Going by the extremely hard-to-get blue prints of Fort Knox, the plan had been to infiltrate the place by using the three separate sub-basement systems and coming up beneath it. Out of a list of equally as impossible prospects, that plan seemed to be the most likely, even if the chances were extremely slim.
But they didn’t expect it to be this easy. Not a single sound greeted either team as they snaked through the ventilation system and spilled out into the dimly lit concrete hallways of the massive main building’s basement.
They were barely through the first door when at least fifty bodies filled the small hallway space, eyes inky black and expressions filled with malice. Lucas and Kat immediately opened fire -- Lucas with the holy water water blaster, and Kat with the shotgun full of rocksalt rounds. Yet even as the bodies fell aside, new ones filled their vacant spaces.
“Cal, hit it!”
The young girl following in the rear immediately punched the button down on the boombox they’d brought with them that was strapped to her back. Out of the speakers came the same exorcism chant that had been playing through the loud speakers in Beta camp. The demons started recoiling immediately, screaming with rage as their bodies started to blur.
“Keep moving!” Lucas yelled, shouldering past demons even as black smoke filled the air. Some demons sprinted ahead, away from the chant and up the first flight of stairs. The hunters weren’t far behind, but apparently they were expected. There was a twelve-year-old girl in the open foyer. The burly hunter who had first spoken up in support of Claire was first out, barking at the girl to stand down. But then he stopped midstep, turned sharply on his heels, and shot Cal right through the head. There was a volley of shots in return, taking the Neph girl down with a scream.
The Claire that had lived this war would’ve been hardened to the sight of a firing squad of hunters opening up on a child, but that Claire was gone with the rest of her memories, and she had a hard time imagining her soul had not just filled with boiling lead. Her eyes lingered on the girl as the group pressed forward, Kat and Lucas at her sides effectively kept her momentum going until she could push through the shock a second later.
Another mass of gunfire echoed somewhere down another nearby hallway, but it didn’t stop. Battle cries and screams melted together in the distance. Claire’s ears were ringing with them, even as she forced her focus to the memorized layout in her head. Second hall, seventh door. Her heart pounded in her throat, listening through the undefined chaos, as she counted the enormous vault doors, all eerily lit by the red-glassed security lights. As they opened the next door, five children were waiting for them.
One young boy’s gaze fixed on him, Lucas immediately stumbled, grabbing the wall as he slid to his knees, gasping. Another girl strode towards them with all the confidence and hard stride of a 200-pound cop, a chain in her hand.
Kat, without even flinching, brought her gun up and shot first the boy, then the girl. “Keep going!” she shouted to Claire and the others. “I’m right behind you!” The adrenaline that rushed through Claire’s veins mixed sickly with what she was truly unprepared for; child-soldiers that cut through them without wincing. She was still reeling from seeing the first gunned down, along with the girl--Cal; her round face still burned behind her vision as she tried to find her breath and reason.
She snapped out of it when another blast threatened to shatter her right eardrum, and on dazed instinct, she raised her pistol at the hardened face of one of the remaining three; a blond boy, barely ten years old. But before she could squeeze the trigger, a phantom vice pressed the barrel of the gun into itself like a collapsed straw. With a growl, she chucked it at him and bolted toward Lucas, snagging him up by the arm. He quickly righted himself at her side, taking down one of the Neph children as Kat finished off the other.
Before they even got through the door, though, screams and shouts rose up behind them. Claire turned to see demons filling the hall, pushing through the hunters by sheer numbers. A jerk at her elbow pulled her through the door with Lucas and Kat was quick to follow, slamming it shut.
"Where's Ty?" Lucas asked, his voice alarmed. Kat shook her head.
"Didn't make it."
The door all but shook on its hinges as dozens of hands bashed on it, the handle twisting over and over as they tried to shove the door open. Kat leaned back against the door, trying in vain to keep it closed.
“There’s too many of them, you’ve gotta go on!” she hollered. Claire met her eyes, her initial fierce disapproval and alarm of that idea was clear as crystal--but she was right. The doors quaked with another volley from the other side; the three of them couldn’t hold it long, and then they’d be swarmed and everything would’ve collapsed. Their only chance was getting through, and doing it quick.
She snapped a look to her other side, to Lucas and then back to Kat, bracing against the doors as they jarred on their hinges. “I won’t be long,” she promised thickly, then pushed off down the hallway for the center vault doors.
“Claire!” Kat called suddenly. Claire turned at her name, but kept moving backwards. Kat gave her a thin-lipped smile that contradicted with the emotion in her eyes.
