From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 51: Chapter 51

There was a time when Maddie knew she could do anything if she wanted it enough. Not because of something like 'special permissions' or having the brute force or even something uplifting that a mentor may have told her since she didn't actually have any of that.
Special permissions usually meant money and, from what she could remember, the two bedroom and two bathroom house her family rented was deep in the part of town where they never fixed the roads and the doors always had to be locked. She shared a bedroom with her older brother, as well as a closet and a bunk bed. Their backyard wasn't even a backyard but a patch of dirt with a rotted fence and a mud-crusted trampoline about the size of a kiddie pool.
Maddie never considered that maybe other kids didn't live that way until Marie began talking about her family's summer home and overseas vacations. She didn't have the guts to bring up that the only vacation she recalled was to Milwaukee to see her grandparents who lived out of an apartment in a similar neighborhood to hers. She never openly compared Marie's talk of after school ballet lessons with Maddie's sometimes extensive afternoons at the Boys and Girls Club.
She didn't have the brute force either; she was always small and scrawny. Weak as a human being, hiding from her attackers in classrooms during lunch and recess; mediocre as a Slayer, training for longer hours than anyone else on her team to catch up to them.
The reason she could do just about anything was because no one really paid attention to her. She was one unremarkable face in thousands, regardless of where she lived or what she was. Jack's quiet little sister. Marie's wet blanket of a sidekick. Elliott's flavor of the month. Just another slayer in a world full of them already. Only a handful really stood out or could be called something more, maybe even superheroes. For Madeline Hayes, being a slayer didn't feel like it made her different, only more of the same.
She wasn't one of the special ones and she definitely wasn't a superhero. It was a dumb concept, the more she thought about it. She didn't care to know anything about superheroes anyway.
Being the same gave her an advantage, if anything. She could blend in, stay quiet, and find out more in a night than she ever did actually speaking and trying to stand out. It wasn't a skill that she actively tried to work on or really wanted; it was one of those things that came to her naturally. And, despite hating it, she knew how often it came in handy.
Tonight was a night she unintentionally used it twice. The first time, to fix what was broken. The second, to break whatever was left.
Maddie was looking for Marie the first time. She hunted around the building for the girl she left sleeping on the couch in the rec room. Maddie had only just noticed Marie's pajamas in a heap on her bed in the dark room when she heard girls talking on the other side of the open door.
"She looked...I dunno, 'not okay' is a massive understatement." It was Em, yawning between sentences.
"Are we talking about the Anne Marie type of 'not okay'? Cause the girl needs a fucking therapist," Terra said.
There was a pause. "Maybe? It looked like more, even by her standards."
"So long as she's not doing the psycho stalker thing again. It was freaky enough the first time."
Maddie frowned at this, trying to piece together the information in a way that made sense. She'd never seen Marie stalk anyone, ever. Marie was always the one sought after, not the one seeking. She couldn't imagine the girl being obsessed with anything. She heard footsteps closing in as Em and Terra went quiet again and relief took hold of Maddie, assuming Marie finally showed her face and the other two were embarrassed for getting caught gossiping.
That would have to be it.
"Bad news," a higher and softer voice said. Charlie, a girl two years older than Maddie and another member of her team, seemed somewhat distraught. Maddie could hear the familiar sounds of nervous fingernails strumming on the back of a phone and immediately knew it was Charlie. "Her daggers are gone."
Another horrible pause. Daggers , Maddie thought in a panic. Her mind flashed with the image of twin hunting knives with blades almost the size of her forearms. Marie uses twin daggers.
She showed them off and twirled the dagger in her right hand like a baton, all the while she never strayed from the hilt. "The trick is to never use them both for the same cut. Keep the target's attention on the dominant hand while you gut them with the other."
They were extensions of her, a duality. A blade to catch your eye and a blade to make the kill.
"Maybe she's out on patrol," Em said but it came out as an unsteady question. "Maybe they're both out on patrol?"
There was a sigh and Terra spoke. "Seriously? If Maddie's out, she's probably trailing that drugged out STD ad and Redneck Barbie's not that far behind."
"Ter! What the hell?" Charlie said in a harsh whisper as Maddie felt a wave of cold seize up her insides.
"What? We knew this would happen. I mean, I get it. They had potential but there's a reason the higher ups dropped them in our laps." Terra didn't say it like she was angry or worried and that was why it came as a punch to the gut. It was the truth. The long pause that followed, hearing neither Em nor Charlie speak up in defense, was confirmation enough.
Somehow, Maddie always knew this was how they felt. Ever since Buffy cut off communication with her, the only person she trusted to be honest was Marie. Even when she hated her, at least Marie would be honest with her. Terra helped because she had to, same with Em. She wasn't sure that Charlie actually liked any of them, including the older girls. Charlie was nice to everyone but it never quite meant she liked anyone.
Charlie liked Nora though, but Nora was gone. Ran away, maybe. Dead, probably.
The next blow knocked the wind out of her when she heard Terra. "And this is what we ended up with: one's unhinged, the other's a lovesick moron, and I'm not completely sure which one is which. At this point, I don't really care."
Terra was right about something; somewhere in Maddie, something unhinged. Something that she was so used to reacting to with quiet sobs bared its teeth and tore out of her, slashing and snarling and all she could do was let it. A voice she fought everyday since she came home from school with another girl's blood on her tiny hands hissed its curses. Before, when it whispered, it sounded like her father.
"We did not sign up for this."
Other times, it sounded like Marie in those first few days.
"Stop crying!"
Today, it was older and angrier.
A beast lived inside her and she couldn't help but fear she would become it. It had no words but still made her believe the best thing she could ever have wasn't a person but a weapon in her hand. It breathed memories of girls just like her who lived and died with nothing but a mission.
Maybe it was time to stop ignoring what it was trying to tell her.
Her body was moving forward, her emotions a match setting her thoughts on fire as they unspooled. In a flash, she pulled the door open so hard that she heard the plaster connecting one of the hinges crack. She stood there for a second as the sound called the attention of everyone before her.
Em and Charlie gaped while Terra kept her mouth in a thin line, despite her wide eyes.
They looked so...caught. Caught off guard. Caught red handed. Caught between one second and the next with no escape.
They stood there, huddled in front of the door, blocking Maddie.
They didn't move an inch, even when Maddie's voice cut through the silence. "Get out of my way."
Em released a sigh that was less pensive and more exasperated. "Maddie-"
Maddie's eyes glided over the girl without the rest of her moving at all and there was something flying up to the surface in that moment that seemed to take the rest of Em's sentence right from her throat.
Maddie didn't know a lot about the term 'seeing red' because nothing was red around her, but her vision seemed much more focused and horribly clear. She could see them all for who they were and that must've frightened them. She couldn't help but revel in it. Her eyes didn't leave Emery's. "Move."
It was an eerie calm that took over her voice and the command had come out firm and with a confidence that Maddie didn't recognize. Emery stood there a long while, not flinching or looking away. Her expression now echoed Terra's but with a stoic regality that made Maddie think of a queen that was about to pass sentence on her enemy. Maddie patiently waited for her judgement and possible execution.
No one moved. There was a silence coming from the girls looking on in the periphery, a sickening intrigue as well which they kept to themselves like they always did. Passivity that bordered on apathy. Maddie wondered if they ever regretted their inaction.
"But we didn't do anything!" a girl said so long ago, one of many who watched as Maddie was continuously slapped for doing nothing but showing she still had a heart.
"Exactly," Buffy said that day and never again.
There was no one to deliver that message now and Maddie wouldn't be the one to say it, at least not in a way that made others listen.
Maddie found herself at the center of the commotion, surrounded by at least ten girls beyond the three closest to her and by morning another forty or so would be talking about her, just like they whispered about Marie for years. The only difference was they gossiped about Marie with a shallow fear and a quiet awe; they were probably going to talk about Maddie in maniacal, selfish glee. She was about to do something reckless and stupid and everyone would know of her without ever knowing her; there'd be nowhere to hide. Somehow, surrounded by so many, she never felt more alone.
Charlie would've been the one to reach for her but the twitch of the girl's arm was the only thing Maddie saw. Maddie imagined herself a bulldozer smashing through a wall she only started believing was there to keep her safe as she shoulder checked both Terra and Emery. The wall was never to keep her safe, just penned in. Maybe it was the same for Marie.
It was only then when she saw that it wasn't only other slayers who were listening in but a few older faces too. Faith stood there with her arms folded, confusion on her hard features as she stood by the stairwell with Willow who had a large book wrapped in her arms.
Willow's frown deepened as Maddie pushed past them as well. "Maddie? Wait, what's going on? Where are you going?"
The words came out in a raw shout as she didn't turn back. "I'm gonna find the only person who still gives a damn!"
In the distance, a boom of thunder brought with it the promise of a storm.
☽ † ☾
There was a point, when Max was thirteen, when she discovered her love for the zodiac.
It was a fleeting thing, but she huddled in the New Age section of her local bookstore and read book after book about signs. Her sign, her best friend's sign, even the sign of the boy who sat in front of her in their Pre-Algebra class. She remembered going to the planetarium and her attention perking up when the mentioned the constellation Libra. She squinted at it at first and then tilted her head. It did sort of look like scales.
There was something comforting about the idea of astrology back then. She liked the thought of being born when certain constellations, planets, and asteroids hung above her and how that influenced her and her path. Her life in synchronicity with the stars. A place in the universe meant for her.
She looked up her horoscope that morning, despite not believing things like that could be so specific anymore.
Your hard work and dedication is about to pay off- if you let it. You can only control so much of your environment. Let the universe do its work and grant you what you need right now.
Well, that wasn't going to happen.
The sting of rejection from the night before still permeated through Max as she left her motel room. There was also a certain amount of grime on her skin even after the shower. She never stayed in a motel like she saw in movies, that had sheets that might've been from the 1970s and a thick, stale smell of cigarettes and lemon scented cleaner. She wondered if the walls were once white and faded into the yellowish color they were now.
