From Ashes ✗ Stiles Stilinski - Chapter 55: Chapter 55

When you wake up from a traumatic experience in an entirely different place, it can be disorientating. A hole in your memory, but not quite empty. A photo, overexposed, filled with too much violent light. There's no way to recover overexposed film and, for all intents and purposes the memories could never click into place the way the typically did. Sometimes, not all of it comes back and Maddie was sure she was missing a lot.
Her senses took too long to come back, or maybe they came back in rapid succession. Her brain was a disjointed mess of thought and memory, a stopper unplugged as the water circled the drain. The closest pieces were the furthest to get to and vice versa.
First to come back was her sight and a fuzzy white world blinded her. Too many lights. Overhead fluorescents. Not outside. Not her room. Something equally familiar but the memory was too far to reach.
It took her awhile, hours or days or maybe minutes, to realize it why she was in bed. It wasn't until the all over stinging narrowed to her stomach with such merciless precision that she knew why she was shaking. It was raining. She felt the need to wretch and the muscle spasm that came with it created a sharp pang in her stomach, a tearing sensation like cheap fabric being pulled apart, revealing the thin, threadbare weakness of her own skin.
Her hearing was next and her head throbbed at the muffled shouts, a sensation like being underwater. Maybe they were shouting for her, worried for her. Maybe she was Dorothy waking up from a topsy-turvy nightmare too bright and vibrant and dangerous to be real.
The clearer the voices, to more her head pulsed. Anger was there, a sore, jagged rip in someone's throat. This was not a dream.
"What the hell happened out there?!" A feminine voice full of gravel and a hint of a Boston accent, like words becoming fat and flattened before they left her mouth.
"What do you mean, what happened?" A man's voice, harsher but not in a natural way. The edge sounding forced through a voice known for its easy humor. Panic. "It's pretty obvious! She's lucky to be alive! And those kids..."
"Vampire attack." A feminine voice, something warm and soft made into a block of ice. Quiet. Far away. "Maybe they were on patrol."
The first voice was still booming, the accent sinking deeper like it came with the adrenaline. "Vamp attack? Really? You wanna know the thing about that cut? Had one just like it once upon a time. Scratches don't cut that deep or that clean, but bad intentions and a damn good blade would."
Blades. Daggers. A ceiling of clouds. The whirlpool was gaining speed in her head.
The other female voice spoke softly and carefully, tiptoeing. "Vampires can have weapons. It's not that uncommon-"
"Give me a break, B! You know what happened, I know what happened. Two girls went missing, only one came back." There was a malice there, an old wound tearing open. Maddie could identify Faith first, if only by the venom in her tone. She could imagine her pointing an accusatory finger, jabbing it like it could cut into someone. "A human did this. Does that throw a wrench in your foolproof grouping system?"
B? Maddie thought and felt a sharp pang of something she couldn't understand. Whatever it was, it couldn't match the pain coursing through her or the anger as she reached a realization. Buffy.
"Faith-" A new voice, higher and a little nasally. As soft as Buffy's but kinder, compassionate. Willow.
Faith cut her off. "No, you know as well as I do that girl wasn't all there! All of you knew! The plan failed. There are bodies."
There are bodies, Maddie thought and her mind narrowed on the words. They repeated over and over, looping and knotting around the pain and confusion.
"Look, you don't get it!" The man's voice barreled through, panic still latched to every word. There was more there, though; something beyond panic. Shame. Worry. Xander. "Those girls are inseparable. They've been there for each other for years. Did you notice the one missing is the same one that put in the call?"
The pain came to a point in her stomach and she remembered the flash of a blade. Lightning. Horror stricken blue eyes, the kind of blue that drowns you. There was so much wrong with this. There were so many things that didn't make sense and Maddie's mind was too foggy to know what was real and what was a lie. She remembered the blood on her hands, warm and wet.
Just like lightning, the face flashed in her head.
Just like lightning, a name struck her so hard, she sat up. Adrenaline and shock made her act against the pain and the feeling of tearing shredded at her stomach.
Marie.
One hand gripped her stomach feelings the padding of gauze and her other hand clasped over her mouth to keep in a cry of sheer agony. For whatever reason, she reasoned that she didn't want the conversation outside the room she was in to stop.
There was a pause and the air was thick with anticipation, with the expectation of the door swinging open. She couldn't see them now, not yet. She knew her world would change the moment she saw them staring at her like a victim. She knew what it meant.
"See, this is why I shoulda never left LA. This 'black and white, good is good, evil is evil' thing you're so amped up on is why that girl never got the help she needed. Now, she's out there, blood on her hands, with nothin' left to lose," Faith spat and Maddie heard something in her tone, the slightest break. She stopped for longer than Maddie thought she would and no one else filled that space. "Not that you'd know the first thing about that, right?"
Quick, thundering footsteps faded and a door slammed somewhere, as sudden and loud as a gunshot. There was another beat of silence as Maddie kept her hand over her mouth and another set of footsteps faded into the distance. A door somewhere creaked and gently clicked shut.
Marie told them where Maddie was. Marie saved her life. After everything, she saved Maddie's life.
There would be a scar if the wound didn't heal properly. A constant reminder. Marie stabbed her. Marie nearly killed her.
Then, Marie made a call she didn't have to make; that could ruin her whole life.
"She's not right, is she?" Xander asked, his voice softer. Without the yelling bits, he sounded like there was something lodged in his throat. Like the words didn't come easy. "Will?"
"You weren't there, Xander." Willow's voice was unchanged, calm and full of somber hesitation. "You didn't see how we found her back in the beginning. Even if the guy she... Even if he deserved it, she was just a kid."
"Is." It was one word but the desperation in it held a whole world pain and regret. A whole world of stolen possibilities. "She is just a kid."
There was a silence and Maddie knew without seeing that Xander wanted to say something more. She knew part of him was begging to snap at all of them. His rage was never some loud or violent spectacle, but when he was upset, his words were coated in poison. They spread and festered. Quips that punctured and burrowed. Maddie made him mad before, in the 'I'm not mad, I'm disappointed' way, but she only ever saw him do this to others a handful of times. Enough to see the words hit and bury deeper and deeper.
"Do you think they'll find her alive?" he asked, his voice quaking and wavering underneath a thinly veiled mask of calm.
It took awhile for Willow to reply and Maddie could only imagine the look on her face. Big, sad eyes and just the hint of a frown. The only two emotions Maddie could read from her were excitement and dread; everything else was a wash. Willow's full range of emotions were held in a tight fist.
Maddie heard two sets of footsteps slowly get further and further from her.
When Willow spoke, the words dropped like stones into Maddie's gut. "I think they'll do what they have to."
The words were stones sinking in water, landing as soft as they were heavy. Maddie was still upright, gripping her bandaged stomach, and worried that she'd see blood if she caught a glance at her hand.
Marie almost killed Maddie, then saved her life. Somehow, that managed to sum up the last nearly eight years. Maddie was seething, full of something she didn't understand. A rage that was never directed at anyone until now and made Marie crystal clear. Marie was a killer. She was a liar. She was a sort of messed up that Maddie no longer wanted to understand or help. She was a shadow of a person, a shell of likes and dislikes and nothing else.
She's a killer.
"They'll do what they have to," repeated in her head, a regurgitating sickness. "They'll do what they have to," wasn't good enough, like she was something rabid. A wild animal to be sedated, trained, and put on a leash - or, worse, to be put down.
Marie was a person. What Maria did was horrifying and confusing and she was still a person. An animal was not capable of the horror Maddie saw tonight. A wild animal would be a welcome change. Marie was flesh and blood human and she would explain herself. Maddie didn't care for anyone else's prerogative because she needed this - just this one thing. Marie would be found and Maddie would look her in the eye, just to see if there was ever any compassion there.