“Don’t miss.”
Claire had to swallow the stab of fear and adrenaline laced emotion that came with Kat’s look. In the end, she just pressed her lips together and nodded curtly, then headed on. She hadn’t gotten far before there were running steps behind her, and she turned to find Lucas catching up.
“Kat said your job was more important than door duty, and you might need a second person along,” he said. Claire looked worried, but nodded. There wasn’t time to give the issue debate. If she sent him back and they all survived this, Kat would verbally tear her a few new ones anyway.
The hallway bent at a sharp angle to the right, and the slow descent into cooler, but still stale atmosphere signaled they were on the right path. At the bottom, a pair of blast doors had obviously been shut at the time when the Fort went on lock-down whenever the war reached its gates; now it was busted open. The remains of the thick, frayed metal looked charred on the ends. Claire slowed, feeling her stomach twist. She curled her fingers around the handle of the old enchanted bowie knife hilted at her hip; something that apparently Ben had never left out of reach since they found his father years back. Another something she didn’t remember.
Lucas reached out, touching her arm with just enough firmness to stop her. His gaze was fixed on the doorway and he raised his water pistol. “Show yourselves, now,” he barked. “Or I’ll toss an iron-shot grenade your way.”
There was a long pause before three demons stepped out into the open.
“No need to get testy,” said the middle one. “We’re here to take Claire Novak exactly where she wants to go. Don’t get in our way and you get to live.”
Stepping ahead of Claire, Lucas didn’t bother to speak. He just shot a stream of holy water right at the demon’s face. The demons immediately pulled back, their eyes going black. The one on the far left sneered.
“Looks like they’re not up for playing nice.”
“It’s more fun when they’re not,” the third replied, his sneer turning into a malicious grin.
Shooting apparently evil psychic children wasn’t something on Claire’s normal reference list, but dealing with demons, she could handle. Especially when they were this pressed for time, and this close. Her free hand brushed Lucas’s side to silently let him know where she was, the blade spun around her thumb, just once, before she lunged, bringing it down at an arc across the right demon’s throat. Light flashed from the wound as the creature collapsed. The second, however, was more ready as he attacked Claire. Still seething from his burns, the third went after Lucas, struggling over the pistol.
The arms that clamped around her from behind could’ve been made of steel. The demon hoisted her up, sneering into her ear as she gritted protests through her teeth. “Y’know, this’d be a lot easier if you just--”
Letting the pistol go, Lucas backhanded the demon and kicked out his knee before jerking around to grab the one that held Claire. The struggle didn’t last long, though. He felt iron fingers grip either side of his head, and he only got a chance to take one sharp breath before there was a snap. Claire saw him crumple bonelessly at her feet, his final shock the only thing left in his empty gaze.
Her eyes wide and a scream of rage stuck in her throat, the demon behind Claire looked down at the heap, his face twisted with amused glee. “See? Now that happened.” The other chuckled, stepping over Lucas. Claire kicked and thrashed, but it was useless in the iron grip that carried her further into the vault.
***
The vast space the vault opened into hardly earned the name anymore. Rugs and furniture had been brought in, creating three distinct spaces that some twisted mind might consider a home. To the right was a shining conference table, filled with papers and surrounded by maps so that it looked like a set of a retro ‘00s action movie. In the middle was a circle of sleek couches, the longest facing six screens. Only one was on, and Claire recognized, as it flipped different camera angles, that it must be a security feed.
To the left was what could have been the set of another movie, a very different kind of movie. Chain-link fence had been installed along the walls, and hanging from it were objects that could only be described as implements of torture. In a bare space hung empty shackles. No rugs to be seen over here, the only thing that adorned the cement floor was a two foot long chain. It was too short for the man it tethered, so that even on his knees, he had to hunch over.
“Claire.”
Jesse stood from the couch, a wide, friendly smile on his face. Unlike everyone else in this world, he looked hardly changed. A little broader; a little sleeker, in his pristine button-down shirt and tailored trousers; the slightest hint of maturity touching his temples and the corners of his eyes. But his smile was the same.
“You finally made it,” he said, arms open in welcome. “I was beginning to think you hadn’t received my invitation.”
For all that she had tried to prepare herself for this, the warped reality of what Jesse had apparently made of the world hit her like a sledgehammer--especially Jesse himself. Her struggling had slowed out of shock, the same that sharpened her widened eyes. They suddenly burned with a stabbing ache that shot through her chest. Her eyes slid to the half-obscured figure leashed to the floor, then back to Jesse--bile boiled in her blood and at the back of her throat.