Terra hadn't stayed in the same room and, while Max had felt a modicum of resentment, she was thankful for it in the end. Staying in the same room would've possibly shown Max to be somewhat different than the face she put on two days. It might've made her out to be not quite as optimistic as she wanted to be at the moment. Just a day and she was already a failure.
In the privacy of her tiny, smelly room, she practiced out loud what she would say next time. She would have the better argument. Maddie and the others would understand and begrudgingly agree. It would be different next time. It had to be. She continued by running through what she would say to Allison today. She wouldn't bring up that Allison nearly shot her through with an arrow. She would wear slacks instead of another dress and tights combination and carry an entirely different bag and pull her hair back just so she'd look different enough from a distance. Professional.
She was thankful to get out of the motel room, but found herself wishing for her own rental car once she remembered that Terra's car was in an auto shop somewhere in the center of town. She was equally thankful that she packed her trainers and that it wasn't quite warm enough to sweat through her clothes as she opened the Maps app on her phone and hoped against all hope that it wouldn't get her any more lost than she already was.
About an hour later of evenly paced walking and far too much turning around, she found herself in yet another cul-de-sac full of houses that looked no older than the last computer she bought.
She already missed home; she missed the warmth that came with seeing the same places her whole life. Despite the numerous sharp changes her life continually underwent, everything was still familiar - from her favorite bakery that was decades older than her to the building she lived in that was built at the turn of the twentieth century. Every house in the last several neighborhoods was younger than her. There was nothing welcoming about that; if anything, it made the whole town a little colder.
This was where her GPS led her - to a massive estate home with several steepled roofs, like someone squashed three houses the size of her grandmother's together. Her grandparents owned a detached house that her father and aunt grew up in and she would eventually inherit, which she was hoping wouldn't be any time soon. After losing her parents before primary school and her grandfather nine years ago, she wasn't sure if she could take any more losses in her family.
She smoothed down her black hair as she walked up the semi-circle driveway, every step forming a space in her head in place of actual thought as her ears focused on the uncomfortable stillness of the neighborhood. There was a car in the driveway, a massive black SUV with tinted windows that reflected her worried face back at her. Her low bun made her look stern like the sisters at St. Mary's, which was slightly more than she was going for but hoped her face was kind enough to take the edge off. She smiled a close-lipped smile at her reflection and relaxed her shoulders.
"I can do this," she whispered with a slight nod, then turned away from the car and strode to the front porch. She stared down the red oak door and took a breath just before knocking three times in rapid succession.
It was the quiet again, the agonizing silence of neighbors minding their own business in their massive houses and, once more, a cold that she couldn't shake off. A minute passed, then two, then three. She took another deep breath in through her nose and out through her mouth. She knocked again, as hard as she could without pounding her fist on the door. When the silence stretched on for almost another minute, she thought about turning and going despite the stiffness in her legs.
The sound of heavy footsteps hitting wood floors grew on the other side of the door, matching the pounding of her pulse as it filled her ears.
The footsteps stopped. Max was sure her heart stopped as well.
The door opened a fraction, just enough to see a graying middle-aged man but none of the shadowed house behind him. He had a long, severe face and was looking at her with narrowed blue eyes. It was the same man from the file; she recalled looking at the image on the computer screen but easily glancing past him after seeing her aunt that she only knew from one encounter and thick albums full of old photographs. She even looked at Allison for longer, recognizing herself in the girl. The man in the photo, the same man that stood in front of her, was only family by marriage.
He was an Argent and that name held as much venom and weight as any expletive in her family.
At least in the photo, he almost seemed kind when he stood by his wife and daughter. The man in front of her gave off the same chill as the houses she examined on her way there. His brows were low on his forehead, as much a question as a signal to leave. His mouth was a line. He looked older than he did in the photograph but not quite. The same, but also gaunt and shadowed.
He didn't say hello or ask who she was, just looked on expectantly. Once she identified the look, suddenly realizing he was waiting for her to talk, her eyes grew large and her lips parted in a silent 'oh'. She smiled a very wide smile, showing teeth and all, trying to compensate for how long she had stood there doing nothing. She waved, then felt stupid for waving, and dropped her hand. "Hello! Is this the Argent residence?"
Max knew it was but it was polite to ask. He blinked and said in a rough voice, "It is."
"Wonderful!" she said a bit too enthusiastically. She was still smiling but managed to make it softer, closing her mouth. She dug in her bag for her notepad and flipped to the fifth page, knowing precisely where to find the information she needed. "You must be...Christopher Argent, correct?"
Once again, she knew it was correct but it would be impolite if she had made some sort of mistake or called him by name before asking. He paused and sighed. "I am."
Another pause filled the space around them.
"...Great! That is...Well, it's great." Max cleared her throat and closed her notepad, stuffing it back in her bag. She looked back at the man, whose expression hadn't shifted in the least. Out of habit, despite being left hanging the last several times, she stuck out her hand. "My name is Max- Mackenzie, actually. I go by Max, not that it's important at the moment. Um..."
She stopped herself and let out a tiny sigh.
"My family name is Travers."
It was a slow, agonizing change to his expression - his brow loosened and his eyes widened, but at the same time something darker set in. Something unmistakably broken. It was a mask slipping from his face, falling, and shattering on impact. It was his turn to take a breath and at once he turned away, looking down and then somewhere over her shoulder. It wasn't like he was looking for anything, either. It was like he needed something else to focus on. "George's daughter."
Her mind blanked for a moment, hearing her father's name but not immediately recognizing it. She nearly forgot it belonged to him. Her grandmother had only ever referred to him as 'your father' whenever Max was around. Grandfather would call him George and there was always a gentleness to follow it, despite his bitter tone.
She probably hadn't heard her father referred to by his name since the last time she'd talked to her grandfather, just before his death, early morning as her grandmother made them both breakfast just before she left for school. Fourteen year old Max studied at the table and grandmother chided her for not finishing her studies the night before. Max explained that she did but was sure she'd forgotten something after a very good dream because there couldn't be room for her to clearly remember both. Grandfather chuckled for the first time in what must've been weeks and mumbled, "So much like George."
She couldn't help but wonder how often her aunt talked of her father. Max knew already that she rarely ever called. She gave a slight nod, her smile not wavering even a little. "Yes."
He quietly invited her in and told her to have a seat as he switched on a light instead of opening a curtain. He offered her tea, which she politely accepted. It was a very clean and modern house, hardly lived in and for a moment she could see herself in a house just like it. She wondered if her Aunt Victoria decorated it. She even let herself be a bit excited to see her again and perhaps properly meet Allison. She thanked her uncle once he handed her the tea - which smelled minty when she breathed in the steam while the warm mug calmed her nerves.
It was at that point, just before Max took the first sip, that Chris Argent told her that her aunt was dead.
She looked up at the man in front of her, sitting in a blue cushioned chair.
He still didn't make eye contact. "I haven't gotten a chance to call, with the state of things here...but I suppose that's no excuse. I assume she was who you were here to see."
Max didn't answer the question, suddenly very small in her seat as she sipped from her mug and wished for it to ease her nerves again. She was staring down into the cup, not sure of what to say or if she should be sad. Of course, she was sad regardless, but not sad enough to cry, which only made her feel worse. She glanced up again and asked in a soft voice, "When did it happen?"
She was just setting down her tea on the coffee table when she heard the sound of a door closing somewhere upstairs. Still, she caught her uncle - a word that was getting a bit easier to think of regarding the man across from her - speaking again. "Days. Friday evening."
Friday morning, Max was being told by a former rogue slayer that she was 'graduating' from watcher-in-training to a watcher with two wards. By Friday evening, she flew over the central United States on her way to San Francisco. A day later, she was almost in Beacon Hills. Time had a funny way of doing things.
She was about to say something, despite not knowing what to say, but footfalls grew closer and she saw someone in the corner of her eye at the second floor landing begin their descent downstairs. Max glanced up and found Allison, pale and dressed head to toe in black with her hair pulled away from her face. Max tensed when she saw Allison had her compound bow gripped tightly in one hand. Allison slowed and stopped halfway down the steps, staring at Max.
Max stood up much too quickly, hands folded in front of her.
"Allison," Allison's father began with an edge. Allison fixed her eyes on him, her confusion dissolving into a hard look as her chin raised slightly. "There's someone you should meet-"
"I'm not here for my aunt," Max said quickly to Chris, who turned to her with his brows lowered in a quizzical look. "I'm sorry. I honestly wasn't given any information regarding my charge until I accepted my assignment."
In Max's horror, Chris' expression shifted as if a shadow descended on his face. He narrowed his eyes on her. "Assignment?"
Max swallowed, body suddenly stiff as fear rolled over her and she looked up at Allison. "My name is MacKenzie Travers. I've been trained and sent here by the new council to guide you. I'm..." Her voice began far too loud and she cleared her throat. She glanced at Allison's father who was seething and back to Allison whose eyes were wide despite that her jaw was clenched. Max let out a breath. This was supposed to be all different. "I'm your Watcher."
Allison looked to her father and back to Max, eyes still wide but with a wall being built behind them. She lifted the bow with a smirk that looked so horribly forced. "You know, I've been trained to use this for most of my life. Do you know what it is?"
"...a bow," Max said, though her voice was unsure - not because she was wrong but because it felt as though Allison was looking for a bigger answer than that. Something metaphorical, perhaps.
"A bow," Allison repeated with a sort of tightness. "More specifically a compound bow."
When Allison turned back to Max, the wall was up completely. She smiled but it was a tight lipped kind of smile that made her eyes into dark slits. Max walked into a minefield and realized it just a moment too late.
"Do you know what this type of bow is typically used for?" Allison asked.
With all of her weapon knowledge, she actually knew very little about bows. Crossbows were one thing. In fact, sans a few unique instances, crossbows were probably the most modern of weapons slayers used. She was taking too long to answer and said the only thing that came to mind, which made her sound incredibly stupid. "Target practice?"
