92 Prisoner (Part 3)

"Juniper!" she cuts through the silence with her declaration, "You have repeatedly resisted our rule and judgment, engaged in forbidden killings and credible rumors of depravity, namely the cannibalism of our kind."

"Most egregious of all, coerced our beloved brother Hammond with lies about your origin and…" her face crunches into a scowl exposing vicious canines, "murdered our esteemed Thorn sister, Isabelle."

I didn't know black could glow but the woman's dark eyes are shining, the whites beginning to grey. She hisses violently through her sharp teeth, "*My Isabelle!*"

I stare at Juniper and the pieces begin to click together. The emphasis fills the holes with truth. She's kept many things from me, but would she lie?

But the alleged deception isn't the biggest issue here. She didn't piss off Christina by breaking a bunch of laws, this is personal. She killed someone Christina was close to, and judging by her tone, in love with.

'Shit, June!' I wonder uncomprehendingly, 'Is your sole purpose in life to royally tick people off?'

"Oh… Isabelle," Juniper grits through the metal choke. Her head tilts a fraction revealing a fiendishly narrowed eye.

Cristina let's loose a growl and all her cohorts scatter, unwilling to be caught in the crossfire.

I flinch from a demonic voice, hardly recognizing it as Christina's as it devolves into tones of the possessed, "You have no right to picture her in your mind!"

"Is there not safety in my mind?" Juniper's lips edge up sadistically, "Christina, how audacious of you to spy on my thoughts."

"You'd dare insult me with feigned innocence!" her words explode past the point of an outrage.

I don't see her move. The torch at June's dangling feet goes flying across the room. It bursts apart into splitters and turbulent embers, smashing into the wall.

Christina's on top of her like a scorpion wrapped around its prey, an arm striking down like the stinger. The slap cracks like thunder, my head's in a spin from the shockwave alone. The chains suspending June give out from the force of the blow, the added weight sends them jerking downward.

The rusty wheels spin out of control, chain ropes squealing against the flimsy holds, unraveling fast. *Clink-clink-clink-clink-clink* all the way until June's back hits the floor. The links leap in the crashing heap.

"You insolent worm," Christina snarls, "Cease these thoughts!"

June's head lulls back as her neck shackle is yanked mercilessly forward. Christina proceeds to beat her face to a bloody pulp. Striking her again and again! The scene stirs something in me and I'm struggling against my restraints to defend my maker. I'm screaming all kinds of things, most of it nonsensical and desperate.

There's an inhuman screech as Christina rips a clump of raven hair right from her scalp. She rises to her feet, letting Juniper drop and sprawl on the floor.

Chains slither following June's wounded movement as she curls onto her side. She appears to be trembling, whimpering, but then I notice her mouth. Though her eyes are shadowed, I see those lips clearly stretched into a deranged smile as her fractured body shakes.

Christina fumes, her inky eyeballs shining out like the heart of the universe, whites fully engulfed by liquid black.

'She is going to get herself killed!'

A dainty foot thrusts out, disappearing in June's stomach. She retches, coughing up blood as her back crunches into the wall. And Juniper continues to laugh harder, a wheezing sickly noise.

Christina spits on her antagonizer's folded body, sneering and pacing away.

I gawk in horror, watching someone I thought was indestructible lie broken and disturbed on the floor, barely alive. This brutality has me stunned.

I'm unable to suppress the buzz of endless thought. And through the cacophony an unanswerable question keeps repeating; 'Why?'

I'm always in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, right in the middle of a centuries old feud between two truly bloodthirsty beings. 'How the hell did I manage this… Why?'

And I care about one of those sadistic individuals for some reason, 'Why!'

Actually, with that one, I know why. And it's all my grandma's fault.

"Don't be afraid to love, Ashlen. And If you love them, don't let go."

Advice inspired by my grandmother's secret regret.

"Don't shy away from adventure, failure or hardship. Chase it, believe it and never pass new love. Nothing is more important or meaningful than true love. It's worth everything."

Of course I'd take her dying words to heart. They struck a chord with me. I didn't want to be afraid to live and love, didn't want to end up with regret like her's.