Jesus, what drove you to this... Her mind reeled, dizzy for a moment until one of the arms that held her still caught and pulled at the locket around her neck. The little bite of pressure made her go still; her whole body buzzing with a rigid dangerousness, and her eyes locked on Jesse.
One corner of Jesse’s mouth curled up, and he didn’t blink as he looked back at her. “Boys, that’s no way to treat a guest. Let her free.”
The demons seem to hesitate, the one holding Claire more so than the one holding the knife, but they obeyed.
The instant Claire’s feet touched the ground and her arms were given leeway, she struck the one behind her with an elbow to the nose, then spun toward the other, relieving him of the blade after shattering his forearm. The first reeled back, then recovered and lunged, but caught Claire’s fist and the knife through the right ear. Her eyes blazed at the smaller demon as she yanked it from the larger’s skull. The last didn’t have time to hide the wave of fear on his face; she was on him in two half steps and a slice across his throat. In less than three seconds, they lay tangled on the floor with the life flashing out of their wounds. Claire stood in the middle of it, and finally breathed.
Jesse’s slow applause echoed through the room. “Color me impressed,” he said, his hands coming to rest comfortably on his hips. “I’d heard you’d become a nightmare, a thing of brutal beauty. Glad I got to see it for myself.”
Breathing hard, a bloody knife slowly dropping ruby globules at her side, Claire couldn’t help the way she bristled at his tone, even if she didn’t fully understand the context. It made sense, after everything she’d learned, but the realization of what she’d supposedly become sickened her.
“What happened to you...” she finally was able to utter around the knot in her throat. There was no more pretending she remembered the chunk of crucial time that’d been stolen. Despite Jesse’s change of appearance--which was far more kind than everyone else, including herself--she could still see his face as she remembered it two days ago, holding her and joking about sausage.
That smiling face quickly turned into something hard and cold. Claire flew back, slamming hard into the wall. Through her daze she saw Jesse close his eyes and take a deep breath. As he released it, his expression fell back into a calm smile. The pressure holding her to the wall didn’t ease up, though.
“You always did have a knack for going for the throat,” he said lightly as he walked toward her. “But it’ll take more than that to get to me, Claire. I’ve come to realize that you and your angels did me a favor, really. Everything became much easier when I stopped trying to be human.”
One of his hands slid to her throat, the pressure more show than discomfort. He kept moving forward until his lips pressed over hers, hard and claiming. His other hand moved to hers, prying away the knife.
Her eyes clenched tight as her blood-slick fingers around the knife handle, but both were useless gestures--he had her pinned like a butterfly on cork board. Every inch of her ached with the pressure, but in that moment, Claire thought her heart would explode. The stark difference between what she knew of him and what he’d become was never more blindingly clear than in that kiss. It was fueled by hate and over-exalted power; he’d been so twisted, and under the rise of anger in her blood, she hurt for him so much.
But she also hurt for everything that’d come to pass, and she remembered the way she’d felt when Lucas told her about the interrogations and Jesse’s invitation, which he so happily mentioned only minutes before. Her throat and the scars it bore tensed under his grip as Claire fought the phantom force holding her still, and jerked her head enough to sink her teeth into Jesse’s lip.
His head snapping back, Jesse smiled at her. His tongue tasted the blood on his lip, the wound already healed over. “You always did like it rough,” he said, giving her throat a squeeze before releasing it entirely. His hand hand travelled down her shoulder and then under her arm. “Let’s see what other surprises you’ve brought for me.”
His hands explored every inch of her, lingering over her breasts and between her legs. Claire endured the violation with a set jaw and eyes forward, a hard look of pained concentration on her face. When it was done, he’d come away with the knives that had been strapped to her thigh and ankle. Stepping back, he held the three weapons thoughtfully.
“This is it? All this trouble and you come at me with three knives and some useless kid in the hall?”
“I didn’t come to kill you,” she replied, her voice tight.
Jesse’s laugh reverberated off the walls. “Really? This is how you’re going to play it? I don’t know if you’ve looked in the mirror lately, Claire, but you can’t exactly pull off the innocent preacher’s daughter act anymore.” He walked back past the sofas, putting the knives on a table under the televisions. As he turned back to her, Claire felt the pressure released, and she fell unceremoniously to the floor. “Every member of your group who I had a little chat with gave me your message loud and clear: cut the head off the snake, and the body dies. Not bad advice.”
