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Pechsträhne: Requiem Dolores et Irae, Ch. 8

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Word count: Approx. 26k

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Chapter warnings: Horror. Violence. Death. Murder. Violence against minors. Main character death (Kind of?). Taphophobia. Suicide. Manipulation/emotional abuse. Misogyny. Dead Dove: do not eat.

A/N: Good luck. ~Delyn

@kokoandkookie @rkive-joonie @singdancedreampray @erescheese @hyperfixation-station-1234 @moonxxlover@onyxthornseer @lunaryoongie

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“Easy,” Yoongi inched forward across the grass, hands splayed out the same way one would soothe a frightened animal. “Easy…” His voice dropped to a low mumble meant mostly for his own ears, knees bent, head dipped, and eyes narrowed in concentration as he licked his lips.

A cat closing in on its prey.

He lunged, feet kicking forward into a full sprint, arms held out to close around an invisible victim that slipped right through his grasp.

“Fuuuuccckk!” Yoongi tossed his head back in anguish, hands coming down to rest on his knees while he caught his breath. “I’m too fuckin’ old for this shit.”

Jungkook shifted in his spot next to Y/n, hands stuffed in his coat pockets and sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He sniffed, pushing his glasses up to hide the humored crook of his mouth. “Try again.”

With yet another lengthy string of curses, Yoongi hopped into a jog to the other side of the field, scanning the area for his next target.

“You’ve gotta lean into it more!” Jin shouted out to him from his comfortable spot reclined on his own personal (rather fancy, might she add) folding chair behind them, feet propped up on one of the bleachers, and an open bag of homemade trail mix nestled safely in the divots of his puffy winter coat. A snack he promptly choked on when Yoongi responded with his middle finger held high over his head.

Y/n shook her head with a light laugh, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she turned back to give the van behind them a cursory glance. If a police cruiser or unsuspecting guest just trying to visit the public playing field, maybe throw a ball with their kid, or a group of dads reliving their high school years with some buddies, they’d risk accidentally seeing a small pile of passed-out bodies propped in the back of their van.

She could see it now: trying to explain to a very skeptical officer about why and how there were two people knocked out in their backseat. They were simply traversing the spirit realm, totally not drugged or dead! Shaking her head at the thought, she turned her attention back to the field where Yoongi was hot on the tail of someone she could sort of see.

That was her job today, working on her sight.

Right now, they looked like blurs of water darting through the air, or the waves of heat that rise off sunbaked asphalt. But it was better than nothing.

A cold wind blew through the field, biting through her coat and skin, chilling her bones. Nosing her way into her collar, she tucked her chin in the fabric and sank into the warm cocoon she had constructed.

Jungkook peeked over the edge of his glasses. “You’re cold.”

His elbow jutted out from his side to create the perfect sized gap for her own arm, a silent command for her to huddle closer. Not even bothering to fight it, she closed the few feet of space between them and plopped her cheek on his upper arm. “It’s December and we are outside. This is cruel.”

Jungkook hummed to himself, face following the blurs of motion in the game of ‘tag’ they were watching. His nose twitched. Then he shouted out like a soccer coach. “You have to get closer.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious! Never would have fucking guessed.” Yoongi snarked from a dozen or so yards away, blatantly out of breath.

A phantom laugh echoed through the air, just a half second of melodic joy, but it was all she needed to recognize Jimin. He had volunteered to be one of the runners this time, leading Yoongi around the field while he tried to really hone both his own psychic abilities, and learning a few tricks from Hoseok’s. As of yet, he had only successfully grabbed them three times out of the probably near fifty attempts.

“It’s his speed,” Jin shook his head dejectedly, shuffling the nuts, chocolate, and granola pieces in his palm while he spoke. “He has to speed that up.” Tossing the scoop in his mouth, he shouted, “Pick it up!”

Y/n watched Yoongi speed up in spite of Jin (or perhaps encouraged by him), racing down the length of the field after a mostly invisible blur. If Y/n had to guess by the height and width, she suspected it was Namjoon.

While everyone was training their psychic and physical capabilities, Namjoon was getting comfortable with traversing between realms in case of emergency, and he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, treating each time like a researcher's expedition, documenting the experience with a scientist's level of detail and efficiency.

It gave him hands-on experience with his concoctions and potions, giving him the ability to tweak things like effectiveness, durability, control — and most importantly in Y/n’s opinion — the taste.

If things were working well enough, Namjoon could have them able to individually control when the spell would take effect. He was close (ish), experimenting with the level of lemon grass, boiled sacred fig, and homemade strawberry syrup or juice for flavor. His setup in the greenhouse looked like that of a mad scientist, droppers and scales brought out from their dusty boxes to test just how much of each ingredient he needed for it to still have its intended effect. No matter how much they poked fun at his collection, he was severely bettering the digestion of the mixture.

His most recent addition had actually been grape juice, something Y/n had caught him pouring into the newest batch with a raised brow. He simply shrugged, unscrewing the cap and pouring in a few glugs. “It’s the ingredient and the intention that counts. Sometimes you have to work with what you have.”

Shifting her cheek against Jungkook’s bicep, she thought she felt something nudge her hip, the cold breeze it came with causing goosebumps to erupt over her skin. Small arms wrapped around her thigh, pins and needles seeping out from beneath their touch and down her limb. Y/n unwound one of her hands from Jungkook’s arm and lowered it to rest over where she could feel the pressure of a body leaning into her side.

“You’re giving him a run for his money, huh, Gänse?”

The energy of her sister gripped her leg tighter, her youthful giggles heard over the tired shouts of the man currently doing laps around the quick-footed blur of Jimin. As if he could hear them teasing him, Yoongi’s neck snapped towards the group of make-shift coaches, glaring with one finger pointed threateningly towards Y/n. “I see you!”

He barreled towards them, leaving Jimin to wonder where his pursuer had gone. The hold on her leg moved to tug at the back of her pants, hiding behind her body like it would save her from Yoongi’s pursuit.

Yoongi was on the defense beside her, hopping this way and that to block the escape of the invisible little girl that was all but shrieking with laughter at his silly antics. With a shout, he made hands to grab her, chasing her down the field line back towards the other players. Y/n watched them go with a soft smile, already planning how she was going to tease Yoongi for being so soft with Matilda tonight.

Metal clinked against metal, a set of keys jingling while being spun in aimless circles around a long finger. “How’s it goin’ so far?”

Sneakers took their time crunching across dying grass, settling besides Jin. The ziplock bag rustled — a wandering fist inviting itself in.

“Yoongi 3, walkers 10.” Jin answered.

Hoseok snorted. “Jeez, thought he’d do better than that.”

Stiffening, Y/n pretended it was the winter air that made her muscles coil tighter, not the added presence. Jungkook’s dark eyes slid down to regard her carefully, but upon noticing no real threat, he went back to his supervision of the ‘game’.

Yoongi paused halfway across the field, face scrunched with distaste and a whine grinding out of the back of his throat. “I would be better off if you were here to help!”

“You gotta do stuff alone every now and then. Builds character.” Hoseok quipped back, settling down on the empty bench by Jin.

Unfortunately for Y/n, Jungkook didn’t seem to be the only one to notice her sudden shift in demeanor, a new set of eyes boring into the back of her neck.

“I’m going to run to the bathroom, why don’t you keep my seat warm for me?” Jin stood up with a stretch, gesturing down to his rather comfy looking set up with a sweet smile. Before she could protest, Jin was already shuffling down the edge of the field, playfully motioning like he was digging with a shovel or dodging a punch in a boxing ring. “Lean in it. Leeeaaan in it.”

“I’m going to kill you!” Yoongi’s voice echoed across the field.

Y/n tried to refuse the obvious ploy at getting her to sit down and relax by turning her face back to the game, taking her job as a supervisor seriously. However, her painfully caring and obnoxiously stubborn boyfriend had other ideas.

“Go sit. It’s warmer there.” Jungkook gave a pointed look to the chair, then a light shove with his elbow when she didn’t move. “Go.”

Glaring at him, she mouthed the word ‘traitor’ like she actually meant it (she didn’t), and slunk towards Jin’s seat that was a bit too close to Hoseok for her liking, but moving the chair would be too obvious.

Hoseok looked up to her like a guilty puppy, expression brightening at her approach. “H-hey.”

“Hey.” Y/n fell into the seat with her arms crossed.

“Ma let me out early,” Hoseok used the collar of his leather jacket to scratch his cheek. An explanation given like she was owed one, which she was, just not for that.

Y/n hummed flatly. “Did she really?”

There was a pause, then a weak chuckle. “No.”

The fight to keep the edges of her lips down was hard, yet she succeeded. She didn’t want to give him the privilege of making her laugh yet.

While he had really pulled through and helped her with Taehyung over the weekend, he had yet to apologize for his behavior — really apologize. He was clearly trying (in his own way), making extra effort to be energetic and upbeat, attending evening hangouts or participating more in ‘book club’, staring at her when she spoke to the point it was almost unsettling…

He was trying.

And she could see that.

She just wasn’t going to let him smooth it over with kind smiles and extra jokes like he usually did. This time, for once, she wanted him to actually say it.

“So…” His foot started to tap against the bench below his feet. “How’s Taehyung?”

That got her to look at him. She was not expecting him to be interested in talking about Taehyung at all, let alone genuinely sound concerned about his well-being.

“He’s…” Swallowing down her surprise, she bit her cheek. “He’s fine. Just hanging back to practice so we don’t have anymore...accidents.”

“Right,” Hoseok coughed, digging the toe of his shoe into one of the metal screws. “Does he have any shows left this month?”

“No,” Y/n responded curtly, frankly uninterested in small talk about the man he supposedly hated when there were more pressing issues to discuss. “They canceled them for the rest of the year.”

“Yikes.” Hoseok blew a big puff of air from his cheeks with a low whistle, and that was the end of that discussion — or so she thought for a few blissfully quiet minutes.

“How about his headaches? They still pretty bad?”

Turning to face him head-on she wrapped her arms tighter around herself, willing her voice to sound stern and guarded instead of raw and defensive. “Why ask? I’m not trying to sound mean, I just don’t quite understand why you care so much after you’ve made it evidently clear that you didn’t.”

His eyes went wide, body frozen in place, his defenses drawn in the shape of a tense, placating smile that kept twitching. Squaring his shoulders, he tried again. “I was just…”

Pinching the bridge of her nose with a sigh she continued. “Look, I don’t need you to love him. I actually don’t care what you think about him. But I’m not going to let you use him as a scapegoat for what happened last week. I’m really thankful you helped out when you did, but that isn’t an apology, and I won’t take it as one. If you want to fix this, I have to hear you say it. With words. You said we’ve both changed, so it shouldn’t be unfair for me to ask that the way we do this-” she gestured a finger between them, “-changes too.”

Leaning her chin down into her collar like a bunny would their scruff, she exhaled softly, keeping her burning eyes level with the playing field. She just wanted this rough patch with him to be over.

“I’m sorry.”

A noise of shock bubbled in the back of her throat, so sudden she choked on her own spit when it tumbled out. “W-what?”

“I’m sorry,” Hoseok repeated, the way his voice cracked in the middle softening the landing of the apology. “I’m sorry for being a dick. For not talking about it with you — or anyone really — and expecting you to just know things instead of being the one to bring it up. For having expectations I didn’t...I didn’t communicate effectively. It wasn’t fair, and I’m sorry.”

The words sank into her consciousness like a pebble thrown into a warm pond, slowly lowering down until it disturbs the sediment below. Feelings kicked up with the dirt: frustration, irritation, sadness...relief. It wasn’t the best apology she had heard by miles, but it was something he had put effort into — something that made his bottom lip red from how much he bit at it while speaking and his palms slick with sweat. It was real, not just something he was doing because he felt like he had to.

Instead of letting herself cry for the umpteenth time that week, she graced him with a soft smile, the kind that had her cheeks warming and her heart fluttering with hope. “I accept your apology.”

“Thank fuck,” Hoseok practically melted in his seat, pretending to fall over dead, hand clutching at his chest. “I thought I was going to die.”

He stole a laugh from her just like he always somehow did, and she used a hand on his knee to shove him playfully. “Yeah yeah. Did Jin help you with that?”

He shot up in his seat, looking around guiltily. “No…”

“uh-huh. Sure. Because you use words like ‘communicate effectively’ regularly.” She used air quotes generously

“I can if I want to,” Hoseok leaned back on his elbows in a show of over-zealous confidence. “Don’t you know, you’re friend can be smart sometimes.”

“Emphasis on the sometimes,” Y/n rolled her eyes, but dropped the teasing, letting the silence fall more comfortably between them than it had in weeks while she watched Matilda expertly dodge another one of Yoongi’s attempts to nab her.

Sneakers scuffed on metal again, and a zipper buzzed from being repeatedly played with. Anxiety disguised as nonchalance. A habit that was going to make her bite through her cheek if he didn’t stop.

Up it buzzed, down it hissed. Up it buzzed, down it hissed. Up-

Hoseok’s voice saved him from losing his zipper privileges. “Hey Y/n? While we’re talking, I wanted to-”

“Hey, shitheads! It’s your turns to fuck around the field, isn’t it?” Yoongi pointed, out of breath and dripping cold sweat on hot skin, to where Jin was returning from the concrete restroom.

Hoseok’s brow twitched and his cheeks blossomed ruby red, the hands in his pockets balling into fists at his sides. “Sure, Grandpa. Be there in a sec!” With newfound urgency, he spun closer to Y/n, his knees ghosting her leg. “I just wanted to see if-”

“Let’s go slowpokes! No more fuckin’ around!” Yoongi clapped his hands in time with each purposeful step, the sound echoing across the park as he jogged back over to the bleachers.

“-Maybe we could-”

The older boy was at the bleachers in a blink, grabbing Hoseok by the shoulders and pushing him up towards the van. “Lights out, Midas. Get your ass in the van before I decide it’s your time to meet god.”

Hoseok sputtered out as he was herded away from Y/n, looking dejectedly over his shoulder to see where she still sat. Jin followed after them, all of his playful quips dried up in the face of having to play the game he had set. “I-I don’t think this is necessary-”

Yoongi suddenly had all the stamina in the world, moving quickly to cart Jin into the middle of the field. “Sure it is,” he grumbled. “I think the pros should show us how it's done, huh?”

While Jungkook and Yoongi got Jin settled on the field, Y/n remained in the canvas chair, left wondering what it was Hoseok had been so desperate to tell her before he had been interrupted. Biting her lip, she felt butterflies that had been long hidden in their cocoons begin to test out the cramped muscles of their wings in her stomach, fluttering up her throat and beating rapidly in the back of her mouth until it was all she could hear.

Things weren’t perfect with them, but they were on the path to fixing it. And dare she say it made her excited to see him again — to spend time getting to know this Hoseok.

“Ah, shit.” Yoongi stooped down to pick up the water bottle at her feet, twisting off the cap and gulping down half of it in one go. In his haste, two drops of water escaped through the holes on the sides of his lips and dribbled down his chin, just beginning to slide down the curve of his throat when they went flying with a shake of his sweat-dampened hair.

Y/n squealed when they landed on her face. “Gross!”

“What’s gross is what you all just put me through,” Yoongi argued back, using the mouth of the bottle to point at the chair. “Up.”

She simply sat there blinking up at him stupidly, the command going in one ear and out the other.

His shoe knocked at her boot. “My turn.”

“Oh,” Y/n stood from the seat quickly, albeit a bit reluctant to lose the heat it offered.

