#niterra | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

gretavanfleetposts · 1 year ago

Text

Fire in the Water: Chapter Nine

Summary: You had thought dating a vampire would be the most complicated thing you'd ever done. But as it turns out, becoming one is even more complicated. The boys are determined to make your transformation as smooth as possible while each fighting to maintain the relationships they once had and those they now lust for. Author's Note: As always, I'd like to thank the lovely @gretasmokerising and @earthlysorrows Content Warnings: swearing, death, mentions of being burned alive, allusions to drowning (no one is actually drowning but it is written that way), mentions of suicide (this one is a lot, folks) Word Count: 10k

Add Yourself to the Taglist

Jake sat next to you with a cool exterior but you could tell by the way he fidgeted his thumbs around one another in a frantic dance, one always chasing after the other, that he wasn't as calm and collected as he wanted to appear. You could guess what was going through his head, too: the danger you were both in now that the council knew about you. It was what had been going through your head since you'd laid eyes on the tall man who looked like the creature he was in your home. It was what had been going through your head during the silent journey to the airport, through security, sitting at the gate, and now as you sat in a cramped airline seat surrounded by blissfully unaware human passengers waiting to take off.

The council had summoned you to their place of rule in a city called Niterra, tucked away within what humans knew to be Barcelona. The way Jake described it, it was a well-kept secret hidden in plain sight. That was where the high council wrote law into stone. That was where you were headed for what you could only assume would be a trial, with you as the evidence of Jake's crimes.

“I need to tell you something.” Jake only gave a quick glance at his surroundings before leaning over slightly to speak quietly to you.

He spoke in a hushed tone to avoid Marcus’ ears; Marcus, who appeared to be making light conversation with a flight attendant, several rows in front of you.

You nodded uneasily, glancing about at your surroundings the way he had before meeting his eyes. And when you finally did match his gaze, you saw the cracks in the facade.

“The reason you're struggling to use your gifts is because we haven't completed the binding ritual,” he explained with a guilty look on his face. “You'll grow weaker and weaker until we do.”

You could tell he was waiting for the brunt of your anger but it never came. Instead, all he found behind your eyes was shock.

The last instance you had tried to use your gifts to no avail suddenly made sense to you now. It was the reason you hadn't flown off the handle at your usual readiness. It was the reason you hadn't hurt anyone in over a week. You hadn't even realized it had been happening, your abilities dampening from the inside out until they were nothing but a slurry of mush that couldn't form into anything substantial. You only wished you had known before you’d possibly found something good to put them to use for. Something worthy of such pain, at least.

“I should have told you sooner but I didn't want you to think I was trying to push you before you were ready just so that I didn't have to be without my gifts.”

You swallowed hard, trying to push down the lump that now blocked your throat. That’s exactly what you would have thought if he had told you before the high council arrived. You never would have given yourself over to him that way. You probably never would have trusted him again. So you could hardly blame him for it.

But regardless of what had led to the decision and how warranted it had been at the time, it still left you both in a dangerous position that you now couldn’t ignore.

“I can't protect us,” you whispered, your eyes boring holes into the back of Marcus’ head.

Jake gave you a look of disapproval, his hand meeting yours on the armrest to give it a tight squeeze. “You won't have to. I'm prepared to take full responsibility for what I did. There's no reason it should even involve you.”

“But what happens if one of us dies before binding?” You turned to study him, suddenly thinking about the different ways this situation might play out and just how fucked you possibly were. “Are they permanently weak? Permanently unable to defend themselves?”

“There haven't been many documented cases of that happening but yes, historically the other has weakened to the point of losing their gifts entirely.”

Losing your gifts entirely. It would be a reprieve from the inner turmoil you'd felt since the moment you turned. Maybe it would even be a blessing. But a life without Jake would hardly be worth it. Your selfish reasons were exactly that: selfish. And Jake had given you a reason to leave that selfishness behind you.

You only wondered if the high council would even leave it up to you. And if you were to be honest with yourself, you doubted they would.

“Who is Cassius?” you asked, the thought having brought another name to mind that set your teeth on edge more than Marcus’ did without even knowing the man behind it.

Jake cleared his throat and seemed to gulp down the more aggressive feelings he had about the man you had just named. “He's the head of the high council. He has final say on all decisions, all laws, all rulings,” he shook his head, almost exasperated, “everything.”

“What's his gift?”

“He's clairvoyant.”

“Like Danny?”

“No,” Jake corrected, “Danny's visions are subjective. Cassius sees everything exactly as it will happen.”

You sucked the skin of your cheek between your teeth as you thought about what that meant.

“So he saw me coming?” you questioned.

“Well, I don't think he'd given me much thought in years. Something brought us to his attention in the first place for him to know to look.”

His voice was never void of that concern that had been there since the moment Danny had interrupted you both earlier that night. It was there now as he thought of this man he must have known. One he must have feared, by the look of it.

You didn't relish seeing Jake that way, thinly veiled fear in his eyes as he tried his best to put on a good front for you. Jake was always so calm, always so even. It didn’t bode well for the man you were about to meet.

“Can he stop the things before they happen?” you asked. “I mean, can he intervene?”

Jake pursed his lips, looking more and more lost in his own thoughts the longer you spoke about Cassius.

“Yes but he rarely does. Only when it suits him…He's not exactly a good person.”

As he trailed off quietly, you tried your best to piece things together. A powerful man with the ability to see all, unwilling to change the course of the future unless it suited him. You could guess how things typically ended in his court. But that wasn’t exactly what worried you.

