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| >> Campfire Creative >> Fiction >> Supernatural >> ID #1665236 |   |
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[Introduction]
  I wear this crown of shit upon my liar's chair Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair Beneath the stains of time The feelings disappear You are someone else I am still right here Nine Inch Nails the B R O T H E R S They are the Godsent. They alone stand against the Wicked. They will send them back to Hell, or die trying. Johnny Marshall - The Voice of God Ayden Marshall - The Sight of God Thank you Wenston  for the awardicon! |
 .Wolfie.  Session #1 : Black Magic Woman He slid the bullets home in his shotgun one by one. “You sure this is the place?” he asked. There was a cigarette dangling from his lips and it muffled his words. His pale blue eyes didn’t look up from the gun, and he heard his brother snort next to him as he slammed a clip home in the handgun. They never went anywhere without them, even if it landed them a night in the state penitentiary. The Marshall brothers had too much Texan in them and nobody took their guns away. They had parked the car on the edge of the road in the middle of the fucking swamp. The sun filtering through the trees cast a green haze on everything and Johnny hated it. The tires were already beginning to sink into the ground and if he had to try and push the Cadillac out of it later he was going to be pissed. He sighed, slamming another bullet home and glancing at his brother. “Of course I’m sure,” Ayden said. “Why did it have to be Lousiana?” he asked, rolling the cigarette between his lips. “I fucking hate mosquitoes.” Ayden laughed at him, shaking his head. He was the younger brother but sometimes he seemed twenty years older. It was the visions. Sometimes it seemed to Johnny that his brother couldn’t close his eyes without having twenty visions. That was why they did this. It was why they had dropped everything and climbed in the battered old Cadillac and roared through the desert without looking back. If they didn’t, the visions got worse. If they didn’t try, they would rip his brother’s mind apart. Ayden holstered the guns low on his hips like some gunslinger from an old Clint Eastwood movie and then leaned into the backseat to get his machete. His hand brushed against the cross hanging from the rearview mirror and Johnny didn’t think it was an accident. “Should’ve brought bug spray then. You were the one driving so you can’t pretend you didn’t see the state line.” He snorted, snapping the shotgun closed. “Fuckin’ smart ass.” Ayden grinned at him and it was a smug thing, the little bastard. “Damn straight,” he told his brother. “Now let’s go kill us a witch.” † † † Everything had a price. When Johnny was thirteen he realized that he could change things by willing them to. He got his foot stuck in a railroad track and he probably would have died. He saw the train barreling down on him and he knew he didn’t have time to move and his little brother was shouting at him from across the track to move but his ankle had twisted and no matter how hard he yanked on it he couldn’t get free. He knew he was going to die. He saw it in the bright lights and the wail of a horn and in his brother’s eyes. He saw his death charging down on him and he was afraid. So he opened his mouth and told it “No.” The train never hit him. It stopped in the middle of the tracks and the cars behind it buckled and piled up around the engine but it never hit him and it never hit his brother. Instead Ayden went into a seizure then and there and it was the first time Ayden had a vision. He saw the train running his brother over and there was nothing left but a bloody smear on the tracks when it passed through and Ayden was crying and curling into the fetal position on the gravel. He fell to his knees and finally managed to pull his foot free and he was limping as he over to him. He grabbed his brother’s shoulder and his eyes had rolled back up in his head and he was shaking and whimpering. “Ayden,” he whispered, shaking him desperately and then his brother’s eyes finally slid open. “I saw you die,” he whispered, and then he was crying because he was only ten years old and he’d seen his brother die. Johnny didn’t know what he’d done, but he was still alive. But after that, Ayden’s visions never stopped. † † † Johnny carried the shotgun over his shoulder as they made their way through the swamp. He batted mosquitoes and hanging vines out of his way as they trudged along the sunken path. He hated the swamp. He hated trees and bugs and the mud that tried to suck his boots down. A cigarette dangled from his lips, but the smoke was doing little to discourage the bloodsuckers that kept trying to land on his skin. His battered leather coat had stayed in the car because it was hot and humid and he was sweating in his tee shirt. “This is bullshit,” he said, blowing smoke out from between his lips as he spoke. He shook his head as he heard something buzzing in his ear. “Why can’t you have more visions about California? Maybe we need to play lifeguard on the beach or some shit. Maybe we need to go save some poor slob in a Vegas casino.” He heard Ayden snort behind him. “Just let me put in a request with the pictures in my head.” “Good,” he said, ignoring the sarcasm. “You do that.” His hand pushed aside the dangling leaves of a willow tree, hearing a loud squelch as the mud clung to his boots. He felt a growl low in his throat because he missed Texas a lot right now, and he sucked desperately at the cigarette. His hand came up to wipe sweat off his forehead and the dark bandana was doing little to keep his head cool. He sighed, squinting through the green curtain where he caught a glimpse of a house. He swallowed, feeling suddenly apprehensive. Ayden had seen a house in his vision, and he had looked away when Johnny asked what was inside it. “A lot of mutilated bodies,” he’d said. Women, children, men, it didn’t sound like the witch was specific. He wondered if this was some kind of voodoo priestess and he felt nervous. Johnny didn’t know much about magic. He didn’t understand it. He had one power and that was more than enough for him. He had his guns and his bullets and that was usually all he needed because he hated having to use his one stupid power. He hated what it did to his brother every time because when he opened his mouth and that unholy voice came out of his throat it was Ayden that paid the price. He would do whatever it took to keep his brother from going through that. “You think she knows we’re coming?” Johnny asked. His brother hesitated. He glanced over his shoulder at him and Ayden’s hands were resting on the handle of his guns. He looked nervous and sweaty too and Johnny wished he’d pushed his brother more about what he’d seen. A lot of mutilated bodies didn’t tell him much. It didn’t tell him why she killed or what they were looking for. They had come here because Ayden had a vision and so off they went, like puppets on a fucking string. Sometimes Johnny hated it. He didn’t hate the fighting because that was the one thing he’d always been good at. Even when they were kids, Johnny had been getting into scrapes and the older he got, the more brutal they got. He’d played around in a couple fighting rings, but he hated dealing with the fucking mafia and the bookies so he’d quit. He had to stop, before his gambling got out of control. “Ayden,” he snapped, pausing in his steps. He felt his feet sinking into the mud and a sneer spread across his face because he really, really hated the swamp. His brother glanced up at him, biting his lip like he had forgotten the question, or maybe didn’t want to answer it. “Does she know we’re coming? Could you tell from your vision?” “Yeah,” he said slowly. He had a guilty look on his face. “I think… I think maybe when I saw her…she saw me back.” Johnny stared at him for a long time. He flicked the cigarette into the swamp. Then he took a heavy breath. “Are you fucking serious?” Wenston There was always blood.Ayden was eleven and he couldn’t stop crying. He was shaking beneath the covers of his bed and every time he closed his eyes his mind ran red with blood and gore and bone and flesh. He was sweating and sore and cold down to his very being. It was dark out and the house was quiet except for his soft sobs, which were getting louder and stronger each minute he was awake. He didn’t understand what was going on. Neither of them had understood what they were then. From beneath him, he felt the bed move. The bunk beds were old and rickety and every time one of them rolled over, it squeaked and sounded like it would fall apart at any minute. But he felt, and heard, Johnny climb out of the bottom bunk and then the ladder was squeaking. He thought about rolling over and telling Johnny not to come up, that Dad didn’t like it when they were both on the top bunk because it would break the fucking bed and he sure as shit wasn’t buying them a new one – but then Johnny’s hand was on his arm and he couldn’t stop the loud sobs from escaping his throat. He saw blood everywhere. He smelt it, felt it, could taste it. He was there watching as a complete stranger was ripped into pieces by a creature that couldn’t even be made up for a movie it was so horrifying. He was eleven and the blood came every time he closed his eyes and he couldn’t stop it. There was always blood. “Ayden?” Johnny’s sleepy voice sounded far away and distant over the sounds of his sobs. When he spoke again, there was an urgency to his older brother’s tone. “Ayden, come on, you have to be quiet. You’re gonna wake him up.” He didn’t have to explain who he was talking about. Ayden knew. They’d been through this before. “Ayden, shut up,” Johnny tried, but there wasn’t anger in his voice, just urgency. The slamming of a door at the end of the hall had them both startling in surprise. Johnny leaned forward and tried to cover Ayden’s mouth with a hand. “Please be quiet, Ayden, it’s not real. None of it’s real,” he pleaded and that fact that he’d just gotten his brother and himself into trouble only made Ayden cry louder and harder. Their father came into the bedroom in a blind rage. He didn’t even stop at the doorway, just flung open the door and in a matter of seconds had gripped Johnny’s arm and flung him violently to the floor. He was grabbing Ayden and shaking him like a ragdoll and screaming, “Shut up you little fucker, shut up! People are trying to sleep in this damn house!” over and over again and Ayden wasn’t screaming from the visions anymore. And then Johnny was there trying to pull their father off of him. The man whirled and instantly the torrent of curses and beatings were aimed at his brother, instead of him. Ayden curled up on the bed, hugging his knees to his chest and crying quietly, his eyes wide and watching as their father tore into Johnny, a belt in one hand. Johnny’s back was bleeding by the time he was done. The man whirled and slapped Ayden’s across the face with the belt once before pointing at him angrily. “One more peep out of either of you and I will come back in here and fucking strangle you both, is that understood?” Ayden nodded furiously and Johnny didn’t respond, only cried quietly from his place still on the floor. Their Dad was thankfully appeased and he slammed the door behind him on the way out of the room. The two sat still for a moment. When he heard the bedroom door shut at the end of the hall, Ayden climbed quietly and swiftly out of the top bunk and tried not to squeak the rickety bed as he descended the ladder, coming to kneel beside Johnny, who was pushing himself to his knees. “I’m sorry,” Ayden croaked, his voice hoarse and face red and stained with tears. “Just go to sleep,” Johnny grit out as he stood and climbed back into his own bed. Ayden sniffled and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his pajamas before he made his way to the ladder. He was crying again and Johnny must have heard it because in the next instant, he was pulling back the covers and calling softly, “Come on.” Ayden crawled into bed with his brother and tried not to cry outloud ever again around his father. Because he knew what would happen if he did. There would always be blood. † † † “Are you fucking serious?” Ayden sighed and ran a hand through his hair because in front of him, Johnny had stopped his trek through the wild swamps of Louisiana to give his brother a look that he absolutely hated. That “you’ve let me down” look that killed a little bit of Ayden every time his brother shot it at him. He tried not to let it get to him this time, because this time, he’d purposely left out details of the vision. He knew it would piss Johnny off, but that’s not why he’d done it. Truth of the matter was, the vision of this witch had been terrifying and one of the worst he’d had in years. And when she’d looked at him, her eyes had penetrated him, deep down to his soul and it made him sick just thinking about her looking at him. He knew. He knew that she’d seen him. He knew that she’d be waiting for them. Good thing he packed extra bullets. “Dammit, Ayden,” Johnny spat and then cursed as he tried to pull his foot up and the mud seemed to just suction his boot off. He gripped onto a tree and reached down to yank his boot free, balancing on one foot. Ayden couldn’t help but smile. Johnny was out of his element in any place that didn’t involve sand or cacti. “Why didn’t you tell me that?” he spat as he pulled his boot back on. “I dunno,” Ayden shrugged, not wanting to admit that he’d been too scared and just talking about the witch sent tremors down his spine. “I thought you could handle it,” he grinned instead, watching his brother scowl at him. He knew Johnny was pissed. “Is there anything else you forgot to tell me about your vision?” Johnny asked, turning back and starting again for the cabin. Ayden carefully stepped after him, feeling his own shoes getting stuck in the mud in several places. He used the trees to try and hold most of his weight off of the ground. “And so help me if you say ‘a lot of mutilated bodies’ one more time, I’m going to shoot you in the foot.” Ayden snorted. “Why would you shoot me in the foot? That just means you’d have to carry me back to the car. At least shoot me in the arm or hand.” Johnny let out a slow breath and Ayden couldn’t help but laugh because it felt so good to do so and he knew he’d never be able to do this alone. He’d never be able to do this without Johnny. The banter and the joking was something they’d always done. But after the visions, after Johnny’s…whatever the hell he could do, it became a lifeline. It became something they could hold onto to keep from slipping into insanity or giving up hope or loosing grip on reality. He loved his brother, always had. But they didn’t say it a lot to each other. They didn’t really have to. In fact, it would be kind of awkward if Johnny ever muttered those words and Ayden would probably insist on doing an exorcism. “I bet there’s snakes out here,” Ayden said, unable to stop himself or the laugh that came afterwards as Johnny’s hand froze just inches away from a branch. He watched his brother scan the immediate treeline for any signs of snakes and then turn to look over his shoulder. “Shut the fuck up,” he said. “You’re such a-” Whatever Johnny was going to say next was cut off immediately by a loud, wailing scream that pierced through the air. Ayden mirrored his older brother as they both ducked down close to the ground. The mud made it difficult to stay in the crouched position for long, but Johnny had his shotgun aimed ahead of them and Ayden had pulled his handguns, one pointed off to each side as they both scanned the area, trying to place where the scream was coming from. Ayden tried to block out the noise as it continued to bounce around in the forest, the trees echoing it off one another. He closed his eyes and immediately countless bodies flashed in front of his face. They were naked and mutilated and torn apart, symbols carved into the skin, the blood drained and smeared around the room. He shook his head forced his eyes open as the memory of the vision threatened to bring up the meager contents of his stomach. He must have made a noise, because Johnny shot a short glance over his shoulder at him and Ayden tried not to look as pale and frightened as he felt. Johnny snorted. “Sounds like she’s home.” “Of course she’s home,” Ayden said, glad for the banter. “Now let’s get in there and shoot her.” “After you, Princess.” .Wolfie. Sometimes Johnny imagined he could still hear the sound of a freight train bearing down him.Sometimes he felt like if he turned around he would still be stuck on those train tracks and he would be watching his death thundering towards him, unstoppable and unavoidable. Sometimes he felt like he was still asleep and when he opened his eyes he would still be standing there, waiting to die. He would open his mouth and feel the power bubbling form his lips to tell the world “no,” and it would ignore him and whisper back a silent “yes.” He dreamed about that sometimes. Not as bad as Ayden’s dreams, but he still woke up sweating. The scream that still hung in the air wasn’t helping matters any. His hands tightened around his shotgun, finger resting lightly on the trigger while he held it to his shoulder. He pulled himself out of the mud and it was caked on his jeans and his boots. He heard Ayden struggling to his feet behind him and he spared only a glance over his shoulder to make sure that his brother was up and read to go. He had a gun in each hand, though he holstered one to haul himself to his feet. He had that look on his face, the one that said he wasn’t all there anymore and he was seeing things beyond Johnny’s vision. Sometimes he wished he knew what his brother was seeing. Maybe if he did, then Ayden didn’t have to suffer through it all alone and he wouldn’t have to guess at what they were facing. Part of it was guilt, because he wondered about that day on the train tracks. If he had never uttered that word, if he had never stopped the train, would he have sent a vision into his brother’s brain of what should have happened? Maybe he was seeing the world how it really was, and Johnny was just a ghost. The other part of it was that he couldn’t stand the thought of anyone hurting his little brother. If he could share Ayden’s visions, then he could keep him out of it. He could keep him safe. Another scream ripped through the air and he swore it made the trees shake. He put a hand out to brace himself against the bark and tried to forget what his little shit of a brother had said about snakes because the last thing he needed right now was a pair of teeth sinking into his skin. He ducked under a branch and now he could see the house, which meant whatever was in the house could probably see him. He crouched down in the mud as low as he could without losing his boots. “So these bodies…” he said. “You think they’re part of some kind of ritual?” He heard Ayden snort behind him, but it didn’t turn into a full laugh which meant that whatever his brother had seen had shaken him more than he cared to admit. Johnny grit his teeth and did his best not to turn around and drag it out of his brother because if it had scared Ayden than pushing it would just hurt him and as much as he could be a little bastard some time, Johnny would never willingly hurt his brother. He’d said enough things in anger over the years. “No, I think she just wanted to throw them a tea party. Yeah, Johnny, I would say they’re part of a fucking ritual.” “Any idea what it was for?” He asked. He moved as slowly and carefully forward as he could, but the mud didn’t want to let go of the soles of his boots and it was pissing him off. He just wanted to kill this bitch and get out of here, away from the mosquitoes and the bugs in his hair and the smell of swamp water that he swore he would never be able to wash out of his shirt. He missed Texas. He missed it more than he would’ve guessed ten years ago. “No fucking clue, Johnny,” his brother said. “Maybe next time I’ll ask the visions to gift wrap things for us.” He sighed and shut his mouth because Ayden clearly wasn’t going to make things easy for him. They snuck around the side of the house and he could see it more clearly now, though everything in this stupid fucking swamp was cast in a green haze that made him feel like he’d stepped into a rave party. The house was old and broken down and it looked like it was only one floor, but it stretched out over the entire clearing. He wasn’t sure about a basement. Could a house in the middle of a swamp have a basement? The back door let out onto a small dock where a little boat floated on the water. They pressed against the rotted wood on the side of the house and Johnny tried to peek in through the window. Something was blocking it, and he couldn’t tell what because the whole inside of the house was dark. It was like the place sucked the light right out of the forest and he felt a strange feeling emanating from it. The whole place made him feel weird and slimy, like something awful had happened here, though maybe he was just picking up on what Ayden was feeling. He glanced over his shoulder and Ayden was close behind him, both guns in his hands again. He met Johnny’s eyes and he forced a smirk onto his face. “You gonna stand there all day?” he asked. “No,” he said dryly, rolling his eyes. “I thought I would just go knock on the door and ask if she wants to come out and play. What the fuck do you think, Ayden?” His brother just grinned stupidly at him and he knew he was just trying to rile him up because Johnny being pissed off kept Ayden from being afraid. He knew it and he played along with it anyway because pretending to be mad at Ayden kept him from feeling the lump of fear in his gut. He took a deep breath and then slid around the corner of the house to the front door. His shotgun swung out in front of him and his boot slammed into the door, kicking it open. Another scream ripped through the swamp, but it wasn’t coming from the witch. There was a girl in the front room of the house and she had been nailed to the wall in front of him. Thick, heavy railroad nails had been driven through her arms and her stomach and her eyes were just missing, nothing but gaping holes staring back at him. She had been stripped and symbols had been carved in razorblade thin lines all over her skin. She screamed again and he couldn’t breathe because he was so horrified with what he was looking at. Ayden didn’t say anything, and that alone spoke volumes. The girl couldn’t last much longer. Blood was flowing off her skin in rivulets, forming a slow river of red under her toes. He was surprised she was even awake because most people would have passed out from the pain. He wanted to try and get her down but he thought he would just do more damage if he touched her because the nails were as thick around as his thumb. He swallowed down the bile in his mouth and headed into the house, eyes flicking from side to side and the shotgun still held loosely in his hands. His palms were sweaty and he wiped them off on his jeans. “It’s okay,” he whispered to the girl. “It’s going to be okay.” She cut off mid scream and then she started to laugh. It echoed as loudly as the screams had in the forest and it bounced off the wooden walls of the house. He glanced down the hallway to his left and he could see more bodies lining the walls, all of them missing their eyes and etched with red symbols that blazed in the darkness. There were no lights in here, and he didn’t want to pull out a flashlight because it would have felt obscene. The laughter escalated into a cacophony of sound that morphed back into a wicked shriek and then her head was rolling around to look at him with bloody gaping wounds. The voice that ripped out of her throat in the next moment couldn’t have belonged to her because it sounded like razorblades being dragged across a chalkboard and Johnny felt a cold sweat trickling down his spine. Behind him he heard a quiet whimper escape his brother’s throat but he didn’t turn around because he was trying to keep his gun pointed at the body on the wall. Then he heard the door slam shut, pushed by some unknown force, and the wood cracked as it slammed closed. “Found you,” the girl said, and then she vomited up blood and her body went slack, head slumping to the side. “Sure knows how to throw a welcome party,” Ayden grumbled behind him. Wenston “Stay focused,” Johnny commanded, quiet and harsh. He was already moving away from the now dead girl, because whatever had been animating her body was gone now and all that was left was a corpse, hanging there on the wall. Ayden was still taken aback every time he walked into one of his visions. He’d seen this girl. He’d seen what happened to her but the vision had left her death out. Because in his mind, she’d never spoken to them. She’d just been screaming. And the vision ended before the witch had finished pinning her to the wall. Which mean he didn’t know where the witch was now. “Yeah, alright,” he gave back to his brother, half-heartedly. Johnny accepted the affirmation though and started off down the hallway that was lined with the drained and eyeless bodies. Ayden followed closely behind, because it was dark and cold in this house and the floor was soaked in blood. He had his guns drawn and held out to his side and he pointed them at every shadow that seemed even the slightest bit unnatural. The further down the hall they got, the worse the smell and the heavier the air became. If it bothered Johnny, his brother didn’t let on. But Ayden almost couldn’t stand it. He had to put an arm over his nose to try and block out the smell. He was also abandoning one of his guns from its ready position, but the alternative was for him to lose his lunch. They reached the end of the hall and to their right, a door was closed. Bloody handprints littered the door and Ayden could see where someone’s fingernails had even dug into the wood, pulling out splintering chunks in an attempt to get through it. He swallowed thickly because he recognized the door and he already knew what was going to be on the other side of it. He looked over to Johnny, who was getting ready to kick the door in. “Wait,” he said and nearly jumped when the corpses that lined the wall echoed his voice exactly from their own mouths. Johnny and Ayden whirled, their guns pointed at each of the corpses individually, but they didn’t shoot because the corpses didn’t move again. Ayden turned to look at his brother, his eyes wide. Johnny gave him a sidelong glance that showed annoyance and irritation. Ayden shook his head. “I didn’t do that,” he whispered, quieter. The corpses thankfully did not mock him this time. “Shut up,” Johnny snapped. “I’m sick of this place,” he added and turned, lifting his foot and kicking the door in with little effort. They both stood in the doorway, guns aiming around the room as they scanned for any signs of the witch, but their motions slowed and Ayden hand to put his hand over his nose again at the sight inside the room. The missing eyeballs from the corpses they had passed were all hanging from the ceiling. In the center of the room, a single mass of body parts and skin sat sewed together with thick, black surgical string. Whatever creature the witch had been trying to create, it had lost its human shape long, long ago. Now, it took on a grotesque, stitched monster look. Johnny kept his gun trained on the pile of stitched together flesh, even as looked around the room. “Where is this bitch?” Johnny asked out loud, not bothering to whisper. His shotgun came up immediately as all of the eyes hanging from the wall suddenly turned to look at them. Ayden gulped and shot a glare at his brother, who looked disgusted, but at the same time amused that he had gotten a reaction. A sudden scream sounded back in the direction they’d come, where they’d run into the first girl hanging on the wall. Johnny brushed pass Ayden and headed back down the hall, shotgun at the ready. Ayden was close on his heels. “She’s toying with us,” he said as they reached the front room again and no one was there. Johnny snorted and looked walked in the opposite direction, towards a part of the house they hadn’t checked. “You think?” he quipped back to Ayden, who rolled his eyes. He took a step forward to follow after his brother when suddenly his vision waivered and he caught glimpse of a face he knew wasn’t really there. He winced, and may have gasped, and brought a hand up to his head as the for a moment it seemed like it was just a flash of a vision. He blinked heavily for a moment, testing his eyes, testing to make sure that he still wasn’t in the middle of a vision that was about to turn bloody and gorey and deadly. He saw Johnny up in front of him, oblivious. He was toeing something gross and fleshy looking on the ground. Ayden recognized it just a moment too late. “Wait, don’t!” he yelled as Johnny took a step forward to enter what looked to be the kitchen area of the house at one time. His brother froze at his yell, making it halfway around to see what he was yelling about before a loud snap echoed through the house. One minute, Johnny was standing in front of him. The next minute, the floor had given away beneath Johnny and he disappeared into a large, gaping hole in the rotted floorboards. “Johnny!” Ayden yelled, rushing forward, holstering his guns on his way to the hole. God, he should have known. He should have fucking been paying attention. The vision had shown him this. It had shown him the hole in the floor and the blood bubbling up from beneath it and the prison like cellar filled with swamp and insects and creatures from centuries of not being cared for and saturation. The vision hadn’t shown his brother falling into that pit, but it had shown it. And he felt panic race through his chest as he remember the blood mixing with the swamp water in his vision. There had been so much blood. And for there to be that much blood, Johnny would have to be… He couldn’t finish that though, so he raced towards the hole. Ayden had just about made it to the edge of the hole, was getting ready to call out for his brother again, was bending down to try and peer down into the swampy cellar when his world suddenly came to a jerking halt as something tight and wickedly sharp wrapped itself around his neck, giving him a hard yank backwards. His air was cut off immediately and it felt like his windpipes were crushed as the momentum he’d had building up from running to the hole and the sharp yank in the opposite direction were suddenly applied to this throat at all at once. His feet flew out from under him and he fell heavily onto his back. The wooden flooring creaked beneath him, but held. His hands came up to the cord that was wrapped around his neck as he gasped and choked, the last of his air having been dispelled from his lungs when he hit the ground. The cord loosened just enough as he grabbed at it for him to suck in a harsh breath. But then that was denied from him further as it tightened again and he heard a sharp cackle of laughter come from behind him. The witch appeared over him. Her black, tangled hair fell about her face and her rotted teeth stank of decay and blood. She laughed and it was such a piercing, terrible sound that Ayden would have winced if he hadn’t been struggling with the cord she had wrapped around his neck. He bucked on the floor, his feet trying to find leverage so he could stand. His hands went for his guns in their holsters, but she was fast and moved too fast for him. Coming around from behind him, she jumped onto his chest, pinning his arms to the sides with unnatural strength and holding the cord tight around his neck like some sort of leash. She cackled again and with her free hand, grabbed Ayden’s jaw, jerking his head side to side as she inspected his face. Spots danced around the edges of his vision and she let him expel air and suck in another gasp before she was tightening the cord again. He struggled beneath her, but she was stronger than she should have been. Her fingernails scratched at his face and she leaned over him, her hair falling about his head. “Your eyes, your eyes, they see, they see,” she sang to him and he felt her scratch just beneath his eye, dangerously close with her sharp fingernails. “I wants them, I wants them. I needs them, I needs them,” she croned and pulled the cord so he was forced to sit up. He tried to gasp for air, to call out for Johnny, to do anything, something to get this witch off of him. And just as she was reaching for his face again, intent on claiming his eyes for her own, he felt the familiar tickling of pain at the sides of his face, his sight fading again. She paused, her head tilting to the side in confusion as his eyes glazed over, milky white and distant. His mouth opened in a silent scream of pain, the cord still tight around his neck. He was on the verge of passing out, and perhaps that was what was bringing the vision on. But when it came, it came hard. It was one of the worse visions he ever remembered having. .Wolfie. Johnny was drowning.It was the worst fucking thing he had ever tasted and it was running down his throat and filling his lungs. It was a mixture of swamp water and blood and he was gagging on it. He clawed desperately around him and he felt his fingers scrape something solid. He pulled up, trying to drag himself out of the water and when his head finally broke the surface he was throwing up and he still couldn’t get the taste out of his mouth. He coughed and gagged and he didn’t want to think about what he was swimming in because everything around him stank like something dead. Bugs skittered around him, over his hands and up his pant legs and over his face. One of them ran into his mouth and he spit it up and clawed at his tongue. He tried to drag himself out of the hole but his fingers slipped on the rock wall that was slick with blood and other things he didn’t want to start imagining. If the smell was any indication, this was where she dumped the remains she couldn’t find any use for and he didn’t want to think about what was slithering through his fingers. “Ayden!” he shouted, squinting and trying to see up out of the hole. He heard a thump and a crash but he couldn’t see anything. Curses poured from his lips as he tried to get a solid grip on anything, so that he could pull himself out of this wretched hole of filth and death. He slipped again and his knee cracked off the stone and he felt his teeth close down on his tongue. He had lost his shotgun and he was pretty pissed about that right now because he fucking loved that gun and now it was sitting at the bottom of this cesspool next to bones or entrails or whatever else the bitch had thrown down here. His fingers dug into an outcropping and he was just starting to pull himself up when he felt something sharp sink into his leg. Pain bloomed in his calf and he felt himself slipping off the wall and then he was back under the water. Whatever had grabbed him sunk its teeth deeper into his skin and he opened his mouth to shout and tasted the swamp water flooding back into his lungs. He kicked out desperately and felt his foot connect with something and whatever was piercing his flesh ripped loose. He could see blood bubbling up around him and then he was grabbing for the wall again. His boots hit the bottom and he felt something crunch and slide under his feet. He felt himself slipping and then his hands were coming out in front of him and he felt something sharp pierce his palm as his he braced himself against the ground. There was red flowing out in front of him and he couldn’t tell if it was from him or whatever he had disturbed in this fucking hole and he didn’t want to stick around to find out. He felt his fingers hit something metal and then they curled around the shotgun. Something bit into his forearm and he threw his elbow back. He felt it connect with something solid and he felt it release. He kicked hard off the bottom, feeling bones or whatever the fuck it was slipping under his boots. He hated the swamp. He hated the swamp and he hated swamp monsters and he hated the slick disgusting liquid that was running down his throat and when he broke the water again he vomited up red and black back onto the wall. His hands clawed at the stone and he dangled there for a moment, trying to breathe air instead of filth. He saw something move through the water next to him and he couldn’t tell what it was but he didn’t like the way the water bubbled around him. He slung the shotgun over his shoulder and reached for the machete strapped to his calf. He didn’t know what the water had done to his bullets but it couldn’t be anything good and he hated that he would have to clean his guns all over again. He was pissed that if he finally crawled out of his disaster he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of shooting the bitch in the head. He tried to listen for any sounds above him and all he could make out was a whispering, rasping sound. He hoped Ayden was okay. He didn’t like the crash he’d heard before. Something brushed against his arm and he stabbed the machete down into the water. He felt it strike something and then a horrible shriek fill the air as it heaved up out of the water. It was right next to his head and he felt his ear drum burst and something warm and wet run down the side of his face. He was clinging to the arm with one hand and lashed out at the dark shape in front of him, feeling it make contact. The horrible scream came again and then two hands shot out of the shadows and caught his arms, pinning him to the wall with sharp nails digging into his skin. The light above him flickered and he got a look at the monster. It made him feel sick. Maybe it used to be a person. Maybe at one time it had been a human being. Whatever was left in front of him barely resembled one anymore. Its face was flat and reminded him of a snake. It didn’t have a nose and its eyes had been cut out just like the corpses lining the wall above him. Black, bloody pits were all that remained and he was really tired of this witch’s weird eye fetish because it was creeping him right the fuck out. Its mouth was the most dominant feature, and it split its face almost in half with two rows of jagged teeth that looked like broken razorblades. That was only the first mouth. It had three more running down its torso and he could se rib bones shifting behind the gaping jaws on its chest. A red line cut its lips in half where he had sliced at with the machete and blood trickled down its side. The second mouth split its sternum and the third one ran where a bellybutton should have been. The rest of its body stretched out into the water and he could see it coiling like a snake, tiny scales starting on its chest and disappearing where it met the water. “Well you’re an ugly fucker, aren’t you?” he asked it. Then he kicked it as hard as he could. It jerked under the hit, hissing at him with its lips spread wide, but he barely loosened its grip on his arms. It coiled up in the water and then lunged forward, snapping at his neck with all of its teeth. He felt them tear into his stomach and then sharp burning pain exploded in his side and in his stomach and he bit his lip against the harsh shout that tried to tear its way from his throat. He felt its mouth close around his shoulder and then it was ripping back, tearing skin off as it did. He couldn’t stop the cry this time and he kicked at it again as it pushed him higher up the wall. His boot connected with its stomach and its teeth and he felt some of them shatter under the hit. It let out a harsh shriek and hurried the deafening of his right ear. He snarled and brought his knee up, managing to hit in the jaw. He felt its grip loosen and he yanked his arm away from the wall, feeling its nails leave painful red cuts in its wake. He brought the machete down and it sunk deep into its shoulder. He felt its grip release on his arm and then he was falling back into the water. His fingers scrapped over the wall as he tried to stop himself from sinking again and then he felt something coiling around his chest. He felt it crush his arms to his side and he barely managed to keep hold of the machete. It leaned forward, mouth open and gaping, and its teeth glittering and jagged in its mouth. “Mother feeds us,” it hissed, and its breath came out rancid and putrid. He had to turn his face away to keep from gagging. One of its thin, bony hands came up to the wound at Johnny’s fingers. He hissed in pain as it started peeling a strip of skin off his arm and then sucking it off its fingers into its mouth. “Mother finds us fresh meat this time.” Then it started to laugh. Then he saw all four mouths descending towards him and he couldn’t move, couldn’t think of what else to do. He whispered a quiet apology to Ayden and then he said the word “stop.” He felt the power flooding him, tearing up from the earth through his bones and it all flowed into that one word that he couldn’t say above a whisper because if he did it might rip the whole world apart. He didn’t know where the power had come from. He knew it had started that day on the train tracks, but he didn’t know why or what had granted it to him. Ashley had told them once that they were the Godsent, but he didn’t know what that meant and Ashley couldn’t tell him if there was actually a God. He didn’t know. His dad would have beaten him for ever doubting it, but he didn’t really care. All he knew is that when he said the word he felt like it was ripping something out of him and his head throbbed in agony as the world twisted and bent itself to his will. When he said the words with that wealth of fire inside him it changed everything and he cold feel it in his bones that time and space were being manipulated and it really fucking hurt sometimes. He knew it was tearing his brother’s mind apart as soon as it slipped from his lips, but he said “stop” and the monstrosity in front of him abruptly stopped moving, its mouth still hanging open and putrid air pouring from its lips. It took too long for him to wriggle loose from the coils wrapped around him. His arm was throbbing and burning with pain and there was blood running down his arm and making his grip go slick on the machete. He pulled that loose first and then he jammed it through the creature’s brains. It never moved, because he had told it to stop and it didn’t have a choice anymore. It would never move again, even as its guts rotted away on the inside. He sheathed the machete and then he started to climb. He used its shoulders as a starting point and jumped as high as he could. His shoulder burned when he put weight on it, but he managed to catch the edge of the broken wooden slats. He heard something moving and thumping against the floorboards above him and he prayed to God if there was one that Ayden was alright. His fingers dug into the wood and he felt splinters pierce his skin but he kept dragging himself out of that forsaken hole. The first thing he saw was Ayden, and he lay on the floor convulsing. He knew the look on his face. His eyes were rolled up in his head and he wondered if his brother was seeing him right now, still dying in that hole while the witch’s fucking snake ripped through him with all four of its mouths and devoured him slowly and painfully, piece by piece. He wondered if he was seeing what was going to happen to him in the next second because the witch was crouched over his brother, her fingernails inches from his eyes and her head tilted to stare at him. She had a hungry grin splitting her lips and her dark hair was in tangles around her face. He hauled himself to his feet and then he was pulling the revolver from its holster, not caring if the bullets were wet because even if that didn’t work he still had the machete in his other hand. Either way, this bitch was going down because there was no way he was going to stand and let her crawl all over his brother. There was blood under her fingernails and he could see the marks on Ayden’s face and it just pissed him off more. He was mad. He was tired. He was hurt. And this bitch was fucking with his brother. She was a dead woman. “Get the fuck away from my brother,” he snarled at her, and he leveled the gun at her head. Wenston The creature had started with Johnny’s fingers. His brother screamed as each digit was individually torn from his hands. Blood spurted and stained the walls. One of its mouths latched onto Johnny’s arm and tore a chunk of flesh away. Another found his side, just beneath his rib cage. When it came away, there was a loud snap as one of Johnny’s ribs came with it. And his brother was still screaming. He screamed as the mouths came back again and again to pull away chunks of him, to rip him apart. He screamed long after he should have stopped and was only silenced when one of the mouths grabbed hold of his throat and tore out his windpipes. Then the monster ripped off Johnny’s face, the skin peeling back from muscle and tissue and cartilage. And it threw his face up to the witch waiting above. She leaned over the hole, Ayden’s eyes in her hand as she waved at the creature and giggled. “I sees you, I sees you,” she called to it lovingly and held out Ayden’s eyes, giggling again. The creature let out a putrid purr up to the witch and she left the hole, walking back to the room, where she hung Ayden’s eyes from the ceiling and attached Johnny’s face to her sculpture of flesh and body parts. Johnny was digested while Ayden was nailed to a wall naked, his eyes gone and the large nails pinned through his arms and stomach. The witch pet his leg and kissed his knee and plunged a knife beneath his kneecap and popped it out like a bottle cap. She caught in her hand and tossed it into the pit. She continued on to the next. She carved symbols into his skin, along his torso and legs and on the bottoms of his feet. But Ayden wasn’t screaming. He was already dead. † † † The vision was searing and hot and it burned scars into his mind because it was one of the bloodiest and most gruesome he’d ever had. Johnny’s scream as he was torn apart echoed in his mind and would for days. He’d be seeing this one every time he closed his eyes for the next month, he knew. It would keep him awake at night and he knew he’d have to get some sleeping aids to just be able to rest. This one hurt. A lot. As his vision started to clear and he started to come down off of it, he became aware of several things at once. He was still convulsing on the floor, though it wasn’t as bad as he knew it could get. He’d given himself a concussion once, nearly cracked his head open with a vision that had him convulsing so bad. The next thing he realized, was the witch was still on top of him, but she was no longer looking at him, her attention on something beyond his line of vision, standing behind her. And the third thing he realized was that the cord was still tight around his neck and he could only manage small, gasping breaths. Ayden tried to move, his whole body on fire and aching from the convulsions and his vision. The witch must have felt him because she turned back around and screamed as she looked at his eyes. “No no!” she screamed. “The pearly white, it’s gone, it’s gone! I wanted it, I wanted it.” Her hand came up and grabbed his face, ripping long tears around his eyes and cheek and nose as she tried to dig at his eyes. He tried to scream, because it hurt and he knew what came next. “I said get the fuck away from him!” He hadn’t realized Johnny was there and his voice both startled him and sent a wave of relief coursing through him. The vision suddenly made sense because Johnny only used his power when he absolutely needed to. He must have absolutely needed to, and Ayden didn’t blame him. He’d seen that creature in the pit just as up close and personal as Johnny had. Johnny’s gun clicked uselessly as he pulled the trigger and the witch scratched at Ayden’s face again. Ayden heard his brother roar as the lack of air to his lungs was starting to make black spots dance around his sight. But suddenly she was off of him, the cord loosening slightly from around his neck as she scurried away, on all fours, her limbs bent at awkward and backward angles. Ayden thought dully that she looked like a spider that was missing a few legs. But she scampered out the door before he could finish the thought. His brother’s hands were on him in the next second, tugging at the cord around his neck. When he pulled it away, it was sticky and tore at the skin of his throat a little and Ayden knew it must have cut into his neck. Johnny threw the cord away angrily and was then pulling Ayden into a sitting position as Ayden gasped in deep breaths of air, his whole body shaking with exertion and the lingering remains of his vision. “Shit,” Johnny mumbled and grabbed one of Ayden’s guns from his holsters for himself before shoving the other one into Ayden’s hands. It fell out of Ayden’s weak grasp and clanked on the floor. Johnny grabbed it again and this time wrapped Ayden’s fingers around it, to hold it in place. “Come on,” he growled and stood, trying to pull Ayden to his feet. Barely able to stand up on his own, Ayden listed against his brother as the snake flashed through his mind again and he couldn’t stop the whimper, or the hand that came to his eyes, as he heard Johnny’s painful and dying screams echo in his head. “Johnny…” Ayden said because for a second he thought his brother was still in the pit, being eaten. For a second, he forgot where he was and that Johnny was here next to him and the witch was still on top of him and Johnny was in pieces and they were both dead. Johnny shook him a little, a hand on the back of his neck to keep him standing. “Snap out of it,” Johnny said harshly but Ayden didn’t take offense because he knew his brother was pissed and hurting and there was still a witch out there somewhere that they now had to chase through the swamp. Ayden turned to look at him and his eyes went to the wound on Johnny’s arm. He couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and touching it. Johnny winced and grabbed his wrist, pushing the hand away. “Come on,” he said again and turned him towards the door. “She’s not getting away. And then we’re coming back to fucking burn this place to the ground.” Ayden was shaking and quiet and he followed his brother out the door as Johnny held one of Ayden’s hand guns in one hand and the machete in the other. Ayden looked down at himself and saw the gun shaking in his own hand and for a moment he forgot how it got there because the creature in the pit was suddenly in his sights again and Johnny was screaming and dying and bleeding and in pieces. “God,” Ayden whispered and brought a shaking hand to his head again. His head hurt and his face hurt and there was blood trickling down his cheeks from where the witch had tried to gouge out his eyes. He waivered slightly on his feet and he felt Johnny’s hand on his arm, steadying him. “Jesus Christ, Ayden, fucking snap out of it,” Johnny said but his voice didn’t hold as much venom as he probably wanted. Ayden could hear the worry and the urgency and he blinked and looked up at his brother because he wanted to be okay for him. He hated what the visions did to him, but he absolutely couldn’t stand what they did to his brother. The guilt he saw on Johnny’s face was something that he wished he could easily wipe away, that he could convince him shouldn’t be there. Johnny used his powers when he absolutely had to, when he needed to stay alive. Ayden would never begrudge his brother for living. Managing a nod, Ayden looked at his brother. “I’m good,” he said, though he so clearly was not. He forced a smile onto his face and held his gun up. “Let’s get her.” Johnny studied him a moment and Ayden tried to look like he wasn’t about to pass out. Blood was staining his shirt, leaking down from the wound on his neck, and it ran red down his cheeks like bloody tears from the scratches. He was still pale and shaking, but he tried to hide all of it from his brother. He knew it didn’t work. But they didn’t have a choice. Johnny snorted. “Next time, you’re the one going swimming,” he said and turned, starting out into the swamp after the witch. Ayden let out a weak laugh and then followed. .Wolfie. “You know, this got old real fast,” Johnny said, spitting into the swamp.Johnny hated the swamp. He could still taste the brackish water and blood and rot in his throat and he swore to himself that when this was over he would wash his mouth out with as much Jack Daniel’s as he could get his hands on. Now if he could just get the smell out of his clothes and out of his nose he would be golden. Everything was soaked and his legs felt heavy as he pushed through the swamp, green eyes sweeping the trees for any sign of the witch. He could hear her laughing but it echoed off the trees and made it next to impossible to tell where it was coming from. He wasn’t quite sure where she’d gone, but he figured it wasn’t the way they’d come in. Of course that meant heading deeper into the wilds. He used his brother’s revolver to push the branches out of his way and he was shaking in his skin because of how pissed off and hurt he was. He hated that he had almost lost his shotgun and hated even more that he could have lost his brother. His shoulder was throbbing and he could feel the warm blood trickling down to his wrist. It was making his grip on the machete slick and so he grit his teeth and tightened his fist. He heard Ayden behind him but he couldn’t look back. If he looked back he would see the pale and lost look on his brother’s face. He would see his own death reflecting back at him in his brother’s blue eyes and he couldn’t take that right now. He couldn’t take seeing how close he’d been to being snake food or how close Ayden had been to being a decoration on her wall. His stomach and his side were still throbbing from where those wicked razorblade teeth had sunk into his skin and he couldn’t think about that and couldn’t stop because if he did he would break down a little bit and Johnny was supposed to kill the motherfucking witch and make it all better. So he plastered a snarl on his face and slammed through the swamp. Mosquitoes and flies were buzzing around his head again and he figured that he probably smelled like something they were used to eating or laying their eggs in right about now. He could smell the stench of death and decay and blood coating his skin and he spit again, trying to get rid of the taste in his mouth. He heard Ayden snort behind him and glanced over his shoulder with a glare. “Something you want to say?” he snapped. “Nope,” Ayden said, and he had that stupid, shit eating little brother grin on his face that Johnny always pretended pissed him off. This time he welcomed it. This time that grin meant that his brother wasn’t seeing visions of death and dying in front of his eyes, or at least if he was he was getting a hold on it and maybe they could get through this thing in one piece. “Nothing I want to say. Just thinking that I guess you don’t swallow.” “You’re a little fuck, you know that?” he snarled at his brother, but he was smiling when he turned around. “I’m offended,” Ayden said. “I may be a fuck, but I’m not little.” “Tip for you little brother,” Johnny said. The mud sucked and dragged at his boots and he had to rip his legs forcibly up out of the muck just to keep going. “When a woman says ‘no baby, that’s a good size,’ that means you’re small.” He heard Ayden laugh. He faked it, but at least he was trying. “Heard that one a lot then?” He was just tilting his head over his shoulder to tell his little brother something and he would swear later that it was a really stinging comeback, but then he caught a flash of black out of the corner of his eye. He whirled around, gun held up to his eye as he scanned the trees, watching for any sign of movement. He saw it again, flicking under a willow tree and he had the bitch in his sights for all of about three seconds. He fired at the swift movement and he saw his bullet hit the tree. She was laughing at them. “I sees you,” he heard, lilting and psychotic and awful as it echoed through the trees. “Fucking bitch,” he snarled, forcing his way through the brush and batting aside the dangling vines of the willow tree. There was no sign of her, only the smoking wound his bullet had left in the bark. He sighed, standing up and spinning in a slow circle. The gun was held at eye level and he was moving slower now, making his way through the trees with focused and even steps. The grasping mud and vines didn’t make it easy but he wasn’t going to let her panic him into doing something stupid. Well, anything else stupid. “Do you see her?” Ayden whispered behind him. They both tried to pretend his brother’s arm wasn’t shaking as he held the gun up. The visions weakened him, not just because they toyed with his mind, but because there was an actual physical price for them. They sucked most of his strength out and left him shaking and lost and Johnny damned himself for having to use the voice. Maybe if he’d thought for just a second longer he would have come up with a better plan. Maybe if he wasn’t such a fucking cowboy he wouldn’t have ended up in the pit to begin with. “I got nothing,” Johnny said, shaking his head. He was looking for any sign of movement, any flicker of black again, but between the bugs in his eyes and the green haze from the swamp he couldn’t see a damn thing. The deeper they went the harder it got to see anything beyond the next patch of mud and rot and his eyes paused for a moment at the sight of something bleached and white sticking out of the mud. He shivered and wondered how many bodies were lost out here. They heard her laughter echo in the shadows around them, but the trees were getting thicker and he couldn’t see shit. “I fucking hate the swamp,” he muttered. He heard his brother laugh at him. He only had a moment’s warning before he heard a rattling hiss overhead, and then the monster dropped down on him. It hit him with all eight of its furry, spindly legs and he felt mandibles sinking into his neck with startling strength. A sharp cry tore its way from his lips and he heard the witch’s answering laughter a second before he was crushed into the mud. It went into his mouth and his nose and he was really sick of breathing in swamp water. He pulled his hands up over his head, trying to protect his face and his neck. He didn’t dare try to use the revolver because a wild shot could hit Ayden just as easily as whatever was on top of him and the machete was next to useless because he didn’t have any reach on the fucking thing. He felt another strike and his skin was going numb where the first hit had landed. He felt another hit on his arm and it stung like a motherfucker and then that was going numb too. Another minute of this and he’d be completely useless. “Jesus Ayden, shoot the fucking thing,” he snarled into the mud. A gunshot split the air and he heard a wretched screech answer back. Whatever it was skittered off his back and then it was hitting the trees, not hesitating for a second as it clambered up the bark and out of sight with quick, spastic movements. His gaze traveled up into the leafy green canopy above him but it was dark as night up there and he couldn’t see anything except a brief flash of glittering dark eyes staring down at him. He rolled over, spitting up mud and he was glad Ayden kept his mouth shut this time. Johnny sat up, pressing a hand to his neck where the wound was tingling in an unnerving way. His arm stung the same way and he flexed it to make sure he still had feeling in it before picking up the machete again. He didn’t like the way his skin was stinging and he wondered if that was poison he felt making its way through his veins and he was starting to get really pissed off. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded, glancing up at Ayden. His gun was still smoking and if Johnny was any kind of decent brother he would have just said thank you. Ayden smirked at him. “You’re welcome,” he said, grabbing his brother’s hand and hauling him to his feet. “Yeah, you’re the man now, dog,” he spat. “Seriously, what the fuck was that?” His brother gave him the shiteating grin again, but he was obviously faking it this time and Johnny thought about making a joke about that but he really wasn’t finding the humor anymore. He knew he wasn’t going to like whatever came out of his little brother’s mouth next. “I think it was a giant spider,” he said. Johnny rolled his eyes, hands tightening on his weapons. “Go fuck yourself,” he told Ayden. Right before a second one dropped from the trees. Wenston Ayden and Johnny jumped apart as the spider descended the trees between them. The beast was snapping mandibles in Johnny’s direction and Johnny brought his hand gun up to shoot the thing, but as he pulled the trigger, the gun clicked and did nothing else. No speeding bullet, no spray of blood, just an audible and echoing click around the forest. Ayden tried not to laugh as he brought up his own handgun and aimed at the creature and shot it through its fugly head while Johnny was screaming swear words and bashing the gun uselessly against the tree. The spider screeched and whirled and came at Ayden and he shot it twice more before it fell over dead. He was trying really hard not to laugh at his brother because Johnny was a cowboy and he knew how much he hated not being the first one to shoot something. Had Johnny even fired a gun today? Probably not and that maybe Ayden feel a little bit like a hero, despite what his brother said. Johnny could go fuck himself. Ayden was the first one to get a shot off and that made him feel like fucking Superman. “What’s wrong with your gun?” he asked before he could stop himself and the grin that broke across his face at the scowl Johnny gave him made it really, really hard to contain his laughter. “Fuck you, this is your gun,” Johnny spat and Ayden’s grin faded just a little at the slurring of his brother’s words. He studied him for a moment but Johnny seemed oblivious as he messed with the gun in his hands. He was looking pale and sweaty and there was blood dripping from several new wounds as well as the ones the snake creature had giving him. The arm that held his machete seemed to be moving sluggishly and his hand was red, almost purple in color. “Don’t you know how to fucking clean them? Jesus Christ.” “Are you alright?” Ayden asked, ignoring the question for a moment. Johnny looked up at him, looking surprised and pissed off at the question all at the same time. But he didn’t have time to answer as the witch screeched. Johnny took a step backwards because the scream seemed to shake the very ground they stood on. Ayden had to reach out and grab a branch and in the next moment he knew why the witch was screaming. The first spider dropped down on him, heavy and coarse and sharp. But Ayden was jerking and thrashing and it didn’t manage to get its poisonous fangs into his skin because he was twisting and growling and shooting in the next second. The thin, hairy legs crashed down about his face and one managed to gouge his cheek. Ayden wondered if he’d be horribly scarred after this fight and he hoped not because he already had to contend with his brother’s good looks when it came to women. He brought his gun up and black blood sprayed across his face as he shot the spider three times near the mouth. And then it was collapsing on him and the weight nearly crushed him into the mud. He growled and threw his handgun to the side because he’d used up all of its bullets and he was pushing the disgusting carcass off of him. He felt frantic for a second, like something was wrong, and he realized a moment later what it was. Johnny hadn’t come over to help him. Scrambling to his feet as he rolled the spider off him, he turned and sought out his brother. Johnny was slumped against a tree, where he’d been standing a moment before. But now he was sitting and his legs were sprawled out in front of him and he looked like he was struggling to draw breath. “Johnny?” Ayden hissed and hurried over, kneeling beside his brother. He took the handgun away from him and placed a hand on the side of Johnny’s face. His brother felt warm, even covered in the gore and rot Ayden could see the flush creeping its way up his face. “Hey,” he tried. Johnny was blinking heavily and it looked like his body wasn’t cooperating with what he wanted it to do. He glanced at Ayden and growled. “Fucking spiders,” he grit out and Ayden removed his hand from his brother’s face and moved it to the wound at his neck and then at his arm. There were black spindly marks trailing their way out from the puncture wounds and Ayden swore beneath his breath. Johnny was right, fucking spiders. “I think you’ve been poisoned,” Ayden said and tried to keep the fear out of his voice because he hated it when Johnny got hurt. It happened a lot, but it never made it easier. He especially didn’t like it when Johnny couldn’t fight, because even if he did get the first shot off today, on this hunt, Ayden was the weaker of the two. It was obvious and it was common knowledge. And it was Johnny that was supposed to take care of things, not Ayden. “No shit,” his brother snapped but it was weak and slurred and Johnny’s mouth wasn’t working properly and he was listing to the side. Ayden steadied him and propped him against the tree. He grabbed Johnny’s handgun and pulled out the clip. He reloaded it and then fired it into the dirt. Her heard Johnny snort when it worked perfectly and Ayden glanced around for the witch or any other spiders. He couldn’t see anything, so he looked back at his brother. Ayden felt panicked because Johnny was dying maybe and he didn’t like that. He leaned forward and grabbed Johnny’s jaw and made his brother look at him. “Make it go away,” he commanded and it felt odd that he was the one telling his brother what to do. He tried to sound strong, but it came out like the plea of a fucking six year old telling his older brother to make the monsters go away. “No,” Johnny said and shook his head but it must have made him dizzy because he closed his eyes and they took too long for Ayden’s liking to open again. “No fucking way.” “Don’t be a stubborn ass,” Ayden said and pulled his brother up against the tree as he started to slip down again. Johnny’s arm looked like it was numb and the black tendrils of poison seemed to grow beneath his skin even as Ayden watched. “Johnny, just say it.” “Fuck you,” Johnny spat and Ayden sighed. His brother could be so fucking stubborn sometimes. He knew why he didn’t want to. He knew why his brother was refusing to cure himself, even if both of them knew, somewhere deep down, that eventually he’d have to say yes and mutter the words that would cure him because Ayden couldn’t take on the witch by himself and he was pretty sure that Johnny didn’t want to die. But he knew why he was hesitant. If the poison wasn’t deadly, then maybe he’d survive and Ayden could kill the witch. If it was deadly, then he’d have to say the words and make himself better and Ayden would have another vision. Two in one day. Two in one hour. That’s why Johnny didn’t want to say it. Because the last time that had happened, the last time Johnny had to use his powers so close to one another, Ayden’s fit had been so bad, so terrible, so excruciating that he’d almost bit off his own tongue and he’d been weak for days. They’d been young and they still weren’t sure how their powers worked then. But Johnny had told Ayden after that happened, that he wouldn’t use the powers unless he had to. And if he had to, he’d make sure not to use them so close together. But here they were again. And Ayden was still shaking from his last vision. And Johnny was going to give him another one. Ayden growled and punched Johnny in the shoulder and he wondered if his brother even felt it because he was blinking up at him with a curious look his face. “I swear to God I will take advantage of you in your sleep if you just don’t make it fucking go away,” he said and managed to chuckle a little bit at the horrified and disgusted and partially numb look his brother gave him. He stood, because his gun was lying next to the water in a tangle of weeds and he didn’t want to leave it behind. He hurried over to it and grabbed it and turned around to eye Johnny. “I am not carrying you back to the car.” The witch’s howl screeched through the trees and Ayden caught a glimpse of her raggedy dress in the trees. He raised his gun and fired automatically because she was too close to Johnny for his liking. He was somewhat surprised when she cried out and fell from the trees, clutching a bleeding, gaping bullet wound on her shoulder. He was so surprised that he didn’t fire again and he heard Johnny yell a muffled yell because his body was numb. Ayden didn’t know what his brother wanted, but in the next moment, he found out. The witch cackled laughter and brought her arms in front of her. She clapped her hands together and sang to him, “Yum, yum, yum,” as her fingers formed jagged and grotesque. She clicked her teeth together as her hands continued to clap together in and up and down fashion. Almost like… Almost like jaws. He turned and he fired but he wasn’t fast enough. He caught a glimpse of sickening, razor teeth and rotting, greenish gray flesh and the yellow alligator eyes beneath their milky, glossy membranes. He cried out because the teeth sank into his leg. His flesh ripped and tore and there was so much blood all at once and he was horrified because it was his. Ayden cried out as rotting alligator pulled him into the water, already thrashing him about from side to side and starting to roll. He felt his knee pop and jerk and pain flared up his leg and to his hip and up his spine. He wondered if he was going to lose his leg. He lost his gun when he fell and he was too panicked as he was being dragged beneath the water to pull the machete still at his hip. His hands clawed at the ground and the soil and the mud as he tried to keep himself near the shore because out in the open he’d be at the mercy of the creature. But there was nothing solid to hold onto. The creature was rolling him and he was disoriented and his leg felt like it was being shredded and his knee felt like it was facing the wrong way and he screamed as one particular tug snapped something in his leg. But all he could breathe in was water. In the next second, her heard, and felt, his brother utter a word because damnit if Johnny could gamble with his life, but never ever his little brother’s. As the vision came it was something new, because it wasn’t in the swamp and it wasn’t with the witch and he didn’t know why Johnny’s power brought this vision on, but it did. It wasn’t his own death he saw, and it wasn’t Johnny’s. It was hers. And he knew who she was without having to see her face. He cried out for Annie as he sunk beneath the water. .Wolfie. Johnny knew what dying felt like.He had brushed it enough times that he knew the taste of it and he could tell when his body was shutting down him. His lips were going numb. His vision was starting to blur and he kept seeing flickers of movement out of the corner of his eye. Something buzzed in his ear and he meant to swat it away but his hand didn’t move and he felt a thin trickle of panic run down his spine when he realized that. He blinked his eyes slowly and tried to lick his lips but his tongue felt heavy and dry and he suddenly realized he didn’t know where Ayden was. As soon as he thought it, he heard his brother scream. He blinked again and he felt a fly catch in the lashes. His vision was getting dark around the edges and this was what dying felt like. It all emanated from the dark throbbing wound in his neck and his arm and his hand. He could barely feel the blood trickling down his skin anymore because the spider’s poison was flooding his veins with every heartbeat and he knew when it finally reached his heart the black poison would wrap its fingers around it and squeeze until there was nothing left. He took a labored breath and forced his eyes open, forced himself to see. His eyes fell on Ayden and his brother’s mouth was opened like he was screaming but he couldn’t hear anything. His voice tried to croak out Ayden’s name but it never left his tongue. He could see the monstrosity rising up behind his brother, all green and gray with wicked curved teeth. There was blood everywhere and he didn’t know when that had happened but it was coming from his brother and Johnny couldn’t move to save him. He didn’t want to fucking do it. But he couldn’t save his brother if he couldn’t move. His tongue was a leaden weight but he forced it to move, scraping against the roof of his mouth as his lips pushed the word out of his throat. He felt the power bubble up through his gut and then it escaped in that one small word that he could barely breathe into the stagnant air. “Mend,” he said, and then he felt his body bend to his will. His muscles twitched and jerked and then he felt the poison leaking out of his blood and trickling down his skin in burning streams. Even the wounds from the snake were closing up, the flesh knitting itself back together. He took a heavy breath and felt the fog retreat from his vision. The first thing he saw was Ayden and the rotting beast that had him in its jaws. A hiss escaped his throat because his brother’s face was pale with pain and there was a river of blood running through the mud to the water and all of it was Ayden’s. He couldn’t see all the wounds, but the mouth closed tightly around his brother’s leg was a pretty good indicator of where the worst of it was. His fingers dug weakly into the grass and dirt but then the alligator squirmed backwards and his brother was tossed like a ragdoll in its grip. Then his hands tightened around the gun and the machete and he was up and moving. The witch screamed from behind him and he really just wanted to shoot the bitch in the head but his brother came first. He saw his eyes for a split second, as they rolled back into his head and then his little brother was screaming and the name that poured from his lips turned his blood to ice water. “Annie,” he said in a half-strangled scream, and then his fingers that had been clawing so desperately at the mud went still as the alligator dragged him into the swamp. “No,” Johnny snarled, and then he was moving, rattle shot after shot off at the monstrosity dragging his brother down to Hell. He watched for the eyes because that was where he had learned to aim and he saw one bullet blast its way through the golden orb. The problem with alligators, he realized abruptly, was that when they got hurt, they didn’t release their prey. He saw its jaws grind and tighten on his brother’s leg and he could hear the crunching from where he stood. Blood gushed out of his brother’s flesh and poured into the water and he was losing them both into the swamp. A frustrated growl came out of his throat. He emptied the gun’s clip at the alligator but it was still moving inexorably backwards and his brother was convulsing, his mouth still open and garbled noises escaping his lips until the water flooded into it and if he wasn’t faster his brother was going to drown. The alligator jerked with each hit but its jaws just tightened on his brother’s leg and they were almost gone into the water now. He felt the gun snap a final time as he emptied the last bullet and maybe he had left constellations of bloody wounds in the alligator’s skin but his brother was still going to drown to death. It seemed like he’d slowed it down anyway. For all the good it did him. He waded into the swamp after it, ignoring the mud that sucked and dragged at his boots. He swung the machete down towards the glint of gold but it was thrashing and writhing in the water. He felt his blade connect with something solid and then he was knocked back by a swipe of its tail. He’d seen Ayden for only a second before churning mud and blood clouded the water and he felt a dull panic rise in his chest. “Let go of my fucking brother,” he snarled, and then he was charging back at it, bringing the machete down with all his strength. It hit the beast again, drawing bloody lines in its already rotting skin. Then it twisted in front of him, rolling over on its back and Johnny felt it catch his legs and trip him and then he was back under the water and his lungs were filling with that disgusting shit all over again. He didn’t care, screaming at the thing with all his might as he tried to pull his head back above the surface and he was stabbing the weight on top of him with the machete. He felt it snap off in its side and he kept jabbing the broken end at it long afterwards. Behind him, the witch screamed. The alligator thrashed and spun towards him, a single golden eye blazing back at him. He felt the fear rise in his throat and for that moment he thought he was going to die. Then he realized it had stopped moving, blood pouring out of its wounds as its weight sank deeper into the mud. He yanked himself loose and then he was scrambling over its corpse because his brother was still under the water and his leg was still trapped in its jaws. He was afraid of what it would look like when he got him out, but his hands were grabbing at its mouth anyway because he wouldn’t let Ayden die under there, trapped in a motherfucking swamp by the witch’s monster zombie alligator. He grabbed his brother by the shirt collar, yanking him to shore. “Wake the fuck up,” he snarled, because Ayden’s eyes were closed now and he wasn’t breathing. He wasn’t moving or cursing him for taking too long and Johnny was about to slip into full blown panic mode any second now. He tried to swallow down the fear and then he bent down to put an ear to his brother’s chest. So of course that was the moment Ayden chose to throw up swamp water all over his front and across half of Johnny’s face. His brother’s eyes blinked and he focused on Johnny’s face. He tried to smile for him. “I told you it was your turn to go swimming.” Wenston She wore a white dress. Her hair fell like rivers about her shoulders and there was one, single, tiny braid weaved into the back. A barrette held it in place. She had bracelets on each of her wrists. Her feet were bare. “Kneel,” a voice commanded and she did. They were illuminated by moonlight seeping in through a stained glass window behind a darkened figure. She was in front of him. Wooden pews lined the room and a crucifix hung bloody and darkened above them. He smeared ash onto her forehead in the shape of a cross. “Obey,” he said and she nodded. Then he cut her throat and she fell over dead and lifeless and bloody. † † † Ayden looked up at his brother and he knew he was making a joke because he had that stupid smile on his face, so he tried to mirror it and to laugh but it came out a sob and there were tears on his cheeks hidden by the swamp water and the mud. He couldn’t stop the tears, even though he didn’t feel like crying. He didn’t feel much of anything, actually. He was cold and shaking and his leg was a mass of blood and gore, but he just felt numb. He knew enough about shock by now to know he was in it. Once it wore off, they’d be in trouble and he’d be in a world of hurt. Johnny was scrambling to wrap something around his leg and he tried to roll his head to see it, but it took too much effort so he stopped and closed his eyes. He was greeted by a girl in white with her throat slit and he shocked awake just as Johnny was finishing tying off his makeshift tourniquet around his leg. His brother was trying to hurry, he knew, because the witch was still out there and if he concentrated hard enough, he could hear her chanting. It sounded like Latin, maybe, but he couldn’t be sure because languages had never been his thing. School hadn’t really been his thing, neither of theirs. But if she was speaking in tongues, then she was casting a spell and that couldn’t be a fucking good thing. He was so sick of the god damn swamp. He was sick of the smell and the water and the creepy, stupid creatures that kept wanting to make him and his brother lunch. He was sick of the visions. He was sick of having to hunt down these creepy, stupid creatures but knew they didn’t have a choice. Well, they did, but it wasn’t a good one. When Johnny had first told the world “No,” all those years ago and the train had buckled like God himself had just put an invisible wall down in front of it, they hadn’t understood what happened. They hadn’t understood what Johnny had unleashed or the path he’d set them both into. If it was just Johnny, Ayden was sure his brother would be having a hay day, making the world do his bidding. He thought once that if Johnny was in this alone, he’d probably take over the world. But he wasn’t alone. And Ayden felt, not for the first time, like he was holding his brother back. Like his only purpose in life was to reign in and chain his brother to this path they were forced upon. Because if Ayden wasn’t there, if every time Johnny opened his mouth to manipulate the world and Ayden wouldn’t fall over and convulse and see things, then Johnny would be free to do whatever the fuck he wanted. He wouldn’t hesitate to cure himself when big stupid spiders poisoned him and almost killed him. He wouldn’t bother trying to shoot snake creatures with four mouths or chase after ugly ass witches. They wouldn’t be in this swamp and they wouldn’t almost die every other month. Hell, they might not even still be together. Maybe if they were normal, they’d have grown up and grown apart and Johnny would be off and married and Ayden would be off and doing whatever. That part made him sad. Because he wondered if guilt was the only reason Johnny kept him around and that hurt worse than any vision he could or would ever have. Did Johnny stay with him just because he felt guilty? Or because they were brothers? He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t remember drifting off, but Johnny was suddenly at his side again and he was down to his undershirt because he’d used his shirt to make the tourniquet and Ayden tried to remember what he’d been wearing and hoped it wasn’t his favorite shirt because he’d never hear the end of it. His brother looked worried and pissed but he wasn’t as pale and his wounds had stopped bleeding, which Ayden considered a good thing. Johnny would get them out of this. He’d always get them out of this. His brother put a hand to his face and tried to wipe the mud and blood away, but he was covered in it himself and only managed to smear it around. “Stay awake,” Johnny demanded and he didn’t have to use his power voice to convey the severity of his command. Ayden nodded weakly and felt more tears leak out onto his cheek. He just couldn’t stop them. The second vision had taken all he had left out of him. Not to mention he had just been a fucking alligators chew toy. Ayden wondered if his brother had heard him call out for Annie. He knew if he did, if he had heard her name pour from his lips in between his screams, that Johnny would want to ask him about it. It was probably taking all of his effort right now to not ask him while he was lying bleeding in the mud with the witch casting a spell somewhere behind them. But as soon as they were out of here. As soon as the witch was dead and they were out of the swamp and Ayden found out whether or not he still had a leg, his brother would ask. Because Annie, and all subjects dealing with her, were strictly taboo. Johnny was shoving a gun into Ayden’s weak hand and he curled his fingers around the trigger so that all he had to do was point and squeeze and it would fire. Ayden wasn’t sure he’d even be able to do that. The shock was wearing off and the pain was starting to come and pretty soon he’d start to hurt and then he’d be useless. “Ayden,” Johnny demanded and he focused his eyes so he was staring up at his brother. “The bitch is going down and then we’ll get the fuck out of here.” Johnny was talking in his ‘I’m in control’ voice and Ayden knew that meant he was scared and Ayden was probably hurt worse than he realized. Johnny squeezed his hand around the gun. “Shoot anything that fucking comes near you, understand?” He asked. Ayden watched Johnny for a moment as he stared down at him because he wanted to tell him about Annie. His brother must have got pissed when he didn’t answer because he reached up and grasped Ayden’s chin, turning is head so he was looking squarely at him. “Ayden, nod your fucking head.” He did and Johnny seemed appeased. The witch suddenly screamed and whatever spell she’d been chanting was over and Ayden knew he’d been a distraction to his brother for far too long. Years too long. But now the witch was done with her spell and Johnny knew that too because he was swearing and standing and drawing his guns. Ayden hoped he wouldn’t have to go far off after the witch. He knew Johnny wouldn’t leave him lying out here in the mud bleeding for long if he could help it. Johnny started to go, but paused and looked back down at him. “Except me,” he said and Ayden tried to frown because he forgot what they had been talking about. “I swear to God if you shoot me, I’ll kick your ass.” Ayden laughed because he was hurting too much and if he didn’t, he’d cry. “You’ll be…the first one I shoot,” Ayden croaked and coughed but a genuine smile broke out on Johnny’s face and that was enough. Then Johnny turned and fired his gun because the witch was coming and whatever spell she had cast was over and the ground felt like it was shaking and Johnny stood his ground because Ayden was lying at his feet. And it was enough. Pain crept up his leg and to his hip and spine. He was cold and wet and bloody and muddy. His body was spent not just from being thrashed around but from the second vision within an hour. His head felt like it was going to burst and every time he closed his eyes, he saw her in a white dress and a bloody neck. He heard the dark voice whispering for her to kneel and obey. And it was enough. He closed his eyes and the gun fell from his hand and he hoped Johnny could kill the witch and her spell because he was checking out and his brother was on his own. .Wolfie. There was blood everywhere.It was under his fingernails and on his hands and his clothes. It coated his brother from head to toe and he couldn’t think about that because if he did he would lose the last shred of control he had left. He couldn’t think about his brother screaming and how pale and weak he was because then he wouldn’t be able to do what came next. He couldn’t think about how much blood he’d lost and how much of it he’d left on Johnny’s skin. He couldn’t think about how mangled and useless his leg looked or how hard he’d had to try just to get Ayden to look at him. He sure as fuck couldn’t think about Annie. There was blood everywhere. He left a handprint on the branch of a tree as he ducked under it and it was red. He could taste it, metallic and bitter on his tongue. When he pushed a curtain of vines aside, that was still all he could see because the world had been painted with crimson. The witch was still screaming, even as he reached the small patch of swamp she had carved out of the wilds. There was a circle dug into the ground and she had carved runes into it. He didn’t know what they said and he didn’t care but he could feel the power making the earth shake under his feet and his hands tightened on his guns as he got ready to shoot the bitch. He didn’t know what magic she was summoning, and maybe if this one time he was quick enough, he wouldn’t have to find out. He wasn’t quick enough. She looked back over her shoulder at him as the mud squelched beneath his feet and the screaming dissolved into terrible laughter. Her teeth were jagged and rotten in her mouth and they stretched into an awful grin at the sight of him. She held her hands out to him and they were coated in red, something slithering and dripping from her fingers. She crouched on her knees and in front of her was a pile of gutted and bloodied snakes and he felt sick as he watched her lick a crimson drop from her lips. He was already firing at her as her tongue snaked out. The first bullet caught her in the gut and she seemed surprised by it, and then she was moving. The second shot missed her and the third grazed her ribcage. The laughter had faded and she was screaming and howling words that he didn’t even think were English and then the earth was shaking beneath his feet so hard he almost lost his balance. His breath caught in his throat as the mud began to boil around him and he had to hold a hand out to brace himself against a tree. The witch was across the clearing and she was clapping her hands madly as the ground swelled and pulsed at her bidding, the tiny mound of corpses she had made being swallowed up into the dirt. He felt the magic churning around him, making his hair stand on end and his stomach roil because it was something dark and unholy and it made him sick. He felt the power brush against him and the circle she had drawn was pulling it past him, pulling it into the dirt and the mud and the blood that she had spilled into it. The light was being sucked out of the air, leaving only shadows in its wake. He really hated witches and he hated magic and he hated the swamp. He raised his gun to shoot her and that’s when her summoning went into full swing. A skeletal, clawed hand shot from the center of the circle and then the demon was pulling itself from the primordial ooze. “Oh motherfucker,” Johnny said, because demons were some of the worst. He could see the fucking blades on its fingers as it dragged itself out of the muck and then he could see its blazing red eyes and they were the color of blood. A hiss escaped its jaw and it thrashed from side to side, head twisting like it was searching for something. The witch was laughing and he heard her braying with glee. “It’s mine, it’s mine, it kills, it tears, it makes it bleeds…” He shot at it, hoping to get it before it pulled its way all the way out. He succeeded in getting its attention, anyway. The bullet clipped its head and it jerked back, blood spraying on the ground behind it. Then it was up and out of the mud before he could pull the trigger again and he heard it hissing as it skittered up the tree. It was like some kind of fucked up demon hybrid of a snake and a spider, four clawed arms pulling it along and a snake’s tail slithering behind it. He was so fucking sick of these stupid swamp creatures and their demonic counterparts and he backed away from the trees, blue eyes up and scanning for the demon in the leaves above him. It dropped out of the darkness as fast as those fucking spiders had but he was ready this time and he got off three shots before it hit him. He felt himself drop, his back hitting the ground hard, but he was already rolling away because he didn’t plan on getting bitten or mauled or stabbed again today. The demon hissed and he heard more than saw the jaws that hit the ground where his head had been a minute ago. He fired again and the bullet exploded deep in the demon’s gut but it still wouldn’t die. It was bleeding from at least five bullet holes and he could feel the blood trickling warm and slick onto his face from the demon’s head, but it just kept clawing and biting at him. He lashed out with a right hook, catching it across the jaw with the butt of his gun and its face jerked under the hit. Ayden would have laughed at him, because here Johnny was, lying in the mud with a demon crawling on top of him and he decided to punch it. He heard it scream right next to his head and then one of the clawed hands was sinking into his side and he couldn’t help but think that he’d just healed that and now deep rents bloomed dark and red in his skin. He pulled his hands up to protect his face and then the jaws were smashing down towards him again. He felt its teeth dig into his skin and then fiery pain burst in his wrist as it ripped at his flesh. He felt his grip on the gun weaken and he kicked out wildly with the boots, feeling it connect with the demon’s gut. In the background the witch was screaming and laughing and clapping her hands. The demon’s jaws were coming down towards his face again and he held his arm up to stop it. Then he heard a gun go off. For a second, he thought he’d been shot. Then he saw the demon’s brains explode out the back of its head and it crumpled down on top of him like a puppet with its strings cut. He heard the witch start howling miserably behind him. “It was mine, it’s mine, it bleeds…” and he almost would have thought she was crying. Then she was running across the clearing and he saw the glint of a knife in her hands. He dragged himself to his feet, hand closing around the gun and it was up and pointed before the witch could reach him and this time he didn’t miss when he shot her and this time she didn’t dodge. The bullet burst through her jaw and her head snapped back with the force of it, chips of bone and blood splattering the trees behind her. She never stopped screaming the whole time, even though a part of her tongue had to be missing. She was saying something. Maybe she was begging. He didn’t know. He kept shooting her, even after he was out of bullets and she was slumped against a tree, her eyes flickering and fighting to stay open. The gun clicked at him, telling him over and over again that it was empty but she was still breathing and still alive so he brought the butt of the gun down on her head. It made a satisfying crack so he did it again and again and he realized after a while that he was shouting at her and also that she had been dead a long time. He slumped down to the ground, his boots slipping in the mud and he was breathing heavily, his voice harsh from screaming and fresh wounds all fighting to make themselves known on his skin. Then he glanced over his shoulder where Ayden was sitting heavily against a tree, the still smoking gun in his hand and his leg a mangled mess. He was struggling to stay awake, but he smiled when he saw Johnny look back at him. “Figures, I would have to save your ass again,” his little brother said, and then his eyes slipped shut. Wenston Ayden didn’t remember the trip back to the car. He didn’t remember leaving the swamp. He didn’t remember his brother dragging him and leaving a bloody trail in their wake. He didn’t think Johnny made good on his promise to go back and burn the witch’s house down to the ground, but he’d forgive him for that, because Johnny had a lot on his mind. His dying little brother might have been one of them. He woke up for a moment and didn’t know where he was. There was music playing and he was laying down and there was something soft beneath his head but he was moving. His vision was foggy and fuzzy and the music was muffled but he recognized the slow twang of a country song and it reminded him of his brother and he felt safe. He tried to look around because he was so fucking disoriented he just wanted to at least place where he was. His eyes fell on a cross swinging from a rearview mirror and it was enough to give him some peace. They were in the car. Johnny was driving and it felt like he was speeding and Ayden thought about saying something to him because if they got pulled over, they’d have a lot of explaining to do and he didn’t think they could. No police officer in the world would let them walk away with all the blood that covered them. He smelled cigarette smoke and he listened to the country music and he closed his eyes as the rocking of the back seat lulled him back to sleep. He was unconscious and he mumbled Annie’s name in his sleep. He didn’t quite understand how he remember that if he was unconscious, but he did. Maybe because Johnny answered him with a strangled, “Fucker,” and his voice almost woke him up, but it didn’t. He was dreaming. It wasn’t visions, it was just dreams. He saw the witch, but she wasn’t a witch, she was just a girl who lived in a swamp. She had a house that was messy but not bloody. She had shiny black hair and a nice smile. She was inviting him inside because she’d made cornbread and homemade jam and she wanted to share it with him. He went in and he sat at her dining room table and he ate the bread. She laughed and it was a pleasant sound. Then the sky turned black and something was crawling out of a hole in the floor and it was huge and toothy and it devoured her and coughed her up and she was the witch again. She cackled. Ayden cried out. He wasn’t in the swamp anymore. He was in his living room and he was sixteen. He was watching television and Johnny was out with some girl. Kate or Kathy or Kat, he couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. Their mom was sitting next to him on the couch and she was somewhat passed out. She smelled like whiskey and bourbon and vodka all at the same time. There was a cartoon on the television but he didn’t recognize what it was because he hardly ever watched television. There Dad came in the living room and he turned off the television and grabbed a fistful of Ayden’s hair and dragged him into the kitchen and shoved him at the refrigerator and asked why there was no fucking milk left. Ayden shook his head because he didn’t know. He hadn’t been sixteen and in this memory for a long time. Then his father was beating him and he wasn’t using the belt, he was using his fists. Johnny came home and he was smiling until he came into the kitchen. He yelled and rushed over and tried to roll him over but Ayden’s lung was punctured by one of his broken ribs and it just caused him more pain. Then their Dad was at the doorway, only it wasn’t their Dad. It was the snake with their Dad’s face. It ate Johnny in pieces and Ayden didn’t remember that ever happening, so he knew he was dreaming. He woke up when the car door slammed and for a moment he panicked because Johnny had left him in the car by himself. But the door behind his head opened and he heard Johnny yelling at someone, or for someone. He tried to make out the words but there were sirens coming from somewhere. He just knew that Johnny sounded pissed and worried and scared and he wondered if it was because of him. Probably. And that upset him. Johnny’s hands were on him and then someone else’s were supporting him and they lifted him but it jarred his leg and he screamed and didn’t remember what happened after that. He was dreaming. It wasn’t visions, it was just dreams. Johnny was leaning against a white picket fence. He wore a hat and had a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans and his boots. He looked like a fucking cowboy. He was smiling and grinning and watching kids play in the yard behind him. Arms came to wrap around his waist and then she popped her head out to the side and kissed his cheek. “Hey babe,” he said to her and his Texan drawl was stronger than it should have been. She just kissed him. Then the kids disappeared and her throat slashed open and bathed them both in blood. Ayden was four and his mother was standing over him and screaming at him. She hadn’t started drinking yet, but tomorrow she would and she wouldn’t stop until fourteen years later when she’d fall asleep drunk with a cigarette in her hand and she’s burn down their house with her inside. Ayden forgot why she was yelling, but she was pissed and it wasn’t at him, because he was only four, but he was the only one home because Johnny was out with their Dad doing something that Ayden never figured out. She didn’t hit Ayden. She never hit Ayden. Only yelled and at four years old he decided he didn’t like her. She was yelling and suddenly she was screaming and it was the witch’s scream and she spit up blood at him and grew spider legs and bit him. He thought about dying, but decided he didn’t want to. There was a beeping noise. It was insistent and irritating and he wanted it to shut the fuck up because he was sleeping. He realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept this soundly, despite the dreams. He figured that if he was sleeping soundly, something was wrong, so he opened his eyes. The room was white washed and the beeping noise was coming from a heart monitor. He had an IV in his arm and he could feel stitches on one side of his face and when he looked down at himself he saw that his right leg was in a cast. At least it was still there. But dude, he fucking hated broken bones and a broken leg was the absolute worse. Johnny must be pissed. The thought of his brother brought some clarity to Ayden and he blinked for a few moments, dispelling his dreams and fuzzy haze that seemed to cloud his mind. He turned to look around the room and breathed a quiet sigh of relief when he saw Johnny slumped in a chair next to his bed. His arm was wrapped in gauze and he looked like he was favoring one side, with a hand placed on his ribcage. But he was alive and he looked like he had showered. He didn’t smell like swamp anymore. Ayden was disappointed, he’d wanted to rib him about it for days. Licking his lips because his mouth was so dry it hurt, he blinked heavily and realized they must have him on some really good drugs because he wasn’t in a whole lot of pain. He clenched his fists into the light blanket that covered him and then sighed because it was taking too much effort to call out to his brother. But he had to, because Johnny looked like he was sitting awkwardly and he would wake up stiff and Ayden would never hear the end of his brother’s bitching. “Johnny,” his voice was hoarse and weak and tired, but it managed to reach his sleeping brother and Johnny opened his eyes. He lifted his head and blinked like he didn’t know what had woke him, but then his eyes shot towards the bed and he smiled when he saw Ayden was awake. “About fucking time,” Johnny said and stood. Ayden had been right, Johnny must have been wounded because he held his ribs as he walked. But he came over to the bed and stood beside him and looked at the heart monitor, just to be sure, and then back down at him. “The food here is terrible.” Ayden smiled, weak and small, but it was still a smile. “You owe me a beer,” he croaked. Johnny snorted. “What the fuck for?” “I shot the demon.” “And I shot the witch.” “I shot her first.” “Fuck you. I killed the alligator.” “I killed the spiders.” Ayden chuckled when his brother growled low in his throat. He rolled his head to the side because the drugs were making him tired. He looked down at the white cast on his leg. “I really hate the swamp,” he said and it was more weak and pathetic than he meant it to be but for once his brother didn’t make fun of him. “Me too,” Johnny said and turned and pulled the chair over next to the bed. He grabbed the remote and flipped on the television. He left it on cartoons and Ayden smiled as he dozed off. The witch returned to him many times, but he was dreaming. It wasn’t visions, it was just dreams. They didn’t talk about Annie. .Wolfie. Session #2 : Honky Tonk Women He had shot her in the shoulder. She sat next to him on the stones while he smoked a cigarette. He tried not to rub at his own sternum were he could feel the three stinging welts where Ayden had mercilessly shot him back. He couldn’t believe he’d been taken out by his own little brother. He was never going to live this down. He sighed, listening intently for the popping sounds that signaled a BB gun going off and the rattling of pellets as they hit the floor. Annie was rubbing at where he’d hit her and he glanced over, a wry grin making its way across his face. “I’m sorry, darling,” he said. She snorted and shook her head at him. “No you’re not. Not even a little bit.” He laughed and it felt good and normal. He and his brother used to come here all the time when they were kids and hunt each other through the abandoned slaughterhouse. The way his life was going lately, it seemed like it had just been good practice. He flicked ash off onto the cement and tried to listen for his brother’s footsteps. He had killed Annie, and Ayden had killed him. Now it was between his brother and Enrique. He hoped Ayden took out the little Mexican shit, because he was the type to lie about it until he was blue in the face, just so he didn’t have to lose. “So,” Annie drawled, in that cute little Southern accent of hers. She reached over and pulled the cigarette from his fingers, but she didn’t smoke it. She just held it between her fingers while it withered away to ash. He smiled and stared at the floor and because it was Annie, he didn’t try to take it back. She didn’t smoke and she didn’t like it when he did. “How’d it go in Dallas? I mean… you went there because of Ayden’s ah, condition, right?” He smirked, staring at the cement. “Yeah,” he told her. “It didn’t go great, but we’re alive, so that’s a plus.” She laughed at him and shook her head. “Alive is good. I’d be sad if you boys didn’t come back to me.” She pouted at him and he laughed, slinging an arm around her shoulders. She was the first person on the planet they had told, and probably the only one who had believed them without question. Annie was strange like that, always had been, even when she was a kid. She hadn’t had it easy either, being ditched on her mom by her deadbeat dad. Everybody in their town was broken somehow. “I always come back to you, darling,” he said, grinning at her and taking the cigarette back. She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him. “Such sweet words, from such a filthy mouth.” He laughed and then he heard the familiar rattle and snap of a BB gun going off. He heard Ayden’s victory whoop from downstairs, followed by the sound of another gun going off. His brother’s celebratory cry turned into one of pain and then he heard him cursing and swearing. “You cheated!” he was yelling. “You dirty fucking Mexican, you cheated!” Johnny bit off a laugh, glancing at Annie’s face. It wore the same expression. He heard Enrique yelling back at him. “I didn’t fucking cheat, I kicked your ass fair and square.” Anne shook her head, pressing a hand to her forehead. She smiled over at him, dark hair falling in a thick curtain around her face. Her brown eyes focused on his blue ones. “So how’s Emily?” He pulled smoke into his lungs and tried to smile at her but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Downstairs he could hear cursing in Spanish and he wondered what Ricky was saying to his brother. “I don’t know,” he told her honestly. “We’re not together anymore.” He flicked ash off the end of it and stared down at the concrete. They’d fought over Dallas. He’d told her he had to go, and she’d asked him to stay home. She’d asked him to let Ayden go by himself this time. She didn’t understand. How could she? He didn’t tell her. He didn’t tell anyone. He didn’t tell anyone except Annie. “Aww,” she said, but she was grinning as she said it. Annie didn’t like his girlfriends, not any of them. Maybe she’d like Katie a little bit, but that had died quick enough after she’d cheated on him. “I’m sorry.” He laughed at her and this time he meant it, squeezing her shoulder lightly. “No you’re not,” he told her. “But thanks for saying it.” She stuck her tongue out at him again. He sneered at her as he took a final drag from his cigarette before tossing the stub off onto the cement. It rolled and bounced off abandoned metal pipes and added to the collection of abandoned BBs and cigarette stubs from years past. His eyes roamed the graffiti on the walls, some of it shit that he and Ayden had put there a few years ago, before his gaze landed back on Annie. “You keep doing that,” he said, “and I’m going to bite it off.” “God damn it,” Ayden was yelling. “Stop fucking cursing at me in Mexican!” “It’s Spanish, you stupid hijo de puta!” Ricky shouted back at him. He heard the solid thump of someone getting hit and he bit back a smile. Something clattered and banged and he heard a string of Spanish and English curses echoing up from the main floor of the slaughterhouse. “You know what I think?” Annie said. She leaned towards him, her face inches from his and she was grinning from ear to ear like a madwoman. Her eyes were like burnished gold in the dim light. “I think you’re all talk, Johnny Marshall,” she told him, and then she stuck her tongue out, head tilting cockily. He sighed and shook his head. “I tried to warn you,” he said. Then he was kissing her for the first time, parting her lips with his. She kissed him back and when her tongue slid against his he almost forgot what he was doing. His arm had slid from her shoulders to the back of her head and his fingers were sliding through her hair as he pulled her closer to him. He felt her fingers brush his skin and he wondered why it had taken him so fucking long to make a move on this girl because she was perfect. She was smiling when she pulled back, that cocky grin on her face. “Hey Johnny,” she said. “I think you missed.” † † † He sat on the end of the bed and smoked a cigarette and he didn’t think about Annie. His wrist and his ribs were wrapped in gauze still, but it had stopped hurting yesterday and he felt like it was starting to heal. He was happy to be out of the swamp and out of the hospital and back in Texas. He kept trying to tell himself these things because they made him feel better and had nothing to do with his brother’s visions, especially the ones he didn’t ask about. He stared at the television and didn’t even notice that it was off because he was smoking a cigarette and not thinking about Annie. He hadn’t asked. He’d heard his brother say her name, and he just couldn’t ask. He was a fucking coward. She had left him. She had left him because of hundreds of reasons, none of which he’d been able to tell his little brother. Not because he didn’t trust Ayden, but because he didn’t trust himself to say them out loud. So Annie had become taboo. They didn’t talk about her and they didn’t think about her because Johnny turned into a fucking prick whenever her name came up. He didn’t know where she was, and he told himself he didn’t care because if he did, he could have found her by now. He knew all he had to do was say her name, with all the force of God behind the word, and Ayden would be able to tell him where she was. Or fuck, he could just call Ashley Baker and get the asshole to pull him a couple of favors. He knew people, he knew the different roads that folks like the Marshalls traveled, and he would be able to find her if Johnny only asked. He didn’t ask. He didn’t ask because that meant he was thinking about Annie and that was something he didn’t let himself do because if he did he would get lost in the hollow aching wound she had ripped open the day she’d left. He blew smoke into the center of the shitty motel room and clicked the television on. Ayden was in the bathroom, and the water had been off for a good ten minutes now, but he didn’t have the heart to go knock on the door in case he was crying or jerking off or something else brothers didn’t do in front of each other. He rolled the cigarette in his mouth and tried to pretend he was watching a weather report on the news. It was supposed to be sunny and dry for the next week, just the way he liked it, whoop de fucking doo. He looked out the window where the sun was just rising and turning the gray sky red. Wasn’t that supposed to be a warning or something? If it was, it didn’t mean much anymore. Nightmares were their business now. Every day was something new and exciting and dangerous that left another wound behind on them and he was surprised they were both still in one piece. His hand went over his stomach and he could feel the teeth marks that that miserable snake demon had left in his stomach. They were just another set to go with the countless scars he already had. He sighed, rubbing a hand through his short blonde hair and taking another drag from his cigarette and told himself he wasn’t going to think about Annie. The television had turned to snow and static, every once and a while a blurry rainbow figure trying to prance its way across the screen. He walked over and hit it with the side of his hand, but it still didn’t come into focus so he kicked it once and then turned it off. He pulled the white wifebeater over his head and scrubbed at the stubble on his face. He glanced at the bathroom door, wondering what was taking his brother so fucking long. He thought about knocking and changed his mind. He slumped down in a chair next to the window and started to clean his guns. He didn’t know where they were going next. Ayden had been vision free for a couple of days, ever since they killed the witch because that’s how this fucked up system seemed to work. Taking care of a vision gave his brother a free pass, for a little while anyway. The less they had to call on Johnny’s powers, the better it seemed like. He didn’t know who made the rules, but if they ignored the visions they just kept coming, smashing on top of each other until his brother was screaming with it. That was why they couldn’t stop. That was why he’d had to tell Annie no. She had never asked him to quit. She had never asked him to give up Ayden or to stop traveling like a madman across the United States. She had come with them sometimes, even though Johnny didn’t like putting her in that kind of danger. She had been next to perfect to him. She had been his saving grace. Whenever it got too hard or he came home bleeding and broken, she was the one to pick the pieces up. He had told her no. She had cried and she had begged him to say the words, just this once, and he had told her no. His hands moved with a practiced ease, ripping apart each of their guns, one by one. He was going to need a new machete, because he’d left the pieces of his last one in an alligator in Louisiana. Smoke curled between his lips as he ripped his revolvers apart and he was disgusted by how much swamp water and mud had gotten caked into every visible surface of it. He wiped each gun down once and then went back over them, digging the mud out of the cracks. It was comforting and familiar, the smell of oil and metal and smoke. He had been doing this for years now, and it kept his hands busy so that he didn’t have to think. He wasn’t going to think about Annie. Wenston Ayden had showered and it was such a fucking chore when you had a cast on your leg. Luckily, Ayden’s cast ended just below his knee and he could actually walk on it without crutches. His knee had been twisted all to hell and swollen and black and blue, but thankfully not broken. So crutches weren’t essential. He had a set the hospital had given him, but they were out in the motel room and he was in the bathroom still and he didn’t plan on using them unless they had to walk far. Johnny was being, well, Johnny, and had parked on the complete opposite side of their motel room, just to piss Ayden off. It didn’t work, though, because Johnny had wound up being the one to carry the bags in and Ayden had laughed at him for it. He was looking at himself in the mirror and he sighed at what he saw. His face was torn up, but the minor scratches were healing. He had a gash on his cheek where the stitches had just been removed a couple of days ago. It still looked ugly and disgusting, but it would heal and in a few months, if he took care of it, it would be gone. The bruises around his neck had faded as well and where the cord had broken through the skin was almost all healed up. The only evidence he’d ever been strangled was a thin, fading red line that cut along his collar line. It was broken and dotted as it healed. He was pretty much back to normal. Except for the fucking cast on his leg. He had to admit, he had always been a fan of watching animal documentaries on television when they were kids. Alligator and crocodile attacks were some of his favorite, but being on the receiving of one, he pitied the poor gazelles and wildebeests and whatever the hell else alligators ate. It was definitely not fun or pleasant. Ayden ran a hand over his face and then his fingers brushed through his wet hair, giving his dark golden locks a quick scruff in an attempt to hand dry them. He managed to spray water everywhere and the drops that landed on the mirror distorted his face. He reached out to wipe them away but paused to look at himself, all distorted by the water. He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue and then laughed at the image. He quickly shut up, because if Johnny heard him laugh while he was alone in the bathroom, that would be awkward. He wiped down the mirror and then reached for his bottle of pain relievers. He paused, though, and really assessed himself. His leg still hurt. Because on top of the broken bone that had been snapped in three places, his leg had been a mangled mess and the doctors told him he was lucky he didn’t lose it. He’d be scarred, though, when the cast came off. He’d be scarred for the rest of his life with the alligator’s teeth marks zigzagging around his leg. He didn’t mind. He was a jean man. No one would see his leg unless he had his pants off and he liked to think that if he had his pants off, they wouldn’t be looking at his leg anyway. Popping just one of the pills, because he didn’t like the fuzzy feeling they gave him otherwise, he ran the water in the sink and bent down to drink out of it as he swallowed the pill. When he came back up again, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes because he was getting a headache. He’d been vision free for days, which was a blessing, but the headache still hadn’t gone away. Figuring he’d pissed Johnny off long enough by staying in the bathroom longer than he should have, he opened the door and spotted Johnny sitting by the window with all of their guns strewn out around him. He looked up as Ayden emerged. He seemed to study him for a moment and then seeing that he was in one piece, went back to cleaning the guns. “I’m hungry,” Ayden said. It sounded whiny and he’d meant for it to. Johnny snorted. “I’ll get right on that.” “I saw a steak place down the road.” Johnny laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing Ayden could possibly say. “What the fuck did you do to deserve a steak?” “I’m amazing, that’s what I did to deserve a steak,” Ayden said. “Go buy me one.” “You can hobble your gimp ass down there yourself and get one,” Johnny finished cleaning up one of his guns and set it aside, grabbing another. “And while you’re at it, buy me one.” Ayden grabbed a cheap plastic cup that was sitting on a counter near the bathroom and chucked it as his brother. Johnny barely even glanced up as he caught the cup and tossed it to the side. Ayden tried really hard not to think about how fucking cool Johnny was sometimes. “I will kick you in the head with this cast,” Ayden said and lifted his leg slightly to kick at the air. Johnny snorted. “That requires too much flexibility. Oh wait, didn’t you say once you could suck your own dick?” Johnny looked up at him and