Her mind was reeling as she pushed up to her feet. His words repeated as a chorus of battle-ready followers in her head, adding more sting behind her eyes. Claire closed them, forcing a hard breath through her nose.
“Jesse--” she started, then swallowed hard in an attempt to focus on the precise way she needed to say this. “I woke up two days ago with no memories of the last twelve years. I don’t have the slightest idea what happened to you that brought you--that brought us--to this point. The last thing I remember is being in bed with you and Ben in Maryland, in ‘24...”
While Jesse’s smile stayed, it turned a bit brittle. His steps were unhurried as he walked towards her. “Is that how you want to do this? Talk over the Good Old Days and hope it invokes me to mercy or suicide? You might want to talk to our boy over there,” he said, nodding at the chained man, “and ask him how that plan works out.”
Claire refused to turn her eyes toward the cage-like corner of the vault, due to a very real possibility of crumbling internally if everything she’d been told looked her in the face. She kept her gaze trained on Jesse, though her body visibly tensed the closer he strayed. “Look at me, Jess--you know when I’m telling the truth. Everyone in this world knows you as this, but tell me you don’t see something different from me.”
His mouth quirked. “How am I supposed to know you? It’s been a year since I last saw you, and it wasn’t like we had much time for chitchat.” He reached out, slowly running his fingertips along her scars. “All I know is that you probably would do anything to take me out. I know how I felt eleven years ago, and I imagine a child’s love for their parent pales next to a parent’s love for their child.”
Though the words put no memories into her mind, there was an ominous heaviness to them that rivaled the weight of his fingers, and he carried it in his eyes. Claire knocked his hand away, but stayed where she was, locked in that too-intense gaze, piecing it together, one bit at a time... until the realization hit her all at once. Instantly, her features broke their hardness, her lips slightly parted to pull in a breath that wouldn’t go past her throat.
She looked at him with disbelieving, broken blue eyes that threatened tears and a spark of something very dangerous deep in their depths. “...what--did you do.”
For the first time, doubt touched Jesse’s eyes, but it was quickly gone. “That’s awfully dark of you, Claire. I’d thought the body was enough. But if you really want to hear how your little girl died...” His words were cut off by a hard, open palmed slap from Claire across his face, though the strike was only a tiny glimpse of the hollow agony behind her eyes.
“You killed her...” she rasped in a voice barely able to work.
Grabbing her wrist, he twisted her arm behind her back, spinning her around to pin her bodily against the wall. “Alright, Claire,” he breathed in her ear. “If you want to play ignorant, then I’ll have to fill you in. Tell you how she cried, tears streaming from eyes just like yours. How she tried to struggle and fight, using the same moves you’d taught me. How the terror filled her little face when it didn’t work, when she started to realize nothing would work. How she screamed the whole time for her mommy.” His free hand twisted in Claire’s hair, yanking hard even though his voice stayed even. “Sometimes I wonder, if she’d yelled for her daddy, if you’d be the one chained to the floor instead. But that never would have happened. You always were the protector, Claire. You should have heard how Ben screamed and screamed for you. But you always come too late, don’t you?”
Even the sharp pain in her scalp and neck and in her screaming shoulder couldn’t cut through the potency of his rancid whispers. Each detail tore another seam in Claire’s heart, adding torment to the imagery he unwittingly put in her mind, all overshadowing the purpose she originally came for. The man she loved was gone, like Lucas had said, even if he wasn’t speaking specifics--rage now consumed that once passionate fire.
Her eyes screwed shut as all her anguish escaped as a graveled cry between her teeth. Claire wretched her free hand from between her and the wall and arched it back, fisting in Jesse’s hair and let her knees buckle under their weight, slamming his head into the wall with momentum. She turned under him and caught his temple with two hard jabs, then spun to strike the same spot with the back of her boot heel.
Jesse caught her ankle, and suddenly Claire couldn’t move. Not a muscle, not an eyelash. With her precarious balance, Jesse was the only thing keeping her up. Using his free arm, he wiped the blood from his face onto his sleeve.
“Oh Claire. We were having such a nice conversation, too.” He patted her leg before letting go, sending her toppling to the floor as he walked back to the knives. After careful consideration, he took two; the demon blade and the small stiletto from Claire’s ankle.
“Get up, and come with me,” he said, heading towards the man in the cell. Claire had no choice but to follow, to the dark, empty corner of the vault.