Something had brought Cassius’ attention to your doorstep. And there was a fear that had been creeping up the back of your throat like a lump that refused to go unnoticed since Marcus had arrived. It was a fear born of something Jake had said in a more heated moment, something you never in a million lifetimes would have believed. But two of his brothers were absent from the house. Neither seemed capable of it, betraying their brother. But one of them had been just angry enough when he left…

Jake's hand found yours again, the chilled comfort of his skin breaking you from your thoughts before you could entertain them for too long.

“Just do what they say no matter what and you'll be fine,” he whispered with his eyes suddenly locked on yours like he was begging you to listen to him for once in your life without argument. “I promise you, I will get you out of this.”

Your shoulders fell and a sigh puffed in your chest. You'd give anything to go back in time several hours, to relive your night with Jake but finish what you had started. Maybe then this mess wouldn't feel so messy.

“We should have bound when we had the chance,” you admitted, turning to stare forward, this time at the seat back in front of you, losing yourself in the knit blue pattern.

Mentally reprimanding yourself now would do you no good. Still, that didn’t stop you from doing it.

So fucking stubborn.

“You weren't ready for it,” Jake answered quickly with another squeeze to your hand.

“Look at the position I've put us in, Jake,” you argued back. “Ready or not, we can't defend ourselves-”

“There is no ‘we’ here,” he stopped you with a pointed look and a tense tone tightening his already rigid demeanor. “I don't want you to do anything that will put you in harm's way. You're still a newborn and you're strong. Cassius will take a liking to you. As long as you listen to him, you'll be fine.”

“But what about you?”

He was silent when you met his eyes, his jaw clenching under the weight of your stare, a stare that didn’t hide any of its accusatory heft, like you didn’t trust him not to do something stupid for your sake. And you certainly didn’t.

He relived it as your eyes locked, unwavering despite the chaos of life around you, just the way you did, relived the night only hours prior when you had each finally bared your souls to one another. It was worse this way, you couldn’t help but feel it. Now you knew what you’d be sacrificing, you both did. Maybe it made the path clearer before each of you but it hurt all that much more.

He stared forward again, breaking whatever magnetizing force had been holding you that way with a relinquished sigh that came from a place of resentment, not from what he had done but from the fact that he had never had any choice but to do it. He could have lived a thousand lifetimes over and he would have turned you in each one. You both knew it. You were always destined to end up here.

“It was my decision. I alone will face the consequences.”

It didn’t stop you from protesting, but a flight attendant passing by and giving you a warm greeting cooled any escalation before it heated to a boil. So rather than causing a scene, you decided to drop it for the time being, opting to attempt to gather more information from him instead while he seemed so willing to give it.

“I take it you've met them all before.”

“Sam and I both have. When I turned the other woman, I was summoned alone. But after Adele bound with Danny in the 70s, Sam spent a decade sitting on the council.”

“Sam was on the council?” Why anything surprised you anymore, you weren't sure. But this certainly did. You couldn't imagine Sam sitting so still. Couldn't imagine him confined within walls and rules, doing the bidding of others and judging everyone who stood before him. He didn't seem to have it in him and if he did, surely he would have cast judgment over you. He'd had reason enough to.

“Barely,” Jake answered. “Low level position. They liked his gifts; he could tell them when their subjects were lying. But they were hard on him. I swear, it wasn't Adele leaving him that turned him into what he is now, it was his time on the council.”

You felt your forehead crease, the weight of your sudden worry folding the skin downward as you thought of anyone hurting Sam.

“What did they do?”

“Constantly tested his loyalty to them. Cassius would have him prove someone's innocence just to turn around and have him kill them.” Jake sighed and shook his head, dropping his eyes to his hands that fiddled once again in his lap. “Sam would never admit it but it really did a number on him.”

“How could they-? I mean, why would Cassius do that?”

“Not all vampires have gifts. Cassius doesn't really value the lives of those that don't. But those that do, he wants to make sure they're in his pocket. He wanted to break Sam to use him as his own.”

“But he was able to leave? I mean, they didn’t break him. He left. Cassius let him leave.”

If Jake could see how frantic you suddenly felt, he didn’t let on other than slowing his words as if that could slow your panic.

“Sam is incredibly gifted. Whatever he's shown you, it's only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what he can do. Cassius would either have a vampire like that killed or he would use them. Whatever he has seen in Sam's future must have either made him feel safe enough to leave him alive or interested him enough to leave him alive.”

You were almost speechless. All that time and Sam had never even so much as let on.

“I take it Sam hasn’t really shown you much of what he can do,” Jake said quietly, like he was testing the waters.

“You mean other than the mind reading and the memory projection,” you answered quietly as you sat staring stunned at the stupid stained blue airline seat before you.

“I visited once…while he was on the council,” he began slowly and suddenly you weren't sure if it was for your sake or his. “I saw him…I mean, I-I watched him crawl inside another vampire's mind and drive them so crazy that they burned themself alive just to get some relief.”

He eyed you carefully before he continued, looking for a sign of, well, anything really that might have told him continuing was a bad idea.

“He can show you your own memories, make you relive them even if you thought you'd forgotten them. He can make you believe something that isn't real. Make it feel like a memory of something that actually happened when it didn't. He can see your dreams, manipulate them, give you nightmares, share his own. He can convince a person’s brain to just…give out on them. Convince them they’re on fire to the point that their skin actually burns. He can make people go crazy and turn them sane again with hardly any effort at all. If it can happen in your mind, Sam can manipulate it how he wants.”

He was shaking his head by the end and it made you wonder what else he had seen his brother do, things that Sam had never shown you. Although you couldn't really blame him for not wanting to subject you to that.