Her bandage warmed and stuck to her skin, letting her know the wound reopened and she could easily bleed out if she didn't let it heal. Her anger ran like adrenaline through her veins as she stood, wobbling like she was trying to walk in a row boat far from land. She was already walking, grabbing a dry jacket and stumbling into the wall as she pushed herself to go faster.
No one else knew Marie like Maddie did, even more so after tonight. She knew the kinds of things Marie did when she was hurting now. She wanted to think calling HQ was an act of remorse, that she'd feel guilt and think of all the places they went together. This Marie, the one falling to pieces in Maddie's head, would go to the one the meant the most.
If luck was on her side, she'd find her, but nothing and no one was on her side anymore. She could easily die looking for Marie.
Maddie wanted to hate her but what she felt was neither love or hate. Maybe it was pieces of both stitched together in some Frankenstein's monster sort of way, something that moved her haphazardly towards the crux of who she was and who she would need to become to survive everything coming.
☽ † ☾
Buffy was getting restless again before she ascended the stairs in lieu of using the elevator. Despite hating the sprawling headquarters they carved out of what was probably offices once upon a time, she understood just how much she benefited from the amount of space it gave her and the rest of the girls. Space to walk and run and train. The best parts of every place she missed in Sunnydale stuffed in one building. She didn't even care that the walls and the rooms never became familiar - most of the time.
By the time she made it all the way up to the top floor, she could feel the fatigue setting in again and the ache in her legs. Ten or eleven years ago, she was in the best shape of her life. Hell, five years ago, she was probably still at her peak. In the last year or so, the stupid little aches started needling her late at night. She cracked her neck more and her back was the main victim in her patrols. She even chose to wear running shoes on her last patrol over her new suede wedge heel boots, but she'd never admit that. Slayers didn't live this long before her and she wondered if any of them ever got to the point where they felt old not just in their head but in their bones.
Faith probably did, but Faith made a point to not share whatever she was really feeling with anyone and especially with Buffy.
She stopped just before her room and rolled an ankle in a poor attempt to relieve a cramp forming as she opened the door. A yawn stretched open her mouth as her hand patted the wall in the pitch black room, searching flimsily for the light switch and flipped it on. She closed the door and kicked off her shoes before eyeing her phone on the nightstand next the the modest yet tasteful antique lamp she found at the flea market. The phone actually looked funny next to it. Out of time.
Buffy plopped down on her bed, meaning to finish getting ready but giving into taking a glance at her phone for any notifications. Years and years ago, when Buffy gave her sister her back to school present, she called a cellphone a weapon and, boy, could she have used this thing to get out of more than a few life threatening situations back in her day. Buffy grimaced at how old she sounded, even in her own head.
She watched the screen come to life and any thought in her head before that was pushed to the outskirts of her thoughts with one notification.
+1 (415) 555-1234 - 1hr ago
Missed Call
As a point, Buffy didn't have the number of anyone outside her core group and emergency contacts. Her friends, Angel, Faith, and some super secret government numbers that change weekly were all the numbers she needed. As a point though, any of the slayers had the ability to get Buffy's number through any of those people. They rarely call, but last time one did, she spent the better part of an afternoon beheading a queen Bohg'dar demon and setting its larvae on fire before they could eat another law student's face. A San Francisco phone number with no contact info was typically either a Slayer in serious need or spam.
Buffy unlocked her phone and went straight to her voicemail.
"You have one new message. First message."
A static silence followed but something in it caught Buffy's attention - ragged, shaking breaths.
"Buffy." The voice sounded so small and frail and the world seemed to stop for just a moment.
So much stopping and starting, like a broken ignition. A hiccuping, heavy terror. I guess you'd know what it feels like.
The blood in her veins turned to ice and the static filled her head with nothing but faces. A long list of girls. Girls buried and burned. Girls no longer here. Xander was right; Buffy was adamant to be present for as many of the funeral services as she could. She blamed herself for every one of them and saw them all in her nightmares, whenever she let herself get a good night's sleep. She was shocked when she thought of Kendra, lifeless on the floor of the library with a stream of blood from her neck. No one to bring her back. No one to fight at her side. Just another slayer Buffy couldn't get to in time; the first of many.
Buffy knew before the message was over and only barely heard "I think I'm about to die" as she dropped her phone and swung the door open so hard, the plaster on the wall cracked. She shouted for her friends, frantic and running and waking up the whole building.
It didn't matter.
Time was running out.
Not yet. Not today.
☽ † ☾
Max was quite proud of keeping her cool when speaking with Allison, so much so that she deflated entirely when Allison left with her father on a hunt.
"A hunt," Gerard Argent called it, making direct eye contact with Max as if there was some sort of understanding and her blood ran cold at the implication. Allison, clad in black and hair pulled up and away from her face, didn't meet Max's eyes when she slung a bag over her shoulder - something big enough to carry a whole arsenal of weaponry - and walked past her father and out the door.
The look on Chris' face was almost pity despite adhering to his father's plans. Max was left on the porch, outraged and watching the black SUV drive off. Maybe it was her speech after all. They were all very pretty words and she mostly presented her argument as if back on her grade twelve debate team - mostly. There was a falter somewhere in them, somewhere around the accusatory tone when speaking of her grandfather. She didn't mean it and regretted it as soon as she spoke.
There were plenty of ideas she didn't like about the original council, many of which she didn't know until braving her grandfather's study long after he died. She didn't agree with the Cruciamentum and understood why Mr. Giles never taught something so barbaric. Still, she expertly avoided these things when they rounded back to her family. She still believed the original Watcher's Council meant well, all things considered. They were protectors of the whole world and Max wanted more than anything to be a Watcher because of them. If they weren't a force of good, it called her own goodness into question.
Maybe Allison could see that. Maybe she knew more than she was letting on.
There was one thing that managed to cheer her up, though: Allison took the stake. That had to mean something.
And yet, there were much more pressing matters to tend to.
Terra, all business and scowls, was up ahead as the trees pressed in on them. Explaining everything to her was difficult, but explaining why it took Max so long to tell her was akin to pulling teeth without the added bonus of local anesthetic. To be fair, the information Chris Argent gave her was simple enough.
"Madeline seems to think you might be a proficient witch."
"Not a witch, actually. Just a run of the mill magic user, just as the Watchers before me." Max frowned when she gave it a second's thought. "But 'proficient' may be undercutting it just a b-"
What he gave her a pointed look and asked, "How's your Sumerian?"
In a word, her Sumerian was...well, proficient. Acceptable, if not clunky. Of course, it's one of the first languages required by Mister Giles' lesson plan due to its importance in the history of the Council. The first human language written down. The very beginning of the Watcher's Council, when they were only three shamans desperate to protect their village. Sumerian cuneiform was what most of the oldest documents were written in. Learning such a thing was just as challenging as it was humbling.
Of course, her uncle probably knew some of that in large part to her aunt. Victoria probably knew much more than Max could ever hope to know - the London headquarters for the Watcher's Council, which was practically the Smithsonian of the supernatural, made the current curriculum look like a school library.
She started with the consonants as they walked through the woods. Maddie's directions weren't particularly superb and she didn't even give Max a chance to ask her to elaborate. Instead they followed national park signs as red and orange bled into the sky.
Terra was ahead of her, aiming her phone flashlight into the deepening darkness. Max was mumbling a string of vowel sounds as she tried to remember her notes on dialect and intent, ignoring the fact that she sounded like a drunk werewolf trying their hand at conversational howling.
"Do you have to do that right now?" Terra asked, turning on a dime. Max wasn't sure if this was anger or only annoyance as the deep arch of Terra's brows made her seemed naturally pissed off.
"I'm attempting to recall the correct translation for a dead language from the cradle of all civilization to save an entire town," Max fired back, beginning to treat Terra like any of the Watchers in Training back home. "So, yes."
Terra turned back around and started walking again. A few minutes passed, with nothing but the sound of Max's mumbled translating and their coats catching on twigs and brush.