Yoongi plopped himself down with a huff, shooting a quick glance over her shivering body that she didn’t catch. It was subtle. The quick flick of his tongue over his bottom lip. A shift of his dark jeans against the canvas chair. Another handful of rapid, noncommittal looks. Then, sounding almost annoyed, he tapped the back of her thigh with two fingers. “Sit down, you’re blocking the view.”

She mumbled out an apology for being in his way and moved to shuffle over to the bleachers, suddenly jerked back by the circle of long fingers on her wrist. “Not there, doofus.”

The hold on her wrist tugged her backwards, guiding her into the seat and onto one of his lean thighs. She gasped, startled by the sudden movement but also unbelievably scandalized at the most open display of physical touch she had ever witnessed from him.

Wiggling so she was leaning back against the curve of the chair, she hesitantly lowered her cheek into his shoulder, unsure whether or not he was messing with her as payback for laughing too hard when he fell on his face the first round.

His skin was warm through his long-sleeve, the fabric thin enough to feel the residual race of his heart from the exercise and the soft give of his skin beneath her. She couldn’t help but sigh as she melted into the heat, one of her hands subconsciously coming out to fiddle with the hem.

“Don’t get too comfortable. This is only temporary.” Yoongi’s voice graveled out.

“Then why do it in the first place?” Y/n dared to ask, looking up through her lashes at his pink dusted cheeks.

He scoffed. “Don’t get any dumb ideas in that head. It’s just because the bleachers are wet. Jin would throw a fit if any of us caught any more colds this week.”

“Uh-huh.” Y/n enunciated the last syllable teasingly. “And it has nothing to do with me being cold?”

“Nope.” In contrast to the immediate dismissal, one of his hands worked up under her coat to splay out over her waist, nearly making her gasp as the hot skin of his palm met the chilled skin of her middle.

Y/n cuddled closer. “Not even a little bit?”

“Not even a little bit.” Yoongi couldn’t even look at her when he spoke, keeping his gaze on Jin’s careful run like doing so hid the obvious flush to his face and the shake in his voice.

She bit her lip to withhold a giggle at the sight, only making the color on his face deepen despite his stubborn attempts to hide it.

“Keep up that laughing and you’ll be sitting on the grass.”

That was a lie though, and she knew it from the way his index finger started to draw circles on her hip.

That was until a wicked grin twisted his features, his free hand clenching into a fist that he pumped in the air. “Kick his ass, Matilda!”

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February 10th, 1929

To Lisolette,

I hate to burden you with this, but I do not know where else to go.

I am frightened. So very frightened.

Alain is changing before my very eyes. Around everyone else he is just as he always has been, kind, loving, and doting on the girls and me. But during the night, he is some other beast entirely.

He paces our bedroom, restless and confused. In his sleep he cries for me, and wakes with a shout, leaping out of bed and brandishing towards the corner of the room at nothing. And his eyes — oh Lizzy, I wish you could see them — they turn into this awful shade I’ve never seen on anybody before. Sometimes when he gets like that, it is like he doesn’t recognize me. He tells me he dreams of snakes and dark waters that whisper to him to do horrid things. Things I wouldn’t dare repeat.

When morning comes and he wakes, he remembers nothing of the night. And when I recount them to him he looks at ME like I’m mad! And sometimes, Lizzy, I think he is right.

Because sometimes during those nights, I almost believe I can see them too. That I can hear the voices whispering in the dark and calling his name. I am beginning to doubt myself; I am beginning to doubt my husband.

He is still upset about what Professor Kim had said at Christmas, and I wonder if that is what is making him so ill. I have stopped taking lessons from Mr. Jung as of late, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He is always asking me if I was with him! He is so convinced that it makes me doubt my own mind, and whether or not I had seen him that day and forgotten.

And worst of all Lizzy, I am beginning to question what he tells me. Those voices in the dark are so very loud, and they sound so real. They are saying things to me about Ani, Lizzy. Things that you used to say to me.

You don’t think they are true, do you?

And if they are, do you think I should be worried he could...do it again?

I can’t believe I said that! What an absurd thought! Forget I’ve said anything. I will patiently wait your response, I would love to hear how Olaya is doing! How many words is she saying now? Many, I imagine.

-Candida Morel

“It was an accident, Deetz. I don’t know what else you want me to say! I found her that way!”

This is not how Candida had expected the night to go. They were supposed to be planning a service, sending out notices to loved ones — ones with her daughter’s name on it in formal calligraphy, inviting them to come pay their respects to a face she should be kissing goodnight.

Countless “shoulds” that meant nothing to their current circumstances. This conversation should have been a team effort. It should have been easy. It should have been over by now. Though as of late, nothing was easy with Alain, and they hadn’t been for quite some time. Her worst fears were coming to life, and there was no letter she could write this time to make them easier to swallow.

Pinching the bridge of her nose, she bit back a sigh. “I don’t need you to say anything. I just wish you would be honest with me-”

“I have been nothing but honest with you. You don’t believe that I would lie to you about something like this, do you?”

Candida froze, the common household noises that usually slipped beneath the surface of her subconscious now grated on her nerves. Each slow, echoing tick of the grandfather clock in the study a room away hammering at her eardrums until each one made her flinch. Louder. Louder they clanked, like a prison guard pacing outside a cell. The creaking old bones of the house stretching in the wind framed her cage.

Suddenly she felt trapped.

“Is it your sister? Is that what has poisoned your mind?” Alain drew nearer, his expression more desolate and pained. “What has she said to make you turn on me like this? When we need each other most?”

She shook her head once, avoiding his face. “No, this isn’t about Lizzy.”

His finger grazed beneath her chin sweetly, tilting her chin up as he whispered, “Is it the Jung boy?”

Anger flared low in her belly. Was his doubt so strong that he should accuse her now, in a moment such as this? Her heart still raw and her mind completely scattered.

Unable to stop the flicker of rage, she smacked his hand away from her face so violently it stung her palm. “No, it has nothing to do with him.”

Alain’s nostrils flared, his owlish eyes stretching even wider, thin lips dipping into a frown. “Then what is it? Have I upset you?”

Now she felt smothered. Too frightened to say the true answer, but unable to lie. No answer was right when he was so intent on misinterpreting it.

“Our...Our daughter is dead, Alain. And here you are, asking whether or not I am upset, and accusing me of something you know I would never do. You know I love you too much.” She had to speak carefully, afraid of setting off the temper that had grown in recent months. She missed the days when speaking her mind was not an issue around him. Now she was beginning to doubt what her own mind said in fear of thinking the wrong thing at the wrong time. “Please, I just wish to finish drafting the letter, I’m quite tired…”

It seemed to be the correct formula this time, for he cooed, cradling her head and lurching her forward into his chest. “Oh my darling, what have I become? I am so very sorry, I promise to make it up to you, yes? Tomorrow, at the theater.”

The cold touch of his palms on her cheeks make her nauseous. “You are still performing tomorrow?” She asked breathlessly.

“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I?” Alain stroked the hair on the back of her head tenderly.

Candida swallowed, steadying a shake in her voice that gave away her disdain. “Your daughter died yesterday, Alain.”

His grip tightened, and he shoved her back to search her face frantically, a few strands of his meticulously styled hair falling loose. “What is that supposed to mean?” Desperation grew into mania, and with his grip he began to shake her about as though he could make her answer fall out with enough disturbance. “What does that mean, Deetz? What are you implying? That I didn’t...That I didn’t love her?”

Clawing at his grip, she felt fear crack through her abdomen like a whip. “I n-never s-said-”

“You think I killed her, don’t you?”

The room went cold, as did the eyes that looked down at her with narrowed precision. Emotion drained from his face and hands, leaving him a limp shell before her. Nothing like the animated and dramatic husband she had fallen in love with.

Candida rushed to reassure him, for maybe it would snap him back out of this haze. “Of course not! ”

He cocked his head to the side and stared, looking at everything and nothing at the same time, muttering to himself all the while. “Yes…you think I’ve killed her. Frightened. You’re so...very...frightened…Has Lisolette convinced you of anything else? I bet she has you thinking I had done the same to Ani.” His body ballooned with rage, each word adding spit to a fire that burned his temper hotter. “I bet she has filled your head with lies! Lies! You lie, she lies — all of you lie. I would never hurt my daughter! I loved…”

“I know you loved her,” His wife floundered for an excuse to his current state. “You are sick, that is all. Sick with grief! You need to...rest…”

With a breaking voice he stumbled back, iris’s bleeding back into their normal shade as he raised a finger to point at Candida . “She was my little girl...You’re sick….Sick to think I would have done something so vile as to kill my own daughter!”

Next thing she knew, he was slumped back in the dining room chair, his own heat melting him into a sticky, tearful mess that slobbered into a handkerchief with pathetic enthusiasm. “Sick. We are sick. Sick…so so so sick…”

Heart still racing from the encounter, she found herself stumbling back into the closed doors, fingers grasping for the handle to freedom.

Dark eyes emboldened with a rim of gold peeked over the cloth clenched to his face, his lip wobbling faster. “You are scared of me. Please, don’t be. I still love you. I love you so much…” He fell off his chair and crept onto his knees, dragging himself across the floor with ragged breath and shredded voice. “I love you…I love you…”

The door handle finally caught in her fist, and she fled from the room, racing up the steps to the only place she could think to go for a moment of peace.

Pinks muted to grays in the dark of her daughter’s room, the floral accents nothing more than blurred spots to her adjusting eyes. On the bed, her only remaining daughter lay, crumpled up under a heap of blankets so thick Candida was scared that she couldn’t breathe.

With trembling hands, she brushed aside layers of cotton until she uncovered her small face, cheeks tacky to the touch and eyes swollen shut. Candida whimpered, feeling hopeless where she was supposed to be a leader. Her daughter needed her, and here she was, sniveling and making things worse with her father.

But her father was the one to kill her sister, no?

“No. No. NO!” Candida rubbed the thought out of her head with fingers dug in her temples. These thoughts were tearing what little family she had left apart, and if she didn’t stop them, she could risk losing them.

All she had to do was keep her safe. Safe from her husband, and safe from whatever infection had plagued his mind. With a kiss to her daughter’s forehead, she promised not to let it spread.

_________________________________________

A light dusting of snow settled over the grounds, thin enough for the blades of grass to stick their little heads above and breathe in the cold, unforgiving night air. Naked trees held up frozen limbs lined with white, shaking off any loose flakes with the blow of wind, creating uniquely patterned craters in the layer below. A picture-perfect view of early winter.

Y/n couldn’t find the space in her head to enjoy it.

All the season told her was that time was ticking in minutes she counted with mindless tasks.

Five were spent steaming her dress for the wedding. Another ten lost to helping Namjoon decide on which one of his botanical-themed socks he should go with (the answer was obviously the black one with embroidered ferns). His tie was unfortunately already selected, a crisp burgundy to match the charcoal gray suit Hoseok’s sister had picked out for them to wear.

Then 30 more minutes swirled down the drain of an extra-long shower, her hands itching to do something to pass the time between now and the following evening. The boys' suits were already hung up, the tags run over with a whispy kiss of her lips when they weren’t looking — a good luck charm or a mindless manifestation of her wish to protect them.

While Yoongi and Jimin were adamant that there was nothing to fret over, and Jin was always there to confirm that the plan in motion was safe, Y/n’s gut still tumbled around with every possible way this plan could go wrong. Maybe she wasn’t as strong as she had thought, because it seemed that the run in that previous weekend had formed a crack in her foundation, her confidence leaking through.

She almost felt bad, for she could see the way her anxiety had started to ebb into her companions.

At their most recent run on the field, while the game itself was played with laughter and sarcasm, there was a different kind of tension in Yoongi’s pinched brows when he dove for Hoseok’s invisible ankles, or in the way Jungkook would push himself to run faster than the last attempt.

Jin’s intuition was telling him how things were going to go as long as they followed their plan perfectly, which meant everyone had to follow it — perfectly.

Rubbing her hands together to bring some feeling back into her numb fingertips, Y/n stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a plush bathrobe Jimin had gifted her as an early holiday present. He had heard her complaining about the cold bathroom while she simultaneously refused to do anything about it one too many times, even going as far as to attach a new hook to the back of her bathroom door for it to always be within reach.

Now she paced, bare feet slapping against the floor while her lotion soaked into her skin, hands wringing themselves to prunes in front of her.

Hours. She had hours before she needed to be up and in a makeup chair, taking up the job as the ‘messenger’ from the men’s room to the women’s and grabbing the bride any snacks or drinks she pleased. Not quite a bridesmaid, but not just any other guest. Bridesmaid was a title she had willingly forfeited five years ago. His sister never said that outright, but she didn’t have to. And she didn’t blame her.

Honestly, Y/n didn’t mind. Being on her feet and distracted by making sure the groomsman’s shirts were tucked and snatching plates of gourmet meats and cheeses to feed the bride would probably do her some good.

But what about now? Could she run downstairs and beg for someone to let her steam the dresses one last time, or double-check that all the lights were properly plugged in? Maybe she could single-handedly volunteer to hold her finger on the fuse box to make sure no funny business happened when it mattered most.

The reality of possibly ruining one of the most important days in the Jung’s lives was finally beginning to weigh on her shoulders.

With a weary sigh, she leaned near the window, running one of the leaves of her new marbled pothos through her fingers, tracing the lines of the handmade sigil with the other hand.

Still not quite sure what it meant, she often liked to sit with it; touch it with reverence and admiration while she spoke in spilling whispers to it. Meditated on it when she thought she could hear it thrumming back to her.

Right now it was speaking, pulsating with energy that rumbled up through the roots and stalks and swayed the heart-shaped leaves. The plant danced in her pot, bristling as one would wave a hand.

It was then that a knock sounded on her door, her leaves never ceasing to dance while she was yanking it open, probably faster than the other person had expected her to open it — what with the way Jin nearly jumped out of his skin, his hand still raised from knocking.

For a moment they just looked at each other. He knew. She knew. There was no need to overexplain or pour herself out on the floor for him to mop; it was probably the reason he was here in the first place. Her eyes zeroed in on the box cased in his hands.

“What’d you bring?”

He shook the box at eye level. “Uno.”

Pulling him in and shutting the door behind him, she let him sink onto her mattress, spilling the cards out into his hand and shuffling them without a word. Turning her attention back to the plant, it still swayed with phrases she couldn’t hear. Strange. For she had thought once Jin was inside that the plant would have stilled.

So she tested something out.

“Hi.”

The plant still moved, but Jin had lifted his gaze from the cards to the side of her face tentatively. “...Hi?”

Y/n frowned, reaching out her senses to that of the pothos. In her head, she heard the same word repeating.

'Guest. Guest. Guest.'

“Guest…?” Y/n snuck a glance at a very confused Jin out of her peripheral. “You mean Jin?”

At the sound of his name, the plant stopped its minuscule sway, saying his name once with finality.

'Jin.'

Spinning on her heel, she looked at Jin curiously, finding him already mirroring her expression. “Can you try something for me?”

“Sure?”

Grabbing his hand, she led him back to her door, opening it up and politely pushing him out. “Stay out here for a few seconds, then come in again. I just want to test something…”

Jin humored her (though he looked like he was definitely questioning her sanity), and did as he was told. When he twisted the doorknob open again, she heard it this time, so quiet she had to focus on listening to catch it.

The leaves swayed, and the voice announced his arrival.

'Jin.'

“Huh,” Y/n mused with a small smile, leaning her hip against her desk.