had such a serious look on his face that Ayden couldn’t keep the scowl off his face. “Don’t get your talents and mine confused, dickhead. I’ll kick you in the ass and this cast will spread you so wide you’ll be farting silent for months.” Johnny whistled a sarcastic catcall and looked up. “Yeah, you’d like that, you little fairy.” Ayden sighed in frustration because even one of those damn pain pills was enough to make his head fuzzy and his comebacks ridiculous. He reached to the dresser and grabbed his leather coat. He wasn’t sure if he’d need it because they were back in Texas and Texas was fucking hot, but it was light enough that he could wear it without getting too hot. Besides, a girl had complimented him once and he’d liked to wear it ever since. He could never quite keep up with his brother when it came to women, but if he tried, he could come close. “Fine,” Ayden spat. “Where are the keys? I’ll go buy you a damn steak. The tiniest one I can find.” He was surprised when Johnny actually threw the keys at him. Or, in his general direction. He was off balance because of his cast and he watched them sail pass him and to the ground. He gave Johnny a look and his brother just laughed and then set the gun down because Ayden had a cast on his leg and he’d just gotten out of the hospital a few days ago and Johnny was still hesitant to let him out of his sight. “Asshole,” Ayden grumbled and turned around as Johnny grabbed his own leather jacket. He spotted the keys lying on the floor and bent to pick them up. “I should-” He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence because he was halfway to the ground and light spiked through his eyes and threatened to explode his head and in the next moment he was caught in the throes of a vision. † † † There was a man. He was naked and lying on a bed. His hands and feet were tied to the bedposts. He was fat and bald and his gut covered his tiny dick. His eyes were wide and dead and staring at the ceiling. There was a wound on his neck, another on his stomach and a third on his leg and they’d bled and bled and bled. But there was no blood on the bed. And he was whiter than snow. They’d must have sucked him dry. There were lilacs in the room somewhere because the smell was masking the stink of rot and sex. The scene changed and there was another man. He was naked and trying to run and holding his intestines in his hands. The moon was full and the blood was crimson and it splattered the ground as he trudged through the sand. There was a wooden porch to his left and on the window were the initials G.G. painted onto the glass. There was a candle and a single rose in a vase next to the letters. Then he was dying because something was tearing at his throat and he bled and bled and bled but the blood didn’t fall to the ground. Something was sucking him dry. The scene changed again and there was a third man. He was laying in a pile of hay and there was an empty dress next to him. His eyes were cold and dead and staring at the ceiling. It was dark and silent and there were wounds on his neck and stomach and leg and they’d bled and bled and bled but there was no blood. Something had sucked him dry. And then the vision was over. .Wolfie. Johnny should have been used to Ayden’s visions by now.His coat was already halfway around his shoulders when it hit. He saw his brother’s hand go to his head and then he was crumpling to the ground, convulsing and gasping for air. His eyes had rolled back in his head and all Johnny could see were the whites, staring at him across the moldy carpet. He was across the room in a second, rolling his brother over onto his back and holding onto his arms to try and keep him from thrashing around too much. At least he wasn’t foaming at the mouth, or vomiting green shit at him, or having his head start spinning. Small favors, right? He gasped, and he mumbled words that Johnny couldn’t quite hear, but none of them were the words he was afraid of so he didn’t let it worry him too much. He held onto his brother while he thrashed, trying to keep him from hitting his head off the floor. This one was mild compared to some of the others he’d had. He’d bitten the skin off the tip of his tongue once, and Johnny was just happy he hadn’t choked to death on his own blood. It was over faster than some of them. His brother let out a heavy breath, his body stilling under Johnny’s hands. He stayed on the floor for a moment as his eyes readjusted to reality, but they were flicking frantically around the room. Johnny wondered what he was looking for. He wondered if he was still seeing the vision because sometimes it lingered longer than he thought it should. He sighed, sitting back on his heels and rubbing at his face. “What did you see?” he asked. Ayden pulled himself to a sitting position, the keys lying forgotten next to his hand. “Three bodies,” he told him. “All of them drained dry.” “Fuck me,” Johnny snapped, kicking at the bed with his boots. The rusty metal frame squealed under the hit and it almost made him want to kick it again. He was almost afraid to ask where it was because with his luck they would have to turn around and crawl back through the swamp, or even worse, drive to New York. Johnny hated New York with a passion because it was always so fucking cold there. “So we’re talking vampires?” “No,” his brother said, the sarcasm rolling off his tongue. “Mosquitoes. Giant ones.” Johnny’s hand came out and lightly cuffed the side of Ayden’s head, ruffling his hair as he did so. His fingers curled around the keys and then he was hauling himself to his feet, grabbing his things off the table by the window. “I’ll feed you to them first then, since you could use a good suck job,” he said. Ayden laughed. “It’d be more action than you’re getting.” “Yep,” Johnny said, sliding the cigarettes into his coat pocket. He grinned at his brother as he slid a fresh one between his lips. Ayden was still sitting on the floor, his hands braced across his knees and Johnny knew it wasn’t just because of the vision. The cast on his leg made it hard to move around and probably even harder to get up and down. His hand stretched down and Ayden took it gladly, letting his brother haul him to his feet. “And more action than you’ve gotten your whole life.” “That’s only because I don’t have to pay for my dates,” he said, grinning over his shoulder. “Prostitutes don’t count Johnny, we’ve been over this.” Ayden hobbled towards the door, either forgoing or forgetting his crutches again. Johnny should’ve made him use them, but his little brother was already out the door so he rolled his eyes and continued after him. “You don’t pay for your dates because you make me foot the bill,” Johnny called after him. Ayden just grinned over his shoulder. “So who’s the bigger sucker?” He rolled his eyes, walking across the slowly brightening parking lot after his brother. The little gimp was moving like he had something to prove, his cast scuffing along the asphalt. “So what else?” Johnny asked, walking up next to his brother. Ayden glanced over at him and then he winced as he stubbed his foot off a rock. Johnny didn’t say anything, sliding an arm around his brother waist and helping him limp towards the car. He didn’t expect Ayden to acknowledge the help, and he didn’t really want him to because they’d probably both throw up if they ever had to acknowledge they loved each other. “What else did you see in your vision?” Ayden shrugged and looked away and Johnny couldn’t blame him. His brother never got visions of rainbows or sunshine or naked women, well, unless they were dead. He got visions of death and torment and swamp witches who cut the eyes out of their victims. “The first dude was naked and tied to a bed, and yeah, before you ask I think it was in the sexy way. Well, except for the him being dead part. Oh, and he had a really tiny dick.” Johnny snorted. “You would notice that.” Ayden grinned broadly. “Maybe it was just tiny in comparison to mine.” Johnny just laughed and his little brother rolled his eyes. “Anyway, the second guy was being chased, I think. It was dark, it was hard to tell. The third guy was in a barn, I think, and there was a dress next to him so I think maybe he was getting some happy time too.” “So we’re talking what, black widows? Fuck ‘em and kill ‘em?” Ayden shrugged again. They were almost at the car and they would both be happy because then Johnny could stop helping his gimp ass hobble around and Ayden could get off his foot because it was throbbing a little bit and maybe he should have taken two painkillers. “I don’t know. Maybe? That’s how it looked at least. Oh, and there was a building there, and it said G. G. I think it’s the name of a place or something.” “It’s a place. It’s in Nevada.” A voice startled them, because they hadn’t noticed the man leaning against the car parked next to theirs. He was wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and was holding a Hustler spread out in front of him. The little touch of gray at his temples of otherwise black hair gave away his age, as did the extra weight around his gut and face. He wore a pair of dark ray ban sunglasses and he was wearing flip flops and khaki shorts. He looked like a god damned tourist and looked really out of place in the middle of the parking lot a Texan motel. He glanced over at the brothers, giving them a quick up and down behind the sunglasses. “Hell, you boys look like shit.” “Nice to see you too, asshole. The fuck do you want?” Ayden rolled his eyes, leaning against the door of their Cadillac. Johnny stood next to him, smoking his cigarette and waiting for Ashley to answer the question. How’d that saying go? Speak of devils and they come, or some shit like that. Figured the day he thought about Ashley Baker the asshole shows up next to their car with his newest and tackiest shirt on. “Well that’s no way to greet an old friend. I just figured you kids might want a look at the new merchandise.” He grinned at them, flicking the glasses down and revealing bright blue eyes. One of them was covered in thick white scars and every time Johnny wondered where it came from. Ashley was the closest thing they had to a friend in this business. He kept them stocked with weapons and a lot of times the little extra things that kept them going and sometimes saved their lives. The cross dangling from their rearview mirror was one of his, and he was pretty sure it was supposed to have some kind of protection charm on it. He wasn’t sure what kind, or if it even fucking worked, but so far they hadn’t been attacked while they were in the car, and maybe that had something to do with it. “Go back to the part about G. G.’s,” Johnny snapped, smoke curling around his face. Ashley rolled the Hustler up with a heavy, set upon sigh, shoving it in his back pocket. He pulled the glasses off, tossing them into the passenger seat of his car. He drove a red convertible with a tiny little hula girl dancing on his dashboard. A couple multicolored leis hung form his rearview mirror along with a strange, wooden totem that Johnny was sure had some special properties. Ashley was a jack of all trades, a nomad, and a con man. “I told you. It’s in Nevada, in some border town right on the edge of Arizona.” Ayden snorted, brushing the hair out of his eyes. “And how the fuck do you know that?” Ashley grinned at him. “Because it’s right next door to where your mother works.” “The fuck does that mean?” Ayden asked, looking confused. He glanced from Ashley who was laughing and leaning back to pop his trunk and Johnny who was hiding his smile behind his hand and his cigarette. “Well?” Ayden asked, raising an eyebrow. “One of you assholes gonna answer me?” “He means a whorehouse. G.G.’s is next to a whorehouse,” Johnny told him. "A very nice one," Ashley threw in. Ayden stared at him for the second it took to sink in. Then he shook his head at Johnny. “So why are we still here?” Wenston Ayden didn’t know how Ashley Baker did it. How he always managed to track them down and find them and know where everything in the goddamn world was. He didn’t have any powers like Johnny or even Ayden. He couldn’t really fight well, but he could sure as shit shoot a gun. They’d seen him do it up close and personal once, and only once. He travelled a lot and was always on the road and Ayden didn’t think that the man really had a home other than his convertible with the merchandise in the trunk. If Baker ever got pulled over and the cops searching his trunk, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. As the Hawaiian shirt wearing man propped the trunk, Johnny headed over without hesitation. Ayden couldn’t help but smile to himself because he knew his brother was missing his machete which was still in pieces somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana. They would need to replace it because if Ayden’s visions were what he thought they were, that meant they were going up against vampires. And there was only one way to kill a vampire and that was to cut its fucking head off. “Ayden, we know you want to get to the whorehouse, but why rush into something that’s only gonna last thirty seconds?” Johnny asked as he and Ashley bent over the trunk. Johnny pulled out a pair of guns and eyed them. He didn’t need any more guns, but these were nice. Then he was frowning because beneath the guns there was an assortment of throwing knives with naked ladies etched onto them. Ayden snorted. “Is that your record for the longest you’ve ever lasted with a girl?” he asked and then hobbled over. Johnny guffawed and Ashley turned to look at him, his eyes immediately going to the cast on Ayden’s leg. “You boys have some trouble over there in Louisiana?” he asked and before Johnny could pull out an evergreen stake with a ivory handle, he was shoving Johnny’s hands away and reaching for the special compartment that was in the hood of the trunk. He opened a flap and there were several swords tied in a row. His hands went over them all and then came back up to one in particular. A black hilted one with gold etchings of a dragon. He pulled it off the hook and handed it to Johnny. “You’ll need this,” he said. Johnny looked like a kid in a candy store and he took the sword and was looking at it like he’d just pulled it out of a stone and was named the next fucking King Arthur. It was a thing sword, katana looking. Ayden rolled his eyes because the last thing his brother needed was to start thinking that he was a fucking ninja. He was already a cowboy. “Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Johnny said as he turned and sliced the sword through the air. Ayden wanted to be annoyed, but Johnny was innately good at fighting and whatever weapon he had, he seemed to know how to use. “A witch.” “Witch?” Ashley asked and glanced back as Ayden as he finally made it over to the trunk. His leg was hurting and his body was aching now from the latest episode the vision had put him through. He glanced into the trunk and then looked to Ashley expectantly, because the man always seemed to know what he needed. Ashley regarded him for a moment, but made no move to pull anything out of the trunk. “I knew a witch once. Creepy hag. I’d still fuck her.” Both Ayden and Johnny paused in what they were doing to stare at Ashley for a moment because the idea of being anywhere near the witch they’d met sent shivers down their spines. Let alone getting…personal with her. The man simply smiled and then reached into the trunk and pulled out a small 6mm gun and shoved it at Ayden who stared down at it for a moment. Johnny had the balls to burst out laughing and Ayden grabbed the gun, which he could fit in his entire hand, and held it with two fingers out in front of him. “What the hell is this?” he demanded. The gun was light and he felt like if he pulled the trigger, water would squirt out. This wasn’t a gun. This was a toy. Ashley grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “Size doesn’t matter, my boy. It’s the motion of the ocean.” “Fuck you, Ashley, this isn’t a real gun,” he held it out for the man to take back, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached into the trunk and pulled out several clips of 6mm bullets and shoved them at Ayden’s chest. “Why does Johnny get a sword and I get a fucking cracker jack toy?” “Trust me,” Ashley said and reached out to grab the gun. He bent over and was grabbed at Ayden’s pant leg, which Ayden had already torn to fit his cast beneath. Ashley pulled it up and wasn’t being gentle or easy. He almost lost his balance and reached a hand out to grab onto something, which just happened to be Johnny. His brother grabbed his upper arm to hold him upright while Ashley shoved the gun into Ayden’s cast. “You’re going to a whorehouse. If you misplace your clothes, you’ll at least have this little sucker to back you up.” Ayden had to admit it was a good idea, but it was a bit uncomfortable to have a gun tucked between his cast and his leg. Not to mention he thought at any minute the thing might actually go off and shoot him. But Ashley had a point. It was a good place to hide one. “What do you know about G.G’s?” Johnny asked as he let go of Ayden’s arm now that he had his balance back. Ayden tested his leg, to see if he could move without the gun going off. He could probably get used to having it there so he looked up and waiting for Ashley to answer. Ashley snorted. “It’s some hole in the wall bar. You guys will fit right in. Bunch of fucking cowboy wannabes.” He looked between the brothers. “You’re after vampires, right?” Johnny raised an eyebrow. “How the fuck did you know that?” Ashley shrugged. “Thought there was something fishy going on out there the last time I was out that way. Was waiting for you guys to do your little…magic thing,” he waved his hand at Ayden’s head and Ayden sighed. “I didn’t want to interfere with whoever is putting those images in your head. If they wanted you to go after these vamps, they’d show it.” Ayden studied the man for a moment because Ashley had always known a lot about their powers and other powers and things in the world but he never really went into detail when they asked. He saw Johnny looking at Ashley too, scrutinizing the man. He looked angry. “Maybe if you would have told us, you’d have saved Ayden a vision,” Johnny said and it was obvious he was trying to keep the disdain out of his voice. He didn’t quite managed it. Ashley held up his hands. “Whoa, fella, don’t take it out on me. If it wasn’t vamps, it’d be something else. At least this way you know exactly what the big guy wants you to do.” “Big guy?” Ayden asked, though he figured he already knew the answer. “I don’t know, God maybe. Whoever is playing around with that adorable little head of yours,” Ashley reached out and fluffed Ayden’s hair. Ayden jerked his head back out of the man’s reach and nearly lost his balance again. Johnny steadied him and then looked to Ashley. “One day you’re going to tell us how you know all these things,” Johnny said and it wasn’t a question. Ashley shrugged and pulled out two silver crosses on necklaces. He handed one to each of them. “I doubt it,” he said nonchalantly and then grinned. “Well boys, I have a date with a widow in Houston and you have a whorehouse to take care of. It’s been nice doing business.” He turned and slammed the trunk down, pulling his keys out of his pocket. “Oh, and Johnny?” Johnny was already testing out his new sword again. He swung it around and made a “high-ya!” sound as he did a wild karate chop at Ayden, who looked unamused. He looked back over at Ashley. “Yeah?” Johnny asked. “Don’t break my fucking sword.” .Wolfie. The gun blazed in the darkness and then he heard her scream.He was holding a hand to his chest and trying to keep his ribs from pushing through his flesh. His skin was flayed clean off around his midsection and he was covered in his own blood. He held the gun in his other hand and tried to drag his way across the floor because Annie was the only one of them left standing and she had just screamed. Ayden lay a few feet away from Annie, his eyes closed and he wasn’t moving and Johnny couldn’t even tell if he was breathing or not. He heard the gun go off again and he was still trying to drag his way across the ground. He left a river of red behind him but he had to get to her because she had been screaming and then it was cut off abruptly. There was the sound of something metal clattering across the ground and then a sickening thump. “Annie!” he shouted and fear was constricting his throat. His gaze was blurred with red and with the black haze of pain radiating from his side. He felt bone shift under his fingers and he was having trouble breathing. The gun was starting to slip from his fingers. Annie was lying on the ground. There was blood all around her, but she was still awake. The ghoul stood over her, made up of gangly rotting limbs and jagged teeth. It was grinning and blood dripped from its lips when it did. Its claws were digging into Annie’s arms and he could see it puncturing the skin, but she had stopped screaming and she was biting her lip, reaching desperately for the fallen weapon with her other hand. There was a nasty gash on her forehead and it was dripping in bright red droplets to the ground. The ghoul’s grin widened, and then its claws sunk into her chest. She cried out in pain as it pulled her towards its mouth, teeth scraping the skin off her collarbone. There were tears running down her face. His Annie was crying and Ayden was unconscious or dead next to him. He raised the gun with a shaking arm, his vision blurring as he tried to sight along it. She was kicking and clawing back at it, a wildcat in its grasp, but it didn’t even flinch. Not when her fists or nails scratched at its eyes. He watched it pull the claws from her chest and she fell limply to the ground as it began to lick her blood off its hands. The gun went off in his hand and a bullet exploded through its chest in a haze of red. It screamed, its head darting up to see Johnny, still dragging his bloody carcass across the ground. He pointed it at the things head as it crouched warily over Annie. She was coughing up blood but her eyes were still bright and alert and at least she was conscious, not like Ayden. His brother was too close to the ghoul, and its flexing claws almost brushed his brother’s face. He saw it drip blood across his skin and his lip curled in a snarl as he pulled the trigger on his gun. It clicked open at him, all his bullets gone. The ghoul grinned, and it split its face wide open. Then its head snapped down and he saw its teeth sink into Annie’s stomach. “Stop,” he cried out, and he heard the power burst from him in a wave. He hadn’t meant to do it, hadn’t even consciously called on it, but it was ripping from his throat and slamming into the ghoul. It froze where it stood, its teeth inches from her skin. Saliva and blood trickled slowly from its lips to drip on her, but it still didn’t move. Her fingers pulled at the concrete floor and he thought she was going for the gun, but instead her fingers curled around Ayden’s hand as the vision hit him, his eyes sliding open as they rolled back into his head. His body arched off the ground and his muscles began to twitch violently. Annie pulled his convulsing form to her, holding his head still with one hand and trying to hold his arms with her other. She never looked over her shoulder at the ghoul, even as Johnny dragged his way to her gun. He emptied the revolver into it, its brains splattering across the gray cement in an arc. The gun clattered from his fingers as he slumped to the ground. Next to him Annie rocked his brother back in forth in her arms as he thrashed and whimpered. “It’s okay,” she whispered to Ayden. “We’re here with you.” She was stroking his hair in a soothing rhythm. Their eyes met in the darkness and she forced a smile onto a face that was splattered with blood. He thought he could never love her more. † † † “How the fuck do you think Ashley does that?” Ayden asked him, leaning out the window. “I don’t know Ayden. Maybe he’s magic. Like a fairy or some shit.” Johnny snorted, shaking his head as he took a drag from his cigarette. He held it in his left hand, holding the wheel firmly with the other. The desert wind was warm on his skin and ruffled his blonde hair and he had missed Texas. He was sad when they passed the state border and passed into Phoenix and he waved his state a fond farewell as he flicked his cigarette out the window. Ayden laughed at him, kicking back in the passenger seat. “The only fairy I see here is you.” They stopped a shitty diner just off the highway in Arizona, right before the sun set. Johnny had a plate of ribs and a beer and Ayden had a cheeseburger with bacon and hit on the skinny blonde waitress. She slipped him her number right before they left and then Johnny set it on fire as he lit himself a fresh cigarette. “Aw, why the Hell did you do that?” his little brother asked, climbing into the passenger seat. Johnny grinned at him as it turned to ash on the breeze. “Because I don’t feel like fighting off angry husbands.” Ayden raised an eyebrow at him. “She has a husband?” “She had a ring,” he said around the cigarette in his mouth, pulling out of the diner. He drove the half a block down the street to the gas station and filled it up at the self serve, staring up at the darkening sky. Ayden was talking to him, probably making fun of him, but he couldn’t concentrate because he was focusing on not thinking about Louisiana or that stupid fucking witch and he wasn’t going to think about that vision except he heard his voice interrupting his brother anyway. “Why’d you say her name?” he asked, and his voice was quiet and low and he wished he could take the words back as soon as he said them. He didn’t look at Ayden, staring at the ticking meter on the pump and wishing it was done so they could get back in the car and just go. He was still smoking his cigarette and he was surprised the kid at the counter hadn’t come out to yell at him about it, but then again who the fuck really cared? His brother was really quiet. He glanced at him and Ayden was staring at the dirt. “I had a vision,” he muttered. Johnny felt the question on his tongue. He felt it form and he almost asked it, almost asked what his brother had scene but he didn’t want to know and he didn’t want to care. The pump popped open on him and that meant the Cadillac was full and they could keep on driving to Nevada to kill some black widows or vampires or giant mosquitoes or whatever was waiting for them across the next state line. “Okay,” he said, flicking ash out into the dirt and climbing into the driver’s seat. “Let’s get going.” He was speeding when he hit the highway. His brother was grasping the door and the dashboard as he whipped the Cadillac out onto the open road but he didn’t say anything, just glancing at Johnny out of the corner of his eye. He kept his mouth shut though, and Johnny knew that was because of the fucking stupid fight they’d had the last time her name had come up. He bit down on the cigarette and he tasted ash in his mouth and it was surprisingly comforting and familiar. Overhead the sky was brightening as the moon rose behind them and the stars started to come out. “You want to talk about it?” Ayden asked finally. He was leaning half out the window, as far from his brother as he could get. “Nope,” Johnny said, shaking his head. “I just want to drive.” Wenston The car ride was quiet. Uncomfortable and silent and there were words that should have passed between them but didn’t. Ayden leaned with his head out the window because the night air felt good and because he didn’t like the tension in the car. His leg was throbbing and aching and he wanted a pain pill but he didn’t want to take one in front of his brother because he knew Johnny was hurting just as much as he was, only it wasn’t physical. They didn’t talk about Annie, ever. The last time they did, it hadn’t been pretty and if Ayden hadn’t been sporting an already impressively bruised face, he knew his brother would have hit him. He’d said nasty things instead and that hurt worse than his brother’s fist. Ayden thought about getting some sleep, but then his brother reached for the car radio and turned up the music and that plan was shot down. So he just kept leaning out the window and trying not to hear Johnny’s quiet voice ask about Annie over and over in his head. Or think about her face every time he closed his eyes. Or about the three dead bodies he’d seen earlier in the day. The last one was the hardest to keep out of his mind because he didn’t think he had any control over that one. He could still feel the gun tucked into his cast and his guns were in their holsters in the back seat. He had a machete somewhere back there but really, machetes weren’t made for cutting off heads. Now Johnny’s new sword, that was something to behold. He wished Ashley had given him one, but life never seemed to work out that way. Johnny always got the good stuff. He got the cool power, he got the cool sword, he got Annie. Then he’d lost Annie. Ayden still wasn’t clear on what had happened. One day, Annie was just gone and Johnny said not to worry about it and that was that. Like Annie wasn’t even Ayden’s friend. Like he wasn’t hurt and disappointed that she was gone. A part of him hated his brother for that. He hated that Johnny didn’t realize Ayden cared for Annie just as much as he did, but not in that way. He’d never voiced that to Johnny and he probably never would. Because they didn’t talk about it. Ever. There was a girl once that Ayden thought he loved. He wasn’t really a relationship type of guy. Not like Johnny. He never wanted a girlfriend and if he felt that a girl was starting to get too close, he’d shut it down quickly. Because girlfriends tended to ask questions and questions led to answers and, in Ayden’s case, answers lead to tears and agony and blood. And he’d never bring someone into that if he could help it. Ayden was convinced that one day he’d lose his mind. If he didn’t die first, he’d go insane. There was no way that it couldn’t happen, maybe it had already started and he wondered if he’d notice if it did. So there was no use getting to know a girl because he’d only end up breaking their hearts. By the time they reached Saul’s Crossings, the town Ashley had pointed out to them on a map but hadn’t been listed on any map he owned, it was dark and late and the silence in the car was killing Ayden. He was glad when Johnny finally broke it. “Well if this isn’t a hellhole,” he snapped as he slowed the car down and took a look at the scarce buildings lining the only street in town. It seemed like a scene straight out of a Western flick. The road wasn’t paved and the gravel had long since been crushed into dirt. There was a general store and a bar on one side of the street and on the other there was a two story building that was lavishing up-kept but had crude paintings of women in all sorts of positions posted throughout the yard. The buildings were all made of wood and looked a hundred years old, except for one with neon signs in the window that read, “G.G.’s” and then in smaller neon lettering it read, “Sinners Welcome.” Johnny snorted and pulled into the parking lot of the bar. There were surprisingly quite a few cars for such a small and desolate town. Ayden guessed that this sort of place attracted all sorts of people from all over. Johnny parked the car and shut it off. Then he reached into the backseat and grabbed his gun, shoving it into the back of his jeans and pulling his shirt over it. “How do you want to do this?” Ayden asked, reaching down to try and slips his fingers into his cast, because he had an itch and it was too deep and he couldn’t scratch it. “Well, we could go in there and ask if anyone knows of a vampire or two that need slaying,” Johnny said and Ayden sighed because his brother was still in a bad mood. “Or we could go in and have a few beers and see if you recognize anything.” “Well, I didn’t really see that many faces,” Ayden said and Johnny growled and looked at him. “And I don’t exactly want to ask all the dudes in the room to drop their pants so I can compare their dicks to the one I saw in my head.” “I thought you were an expert at getting guys to drop their pants.” Ayden grinned and clapped Johnny on the shoulder before he threw his door open and climbed out of the car. “Aww, Johnny, if you want me to find you a boyfriend, just ask, little fella.” He shut the door as Johnny leaned across the seat to yell some comeback at him and he laughed as his brother hurriedly climbed out of the car and leaned on it, pointing to him across the roof. “If any pants are going to be dropping tonight, it’s going to be mine, and there’s going to be a busty blonde chick on her knees in front of me.” Ayden leaned on the car and couldn’t keep the grin from spreading on his face. “If she has to get that close to even see it, then maybe you should just keep it in your pants.” “Fuck you,” Johnny spat and slammed the car door shut. Ayden laughed and hobbled around the car to follow after his brother who was heading into the bar. He thought about stopping and grabbing a couple of pain pills real quick, but decided he’d rather be in pain than be fuzzy if they were going to be encountering vampires. Johnny disappeared inside the bar and Ayden tripped up the steps a little, his cast catching on the lip of one of them. He swore beneath his breath then opened the door, trying to hurry after his brother before Johnny started shooting up the place. It was crowded and Ashley had been right, they were all wannabe cowboys. Most of them were older gentleman and Ayden could already tell that half the women in the joint must work across the street because for all these older guys to have such younger women sitting on their laps, they had to be paying. Ayden spotted Johnny making his way through the crowd towards the bar. He started to hobble after him but was stopped almost immediately as a hand came up from behind him and ran its way across his chest. He startled and whirled and realized he didn’t have a gun other than the one tucked into his cast. But as the hand turned him around, he paused and looked rather surprised at the tall brunette woman standing behind him. Her hair was pulled up into a mess of curls and ties on top of her head. Her eyes were dark and alluring and her lips red and full. She wore a top that clearly squished her breasts too much on purpose. And her skirt was short and didn’t exactly cover all of her butt. “Hey baby,” she drawled and her accent was clearly southern belle. “Wanna dance?” “Uh,” Ayden gulped because she was still touching him and running her hands over his chest and making her way to his back and then down to his butt. He tried to reach out and pull her away because he hadn’t come here for this. But damn she was gorgeous. “Not tonight, darling,” he drawled back and gave her a lopsided grin. He glanced over his shoulder at his brother, who was still leaning against the counter and hadn’t seemed to notice that he’d been stopped. “Aren’t I beautiful?” she asked him and he gave a nervous chuckle. “Well, yes, you are,” he nodded and glanced at Johnny again. His brother seemed to notice he wasn’t there and looked around, almost spotting him immediately. He paused for a moment as he seemed to take in the scene and then one of his eyebrows quirked and the sides of his mouth turned up into an amused grins and he raised his beer bottle to Ayden in a toast that signaled Ayden was on his own with this one. Johnny was such a dick sometimes. He turned back to the look at the woman. “I’m not looking for a date tonight.” “Oh? What are you looking for?” she asked and she leaned in, her hands coming to him again and running over his chest, his arms and his neck. She looked like she wanted to kiss him and he wondered if she was drunk. “Just a beer,” Ayden tried to pull her hands away again and this time he succeeded. He caught her by the wrists and pushed her hands back at her chest, trying not to blush as his hands brushed against her breasts. He failed and she didn’t seem to mind. “I’m, uh, I’m gonna go and…get one.” He stumbled over the words and he wondered why the hell this woman had passed up Johnny and come for him. Johnny got all the girls. “Have a nice night,” he said lamely and turned around, making a beeline towards Johnny, who was laughing by the time he got over there. “Dude, you work fast,” Johnny said as Ayden leaned against the bar and ordered a beer. “Shut up,” Ayden said, distracted still because he glanced back over at the girl and watched as she made her way to a different table, where two other women sat and his eyes widened a little as he realized they all looked the same. Triplets. He heard Johnny bust out laughing against and felt his brother clap him on the back. “I won’t hold it against you if you want to take up this lovely opportunity. I mean, I’ve had twins once but, triplets? Christ, Ayden, you’d be a god among men after that.” Ayden ran a hand over his face and grit out, “Fuck you, can we just get back to work?” .Wolfie. “You see anyone you recognize yet?” Johnny asked, taking a swig of his beer. He couldn’t help the grin that lingered on his face and it felt good, unfamiliar maybe, but good. Ayden rolled his eyes and took a long draught of his, pretending his face wasn’t blazing scarlet. He wasn’t looking at his brother. “No, seriously,” Johnny told him, leaning closer. “Just go offer to suck some dick. Pretty mouth like yours, I’m sure you'll get some takers. Then come back and tell me who has the smallest one, and that’s one of our boys.”“I fucking hate you,” Ayden told his brother, tipping the bottle back as far as it would go. Johnny laughed and clucked his tongue at him. “Now you're not even trying.” “Blow me. Wait, twins? When did you have twins?” Johnny couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brother so embarrassed, and he was well aware that it had nothing to do with his asshole comments. It had everything to do with the three sisters in the corner who were eying his brother up like a piece of meat. The one girl was laughing and nudging her sister in the arm, eyes flicking back in Ayden’s direction. They probably made good money, even working in a shitty place like this. He wondered how many guys would make it a point to stop through here just for them and he was almost jealous of the attention his brother was getting. The grin never left his face as he turned back to his brother. He nodded as he drank his beer, focusing back on the question. “Angela and Carolina. Very Spanish. Very hot.” He felt the smile broaden a little bit as he pictured the two of them in his mind’s eye. “Very, very hot. It was in New Mexico, a couple years ago. Didn’t understand half of what they were saying, but then they didn’t seem very interested in talking.” “God damn,” his brother muttered, shaking his head. “Forget I asked.” Johnny laughed again, squeezing his brother’s shoulder which never meant anything good. Ayden’s face was still red, even as he glanced around his brother to the triplets that were still watching him from across the smoky bar. “It’s alright, I understand, little brother. I mean if you can’t even take a piss without getting it on yourself I can’t expect you to know what to do with one woman, let alone three.” “I hope you die in a car fire,” Ayden snapped. Johnny patted him on the back one more time and he was still laughing, even as he waved the bartender over. The man looked like a biker, his tan skin covered in tattoos and a black bandana holding his blacker hair out of his face. His hands were probably as big as Johnny’s head and he crossed them over his chest as he came to stand next to them. He had pockmarks and stubble on his jaw and he looked completely out of place on that side of the counter, but he put a smile on his face anyway, even if it never quite reached his steely eyes. “What can I do for you boys tonight?” “We’re looking for a friend,” Johnny told him, the lies sliding easy off his tongue. “He passed through here a couple weeks ago with some buddies from work and no one’s heard from him since. Just wondered if you knew anything, if you’d seen anything suspicious lately?” He studied the bartender’s eyes as he asked the question, watching for any suspicious sign, a flinch, a glance, a wink. The bartender shook his head, staring at the bar as he wiped it down. “You boys cops?” he asked quietly, and Johnny watched his hand slip closer to the bottom of the bar. He would bet good money that the man had a shotgun under there and he would probably get terrible odds on it. “Nope,” Ayden said, nursing his beer. “Just looking for a friend.” The bartender’s hand stopped on the wood, wiping it down with slow practiced motions. He wasn’t meeting either of their eyes now and Johnny thought there was something in that, but he couldn’t tell what. “We get a lot of folks passing through here on a weekly basis.” His words were slow and emotionless, as if he’d had to repeat them before. He wondered if the guy practiced in front of a mirror. “We’re not far from Vegas, so we get a lot of boys stopping through here to visit the house across the street. Sure you’ve noticed by now.” He glanced up with a small smirk at Ayden. His brother swallowed hard and Johnny hid a laugh behind his bottle. “Uh, yeah,” he said. This time he didn’t blush. The bartender nodded, looking back down at the counter. “Can’t say I’d remember your friend, even if you described him for me. But if he came through here, he probably visited the girls, and they keep better records over there. Anything to do with them, you need to go talk to the triplets in the corner, because they own the joint.” Johnny nodded, raising his bottle to the bartender and slipping a tip across the counter. The man took it and pocketed it without question and didn’t glance at the bill. “Thanks a lot,” Johnny told him, and got a curt nod in return as he passed on down the counter to pay attention to his other customers. Johnny finished his beer in one swallow and then he was standing up, slapping Ayden in the shoulder. “Well, let’s go talk to your girls.” “Great,” Ayden said, and it almost came out as a squeak. Johnny led the way across the bar, glancing around as he did so. The clientele was almost exclusively men. He saw one woman in the corner with her husband or boyfriend or whatever, and she was looking pissed because he was looking at the triplets. The other was sitting at the bar and she looked happy to have a girl all over her. Apparently the bar and the whorehouse had a good working relationship, and his eyes landed on four good old boys playing poker in a center table. The oldest had a young blonde girl wrapped around the back of him, her skirt riding up as she bent over. “He’s bluffing,” she said, not softly in his ear, and the man laughed. He would bet that no one would go home alone tonight. He wondered how many of them would go home alive. There were four chairs at the triplets table, three of which were already occupied. They looked up like they were surprised to see the brothers and he was feeling in a betting mood because the smile on their faces told him that they had been expecting them since they walked in the door. They all had dark hair but they had styled it differently. The one all the way on the left and closest to him had it cut short and framing her face. She was wearing a purple corset and he wasn’t sure if her bottom counted as shorts anymore or a pair of panties. The middle one had straight hair, falling all the way to her waist, and was dressed in blue. The last was the girl all the way on the right and she was the one who had stopped Ayden in the door. She was grinning at him and Johnny made a point of leaving the seat next to her empty. “Hello darlings,” he said in his southern drawl, giving them his most charming smile. He pulled up a chair and straddled it, resting his arms across the back. “I was wonderin’ if we could talk business for a bit.” A Cheshire cat smile spread across the face of the girl in blue. Ayden slid awkwardly in the seat next to him and almost instantly found himself with a woman in his lap. “Well, we would be happy to talk business, wouldn’t we, Alice?” the girl said. She tipped her head back, smiling at her sister behind her. Then she was turning back to Ayden, fingers toying with his hair and grinning at him wickedly. Her breasts were practically hitting him in the face and Johnny put a cigarette in his mouth so he wouldn’t laugh. “What kind of business, Mr…?” The girl in blue said, and it seemed like she was the one in charge. “Marshall,” Johnny told her, lighting up his smoke. “Johnny Marshall, and this is my brother Ayden.” “Oh, we’ve met,” the girl in his lap said, and her lips were brushing his temple. Johnny hoped she wouldn’t just drop to her knees and give him a blow right in front of him because he really didn’t need to see that. “My name’s Meg,” she told him, and her hands were pulling at the buttons of his shirt. Ayden grabbed at them weakly and he looked to Johnny for help but his brother was focusing on the woman across the table. “I’m Alice,” she told him, “and this is our other sister Trish. She doesn’t talk though, so don’t be offended.” The girl in purple smiled and it was genuinely cheerful. She had her legs curled under her and she was nursing a drink with a little umbrella sticking out of it. He tried to picture the giant bartender making something little and fruity like that and his imagination failed him. “Well Alice,” Johnny said. “We’re looking for a friend of ours, and I was hoping you could help us out.” Meg’s hands stilled halfway down Ayden’s stomach and she exchanged a meaningful look over her shoulder at Alice. Her mouth quirked open and she looked like she was going to ask something before she shut it again at Alice’s nearly imperceptible shake of her head. Johnny caught it though, and he found it curious. She looked back at Ayden and there was a frown creasing her face, her lips pouting a little. “You’re not cops, are you?” “Not cops,” Johnny said, and it was interesting that they’d had to say it twice in ten minutes. “Oh good,” Meg said, and now her lips were on Ayden’s jaw. “Cops are no fun.” “Uh, no,” Ayden said. “We’re not cops, we’re just looking for a, uh, friend. A friend of ours. He passed through here a little while ago and we haven’t heard from him since.” He tilted his head back and he looked so embarrassed and uncomfortable that Johnny bit down on his cigarette to keep from laughing. His brother was flushed and he looked desperately at Johnny for help and he just couldn’t resist patting his brother on the back. Ayden would only be pissed until he got some. “What’s your friend’s name?” Alice asked. She reached forward and stole the cigarette from Johnny’s fingers and for a second it was so painfully like Annie that it physically hurt. The girl was grinning at him but he almost hated her then because she wasn’t the girl he wanted, she was just another whore in a long line of them and at the end of the day none of them would stack up to the girl he’d lost. Then she was putting the cigarette between her lips and taking a drag and the sensation was gone. He wasn’t going to think about her, he wasn’t going to miss her, especially not now. “Ashley Baker,” Ayden told her, failing miserably in his attempts to fend off Meg’s hands. Alice raised an eyebrow. All she said was “That sounds like a girl’s name.” Wenston The first time Ayden had sex, he’d been eighteen and the girl he’d fucked had wanted Johnny, not him. Her name was Stacie. His brother had been in a “committed” relationship at the time, so instead of moving on and getting over him and forgetting he ever existed, she’d fucked Johnny’s brother instead and may have even pretended it was him. Ayden hadn’t known it at the time because he’d still been a novice when it came to relationships and girls. Stacie had done everything she could to make sure she was around Johnny as much as possible, which meant she pretended to love Ayden and have a relationship with him. He’d thought it was weird she always wanted to go on double dates with him and his brother. But it had never occurred to him why. Johnny was the one who pointed it out. Ayden had denied it, even fought with his brother over it. Hell, even Annie had said something about Stacie being no good. But he’d denied and stuck up for her and didn’t question her until she’d said Johnny’s name once while they were fucking and Ayden asked her why and she screamed at him and told him to be more like his brother. He’d dumped her after that and he didn’t have to tell Johnny or Annie the reason, they already knew. Ayden sometimes wondered what happened to Stacie, wondered if she still liked Johnny. Wondered what she’d think of them now. The girl on his lap kind of reminded him of her. The kind of girl who didn’t really want him, but would use him to get what she wanted. Meg’s hands were all over him and he felt his face burning red with embarrassment at being groped in a public place like this. If he had been paying attention, he may have realized that he wasn’t exactly alone in this act. Men all over the bar were doing the same thing, even taking it further in some case. But Ayden wasn’t used to it. And he sure wasn’t used to it from such a beautiful woman like Meg. “He’s not a girl,” Johnny said, pulling out another cigarette and lighting it, replacing the one Alice stole. The girl smiled at him and glanced to Trish, who leaned forward and sipped her drink, looking around the bar, looking almost disinterested in the conversation. “He, uh,” Ayden cut himself off as Meg’s hands found their way to the buttons of his jeans. He gave a nervous chuckle as he desperately tried to stop her from pulling his pants down in the middle of the freaking bar. He managed to get hold of her wrists and pulled them away from her. She shook herself loose of his grasp and thankfully went back to just feeling his chest. His shirt was open and she ran her hands beneath his undershirt, over his chest and abs. He tried not to squirm too much beneath her as he cleared his throat and continued. “He’s kinda a bald guy, uh, bigger…uh, big gut. I call him Tiny.” Meg giggled as she kissed at his cheek, making her way along his jaw and to his neck and then his collarbone. “Tiny?” she said between kisses. “How well do you know him?” She laughed and dug her fingernails into his skin on his sides, near his ribs. He let out a strangled laugh and glanced at his brother, who had one eyebrow cocked and was looking far too amused for Ayden’s liking. Ayden gave him a “dear god help me” look, but Johnny just snorted and looked back to Alice, who shared his amused expression. “We hear you own the nice looking place across the street,” Johnny said, ignoring the continuing groping that was going on between Ayden and Meg. Ayden didn’t know whether to kick his brother’s ass or go find some place a bit more private to be with this girl. Her kisses were driving him absolutely batty and with each kiss he had a growing urge to kiss her back. He resisted and she just seemed to grow more furious in her attempts to undress and rile him up. “We were wondering if you kept records of who came in and out of your establishment,” Johnny drawled. Alice smirked. “We do. But if you’re not cops, I’m afraid I can’t let you see them. Confidentiality and all.” “Can you at least tell us if he’s been there?” Johnny asked, leaning down on the table to put his face close to hers. She smiled and leaned in a little closer. Ayden was trying to pay attention to the conversation going on at the table, but couldn’t quite manage as Meg was once again trying to take off his pants. He tried to grab at her wrists, but found he was getting less and less resistant to her advances. He turned his head to the side, maybe looking to see if there was anyone watching, besides his brother, who would care if they saw anything. Johnny would forgive him, maybe give him a pat on the back. This girl was hot! As his eyes scanned the room, he paused, however, as he caught a glimpse of a man at another table. He had a blonde girl wrapped around his lap and she was sucking at his face while he laughed and ran his hands up the back of her shirt. As soon as the girl moved her face away from his and Ayden got a good look at the guy, an image flashed in front of Ayden’s eyes. There was a man. He was naked and running and he was holding his intestines in his hand. His mouth was open in a silent scream of horror and fear. Ayden gasped and he must have involuntarily twitched because the next thing he knew his chair was tipping over backwards and Meg and himself were meeting the ground with a harsh thump and a sudden loss of breath. Meg gasped too as she landed on top of him, her breasts practically suffocating him. He struggled to push her off of him and she was giggling and laughing as she rolled away. Ayden rolled over and pushed himself up, pain spiking up his broken leg. He got to his feet and staggered. Johnny’s hand caught his arm, keeping him from falling back to the ground. “Easy there, Casanova,” Johnny drawled and apparently he was laughing too, but as Ayden looked at him with that look, the smile faded off his face and he tilted his head, waiting for Ayden to explain. “A little jumpy, are we?” Meg asked as she took a seat next to her sisters, all of them giggling. Ayden’s face flushed again as he glanced at them, but then looked back to his brother. “Johnny,” Ayden said, breathing heavily as he started to button his shirt up again. He nodded his head in the direction of the man he recognized from his vision. “I’ve seen that guy before.” Johnny seemed to get the drift as he eyed the man. He turned back to the women and gave them a rather charming smile. “Ladies,” he said and all three of them donned equally innocent looks as they straightened and glanced up at him. “We’ll have to continue this later. I’d like to know if he’s been here,” he said to Alice. Alice nodded and Meg reached forward to pinch Ayden’s butt. Ayden yelped, because he hadn’t seen it coming. He almost stumbled again because of his cast, but Johnny still had a hand on his arm. “Be sure you come back, love,” Meg winked at Ayden, who quickly turned away, his face still burning with embarrassment. “It’ll be my treat, sweetheart,” Johnny told Meg, who giggled and gave him a wink as well. Ayden felt like decking his brother but then Johnny was guiding him away from the triplets and towards the guy and his blonde bombshell. Ayden felt weak in the knees as he walked and he ran his hands over his chest and stomach, straightening his shirt. He still felt her hands all over him, and he tried not to think of her lips or her breasts but couldn’t seem to get her out of his mind. “I feel violated,” he said quietly. Johnny just laughed. .Wolfie. “Stop staring at her tits,” he said. He grinned around the cigarette as Ayden’s head whipped back around. His face was red and he was having a hard time tucking his shirt away and getting himself situated. Johnny was trying not to laugh too hard at his brother because he was probably already frustrated as well as embarrassed but he was losing it on the inside. His brother needed a girlfriend. It would do the kid some good, at least get him laid regularly. “I wasn’t staring,” Ayden grumbled at him, adjusting his pants. “Bullshit,” Johnny shot back. “You were staring.” “I was looking,” his brother said, hobbling along behind him. He still looked like he had been seriously molested, his shirt half tucked in and his hair all over the place. Johnny shook his head affectionately at his little brother, blowing smoke out between his lips and keeping an eye at the guy at the table. Somebody shoved their chair out and it almost hit him in the shins. They didn’t even notice, because the guy was making out with a smoking hot redhead who was sliding a twenty into her breasts while the guy had his eyes closed. He never even glanced up. “I just wasn’t staring. It’s not the same, you know.” “It’s okay, really,” Johnny said, grinning through his teeth. He reached out and ruffled his brother’s hair, destroying it even further. The kid looked like he had just gotten seriously fucked in the back room and it wasn’t fair that he looked that way without any of the benefits. “I can handle this, if you want to go back and get some. I promise I’ll even pick up the tab, if it’ll keep you from being a little bitch for a couple of days.” His brother swatted his hand away with a scowl. “I wasn’t the one complaining about the fucking swamp the whole time,” he grumbled, shoving his hands in his pocket. He did pause and look back over his shoulder and Johnny laughed because the little shit was actually considering it. More power to him if he did, maybe the two sisters would decide to join in. Though he was worried his little brother might just make an ass of himself if that happened. “You know, you’re enjoying this way too much. I don’t see you over there trying to hook up with triplets.” Johnny shrugged, the smile still plastered on his face. “They want you, who am I to argue with them?” “Sounds like a bullshit excuse to me. I think somebody’s dick just dropped off. Maybe that fucking snake ate it.” “Maybe you should stick a cock in your mouth to help you shut the fuck up,” Johnny said back cheerfully. He didn’t try to think about that comment too much because he didn’t want to think about how close the snake had been to doing just that. Ash fell in a clump off the end of his cigarette and no one seemed to notice or care. This place was just a thin layer of clothing away from being an orgy and it was starting to make him uncomfortable too. The half naked girls didn’t make for a bad view, but he really didn’t want to see humpty dumpty in the corner dropping his pants any time soon. They were still a table away when their guy got up, his hand held firmly by the blonde bombshell that was dragging him towards the door. “Fuck,” Johnny grumbled, pushing past a waitress who looked like she worked across the street part time too. He almost knocked a pitcher of beer over and he grumbled an apology out between his teeth as he booked it towards the door. The girl was pulling him outside, grinning over her shoulder and even if he didn’t see any fangs yet, it didn’t mean they weren’t there. “Don’t lose him,” Ayden said, his cast thumping off the floor. “Didn’t fucking plan on it.” The door swung shut behind the couple and he imagined she was either taking him next door or back into the alley but either way he seriously doubted it was just for a good time. At least, he didn’t think the guy was going to have a good time. If Ayden’s vision came true than the girl was probably going to have a good time and a full stomach and the guy was going to end up drained and dead right outside in the street. He was already pulling his gun out when he got out on the porch, because he was just a cowboy like that. “Seriously?” Ayden asked. “Isn’t it a little early for the gun? Maybe he’s just getting some.” “Maybe,” Johnny said, double checking his clip. The guy had disappeared but he could hear giggling and laughing and slurping noises coming from around the side of the bar, so wasn’t hard to figure where they’d gotten off to. He hoped the guy was just getting some action. He wasn’t and Ayden wasn’t, so someone around here might as well. What he hoped and what actually happened never seemed to get along. “Or