rio froze in place, no longer walking alongside Lydia but instead trying to figure out why Winston and Athena were together. And here of all places. “I know them.” Rio was ready to wave before he hesitated. Lydia was a fae, and whatever trauma Athena was going through at the moment, she was a warden. She hadn’t been the hunter that had attacked Lydia, but she might be just as dangerous. “What is going on?” He turned on Lydia.

 Luce wasn’t alone. That was worse, somehow. Perhaps her and Winston were on an out of town shopping trip for some reason, with the blonde girl Lydia didn’t recognise, but this was the wrong area to go for extended shop options. “I don’t know. Really, Rio, I have no idea why they’re here, but I don’t want to wait to find out if it’s a coincidence.” Lydia replied in hushed tones, already anxiously moving. “Let’s go.” She had no idea why any of them were here, but Lydia had seen at least a few times the kind of power Winston held. She also knew she had talked Todd through leaving Winston, although nothing should have connected her to that from their perspective. 

 She was seething. She could see her brother and she saw him look over. Athena had half a mind to run over right then, but she knew that she had to be careful. If not for her own life, for the lives of Luce, Winston, and her brother. She couldn’t let them die. Her skin was crawling and she wanted nothing more than to be away from Lydia, but she had to remind herself that she would be soon. “I - I don’t know why my brother - why he’s not…” Why he’s not coming over here. Though he sometimes had things planned far in advance but there was something about the whole situation that didn’t sit quite right with her, though the idea of her brother being around a murderous fae in the first place was more than enough to set her off. “We’ve got to act soon, but we also have to make sure she doesn’t hurt my brother - hurt Ri - in retaliation.” Her fingers found one of the knives pressed flush against her hip, letting the cool iron of it match the concentrated iron under her skin. “I think your spear will come in handy,” she whispered to Luce. “I don’t really care, as long as she suffers.”

 Swallowing, Winston did their best to take in the entire situation. They knew that this was complex but right now the only priority that there was was to get Orion out of here without getting him hurt. Something that was easier said than done. “I’m sorry but I don’t really care about hurting Lydia, all I care is about getting Rio out of this. I don’t know why he’s playing along but…” Winston wasn’t sure that they really cared enough to explain their thought process. Tracking Rio had not been so difficult but the question of why he was willingly assisting Lydia remained. It was a promise bind situation was all that Winston could think. “I will concentrate on making sure Rio doesn’t get hurt,” Winston had designed tech specifically for a situation like this but like most of the tech that they came up with it hadn’t exactly been field tested until now, “but the faster we can do this… well the better.”

 Wait, Rio was Athena’s brother? What fucking apples and what fucking trees... Luce shook her head-- now wasn’t the time to think about that. The two of them clearly had higher stakes in this than her. Athena and Winston wanted to make sure Rio was safe. Which was fair. But, that didn’t help the fact that he was definitely with Lydia. Letting out a sigh, Luce glanced around the busy roads. There was a lot of fucking traffic, a lot more innocent people than she could reasonably risk with her flames. Fire had a way of getting out of hand and this wasn’t the place for it right now. “Listen, the longer we stand here, the worse this is going to go. That bitch,” Luce growled, “Will do whatever it takes to get away. You two, find a way to cut her off, stop her from getting away. Try to get Rio away from her.” She said and shook her head, thinking of the way August had bent to her will. If he’d been kissed by her, Luce had no idea if it’d even be possible to get Rio back. “In the meantime,” Gripping the spear tightly in her hand, Luce watched for traffic and began to cross the road. The iron in her hands heated under her skin, her blood boiling. “Hey, Lydia. Long time no see.”

 “Does Luce have a spear?” Orion asked incredulously, eyes growing wide as he remembered the damage she had done without any weapon at all the last time the two had run into each other. They did need to go, but Rio didn’t exactly want to. Something was happening. Rio found himself glancing back and forth between the three and Lydia. Something wasn’t adding up, but Rio knew enough about Athena and Luce to know that violence was definitely on their minds. Lydia was too injured to get away from any of them right now, especially a hunter. Counting on that, Rio slid in front of Lydia, blocking Luce’s path to her as she crossed the street. “Oh uh. Hey guys. What’s up?” He tried smiling, giving a small wave before tucking his hand behind his head and scratching at his neck nervously. He was so confused. He glanced at the three, eyes finally landing on Winston and staying there, the smile disappearing from his face as their eyes locked and Rio tried to figure out why they were here with the other two. “Funny running into you here, yeah?”

 Lydia’s gaze flicked around, eyes narrowing. There was a tall department store not thirty feet away, with a flat roof, which meant there was likely rooftop access. Three blocks away, there was a safe loft where she could wait out her connection. Just fifty more minutes. Lucinda walked up close as Lydia took a nervous step back. Fucking Vurals. “That’s an iron spear,” she pointed out, her hand trembling. Rio knew these people. Shit. Maybe they really were here for Rio. But the steely stare of Lucinda told her that Rio was not the main concern. Lydia stood a little taller, her whole body aching. Her thigh buzzed again. “Did I not pay you enough for your magic, Winston? Did I not look after your human sacrifice well enough, Lucinda? I don’t even know who you are, another spellcaster, no doubt. If this is what Kaden Langley’s grace looks like, it’s not very impressive.” Lydia’s voice wobbled with nerves, even as her tone chilled like ice. “You would protect me, no matter what, wouldn’t you, Rio? You promised. I wish I didn’t have to do this, but they’re here to hurt me.” 

 “She’s hurt him and my-” Ariana. “Another good friend. She needs to suffer.” Athena nodded. “You can concentrate to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. He can’t.” I can’t live with myself if he did. I knew he was going to get in trouble with a fae one day. She couldn’t blame him though, not when there was a potential that he might not make it out of this alive. “We’ll make this efficient. That, among many other things, is something I can excel at.” She nodded at Luce and followed her across the road, hoping that the traffic would dissipate soon enough. She didn’t need innocent lives being lost, at least not as much as she could avoid. “Not so funny.” Athena’s eyes narrowed in response to her brother. “You -” her eyes widened, praying for him to somehow hear her thoughts. Not that such a thing was possible, but when they’d been children it had almost felt like it was. She hardened her gaze as it shifted over to where Lydia sat, her skin crawling. Not a spellcaster, she wanted to say. Wanted to hiss, even. She had no issues with spellcasters, but she was not one. Not at all. “Doesn’t matter who I am. I know enough about who you are.” Kaden has nothing to do with this. At least not the most significant part. As she turned to watch the exchange between her brother and Lydia, she couldn’t help but reach for her dagger again, though she didn’t remove it. You promised. “You didn’t.” Turning to look directly at her brother, Athena shook her head, doing her best to keep her breathing even. No. 