Utu grant us light
May the ashes of our enemies
Cast out their kin
The sun recognizes this
Life binds our words
"Huh."
"What?" Maxed asked.
Terra pushed a branch from her path, not bothering to look back. "You're really going along with this."
Enki grant us protection, the next line read. Max huffed. "Is that so hard to believe?"
"No," Terra sighed as they stumbled onto a small clearing. "What's hard to believe is the idea that you spent so much time training to be a Watcher but you haven't managed to act like a Watcher for a single second."
"Excuse me?" Max tore hr attention from the spell, gaping. "You have no right to-"
"Right?" Terra finally whirled around, arms splayed as if gesturing to every single of of Max's mistakes thus far. "You want to talk about right? Are you even qualified to be here?"
Something in Max snapped clean in half, possibly some sort of piping because liquid rage started filling up her gut all the way to her throat. With it, came more ego than she meant to show anyone.
"I am, actually. I'm good. Better than good - I'm the best," Max said, any doubt drowning in her annoyance. "And while we're on the subject-"
"No." Terra's voice was ice, all inflection gone. She walked a bit further and bent down. "Go back to translating."
"Stop it! Stop cutting me off!" Max was shouting before she knew it. Her voice was solid as ever, built on the bedrock of everything she knew about Watchers and Slayers. Every slight. Every moment one of her side did everything they could to save the world. She thought about the Watchers who died when all they did was show up for work like any other day. "This. Isn't. About. You. None of this is about you."
Max's gaze finally focused on Terra, bent down in front of something dark. All her bluster went out in a single go, quiet irritation making her feel like a child. She did her best to swallow it as she tried her best to see. There was a mass of nothing until a flap was tossed away.
Max frowned. "What is it?"
"Her bag," Terra said, her words distant and confused. Lost.
"Oh, thank goodness." Max breathed a relieved sigh but her own confusion rose when Terra didn't get back up. "What are you doing?"
"What do you think?" Terra was digging through the sack already, her forcefulness returning tenfold. "Keep translating."
Max didn't argue this time and brought the paper in front of her face again. It was getting easier the more she remembered, like reading words despite the letters between the first and last being rearranged. Her brain was filling in the blanks, anticipating.
Blood.
Sacrifice.
Death.
Each was a knife carving out something of hers, leaving panic and horror in their wake.
May the power of our blood
Shield our people
"Wait..." Max started, trying to arrange the rest into words in such a rush, there was no way she was reading it right. May the power of our blood...
"What the hell?" Terra said, voicing Max's fear.
May the power of our blood
Shield our people
The earth recognizes this
Sacrifice binds our words
"Did you find something?" Max slightly loosened her grip on the page, realizing how much it crumpled in her fist. She crouched next to Terra. In the glow of the moonlight, the silver of the blade turned white. "A hand ax?"
"She wouldn't leave this behind. She wouldn't-" There was something only slightly different about Terra's voice, almost indiscernible. An uptick in speed before stopping altogether. Something flickered to life in her hand, a phone. Terra glanced from it to Max with the least amount of disdain Max ever heard in her voice. "Why would she leave this here?"
Max swallowed, uncomfortable with the level of meaning that made its way into Terra's voice, like Max was supposed to know the answer.
She glanced back down at the paper, to the end.
With life, this land is bound
In death, our children live
Maddie didn't need to help her today. She could've easily kept Max out of the loop. She didn't need to convince Chris Argent to work with Max. It wasn't a kindness, though; it was someone to speak the words. A means to an end. A very clear, very real end.
An ax. A phone. A spell. Those were the three things Madeline Hayes left behind. Two personal belongings given away and a note to explain what was undoubtedly about to happen.
The Watcher's Diaries always skimped on this part, their words dwindling to a date and cause. Max wondered if she would be the one to write it down or if that would be left to Xander Harris.
In death.
"I know why." Max shoved her hand into Terra's line of sight without hesitation. "Give me the ax."
"Why?" Terra asked, not immediately giving up the item.
"I need something of hers. We need to find Madeline now." Max opened her bag and searched through its contents before triumphantly pulling out her small booklet and flipping it open to the first page.
21 January 2010
I hardly think doing something as innocent as making an apt comparison would actually spoil any movie. Sure, Avatar is very pretty but isn't it just Fern Gully? What's wrong with that? I love Fern Gully! (Actually, Fern Gully might be a bit more nuanced, but
Max paled, shut the book, and started searching through her things again, hoping against all hope she didn't leave her spell reference book in the motel. By the bed. Specifically, on the nightstand in her motel room next to the alarm clock. She paused and winced at the thought, picturing the book right where she left it and, in that instant, her head went blank.
"What's going on?!" Terra was on the brink of shouting now, eyes huge as she took a threatening step forward.
The shout was like a shot of adrenaline as wires in her head connected and reconnected. "I..."
I'm sorry, Max wanted to say, her voice a gate she desperately tried to push open. An image of her Grandfather in his favorite chair pushed its way into her head, a glimmer of mean in his tired eyes. "Sometimes, I forget why we're here." The words filled her skull, ballooning and leaving no space for anything else. There was no give. Another Slayer would die. I'm sorry. I failed.
"I'm sor-"
A hand clamped over her mouth as a harsh shushing noise whistled in her ear. So many thoughts and emotions ran rampant in her head, heightening as her whole body tensed in sheer panic. She heard Terra's voice next, hushed. "Did you hear that?"
Terra's hand was still over Max's mouth as she shook her head.
There was a prolonged silence and still, Max heard nothing but the wind moving the leaves on the trees. Terra maneuvered Max to face her, an index finger over her mouth. Max nodded and Terra turned, slowly and carefully moving through the woods again. Max followed closely, trying her best to match Terra's steps with as much precision as possible and flattening herself between branches.
☽ † ☾
Mercy Clemmence Abbott was familiar with the gallows walk by the age of ten. It was the first thing she noticed when her mother, father, and younger brothers picnicked during a hanging - something that plenty of families did despite how macabre the practice. The second came a few weeks later, as hysterics were commonplace when it came to lawbreakers and paranoia seemed to grow as quickly their crops. It was two years before she saw another and three women were strung up in a row.
She watched them closely, jeering along with the small crowd. Neighbors, people she sat next to during service. People who waved hello every morning. The part that clung to her like a film on her skin was the fact that every criminal was the same. They were also her neighbors - a man who baked their bread, an old woman who taught her the proper way to weave baskets, three women her mother's age who used to tell fantastical stories and gave her pretty stones the color of sunset. She didn't know what the previous criminals did because her parents refused to tell her, but she knew what the three women were accused of.
Temperance and Verity, the two girls closest to Mercy's age, sat with her during the hanging of the three women.
The prisoners walked to the gallows and the crowd shouted horrible things at them with no knowledge of the difference between them. The woman at the front was mumbling, eyes cast to the ground as tufts of greasy dark hair poked out from her bonnet. The second cried; she cried so hard, Mercy could hear it above the crowd. A wailing, hyperventilating cacophony that would make anyone cover their ears for respite. The last was the most infuriating and only infuriating because of the lack of anything at all. The last woman's mouth was a line and her eyes, the dull green of late summer grass, looked at nothing at all. Her chin was raised and her shoulders were squared. The women in front of her were crumbling, withering thatched roofs in the rain; the last woman was a monument, brick and stone all the way through.
It would be poetic if any of them, given how they influenced the girls, gave some sort of sign to them - an indication to do something as prosaic as never giving up. They didn't. Bags were placed over their heads and the nooses were fastened around their necks.
Mercy fiddled with the pale pink stone in her hand and asked in prayer for an inkling of calm the kind women told her it would bring. Verity gripped Mercy's other hand so tight she feared the bones would shatter. No one paid it any mind; they were just girls comforting each other with a friendly gesture.
"For the crimes of heresy and witchcraft."