“To be completely honest with you, I don’t even know why Cassius let Sam live, let alone let him leave the council.”

“I had no idea,” you whispered. It was all you could muster at the mental image of Sam hurting people that way. The way you did. Maybe even worse than the way you did.

“He doesn’t ever use his gifts to their full extent anymore. I think he's afraid that if he does, he'll grow to enjoy it too much.”

“But he's so…gentle…”

“Yeah, I think you're the only person that Sam shows that side of himself to.”

It was hard to ignore the tinge of jealousy, anger, something, that seeped into his words. It only made you want to defend Sam harder, like you had not too long ago in the greenhouse when his brother had launched a similar attack.

“You really think he could be the type of person-”

“I've felt it in him,” Jake cut you off swiftly. “He struggles to resist temptation just the way you do. Why do you think he kills the people he feeds from when he doesn’t have to? The same reason that you prefer it.”

It was the comparison that silenced you. You'd only been without your gifts for a short while but had you already forgotten the things you yourself were capable of? And thinking about it now, Sam had been more than able to dig around in your mind and manipulate things however he wished but he hadn't. And yet, that didn't mean he didn't deal with his own demons. It was just another battle he hadn't shown you, another secret he had kept, maybe for your sake, maybe for his. Not that it really mattered when it came to things left unsaid.

You were even more like Sam than you realized. You had thought it was the way you struggled that reminded him of Danny and warmed him to you a bit but the whole time, it had been himself that he saw, like he was facing a mirror, one he couldn't turn away from. He had helped you to help himself. And maybe, just maybe, he really did need you the way you needed him. Perhaps a selfish thought but one you couldn't quell nonetheless. Maybe you had shown Sam a side of himself that he could find. Maybe he could only find it with you.

It suddenly made more sense why he left. And why he didn't say goodbye. You knew how hard goodbyes were. You never would have let him go. And he probably never would have been able to leave.

You tried to remind yourself that Jake wasn't the enemy as your thoughts swirled around Sam and the pain you felt for him, like a dagger growing sharper and puncturing deeper with every new morsel of information you learned about him, his life, the things he had given up. The things he had lost. You tried to remind yourself that Jake had given things up, too. Jake had lost things too. And now, he faced an even more terrible fate than saying goodbye. He faced judgment for being unable to say it.

“What was her name?” you asked out of the blue, swiftly cutting through the silence with the question and stunning Jake by the look on his face when he met your eyes. “The woman you turned, what was her name?”

He stared at you squarely for a moment before answering, straightforward. He rarely ever did that.

“Rebecca.”

Rebecca.

“Did you love her?”

“I thought I did. But I never even really knew her.”

His voice cracked when he said it. Not in any way that signaled to you that he was still emotional over her, but in that Jake way, where the husk reached a tipping point and his voice gave out slightly thanks to the rasp and the push and pull of a quiet word spoken just above a whisper that always seemed to strain his vocal cords a little harder. It was something unique to him that his twin didn't share. But it suited him. You thought so now more than ever. It was that familiar crack that let a hint of what was behind it shine through, his more honest self. His more scared self.

And you were scared, too. Maybe it was the tie, maybe it was self-preservation. Regardless, you felt it. It tugged on you, yanked on your skin and wrestled with your stomach.

“Jake, if anything happens to you, I'll never forgive myself,” you breathed lightly, deciding you didn’t want to learn anything else for the foreseeable future. Whatever else there was to know, you didn’t need to know it.

It was the first smile he had given you in hours but it barely touched his eyes. And even so, you found some comfort in it, whatever you could manage.

“Trust me, I have a lot of incentive to stick around.”

—

There was a car that arrived to drive you through the narrow streets of the city to the great stone fortress that laid at the heart, housing more danger than anyone in the vicinity even realized. Little humans going about their little lives, living blissfully unaware that another civilization lived right atop them, feeding from them and discarding them like nothing.

You weren’t one to find things so grotesque so easily but the moment you stepped foot out of the car and gazed up at the large, assuming structure, you felt just how morbid it all really was.

You and Jake were escorted inside by a pair of unflinching guards who likely were used to their duties, enough to know there was no point in getting to know either of you. But Jake’s hand gripped yours tightly, all through the entrance and down the grand, dim, castle-like hallway, until two wide double doors that reached up fifteen feet high were opened to reveal before you a large room made almost entirely out of white and black checked marble with seven throne-like seats lining the back wall.

When Marcus took his seat amongst them, each was filled. Your eyes scanned over them all, from one end to the other. Every vampire who sat among them with eyes more piercing than the last seemed to sit like stone statues, practically blending into their marble surroundings. You presumed it was Cassius who sat in the center, taking up the largest throne in the middle. But it was the vampire who occupied the seat furthest to the left that suddenly had you holding back tears you didn’t know had been at the ready.

Sam.

“Ah, my guests!” the vampire in the middle exclaimed before you’d had enough time to think through Sam’s presence or his icy stare toward his brother. “I am so honored you both could come.”

If Marcus’ appearance had been unsettling, it was nothing compared to the way you felt staring into Cassius’ blood red eyes, an eerie smile curling up his thin lips against stark white skin that almost looked like powdery snow under the dim lights.

He held his eyes open far too wide for anything natural, flared his nostrils too much to look even remotely calm. And yet, he stood slowly and walked over to greet you both, practically floating his way across the room with the smoothness of his movements.

And although he seemed pleasant and endeared, it was obvious he was anything but. Merely putting on a show in hopes it would lower the guards of his prey. Or those he wished to keep in his pocket. You weren’t yet sure which one you were.

