#also sorry to the moots i accidentally unfollowed while pulling the tag list up. my bad. i am dumb and uncoordinated

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

gasp... could it be? I'm sharing some of American Beasts (not sure if anyone still cares but hey...) 5 chapters left in this fic straggling in my docs:

Boots.

Boots that march.

Boots that stomp, kick and beat.

The squeak of leather, the crunch of sole on sand, on asphalt, wages an onslaught in the long, winding canals of her mind. Trenches dug deep. Fertile ground that had been scoured and excavated for decades, seeds planted, roots torn out and rotted, leaving it a barren wasteland of barbed wire, landmines waiting to be tripped, footprints wearing lines down in a path.

Built for only one thing – War.

As much as Kit has tried to quiet the voice of her father in her head, knowing that she was about to head straight into battle made his words stir in the corners, filtering in past the barricades she had tried to use to partition him in her mind. But it’s of little use. He’s always there, will always be there. The devil on her back, even after cutting his symbol out of her skin. A part of her clings to the notion that if the world is to be wiped clean, made pure, he’ll be taken along with the disease of selfishness, cruelty and intolerance that God’s might will cure. It was a thought that coiled in the lowest parts of her where the scared, angry little girl inside her still resided. The part of her she buried in order to survive.

The entire force of Jacob’s army filled the room while he paced before them in long, smooth strides. His fingers steepled together, the shock of red hair plastered to his head as his eyes darted amongst his soldiers. His brave, strong, and true. A man who was most confident when he was delivering his orders, laying down his expectations, rules that couldn’t be bent or broken. Order and control.

But she didn’t hear a word.

The low timbre of his voice vibrated into her chest in an undeniable rumble, the same tremor that traveled through the earth with a missile strike, a car bomb explosion, or the tracks of a tank as soldiers marched beside it. There was no shutting out the memories as they coagulated in the lobes of her brain, amassing into one grotesque cancer that ate away at her. Not now. Not as the tendrils of infection spread out along the neural pathways until it was all one black ichor of destruction, depravity, and violence. The empty look behind her eyes all too reminiscent of the one that came with the Bliss and the rage that rushed through her veins.

Shifting uncomfortably, changing the weight on her feet, she stared out across the room, over the heads of men and women dressed in red and black, and saw the eyes of the Father meeting her. His portrait hung above them, always watching, perceiving. Judging. The unforgiving stare from under a gently furrowed brow pulled her in, hypnotic in its power even through the flimsy divide of yellow lenses. The voice of God. His messenger. Someone who deemed her worth saving despite her multitude of sins, for reasons she didn’t understand. But she had faith. Faith in herself. Faith in Him.

The cold blue stare of a winter blizzard’s bite lowered, noticing the dozens of eyes that met her own, and the eyes that matched hers, his finger pointed in her direction.

“Whatever orders she gives, you follow. Without question, without mercy, without delay.” Jacob turned back to the audience. “Not all of ya are coming back. Some of you might not see Eden. But this is what we do. We lay down our lives. We make sacrifices. We are soldiers.”

Their eyes locked, the dark circles below his piercing gaze nearly swallowing them whole. He looked tired. Damn tired. But at the same time she could see the relief, a burden lifting at the thought that this might finally be the end. He could stop fighting, stop surviving, so long as everyone else was safe.

We don’t get a happy ending.

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