A frightened whimper left Verity's throat and Mercy squeezed her hand a little harder, despite the pain.
The thin, wooden platform under them was kicked away and Mercy would remember the clatter of it falling forever, like fresh firewood dumped on the dusty kitchen floor.
Temperance gasped when their footing vanished and the ropes tightened with a creaky groan. Verity's gray eyes shot to the grass as if she was scolded by an elder. Mercy watched the women thrash and convulse, the height too short for a clean break of their necks. When the crowd cheered, all three girls politely applauded with them as three faceless bodies swung gently like wind chimes in the breeze. The applause always broke down the same way, into a shameful and disjointed sound.
Mercy would wonder why the bags were placed over their heads. Why did executions involve this strange practice?
It wasn't until Verity's gallows walk and the bag over her head that wasn't properly tightened danced off in the wind while her body convulsed wildly. There were still tears on her cheeks as her eyes bulged from their sockets and turned a deep red. Without the bag, Mercy heard the noises better; the throaty hiccuping noise and gurgling. The shadow of the cross from the church steeple stretched over her and the crowd, stopping short of the stilling body. She didn't turn away then either.
She never turned away from an execution and, as her village burned that night and her neighbors screamed, she stayed to watch. She might've choked from the smoke and the putrid stench of charred flesh in the flames but it was a death she would welcome.
When Mercy was saved by a demon named D'Hoffryn, it took her by surprise - not only because she was alive but because he never once called her by her name. His blacked out eyes still seemed to gleam in delight as they reflected the distant flames. "I believe we've seen the last of your Mercy, Sadira."
"Sadira?"
"Your name. You're true name, if you so choose to accept my offer."
"What offer?"
"Well, I was getting to that."
Sadie, of course, accepted the demon's offer. She donned a garnet amulet for centuries as she stayed behind to watch the deaths of those who deserved their fate - which, of course, they all did. She became a monument of karmic debt, chin high and shoulders squared as the guilty crumbled and withered. No matter the blood or guts or any other gruesome part, she watched when no one else would. It was the only way she could keep Verity with her. She never turned away from an execution and she promised herself she never would.
Madeline Hayes was captured at the edge of the field and put up no fight.
When Maddie walked with the hoard of vampires, it was a gallows walk. There was a distance in her dark eyes, one that made her seem miles and years from here. The vampires were in a circle around them and Sadie's mood soured a little when she realized she was part of it. Maddie's chin was up, her back straight, and Sadie wondered how much of it was a facade. Did she cry about it? Did she even look for a way out?
There was so much she didn't know about Maddie but, with the little she knew for sure, Sadie didn't expect Maddie to show up alone and weaponless.
Maddie's stare drifted and, in one slow blink, focused on Sadie like a searchlight spotting and revealing her. She allowed a small smile to force the corners of her lips up despite the modicum of disappoint in the anticlimax she was witnessing. There was nothing; no fight in vain. Maddie wasn't even being dragged along. It was so infuriatingly easy.
Maybe Maddie could see it, because she smiled too. Hers was something real, though. Defiance and a bit of spite - a way to say she'd rather have these vampires do her in instead of Sadie. "It won't be you. Not now. Not ever."
Then, it happened, the smile turned ugly, more like a snarl. Rage and bared teeth. Before Sadie could piece together what was going on, Maddie became something feral and untethered. She took only a few steps.
Sadie felt the shock of the pain in her jaw before she realize she was punched. It didn't floor her. It barely moved her, but the surprise of it brought with it a bright white stinging to her cheek and an ache at the joint. Sadie's gaze darted back to Maddie who looked suddenly alive with something she couldn't quite pinpoint. Breathing heavy and her eyes wide, an expression of a madness Sadie saw so many times.
Finally, Maddie was forced back with massive hands and her smile returned, gleefully followed by soft laugh. Her stance and body language were relaxed, without an ounce of the fear Sadie was expecting. Wide open with no fight left in her, Maddie knew there was nothing Sadie could do. Sadie wasn't even a blip on her radar.
A shot of anger coursed through Sadie, taken aback at the mockery Maddie was making of her. Her pride and rage became a cloud of smog in her head, blocking out everything but the one thing she wanted - to inflict pain.
Sadie took the few steps to Maddie and, in a swift arc, backhanded Maddie across the room. Suddenly, the massive hands were holding her back as the other vampires in the circle whispered in excitement to each other like Sadie was the opening act before the main event.
Maddie was on the ground, crumpled and fetal and curling in tighter for a moment in what might've been a genuine shudder of pain. Maybe something was broken, bleeding internally. It was a modicum of satisfaction but not enough; it was empty, lacking catharsis or a proper ending. Maddie saw to that, in the end. She gave up without an ounce of fight and Sadie couldn't remember the last time she hated one person so much.
Maddie was hauled to her feet and limply dragged over to the man in the center of the room. Something caught Sadie's eye though. Something glinted on the ground where Maddie was. Sadie shuffled over knelt down for just a second to carefully pick up whatever it was. Plastic and metal, a thin needle unsheathed. Sadie examined it and nearly dropped it when she noticed the plunger pushed all the way in the clear, empty tube.
Sadie's mind began racing, pieces of information attempting to connect together but failing. She palmed the syringe carefully, avoiding the needle as she stuck her hands casually in her pockets. The hollow rage from before became a churning pit of curiosity and excitement. Maybe the night wasn't over quite yet.
☽ † ☾
Somewhere, a clock was ticking - a really big clock, actually. A crowd roared.
Two boys sat on the bench and the reality of it all seemed to hit Stiles all at once.
"Your dad coming?" Scott asked.
"Yeah, he's already here." Stiles pointed to his dad in the crowd, shooting a glance over to him. He was talking to Scott's mom and Stiles was sure whatever they were talking about had nothing on everything that actually went down the past several months. He was grateful for that in a way, but envious. It was days like today that made him wish for easy.
"You seen Allison?"
"No," Stiles said, and stopped himself from asking about Maddie. He knew Maddie wasn't going to be there tonight and he knew he would see her afterward, but after their conversation his patience practically evaporated. He probably would've missed the game if she asked him, but it meant more that she understood why he needed to be here...even if he was pretty much useless. "You seen Lydia?"
It was a simple, knee jerk response and felt odd when he heard himself say it. Still, Lydia was one of the most obvious potential victims tonight and they needed to prevent that.
"Not yet."
Stiles scanned the empty field before turning to his best friend, whose face was a mask of anxiety. "You know what's going on?"
Scott shook his head slightly. "Not yet."
of Stiles wanted to give into that same panic, the feeling he carried with him since the night in the Sheriff's Station, through the horrors in Sunnydale and the attack the night before. They were being attacked for three fronts; two, if you only count Gerard and Jackson as the same threat. Despite the pretty freaking awesome day he had, it only increased the dread in his gut. It was a shadow following them everywhere. Tonight, for better or worse, there would be a fight. "It's going to be bad, isn't it? I mean, like people screaming, running for their lives, blood, killing, maiming kind of bad?"
"Looks like it," Scott said, keeping his answers short and giving Stiles the urge to talk more.
"Scott, the other night seeing my dad get hit over the head by Matt, you know, while I'm just lying there and I can't even move and then that cult just picking us off last night, it just -" Stiles swallowed, eyes unfocused as time tore through his thoughts. Your hands smell of death, a voice taunted and it took all he had to convince himself the things he heard in that house weren't about him - but it didn't stop them from feeling true. He found the same words on his lips, the ones he whispered and screamed into the darkness. "I want to help, you know, but I can't do the things that you can do. I can't -"
He cut himself off as his own anxious thoughts began festering, turning to Scott as he always did.
Scott was already giving his a concerned but steady look. "It's okay."
Stiles shook his head, still lost in his fears. "We're losing, dude."
"The hell are you talking about? Game hasn't even started!" A boisterous voice cut through the air and seemed to jolt Stiles into a more alert state. Coach Finstock appeared between Scott and Stiles from the other side of the bench and gave Stiles a nudge. "Now put on your helmet and get out there. You're in for Greenberg."