When he stood only a few inches from your face, unblinking as he took you in and sized you up, you fought against your nerves to remain silent and still, hoping that if you made yourself small enough or quiet enough, he would turn his focus toward something else.

But that odd, disingenuous smile never vacated his lips.

“Orestes,” he said, unflinching as a large man who looked just as ancient as he was approached like a gargoyle from behind him and took your hand roughly into his.

It sent an immediate jolt through your body, like he could get under your skin and touch you in a way you didn't like. But it only lasted a moment before he dropped your hand, offering a fingertip to Cassius who pressed his palm to it. And when their skin met, his eyes went even wider and he sucked in a long, deep breath.

“Ah, my Jacob.” He spoke inhumanly slowly and the way Jake's name rolled off his tongue made your skin crawl. “You have created something very…interesting.”

Cassius stepped around you, circling you to take you in from all angles before crossing in front of Jake and stopping there, just as close to him as he had been to you. An intimidation tactic if you were to judge it by the way it had left you feeling.

“You have not yet bound to her.” He didn't ask it like a question but he waited for a reply nonetheless. Despite probably already knowing the answer, too.

Jake looked as though he were fighting with every ounce of strength he had not to glance over at you. He looked to almost be straining himself keeping his eyes on Cassius’, to talk about you like you weren't even there just as Cassius seemed so keen on doing.

“No, not yet.” His voice sounded like a mere squeak when he finally found it.

“You mean to,” Cassius answered, and it was the wide smile that practically stretched from one ear to the other that churned up a rude nausea in your stomach.

It was what seemed to incite Jake to fail at his task too as his eyes clumsily found yours for too long a moment.

Cassius tutted his tongue and took Jake's cheeks roughly in one hand, turning the poor boy's eyes back to him. “Ah ah ah, I am the one who asked the question.”

“Yes,” Jake breathed out as the vampire dropped his hand. “Yes, I mean to.”

It seemed to entertain Cassius to no end, a shrill, piercing laughter shaking from his throat. He glanced about the room as he did, encouraging laughter from the others on the council. All but one. All but Sam.

When he turned back, his laughter quieted but his face hardly settled from its gaping mouth and wide eyes.

“May I speak with your lover in private?” he asked, still staring intently at Jake. “I should very much like to get to know her.”

You would have begged Jake to stay if you could have. But you knew he had no say in the matter. Do as you're told, that was what he had said to you. He was smart enough to do the same so despite how cold you suddenly felt, with only one quick glance, he accepted his usher toward the door with a trail of council members following him.

Sam was the last to leave the room, staying still in his chair with his eyes on yours. It was the first time you'd let yourself really look at him. You could have run to him if your feet had let you, even now knowing with almost certainty what he had done. You could still deny it. You could still lie to yourself. He at least looked sorry when his eyes found yours, a hint of red rimming at their edges.

He broke eye contact with you when Cassius turned impatiently, his smile widening awkwardly like he wanted to scold him but refused to do so in front of you for some reason. But without any word, Sam stood and crossed the room in stride, turning his back to the hall as he shut the large double doors to give Cassius one last haunting look before you were alone with your fate.

And he looked delighted to finally be alone.

"A vampire who has not yet bound herself to her soul tie, and one who is so beautiful too, after how long exactly?" He took the emptiness of the room as an opportunity to stand mere inches away from you now.

"A-a little over a month," you stammered as you found your own voice and tested it.

"Ah,” he breathed. “You are special indeed."

When you met him with silence and a blank stare, he began to pace a few feet in front of you, hands held behind his back and fingers practically twitching against his palms. You hoped you wouldn't come to learn what that must have meant although you could hardly complain about the distance he had put between you.

"The restraint that requires,” he continued. “I've not known many who can last much longer than a week. And you certainly did get a pretty one."

"I was with his brother before. It hasn't exactly been an easy transition." As you explained it, your voice gained steadiness, like you were finding your bravery.

"The one I now keep in my pocket?" he asked.

"No,” you corrected him. You hoped your hurt didn’t show in your voice. “A third."

He nodded and smiled to himself, something a little less eerie but just as entertained.

"Quite an entanglement you've seemed to have ended up in."

"You have the gift of astuteness, I see."

He laughed that same odd, delighted laugh at your sarcasm and although it wasn't a sound you particularly cared for, it was better than any punishment he might have thought to inflict upon your lack of respect. Actually, he almost seemed to approve.

"Intuition,” he smiled as his eyes widened deliberately and pointedly at you. “That is how I know it is neither the third nor the one to whom you are tied that sees your soul as it is."

Even if you had known exactly what he had meant by that, you wouldn't have given anything away willingly, and your icy stare was met with a gleeful giggle as he scrunched up his shoulders and slunk over to you.

“I must say, I do love the drama of it all,” he practically squealed before continuing his serpent-like movements around you. “I have long tried to recruit Jacob into my ranks. I’d have loved to have a matching pair. And yet, he refuses. It is a shame, too. If I had been successful, you would not be in the mess you are now.”

“I don't understand,” you broke your silence, catching him off guard when he stopped in front of you yet again.

“You have a very interesting future, my dear. I knew our beautiful little Jacob would break the rules for you. I saw it all. It was not a future I was prepared to see through to the end. But your lover is stubborn, and he refused my invitation. And so here we are, barreling toward the end of this exciting journey.”

He seemed far too excited to see things play out for your taste.

“I didn't realize there was someone out there so invested in my future,” you answered flatly.

“I am invested in all things worthy of my intrigue. And you, my dear,” he took your chin in his hand this time, yanking your face toward his, “you are more than worthy.” He let your face drop as he turned his back on you, heading for his throne that he practically threw his body into once he reached it. “The question is, do I let this mess continue or do I intervene?”