Jesse leaned down slightly, running a hand through the man’s hair. Despite the surroundings, it was silky and clean, if longer than Claire knew. Giving it a twist, Jesse said, “How’s my boy?”
His head forced to rise, Claire’s eyes met the hollow, sunken-in gaze. Everything about his face was foreign but familiar: the deep hazel eyes, the faint widow’s peak, the full shape of his mouth, the dip in either cheek that dimpled when he grinned, but all the life in Ben Braeden’s face was dead. The only thing that even proved he was still alive was the way his pupils seemed to dialate at the sight of Claire, his breathing suddenly shallow.
Claire had been fighting the phantom will that moved her legs across the vault the entire time, but when the cruel sight Jesse had purposefully led her to steal her breath, Jesse released his will and she buckled forward. She landed hard on her knees, but the bruising pain didn’t register; she breathlessly took Ben’s face in her hands and pressed in close. None of her rapid thoughts could make it past the crushing emotion of that blank gaze, and all she could utter against his cheek were half-sobbed whispers of I’m here.
“Claire...” Ben croaked, his voice almost inaudible from obvious lack of use. “Run.”
Jesse’s hands slid over their shoulders as he knelt with them. “Now isn’t this just like old times? Just the three of us.” There was an edge to his smile before it was cracked with a hard lob by Claire’s fist; all the intensity of a protective she-wolf in her eyes as she wedged herself between him and Ben.
And then she found herself crawling back against her will, sitting quietly just a couple of feet away.
“See that, Ben?” Jesse said, touching his jaw. “Claire loses her temper so easily, and you know how I don’t like that. How about you help me show her what happens when people do what I don’t like?”
Ben tensed up like a dog about to be kicked, shrinking back and pulling his long limbs against himself. Claire visibly shook, her fists clenched against the force that held her still. Her wide gaze burning holes in Jesse’s face. “Let me go, Jesse!” she growled. “ C’mon! You still have to cheat your way through a fight?!”
He smiled at her. “If you’re asking me to fight you like a man, Claire, my answer is I am not a man.” To punctuate the sentence, he slammed his fist across Ben’s face. His head was knocked back, but he hardly made a sound and let it hang down. Blood trailed from his open lips, pooling on the floor, and Claire stared in shock and forcibly suppressed rage. “But I have learned the value of doing things ‘the hard way.’ Ben’s got an extraordinary amount of freedom to fight back; it’s taken me a long time to teach him not to. You’ll get your turn as well, but for now, I’m keeping you there so you get a good view.” Pulling out the stiletto, he ran it lightly down the length of Ben’s back, leaving a ribbon of blood. “Because whatever happens right now, Claire? Is all your fault.”
Despite the well of fury in Claire’s expression, streaks of water ran down the length of her face, belying the true depth of that pain. “Why?! Because you can’t stand what you’ve become, so you have to blame everything you do on someone else?” She spat her words through her teeth because of the strain of fighting her own body, keeping her planted right there on the floor.
Jesse let out a put-upon breath, getting to his feet. “Such a temper. I’m sorry, Ben, for what she’s making me do to you.” With a swift, hard kick to Ben’s side that sent him sprawling and pulled a strangled sound out of him as the chain went taut against his neck, Jesse turned to consider the objects hanging from the wall.
The tears flowed faster from Claire’s eyes, the noise Ben made stuck on repeat in her mind until she couldn’t hear her own thoughts. She even looked at the dark vault ceiling, half wishing for the head-splitting boom of Amitiel’s voice, but remembered that that hope was gone. Still shaking, her face twisted in anger and sadness, she looked on Jesse again. “God, look at you,” she croaked. “We loved you. You used to be such a good man. What turned you into such a coward...”
“Oh Claire,” Jesse said, gently taking a switch from the wall and turning to her. “I was never a good man. I’ve always been a Prince of Hell; I only used to fear that fact. Now I do exactly as I was born to do.” He brought the switch down hard on Ben’s back, right across the slice he’d made earlier. “I was born to reshape the whole of the world.” Another hit. “I wasn’t born to serve, but make all mankind kneel.” Again. “You weren’t meant to love me, you were meant to worship.”
By then, Ben had collapsed face first on the ground, his body curled up into a fetal position as he helplessly tried to protect himself. The wound on his back bled copiously, split wide, angry and red, and his body trembled from the pain. Claire shook and gasped with every blow, until she couldn’t stand the sight any longer.
“STOP!” she shouted, her voice cracked with everything that blazed in her eyes.