And in that moment, any sense of dread that Stiles was missing in his previous conversation made its way to the forefront of his brain. The sudden shift in mood made him fidget and search frantically for any sort of mistake in what Coach said. "What? What happened to Greenberg?"
"What happened to Greenberg?" Coach repeated with an incredulous laugh before gesturing like his hands were scales, with Stiles in one and Greenberg in the other. "He sucks. You suck slightly less."
Panic turned to excitement and, unsurprisingly, even more panic. He looked back and forth from Coach to the field, totally aware of the grin on Scott's face as well. Still, he had to ask, to verify one hundred and ten percent that today wasn't continuing to be the best day of his whole life - despite all the horror. "I'm playing? On the field? With the team?"
Coach chuckled but Stiles couldn't care less. "Yes... unless you'd rather play with yourself."
"I already did that today, twice." He answered so quick, he didn't even have time to be embarrassed. He barely even reacted when Scott laughed.
"GET THE HELL OUT THERE!" Coach squawked.
Stiles immediately stood and fumbled as he tried to grab his lacrosse stick and helmet. He ran out to the field to take his place and just as he put his helmet on, somewhere in the crowd, he heard his dad shouting, "My son is on the field!"
With the rest of the team around him and the whistle to begin the game about to sound at any moment, his anxiety heightened and he couldn't be more thankful that Maddie wasn't there to see what would surely be a train wreck and quite possibly the biggest embarrassment of his short life. "Oh, dear god."
☽ † ☾
Terra stopped once, then twice, her whole form still and tense as she led them both through the woods. There was a shuffling of leaves and grass but their careful steps found only packed dirt. Max listened closer and became rigid when she realized it was coming from somewhere ahead. The trees were getting closer and closer together, walls closing in on them and Max inhaled deeply.
When they stopped a third time, she shakily released her breath and allowed her vision to be blocked by the woman ahead of her - if for nothing else, to make sure she didn't give them away to anyone or anything. Still, she desperately wanted to see ahead, choosing instead to stay as still as humanly possible and watch Terra fumble with a knife in her hands. It was too dark to tell but Max was sure she'd seen it before, the shape of the blade at least.
Terra tagged on the handle, which, piece by piece extended into the weapon Max recognized from the first night she saw the slayer fight. A glaive, sometimes called a halberd, that Max found odd for its archaic design. She'd never seen one with a collapsible staff and it might been both the coolest and cartooniest thing she'd ever seen - like pulling a million colorful handkerchiefs from a pocket.
Terra stood up and shifted behind a tree, which Max only got the memo to also do at the last seconds as she saw the scene ahead.
There was a mass of people ahead, standing in a semicircle.
There was a man talking and a punch thrown, so hard the victim lifted from their feet before crashing down. Max ducked behind a tree and swatted at Terra's arm, the slayer having her eyes shut as she tightly gripped the weapon that was now nearly her height. The slight annoyance must've been enough to get her attention because she slowly opened her eyes and turned to Max with an expression of pure disdain.
Max remembered the spell in her hand and began memorizing the translation, preparing
Utu, grant us light.
☽ † ☾
Free falling. That's what she expected. Easing backwards as your heels tip, feeling like the wind may carry you.
Falling for what feels like forever in a span of seconds.
Wind turning to a funnel, keeping your limbs pressed to your sides. Air barraging your eardrums, pounding against them with relentless will. Your hair in your face, whipping at your skin wildly. Everything pressing down and in. Your eyes being assaulted by the cold, dry pressure and you keeping them shut.
But not actually feeling any of that.
Feeling fear. Excitement and horror working in harmony.
They work as a black mass spreading inside your body, full and heavy and absolutely humming. It's like something inside you pushing its way out through your eyes and mouth; through your ears and every pore. It wants so badly to be out and it touches everything. Every thought and memory, blackened and engulfed. A sludge that you choke on again and again.
In real free falling, you'd pass out from fear and exhilaration. You'd be mentally and physically assaulted to death, like that roller coaster some doctors wanted to make - the one that kills you with lack of oxygen to the brain. Hell of a way to go, in a flash of sheer, unbridled feeling. Terror and euphoria and adrenaline. Free falling would be the same, right? If you're high enough up, you will probably die before hitting the ground.
Maddie didn't know if that's better than what was waiting. She was feeling sleepy, her head bobbing like a balloon with hardly any helium left to stay upright.
She fought to stay awake, alert. She fought with everything to stay here for another second longer, despite the fatigue and the little bit of nausea from the stench of body odor and fresh blood.
When she looked around, her eyes couldn't focus on one thing. They rolled in her head and caught blurred glimpses. She thought she saw a light, orange like fire, but the sun already set and there was no smoke filling her lungs.
She thought of War and Peace, the novel Willow sent her off with so long ago, and something about a soldier dying on a hill. That was months ago - or maybe days? No, not days. She was so sure it was months. A long string of months tied up with one question: where are the vampires?
She blinked to steady her gaze and allowed it to land on the gleeful man towering over her, a shadow eclipsing the last of the light. They were still outside and the sky was a deepening black above them. She didn't need to see the shadows' faces to know there were at least a dozen vampires surrounding her. Her heart thudded in her chest, harder than ever, working to keep her going when the rest of her looked to stop.
When the man spoke, it reverberated through her, a bell tolling as a reminder that time must move forward.
"Brothers. Sisters." He chuckled but Maddie couldn't focus long enough to see where he was looking. "Esteemed guests. We are here today to celebrate! Today, the gates open and we enter the garden denied to us. Our Mother Superior hath saved her people as promised. Today, we come home."
Somewhere, a baby wailed and it's real. It was so clear and loud, it had to be real. A child's sobs and the humming to soothe it swelled with memory, with...something. Maybe Maddie was only remembering something else.
The sounds quieted almost immediately after it began and she was sure it was a hallucination.
"Our deepest gratitude to this young lady right here!"
Maddie's arm was pulled so hard, it nearly came out of the socket. The shadows shifted around and she heard a steady round of applause as if this was a show and she did a trick.
"Without her, we wouldn't be here at our precipice. Here, in the last century, on the cusp of the Great Apocalypse, we will create and fortify. We will build our numbers and hold strong to our family! We will follow our Mother and her messenger of hope into battle as the skies set fire and the Old Gods crawl from their graves! We are unified! We are stronger than Death itself! They. Will Not. Take. Us!"
A roar of cheers became deafening, a high pitched static.
A hand gripped Maddie's hair at the root and yanked her head to the side.
She opened her eyes and watched the man's face gnarl, the demon showing itself. He watched her, yellow eyes ablaze and she wondered vaguely what she expected when she decided to stay. Maybe fate was a real thing chaining you to the rest of the universe. Maybe this was the whole point.
She didn't cry. She didn't scream.
There was no struggle at all.
She let it happen without a fight.
Maddie couldn't track the movement, but she felt it - the hard clamp of a vice on her neck, breaking skin. The sounds of someone take large swallows and a wet smacking. The smell of copper filling her nose and the static-y loss of feeling in her limbs.
Apparently, you're supposed to see your life flash before your eyes before you die. For Maddie, it came in fragmented bursts. The clash of plastic lightsabers and her brother's hugs. Buffy helping her buy new clothes when they first arrived in Scotland. Xander calling Terra's halberd the long arm of the law and Terra secretly laughing about it. Watching Pleasantville with Marie. Stiles smiling at her as they sat on Jackson's porsche.
Her mother and father dancing in their small, cluttered kitchen and laughing. Her mother's face hidden in the crook of her father's neck after a bad day as he sang with no music and crescent rolls burned in the oven. They just...danced and laughed in the dingy yellow light. Nothing was ever as perfect.