You shouldn't have encouraged him but you couldn't even help yourself, given the mess you were in. The mess you continued to make just like the trashed greenhouse you had left behind you. You had hurt so many brothers and in such a short amount of time, it was almost a relief to hear Cassius say it was not the future he intended to let happen. It was hardly a future worth letting play out at all.

“Can't say I wouldn't mind a little intervention,” you huffed under your breath.

It was an answer that delighted him.

“Oh, I do like you. I knew I would.”

He sat lounging comfortably in his chair with his untrustworthy eyes on yours and a smile plastered to his face. This was the man Sam had sold his soul to. This was the man that had hurt him beyond belief and yet it was the same man he had gone running back to in the end. And in that moment, you weren’t sure who you hated more, Cassius or Sam.

“If I may,” you began uneasily, knowing there was no going back once you’d asked the question, “how did you find out about me?”

“Ah, yes.” Cassius stood and took his time slinking across the room once more. This time when he reached you, his fingers curled in your hair and brought it to his nose, his eyes falling shut as he breathed in deeply to catch your scent and commit it to memory. And when his eyes opened, they almost seemed redder than before.

He took your face in one hand, the ice of his skin feeling like it could splinter your own where he touched you.

“It was our dear Samuel who told me it had been done,” he answered. “He is loyal to me. I made certain of that.”

If you had been alone, you would have sunk to your knees and screamed. If you’d had your gifts, you would have disintegrated everything in your path. And if Sam had been standing before you, you would have beat your body against him, waged war against him, begged him to tell you it wasn’t true or demanded a reason. But Sam wasn’t there. And you had no gifts. You had almost nothing left, not even any fight. And all of that anger and betrayal and heartbreak crescendoed into a single tear falling from the corner of your eye.

Cassius wiped at it with a single finger, studying the drop where it lay on the pad of skin. “Do not blame him for what he has done, my dear. You would not have gone unnoticed by me for long. I was always destined to find you out.” He turned his back on you again, a simple flexing of his two fingers against his palm held behind his back some invisible signal as he made his way to his chair once more. "It really is too bad he broke the rules."

You didn’t even have the time to grieve before two members of the council each opened one of the large doors behind you, as though they had been summoned. They made way for the rest to enter once more, Jake trailing in behind them all with Marcus to his back to ensure he didn't run. Not that he would without you.

And this time, Sam never let his eyes find yours.

“It isn't often I take the opportunity to step into another's path and alter it,” Cassius began once the company returned and settled into their respective seats. “But I have seen things in your futures that I cannot overlook. So, I am left with a choice: let you bind and restore your strength so that you may forever sit on my council…”

He took a sick moment to smile over at you before he finished.

“Or kill you both.”

“No!” Jake was already fighting against the hands that had quickly come to stop him from whatever feeble attempt he was about to make to stop Cassius as Sam’s voice screamed out overtop.

“That wasn’t our deal!”

“Silence!” Cassius boomed, suddenly a picture just as threatening as you now understood him to be as the smile dissipated and what had been hiding, that sinister, deadly serious look, shone through from beneath. “You,” he pointed at Sam, “have no weight here! You come and go as you please; you do not get to snivel and whine in my ear!”

He stood and turned his eyes toward Jake, anger turning into a dangerous glower. “And you.” You could practically see the disdain dripping from his mouth when he said it. “You have broken what little rules I set before you. Not to mention, I cannot overlook the fact that in the process, you have created something much more powerful than the last.”

It was then that Jake's eyes met yours again, tearful and tired and filled with remorse. It wasn’t an image of him that you wanted to remember.

“Leave me!” Cassius demanded again. “I shall think on it. And you two shall remain separated until I've decided.”

With a wave of his hand, you found yourself being dragged out the door by hands you didn't recognize, only the sound of Jake's cries for you audible over the ringing in your ears as he fought and ripped his way to you to no avail.

You went much more willingly, without hardly any fight at all as Cassius’ words sunk in, never letting your eyes leave his as hands similar to those that dragged Jake away pulled you in the opposite direction. You knew what he would choose. Jake had denied his council more than once already. You knew your fate. And as you were hauled away, gazing at Cassius unflinchingly while that smile returned to his face, you couldn’t help but wonder if Sam was happy with himself.

—

It was almost comical how cozy the room you had landed in was. They'd practically thrown you into it, a warm, golden-colored library that seemed so inviting when compared to the atrocities the council committed on a daily basis. You almost didn't even mind being locked away there, apart from the fact that you felt you'd go crazy sitting with your back to a tall shelf of books in a dreary silence as you wondered where Jake was and if he had ended up in an equally cozy room himself while hours ticked by.

You hoped he had. He deserved to spend his last moments in some kind of comfort, even if you desperately wanted to be the one to provide him with said comfort. It made you regret all the time you had spent running from him. All of the time you had wasted. If you had known this would be the outcome, you’d do it differently. If you had known your eternity together would be so short, you’d have cherished every moment you’d been given.

The sound of the door opening, the only door to the room, snapped your attention to the figure suddenly standing there. A familiar face amongst a sea of hostility.

“Danny,” you breathed, each of you crossing the room in a second to pull one another into an embrace.

“We came as fast as we could,” he answered with his lips pressed against your hair and his arms holding you tightly to him.

But you broke from his embrace to stare up at him.

"It was Sam. He told them about Jake turning me.”

You could tell he was fighting back his more immediate reaction to this news, looking stunned for only a fraction of a second before he shook it from his mind. Things he would deal with later, you presumed.