Jesse struck three more blows before tossing the switch aside. He ignored the shaking bundle at his feet, turning to Claire. “I decide when to stop. No one else. You’ll learn that soon enough.”
Looking down at Ben, Jesse shook his head. “He never fights it anymore. You should have seen how he fought in the beginning, Claire. But now... I know I trained him to be this way, but now that he’s there, it’s boring.”
Ben stirred on the ground, giving a wheeze, his hands finally reaching out to clutch weakly at the cuff of Jesse’s pant leg.
“Please,” he rasped. “You have me. Don’t-- don’t take her, too. I’ll fight. I’ll do whatever you want. Anything you want, it’s yours. I’m yours. You don’t want her, you want me.”
Kneeling, Jesse smiled, running a fond hand through Ben’s hair. “You are mine. But so is she. In the end, everyone will be mine.” Pulling the demon knife from his belt loop, he considered it a moment. “I would love to see you try, though. You’ve shown more life today than in the past six months, and it would be interesting to see what a few months together would do to the two of you. However, I promised my Father I wouldn’t draw this out any more than necessary.” He plunged the knife straight through Ben’s center to the sound of Claire’s panicked scream of protest. Giving a hard twist, he kissed Ben’s forehead before getting to his feet, leaving the knife skewered in the man. “Out with the old, in with the new.”
Grabbing Claire by the hair, Jesse yanked her towards the chains on the wall, even as he released his frozen hold on the rest of her. She thrashed and kicked like a mountain lion, snarling as the pent-up resistance exploded against his hold.
Jesse’s unnatural strength pulled her to her feet, slamming her against the wall. It was followed with a punch right across Claire’s temple, snapping her head to the side. “This more like it, Claire?” he breathed, struggling to fasten the first cuff around her wrist. Claire whipped the hair out of her eyes, wild with pain and loss, and gritted her teeth, slamming her brow into his nose. The split second he reeled back was just enough for her to spit in his face.
“Fuck you!” she hissed, her lip peeled back as she pushed from the chain link, arched back, and cracked his cheekbone with her fist.
Jesse’s head snapped back but his hands caught her first. “Oh, you will,” he snarled almost happily. He twisted her arm hard and up before bringing his own fist down the wrong way on her elbow. Her bad shoulder jarred with a sick (and familiar) pop that Claire could feel through every bone in her body. The sharp breath she took choked off her scream, and the fence clanged on the wall as it bore her weight again.
Before Jesse could get another hit on her however, a body appeared just behind him. In an instant, the knife was shoved with force through the back of his throat and out the other side. His eyes widened in denial and horror as blood gurgled up past his lips. Eyes still on Claire, his body spasmed and he fell to his knees.
Ben stood above him, one hand pressed against his still bleeding wound, his face glistening with a cold sweat as he looked first down at Jesse bleeding out on the floor, then to Claire where she hung from the chains. He gave a hacking cough, which brought blood to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped.
Her eyes wide and wavering, they slid up to Ben’s face. The pain in her shoulder seared and throbbed, but it didn’t reach her in that moment, not even as she strained it to catch him as he fell forward. The chain that still held her good arm pulled to its limit, Claire let out a sob of pain when his weight hit, but she didn’t let go.
“No--” she pushed through a shuddering breath, her brow heavily leaned against his. “Don’t you say that...”
Ben coughed violently again, her shoulder going wet with the blood. He made some distant noise that might have been a laugh.
“It was my fault,” came the rattling reply. “I tried to stop him. Shouldda listened t’you. You were always the smarter one.” He wheezed hard, his freehand twisting in her shirt. “I love you. Never forget that. I’ll always love you.”
Tears wet her face along with the blood smeared on her cheeks, nuzzled against him, holding on as tight as her arm would allow. “Just--hold on to me,” Claire’s voice barely broke past her breath. “Hold on...”
But the weight of his body against hers only got heavier until at last he sank to the ground, inches away from Jesse’s now-lifeless form. Silence fell, total and all-encompassing around the empty vault. Claire sagged against the chain, against the wire wall, the last pieces of her heart shattered and churning in her stomach, as the tomb-like atmosphere surrounded her.
The only sounds that echoed in the empty space were her own breaths, which deepened, then broke into tight sobs. Claire hung against the chain and looked toward the black ceiling, her face contorted in perfect torment, until her eyes clenched and she belted a deafening scream to the shadows. It stretched as long as her lungs could hold it, until her throat caved on itself, cutting the sound off sickly--and she hung there in her own darkness, broken.
“Do you understand now?”