There's no way she could have predicted this. Even with *my* glimpses of foresight, I failed to avoid any of it.

Now I see, regret is inescapable. I'll either die hard living my fullest, or live long as an unfulfilled spectator. There seems to be no middle ground for me.

June quiets herself, tilting that misshapen face to me. Through her tangles of black I meet her sapphire gaze, glittering with intensity. So many emotions I don't understand circle the two of us in nauseating cycles. All I can do is hold the stare in silence.

Dark liquid begins to pool around her body. Is that her's? That's way too much blood.

I blink, I must be seeing things, but it doesn't go away. It stains the ground, crawling acrossing like tar. Something isn't right, June's sitting upright. It's instantaneous, she was on the ground and now she's slumped against the cavern wall but her face is blurry. I can't make it out. What is going on?

There's a flash and I see Christina cackling madly. Whe… where are her clothes? A small fire is dancing at her side as her long hair twirls down her nude back. I smell burning flesh.

*Oh crap!* This hasn't happened yet. I need to turn this off! If one of the mind readers catches on, who knows what they'll do to me.

It scrambles a little but doesn't stop. I'm in pain, an incomprehensible amount of it. I'm spared the full impact, though my distorted senses tell me the pain must be agonizing.

Am I suspended in the air? There's a stabbing, cutting sensation and hunger so acute I'm internally begging for death.

I'm outside in a field covered in the warning bluish haze of approaching sunrise. My own weight is tearing holes into my chest. I can't breath, can't cry. Too much energy, too much hurt. There's a scarecrow mounted high to a pole beside me. Am I on a pole, too?

Wait a minute, that's not a scarecrow and what's wrong with the face? It's horrifying! My senses are screaming to get me down.

'No more, let it end,' The pleading thought is despairing.

Disembodied voices bleed into my sight. My senses are deteriorating. Maybe I'm going crazy.

The whispers call my name. I'm so out of it, I can hardly understand.

"Help," I mouth.

My wish is granted, the pressure is alleviated from my chest. A heavenly solace battling with the prickling throb of agony as I lay in the earth.

I sense familiarity, safety. Their touch is a true God sent, welcoming and warm. I don't know if I'll live and their caress soothes my fears.

"We can't leave her," I defy my angel of darkness. The vision becomes murky, unstable. I taste anger, confusion and resentment.

Then I'm flying across the field…carried away. Am I actually dead? Is it even possible to have a vision of my death?

A cool ambrosia slides down my throat, too cold to be blood but invigorating all the same. It's a sweet relief, a burst of power, indescribable. I crave more.

I'm moving forward again, faster now, gliding over a broken abandoned road toward the rising sun. The sun…

"Astounding! How do you garner such undeserved allegiances?" I blink out of my foreboding future to Christina's sneering. I try to hide the guilty apprehension from clouding my face, wondering if she just saw all that. She glares at someone from the corner of her eye, continuing to scrutinize, "Truly, you are a parasite."

Her gaze flashes to me, the light seems to streak across her eyes in a sharp line like tiger's eye. It steals my breath away.

'Busted. You're done for.' My unhelpful thoughts swim.

"Speak fledgling," she snips, leaning down. My eyes flare. I can feel her sweet breath, cool on my face and my stomach churns with hunger, "Would you die for your wretched maker? Take on the sins of your sire?"

I begin to tremble. I intake an cumbersome breath and try to keep that unpleasant, confusing premonition from surfacing. I look up into her scary eyes and immediately regret it. Tears sting as they crawl out.

I mindlessly begin to plead, "Please…"

"Tell me," she insists harshly, "Would you take her place?"

I start to digest her questions, stealing an unconscious glance at June. She's watching me, surprisingly alert through those swollen sockets.

Juniper is a criminal, ruthless and probably did the things accused of her. This is her fault.

But I can't get her damn apology out of my head and can't get her moments of genuine caring, as demented as her methods can be at times.

I recall her claims that I would eventually betray her. She's wrong, I won't. I may be conflicted about my attachment to her but it's there and I can't let it go.