Jin had stopped just beside her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just — I know I’m going to sound crazy when I say this — but I think I charmed my plant to talk to me. Like a guard dog or something.”

Her companion pursed his lips, eyeing both her and the plant in a way that told her he was trying to think of how to word what he wanted to say politely.

Rolling her eyes, Y/n threaded their fingers together and brought them up to the plant, putting all her focus into opening herself up to Jin, like how Yoongi used to do with her. His energy felt soothing on her body like ice on an aching joint; cooling to her frenzied nerves like a cold glass of sweet tea on a hot day. Assuasive. A personal lullaby wrapped in cotton and wool and placed over her shoulders for her to snuggle into.

“See?” Y/n whispered up to him, the plant letting out her final call of his name.

Jin shifted his weight from one foot to the other, subconsciously bringing them closer to one another. “I...I hear it.”

That had her beaming, proud of her own strengthening abilities. “Really?!”

He observed the way the curve of her smile plumped her cheeks and spawned a new gleam in her eye, the tips of his ears swapping shades. “Yeah.”

“Yes!” She fist bumped herself at being able to transfer her energy without Yoongi's help, releasing his hand and moving back towards the bed, folding her legs beneath her body and tucking her robe beneath them. “Let’s play a round or two. I could use the distraction.”

Following after her, Jin lowered himself near her pillows, dealing out the first hand and slapping the draw pile in the middle. Halfway through the game, Y/n had her suspicions that Jin was letting her win — because he had to be — somehow every color-changing card he laid down had always matched up with whatever she had the most of, even if he didn’t have any.

It was sweet, yet another reminder that he was always trying his best to look out for them.

For her.

“I don’t say thank you enough,” Y/n spoke out of the blue, slapping down one of the three cards she had left.

Jin tilted his head slightly, eyes carefully avoiding the exposed skin where her robe had slipped down her shoulder after her first victory. “For?”

She shrugged with a motion towards the cards, growing a bit shy. “Doing this.”

He tried to wave it off with a light-hearted chuckle, placing down one of his many cards. “It’s just a card game.”

Fingers stopped pinching her next card, leaving it half out and suspended in order to fix him with a knowing look. “You and I both know it isn’t.”

“What is it then?”

“It’s a card game that just so happens to be played when I’m stressed out of my mind. It’s a trip to the store when I’m spiraling in my room. It’s an iced coffee from my favorite spot in town after a rough day.” Y/n listed each item with careful emphasis, folding her cards over themselves in favor of grabbing one of his hands. With her heart hammering in her ears, she skimmed a kiss on one of his knuckles.

Jin’s eyes glazed over for a second, audibly swallowing down a nervous sound, blinking rapidly at where her lips still hovered over his skin.

“Thank you.” Y/n restated her gratitude softly.

All they could hear for was their shared breathing and the distant shuffle of family making themselves at home in their rooms after long days of travel in from overseas, the pull to say something else — do something else stronger than ever when it felt like the moment was just theirs.

He peeled his hand from her grasp, only letting himself have one quick swipe of his thumb over her wrist before he was grabbing for his cards again, clearing his throat of something stuck in it.

“It’s your turn.”

Y/n’s face felt hot and she fumbled for her small stack, unintentionally sending them tumbling off her bed and splattering on the floor. “Shit-”

“I got it,” Jin was already crouching down to sweep them up, holding them up to her with a small laugh. “You probably shouldn’t be bending down anywhere.” He smacked the edge of the sage colored robe with the cards.

It was at that moment that y/n realized just how under-dressed she was, completely distracted by his arrival and her own thoughts. “I’m sorry!” She squeaked out, tying the bow around her waist fiercely and giving it an extra knot for good measure.

“It’s fine,” He reassured her genuinely. “As long as you’re comfortable.”

“I know, but I’m just here almost flashing you for like, an hour!” Y/n couldn’t help but poke fun at herself. “You could’ve said something if it bothered you.”

At that Jin looked down to his cards like they held the answers to the meaning of life, nibbling on the plush of his lower lip. “I-it’s not that it bothers me...I was just-”

“Knock knock!” Jimin sang sweetly, poking his head around the door, eyes widening at the duo. “Oh, I wasn’t aware you had company.”

'Jimin.'

Y/n turned to her plant with growing awe. How had she not heard her the first night she brought the pot home? It felt so obviously loud now.

“We are just playing a few rounds,” Jin answered for her. “Want to join?”

Jimin hesitated, looking torn between coming in and passing out on the spot. He looked exhausted. Between training, work, helping with the wedding (because this man is incapable of telling someone ‘no’), and meeting up with everyone for book club, he has been nonstop moving for weeks.

“If you’re too tired, you can go to bed. It’s okay.” She reassured him, padding over to the door to wrap his middle in a tight hug. “I’ll see you in the morning, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jimin let out with a defeated sigh. “I’m sorry, I wanted to get here earlier…”

“Don’t apologize, you’re busy.” Squeezing him tighter for emphasis, she landed a kiss on his nose. “Go sleep.”

He practically melted into her, forehead coming forward to rest against hers. “Alright. I’ll be here first thing to help you carry stuff down.”

“And if you’re not, don’t fret about it.”

She leaned in to peck his mouth, but just as their lips brushed he was turning his head down the hall like someone had called for him.

“Any gossip?”

Jimin stepped back, hands falling from her waist to land in his pockets. “Looks like the Min’s made it in. Matilda wants to go say hi.”

“O-okay,” Confused as to why Matilda couldn’t go alone, though not questioning it, Y/n let him go with a brief goodnight.

One thing she couldn’t stop replaying in her mind during her next round with Jin, was how Jimin hadn’t leaned back in to kiss her. Even when her eyes started drooping, and she found her cheek supported on Jin’s knee while she gave the age-old ‘I’m not tired!’ complaint when he offered to help her into bed — she would find the pads of her fingertips running over the split skin of her lip; the place he refused to touch.

If she was being honest with herself, she couldn’t recall the last time he had actually kissed her.

_________________________________________

The obnoxious ticking of the clock was much harder to hear from her room, and for that she was grateful. But as for much else, well, she found it quite difficult to find anything to be thankful for.

It hadn’t even been a week since her fight with Alain, and now Candida found herself in her room perched on the edge of her bed across from the local doctor, his brief case laid open and his legs crossed, peering at her through a set of silver spectacles. “How many days did you say?”

Alain answered quickly from her side. “Not days, doctor. Weeks.”

The man before them hummed, bristling the thin hairs of his graying mustache and thumbing at his chin thoughtfully. “And this all started before Louise’s passing?”

“Yes, long before. I think this has just...heightened her symptoms.” Her husband rubbed a hand on her forearm to soothe her, yet his touch had the opposite effect. A loving touch gone rotten, souring her mouth from the inside out.

Candida tried to squirm away from him, but there was nowhere else to go besides to squash herself against the headboard. What she would have given to morph into some termite that could mouth its way into the crevices of the wood and hide there where no one would find her. Especially not him.

Plucking his spectacles up to size up a particularly large smudge, the doctor ran the edge of his coat over the glass. “Has is gotten any worse since the last I’ve seen you, Miss?”

“For something to be worse, that something would have to exist,” Candida muttered, ripping her arm from Alain’s grasp and folding them over herself. “There is nothing wrong with me, doctor, that I can assure you.”

Alain pulled a comically large frown at the loss of her touch and gestured to his wife. “This is exactly as I told you. She won’t let me near her anymore. She is absolutely beside herself most nights, and nothing ever calms her.”

“I am grieving.” She bit back.

“Abnormally so,” Alain corrected. “She doesn’t even want me to work anymore.”

Candida drew back, anger huffing like an overworked furnace that coughed steam from her ears. “That isn’t what I’d said! I said that you should take off for a few days-”

“She is lying doctor. She insisted I practically quit just last night!”

Oh, how Candida wanted to strangle him right then and there. She growled, clenching her fists and baring her teeth. Hungry to prove her point — to prove her own innocence that it manifested in a blinding rage. “Why, I ought to-”

Then she saw it, that flickering gleam of satisfaction within a flash of golden rings in his eyes. She was doing exactly what he wanted her to. React.

“Now, now, Miss Morel, I think it would do you some good to have a seat.” The doctor was touching her now, urging her to the plush of her bedside and chiding her like one would a child. “No need to get yourself worked up.”

Then they shared a look. A quick nod of the head and a flick of the eye. A beat of that never-ending clock boomed from down the hall.

“Darling, why don’t you go work on one of those paintings, hm? I will escort the doctor out.”

It wasn’t a question; it was a quiet demand for obedience. And if she defied, she ran the risk of making herself look worse. But if she complied, she looked weak.

With silence as her protection, she escaped the confines of the stuffy room and made way for the front door, passing where Adelaide sat in one of the plush armchairs with her remaining daughter, a book split open on her knee that she read aloud from. Everything in her told her to rush over and scoop her daughter up and run — perhaps call up her sister and escape down south where Alain couldn’t follow. But she refrained.

Grabbing the door handle she paused, taking notice of an opened letter tucked beneath the others, the handwriting all too similar to that of a letter she had received herself that very morning. What business did her sister have sending Adelaide a letter? What could she say to her but not to her very own sister?

Without thinking, she snatched it with the stealth of a barn mouse, and poked the flap up to peer at the words within, heart in her throat as she awaited the moment Adelaide might come around the corner.

To Adelaide,

We are set to arrive at the train station on the morning of the twentieth. Despite your previous reassurance, I have still chosen to leave our daughter at the ranch under the care of Emilio’s family. While I trust that you would do everything in your power to secure her safety, I am sure that you could understand my hesitation in bringing her to the Estate in light of the most recent events.

It took a whole lot of convincing for Emilio to even let mereturn.

I look forward to hearing from you in regards to Candida’s most recent doctor’s visit. She has refrained from mentioning anything of it to me, and I know now is not the time to pry into a broken hearted woman's privacy. Though her most recent letter worries me.

Forgive me for being brazen, but I think it would do her some good to take some time away from the house. Perhaps you can help me convince her and our mother that some time spent down in Texas with me will do her some good. I know my head always feels lighter the longer I am away from the Estate.

Sincerely,

Lisolette Medina

P.S. Try and keep my mother together, won't you? For Candida’s sake. Her head is screwed around enough as it is, and she doesn’t need her adding stock to the pot–though I’m sure you know that already.

P.P.S. Keep mother away from house until our bags are stowed away to our room. I am bringing my gun as we discussed, and I know that might send her to the heavens if she saw it.”

Candida’s mind ran a thousand miles a minute. Beneath Lizzy’s letter was the very letter Candida had sent her over a month prior, folded into threes so it wouldn’t be caught at a first glance.

Had Adelaide held the same suspicions as she? Have her and her sister been communicating about this right under her nose? What did she need a gun for? Certainly not her husband...

Tucking it in her hand and making her leave for the hotel, she headed to where she knew she could find the person she wished to speak to before she had been distracted. And never in her life did she think she’d be saying that about her cousin of all people.

Once she was finished with him, she could stow herself away in study and ponder what her stolen information meant.

She found Clay bent over a script in the theater hall, observing the dancers as they went through their usual warm-ups and routines, a sharpened look in his eye that never dulled, like he was able to dissect their efforts with no more than a glance.

“Clay,” Candida called for him from halfway down the aisle, his head snapping at the authority in her tone much like it always had.

With a roll of his eyes he stood, sizing her up with that same examiners blade. “What is it you want? Shouldn’t you be off mixing colors with the mason, or singing duets with the Jung boy?”

“I need you to cancel the opera showcase this upcoming weekend.”

Taken aback, he almost laughed at the absurdity of her request. “What do you expect me to do that for?”

“Alain needs a break, and he refuses to listen to me.” She crossed her arms and gave him the best ‘no nonsense’ look she could muster. “If you can manage, I’ll play whatever part you want in one of your plays.”

Delight sparked across his features, but that quickly dispelled into squinted suspicion. “What do you get out of it?”

“It is as I said. He needs rest.”

Clay pursed his lips, unconvinced. Then, as annoyingly perceptive as always, he caught sight of the letter in her hand. “What are you doing with mail that certainly doesn’t belong to you? Does Adelaide know you have that?”

She instinctively hid the envelope behind herself. “That isn’t important.”

“So she doesn’t know,” Clay began to smile in a way that already made her blood boil. “I suppose she should. I have no reason to protect you.”

“Now isn’t the time for your antics, Clarence. This doesn’t concern you.”

His nose curled at the name, and in retaliation, his hand shot out before she could stop it to swipe the letter straight from her hand, holding it above his head like a trophy. “If it isn’t important, then I guess it wouldn’t hurt if I were to give it a read, hm?”

“Don’t-”

With quick fingers, he pinched out the note and dashed down to hop the front of the stage, annoyingly proud and pacing the edge, stretching his smile wide with teeth ready to sink into something he could us to spit back at her.

But his smile fell the longer he read. His eyes moved faster, his stroll stuttered to an aimless wander.

His hands shook.

“What is this?”

Candida shrugged, feigning innocence. “If it isn’t mine. How should I know?”

Clay jumped from the stage, waving the letter in front of her face. “Tell me now what this means, before I beat it out of you.”

“Your threats might have worked when we were children, but now you hold as much weight as a roasted goose.” Candida stole the note back, shoving it in her pocket. “Why do you care so much?”

His jaw clenched, squaring it off more than it usually did, a spitting image of his late father. “This-” he gestured to the note, “-is my business.”

Candida saw what could almost be fear flash in his eyes, and she felt herself speaking before she could stop it, a mere whisper beneath the music wafting up from the pit. “Do you know of Ani, too?”

His gaze narrowed, and she could’ve sworn she saw a bead of sweat form on his temple before he swiped his hand over his forehead. Then he turned back to the stage, hands fisted at his side while he stopped down to pick up his forgotten script. “No. I have no idea what you are referring to.”

Her gaze followed his form around the red velvet seats where he had hiked his shoulders up to his ears and pulled his legs beneath him, nose tucked back into the endless scrawl of black ink on white pages. It was unlike him to stay so silent; to leave her alone without any childish jabs or sniveling insults.

It rattled her, made her voice unsteady and her mind run. “I won’t let this go. Whatever it is you know, I will too.”

Clay ignored her, mouthing the lines on the page with more passion than before.

“I mean it, Clarence.”

He flipped a page, bringing his knees in closer. A coward, as always.

About halfway up the walkway he called out to her, keeping his eyes downcast. “I would leave it alone, if I were you. Snakes don’t take too kindly to meddling mice.”

_________________________________________

Y/n’s feet ached, and it wasn’t even noon yet.

The women were all getting ready at the hotel, up on the top floor where the biggest suites took up the space of multiple rooms, offering the luxury of a separate communal space complete with a dining table and plush couches to spread out on. But the men? They were all the way down at the guest house.

She was working this wedding like the secret service, a walkie clipped between her breasts and phone on constantly.

It was almost funny, seeing her all dressed up to the nines in winterberry reds, hair done with enough product to keep it in place for the next week, and face plastered with expensive makeup, while she was sprinting in a pair of tennis shoes down the gravel path to the guest house because one of the moronic groomsmen had forgotten his fucking shirt.

Hoseok met her at the door, an apologetic wince on his face. “I told ‘em like a million times-”

“I know. Just take it before I decide to use it as a makeup wipe.” Fuck, she was already sweating. Thank god it was cold out, or else she’d be shelling out another couple of hundred bucks to get everything redone.