 That confirmed it. Promise bound. Great. Rio was too good for this world truly. Of course he was going to make a promise that he would be forced to keep. “Lydia, you definitely pay very well, I would’ve loved to have just worked for you, but you took Todd and now you’ve taken someone even more important and wrapped him up in a promise that he shouldn’t have to keep. I’m not going to make him break it, because that will hurt him more than I can allow, but I won’t let you keep doing this.” Winston fished into their pocket, pulling a number of tiny metal balls of twine from their pocket before tossing them through the air. The balls of twine sprouted tiny wire legs and began to scuttle towards Rio. They were made from iron. Everything had a hint of iron nowadays. Better for dealing with fae. “I’m really sorry Rio,” Winston watched as the wires of the twine reached out and began to wrap themselves around Rio’s feet. Hopefully this didn’t hurt them too much. Winston wasn’t sure if them preventing Rio from completing the promise would hurt Rio as well, they hoped not. But right now they had to deal with Lydia. She couldn’t go on. 

 When Rio stepped into her path, Luce had the uncomfortable flashback to the last time they’d run into each other. She’d been wrong then, yeah. And, as she heard Athena and Winston talk, as they pieced together the puzzle that she really didn’t care about, she had a feeling that she was going to be in the wrong again. But, it didn’t matter. Rio wouldn’t be hurt. Not in any real way compared to what she was going to do to Lydia. As Winston apologized, as they let loose their latest techno-magical marvel, she watched the way it curled around his legs. Probably not enough to stop him, but if she gave him a little help...  Luce curled her free hand into a fist. “Sorry, Rio.” She said apologetically and punched the kid square in the face once more before quickly sidestepping him to face Lydia. Holding the short spear out to block the woman’s path, she offered a tight lipped smile. “I’d say you did your job too well, Lydia.” She said as she pressed forward. It was too open here, too many eyes. If they could just get away from the street. “Why don’t we have a nice little chat about just how good you are at what you do, huh?” Luce said, the threat of violence mounting with every step she took towards the Fae woman.

 Everything happened quickly. Orion’s first instinct was to deny Lydia’s claims. He wouldn’t have promised her anything. “No- That can’t be… I didn’t-” But he kept trailing off. Back then, he hadn’t known she was a fae. She was a woman attacked by a monster in town and Rio was a hunter that had helped her. He had promised not to harm her. To protect her even. “Oh my god.” He had been so stupid. And now, everything made sense. Athena was helping Ariana look for the Fae that had killed her friend. Turned out, Rio had known her all along. His voice caught in his throat. He wanted to yell at Lydia, or to yell at the group but what was the point? This was all his fault. He had saved a monster, and now he had been trapped in her net. “Please don’t make me do that.” Rio finally spoke, begging Lydia to let him free. To stop him. The group caught on quickly, wires wrapping around Rio’s leg in an attempt by Winston to lock him into place, and seconds later another punch to the face by Luce threw him off balance. At least she apologized this time around. But as much as Rio wanted to fight against it and stay rooted in place, he felt his body moving on it’s own. “Crap. No, no, no.” He said to himself as he grabbed at the wires and began ripping them away from his legs. Don’t do this. He kept telling himself, forcing himself to stop. But he had promise bound himself to a freaking fae. “Stop me!” He yelled at the group. But he had already ripped most of the wires free and was reaching towards Luce to stop her from hurting Lydia. 

 If the blonde girl was going to act vague and detached, Lydia was going to dismiss her as entirely uninteresting. Luce and Winston were the clear threats here. “T-” Lydia frowned. They oughtn’t have been able to know about that. The detachment had been seamless, Todd’s last close connections hurt but not suspicious. In a year, no one would be able to find a single reference to DJ Dayze, but the transition had only barely started. No matter now, Todd would rot in that home of hers until she sent someone to pull him out, but she tucked that thought away. Apparently this human hunter was even more valuable than Todd. A bargaining chip. Lydia jumped back as Winston threw their gizmos on the floor, but the twine only went for Rio, not for her. Lydia’s mouth filled with saliva as her heart began to race, adrenaline numbing the searing pain in her back and arms. Luce aimed the spear she had once stolen from a red cap at Lydia, and Lydia swallowed. “I don’t want to make him fight you. If you all backed off, he would be home in a couple hours and no one would have any more issues. But that isn’t going to happen, is it?” The blonde girl’s hand twitched to something at her side, so Lydia’s did the same, slowly backing away from Lucinda’s spear. At the same moment that Rio stopped to reach for it, Lydia grabbed her own dagger and pushed it into his hand. “Your choice. Have fun.” Lydia spun and spat on a passer by, yelling for him to protect her too. She bolted down the street, licking her hand and spreading her toxin onto every human she could touch, leaving a wall of human shields in her wake. The department store would let her disappear, if she could reach it. Lydia’s phone buzzed again, as Lydia screeched in frustration. Surely Deirdre knew she would be busy?

 The fae was hardly paying attention to her, but that suited Athena just fine. She relished when those who she hunted underestimated her. It just made their deaths all the more pleasurable in the end. She knew that she couldn’t let her guard down, not even for a moment. She winced briefly at Winston and Luce’s actions, but she felt her whole body tense up at her brother’s pleading. There was no work-around right now - who knew what sort of promises he’d been exactly manipulated into, and she couldn’t risk any further harm coming to him. She couldn’t lose him. Wouldn’t lose him. Except Lydia wasn’t going to go down easy. “I do not believe you.” She replied, simply, gaze focused. Focused on Lydia before it moved to her brother, and the dagger than Lydia had placed in his hand. “Ri, no.” She hissed, as Lydia spat on someone else and began to run away. “I - we can’t let her get away.” Athena began to move in the direction where Lydia had gone - dagger now removed and clearly visible. “We also can’t - the humans need to get out of this as unharmed as possible.” She moved toward her brother for just a moment, wondering if there was a way to get the dagger out of his hands. If she could be quick and swift enough to do so. She knew how he moved, usually.  