I have a wild and sudden thought; what if I was never meant to live? I have visions of people dying constantly and what if, in some twisted way, I've thrown the cosmos out of whack by cheating death? I want to live but at what cost?

I attract more than trouble, I attract death.

'A harbinger of destruction.'

Christina's words strike me. For the first time looking into June's eyes, it's like a mirror. Our differences melt away as our glaring similarities emerge. I am more like June than I realized, spreading chaos wherever I go. It follows us like a plague.

Time has corroded her humanity and hope, perhaps that's our biggest difference. And do I really believe I can avoid submission to time itself?

I can't let this be her end, otherwise it's our end.

"I'll do it," my voice is faltering, I almost can't believe I'm saying it. I'm terrified and tense as I ready myself, "Don't hurt her anymore. I'll take her place."

Am I brave, stupid, insane? I don't know.

I catch Juniper's gaze, intense, soul penetrating. She lies there, breathing weakly, unblinking. Our connection is indecipherable, I don't think she expected this from me.

Christina barks out girlish laughter, holding her face in both hands.

"Touching," she remarks, composing herself and dabbing an opaque tear from her eye with one finger, "Honor and bravery, what human traits. Such a shame I cannot spare you. Alas, the iniquity of the Father falls upon the sons. Or in this case… the daughter."

She lowers her face into me with a tiny smirk, but her gaze is glued to the space above my head.

"Well… it seems you've captured the attention of my adored," her tone changes slightly, like I've suddenly become very interesting and I don't think that's a good thing, "Consider yourself venerated."

I shudder, sensing that someone is standing close behind me. I can feel their stare.

Her long nails scrap against my cheek and I flinch. She rises in an elegant stretch, peering down with pitiless glee, "Once we have had our fill, I will take both you and your maker. You are at my mercy and I never intended to waste it on the profligate or her heiress!"

A wheezy cackle breaks the tension with its unexpectedness. Juniper strengthens that gravely laugh, practically crowing and rolling in her decrepit state.

"Nothing you do will get her back. Your Isabelle…" June slurs, drooling out of the side of her bludgeoned mouth. Her laughter dies into rabid breathing, like a sick animal that needs to be put down.

"Can you hear her screams, Christina?" she pulls herself upright, using the metal links as leverage. She's terrifying with her bloodstained cheeks and hungry furnace eyeballs burning blue behind her dark strands. Her tone isn't any less disturbing, "You want to know how she died? Begging me! Ha! And if given the chance I'd gladly devour her again!"

Christina's face becomes monstrous, taking on the qualities of a shark. Black eyes like two pits in her face, inhuman teeth bared full and foaming with rage. That neck twists eerily around as she hunches to pour it all into the offender.

"June, don'-!" my imploring is stunted by hand clamping over my mouth.

I'm lifted into the arms of the one looming behind me. My limbs clumsily attempt to pry the hand off but I'm entirely zapped of energy.

'I can't do anything. I just *can't*.'

"You see? Look into my mind," June continues raving, downright intimidating, "She died a coward. I drank every bitter drop. With all that power and age she was *pathetic*! Now she's trapped within me, *Mine*! And nothing you or any of your kind do to me will change that!"

Their eyes are burning into each, terrifying high beams blasting in the dark. June's aura is a black devilish swell as she spews madness, "You'll never have her because the last of her swims in my belly! And I'll eat any Thorn that tread too near, any that get in my way, all of you!"

Juniper's eyes roll back as she roars in a coughing fit of cackles. Christina screams lunging at her.

The surrounding lackies hiss as they draw back from the brawl. Except for the one holding me, he doesn't budge.

Juniper takes unfocused swipes, howling with lunacy. The ferocious sound muffles as she bites down on Christina's arm. It's a blur as they tangle in rattling chains.

Christina rips June's mouth from her flesh, too furious to react to her flaying skin. Her jaw gapes like a crocodile, inhaling the air, bashing June's skull into rock. Blood is pouring, flicking everywhere.

June reaches up, clawing her face, hooking and dragging it across her cheek. All control comes undone, shattering apart, they're wailing on each with pure savagery.