maybe he’s getting dead.” He flicked the cigarette down to the ground and snubbed it out with his boot, turning the small glowing ember into dust. Johnny dropped down next to the porch, sticking to the shadows as much as he could. He heard moaning and groaning and something hitting the side of the building and he squinted to try and see. He heard the thump of Ayden’s cast hitting the wooden porch but he didn’t jump down because there was no sneaky way to hobble around in the darkness. The dim glow of the streetlights only gave him a vague idea where they were at. “Aw, right there baby,” the guy was saying. Johnny grimaced and was almost glad for the dim light. He heard soft sucking sounds and then the sound of a zipper and he almost abandoned the whole thing right there. He pressed his back up against the wall behind the dumpster and then peeked around the side, his gun held loosely in front of him. The guy was standing, back braced against the bricks and the girl was on her knees in front of him and he really didn’t need to see that shit. He closed his eyes for a second because while it wasn’t the shittiest porno he’d seen, it ranked right up there with the free shit on the internet. “Do you see anything?” Ayden hissed quietly off the side of the porch, trying to peek around the corner. He bit his lip and didn’t answer, opening one eye and glancing back down the alley. He hoped this was all it was and he hoped the guy would hurry up and finish so he could stop watching and get another couple of beers so that maybe he could forget this in the morning. “Johnny,” Ayden hissed again. “Do you see anything?” “Yeah,” he snapped back, his voice a low whisper. “He’s getting his dick sucked, wanna watch?” He heard Ayden laugh and then it cut off sharply as he put a hand over his mouth. He rolled his eyes and glanced back around the corner. The girl was still on her knees but her hands were sliding up his legs and then running over his stomach. He was just about to turn away when he saw her fingernails dig into his skin and then she was drawing bloody lines in his flesh. The guy let out a startled yell, and then the whore bit down. Wenston “Oh mother fucker,” Johnny spit out as Ayden heard a scream pierce the air. He saw Johnny disappear around the corner and then Ayden was cussing because he had to hobble over to the steps in order to chase after his brother. He could have hopped the side of the porch, but he didn’t really feel like re-breaking his leg. Tripping down the steps, he gripped the edge of the porch as he almost went face first into the dirt and then paused, eyeing the car. It took him half a second to make a decision and then he was hobbling towards the car. He pulled open the door and fumbled around inside, grabbing his guns and strapping them to his waist and then grabbing Johnny’s sword and slamming the door shut with his broken leg. Pain spiked through him again but he ignored it and tried not to think about the doctor’s voice in his head telling him to stay off of his foot and hobbled around the porch again, trying to hurry in the direction his brother had disappeared. He could hear Johnny’s gun firing several times and then there was a crash and his brother was swearing. “Johnny!” Ayden yelled against better judgment. Any chance of a surprise attack he’d had before flew out the window and he withdrew a gun, holding Johnny’s word down to his side. It was dark behind the building. The guy from his vision was leaning against the building, horrific sounds coming from his throat and when Ayden got closer, he saw why. The man was holding himself, blood spurting from a very unhealthy place to be spurting blood from. Ayden gulped and gave the man a quick, “Hold on,” before he hobbled further into the darkness, intent on making sure Johnny was alright first. “Johnny!” he yelled again, not liking that his brother didn’t answer him. When he rounded the back of the building, he froze, but only for a second. The blonde vampire has Johnny by the throat, pinned to the wall, with his feet dangling. Her unnatural strength was crushing his windpipes and Johnny was trying to kick and wrench her wrist away from his neck. Ayden let out a snarl and aimed his gun at her head, pulling the trigger. It seemed to do the trick as her head snapped to the side. Johnny dropped to the ground, crumpling as he struggled to get air into his lungs. He was bleeding from a wound on his temple. Ayden fired his gun again, hitting the vampire in the shoulder, then the hip, then the neck. She too crumpled to the ground and Ayden took another step closer with every shot he fired. When she was on the ground, he stared at her for a moment before looking to Johnny, who was holding his neck and looking at her too. “Cut off her head,” Johnny said, his voice hoarse and sore. Nodding, Ayden holstered his gun and unsheathed Johnny’s sword, the blade shining sharply in the dull light of the moon, the only light in the alleyway behind the bar. He gulped a little, because vampires were his least favorite. They always bled ten times more than a human would when you cut off their heads. It was grotesque and terrible and he absolutely hated it. Taking a few steps forward, while Johnny struggled to his feet, bending over and still holding his neck, Ayden stood over her and looked down at her. The vampire’s blonde hair was smattered in blood and hung loose about her face. She was very pretty. But she was about to be dead. Putting the sword to her neck, Ayden took a deep breath to prepare himself. He almost cut in, but the vampire chose that moment to fling open her eyes. She roared, inhuman, and reached up to grab the blade of the sword. It sliced through her hand, but she pulled it easily from his grasp and threw it away. In the next moment, Ayden’s head was whipping to the side because she’d just backhanded him with speed and strength that always managed to shock him. He was somewhat surprised that his neck didn’t snap at the force and he felt himself hit the dirt with a painful grunt. “Bitch!” Johnny’s voice rang and then his gun was firing again and Ayden felt his brother step over him, trying to keep her back while at the same time going for the discarded sword. Ayden shook his head, trying to clear the sudden stars that had formed in front of his eyes. Damn, she hit like a freight train. He turned his head to look at the scene. The blonde vampire was riddled with bullet wounds, but she stood and took them all. Johnny kept firing as he made his way to the sword. He bent to grab it and she hissed and snarled and ran towards him. “Johnny!” Ayden yelled because she was moving really fast and he didn’t know if his brother could respond in time. To Ayden’s relief, Johnny did react in time. He grabbed the sword and ducked out of the way as she ran by. But she ran straight pass Johnny, and even straight pass Ayden, and disappeared around the corner of the building. Johnny swore and climbed to his feet. Ayden tried to do the same, but was having trouble because of his cast. Johnny paused for just a moment to grab Ayden’s shirt and haul him to his feet, then he was chasing after the vampire because they both knew where she was headed. Another scream pierced the air and both brothers ran after her. They rounded the corner and saw her bent over the guy she’d originally taken out her. She had her face buried in the side of his neck and even as they watched, for the fraction of a second it took for Johnny to run forward with the sword, her wounds were healing as she fed off the poor bastard. “You ugly whore, get the fuck away from him!” Johnny snarled and ran forward, sword raised. The vampire looked up, her face contorted into a wicked, demonic mess. She roared at him. “Who are you calling ugly, mortal?” she screamed, her voice deep and horrific. Then, she picked up the man she’d been feeding on and tossed him like a sack of potatoes at them. Ayden yelped and sidestepped. Johnny, unfortunately, was not so lucky. He moved the sword to the side so he wouldn’t skewer the man, but he must have forgotten to move his body because the two collided with a sickening sound as they crumpled to the ground. Ayden turned to see if his brother was okay, but didn’t get a chance to find out as suddenly he was being flung into the opposite wall of the general store next to the bar. He grunted and would have slipped to the ground, but she grabbed him and slammed him into the wall with severe force. He felt his bones rattle inside him and she did it twice more and he was seeing stars. He watched her face contort and morph into its demonic form and her teeth grew and came at him. But then she stopped. She tilted her head to the side, her blonde locks falling about her face and shoulders and he was breathing heavily because he was being manhandled and slammed into a wall and he was sure she was about to tear out his throat. But she stopped. He heard her sniff and she leaned in and sniffed at his neck and he was waiting for her to tear into his neck at any second. But she didn’t. Instead, she pulled back and looked like she wanted to say something. But Johnny said something first. “Hey bitch, suck on this.” Her head came clean from her body in one swipe of the sword. Her eyes widened fractionally and then went dull and her head rolled away from her shoulders and blood was spurting and Ayden reached up to kick her away from him because she was starting to spurt onto him. Her body fell to the ground and Ayden leaned his head back against the wall, breathing heavily as he watched it bleed longer and harder than it should have. He looked up at Johnny, who was watching it to, but seemed to feel Ayden looking at him and their eyes met. “You good?” Johnny asked. Ayden licked his lips. “Suck on this?” he asked quietly. Johnny grinned and shrugged. “Seemed like a good line at the time.” Ayden reached a hand up and ran it over his face, trying to dispel the blood. “God, that was lame.” Johnny snorted. “Well then I’d like to see you do better next time,” he said and sheathed the sword, looking down at the vampire again. “Come, on,” he said, reaching out to pull Ayden away from the wall. “We gotta go. The guns probably drew some attention and I don’t think your ladies are gonna like the body we left them.” Ayden swallowed thickly, glancing over his shoulder. “Bodies,” he said, eyeing the man they’d come to save, whose eyes were staring wide and dead up at the sky. Johnny followed his gaze for a moment and then looked away. “Yeah,” was all he managed as he helped Ayden limp back towards the car. Reaching the car, Johnny opened the door and threw the sword in. Ayden limped around the Cadillac, giving a forlorn look towards the bar, because he had kind of hoped he could go back in and see Meg, though he wasn’t sure why. She was hot an all, but he wasn’t one to indulge in hookers or whores or whatever the hell Meg was. Johnny must have seen the look. He chuckled as he leaned against the car, watching Ayden. “There will be other girls, granted, not hot triplets, but we’ll find you a pretty one.” Ayden gave Johnny a look and had a comeback on the tip of his tongue, but as his hand hit the door handle, pain spiked through his head suddenly and he cried out and felt himself fall to the ground, his muscles tightening with spasms before the vision took full control. † † † There was a man and a woman and they were both naked. G. G.’s was lit up in the background. The woman was screaming as the man was being torn to shreds. She tried to get away, but a hand clamped down on her ankle and ripped her leg off. She was still screaming as a fist gripped her hair and pulled her hair back. She stopped screaming as her throat was ripped out. They lay in bloody body parts next to each other. They were both dead. Then the feasting began. .Wolfie. “What did you see?” Johnny asked, glancing over at his brother.Ayden stared out the window as they drove and then took a heavy breath, looking back at Johnny. There were circles under his eyes and he looked a little worse for wear after the fight. “Did you notice the couple at the bar tonight? Yeah, well, they were both getting ripped apart by something. Sorry, multiple somethings, I think. Same place, same kind of kill.” He sighed and shook his head, rubbing at his eyes. Johnny nodded slowly, glancing in his rear view mirror. The lights of G. G.’s were bright behind him. “So I take it there’s more than one?” Johnny said dryly. He was back behind the wheel of the Cadillac headed back towards the highway and the shitty old motel they’d passed on the way in. Ayden sat in the passenger seat, dabbing gingerly at the lump on his forehead. He’d hit the wall pretty hard when the vampire had thrown him and he was surprised his brother wasn’t more banged up or had a broken arm or something. Ayden was always breaking bones and Johnny took all the other wounds. He was always getting bit or stabbed or clawed and he was lucky this time that he didn’t get bit or he’d be half delirious with blood loss. “Yeah,” Ayden snapped. “I’d say there’s more than one.” “Well, sorry kid,” Johnny said. He sighed and shook his head, clapping his brother on the shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “I guess that kills your foursome for good. We can’t risk you being eaten in the unhappy way, can we?” He was grinning, ignoring how much talking hurt his throat. His fingers brushed the bruises around his neck for a minute and then went to touch the wound on his temple. It stung, but it wasn’t bad. He would live. “Fuck you it does,” Ayden said. He kicked at the dashboard with his good foot, the other one stretched out in front of him. Johnny hoped he hadn’t hurt it too much hobbling around all over the place. He should make him use his damn crutches next time. “That’s what the little gun in my cast is for.” “Is that what you’re calling it now?” Johnny snorted, pulling off into the parking lot. “No. That’s called Conan the Barbarian,” his little brother shot back. A small grin made its way onto his face and Johnny laughed and clapped him on the back. Dust rolled off behind the car as he put it in park and then he climbed out of the passenger seat, reaching in the back of the convertible for the two duffle bags. Over time their possessions had shrunk until they could fit everything they needed in the trunk of their car. He didn’t miss having a lot of useless junk, but sometimes he missed having some place to go home to. They had moved on and their little town was far behind them now. He didn’t miss the town. He missed the people. Alright, well he missed some of the people. He missed Annie’s mom. That woman knew how to bake. He slung the duffle bags over his shoulder, his brother still dragging his gimp ass out of the car. He was practically hopping on one foot which meant he had jarred the broken one pretty bad at some point. His cast scrapped against the gravel as he followed Johnny to the door. A little bell went off overhead as they stepped through the door and he stayed leaning against the doorway as Johnny got them a room for the night. They were used to his by now, the shitty motel rooms, the traveling, the injuries. “So how do you want to do this?” Ayden asked when they finally made it to a room. Johnny shrugged, tossing the bags down on the floor. “I don’t know. Charge in, shoot everything?” He smirked, unzipping and digging out the medical supplies so he could patch up the cuts and scrapes. There wasn’t much to be done about the bruises on his neck, but at least they could close up any bleeding wounds. The last thing they needed was to head into a den of vampires smelling like dinner, though it might at least draw them out. “Yeah,” Ayden snorted. “That’s a real fucking brilliant plan.” He sighed and shook his head as he crouched on the ground. Ayden settled in on the end of the creaky bed and neither of them wanted to think about how clean the sheets were at the moment. “I don’t know. Go back tomorrow and talk to your women? Maybe they’re not vampires. Maybe they don’t know anything about it. I wouldn’t count on it, but if nothing else sticking close to them will probably keep us near when the next one shows up.” “Since when did they become my women?” Ayden grumbled, looking down at the floor. He was blushing again. Johnny smirked wickedly at him. “Since you got dry humped in the middle of a bar?” “Fuck you,” Ayden said, throwing his shoe at his brother’s head. Johnny dodged it easily and threw back a bottle of hydrogen peroxide at his brother. Ayden caught it in his hands but didn’t make any move to stand up and go to the bathroom so he could clean himself up. His foot must have really been hurting him, and Johnny dug out the bottle of painkillers next. “You’re just cranky because I’m getting more action than you.” That time Johnny laughed. “Yup, that’s it exactly.” Ayden smiled and pulled himself gingerly to his feet. He hobbled past Johnny to the bathroom, painkillers in one hand and the peroxide in the other. When he was done disinfecting Johnny would patch up his forehead and once Ayden was taken care of, Johnny would take care of himself. “I knew it. You’re pissed that I’m going to get to hit triplets and you’ll be stuck in here with your magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers. It’s alright, bro, I promise I’ll bring you back pictures, or maybe a pair of panties to sniff if you’re feeling really lonely.” “Get your ass cleaned up,” Johnny said, considering throwing the shoe back at his brother, though the smile never left his face. “And if you bring me back a pair of panties I promise you I will shove them down your throat and leave you to choke on them. The last thing I need is your sloppy seconds.” “Well since, you’re not getting a first thing or second thing, you might just have to settle.” Ayden laughed and shut the door behind him, his shoe bouncing off the wood. Johnny slumped against the bed and put his hands back around his neck. He was shaking, his whole body feeling bruised and beaten. He hated vampires almost as much as he hated swamps and witches because there was only one way to kill them and it was rarely quick and clean. He was lucky to have avoided being bitten because he’d just charged in there like a cowboy as usual and gotten his ass handed to him by some blonde bitch with a sharp pair of teeth. The guy had gotten killed anyway, there were still more out there, and both he and Ayden had been beat to shit. He sighed and leaned against the bed, his eyelids feeling heavy. They would go back tomorrow, maybe during the day, and see who was still around. Then they would at least know who wasn’t a vampire and who they probably shouldn’t be shooting at. He hoped the triplets were there so that his little brother could get some and then at least one of them wouldn’t be a cranky, lonely bastard. He rubbed at his forehead and felt the scab peel off under his fingers. He felt like shit. At least they had fallen back into the familiar routine because he couldn’t remember a more awkward car ride. He should have kept his mouth shut about Annie because the last thing they needed was for a fight to break out. He knew it wasn’t over because he had asked and now he knew Ayden had a vision about her and he wanted to know what he’d seen. He wanted to ask if she was okay but that was stupid because no one in his brother’s visions was ever okay. It was always death and dying and torment. But if Annie was in trouble, wouldn’t Ayden have said something? Well, maybe not. Maybe not to Johnny. His head fell back against the bed and he let his eyes shut for just a minute. He could hear the water in the bathroom running and he hoped he didn’t take all night because Johnny was tired from driving all day and then getting his ass kicked by some stupid vampire woman and he wanted to climb into bed and sleep the day off. Maybe tomorrow would go better. Maybe tomorrow he would get to shoot something and then everything would be golden. He fell asleep like that, still sitting on the floor. Wenston Ayden was dreaming. He felt fingers trace his cheekbone and curl around his jawbone and down his neck. It was sad that he knew he was dreaming because she was being so gentle and nothing in his life or in his visions was ever gentle. She tickled at his collarbone and he shivered beneath her touch. Then her fingers left his skin and he felt the breathy warmth of her lips replace them and kiss the gully between his collarbone and shoulder. She traced the bone up to his neck, then to behind his ear and her fingers were running through his hair. Then she sat up and pulled her shirt off. He reached up and caught her arms, so the shirt was over her head, covering her eyes with her arms trapped inside. She laughed and it was melodic and beautiful. Her red lips were parted as she smiled. He felt himself smiling back and it felt good and natural and right. He kissed her. He snaked his tongue into her mouth and she met it with her own and they kissed and it was passionate and it was a lover’s kiss, like they’d been doing it for years. He rolled her over, so he was on top and she was pinned to the bed with her arms still trapped in her shirt. She laughed, light and happy. He silenced her with a kiss and then let go of her arms. She finished pulling off her shirt as he cupped her breasts and ran kissed down her chest between them, to her stomach, then to her black lacey panties. She sat up and grabbed the hem of his shirt, pulling it up over his head with ferocity and eagerness. He slipped his thumbs into her panties and began to pull them down. Then she was screaming. His head shot up to look at her face and blood was pouring from her mouth. Then her head was tilting backwards and rolling off the bed. He body bucked beneath him and he felt himself tilting, to the edge, to the darkness and beneath him there was fire and chains and torture waiting. Ayden hit the floor with a thump and a grunt and his cast bounced off the carpet with a crack. He was tangled in his sheets and in his boxers and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d fallen out of bed. Years of sleeping on the top bunk of a bunk bed, he’d learned to be a motionless sleeper. He wasn’t quite fully aware of his surroundings yet, as the dream started to fade, but he heard Johnny swear and then he heard the click of Johnny’s gun being cocked. Ayden blinked heavily and then glanced over at his brother. Johnny was sitting up in bed, his gun that he kept beneath his pillow pointed out at the darkness of the motel room. He was breathing heavily and seemed to still be blinking away sleep, looking for any signs of an attacker or vampire that may have gotten the drop on them. When he didn’t see any, he lowered his gun and turned to look at Ayden, who was sitting on the floor, tangled in his sheets, between their beds. “Did you just fucking fall out of bed?” Johnny spat angrily because he was always cranky when he was woken up before it was time to get up. Ayden groaned and ran his hands over his face because he still felt Meg’s breath hot on his neck and her lips trailing over him and her fingers wrapping themselves into him. He didn’t bother answering his brother and he tried to untangle himself from the sheets but pain spiked through his leg and he stilled, hanging somewhat off the ground and somewhat on the bed. He sighed, because he wanted more painkillers, but they were probably what had caused his stupid dreams and wild sleep in the first place. “Jesus Fucking Christ,” Johnny swore and ran a hand over his own face, glancing at the clock. He groaned, loudly and pointedly and put the safety back on his gun before tucking it under his pillow again. “Fucking go back to sleep,” he laid back down and turned his back on his brother. Ayden ignored Johnny’s crankiness and again tried to untangle himself. He managed this time and he used the bed to pull himself back up. The pain killers were all the way across the room and he looked at them, squinting his eyes, trying to Jedi convince them to get the fuck over here. It didn’t work. Be cool if it did, but that would be asking too much. So he just laid back down and strung his arm across his eyes. “Sorry, Johnny,” he called to his brother. He didn’t know exactly what he was apologizing for because falling out of bed and waking them both up wasn’t something he meant to do. But he was feeling more than a little frustrated with himself and with the visions and with not being able to close his eyes and sleep and have a proper wet dream without it turning into a fucking horror show. “Fuck you,” was all he got in response. † † † Ayden sat in the passenger seat of the car with his head resting against the window. If at all possible, he felt more tired and exhausted than he had before he went to bed. Every time he’d closed his eyes last night, Meg had found her way into his dreams and at first it had been pleasant, minus the gore his mind had always added, but after a while, he’d just wanted to sleep. His leg was killing him and he was certain that when they were done with this, he’d have to go in and get it recast and reset because sometimes when he moved it he could feel something move that wasn’t supposed to. He didn’t bother to tell Johnny because his brother would just get mad and insist on killing the vampires by himself and Ayden would get mad and tell him he couldn’t and then they’d just both be mad and it would be ridiculous. So he’d taken three pain killers, instead of the two recommended dosage. And when Johnny had been in the shower, he’d popped two more because it had still hurt and the pills weren’t working fast enough and his head was starting to hurt and every time he closed his eyes he saw Meg. He was regretting the painkillers now because he felt like a fucking space cadet. He startled a little as Johnny opened the door and sank into the driver’s seat, two cups of coffee held in his hands. He handed one to Ayden and then sipped his own. Ayden looked down at it and sighed, setting it on his knee and leaning his head back against the seat. He looked out the window again. “So,” Johnny said, oblivious and oddly cheerful for this time of morning, which really wasn’t that early, but early enough that Ayden didn’t like it. “I was thinking that we should go and pay the whorehouse a visit. And since, you know, we killed someone last night, we’ll probably have to sneak in. A little B&E, if you will. Do you think you can be stealthy with that fucking cast on your leg?” Johnny grinned over at him and Ayden just rolled his eyes. “Sure,” Ayden gave half heartedly, looking back out the window. “What’s the matter with you?” Johnny demanded, looking him up at down. “Too much humping the bed last night?” “Johnny, fuck off,” Ayden said and there was more bite to his tone than he’d meant there to be. But he was really, really tired and he didn’t feel good and his head was loopy and he just wanted someone to kiss it and make it better. And that someone had better be Meg and her fucking hot sisters. “Whoa-ho,” Johnny said, widening his eyes a little in amusement. He laughed. “I didn’t know it was that time of the month. Jesus, you need me to stop and get you some tampons or something?” He snorted and Ayden just sighed. “Seriously, what’s wrong? Is it your leg?” Ayden banged his head a little against the glass in frustration. “Yeah, it’s my leg, can we get going now?” Johnny snorted and set his coffee down in the holder, then put the car in reverse, reaching over to put a hand on Ayden’s seat as he turned around to back out of the parking lot. “You need a fucking vacation,” he muttered. “We are getting you laid tonight whether you like it or not. And if that doesn’t happen, I’m taking you to Disney World because this little bitch routine doesn’t fly with me.” Smiling a little, Ayden closed his eyes. “Knowing our luck, the rides would come alive and eat us.” “Well, in that case, we’re going to Universal. I always wanted to kill that fucking shark from Jaws.” Ayden actually laughed and he once again thought about how glad he was to have his brother around. Pain the ass as he could be sometimes, when Ayden really needed it, he always pulled through. “That shark would eat your ass.” “No way, I would blow that thing out of the water.” “We’re not talking about fucking the fish, we’re talking about killing it.” Johnny laughed. “Asshole.” .Wolfie. “Okay, so what if that fucking T-Rex from Jurassic Park goes all zombie dinosaur on us?” Ayden asked. Johnny smirked as he gunned it down the road. “Then I’ll feed it your gimp ass first.” There was yellow police tape closing off the alley next to G.G.’s. They could see the white chalk outline where the guy’s body had been and then another two for the vampire. Johnny saw the bartender and someone else standing outside on the porch smoking a cigarette and staring off the side. It looked like the police had already come and gone, though he wondered if they’d had to call in cops from Las Vegas, because this place was so fucking small. There was no one outside the whorehouse. He parked on the side of the road a few blocks down. He didn’t like having it so far away because it wasn’t handy in case they needed to make a fast getaway. That and Ayden wasn’t exactly quick on his feet at the moment. Still, he figured it would be pretty stupid to park right outside the whorehouse they were breaking into, so he parked it, locked it, and set off down the street. Ayden hobbled along behind him. He was putting less weight on the broken foot and while that was good, it worried Johnny because that meant it was hurting his brother and might not be healing right. He glanced over his shoulder and watched his brother study the streets around them. He had a glazed look on his face today so he was taking the painkillers anyway. He wondered if they were helping because they sure as Hell didn’t look like it. “You keepin’ up, gimpy?” “Go fuck yourself,” Ayden told him cheerfully, dragging the bum leg behind him. Johnny laughed and stuck a cigarette between his lips, turning down the alley a few buildings before the whorehouse. He had to jump a fence and Ayden cursed the whole time as his brother had to drag him over the top of it. The edge of his cast got caught on the wood and he heard him let out a startled and painful hiss before they both fell to the dust in a pile. Johnny stood up and brushed himself off before dragging his brother up. “You okay, princess?" “Never better,” his brother grumbled, sneering at his brother. “Next time you get the broken foot.” “Only if I get the triplets too,” Johnny said. His brother laughed at that one and then he was pushing past Johnny towards the back of the whorehouse. “Bullshit. I get the triplets, you can fend for yourself.” They were cutting through someone’s lawn but no one came out to yell at them so it didn’t really matter. Johnny pushed past and old rusty swing set that looked like it hadn’t been used in years. He wondered how the kids had liked growing up next door to a brothel. “That’s cold, man,” he told his brother. “That’s really fucking cold.” There weren’t a lot of windows on the whorehouse, but they found one around the side. Johnny sent Ayden up to the end of the alley to watch for any one wandering by while he tried to jimmy the thing open with a screwdriver he’d brought for the occasion. It was shut pretty tight so he had to fuck with it for a good five minutes before he finally bent the lock and forced it open. He heard a rattling and a clink as the metal parts hit the ground and then it was silent from inside. “Alright fucker, get your ass over here,” he said it as softly as he could, in case there was anyone awake inside, but he seriously doubted it. He was trying not to think about how tired he was because he hated being woken up in the middle of the night unless it was by a girl on top of him and that hadn’t happened any time recently. Ayden groaned when he got to the window and Johnny laced his fingers to make a step. “Why do I have to go first,” he asked, putting his good foot in his brother’s hand. Johnny snorted, boosting him up the side of the whorehouse so his brother could grab onto the window. He couldn’t quite get his feet up to the ledge so he had to pull himself in face first and Johnny would have paid good money to be on the other side of the wall, watching his gimp ass brother scramble to the floor. “Because you’re the fucking cripple. I’ve already had to drag your ass over a fence I’m not dragging you through a window too.” “You keep it up and I’ll break your foot just so I don’t have to feel so alone.” Johnny chuckled, grabbing the ledge and hauling himself up. It was pretty dark inside but there was enough light coming through the window that he would know if anyone was alive in there. He hadn’t heard anything from the inside so far. Maybe they were all asleep because they worked the nigh shift. He doubted it, but he could hope. “You go ahead and fucking try,” he told his brother. “I could use a good laugh.” The room looked like one of the guest rooms, a King size bed made up in the middle of the room and unlit candles littered about the place. Filmy drapes hung over the banisters on the bed and the headboard and footboard had thick metal posts at the ends. He saw handcuffs dangling from the sides and he smirked a little, pulling the gun out of the waistband of his pants. Behind him Ayden rolled his eyes. “You won’t be happy until you shoot something, will you?” Johnny grinned back at him, walking carefully over to the door. “Not even a little bit,” he said. His boot nudged the door open and he glanced into the hallway beyond the door. It was dark and quite in the rest of the building and he wondered what time the place opened. He should have checked to see if they had business hours posted on the door or something. “You think the girls sleep here?” his brother asked. Johnny rolled his eyes. “I don’t know Ayden. They might if they’re vampires.” That shut his brother up and then Johnny was inching into the hallway, eyes straining for any sign of movement. He didn’t hear anything except the quiet ticking of a clock from somewhere. Outside a truck rattled by, but it didn’t look like anyone was working this early in the day. He sighed and grinned, shoving the gun back in the waistband of his jeans and heading towards the front of the building. “Well,” he said. “Looks like no one’s home.” The office was the first room right inside the door. It was locked, but he jammed the screwdriver into the wood and snapped it open with a quick, practiced twist of his hand. He hadn’t been the most law abiding citizen when he was a teenager, but he figured since he was using those skills for a good cause now everything evened out. He slid into the chair behind the desk, spinning it once. Ayden looked uncomfortable, glancing around the room as he slid into one of the two chairs across from the desk. “What kind of records do you think they’ll have? You hoping for a confession?” Johnny laughed and shook his head. The ledger book was sitting out in front of him and he flipped it open. “Not exactly, but I figure this is a good place to start. Now, let’s see how many girls they got on staff.” There was a list written in small, neat handwriting on the first page and he was surprised that most of the notes he saw were hand written. Most people used computers for their files anymore, but this place still kept everything neatly written down in a stack. His finger brushed the page as he counted the names. “Looks like ten girls, plus your triplets.” “What, my girls don’t count?” Ayden said. He tipped the chair back, looking bored and irritated. Johnny smirked, not even looking up as he began to flip through the book. “See? I told you they were your women.” They had it filed by girl, so he flipped to the blonde they’d killed last night. There was a list of names and payments, but it didn’t look like anything out of the ordinary. Maybe the triplets didn’t know they’d had a killer working for them, and his fingers went unconsciously to the finger marks still around his neck. He hated vampires. They were a pain in the ass and they looked like ordinary people right up to the point where they were ready to kill and by then it was usually too late. He was glad that Ashley had given his brother the gun he kept in his cast because he wasn’t careful enough sometimes and he didn’t want his little brother getting himself killed. Ayden sighed, letting the chair drop with a thump. “I’m gonna go take a look around. Maybe they keep blood bags in their fridge or something.” “Alright,” Johnny said slowly, not looking up. “But be careful. You need any help, you scream your fucking head off, you hear me?” He shot his brother a look and got a roll of the eyes and the finger in response. He grinned and took it as a yes. Johnny shook his head, going back to flipping through pages in the ledger. Every client and the times they’d been employed were written in the same neat script for every girl. He let it fall shut and tipped back in the chair, glancing down at the drawers. He tried one and it didn’t open, so the screwdriver came out again. There weren’t many locks he couldn’t pop with a flathead, and those that he couldn’t he usually just smashed open. No one ever said that he was the subtle type. There was a second ledger in the drawer and he pulled it out to drop it on the desk, flipping it open. Most of the girl’s names were the same, except for a couple. The triplets were still top of the list. He sighed, flipping through the same boring shit, men’s names written in impersonal script. There was nothing interesting, just credit card numbers and dollar signs scribbled next to each man’s name. It looked like they made pretty good money here, and he wondered how long they’d been doing it. This place looked like a pioneer town, so maybe some of the girls had come here a hundred years ago and never left. He wondered how long they’d been killing for, and never been caught. He pushed the chair out and glanced into the desk. At least five more ledgers sat in a neat pile in the drawer. Well. It looked like a long fucking time. Wenston The house was actually bigger on the inside than what it looked like it was on the outside. Ayden peeked into all of the rooms that he passed, finding it just a might bit curious that no one was here. Where were all the girls? Did they actually go home during the day? Or was Johnny right and all of them were vampires? That would really freaking suck. He tried not to make a joke about vampires and sucking and then sighed as he realized that the pain meds were really messing with his head. He shouldn’t have taken so many. He found the kitchen with ease and opened the refrigerator. He was somewhat disappointed to find it filled with actual food. Well, kinda food. Fruit and chocolate syrup and a shit ton of whip cream cans. He chuckled a little to himself and closed the door, looking around the kitchen. It looked absolutely normal. Was it even possible that the triplets wouldn’t know they had vampires working for them? Probably not. There were so many killings, it was impossible for people to just turn a blind eye to that. Probably the only reason they’d killed the cops last night was because one of their own got killed. Man, Meg was going to be pissed when she found out it was Ayden and Johnny that killed one of her girls. The thought struck him as odd and he actually paused in his inspection of the kitchen. Since when the fuck did he care what Meg thought? He was thinking about her like they were already fucking married and he had to reach up and scrub his hands over his face because he didn’t know why he was thinking like that. He tried to remember way back when, to the first time they’d encountered vampires. They’d been inexperienced and younger back then. They’d taken stakes and garlic and holy water and none of those things came even remotely close to hurting a vampire. Luckily Johnny was such a fucking cowboy that he got it into his bright head that he’d like to cut someone’s head off. It worked, and they’d learned a valuable lesson that day. Then they’d met Ashley Baker and the guy had the nerve to know all about vampires and how to kill them and how they operated and why couldn’t they have met him all those years ago when the visions first started. Ayden tried to picture himself knowing Ashley as a ten year old and he couldn’t quite do it. He tried to remember what the man had told them about vampires. Did they have luring and mind controlling capabilities? He couldn’t remember. Maybe. Or he could be remembering stuff about succubae, those things were bitches. He had to be careful. Exiting the kitchen, he came to the steps. He paused to listen, but so far the only thing he could hear was his brother still rummaging around in the office. He rolled his eyes. Johnny could wake the dead if he wanted to. He stifled a drugged giggle at the thought and then shook his head. God damn fucking pain killers. Using the railing a little more than he would have liked, he hobbled his way up the stairs and started peeking into rooms on the second floor. These were a little more upscale rooms and each had a theme. Ayden had to pause several times, tilting his head as he tried to picture what exactly went on in some of these rooms. He got to one where the walls were covered in ball gags and whips and full body latex suits and he put a hand over his mouth. Oh god, he had to show Johnny this room later. His brother would shit himself. Coming to the last room on the right, he paused as he looked inside. It looked somewhat familiar and it only took him a moment to think before he realized why. The room was tidy and clean and there were feather pillows and other toys scattered around decoratively. There were silk sheets and a window that had black paint over it, blocking out the sun. The room was from his vision, but it was missing a dead fat guy tied to the bed. “I knew you’d come back,” a voice from the hallway startled him so badly he nearly tripped over his own cast. He grabbed the bedpost to keep from falling over and whirled around, his eyes widening as he saw Meg standing in the doorway. She was in her panties and a black corset. She wore black platform shoes that almost made her taller than he was and she was straddling the doorframe like it was a damn stripper pole. Ayden gulped. “Uh, I…” his eyes darted around the room because he hadn’t heard her sneak up at him and here he was breaking into the house and he’d actually fucking found her bedroom. “I had a dream about you,” he said and he didn’t know why he said it, it just came off his tongue before he could think of anything else to say. She laughed, quiet and giggling. “I know,” she said and he didn’t have time to think about that before her eyes met his and she was crossing the room to stand before him, her hips swaying and her hands reaching for his shirt. She was pulling it off of him and shoving him onto the bed before he knew what was happening. He blinked up at her as she crawled onto the bed, crawling over him and hovering her face over his, her dark hair cascading around them. “Did you break into my house?” she asked, but she said it so sweetly and with such a wide smile on her face that Ayden just nodded. “Yeah,” he said, again before he could stop himself and he wondered when he lost control over his mouth. She giggled and kissed him. He closed his eyes as her tongue found its way into his mouth and her hands moved down to the buttons of his pants. She undid them. “Were you looking for something?” she asked as she sat up and scooted back and moved down his body and he tensed somewhat because he knew what she was about to do. He threw his head back and let out a small groan as her lips encompassed him and he felt her tongue flick at him and he fisted his hands in her hair. “Uh, fuck,” he grit out because this was wrong and he should stop it and she was probably a fucking vampire, but he couldn’t because it felt so good and his mouth was running again against his will. “Kinda looking for you, I guess…uh, oh, shit,” he let out a small laugh at the show she was putting on for him. After a moment, her head raised and he looked down at her. She was slipping out of her panties and a part of him wanted to scream for Johnny, which was awkward and logical at the same time. One, he didn’t want his brother coming anywhere near him right now because there were just some things that he didn’t want his brother to see and why the fuck he was thinking about Johnny at a time like this, he’d never know. But two, he was pretty sure he knew how this show was going to end and it wasn’t going to be pretty. But she was smiling up at him and working her way back up so her face was close to his and he couldn’t get his body to cooperate with his mind. “Me?” she asked, looking at him innocently. “I’m nothing special.” “I think you are,” he mumbled as he ran his hands down her thighs as she straddled his hips. He felt himself slip inside her and his head threw back again. He licked his lips and then bit his bottom lip as she moved, doing all the work. Even when he closed his eyes, he saw her face in his mind and all he could think about was her and her smell and her touch and the feel of her body. Her voice was inside his head and her eyes were burning into him and he was enjoying it even through the screaming of a small voice at the back of his mind telling him to fucking shoot her now, god damn it. She sat up, flinging her hair over her shoulders while still moving for him. She was unbuttoning her corset. “Where is your friend?” she asked and it came out nonchalantly, but it made Ayden pause long enough to gain a little control over himself. He swallowed thickly and his hands grasped her thighs. “S…stop,” he said. “Stop, I need…I need to go,” he tried to push her off of him and she paused in her undressing of herself to lean over him, her eyes gazing deep into his. “No you don’t,” she said, voice stern and he relaxed beneath her touch. “Where is your friend?” she demanded again. “Johnny? Did he come with you?” “N…no,” he grit out. He’d had to force it out, because the word “yes” was on the tip of his tongue and he’d had to bite it back. Meg smiled down at him. “Good,” she said and leaned over him, not unbuttoning her corset anymore. “Good,” she ran a hand through his hair and their eyes locked and he couldn’t look away and she started moving faster and he grunted with each movement because his body was reacting and his mind was locked on her but a part of him still knew this was wrong, so wrong. “Did you kill my friend last night?” “Yes,” he said before he could stop himself and she began to grind him fiercely and he closed his eyes because he’d just fucking told her he’d killed someone. Even if Johnny was the one who cut the head off the bitch, he’d still been there. She moved with ferocity and after a moment he heard her gasp and he felt himself release and his whole body went limp beneath her as she fell on top of him, spent and breathing heavily. She laughed and ran her hands over his head and through his hair and he cringed again. “That’s all right,” she told him and her hands gripped his chin and shoulder and she pulled them in opposite directions, exposing his neck. He struggled weakly beneath her, having enough control over himself now for his hand to snake down towards his cast. She was still on top of him and made it hard for him to reach, but his fingers sunk beneath the plaster and wrapped around something metal. “I’ll return the favor,” she hissed and then he gasped as he felt something sharp and wicked pierce his neck. Oh the fucking bitch had just bit him. He growled and cried out and brought the gun up so it pressed against her temple. He pulled the trigger and felt her jerk and she screamed as he flipped her off of him. He rolled to the opposite side because bullets only pissed off vampires, didn’t really do any damaged. He rolled right off the bed and landed in a heap on the floor. He sat up quickly and shot her two more times. She jerked with each bullet wound and then screamed again, leaping at him. He turned and felt her rake fingernails down his back, but he was already in the right direction as he aimed the gun at the window and shot out the window. The sun came in as soon as the black painted window was gone and she screamed again, this time in pain. He heard sizzling and then she kicked him at the wall. He collided with it and dropped his gun, slumping to the ground. She hissed at him and ran off. Ayden sat for a moment, knowing the gunshots and the bitch’s screaming would alert Johnny that maybe something was fucking going on in this damn house. He quickly buttoned his pants up, but his shirt was all the way across the room and he brought a hand up to his neck. When he pulled it away, his fingers were stained red and he groaned. “God damnit,” he spat and stayed where he was on the ground. Johnny was going to have a fucking field day with this one. .Wolfie. Johnny tipped back in his chair as he tossed the last ledger on the desk.They were definitely all vampires. The last one was dated from twenty-five years ago and three names were still at the top of the list, Alice, Meg, and Trish. He wondered how long the bitches had been around before that, but it didn’t really matter any more. They’d had a good racket going. The brothel was right outside Vegas, so any unusual disappearances could be chalked up to Sin City, and not the small town girls just trying to scratch a living out of the dust. He felt really fucking stupid though. Three visions, three sisters, he should have connected the two. Sometimes Johnny really wasn’t the brightest kid in the class and he was pretty embarrassed about it now. He wondered how many of the girls working for them were vampires. If he was a betting man, and he used to be, he would lay good odds that every fucking one of them was a bloodsucking monster. He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair, standing up so that he could go find his brother and break the news to him. It was too bad, because his brother could have used a good lay. He heard the scream a second before he heard the gunshot. “Fuck,” he snarled, scrambling up out of the chair. The gun was already in his hand by the time he reached the hallway and then he heard a second and third shot from up the stairs. He took them two at a time and wondered what kind of a mess Ayden had gotten himself into this time. The fourth shot was followed swiftly by a crash and the sound of a woman’s scream. A string of curses came from Johnny’s lips and he was just hitting the top of the stairs when the vampire struck him. He wasn’t sure which of them was more surprised, but he went down hard, feeling his head crack off the floor. The vampire was still sitting on top of him and as his vision cleared he got a good look at Meg. Her hair was disheveled, her corset half undone and panties nowhere to be seen. If it weren’t for the blood trickling from the corner of her mouth he would have been happy for the attention, but as it was there was no more doubt in his mind that they were fucking vampires. She had a bullet wound in the side of her head and two more in her chest, but they would heal quick enough. She raised her hand back to hit him and he was jamming his revolver into her sternum, pulling the trigger three times in quick succession. It was enough to knock her off of him and then he was kicking her in the face, wishing he hadn’t left the sword in the car. There was no way to kill a vampire with just a gun and he didn’t think a god damned kitchen knife would do the trick, if they even had one. Then she was grabbing his leg, trying to drag him back down to the floor. He pointed the revolver at her head and pulled the trigger again. Her face slammed back with the blast and she wasn’t looking half so pretty anymore. She hissed at him and then she was crawling down the stairs on all fours. For a second he debated going after her and then he remembered the blood on her lips. His brother was leaning against the wall, sunlight just brushing his fingers from the broken window. He was missing a shirt and his belt buckle was still half undone. Blood was trickling from a wound in his neck, but he looked otherwise none the worse for wear. The tiny pea shooter Ashley had given him was held loosely in his hands and he looked up when his brother charged in the room. He choked out a smile. “Hey Johnny,” he said. “I think the girls are vampires.” “No shit, you dumb fuck,” he told him, crouching down next to his brother. “Jesus, it smells like sex in here.” “Fuck you Johnny,” his little brother spat. His face turned red and he glanced down at the floor, not looking Johnny in the eye anymore. He shoved the miniature gun back in his cast and worked on pulling himself to his feet. His hand was clamped tightly over the wound in his neck but blood was leaking out from between his fingers anyway. “You just gonna stand there all day or you want to grab me my shirt so we can get out of here?” Johnny laughed, walking around the side of the bed and tossing his brother’s clothes at him. “Here’s your shirt you fucking necrophile. Was it cold? Didn’t it freeze your dick off?” He grinned across the bed at his brother and got the finger in response. He didn’t really want an answer anyway. “And why would we want to get out of here? They know we’re here now, so we’re not going to get another shot at taking them by surprise. Let’s get our shit out of the car and fuck this place up. Shit, we might as well burn the whole fucking building down while we’re at it because I’m pretty sure every one of the dozen girls they’ve got on staff are vampires.” Ayden laughed. “Only you would want to burn a building down in the middle of the day.” He shrugged. “What’re they going to do, go running into the streets?” “Good point,” his brother said. Ayden’s laugh was weaker this time. He pulled his hand away, looking at the red covering it and Johnny ground his teeth together because the fucking bitch had tired to kill his brother and only he was allowed to do that. He distracted himself by looking out the shattered window and there was broken glass littering the sidewalk below. He wondered how long it would take the sheriff or the guys across the bar to notice something had happened so they better move fast because he wanted this place turned to ash today. He crouched to the floor, pulling up his pant leg and grabbing the six-shooter he kept around his ankle. “Hang onto this for a minute,” he told Ayden, pushing it into his hands. His brother almost dropped it, his fingers clumsy and slick with blood. Johnny tried not to think about that too much and he wondered what he would have found if it weren’t for Ashley Baker. His brother would be a drained corpse on the bed and he would have been downstairs, completely oblivious until the bitch came for him too. He wondered what he would have done then. He wondered if that ever happened if he would say the words to bring his brother back. He tried not to think about it too much because he was scared of the answers. He didn’t know what the consequences to that kind of thing would be, because it was fucking with the natural order of things. Last time he had done that he had crippled a train and sent visions lancing into his brother’s mind and sending him into seizures. He didn’t even know if bringing back the dead was something that was in his power. He knew when he should have found out. Not that it mattered now. He pressed his back up against the wall while his brother sorted himself out, holding the smaller gun in his hands. He looked a little shaky on his feet and it was up in the air whether it was because of the painkillers or the blood loss. Johnny might just have to come back here by himself to burn the fucking place down but either way he wasn’t leaving again until it was finished. He glanced out into the darkened hallway and didn’t see any sign of Meg or anyone else. He ripped a strip off his sleeve and wrapped it around his fist, punching out windows as he went. The sunlight streamed in and stretched across the floor and it would offer them some protection if the bitches did decide to show up. He heard Ayden snort behind him and glanced over his shoulder. “You just like breaking shit, don’t you?” Johnny laughed, pulling a shard of glass out of his knuckle. “Damn straight.” “Well, if you bring the cops down on us I’m going to say it was all you. ‘He made me officer, I swear, threatened me with a gun and everything.’ That’s exactly what I’m going to tell him.” Ayden said, dragging the cast behind him. It was making an awful scraping noise behind him, but they’d already abandoned the quiet approach. “Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll bail you out of prison before someone decides you’ve got a really cute ass.” “Aw thanks, man,” Johnny said, coming around the corner and pointing the gun down the stairs. He almost hoped that there was a vampire waiting for him because he wanted to shoot something else. He was disappointed when the stairwell was dark and empty. They were probably all sleeping in the basement, gnashing their teeth and waiting for night to fall so they could tear this town to pieces. He didn’t plan on giving them the chance, no matter who he had to shoot to do it. “I didn’t know you felt that way about me. Sorry, but I’m not into the whole incest thing. You’ll have better luck sticking to corpses.” His brother blushed again, following him down the stairs with the clump of his cast. “I didn’t know she was a vampire,” he grumbled. Johnny reached back and ruffled his hair, sticking the gun back in his jeans while he reached for the front door. No point sneaking out the way they’d come in, because his plan consisted of pulling the car up to the whorehouse and burning the place down around their ears. It wouldn’t look good for his criminal record, but they had a long list to account for already. If the cops or the state troopers ever did catch up to them, one whorehouse would be just a check mark on a long list. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that,” Johnny grinned at him, swinging the door open. He was just turning his head back around when the fist struck his temple and for a good thirty seconds all he saw were stars as he went down. Then he was shaking his head and looking up at the man standing over him. He rubbed his face, staring up at the tattooed bartender who still had a cigarette sticking from between his lips. He was cracking his knuckles together and he looked less than pleased with either of them. He also hadn’t looked so big last night, but that might have been because Johnny was staring at him from the floor. The man could throw a punch, that was for sure. “Well, you boys have some answerin’ to do,” he told them. Wenston Ayden felt drugged. He felt fuzzy and light headed and more than a little loopy. It was the pain killers and the blood loss and Meg had done something to his head and he was just feeling like he wanted to lay down and sleep for a year or two. So he leaned against the wall and watched as Johnny hit the floor. He blinked several times and then looked at the bartender as he stepped over the threshold and into the house. He pointed a meaty hand at Ayden. “Stay back or I’ll beat your scrawny ass next,” he spat to him. Ayden held up his hands in defense and shook his head to show him he wasn’t going to do anything. He had tucked his 6mm into his cast again and he’d pull it if he needed but the guy had only sucker punched his brother and he wasn’t kicking him while he was down or anything, so it was going to stay in his cast for now. At least until he knew he wouldn’t fall over if he bent to retrieve it. He glanced down at Johnny, who seemed dazed but was at least still conscious. Johnny snorted as he gingerly made his way to his feet again, hand coming to the black and blue bruise that was already spreading along his temple. “The fuck you will,” he spat to the bartender. “Look,” the burly man said, cracking his knuckles and closing the front door behind him. It was menacing and more than a little intimidating to be closed in a house with this guy and a nest full of vampires, but Johnny was moving slow and probably wasn’t seeing straight at the moment. “I know you boys killed that girl last night, and I’m even willing to forgive you for it,” he said with a nonchalant shrug that looked more like a mountain twitching. “But now I’m going to have to ask you to kindly leave us the fuck alone and go back to whatever hole you crawled out of.” “You know what they are?” Ayden asked and tried not to flinch as the man turned to look at him. “I do,” the bartender nodded and turned his attention back to Johnny, who seemed to regain his composure and sense of direction. “Don’t,” the bartender warned as Johnny’s hand snaked towards the gun in his belt. Johnny paused and then growled low in his throat because this guy wasn’t a monster. He was just a guy. “I’ve known for a while,” the man went on. “They even gave me something to remember them by.” He pulled his shirt collar down and exposed wicked white scars that ran along his collarbone. “We could return the favor for you,” Johnny said, still tense where he stood, hand still hovering near the gun tucked into his jeans. “Burn this place down, slay some vampire bitches. You’d have it a lot nicer around here.” The bartender snorted and actually had the gall to bring a meaty fist and his Johnny in the face. Ayden winced when he heard his brother’s nose crush beneath the blow and then Johnny was on the ground for a second time. He rolled over, cupping his face with his hands. “Sonofabitch!” he yelled and it was muffled and nasally. Ayden took a step forward and the bartender pointed at him again. “What the fuck did I tell you?” he yelled and Ayden held up his hands again. “Stay back or I’ll break your other fucking leg.” Ayden sighed. The man was at least twice his size in volume and he was absolutely sure he could break him in half with the bat of an eye. Plus, he was drugged and dizzy from blood loss and Johnny was crawling to his knees and when he brought his hands away, there was blood trailing down his face. Johnny growled and withdrew his gun, whirling on the man. The bartender was quicker, though and he kicked Johnny in the small of the back, one hand coming to wrap itself around Johnny’s wrist and wretch it to the side. Johnny cried out and his wrist was probably sprained and the gun clattered to the floor. The bartender kicked it away and was getting ready to lay into Johnny again when Ayden decided he’d better not let his brother get his ass kicked anymore. Climbing up a couple of stairs, he got some leverage and jumped at the bartender. He almost overshot the man, which made him make a mental note to laugh about it later because his leg was fucking killing him and he couldn’t believe he was actually jumping a dude twice his size. He thought, mid-air, that it probably would have been a smarter move to pull out his gun, but he was drugged, so sue him. Landing with a grunt on the bartenders back, the man actually roared and released Johnny’s wrist. He flung himself backwards and Ayden had the wind knocked out of him as he was crushed between the man and the door. But he held onto the man’s burly shoulders for dear life and then grabbed his face. He tried to gouge in the man’s eyes with his thumbs and tried to ignore the fact that Johnny would call him a girl for doing it. Then suddenly the bartender’s hands came up and gripped Ayden’s shirt. He yanked down hard and Ayden was flinging over the man. He felt himself collide with Johnny, who had apparently just gotten to his feet, and the two of them tumbled to the ground in a heap. Johnny was swearing up a storm because he was tired of being knocked around and Ayden just lay dazed because his head was spinning. The click of a gun had the both freezing and the brothers turned to look at the bartender who had Johnny’s gun aimed at them. “Stay down,” he said and Ayden had no trouble doing just that. Johnny, on the other hand, was just getting riled up. “Fuck you,” he snarled, trying to push Ayden off of him quickly, but gently. “You boys just don’t understand,” the bartender said. Johnny stayed on the ground with Ayden sitting next to him. Ayden looked down at his cast and sighed because the damn plaster had cracked and he was absolutely certain now that the bone needed to be reset. “The girls are what keep my bar going. It was nothing; it was just another speck on the map. But now, fuck, I have a full house every night and all of them are happy and horny and free with their money. When it was just the three, yeah, they brought in the people. But now that it’s all of them, fuck you wouldn’t believe the money I’m making.” “They’re killing people,” Johnny spat, his hand coming up wipe the blood from his nose on his sleeve. “Not all of them,” the bartender said and it sounded lame and defensive. “They take what they need and let the guy go. They’re not monsters, they’re just surviving. So what if a few of them get a little too rough? It’s a price we all pay in this business. Who the fuck cares. Saints don’t come to whorehouses, sinners do.” He bent down and aimed the gun at Johnny’s head and Ayden held his breath because he really didn’t like that. He brought his leg up and acted like it hurt, which it fucking did, but hugged it to his chest, slipping his hands beneath the plaster where the bartender couldn’t see. “So here’s what we’re going to do,” the bartender went on. “You boys are going to get in your car and drive away and leave us here to do our business. You’re going to forget about this place and never come back and I’ll let you both live.” Johnny actually laughed. “Yeah, and then we can all go live happily ever after with ponies and castles and rainbows, you sick fuck.” The bartender frowned and when he yelled, his hand shook, making Ayden suck in a breath because he still had the gun aimed at Johnny. “You leave these girls alone!” Johnny smiled and it pissed the bartender off. Ayden withdrew his gun, hiding it behind his leg. “I don’t think so, Kojak.” The bartender fired as Johnny kicked out at the gun. The bullet went wide and shattered a vase behind them. Ayden swung his gun out in front of him and fired at the bartender. The man’s bandana ruffled in the breeze of the bullet and his eyes widened. At first, Ayden didn’t know if he’d hit him or not. But then blood trickled out from beneath the bandana and ran down his nose and it started off as a trickle but turned into a torrent. Then he was falling over sideways dead and Ayden stared at him for a long moment because the man wasn’t a vampire. He was just a man. .Wolfie. He was dead.He hit the ground with a sickening thump and Johnny couldn’t stop staring because he was dead. He’d seen dead bodies before, he saw them almost every day, but they were usually killed by vampires or witches or ghouls. This was a man he’d just been talking to last night and his brother had shot him and he didn’t know how to handle that. He stared at the body and it reminded him of how his father had looked, the shotgun still held loosely in his hands and his eyes cold and lifeless. He and Ayden both still had scars from the shotgun and he didn’t feel guilty that he had stopped his dad, he felt guilty that the first thing he’d though to tell him was to die. He could have said anything, he could have made him sober or just made him stop and instead he opened his mouth and told his father to die. So of course he had. He’d dropped to the floor right in front of him with his eyes wide and empty and Ayden had been barely conscious for it because his father had shot him and he was bleeding to death against the wall, right up until the vision had hit him. He blinked it away, glancing at Ayden and seeing the panic start to spread across his face. The gun clattered to the floor. “I shot him,” Ayden whispered. Johnny wiped the blood off his face with one sleeve and then he was standing up, holding a hand out to his brother. “Come on,” he told him. Ayden didn’t look up, just shaking his head slowly as he stared at the corpse on the ground. There was a puddle of red forming around him. “Come on,” Johnny said again, hauling him bodily to his feet. Ayden was just dead weight, and Johnny had to use all his strength to keep his brother upright. “Ayden, come on,” he told him. His hand closed around his brother’s jaw, dragging his eyes away from the body to his face. “You hear me in there? It’s time to go.” Ayden shook his head and he pushed his brother away with a soft cry. His back hit the wall and then he was slumping back down into a sitting position. “He’s not a monster,” he whispered. “He’s just a man.” His brother’s hands were shaking and he was holding his middle like he was going to throw up or something. “I shot him,” he told Johnny, looking up at his face like his brother didn’t understand that. “I shot him.” “Come on Ayden,” he told him again, grabbing his arm and yanking him to his feet. “Oh God,” he whispered, letting Johnny drag him through the door this time, though he certainly wasn’t helping. Johnny wasn’t excited about dragging his brother all the way the fuck back to the car but if that’s what he had to do, he was going to do it. The cast thumped over the porch but Ayden didn’t even seem to notice. He started shaking his head from side to side, his voice growing panicked. “What do we do? Should I turn myself in? Should we go to the cops?” “No,” Johnny told him without hesitation. He grit his teeth and hauled his brother down the sidewalk, feeling blood still trickling from his nose and hitting the pavement. This was his fault anyway, because he let himself get dropped by the bartender in the first place. He hadn’t been beaten in a straight up fight in years and he tried to focus on that so that he kept the anger flowing and he didn’t have to think about the dead body. He’d lost control of the situation and now he was going to clean up the mess. “You don’t do anything. You’re going to sit your ass in the car and I’m going to take care of this.” “What the fuck does that mean?” Ayden asked. He pushed his brother away, holding his sides again. He grabbed him by the arm and hauled him down the street. There was someone still standing on the porch of the bar but they didn’t move as they watched the two brothers make their way down the road. He wondered what they were waiting for, if they’d already called the cops, and he didn’t look forward to some kind of run in with law enforcement. How fucked up would that sound? “Sorry officer, the bartender tried to stop us from killing the vampire hookers.” “It means,” Johnny grit out. “That I’m going to take care of it. I said I’d burn the place down and I will.” “Jesus fucking Christ Johnny, I have to turn myself in. He was just a guy.” Johnny shoved his brother against the car, grabbing his face in one calloused hand and pulling his eyes sharply to meet his. “Listen to me Ayden. You did what you had to do. We’re not going to the cops, we’re not turning you in, and you sure as Hell aren’t going to feel guilty about this. The bastard was working with vampires and that makes him just as wicked as them. So stop fighting me and get in the fucking car.” Ayden shook his head furiously back and forth. “It’s not as easy as that Johnny. He wasn’t evil. He wasn’t evil and I shot him and now he’s dead.” His brother wasn’t crying but his eyes were glazed over and distant and he looked like he did when he was having a vision and didn’t see what was going on around him anymore. His hands squeezed around his middle and his face had gone white, all the color drained out of him. The jagged teeth marks on his neck were still bleeding and Johnny grabbed his brother’s hand and pressed it back over the wound. “Ayden,” he said slowly. “Get in the fucking car.” He knew his brother was dopey when he actually did what Johnny said. He slumped into the passenger seat and he just stared out the window like a fucking zombie, his expression glazed and his hands lying dead and useless in his lap. Johnny gunned the car in reverse, pulling the shittiest k-turn on the planet in the middle of the street and drove back down the block towards the whorehouse. There was no one outside the bar when he jerked the wheel and pulled the car right up on the sidewalk and he was grateful for that anyway because he didn’t feel like shooting any other people today, just vampires. He shoved the shotgun in his brother’s hand. “Stay here,” he told him. Ayden looked up and the glazed expression was still on his face. “What?” he said, and he was frowning. Then he shook his head, hauling his ass out of the car and slamming the door and he would bet there were people poking their heads out of windows right about now. This whole thing had turned into a giant cluster fuck, so he didn’t even bother hiding the shit in his trunk when he popped it open to grab the sword and strap it over his shoulder and across his back. “That’s fucking bullshit, Johnny. You’re not going in there by yourself.” “Yes I am,” he told his little brother, grabbing the gas can in one hand and checking his pocket to make sure the lighter was still in there. He glanced across the street and saw a face in the window but no one had come out yet. “You sit your fucking ass in this car and you don’t move until I come out of there. If it gets dark before that happens you gun it all the way the fuck back to Texas and don’t you dare look back. You hear me Ayden?” “Fuck you Johnny,” Ayden told him, and he didn’t look glazed anymore. He looked pissed. He had come around to the trunk and he was loading up with shotgun shells and grabbing the still good machete out of the trunk. Johnny grabbed it out of his hand and tossed it back in the trunk, grabbing Ayden’s arm. “Sit your ass down,” he snapped at him, pushing him back towards the passenger seat. Ayden shook his head dumbly, reaching again for the machete and Johnny was about to punch his little brother to make him do what he said. “Ayden I swear to Christ…” “Don’t,” Ayden snapped, picking up the machete again. “We’re going to Hell as it is.” Wenston Sometimes Ayden prayed.He’d never gone to church and he wasn’t really sure if there was a God, even though him and his brother were supposedly Godsent, but he prayed sometimes. If anyone was listening, they had yet to answer. Johnny was kicking open bedroom doors and swearing every time he found one empty. Ayden was hobbling around, checking in rooms and keeping an eye out for Meg because she was still awake and pissed off somewhere, but she must have been the fucking queen at hide and seek because they didn’t have a clue where she’d ran off to. They’d have to find her, they’d have to know that they wouldn’t burn down the house and the vamps weren’t hidden away somewhere to just come loose at night and rebuild. They had to be sure. So they had to find Meg. Ayden had shot a guy. He was trying not to think about it. But he couldn’t get the bartender’s wide eyes and bleeding face out of his mind and it was almost worse than any vision he’d ever had because this one was true and he’d been the monster killing the guy. He was feeling light headed and dizzy and he was following Johnny like a lost puppy. His leg was absolutely throbbing and the broken plaster of his cast made it hard because he felt like he could just slip his foot out of the cast if he wanted to. They’d have to make a stop at the hospital. Ayden hated hospitals. His hand came up absently to rub at the small silver cross he wore around his neck. Johnny had a twin one, the ones Ashley Baker gave to them before they’d come out this way. Crosses didn’t do any good against vampires, but they worked against other things, surprisingly. Ghouls, sometimes demons, religious fanatics who didn’t like their leather wearing gun toting attitudes, those sort of things. Ayden felt like praying because he’d shot a guy. They weren’t really sure how this Godsent business worked, other than Johnny said words and Ayden saw images. They knew that part, but they didn’t know where it came from or who was behind it or what the point of it was. The visions seemed to lessen when they went out and killed bad things. If they didn’t, the visions became so frequent and excruciating that Ayden was certain he’d have gone insane by now. He didn’t know if they were doing God’s will or if the powers were some other fucked up psycho’s way of messing with them. But Ayden had just shot a guy, in cold blood, and he hadn’t been a monster, just a guy, and he felt like praying. “Fuck,” Johnny said through the cigarette in his mouth. It wasn’t lit, because he was held a gas can in his hands, but sometimes he just needed to have a smoke on his lips. Ayden looked over at his brother, who was messing with a door that they hadn’t seen earlier. It was locked from the inside and Johnny looked over at Ayden. “Hold this,” he said and held out the gas can. Ayden limped over without question and took the gas can, hugging it to his chest. He watched his brother bring out his trusty screwdriver and start to jimmy the door open. Ayden’s eyes strayed to the body still lying near the front door. His eyes were dull and sunken and blood was drying on the floor. Ayden wondered what his name was. The locked door popped open and Johnny pulled out his sword, just in case there was a Meg or someone as equally beautiful but deadly behind it. He frowned when he poked his head around the door and saw stairs leading into a cellar. He pulled the door open all the way and started down the stairs, glancing back once at Ayden as he followed after his brother. Johnny’s sword glinted off a dull overhead light that came on when he flicked a switch at the bottom of the stairs. There were rows of coffins in the cellar. Most of them looked like coffins and Ayden actually quirked a brow when he saw a few of them were decorated with frills and pink bows and other girly things. Johnny snorted. “Well hello, sleeping beauties,” he said. He shoved his sword back into its sheath on his back and took the gas can back from Ayden without asking permission. He began to douse the coffins in gasoline. They had to hurry, because there had been people outside who had seen them come in here and maybe the cops were already on the way. “Get back to the car,” Johnny said as he finished dousing the last coffin and then threw the gas can down, pulling the lighter out of his pocket. He looked back at Ayden when he made no move to go. “When I light this and your cast catches on fire you’re not going to like it.” Ayden appreciated the attempt, but he couldn’t even force a smile onto his face. “Maybe I deserve it,” he said and didn’t know where it came from. He just couldn’t get that guy’s dead eyes out of his mind. Johnny’s face darkened a little as he eyed him. “Get your ass back to the car and don’t for a second think that we won’t talk about what you just said later,” he growled and then looked back at the coffins. “What if he was right?” Ayden cried out and Johnny whirled back to look at him, anger burning across his face. Ayden didn’t give him time to yell at him. “What if that guy was right and they’re just trying to make a living and only taking what they need? What if there was just one bad seed and she’s gone now and we should just go and leave them alone? What if they’re not monsters?” “Do you really fucking believe that?” Johnny asked. “I…” Johnny cut him off before he could continue. “No you don’t fucking believe that. You know why? Because you wouldn’t have seen this place in your head if we weren’t meant to come here and kill some bitches. You know what, why don’t you tell that guy who got his dick bit off that these whores aren’t monsters, they’re just trying to make a living. Fuck you, Ayden. Fuck you and go wait in the goddamn car.” Ayden felt his temper flare. “That guy who got his dick bit off is dead, Johnny.” “Yeah, well, so are a lot of people.” Johnny’s words stung like he’d just slapped him in the face. He watched his brother turn and light the cigarette and take a stiff and deep drag of it before letting the smoke blow out his nose. Ayden watched and saw the moment his brother realized what he’d just said. He didn’t want to give him time to apologize, because his brother was right. He’d just fucking shot someone and they couldn’t save that guy last night and how many other people had to die because of them? Ayden felt tears sting at his eyes and he turned, abruptly, hobbling his way back up the stairs so his brother wouldn’t see him cry. “Fuck, Ayden,” Johnny called as he turned and saw him limping up the steps. “I didn’t mean it like that.” “Yeah you did,” Ayden snapped back down to him and opened the door at the top of the stairs. “God, dammit,” Johnny’s voice rang up and he turned to flick his cigarette to the ground. Ayden heard his brother’s footsteps on the stairs, chasing up after him because he knew that Johnny always hated hurting Ayden’s feelings. But Johnny never made it up the stairs as a sudden scream shook the entire house and he heard his brother grunt and then hit the stairs and roll down them. Ayden whirled and looked back down at his brother. Meg was there, straddling Johnny with her hands around his neck. She was almost healed from the bullet wounds. The room was bursting into flames around them and she was pinning Johnny awkwardly to the ground. He saw his brother trying to reach for the sword at his back and Ayden could see the coffin lids opening behind them as the fire spread and engulfed them. Growling – because god dammit he had shot someone today because of these bitches and he’d been made Meg’s little bitch before that and he was fucking sick of these god damn vampires and their slutty whorehouse – he flew down the stairs as fast as his gimp ass could and when he was right above them, he grabbed onto the railing on either side and jerked his upper body to a halt while he let his legs swing out in front of him. He felt his cast and boot connect with Meg’s head and she was falling off of his brother and into the flames. Johnny was quick to sit up, coughing because he’d been strangled, again, and because the room was quickly filling with smoke. But he was quick and alert and he withdrew the sword and swung it at Meg, who had gained her feet and was running back at them, her skin on fire and melting even as they watched. Johnny cut off her head with one swipe. Behind her, her sisters screamed bloody murder and then charged. .Wolfie. Alice was the first to reach him and her hair was on fire in a burning orange halo above her head. He kicked her in the stomach, knocking her back into her sister and sending them both tumbling to the ground in a tangle of limbs and flames. He spared Ayden only a second, shoving his brother up the stairs. “Go,” he snarled at him, backing up them behind him. He held the sword loosely in front of him, waiting for the next bitch to come charging out of her coffin.Smoke was curling up into the ceiling already, thick and black and he grinned around the cigarette because half of them were already burning. He could see one on the far end trying to scramble out of her coffin, her blonde hair already singed away to ash as the flames ate away at her skull. It would have been sad if he didn’t see her mouth split open in a scream, sharp teeth gnashing in the firelight. Her hands were curled into claws as she tried to drag her way from the coffin that was swiftly becoming her second grave and he couldn’t find it in him to feel guilty. “More your ass,” he snapped at his brother, backing up the stairs. Trish came at him in a charge, ducking under the first swing and hitting him in the gut. He went down and felt one of the stairs crack under him. He felt fire singing the skin on his arm and he bit back a yell, shoving his boot into her stomach and pushing hard. She stumbled back a foot. It was just enough for him to swing the sword out and cut clean through her spinal column. Blood gushed out of the fresh wound, splattering his face and his shirt and then he was scrambling up the stairs behind Ayden. “Go, go, go,” he snarled, pushing his brother through the doorway and slamming it shut behind him. Something slammed into the door from the other side, but he held it shut. Smoke was pouring out from underneath it and he could hear screaming echoing up the stairway. He had burnt his hand on the doorknob when he slammed it shut but he kept the weight on it, even as it jerked and rattled against his hand. “Wanna find me a fucking desk or something?” he snapped over his shoulder at Ayden. His brother was wavering on his feet and he’d just been standing there, staring at the door with a glazed expression. At Johnny’s words he snapped out of it, gaze going to his brother’s face and then he was dragging the desk out of the office. They were both pretending the body on the floor wasn’t there. They didn’t look at it and didn’t acknowledge it, Ayden because he felt guilty for it and Johnny because he didn’t want to bring his brother’s attention back to it. He believed his brother had done the right thing because that was what Ayden needed him to believe and so he would tell him until the day he died that there was nothing else he could have done. He took a drag from his cigarette and focused on holding the door shut. The room was filling quickly with smoke, so Johnny helped his brother jam desk firmly against the door and then they were heading for the exit. He heard the door rattle and bang as they tried to escape, but even if they could, there was nowhere to go. The afternoon sun was bright and shining outside and Johnny couldn’t help but feel a burning sense of relief as they stumbled out of the smoky whorehouse into the street. He spit the cigarette out of his lips, tossing the weapons into the back seat of the car. He could hear shouting and he glanced up briefly. There were people pouring out of their houses onto the sidewalk, staring and pointing. They didn’t look like they wanted to get anywhere near the building or the two bloodied and battered men who had come pouring out of it. If they had been considering it, the shotgun still cradled in his brother’s arms probably changed their minds. Ayden had stopped, glancing over his shoulder at the burning building and the limp hand they could still see through the doorway. “Just go,” Johnny told him. He shoved his brother at the car and jumped into the driver’s seat. He could hear sirens somewhere in the distance and he gunned the car backwards, feeling it jerk and whine under his lead foot. “Hold on,” he told his brother, whipping it around in the worst fucking u-turn ever made. He ran it half up onto the sidewalk when he wrenched it around and he heard people shout as they dived out of the way. Then he was stepping on the gas and getting the Hell out of Dodge as fast as he could. “Fuck this town,” he muttered, glancing in his rearview mirror only once. Flames licked at the sky and smoke poured out in a dark cloud. He hoped every single one of those bitches burned. Ayden didn’t say anything, staring out the window with a dull expression on his face. He was sinking back down into that dark melancholy and Johnny didn’t like it one fucking bit. He pulled over a truck stop and then he had his brother’s arm wrenched around his back and he was shoving him into the door. Ayden cried out at the sudden move. “What the fuck are you doing you fucking asshole?” he demanded, trying to look over his shoulder. “You listen to me,” Johnny snarled at his face. He kept his brother pinned against the door so that he was sure the little bastard was listening because he didn’t want to have to say it again. His brother winced as the pressure on his shoulder increased and he knew if he didn’t calm down in a second then he would be dislocating his brother’s shoulder. “If you ever, ever fucking imply that you would be better off dead, I will beat your sorry ass so far into the ground that they’ll be digging your head out of China. Those bitches deserve to burn. Don’t ever think for a second that you deserve to be down there with them. You hear me Ayden?” “Yeah, yeah, I fucking hear you,” he snapped. Johnny released him as suddenly as he’d grabbed him, slumping back in his seat. “Well good,” he said. “Because it feels a little unfair beating up on a cripple.” Ayden glanced at him with one raised eyebrow as he rubbed feeling back into his wrist. Johnny stared back at him, digging a cigarette out of his pack and not even lighting it, just keeping it there between his lips because then he wasn’t yelling at his brother. He wasn’t telling him that he was one of the only fucking decent people left on the planet, one of two people that he would ever admit to loving, and the one man he’d want at his back in a fight. He didn’t say any of this, and even if he did it would probably end up with Johnny having to clean up the dashboard and he hated cleaning puke out of a car. So he didn’t say any of it out loud. “The fuck are you staring at?” Ayden asked him. “God damned faggot.” Johnny just smiled. † † † Ayden lay bleeding on the floor. He was black and blue and purple from all the fists and boots that had struck him, over and over again. Johnny heard him groan and try to stand up, blood pouring his lip and his skull where the boots had split the skin open. Pops was mad because he hadn’t come home in three days because Johnny had driven him over to Phoenix to kill a fucking werewolf only there was no way to explain any of this to his father because he just didn’t care. He had his shotgun in his hand and he was drunk and he was pissed. Johnny stood in the doorway, Annie behind him with a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God,” she whispered, and then she was pushing past him, kneeling at Ayden’s side. His father snarled something unintelligible and then he was striking Annie across her mouth, sending her into the ground next to his brother. “You get the fuck away from them,” Johnny shouted at his father. His hands were clenched into fists at his side. The old man brought the butt of the shotgun down on his head. Johnny heard the crack and felt pain lance through his skull. He hadn’t realized he had fallen until he looked up from hands and knees and saw the old bastard raising his gun to his shoulder and he was screaming at Ayden. “Get up! Get up you useless psycho fucker! You want to leave this house? You want to pack your shit and leave then you stand up and you fucking say it to me like a man.” Ayden struggled to get on his knees. He wrapped a hand around his stomach as he looked up at his father. He couldn’t make it to his feet and they all knew that. Annie was sitting up and there was a bruise on her face and it was almost as bruised as her eyes and Johnny was so pissed he couldn’t breathe and his father was pointing a gun at Ayden. A sneer crossed his face as he looked down through drunken eyes at his youngest son. “Just as fucking useless and stupid as your mother,” he said. Johnny saw his father start to squeeze the trigger. Then he was launching himself off the ground. He heard the gunshot go off anyway and he heard Ayden’s sharp cry as it struck him in the shoulder and jerked him backwards. Blood splattered on the wall and he heard Annie screaming and then he was hitting his father in the face as hard as he could. The old man’s face snapped backwards and he heard his nose crack under the hit. Then the gun whipped around and clocked him in the side of the head again. He hit the wall hard and then his father was bringing the butt of it down on his temple again and again. Stars exploded in his vision and all he could hear was Annie screaming and Ayden wasn’t saying anything and he hoped his little brother was alive. Then the beating stopped and he heard his father’s heavy boots make their way across the room. He saw the barrel lift his little brother’s chin up. He saw his father’s finger tighten on the trigger. He saw his brother’s eyes, swollen shut and blind with pain. He heard Annie screaming. “Die,” he whispered. And his father did. Wenston Session #3 : The Sound of Madness There was some trivia game show on television that Ayden was watching half-heartedly because he could give a fuck that a dude name Blaise Pascal created the game of Roulette. As freaking cool as that tidbit of information was, when the hell would he ever use it? He wouldn’t, that’s when. And he didn’t know or understand why other people would know this information or care enough about it to watch a television show based on stupid random facts. Although the people who went on these shows and won a lot of money seemed to think it was a good idea. Hell, maybe he was in the wrong professional. They never got paid for doing the things they did. Ayden sighed and glanced at the remote that lay on the other side of the room. Johnny sat a table over there, smoking and cleaning his guns. Johnny had been more moody and broody as of late and Ayden didn’t like it. He knew why, but he also knew that when Johnny was being a bitch, he could be a bitch. Like big time. And it usually ended up with them fighting and hurting each other’s feelings and god damn they were like a freaking married couple. But Johnny always got moody around Annie’s birthday. “Hey, give me the remote,” he called to his brother and received a sidelong glance in response. “I don’t see the cast on your leg anymore,” Johnny drawled and Ayden sneered because he’d had his cast taken off a few weeks ago. “Get up and get it your fucking self.” Ayden pointed to the remote, which was literally inches from where Johnny was sitting. “It’s right there,” he whined. “Too fucking bad,” Johnny said around his cigarette. He leaned back in his chair, furthering himself from the remote and watched Ayden as he cleaned his gun. Ayden narrowed his eyes and stared at him, but didn’t move to get up from his prone position on the bed. He was comfortable, damn it. Threading his fingers together and lacing them behind his bed, he crossed his legs at the ankles and just continued to stare at his brother. “Did you know that Hugh Hefner served as circulation manager for Children’s Activities magazine to raise money so he could launch Playboy?” Ayden spewed off a random fact. Johnny raised an eyebrow. “No shit,” he snorted. Ayden tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Did you know that Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison and George Patton were all dyslexic?” Johnny frowned. “What are you, a fucking Encyclopedia now?” Nodding his head towards the television, Ayden said, “It’s the show. Give me the remote or I’ll keep giving you stupid trivia.” His brother lowered the gun so it was resting in his lap and was eyeing Ayden like he’d just issued a challenge. Ayden tried to keep the smile off his face because Johnny was being sucked right into the game and it made Ayden feel good to see that playful look back on his brother’s face. They hadn’t been given much of a break lately. Ayden had been having visions for the past few weeks, but there hadn’t been enough in the visions to tell them where to go. Even Ashley Baker had been a little stumped. He’d given them some possibilities of where to go, but when they’d gone to check it out, they hadn’t found anything. So the visions kept coming. And they kept getting stronger and each time one came it hurt Ayden and pissed off Johnny. “I’m not giving you the remote,” Johnny said defiantly. “Did you know that P.T. Barnum’s elephant, Jumbo, ate two hundred pounds of hay every day?” Johnny scoffed. “Who the fuck would know that shit?” Ayden pointed to the television. “That guy,” he said as the contestant came back on the screen. “You know what else he knows?” “Jesus Fucking Christ.” Johnny stood and grabbed the remote, flinging it with intent to kill at Ayden. “Nope, but he does know that the first Siamese twins ever born were named Chang and Eng and they were born in 1811 and were joined together at the chest.” Johnny paused in his gun cleaning to look mortified. “That would suck.” Ayden nodded. “You see, our lives could be worse.” “You got the remote, now change the fucking channel.” Johnny pointed to the television. Looking down at the remote, Ayden pouted slightly and then looked back at his brother. “Why? This is sorta fun.” Johnny looked like he was seriously about to aim the gun at Ayden and he contemplated a moment the wisdom behind pissing his brother off while he had a gun in his hand and he was in a bitch mood. There may not be much wisdom behind it, but it was fun as hell. All Johnny had to do was tilt his head and give Ayden a look and Ayden laughed. “Alright!” he said, rolling his head lazily to the side and flipping through the channels. “Just find something good here…ah!” he grinned and set the remote down. One of the channels was playing the Wizard of Oz. Johnny glanced up from the gun and shook his head. “Change the channel,” he said and the humor was gone from his voice. Ayden frowned at looked over at him. “Why?” “Just change the channel.” “But this is a good movie. I haven’t seen it in-” Johnny’s hand slammed down onto the table and Ayden actually jumped because he didn’t know what he’d done to actually piss off his brother. “That’s her favorite movie, now fucking change it,” Johnny hissed and didn’t lean back or continue cleaning his guns until Ayden picked up the remote and turned the television off. Johnny glared at him a moment, his eyes softening before he looked away and back at the gun he had cleaned nine million times. Ayden watched him for a second. Taking a deep breath because he knew he was about to open a can of worms, Ayden let it out slowly and said, “Maybe we could find her.” “Ayden, don’t fucking start,” Johnny snapped, throwing the gun down on the table and leaning back in his chair, glaring daggers at his brother. “I just meant, maybe we could-” Johnny stood and grabbed his jacket that was slung over the chair. “When you had your vision about her, did you see where she was?” Ayden gulped and shook his head because this was the first time they’d talked about his death vision of Annie. He was kind of surprised that Johnny hadn’t brought it up before, but maybe his brother had just been avoiding it. Or maybe he didn’t want to face the fact that Annie could be in danger. At Ayden’s head shake, Johnny asked, “Do you have any clue when it was taking place?” Ayden shook his head again, afraid to make a sound. “Do you even know how to fucking get a hold of her, Ayden?” “Maybe Ashley could-” Johnny practically roared as he shoved a gun into his belt and headed for the door. “Fuck you, we’re not doing this right now.” Ayden frowned and sat up on the bed. “Where are you going?” he asked, trying not to sound panicked. “Out.” “Johnny, I-” “Just fucking shut up.” And then the door slammed behind Johnny and Ayden was sitting alone in the motel room. He looked around, frowning and then his eyes went back to the door like Johnny might pop back in and yell April Fool’s! But he didn’t and Ayden sighed, running his hand over his face. God, he should have just kept his mouth shut about Annie. He didn’t want to tell Johnny, but a couple weeks ago he’d called Ashley and had asked him about her. Ashley had given him shit about it, but he’d insisted he just wanted to know if she was okay. Ashley had said yes and Ayden had been able to sleep a little better after that. He should have told Johnny. He should have told his brother that he was talking to Ashley about Annie and that she was okay and Ashley would tell them if she wasn’t. But he didn’t because his stupid moron of a brother stormed out of the room whenever she was mentioned. Standing up, Ayden thought about following after his brother. He actually pulled on his shoes and stood in the middle of the room, feeling torn about whether to chase after him or just wait for him to come back. He chewed his bottom lip and looked to the ceiling like the answer would be written there. “God, stupid asshole,” he grit out and took a step towards the door. The vision hit him so hard it made his nose bleed. Then he was convulsing on the ground. † † † There was a boy. He was standing in the middle of a room, but it was dark. He was crying, sobbing, screaming and the sound was wrenching from his throat like he was dying. He wore a white jacket. His eyes were bleeding. The monsters came then, while the boy was screaming. All types of monsters. Ghouls, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, anything and everything that the world had ever deemed Wicked were coming at the boy all at once and he screamed as they tore his soul to shreds and his eyes and his ears and his nose and his mouth were all bleeding but he still stood in the middle of them all. And then Ayden was there. And he could see himself standing in front of the boy while the monsters tore into him. Then both the Ayden from the vision and the screaming boy turned their heads and their peered into Ayden’s soul as he was convulsing on the floor. He watched their eyes melt out of their sockets and their ears and nose and mouth bleed away. The boy’s mouth opened so wide his jaw snapped. Then he was reached to take the Ayden in the vision’s hand and the two turned their backs and were skewered by the monsters. Then the vision was over. .Wolfie. “We must be up inside the cyclone!”Annie grinned and curled against his side on the couch, her face pressed against his chest. “I love this movie,” she told him, a contented smile on her face. She reached for the bowl of popcorn, her fingers just brushing the side of the bowl before Johnny held it out of her reach. She stuck her tongue out at him, stretching over his chest to try and grab it and instead she got his arms wrapped around her, rolling her over on the couch. “You’re gonna have to earn it,” he told her, smiling as he kissed her. She laughed, slapping him lightly in the chest. Her brown hair was quickly becoming a tangled mess and he smoothed a hand through it as he looked down at her face. Her eyes were bright and happy but she was shaking her head at him all the same. “You’re a terrible boyfriend. You’re making me miss the movie,” she said, mock glaring at him. “This is my favorite movie you know, and you’re making me miss it on my birthday.” “I know,” he said, and he was grinning as he kissed her again. “Never understood why you liked it so much, though.” She laughed. “Really? It’s because of this part. Watch,” she told him. He sighed, rolling them both back over so that they could see the screen. Dorothy’s house was whirling somewhere up in the sepia colored storm, and then it was dropping to the ground with a crash. Dorothy stood up slowly, heading carefully for the door and then Annie’s fingers were tightening around his side and he glanced down at her. There was a pure, childlike grin on her face and he ran a hand through her hair as he studied her. She glanced up at him and smiled. “You’re not watching.” He smiled and looked back at the screen where Dorothy was pulling open the door to a technicolor world. “You see that?” Annie asked him, and her face was pressed into his chest again, a contented sigh pulling its way from her lips. “This right here is what I love about it. You see this girl, and she’s got this normal boring life, in her normal boring house, and then one day bam, she gets hit on the head and when she opens the door again, the whole world is different. It’s bright and colorful and yeah, it’s a little scary, but it’s like this place could’ve been there the whole time and she never knew it.” He laughed, tightening his arms around her. “So you’re Dorothy then, aren’t you?” She blushed, turning her head up to his. Her lips brushed his and then she sat back with a smile on her face. “Yeah, I guess that’s it. I’m Dorothy and this whole Godsent business is the tornado.” Then she dropped back down to his chest, fingers playing at the edge of his shirt. “Let’s see… that would make Ayden the scarecrow. Love the kid, but he’s not so bright sometimes.” Johnny couldn’t help but laugh. “You would be my heartless tin man, and I guess Ashley can be the lion, since I’ve never seen him lift a finger to actually fight.” Johnny frowned, fingers still playing with her hair. “Why am I the tin man? I’ve got a heart.” She laughed, fist rapping at his chest. “Yeah, somewhere in there, maybe.” He groaned, rolling her over and pressing her back down into the couch. “Now that’s not fair darlin’. Why do I have to be the tin man? Why can’t I be Toto?” His lips moved over hers in a kiss that traveled around her chin to her neck. She sighed and tilted her head back for him and then his hands were sliding down her side. “Toto doesn’t get left behind. Toto never leaves Dorothy’s side no matter where she is.” She laughed. “Toto always gets her into trouble.” “See?” he said grinning. “Perfect. † † † He bought a pack of cigarettes and a coffee at the gas station and at that point he was staring to feel a little bad about the whole thing. He sat on the sidewalk outside it and drank the coffee and smoked two cigarettes while he stared off into the street. Cars drove by in a steady stream, and he wondered where those people were going. He wondered if they were going to their normal jobs and their normal lives, if they were soccer moms driving their kids to school or if they were businessmen trying to get home on time for their son’s baseball game. He wasn’t jealous of their lives, because most of them would die filled with regrets and wondering if they could have done something different. Most of them would work a shitty job just to earn their 401k and maybe retire and not lose their house and their mortgage. Johnny couldn’t picture himself in that kind of life, but then it had never been an option for him, ever since he’d told that freight train to stop when he was thirteen. He had a purpose in his life. He knew how it was going to end too. Probably face down in a puddle of his blood. The only thing he was jealous of was that they didn’t have to make choices that got people killed. They didn’t have to wake up sweating in the middle of the night because they’d had a dream about a fucking snake with four mouths eating them alive. They didn’t have to worry about their brother going crazy because of the horrible visions in his mind. They didn’t have to wonder if maybe there was a way they could have saved their child when their girlfriend miscarried and he bit down hard on the cigarette and felt his mouth fill with ash and smoke. He coughed and spit out into the gutter. He wondered if he should tell Ayden and he knew as soon as he thought it that the answer was no. He knew how his brother would handle it. He would take the responsibility all on himself like he always did because Ayden had at some point gotten it in the back of his mind that he was holding Johnny back. It was all fucking bullshit of course, because Johnny was the one who had put the visions in his head in the first place and if anyone should feel like a prize asshole it was him. If he’d just sucked it up and died like he should have, none of this would have happened. Maybe his brother could’ve had a normal life. Maybe he could have moved out or gone to college or settled down with a nice girl because Johnny wanted him to find a nice girl. He wanted those things for his brother and he didn’t think either of them would get to have them because they had to drive across the fucking country looking for demons and ghouls and vampires and shooting people in the head because they had gotten sloppy. He drained the last of his coffee and threw it in the trash, shoving his hands in his pocket as he started to head back to the hotel. Ayden’s latest visions kept getting worse. They couldn’t figure out where they were taking place, and that meant they couldn’t fix it. Even Ashley fucking Baker, the man with all the answers, didn’t know what to tell them to look for. He was stumped and that meant they were fucked until they either got lucky or Ayden convinced Johnny to just look him in the eye and tell him with the voice of God to tell him where the kid they were looking for was. He didn’t want to do that because it would probably just give his brother a worse vision and he hated using his power when he didn’t need to. Still, if Ayden kept getting worse, he might just have to. He sighed and stuck another cigarette in between his lips and he hated to admit it but he was getting worse too. He knew he was being a miserable prick but he was trying not to think about Annie and trying not to miss her but it was her birthday and he felt the ache spreading through his limbs and choking off the breath in his throat. He had loved her, and he had never told her, and never helped her when she had asked him and he deserved to lose her. He deserved to be alone and fucking miserable and he hated himself and he hated that she had left and he had just fucking stood there. He wondered where she was. He wondered what she was doing or who she was doing and he hated that thought because he didn’t want to imagine Annie moving on either. He wanted her to be happy but he didn’t want her to be in love because he couldn’t get over her and it didn’t seem fair that she could get over him. It was a stupid thing to think and he knew it but it festered in his gut anyway until he was pissed and miserable and just wanted to lash out at someone. Ayden was usually that lucky someone and he kicked a trashcan out of his way because he was pissed. He missed her. He missed her every god damned day. Ayden missed her too, but he just couldn’t get himself to open his mouth and tell him what had happened. He was his little brother and his best friend but he didn’t need to hear how Johnny had fucked up because Johnny was supposed to be the one that made everything better. He would tell Johnny that he was fucking stupid because he was and that he had let the one girl get away because he was a coward and couldn’t just say the words for him. He wondered what their son would have looked like. Johnny was still too pissed to go back to the motel but he did anyway because he hated leaving his brother alone too long. Bad things happened when they were separated, like Ayden getting bit by a stupid fucking vampire after he had sex with it. He couldn’t hold his brother down so that he didn’t hurt himself when the visions hit and he couldn’t shoot witches in the face when they were choking him to death, so he went back to the room, opening the door and bracing himself for another fight. Ayden was just sitting on the floor, blood trickling from the corner of his lips and his nose. His arms were wrapped around his knees that were pulled tightly up to his chest and his face was pale and drawn. He looked at Johnny’s face and then swallowed hard and looked at the ground and Johnny felt like an asshole all over again because he couldn’t help but get pissed when Annie’s name came up. He didn’t want to fucking talk about it with Ayden and he didn’t want to fucking think about it because it still hurt like a bitch. “I had another vision,” Ayden told him, and he was staring at the ground. Johnny sighed and slumped down to the ground next to him, lighting a fourth cigarette up. “What about?” he asked him. Ayden kicked at the carpet and he didn’t look like he want to talk about it but this was what they did and even if he hated Johnny right now, Johnny was the one who was supposed to make everything fucking better. “There was a boy, all in white,” he said. His hands were shaking and reached out to take the cigarette from his brother and take a slow drag. It made him cough and then he was handing it back to his brother. “He was being ripped apart by monsters, and then they turned on me.” Johnny sighed, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “Any idea where?” he said. Ayden shook his head and then he glanced up at Johnny’s face, as if waiting for him to go into asshole mode again. He swallowed thick and relaxed a little, letting his knees unfold. He stretched out the previously broken leg and sometimes Johnny thought it still hurt him a little bit because there was no fucking way that thing had healed properly with all the shit his brother had pulled. “No,” he told him, shaking his head again. “No clue. But it fucking hurt like a bitch.” He sighed, tipping his head over to look at Johnny. “Will you just fucking ask me already? Before it gets worse?” Johnny grumbled something low in his throat, and then he was flicking ash out onto the carpet. “I really don’t want to.” Ayden rolled his eyes. “I know you don’t. But I’ve already got a nose bleed and I don’t want to see what it does to me next time.” Johnny growled and he stubbed the cigarette out on the floor. It left a black burn on the carpet and he didn’t really care because people had probably left worse shit in this god damn motel room. Then he turned, putting a hand on back of his brother’s head and pressing his forehead to his. He grit the words out from between his teeth and he wasn’t excited about doing this or what the effect on Ayden would be, but they had to do something. “Show me where the boy is,” he said, and then it hit him like the fucking freight train. Wenston “Do you fucking know where it’s at or not?” Ayden sighed and rolled his head to the side to eye his brother. Johnny was sitting at the table, phone in one hand and a bloody towel in the other that he kept pressing to his eyebrow, which was split and still bleeding lightly. Johnny might need stitches, but Ayden doubted his brother would actually let him do them. He doubted if he’d be able to, his hands were shaking so much. Ayden himself was sprawled out on the bed again, holding a towel full of ice to his temple. He’d head-butted his brother when Johnny had forced the vision on the both of them. They’d both been a little stunned afterwards, Johnny because he wasn’t used to the pain of visions, or the head-butting, and Ayden because he wasn’t used to the severity of having someone force visions into his head. It felt wrong and draining and he still felt like his head was mush. Johnny sighed loudly into the phone and Ayden couldn’t help but smile because he knew that Ashley must be giving his brother a hard time. He was leaning against the table, his eyes closed as he dabbed the towel against his brow. “Yeah, Kentucky.” There was a pause as Ashley asked a question on the other line. “Because all the cars in the parking lot had Kentucky license plates.” Another pause. “Well, yeah, we got a pretty clear fucking picture of the place.” One more pause. “Yeah, he’s alright.” Johnny’s eyes opened and glanced at Ayden on the bed, as if he needed to convince himself of his own words. Ayden snorted and rolled his head back towards the window. He stared out at the clear blue sky outside and listened to the wind squeak its way through the wooden frame of the window. Yeah, he was alright. They were both alright. The vision had been awful. Johnny had forced him to share the vision, and they’d both seen the building with the flowering trees out front. The sign that read, “Hector Vasquez Memorial Hospital” and the old brick building that stood ghastly and condemning behind it. Then Ayden had head-butted his brother and Johnny had sank back, dazed from the vision and the blow, while Ayden sunk into the normal routine of convulsions and death visions on the floor. They seemed worse this time. And they didn’t make sense. The boy was there again and there were a million different monsters coming at him, tearing him apart. But he never died and the vision was so damn abstract that Ayden didn’t know what to make of it. “No, I don’t know what we’re up against,” Johnny was saying into the phone. “It’s the same shit with that kid being torn apart by a hundred different monsters.” He paused. “Yeah, I still have your fucking sword. And the shotgun. And the holy water. Jesus Christ, yes mom, I have the fucking rock salt.” Ayden laughed slightly because he knew what Ashley was trying to do. There were so many monsters in the visions, so many Wicked things that they really didn’t know what they’d find when they got there. The only plan they had was to find the boy and save him before the monsters showed up. They’d figure something out from there. Johnny tensed and leaned back in the chair, lowering the bloody towel down to his side. He was frowning and grinding his jaw and looked like he wanted to jump through the phone and strangle the man on the other end. “I know it’s her fucking birthday,” he grit out. “Fuck you.” Then he slammed the phone down and kicked the table. Ayden watched him for a second while Johnny chewed on a fingernail and regarded the far wall with the intensity of a stalker. After a moment he seemed to realize he wasn’t alone and turned to look at Ayden, who lowered the ice from his head so he could see his brother better. Johnny sighed and leaned forward. “Clay Canyon, Kentucky,” he said. “That’s where the hospital is?” Ayden asked and they both ignored how tired and raspy his voice was. “No, I just made up a random city name to piss you off,” Johnny climbed to his feet. “Of course that’s where the fucking hospital is. “That’s a long drive,” Ayden said and tried to hide the wince as he sat up. If Johnny saw it, he didn’t say anything. “Eighteen hours,” Johnny moved to the other bed and started stuffing his things into his duffle bag. Ayden swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. But he waivered half way up and if it wasn’t for Johnny shooting a hand out to steady him, he would have sunk to the floor. Instead, he sat back down on the bed, sighed, and tried again. This time he managed to make it to his feet and stay there. He headed to grab his own things. “Ashley said he’d try to get some information on the place, let us know if he can figure out what we’re dealing with.” “Aw, you’re not excited to fight a hundred different kind of baddies?” Ayden asked, heading to the bathroom to grab the stuff he’d left in there. “Uh, no,” Johnny said as he slung his duffle over his shoulder and waited for Ayden to finish up. He grabbed some of Ayden’s stuff off the bed and started to help him pack it up. “Not high on my list of things to do.” Ayden grinned as he emerged from the bathroom and finished packing his stuff away. He picked up the duffle and look to Johnny. “Maybe we should get a machine gun.” Johnny snorted. “Hey why not some hand grenades and an A-bomb while we’re at it.” “I’m serious,” Ayden said as Johnny shoved him towards the door. “I know you are.” Johnny laughed. “Call you fucking Rambo.” † † † The hallway was empty. The lights were flickering above him as he stood in hospital scrubs and a t-shirt. There were bandages around his wrists to hide the razor’s artwork and his feet were bare. He took a step. The door to his right opened and inside was a vampire. It laughed and slaughtered a girl and the door closed before he screaming ended. He took another step. The door to his left opened and there was a ghoul sucking on the fingers of a corpseless arm like it was a lollipop. It looked up and growled and the door closed as it leapt. He took a third