 Winston had seen this fae affect so many people. She had killed Ariana’s friend. She had taken Todd. She was doing all of this to Rio and now she was bringing in people who had absolutely nothing to do with it and bringing them into it all. Winston swallowed before watching Rio tear through the wire that was wrapping up his body. They really hadn’t wanted to hurt their but there wasn’t really much choice here. Willing the wires to unravel and then tighten around him, Winston fought back against Rio’s frankly incredible strength. Something that Winston would’ve normally marvelled at. Hurling more balls of twine his way, they watched as Lydia tried to make her exit. Reaching out with their mind Winston tried to sense the wires that would inevitably run through all of the streets and lanes. Unfortunately this wasn’t as densely populated an area as they would’ve normally liked and therefore there was not as much around them that they would be able to use. But they would make do. “I can only do so much with these balls of twine but I’ll try and stop Lydia from getting too far.” Winston watched as she darted through the crowd, there was a telephone line hanging overhead and Winston snapped the wire with their mind, causing the copper wire to lash downwards and wrap around Lydia’s leg. “Get the dagger off of Rio and we can deal with him once Lydia’s dealt with…” Winston was concerned however, they didn’t really want to substantially hurt their boyfriend but they were beginning to wonder if they didn’t have much other choice.

 In an instant, the tension that had existed between them had exploded into motion, with action and reaction. Rio was tearing at the wires, now armed, Athena grasping the dagger, Lydia taking off through the crowd, setting up a wall of human shields between her and them. Luce gritted her teeth as one of the entranced bystanders positioned himself firmly between her and Lydia, his hands raising to block her. Hand to hand wasn’t her best skill, and neither was taking down people in a way that wouldn’t hurt them badly. Anger burning under her skin, Luce tried to focus on the sensation she’d had that night, when she’d willed the magic to crackle and explode into something more than just flame. Lightning, electricity, sharp and precise and deadly. She wanted it, needed it now more than ever.  But, when she brought her hands up, outstretched and reaching for Lydia, a burst of blue flames were conjured instead. The flames caught on the clothes of the people around her, not caring who or what they consumed. And neither did the bystanders between them. They continued to block her path, even as the fire crawled along their bodies. “Fuck.” She swore before focusing her magic, pouring energy into killing the flames, smothering them. “Shit, shit, shit!” She swore. 

 Through her perforated ear, Lydia did not hear the overhead cable snap until it cracked around her ankle. Lydia toppled, screaming like she was being burned again as she caught her weight with just one arm. Unsuspecting humans moved close to help her out of misguided kindness, but the cable had split her skin where it had lashed her first and they were hesitant to reach out. Frightened of an electric shock. Lydia grabbed one passerby, smearing her spit on him until it numbed his fear. “Get it off me!” She shrieked. His hands frantically scrabbled at the cable, as she grabbed three others, including a teenager, to pry the cable off her leg. Winston wanted her dead, but they wouldn’t electrocute her with humans at stake, right? Lydia looked up as a couple humans screamed, staring in wide eyed horror at the fire melting clothes in the crowd. They didn’t falter as their skin burned, even if they yelled in pain. That was the point of the kiss, after all, that they would set themselves on fire to keep Lydia safe. The entrancing sight was extinguished just as quickly, and the copper wire was pried from her legs. “Help me up,” she snarled, and two arms picked her up from the waist. Dizzy with the ache of a dozen injuries, Lydia forced herself to turn on her heel and run again, pushing people out of the way as she went. 

 Orion didn’t want the knife that Lydia passed off to him, but he couldn’t seem to let it go. He had to protect Lydia. Even if his brain was telling him to stop, he had to protect her. His family had been warning him their entire lives not to fall into the trap, but here he was. As his grip tightened on the knife, Rio found himself gritting his teeth. It seemed like the only physical thing he could do to restrain himself. His muscles ached as he was forced to move forward despite trying so desperately to hold himself back. He could see the three around them, Luce moving towards Lydia, Winston trying to work their magic and Athena ready to pounce at Rio at any moment. All his mind could think about was how to stop all three of them from getting to Lydia. Luce and Winston both had dangerous magic and Athena had always been stronger than Rio had. It seemed like more of a losing battle, and while that’s exactly in actuality, the reality was that he had no choice but to try. He needed to stop Luce, she was closest. But before he could move, Athena leapt at him. He had grown up fighting her his entire life, but had never once won a battle. He had never wanted to fight her, but they had known all the same moves. They had grown up memorizing each other’s moves. But Rio was different than he had been before. He had been learning moves from someone else now. He slid past her arm, grabbing onto her wrist and twisting it behind her, finally pulling her entire arm behind her back in order to pin her. With his free hand he held the knife up, begging himself internally not to use it. He was forced to protect Lydia, but that didn’t mean he’d have to kill anyone. He just needed to fulfill his promise. If he slowed them down, that was protecting her. “I’m sorry.” Rio muttered, voice shaking in anticipation, “Oh god, I’m so sorry.” He tried to drive the point home before he braced his free hand on the other side of her arm and snapped them against each other, stomach flipping at the sound of bones cracking. “Please stop me.” Rio reminded her before discarding her and taking off for the other two.