His hands landed on your biceps as he met your eyes and spoke almost frantically. "Y/n, they're going to kill you both. It's been decided. Josh is trying to talk them out of it now."

It was your turn to look stunned, the mention of Josh's name having done it. After all this time, after everything you had done, he had come back for you after all. Maybe you’d get to apologize to him before you died.

"Intervention,” you chuckled under your breath at the word Cassius had used, the one you had echoed. God, you had practically asked him to kill you.

“It won't work," was all you said as you pulled yourself from Danny's hands to pace about the room.

"Maybe we can sneak you to Jake to complete the ritual-"

"Sam can hear our thoughts. He’s probably relaying this all back to Cassius right now. He’ll never let it happen.” You turned around to face him again. “How is Jake? Have you been to see him?"

"Adele is with him."

You sighed, going back to your spot on the floor by the bookshelf and dropping down onto the marble floor heavily. And your thoughts circled just as endlessly as the room spun around you. "We were meant to spend an eternity together. Maybe if I hadn't been so stubborn-"

"This isn't your fault."

"It is my problem though."

Danny was on edge. You almost felt bad for him, seeing him standing there so helplessly, clearly not getting through to you. Although, that was hardly your fault. There was nothing to understand about the situation. Cassius saw the end. He would make it happen. Still, the way his shoulders slumped and his curls practically weighed themselves down along with his body as he sank to the floor in front of you, you couldn’t help but feel guilty for what this was doing to him.

"Adele was a lot like you when she was human,” Danny said quietly. “Very stubborn. Loyal. Fought the tie hard."

"But she came to you in the end," you finished it for him. The way it had happened. Not the ending you would get.

He nodded. "She did, she did. I'm just saying, it wasn't without a fight. She loved Sam deeply. And he didn't exactly make things easy for her."

You felt a deep sigh brewing in your chest, like a stress beginning to whistle inside your body, begging for you to let out some of the steam.

"Josh is a good person,” you answered, thinking of how he had come back to save you. And how you didn't deserve it. “If I could have chosen him, I would have."

"Is that the truth?"

Danny's question caught you off guard. But as you met his eyes, deep and imploring, you understood exactly what he was asking.

There was that sigh that had built. Except, instead of letting up on the pressure, it only seemed to add to the stress pulling your seams taught.

“Doesn't matter now,” you clenched your jaw hard thinking of the Sam you had known sitting in his rightful place on Cassius’ left. Where he clearly belonged. God, you hoped you didn’t cry. “He betrayed his own brother.”

Danny fell silent, watching you intently. He looked like he wanted to speak but he didn’t. He let the silence linger.

It gave you too much time to think about Sam. You’d tried to expel him from your mind when you’d been sitting there alone, thinking only of the way Jake had touched you earlier that night. Reveling in it. Reliving it. As many times as you could in the time you had left. But now it was Sam occupying your mind despite how hard you fought it.

You wondered what deal he had made with Cassius, why he had been so angry that he had ended up here in the first place. You wondered how he felt now, knowing you’d both die for it. Because of it. But more than anything, as you sat there silently, back propped up against books far older than you, maybe even far older than Danny, a world of history and lives lived and love loved, you longed for him.

"What are you going to do about him?" you asked without meeting Danny’s eyes, afraid of what he would see in yours if you did.

"There's nothing I can do, I don't think."

"You're his friend," you answered back, almost callously.

"I don't know if he still sees it that way," Danny admitted.

You felt your jaw clench.

“You gave up on him at some point,” you whispered suddenly as tears began to form in their usual place. “I see it. I feel it. You hide behind your tie like that's what stole you away-”

“You don't understand-” Danny tried to interject but you cut him off.

“He turned himself for you,” you spat finally. “You think you don't owe him anything? He gave up his life for you and then he gave up his love for you. He has given you everything!”

You could feel that familiar anger seething and spitting and spewing and desperately trying to claw its way out of you, weak as you were. But like this, Danny had no reason to fear you.

“He's the reason you're here,” he answered calmly, the only hint of his emotions being the wet glaze cast over his eyes that matched your own.

But not a single drop fell. Not from his eyes, anyway. And in the silence that clung to the air, uncomfortable and gnawing, Danny’s face seemed to wash over with realization.

“I can't believe I didn't see it,” he huffed out in exasperation, shaking his head lightly as his brows furrowed downard. “Adele tried to tell me; I told her she was crazy.”

You said nothing, rather opting to cast your eyes to the floor.

“But I see it now,” he continued. “Even after all of this. She was right. You love him.”

You wiped at your tears with the back of your hand, trying to dry them before they had a chance to fall and stain the floor with your remorse. And you sniffled back what emotions you could, pulling on your icy stare again and not caring that Danny could see right through you all of a sudden.

“Just don't abandon him again,” was all you said.

Danny looked like he was about to reach for you again when the door opened a second time, and this time the boy who stood in the doorway was much shorter than the last but with curls just as bouncy.

Josh.

There was only a moment of hesitation between you both before you found yourself in his arms, the tears finally falling when your face buried itself into the safety of the crook of his neck.

God, he practically felt warm. You had forgotten how comforting even just his presence was in the time that he had been gone but now with his arms wrapped around you, it was all you felt.

“I'm so sorry,” he mumbled against your shoulder where his head had dropped. “I’m so, so sorry. I should have been here. I never should have left. I thought I was doing you a favor.”

You couldn't even muster up the words, nothing but gentle sobs wracking your body as you longed to melt into him, to do nothing more than disappear where you stood in his arms and let that be your last memory.

Eventually though, it was the thought of your last moments and how you might spend them that forced you to dry your eyes and pull your head back to face him, just as teary-eyed as you.