"Hunting," Allison said in a loud but steady voice and something about that made Max cold. The false smile was gone from Allison's gentle features. There was little emotion left at all as Allison let out a hollow laugh and continued on. "I've been trained to be a hunter all my life, even when I wasn't allowed to know about hunters."
She glared at her father again but it only lasted a moment before being redirected at Max who wanted to say something but, just like with Maddie, lost the words. It was beginning to make her angry wondering where they all went and why they escaped her.
"Actually, my mom told me about Watchers. She wrote all about you." Allison walked down the steps slowly, a dangerous animal was closing in on Max. Allison stopped a foot away from her, and Max took a tentative step back but didn't look away. Max gave Allison a confused stare as the girl went on in a low voice. "I know exactly what you are and what you do, but I'm not a slayer. This strength and speed doesn't mean anything to me but I'll use it if I have to. I'm not your anything and you're not welcome here."
Watchers and Slayers. How did Grandfather used to put it?
"Sometimes, I forget..." he said, over a large book. His chest rose and fell in a sigh that seemed like more than it was. Like the breath he took in took something in with it; a memory, a remorse. He looked at Max then, but not like Quentin Travers. He didn't see her through the eyes of the Head of the Watcher's Council; he looked at her with a kindly granddad's eyes, watery and nostalgic and only halfway in the present moment. "I forget why we're here."
"We're here because you work here," Max said with only the understanding of a child. Everything was the way it was for a concrete reason.
Her grandfather focused his gaze on her like he'd forgotten she was there, gave a thin smile - most likely to ease her, and kept reading the tome.
Max was beginning to see, though. She was beginning to understand the distance in his eyes.
The doorbell rang.
Allison blinked and looked away, striding past Max and her father. The door creaked open and light hit Max's back, casting her long shadow ahead of her. There were more shadows though; Allison's and another unknown figure.
"Did I come at a bad time?" a girl's voice said and it sounded vaguely familiar, like she'd heard it so recently but there was hardly a memory there.
It wasn't Maddie. It wasn't hard or rough. If anything it was light, with an air of sarcasm smoothing the edges.
Allison's shadow shook her head slightly. "Not at all."
The door opened wider and she looked to Chris Argent, who was emitting a new wave of iciness as he stared somewhere behind Max. When Max finally turned around, she found that the voice wasn't the only thing familiar about the stranger; her face was one Max recognized, if only from one encounter.
Blonde waves and ocean blue eyes, barely lined, staring back at Max. She was smiling, a dimple indenting her cheek on one side. Max didn't know her name but she remembered Maddie not minding when the girl left.
She was there, though, with Maddie and her friends and the wolves.
Max opened her mouth to speak.
Allison was already closing the door and turning to her father. "Are we done?"
She didn't wait for him to reply either and they began up the stairs, the blonde girl in tow and still smiling at Max as she passed.
Max apologized profusely for any misleading and offered her condolences, which were not taken. On the front steps of the Argent house, she suddenly wished it was night and that the sky was clear so she could recall where her place in the universe was.
☽ † ☾
Buffy knew her friends were worried about her, yet here she was long after Max and Terra checked in. The rooms were quieter now, with only echoes of doors opening and closing from girls on late night patrols, the kind Buffy used to use when she couldn't sleep. She could just barely hear the tired, bumbling footsteps that weren't quite like drunk footsteps that bounced loudly off the walls and usually were followed with someone tripping or something crashing and some giggling.
She never grew up in a big family, but even growing up with just her mom, dad, and Dawn meant something was always going on and there was always someone taking her bathroom time in the morning and her favorite snacks when she wasn't looking. Growing up with a little sister meant being the bigger person and not losing her cool when she couldn't have anything to herself, but the current arrangement made it worse.
There was never a moment, not a second, of silence. There was never a hallway without footsteps or a mess hall table without idle gossip a few feet away. There was never a time to breathe or think without someone in her air space. It was like high school on steroids, but even then she'd give anything to have a minute in that stupid library with just Willow, Xander, and Giles. She remembered how much she hated balancing the two - slaying and school, that is. It was a tightrope act between two chasms and neither side completely took her for years. Now, the highwire she once walked snapped long ago and she did nothing but climb from the depths of one side to be swallowed by the other.
The spell that awakened the slayers meant there was no going back. She knew when she thought of it, in her old basement as the First Evil mirrored her face and her fears. "There's that word again -"
Buffy thought of the school bus full of bloodied and dying girls as they drove away from the crater that was her home for seven years. At least one did die and a few more from that battle died over the years, all in different and horrible ways. In the first two years, so many girls died. Most demons had a way of sensing a shift that size in the universe and, suddenly, the numbers got so high that it made the evening news.
No one knew the connection, aside from they were all girls under twenty and it was spread out enough that investigations were dropped. The deaths, while extremely violent, eventually slowed. Still, nothing could prepare her for the sight of a five year old missing her heart or a twelve year old with a broken neck. Even when Faith told Buffy that she can take the reins and find these girls, Buffy kept going. She needed to know. She needed to see the damage she caused. She changed the world and children were paying for it. There was no excuse for it.
"What you are, how you'll die - alone."
There was a time when she finally came back to the old castle in Scotland they hollowed out into a training facility and headquarters. She remembered a little girl with a face she couldn't quite place anymore. There were so many girls after all, and Buffy couldn't remember every name all the time.
She tried to get to know as many as possible in the beginning, to let them know they weren't alone. But how many were? How many died all alone in just the past few months? There was only so much she could force herself to do. So many tiny faces were in her head now, pale and empty, that she had a hard time picturing the girls still alive other than the same way.
Because they would be, eventually. No stopping it.
She clicked her pen rapidly as she scrolled through her emails, the top message reading 'FWD: Call Log: Travers, M' from Willow. Willow knew Buffy wouldn't actually read it; she would get the update in the morning and prepare for the worst.
"Jesus, B!" a voice boomed from the other side of the room as the overhead light flickered on and caused Buffy to wince. "Who'da thought you'd be the 'sittin' alone in the dark' kinda hero? I gotta say I'm not diggin' the new vibe."
Buffy turned and saw Faith with an irritated scowl and two disposable coffee cups in her hands. The thud of Faith's heeled boots echoed as she walked forward, brunette waves slightly askew and dark makeup smudged and faded as she sipped from one of the cups. She wore the same jean jacket she always did and Buffy guessed there were about two cigarettes left in the pocket next to another empty Bic lighter. Faith looked the way she always looked - like the badass one. The laid back substitute when the teacher was away. The cool aunt.
Buffy never wanted to be the cool aunt; she didn't even want to be the strict mom. Or anything parental in general. She wasn't even sure she ever wanted kids to begin with and it felt like she adopted thousands when she wasn't quite aware of the reason.
Buffy's eyebrows furrowed. "I thought you were in London."
"Flew back with the newbie Watcher and took a walk," said Faith, voice more gravelly than usual and holding out the coffee cup she wasn't drinking from. Buffy hesitantly took it but didn't take a sip.
"You took a walk," Buffy repeated with a flat, incredulous tone. "For four days."
Faith held up and only slightly tipped the cup in her hand in a sort of toast. "I took a walk for three days. You just haven't left Command Central long enough to notice."
Buffy finally took a begrudging drink and released a long, content sigh at the sugary sweet mix of espresso, chocolate, and whipped cream. She didn't take account of the lazy smile that crept onto her face or the fact that her sigh might've been a bit too audible and bit too happy until Faith quirked a dark eyebrow. Buffy cleared her throat. "And exactly how many bars did you stop at on this walk of yours?"
"Three," Faith said, as if expecting the question and still giving Buffy an almost amused look. She pointed at Buffy suddenly before she could reply. "But just the really classy ones, y'know?"
"Uh huh." Buffy took another sip, grateful for the slightly bitter aftertaste to keep her awake. She eyed Faith's cup. "That's why you're drinking - I'm assuming - black coffee? To sober up from all those 'classy' beers?"
"You wouldn't think that's so funny if you met some of these whiny ass beer snobs bragging about IPAs or whatever." Faith downed the rest of the cup and sat down in one of the cheap office chairs, propping her feet up on the desk, right next to Buffy's laptop. "Full disclosure: beer tastes like piss, always has. Whiskey's where it's at. Old Fashions are classy as hell."
Buffy grimaced, remembering the way whiskey would burn down her throat and how, once upon a time, she appreciated that at least she was feeling something. She hadn't touched it again after she stopped sleeping with Spike and maybe that had something to do with it, too. "Classy and gross."
Faith shrugged just one shoulder. "Just like the guys who bought 'em for me."
Buffy scrunched her nose in disgust. "You didn't..."
"Screw 'em? Nah. Just took the drinks and split, thus the three bars and not just the one. Better to avoid the impending bar fights. I'm startin' to think I've grown as a person." Faith eyed the laptop screen. "Any progress?"
Buffy looked at the screen as well with a different type of grimace, the kind where her disgust reared its ugly head her way. She exhaled through her nose and looked down at her cup briefly before looking back up. "...Nope. Nothing."
"Hm." It was almost a bitter sound. Flat. Expected. Even worse, judgmental.
"What?" Buffy asked with a slight scowl that might've been mistaken for confusion. "Why 'hm'?"
Faith went from looking at Buffy to rolling her eyes. There was a definite lack of sincerity when she answered, "Nothin'. No reason."
"Good," Buffy said quickly, her reply cold and unnerved. There was a familiar tension when they looked at each other because it was the same look they gave each other since the very beginning. You still don't get it. You're like me but you're not me.
She turned away and was just about to refresh the page when Faith's voice made her hand freeze and her shoulders tense. "It's just crazy, you know?"
"I don't, actually," Buffy said, an edge in her tone as she side-eyed Faith. "But I'm sure you're gonna tell me."
"It's like...I get it from where you're coming from cause, I mean, it's where I'm coming from. The army didn't stop bein' an army after the war. Suddenly -boom!- there's thousands of super powered little girls fightin' and dyin' in every dark corner of the world." Faith gestured to herself. "And I'm not anyone's parent."