 There was almost too much happening at once - though Athena knew that she ought to have expected such. Given everything she knew about Lydia, she’d never expected this to be easy, but the very fact that this fae was so willing to take down innocent civilians just made her all the more reprehensible. She watched Winston and Luce work their magicks, though she couldn’t help but wince as Luce’s aim missed - though it was through no fault of her own - and hit a person rather than Lydia. She didn’t have too much time to focus, though - because she could see her brother move, the knife still far too shiny in his hands, looking incredibly out of place. It didn’t suit him, and not for the first time, she just wanted to make things better. Wanted to take on whatever he was feeling, even if she was furious that he’d managed to get himself into this, that he’d managed to get promise-bound to one of the most vile fae she had ever encountered. She leapt at him for a moment, but before she knew what was happening she could feel his hand grab her wrist and twist it behind her back and she didn’t change her expression, ignoring the slight pain that shot through her body. He was stronger, now, somehow, and she found herself admiring this fact for a split second before she heard his voice shaking - and she didn’t cry - their parents had taught them to avoid that, because in the end it could be used as a distraction - but she wanted to, wanted to take away all the terror that was in his voice. She watched him raise the knife up for a moment and her eyes widened. She’d seen him in their kitchen. She knew what he could do, but she hoped that something, somehow would allow him not to use that. He lowered his other arm until both were on the side of her arm - her non-dominant one, she noted, before she heard the snap and bit down on her lip hard -- too hard -- so that she wouldn’t scream. “It’s fine. You’re safe. It’s -” she felt herself sinking down onto the ground, looking over towards where Winston and Luce were. Ignoring whatever her brother was doing. “Corner Lydia. I can - I can do this, we just need to get her somewhere and…” she scrunched up her face. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

 Winston heard the dull crunch of bones and swallowed feeling slightly queasy. But they had to overcome this. They had to stop Lydia. People were going to help Todd, they were going to help everyone that was under her control and now it was Winston’s responsibility to help deal with this. She had been abusing her abilities for too long and people were getting hurt. Concern flashed across Winston’s face and they dashed onwards. Their lungs burning in protest at this much exercise and sweat speckling their brow. They’d never gotten the hang of running. They honestly weren’t entirely sure how people did it to keep fit and despite every occasion in which they had been forced to sprint away from something trying to kill them they were never going to get used to this. But they didn’t have time to reach for their inhaler right now. They knew that Athena was right, they couldn’t wait for her on this though the injury that she had just sustained looked painful. Swallowing nervously, Winston pushed through the people around them.  They were slowing them down and Winston couldn’t afford the delay. Reaching out with their magic once more, Winston grasped the wires everywhere and quickly began to force them to snap taught. The metal rose from walls, concrete and even street lights like thin snakes, wrapping around the civilians and pulling them out of the way. “We need to corner her!” It was an unfamiliar town for all of them, but Winston had technology on their side -- as always--  and was quickly able to pull up a street layout. “Luce, force her to go left.” The amount of will that they were exerting on keeping everything in place was … significant and they weren’t sure how long they could keep this up. They needed to end this and fast.

 Luce winced as she heard the snapping of bone, heard Rio apologize, but didn’t hear the slightest sound from Athena. Well. Good thing she wasn’t on the girl’s shit list, because fuck. The Murder Siblings were scarier than she’d clocked them. Nodding at Athena’s shout, she continued to charge after Lydia but the fact remained-- her magic wasn’t of any use right now, not when there were too many innocent bystanders who would get caught in the literal line of fire. But, Winston was on top of that-- they always were. More cables shot from the ground, like tendrils, and grabbed at the enraptured pedestrians, restraining them. Not for the first time, Luce was grateful for their abilities, both of the magical and problem solving variety. They’d managed to create a narrow pathway through the bodies, straight towards Lydia. “Got it!” Luce yelled as she ran through the crowd. While Winston might have stopped them from being able to bar the path, Luce gritted her teeth as the people thrashed and kicked and hit, the blows landing against her as she ran. Nails scratched at her skin, drawing blood, and she felt one of the hands yank against the choker around her neck. The material closed around her neck and she let out a strangled snarl before incinerating the thin ribbon with a burst of flame. “You can’t fucking run from us, bitch!” She yelled as she sprinted towards Lydia and threw the iron spear, aiming for the space in front of her. The iron spear skewered the side of a plastic newspaper stand box, effectively barring Lydia’s path.

 Her Aos Sí preferred to practice chasing than being chased. They didn’t focus on it, considering it beneath themselves to spend more time thinking about Hunters than was utterly necessary, but one thing they had always stressed was that looking behind you would only slow you down. Lydia’s mouth filled with saliva even as she gasped for breath, and the more she ran, the less fussy she was as to who she spit on. Children were no longer off limits as she yelled for them to protect her. The whistling in one ear only grew louder the harder she had to breath, each step searingly painful with every injury from the last few days. Lydia was dizzy from it all, dizzy because her left ear didn’t work thanks to Regan’s temper tantrum. She couldn’t ignore her pain like Deirdre, or disguise it like Felix, or heal like Remmy, and she was beginning to slow, grabbing a random human for support so that she didn’t lose her balance. Lydia couldn’t hear what was happening behind her, couldn’t hear Luce’s scream or Winston’s yells, or that her human shield had a highway right through it. It sounded like she was winning, even as she stumbled, clutching her side, her breathe laborious and agonising.

 Lydia didn’t hear anything at all until a spear shot past her, punching through the newspaper stand and quivering. She turned right, staring at Luce for only a split second before spitting on a burly man and pushing him towards Luce. “RIO!” She screamed, “PROTECT ME!” Lydia turned on her heel and ducked through a back alley, which in turn twisted right, into a space full of dumpsters and a large garage for some kind of delivery van. Lydia skidded to a stop, wincing as she almost tripped over her own feet again. All the buildings joined together. Lydia jogged over to peer around a drain pipe, where she could get through to the other street… if there hadn’t been a fence in the way. “No-” Lydia breathed, spinning around. “There has to be-” There was a five storey building to her right, with a large fire escape down the side. “Thank god,” Lydia said, dropping the glamour on her wings and running over to it, launching herself into flight. Lightning speared through her back, Lydia screamed as she crumbled to the ground, her knee skidding through a week old abandoned ready meal from McDonalds. Kaden Langley had shredded her wing - without it, she could not reach. 

