like a whisper

[ PRIVATE ]

They’re more methodical in carrying out the order than he likes, too calm and collected. His finger twitches on the trigger, wanting to just end it but not before he sees them both suffer at the hands of one another. When Presley finishes, he nods, “Again. Paint me a pretty picture on her arms. Don’t stop until I tell you to.” His gaze finds Ellery, a sneer playing on ‘Codie’s’ lips. Anger flashes over her features as the words hit him. This level of anger doesn’t belong there, and maybe neither does he. But Elias doesn’t fucking care about playing by their rules, not anymore. “It’ll get me hard, beta bitch.” Metaphorically, at least. And it’s spat out in much of the same tone that Ellery bit at him. The rifle inches closer, his stance betraying his itch to just end them. End her. “What you’re not fucking getting–” And his tone is almost teasing. “Is that this is just about you right now. I’ve stewed and stewed for months and it all boils down to.. you and the witches. All those wolves who blindly followed, they’ll get their due. They’ll suffer when the witches turn their back. After all, we’re not exactly wanted here, are we? And you? You’re just the first in line.” He begins to pace now, gun always at the ready, but unable to keep the restless, angry energy bottled for too long. “At the end of the day– we’re just pets, collared and leashed and we’re supposed to die for a cause that none of us even had a say in in the first place. At least I died for something I believed in.” 

[ PRIVATE ]

She doesn’t move her arm, not an inch, only gives Presley a side eye as an okay for her to proceed. She’ll heal. The scar will fade in a week, the pain she can handle; she’s had worse, nothing like the pain of feeling Noah die twice. Everything else would never even come close to it. Ellery watches Codie – or Codie’s body – pace back and forth in the room, still keeping her gaze trained on the gun. But she gives him nothing, not a flinch, not a hint of fear in her eyes. She won’t give him what he wants, so instead, there’s a laugh that gets caught in her throat; maybe she’s trying to provoke him, rile him up, the more damage he does the more likely it is he’ll alert one of their witches, or the more he’ll stall by monologuing his way through. “Goddess, you’ve really got it all twisted, even in the afterlife don’t you? I knew you’ve always been a little pathetic, but you’ve really outdone yourself this time. You could’ve walked out the door any day, Elias. Took your ‘boys’ with you, but you didn’t, because it was never about you thinking we’re some kind of thing to any of them, it was always about your ego. You couldn’t make alpha, because everyone knew even when you were a little boy that you were fucked up in the head. Even when Derrick made you beta to compromise because he knew your’d spiral out of control. Its always been about you, because you’ve always been a selfish, reckless, tunnel visioned sociopath. All of the hurt and the pain you left behind? You spit on the memory of your father, your mother, all of the Irvings. What is it that they say? One bad apple spoils it for the rest? You died for nothing. You died alone and for nothing. Nobody remembers you as nothing but a wolf who went off the fucking rails. Nobody even brings you up anymore. Nobody cares”. 

[ PRIVATE ] 

codiemohren​:

[ PRIVATE ]

“Ding, ding, ding! Bingo, beautiful.” And this time, he twirls the rifle in his hands and points it at her, as best he can, at least with them trying to protect one another. How pathetic. After all the betrayals the pack has suffered, he’s sure it wouldn’t take long for him to push them to their limit. Grabbing a knife, he tosses it to them. “Your prize is something fun. Really play into that whole fuckin’ over your pack thing, you know? Go on. Slice her palms. Just enough to be annoying, not call in the witches.” He shifts, finger on the trigger and pointed at Ellery’s head. “I think you know what happens if you don’t.” 

[ PRIVATE ] 

Once it sinks, once the words leave Presley’s mouth and she looks at Codie in the eyes, Ellery’s heart begins to race. But she’s not afraid, its not in her body language, or in the way she watches him trap them in a circle of ash and spew words she’d heard before. Contempt. Anger. Resentment. She knows why they’re here and why he’d chosen them, and her eyes shift to the door instead of the knife on the ground. And she scoffs, knowing better than to ask questions. “Even in a body that doesn’t belong to you you’re still too driven by your anger and your hatred to see that this is only going to go sideways for you, Elias”. She spits his name out, like a curse, and Ellery gives her palm to Presley with a surprising amount of stoicism, not afraid of the knife, but more concerned about the gun he keeps pointing in between them. “What do you think is going to happen? What do you think any of this is going to do for you? You’ve always been infamous for not thinking your plans through. That’s why you were never able to unseat Derek. That’s why you would have never been able to kill Victoria even if you had really tried. And that’s why, not only will Aemilia or Noah walk through that door the minute they sense something is wrong, but they will hunt you down in that little slice of opportunity you had in the afterlife and make sure your soul never finds the catharsis you’re looking for. And to them? To us? You will always be nothing but hazy memory or a tale of a mediocre boy with a mediocre plan who flew too close to the sun”.

[ PRIVATE ] 

elleryjackson​:

[ PRIVATE ] 

All the while, Ellery’s eyes are kept trained carefully on the rifle, on the movement of Codie’s hands, the stiffness in her arms. She knows this girl has no experience with weapons, but she looks a lot more comfortable around one than she would have ever expected her to. But its the way she says keeper, in a way she thinks she’s heard before but can’t quite place in the back of her head, that almost sends a nervous shiver down her spine, but Ellery stands her ground, keeping her body halfway between the gun and Presley. “We don’t have to talk with a gun between us. We’ll make this conversation a lot easier if you just put it down. You know we don’t want to hurt you”. And she really doesn’t. They could shift, tear this room apart and Codie in the process, most likely survive the rifle shot in their wolf form, but not like this. Not if she has good aim… “We have all the time in the world, okay?”