He still looked like your Josh. He still smelled like your Josh. The pillowy skin of his lips and the rosiness his cheeks always carried despite being a vampire still sat warmly on his face but now, that toothy grin that had saved you from so much turmoil in the past was nowhere to be found. But even so, you found yourself forgiving him for all of the time he had missed.

His hands took your face between them and his thumbs seemed to strike over your face carefully to remember all the times they had done so under better circumstances.

“Cassius has already made up his mind,” he said as he held back his emotions rather clumsily. “Our only hope now is to break you both out of here.”

But you shook your head. “I don't think we can get out of this one.”

There were too many powerful beings at play, none of which now included you or Jake. You were exactly where Cassius wanted you and now, only a decision on his part could change that. But Josh didn't seem so ready to accept it.

“Don't say that. I'm not leaving you and Jake behind, do you hear me? I'm not losing you both.”

It was the way his voice cracked like Jake's usually did that shook the realization from you. Josh didn't have to lose you both. More importantly, he didn't have to lose his brother.

You took a step back from Josh, him and Danny both eyeing you carefully.

"They only need to kill one of us," you breathed out into the room.

"What?" Josh asked, his brows knitting together as he tried to understand where you were going with this, worried that he might have already known.

“If the other dies before they are bound, the one who survives weakens to the point of losing their gifts,” you explained. “That's what Jake said on the plane. With one of us gone, the other isn't a threat."

"Y/n, no-" Josh was quick to chime in with his disapproval but you continued, undeterred.

"We can still save Jake. If I'm gone, he won't be a threat to them. He'll lose his gifts and his tie. Surely Cassius will take that as payment for breaking the rules."

"He'll have no reason to live without you," Danny answered somberly from where he stood with his arms folded over his large chest. You could tell he was as equally displeased by the notion as Josh was but he was the one who could understand it the best. He would do anything for Adele, even this.

"I'm not going to let him die, Danny,” you shook your head, the tears finally drying on your cheeks and in your eyelashes as your decision became clear. “I won't let Josh lose something else."

But the curly-haired twin whose heart you had crushed looked even more devastated, taking you back between his hands to practically shake some sense loose. "Please don't do this. There's another way, we just have to find it."

You took his hands from your shoulders and cradled them before you in your palms. It was so weird to think of how far the two of you had been separated over the last two months, how you had gone from needing him to hardly even thinking about him. It felt so cruel now that you faced the idea of never seeing him again.

You owed that boy everything you could give him. Just the way Danny owed Sam, you owed Josh for everything you had put him through and everything he had done for you.

"He could live a life without me,” you said quietly as you studied his hands. “You both could."

He was already shaking his head vehemently.

"What makes you so sure I would want to?"

"This is all I can give you, Josh," you insisted. “Let me right all of my wrongs.”

Danny could see it now, your death set in stone, just as certain as the path you were on. You could tell by the way he was suddenly squeezing his eyes tightly shut, willing himself not to see it. It was how he had looked in the memory Sam had shown you after he had just turned, crouched and scared in the corner trying to hide from the things he didn’t want to see.

It was only when a commotion sounded from the hall that Danny’s eyes flew open again, searching for the cause. It had sounded almost like Sam although it was hard to tell through the racket. Maybe he had heard your plan just as Danny had seen it.

There was a layering of voices and what sounded to be feet moving, and suddenly the door was being pushed open by Marcus and another council member and you yet again found hands dragging you from your place.

This time when you entered the great hall, Sam looked forcibly sat in his seat, tears streaming steadily but silently down his face. Jake was dragged in soon after, the hands holding him clamping down much harder by the looks of it. You worried they'd break him if they held him any tighter.

And Cassius was at the center of it all, looking far more delighted than he had any business being.

“She has chosen to die for you!” he exclaimed from his throne, clasping his hands together with that eerie smile replaced on his lips.

One might have thought just looking at him that applause would be expected. But his words were only met with the sound of Jake screaming out and fighting against the vampires who held him back. And Sam, sitting up on his seat like the good little soldier he was, squeezed his eyes tightly shut as the tears streamed harder.

“My, you have enraptured so many hearts in your short life. I shall think of you often.” Cassius let his lips stretch even thinner before jumping up out of his seat and gliding over to where you stood, arms still clasped between cold hands now forcing you into a kneeling position.

When he reached you, he crouched down to meet you, lifting your chin with a single finger so as not to let you avoid the terror that was his eyes.

“I would be more than happy to do it, my dear,” he practically hissed.

“Don’t put your hands on her!” Jake screamed again, a sound that caused you to wince.

You couldn't let that be the last thing you heard before you died. It was too violent a sound to take with you to the grave.

Cassius glanced over to your tie with an annoyed look on his face.

“Let me touch her, please,” Jake pleaded, the pain in his voice surmounting until it cracked and fizzled and all but died in his throat. “Please,” he gave one last attempt, the sound barely audible in the room.

“You have no spark of power left in your body,” Cassius answered with a mean smile. “It would hardly do her any good.”

If you'd had your own gifts, you would have done it yourself. Jake was the second best, although to make him do it just felt cruel. And silently, you were thankful he couldn't. Surely that was a blessing, in the end.

But to die by Cassius or one of his minions felt a much more horrid way to go, your limbs being torn from your body, your head severed last. Or maybe they'd choose fire and there would be no escaping the blistering pain. You could be brave for Jake but the tears blurring your vision signaled to you and everyone else that you weren't nearly as ready for that as you had tried to believe.

That left only one capable of the task at hand: Sam.