 There wasn’t a lot of time to figure out a plan, and Orion couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t messy. Physically compelled to help this woman who had hurt Ariana and murdered one of her friends. Forced against his will to fight against his own friends and sister. How did Rio complete his promise without hurting the ones that he loved? He caught up to Winston quickly, diving into them and causing them both to crash against the ground. Rio rolled away from them quickly and pushed back up onto his feet. “You have to stop me” Rio told Winston. Rio brandished the knife again, the thing burning against his palm. “No, no, no” Rio fought against himself. He couldn’t hurt Winston. Not anymore than he already had. Not with this stupid knife. Rio was frantic. He didn’t know how to stop himself. He glanced behind him to see Luce still hot on Lydia’s trail. “Damn it!” Rio called it, spinning from Winston. He needed to slow Luce down. But he didn’t want to hurt her. Unfortunately, as was the case with Athena, he didn’t think that was possible at the moment. He repositioned the knife in his hand, “I’m sorry” he mumbled his apologies to Luce before aiming and hurling the thing at her, aiming for her leg. Enough to slow her down, not to permanently injure her. “Knock me out. Please, god Winston. I can’t stop.” He turned to face Winston again, pleading with them before his body would force him to fight them.

 Shoving her way past the people who were trying to stop her from reaching Lydia, Luce made her way towards the woman. She needed to do this, needed to end this. In the time that she’d been gone, the coven, her mother, her sisters, they’d been in danger. And she’d had no way of knowing, because she’d been to fucking cowardly to face the shit that was happening here in White Crest. But, she wasn’t going to run away. Not from this, not from Lydia and the threat she held towards her and everyone else she cared about. Not when the woman had the power to bend anyone she wanted to her will. Luce remembered just what Lydia had done to August, had seen the way she’d forced him to promise away his magic, had watched as he’d broken his own bones. As Lydia ran in the opposite direction of the spear, Luce paused to wrench it free from the newspaper box. But, in that small window of time, she heard Rio swear and then felt the tip of a knife plunge into the back of her leg, just below the edge of her shorts. “Fuck!” She swore, the word coming out in a strangle gasp of pain. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Rio staring at Winston, begging them. She swallowed. Winston… they had to take care of this. Grasping the knife in her leg, Luce let out a hiss of pain before yanking it out. “FUCK!” Blood rolled freely down her skin, covering her tattoos in a slick sheen of red. “Lydia, you bitch!” She snarled, knife held tightly in her grasp as she continued after the woman, forcing herself into a limping jog.

 It was becoming increasingly clear that if they all didn’t finish this off soon, Lydia might actually get away with everything. Athena squeezed her eyes shut for another moment, concentrating all of her focus on the task at hand. Her arm hurt like nothing she had ever truly experienced before, and yet she knew that she couldn’t focus on that right now. That was for later, and whatever pain she had to work through would be worth it. Not to mention, her divinely given abilities (no matter what had happened with her parents, she still couldn’t shake those words, shake that belief entirely - and now was certainly not the time to be focusing on that most of all. She was grateful for all that Luce and Winston were doing - and impressed as well, if she let herself pause to process that for any length of time. She’d express her gratitude later, once this was all done. She stood up, finally, legs far more shaky than she wished for them to be, and concentrated on the despicable, terrible, crawling feeling of a fae being nearby. Lydia had taken off, and Athena made her way after her, after Luce - she spotted her brother throw something at Luce and she winced, only for a moment, but Luce kept moving and she just had to hope and trust that Winston could control her brother. 

 Winston had been holding back a little bit. It was Rio. There wasn’t a single person in their life that meant half as much as he did right now and Winston hadn’t been able to hurt them. But their hesitance had gotten Luce hurt and as they watched the knife sail end over end through the air, Winston swallowed sadly and shook their head. “Okay… Rio ... I’m sorry.” Tears balanced in their eye as they reached into their pocket and fished out the taser they had originally designed to kill mime dopplegangers. A few adjustments had been easy enough and it worked to stun, incapacitate and kill. Flicking the settings around, Winston feinted left before bringing the taser right. They watched the two long pins of a vey heavily modified cattle prod connect with Rio’s side before they sent a long and what would undoubtedly be a painful blast of electricity through Orion. Enough volts to really do something too. They just hoped that it wasn’t too much. Orion’s body crumpled in Winston’s arms and they gently set them down, leaning them against a wall before hurtling after Luce. Sweat glistened on their forehead but there was no choice but to get her. This had to stop. They couldn’t let anyone else get hurt by this monster. 

 “No, no, no,” Lydia gasped, eyes flicking around the space. None of the fire escapes were lower, walls looming around her like a cage, the stench of rotting food and human waste filling her lungs. This couldn’t be it. There had to be some door that was unlocked, some window she could squeeze through, but she was hardly the first person to look for a way into the ground floor back here. Lydia slammed her shoulder into a door and screamed as it only rattled. If her arm wasn’t broken, if her other wasn’t burned, if her wings- Lydia’s mind kept slipping back to Deirdre, to the buzzing of her phone. It wasn’t about Texas, or Morgan, or the squished hedgehog she’d found on the side of the road. It hadn’t been, for the past two dozen calls. Lydia stepped back, her breathing shallow, eyes flicking from shuttered window to shuttered window. She should have picked up hours ago. There was nowhere she wanted to be more than in Deirdre’s arms right now. The iron spear, the copper wires, Lydia looked down at her bleeding ankle and whimpered. There had to be more than this. If she ran back through the crowd, she could push people into Winston. Twist Luce’s own mind against her with the saliva in her mouth. 

 There had to be more, but Deirdre had been calling. Perhaps it would have happened in Lydia’s living room, with the fire lit, a bottle of glass in her belly. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt the poison shutting down her brain. Or perhaps Deirdre would have slit her throat, and would have held Lydia in her warm arms as Lydia’s own heat spilled out of her in just a few short seconds. Deirdre had been calling. Because she had promised that Lydia would not die a bad death. Lydia could barely hear what was happening in the street back there, but she had seconds, and nowhere to go. 