Hoseok tucked the button down under his armpit and moved to shut the door, stopping as if he remembered something. “Wait, did you also bring the-”

“Painkillers?” Y/n scooped a small bottle from the cups of her dress, diving back in for more. “Electrolytes? Bandaids? Sign, sealed, and delivered.” She smacked them in his hands. “Just wipe the sweat off.”

“Lifesaver,” he tipped the bottle towards her like a shot glass, eyes scanning her outfit from head to toe. “You look really good by the way.”

“You keep saying that lately,” Y/n teased, stretching her quads like she was about to run cross country. Yet he wasn’t wrong — she knew how good she looked. A vintage sweetheart cut cinched in all the right places, the color deep enough to not be blindingly vibrant. Even when tied above her knees haphazardly with an extra hair-tie so she wouldn't trip while running, she still knew it looked good.

Hoseok bit his lip and bounced his shoulders. “I guess I just want to keep saying it.”

Y/n ignored the hot feeling in her chest and face, shaking her hands out to cool off in the December air. “Anything to return to sender?”

“Nope.”

They locked eyes, his lips twitching like he wanted to say more, fingers curling around the storm door until his knuckles turned white. Before he could, the walkie went off on her chest.

“Bride to Y/n, over.”

Tearing her eyes away from his she plucked it up towards her mouth. “Here.”

“Can you make sure they have the rings? I told his brother to grab them before we left.”

She didn’t even need to ask Hoseok, for he had already taken it upon himself to skirt back into the house, hollering out to the groomsmen from the entrance way with a voice loud enough to carry. All it took was one tight-lipped deadpan face from him through the window for her to get the message.

With a deep sigh she responded into the mic. “I’ll be delivering them shortly, over.”

“I hate him,” Y/n groaned up to him, the ‘him’ in question being the grooms air headed brother. “Why did they give him one of the most important jobs? Like, where are Jimin’s soldiers when we need them most?”

Hoseok clicked his tongue, a mischievous smile taking up his features. “I could always give him a good scare. See if Matilda is up for any playing around.”

Y/n could’ve kissed him right then and there if he had let her. “You’re my hero.”

“I try sometimes. Now get waddlin’, Ducky, before my sister has a nervous breakdown.”

With shared giggles they saluted each other, and she began her sprint back to the hotel with a fire under her step. From the treeline, she could hear his voice booming through the house, commanding the men to get in line with a seriousness she had never heard from him before. In the past, he was the one who needed corralling, but here he was, pretty much acting like a drill sergeant to this group of bafoonish men.

Was it hot? Maybe. There was nothing more attractive than competence.

She was really liking this new version of him.

If there was one thing she was right about the night before, it was that she definitely didn’t have any time to overthink their plans. If anything, she had actually almost forgotten about them behind the razzle-dazzle of helping a vendor unload thousands of dollars' worth of winter greenery and flowers, falling into quick step with Jin’s mother as she steered everyone with a project manager's precision.

There wasn’t even time to return the side hug Yoongi’s father had tried to give her while she zipped by the kitchen he was loitering around, or to ogle at the way Jungkook’s pants fit and Namjoon’s shoulders filled out his suite jacket. (That’s a lie; she unapologetically stared for approximately eight unbroken seconds before they noticed and shooed her on her way).

Time had gone from moving too slow to moving way too fucking fast, only an hour left until the ceremony that she needed to be promptly seated in the second row for.

She found a moment of refuge behind one of the decorative plants near the curved stairs down to the theater, shoving a handful of crackers and a few grapes she had stolen from the bride's room in her mouth like a rat with its secret hoard. Her stomach was ready to stage an insurrection if she didn't give it something.

“Mind it I join?”

Y/n looked up with bugged out eyes and cheeks bulging, face littered with crumbs. Yoongi smirked down at her, a small paper plate in his hand of his own and his suit jacket folded in the crook of his elbow.

Forcing the food down with a grimace, she choked out a response. “Depends. Are you here to send me on another goose chase?”

“No,” Yoongi snickered, already lowering himself to squeeze in next to her. “Move over loser, I’m hiding from your mom.”

Obliging with a roll of her eyes, she inched barely enough to give him the space to be flush to her side. “Good luck with that. She’s on something today.”

“Trust me, I know.” Yoongi scooped up one the muffin he had swiped from an unsuspecting waiter and took a large bite from it. “Everywhere I look, she’s there, coming towards me with yet another fucking set of string lights to find an outlet for. This wedding is going to be visible from Mars.”

Y/n made a humored grunt around one of her crackers. “I would hate to see the electric bill for this weekend.”

They fell into a comfortable silence munching on their contraband, shoulders, hips, and knees sandwiched against one another. Y/n braved finally bringing it up.

“Is everything ready?”

Yoongi used a napkin to wipe a few crumbs from his lip. “Just about.”

His fingers hovered over his half-eaten muffin, picking at the pieces of what remained. “I just have to take the package downstairs and put it in the locker.”

Y/n gulped. She hadn’t seen the mirror Candida had been trapped in since the last big showdown. Suddenly, the cheese wasn’t sitting well in her stomach, the herb-infused crackers turned into mushy cardboard in her mouth. “Where is she?”

Yoongi remained indifferent save for the subtle flutter of his lashes as he looked down at his plate. “Right over there.” He finally dropped the now disintegrated pastry, his appetite also lost. “I didn’t want to drag her by while you were sitting here.”

“It’s fine.” It didn’t feel fine. “I can handle it. I’ll have to see her later anyway.”

At this, Yoongi shifted to meet her gaze, a cloudy expression taking over while he prodded over her face with watchful eyes. “You gonna be okay tonight?”

“Yeah.” Y/n responded with a shaky breath that threatened to disprove her answer. “You?”

“Yeah.”

His voice trembled.

His fingers resumed sifting through the doughy pastry for the loose poppy seeds, putting them into a pile on the side of his plate.

A heavy sigh.

A lick of his lips.

“Just promise me something.” Yoongi ground his jaw. “If she comes after you again, don’t try and be brave. I don’t think I can…We don’t know if I’d be able to…Fuck-” he cut himself off with a curse, squeezing his eyes closed to drop his head back against the wall. “Just don’t go off trying to be a hero if things hit the fan.”

Y/n tried to lighten the mood. “Careful, Yoongs. You’re starting to sound worried about me. Wouldn’t want that tainting your record.”

One of his eyes cracked open, then the other; his face coming down to look at her so earnestly she had to remind herself it was Yoongi in front of her.

His eyes flicked down to her mouth — a movement so delicate and vulnerable she barely caught it — though she didn’t miss the way it snagged her breath, the air around his head churning with the faintest halo of soft lavender.

Then the moment was gone, cut off by a sharp sigh and a grunt as he clambered to his feet. She took his offered hand in a daze, still unsure if she had misread his signals.

“See you at the reception?”

Y/n nodded distantly, letting him take her plate to one of the trash cans as she started back towards the lobby, already hearing a distant call of her name fall from someone’s lips — something about the table settings and favors — things that didn’t feel as important when thoughts of how soft his lips might feel plagued her mind.

Until the image of him lugging down an object wrapped in a set of old sheets down the stairs tempted to put her in another nervous spiral while she finished up any last minute tasks.

Her head spun in circles in time with each guest she politely nodded to, strutting past them to her seat and finally letting herself breathe. A habit that would be easier if there weren’t dozens of eyes coasting over the back of her head, whispering behind hands and making pointed gestures her way, all the doing of family and friends who probably didn’t expect to see her anywhere near this place.

The one that hurt the most was her sister, stepping in draped in some exquisite creation of silk and satin, arm hooked around that of her foreign boyfriend, whom she had heard her mother mention. Y/n stood so fast she her chair rocked on its feet, waving frantically for her sister to look up at her, to come say hello, and maybe introduce her to the mystery man on her arm.

But she didn’t.

Amelia glanced up almost like an accident, averting her eyes to one of Hoseok’s aunts and greeting them with a million dollar smile.

That’s fine, she’s probably feeling a lot of emotions that she doesn't want to display at someone’s wedding, Y/n reasoned, lowering back into her seat trepidly with a tight throat. That’s probably all it was.

Probably why she hadn’t called or texted even though she knew she was back.

Seats filled up around her without her really noticing. Jungkook was a couple of seats down with his dad, while the three empty seats beside her remained empty. Jimin was with the Kim’s, Taehyung was further back with other staff, and the Min’s were situated directly behind her.

Amelia was supposed to sit with her; her mother had intended to sit with her but got stuck catching up with one of her aunts; and of course, her father wasn’t present. He couldn’t be even if he wanted to.

So Y/n stayed in her seat, chin up, shoulders back, and legs crossed like she wasn’t feeling more alienated than ever while everyone relished in the reunion. She supposed she had done this to herself. But would she have done it had they not treated her the way they did? Was she really the only one to blame for it?

The procession started with a classical rendition of an 80’s love song as a compromise for both her and her soon-to-be husband's tastes, their perfectly dressed bodies pacing like dolls down the aisle she had broken a sweat helping to lay out. It was gorgeous, the light on Hoseok’s sister’s face worth every ounce of energy she had spent to prepare it.

Hoseok himself stood proudly next to his new brother-in-law, bearing the box of rings he wasn’t supposed to be holding. Y/n shot him a subtle look, just a flick of the eyes and a twitch of the brow down to the engraved wood.

He merely angled a quick pointed look to the groom's brother in the back of the crowd, his shirt stained blush from a spilled glass of wine, and a drunken smile dragging down his face.

Y/n scowled. She had ran to get him that shirt.

Shaking her head, she turned back to Hoseok to shoot him a thumbs up. He returned it with a cheeky grin and a wink, his gaze faltering when he noticed the empty seats beside her.

Seats she was suddenly being shoved into when he had finished his duty and returned to the aisle, tiptoeing into her row.

“What are you doing here?” Y/n whispered to him, bewildered.

“I’m supposed to sit after they exchange.” He whispered back like it was obvious.

“Yes, I’m aware. But you have a seat in the front!”

He shrugged, leaning back in his seat and hogging up the edge of hers. “S’fine. This one has more room anyway.”

As much as she wanted to shove him up to the seat in front for making people ogle their way — God — Y/n didn’t realize how nice it felt to have someone sitting with her. His presence helped shield her from the gossiping aunts and belligerent uncles hissing about how and why she was alone, conjuring up their own theories as to why she left in the first place and what she must have done to deserve her fate. To them, the arm he tossed over the back of her chair foiled all their conspiracies with a clear message.

She belongs right here.

Y/n watched with misty eyes as they exchanged their vows, the romantic, sappy atmosphere getting to her no matter how hard she tried to fight it. Another special moment to look back on and remind herself as to why they were doing all of this. And now she was crying for a different reason — just for the sake of letting herself cry for something good and not something exhausting.

A crumpled tissue flopped into her view. “You need?”

Gratefully, she accepted the item from Hoseok’s grasp, carefully dabbing at her lash line. He really was a godsent today.

“You know,” Hoseok whispered, voice much lower than before. “We make a pretty good team.”

“Always have,” She rebutted, tucking the tissue into her palm.

He chewed on that for a second, clicking his tongue. “Not always. But we’re getting better with it. I’m trying to at least.”

Y/n didn’t know what to make of that, ignoring the weird feeling for the sake of staying present in the moment, where bridesmaids and grooms men hid tears behind stony faces and the parents sobbed in the front row.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is that I like being a team. I like getting to work together on...things.” He started again, never quite letting her or her heart refocus on the view in front of her.

Y/n wrenched her wet eyes from the front to peer up at him. “Me too…?”

“No. Like…” His whisper gave out, and he raced to catch it. “Like together.”

Oh.

“But you said you couldn’t-”

“I know what I said,” Hoseok cut her off. “But if you’d let me try, I’d like to give this a go. A real try. I’m here, manning up and asking for what I want. And I want that-” he nodded to the ceremony in front of them, “-with you.”

“It’s not just me, it’s everyone.” Y/n reminded him. “We might not be able to do the whole fancy ceremony and paperwork.”

His body inched closer. “I know.”

Before she knew what she was doing, one of her hands reached across his lap to intertwine their fingers. “If you really try…”

“I promise.” Hoseok answered with conviction that shook her to her core, squeezing her hand. And she could feel it in his chest through their touch, his sincerity bleeding out of his palm into her hand for her to hold, trusting her not to drop it.

The crowd around her burst into cheers at the couple under the arch sharing a tender kiss, her hands moving up to absentmindedly clap along with his still wrapped around her fingers. There was still so much more to talk about — boundaries to flesh out, a real sit down conversation to be had — but right now she couldn’t find it in her to feel anything other than contentment.

It just felt right to call it what it was. What it always was. Even with the fights and the disagreements, or the distance. They were supposed to be together forever as friends, lovers, or scheming accomplices...whatever they needed to be. Always evolving and ever changing. The only controlled factor was that it was them.

Another realization that nothing had changed from ten seconds prior to now but a name.

The intention had always been there, since that night in those tents; a promise made that both souls intended to keep.

_________________________________________

January 29th, 1930

Dear Lizzy,

I fear for myself, and I fear for my daughter.

I fear that I am a mouse, and my enemy a clever viper that hides in his skin.

If he should eat me, I beg that you will do what is best for Madeline. I promise I will tell you everything once you arrive.

-Candida.

The doctor’s visits became more frequent, as did the waking dreams that kept Alain from getting any real sleep. Candida could hear the dreams, see them swirling from his head and pouring out his mouth in careless mutterings he had no wherewithal to quiet.

Though paranoia kept her from reaching out to anyone that might help, her trust in her sister wavering, and under no circumstances was she interested in offering Adelaide a look into her mind. Clearly, they were beginning to believe the lie that Alain had spun that it was she whose mind had fluttered out the window with the coming of summer, and not him.

Isolation was spinning her out of control, giving her too much time to speculate. To think. To tape together the shattered pieces of her husband's mind that he spilled in secret. Something was in him, she was sure of it. But if no one would listen to her, she would have to make them listen to her.

First, she had to make some sort of escape plan should things head south. While she couldn’t depend on her sister to understand exactly what was happening, there was no other person she would trust with her daughter more than Lizzy.

So she prepared, putting aside little bits of money that no one seemed to miss, slipping an extra dress or pair of stockings beneath the loose floorboards of the guest room across from her daughters room. It became obsessive, until all she knew how to do was hide. Tuck. Slip. Stuff. Check. Think.

Thinking led her in dangerous directions.

It led her down. Down into the basement where her daughter had been found. Crouched along the dirt floor and digging like a dog sniffing out a trail. She felt more animal than human on days like this. She didn’t sleep, didn’t eat. She only watched, staying in the guest room staring at the light beneath the door in case the shadows tried to speak, or his footsteps tried to wander to their daughter to act out the vile things he whispered in his sleep. She was becoming something else in her journey to discover who he had become, and she couldn’t stop it.

Couldn’t hide from the wary looks and the muffled laughter whenever she decided to show herself at the crowded breakfast table.

With a wave of his hand, Ernst quieted the bubbling laughter erupting from Clay’s mouth, turning to address her softly. “You look...different, dear.”

She kept her eyes on her untouched plate, and offered her father a shrug. “I suppose I am.”

Alain piped in from across the table, nodding to her plate with a wide frown and pleading eyes. “It must be because she refuses to eat. I can’t imagine that is helping her...predicament.”

“I’m not in any predicament,” Candida shot him a glare. “I am perfectly sound.”

Another accidental bark of laughter came from Clay, which he hurriedly quieted behind a sip of his drink. But the damage was done in regard to the hoard of young boys propped up near him, the tallest of the twins imitating his laughter.

