Chapter Ten: Shawn

(Perchance to Dream)

A long time ago, back when I was human and had a last name, back when I was happy and well-adjusted and didn't know the ease in which I could take a life - back before I lost my fucking mind and before the moon's call drowned out every other sound and feeling and want I'd ever even had...

Back when I was a normal student at a normal high school.

A long, long time ago, I learned CPR. I was good at it, too, back then. I was confident and secure and calm, collected, all the things that you would want if it came down to it. I was everything that you would need in order to save a life, ironically.

And now, I can't do a single fucking thing, watching her labour to breathe as blood bubbles between her lips and I can feel her heart beating, against my skin, because there isn't anything protecting it. Her ribcage has been shattered, her abdomen shredded as if she were been made of paper.

There's absolutely nothing I can do to save her, even if I were sure that was what I wanted to do.

"Demon," she whispers, looking up at me. I can see her, lying still in the darkness, although a human wouldn't have been able to see much of anything but a vague shape in the shadows. "Did you kill me?" She breathes.

"No," I say, before I pick her up. She's entirely too still, possibly paralyzed. I have no fucking idea what the hell happened. She was supposed to escape, damn it - she was supposed to leave. She was not supposed to come back, drenched in her own blood, a tiny blonde teenager carried in her wake.

She wasn't supposed to come back.

She wasn't supposed to die.

Inside the house it's almost worse, because I can see every single wound. She shouldn't be alive, and probably wouldn't be if adrenaline weren't pumping through her - although by now, she's probably got more adrenaline in her veins than she does blood.

I have to stop my hands from shaking, because - Jess. Evil, sadistic, masochistic Jess, who loved me when I was crazy and saved me when I was sane. I know - I know more than anyone else - just how much she deserved to die. How much she does still deserve to die, for all of the things that she has done. But I don't want her to, inexplicably, some savage part of me that I'd thought I'd stamped out rearing it's head and roaring that she is mine, mine, and she cannot be taken away from me.

"It's okay," Jess says, smiling grotesquely. Her hair is wet with blood, dark red where it should be a pale, pretty pink. She raises a hand, cups my face, trailing wet fingers down my cheek. "It's okay," she says, again, and then she kisses me.

She tastes like moonlight, like desperation, like blood.

"I forgive you," She mumbles, almost against my lips.

And then she dies.

It's difficult to let go, but I force myself to release my hold on her corpse. I stand up, and Gretchen is staring at me, her eyes wide and frightened and more than a little bit panicked. "Are you okay?" I ask her.

Gretchen looks down at the woman - the corpse - at my feet, and her mouth opens and closes wordlessly. "Help her," She says. She is entirely too pale, almost luminescent in the harsh light.

"She's dead," I say, angrily. There wasn't anything I can do.

The girl's mouth presses together, lips pursing in determination, eyes flashing. "No," She says. "I won't let her die."

And what the fuck does that mean, I wonder, even as Gretchen stands up and walks towards us, falling onto her knees and placing a small hand over Jess's neck. The rest of us just stand - or sit - and stare at her. I should interrupt, explain to Gretchen that Jess is dead, there's no way in hell she can do anything to help, but at the same time I'm reeling and quite honestly, don't fucking feel like making an effort. This entire situation started out shitty and has just gotten worse, and it occurs to me that people are fucking dying - all over the place - and I have no idea why. There's no rhyme or reason - just -

Gretchen is staring off into space, her expression almost eerily blank. The bloodstains on her skin are lividly bright.

"I won't let her die," she says again. She reaches forward, a hand ghosting lightly over Jessica's temple. There's something strange - and before I have time to figure out what it is, Gretchen fucking glows, a strange red pattern underneath her skin lighting up like lace. There's a stunned moment of silence, in which we all stare at her (because she is fucking glowing) and then Onyx and Enigma both move to stop her, drag her back, do something. I'm frozen in shock, or maybe I just don't want to move, but something stops the twins anyway. Gretchen just stares, blankly, off into space with this creepy absent expression, not doing anything other than touching Jess.

Even that seems to be doing something though, first nothing noticable, and then her flesh starts to knit back together, regenerating in front of our eyes.

Behind me, Destiny gasps softly. I'm moving before I think, supporting her head, trying not to be alarmed at the way Gretchen isn't there at all - it's like she's been taken completely over by some alien thing.

"What is she doing?" someone says, but I don't have an answer so I stay silent.

Gretchen finally lets go of her, gasping, looking wide-eyed and panicked. Jessica's completely healed, not so much as a papercut on her now. Her heart isn't beating, I know because I'm checking almost obsessively. No breath, no pulse, she's still dead, just not hurt.

Healthiest dead girl I've ever seen, I think numbly.

Gretchen looks around at us, her eyes sad and exhausted. "I won't let her die," She says, again, voice breaking.

There are tears in her eyes, threatening to spill over, and I reach out and grab her shoulder. "Hey," I say. "There's nothing you can do -" But who the hell am I kidding - she can heal a body past recovering to fully fit in forty seconds. How the fuck would I know whether or not she can bring people back from the dead?