"Which is why you left."
"And why you left, too. Fun fact," Faith snapped back. When Buffy shot her a glare, Faith raised her hands in surrender. "Hey, no judgement. Like I said, I get it. A shitty childhood, a murder spree, and few years at a high security Women's Correctional Facility couldn't even prepare me for all... this ."
Faith gestured around her, which was a nearly empty office but Buffy got what she was really motioning to. All of it. A building funded by a covert government organization on nothing but the word of her ex. A building full of teenagers, mostly those that needed supervision. A new world which her and her friends created with new and bigger problems. Do the problems ever actually get smaller? There were other reasons Faith left but the general ones were easier to process and didn't lead to another fist fight.
"And then, when we barely got enough cash to find these girls, in come the headlines. Kids beating each other to death. Grown ass adults in unexplained accidents." Faith let out this astonished chuckle, like she discovered something and felt stupid for not realizing before - Buffy could only identify that because she did it so often. "Y'know, there was this girl me and Willow found that first year. Skinny, blonde kid with the most obnoxious hillbilly accent. You know how we found her?"
There was a pause. Buffy looked away, back at the screen. She didn't want to know but was too tired to start an argument.
"Covered in blood, damn near hyperventilating. She was holding this knife about the size of her arm and that's when Willow saw this guy bleedin' out. He died a few minutes after that but...he was missing certain bits and pieces and we kinda got the gist of the situation. The mom was too high to even say goodbye to her kid. Guess the rich really don't live all that different, but... That's when I knew I couldn't do this. I couldn't see my mistakes on a frickin' loop for the rest of my life and I damn sure couldn't risk a relapse, not after everything I did."
"Team Alpha was a bad idea," Buffy said and it sounded so disconnected from everything Faith said that she knew it wouldn't be enough. "A team of rehabbed slayers? What the hell were we thinking?"
"I think you mean 'what the hell were you thinking'," Faith corrected. "And I think you were figuring this was better than juvie and they'd lean on each other instead of us, like some demented version of you and your friends. And when that didn't work, you called me."
"More like we - as in all of us - knew there was no forcing them into detention centers or clinics if they didn't want to be there. Their power couldn't go unchecked. Dana alone killed-"
"Dana? You mean the one from LA? Yeah, really can't imagine why a girl who got kidnapped and abused to the point of insanity before becoming a slayer didn't work out," Faith bit back and Buffy knew she crossed a line, but she wasn't quite sure if it was because Buffy automatically associated Faith with a group of slayers specifically here because they were murderers or if it was because Dana initially came here after Angel and his team found her and Buffy went out of her way to make it clear she and Angel were no longer on the same side.
Faith, while much more amiable than she might've been in the past, didn't care much for more than a handful of people. Even Buffy just barely made the list and she was sure that was always subject to change. Another person on that list was Angel.
Buffy never really got past the mere inch - not even an inch, more like a centimeter - of connection Faith and Angel had. It was something not at all romantic but it was also something that Buffy could never really understand. It wasn't enough to do much else but slightly annoy her, but she also knew she had no business being annoyed.
Faith shrugged defensively. "Listen, what I'm gettin' at is I agreed to come back on a trial run with this whole 'let's put all the bad ones together' spiel and the first time I had to stop two of 'em from killing each other, I remembered I wasn't ready for this. I'm not Giles. I can't just tell a bunch of lost kids 'do as I say, not as I do'. I wasn't ready to stop bein' the one makin' the mistakes. So, I left - and I'm guessin' that's why you left, too."
Maybe it was. Maybe that was part of it. The pressure of just raising her sister was more than she could handle; how could she do that with so many?
It was true that not all Slayers stayed after training. A lot of the girls went home, if they had a place and a family waiting. There was no way to house them all forever, despite the girls who had nowhere else to go making this their home. Those were the ones she still remembered by name. The ones that went home...most times, they had their own missions. Their own Watchers. Their own Sunnydales.
She wished there was more preparation for the girls who had to stay. The ones who had no home.
"What is this? A therapy session?" Buffy asked, catching Faith off guard. Buffy was tired, physically and emotionally and beyond basic human being exhaustion. A fatigue that someone approaching their nineties might feel, which was probably why people who did as much as she had typically didn't make it quite that long, even naturally. "Because I really , really doubt you're qualified for that."
"Hey, not a shrink. Only things I'm qualified for involve awesome sex, loads of alcohol, and makin' the best damn grilled cheeses on god's green earth." Faith grinned a crooked, self-satisfied grin. "And kicking more vampire ass than you."
"I'd ask if you were flirting or trying to start an argument but my instincts tell me the answer's yes," Buffy said with a snippy tone. She rubbed her temples to ease the headache she didn't quite have yet. "I can't Mary Poppins the situation and be whatever they need me to be. I can't. I can't stay the same person I was when she-"
"And there's the root and bud of it," Faith cut her off. "She. As in a specific baby slayer. Sounds like you got some serious guilt goin' on."
Buffy rolled her eyes. "Gee, thanks, doctor. Diagnose that all by yourself?"
Faith shrugged a shoulder. "Actually, I rooted through your files when you were sleeping and saw Hayes right at the top. Then I asked Willow and she was pretty upfront about the whole deal. I know you and Maddie are pretty far on the outs these days but damn ."
"It's complicated."
"Complicated cause you treated her like she was your kid for two years or complicated cause her friend went homicidal and died in front of her?"
Buffy stiffened, anger barreling through her. She was beginning to remember why they stopped talking for the umpteenth time as she promptly shut her computer before standing up. "Okay. We're done here."
"Buffy..."
It was always serious if Faith called her Buffy and not 'B' and Buffy hated Faith so much more every time she said it.
"We're done talking," Buffy said, grabbing her laptop. "In fact, the whole speaking to 'each other' thing? On indefinite hiatus. Starting now."
She began to walk away and out of the computer room for the first time in hours but Faith voice caught her off guard. "Whatever, fine, but if I know anything about that girl-"
This made Buffy pause just before she got to the door. There was something familiar in Faith's voice. Regret, maybe. Buffy turned her head slightly, but didn't look back at her.
"- it's no one knows her better than Xander. Before you go all gung-ho, maybe talk to the only person the kid thinks she has left."
Buffy left the room without saying a word, wondering about the time and where Xander even was.
☽ † ☾
Healing was an extensive, exhausting process without Maddie's powers - even just sitting around waiting for the next shoe to drop took an incredible amount out of her.
They didn't know how much time they had to plan but they did. They planned so thoroughly, with Lydia and Stiles working out the details while Scott explained their situation to Deaton, his boss and, oddly enough, an expert in the supernatural. She wondered what he was; if he was anything out of the ordinary or if he was like Xander and Miss Travers - someone who knew what was out there and, despite being more or less human, chose this life.
They planned everyday and even Sadie showed up - but that might've been because Scott tracked her down. Still, she came on her own every other day after the first day.
Maddie wasn't sure if Sadie should be there and it was grating to hear her backhanded commentary in lieu of actual advice. She didn't yet know if she could grow to like Sadie or even tolerate her; getting to know the girl was like fighting a bull. Nothing she said ever seemed quite as genuine as the person she heard singing and throwing jabs at Caleb in the depths of Sunnydale. The shadow cast over her face that night was worn as a badge of honor from a life of horrors and revenge. Any other day, it was hidden behind the mask of a pretty blonde girl with a bitter sense of humor.
Derek and his pack showed up. The first day it was only Isaac, who seemed to be on better terms with Scott as of late and Maddie wondered what exactly she missed being out of school for just a day. The following days, Boyd and Erica arrived wearing similar pensive expressions and standing further from the group than everyone else.
It was becoming a decent sized group and, when they talked to Deaton the night before, even Maddie's worst cuts and bruises were fading. Whatever was navigating its way through her bloodstream didn't have quite as much effect on her healing, which was little relief but at least it was something. When they arrived at the Veterinary Clinic on Thursday afternoon, Deaton had the ashes in his possession.
Deaton was a peculiar man. He knew that Scott, his Veterinary Assistant, was a werewolf but no one quite knew what Deaton was. She remembered him from the night they spent trapped in the school, being tended to by an EMT and grateful to Scott for saving him. She also recalled Scott and Stiles whispering about Scott's boss being the Alpha and trying to kill them and while it wasn't true, Maddie couldn't find it in her to trust a man that knew so much and yet shared so little.
"These aren't just ashes," he started, looking around at the huddled group of teenagers. "These are consecrated Turok'han remains. Purified by the very weapon that killed them."
"The Scythe?" Maddie asked, revisting the memory of the weapon in her hands and the peace it brought, like it belonged to her. Of course, it wasn't the real Scythe; that was Buffy's. She folded her arms and tried not to think about it.
Deaton shook his head. "The Slayer Scythe is pure power but it wouldn't leave a trail. Magic did this."
"Is that something you would know about, Doc?" Sadie asked, leaning casually against the metal tabletop.
Deaton didn't seem to acknowledge this and went on. "The thing that consecrated the Turok'hans killed thousands of them in seconds. Only a handful of weapons could purify an area as quick as concentrated sunlight."
"Like a daylight spell?" Maddie asked. She decided to ignore the strange looks she earned.
Deaton shook his head. "It's something more than that - there's fragments of lore about a piece of jewelry that can do this. An amulet that burns out any sort of...tainted energy. The light that comes from it is triggered by the champion that wears it. It's essentially a bomb of daylight and good intent."
Sadie blinked. "That honestly sounds horrifying."
"What do you mean 'champion'?" Scott asked, his dark brows drawing towards each other.
"Like a chosen one, but more than that," Deaton said. "Our earliest texts involving them date back to some of the first recorded writings. Sumerians essentially considered them prophesied heroes fighting for humanity in the end times."
"And that's a real thing?" Stiles asked, his eyes lighting up a bit like she was just told all his favorite superheroes existed.