The smallest tilted his head, the porridge he was intently working through momentarily forgotten. “Why are you laughing, Duane?”

“Because Tanchen Dee looks funny,” He whispered back.

“Oh.” Bear didn’t seem convinced quite yet, though with his brother’s influence, his mouth moved into something that could be considered a smile. Seonggi, the Kim’s boy, sat ramrod straight, eyes wide and unsure as he flittered between looking at her and his friends. With one silent shake of the head from his father, he retreated back to his breakfast.

“That’s enough from you, boys.” Ernst clicked his tongue. “Why don’t the lot of you run along now and find something to entertain yourselves with?”

Duane whined, glaring sharply with the clouded expression of a brewing tantrum at his grandfather. “B-but I’m still eating-” Before he could explode, Bear whispered something excitedly in his ear, at which his expression flipped around to one of mischief. “Nevermind! We can leave!”

The group of boys whispered and tripped over one another in their haste to fasten their coats, and Candida called out to them just as they were shoving hats atop their heads. “Take Maddie with you, won’t you?”

Begrudgingly Duane obliged, scrunching his face up and leaning into the study doors to call for her, oblivious to the tense standoff between the adults.

“She is in her lesson,” Alain began to reason with her with that same saccharine, condescending tone he had been using as of late dripping from his tongue.

“And she deserves a break.” She snapped back.

He frown twisted deeper. Angrier. “She only just started.”

“If the boys are permitted to play, so can she.” With that, she took a harsh bite of whatever was on her plate, teeth scraping against metal.

Alain forced a polite smile. “I had just managed to get her to sit still for Adelaide.”

“Well, then I am sure the activity will do her some good.”

His eye twitched, his smile melting into surprise, a brief flash of worry crossing his features and spine curling inwards at how he clearly had upset her. Then it shifted, leveling into something flat and unimpressed. Candida didn’t care about his injured pride; all she cared about was the slim ring of yellow rimming his dark eyes when he opened his mouth. “Then I suppose I should go with them. To make sure they aren’t getting into any sort of trouble.”

There. There it was.

The snake.

Candida leapt to her feet, knocking her chair back and tripping over the upended legs in her haste to press back against the wall. “Look! Look at him! He is there — crawling amongst us!”

“What is?” Ernst furrowed his brow and inspected Alain’s face, somehow missing the shift in color that looked so obvious to her.

“The last of her sanity,” Clay snickered to himself, earning a sharp glare from his uncle.

Ignoring him, she answered. “The snake.”

At that Clay’ bristled, hands stilling around his spoon and a gaze instinctively running over Ernst’s reaction and the side of Alain’s face.

“Now, now, darling,” Her ‘husband’ stood, the gold bleeding like ink spots towards his pupils. “Let’s not do this here. Did you get enough sleep like the doctor ordered?”

She hated how convincingly he molded concern out of clear control, the rest of the room looking to her as though she was the strange anomaly, not the morphing man before them.

“I can’t sleep when I know you are slinking through the halls, waiting to eat us!”

Ernst sighed deeply, rising to her side and guiding her towards the hall with firm hands on her shoulders. “Come, let’s get you some rest. How about a book, hm? I can read to you if you’d like — that always used to work after you would have those nightmares.”

Candida’s pleas were shushed with a heavy quilt and a quiet murmur of whatever thick novel he already had tucked into his coat. Though nothing soothed her worries when she could still hear the endless pacing of the clock from the study, and Alain’s unassuming shout out to the boys in the yard, asking if he could join them.

Of course they said yes — he had always been so good at making them laugh.

Tales of romance and courting dances were drowned out with the images her mind conjured of the giant serpent slithering amongst them, earning their trust while he sharpened his teeth, already coiled around whichever victim he decided to unhinge his massive jaws and swallow next.

_________________________________________

“Can I have more?” Y/n made grabby hands for the roll of paper towels tucked under Taehyung’s armpit.

He wrapped a wad around his palm and passed it over, shouting over the punch of the music on the speakers. “This good?”

Using the ball to sop up the spilled mixed drink one of the plastered bridesmaids had splashed all over this side of the dance floor, sh watched the white turn shades of maroon. Of course, she had volunteered to be the one doing it; she was intent on making sure all of the unsuspecting family members thoroughly enjoyed their time just in case something happened. Even if it was just the power that went out for a song or two, she was going to limit their exposure as much as possible.

It was easy to hide the fact that she hadn’t been drinking by getting her hands dirty with random tasks anyway. Pick up a drink, take half a sip when Jin’s dad was watching, put it down. Pick up another, make a show if how good it tasted, then leave it to sweat on a cocktail table in the lobby. She moved like a well-oiled machine when it came to duping their parents.

The two clambered to their feet to dispose of the paper towels, keeping close together.

She was Taehyung's buddy for the first part of the reception, for it was a lot easier for them to be publicly affectionate in a way that wouldn’t make anyone look twice if they disappeared off somewhere ‘more private’. With the reception an hour in and the guests getting sloppier and less aware of their surroundings, their time was almost up, simply just waiting for Jin’s signal to scatter.

This suspense was only comparable to that of when she was little, a blow up sea turtle gripped in her hands like a vice while she waited back stage for her turn to perform an elementary tap routine to a crowd of dozens of bored parents. The rush of hot blood in cold limbs and a nausea she couldn’t stop swallowing down, heart hammering in her mouth in anticipation of whether or not she’d be laughed at or applauded. All of it coming to reside painfully in her abdomen.

They were split into three groups: defense, offense, and middle. Jin would be lingering close to the lobby to distract the parents, a common face they could look for in the crowd if they got suspicious. Hoseok and Jimin were messengers, rotating between popping their heads into the party and wandering back to the theater as needed, keeping nosy guests away from the area.

The rest of them were in the theater, assuming their designated roles. Namjoon holding down the wards with his pockets leaden with tinctures and charms; Yoongi was in charge of the mirror and offering spells from his books he thought were helpful; Jungkook and Y/n would work together to purify Candida with her as bait; and lastly Taehyung was...well…putting his skills to good use.

The man in question tapped the back of her knuckles three times.

Jin had given him the signal to go down first.

Taehyung’s lips ghosted the shell of her ear, his breath warm as he whispered. “Meet me in five, hmm?”

Y/n shuddered with the run of his lips down her cheek, cold sweat starting to bead on the back of her neck. “Y-yeah.”

He bit back a chuckle at how easily she was genuinely effected by even the slightest of his touches, the alibi believable to anyone who happened to look over. Then he was gone, sauntering off through the lobby with an air so inconspicuous, Sherlock Holmes probably wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a crowd.

She counted the seconds after he left, moving her hips gently from side to side to the beat of the music and the pulse of strobe lights, her friend's bodies gradually vanishing behind the flash. Time moved slowly, her ears thrumming with the pressure of underwater currents, sweaty, screaming guests jumping and jostling her on all sides — she probably looked drunk.

Good. It made her job pretending easy then.

Jin found her eyes in the crowd, bobbing his head to the rhythm with an added beat somewhere in the middle, a slight jerk of his head that would be missed by anyone not looking for it.

Now it was her turn to melt; to seep through the cracks of commotion and squeeze out the other side, fixing her dress and clasping the walkie to her ear like she was listening to a command that didn’t exist.

The hotel thrummed like a living being beneath her feet, following each step with curiosity and vague interest as it always did. Each step rippled like a flare shot into the sky, telling the spirits exactly where she was, not bothering to quiet the click of her soles on tile. It was their goal to get their eyes on her after all.

Descending the stairs was an easy mindless task. Gripping the handle reminded her she had control. Taking a deep breath at the bottom was a moment with herself, a moment of forced quiet before they shattered it.

“Curtain call,” She whispered to herself, swinging open the heavy red doors to the theater.

Taehyung’s warm vibrato resonated throughout the space and beckoned her closer, his scaling warm-ups climbing higher and flowing louder with each crest and dip.

“Can you hear it from back there?”

Yoongi leaned over the tech box railing, plucking a headset from his ears.

“Hear what?” Y/n rubbed the sweat off her palms.

Yoongi grumbled under his breath, displeased with her answer. After tinkering with the buttons and switches, she heard what he was referencing: the emotional swell of strings singing through the speakers. “How about now?”

“All good,” Y/n gave him two thumbs up.

Yoongi ran a hand through his well-defined curls, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Awesome. Can’t wait to lure in some unsuspecting ghouls this evening with...Puccini. Very badass.”

Taehyung’s warm-ups cut abruptly short. “Hey! Opera can be badass!”

“Says the guy that threatened my life with a tater tot at the prospect of me telling anyone about it,” Y/n pulled a humored snort from her tool box, somehow having a bit of joviality left to offer.

Taehyung wagged a finger at her. “Wrong — it was, in fact, a hash brown. I would never threaten a beautiful lady such as yourself with a weapon as dangerous as a tater tot.”

“Tater tots are higher on the offensive scale than hash browns?” Namjoon made a face from his spot on the floor of the center aisle where he was pouring thick rings of homemade salt mixtures around the singer's feet. “Is that research peer-reviewed?.”

“Exponentially more offensive,” Taehyung reached down for a small plastic cup of water. “Research not needed.”

Namjoon paused. “But you can smack someone pretty substantially with a hash brown.”

“And you can choke on a tater tot.”

“And I want to plug my ears with both of them so I don’t have to hear this bullshit,” Yoongi ground out from his perch, stomping down the stairs to supervise the construction of salt rings. Folding his arms, he scanned the perimeter of the room with his lip pulled up between his teeth. “Where’s the kid?”

“Here,” Jungkook closed the door to the mezzanine behind him softly, making sure he heard it click twice before looming behind them. “Y/n’s station is ready.”

They exchanged a few uncertain glances, loitering around for a beat just waiting for someone to say the final words that everyone seemed to hesitate to form.

“Let’s get this over with then,” Yoongi brushed past Y/n to where Jungkook had just come from, holding the door open with the toe of his dress shoe and waving for her to enter first. “Menaces first.”

Rolling eyes at his antics, she slid past him to climb the first few steps. This hall was cold and cramped, dense walls of stone barricading the thin spiral staircase up to the seating area, barely wide enough to house two people standing side by side. Their breaths rebounded off the walls back to their ears, making the backing track for Taehyung’s performance almost inaudible.

“Keep those boys in line down there for me, ‘kay?” Y/n tossed back to him over her shoulder, hoisting her skirts higher up her knees so she wouldn’t trip. “They need you down there to keep their heads on straight.”

What she said like a joke landed a lot heavier than she intended, her words suddenly tasting bitter when drenched in dread. She gulped that down to with a straight face, hoping she didn’t give him the same effect.

Silence answered her request, making her stomach twist.

It wasn’t within Yoongi’s character to forgo a perfectly good opportunity to tease the younger boys, her steps stalling when she could no longer hear Yoongi’s. She turned to face him.

“Yoongi-”

Cold stone dug into the back of her exposed shoulders, a stark contrast to the warmth his grip on her upper arms offered. In that moment she saw his dark eyes glistening in the dim overhead light, his breath intermingling with her gasps.

And then he was kissing her.

Hot, a bit messy, and bruising; an act of desperation and impulsivity. She barely had time to thread her fingers through his hair before he was pulling away, cheeks flushed and hungry for air.

“What was that for-”

“I figured now was as good of a time as ever. You know, since everyone else is hopping on the 'you' train.” He joked, though his voice shook about as much as the rattling bass from the speakers on the other side of the building. His thumb ran over her bottom lip, voice melding into something deeper, and so very soft. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t-”

“Promise me.” The pressure on her bottom lip increased, keeping her from saying much else.

She nodded, letting their noses brush against each other purposefully. “I promise.”

There was so much purple surrounding him. He looked like a god nestled on a bed of lavender clouds that churned and whirled with different eye-catching shades. Fear. Apprehension. Excitement.

Yoongi pulled away much sooner than she would have liked, giving her back a gentle shove up the last few stairs, sporting a laid-back, borderline cocky grin as she struggled to recover from the whiplash he had given her. “Get moving. Don’t want the guard dog whining before anything even starts.”

Y/n couldn’t form anything coherent but a nod, taking off the last step and darting through the empty red seats to the aisle she was supposed to make camp in — a thin ring of salt surrounding a spot just big enough for her to stand still in. Any wrong move and she’d be vulnerable should anyone decide to show their ugly faces.

Everything churning inside of her was coming to a head, the last of the preparations being finished with murmured conversation below. She heard them agree to start, a series of grunts, then the lights dimmed, and the music began.

Now she just had to wait and see if they’d get applause or be ushered off the stage.

For how much of a stink Taehyung threw about his feelings on performing opera, his voice was absolutely divine, the tenor vibrato echoing off the walls and bouncing over empty seats that didn’t feel as deserted as they looked.

The air grew dense, storm clouds accumulating over a tumultuous sea; that crawling feeling of being watched returned tenfold.

Spirits were peeking their heads through walls and finding seats to a show they were drawn to, deciding whether or not they wanted to take the bait.

The energy leapt and rippled like cracking ice on a frozen lake, an airy hissing sound floating up from the mirror she couldn’t really see.

All she could see was the corkboard back and the edges of the ornate gold detailing, but she assumed by the growing alarm on Taehyung’s face that it was a good thing her vision was limited.

The lights flickered once in warning, and then she was falling out of the mirror into a heap.

Crawling across the red carpets on weak and wobbly limbs, each strike of her palms leaving blooms of dark wet rug in her wake, sinking in until they squelched, continuing to release that god-awful keening hiss that struggled to exit her mouth around such rattling breaths. Candida inched further down the aisle, eyes locked ahead on where Taehyung stood center stage, his shadow stretching higher along the back wall from the angled flashlight. As if it too wished to run away from her advances.

Y/n leaned over the railing to watch, breath caught in her throat and a deafening thrum of blood in her ears. She knew at any moment that she might have to act — put herself in the line of fire to give her companions the chance to attack.

Just as Candida reached the stage, she was flung back by an unseen force, feet walking aimlessly forward through a barrier that wouldn’t budge.

Namjoon’s wards.

Yoongi leapt up from his spot behind the mirror and wielded a large handmade bundle that billowed out the tip with clouds of smoke, reciting the same incantation he had the day they had captured her. Only this time Jungkook wasn’t just an aid: he was the main event.

He stepped into the circle without hesitation, tattooed palm flattening against her forehead and angling her biting mouth back so she couldn't gnaw at the flesh of his forearms with her aching gums.

Candida screamed, cried, wailed — any sound she could pry out of her own mouth catapulted across the theater and echoing in Y/n’s ears until they started to ring.

A creak of arthritic metal had Y/n whirling from the sight to the rest of the mezzanine sprawling behind her, watching a growing number of figures find seats in plush chairs.

Duane had kicked back in the first row near the stairwell, arms folded behind his exposed skull that was now caked with dried black ichor and glistening in the dim show lights. A few rows behind him sat her grandparents, staring straight ahead at Taehyung’s wavering performance with arms loosely intertwined.

On the right side of the hall were the twins, racing each other across the walkways and smacking the back of the seat just behind Y/n if they got there first. Lithe and blindingly fast, they were able to get within feet of her in a matter of seconds.

Against the railing like he was a renowned critic, was Clay, his face his own likeness, head tilted to the side with a sly grin that cracked his square jaw in two. Someone stood next to him, another man of a similar look and build, speaking the same language they had spoken at the guest house to each other in hushed tones. Brothers, no doubt.