"Yes," she says, looking at me. Her eyes darken, pupils dilating until there's nothing but black surrounded by a hair-thin ring of blue. "I can."

The tears in her eyes spill over, running down her cheeks and dropping to the floor. The scary part is the part where they burst into flame, right in her eyes, dripping fire down her skin but not burning her even a little bit. It's not a far stretch to assume I'm hallucinating, even though nothing like this has ever happened to me before (that's not entirely true) and if I were having a mental breakdown, this is a really god damned inconvenient time for it to happen.

From the way Destiny jumps back, it might not just be me.

And then something happens.

It's like the world twisting around, jumping out from underneath my feet. It shifts in a mysterious direction, gravity reversing and slamming back onto our heads. Everything gets erased in a sudden, white-hot moment of vertigo. There is a roar of flame, and the fiery tears on the floor surge upwards, enveloping Gretchen for a split second - and then they're gone, Gretchen is collapsed on the floor, and Jess is struggling upwards, her eyes wide.

"What the fuck?" Destiny shouts, losing her usual calm.

"What the fuck?" Onyx breathes, staring back and forth between Jess and Gretchen.

"What the fuck," Taylor says.

I kind of agree with all of them.

It's the work of a few minutes to get Gretchen comfortably settled, because Destiny and Taylor both insisted she be given a bath before we put her to bed. I want to agree because she's covered in blood, cuts, and bruises, but part of me is falling to pieces out of concern. I just want to put her in a bed and know she's going to be all right.

"Are you okay?" Taylor asks her softly, patting her face in a way that's not quite a slap. Destiny has more luck, putting a damp towel on Gretchen's forehead and neck. Even then, the most they manage to get from her is incoherent mumbles. When she opens her eyes, her pupils are still blown wide open, and she flinches away from the light.

They wipe off most of the blood, wrap her in one of my shirts (at this rate, I'll have to go shirtless all the time to avoid blowing all my money on clothes) and tuck her into my bed (which is only okay because I wasn't planning on sleeping for the rest of the night, anyway). Jess sits on the floor, a frown on her face, not bothering any of us.

"Is Toni around?" I hear Caleb asking Taylor, and I have to suppress a sudden urge to rip out his fucking throat.

"Leave her alone," I snarl, instead. "Just leave her the fuck alone,"

Destiny and Taylor both take a step back, deferentially, which is weird enough that I consider just how strange I'm acting. Not strange at all, just weirdly protective of someone I was willing to torture a few days ago.

Caleb flinches so far away from me he's almost out of the room. His eyes are squeezed shut and his neck bared, face turned away. "Sorry," he says.

I need to get myself under control.

Closing my eyes and counting to ten does dick all - so I give up on that, checking on Gretchen one last time and then walking back to Jess, hauling her onto her feet. She doesn't fight me at all, weak as a newborn kitten, but her breath hitches and she puts her hands on my chest, both balled into fists.

"What happened?" She demands, even though she can't even stand on her own, her voice is strong. "I was dead,"

"Yeah," I say, not knowing how to respond. "You were."

"I was dead," She repeats, her voice rising an octave. "I was - I died, Dem-- Shawn..." She starts to shake.

I have never seen her like this before, scared and panicky and vulnerable. I'm not sure I want to, even now. What the hell is wrong with this woman, that she can't just stay the fuck away from me? It's like she's crazy - which she probably is - or more accurately, like she's addicted. I lost my mind before I found her, and no matter how much I try and lose her, she always runs into me again.

"You're okay now," I lie, feeling incredibly stupid. It's pretty fucking obvious that she's not okay.

Laughing she tries to push me away, stumbling and weaving backwards. I grab onto her waist before she falls and pull her back towards me, sweeping her up and carrying her, bride-style. "Fuck you," she mumbles weakly, pressing her face into my shoulder. "I can walk,"

"You just died," I say, ridiculously, "You can't fucking walk, Jess." I must have a point, because she doesn't argue with me.

We don't have a guest room or a spare bed, really, except for Gretchen's room - and Toni's been sleeping in there. Instead, I carry her to the kitchen and put her in a chair, rummaging through the refrigerator for something she can eat.

Over the next couple of hours, there isn't much talking. Realistically, there isn't much thinking going on either - tempers flaring and people just itching for a fight. I ignore it all, take a quick nap on the couch, watch Jess pretend she's strong enough to stand when she can barely keep her eyes open.

She manages to mumble a few words in my direction, and while the words themselves make senses, it's only in the crudest possible way. I stare at her, black hair shining in the harsh light, the bright pink streaks she'd never grown out of contrasting against the pale lines of her skin, and think what the fuck is wrong with that bitch, and I want to rip her heart out.

Much, much later, I re-evaluate my initial reaction, and find that if anything - I'm more determined to kill Laura than I ever was before. She's gone too far. She's threatened my family. She's already threatened my own welfare.

Even if she didn't need to be stopped, I would have set out to kill her.

And who - in this world full of cowards, murderers, and useless wastes of space - is going to stop me?

---