Her head was light and her blood was warm as it rolled down her neck. She counted like before, like the first time she thought she would die. The time it was scariest. The time she wasn't ready.
I'm not ready.
The vice vanished and a rush of cold hit her neck accompanied by the shock of pain from the holes left behind. She clasped a hand over the wound as warm, thick liquid slipped through her fingers and, despite barely being coherent enough to move, she wanted one more look.
Her eyes opened wide and she caught sight of the Father wiping at the blood on his mouth and staring at it on his fingertips. Horror held his gaze as it slowly raised to Maddie's. A stunned silence washed over the circling crowd.
A flash of rage overtook the Father's face, his face red from her blood rushing to the surface of his skin.
Maddie didn't have the energy to speak, but if she was anywhere near her full strength, she might've even made a pun. Instead, she grinned a Cheshire cat grin. For the first time, half conscious and half living, she got to be the most dangerous, the most powerful. She got to take the most important thing from someone else.
For a second, it felt like winning. Then, it felt like nothing.
Before he could even move toward her, he collapsed to his knees.
In the very next second, something went whooshing by her head and a long stick jutted out from another vampire before it crumbled to dust, calling the crowd's attention somewhere Maddie couldn't see.
The grin slipped from her face as something new washed over her.
☽ † ☾
"Sacrifice binds our words," Max mouthed and when Terra glanced her way, she didn't give an inkling she understood or cared.
Instead Terra peeked over her shoulder and past the tree as Max watched her face crumble.
In a snap, Terra was in the small gap in the trees and her halberd was over her head and in one hand, pointed toward the mass of people.
Max also took a peek and gaped at the scene. A man in the center of a mass of people - not people - and holding onto a girl, his mouth clamped down on her neck.
The whole world seemed to stop on its axis and when it decided to move again, the man already let her go. The girl stumbled back, holding her neck that was covered in blood as it traveled down and stained her clothes. The man looked alarmed, then terrified, and finally full of fury.
Max turned to Terra but time was speeding up, throwing them into the battle with one action.
Max never saw a glaive launched like a javelin until that night, a low, precise arc so fast it whistled as it sliced through the air. Books and lessons taught her that a more functional weapon could be anything from a stake to a dagger to even a crossbow. Something small and manageable and inconspicuous to shove in a bag or a jacket pocket. And Terra Nunez threw a weapon as big as her like a lawn dart.
"Get Maddie," Terra command, her voice more robotic and empty than Max ever heard it.
Max gaped as Terra sprang into the fray with a fraction of a stumble on the landing, a shadow with an acquired type of grace. The kind worked for over time that still hiccupped every now and then. Terra was full of flaws - a fact Max didn't need very long to understand - but she was never afraid to put them on display. She owned the way she stumbled the same way she owned her viciousness, making her something to be truly feared.
Max blinked, recalling the words and only managed to turn back to the girl in the center - Maddie, with red shining on her neck and jacket - only to watch as she crumpled to the ground like a puppet with all the strings cut.
Max started to run but hesitated. If the vampires were in the field, she presumed she was somewhere still within the invisible wall of the town - or else she would be in for a rude awakening. She still thought about running but her fear was winning out. If Maddie was...
If she went out there to find just a body, she'd be vulnerable. A sitting duck until some vampire got her, too. Then, there might be no spell and the town would be next. It would all be for nothing. A sacrifice for absolutely nothing. More would die. She stayed in the trees, guilt and fear wrapping around her and keeping her in place like heavy iron chains on her limbs.
There was another way, though.
Her emotions were scattered and she didn't have time to calm down. All she had was the memory of lifting a werewolf high into the air on adrenaline alone. Just like floating a pencil.
She didn't know she was trembling until she lifted her hand, fingers splayed like a child reaching for a parent's hands. Something grounding; something to remind you everything will be okay. The bubble in her chest felt more like fizz, manic and shaking as Terra drew as many vampire to her as possible. Instead of warming her slowly, it burned inside of her. Letting go would be more like cracking open a fallen soda can and she couldn't make herself believe Maddie would be okay.
Maddie wasn't okay; blood was pooling by her head. Terra was close, close enough to probably see Maddie was still in the line of fire.
The longer she waited, the more danger another slayer was in.
The one time she saw the two girls in the same room, the air turned to ice. Terra wouldn't make eye contact with Maddie and Maddie couldn't do anything but glare at Terra. So much hatred in such a small space didn't manifest on its own. Whatever happened there was an open wound and, for just a second, Terra proved Max right. She'd seen it a million times over since she was small; it was one of the things she missed most. The flicker of something more than duty. A small emotion from Terra more than likely felt like the world ending.
The fizzing sensation under her skin combined with the heat felt like a fire burning her up as Madeline eased off the ground like a feather on the breeze.
Just like before. Like throwing out a line attached to you all the way to the marrow. Her whole arm tearing itself to piece as she focus her energy over her shoulder in a massive tug.
Maddie went hurtling toward Max, the slayer's whole body colliding with Max.
☽ † ☾
Allison didn't wish anymore, not even in her head. She would catch herself at school wishing for the noise to die down or in bed wishing for sleep to take her and instead forced herself to think any other thought.
Wishing was an innocent thing and nothing left of her was innocent.
She watched the backs of Erica and Boyd in the headlights of her father's ATV, the engine drowning out the noise in her head. There was never a moment when her brain wasn't drowning in thought these days. never a moment where her head didn't make her claustrophobic, packed at all sides with every person telling her something entirely different. A cacophony of flooding her ears so often she didn't have time to process any of it.
Even in her dreams, she heard the voices of the damned and the dead. Thousands of slayers sharing their horrors and walking into Allison's, unwanted and unbidden. Thousands of girls in her head every night, telling her in one single cry that she didn't belong with them. It didn't matter.
Things she knew for a fact: Her family were hunters and her mother was dead. Everything else was endless noise.
Orders from Gerard. Anger from her dad. Helplessness from Scott. A letter from her mother and pretty words from her cousin.
And from Maddie? Well, she hadn't heard from Maddie in days but her things mysteriously disappeared from the guest room, so Allison could put two and two together.
Sadie was the only person that ran out of things to say to her. Allison was wary on the fact that Sadie was a demon and what that really meant. All she knew was Sadie granted wishes to girls in pain and happened upon Allison. Allison wished to be like Maddie and never once thought how stupid that sounded. She never wanted to be like Maddie; she just didn't want to be helpless in comparison.
Since then, Sadie took more to listening to talking - aside from the random snarky comment here and there. It was a comfort when nothing was. Sadie was only ever around when Allison wanted her to be around and didn't tell her what to do or who to believe. If anything, Sadie was the only person - demon, whatever - who allowed Allison a moment of quiet.
Boyd and Erica were slowing down, panicked, stumbling between trees and over hills. Her dad stopped at the edge of the woods and the thing that tugged at Allison so fervently the past several weeks goaded her on. She jumped off the four wheeler and drew her bow - a recurve with a satisfying groan as she pulled the string back with the first arrow.
Here. It was here the Slayer power couldn't find her. She already knew how to control her body when it came to archery and, while it got much harder since the wish, any Slayer power funneled into her speed which became unearthly. The arrow made a perfect arc from her quiver to where it rested on her fingers and against the bow and she shot it into the night.
Erica stumbled with a short and shrill scream. Allison, willed by nothing but her rage, began to run to the wolves. Somewhere behind her, her dad shouted. Maybe she would kill them tonight and for a second she wondered if she could, which made her slow to a walk but she continued forward regardless.
The arrow stuck out from her leg as Boyd tried to go back for her and Allison heard Erica perfectly. "No! No, no, run. Go. Go!"
When Allison emerged from the woods, the field was clear and flat and so brightly lit by the moon that it covered everything in a bluish silver. Her blood pumped furiously in her veins, yearning for the pain she wanted to inflict. The ease of the damage she would inflict. Her grip was tight on her bow.