 Lydia didn’t even realise she was reaching for her phone before she’d even decided. She was still looking around as her thumb tapped the screen. Deirdre was on speeddial, but that didn’t mean she would pick up fast. Lydia could hear only her heartbeat faster that the dial tone. Buzz, thumpthumpthum, buzz- “I rel-” but the voice on the other line wasn’t Deirdre’s at all. It took another precious second to place the panicked tones, for Lydia to recognise  Morgan’s voice. Lydia almost sobbed at the sudden relief of it, hearing it for the first time since Morgan had told her goodbye on that awful day. Lydia caught words and snippets, barely able to piece the words together. There wasn’t time. “Deirdr- Morgan, DEIRDRE, NOW!” Lydia yelled, stifling a pitiful sound against her lip. She could barely make out what Morgan said as Lydia scrabbled to hide behind an air vent, leaning her head against the cool metal. “I relinquish you,” she breathed, the single most important thing Deirdre needed to know.  The red thread that bound them together dropped away and Lydia sobbed for its disappearance. She couldn’t hear anyone nearby, so she hurriedly tripped over her words, trying to whisper what she needed Deirdre (and Morgan, by extension) to hear. “I love you, you’re the best fae in that town, no matter what anyone says, you’re like a sister to-”

 Rage mixed with adrenaline and the heady combination urged Luce’s legs forward, even as pain radiated up her leg with every step she took. She trailed after Lydia, the spear heavy in her left hand, the knife bloody in her right. Fire burned within her, the magic begging to be released. But she couldn’t, not now. Not yet. Luce limped towards the alleyway that Lydia had run down, the spear point dragging against the asphalt as she rounded the corner. Looking around, Luce’s gaze fell on the woman screaming into her phone, clutching it like it was a lifeline. Without a word, Luce raised her hand and hurled the knife back at Lydia, sending it flying towards her. It missed, bouncing off the side of the building behind the Fae woman, but that wasn’t the point. She didn’t care if it landed because the second it had left her finger tips, the witch had thrown herself forward, spear raised and ready. Luce lunged forward, using momentum and anger to carry her. The speartip pierced through the flesh of Lydia’s shoulder, but Luce continued onwards, a ragged shout ripping through her throat as she forced the spear through the woman’s shoulder and pinned her to the wall of the alleyway. Staggering backwards, arms shaking from the effort, Luce glared at the woman. She said nothing, because there was nothing left for her to say. She was going to die here, die gasping and bleeding and in so much pain. And with her would die the threat that Lydia posed to Bea, to Nell, to her mother, to all of White Crest. 

 Athena continued to follow Luce and Lydia closely. She found the two of them turning down an alleyway, and straightened her posture, slipping another one of her knives out from its hiding space and she watched, a smirk crossing her face, as Luce threw her knife at Lydia. Lydia whimpering into the phone. Athena walked up towards where Lydia was, turning her head curiously as she had those many days of dissections during her biology classes in high school. She wouldn’t go that far, now - that would be too much and might make police do more investigative work than would be good for anyone involved, but she wanted Lydia to hurt. “You know, I don’t think calling for help is going to do you much good.” She hummed to herself before she moved a few steps closer and took one first cut against Lydia’s shoulder blade. “That must burn, mustn't it? Though I believe in balance so…” She flipped the knife in her hand, grateful that the satisfaction of hurting someone like Lydia did at least something to lessen the searing pain in her broken arm. “I’ll go for the other one, too. Not the heart yet, though I am curious about if someone who has behaved in the way that you have even has one to speak of.” Athena held her knife close to Lydia’s jawline. “Don’t try to move. I’m quick on my feet, and it seems as though she is too,” she glanced over to Luce. “I’ve got more where this one came from.” 

 As usual Winston was the last to arrive. It didn’t really matter, they were still pretty concerned for Rio and would’ve much rather been checking on him. However, he was tough, whether or not he admitted it, the poor guy had been through more then many had and still managed to retain his kindness and compassion which was honestly no small feat. Yet despite all of that Winston knew that they had to stop Lydia once and for all. Their life wouldn’t be okay until then. She’d interfered too much. With Todd, with Rio, in their own life, it was all… concerning. Swallowing, Winston rounded the corner to see Lydia pinned painfully in place. She looked… well almost pathetic frankly. Pinned to a wall, helpless, covered in wounds and hurting. Winston couldn’t say anything, there was nothing to say, all they could do was watch with an almost morbid curiosity. 

 Like everything else, Lydia did not hear Luce approaching in the same way she could not hear what, if anything, Deirdre was saying in reply, the last words she might ever hear, stolen from her because of a scream. She gasped as the knife whipped past her face, stumbling back. The phone slipped out of her hands, the one good thing she could have accomplished done. The spear pierced through her shoulder, sizzling and searing her flesh as it went under her collarbone, and hit against her shoulder blade. Lydia screamed as it caught there, scraping against the bone as Luce drove it even further forward. The bone cracked and wrenched her shoulder down as the spear pushed it out of place, driving through her back and piercing the metal vent behind her. Lydia shrieked as her legs gave out and the burning iron ate at her flesh. Every thrash of her limbs spilled fresh blood down her clothes until she managed to get her legs under her again, supporting just enough weight that the spear wasn’t pressing quite so hard against her clavicle. She tried to grab the spear with her hand, only for blisters to grow and burst, pus leaking out of her hand. Lydia’s glamour fell, skin glowing, damaged wing on show, her ears extended. Her irises looked even more iridescently blue while bloodshot and tearstained. Lydia stared at Athena in confusion. 

 “No- please-” Lydia whimpered, “I haven’t done anything to you I haven-AAAGH!” Lydia screamed at the simple iron cut on her other side, crushing part of the vent as she jerked from the pain, almost passing out. But that would have been too kind, the sharp agony forcing her awake, sobbing disgustingly as  Athena held the knife to her chin, and her flesh began to blister too, the rancid smell of overcooked barbeque cloying her senses. From the corner of her eye, she saw Winston approach too. “I’ll give you Todd back!” She cried, “I’ll relinquish him, you won’t know the difference, but you have to let me go. Please, Winston, I can’t- I’ll let him go!” Whatever brief acceptance of death there had been in the quiet was gone now as Lydia rabidly tried to pull any threads of fae promise to work in her favour. She looked back to the glimmer of satisfaction in Athena’s eyes, and realised how close they were. “Please, just let me go,” she whimpered, filling her mouth with toxic saliva. “Please, please, you don’t have to do this,” Lydia reared her head back slightly then spat in Athena’s face, watching the glob of spit run down Athena’s cheek. Maybe this wasn’t it after all, hope flickering like a candle in a storm. “Help me leave, please!”