You turned your eyes to his to silently plead with him. You spoke your thoughts as loudly as you could to force him to turn to you, to face you.

You watched his jaw tense and the red in his eyes grow angrier as you silently begged him to give you a more merciful death than Cassius would. He owed you, after all, didn’t he? If he could betray you so easily then surely he could do this, too.

If nothing else, you’d get to feel his hands again. Just one last time.

“I'll do it,” he said finally, reluctantly, through gritted teeth. “I’ll do it.”

Cassius stood and turned to him, seemingly surprised by what he heard though you suspected he wasn’t surprised by any of this.

“Now that I would like to see,” he grinned.

He dismissed Sam from his seat with a wave of two fingers, a signal to the vampire who seemed to be the only thing subduing him to let up his gaze and let Sam cross the room to you. And only the sound of Jake's repeated cries resonated about the room.

You didn't dare look over at him where he laid folded over on himself, having given up making his way to you in favor of chanting no over and over again until his voice hardly worked. You were thankful Josh couldn't see it. You hoped he was far enough away that he couldn't hear it, either.

When he met you on the floor, Sam's hands found your face, bringing your focus back to his tears instead.

“I'm so sorry,” he whispered.

It had been so long since you had heard that voice directed at you and only you. It had been even longer since you had felt him touch you in that way that he did that seemed to right every wrong. And truthfully, it brought you comfort even now, knowing he would shield you from everything the way he always had.

“Don't touch her,” you heard Jake croak out one last time.

It was the last thing you heard before Sam invaded your mind.

Suddenly it was his thoughts that you could hear, sounding all around you and making you feel as though you had immersed yourself in him amongst a sea of black.

He wasn't invading your mind, he was letting you invade his.

“Please don't make me do this, please don't make me do this, please don't make me do this-” His thoughts layered one over top of the other but the dominant one, the one that was directed at you, thought for you to hear, it came through clearly.

“I won't let it hurt. You'll just feel me.”

Even with your tie and the way it felt toward the end being with Jake, Sam was never truly gone. Danny and Adele had been right and you saw that now. You loved him. And had you not tied with Jake, you would have chosen him.

“I always feel you,” you thought.

Sam took you back to the cliffs, back beneath the waves where you had last felt so close to him. Only this time, when you gazed out into the deep gray ocean that bubbled angrily at its surface but shifted so serenely beneath, it was yourself that you found staring back at you. He had taken you into his mind and cradled you there in his memory of you. His favorite memory of you.

You floated curiously across from yourself until you watched the arm of the other you slice through the water like it moved through molasses. You watched it push the water from its path and reach out for you slowly, gliding through ocean to find you. But the moment you felt your hand on you, in a blink it was Sam now floating across from you and pulling you into him.

In the distance, somewhere from a place beyond where your mind now was, you felt a burning sensation, working from the edges and doing its best to wriggle deeper. Sam was turning your own body against itself, convincing the rest of your body that it was on fire. Attacking your physical form using your brain and shielding you from it at the same time by housing your soul within the safety of his own.

Back beneath the water, he intertwined your bodies easily, letting your arms circle his back to feel the muscles beneath his shoulder blades, letting your legs weave between his and your feet hook around his ankles. He brought you as close to him as he could manage, one hand tangled in your hair to keep your face there against him, the other wrapping around your waist to steady you even more. And then he plunged you both down, together, sinking like stone into the darkness of the water.

It was a quiet dance down into death, one that you made together. And it was easy. It was peaceful. It was just as calm as you had felt that day beneath the water, ready to let the current take you. He must have heard it. He must have known you'd drift away peacefully that way.

And you did.

If you had seen it from Jake's perspective, you would have known that Sam meant to kill himself alongside you, only pried away once you'd gone limp and Cassius became wise to what he was doing.

You would have seen the torment on Jake's face as Sam was ripped away from your body screaming to let him die and was cast out of the council for good.

You would have seen Jake run to you and hold you the way he had the night you laid lifeless in the street, no longer able to do anything about it as if he were always destined to watch you die, over and over again until it finally stuck.

And you would have seen the aftermath of grief as it further entangled the people you had left behind as they scattered like dust in the wind: one who had been mourning your loss longer than the others, one who could no longer live without you, and one who was now convinced that he didn’t have to, if he could only track down the right witch who had scorned him years ago.

Taglist: @gvfcinema @jakekiszkasbuttsweat @hippievanfleet @crossczeched48 @cassiesgreta @sunfl0wer-power @abby-gvf @joshkiszkasfoot @joshskittytickler @lightsofthe-living-gvf @i-choose-the-road @am-bam @alwaysdaydreamingoffiction @themoreyou-love @bumblebeewrites @coolmedown @sacredthesin @jonch-gvf @justdamnpeachy @fallenstar1708 @vanfleeter @laurengvf8 @allybtj @watching-over-hypegirl @hr33gvf @kaitburb @threadofstars @jennasometimesreads @samiiijones @jakekiszkasmommy @lallisonl @therobynsworld-blog @misshunnybee @sparrowofthedawnsworld @demonrat444 @malany-gvf @myownparadise96 @capturethechaos @st4rdust-ch0rds @montenegroisr @sacredjake @notthedroidz @sinarainbows @kissingthegoat @eraofstardustchords @cherryflo @blacksoul-27 @lyndz2names @earthgrlsreasy @gvfmarge @carlyfleet @thetroublegetssoloud71 @withlovegvf @suzi107 @gracev0609 @objectsinspvce @kissakiszka @amorlizette @stardustcatcher @notsostrangerthing @brokebellsgvf @sweet1squash @imleavingyoufornewyork @lipstickitty @mavvanfleet