"Who knows." Deaton gave barely a shrug. Everything about the man seemed muted and careful and it made Maddie wonder how much she could trust him. "Considering the gateway to a hell dimension about sixty miles south of here, who can say?'
Scott looked over at his boss. "We wouldn't need something like that for the spell, would we?"
"Not at all," Deaton said and it was the first thing he'd said all night that actually sounded reassuring. "Whoever killed them just saved you a lot of time and spellwork. These ashes were cleansed and consecrated on contact. The next step is to charge them with the energy needed to reinforce a barrier."
"How are ashes charged with anything?" Lydia asked as her skepticism more than likely began to eat away at her again.
"Well, a magically inclined person would have to charge them with one of the four elements," replied Deaton.
"Were any of the Hales magic users?" Maddie asked.
Deaton shook his head slightly. "But if the element and ingredients used are strong enough, even the magically inept could cast a spell. The violence and suffering inflicted on the Hales by Kate Argent had in it enough energy that Talia and Peter could complete it, if not for a substantial amount of time."
"So, if we had a magic user or a witch, this could last?" Maddie asked Deaton before turning to Sadie.
"Depending on proficiency and the element used, it could last possibly for centuries," Deaton said from behind Maddie.
Maddie narrowed her eyes on Sadie but didn't speak directly to her. "She'll do the spell-"
Sadie snorted and gave Maddie an incredulous look. "Uh, no she won't."
"You're a vengeance demon." Maddie said it like everyone knew what that meant. She didn't commit a lot of demonology to memory but knew that Vengeance Demons were one of the few that weren't born as demons. Willow explained during one of her lessons that they were recruited due to some terrible thing they did beforehand and usually with magic. "Find a way."
"Hold on just a sec-"
"Do you really think there'd be vampires this close to breaking that barrier or that Allison would be this much of a danger to everyone and herself if you hadn't granted that stupid wish?" Maddie spent so much time holding all of that in but she wasn't sure if it was her current state of mind that made it come out so easily. "You made this mess and we're offering you an out."
"God, I hate it when you get all preachy," Sadie said with a roll her eyes. "Whatever, fine. If it'll save me from a very big vampire-related headache, I'll do it."
☽ † ☾
The thing was, it wasn't supposed to be like this.
For nearly a half hour, they stood there at the edge of the woods but just inside the town limits. Peter, Derek, and his pack circled the town for the better half of the afternoon, laying the ashes down in a thin line - so thin in some places that it was almost invisible just to make sure the ashes they had were enough. Beacon Hills was in no way a big town but it still left them scrounging for whatever extra they could gather from Stiles' jeep.
They waited for Sadie.
And waited, and waited.
Maddie imagined the girl's shadow shifting through the trees and she could almost hear the sound of annoyed footsteps breaking twigs.
Almost.
She didn't actually hear any of that. There was the brush of leaves in the distance and the skitter of small animals could be mistaken for footsteps. It never got closer and no shadows in the trees formed into a real person. The murmurs that came with the night were all she could hear.
It was only then that every moment began to feel like sinking in quicksand.
They waited in a huddled group at the edge of the woods, the last lingering remnants of winter still biting at the tips of Maddie's fingers and nose. Brand new leaves danced in the cool breeze as their branches swayed. It was only beginning to smell like life blooming again; it was faint, the cold, dry air masking everything. In the morning, it'll be warm, she thought. Everything would be alive and she wouldn't need to wear her leather jacket at all despite the fact that she would anyway. In the daytime, life would break free. Tonight, the cold felt like a threat. Death stalking them.
The shadows of the trees no longer felt like trees. They made no sound but Maddie swore they kept shifting.
Scott said something but Maddie didn't catch it. She didn't ask either, allowing Lydia to answer instead but it all sounded far off and somewhere beyond the sound of static - a sound she associated with her mind being outside of her body, beyond her reality. She was thinking instead about Sadie lying about showing up and the words she said so long ago, words that suddenly seemed to rhyme with her mounting doubts.
"I'm not your problem yet."
"What do we do?"
It was a question on the wind, maybe her paranoia. She wished she was wearing that cross, Buffy's cross, instead of stuffing it in her pocket. She would need to fix the chain or buy a new one. At the same time, the idea of wearing it felt like a mask, a joke, a lie . It wasn't hers. It shouldn't even exist.
"Maddie."
The voice pulled her out of her stupor. Stiles, Scott, and Lydia were all in the distance and Erica stood in front of her, wide, dark eyes so much like hers - exhausted, and so full of fear. Boyd stood a distance away, his steady, worried gaze on Erica. Derek made no mention of reconvening here, over encumbered with his own battles, battles Maddie would join soon enough but couldn't bear to think of now.
"You shou-" Maddie stopped, swallowing the words at the look on Erica's face. You shouldn't be here. "What are you doing here?"
Erica wasn't looking at her anymore. "Boyd and I are leaving. We're supposed to be long gone by now, actually, but I was..." She sighed and it was a harsh sound. "Do you remember the day we met?"
Maddie didn't speak but nodded carefully, not knowing if this was the time to talk.
The memory Erica might've been wondering about felt like years ago, a lifetime. Guilt unhinged it's jaw and opened wide in her stomach. She wasn't sure why she stopped and helped Erica but something inside her echoed back the terror of being alone and surrounded, then the rage which always followed.
It reminded Maddie of a time when home was a family in Illinois she'd never see again and how she wouldn't stop crying. It reminded her even more of when home was one person in the whole world when everyone else thought she was nothing. A broken girl on the floor, never asking for a hand because asking and finding no one was so much worse.
Maybe Erica was never the one she was trying to save.
"You know, I really didn't want your help," Erica said with a humorless laugh. She eyed Maddie as if she was trying to find something. "It was just another day, and this new girl just barged in and talked to people I never had the guts to talk to. She fit in with them like it was nothing. You talked to my crush everyday and you were part of this group without even trying. And then you saved me."
It was just another day.
Maddie had a flash of a memory - of Scottish moors and Reese's cups.
"I mean, I thanked you and you asked to be my partner during gym not too long after that, but..." Erica shrugged her shoulders and kept going. "I couldn't help it. I dunno, I guess I...kind of hated you. Nothing you could've done. I was just so mad."
A wide toothy smile and a scrunched up freckled nose entered Maddie's head, as if it ever left, and it was as big and made of pain as a truck hitting her head on, starting with her chest and causing a ripple of bone crunching agony through her whole body.
"Why do you always come out here?"
"To get away from you."
I was just so mad.
"I just wanted to say I get it now. I think that's why I'm here. I can't just...leave without doing anything. Someone showed me that standing by and doing nothing is worse. I just want you to know before we leave that I meant it, even if I didn't want to back then."
Maddie furrowed her brows, climbing up through much older memories to unlock the meaning.
Erica closed her eyes for a moment like she was building herself up. When she opened her eyes, she said in a whisper, "Thank you."
Maddie felt the corner of her lip quirk upward. "If it helps, I'll let you in on a secret."
It was Erica's turn to look confused. Her perfectly arched brows lowered on her forehead.
Maddie swallowed and lowered her voice, hoping that Boyd wasn't paying attention and Scott was too busy being Scott to listen in. "I kinda hate me too."
Erica's expression crumbled before she masked it again quickly but she said nothing. There was nothing to say.
And for a second, as they parted ways, everything made sense.
When the silence returned, the shadows loomed and Maddie noticed the sudden grimace on the faces of the wolves she stood beside.
"What's that smell?" Boyd asked, gagging on his words.
Scott recovered first, concern on his face as his eyes started to glow gold. "A dead body. Something's here."
The shadows shifted again in the moonlight. Maddie blinked but they kept moving. Something thick and heavy in her chest opened as the sense of being surrounded began to overwhelm her.
There were no twigs snapping.
She didn't even hear the leaves rustle.
It was walking the halls of Sunnydale high school all over again, the shadows reaching for her even when she couldn't see their hands. It was knowing there was something so close, ready to drag you to hell.
Maddie thought she heard Erica growl nearby but the gutteral sound grew louder and higher in a shrill, agonizing scream so close that it pounded against her eardrums. It was at the tail end of the noise that she smelled burning flesh. It was at the tail end of the scream that they heard another. The second one came from beyond the trees and nearly sounded like the word 'help'.
Maddie didn't expect the third scream when it came from right beside her, half yelp and half muffled roar. She turned immediately and Erica already vanished.
"They're trying to get in! Hold them off!" Scott shouted, but as she turned to where he'd been standing, there was only a shadowing ebbing away.
She meant to run forward. She was ready to bolt out and help them. By the time her legs began to move, something had slithered over her mouth, clasping tightly across it as she realized it was a thin, pale hand. Another hand tightened like a vice on her upper arm and she heard a hissing in her ear. "Shhh."
The hand on her arm spun her around as she began to struggle and was met with the pale blue of a woman's wide, hollow eyes. The hand left her mouth and she was about to shout or move but her body was frozen.
Maddie swore she heard the woman say something, her accent inviting and sticking in her ears, but the words didn't make sense.
She held the woman's gaze, unable to look away as if kanima venom paralyzed her once again. This was different, though - whatever this happened to be was taking her mind as well. Something about this felt familiar; it felt like a warning she already received over and over again in her earliest nightmares.
The field beyond the woods sounded riotous. Maddie could've sworn she heard someone calling for her, like in her dreams. A manic, desperate sound. "Maddie!"
There was a sharp pain on the back of her head as the woman and the world around her faded from view.
☽ † ☾
The shadows softened as the waning moon was sheathed in thick clouds. She was moving but it wasn't her moving. Her legs were limp. Her whole body was slack.
Maddie didn't remember the amount of time between the attack and now. The spring night came and went in time with the tightening vice in her head.
When she was sure she was awake, it was on a stone floor covered in a thin layer of loose dirt and gravel. The light was dim and a deep autumn orange. Her head ached wildly, pulsing where she felt the sharp pain before. Her eyes were bleary and unfocused but the one thing she could make out were the shadows surrounding her.