[ PRIVATE ]

He rolls his eyes almost immediately at their tone, as if they’re so oblivious they can’t see what’s right in front of them. That it’s not this ‘Codie’, that it’s him, back from the dead to make them suffer. “What time?” He almost snaps the words out, feeling as if a growl was forming in the back of his throat. He shifts the gun with ease, and it looks odd in Codie’s body, holding something so dangerous and destructive. “You’re appealin’ to someone who doesn’t fuckin’ care, Ellery.” Even the inflection sounds different, more like him. “Sit.” He doesn’t take his eyes off of them as he shifts the pouch around to spill it on the floor, creating a circle around them. He stays outside, effectively trapping them where he’d led them. The pouch is thrown to the side when he’s done. “I’ve been waiting so long to see you hurt, but you know– I can’t do that now, can I? The bond.” He spits on the ground at it, a show of how disgusting he thinks it is. “Witches owning wolves, the very thing I preached and preached about, and still! No one fuckin’ learns here, do they?” 

[ PRIVATE ] 

elleryjackson​:

[ PRIVATE ]

It’s a gut instinct. The first thing she does when she walks through the door and sees the Rifle in Codie’s hand is to pull Presley behind her, grabbing her swiftly by the edge of her jacket and shielding her away from the line of fire. She stays quiet, stiff, while her eyes travel from the gun to Codie’s face and back and forth as she searches for something in her eyes. Ellery’s not sure what she finds, but it makes her teeth clench. “Codie…” Ellery says, calmly, quietly, stepping back and away slowly and trying not to alarm the girl holding the gun while looking at any opportunity she could to disarm her, but she doesn’t want to bet her life on her speed versus the one of a bullet just yet. “Where did you find that gun? Put it down”. 

[ PRIVATE ]

So that’s her name. The look on his face doesn’t change as he lifts the rifle to aim right at Ellery’s chest. Lucky, lucky. Both of them right here together, ready for him to make them suffer. “Not important, don’t you think?” A glance down to the rifle, he nearly laughs at the position they’re in, but not yet. He hasn’t won yet. “Do you think our ‘keeper’–” And he says it with disgust laced through his tone, “–knows how easily it is to find and take this? I mean.” He shrugs, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world how it could be used against them, and keeps it trained on Ellery.  “Over in the corner. You’re going to listen to me now.” 

[ PRIVATE ] 

[ PRIVATE ] @elleryjackson​ @presleystone​

Elias had seen the opportunity as soon as the beacon of magic presented itself. Whatever stroke of luck this was, whatever convergence was allowing him a second, last chance– He wasn’t going to turn it down. From his observations on the proverbial ‘other side’, he knew where to go, what to grab, and where to wait. Gun in hand, and bag of ash in the other, he waited for his eventual prey. Somewhere in the back of this girl’s mind, he heard her begging him to stop.

[ PRIVATE ]

The full moon had gone off without a hitch, Ellery and Presley both watching from their usual places, along with Victoria this time around. It had been nice, to feel normal again. Like their routine was coming back but they had to discuss the matter of the barn, of letting some wolves run free as they used to. Presley walked with Ellery toward her room, and pushed the door open as they continued their conversation, only to stop when she saw someone was inside. “Codie?” Presley questioned, before her eyes fell to the long shotgun in the girl’s hand, aimed at both of them. Presley’s heart began to race. This was not their first pack betrayal. And the very reason Victoria had kept that gun a secret in the first place. “Goddess -- what are you doing?”

Look, I get that on a logical level, but I know that people don’t run by logic all the time. It’s still my hands, my voice, my words. Would you just… can you just pretend to be mad at me for like a week? Maybe then my logic and my emotions will sync up again.

That’s good, then. I just know that kind of job takes a lot of out of people. I’m feeling.. okay-ish, I think. Sort of discombobulated with it all, but I’m sort of like you, I guess, in that I like being busy. Sentry’s not so bad, either. That’s probably the thing that most reminds me of home, weirdly. Yeah? I’d love that, actually. You’ve been a huge help already, so. 

And you don’t care that I did any of that? To you and Isa?

I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Carmen gets a ‘Miss’ too? She’ll be flattered. I get it - a safehouse has to protect itself. Sorry a few sadists tainted a whole species for you.

In that case, I will keep an eye out for more Stones. One of them is. Lina Zavala? Her family is pretty prominent, if you track witch ancestry. She’s here to join Thierry’s coven if she’s allowed. The other is the vampire everyone got so up in arms about.

It is, yeah. I used to help my mom tend things, so I, at least, know the basics. A lot of stuff like that I can help with. The outdoorsy stuff. It doesn’t sound much different, no, but I just wanted to ask to make sure. And uh, don’t think I didn’t notice you didn’t answer. But it’s okay. You don’t have to. We can talk about other stuff. 

All of it? Any of it? Any questions that you have, lingering resentments, literally anything. 

My sympathies, for what was lost. Did he have that same gorgeous head of hair as you? Blonde is such a tricky recessive trait. Presley Stone. Nice to meet you. I’m Wren. I only got here a few days ago with some of my friends. Passing through, really.

That I am. I didn’t know that bought a ticket all on its own, there seems to be a great variance of opinion. What a fun collection of people you have smashed in one place. You two are close, huh? For you to still be mentally checking in on his expectations well into your adult years.

Should we be unfortunate enough to experience more loss in the future… maybe this is something we should do.  It’s only right to be able to say goodbye properly. Give them the… send offs that they deserve.