There was a stillness, a terrible calm like time was frozen around them. A knife's edge between the chaos of her life and the damage she wanted to cause; somewhere past every voice as she fought to be above every tragedy.
Erica was facing her from the ground, whimpering as she yanked the arrow from her leg and tossed it away. Allison could feel it - she could feel Erica's terror despite the wolf's narrowed eyes and the beginnings of a snarl. As Allison raised the bow again, her whole body fought against it. Something in her gut pulled away, maybe even in the completely opposite direction. She was being pulled apart; half of her giving into the rage and the other half of her thinking about the stake in her pocket.
Max had no idea how much Allison knew, how much of that shared history she experienced almost every night.
Hunters and Slayers. Allison thought they were the same thing, aside from the advantage of superpowers. The truth was hunters were pack animals, like the monsters they looked to stop. They were humans who worked for every bit of strength and stealth and strategy through the practice of tradition. Hunters inherited the fight, good or bad.
A Slayer wasn't something she became. It wasn't something any girl became; a Slayer was chosen at birth and activated the first time their lives were threatened. At least, that's what she found in their dreams. They were always this; what they became after, that was the choice. That's why Allison was wrong, why she could feel how wrong it all was. She wished to be powerful, instead something was forced into her body. It touched every part of her life, sleeping and waking. Slayers didn't choose their strength but they still had to choose to be powerful. Allison still had to choose to be powerful.
She wondered if Maddie knew that; she didn't happen upon Maddie's past in any of her dreams, not that there was a way to control it. She walked through so many worlds she would never completely know but the path was linear and paved for her long before she followed it.
Allison blinked out of her thoughts and released the arrow. It lodged in Boyd's fist, blocking Erica. Allison expected to sense some sort of danger from either of them, but there was nothing. All that was there was what she could read on their faces. Fear. Desperation.
Still, something inside urged her to grab another arrow from her quiver and shoot without hesitation, catching Boyd in the stomach. She couldn't tell what pushed her anymore but it grated against the rest of her. The field was still dead silent, the air thick and deafening.
Deafening.
Why was it deafening?
She shot another arrow, deftly hitting Boyd's leg. His growls were beginning to falter and this little fact did nothing to satiate her rage.
There it was again, the dense, deafening silence. Whatever was grating against her need to keep shooting was surrounding her, clawing up her back and sliding over her skin like a cold sweat. A battle growing in her chest and in her gut. She drew another arrow and eyed her targets.
Erica and Boyd were gone. Instead, there was a girl on the ground and it took Allison an extra moment to recognize Lydia there in Erica's place. She glanced up at Boyd and her breath caught when she saw Scott there, covered in arrows and bleeding, yellow eyes glowing and sending her something cold.
Allison blinked hard once and found Erica and Boyd there again. Something inside her continued to grate, almost painfully.
Seeking revenge was fighting a battle in her head and in her chest, fighting against everything she knew. Discarding everything she was. Seeking revenge as a Slayer was the same, but everything was more. She fought herself constantly and her new Slayer powers seemed to side with whoever she was. It sided with the altruistic naivety and fought her on every decision past that, totally unaware that girl was long dead. Being a Slayer when you don't know who you are yet is choosing to wage a war in every part of your body.
Allison went to shoot again but her muscles locked up. Scott and Lydia were at the forefront of her head again and all she could see were their faces there where Erica and Boyd tried to stay conscious.
Something in her began tugging her away and it was the only message her body gave her lately that she could decipher. The air was on fire but not the kind should could feel physically. It was in her bones, in her chest. It tugged at her, a hook latching to her insides, and yanked her furiously in another direction.
Danger.
Danger was here, but...not here. Not in front of her. Somewhere close but not where she could easily see.
Allison shook her head and tried again, angrier. Furious. Her muscles were too tense and she knew she couldn't shoot straight if she tried right now. A feral growl left her in frustration. It wasn't fair, any of it. Her mother fought so hard to leave the world of Watchers and Slayers behind, a life of serving for the good of the whole world. She wanted more for herself. She wanted more for Allison.
She was dead and Allison had a stake in her pocket.
Something was happening close by. Danger. Vampires.
Vampires? How could she know that? How in the world would she be able to narrow it down to vampires when she only encountered them once?
She threw down the bow and roughly grabbed for her pocket. To the stake.
A stake won't hurt them. I need my bow. I have to... I need this. I have to do this!
She squeezed the stake and it was easy. It was almost comfortable. Natural. The earth was ablaze. Danger. Vampires.
It won't hurt them. I need-
Something in the distance cracked and erupted. Light somewhere through the trees and a glow reaching the tops of the branches. Allison turned back to Erica and Boyd who were breathing heavy and Boyd barreled toward Allison.
She used one foot to sweep his legs out from under him and got at least a modicum of smugness from how easily he stumbled over.
There was no time, or at least that's was her whole body was telling her. Whatever that explosion was, her senses were practically vibrating and screaming that something terrible was about to happen.
She was running before she even understood why.
Somewhere behind her, she heard her dad again. Allison ran faster, dark hair whipping around her face. She hit another wooded area and didn't even take the precaution of slowing down. She hardly stumbled and, for the first time, her agility - something she made on her own - and her improved senses worked in perfect synchronicity. This was what it was like, she decided. This was what it was to stop fighting against herself, even for a second.
She felt a scratch along her upper arm, a branch slicing at her but it didn't matter. She had to keep going.
Growls and roars and screams reached her ears, the light ahead dying.
There was something horribly familiar about this - or maybe Allison had too many dead slayer dreams. Something pulled at her again, that same sense of danger raging inside her. There was a shadow up ahead and her body was telling her a fight was coming.
A thick branch diagonally blocked the edge of the clearing and her strategizing immediately clicked on. Allison jumped up, using the branch as a step and leapt onto the first looming shadow in front of her.
There was a gaping silence that cut in like a needle ripped from a record as Allison Argent drop kicked a man in the back, sending him flying. She landed on her back but kipped up to her feet with no strain. She flipped her hair back, heart racing as something inside her slid into place, a new block to replace the one in her foundation that crumbled, and she got into a fighting stance.
It would be easy to say that this was all the Slayer, but so much of this was just Allison. Sure, she was faster, but she already knew how to strategize and do something as easy as using her momentum to get from flat on the ground to upright on her feet in a second. She was trained for so much of this already and the rest - the borrowed pieces she'll happily give back when the time comes - found their way to where she needed them most. Allowing this foreign thing this much was still a struggle against everything she knew but for now there would be a truce.
The man she kicked got up and turned, his warped face revealing just how right she was. Vampire.
The same smugness she exuded with her bow in front of Boyd rushed in threefold as she straightened her spine and curled her lip in a knowing smirk. She pulled a Chinese ring dagger from her belt and twirled it around in one hand as she slowly raised the stake in the other, a declaration of war.
Other vampires swarmed around her, hands reaching to tear her throat out. She spun and slashed her dagger against the paper flesh of her attacker's neck, not deep enough to kill him but enough to halt his movements. He gripped his neck as old, thick blood leaked from the cut.
She was already attacked again and began throwing punches, kicks, and headbutts in motions that felt so fluid, she might've been a tide following the wind.
☽ † ☾
Max's spell didn't do much. It was supposed to be sunlight but glowed for less than five seconds. If anything, it was a flare. An SOS.
Terra dusted four vampire alone when more seemed to manifest from the far off trees, turning from shadows to beasts, running like a pack of wild animals. Max was now very aware of why Terra was sent with her; the girl didn't even hesitate when she was swarmed. She didn't flinch when her weapon was taken away, just took out a stake like that was the plan all along. Prepared, resourceful, and absolutely ruthless - just like every word she said to Max. It all locked into place.