She coughed, throat dry and mouth full of dirt. She wanted to go back to sleep, to let her body rest, but something greater kept her awake.
Who called out to her?
The question jolted her alert as she sucked in a breath and hacked up more dirt.
The room smelled of rot and iron and firewood, with something damp and moldy underneath. Equal parts sewer and mausoleum, which only confirmed that she was underground. She began to push herself up but her left side was on fire. Pain tore through her as she touched the side underneath her jacket and felt the shredded cloth of her shirt and equally torn up skin. Friction burn. A hot cheese grater to her ribs, tearing skin like wet paper. Had they dragged her all the way here?
More importantly, who did this?
The shadows didn't move but their eyes reflected the little light around them in the unnatural way of a cat's. She saw a flash of silver in the dim light as something landed in front of her with a loud clang. She recognized the celtic symbols on the handle of her ax immediately and felt a familiarity in the moment.
She grabbed the weapon, her greatest and maybe her only lifeline, and tried again to get up.
When she finally got to her feet, unsteady as she was, she looked up with her weapon raised already as if she was looking to pick up where she left off and fight.
The shadows had faces. They didn't speak, didn't breathe or flinch. They watched her, a caged and wounded beast in their trap. There was an awe to it but also an eagerness. It took her another second to realize they all had the same ridged, sloping brow and eyes the color of hard boiled yolk. Their mouths could barely close, probably due to the elongated canines. Maddie started to understand that it was eagerness on their faces as much as insatiable hunger.
Her weapon was still raised as she spun around and something worse than pain sunk into her bones.
Finality. Hopelessness.
She wavered and hesitated as she tried to keep a defensive stance. Counting all the vampires in the room was making her dizzy and she stopped when she reached about thirteen. She spun a little and stumbled despite herself. Even when she stopped, the room kept moving and it was only as she took a shaky breath that she noticed one vampire that didn't look like the rest.
There was a man sitting in a rocking chair in front of a tunnel of unending darkness. He was large and round with a long, dark beard and beady eyes - not the eyes she saw earlier. His white slacks were clean and his black and brown leather vest was a patchwork throughout. He hummed something low she couldn't identify but he looked so pleased with himself as he smiled at her and the humming turned to laughter.
"It appears we've found ourselves a stray," he said in a rough and unmistakably southern accent.
She thought for a second he said they found themselves astray , but that couldn't be right.
"Here you are. The Slayer." He said it like it was a sacred word, with awe and righteousness. "The watcher of the light and the darkness. The mythic warrior sent to cast us down, to smite the wicked that crawl from the Earth. You are legend. A killer of killers one might say."
She swallowed, her ax still tight in her grip and her muscles tense.
The man stood and there was a shift from the shadows around her. "And - oh! - how we used to fear you...cowerin' in sewers and tombs at the thought of a child come to bring us into the light of day."
Something solid and heavy took Maddie out at the knees, her ax falling from her grip, and even as she looked around from the ground, she couldn't tell what did it. Laughter traveled around the shadowed figures and her vision went back to the man as she tried to haul herself back up. She managed to snarl out, "Who are you?"
He laughed; it was a kind laugh, full of bittersweet nostalgia. The type that a grandfather would have just before a story of a time so long forgotten. A bead of sweat trailed down Maddie's forehead and the bridge of her nose, the stillness becoming a new vice.
"Not a minute and already askin' the wrong questions. Lookin' at the wrong side of things." His voice was a murmur that crawled into her ear and nested in her brain. It was low and full of gravel, but with a sort of melody to it. "She was right about you. She told us so much."
Maddie's broken body was screaming in pain but she started to push herself up again. This made the man smile, which was hardly visible through his dark beard aside from the sight of his eyes becoming slits in his face and apple cheeks making him look like Santa Claus. He knelt down to meet her at eye level.
"Strength. That's who you are. Roped muscle on thin bone." His smile faded for the most part and his eyes grew wide.
Pale, watery blue , she noted, as she sucked in a sharp, agonizing breath. Like the doll eye.
He gently took one of the hands she was using to push herself up and looked at it for a moment as she tried to tug it away. He yanked it hard and her other arm buckled as he abruptly let go, making her crumble to the dirt again. He was still watching her with keen interest. "Broken twigs. But you, little one, you know the secret. They heal stronger when you break 'em. How many times have you been broken?"
She slowly craned her neck to look at the man.
"Or do I have it wrong?" he asked, something sinister crawling into his voice. "Are you the one who does the breakin'?"
Maddie coughed and got up to her elbows.
"How many times did you hit the bag? One? Four?" He placed a boot on her shoulder as she went face down again.
The gravel pressed into her cheek and the pressure on the joint began to stretch her arm from its socket. He talked like he'd watched her all her life, like he knew the punching bag was the first place she's go. That hitting something again and again was cathartic.
But it was more than that.
"Fingers bruisin', it's thick skin splittin' wide. Did they scream?"
Her mind went to a place she didn't want to see. She remembered the first time she broke a punch bag and watched the sand drain from the cut in the material. It reminded her of blood flowing and pooling on the ground.
Pressure increased from the boot and it was never as obvious how weak she became. How frail. She never wanted so much cry for herself and she wondered if it was her stubbornness that left her eyes dry.
"Beat it bloody until it stops movin'. No one can stop you. Not now."
He played it on a reel for everyone to see, she was sure of it, and they could watch the only memory buried deeper than Marie's death. She remembered a girl on the ground and her tiny fist raised as her classmates huddled around, screaming at her. Why didn't they ever scream like that when she was on the ground with fist speeding towards her?
Was she the bad kid?
"She won't hurt you again!" his voice was gaining volume with each word and it frightened her as much as it sounded like she felt. Her voice could be angry but it could never show the full extent of her rage. More than anything, that's where her terror came from; she was hearing thoughts she remembered having - and they felt like justice. She.
Even when she remembered her bully's mangled face and labored breath, it felt like justice. The purpling skin and the fresh, thick blood, a hit for everyday she went to school afraid. Something new breathing in her ear, guiding her tiny hands.
Why couldn't she stop?
Burning, seething pain ripped through her shoulder.
His voice was the beast in her head as it boomed and echoed. "Never! Again!"
His foot pressed hard and that arm, that same arm she dislocated her first night in Beacon Hills, popped agonizingly out of its socket.
"STOP IT!" Maddie screamed, so shrill it was an animal cry, and she wasn't sure if it was to relieve the pain shredding through her skin or to make the man quiet.
"Maybe that's it." He grinned, his arms open wide as if gesturing to everything horrible thing she'd ever done like they were on display. Darkness ate at the edges of her vision and he doubled and tripled in her blurry sight. "Maybe you think your sins just don't count! Maybe you think you're free from judgement! Oh, but Judgement has its eyes on you."
There was a scream, something strangled and guttural, so similar to hers. The kind of sound that was only edged with fear, but with something stronger cutting its way through with a serrated edge. The shadows weren't fazed by the sounds; no one in the room looked away from her despite the heavy smell of copper in the air.
"It can see all you did and how far you ran. Through moors and alleys and fields of bodies. Through years, just tryin' to escape the darkness," the man said, his voice echoing in a way Maddie didn't quite understand. Like he wasn't just in front of her, but he was the shadows themselves. If she could see their faces, would they all be the same person? The mix of the drugs coursing through her blood and the half-there uncertainty of waking up after being knocked out combined with pain bigger than anything made everything she knew into a question. "Yet here you are. What an honor ."
There was a reverence in his voice but all Maddie heard was the mocking tone under it. It was enough to make her try and get up again, muscles aching in her one good arm and streaks of blood rolling down her side, staining her shirt and her jeans and dripping to the ground. There was a small puddle of it now, near black in the dim light and thick, surrounded by star-like spatters. How much was she losing? And, with that much blood, why weren't they attacking already?
No one stopped her this time from standing, despite it taking much longer; they just watched like they were waiting for something to happen. She was on her knees and taking labored, scratchy breaths.
"Death comes for us all but now the devil is knocking on your door, Madeline!" The shock of her name didn't seem to just jolt through her but her shadows surround her. They began cheering and hands raised to the sky as the man in the center of her vision lifted his head up and spread out his arms. A low chuckle turned into boisterous laughter, something joyous.
As it rang in her ears, the sound grated like nails scraping slowly down the length of a chalkboard and she wanted it to stop so much that she thought of screaming again.
Her head, her side, her shoulder, her...everything ached as if they swelled against her bones, pulsing in the noise.
Even as the chanting and raving quieted and the man's laughter faded back to something soft and slow, it didn't completely stop until he reached out a leather gloved hand that only covered the bottom of his palm and his thumb and grabbed a handful of her hair. He hauled her up and she felt the roots and skin pull against each other, her legs kicking, scrambling for the ground to lift herself up and ease the pain.
Maddie was eye level with the man, jaw set as she kept in the signs of agony that she could hide. There was a violence in his eyes. He took joy in searching for a sign that she couldn't handle this and spoke again, so kindly and so gently. "And even the bravest rat can only outrun the snake's fangs for so long."
She did all she could to stay on her feet, despite their unsteadiness. If she crumbled, his grip could tear her hair from the scalp if he wanted to. He was close and smelled like decay and blood, smiling with shockingly white teeth. There was a pause in the sound, as if the other creatures in the room were waiting for something - maybe to snap her neck and drain her, maybe something slower. Maybe they'd keep her conscious to feel the life draining from her.
There was nowhere to run. Realistically, she wasn't looking to run.
She wasn't Marie. She couldn't take out even half of the vampires she could see. She'd be dead in seconds, especially without her strength or speed to back her up.
Still, she knew she'd take a few to hell with her. That'd be something.
Maddie spit in his face and the saliva landed under his eye, dripping down his cheek. It was something so sudden that his smile faltered for a moment. He wiped it off with a free hand and looked down at it.
In the moment he looked away, she reached in her pocket and gripped the top of Buffy's cross. As quickly as she could, she pulled it out of her pocket and stabbed the long end into the arm which was holding onto her, piercing the skin and searing it from the inside.