 Winston swallowed at the mention of Todd. He was their friend. He had been their friend for more time then Winston had known about all of this and although there was literally no proof that knowing Winston had anything to do with Todd becoming involved with Lydia, Winston couldn’t help but feel profoundly responsible for everything that had happened to him. Swallowing, Winston considered everything, but they doubted that either Luce or Athena would let anything happen and Winston was pretty sure that the promise would’ve been broken by her death. “I’m sorry Lydia, but it’s not really my choice, I know you took him and I know you think he’s yours to return, but Todd doesn’t belong to anyone and that sort of thinking, treating humans as if they belong to someone-- as if they’re objects to be traded and bargained with … that’s too dangerous to be…” they couldn’t say it. They might be a killer now. They might be responsible for deaths and they might’ve done wrong but Winston couldn’t admit to it. “It’s out of my hands.” They looked at Athena and Luce, wondering what would happen next. 

 Luce turned her back on Lydia, limping away from the scene as Winston and Athena closed in. She braced herself against the wall at the edge of the alley while the blood continued to drip down her leg. She was weaponless now and her fire wouldn’t do much to stop anyone who was caught in Lydia’s thrall. But, she had to do something to make sure people couldn’t just stop them. This needed to end. Lydia needed to die. And she’d done her part, she’d helped get Athena where she needed her to be. Luce gritted her teeth as she listened to the screaming, the begging, the pleading. In those moments, she could almost forget what Lydia was capable of. Almost. But, she could never forget what she’d seen that day in the woman’s mansion. With a stubborn determination, Luce knocked over a large stack of empty plastic crates, hoping they’d block the alley from the people who were no doubt clawing at their wire confines. “I don’t know how long we have here.” Luce called over her shoulder as she leaned heavily against the wall, pressing her hand against the wound on her leg in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

 She could hear Lydia screaming, and it did little else other than further spark her curiosity. Athena figured that perhaps she ought to have flinched more than she did at the scream, but she’d watched countless operations that her father had performed, and so the screaming of a fae did little to cause a reaction. Instead, it felt good, right, and although she didn’t like to think about what similarities she held to her father (not now, not now - not when she still couldn’t help but hear her parents’ words, sometimes), she did know that she felt this way; that this much was true. Winston had arrived now, without her brother, and she didn’t want to focus on whatever was going on with Ri, right now - because hyperfocus on her brother and whatever he was going through was only going to serve to distract her, and that would increase the likelihood of failing at what she’d set out to do.

 If she were someone kinder, gentler (more like her brother, she thought) then Lydia’s pleading might have done more to work its way into her heart. Athena had long ago shut herself off from feeling anything when she hunted. It didn’t do her any good, and it was part of why she was so often very successful. Shutting out everything else permitted her to be single minded, and all of a sudden she felt something wet against her cheek and her hand flew up to touch it, fingers brushing along her cheek. Well, Lydia may have been cunning in many other ways, but still had yet to figure out that Athena was a warden. “That kind of thing doesn’t work on me.” She giggled, and the sound was off, she knew that much, but everything was all happening so fast and she heard - noted - Luce’s words - they were in public and though Lydia now very much looked as inhuman as she was, it didn’t mean that people wouldn’t come running and wouldn’t come wondering about all the screaming. She shook her head. “No, you made a terrible, horrible, very bad mistake.” She ran her knife along Lydia’s jaw then. She wanted her to suffer - for what she was but now, moreover, for all the harm that she’d caused. For what she’d made Ri do, for what she’d made Ariana do, for the fact that she surpassed the normal vileness of Leanan-Sidhe and kept humans in her basement. 

 Her arm still hurt - she did her best to not focus on that either, even though it meant that she couldn’t quite do her normal handiwork. So one-handed it would have to be. Athena took her knife again, though its color was stained darker from her handiwork thus far. She hated how public their location was, despite being off to the side in an alleyway. It meant that she probably couldn’t let Lydia suffer as painful of a death as she would have wished for her to. “Are you afraid?” Her lips fell into a small smile, eyes staring straight at Lydia. She was severely injured - had been, to a point it seemed before everyone present had gotten ahold of her. Her knife sliced through Lydia’s clothing, cutting into her skin just below her heart. Not straight to the heart, that would have been too much of a mercy. Athena had memorized the most effective ways to kill, and though she’d granted her parents that to a degree, she couldn’t bring herself to, now. “She’s almost gone.” She murmured, her voice halfway vacant, not fully present. She’d checked out towards the end sometimes during her father’s surgeries in their home. “It won’t be long now, I don’t think.” Voice monotone, she turned to look at Winston. “I did what I had to do.”

 What Winston saw in that moment would stain their memory forever. Like a black spot in their mind it would continue to haunt their dreams. The way that Athena worked, the efficiency of the knife and the way that it cut through Lydia was the stuff of nightmares. But what would really bother them was how they hadn’t intervened. After all, she’d deserved it. She’d hurt so many people, she deserved this pain. She deserved to feel some of the torment that she had made so many other people feel. Though in their heart of hearts Winston was sure that wasn’t true; they knew better then to allow someone else to suffer and they would regret this for the rest of their life. Once it was all over, and Lydia lay their suffering, Winston … swallowed. Shaking themselves out of their daze, Winston scooped up the abandoned spear that Luce had left behind and tentatively held it for a moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner…” was all they could manage to say. Their voice was barely a whisper. Their fingers tensed around the shaft of the spear before they drove it through Lydia’s heart. Blood sprayed out of the wound covering Winston’s hands, but they didn’t care. They might not have done the right thing earlier but it wasn’t too late to try and make things better. “It’s time to go.” They couldn’t make eye contact with Athena, they couldn’t look at Luce, they just had to get out of here and find Todd and make sure Rio was okay. 

 Lydia had heard the dying thoughts and fears of nearly fifty humans, she had thought she knew what it was to fear death. She had felt with startling clarity what it was to have the last tendrils of your life gently coaxed out of you after years of suffering. Nothing that prepared her for this, as Athena dragged the burning hot blade along her jaw, cutting through the burns to make fresh ones. With every cut, Athena tore apart every thread of Lydia’s sense of self, her voice hoarse as she wailed and wept. Eventually, even her begging was reduced to unintelligible gibberish, but for Athena, even that wasn’t enough. Perhaps the only mercy Regan had left her was that Lydia could not completely make out Athena’s last taunts over the pounding of her heart as Athena scraped her blade against the ridges of Lydia’s sternum, burning flesh and bone alike. 