But the most terrifying one of them all was the one who sat in the seat behind her that the children weren’t pummeling; legs crossed, chin perched between his thumb and forefinger, dark pulsing eyes trained on her face. The scientist observing his experiment in a glass bowl.

In his free hand he held the pistol she had given him all those months ago, tapping tirelessly against the metal of the chamber in a silent show of power. An interrogator. A professional. A sharp shot and quick of wit.

Bear.

She said his name in a breathless whisper, the sound barely audible over the sounds of Candida struggling against Jungkook’s grip or the buzzing strings, his putrid smell muted by the waft of silver smoke from below.

The more she looked at him, the more she realized he might not smell at all. Unlike the others, his face and skin weren’t torn or decaying in large chunks. He was almost completely normal, save for the slow, almost unnoticeable drip of black from the bottom of his jaw and the venomous black eyes.

He blinked at the sound of his name but said nothing. Just continued to pick at the metal and watch. His gaze felt like cold water over ice — his posture told her he had the upper hand should she try to step out of the salt. He could probably will the flimsy barrier to bend if he tried, as he knew exactly how they worked.

Licking her dry lips, she called down to the group below. “We may have...We may have some company.”

Yoongi briefly squinted up to the sound of her voice, forehead starting to sparkle with sweat from the efforts of his spell. “How many?”

Jungkook faltered against Candida, and for a second it looked like she might throw him off.

“Focus on her!” Y/n shakily ordered. “I’ll keep my eye on them.”

“That doesn’t answer my question!” Yoongi grunted.

“Just keep helping Kook...” Y/n kept her eyes locked with Bear’s. The twins blurred back up the walkway to the top row. Clay and his brother snickered at a joke she couldn’t hear, the two of them completely unfazed by her presence. Duane crossed his ankles over the railing a few yards down, and her grandparents had yet to move.

She was completely surrounded — and they all knew it.

“I got it up here.”

Candida’s screams grew pained once more as Jungkook pushed through her brain with more force, prodding through the ridges and searching for any kind of grip on her MADness. For a moment, Bear’s beady black eyes moved to glance at his aunt’s suffering. A subtle curve of his brow showing piqued interest.

But it wasn’t just him — they all turned to watch her. A circus act for their entertainment, or a stakeout to monitor just what they were up to, Y/n couldn’t quite tell.

“You should give up on her,” Bear calmly suggested. “She isn’t worth this trouble.”

“No can do,” She forced an apologetic smile. “I think she is.”

Bear’s expression remained neutral — scarily so — if she didn’t know any better she could’ve been fooled into thinking he was safe at first glance.

“What you want, you won’t get from her.”

Y/n leaned her back against the railing for some sense of security while putting on a display of nonchalance. “Then what will we get?”

Looking over her change in posture with calculating eyes, he kept his answer to himself for a few long seconds before sharing it.

“I already told you. You won’t get what you want.” His pointer finger kept its unwavering rhythm on the metal, and Y/n couldn’t hold back the gulp at the threatening glint of it.

“Hold tight Y/n,” Yoongi shouted through gritted teeth. “Almost there.”

“Need me to come up there?” Namjoon offered, already making a move towards the door.

That seem to perk Duane up from his bored slump, head twisting to look towards the stairwell at the slightest whiff of fun.

“If he comes up here, I will shoot him.” Bear said it like he was informing her of the weather, not cold-blooded murder. And she had witnessed firsthand how quick he was to fire when in combat, so she wasn’t interested in finding out how well a ghost's gun worked against the living.

Panic pooled in her abdomen, and she hastily croaked out a response before his dress shoes could get past the first step. “No! Stay down there!”

Damn her voice for cracking.

“You sure? My work is done down here.” Namjoon’s voice echoed closer, his shadow growing up the stone walls of the stairs.

In one swift movement, Bear had the safety off and the gun cocked, aiming directly where Namjoon’s head would be when he breached the second floor. “One last warning.”

“Namjoon, don’t.”

His shadow stalled at the middle, the first few strands of hair starting to peek up from below. He must’ve sensed the urgency in her voice and hesitantly started back down. “Are you sure, Y/n?”

“More than anything.”

With that, he begrudgingly inched back down, not entirely convinced he shouldn’t just finish his journey up. A breath she didn’t even know she was holding whizzed through her mouth when she heard his steps returning to Yoongi’s side, and in response Bear lowered his gun back to his lap, and Duane grumbled with disappointment.

“Good,” Bear said the word like he was complimenting her, and it landed heavy in her stomach. “Next, I want you to tell them to stop this mission. It is futile, and a waste of energy. You should be spending the time living amongst yourselves, not pushing towards an inevitable loss.”

Y/n stood her ground, even if her legs were shaking. “I can’t do that. We have to finish this.”

That seemed to ruffle the feathers of the spirits in her vicinity, Duane growled low in his throat, and Bear stretched out the side of his neck like it had tweaked the muscles in it. “Trust me, Entlein. I want you to finish this mission as much as anybody, but even I know when it is time to admit defeat.”

Irritation flared beneath her ribs, making her skin hot with repulsion. “You’re wrong. And you’re not Bear. Bear would never tell us to give up.”

He laughed heartily, his smile uncannily familiar. “I have, on many occasions, given up. You do not know me like you think you do. So I suggest you listen to the wisdom I am so graciously bestowing on you.” Bending forward at the waist, he over-enunciated himself with an uncharacteristically animalistic hiss. “Give. Up.”

Behind them, Candida let out another agonized wail, and Jungkook ground out a short, “Almost have it.”

A shiver ran through the air, the pressure of the room starting to collapse down on them with a strength comparable to the depths of the sea; bone crushing and soul sucking strength. Doom crept in all sides, and once again she felt like that little kid on a rickety stage, staring out into a theater with no applause.

Bear flitted between Y/n, and the view of the commotion below. “Tell them to stop.”

She shook her head, feeling faint and out of breath. “No.”

Candida screamed again, the sound ringing out through the room. The spirits of the second floor came to a stand, anxiously peering down their noses, backs straightening and conversations quieted.

“Tell them now. Tell them that I will shoot you dead if they don’t.” His finger moved hauntingly slow against the metal.

Tap.

All over Y/n’s body, her hair stood on end, the temperature dropping rapidly. She couldn’t do more than shake her head and whisper. “N-no.”

“Holy fuck-” Yoongi began as Candida started to convulse, the dark fragments of smoke and inky water pouring out of her mouth and nose like a waterfall.

White hot heat seared through the flesh of her upper arm, her vision blotching with color and her body going limp on the railing against her will. And then there was red, so much red all over her hands and splattering over gold crusted railings.

She screamed before she could stop herself, and that one sound was enough to stop the ritual cold. An unplanned imperfection.

Yoongi and Namjoon were gone from her sight in seconds, tearing up the aisle towards the stairwell. Jungkook instinctively jumped at the sound, grip slipping from Candida’s forehead for only half a second.

But a half-second was enough.

Candida placed both hands on his shoulders and shoved him into the first row, his fall breaking the line of salt and scattering the grains over the orchestra pit. Candida was already hoisting herself up the stage to a very frozen Taehyung, crouched to try and run around her after to follow after Yoongi or help Jungkook he couldn’t decide.

The ghostly woman blocked his path, closing in on him rapidly with lashing teeth and swiping hands. Once she managed to grab his shoulders she hung onto them like her life depended on it, clawing at the front of his suit and threatening to drag him towards the ground.

Then Taehyung’s skin grew very pale and his eyes started to roll into the back of his head, his knees dropping one after the other.

“H-help Taehyung — Someone-” Y/n cried out for Jungkook to move through eyes already blurring with tears and pain.

At the sound of her voice, Candida’s neck snapped, golden eyes blazing so bright they seemed to change to a fiery amber at the thrill of her next target. She moved fast, faster than Jungkook, letting Taehyung topple straight into his arms in favor of spawning next to Y/n. Hovering over her just like she had done, forehead nestling against hers, mouth open in a silent scream.

Both of her hands planted on the side of Y/n’s head, squeezing so tightly she thought her skull would pop open.

Yoongi was at the top of the stairs now, but she couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t hear whether or not his shouts were for her or were because one of the ghosts had lunged at the taste of fresh prey.

No matter how hard she fought to stay present, she couldn’t.

Fear and desperation gnawed her into a hollowed shell of bones and numb flesh, and then it stopped.

Her heart slowed.

And she was gone.

_________________________________________

Winter came and left like a silent blizzard, buried in a heavy cold with air that burned the mouth to breathe. Each night she waited, certain that it would be the one. Each morning, she paced around the halls, looking out the windows to see if her sister had finally arrived to take them away.

Any day now, she was set to visit for the spring holidays, and Candida would tell her everything she knew. The confessions told under moonlight through sleeping lips of murder and violence, and the hiss of the snake. Then she would beg her to take them with her on the way home (not that Lizzy would need much convincing), and that would be the end of it.

The days were warmer, the birds singing out their love songs, the morning grass always smelt of rain and wet earth, and Alain was growing even more desperate. His endless professions of suffocating devotion did little to steer her off her path. Neither did the doctor’s gentle nudges to get some ‘fresh air’ and a change of scenery.

“This isn’t you, Deetz,” Lisolette shook her head, astonished at what had become of the room.

The guest room had become her personal bunker, barely slept in, but somehow still wrecked and unkempt. She had an assortment ‘weapons’ lining the empty drawers — stolen shoestring punctured with needles, kitchen knives, rusted scissors, a collection of rocks — anything she had managed to accumulate.

“It is, it is me,” Candida rushed to reassure her, trembling where she stood. “You will see. I will show you tonight when he goes to sleep. You will hear it. The snake hisses every night under the protection of the clock. No one can hear him when it chimes. But I do!”

Lisolette looked caught between smacking some sense into her sister and dragging her by the arm halfway to Texas. Either option would have sufficed in that moment. “You’re talkin’ nonsense, Deetz.”

“I’m not. I’m not.” Candida hugged herself around the middle with an adamant shake of her head. But it was futile, because she knew how she sounded. It didn’t take a genius to understand why she was encouraged to stay hidden in her room when guests appeared on their doorstep, or to eat her meals in the privacy of kitchen. She knew exactly what she looked like. But she wasn’t crazy, and Lisolette would be her only chance at being believed. “He’s in the floors, I know it. The walls too. I can hear him in there — please, you have to believe me, Liz. Just one night. Just stay with me one night and I shall prove it to you.”

“Have you mentioned all of this yet to Adelaide? What does she think of all this?”

“No. I can’t. She already thinks I’m mad like the rest of them.”

Lisolette shifted from one foot to the other, entirely uncertain about the whole ordeal., testing out the weight of the gun case in her hands like she would rather throw it out the window than keep such a weapon around her sister. “I will stay, but only if you agree to tell Adelaide come morning. She might be more help than you think.”

Thus she stayed, leaving her husband on the first floor in favor of taking part in this late night stake out. Candida didn’t blame her. Not one bit. Even when Lisolette’s eyelids fluttered closed, and her cheek pressed to side of the dresser while she slept. She had traveled all day, and worked all morning. It wasn’t her fault.

Really, it wasn’t.

It is why she didn’t have the heart to wake her — not until she knew for sure the creak in the floorboards she had heard was real, and not another trick of her mind.

He was so still she almost missed him. Dark suite from the day prior still buttoned and smoothed out on his shoulders, standing with his back to her room while he loitered about the doorway. Then his hand turned the knob twice, jiggling it open and letting himself in.

Candida kept her eyes closed so he wouldn’t know she was awake; listened while he rummaged through the drawers and murmured to himself, hiding his stolen prize beneath his coat and stepping over the women’s slumped bodies to escape back in the hall.

With a new rush of life breathed into her body, she shot up and crawled from her perch on the floor to peek through the crack he left in the door out into the hall.

All thoughts of their stakeout left her mind the second she saw the door to her daughter’s room open, her mind blank as the grandfather clock clacked away from the first floor, muffling his footsteps to anyone near. She was up on her feet, padding across the hall to the cracked open door, sticking her nose in to be sure the scent she followed wasn’t imagined.

It smelt of iron and rust, a powerful stench that gagged her instantly, her stable hold on the door faltering as her palm pressed it open wider.

The room was a blur darkened shadows and blue tinged morning, the hulking figured of her husband crouched by the bed twisting in her stomach. He looked too out of place to be innocent. Too quiet to be welcomed.

“Wh-what have you done?” Candida couldn’t look away from the growing seep on the blankets, a spot the rising sun would never reach.

Alain looked far away, eyelids pressed so far back it was like he didn’t have any at all, head twitching and turning like a creature inspecting the flesh of its victims for something left to eat. “I did what I had to do to save you. To save us.”

When he stood she could see it clearer: the red hands and the blood stained kiss on the forehead of a child whose eyes would never open again. “She was going to take you away from me. You were going to leave me.”

He stumbled closer, the knife still glinting in his hand. “You know too much.”

“I don’t know anything,” Candida shook her head, still entranced by the shade of crimson blossoming in the rising sun.

“Our time is up.” Alain moaned. “You know more than you should. It is not good for you to know so much — it is making you sick. You have made me...unworthy.” He raised the object in his hand, inspecting the handle as though it wasn’t him who had already wielded it seconds prior. “It is better this way. We can all be together this way.”

And in that moment she must have been mad just like he said, because she didn’t even hesitate. Didn’t cry. Did not even find a shout left in her to give. Taking the knife and plunging it-

“Through the back, you said?” The doctor scribbled something else down in his notebook.

Candida blinked blearily. “The chest.”

He stopped, looking up at her over the rim of his spectacles. “The hole was through his back.”

Her nose twitched. “I shoved it all the way through.”

Another pause. “And the girl?”

Unable to face him any longer, she turned to watch the green treetops sway through the window panes. “He killed my daughter.”

It was like nothing had changed.

A doctor sat across from a bed, asking her questions in a room that felt too empty. Accusing her of being something she wasn’t. This new room was warmer though, as would be expected for one so high up and away from everyone else. The attic was the perfect place to store the things one wished to forget about.

“I see.” The doctor tapped his pen to the corner of the page. “Any new thoughts of harming yourself, or anyone else?”

Candida lied, shaking her head and tipping her gaze down towards her hands. A sudden nausea washed over her — as it always did when she looked at them. They were stained in ways the naked eye could not see. Breath racing out of her mouth before she could catch it, she felt the world closing in, and heard the horrid whistling laughter of the snake still pulsing from the walls of the Estate.

Her husband may be dead, but the demon had shed his skin in search of a more formidable home for its new size, finding safety somewhere else she had yet to find. Building a nest. Licking venom soaked lips at the prospects of all the youthful flesh it could consume.

From the corner of the room, Adelaide shifted, observing the conversation carefully. “I think that’s enough for today, doctor.” She walked over, dropping a hand on Candida’s shoulder and giving it a short squeeze.

“Of course,” He snapped his notebook shut and pushed it into the secure flap of his bag, throwing it over his shoulder and bidding them farewell. “I will be back in a few days time. Please, if anything comes up until then-”

“I will call, I assure you.” Adelaide followed him down the creaking steps, their voices growing softer. When she returned, she was steeled behind thinly pressed lips and that unbreakable strength she constantly put off, shoulders back and head tall.

She sank herself down onto the mattress next to Candida, and let the birds fluttering out the window speak their song uninterrupted. Only when they traveled to some other branch did she speak.

“You should have informed me of what was happened the moment it began.”