He yelped and she could hear the undertone of something roaring. It was small but the added burn of the cross loosened his grip enough for her to stumble back.
She was falling already.
With nothing left to lose, she shot out her legs forward, drop-kicking the man's shins out from under him and taking him to the ground as well.
She landed on her upper back first and rolled backward in a quick somersault and landed unsteadily on her knees as her useful hand found her ax again.
She breathed heavy and every breath was a knife slicing open her ribs, but adrenaline made it easier to ignore.
The furious growls came from the shadows as they quickly began closing in.
The man laughed again and the sound caught Maddie off guard. He got back to his feet, mouth split wide in a smile and hand raised. "You were right!"
Maddie's resolve faltered as the creatures that all now had faces stopped. They all wore the face of the demon, fangs bared and foreheads ridged and yellow eyes gleaming. She still held her weapon tight, about to strike while they stayed put, but then the man spoke again.
"She is quite the troublemaker."
"Right?" a light, feminine voice echoed, a smugness in her tone. "The cross thing was pretty clever, I gotta say. Didn't expect that."
A face seemed to form in the darkness, all fair skinned and golden haired. If she didn't know better, she would've guessed she was hallucinating, but the girl's hair wasn't in curls and her voice lacked that unmistakable drawl, the rounded edges at the end of every sentence.
The voice was familiar but not like Marie's. It had a sharp, sarcastic tone that lacked any seriousness whatsoever. She could remember hearing her singing.
The shadows on her face dissipated as she stepped further into light and Maddie didn't feel shock, just another disappointment.
"Bitch," Maddie immediately shot at Sadie.
Sadie laughed. "She's a spitfire, alright. Not too good with comebacks, though."
Maddie couldn't think about her pain, even when it was making it nearly impossible to get up without falling back down. She couldn't think about it because she was too busy thinking about her friends, waiting for Sadie in a field and an ambush just inside the barrier. Was anyone else attacked? Were they all dead?
She struggled but went right from standing to a stumbling stride over to Sadie. It was tunnel vision, completely - everything else didn't exist but, gods , did she want to punch Sadie. It only made the vampire's words more concrete.
Sadie smiled at this and, in the fraction of the time it took for Maddie to rear back her fist, grabbed Maddie's throat and threw her across the room. The sea of shadows shifted and parted.
Her shoulder hit the opposite wall hard, harder than it hit the Alpha months ago. Her disjointed arm flailed no matter how she tried to shield it and the pain silenced everything in her.
There was something slightly muted about the word 'pain' - it never sounded nearly as horrible as it felt. The word never even touched the feeling. It was more than the word; it was cutting and aching and shattering and tearing , all of them at once as she flopped to the ground in a heap, face down. She wasn't all that sure she could get up.
The smell of copper was strong and she knew it was coming from her.
She felt the hungry stares in the unnatural reflection of a dozen sets of eyes.
They didn't move. Not a step or a shuffle forward. A half-dead, weakened slayer was at their feet and they didn't do a thing about it. The part that made it alarm Maddie the most was the way it felt forced, like dogs being told to sit and stay for the reward of table scraps.
It wasn't a choice. It was obedience.
"Um, hello?" Sadie said somewhere ahead of her but not to her. To the vampire who was speaking before. "You got what you wanted. Make with the killing or maiming or whatever."
"I heard vengeance demons were known for their innovative tortures, but apparently not for their planning. You, Sadira, cannot see the grand scheme," the vampire said almost conversationally. "How shortsighted of you, but I suppose your kind's brand of revenge has always lacked foresight."
"Could you quit it with the psychic shit?" Sadie snapped back. "Also, keep your big picture. Some of us have to make a living on the human level."
He paused but Maddie could hear the smile when he spoke again. " 'Make a living'. Slayers. Demons. Good. Evil. You all...equate it to a business, don't you? A neat little slot to detach when needed. You do it for a pay off, a price! There is no freedom in it! You..."
There was a pause and his voice echoed for a second.
"Both of you find solace in...the distance you create. The person and the monster. This isn't what you wanted, but you're here all the same. You revel in your loss and wait for the prize in your struggle, the day when the monster dies or the beast swallows the little girl whole. A glorious end. A finish line."
There was a sigh.
"The tragedy is that you know the end already. The silence."
Sadie wasn't talking and Maddie could hardly see her face. Her eyes were narrowed on the man and it was clear she was biting back some remark.
"You have no idea of the joy you could find in the brutality. The passion for what you do, what you are," the man went on, a horrible sort of sympathy in his voice. "Demons. Monsters, great and small. We are all killers and simple humanity left us long ago. There is a camaraderie in that. A connection. Now, I am just a cog in a greater machine but that machine will fail. The clock is striking midnight and the true beast will bring it's army."
"Could you be any more vague?" Sadie asked.
"Stand her up."
There was another sigh, this time from Sadie, and a pause.
All at once, Maddie's whole body went rigid, arms pinned to her side, legs rail straight and together like they were magnets. She began to lift from the ground like a giant mechanical claw had grabbed her, only when she was a few feet up, she was rotated until her body was vertical again. The pressure didn't let up and her body stayed frozen just inches above the ground.
She could finally see Sadie and the large man in front of her. Sadie's hand was extended and her fingers were splayed, keeping Maddie in midair without touching her.
The vampire walked over to Maddie, hands behind his back. He leaned in a bit and his smile faded. "The end draws near. The Apocalypse will come for mortals most of all, but you especially."
Maddie could hardly move her head but a chill managed to run spider-like up her spine. Her eyes darted to Sadie, who wasn't looking back but instead at the man. Her brows were slightly drawn into the center of her forehead. It was like hearing it on a loop. Maddie had a flash of Caleb's face in her head, smiling as it began to split in the middle.
"The Apocalypse will come for all of you!"
The apocalypse. The end of the world.
It couldn't be a coincidence.
She might've thought it was part of a plan the two monsters in front of her made together, if not for the flash of panic and disbelief on Sadie's face.
"The angel with the burnt wings cometh! A dragon at the precipice of a new world! The catalyst! Each to bring forth the thing that will bring us all to ruin!" His voice got louder and louder with each word but after the last, he drew a shuddering breath. Something in the way he looked, wild eyed and full of rage, gave way to something deeper - there was fear there. His voice was low when he spoke again. "The Fire Starter. A beast bearing three heads and you will know them all by name."
There was so much happening that Maddie couldn't discern the words. Nothing about this made sense and she wasn't sure that it would even if she wasn't in a massive amount of agony and could barely stay awake. Still, the shadows began whispering at the mention of 'fire starter'. It sounded like they were frantically praying to a god that no longer could hear them.
"There will be nowhere left to hide, no place to fight back against the tide thanks to your pets," he growled. "You know now, don't you? You know how that bitch and her pups saved their precious town."
Maddie's teeth clenched and one fist balled even though she knew she wouldn't be able to shut him up even if she had full motor function of her limbs.
"That, Madeline, is where you become essential to the cause," he said, a fervor overcoming his tone. "You seek to use the ashes of our ancestors to banish us from our home. You protect usurpers and blasphemers from death with death on the word of a murderer. Our hallowed ground was taken from us and now you punish us for taking it back."
"You'll kill everyone," Maddie started, a defeated rasp, her throat on fire. It hurt to speak, to even take a breath in.
"Well, I would think that obvious. What's a home without a hot meal on the table every evening?" He chuckled, probably at her struggling more than what she said. "But while death can make an unnatural ward to keep us away, it'll never last. That town was meant for us and only life will give it back."
He was looking her in the eye but a glaze came over his stare as it went to her neck.
It dawned on her at that moment, why she was there but not dead. There was a sinking feeling in her bones.
"The holy mother has shared with us many things - among them, the power in slayer's blood. While I haven't tried it myself, I hear it is quite the drug. Of course, I wouldn't be taking it to feed some sort of curiosity, no...The blood of a slayer can put an end to this. It will protect our family in the end times and bring us to the power that is rightfully ours. Your blood, Madeline, will destroy the wall between us and our home."
"You know, that's kind of poetic," Sadie said and Maddie didn't bother to look over. "Working almost to death to prevent something even when your death is the one thing that can start it. Gotta appreciate a classic."
"Who said anything about death?" the vampire asked not bothering to look back at Sadie either. Something hollow began to expand in Maddie's stomach. "We will use your blood to take back the beacon, but we don't offer death. We offer life . When the war comes, we will, of course, need a warrior to lead our people to salvation. Your humanity has been nothing but a burden and we will set you free from it. In its ending, we will give you the violence you crave and the family you so desperately want."
He said it like it was the offer of a lifetime, like it was a gift.
Maddie's stomach lurched as she swallowed, staying silent.
"Loosen your grip," he ordered and it must've taken Sadie a second to realize he was talking to her, as there was an extended pause before the pressure on Maddie's limbs eased a little.
It was almost like he wanted her consent to murder her, like there was a chance she'd agree.
"Now, I would prefer not to force my hand," he said. "Every member of our family has chosen to be here long before their hearts stopped beating. Then again, it would be fair to say that you don't have quite the same options as they did."
The long silence filled the air as every pair of eyes turned to Maddie. It was incredible to witness and, beyond that, laughable. Laughing seemed unlikely at the moment though as the world outside this moment began to fade from her. She knew what was happening and knew she wouldn't have much longer despite her answer.
They wanted her blood. She was going to die.
She wasn't going to make it easy, though.
"Go to hell," Maddie spat, her voice a low growl.
The grip around her limbs tightened again, and then even tighter than before. It felt as though her bones were bending in, on the brink of breaking. There was a grip around her throat that made her gasp for air.
The vampire held up a hand to Sadie, a gesture that made the pressure on Maddie's throat wane slightly. He gestured again, but to the shadows watching on the right.
There was shuffling and grunting and a cry of pain which brought a miserable thought into Maddie's head. She'd forgotten about the scream she heard earlier.
