Who: Jules What: Narrative Where: Church → Passages When: Just at the beginning of an in-progress Nathan log. Warnings/Rating: Nope
Jules had followed Meredith to the church, just like he had every damn morning since coming up with this fool plan. And every minute of the walk, every minute of every morning, he felt more guilt rising up and trying to suck him on down to his momma's old version of Hell.
Hell, in Jules' momma's estimation, wasn't nothing hot or burning. Maybe she was a real bad Catholic that way, because the priests at the orphanage had gone on about nothing but Hellfire. But Jules' momma had it in her head that Hell was just a whole lot of nothing, No cooking, no Elvis, no sex, no pretty skirts and no pretty boys. Nothing, and just more of it, until your deadself went plum crazy from it.
So Jules felt real sure that's where he was heading after this. He'd made such a fuss about keeping Meredith from being bait, and then he'd feared himself right into doing that same damn thing. And Loren? Loren didn't need to be killing nobody. Man was messed up enough with adding bodies to body bags. But no, Jules was a textbook chicken shit, and here he was, trailing that damn, fool girl like he'd lost his balls somewhere in Graceland.
He figured it was real fitting that all this was taking place in a church, seeing as damnation was around the corner, and he slowed as he neared the quiet building. Just like the morning's prior, it took some working to get him to the point where he could crack open the door and hear inside, because he was as scared as the desert was hot.
And that's what it came on down to, in the end. Fear, and whole lot of it.
Jules wasn't made real brave. Sure, he spent a whole lot of time asserting who he was, and taking plenty of beatings for it along the way, but that was survival, not bravery. This? This was plain on the other side of the spectrum from surviving, and he sucked at it something terrible.
He opened the door, quiet as a mouse, and then he heard it-
Nathan's voice.
Things went through his mind, like the fact that Meredith wasn't meant to be inside if Nathan was actually there. That she was meant to come right the hell out, and she wasn't meant to be that kind of bait. Loren was supposed to see to it, if the girl fussed, but no, there was talking, and dammit all this wasn't right.
He made a move to pull the door wide, and he managed just enough so that he could see Nathan in the church. Just enough.
And then all hell broke loose in his head.
Violet screamed and hollered and fussed, and she clawed like a cat from inside. OUT, OUT, OUT, and she finally managed to get enough control to turn Jules around. And maybe he didn't fight so hard, on account of all the secondhand memories of knifing going through his head, the pain something he could almost feel creeping along his skin.
And so he ran, chicken shit that he was, letting a little girl guide his feet to the hotel, where she ducked on into her door, because wasn't a damn thing could hurt her there.
And Jules just let her. And maybe it was something like his momma's Hell, being trapped in someone's mind like that. Maybe.