She jumped with a gasp, and felt a surge of sharp hope as her eyes focused on Ben, now miraculously alive... but something deep inside stopped the elation. The voice that broke the silence was familiar, but the sound utterly wrong. Ben stood up from the ground as though he’d only been resting. The clothing was the same, the blood still fresh on his shirt, but color had returned to his face and his eyes shone with a strange, ethereal light. Everything about his expression said ‘stranger.’
Claire could do nothing but stare, gaping at the figure whose very presence left her emotions raw and red, like sandpaper on sunburn. Her heart was broken, and her mind wasn’t far behind.
“...Ben...”
“No.” His eyes moved to the chain still holding her in place, and it fell away with ease. The pain in her arm and shoulder disappeared a second later. She let out a breath of physical relief, but it didn’t reach her eyes. They were still staring at Ben’s face--or the being wearing Ben’s face.
“Amitiel...” The realization dawned, but she was still breathless and confused, still shaking like a leaf in November.
“Typically this is not how I choose to communicate,” Amitiel said, his hands sliding into his pockets. “But I felt it necessary for you to see what would happen if you continue to travel with these men.”
Claire’s stunned silence continued on for quiet a while, while small pieces of the big puzzle fell into place. And with each one, her eyes grew harder.
“This world... this whole world, all of it was you?!”
Amitiel’s expression never phased from smooth and serene as he met her furious gaze.
“Not exactly,” he replied, his voice light. “I merely plucked you up and put you in the ending of your story. Everything that happened will happen, should you continue along this path. Jesse Turner must die in order to save the world.”
“Wait...wait a minute,” she countered, keeping her eyes fixed on the angel-wearing-Ben’s face. She knew what was at her feet still, subconsciously, and the hope rising inside of her mixed with complex emotions, helping to keep her focus where it needed to be. “So you’re saying I’m still somewhere in Maryland, Ben and Jesse are fine, and the world didn’t go to shit...?”
“Like I said--”
“No--the future isn’t set in stone, especially now that I see the curve in the road.” Claire interrupted the angel before he could go on. She wanted to shove him, but that was just a lot of pent-up, righteous anger that he didn’t seem to register. The angel only smiled at her.
“There is no curve,” he said smoothly. Though Claire knew the face of the man the angel was wearing, and for the smallest, briefest instant, she saw it: a clear and obvious tell of doubt. Her lips pressed tightly together, watching him with all the intensity that he was watching her. Eventually, Claire’s hand lifted to the locket around her neck. She ran her thumb over its engraved surface, which seemed to steel something in her eyes.
“Put me back,” she said lowly. Amitiel sighed.
“Have you learned nothing, child?” he asked her, a touch of hardness to his tone. She smiled at him, but it wasn’t a warm smile. It wasn’t cold, either; more sad, and determined than anything.
“Just put me back where I belong.”
Eyes narrowing, the angel took a step closer until they were nearly nose to nose.
“You’ll see me again soon,” he promised. Then, raising his hand, he brought his fingers together in a sharp snap.
****
“I’m worried about her,” Ben said quietly, putting his utensils down. His eyes hadn’t left Claire’s sleeping form since the moment she rolled her face away from them. “I’ve never seen her like this. Not even before you came around.”
Jesse shrugged, still concentrating on what remained of his food. “Things’ve been hard, that’s all. She’ll snap out of it.”
Almost on cue, Claire opened her eyes. The next instant she sat straight up in the bed--the bed that she remembered, with clean sheets and the smell of breakfast and summer in the air. Ben blinked in surprise, his face pinching in a slight frown of concern.
“Hey, you oka--” Ben’s voice of worry was shortened as Claire launched herself from the bed to tackle them both in the most heartfelt, enthusiastic embrace, covers still tangled around her legs.
Jesse instinctively jerked back in surprise, hacking as he took half his bite down the wrong pipe. “Fuck. Hi.” Claire half stumbled out of the bedsheets, cutting Jesse off with a quick kiss, then turned, taking Ben’s face in her hands for the same thing. When she pulled back, Ben looked into her eyes with a dazed look.
“Claire?”
But she was already facing Jesse, her palms firmly placed on the sides of his jaw, just as she had with Ben, but her eyes were wide and wild, and locked on his.
“Promise me you won’t ever, ever listen to anything that fucking demon says to you.” She switched here eyes back and forth between his, her voice contained a note of desperation. “Promise me.”