Max, meanwhile, was crouched by Maddie just on the other side of the barrier - the one she hoped against all hope was still there. Her muscles were still recovering from having to drag Maddie all that way, out of reach of the vampires. Max's evasion was - coincidentally - dodgy as a skill and, to put it into easily understood terms, she put all her ability points into Intelligence and Wisdom, leaving nothing for Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution. She was still building on her Charisma, hoping it would eventually pay off.
Maddie's had was drooping on Max's knees, breathing shallow and face pale.
The horror of the moment and the everything around her was causing Max to take deep calming breaths between half-decent spells.
Then a blur came from the trees, launching a vampire into the air with a kick like a loaded spring. Whoever it was got to their feet just as quickly and came into focus as Max held her breath, taking a few second to realize she was gaping.
Allison Argent stood surrounded and clutching both a small dagger and a stake. Max wanted to cheer her on and pump her fist but the sudden shock made her jump and Maddie's head lolled to the side, limp.
Was she getting paler?
Max's excitement was cut short as her blood froze in her veins and she hesitantly bent over, casting a shadow over Madeline as she strained to hear the one sound that would put her at ease.
Slow, shallow breaths brushed against her cheek and Max let herself exhale.
She glanced up to let someone, anyone, know. Instead, the swarm was growing, barraging both Terra and Allison who were alive and fight but being swallowed up in the mass of bodies. A few took notice of Max kneeling on the ground with a vampire slayer on her lap, unconscious and bleeding from the neck.
They began running to the barrier, stopped almost immediately to Max's relief. Hands reached out and smoke began coming from each of them like meat on a grill. Two, then four, then eight. The air was burning and glowing and the vampires continued their pushing until-
A crossbow bolt appeared in a blink, sticking from a vampire's chest and the crowd stopped.
The vampire's skin turned pale and dry and crumbled to ash, creating a tunnel view of the person who fired the shot. Chris Argent stood a good distance away, his arm still extended and with a crossbow in his hand. Even Allison stopped for a beat to acknowledge her father.
Max's relief hit her so hard, she wasn't sure if she let out a sob or a laugh. The answer, she realized, was both.
"I think we can do this," Max whispered to Maddie and, for a second, Max was sure Maddie moved.
Because she did.
She began convulsing.
☽ † ☾
Sadie watched with pique interest the events as they laid bare for her. Weapons bloodied and dust hovering from the plethora of dead vampires while those still fighting scattered as one slayer showed up guns a-blazin' - or staff-sword-thing a-flyin', flanked by a Watcher immediately pulling Maddie to safety. The same Watcher who showed up at the Argents, who were also out there fighting. Sadie first thought it was coincidence but there was an empty syringe still in her fist that said differently.
Jesus Christ, was it fun to watch.
A crescendo of violence. An all-out brawl in an open field for some nowhere California town. All blades and blood and...
And Sadie was hiding in a tree.
She was sure no one but Maddie knew she was there - and she might just take that secret to her grave. Was there a way to make it look like Sadie was just stumbling upon the fight without being painfully obvious? Did Allison even completely understand whose side she was on yet?
And where the hell did The Father go?
The last she saw of him, he was on his hands and knees, heaving and spitting out something discolored. She got distracted with the running away bits that she didn't even think about him until now.
She had the urge to find him and dispose of him once and for all, if for nothing else to participate in the carnage and be done with this vampire nonsense.
Twenty-four hours prior to this, she felt in on top of the world. The vampires would give her the power center, Madeline Hayes would be dead, and the hunters and wolves would be at each other's throat long enough for Sadie to make a hasty exit.
Okay, so most of those would still happen, but not in the way she thought and that damn Slayer had to rub it in one more time that her death would have nothing to do with Sadie. Again, a vampire slayer managed to take something away from her.
And she was still hiding in a tree.
She would've stayed there too, if Allison didn't freaking show up, all noble and badass and whatnot. Sadie would've stayed hidden and watching if not for the increasing number of vampires surrounding Allison. There was a moment, when Allison showed up, that a hint of panic flickered to life in Sadie's stomach. She didn't even really understand it. Allison thought Sadie was her friend, but Sadie wasn't actually, y'know, her friend. Sadie doesn't do the whole friend thing.
Then Sadie reasoned with herself and realized, Right! Allison's the reason I'm in trouble! If she dies here, as a Slayer, that's it. I'm done for. Universe permanently screwed.
Because it couldn't be she actually gave a damn.
Her reaction to The Father appearing in the mass of vampires, shoving through to get to Allison seemed to fit into this explanation nicely - because she was out of the tree in a heartbeat and sprinting. Actually sprinting. She was fighting through the crowd and blinked away the memory of doing the same so long ago. There was no noose and Verity was long gone. Anyanka was gone. Halfrek was gone. Hell, even her best acquaintances and business contacts were dust in the wind.
There was no room for anyone else.
This was to get her necklace back. To wreak bloody vengeance whenever she wanted.
A leather gloved hand grabbed the back of Allison's head Sadie's own hand shot out to The Father's arm, taking one of the remaining three daggers from Allison's belt and burying it in the soft crook of his elbow. The large vampire let go of Allison with a shudder. She twisted the knife as blood gushed between the metal and flesh. He collapsed to one knee.
Allison stumbled forward but didn't fall, turning to see the vampire with an arm covered in gore from the elbow down and Sadie with a dagger, her hand doused in deep red. Allison nodded to Sadie and turned, reentering the fight without hesitation.
She grinned at the man who was turning to her, fury setting his stare ablaze.
"How's that for Mercy?" she growled as her hands became slick. Bright and warm, Maddie's blood poured from the open wound as she took out the dagger.
He breathed a chuckle and looked up at her, a dazed look in his eyes. Whatever was in Maddie's system was now in his and it made his eyes glaze over slightly. "They...made their faces harder than stone and refused to repent."
It took a moment to realize his words, to connect them to something so old and buried inside her that she didn't initially realize he was reciting a passage from the bible. She hated that she knew so much. She hated how much she worked to be opposed to anything it stood for after the horrors it caused. Centuries of horrors even beyond her own. She hated what the words did to her.
"No one cares," Sadie said, her tone as clipped as her nerves.
What she hated the most was the memory of shouting them in the shadow of the gallows as so called blasphemers walked to their deaths. An ignorant child wishing hell on the wrong sins. She thought about digging her manicure into his neck and ripping his throat out. "Your god is a lie."
She said it so simply, like she was insulting his shoes with an unusual, spiteful kind of mirth.
Tearing out a throat, causing some sort of permanent damage would've felt so freeing but she could hear the sound of a struggle behind her. Reveling in a good kill right now was too big of an extravagance for even two slayers. As usual, everyone needed her help more than she needed catharsis. She grabbed both sides of his head and smashed her knee into his face.
She didn't even get her balance back when she felt a massive, sudden pain on the back of her skull. It didn't do much but hurt like hell and she whirled around to see a pale, ghostly girl in white. Her face was already shifting into a more demonic version as she hauled a rock the size of dodge ball toward Sadie's head.
"Come on, really?!" Sadie couldn't help but shout bracing for collision.
☽ † ☾
Maddie didn't remember falling to the ground or closing her eyes, but darkness surrounded her and the grass was soft and cool beneath her body. She knew she what to do when you fall but what came next seemed to elude her, and the earth welcomed her. There was no sound, no light. Consciousness was an ebb and flow, there and gone, over and over.
"Madeline?!" someone called for her but the name was gone. The voice was only an echo.
The ground left her, a numbness and warmth there in its place. Already there, maybe always. Maybe she just forgot.
Something inside her loosened, an uncurling fist somewhere at her core.
"Please..." the sound was there and gone, swallowed up. "Please, don't..."
Maddie was too far away now. Too far. The memory of the sound left her, but one thing stayed. One feeling pressed into her consciousness, both a comfort and her greatest fear - she was needed.
And she was leaving.
Darkness. A black nothing swallowing her whole.
Tumbling. Free falling down, down, down.
Falling away.
I'm not ready.
The tide went out and didn't come back to her.