victoriadevereauxā:
cash-stoneā:
[ PRIVATE F2F ]
Right now he seems calm, collected, and set on a singular path. Chaos has no part in his revenge, only calculated torment for the witches in the room.Ā āBeing a kid is no excuse when that kid pretends she has any business keeping wolves. Both of you had responsibilities. Both of you failed. Either you had those responsibilities or you were kids. You canāt fucking have both.ā He adjusts the knife further up Auroraās throat, just enough so Victoria and Moll could see the cut that had been made as they were standing there talking.Ā āThere is nothing I want to take back,ā he snaps back through gritted teeth, growing annoyed, and tightens his grip on the knife. āThatās the whole point. I want to see the look in your eyes when I gave you a fraction of a taste of what you put your pack through. You have no right to stand there with your power, Moll, and shirk off your failure to someone else. And Victoria has no right to be anything that sheās parading around pretending to be. So youāll watch the life leave her eyesā¦ā His tongue darts out to wet his lips as the energy builds and he gets closer and closer to tasting his vengeance.Ā āā¦Slowly, or quickly. This is for me and all the wolves you killed on that day.ā
[ PRIVATE F2F ]
She canāt just stand here and do nothing, bleed out in someoneās arms and not fight back. She can feel her strength slipping and she guesses it must be the blood loss, because she feels the grip on her abdomen slowly giving out and a wave of discomfort that she recognizes as nausea. It reminds her of the time she was sick with whatever Noah had accidentally brought into the manor, before she started throwing up blood, but she keeps her slowly closing eyes on Victoria, eyelids only half open, and decides ā against her better judgement ā to drop her hands from the gushing knife wound and close them altogether. It brings her focus away from her body and towards her magic, because whatever is wrong with Cash, she hopes to find before its too late. It pulls every bit of energy she has left, finding it, trying to push herself through the barrier in his mind against his will ā she knows Victoria will know sheās using her magic ā except she finds, not the mind of Cash Stone, but something far more otherworldly, something her magic canāt push through, something⦠Eerily spiritual. Angry. When she opens her eyes sheās bleeding far more profusely, and her fingers are trembling, white as a sheet.Ā āIts notā¦ā Her voice shakes. She feels cold. Her teeth chatter.Ā āThis isnāt Ca-Cashā. Its the last thing she chokes out before she faints, the side of her neck pressed against the blade.
[ PRIVATE F2F ]
Itās not Cash. That explains a whole lot more than anything else. Sheād been staring at Aurora, watching as her wife no doubt used what was left of her strength on magic. Victoria resisted the urge to not tell her not to do it, thereās a reason. If she knows Aurora, thereās a reason. And the reason comes out in her stuttering, weak sounding voice just before she collapses. Itās not Cash. Because of course. Victoraās mind reels, flashing through her conversations over the last few days. Wren ā the witch who talked to ghosts. Sheād mentioned a wolf, one who was angry. His words could very well be mistaken for Cashās, along with any other wolf that had been at the Compound that day. And Victoria knows, perhaps the most important point, that fighting someone with nothing to lose is almost impossible. Shifting wonāt be possible if she wishes to spare Cashās body. So she relies on magic first, quietly altering the energy around her with determined focus until she can zap him with a force so strong it will hopefully knock him out before he has the know-how to hurt Aurora.Ā
She pushes Moll behind her further and with one quick, barely detectable blast, the wolf and her wife are separated. His body on the ground, Victoria clears the space between them and pounces, with abandon and strength usually only reserved for her shifted form and yet, still entirely possible with her years of training as a human with alongside wolves.Ā āMoll, get her!ā Victoria shouts as she lands on top of Cashās body, delivering a solid blow with her own bare fist to his jaw.Ā āGet her out of here and help her!ā
[ PRIVATE F2F ]
The time for arguing is over. Moll recognizes the signs of a man past reason. And then she watches in horror as Aurora stops pressing her hands into her wound so she can do some sort of unseen magic. In that moment, she doesnāt care if itās Cash or not - the truck is off road and barreling towards them, regardless of whoās behind the wheel. She staggers back at the push, watching the crackle of energy that breaks the two apart and the snap of violence she has no desire to watch. Sheās already moving to the crumpled heap of Aurora on the ground.Ā āYes to half of that,ā she huffed to herself. Theyāre already cutting it so close and Aurora has a few inches on her - she isnāt wasting time or magic trying to get her far. Instead she drags the witch by her legs out into the hallway with a wince of apology, careful not to hit her head on the doorframe.Ā She drops to her knees. Thereās so much bloodĀ painting the front of the tailored shirt that she can smell it, nearly making her gag as she slowly peels it back. Moll shuts her eyes tightly and covers the wound with both hands. It takes a second to start working, but once it does her desperation to fix it is so strong that the surge of power steals her air. Her magic sinks into Auroraās abdomen, flooding over the torn tissue and nicked organs and knitting them back together, mending veins and arteries and refilling them withĀ blood.Ā
All of the other small wounds were just practice for this, and panic starts to creep in around the edges when she realizes just how long this is going to take. They're so close to the danger of two wolves fighting, and they need to get backup for Victoria and warn everyone else, and Aurora is still a bloody mess not out of the woods yet. Does Victoria have it in her to kill Cashās body after witnessing everything? The magic falters and threatens to cut off until Moll manages to get her racing heart under control again, more warmth in her palms where theyāre pressed against Auroraās sticky cold skin.