 Every scream should have been wrung out of her, but Athena managed to tear one more out of her wretched lungs as Athena drove her knife between Lydia’s ribs. Her diaphragm and lungs bubbled and blistered under the harsh heat of the cold iron. Her vision still did not blacken, the very pain of dying keeping her awake. Like a tease, Death did not offer any reprieve quite yet as Lydia began to slowly choke on the trickle of blood that seeped into her lungs. She sobbed and tried to call Athena back to end it, not to leave her here like a bug pinned in a museum, but Athena did not turn back. Lydia saw Winston approach, but did not really see them at all, not even as they pulled the spear out of her shoulder. She did not hear their whispered apology, nor could she understand their expression, but she barely made a sound as they shattered her sternum. Her heart convulsed around the spear once, twice, and came to a final, shuddering halt. 

 There was a scream and then there was silence. Luce looked back down the alley, eyes going first to Athena, who had a ghost of a smile on her face, then to Winston, their hands covered in blood. And then to Lydia. Or rather, the body that had once been her. Remorse wasn’t a thing that she felt, not for the Fae woman. But, this was dirty work, hard work. And Winston had been the one to finish it. They shouldn’t have had to do that. Forcing herself into motion, Luce braced herself against the side of the wall as she made her way back to where Lydia’s body lay. “Hey,” She said quietly as she rested her clean hand on Winston’s shoulder, “We did what we had to do. For all the people she’s hurt, and for the lives she would have taken. We did what we had to.” Whatever it takes. The mantra returned to her mind and Luce sighed. But when would that end? 

 “You guys should go ahead. Get Rio, get him out of here. I’ll… clean this up.” Luce said with a nod, gesturing to the crumpled heap of Lydia’s body. Grasping the spear, she pulled it free from the corpse. It slid free with a sticking, wet noise and the body slumped over on the alley way. With an impassive gaze, Luce stared down at the body before her. She’d done what was right. She’d done what she had to. She did what she needed to make sure that the people she cared for were safe. Lydia would never hurt anyone again, she’d never bend them to her will. This was the right thing. 

 A circle of blue flame sprang to life around the body. Luce watched the tongues dance as she urged them higher, to burn hotter, to close in. The flames obeyed and she watched as flesh and blood, cloth and wing, give way to the fire. A thick acrid scent filled the air and Luce stepped back, her eyes watering from the intensity. It was the easiest way, the simplest solution. But, it was messy. She didn’t want Athena or Winston to see this, didn’t want them to see the way the flesh melted from the bone as the fire consumed it all. Didn’t want to have them watch the way the woman’s wings began to slowly crumble under the heat. Gritting her teeth, Luce fed more magic to the flames and watched Lydia burn.

 Winston swallowed dryly at Luce’s words as they made their way out of the alley, they knew that they had done what they had to do, but in the last year it had simply felt like they had been doing what they had had to do. They had lost so much doing what they had had to do. They had seen friends die. They had seen friends hurt. They had been hurt and they had killed. Was it two times? Three times? How had they lost count? Lydia, August, cultists, vampires. What counted as killing and what didn’t? Where was the line? Where could Winston truly say that they were able to accept what they had done. When were they going to be honest and say that they’d let this go too far. Having power … as cliche as it was meant there was responsibility … they should be better than this. The lump in their throat wouldn’t go and the blood on their hands wouldn’t stop glistening. Winston knew that Luce was right. They needed to go. “At what point do we start taking responsibility for the things we’ve done, irrespective of why we’ve done it?” Winston didn’t need an answer, after all there probably wasn’t one. Heading away from the alley, they moved back to Rio and wrapped an arm tightly under his armpit, struggling to haul him to his feet they began to head away from this, away from the now charred corpse of Lydia, away from the acrid smell of burning flesh that hung in the air.

 Orion wasn’t sure how long they had been out, only that he finally began to stir back to consciousness by being pulled onto his feet. It took a moment for Rio to adjust to the shifting before he finally jolted, stumbling forward and almost falling out of Winston’s grasp entirely. They caught him, but the sudden movement stirred a sinking migraine that had already been looming. “Wha-” He couldn’t exactly form coherent words or sentences at first. The first thing Rio was truly able to focus on was the burning pain in his side. He grabbed at it, more pain prickling up his skin as he let the memories slowly come back to him. As he began to remember what had led to him waking up here, he realized that he didn’t have the words to say, even if he could manage to speak them. How could he have been so stupid? How many people had he hurt, either directly or indirectly, by helping that woman? He wanted to cry. To scream and curse and punch the ground. But all of those actions were pointless. He couldn’t take back what he had done. He certainly couldn’t punch the pain away. “I’m going to be sick” was the first sentence he managed, breaking away from Winston’s grasp and falling against the grass. Catching himself on his palms and knees, Rio lost the little food and water he had in him. Was this caused by his guilt? The increasingly strong smell that he couldn’t ignore anymore? Maybe it was punishment for failing to complete his promise. Was trying enough? Or was he stuck with whatever consequences came from breaking a fae promise? If it was, Rio deserved whatever it had in store for him. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I don’t- I can’t believe-” At a loss for words again, Rio stopped trying. He just wanted to go home.

 Winston had finished off the job, and Athena’s lips twisted around for a moment, unsure of what to make of that. It was a final mercy, and Lydia didn’t deserve that, but it was final, which meant there was no chance of her coming back. Rio. Luce’s words cut through to her and she nodded, she had to find her brother. She grabbed a handkerchief out of her pocket, running it along the blade, moving as she’d been taught, not thinking about it - and she followed Winston out of the alleyway as the smell of burning flesh cut through the air. It was no use to focus on that right now - it was better to think of it as nothing more than when one of the kids on the soccer team had found a dead squirrel in the summer heat. That was all this was, and any other thought wouldn’t do anybody any good. In fact, recalling that particular memory was too kind for what Lydia had done.