The younger woman shrunk beneath her reprimand, but did not dare speak up to defend herself.

“You must know the lengths I have gone to acquire this house. To keep you hidden. How far we are all sticking our own necks out to cover up the mess that has been made.” Then she sighed, fists clenching at the fabric of her skirts and shoulders dropping. “But it is not you that made the mess, is it?”

Candida risked a look at the woman from the corner of her eye, taken aback by the sudden softness.

“I am partly to blame. I thought what little I could do was enough, but I think I have met my match. He has continued to build strength right under our very noses, and I was too naive to think I could stop it alone.”

“The snake?” Candida croaked.

Adelaide nodded. “The snake.” She swallowed, hand hovering over her niece's and whispering. “He was my responsibility, but I was too much of a coward to deliver the final blow. Still now, I don’t have what it takes to stop his endless hunt. But if you are willing...there may be a way...”

For a few freeing seconds, Candida felt normal for the first time in over a year. To be believed made her feel human. Then the pain resurged, yanking her humanity back from the edge of freedom and smothering it till it choked, using the limp corpse as a stool to crawl into the empty space its absence left and taking control of the reins.

And just like before, she didn’t hesitate. After all, what did she have to lose? “How do I kill it?”

The basement wreaked of mildew and animal musk, the jungle of thick low hanging wires and rainwater sodden floors making their trek quite the journey. Through the walls hummed the romantic strings of the ballet performance above them, the crowd nonethewiser to what was occurring just under their feet. The leak through the cracked cement walls offered the dirt floor some structure, making the shapes Adelaide drew in them more prominent.

Large swooping circles with even smaller characters inside, their frames allotted a bit of breathing room over the edge of the circle. Candida counted the bowls at her feet repeatedly, the steady climb up to the number seven soothing her mind that threatened to wander.

She must stay focused. Intention was crucial, as Adelaide had instructed.

“Sit here.” The older woman gestured the center of her contraption, unable to look at her face for too long.

Candida did as she was told, knees folded beneath her and sinking into the mud. Then she watched with rapt attention as Adelaide took hearty pinches from each bowl to mix some sort of paste that stained her fingers a shade of green so dark it was almost black. Without warning, she reached for the younger woman’s hand and pricked her thumb, letting the thin red droplet blend into the plant matter and disappear. When she winced at the pain, Adelaide averted her attention back to the bowl to give it one last mix. “My apologies. It must be taken, not given.”

Testing the consistency by rubbing it between her thumb and index finger, she fixed her eyes on Candida, releasing her hold on her arm. “Once you do this, there is no returning. You do understand that, don't you?”

Candida almost laughed. “What is there for me to return to? Most people think I am dead, and the rest think I am insane.”

Adelaide didn’t laugh, her jaw set and her gaze beginning to tremble. A whisper as soft as her touch to the younger woman’s cheek broke through her usually stiff countenance, an image of the woman she once was shining through glistening eyes and a wobbling lip. “Every time I look at you, I only see the little girl who would beg me to let you stay in my room when she couldn’t sleep.” She blinked rapidly, pushing away the moisture that built along her lash line. “You are so brave. And I am sorry that you have to be, Engelchen.” The finger coasting the apple of her niece's cheek fell, and the moment of weakness dispersed.

“It is ready,” she announced suddenly, wiping her fingers off on the edge of the bowl and clearing her throat. “Are you?”

Candida stared straight ahead. “More than anything.”

Mirroring her resolve, Adelaide nodded, holding the mixture up at eye level. “Then I need you to eat.”

Scooping it up with a starved urgency, Candida bit back a wave of rising bile as the bitterness bit the back of her throat, working its way down to her stomach like sludge. With a fist pressed to her mouth to keep it down, she returned the bowl and waited for further instruction.

“Lay back, child.” Adelaide fretted over her with shaking hands, guiding her shoulders to the ground, situating her hair so it wasn’t in her face — anything to make her feel fine as her insides began to spasm. “When the sleep takes you, remember, you must focus on building up your own strength before you face him. Don’t let the snake tempt you into unfair battles. He has been building his physical presence, yes, but his power lies in the work of his tongue. If he finds a weakness, he will use it to his advantage.”

Candida didn’t flinch as the burn seeped into her bloodstream, inching closer to the pulse in her chest that began to slow. Her breathing grew shallow, her mind nothing but a haze of color and heat. Reaching for Adelaide she found her hand and held it still.

“You seem to know a lot about this snake...does he...does he have a name?”

Adelaide froze. She looked over one shoulder, then the other. Peered through the basement hall as though expecting the creature to be coiled in the threshold, watching.

“Please, Tanchen...If I am to fight him off, I should know his name.”

When Candida’s were punctured by a deafening hitch-pitched ring, Adelaide finally leaned over and whispered into her ear.

“You already know of it. His name is that of my brother.”

Candida wanted to lurch forward in horror, for her brother was her own father. Could that be true? Could her father really be behind all of this? Had his insistence to keep her quiet been a means to an end?

“My...my father d-did this to m-me?” White foam drowned out her worries, sliding down the column of her throat for her to choke on.

Adelaide pressed her lips into a thin line and apologetic wince, a reassuring hand pushing her shoulders back to the ground. She kept them there, soothing the ache that built in the muscles and joints as they seized, keeping her lips sealed as the last beat of Candida’s heart fluttered to a stop.

_________________________________________

Y/n awoke stricken by those annoyingly perky rays of sun bleeding through the thin skin of her eyelids, her body held by the freshly fluffed cushions that smelt of freshly mowed grass and summer sun. Her head was pounding from the onslaught of visions she had succumbed to, the image of Adelaide’s face bending nearer still burned into the back of her retinas.

She didn’t gave to open her eyes to know where she was, the smell and soft buzz of the record player in the room over telling her all she needed to know.

Great. The fucking guest house again.

With a groan she rolled onto her side, cursing herself for managing to get trapped within the mysterious boundaries of this other, time-fucked world. Blinking away the rays of light, she nearly tumbled off the seat and onto the hardwood floor when she came face to face with the Candida she had come to recognize, over-sized amber eyes hovered less than a foot from her face.

Clammy hands shot out to catch her, stopping her from getting a taste of the floor and holding her still, giving her spinning vision a chance to right itself. Instincts told her to flee, but the curiosity birthed by all she had just seen was stronger than her common sense.

“Was that...did you show me that?”

Candida nodded slowly, keeping her grip on her arm light.

“Was that real?”

Again, she nodded.

Blinking a few more times, she hoisted herself to an upright position, subconsciously pulling herself away from the woman’s helpful touch. “Can you like, not speak or something.”

In response to her question, Candida opened her mouth wide, displaying her lack of teeth and a shriveled up lump of scar tissue where her tongue once was. When Y/n made a face of horror at the sight, the woman almost smiled, reaching for a piece of paper and a pen she kept on the table. It looked to be a half written grocery list, but it would do.

Beneath the collection of produce and dairy, she scribbled out something for her to read.

‘Sometimes I can. It takes a lot of energy to overcome what they did to me. They cut them all out when I was buried in an effort to keep me silent.’

Pushing down her fear, Y/n continued her interrogation with full intent to milk this spirit for all she was worth before Jungkook could yank her out of here. “What happened to me? Is everyone okay up there? What was all that with Adelaide?”

Candida held her hands up and motioned for her to slow down, taking pen to paper as fast as her wrist could manage.

‘They are worried, but fine. The enemies have been kept at bay. Adelaide put me to sleep.’

“Like a dog?” Y/n raised a brow at the woman.

Snorting a bit, she wrote again.

‘In a way, yes. But the ritual used is one done to embolden the spirit of the sacrificed. To create a being stronger than a ghost, to bind their soul to earth for eternity. A being that is not angel, nor demon. Simply put, one that must feed to survive.’

Y/n inched back from her again, eyeing the note dubiously. “Feed on what?”

‘Whatever they choose.’

“And what did you choose?”

She flipped the paper back for her to read. ‘The death of the snake’. Before Y/n could ask any clarifying questions, she was already writing.

‘At first, when I woke, I made it my mission to thwart as many of his efforts as possible. Each time he would make his move to capture someone ease’s soul, I would counter it, and thus get stronger. Adelaide would help in any way she knew how — leaving me offerings, helping me handle small incidents with bells or spells, or keeping distractions at bay. But when all that stopped, I began to weaken. He moved too fast, and too silently. I couldn’t keep up.

The night your sister died I was at my weakest. I begged for help in any way I could, and in the process frightened away anyone willing, either with my own manifestation or the legacy they all spun for me. I tried to stop him, but I was too slow. He fed. And I withered.

That was when he got to me too, swallowed me whole and used me for his own doing. He takes. Finds your softest point and stabs until there’s nothing left to bleed. Drinks you up until there is nothing left but the bones and the skin, leaving the worst of you to rot under his thumb.

That’s what he eats. He needs people to be afraid, so he can eat them.’

The paper shook in Y/n’s hold. “And the snake is…?”

‘I can not say his name or else he could find me, but I can show you. Adelaide lent me the memory once I had fallen asleep.’

“Is that what this place is? Memories? Dreams?”

Candida made a so-so motion with her hands. ‘To an extent. I made this place to keep what little was left of them alive once they’d been eaten, living out their past to save them from the present. Some of them are unaware of where they are, others can wake but choose not to.’

Y/n slowly came to her feet, pacing around the glass top table while she processed everything she said. “If you take me to that memory, will he wake up too? Would he be able to see me?”

‘If we move quick, we might be able to go unnoticed. I do not know what he has messed with while I was under his control. If we linger, he may show, and I will not be strong enough to fend him off-”

Her sentence was cut short when the walls breathed a shuddering breath, a thin layer of dust falling from the ceiling and the light fixtures swaying ever so slightly. The edge of Candida’s mouth quirked upwards.

‘Your reaper is trying to find his way in. Shall I let him?’

Another rattle shook the glass from within their panes, their surface thumping with the sound of a pounding fist or a scratching claw.

“He is going to take me out of here the second he gets in,” Y/n could’ve sworn she felt her palms sweat, and a distant ache throbbed through the flesh of her arm. “Is there a way that I can speak to him?”

Candida’s eyes slipped closed, fluttering beneath the overstretched skin as though she were following the very movement of someone beyond the windows.

The knocks grew louder, this time actually coming from the other side of the door. It opened not more than three inches, halted from going any further by the latched chain along the top of the door.

That was all Jungkook needed to shimmy his hand in, poking one of his white eyes through the gap.

Careful not to touch his skin, Y/n rushed to the door and steadied one of her hands on it to keep it from opening any further. “Kook — I need you to listen to me. I’m okay, and I will be out soon, I promise. I just need a few more minutes.”

His fingers wiggled further into the room, a look of concentration knitting his brows together. “I’m almost there.”

“I can see that,” Y/n almost snorted, narrowly missing a brush with his tattooed index finger, thick tendrils of black smoke stretching out to tickle the inside of her wrist. One touch of his hand and he would send her flying back into her body, no questions asked. “But I need you to wait. Trust me, remember?”

“I do trust you,” he pulled his face back from the door enough to stare down at her through the gap. “I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t have to yet.” Looking down at a sneaking stripe of his black smoke, she fanned it back through the gap only for it to nuzzle back in, kissing the skin of her forearm and winding up her elbow. “You trust me, though?”

He paused, hand still cupped around the lip of the door while he searched her face. “I trust you.”

“And I trust you to be here right when I need you,” Y/n answered. “So be here.”

“Five minutes?”

Y/n obliged with a sigh. “Five minutes. Then I’m all yours.”

Jungkook stepped back from the door frame, letting Candida slump in relief, finally free of his stubborn attempts to invade her space. The woman struggled to her feet, offering Y/n a hand to take.

Looking at it warily, Y/n mumbled across the shrinking gap between them. “We only have five minutes before he’s kicking that door down. Is that enough?”

Candida just inched her hand closer, motioning for her to take it.

So she did, warm skin meeting cold, tingles shooting up her arms and webbing through her tendons. Candida pulled Y/n through he first floor of the guest house and wrenched open the coat closet door, stopping Y/n in her tracks when she noticed that this was definitely not the coat closet.

“Is that supposed to be the basement?”

A nod.

Y/n heaved out a heavy sigh. “Of course it is.”

If she was in her body right about now, she’s willing to place bets that her heart rate is probably hitting record numbers. She can almost hear her friends panicking now as the speed picks up, and her palms grow clammy. The darkness from below swirled much like that of her dreams, whispering warnings for her to turn back. Feeding the urge to turn right on her heel and jump right through the front door into Jungkook’s awaiting arms.

But she’d be damned if she turned back right before the end. Damned if she’d let everything they’ve done until now be for nothing.

So she jumped; taking the stairs full speed without looking back, feeling the weight of her next few decisions land on her shoulders like elephants feet. If she fucked this up, she would ruin everything.

_________________________________________

“Go back to bed, Ernst.” Freidrich warned, voice even. “There is nothing that concerns you down here.”

Ernst struggled once more, whipping his head back against his sister's chin with enough force to have her shoving him into the steps behind him. He whirled on her, eyes brandishing his finger like a judge’s gavel. “What has he told you about all this?”

“He has told me quite enough!” Adelaide panted out, wiping her bottom lip that had warmed with fresh blood. “We know what you’ve done, Ernst, and it ends here.”

“What I’ve-” he sputtered out a string of ill-formed words. “What I’ve done? What about you?”

Adelaide smacked his finger from her face instantly. “Me? I have not done anything!”

“This! It is just as they said…” Ernst took a staggering step back, then another. “And here I defended you…”

“Defended me from what?”

“The rumors, Addie! I know you don’t care to listen to what others are whispering amongst each other, but I do. I must care.”

Adelaide tilted her head, exasperated and confused. “What rumors? There are many, as far as I am concerned!”

Ernst gritted his teeth. “The ones about you dabbling in the occult — sneaking off into the night to dine with witches and share tables with devil worshipers. They all said that it was done in hopes of getting me out of the way, but I never thought that...I am so lost I don’t know what to think anymore!”

Adelaide watched him right himself, the air running cold, and her breath finally beginning to even. An awful heaviness started to pull her internal organs down to her feet, leaving an uneasy queasiness in its place. “Wait...Who told you that?”

“Well, many people. But the first person to bring it up was-” He stopped, his expression dropping with the leave of his tension. Realization dawned on his features, and his neck snapped towards the dark basement. “You.”

Ernst started forwards, plowing through the space where Freidrich remained a silent observer.

The younger brother raised his hands in surrender, “Now, now, brother. Let us not be too hasty in our-”

A sickening crack resounded through the quiet night, his body sent sprawling along the dirt floor with one well-placed fist to the jaw. Ernst hauled him up by the collar, shaking him furiously. “What have you done?” He was shouting now, desperately spraying his wrath turned fear over his cheeks. “What have you fucking done?”

Blood dribbled down Freidrich’s lips which now stretched in an arrogant grin, tongue coming out to lick at the thick red liquid purposefully. “Take an educated guess, brother.”

Ernst looked around the room in a frenzy, honing in on the line of bowls and the soil-drawn circle he stood in. He nodded urgently to the bowls. “Addie — the bowls — what is in them?”

“I don’t know. I don't-” She shook her head, still trying to catch up from the turn of events. “I don’t...” Rushing to bend beside them, she found them all empty, the dark paste nothing but smears of along the bottom of the bowl. “It’s gone.”

It then hit her how little she truly knew about what they were doing, how quickly she had been fooled into following along to some ridiculous plan just by some well-placed words and flattery. Now she had nothing to go on, and her brothers were ready to eat each other alive.