Frozen, Jesse stared back at her, his stomach sinking. What had she heard? What did she know? After a long pause, he stuttered, “‘Course. I’d never listen to him.”
“Did he come to you?” Ben asked insistently, his eyes suddenly wide. Claire kept her eyes on Jesse’s face, her gaze steadily softening from the slightly unhinged quality they contained when she first woke up. With a tentative breath, she leaned in and kissed him again, slower and more appreciative this time, before turning to do the same to Ben. She’d heard his question, but the answer could wait until she’d fully reminded herself that they were both alive, and all three of them were whole.
“No,” she started, almost breathless and still shaking, the way she had been in the vault. “Other side of the big fence...”
If Jesse had been concerned before, he was verging on panic now. “Angels? What do they want? What did they say about me and that demon?”
Claire shook her head, slumping down to sit on the floor between them. She closed her eyes for a moment, still trying to calm herself down. “Nothing--I mean,” she sighed, looking up to them both. Her eyes had a shadowed quality; seemingly older than they had been when she fell asleep. “One tried to show me a ‘what-if’ dream--” Except that was no dream. Claire’s shoulders sagged under an invisible weight. “It... It wasn’t pretty.”
Ben felt a raw anger fill him at the mention of angels. If one got inside Claire’s head, then that meant they weren’t far. The same panic from their escape from Alabama filled his mind.
“Izzy’s still trying to find a book about sigils or something else online. She hasn’t found anything yet.”
Jesse fought the urge to curl up on himself, but he couldn’t stop staring at Claire. She looked...well like she had been through something closer to Hell than to a nap. And she’d come out of it with a message for him. It didn’t sit well at all. “What happened?” he said quietly.
Claire pushed her hands through her hair, back to rub at her neck, and then suddenly slid her palm around her throat and chest, as if searching for something. The sigh that came afterward showed her relief for not finding it. She wet her lips and looked up at Jesse, then at Ben. Something twisted in her stomach, hard enough to taste. There was no way she could tell them everything... it was bad enough she had to live through it.
“Short version:” she looked at Jesse again. “You go bad. The world goes to shit... and we all die.” Regardless of the quip quality of the words, Claire’s voice contained absolutely no humor. Ben slid out of the chair and onto the floor immediately, his arms moving around her. He could feel her trembling the moment he touched her, and instinctively he pulled her between his legs and wrapped himself around her.
“That won’t happen,” he said, putting strength into his words as he looked up at Jesse. “It won’t.”
Jesse shook his head, though he didn’t move to join them. “I wouldn’t,” he said, only managing to be a little louder even as he put on the ghost of a smile. “I like the world as it is. Especially the part where we’re alive.” Claire looked at him from under Ben’s comforting embrace. Her heart hurt again, the same she’d felt when she first saw him in the vault. On a deep level, it worried her, but on the surface, she could only concentrate on one thing.
She reached out and grabbed Jesse’s hand from his lap, imploring him to her with her gaze and grip, looking ready to drop tears at any second. She wrapped one arm around his shoulders when he drew closer, pressing her cheek to his as she squeezed. Her free hand kept a desperate grip on Ben’s arm. “Please,” she whispered tightly, warm breath by his ear. “--please remember we love you... Never forget that.”
His throat feeling swollen, Jesse nodded again, arms wrapping around the both of them. He was afraid to ask what happened to make her say that, not sure he wanted to know what Claire had seen him do. It didn’t matter that it had been a dream; he knew first hand how terrifyingly real those could be. “I’m sorry. Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I would never... I love you, and I’m not about to forget that.”
Ben listened to the two of them talking silently, hearing the weight in each of their words and knowing deep down that he was missing something so much larger than either of them said. He felt real, genuine fear, but he pushed it down and away, concentrating instead on embracing Claire. One hand slid away from her, resting on Jesse’s where it settled around him.
Claire’s anxiety held steady and strong, still battling the relief she felt for being back in the time and place she remembered, with all the horror of the last forty-eight hours all but erased. The angel’s words still rung in her head, every single syllable and promise, especially that she’d see him again soon. It was just something she had to deal with--for now, there was just them.
“Not gonna happen,” she uttered again, reassuring them as much as herself, pressing a kiss to Jesse’s temple, then leaning back into Ben as much as she possibly could--she couldn’t get enough of the feel of him, warm and strong and alive. Her eyes opened, unfocused on the middle distance as she softly murmured the phrase again. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the part that was worried when Jesse had looked at her so scared, so uncertain, she knew that world would never come to pass--because if the road started to curve, she’d end it all herself.