Taloned nails and fangs tear into one another. Clothes and flesh rip apart. The snarling escalates to an unsettling pitch, droplets of blood spray. The light from their glowing eyeballs streak, wound in the ball of chaos.

I see it, that flash imagery. That congealed blood pooling on the ground. June's blurry face. 'I need to stop that from happening!'

I lurch for them in desperation to break free and break up the fight. I don't get far at all, but rock feebly against the arms holding me anyway.

'It is too late for her.'

'Who said that?' Startled, I flick my gaze around frantically, searching for the owner of a man's voice. It's clear as day above the ferocious growling but it seemed to originate from nowhere.

'What the hell?'

'Do not lose yourself now,' the ghostly voice says, 'I wish to aid you.'

'What is this?' I'm hearing voices in my head. It's finally become too much, I'm having a psychotic meltdown.

My auditory hallucination is interrupted by a howl, "I'll reduce you to ciders and you can spend the rest of eternity burning in hell! You are nothing! NOTHING!"

"And you crossed seas and tracked decades for nothing," June gargles out drunkenly in her disadvantaged state. She's jostled harder for having the gall to continue taunting.

"You-*YOU*!" Christina violently condemns her in an ancient tongue, her curses lash out with every intention to destroy until speech is lost to a long winded scream.

"YAAARAHHH!"

Blood is sheeting like rain from Christina's broken flesh as she looms above, pinning June against the wall now. Still bellowing down crimson and spit, dribbling past those elongated fangs.

The rapid arms are swiping and slashing so fast it's hard to keep up. She flattens June against the sooty rock, smushing her ribs against it. Her torso jerks as they snap one at a time.

I scream against the stranger's hand, my thoughts are in disarray, desperate to be heard.

'Your master cannot escape her fate,' the immaterial male voice comes again, 'but there is a chance for you.'

Tears pool around the trapping hand as I hyperventilate through my nose.

Christina's boney long fingers snake into June's mouth, lodged and pulling her jaws apart. The corners of the mouth are starting to split into a Glasgow smile. Razor teeth cut into her fingertips but she doesn't let up. The discordant screaming rises and rises until my eardrums tremor, threatening to burst.

'Don't die! Don't leave me!'

June thrusts a hand toward Christina's neck and the roar is guttural, she whips her cuffed arm flipping the chain and looping it around the head of brilliant hair.

Christina reels back, releasing her face to throw the chains off. June takes a jab, shoving her open hand shoving through ribs, piercing just above Christina's left breast. She cries out enraged.

Christina reaches over her head grappling her hairpin like the hilt of a dagger, orange hair flies about as if flipping in a storm. The glinting needle winds back for the swing, whipping the air in a single slice. She stabs it right under Juniper's chin.

June's eyes flare, I see metal staking the inside of her mouth, piercing all the way through the roof.

I feel myself go cold.

The piece of metal rips out the other side of her face, a blur of silver until it's pointed erect in the air, sparkling and dripping with dark liquid.

June's voided sclears wash back to white, mouth gawping lopsided. Her twitching hands go for the gruesome line marring her own throat before opposing fangs crunch in to widen the gash. Fingers wedge inside gory crevice, splitting it apart!

I'm thrashing around, bashing my shoulder into the stranger in my hysterics. It's useless, I'm as helpless as the night I died.

I feel dizzy and see June's head tilt in an unnatural way before slamming my eyes closed. It does nothing to lessen the hollow tear.

There's yowling like a couple of sick cats before it's swallowed up by the bubbling grabble of slurps.

The loud rip is followed by a thump.

Drip.

Drip, drip.

Drip.

I can't open my eyes. Won't.

I hear heavy panting for a long while with the wet pattering sound. Eventually it is followed by breathless, sporadic clicking. The clicking progresses into clipped giggling.

I make the mistake of peeking through my aching eyes. I scan the area, it's hazy like a dream. I notice the glittering orbs in the hooded robes huddled and motionless together, they appear stunned. And then I see something I wish I hadn't.

Christina throws her head back in boisterous guffaws, reveling over a body with a face I can't make out…

Can't because it isn't there, it doesn't exist.

Juniper's head is gone.