Freidrich began to laugh, the sound echoing louder amongst the invading darkness of the space. Ernst growled, landing another hit to his brow bone to quiet the sound that wouldn’t end. Nothing stopped him, not even the rush of blood falling from his face or the thin, soupy foam that puddled down the front of his suit.

“You may have won for the next thirty years or so, but I will be here, forever. You will never be rid of me, for even in death I will find you. And when I do, there will be nothing you can do to stop me. I will be so powerful that you will have to listen. I will make you listen. All of this, the hotel, the house — this family — will be mine.”

Adelaide caught the sight of something glinting in the dim light, and lurched forward to shove Ernst aside. “Ernst! He has a-”

But it was no use. The small dagger was already turned inward, plunging through his own stomach and back out again, coating the man holding him up in red. Everything was red. The floor. Their shoes. Their hands.

And as his body slumped to the floor, they could still hear him. Laughing through the floorboards, whispering along the stream of the pipes; crawling up the walls and slithering through the cracks.

The scene froze like a photo frame, and Y/n crouched down in front of the still life model of Adelaide. The horror in her eyes — the regret outlined in the downward turn of her mouth.

With numb urgency, Y/n tried as best as she could to remember the colors and the shapes of what had been in the bowls. Burned the shapes in the floor in her mind.

“So stubborn. Naive.”

Y/n’s head snapped up at the voice. The image was still frozen, Ernst still stuck with his fist raised, Adelaide kneeling helplessly on the floor. But Freidrich was gone, the space where his body once was now empty.

“Reckless.”

“Candida?” She nervously called into the void, but no one called back to her. Her heart pounded in her ears as she scrambled to her feet, turning to find the doorway, only to find a swirl of darkness; the window in her dream burst into a sea of nothing. “Jungkook?”

“I warned you to stay away. To let it go…”

Y/n started towards the back of the basement, hoping that one of the many doors would take her somewhere new — the pool, the lake, the woods, the living room with the girls and the chocolates. Anywhere.

“I have been so very patient with you. All of you. Dare I say kind…”

If she wouldn’t have been in the basement all those months ago she would have missed it, but upon opening the door to the storage room she stalled, catching a neon canvas pop-up tent in the back that had certainly not been from the early 1900’s. It had been her father's when he was young, the same marker stain slashed across the back that Amelia had accidentally made one afternoon spent in the contraption.

She ducked beneath the front flap and crawled through the narrow entrance, thanking her lucky stars for such an oversight from the demon. It went on longer than it should, snaking down deeper into the ground like a tunnel, roots dangling through the loosened soil above her head and tickling the exposed skin of her back as she desperately tried to escape. Insects crawled over the back of her hand, trailing through her fingers.

Oxygen felt scarce, her lungs squeezing what little of it remained from the enclosed space.

Perhaps this wasn’t an accident.

Perhaps he had known she’d run there.

Flies buzzed in her ears as the soil turned muddy and thick, giving way to her wrists and sucking her knees in. Through the muck she could feel fleshy mounds writhing and stirring at her disturbance, cheeks, arms and lower backs. Bodies.

She screamed — a strange mix of Jungkook and Candida’s name — hoping that someone would hear her.

“Every action has a consequence. Remember that when you wake, so that you may think about what you have done.”

Finally, the tunnel opened a few meters down, a light shining through the gap. Multiple lights, really, shimmering blues and greens splattering across sparkling floors. A dance floor crowded with bodies, these ones alive and flushed from alcohol.

“No,” Y/n cried, crawling faster. “No. Not them. Not-”

The tunnel collapsed, crushing her to the mud and smothering her with heavy soil. She choked on it, unable to stop the human instinct to find air that didn’t exist. Moving her arms through the muck, she pushed herself upwards, the resistance shifting from crumbling decayed matter to a steady, smooth force that wove through her fingers and propelled her upwards.

With a gasp she broke through the surface of water, a clumsy splash to swim towards any sort of footing. She could hear it, the pulse of the drums and the upbeat twang of electric guitar reverberating through the walls.

She was in the hotel pool, swimming towards the shallow end.

There was no time to wring out the drenched fabric of her dress, for she could hear his smooth body worming over the crystal blue water after her, hissing with a forked tongue darting out to taste her fear. Licking up every drop she offered.

Y/n ran through the glass doors out into the lobby, running right through a drunk guest and tripping over the tablecloth on one of the champagne tables. The table shuddered enough to make a few loitering guests point and shrug, a smug whisper about the hotel being haunted making the group laugh.

She thought she could be sick.

Eyes darting about the room, she looked everywhere for one of her friends.

In a stroke of luck she found Hoseok poking his head anxiously around the lobby hall towards the theater, and she ran, all but throwing herself onto his arms and tugging with all her might, praying that he could hear her scream.

“Get the others — get them all! Shut it down!”

Hoseok reacted instantly, reaching into the open space for her and fisting the fabric of her soaked dress.

“Y/n?”

“Listen to me please! Shut it down! Get out of-”

A wet thud resounded through the lobby, the snake’s scaly body scraping the floor as he left puddles of blackened water in his wake.

She couldn’t see him, but she could feel him, coiling around the room like a boa constrictor, curling closer to where they stood.

Hoseok grew worried, chest heaving as he looked around blindly for her. “I’m going to…” his eyes landed on Jimin pacing from the dance hall with his brows furrowed. Listening. “Jimin! Could use a hand here...”

“Jimin! Get them out!” Y/n screamed, all but crying in desperation at this point. “Get them out! Shut it down! Please listen to me….”

He was still for only a second before he was running full speed across the lobby, not caring whether or not one of the parents or a nosy guest happened to see him. He grabbed Hoseok, barely stopping enough to fill him in.

“Find Mariah and tell her to stop the wedding. Get everyone outside.”

Hoseok reached for the space Y/n had once stood, terrified when the spot felt empty. “What’s hap-”

“Now!”

Y/n didn’t stay to listen to their discussion, racing towards the theater and leaving them in the dust to burst through the doors. As Candida had promised there were no spirits lingering here, not even on the balcony where they had crowded around her crumpled body, Jungkook’s hands resting over her forehead and eyes closed.

“Jungkook!”

His eyes snapped open to find her speeding towards him, a look of confusion crossing his features for only a second.

“Wake me up! Hurry!”

And then she jumped, landing flat along her body and willing it to accept her back in.

As she stared above, the lights dotting along the ceiling moved, forming shapes in her blurring vision. Two gleaming eyes stared down at her, a mouth open with glittering bulbs for teeth that cooed down at her.

“I hope you have it in your heart to forgive yourself. For what a god gives, he can take away.”

_________________________________________

“Where is everyone?!” Y/n reeled forward, knocking Jungkook back and ramming her forehead straight into Yoongi’s shoulder.

Namjoon blew out a massive sigh of relief from his lips. “Where is everyone? What about you? Where were you?”

Memories came rushing back to her. The performance, Bear, the gun —

“He shot me! He...shot me...” Y/n squeaked out, fingers finding the flesh of her arm that still stung with residual heat, though no visible wound was left. Her pulse slowed a few paces at the lack of blood. “It was an illusion…”

Yoongi spoke next, soothing the dull ache in his shoulder that her cranium had left. “Who did what?”

A disturbance from deep within the foundation of the hotel rattled the walls and shook the floors, and at once she was back in a state of emergency, fresh tears beginning to sting her eyes. “It doesn’t matter now! We have to get out of here-”

A second louder jerk of the building had the lights flickering overhead, the music from the wedding beginning to stutter in and out of beat.

Her breath quickened to borderline hyperventilating, feeling at once trapped like she was in the earth again and fearing that he would bring the walls down to do just that, she fought to a stand, dragging them up after her. Finding where Candida had gone would have to wait. “Now. We find the others and leave now! Ask questions later!”

They only made it halfway down the stairs before the lights went out entirely, the emergency lights blanketing them in horrid shades of red.

“Shit-” Yoongi cursed, stumbling into her back while laying a protective hand on the curve of her waist, his other gripping the railing to keep them from tumbling down the stone steps at the next lurch of the stone building.

Above their heads the emergency lights blazed brighter with a surge of power, popping one after the other above their heads and showering them with broken glass, leaving them to flounder in utter darkness.

Namjoon moved quick, shucking his phone from his pocket and using his flashlight to guide them down the rest of the stairwell through the doors. From here, they could hear the screams.

Hoseok met them at the top of the steps, out of breath and wincing in pain. “What the fuck happened down there?”

“What’s happening up here?” Y/n had to shout over the commotion coming from the direction of the ballroom and the strobe of dozens of handheld flashlights, a slow trickle of guests floundering towards the lobby with arms covering the lower halves of their faces, some of them even stopping to vomit into the nearest trash can or decorative plant.

“Still trying to figure that out, I’m trying to get everyone out but they aren’t fast.”

Another alarmed shout rang out from the ballroom, and the group of them took off towards the propped-open doors, shoving through the crowd to get to where they needed to go.

The smell hit them first — a waft of rotten meats and spoiled cheeses, and Taehyung had to gag into his suit jacket sleeve. Y/n couldn’t blame him, for none of them were better off, Jungkook tugging the collar of his shirt over his nose and Yoongi’s eyes watering.

They finally managed to push their way through the crowd and into the emptying ballroom, the entire room a mess of broken glass and splatters of molded food like a bomb had gone off at the buffet table. Mice — dozens of them — scurried from the baseboards to climb onto the heaping piles of mush now attracting flies, climbing tables and scampering atop knocked over centerpieces.

“Holy shit…” Namjoon gaped at the scene, using his broad shoulders to push them all deeper into the room towards where her mother was herding guests out the doors.

Mariah was alight with both indignation and worry, nearly keeling over when she laid eyes on them. Y/n opened her mouth to explain but Mariah silenced her. “We will talk about this later! Go help them lead guests on the lawn back to the parking lot.”

Jin’s father was leading a second charge of guests out the balcony doors with his son, the two of them ushering rivers of people out into the December night’s air.

Y/n could barely keep her head on straight, her vision spinning from the unrelenting current of bodies and the stench so strong it burned the back of her throat and irritated her airways. The floor felt unsteady as she fumbled her way across the war zone of tables to the wall, keeping one hand gripped into the draperies to guide her way through the crowd.

The floor bounced beneath her feet like a trampoline, her knees buckling from the force and her wrists taking the brunt of her fall. Jungkook was behind her, crawling up to hook an arm over the small of her back and sit her up, eyes so dark they blended into the room.

“You’re not okay.” He pleaded with her. “Get out with the guests, we will handle everything in here.”

Y/n couldn’t be bothered to listen to him past the first word, pointing up over his shoulder to the ceiling with a shout. “The chandelier!”

With one last violent sway of the room, the chandelier teetered violently from the left, than swung back to the right. The room seemed to go still, hypnotized by the pendulum ticking from one side to the other, disbelief and shock taking control of their bodies. Everyone holding on to the same sliver of wistful doubt that something so well-maintained would ever fall.

A booming crack a chorus of shouts took the room by storm, and the light fixture jerked a few feet towards the ground, held suspended by the chain that had torn through the plaster and stone. Large chunks of the ceiling rained from above, crashing on tables and smashing into pieces as the rest of the chain sliced through it like it was nothing but a thin sheet of melting ice on pavement.

The chandelier plummeted towards the ground faster than anyone could have run from, exploding upon impact. Food, mice, glass, and dust went flying; wooden tables and chairs splintered into unrecognizable piles of scrap.

Hysteria took hold of any semblance of control they had, and sent everyone scattering, stampeding over one another in their haste to escape. Guests had even begun to scale the railings instead of waiting for their turn down the thin curving staircases to the lawn.

Y/n’s cheeks stung, no doubt having been nicked by the spray of material. And before she knew it, she was being tugged to her feet, crowded between the bodies of her friends as they all formed a train of linked arms and fisted fabric, forgoing aiding the frenzy for their own escape.

Without warning, sparks spouted from the fallen carcass of crystal and gold, and the speakers blared to life at full volume, shouting the lyrics of an 80’s synth melody into their ears until they nearly bled, but no other lights had enough strength to reignite.

When they made it out to the balcony, Y/n’s ears were ringing, unable to process any other sounds as Jin joined their party down the thin stone steps, keeping rowdy frightened guests from barreling into any of them.

The grass was cold and damp, the snow from the previous night melted into muddy sludge that soaked into the hem of dresses and caked onto shiny dress shoes. It looked like a battle had taken place, guests' faces smeared with mascara, others lying flat on the ground while they caught their breath or nursed shallow wounds and twisted ankles.

“What happened, y/n?” Yoongi had her by the shoulders, trying his best to look into her eyes that couldn’t stop moving over the destruction with dazed horror. He snapped his fingers, forcing them to meet his. “Eyes on me. What happened in there?”

“I…” She looked over their circle and counted their heads.

Jungkook’s ear was nicked, and his sleeve torn but he was otherwise unfazed.

Taehyung was trying not to hurl on his shoes, but he was alive.

Namjoon hovered nearby, a pretty deep gash on the back of his hand covered from the night air with his other palm, torn between looking forlornly at the trampled bushes and her face.

Hoseok had situated himself on the ground, hissing as he tilted his head back to stretch his aching spine but was still present.

Jin was over Yoongi’s shoulder, wide-eyed and horrified at the state of things.

Six. There was only six heads.

“Where’s Jimin?” She managed to choke out. Panic rushed up on her like the bone-chilling jet of a waterfall’s stream beating her already badgered mind. She repeated herself, screaming hysterically into the crowd. “Where is he?”

Everyone looked to one another with mirrored apprehension when Hoseok spoke.

“Last I saw him he said he was going down to check on you.”

She whirled on the group that had been with her. “I didn’t see him while we were leaving — did any of you?”

She was met with dreadful silence.

Yoongi broke it with a stiff kick to the dirt beneath them and a groan. “That selfless fucker!”

“What?” Y/n asked, breathless.

“He’s been so damn adamant about learning how to check the power. I bet that’s where he went!”

Jungkook moved first, closing a field of distance in seconds towards the back entrance in the courtyard.

From over Yoongi’s shoulder, Y/n met Jin’s gaze, and in that moment her stomach fell through the dirt. His eyes glazed from distant to petrified, and in a blink he was streaking across the grass after him.

She was running before she knew it, mindlessly dashing without the oxygen in her lungs to keep up the pace. All she could hear as she ran was the tauntingly upbeat chorus stuck on a nauseating repeat, and her own breath whistling in her eardrums.

She reached the basement last, bulldozing through the thick sheets of spider webs and tripping over construction materials towards the distant flashlight. She latched onto the door frame to pull her to a sudden stop, her lungs burning from the change of cold night air to warm and dusty basement.

Her hand shot to her mouth to cover her scream.

Below the electrical panel lay Jimin, angry red lines veining up his exposed hands and forearms, disappearing under his sleeves. His eyes were stuck open, damp lines tracking down the sides of his cheeks and mixing with the fresh blood that trickled out of his ears.

“Call 911,” Jin croaked from the floor, fingers glued to the pulse point on Jimin’s throat.

Then she noticed the way Jungkook's was fastened around something she couldn't see, his knuckles white and shaking with the force with which he held it to his side.

From somewhere in the ringing sound in her ears and Jungkook’s urgent discussion with emergency services, Y/n could hear hissing through the walls layered over insufferable, everlasting laughter.

I hope you have it in your heart to forgive yourself.

_________________________________________

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