A slight divide in the wall of creatures brought two figures to light: a large, scarred man with a sunken face and a blackened eye socket where an eye would've been otherwise. The eye he did have was yellow, but by the time Maddie could study him he'd already thrown the other figure into the center of the room.
The vampire in front of Maddie beckoned to the crowd again. "Sister Lilith, if you could see to our guest..."
Maddie wasn't paying attention to the crowd anymore though. There was a crying man with short black hair on the ground now, face full of purple and red and hands tied behind his back. Tears streamed down his cheeks and to the ground in tiny, dark spots. He wore all black but his long sleeve shirt was torn and there were already bite marks on his neck under a strong jawline. He was skinny but also lean, someone bred to fight. This was most likely his first loss, but that was the problem with fighting monsters - one loss was all it took.
From the blockade of shadows, came something bright and pale that caught Maddie's eye. Her stare darted to bright spot and saw a girl. Her hair was just as fair as her skin, almost white, and went almost all the way down her back. Her clothes were white but tattered and her feet were bare and blackened on the bottom. The only other dark spots on her were her eyes, despite being a pale grey, which were rimmed and shadowed in black, like two massive bruises. It was like studying what was once a beautiful piece of art that perhaps was once full of color. Like a ghost, floating through delicately, looking for something she lost long ago.
She stepped quietly over to the man on the floor and shushed him before she began humming. Like watching a memory through a fun house mirror, similar but distorted. She gently set him upright, rubbing his arm like it was a comfort.
The man, the vampire with no name, finally took his attention from Maddie and directed it to the man on the floor. "Hello, friend."
He cried harder; he knew what was coming.
"I apologize for Brother Paul. He can be... over-enthusiastic around newcomers," he said with an alarming sincerity. "What might we call you?"
There was a pause and the girl whispered in the crying man's ear which made his shoulders shake more.
"Come now. We ain't gettin' any younger." The southern vampire's smile drooped. "Course, we ain't gettin' any older either, so..."
A few vampires chuckled, while Maddie swam in the absurdity of laughter and intense sobs intertwining around her and how similar they sounded against the stone and concrete.
Again the girl whispered in his ear and the man's face crumpled. The silence continued just a moment longer before he finally said, "H-harper, sir."
" Sir . I like that!" the vampire laughed. "Thank you, Harper! How very kind of you. What brought you to the woods tonight, if you don't mind my asking?"
There was the space of a breath in the answer, like the rest. A sort of defeated compliance Maddie couldn't quite blame him for.
"Hunting," Harper said, panic rising in his quiet voice. "We were hunting, but-"
"Of course you were!" Suddenly, the vampire gestured to the frail man. "You see, Harper is a hunter but not just any hunter. He works for the Argents. "
There was more raucous laughter and a few amused 'oohs' like they were talking about the bogeyman as Harper sobbed and hyperventilated on the floor.
"Tell me, Harper - is this the life you imagined for yourself? Hunting werewolves?" he asked, stroking his wiry beard. "You must've had a dream before this."
Maddie didn't understand where the question came from and, if not for her own immense pain, might've put more thought into it.
Harper sputtered, eyes darting.
"Come on, now! Time's a wastin'!" the vampire shouted over the stuttering hunter.
"I don't know! I'm sorry! I..." Heaving sobs. The sounds of a dying animal.
"You what? "
Harper's voice began quivering again. The way his eyes darted, Maddie could tell he was out of options, of ways out and away from this. Thinking about it, of any life outside of the dangers of whatever oaths he swore to Gerard Argent probably never felt as distant as it did now. "I just got my degree."
It was a quiet confession. The kind that died halfway in his throat. A world of possibility dying with it.
"My word!" the vampire shouted, his southern accent drawling. "We've got ourselves a college man! And what is your degree in, son?"
He didn't respond at first and Maddie appreciated his attempted stoicism. He was trying. If nothing else, he was trying.
The girl, Lilith, pouted and dug her nails into his skin, her skeletal fingers disappearing up to her knuckles. Rings of red gushed around them and began to drip down his shirt and to the floor. He screamed and she smiled.
"Stop, please! Oh god, stop!" The words stopped being words after that. Just mangled sound.
"Answer the question," the bearded man said slowly, with emphasis on each word.
Harper shouted something that might've been 'social work', the second word cracking in the middle and becoming a rasp. He was hyperventilating, muscles seizing everytime Lilith moved her finger around. "I wanted to help. Please..I just wanted to...."
Lilith's hand slid out of the wound a little, a deep, dark red against ivory.
"That's unfortunate," Sadie quipped, despite the lack of humor in her tone.
"Do you hear that? He just wanted to help!" The vampire's tone was sarcastic as he shouted the words to the shadows around him. "Just a good young man with a bright future, looking to help children . Tell us, Harper, were you out lookin' for wolves tonight?"
Maddie looked up at the man, her mouth a thin line and her eyes narrowed. He was already eyeing her, vision clearing an infinitesimal amount. He knew what the answer would be already, just like Maddie did.
"Do not come back to the house. Do not go to school."
"Say it, boy."
"Gerard knows you've been weakened."
"I can't. Please..."
"I have reason to believe he and his group of hunters were looking for more than just the wolves last night."
"SAY. IT."
Maddie looked back down as Lilith pierced his skin deeper and she heard something snap. He shrieked in a way that was no longer human as Maddie noticed a slight movement under his skin, just beside the trickles of blood, like she was...
Like she was curling her fingers, nails scratching from the inside.
Harper screamed and it came out in a sob. "If we found a wolf, we had to kill it but...but there were higher priorities..."
The bearded vampire made a 'hm' noise, as if the screams of this man on the ground were nothing but background noise. "That's a hefty statement there. Now, what on earth could the hunters want dead more than the wolves?"
Harper's head began to rise up. Through swollen sockets, two beady eyes looked up at Maddie. He began to heave a sob just as he choked out the tiniest whisper. "I'm sorry."
Maddie stared down at the man and realized, in any other situation, she would've been angry with him. All she could give him now was pity. She watched him but didn't speak. Instead, one single thought crossed her mind. I'm sorry, too.
"It's incredible how alike you two are. Both with no family, both looking to stop a cycle of violence, both with bloodlust masked by a savior complex." He shook his head with a grin as if he was watching his own children laughing and playing. "And despite a kind and compassionate heart, he headed into the woods with a handgun for less than honorable reasons."
Less than honorable. Such a soft way to put it.
"Now, Madeline, I want you to know that his suffering is directly connected to just how quickly you answer."
She didn't look up; she was still staring at Harper, imagining what Gerard might've told him about slayers. She thought about why he'd want to be a social worker and what he could do, how he could help. She imagined he'd one day grow bitter and desensitized and stop trying all together.
The one social worker she ever met visited her house days after her fight with her bully - a grizzled older woman who seemed to make up her mind about Maddie the moment she entered the house, the moment she saw her parents.
Maddie sometimes still wondered how things would've gone if she was never found. She might've guessed she didn't have long with her family either way.
She wanted this man to be better than that. She hoped, if somehow they got out of there, he'd think twice about an allegiance to a man like Gerard Argent.
Finally, she nodded to show she understood the vampire's terms.
"I would like your next answer to be crystal clear. A yes or no," he said with a step toward her again. "Knowing his intent to kill you and the chance he may try again, would you still save him?"
She wanted to say no.
She wanted to give into the pain and the helplessness. She wanted to stop caring.
Her stomach clenched as she watched the hunter look up at her briefly and back down, a flash of shame in the gesture mixed with the pain. Something on the other side of a thick glass wall in her head was pounding with heavy fists, screaming to be let out. A crack was forming at its center, but still it wouldn't break. It was a swelling of something just behind her eyes and her sinuses, a reminder of her headache.
"Yes," she said, her voice carrying and sounding more defeated than she felt.
The vampire looked down again with a tense, extended pause.
"I wanted you to know that, Harper," he said to the man, pleased with himself.
It was a blink. As quick as a heartbeat.
Lilith's fingers slipped from the hole she made in Harper's side and her bloodied hand gripped the top of his head as her free hand was placed at the base of his jaw.
He looked at Maddie with his beaten and bruised face and she could hear screaming from somewhere.
Maybe a memory.
It wasn't until she quickly looked away and heard something like a wet crunching noise, that she realized she was the one screaming. She didn't look back down. She didn't want to see it.
The vampire got closer again, stepping over something on the ground just as Lilith stood and licked the blood from her fingers like a child whose hands were covered in strawberry jam. She smiled at Maddie, a slight outline of red on her teeth.
Maddie looked over at Sadie, whose attention was on the ground but with no feeling behind her gaze. It was blank, contemplative, like she was looking at a half finished puzzle.
"So, Miss Hayes," the vampire began, about a foot away as his pale eyes sparkled. "I'll ask you again."
There was a second this time where she didn't say anything at all. She looked at the vampire to her right, Lilith, and with a slow blink shifted her gaze to Sadie. Sadie didn't seem to notice all that much. Another slow blink and she was looking at the large, round man with his scraggly long hair and his unkempt beard. His arms were outstretched and she realized he actually believed in this. The girl, the shadows watching, all of it - this was what he considered family. He thought it was an honor and not offered lightly.
Her throat was scratchy and there was blood dripping from her open wounds, but still she said in a loud, firm voice, "No."
The joy on the man's face left again.
"Honestly, I don't know what you expected," Sadie said to him, her focus away from the corpse.
"You know," he began and paused like he was reigning something in. From the look in his eyes, Maddie guessed it might've been anger. "I assumed you would understand the order of events here. I offered you something special and you said no, so naturally there are repercussions. This was mercy. Despite the death of our dearly departed Harper, this was but a warning. Your choices have consequences , Madeline!"
She steeled herself from flinching at his booming voice, meeting his gaze as firming as she could.
"The next one," he said, voice lower and growling, "will hit you where it hurts."
Sadie dropped Maddie to the ground and Maddie was immediately swarmed by the creatures around her like a plague at the end of the world meant to leave her in darkness.