step. The lights went out and he froze because the hallway was pitch black and all around him he heard howls and screams and gasps and groans and whispers. He felt hot breath on his neck and claws catch at his clothes, but nothing ever hurt him, nothing ever touched him. The light at the end of the hallway came on and the boy was standing there. The light flickered out and when it came on again, he was standing right in front of him. He had nowhere to go, no room to retreat to because a million monsters were snarling at his back while this child stood in front of him. He could hear their jaws snapping and their tongues lapping and their claws clapping. He stared at the boy and the boy stared back. “I know what you are,” the boy said. “Godsent.” He heard himself say the word and it made the monsters cringe and scream and yell. The boy tilted his head. “You’re coming to save me.” “Yes.” The boy motioned him closer and he bent so his face was near the child’s. The boy reached out a hand, but didn’t touch him. It ghosted over his face and then the boy stopped and bent closer, their noses almost touching. “I see you.” The boy snapped his fingers and the monsters were unleashed. † † † Ayden jerked away with a yell and he heard Johnny swear because it had been silent in the car until Ayden woke up and startled him. Ayden ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and tried to will away the remaints of the nightmare he’d just gone through. It wasn’t a vision, there’d been no convulsing, but it had been terrifying all the same. Johnny remained quiet in the driver’s seat, letting Ayden have a moment to collect himself. Finally, Ayden ground out a tired, “Shit,” because the nightmare had been fucking scary. Johnny cleared his throat and flicked his cigarette out the window before glancing at his little brother. “Take it you weren’t dreaming about Megan Fox.” Ayden pulled his hands away from his face and laid his head back against the seat, rolling it towards Johnny and frowning. “Who?” Johnny glanced over at him, eyebrow raised and had to do a double take to make sure he wasn’t messing with him. “The Transformers chick?” Johnny asked and Ayden just shook his head and shrugged. “Man, we’ve got to get you out more. You’re like a fucking old lady.” Johnny glanced at him again. “Cover you in cat piss and we’ll call you Mary Carol.” Ayden frowned, thinking about the name. His eyes widened as he realized who his brother was talking about. “The cat lady that used to live down the street?” “That’s the one.” “Fuck you, I’m not like her,” Ayden spat. Johnny chuckled deep in his chest. “Oh yeah you are. One in the same.” “You know she came at me with a broom once?” Johnny outright laughed at that. “See? Soul mates.” Ayden huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, stretching his feet down beneath the dashboard. They were almost to Little Rock, about half way to Clay Canyon. “Fuck you, if I’m Mary Carol, then you’re that guy that used to get drunk and pass out by the river.” His brother had the balls to grin. “What? I liked that guy. He bought me booze once.” Ayden sighed and rolled onto his side, closing his eyes again because he was still tired. “Whatever, I’m going back to sleep. Wake me up when you decide to feed us.” “What, I have to feed you now? Man, it’s like having a pet dog around. Next thing you know you’ll be asking to go on a walk so you can take a shit on the sidewalk.” “If you want I could hump your leg afterwards.” “You stay the fuck on your side of the car.” Ayden just laughed. .Wolfie. Johnny was having a dream.In his dream he was standing outside the Hector Vasquez Memorial Hospital, and he was seeing it in sepia tones like the beginning of the Wizard of Oz. All the sound was filtered and distant but he thought he could hear a tornado somewhere in the distance. He walked towards the front door and opened it wide. There was a nurse at the desk and a doctor and a patient walking down the hallway but they froze when he opened the door. They turned slowly around and their eyes were black and empty. He swallowed hard but didn’t say anything, and then they turned and kept walking. Someone was singing. It drifted down the hall and it echoed off the doors and the walls that looked yellow and aged to him. He could hear his boots echoing on the linoleum and he realized he was scared. There was sweat trickling down the back of his neck and when he wiped it away it was pale and yellow too. He followed the quietly singing voice, pulling open the first door on his right. A man sat in the corner by himself and he looked up at Johnny when he opened the door. “Follow the yellow brick road,” the man told him, and then he began to laugh. He laughed and laughed and Johnny realized the man was a bartender from a little town in Nevada and there was a bullet wound in his head. The blood was the only thing with any color and it began to slip bright and red down his face. It fell to the floor in small droplets and it was coloring the ground underneath him. “Follow the yellow brick road,” he chanted and he said it over and over again. Johnny could still hear him, even after he pulled the door shut. Someone was singing. It sounded like a woman’s voice. He kept walking down the hall and he pulled open the next door and it was just a pile of corpses. The witch crouched on top of them and she was eating their eyes. She was shaded with greens and blues and blacks and tiny chunks of red were falling from her fingers as she devoured the bodies. She tilted her head at him and she was grinning and they were broken and black. “Follow the yellow brick road,” she told him, and then she was eating Ayden’s eyes. He closed the door and kept walking. The song sounded closer now and he could hear the words. “Somewhere over the rainbow,” the woman sang. He stopped in front of the door at the end of the hallway. There was a small window in it but he could only see black, so he put his hand on the knob and turned, pulling it open. The singing was coming from this room, and there was a woman curled in the corner, her dark hair tangled and falling about her face. “Birds fly over the rainbow, why oh why can’t I?” she sang quietly to herself, rocking back and forth. Then she turned slowly around and he would have known her face anywhere. Annie looked back at him, dressed in the small white hospital gown with bruises blooming all over her skin. She stood up and he saw blood trickling down her thighs and out of the corners of her mouth. She held out a hand to him and she was crying blood, red lines leaking out of the corners of her eyes. “Help me,” she whispered, taking a stumbling step towards him. She left a trail of red behind her and he saw something dark and bloody and dead lying on the floor in the corner. “Please,” she said. “Just say the words, say the words that’ll fix it.” He tried to. He went to say the words and he couldn’t. His mouth was sewn shut. † † † He woke up with a start and banged his head off the door handle when he did. He swore and cursed, tossing his jacket off onto the floor as he reached up to touch his wounded skull. The knot from where Ayden had head bashed him had finally closed up but now it was bleeding again because he’d just hit his fucking head off the door. He saw his brother jerk upright in the front seat, where he had been curled and napping for the last few hours, and he was glancing in the backseat with bleary eyes. “Everything okay?” he slurred, his mouth not catching up with his brain yet. “Yeah, fucking fine,” Johnny swore, touching the cut gingerly with his fingertips. Ayden nodded and then his head was falling back against the seat and he was drifting off again. The kid didn’t sleep enough, because sleeping meant dreaming and dreaming meant nightmares. Johnny had always been the opposite. When he went to sleep he passed the fuck out and went eight hours without having a single dream. It probably had something to do with the shared vision. That’s what he was going to tell himself anyway. He sighed, shifting his weight so that he was sitting against the door and lit himself a cigarette. Light was just beginning to come through the window which made it probably five or six in the morning, but he wasn’t sure yet. He’d pulled over at the truck stop a couple of hours before dawn so that he could try and get a few hours in before he made the final push to Kentucky. Johnny didn’t have a problem driving eighteen hours at a time, but his body did and it reminded him of that when he had started drifting off behind the wheel. He was fucking awake now. He sighed, pushing the door open and pulling himself out of the car. He stretched, cracking the knots out of his back and he smoked the rest of his cigarette leaning against the car. When it was done, he flicked it out onto the asphalt and headed to the gas station so that he could use the payphone on the side of the building. He didn’t bother putting any money in it, just picking it up and holding it to his ear. “Ashley Baker,” he said into the phone. It started ringing after about two seconds, and then a groggy voice answered. “Jesus fucking Christ, you know what time it is?” Ashley asked him. “Nope,” Johnny said honestly. “You find anything else out about this hospital for us?” He heard Ashley sigh and then he heard a thump. He grinned, picturing the asshole falling out of bed, but that just made him wonder where Ashley slept. They didn’t know even close to have as much about the man as he knew about them and he usually just ignored them when the asked questions about it. They knew how to get in touch with him and they knew he was good for information. Anything about him as a person, where he’d come from, or how he’d even gotten started, they were clueless. Sometimes Johnny liked to think he was a fallen angel or some shit. Maybe he was one of those that got kicked out because he couldn’t pick a side, because that seemed like the kind of thing Ashley would do. He was the only bastard that Johnny could see trying to play both sides in a war on Heaven. “Well,” Ashley said. “It’s a hospital for crazies. But what you might be fighting? No fucking clue.” He snorted into the phone and he was digging in his jeans for his cigarettes. He thought about the dream and the vision he’d shared with Ayden and none of it gave him any god damned clue as to what they were looking for. They had to save this kid, but it looked like they were saving him from every fucking Wicked thing on the planet. “Well that’s real fucking helpful. Maybe we should just go in there with a machine gun then.” He heard Ashley laugh on the other end. “That sounds like something your brother would say.” “That’s because it is,” he said around the cigarette. The lighter flared up in front of him in a little orange flame and he blew smoke out of his nose. The gray sky was slowly turning to red and he turned away from it because it reminded him of that stupid fucking dream. He wondered if that was the kind of crap Ayden dealt with on a daily basis and he understood why his brother woke up screaming so often if it was. “So do you have anything for us? A single fucking thing?” Ashley sighed on the other end. “Johnny, this time I got nothing. Whatever Ayden tells you is what you’ve got to go off of, so stop giving me shit. If I had anything I’d contact you, until then, assume the worst.” “I always do,” he said, kicking at the wall. “Well, nice talking to you asshole.” “Johnny,” he snapped. “You should tell your woman happy birthday.” He slammed the phone down in its holder and wished he had something to break because he was tired of getting shit from Ayden and shit from Ashley about it. Instead he put the cigarette between his lips and tried to focus on smoking it to relax. It didn’t’ seem to help a bit because he was still thinking about the words and about Annie and he hated everyone right about now. He kicked a metal can across the parking lot as he walked back to the car and he hoped he got to shoot something today. He slammed the car door when he got back into it and next to him Ayden jerked and blinked. “Huh? What?” he said. He was looking around and reaching for the gun under the seat. “Everything okay?” he asked, looking up at Johnny’s face and his eyes were still glazed and distant. Johnny snorted, yanking the shifter and pulling out of the parking lot. “Everything’s fucking fine,” he snapped. “Go back to sleep. We’ve still got three hours to go.” Wenston They had to stop and ask for directions. Once they got to Clay Canyon, they found out just what a podunk little town the place was that there was only one street light and it was a blinking yellow light in all four directions. There was a gas station though and while Johnny got out to fill up the tank, Ayden swiped a few dollars from Johnny’s wallet and headed inside to buy a soda and see if the clerk knew where the hospital was. Grabbing a highly caffeinated soda for himself, and one for Johnny since his brother was buying, he headed over to the counter where an older man with long white frail looking hair sat reading a porno magazine. Ayden held his chortle to himself and put the sodas on the counter. The man didn’t even look up. “Two twenta-five.” Ayden slipped the bills across the counter and the man handed him a few coins and still didn’t look up. Ayden’s mouth twitched with barely concealed curiosity and scheming and he cleared his throat instead. The man’s eyes came up slowly to meet Ayden’s, running over his body like it was the first time he’d seen another human being in his life. Ayden tried not to feel self-conscious. “Uh, hi,” he said and gave the man a curt nod. “Can you tell me how to get to Hector Vasquez Memorial Hospital?” he grabbed one of the sodas and opened the tip with a hiss. The man just stared at him, however, so Ayden didn’t take a sip. He narrowed his eyes slightly and resisted the urge to look out the window at his brother. “The hospital?” he tried again. “Can you tell me how to get there?” “Whaddya need ta go there fer?” the man asked and his accent was thick and Appalachian very, very redneck. His teeth were yellowed and rotted and some were missing. Ayden could smell the man’s rancid breath from across the counter. Ayden turned to look out the window, more so the man wouldn’t see him smile at the accent than to actually seek out his brother. But he saw Johnny place the nozzle back on the pump and pull his wallet out of the car. He opened it, leafing through the bills and then threw his hands up in the air because he knew Ayden had taken some of it. He turned to look at the station and when he saw Ayden watching him, he flipped him off. Ayden smiled and turned back to the man. “Visiting a friend,” he said politely. The man tilted his head and then he was staring at Ayden’s chest and Ayden had to look down at himself to see if there was something on his shirt. When there wasn’t he looked back up with a frown. He thought about asking the guy if he liked what he saw, but he didn’t want banjos to start playing because Johnny would make a ridiculous Burt Reynolds. So he cleared his throat again and that brought the man’s eyes back up. His motions were quick and bird like. “So, the hospital?” “Straight up tha road!” the man squawked. “Twenta miles. Ya wanna bag?” “A what?” Ayden asked and the man pulled out a plastic bag that looked like it had been recycled a few times. He snapped his mouth shut and shook his head. “Oh, uh, no thanks. Got two working hands.” He chuckled awkwardly and grabbed Johnny’s soda before turning around and heading back towards the car, feeling uncomfortable and nervous because he could see the man in the reflection of the window watching his ass. Johnny grabbed the soda out of Ayden’s hand with a snarl and then looked towards the station when he saw the awkward look on Ayden’s face. “What, you making new friends out here? Did he say you had a purty mouth?” Ayden looked up at his brother, horrified, across the car and Johnny raised an eyebrow. “Don’t even joke about that,” he said. “He was two seconds away from asking me to squeal like a pig.” Johnny laughed and climbed in the car. Ayden gave one last glance to the man in the station, who was still watching them, before he followed suit. † † † They pulled up to the hospital fifteen minutes later. There was a long winding driveway. The grass of the lawn was overgrown and knee high. There were bars on the window and the place looked more like a prison than a hospital, but Ayden supposed it probably worked as both. Those too psycho to go to prison came here. He shuddered at the thought because prison nor psycho wards were high on his most favorite places in the world. He always imagined that he’d probably end up in one or the other, but he always figured he’d enjoy prison more. Losing his mind was not something Ayden liked to think about. “What do you thinks inside there?” Ayden asked as he leaned over, closer to Johnny, to peer out his brother’s window and look up at the building. Johnny had parked the car but neither of them had gotten out because they weren’t sure what they were walking into and that scared both of them more than they cared to admit. “Crazies,” Johnny drawled and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it up. “I mean besides the crazies.” “More crazies,” his brother said around the cigarette. He pulled it out of his mouth and blew smoke into Ayden’s face. “Whatever,” Ayden spat and hopped out of the car. Johnny did the same and they met at the trunk. “What should we even bring? This is stupid,” he decided as Johnny popped the trunk and they both just stared at the guns and the sword and the shotguns and the machetes. “Just put a gun in your pants and stop bitching,” Johnny said and followed his own advice, grabbing his hand gun and stuffing it in the back of his jeans, pulling his shirt down over it to conceal it. Ayden sighed and did the same. They were parked close enough that they could always come back after they investigated a little bit. Johnny slammed the trunk shut and stamped his cigarette out and made his way up the marble steps to the front door. The steps were cracked and moss was growing within the spindly cracks. Ivy had made its way up the pillars and the front door had bars covering the glass. Johnny pulled the door open and they went inside. Once the door closed behind them, Ayden felt a knot of dread well up in his stomach and he wasn’t sure why. He’d seen these halls before, in the visions and in his nightmares and behind every door there was a monster when he dreamt of this place. The air was thick and rancid and it didn’t smell like a hospital at all. It smelled like a slaughterhouse. But there was nothing in the main lobby to support that theory. In fact, the place was quite utterly dead and silent. “Well, this bodes well,” Johnny quipped and even though he had whispered it, his voice bounced around the walls and echoed and seemed too loud for the absolute silence filling the hospital. They both looked around them before moving any further into the room. They were in the lobby. Two dead plants were on either side of the doorway they’d just come in. The walls were a pale beige color, but paintings of the hospitals founders littered the corridors. Someone had gouged out the eyes of all the paintings. There was a reception desk in front of them, the lettering on the desk was rotted and falling off. It was empty. “Did you just say ‘bodes?’” Ayden asked as he took a step forward. Johnny stayed by his side, because this place was creepy as fuck. “I did,” Johnny confirmed. “I think it was your fucking trivia. Makes me want to be feel smart.” “Makes you sound like a jackass,” Ayden told him. Johnny turned to make a smart ass remark to him but both brother’s startled a little when a voice suddenly pierced through their quiet banter. “Hello!” it was cheerful and bubbly and they turned quickly to look at the reception desk, where now a woman clad in a white uniform sat grinning at them. She hadn’t been there a moment ago. Ayden gulped. “Can I help you?” she asked, her head tilting to the side and she would have seemed normal if it weren’t for the place she was in. “What the fuck?” Johnny asked, ignoring her because there was no way she wasn’t something Wicked. He turned to look around them, like maybe this was a distraction to divert their attention from something else. But the room was quiet and still except for the woman at the desk. “Uh,” Ayden said and she tilted her head at him. “We’re here to visit someone.” “Oh, splendid!” she clapped her hands and stood up, coming around the desk. Ayden saw his brother reach for his gun and pull it out, holding it down to his side. She didn’t react to the weapon so Ayden did the same. He watched come to the front of the desk and then hold up a finger. “Oops, I forgot. All guests need to check in!” She turned around and Ayden sucked in a sharp breath because her back was bloody and torn to shreds and he could see her spine and her ribs white and yellow and sticking out from her skin. Johnny swore beneath his breath and removed the safety from his gun. “Is she a fucking zombie?” Johnny asked, his voice just above a whisper. “I dunno,” Ayden shrugged. “Maybe.” “Oh!” she said and turned back around, a tattered and blood splattered guest registration book in her hands. “Johnny and Ayden Marshall?” And that stopped them both dead in their tracks. They stared at her with wide eyes. “You’ve both already been checked in.” .Wolfie. Johnny stared at her and then he spat on the floor. “By who?”She grinned and it was one of the creepiest things he’d ever seen. “Follow me please,” she said. “The doctor is waiting.” She headed towards them and Johnny’s hand tightened on his gun but he didn’t pull the trigger and she didn’t try to touch them or attack them. She headed past them towards the swinging doors leading deeper into the hospital, her heels clicking on the tile. Blood was trickling from her back down her white skirt and leaving a tiny trail on the floor behind her. He would have guessed she was already dead, but he couldn’t tell. “What do we do?” Ayden asked quietly, and his brother sounded as freaked out as he felt. He shook his head, running a hand through his hair and swallowing the lump in his throat. His hand tightened on the gun and his finger was curled around the trigger. The nurse paused in the doorway, holding one door open and she smiled back at them and he realized why it freaked him out so much. It reminded him of when he was seven and his parents had taken him to a county fair for his birthday. There had been a clown there and it had been the scariest fucking clown Johnny had ever seen. He had smelled like whiskey and bourbon and had made Ayden cry so hard he was hiccupping. His make up had been smeared across his pale and bloated face and he burped in Johnny’s face when he asked what kind of balloon animal he wanted. When Johnny hadn’t answered he’d grabbed him by the arm and it had left bruises, he had gripped him so hard. His parents hadn’t noticed because they were at the beer tent getting loaded and had left him and his four year old brother with the clown. He’d kicked it in the shins and told it to go to Hell but Johnny had nightmares about that fucking clown for the next year and a half. She reminded him of the clown. “Come along please,” she told them. “We don’t want you missing your appointment.” “No, we wouldn’t want that,” Johnny said, staring at the nurse. He could catch a glimpse of the hallway beyond her and he felt his stomach drop as he realized that he recognized it from his dream and just like that, it was a yellowed, sepia nightmare. There were rust-colored handprints on the wall and he didn’t think it was from paint. “I guess we follow her,” Johnny whispered, swallowing down his fear. He heard Ayden laugh weakly next to him. “Yeah, I’m sure there’s no way that plan will go badly.” Johnny snorted, moving slowly towards the nurse who just stood there smiling and holding the door for them. “You got a better plan?” he asked, glancing briefly over the shoulder at his brother. Ayden’s face had gone pale and white and he shook his head slowly in a definite no. His eyes kept flicking between the nurse and the hallway beyond and he knew they were both scared of what they were going to find beyond it. The nurse’s head tilted with the same stupid chipper smile on her face and then she passed beyond the doors, heading off down the hallway. They swung with slow, lazy motions back and forth and the instant they passed through them it was like stepping into a completely different hospital. Fluorescent bulbs overhead cast pale, weak light on the ground and they were flickering on and off, illuminating the horror show for a moment before wiping them away with the next surge of electricity. One moment he could see the corpses slumped against the wall and the next they were gone, replaced by the yellowed tile and bloodstains. The nurse was already halfway down the hall and she paused to make sure they were coming. “The doctor is expecting you,” she said, the smile fading from her face. “We wouldn’t want to be late.” Johnny opened his mouth to make a sarcastic comment and then he heard something. He froze in his steps and Ayden paused next to him because neither of them wanted to wander around this place alone. The nurse didn’t seem to notice, still heading off down the hallway at a brisk pace, unaware of the wounds in her back or that her charges were no longer following her. Johnny put a hand to his head and turned slowly in a circle. “I heard something,” he said quietly, and he felt like he was back in his dream because every time the lights flickered he could see a rotting corpse on the ground. There was something dark and wretched crouched over one of them and he took a step towards it. It had its fingers buried in the nurse’s hair and it was pulling tiny chunks of flesh out and then swallowing them. He couldn’t tell quite what it was because it was bent and blackened, but it had wicked sharp nails. The lights flickered and then it was gone. He frowned and tilted his head and he glanced back at Ayden who was staring at the same spot he was. “Did you see that?” he asked, and his brother nodded slowly. “What the fuck is going on here?” he asked. Johnny snorted and shook his head again. He was digging in his pockets for a cigarette and trying to pretend that he wasn’t afraid because if he was afraid then his brother would be shitting himself. He jammed it between his lips and lit it up and he was proud of how steady his hands were. “I don’t know,” he told his brother, blowing smoke out of his lips at his face. “You’re the man with the visions, you tell me.” Ayden rolled his eyes. “Fuck you.” A scream shattered the stillness the next moment. Johnny whipped his gun out in front of him, eyes darting from left and right in the flickering lights. “Where’d the nurse go?” he asked around the cigarette, smoke billowing out in front of him. The woman had disappeared and he wasn’t sure when that had happened but the end of the hallway was dark, so maybe she had just disappeared off down that way or stepped into a side room. He didn’t think so, but it could happen. “Alright, fuck this,” Johnny said, and then he was heading down the hallway with his gun out like the fucking cowboy he was. His foot kicked in the first door on the right and a sharp cry echoed down the hallway when he did. There was a man crouched in the corner and he was dressed in stained white scrubs. He held his hands over his head and he rocked into the wall, crying and sobbing to himself. His fingernails were clawing at his face and drawing red lines across his skin. He looked up at the brothers when the door came open and they were black and haunted. He had drawn a man’s face over and over on the wall, in black crayon scribbles and then in blood. “Is that the guy?” Johnny asked his brother, keeping his gun trained on the man. He whimpered and cried and then stuck his head back in the corner, scrapping at the wall with whatever was in his hand. He was muttering over and over again to himself but Johnny couldn’t make out the words and at this point he didn’t really care. “Ayden?” he snapped, glancing over his shoulder at his little brother was staring at the faces on the wall. “Is that the guy?” He shook his head slowly. “No. That’s not the kid.” “Alright,” Johnny said, nodding and pushing his brother out of the room and slamming the door behind him. Then he moved on to the next door, slamming his boot into it and forcing it open. There was a crash as it banged against the wall and then something was slamming into Johnny and knocking him into the ground. There was a screaming, writhing mass on top of him and he felt nails clawing at his face and something howling into his face. He tried to push it off him and he heard his brother shouting something but he couldn’t hear what it was. He got his boot up and then he was kicking it away but the howling and the screaming didn’t stop. His gun whipped up and he found himself pointing it at a woman, her hair falling dark and tangled around her face. Her eyes had been sewn shut with thick black thread and her hands had been cut off and replaced with something else’s hands. He couldn’t tell what, but they looked like the hands of a ghoul, the nails long and jagged and he wiped the blood from his face. “He’s coming,” she whispered, and then she crawled back into her darkened cell. “He’s coming and he’ll swallow me up.” Then she started crying and ripping at the threads in her wrists. Johnny swallowed and slammed the door shut. Wenston Ayden was thirteen and sitting at the kitchen table sobbing and he didn’t know why. His Mom was passed out in the living room, his Dad was out with his hunting buddies, and Johnny was the movies with some girl who offered to give him a hand job if he paid for her ticket. His brother was never one to pass up a pretty face, back in those days. There was a bowl of cereal in front of Ayden but it was getting soggy because he couldn’t eat it fast enough through his tears and choked sobs. When he closed his eyes, he saw blood and claws and heard screaming and growls and it had been the same for weeks and had only gotten worse as the days went by. He’d fling his eyes open and stare at the soggy cereal soaking up the milk and he’d watch the spoon shake in his hand and try to make the monsters in his head go away. He couldn’t. The milk was slowly turning red but Ayden didn’t notice because he was trying not to watch a girl’s face getting peeled off her skull. He was trying not to watch a monster sucking her eyeballs out of their sockets or digging its claws deep into her mouth, breaking her jaw and pulling out her tongue. But he couldn’t make it go away so he was sobbing and his cereal was turning red and he didn’t understand why. The front door opened and closed and there were heavy footfalls in the hallway. Ayden thought briefly it may be his Dad, and the thought send dread spiking through him before he was again caught up in the girl’s horrific death flashing before his eyes. He barely noticed when the footsteps picked up the pace and suddenly Johnny was in the doorway to the kitchen. “Fuck, Ayden,” Johnny’s voice sounded far away. His brother went to the sink and he heard running water while he was listening to her screams. Then his brother was at his side, a hand gentle on his shoulder and a warm, wet dishrag was pressed against his nose. Ayden didn’t understand why for a second, or why his cereal was red, but then Johnny pulled the dishrag away, folded it, and pressed it back and he saw blood on it. His nose was bleeding. “Did he fucking hit you?” Johnny was asking and the anger in his voice would have been terrifying if it was aimed at him. Ayden hiccupped and scrunched his eyes shut tight. “Save her, Johnny, please,” he cried, breaking out into a sob. Johnny’s hand tightened slightly on his arm and he pulled the rag away, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Ayden could only shake his head and keep on crying. “It’s gonna eat her. It’s pulling off her skin, Johnny, please.” “Who, Ayden?” Johnny was asking softly. “Who is she?” “She’s by the river. He has her in a cave. Ow, Johnny, please,” Ayden sobbed and then his tears turned red and ran down his cheeks and Johnny was swearing and picking Ayden up because he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet and was carrying him to the bedroom. He laid him down and put the towel over his bleeding eyes and then went to their Dad’s room and got his shotgun and was out the door. Johnny had found her by the river, in a cave, just like Ayden said. He’d shot the Rawhead who had kidnapped her three days ago and called the police from a payphone to tell them where to find her. The girl was in the hospital for weeks, but lived. Because Ayden had seen her getting her face ripped off and had told Johnny. It was the first time either of them had killed a Wicked. It was when Johnny realized in order to keep his brother safe and sane, he had to follow the visions. Because if they didn’t, the vision overtook Ayden’s mind and the blood came and poured in torrents and it was too unbearable for either of them. † † † “This place is freaky,” Ayden said needlessly. He was glancing around the hallway and trying to ignore the fact that behind every door was a monster just waiting for them. Johnny was wiping his face on his shirt, because the scratches were bleeding and probably stinging. His brother had slowed in his need to kick in every door he saw like he was John Fucking Wayne, but he was still walking down the hallway, gun held out in front of him. He glanced back at Ayden’s words. “Thank you for the enlightening narrative,” Johnny snapped because he was bleeding and pissed off and cranky again. Ayden snorted. “I thought you failed English class in high school.” “Nope,” Johnny shook his head, coming to stand in front of another door. Ayden watched his brother bounce on his feet for a little, like he was psyching himself up for kicking in the door. “Found a geek to write my papers for me. Got a C.” “Man, I hope you didn’t pay him for a C.” Ayden tightened his grip on his gun and held it out in front of him, ready to shoot anything that came out of the door. “At least could have gotten a B+.” Johnny shook his head and took a step back from the door. “Didn’t pay him. Just said I wouldn’t kick his ass.” Ayden didn’t have time to laugh as his brother brought a booted foot up to kick in the door. It swung open and slammed against the wall with a bang that echoed through the hallway. They both brought their guns up and aimed into the room, but paused when they found the room empty. A light was flickering on the ceiling and pictures had been scribbled in blood on the wall. The words “Let Me Out” were smeared onto the back wall and the blood dripped down the gray plaster like tears. Ayden gulped because for some reason the words freaked him out. There were discarded, bloody clothes on the ground and an operating table in the middle. “We should just burn this place to the ground,” Johnny growled as he stuck his head into the room and peered into the corners, just to be sure it was empty. It was. “What about the kid? We have to find him first.” Ayden lowered his gun to his side and watched Johnny do the same. “You could always ask the nurse. You seem to attract the dead chicks, so-” Johnny turned to look at Ayden and immediately his eyes went to something behind him. He was reaching forward and bringing his gun up and yelling the word, “Down!” all at the same time. Ayden obeyed without question and fell to a squatting position, already whirling and bringing his gun up. Both their guns went off at the same time and he saw what they were shooting at. It was a doctor, or had been, and he wore a surgical mask over his nose and mouth. His eyes were black as night and his skin gray and ashen. His ears had been ripped off and half his face was blown away. He held a knife in one hand and had it raised above them. When they shot at him, he flickered and then disappeared. Johnny’s hand fisted in the collar of Ayden’s shirt and he pulled him back to a standing position. Ayden knew his brother was freaked the fuck out because he didn’t say anything. And it must have meant something that Ayden couldn’t think of anything to say back. So they stood there in silence for a moment. “We really should have gotten that machine gun,” Ayden said under his breath. Johnny just snorted and then was pushing him down the hall. .Wolfie. The lights were getting dimmer the farther into the hospital they walked and they found themselves walking through bit puddles of darkness. Johnny didn’t like it one bit because if he couldn’t see then he didn’t know where to shoot. He swallowed and puffed away on his cigarette, gun held loosely in his hand as he stepped over corpses. He didn’t know if they were real or imaginary but he didn’t want to risk it either way. He felt his boot slip in a wet spot and he didn’t want to think about what kind of fluids he was stepping through.“So I was thinking,” Ayden said from behind him, and he threw his brother a bone and pretended he didn’t hear the wavering tone of his voice. He wondered how much of this his brother had seen in his visions because Johnny had only gotten a small taste of what went on in his brother’s head and he couldn’t imagine how much worse it got up there. “You totally promised me a trip to Universal. This doesn’t look like Universal, Johnny.” “Well, I figure since you got laid and I didn’t, we’re even,” he said. Ayden snorted. “Now that’s not fair, she was a vampire. She tried to kill me afterwards.” “So? You gonna tell me it was bad sex? Even bad sex is still sex, and it’s more than I’m getting.” Johnny spit his cigarette out on the ground in front of him and stubbed it out with his boot. The lights were taking longer and longer to come back on and it was making him nervous. They rounded the bend and the next hallway was completely blackened out. Every light was dark and dead except for one at the very end, hanging over a door. “I don’t think it should count if it ends in blood and crying,” Ayden said. Johnny barked out a laugh. “That’s what she said.” They were both hesitating at the end of the hall, not wanting to take the first step down the darkened corridor. He wondered what was lurking in the shadows, or if it was just a pile of bodies. He couldn’t see anything except the dim gold circle around the doorway. He sighed, and jerked his chin at the door. “You wanna bet that’s where our boy is?” he asked, glancing at Ayden out of the corner of his eye. “No shit, Sherlock,” Ayden said. He pushed his brother, eyes focused on the door at the end. “You go first.” Johnny laughed, grabbing Ayden around his arm. “Alright, but you’re coming with me.” “That’s not how ‘going first’ works, asshole,” Ayden said, pulling his arm back. He didn’t run though, sticking close to Johnny’s side. He rested his finger on the trigger of his gun and he tried to keep his gaze focused on that little pool of light at the end of the hall. He heard something on the other side and he couldn’t tell if it was whispering or crying or nothing at all. Something rustled in the shadows and Johnny felt his foot hit something solid but he couldn’t see what it was and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He stepped gingerly over it and tried not to think about it too much. “What else do you think is in there?” Ayden asked. He had to stop as his foot hit something else and when he went to step over it he felt a solid mass under his boot. He shifted to the side but it was still blocking his path and he wondered if he was going to have to climb over a mound of bodies just to get to this stupid fucking door. He took a breath and walked gingerly over it, hearing something cracking under his boots. “I don’t fucking know. Santa Clause and an army of elves?” “Well that just doesn’t seem likely,” Ayden said. “Everybody knows the elves are pussies. He wants to build an army; he’s going to do it out of those reindeer, because they can be brutal when they want to be. You ever get bit by one of those fuckers?” Johnny snorted and shook his head at his brother but didn’t bother responding because he was at the door now, his boots just outside the pool of light. He held the gun in his hand and he shifted his weight on his feet, getting ready to kick the door in. “You ready?” he asked, glancing once at Ayden. He swallowed thickly and nodded, staring at the door and whatever he expected beyond it. Johnny turned back to the door and he wondered what they were going to find behind it but if he waited another second to think about it than he would just stand there until kingdom come and they both starved to death outside the door. His boot slammed into it and burst open with a bang, the wood splintering as it hit the inside of the wall. They both raised their guns but nothing came flying out of the darkness at them and there was no screaming and none of the things Johnny had expected. There was just a kid, somewhere in his mid to late teens, and he was sitting on the far end of the room with his knees pulled up to his face. He had dark hair and was dressed all in white, his arms wrapped around his thin frame. He was rocking himself back and forth and he was singing and Johnny’s breath came out in a hiss because he was singing “Somewhere over the rainbow” in a little sing song hum as he rocked himself back and forth. Then the kid’s head was slowly raising and his gaze focused on Johnny’s and his eyes were black as sin. Then he saw Ayden. “You,” he said. “I see you.” Ayden made a small squeaking sound in the back of his throat, but the boy hadn’t moved and Johnny didn’t know what the problem was. He cleared his throat and took a slow step into the room. “You okay kid?” he asked quietly, and the boy’s head tilted so that he could look at Johnny again. He didn’t say anything so Johnny just kept talking, keeping his voice low. “We’re here to get you out. You ready to leave this fucking hole?” The kid started laughing, but he didn’t see what was so funny. Johnny stretched out a hand and the kid took it, letting him be pulled to his feet. “They’re everywhere,” he said, looking at Johnny. “Do you see them? They cover this place, head to toe, toe to head, did I call them? I don’t know, I don’t know anymore I can’t see my face, only theirs.” The words tumbled out in a quick stream and then he was shaking his head violently back and forth and backing into the walls. “It comes, it comes again, here it is, why does it always hurt?” Then he was screaming, his head tipping back and hitting the wall as he went into a seizure. Johnny shot out a hand to catch the kid before he hit the ground as he twitched and jerked and his eyes had rolled back up into his skull. It felt really fucking familiar. He glanced up at Ayden who stood in the doorway and looked shocked and confused. He had a glazed expression on his face and Johnny wondered what his brother was seeing that he had missed because the kid didn’t seem like anything special. He was another damaged kid in a house full of them, but God or whoever had put the vision in Ayden’s head to save him. “A little help here?” Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow at his brother. “Uh, yeah,” Ayden said, shaking his head to clear it and then he was crouching down to grab one of the kid’s arms. Johnny wasn’t sure what happened next. One moment the kid had been thrashing and seizing in his hands and the next Ayden was on the floor with a scream bubbling out from between his lips and his back arched off the floor in an unnatural curve. The kid had stopped moving and gone limp next to him but Ayden was thrashing now and there was blood trickling down his nose. Johnny cursed and jumped over the boy who was slumped against the wall shivering quietly and grabbed his brother’s arms, pinning him to the floor so he couldn’t hurt himself too badly. Then he heard the kid start to laugh. He glanced over his shoulder and the boy was rocking back and forth giggling, his dark eyes focused on Ayden like he was a gift from God. “It’s gone,” he said, tilting his head. He inched closer to Ayden and Johnny got a sick feeling in his stomach and he wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t like the way the kid was looking at his brother or the way his hand started reaching for his face. “He took one, he could take them all, and then I could see again,” he muttered. Then he looked up at Johnny. “I have to call my brother.” Wenston Ayden stood in the middle of a church. It was dark and the moon was out and crept in through the stained glass window. There was a man near the pulpit and Ayden couldn’t see his face but he had dark hair in a ponytail and he wore all black.Annie stood in front of him. She wore a white dress. The man reached forward and brushed her dark hair out of her face. ”Love me,” he commanded and her body jerked and then she was throwing her arms around him and pulling him close, clawing and begging him to hold her and love her back and be near her. The man ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her and it felt dirty and wrong because Annie shouldn’t kiss anyone but the man she truly loved. And she did NOT love this man until he’d just commanded her to. The man tilted her head and whispered into her ear. “Die for me.” Then he was slitting her throat and she crumpled to the ground and the man let out a laugh and grew stronger. Ayden saw his eyes flash yellow. The man snarled, powerless at him, “Get out!” And Ayden did. The vision was over. † † † Ayden gasped and went limp as he came back to reality. He felt something warm trickling from his nose and down the side of his face and as he blinked to clear the vision from his head, he could see Johnny’s worried and angry face over him. His head was pounding and his ears were ringing and the vision lingered longer than it should have because he kept seeing Annie fall, bloody and dead. “Ayden?” Johnny asked and his voice sounded scared, which terrified him. “Oh God,” Ayden croaked out and brought a shaky hand up to his head because pain was lacing through his temple and the vision was bouncing around inside his head and echoing deep within his consciousness. He felt Johnny loosen his death grip on his arms and Ayden tried to remember what he’d been doing when the vision hit. He rolled his head to the side and saw the boy standing up by them, rocking back and forth on his feet, hands clasped beneath his chin. His head tilted to the side and he looked down at Ayden with loving, hungry eyes. Ayden didn’t like the look. Johnny growled deep in his throat and shot a glance at the boy. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded. The boy ignored Johnny and squatted next to them. Ayden saw his brother tense and lean forward a bit. The boy paid him no mind and tilted his head at Ayden again. “You took one!” he said cheerfully and clapped his hands. “You took one and you could take more!” He giggled, but it cut off immediately. “Here, have another.” Then he reached out a hand quicker than either of them could react and touched Ayden’s forehead. The pain was blinding. † † † There was a house and smoke was billowing out of the windows while flames licked at the walls. It was surrounded by dirt and sand and children’s toys on the lawn. From inside the house, people were screaming. People were burning. People were dying. A man stood on the lawn and sat down on a pink plastic chair three sizes too small for him. He held his hands out in front of him and in it there was a ball of fire, but he wasn’t burning. He was laughing. He was laughing at the dying. The sky was blue but was becoming gray from the smoke. The man kept laughing as the front door flung open and a child came running out. Her pigtails were burning and her skin was melting. She screamed and screamed and screamed. He just laughed and laughed and laughed. Then he flung the fire in his hands at the little girl and she fell over and her screaming stopped. The burning didn’t. † † † Ayden came back from his vision screaming because he could smell the burning flesh and her screams echoing in his head almost drowned out his own. Johnny was still holding him down, but the boy was no longer near him. Ayden caught a glimpse of him over to the side, sitting on his butt and he was bleeding from the mouth. Johnny must have clocked him in the jaw and he could almost see the bruise forming on his pale skin. “Fuck, Ayden,” Johnny was saying and he sounded muffled and far away and Ayden realized he was seeing red and his eyes burned and he could feel hot liquid trickling down like tears, but he wasn’t crying. He was bleeding. Johnny was pale and looked terrified and that only made Ayden whimper because he didn’t like it when his brother was scared. “I wanted him to take them!” the boy yelled suddenly and Johnny shot him a nasty look. The boy pounded his fists, like a toddler, on his knees and yelled, “I want him to take them! And you’re not letting him! You’re ruining my fun! You’re ruining my fun!” his tantrum grew louder and louder and the boy growled suddenly, deep and low and monstrous in his throat and whipped his head to the side. “Take him away! Take him away!” he cried. Ayden didn’t know who the boy was talking to, but in the next instant, Johnny cried out and was ripped away from Ayden. Ayden turned his head and tried to follow his brother with his eyes, but the doctor from earlier had Johnny by the back of the shirt and Johnny was struggling and swearing and kicking out but his feet were going through the doctor like he wasn’t even there. “Johnny…” Ayden called weakly and he met his brother’s eyes for an instant before Johnny was being yanked fiercely out of the room. He heard Johnny swearing and cursing all the way down the hall and a few gunshots rang out, but his brother never came back. Ayden felt a sob well up in his throat, threatening to escape because he didn’t like that Johnny never came back. He didn’t know where he was. Managing to roll over onto his stomach, he took a deep breath as pain lanced through his skull, blinding him. He could still feel blood trickling from his nose and eyes and he tasted it in his mouth. Then the boy was at his side again and Ayden tried to flinch away. But the boy just ghosted a hand over him and grinned. “Don’t worry,” he giggled and then pointed his finger at the wall, curling it towards himself. Ayden saw a shadow fall over the room and then something was grabbing his leg. He cried out because claws sunk into his ankle and fire erupted on his skin. “He’ll be dead soon, but it’s okay, because when I’m done with you, you won’t even remember you have a brother,” the boy sang to him. Ayden growled but the thing holding his leg shook him violently and the boy reached out to touch Ayden’s forehead again. The third vision within five minutes made him choke on his own blood. † † † Johnny was strapped to a table. His shirt was gone and his chest was bare and bleeding and cut into pieces. His face was turned away so Ayden couldn’t see it. The doctor stood over him with a bonesaw in his hands. The doctor tilted his head and looked down at his brother and then started to cut pieces away from him in chunks. By the time the doctor was finished, Johnny was in pieces and scattered about the room. He’d never made a sound. † † † The ground was moving beneath Ayden. He was barely aware of what was happening, but he saw the wall moving by him slowly. Someone in front of him was singing softly and it echoed about the hallway. Ayden had to blink several times to clear the cobwebs. His face was covered in blood and his head was like a dead weight. He couldn’t move, but he didn’t have to because someone was moving him. He was being dragged down the hallway. They reached the main lobby and the thing that had been dragging Ayden dropped his leg and stood over him, keeping him cast in shadows. Ayden tried to say something, tried to call out for Johnny, but he remembered his brother being dragged off and he remember the vision and suddenly Ayden was sobbing because he didn’t have the strength to get up and find Johnny and save him. He was convinced his brother was already dead, so he sobbed. The boy laughed and hopped up to sit on the desk, pulling the phone up. He said a word that Ayden didn’t recognize and swung his legs, his head coming over to look at Ayden. “Brother?” he said into the phone. “I’m ready to come home now.” Ayden turned his head away and his hands moved across the tile, searching for a weapon because he wanted to kill this sonofabitch. But all he found was blood and paper and bones. “Yes, I found someone to take the visions.” The boy held a hand out in front of him and splayed his fingers. “I’ll be able to see again and I can come home. Great! I’ll be waiting. See you soon, my brother.” There was a pause and the boy giggled. “Of course I won’t play nice. Love you!” Then he hung up the phone and hopped off the desk and came to stand over Ayden, who was writhing on the floor. He bent over him. “Ready? We’re going to have a lot of fun. Well, I will. But this will probably be Hell for you.” Then the monster grabbed Ayden’s arm and the boy was skipping off down the hallway and the monster dragged Ayden across the floor and he couldn’t do anything about it because the visions were heavy in his head and his body was numb and he couldn’t move. He cried out for Johnny. .Wolfie. His boots were scraping over the ground but no matter how hard he kicked at the doctor he didn’t let go.He whipped the gun out of his jeans and he was firing backwards towards his head, but the bullets went straight through, shattering the fluorescent bulbs and casting him into shadows. He shouted hoarsely in the darkness but the doctor just kept dragging him down the hallway and no matter how hard he twisted and fought him, he couldn’t get free. “Ayden,” he screamed back down the corridor and he could hear his brother’s answering cry. The doctor was picking him up and he slammed Johnny’s face into the door and he heard an answering crack. His vision blurred and everything was getting fuzzy around the edges. He could see the nurses now, crowding into the hallway and watching him go. They were clucking their tongues at him and shaking their heads and it would have been funny if they didn’t all look like desiccated corpses. He saw maggots crawl out of one woman’s mouth and then back in through her eye and his vision blurred again and they were all gone. “Ayden,” he shouted again, but he couldn’t hear anything anymore. His spine hit a bump and then the doctor was dragging him into a room. His boots hit the end of the metal table as he was hauled up onto it and he reached back and ripped his own shirt. He dropped from the doctor’s grasp and then he was scrambling towards the door. He tripped on the metal riser and fell into the wall, his head bouncing off the hard surface. He heard the stomping of shoes behind him and then something was piercing his side and he gasped with the sudden sharp pain that burst through him. He felt hands start to close on his shirt again and he ditched it and ran, for once not feeling like a coward for it. He didn’t look back, not until after he crashed through swinging doors into another hallway. His knees cracked as they hit the linoleum and he felt blood trickling down his side. Air came sharp and heavy into his lungs and then he was twisting around and looking behind him and he didn’t see the doctor but that didn’t mean a fucking thing in this place. He gasped and pressed a hand to his stomach as he tried to breathe and listen at the same time. He didn’t hear anything except his own harsh and panicked breaths and he didn’t even hear Ayden screaming anymore. He needed to find his brother and shoot that fucking kid in the head before he did any more damage. He struggled to stand and his vision blurred in front of him. He could feel the blood trickling out from between his fingers and making them slick and wet. His other hand still held the gun and he slid it against the wall so that he could feel where he was going because his vision kept fading in and out. Everything seemed was dark and washed and faded, the walls yellow and cracked and stained with blood. He wondered whose blood it was. He thought maybe most of it was his and he choked back a laugh. “Ayden,” he called, and his voice sounded strained and harsh. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and kept dragging his heavy feet down the hallway. There were stains on the floor and bloody footprints guiding the way. A dead nurse lay slumped against the wall and her eyes and her jaw were missing, teeth marks scoring her cheeks. “Ayden,” he called again, and he heard his own voice echo back at him off the walls. His hand slipped and he fell to the floor outside of a door, his already bruised knee cracking off the linoleum and splitting the skin open. His head turned slowly to look inside the open door. The doctor stood with his back to Johnny, hands buried in his work. He could see the silhouette of a body on the table, and there was red dripping to the stained floor underneath it. A white curtain had been stretched around the doctor’s workspace, but it was stained with red now and had rips in it where someone had tried to claw their way free. The doctor was humming quietly to himself but Johnny couldn’t make out the words. Something metal clattered to the ground, and it was a scalpel. Then the doctor turned slowly around. His eyes were black and empty and dead. He had blood on his face and around his mouth and a tongue snaked out to lick it from his skin. Then his lips split in a grin as he focused on the man on the floor. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. He held a pair of forceps in his other hand and then he took a step towards Johnny and now he could see the body on the table behind him and it didn’t even look human anymore. It used to be a woman, maybe one of the nurses. He had sewn her eyes and her mouth shut and her rib cage was pried open. Then the doctor was on top of him, hand closing around the back of his neck as he hauled him into the room. † † † Johnny was dreaming. In it he was standing over a child’s bed in a child’s room and he was looking down at a kid who wasn’t a child anymore. He was a teenager and he sat on his bed and played with his toys and he was humming to himself quietly. Johnny couldn’t make out the words and even if he could he didn’t think he’d remember them when he was awake. He stretched out a hand and rested it on the kid’s back and he jerked his head around, staring at Johnny with dark eyes. Then he grinned, and it split his face in half and it looked like a clown. “You want to play?” he asked. Johnny looked down at what the kid was holding. Ayden’s head lay in his lap and the kid started laughing because he was holding a scalpel and he was drawing pictures into his brother’s forehead and after each one it sunk into the skin and disappeared, leaving only a thin white scar behind and then the boy started all over again. “It’s a fun game,” he said, smiling as he turned back to his work. He started to draw a woman. “You should try it some time. Oh wait, you already do!” Johnny shook his head and took a step back and then he felt the soft hand on his shoulder and he was too afraid to turn around but he did anyway and there she was. Annie stood in front of him and she was wearing one of the nurse’s uniforms but it wasn’t sexy and it wasn’t sweet because it was still stained with yellow and covered with blood. Her eyes were black and she tilted her head to the side, blood trickling out from between her lips. “Johnny,” she said, and it didn’t sound like her voice at all. “You need to fix this. Just open your mouth and fix it.” He tried, except he couldn’t because his lips wouldn’t open. He started to scream, but it never left his mouth. † † † His eyes slid open and the first thing he was aware of was the bright light in his face. The doctor had pulled it over and it was blinding his eyes because it was situated right on top of his head and he tried to sit up but something was holding him down and he felt panic begin to well deep in his stomach and he didn’t like the feeling. He tried to move his arms and his legs and they wouldn’t budge because straps were holding him to the table. He glanced over and he could see the doctor standing with his back to him, in front of a metal table. Then he turned around and he had a massive needle, wound with black thread. The doctor didn’t say a word. He walked back over to Johnny’s side and one hand grabbed his jaw tightly in his grasp. He started to thrash and kick but it didn’t do him any good and he felt the fingers dig into his skin with bruising strength. Then the first prick hit his lips and he was forcing the needle through Johnny’s lower lip and pulling it out the top one. He opened his mouth and it hurt and he tasted blood and he screamed anyway. The doctor didn’t flinch, and then the needle was piercing his lips again and pulling them together. He kept screaming, even after the black thread had bound half his mouth and he kicked and thrashed in the doctor’s grasp but he never once blinked or let go. Johnny’s mouth was flooding with blood and he tried to spit but the doctor just crushed his jaw in his grasp and held his skin steady while he bound his lips with black thread. He opened his mouth and he fully intended on saying the words that would make this stop and then the needle was piercing the middle of his lips and dragging them together and they stayed on his tongue because he couldn’t form words anymore. All he could do was scream. But only in his head. Wenston Ayden opened his eyes and he wasn’t sure when it happened, but he was tied to a chair. There were straps around his ankles and straps around his wrists and his head was hanging limply and for a moment he didn’t think he’d be able to lift it because it felt like a million fucking pounds. He couldn’t quite remember where he was, but then giggling echoed around the room and it all came back to him. Johnny was dead. He had convinced himself of this fact while he was being dragged down the hallways, through corridors, his head bouncing off the tiles. Blood had caked itself on his face and still dripped freely from his nose and eyes and mouth. He couldn’t hear properly and his ears felt warm so he figured they must be bleeding too. But he didn’t care. He didn’t care because he had convinced himself his brother was dead and in pieces by now. He wasn’t having visions that the kid wasn’t giving him, which meant Johnny wasn’t using his power, which meant that Johnny couldn’t use his power. And the only way he couldn’t use his power is if he was dead. A sob escaped Ayden’s lips because Johnny and dead were two words he never wanted to be related to each other. Johnny was his rock. He was his anchor. He was his fucking light in the god damn darkness and without him, well, Ayden didn’t want to do it anymore. The fighting, the hunting, the visions, life itself – he didn’t want any of it anymore. Johnny would have kicked his ass if he knew that’s what he was thinking. The thought only brought tears to his eyes. “Aww, don’t cry,” the demon spawn child of satan god damn it fuck said in front of him. He tried to lift his head to look at the kid, but found he could only raise his eyes, his head lolling to rest on his shoulder because it was so heavy and pounding and felt like it could fall right off his neck at any moment. “You don’t have anything to cry about. Yet.” He giggled and reached out to touch Ayden’s cheek. The scream that tore out of Ayden’s mouth was almost as painful as the vision. It wasn’t just one vision anymore, it was a couple at a time. Like the boy was just handing them over on a silver fucking platter. Ayden convulsed in the chair, the blood running from his nose and eyes and mouth and ears and he bit his lip so hard that was bleeding too. His ankles and wrists nearly rubbed raw with the intensity of the convulsions and he was surprised nothing was breaking. Ayden was always breaking bones. When the visions were done, Ayden’s head lolled to the other side and he sat there staring at the floor. The visions hurt, were very painful, but he was becoming numb. His vision as going in and out and he flashes of horrific things jumped in front of his eyes every so often, making him twitch. The boy put his face very close to Ayden’s and he could feel the breath on his lips. It would have been awkward and uncomfortable if Ayden hadn’t been half conscious. “You know, it’s not fair,” the boy said. “We’re the same, you and I, and…” he pouted. “How come you’re not in a place like this?” He waved his hand about the room. “How come I’m the one that got stuck here? I mean, I love my brother and he loves me. But, what’s the difference between them? Between our brothers? Huh? Why does yours keep you around? You’re just dead weight. You ruined his life, you know. He’s probably begging to die so he can be rid of you once and for all.” Ayden felt tears mix with the blood leaking from his eyes and he closed them because he didn’t want to hear the words. The boy sighed. “Here,” he said gently, almost caringly. “I’ll help it go away. The pain, I mean. Once you get filled up, it stops hurting. You just stop feeling everything.” Then he reached out and touched Ayden’s cheek again and three more visions struck Ayden and he screamed with the victims and felt the claws and the teeth and the fire and the bullets tugging at his skin. He lost consciousness after that. He woke to the sound of dripping. He wasn’t sure what it was at first. But as he opened his eyes, which were swollen and sore, he looked down at his lap and realized the dripping sound was his own blood dripping from his nose and mouth and eyes and puddling on his lap. He blinked and tried to look around the room. It was empty. He was alone. “Johnny,” he mouthed but his voice was hoarse because he’d screamed himself into oblivion. Flashes of his brother in pieces came to his mind and he jerked violently against the restraints still tethering him to the chair. There were tears and blood dried onto his cheeks and he couldn’t raise his head. There were footsteps coming into the room. They were loud and heavy and something was being dragged behind them. His eyes rose, while his head hung, and he saw the shadow creature come back into the room, dragging a corpse behind it. It was leaving a bloody trail behind. She must have been a nurse at one time. Now she was just a hunk of flesh and bone and blood. Ayden watched the shadow creature as it tilted its head side to side, eyeing and inspecting him. Images flashed in front of Ayden’s eyes and he couldn’t concentrate on the here and now. When the images subsided, he found the shadow creature closer to him and he tried to back away but he couldn’t fucking move. He thought about passing out, but then a gunshot was being fired and it startled him. He jerked and pain flared throughout his body because his muscles were spent and strained and his head was shutting down and his brain was turning to mush inside his skull. The shadow creature screeched and whirled and another gunshot made it disintegrate. Ayden couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore and he heard soft footfalls hurry across the floor to him and he picture himself getting his throat slit or his tongue cut out or his eyes eaten because he didn’t know what was coming after him now. Images flashed in front of his eyes and he whimpered because he got lost in them for a moment. Her voice brought him back rather quickly. “My God, Ayden,” she was whispering and he felt a soft touch on the side of his face and he didn’t know if this was real or a dream or a vision – if it was a vision, it was a good one. Her hand moved up the side of his face and ran through his hair and then she was cupping his chin and lifting his head gently. “Come on, kiddo, can you hear me?” Ayden realized his eyes were shut, so he opened them and when he did he saw her face and she looked older than he’d seen her look. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and she had blood smeared across her nose, but she didn’t look hurt, so it must have been someone else’s. He tried to smile and say hi, but blood leaked out of the corners of his mouth and his eyes closed against his will. She shook him a little and when they opened she was still there and she looked frightened. “Hang on,” she told him and then she was leaning in and resting his head on her shoulder while she reached to untie the straps around his ankles and wrists. He breathed her in and closed his eyes and bleed onto her shoulder but she didn’t seem to mind. Then she was moving and her hands were on his face trying to wipe the blood away but it wasn’t working. She forced him to look her in the eye. “Where’s Johnny?” she asked and his name sounded like poison on her tongue. “Dead,” Ayden croaked back to her and he watched her eyes widen and her face steel and then she was moving again and slinging one of his arms around her shoulders. “He’s dead.” She had little trouble lifting him, but his legs wouldn’t work so she was dragging him towards the door. He wondered vaguely where the boy went. “No he’s not,” she said as they left the room. Images flashed in front of Ayden’s eyes and he whimpered and felt her grasp tighten on his arm and hand as she supported him. “We’ll find him,” she said and she sounded confident and hopefully and he thought she knew she was lying. Then he was crying because he saw her getting her throat slashed and he saw Johnny in pieces and they were both going to die. “Annie,” he cried and she shushed him. He didn’t even realize she was taking him away from the exit. .Wolfie. He heard the sound of metal on metal.The doctor was sharpening something. His head fell limply to the side and he could see the glint of a saw as he rasped it against the edge of the table. Sparks flew up in a shower before fading out into the darkness. The doctor had a mask over his face and it was splattered with blood. Johnny didn’t know how much of it was his. His skin was on fire, every ounce of him hurting and he heard a whimper flow into his mouth but never out his lips because they were sewn shut and every time he tried to open them he felt more blood flow onto his tongue until he was choking on it. There was a thin burning line running down his chest from where the doctor had pressed the scalpel and pulled. Every breath he took reopened the wound and there was blood running over his ribs and his stomach and he was afraid that if he stood up then his guts would just pour out of him onto the floor. A muffled cry crawled up his throat and he knew tears were trickling down the side of his face because it hurt that fucking bad. He wondered where Ayden was. He hoped his brother got away. Somehow he didn’t think he would. He couldn’t get the sound of his brother screaming out of his head and all he could picture was Ayden with his spine arching off the ground as blood poured from his mouth and his nose and his eyes. The visions hadn’t been that bad since he was thirteen years old and Johnny was just figuring out that he had to kill the monsters to get them out of his brother’s head. Over a decade without that kind of pain and that stupid fucking child had jammed them back in his brother’s skull like it was a game and he was going delirious with pain and rage because he was completely fucking helpless. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t open his mouth. He couldn’t say the words to get him free or get his guns and shoot the thing in the head and he hated the whimper that echoed in his throat. His head tipped back and the lights were bright and blinding in his eyes and every time he closed them he could see Ayden bleeding out on the hospital floor. He heard another scrape of metal and he looked back over at the doctor. The bone saw scraped against the table again and then the doctor was holding it up to the light. He turned his chilling gaze to Johnny and he never said a fucking word, just stood there staring at him behind the surgeon’s mask with the saw held loosely in one hand. Then he was bending over and pressing it to Johnny’s bicep and he felt another scream fight and claw at the stitches as it tried to pull its way out of his mouth. The saw dragged across his skin and pain burned its way through his arm up to his head. Blood poured out of his arm and he heard it dripping darkly to the floor. He thrashed and arched off the table but the straps held him down and the doctor’s arm held his firmly to the metal. It sunk through the skin and the muscle and he was screaming and blackness was creeping at the edge of his vision. It was nothing compared to the pain that seared along his nerves when the saw hit bone and he felt one of the stitches rip and pop and there was so much blood running down his throat but he couldn’t stop. The saw was dragging across his arm and he was going to die here getting cut into little pieces by a fucking zombie doctor. The gun shot hit the doctor in the chest. The second shot went through his head. Johnny’s first thought was to wonder why the fuck bullets had worked this time and not when he had fired shot after shot at the doctor and then his vision was slipping in and out. His head fell to the side and all he could feel was the burning pain radiating outwards from his arm. He tried to move it and the only response he got was more blood leaking out of the wound in a river and splattering to the floor. The second thing that occurred to him to think was who the fuck had shot him at all and he turned his head just as someone straddle his chest, fingers pulling at the straps around his hands. “Keep an eye on the door,” a woman’s voice said to someone behind her. “Let me know if you hear or see anyone coming.” He focused on her face and he realized he must have been dreaming because it looked like Annie. He tried to open his mouth to say something and it just pulled at the black stitches holding his lips together and there was no end to the blood that kept filling his mouth. He swallowed it down and tried to focus on her face. She looked different than he remembered. She was a little thinner, with a little more muscle on her slim frame. She used to be all soft curves and soft skin and his eyes traveled her frame, a smile pulling at his mouth as he realized not all her soft curves were gone. “Johnny,” she grit out between clenched teeth. “Are you seriously staring at my boobs right now?” The strap around his right hand broke and his arm came loose from the table. She was working on the second strap with her fingers and a knife she’d pulled out of her boot. She didn’t look at his face at first, concentrating on setting him free and he was wondering why she was here and then he remembered that this was his dream and who else would he dream about? Ayden, he realized and his head fell to the side. His brother sat in the door frame, one of Annie’s gun held loosely in his hand. There was blood crusted around his eyes and his nose and his lips but he glanced over at his brother, a haunted expression in his eyes. Johnny tried to smile and it just made his lips bleed more and then his other arm fell free and a sharp cry rose up from his throat into his mouth because his arm hurt so fucking bad and now the blood was running down his forearm to his wrist before trickling off his fingers onto the ground. He tried to lift it and the torn muscle just screamed at him in response. “Stop,” Annie told him, and then she was lifting his arm up and laying it across his chest. “Now, hold still,” she ordered, and she was picking a scalpel off the table. He jerked in surprise in fear because what if this was where the dream turned into a nightmare? Her fingers curled around his cheek and forced his eyes to hers. They were darker than he remembered but maybe that was because this whole fucking place was dark. Her hair was falling around her face where it had come loose from the ponytail and he reached his right hand up to brush it from her face. She batted his hand aside easily and it hurt him more than he liked to admit. “Stop, Johnny,” she told him, and if there was no warmth in her voice he couldn’t blame her. “Hold still and let me help you.” This time he didn’t move when she picked up the scalpel and she was staring to cut through the stitches. “Well, that’s one way to shut you up,” she said. A smile flirted with her lips but never quite made it onto her face and he wished it would because she had a beautiful smile and he had missed it. He winced when he felt the scalpel slice his lips as she cut the threads away and she flinched with him. “Sorry,” she whispered. In his head he kept saying her name over and over again and even if she slapped his hand away and didn’t want to look at his face while she cut him free she was still here and she was alive and next to him. It was something. It was more than he’d had in years and he had missed her so fucking much that he couldn’t breathe because she was here now. Then he remembered this was just a dream and he hated that he would have to wake up from it. She let the scalpel clatter back to the table and then she was swinging her legs off him, going back over to Ayden’s side. She crouched next to his brother, brushing hair out of his face and whispering quietly to him as she studied the hallway. “You did good,” she told him, pressing his forehead to hers and smiling at him. Her hands were still petting his hair and Johnny realized he was jealous of his brother because of the comforting smile she was giving him. “I told you he wasn’t dead. We found him, it’s alright now Ayden. Johnny’s okay.” She glanced over at him to make sure the words were true and he was pulling himself gingerly into a sitting position. The blood started to gush from his chest then and he felt himself wavering on the table before his vision blurred and he fell off onto the floor. He didn’t even have time to catch himself and his head was striking the linoleum and he barely even felt it anymore. Steady and familiar hands were rolling him over and he felt something pressing against the line running down his torso and Annie’s familiar face was leaning over him again. “Annie,” he whispered, and he reached a hand up to her again. “I missed you,” he told her and the words tasted like blood on his tongue and he knew he was slurring them. “Jesus fuck, Johnny,” she whispered and he realized she was pushing her shirt into his stomach. She still had a white tank top on and he could see the gun holsters on her shoulders now. One of them was a pearl handled revolver and he smiled when he saw it. “I can’t carry both of your asses out of here,” she told him. She still wasn’t looking at him, her gaze focused anywhere but on his eyes. “Say the fucking words and heal yourself.” He shook his head and the world spun around him. “No,” he told her. “Ayden’s had too many vision already.” “Fuck you,” she snarled low in her throat. “Someday you need to stop using him as a crutch.” He shook his head at her again, fingers catching at her hair so that he could hold onto some part of her. She had both hands busy holding the blood in his body so she didn’t shake him away this time but she looked fucking pissed. “It’s not like that, and I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean to use him like that the first time.” he told her quietly. “There was a kid and he didn’t something to him. He put fucking visions in his head and I tried to stop him but he took him anyway.” He felt tears stinging at his vision and he looked over at Ayden who was pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered at his brother. “Fuck,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I didn’t know that.” “Annie,” and he looked back at her face and he was just so fucking happy she was here. Darkness was crowding at the edges of his vision but at least if he died he did so in good company. He frowned and realized he didn’t recognize the thin white scar over her eyebrow and his finger brushed it. “I’m sorry,” he told her again. “I missed you. I should have just said the fucking words for you and I’m so sorry.” “Johnny.” She said his name softly, but there was no feeling in it. “Shut the fuck up.” Wenston He couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. Annie was here, but he was waiting for her throat to slit open and the blood to start flowing. She was kneeling over his brother, who looked like an extra from a fucking horror movie they’d watched once as kids. One about a mad scientist. Ayden had to grin the heels of his hands into his eyes because he didn’t know if it was real or not and he really, really didn’t want it to be. He heard them whispering and talking to each other but he couldn’t make out the words. He wondered if they were making up, and if this was real, then he sure fucking hoped so. He missed Annie. “Johnny, just say it now,” Annie’s voice finally carried over to him. Ayden wondered what she wanted his brother to say. He wondered if it was “I love you” or if it was something that was going to hurt. Come to think of it, he wasn’t sure which of those options would hurt more. Maybe the love business. “You’re bleeding too heavily. I can’t stop it. I can’t get you both out of here.” When Johnny spoke, his voice was weak and slurred and he half mumbled. “Then just take Ayden.” A rough smack echoed through the room and Ayden turned his head to look at them. Johnny looked just as surprised as he did because Annie had just smacked him across the face. His brother was blinking up at her and Annie looked like she wanted to hit him again. But instead, she growled angrily at him. “Don’t be a god damn martyr, Johnny.” There were tears in her eyes and they echoed in her voice. “You’ll die if you don’t say it. What do you think that would do to Ayden?” She didn’t have to say it, but Ayden heard the quiet, To me? as it went unsaid. “It’s either both of you or none of you. I’m already carrying him, so you need to walk out of here on your own. So just say the fucking words.” “Ayden…” Johnny croaked out and Ayden felt his chest and tears come to his eyes and slip out onto his cheeks, washing away some of the blood. He wanted Johnny to say the words. He wanted Johnny to save himself and he didn’t want him to die because he was too afraid to hurt Ayden. He watched his brother’s head roll to the side and their eyes met for a moment and Ayden had to look away because it hurt too much. “Say them!” Annie screamed and it was loud and sorrowful and she was yelling the words not just for the here and now but for all the times Johnny didn’t say the right things or say the things she wanted. She smacked him again and he jerked beneath the blow. She hit him again because she couldn’t control herself and Johnny brought a limp hand up to fend off another attack. She cried and took his hand because his eyes were slipping shut. “Please, Johnny,” Ayden called and his voice barely carried across the room. Johnny’s eyes fluttered for a moment while they sought out Ayden, his consciousness ebbing away swiftly. “Please,” Ayden pleaded. He couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. One second, Johnny’s eyes were closing, but his mouth was moving and there was a word on his lips but Ayden didn’t get a chance to hear what it was because in the next, the vision hit him violently and forcefully and he saw what should have been, but what wasn’t. † † † Johnny was dead on the floor. There was a pool of blood beneath him and all of it was his. He was pale and his eyes were open and hollow and faded and staring at things they weren’t really seeing. He rotted away even as Ayden watched. Annie had Ayden’s arm slung over her shoulder. She was crying but she was running and she was dragging him along as she did. They rounded a corner and suddenly she wasn’t running anymore. The arm supporting Ayden went limp and he collapsed to the ground because he couldn’t stand on his own. He lifted his head and he looked at Annie and he screamed. There was a ghoul and it had stuck it’s fingers into Annie’s forehead and they protruded from the back of her head and she was dead before she had even realized it was there. He was scrambling along the floor because Johnny and Annie were dead and the ghoul threw her body away and was on him. It shredded his back and he screamed and then it flipped him over and shredded his chest and his screams turned to gurgles as he choked on his own blood. Then the boy was there and he bent over him and smiled. His hand came to Ayden’s head and it was a million visions within a vision and Ayden screamed and screamed and screamed. He woke up screaming. † † † He couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t. Annie was holding his head in her lap, on hand on his forehead, holding his hair out of his eyes while the other hand was reaching over, trying to hold his arms as his thrashing stopped. Her dark hair was coming loose from her ponytail because the vision had been so violent that she’d had to fight with him to keep him from hurting either of them. Ayden sobbed because the vision lingered and even as he looked up at her, he saw her eyes wide and the ghoul’s fingers in her forehead, piercing her brains. He closed his eyes and it offered no escape and he tried to turn his head to bury his face into her knees, but she was holding him still. He realized she was whispering to him. “It’s alright, it’s okay,” she was saying, a mantra over and over as he fingers brushed through his hair. “It’s over, shh, it’s alright.” He felt her fingers still, threaded into his hair and he heard her call over her shoulder. “Johnny?” Ayden didn’t remember where they were at first, but when she said his brother’s name, he remembered and an image of Johnny’s corpse rotting away flashed through his head and he whimpered slightly. Annie’s hand tightened its hold on his hair and he prayed to whatever god was listening that Johnny had said the words and that was the reason he’d just had the vision. He prayed that Johnny was okay and alive and breathing. The gunshots echoed through the room and he heard Johnny’s voice say, “You fucking sonofabitch,” to an unknown enemy. Annie didn’t move from his side, only kept holding onto him. He opened his eyes and looked across the room at his brother, because he wanted to know what he was fighting. He saw Johnny standing over the rotted corpse of the doctor and he had just emptied a clip into the dead thing because that’s what Johnny did. He was pissed off and angry and feeling helpless so he shot things that were already dead. Johnny turned and Ayden saw the new scar on his arm and the healed scars on his lips and face and one massive scar on his chest. But they weren’t bleeding anymore and it looked like he’d received them years ago instead of just a few minutes. Johnny looked pissed but then he met Ayden’s eyes and his face fell and he was hurrying across the room towards them. He fell to his knees beside the two and he put a hand to the side of Ayden’s face. “Fuck, Ayden,” he said and Ayden just looked up at him because he was remembering the time he’d been bleeding into his cereal and this felt a lot like that only Annie was here and they weren’t teenagers anymore. “Fuck this place,” Johnny growled and he grabbed Ayden’s arm. The world spun while Johnny lifted him and tossed him across his shoulders. “We’re getting the hell out of here,” he grunted as stood, with Ayden on his shoulders. Ayden heard Annie reloading her guns and then they were moving. He wondered how many times Johnny was supposed to have died in his life but didn’t. He wanted to laugh when he thought about how idiotic that question was. The answer was simple. Once. On the train tracks. That should have been the end. But it wasn’t and Johnny had been skirting and cheating death ever since and Ayden was so fucking grateful for the fact his brother was still alive and that Annie had been here to literally smack some sense into him that he closed his eyes. He saw blood and bones and flesh and gore and heard screaming and laughing and growling as his brother carried him. But he was having trouble telling what was real and what wasn’t. .Wolfie. All the lights in the hallway were broken now.There was a dim yellow light seeping in through the barred windows but the hospital had been cast in a dark shadow that Johnny didn’t think had anything to do with electricity or the weather and more to do with that stupid fucking kid that had messed with his brother’s head. He was pissed and he was scared and that usually meant he was going to shoot something until it stopped twitching and then shoot it some more just to make sure it stayed down where he’d put it. Her bullets had been blessed which made him feel fucking stupid because if he’d done that in the first place he could have killed the doctor a while ago. The hallway was coated in blood and remains but most of the corpses looked like they’d been cleared out or eaten which gave Johnny the chills but at least then he wasn’t fighting to step over any bodies. The windows were broken and the wall still yellowed and stained with red. He double checked the hallway once and then set out at a brisk pace down it, the gun Annie had given him held in one hand and the other held his brother still on his shoulders. Johnny knew Ayden was in bad shape because he wasn’t fighting him. He was little more than a dead weight across his shoulders, his breathing harsh and ragged and his finger clenching compulsively. He heard tiny whimpers escaping his brother’s throat and he wondered what new and happy vision he had jammed into his brother’s head because he was too fucking stupid to find a better solution. He could still feel the threads pulling at his lips, even though Annie had cut them out, and worse was the lingering sensation of a saw dragging its teeth across the bone in his arm. He would be surprised if he didn’t have nightmares about that stupid doctor. It would be nothing compared to the nightmares he was sure his brother was going to have. His grip tightened on the gun as something rounded the corner and he unloaded three shots at it in quick succession. They struck the ghoul in the shoulder and then the skull and it went down in a heap, clawed hands still curling in its death throes. He stood over it and shot it three more times in the head to make sure it stayed down and stayed dead because when he killed something he was going to make damn sure it stayed that way. Then he was flipping open the revolver and trying to reload it one handed because his other was keeping his brother steady on his shoulders. He heard Annie sigh from next to him and then she was pulling the gun from his hand, fingers brushing against his. “Here,” she said, sliding six fresh bullets into the chamber and spinning it closed for him. She had gotten quicker at that then he remembered, twirling the gun with a practiced ease before handing it back to him. She wouldn’t look at his face that was still stinging from her hits and it was a sharp contrast to the panic he had heard in her voice before. Maybe he’d been delusional because he was dying. “Annie,” he said, and her name came out like a prayer. She glanced up at him, eyes lingering on the scars on his lips before meeting his eyes. “What?” she asked him quietly. He licked his lips and there were hundreds of things he could’ve said, but they didn’t come out right, now that he wasn’t fuzzy from blood loss. Even if it wasn’t the best time for that conversation he still should’ve opened his mouth and said something to her for Christ’s sake because he had missed her and she was standing right next to him with a gun in her hand and if his brother had been standing it would have felt like home again. Instead he asked the stupid thing, because that’s what he was best at and always would be. “What’re you doing here?” She snorted and looked away from him and back down the hallway. “Ashley Baker. And you’re welcome, by the way.” “Ashley sent you here?” he asked and he was a fucking prick because he couldn’t even open his mouth to say thank you to her when she was the girl that had saved both their asses. She’d made him use his powers and he hadn’t wanted to, still didn’t, because he couldn’t take the look in his brother’s eyes when he opened them again. Johnny should be dead. He knew it, he felt it, and he saw it reflected back at him when Ayden had looked up at him after. His brother groaned on his shoulder and something warm and wet was trickling down his back and he hoped it wasn’t puke. “What for?” She stepped over a pile of broken bones and stayed close to the wall. “He was worried about you two. For good reason, seems like.” “Were you worried?” he asked her, and he didn’t know why the question came out. She looked at him and he didn’t know how to read her anymore and that hurt like a punch in the gut. Her face was a cool mask and she was thinking too hard about what she should say instead of what she was feeling. She was distracting him and he knew it and he couldn’t help it because he had missed her and the touch of her hand and the sound of her voice. Then she sighed and brushed hair out of her eyes as she looked away form him again. “When Ashley’s worried, I get worried. So yeah, I was worried about you boys.” His mouth opened and this time the right words came out. “Thank you,” he told her quietly. Then Ayden’s fingers dug into his back and his brother starting whimpering and crying, a scream on the edge of his tongue. Johnny crouched and slid his brother into a sitting position against the wall. Another vision was wracking his form and he grabbed his brother’s arms tightly to keep him steady. Then Annie was at his side and her hands cupped his brother’s face, holding it still so that he couldn’t slam his head off the wall and he had missed this, missed having her at his back and at his side. Blood was trickling from his brother’s nose before the vision was over and when he came back down from it his eyes were hollow voids looking out at him. Johnny knew he wasn’t seeing him at all, or if he was he was seeing him with his chest cut open or maybe a bullet in his head because Ayden had that look on his face that said he was only seeing corpses now. He hated that look. It was what had driven him out of the house at seventeen with a shotgun in his hand. “He sent someone,” Ayden said and his breathing was harsh and uneven. “He’s almost here.” “Who did he send?” Annie asked, running fingers through his hair. Ayden shook his head. “I don’t know. A killer. A killer with a false face.” Johnny snorted, and then he was hauling his brother back up on his shoulders. “All the more reason for us to get the fuck out of here,” he snapped. Annie gave Ayden’s hand a comforting squeeze and then her gun was back at the ready and she was leading the boys down the hallway. His brother’s fingers were clenching the remains of Johnny’s shirt like a security blanket and he heard him whimper quietly from behind him. “I don’t want you to be dead,” Ayden said, and it was so soft he could barely hear it. “I thought you were into corpses?” he asked, and it was the best he had at the moment. Ayden didn’t even manage a weak laugh. Instead he whimpered and pressed his face tightly into Johnny’s shoulder. His brother’s whole body was shaking and he felt a knot of guilt twist its way around his stomach. He knew he’d had to use the voice. He knew he didn’t have any other choice because he would be dead otherwise. He could see it etched in his brother’s eyes, but it didn’t make him feel any better for what he’d done to him. The stupid fucking child had shoved his visions into Ayden’s head, but how was what Johnny did any different? “I can’t tell what’s real anymore,” Ayden said. “Are you even really alive?” He heard something scraping the hallway behind him and Annie’s gun went off first, blasting a hole in the shadow creature. It screeched and then Johnny was shooting at it too and blasting it into nothingness. It broke apart into little bits of blackness and then soaked into the floor and disappeared. “Yeah,” Johnny told his brother, turning back around. There was a bright red exit sign over their heads, pointing down the hallway to the right and he didn’t even want to think about what he was going to find at the end of it because it was the second most beautiful thing he’d seen all day. The first was Annie. “I’m really alive,” he said quietly, and his eyes were on her. They could hear talking coming from the end of the hall and then a high pitched screaming noise that sounded like that stupid fucking kid and Johnny felt a growl form low in his throat and his hand tightened on her gun. She flicked her eyes back at him and shook her head slightly but if he got his hands on that little bastard no power on earth was going to stop him. They slipped down the darkened hallway with slow steady movements and Johnny knew he was going to have to put his brother down before they hit the lobby but he was scared of what might happen after. “Where are they?” he was screaming and then he heard something gurgling and snapping and the kid was making all kinds of howling noises as he stomped around the lobby. He picked up a lamp and he threw it but it didn’t go very far because the kid was skinny and weak from wasting away in this hospital for so long. He howled and threw a picture frame at the nurse that had greeted them forever ago. It missed her by a mile and she just stood there with a smile on her face. He let Ayden slip from his shoulder to the ground and he pressed a gun into his hands. “Stay here,” he told him quietly. Wenston There was a gun in Ayden’s hand. He didn’t remember how it got there. He was slumped against a wall and he felt like he was wasn’t really here but he knew he was. He rolled his head to the side and he saw Johnny and Annie standing on either side of a doorway a little bit down the hall. They both had their guns held up and were listening to the mother of all tantrums going on out in the lobby. Ayden thought they looked like a couple, both of them standing there, mirroring each other’s stances and expressions. They belonged together. Of all the great lovers in history, Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, Cleopatra and whoever the hell she was fucking, there should be another pair added. Johnny and Annie. It was just meant to be, in Ayden’s mind. Then they turned to corpses and he had to whimper and look away because he hated seeing them as corpses. He closed his eyes and there was a little girl burning. She morphed into a man with his tongue being ripped out. He turned into Johnny rotting away on the floor and Ayden actually cried out because that one brought blood to his lips and it dripped from his nose. Ayden opened his eyes and he didn’t quite catch the twin worried looks that were cast his way but he didn’t need to because at his cry, the tantrum in the lobby had stopped and the building was deathly quiet again. Ayden bit his lip to keep another scream from escaping his mouth because he knew that he was making things harder for Johnny and Annie and he knew he should be quiet and he thought about putting the gun to his mouth and pulling the trigger and with that thought he flung the gun away from him and towards Johnny and it struck his brother’s boot because that thought was just too, too tempting. Johnny gave him a look that Ayden couldn’t read and then he was bending to grab the gun and he took a step forward to bring it back over to him. He didn’t make it far though as the lobby doors flung open and a shadow snaked its way into the hallway and wrapped around Annie’s waist while she was distracted watching them. She gasped as she was pulled into the lobby and fell to the ground hard, being dragged quickly along by the shadow wrapped around her waist. Ayden watched his brother turn at Annie’s yell and then he was firing into the shadow creature at the opposite side of the lobby, chasing after the woman he loved. Annie, not one to be the damsel in distress, was firing at the thing too and with both of them sending blessed bullets its way, the shadow creature let go of her. She quickly climbed to her feet and Johnny came up to her side, inspecting her for wounds. Neither one of them seemed to notice the boy wasn’t standing there anymore. But they noticed rather quickly as the creatures seemed to come out of the woodworks. The lobby turned into a fucking war zone real quickly. Wicked things seemed to drop down from the ceiling and melt up from the floor and seep in through the walls. Johnny and Annie were standing back to back and whirling around, firing at anything and everything that came near them. Ayden was watching from the sidelines and he wished he hadn’t flung his gun away. But he had, so he just sat and watched and every so often he would twitch and see Johnny or Annie get skewered or torn apart or rot in front of his eyes. He couldn’t tell if they were truly still standing or not and he felt tears still leaking onto his cheeks. He hated this. He absolutely fucking hated this. There was a grunt from behind him and Ayden had to consider the sound for a moment to realize it was real. He turned his head slowly to see what was making the noise and he was surprised to find that someone had come to stand next to him without him realizing. The first thing he saw was the boot. It was enormous and attached to a leg that was nearly the size of Ayden. He trailed up the leg and took in the person standing over him and the guy must have been a giant or a the fucking Incredible Hulk because the muscles were huge and he stood well over seven feet tall. He was three times Ayden’s size. As Ayden’s eyes made their way up to the guy’s face, he cringed because he recognized it. Well, not the face, it was unrecognizable, but the way he wore the face. It was someone else’s and the man seemed to have borrowed it. Large, industrial staples glinted in the faint light of the hallway from where he had stapled the skin to his own head. Behind the face, there was just bone. Ayden could see his bleached skull and he wondered how the guy was even still alive. The man turned his head and the dead face attached to his head was looking down at him. He squatted and it was like watching a giant tree fall in slow motion. He bent down and grabbed Ayden’s chin and Ayden gasped as the man’s hand easily wrapped around his jaw and jugular and he was pulling him up so their faces were next to each other. Ayden could smell the rot and decay seeping off of the man, or creature, or…whatever the fuck he was. The smell brought images to Ayden’s eyes and he was jamming them shut because his senses and his brain were on overload and he couldn’t tell if this was happening or not. “Not that one,” came a voice and Ayden opened his eyes again to see the boy standing over the shoulder of the giant man. Ayden could still hear Johnny and Annie’s guns blasting away out in the lobby and he knew they were busy and didn’t know what was happening over here, otherwise they would have come. “That one’s mine. Go kill the other two.” Ayden tried to cry out and warn his brother and Annie but the man’s hand was clamped over his mouth and then he shoved him back against the wall and Ayden slumped down limply. The beast stood and his stride was long and heavy as he stepped into the lobby to go after Johnny and Annie. Ayden wouldn’t let his brother be taken by surprise. “Johnny!” he screamed. Then the boy leaned over him and clucked his tongue disapprovingly. “We don’t have time to play,” he said and tilted his head to the side. Ayden heard his brother yell his name but his eyes were focused intently on the boy’s and he couldn’t pull them away. “I wanted to have fun and give you the visions little by little, but, we just can’t. So here,” and he reached out to touch Ayden’s head. “Just take all of them.” And he did. .Wolfie. Johnny couldn’t tell if he was in heaven or hell.The wicked were seeping up through the cracks in the ground, things of nightmare crawling up through the linoleum. He kept firing at them, at the ghouls and the corpses and other thins he didn’t even fucking recognize. Something that looked like the swamp witch crawled over the counter and then he was shooting her between the eyes and whirling to take out a shadow that was creeping up to Annie’s right. She didn’t even blink as the gun went off by her face because she had her back pressed against his and was firing with the same efficiency as him. He had missed this. Not the wicked, not the screaming and howling or the black blood that splattered his face. He dealt with that every day, he didn’t need an army coming at him all it once. He had missed her next to him even if he was scared she’d get hurt or afraid that she hated him. Just her presence was enough right now, her dark hair falling about her face as she fired both her guns into a walking corpse. Then he heard his brother’s panicked shout. “Johnny,” he screamed once, before he went quiet. They were turning at the same time and his eyes widened when he saw what was forcing its way through the door. It had to duck just to fit through and maybe Annie standing on his shoulders could have reached its head. He knew as soon as he saw it this must’ve been what Ayden had seen because it had someone else’s face stapled to its head. Maybe it had been a man once, but now it was just a monster, and it was heading straight for them. He emptied three bullets into it and then it was on top of him. It hit him hard in the chest and he felt himself flying backwards. He struck the wall with a thump and then something was reaching out of the wall and burying its claws in his arm and his chest. He couldn’t help the harsh shout that tore its way from his throat and then he jammed the gun against the hand and pulled the trigger. Dark blood splattered his face and he heard it scream harshly as the hand released him. He pushed away from the wall, scrambling backwards as the ghoul pulled itself farther out of the wall. It was grinning at him, a jagged death’s head grin, and then he fired into its skull, splattering its brains across the beige paint. Then his gun clicked open, his bullets gone. He heard Annie shout and the sound of her gun going off, and he rolled over into a crouch. She was backing up, firing again and again into the monster but it was so fucking huge that each bullet hole just looked like a pinprick in its skin. Then it was reaching out a hand towards her and he was proud of her when she tucked and rolled out of the way, kicking a chair at it. The monster didn’t even notice, batting it aside like a child’s play thing as it stalked towards her. She pulled out another gun and fired at its head and for a second it hesitated when the bullet went through its eye. It paused, pushing the skin back together over its face and he could see white bone glistening out behind it. This was a fucking Frankenstein monster and he wondered what kind of sick asshole would create it. The eye wouldn’t sit properly in its head, so it grunted and flicked it out of the socket. It squished when it landed on the floor and then its remaining eye focused on Annie and he was charging towards her. She fired at it again and then it had its hands wrapped around her face and it was lifting her off the ground. Johnny yanked at his pant leg, pulling out the knife he kept strapped to his calf and then he was scrambling across the floor, launching himself off a desk onto its back. His arm slung around its throat and he couldn’t even get it all the way around it was so huge. The monster turned, its eye rolling in its skull as it reached a hand back towards him. He brought the knife down with all his force into its neck and a bellow escaped its mouth, tossing Annie to the side as he reached back to try and haul Johnny off of him. He twisted and ground the knife deeper into its skin, blood bubbling out and down its chest. Then its hand was closing around his neck and he was being thrown halfway across the room. He struck the nurse’s station hard, his head cracking against the desk as he went down in a pile and for a second he could only lay there as stars burst in his head. He grabbed the edge of the desk and pulled himself into a sitting position, blood trickling down his head and he was really tired of getting the shit beaten out of him all day. Then he heard Annie yelling something and he opened his eyes to see his woman with her hands wrapped around the blade still in the monsters neck and she was clinging to it with both hands and dragging it down the monster’s flesh. It roared and reached for her. “Annie!” Johnny shouted but she didn’t even glance back, gun out and she was firing through the hand reaching for her. The monster screamed and raised a fist but before he could bring it down she was jamming the blade deeper into its chest and twisting. He saw blood pour out of the wound and then its hand fell slackly to its side, its single eye rolling back in its head. She only released the blade when it fell backwards, hitting the ground with a massive crash. She stood there panting, and then she turned slowly to look at him. Her expression was unreadable but he smiled at her because she was covered in the monster’s blood and she was still standing there, gun in her hand and face of an angel and his hands were shaking as he pulled his way to his feet. Her eyes shifted to the bloody wound on his skull and she shook her head. “You need to learn how to dodge,” she told him quietly and there was a ghost of a smile on her face and he just wanted to kiss her. Then he heard Ayden scream. “Ayden,” he gasped and he was scrambling across the floor, hitting the hallway at a dead run. Annie froze next to him because she didn’t know what was happening. The kid was bent over his brother, hands pressed to either side of his head and his head tipped back with a smile on his face. Ayden’s back was arching off the floor and he was screaming. His eyes were blank and white as visions slammed into him over and over again. There was blood running from his mouth and his eyes again. The kid didn’t have a chance to scream when Johnny’s boot slammed into his jaw, kicking him back away from his brother. He crumpled back away from him, head whipping around as his eyes welled up with tears. He must have bit his tongue because there was blood trickling from his mouth and he spit out a tooth, his eyes growing wide as he saw the small bloody lump on the ground. His eyes flew up to Johnny’s face again and he looked completely disbelieving and pissed. “Fuck you!” he screamed. “I’m going to tell my brother you fucking asshole!” “Yeah, then I’ll kick him the fucking face too,” Johnny spat. Annie ducked down next to him, kneeling next to Ayden and pulling him into her arms, her gun back in its holster. He was still convulsing on the floor, his mouth opened in a silent scream but he didn’t look like he could even make a sound anymore. Blood and tears were streaming from his eyes and Johnny felt a sliver of fear run down his spine because his brother was still twitching and convulsing and he didn’t know if he would ever stop or what he would be like when he did. He stalked past him, grabbing the kid by the shirt and yanking him up to his face. “Take them back,” he growled. The boy shook his head. “No,” he said, grinning back at him, and then he started laughing. “Listen you little shit,” Johnny began to say, and then the kid fucking kicked him in the shins and he was squirming out of his scrubs, scrambling down the hallway back towards the lobby. Johnny turned and stalked after him, swearing to heaven and hell that when he got his hands on the little bastard he was going to beat him so hard that even his momma wouldn’t recognize his face when he was done with it. The kid had grabbed the phone off the receiver and he was pounding numbers quickly into it, glancing over his shoulder at Johnny. He stumbled back away from the eldest Marshall but he didn’t let go of the phone, keeping it cradled tightly in his arms. Then Johnny’s hand was closing around his throat and shoving him against the wall. Tears started to leak from the kid’s eyes and Johnny didn’t even feel a little guilty. “Take them back,” he snapped, slamming the kids head into the wall. “Take your fucking visions back away from my brother or I swear to Christ Almighty I will kill you where you stand.” He still held the phone to his head and he was shaking his head. “My brother wants to talk to you,” he said quietly. Johnny snorted, keeping one hand around the kid’s throat and grabbing the phone with his other hand. “Listen,” he snarled into the receiver. His eyes never left the boy’s, watching the tears run down his face and the kid’s nose was running now too, snot trickling down to his bleeding lips. Johnny should have kicked him harder. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are but if your stupid shit brother doesn’t undo what he did to mine I’m going to kill him. And it’s not going to be quick, and it’s not going to be pretty.” Laughter was the last thing he’d expected to hear on the other end. “How quaint. And you are?” “Johnny,” he snapped. “Who the fuck are you?” The man’s voice was still laced with laughter and it was pissing him off. He heard something in the background and it sounded like the slots at a casino. He made a mental note of it because when he was done here he was going to find the kid’s brother and he was going to kick his ass too, just to get his point across. “My name is Vincent. My ‘stupid shit brother’ is called Marko. Now listen to me carefully, Johnny. You are going to let my brother go free.” If Johnny had the voice of God, this man’s voice was the whisper of the devil in his head. Johnny jerked in surprise and then his hand unclenched around Marko’s throat. The kid dropped to the ground with a sigh of relief and then his eyes were rolling up into his head and he was shaking. A whimper escaped his throat as he seized against the wall, fingers digging into the floor as it ripped through him and suddenly Johnny was very nervous because this was really fucking familiar. His stomach dropped as he finally figured out what had happened here. They were the same. Then the seizure stopped and the kid was tipping his head back to look up at Johnny’s shocked face. He started to laugh, head falling back and blood dribbling from the corner of his lips as he did. He snarled and kicked the kid again in the stomach and he let out a whimper, crawling away from Johnny towards the door. Johnny wanted to turn and grab him and stop him and beat his ass into the ground but he couldn’t move a muscle towards him. He heard laughter on the other end. “Stay on the phone,” the man told him. Johnny growled low in his throat and he turned slowly, watching the kid as he ran out the doors. He saw him trip and fall outside as another vision wrenched through him and he wondered how far the kid thought he would get on foot. He licked his lips and tried to pretend he wasn’t scared that he had to do what this man was telling him. “Fuck you,” he snapped, and he knew he should have used the voice then but he could still hear his brother whimpering quietly from the hallway and he just couldn’t do that to Ayden twice in one day. Not if he could help it. “No,” the man said, and he was still laughing. “Fuck you.” Johnny tried to pretend he wasn’t scared and his finger was hovering over the phone because he wanted to press down and hang up on this asshole before he could tell him anything else. “Here’s what you are going to do. You are going to kill anyone you brought with you. Then you are going to kill yourself.” Then there was a quiet click as he hung up. He heard the words and then he felt them sink into his mind and he was screaming. The phone clattered from his fingers and then his vision went black. Wenston They were at the dinner table. The house still smelled moldy and damp and there still a few boxes laying around of things they had managed to salvage from the fire. The new house was smaller and older and dirtier than what they were used to, but it was all they could afford and it was all their father had wanted. They had buried their mother a week ago and now they were all seated around the dinner table in awkward silence, Johnny, Ayden, their father and Annie. They were eating a noodle casserole that Ayden had cooked, because he had learned how to cook at an early age or else they would have starved. No one was talking because the tension in the room could have been cut with a knife. Their father was emotionless and drunk and smelled heavily of smoke and booze as he sat at the head of the table. Johnny and Annie sat near each other, their heads down. Every so often Johnny would glance up at Ayden because this was uncomfortable and even though she had been drunk and passed out most of their lives, she had still been their mother. Ayden wondered why he hadn’t seen it coming in a vision or a dream. Maybe they could have stopped her from being charred to a crisp when she burned down their house. But it wasn’t a Wicked that had killed her, it was alcohol and a loose cigarette. “What’s in this?” Their father’s voice was rugged and deep and it startled all of them. Ayden gulped and looked over at the man. He took too long to answer and his father looked up at him, still chewing, fork held in his hand. “You made it, didn’t you? What the fuck is in it?” “Uh, noodles and tuna and mushroom soup.” The fork fell from his father’s hand and landed with a clatter on his plate. Out of the corner of Ayden’s eye, he saw Johnny slowly set his fork down and Annie was looking between all of them. He kept his eyes on his father, though. “I don’t like mushrooms.” “It’s…it’s the same way I always make it,” Ayden said quietly. He was backhanded across the mouth and his head jerked to the side beneath the blow. He heard Johnny’s fist slam against the table but his brother controlled himself and didn’t rise from his chair. Their father’s attention turned on him. “You got something you want to say to me, boy?” he snarled drunkenly. Ayden turned quickly and looked at his brother, shaking his head quickly because even though their father was a drunk, he was and always would be a fighter. He was big and fast and strong and there were years of psychologically engrained fears working in his favor because both of his sons were terrified of him, whether they would admit it or not. Annie’s hand came up to wrap around Johnny’s arm, to show she was here and if needed her, she would always be here. “No,” Johnny grit out and the word came strained and against his will, his eyes going back to the table and Ayden knew it was taking every ounce of Johnny’s self control not to stand up and start wailing on the man. “That’s what I fucking thought,” their Dad said and then his attention was back on Ayden. “Now make this again without the fucking mushrooms.” Ayden licked his lips, eyes darting to Johnny and Annie before coming back to his father. “I used the last of the noodles,” he said and flinched when his father raised a finger to point at him. “Then make something else!” the man screamed and Ayden was scrambling out of his chair to head to the cupboards to find something else to make for him. He panicked for a second because the cupboards were still practically empty and he didn’t know if he had anything to make. He heard his father behind him grabbing Johnny and Annie’s dishes and slurring out, “Don’t eat this fucking shit.” He heard his father throw the dishes into the sink and then walk over to him and his spine was tingling because he could almost already feel the belt on his back. There was nothing in the cupboards! He had nothing to make! Why the fuck had they even tried to have a normal family dinner anyway? “Start cooking, god damn it!” his father yelled as he came to stand behind him. Ayden heard Johnny’s chair squeak on the tiles and he panicked because it wasn’t going to be Ayden that got the shit beat out of him, it was going to be Johnny. Ayden grabbed a box suddenly and pulled it out of the cupboard because he didn’t want Johnny to be hurt, he hated it when Johnny was hurt. “Chicken and rice!” Ayden blurted and turned around, holding up the rice for his Dad to see. The man looked at the bag and then looked at Ayden. He wasn’t sure if they had chicken but god damn it he’d go out and find a chicken to slaughter if it meant it would appease the man. “I can make this, it won’t take long,” he tried and he gave himself kudos because his voice wasn’t shaking. His hands were, but not his voice. Their Dad studied him for a second and Ayden could see Annie standing by the table and Johnny standing behind their Dad, ready to jump in if he had to. But the man pointed a finger at Ayden and said, “It better be done by the time I’m done shitting out your mushrooms or so help me I’ll tan your hide.” Then he was stalking out of the kitchen and Ayden took a deep breath and turned back to the stove, starting it up quickly and getting everything ready and how long did it take to shit out mushrooms and where the hell was the salt and why the fuck were their lives so screwed up and he missed his mom even if she was a piece of crap and… Johnny’s hand fell lightly on Ayden’s shoulder and he stilled his frantic movements and his racing mind and he realized he had burned himself on the stove. Johnny pulled him into a hug and Ayden thought for a moment that they shouldn’t be wasting time on these fucking girly moments but it did manage to calm him some. Johnny’s voice was quiet and guarded when he spoke. “It won’t always be like this,” he whispered to him. “We’re leaving the day you graduate.” Ayden nodded into his brother’s shoulder and then pulled away because he had a meal to make. He heard and felt his brother still standing behind him and he knew there were a million things Johnny wanted to say but not enough time or ways to say them. So they just stood there. And Ayden cooked a meal while Johnny thought of ways to keep his little brother from getting hurt. † † † Annie was holding him but he couldn’t really hear her or see her, he just knew she was there. Her fingers were stroking his head softly and she was rocking him back and forth but he wasn’t seeing her, he was seeing death and chaos and the visions were all piling up on top of each other and morphing together and it hurt so bad that he almost stopped feeling anything at all. But he sure as hell felt when someone’s hands grabbed the front of his shirt, hefted him to his feet and then slammed him into the wall. He heard Annie’s voice and she was screaming, “Johnny, what the hell?” And then one of the hands let go of his shirt and he heard flesh hitting flesh and he heard Annie hit the ground and then he was slammed into the wall again. He opened his eyes and tried to see who was hurting him but all he could see was Johnny and this couldn’t be right. He was slammed into the wall a third time and his head cracked against it and jumbled the visions in his mind and he nearly lost consciousness. Then he was being flung across the hall and his face connected with the wall there and he was crumpling to the ground, blood leaking from a cut on his forehead. He could feel his eye swelling already and he wondered what the hell was going on because visions didn’t toss him around and this certainly couldn’t be real. Johnny would never hurt him like this. Unless it wasn’t Johnny. He heard the click of a gun and he heard Annie yell and the gun fired. A bullet ricocheted off the floor next to his head and the plaster sprayed his face but all he could do was lay there. He heard fighting. Flesh hitting flesh. He tried to look up to see what was going on but all he saw was Annie and Johnny engaged in hand to hand combat. Annie struck Johnny across the face and then he was pistol whipping her and she fell to the ground, dazed. Ayden watched the gun turn on him and he wondered if his brother was really there, pointing a gun at him, going to kill him. Annie screamed in frustration and then she shot Johnny in the leg. Ayden watched his brother cry out and crumple as the bullet ripped through his calf and it was a painful wound but not a deadly one because she had purposely shot through the flesh and not the bone. Johnny turned and aimed the gun on Annie, but she was quick, even bleeding from a wound on her head like she was, and she reached forward and then they were wrestling with the gun. Images flashed in front of Ayden’s mind and for a moment he was somewhere else, watching someone else die. Subconsciously he could still hear them fighting. Annie was cursing and Johnny was being too quiet and he wondered if his brother was really his brother of if his brother was dead somewhere on an operating table. He watched a body get put through a wood chipper and then a woman being devoured by a creature in pieces out in the woods and then a child being drowned in a lake with something clinging to his ankles. The visions morphed and blurred and collided with each other in his mind and he couldn’t stop convulsing on the floor as Annie and Johnny fought. “Johnny, stop!” Annie was snarling and then the gun fired. Ayden heard Annie gasp and then his visions cleared and he saw her fall back against the wall, holding her shoulder. Blood was seeping between her fingers and she was looking at Johnny like she couldn’t believe the fucker had just shot her. Johnny hesitated for a second and if Ayden hadn’t known his brother so well, he wouldn’t have seen the falter in his movements. But then he was turning, seated on the floor and he aimed the gun at Ayden and his finger was squeezing on the trigger and Ayden thought about his father. He thought about the man as he aimed a shotgun at his throat and was squeezing the trigger and he heard Johnny’s words from those years ago echoing in his mind telling the man to die. He remember his father dropping over. It was fuzzy in his mind because Ayden had been shot and beaten to hell and he’d been in the hospital for weeks after that. Clarity graced him for a second and he looked up at Johnny’s eyes as he aimed the gun. They were black as night and Ayden convulsed a bit beneath their gaze. This wasn’t his brother. Or maybe it was and Johnny had finally had enough. He didn’t know. But there was a longing in his gut that pained him because he wanted his brother back and here and making things right and he started crying because he saw the trigger squeezing and Johnny’s eyes darken and maybe there was a twitch in his face but otherwise it was blank and void and there was no emotion. “Please,” Ayden whispered quietly to the world. Blood leaked from his lips along with the word and he laid his head down and closed his eyes because maybe there was a bullet coming his way and maybe the visions were back and blinding him and maybe he wished his not-brother would just pull the trigger and be done with it. Maybe Ayden wanted this. Maybe he really, really fucking didn’t. .Wolfie. She was crying.He didn’t understand why she was crying and then she looked up and saw him and she was pressing her face into his chest, arms wrapped around his neck. She clung to him desperately as sobs wracked her frame and he pulled her tightly to him, pressing his lips to her head. His shirt was already soaked with her tears and he didn’t even understand what had happened yet. “What’s wrong baby?” he asked her quietly, lips brushing her hair. They’d been down in San Antonio because the sandman they’d been hunting had gotten away and they’d had to track it half across Texas before they’d finally cornered it in an orphanage. He still had blood trickling down his back and there were scratches around his eyes from where it had tried to gouge them out. He’d dropped Ayden off at the hospital because his brother had broken his wrist again and he normally wouldn’t have left him there by himself but the payphone had started ringing and when he answered it Ashley fucking Baker told him to “Annie?” he pressed gently. She shook her head like she didn’t want to tell him and her fingers were curling in his shirt, clinging to him desperately. She was crying harder now and she wasn’t looking at him, her eyes crushed closed like maybe it wouldn’t be true until she opened them. His hand ran through her hair as he held her to him and a sickening fear was settling in his stomach but he choked it down. “I’m bleeding,” she told him and her voice was little more than a whisper. He frowned, not understanding at first. “Annie, what…?” Then he realized what she was saying and he felt his stomach drop. “Jesus,” he breathed, and he was hugging her tightly, his arms shaking. He was just coming to terms with being a father. He was just starting to get used to the idea in his head and he was going to talk to Ayden tomorrow and tell him the news because she’d just passed the first trimester. His arms tightened and pulled her closer. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so fucking sorry.” Then her hands were pulling at his, spreading his fingers across her abdomen and her eyes were looking up at him. They were filled with tears and he reached up to wipe them away. She had handled it better than him when she’d found out, unafraid and unapologetic. It had been an accident but the word abortion had never come up between them. He’d promised he’d take care of them both. He’d promised to keep them safe. Now her hands were pressing his against her skin and her eyes were looking up at him sadly. “Fix it,” she asked. “Say the words, and make it better.” He should have just done it. He should have just said the words. When he was thirteen he should have been run over by a freight train. He remembered the sound of the horn and the sight of it barreling around the track towards him and he couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, because he was going to die. He should’ve been run over and splattered across the ground and instead he had opened his mouth and said the word no and he had changed everything. He heard his brother screaming as the train crumpled back and he looked in her eyes and he felt fear settle deep in his gut because playing God always had consequences. So he pulled his hand away. He pulled his hand back and he shook his head slowly and he told her no. “I’m sorry,” he said, and they were the only words he had. † † † Johnny thought maybe he was a dream, or maybe he was dead and in Hell. He saw himself moving but he couldn’t stop any of it, not when he hit Ayden and not when he hit Annie. He saw himself doing those things but he couldn’t stop it, he couldn’t even control his own breathing. He heard their voices from far away and watched his body move without him telling it to and he felt like he was floating somewhere high above it all, just watching. Annie screamed at him to stop and he struck her across the mouth, sending her falling to the floor. He was going to kill Ayden. That was the only way this could end. He barely felt the bullet pierce his calf, but he crumpled like he could. Then he was pointing the weapon at her and his heart lurched in his chest because he didn’t want to pull the trigger but he didn’t think he had a choice anymore. She was trying to grab it from him, hands curled around his and he wanted to tell her to just shoot him in the head and make the nightmare stop but his voice wasn’t his own and his hands weren’t his own and all he could hear was that bastard’s voice whispering words into his mind. He felt the gun go off in his hand. He felt it kick and the shell clattered somewhere on the floor and he saw Annie fall back against the wall and there was red blooming across her shirt and her skin. She stared at him like she couldn’t believe he had just done that and he couldn’t either. For a second he could feel his hand on the trigger and he tried to open his mouth to say he was so fucking sorry because they were the only words he could ever get to come out right to her and then it shut down again and he was moving, pointing the gun at his brother. He felt his hand around the gun. His finger closed on the trigger. “Please,” Ayden whispered and red trickled down his chin as he did. His brother’s eyes were locked on his and they were full of pain and fear and sadness and they had looked that way when their fucking father had beaten him, time and time again. He looked like he was just waiting for the hit to come and Johnny’s hand tightened on the gun, wanting to throw it away but his hands didn’t want to listen to him. He heard the words over and over again in his head, telling him to kill and his brother looked like he was already dead. Then Annie was hitting him, tackling him to the ground. He hit it hard, feeling his head crack off the floor. He felt her hands curl around his and she was forcing the hand with the gun into the floor, slamming it against the tile again and again. His knuckles cracked and he felt his hand open and then she was pushing it away from his grasp. She was straddling his chest and trying to hold him down but he was stronger than her and she was bleeding from a wound in her shoulder so he pushed her off of him because he had to kill Ayden. She cried out as she hit the ground hard and then he was sitting up, hand closing around her throat. “Johnny,” she whispered, and there were tears in her eyes. He felt a hand on his arm and he threw his elbow back, striking his brother in the face. He whirled on him because he was the one he was supposed to kill and he let Annie go, punching his brother in the jaw. He heard the crack and he hated himself and he wanted to stop but he didn’t know how and all he could do was watch as his brother lay bleeding under him. His hands closed around his throat and he was choking the life from him. He felt Annie hit him on the back and then the back of the head but he didn’t let go, squeezing harder. He was bruising his neck and he heard him whimper. He remembered his father, lifting his brother’s face with the barrel of his gun, and the hazy and scared look in his brother’s eyes and he was supposed to protect him no matter what, not choke him or shoot him or hit him. His fingers loosened on his neck and then he was pushing himself away from his brother, pressing his hands to his head to try and keep himself from doing anything. He felt a weak cry escape his lips and the devil’s whisper was deep in his brain, telling him to pick up the gun and finish the job. His fingers reached for it and Annie was there, kicking it away. “Help,” he whispered, and it took too much effort just to get that to come out of his throat. He pressed his hands deeper into his head and he should kill himself, because that would fix this. That was the last thing he’d been told to do and if he did then he couldn’t kill his brother and he cried out because that was what he was supposed to be doing and he felt his hands moving and trying to reach for the gun. Annie pushed him back against the wall, hand wrenching his face to hers. “Johnny, stop it. You don’t want to kill Ayden,” she told him. He saw Ayden pulling himself up off the floor and his gaze was broken and bleeding as it focused on Johnny’s face. He felt the other power in him, twisting around his brains and his muscles and he was trying to push her aside so he could get to him. Then she struck him across the face as hard as he could and damn could the woman hit when she wanted to. For a moment his vision felt like it cleared and then he was focusing on the broken gaze of his brother. He felt the whispers in his mind and he was supposed to be killing him. He was supposed to kill him and then himself but for a second he could think clearly and that was his fucking brother, the one he was supposed to protect. The whispers hissed at him to kick her away and pick up the gun and shoot Ayden and shoot himself. And then his tongue was wrapping around the one word he was good at saying, the one that had saved his life sixteen years ago. “No,” he said. Wenston Ayden remembered the vision he’d had when Johnny had told their father to die. He remembered it and thought about it often. The first thing that happened was that Ayden had died. His father had pulled the trigger of the shotgun that as pressed against his throat and Ayden had been flung backwards, his throat ripped to shreds. He’d choked and bleed out and he’d died right there on the floor with Annie’s hands on his neck and Johnny fighting his father for control over the shotgun. In the end, Johnny won and he’d shot the man in the face and then he was falling to his knees beside Ayden and he’d wailed. A noise Ayden had never heard come from his brother. Annie was crying and Johnny could only scream. The vision didn’t end there, which was why Ayden remembered it often. It went on for years. Johnny and Annie grew apart because Johnny drank too much. Annie left him one day and she never came back. Johnny wasted away for years, not seeking out Wicked to kill, but seeking out the bottoms of whiskey bottles. In the end, Johnny had put a gun to his chin and had blown his brains out the back of his head and he died alone and on his couch and it was weeks before someone had complained about the smell and sent someone to subpoena him but they only found a corpse. Ayden hated that vision. He hated it because that wasn’t Johnny. He’d rather his brother die traumatically than die that way, wasting away and alone. Ayden was remembering that vision while his brother’s hands were wrapped around his throat, squeezing his life away. He wasn’t even aware he was dying because he wasn’t even aware it was real. Then Johnny’s hands released him and he could only turn and stare at his brother and Annie was pleading with him and Johnny was looking at him and then Johnny told the world the one word he knew how to say best. ”No.” And Ayden’s world ceased to exist. He was caught in a world of should have’s, would have’s and will be’s. He saw strangers and friends and brothers being ripped to shreds and burned alive and tortured and fucked and killed and bled out and eaten. He saw Johnny strangling the life out of him until he was dead on the floor. He saw Annie tackling him and he whipped around and shot her between the eyes and then he shot himself in the temple and all three of them rotted away on the hospital floor. He saw the world burn and the sky darken and somewhere someone was weeping but he couldn’t tell who. He didn’t know who would cry for them. And then he saw a man. And the man was standing in the dark and he had fire for eyes and a snake tongue and his hand was held out for Ayden to take. “I’ve won,” he said and Ayden wondered what game they had been playing. He felt himself reach out to take the hand and then hell was rising on earth and everyone was dying and Heaven was burning and then he realized who was weeping. The one who had created it all. He was weeping because everything was dying. He could hear his brother talking. He heard Annie answer back and they didn’t sound happy. They sounded sad and he wasn’t sure why. He tried to listen, to hear what they were saying. He could barely understand the words, but he heard them all the same. “What did he say?” Annie was asking. She sounded tired. Johnny’s sigh sounded more tired. “He said he doesn’t know who they were. But if we’re Godsent, then they must be fucking Hellrisen because they’re a lot stronger than we are.” Ayden figured his brother must be talking about Ashley Baker because other than the three right here in the room, there was only one other person who knew what a Godsent was and it was fucking Baker. “What did he say about Ayden?” Annie’s voice got quieter. When Johnny responded, his voice was deeper. “He doesn’t know about that either,” he said and Ayden wondered what they were talking about. He was right here, listening, so obviously he was okay. He realized suddenly that his body was numb, and he only realized that because his fingers had started to tingle. He tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn’t work. He tried to turn his head, but it wouldn’t cooperate. He could feel something in his nose, pumping air into his lungs. And as soon as he could feel that, one word rang in his head. Hospital. He was always winding up in the hospital. “He says to go kill some things and see if that helps,” Johnny’s voice was bitter and cold and he heard him pound his fist into something. The room was quiet for a moment and Ayden could hear a faint beeping and he could hear the awkwardness and uncomfortable silence floating around the room between his brother and Annie. “How are you supposed to know what to kill?” Annie asked. “I don’t know because Ayden’s in a fucking coma and I can’t exactly ask him what he needs me to kill, now can I?” Johnny snapped and his voice was raised and there was a panic and an anger and a helplessness behind his voice. Ayden wondered what he meant by him being in a coma because he obviously wasn’t if he was hearing this. He tried to open his eyes again and maybe he got a flutter, but they still weren’t working. So he sat still and just listened. “Don’t fucking yell at me,” Annie snapped back. Ayden heard Johnny growl in frustration and the sound of a chair being pushed back echoed about the room and he heard his brother pacing. When she spoke again, she had managed to calm her voice. Annie was always good at remaining calm when Johnny was raging. “Maybe you could just tell him to wake up?” “Annie,” and Johnny’s voice broke. He sighed and swallowed loudly before he could talk again. “The god damn kid ripped his fucking mind apart. I can’t give him anymore visions, I can’t. The last one I gave him put him into a fucking coma, for fuck’s sake. It could kill him or…I don’t know, there has to be another way. Ashley said he’d be here tomorrow. He’s got to have an idea by then.” “And if he doesn’t?” “Then I don’t know!” Johnny screamed and the room echoed his voice and then sunk back into silence again and Ayden could practically see the two staring at each other and seething quietly to themselves. He could see Annie’s face fall as she looked away and he could see Johnny’s fists clench and unclench as he tried to control his temper because he knew it wasn’t Annie he was angry at. Then Ayden realized that he was really seeing them, because his eyes had finally opened. When he realized that, he tried to call out to them because he hated it when they fought. But his mouth still wasn’t working. Annie looked at the floor and she opened her mouth but had to shut it because she was on the verge of tears. When she spoke, her voice was low and slow and striking. “You know what you need to say to fix this. You just won’t. You find any excuse you can to-” “This isn’t the same,” Johnny’s voice came and Ayden was surprised to hear the unshed tears lacing through the words. His brother had his back turned towards him and he wondered if Johnny was crying. He didn’t know what the two were talking about, but whatever it was, his brother must be torn up about it because he couldn’t remember the last time Johnny had cried. Annie held her hand up and climbed to her feet. He noticed that one of her arms was in a sling and he vaguely remembered something about Johnny shooting her and he wondered if that’s why she was pissed. “You’re right, it’s not,” she said and shook her head. Her face was bruised and there were stitches along her temple. He didn’t remember how she got those. “I’m sorry I brought it up. We’re not talking about this.” “Annie,” Johnny turned and Ayden got a good look at his brother. Johnny’s face was bruised and swollen and he had gotten the shit kicked out of him. He limped slightly and when he realized that, he saw a crutch in the corner. There wasn’t a cast, so no bones were broken, but Ayden still wondered what happened. He couldn’t remember. “No,” Annie said and waved her hand at him to keep him quiet. She made her way over to where Ayden was laying on a hospital bed, her eyes on the floor, trying to blink back her tears. “Just shut up,” she said and it was harsh and cold but then her eyes were coming up and they met Ayden’s and the anger and tears slipped from her face and she looked surprised. She hurried around to the side of the bed. “Ayden?” she asked, hand reaching out to touch his forehead. Johnny hurried over, well, hobbled over, and came to the other side and whatever they’d been arguing about suddenly went out the window. Johnny’s hand brushed the side of Ayden’s head and he wondered when his brother got so girly. “Ayden?” Johnny mimicked Annie’s question. Ayden knew the jig was up and he blinked heavily at them and licked his lips. His throat was dry and scratchy and sore and his face felt like he’d gone a few rounds in a boxing ring. But he managed a hoarse, “Did we get him?” Johnny and Annie were quiet a moment, like they hadn’t actually thought Ayden would answer them, but then both of their faces broke into a smile and a tear slipped onto Annie’s cheek and a choked laugh escaped Johnny’s throat. Annie’s hand grasped his and Ayden didn’t miss the way that she didn’t even look at Johnny as he spoke. “We probably should have gone with your machine gun idea.” Ayden managed a painful chuckle. .Wolfie. Session #4 : All Along the Watchtower Ayden wasn’t talking. He had been in the middle of a sentence and then he had frozen and he was staring out the window, his eyes glazed and distant. Johnny didn’t say anything, cleaning his guns to keep his hands busy and steady and there was a cigarette dangling from his lips. He blew smoke out through his nose and waited for it to pass and every second that dragged by made him more scared and concerned and angry. He wiped down the barrel of his shotgun and then reached to pull the revolver out of his brother’s hands and the younger Marshall finally jerked and focused back on his brother’s face. “What were you saying?” he asked, and he tried to force a smile onto his face but Johnny wasn’t buying it for a second. He ground his teeth on the filter in his cigarette and inhaled the smoke deep into his lungs where it could fester and rot for all he cared. Ayden’s hands were shaking and his brother didn’t even seem to notice. It could have been from the caffeine or the energy drinks, but it was most likely because Ayden didn’t sleep anymore. Not ever. Johnny blew the smoke out of his lips. “You were telling me about the vision with the wood chipper.” “Right,” Ayden said, and he nodded like he remembered and then he was gone again. It was getting worse. Or at least if it wasn’t getting worse, it wasn’t getting any better. Johnny and Annie had found a girl whose house was being burned down and they had shot the man in the head and set out the flames. She’d been badly hurt but she’d lived and the paramedics had taken her to the hospital along with her mom and her little brother. Her dad hadn’t made it, but she would live and it should have counted for something, except it didn’t. It was only one vision out of thousands. His brother had only been out of the coma for a week, but sometimes he seemed on the verge of slipping back into it. He couldn’t focus or hold a conversation. His brother could barely process a thought without demons and monsters dragging behind them. He didn’t sleep anymore because when he tried he just woke up screaming and sometimes he got that look on his face like both Johnny and Annie were already dead and Johnny hated that look most of all. His brother was having a hard time telling the difference between what was real and what was a vision and it was making him crazy. He sighed and cleaned the guns because if he didn’t he would use them on something or someone and there were only innocent bystanders around here. He heard the door open and shut and he glanced up briefly. Annie stood in the doorway, kicking her shoes off at the entry because she had always done that. It was her way of saying she was home and she wasn’t going to track dirt into her home. Johnny kept his boots on at all times. She glanced over at the table and for a second their eyes met before she shifted her gaze to Ayden. “Hey kiddo,” she said. “I got you your coffee.” His brother didn’t blink or respond at all. His gaze had focused on the shotgun and then his fingers were reaching out to trace the trigger and Johnny sighed and shook his head at Annie. “Try again in a minute,” he told her, and he didn’t look at her face either because that was the game they were playing now. If he didn’t look at her then he couldn’t see her pointedly not looking at him and if she didn’t look at him she could pretend he wasn’t there. They didn’t talk about what had happened before. She didn’t want to hear it and he didn’t know how to bring it up and he was no good at any of this. She was sharing a motel room with them for the last week and he had never felt farther away from her because she didn’t want to look at him or talk to him. He’d tried once, after Ayden had finally fallen into a restless sleep and he had sat across from her at the table by the window. He’d reached across to brush her fingers and she had pulled her hand away, not looking at him. “Can we talk?” he’d asked. “I don’t have anything to say to you, Johnny,” she told him quietly. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he told her. He kept his voice low and neutral because she still wasn’t looking at him and he hated the distance that had opened up between them. He put a cigarette between his lips and stared at the grains in the table so he didn’t have to see her ignoring him and hating him because the ignoring he could take, but the hate was something else and it was killing him slowly. “Annie,” he started to say, and then his brother cried and jerked awake, sweat pouring down his skin. Whatever he was going to say had been left hanging in the air between them. “I got you your cigarettes,” she snapped, and she still didn’t look up as she tossed them at him from across the room. He caught it deftly in one hand and tossed it on the table in front of him. He didn’t say thank you because she didn’t want one anyway but they were the words he should have said. He was never any good at what he was supposed to say, only the stupid fucking things that came out of his mouth every other time. A startled cry escaped his brother’s throat and Johnny’s hand closed around his wrist for a second, anchoring him to the world. A tear slipped from the corner of his eye and he winced like something was hurting him. His eyes crushed shut and then he opened them again, blinking against the light coming in from the window. He focused on his brother’s face and then he tried to force the smile across his face again, dragging the back of his hand over his cheek and wiping away the evidence. “Sorry,” he said, like he had a single fucking thing to be sorry for. “I think it’s in Arkansas. Or something. I’m not sure.” “The wood chipper guy?” he asked, pulling his hand back. His brother nodded dumbly. “Yeah. I think.” Then he spotted Annie and he smiled at her. “Hey, you’re back.” She nodded, trying to hide the concern and the fear on her face and Johnny watched her shove it all down so his brother couldn’t see it. Neither of them wanted to scare Ayden or make him feel guilty for the constant barrage of visions that were making his life hell so they handled it the best they could and tried to keep his brother sane. “I got you coffee,” she said again. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you any Red Bull, they were all out.” “That’s okay,” he said, smiling at her. “Thanks, Annie.” Then he glanced down at the floor and he wasn’t smiling anymore. He shook his head and he shifted his chair back away from something on the carpet. Johnny glanced down but he didn’t see anything there except some dusty boot prints and cigarette ash. “Can you get me some paper towels?” He glanced up at Annie and he was dead serious when he spoke to her which terrified Johnny more than anything else. “I need to clean the blood off the floor.” † † † He called Ashley Baker on the pay phone outside. “I’m popular with you this week, Johnny,” he said as way of greeting. If he’d been there in person Johnny probably would have decked him because he shouldn’t be so fucking flip while Ayden was losing his mind. He took a breath and flicked his cigarette ash off against the pale yellow walls, scuffing his boots against the pavement. “What can I do you for, Mr. Marshall?” he said dryly. “Woman troubles?” “Fuck you,” he snarled. “Ayden’s no getting any better. You need to fucking tell me how to fix this now.” He heard Ashley sigh on the other end and he went quiet for a long time. “Baker,” he snapped after a minute of dead air and he was kicking at the wall now, leaving black boot prints behind. He threw the cigarette away because it was down to a stub now and he blew the last stream of smoke out through his nose. “If you’ve got a way to help my brother you better fucking answer me now because otherwise I’m going to reach through this phone and strangle you with the fucking phone cord.” He heard Ashley laugh. “Never let anyone say you’re not a people person, Johnny.” Then he sighed heavily and he sounded like it was an effort to get the words out. “I might know someone who can help.” Wenston They were at a gas station, but Ayden couldn’t remember what state they were in. He couldn’t even remember where they were going. He thought they had been on their way to Arkansas, but this sure didn’t look like Arkansas. Not that he really knew what Arkansas looked like. But this looked, northern. It was getting cold out and there was frost on the ground and he was certain they were headed north when he saw that. He tried to remember the last time he saw snow, but found he couldn’t recall. He was losing his mind and he knew it. He saw it when he looked at his brother and when he looked at Annie. He knew they tried to hide it from him and smile and pretend everything was okay, but that’s what gave it away. Annie, he could believe. But Johnny. When Johnny smiled and didn’t tease him or harass him about things, he knew something was wrong. He didn’t like being treated like he was made of glass, but fuck, half of the time he didn’t know where or who he was anymore so he didn’t call them on it. He didn’t want to be a burden, but he knew he was. He saw his own exhaustion reflected back at him through the bags under their eyes. Sleep was something he couldn’t afford anymore. Every time he closed his eyes, he lost his grip on reality and it had become harder and harder to get a hold of it when he woke up. So he kept hopped up on coffee and energy drinks and he thought about asking his brother for some upper pills, but he couldn’t quite force himself to do that because that would be admitting something he didn’t want to admit. Something was wrong. And he was losing his mind. Just like that kid had. But that fucker of a kid was walking around free now and it was Ayden who couldn’t escape the nightmares. Johnny was leaning against the Cadillac as he pumped gas. Annie was sitting on the hood, picking at a hole in her jeans and the tension between the two was electric and obvious. Ayden didn’t see them talk to each other much these days and he wanted to call them on it, but every time he tried, he’d go away and when he came back they were looking at him with hidden worry that they didn’t manage to hide. Pushing the back door open, he climbed out of the car and he saw them both look his way and he tried to smile at them. “I need a soda,” he said and it was true because his eyes were starting to get heavy and he wasn’t going to fucking sleep, even if his body was shutting down because of it. “I’ll get it,” Annie said and Ayden frowned. He wanted to say, I have two fucking legs, but it was Annie so he just waved his hand at her and said instead, “No, I can get it,” and he was heading inside the gas station before Annie or Johnny could protest. He smiled at the clerk who gave him a dirty look and made his way back to the drinks. He remember Johnny saying something along the lines of Ashley had someone that he wanted them to go and visit. Ayden didn’t remember asking him what it was about, but he knew he’d meant to. He knew he sure as hell didn’t know where they were going or who they were seeing or why, and they were all questions he’d meant to ask at some point, but they got overlooked. Ayden grabbed a soda and headed to the counter and set it down. He didn’t remember what happened, but Annie’s hand came to his shoulder and he wondered when she’d followed him in because she hadn’t been there a second ago. He focused on the clerk and he looked angry and pissed off and he didn’t remember that happening either. “What, is he a retard or something?” the clerk snapped as he made change for a bill Ayden didn’t remember giving him. When the clerk handed the money to Annie, he realized it was because he hadn’t given him any. “You watch your fucking mouth,” Annie spat at him and then she was guiding Ayden to the door and he heard the clerk snort and call them “fuckers” and he wanted to turn around and punch the guy because he’d made Annie mad. But instead, he looked to her and said, “There’s blood in the coffee pots.” He didn’t know where it came from. Annie just squeezed his shoulder. † † † They thought he was asleep in the backseat and he wanted it that way because then they were free to talk. When they didn’t get right into it, he almost told them to just kiss and make up already, but then Annie’s voice came softly into the darkening car because the sun was setting and they were still headed north. “What did Ashley say about this lady again?” Johnny sighed and he heard his brother puff on a cigarette. He could smell the smoke in the car and it mixed with the smell of blood that he didn’t know the source of. Johnny drawled and his accent was thick because he was tired. “Some Indian medicine lady or something, I don’t fucking know. I don’t know what else to do.” Johnny’s voice was low and broken and Ayden almost told them that he was awake, but they needed this. They needed to talk. “He’ll be okay, Johnny.” The question Johnny asked next came out of nowhere and Ayden knew it hurt to ask and probably hurt to hear. “Are you sticking around for him or me?” Annie’s answer was cold and quiet and hurt everyone in the car. “Him.” † † † The car door slammed and Ayden jerked awake, his vision lingering on a corpse somewhere that had palm trees but Ayden couldn’t tell where. It had been floating in a swamp and was rotted and festering and it was singing a song that Ayden heard echoing in his head for a few moments. He sat up and he groaned because it took a lot of effort to do so. The lack of sleep was siphoning his health away slowly but surely. He would collapse soon, he felt it coming on, but he was so fucking scared of the visions that he would duct tape his fucking eyes open if he had to. Not that it would help. The door to his left opened and he turned his head, bleary eyed to see Johnny bend down and peer into the car. It was dark out and there was snow falling. Johnny flung a coat into the car and Ayden realized his brother was wearing a coat he didn’t remember him having. Had they stopped for supplies somewhere during the drive? “We’re here,” Johnny said. “And it’s fucking snowing.” Ayden frowned at him, looking out the front windshield. They were surrounded by pine trees. There was a cabin to their right. Annie was in a parka and she was blowing into her hands because it was cold out. She turned to look through the window at him, giving him an encouraging smile before her eyes went to Johnny and she quickly looked away. “In Arkansas?” Ayden asked. He didn’t remember snow in the wood chipper vision. Johnny couldn’t quite keep the wince out of his face. “Wisconsin,” he said slowly and Ayden studied him a moment, trying to remember why they had come here. “The medicine lady? Ashley’s friend, remember?” Ayden chewed his lower lip because while he was watching his brother, blood started to seep from Johnny’s forehead because a bullet wound had appeared. Ayden didn’t remember anything about Wisconsin or a medicine lady. “You’re bleeding,” he said. A sigh escaped Johnny’s lips and then he was reaching into the car and taking a gentle hold on Ayden’s arm. “No I’m not,” he said quietly, maybe not meant for Ayden’s ears, and then pulled him out. He helped him put the coat on once he was standing and then he closed the car door. The blood disappeared from Johnny’s head and Ayden reached a hand up to run it over his face. He closed his eyes for a moment too long and watched a man get beheaded by an axe made of bone and he cried out as he flung his eyes back open. Johnny’s hand was still on his arm and they stood for a moment while Ayden regained his bearings. The cocking of a shotgun brought all three of their attentions to the porch. He heard Annie gasp and Johnny growl and Ayden just tilted his head to the side. The gun was aimed at them and a lady in her late forties or early fifties stood in a bathrobe on the porch, her galoshes keeping her feet warm from the snow. “Get off of my property,” she hissed at them. Ayden saw the woman’s chest rip open and deep tears cut into her legs and arms and across her throat. He leaned his head closer to Johnny because his brother wasn’t reacting to the violence and so maybe it wasn’t really happening. He sighed and watched her die three different times in front of his eyes. “She’s bleeding,” he whispered to his brother. .Wolfie. Johnny hated the snow. He hated the snow and he hated the cold and it was always getting into inside his coat and his socks. He felt it soaking through the back of his shirt as it fell in thick white clumps and he hated it because it was cold and went and uncomfortable and made driving a pain in the ass. Once he’d past state lines into Wisconsin it had been nothing but snow and ice and they’d had to make a stop just to buy some stupid coats because neither he or his brother had anything heavier than leather with them. He had never thought he’d need anything heavier and Annie just shook her head with a smile on her face. He’d missed her smile. Her words in the car still stung and he didn’t like to think about how much they had really hurt him. A part of him had hoped that maybe she was staying because she had missed him too, that maybe if he gave it a chance and let her calm down she might let him talk to her. Maybe one of these days she would stop staring at the floor when he walked in the room and he could apologize without being told to fuck off. He didn’t fault her for it, because he deserved that and more, but it didn’t make it any easier and it didn’t make his heart ache any less. Johnny’s fingers tightened on his brother’s arm at the words but he tried not to let it show on his face because he didn’t want Ayden to know how fucking scared he was that he was losing his brother. He choked it down and focused on the woman on the porch, holding his hand up in what he hoped was a calming manner. “We’re friends of Ashley Baker,” he told her, though he wondered how true those words were. He didn’t know if Ashley called anyone a friend, but he was the closest they had anyway. “He said you might be able to help us.” She didn’t drop the shotgun, smirking coldly. “If you think sayin’ that name is gonna keep you from getting shot you might want to think again ‘cause I got nothin’ for hate for that man.” She pulled the shotgun tighter to her shoulder and took another step forward. If anything she looked angrier now and Johnny swore he was going to have some words with Ashley next time he talked to him. “Now you’ve got to the count of three to get in that car and start heading back the way you came.” Johnny’s fingers tightened around Ayden’s arm. “He said you might be able to help my brother.” She snorted. “One,” she said. Johnny took a step forward and the shotgun swung to point at his chest. Behind him Ayden whimpered something and then he was closing his eyes and opening them like maybe if he blinked fast enough he could change what he was seeing. “Please,” Johnny said, and he fucking hated that word because it meant he was begging, but he was desperate. “He said you might know a way to help him, to keep him from losing his mind.” Her eyes narrowed and the finger tightened on the trigger. “Two,” she said. He swallowed and licked his dry lips because there was no doubt in his mind that at three she might actually pull the trigger and then Annie and Ayden would have to scrape him out of the snow into a plastic bag. “Johnny,” she said quietly from behind him, and when he glanced over his shoulder she was actually looking at his face. “Let’s just go. We’ll figure something else out. Maybe if we just take care of more of the visions, he’ll get better.” Johnny wanted to listen to her. He wanted to believe that, but he didn’t know if it would work. They could barely keep on top of the visions Ayden had before Marko had jammed his dirty little fingers into his brother’s brain and if this woman could fucking help him hold onto his mind he was going to make her do it. So his head went back to the woman on the porch and then he was stalking across the snow. He heard Ayden cry sharply but he didn’t look back and he heard Annie hushing him quietly. His boots echoed across the wood as he walked up the steps. The woman didn’t blink. She kept the barrel pointed right at his chest and he let her. “I don’t know what your problem with Ashley is,” he told her quietly. Her eyes were locked on his face and she looked like she was ready to pull the trigger at any moment, and maybe she was. “I don’t really fucking care. Whatever it is, he probably deserves it. But if you can help my little brother, please, for the love of Christ, do it, because it’s not fair that he should lose his mind because some asshole pissed you off.” She snorted, and then to his surprise she slung the gun across her shoulders. “I don’t like you,” she told him with a smile on her face. “Join the club. I hear they’ve got tee shirts,” he snapped, and it made her laugh. Then her gaze swung out to the two still by the car. Annie had an arm around Ayden and her face was pale, like had been waiting for the shot to come and Johnny to get blasted away right in front of her. He wondered just how much she would care at this point. The woman smiled at them and waved a hand, gesturing them over to her. “Well come on inside,” she said. “Old Dyani’ll make you some coffee and then you can tell me what the problem is.” Then inside of her house was nice and cozy and what Johnny imagined his grandmother’s house would have looked like if he’d known the woman. It reminded him of Annie’s old place, when she had lived with her mom and her grandparents. The house had always been neat and warm and with shoes lined up by the door and every old and faded picture in its place. It had been a home and there were memories in every corner, in the old seventies floral couch and ancient hardwood table. Her grandfather owned this ancient battered armchair and it was the most comfortable looking thing in the world. Johnny had sworn when he was old he going to die in one. The woman’s wasn’t quite the same, but it was close. Her kitchen table was a big oak thing, situated in the middle of her kitchen. There were five chairs situated around it, four on opposite sides and one all the way at the end that had a gray cat snoozing on it. She had wood carvings of animals hung on her walls and a couple of old pictures that he didn’t look too closely at because he didn’t want to pry. She set the shotgun down right inside the door and then headed to the coffee maker. “Make yourselves at home,” she said, gesturing to the chairs. “Your cat’s dead,” Ayden told her. Her eyes widened in fear and she whirled around, looking at the small animal still sleeping on her chair. Its breathing was slowed, but it blinked when it felt her watching and blinked, opening its mouth in a slow yawn. A frown crossed her face and she looked up like she was about to yell at Ayden, her lips already parting with what she was going to say and then she saw the expression he wore. He was dead serious, his face surprisingly calm. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Johnny explained weakly. The woman, Diyani, glanced over at him, a glare on her face. She seemed annoyed that he had opened his mouth. “Please do not lie to me again,” she said coldly. “You asked for my help, there’s no need for excuses. He knows exactly what he’s saying. He knows what he sees, his eyes do not lie.” She sighed, putting the coffee pot back and wiping her hands on a dishtowel. Then she walked across the kitchen, putting her hands on his face and staring into his eyes. She tilted his head this way and that, watching his eyes follow hers. Then he was gone, his eyes fixating on the sink and he was zoning out, eyes not seeing her or anyone at all. She snapped her fingers in front of his face and he didn’t blink or move at all. Johnny slid forward, hand resting on his shoulder. “Let him go,” she said quietly, not even looking over at him. Johnny glanced at Annie who shrugged back at him and then he took his hand away from his brother. She leaned down, lips next to his ear. “Ignore the shadows, little Cheveyo. Follow my voice home.” Wenston Ayden was watching a man drown in his old blood and vomit when he heard her voice break through the scene. Ignore the shadows, little Cheveyo. Follow my voice home. He turned his sight away from the dying man and saw the woman Dyani standing there and he did follow her. He was back in the kitchen and the woman had her hands on his face and Johnny and Annie were looking at him with worried expressions. “Hello,” he said as he looked back at her eyes, because he didn’t remember who she was. She broke into a smile and she took her hands from his face, heading to the counter. She pulled a tin from her cupboards and sprinkled flakes of something into a cup. “Hello,” she called back to him as she was doing this. “Are you tired?” Ayden twitched his mouth to the side, because there was blood running down the walls. “I don’t want to sleep,” he told her and looked to Johnny, who offered a small smile, but it looked like it was getting harder and harder to do. “That’s not what I asked,” she said and Ayden opened his mouth to tell her that yes, he was so fucking tired, but suddenly he was surrounded by wolves and they were all growling and snapping at him and saliva and blood were dripping from their jowls. He gulped and watched as they pounced one by one to rip them apart. Her voice came again. Cheveyo, open your eyes. And he obeyed her and blinked and thought he still heard growling but she was standing in front of him now and she smiled as she offered him the cup. “Something to keep you awake,” she said. Ayden thought wearily that he knew she was lying, but he took the cup anyway and sipped it. Her hand came up and tilted the cup, forcing him to drink its contents in full. When the warm liquid was gone, she withdrew the cup and ran a hand over his arm and then turned to Johnny. “Catch your brother, Wakiza,” she told him as she headed to the sink. Ayden wondered what she was talking about but then he felt himself listing to the side and he heard Johnny’s sharp intake of breath and then his brother’s arms were around him, keeping him off the floor. “What the hell?” Johnny snapped angrily and his voice was muffled and far away and Ayden was losing consciousness. “Watch your language and take him to the couch,” Dyani said and he felt himself being lifted. He was laid down on something soft and he was too out of it to realize it was the couch. Someone put a pillow behind his head and he heard talking, but couldn’t catch it all. Johnny sounded angry, and Dyani sounded smug. He realized Annie was sitting on the edge of the couch, running fingers over his head. “He needs to rest if we’re going to fix him in the morning.” That shut Johnny’s angry tirade up rather quickly. Ayden was drifting off, but he heard his brother ask, “You can help him?” “Of course I can. Ashley may be a two-timing sonofabitch but the man wouldn’t have sent you if I couldn’t,” then Dyani was heading into her bedroom, calling back to them as Ayden gave into the darkness creeping up on him. “That’s the only couch I have, so you two are going to have to fight over that sofa chair. If you want to share, you can cuddle, but please don’t fuck each other in it. Sound carries in this house like a goddamn fart in the wind.” Then he was out. † † † Ayden woke to the sound of his brother getting smacked in the head. He rolled his head to the side and saw Johnny cussing and being kicked out of the way. Annie was sitting up on the sofa chair across from the couch and apparently Johnny had spent the night asleep on the floor next to the couch, keeping quiet vigil. He’d stayed there all night until Dyani had come and woke him up by smacking him upside the head. Johnny crawled out of the way as Dyani bent over Ayden who lay sprawled on the couch. He blinked blearily and he realized that he didn’t remember dreaming. He felt somewhat rested but he was still fucking exhausted. “Morning, Cheveyo,” she said quietly as she put a hand to his face and forced his eyes to meet hers. “Are you ready?” Ayden blinked up at her and said quietly, “Your house is on fire.” Dyani snorted and reached behind his head, pulling him into a sitting position. “Yeah, you’re ready.” She stood as he sat there, getting lost in another vision. She turned to Johnny, who had crawled over to sit beneath the sofa chair, looking tired and confused. “You two need to get out of my house.” “What?” Johnny and Annie demanded at the same time. Johnny continued. “I’m not leaving my brother.” Dyani gave a dry laugh. “If you want me to fix him, you’ll leave him. There’s too much damn negative energy between the two of you that it’s clouding up my house. He’ll never be able to beat this with you two around. So, go take a walk or…pick fucking daisies or something.” “It’s the middle of winter,” Johnny said, sounding irritated. “And how do you know daisies don’t grow in the winter?” Dyani demanded and then pointed to the door. “Out, both of you. And why don’t you two have a chat while you’re out there. I can fix him now but the last thing he needs is to be stuck in the middle of whatever you two fucking lovebirds have going on. Clear the damn air. I’ll come and get you when we’re done.” Ayden didn’t see his brother and Annie leave the house because he was seeing an elderly couple being torn to pieces inside their car. He didn’t remember walking into Dyani’s bedroom and he doubted that the woman had picked him up and carried him. He wondered if Johnny and Annie would actually talk or if they’d sit in silence and just wait until it was over. He wondered if Annie would stay with them. He blinked and he found himself sitting on the floor in the corner of Dyani’s bedroom. She had turned off the lights and drawn the curtains and there were candles lit around them and Ayden wondered if the candles were a good idea because he’d seen her house on fire earlier. Dyani came and sat in front of him, her knees touching his. She’d changed her clothes and wore something made out of animal skins. She’d smeared red and white paint across her face and she had beads and feathers tied around her neck. Her graying black hair fell loose around her shoulders and she was looking directly at him. “Not everything inside your head belongs to you, does it?” she asked as she reached up to smear paint onto his face. He didn’t even flinch beneath her touch because he was wondering if this was really happening. “No,” he told her honestly. “I’m…” “Godsent,” she cut him off and he tilted his head because apart from him, Johnny, Annie and Ashley, he hadn’t known anyone else had known what the hell a Godsent was. She smiled up at him, as if reading his thoughts. “I know what you are, Cheveyo.” She reached to her side and pulled over a cup, its contents steaming. She set it down between them and then pulled a towel over and placed it over Ayden’s head before shoving his head down between them to make him breathe in the steam. It moistened his face and when the steam entered his lungs, it burned and he gasped, but she held him there. “I call you Cheveyo, because it means Spirit Warrior. That’s what you must become or the Sight will rule you and take over your mind and you will no longer be you.” “What does Wakiza mean?” Ayden asked because he’d heard her call Johnny that last night. He coughed and spit up blood and it started to trickle from his nose, but it didn’t hurt and the blood looked darker than normal. She chuckled, patting the back of his neck affectionately as he continued to leak blood into the steaming cup. “You’ll find out later. Let me have my fun with him first, though.” Ayden coughed. “He’s not a bad person,” he said and he wondered why he was always talking about his brother at these intimate and awkward moments. “I know,” Dyani said and then pulled his head back up. She took the towel from his head and wiped away the excess blood that had stopped dripping from his nose and mouth. He noticed the blood was laced black and he wondered what was in it. “And I don’t really dislike him, but someone needs to give him a rough time. Keeps a man like that on his toes. And he’s going to need to be.” She threw the towel away and grabbed a handful of what looked like twigs. She held them over the flame of a candle and Ayden watched them burn for a second. He almost went away again, but her free hand reached out to cup his face. “Stay here, Cheveyo,” she commanded and he blinked heavily and surprised himself when he did. The twigs started smoking and she blew out the flame on them and they continued to smoke. She brought them up and shook them on either side of Ayden’s head. He felt his vision getting foggy and he watched her face blur in front of his and then his eyes closed against his will. He still heard her voice though. “Now,” she said and it sounded like she was all around him, surrounding him, talking inside his head. “These pictures inside your head need to be contained. They have free will when they should not. You are in control and you must always be in control of them or you will go mad. They need a place. They need a home. What do you think of when you think of home?” An image of Johnny came to Ayden’s mind and then Annie was there and they were both laughing as she swung on a swing. Johnny’s arms wrapped around her and they were both happy. “It cannot be a person, it must be a place,” Dyani’s voice interrupted the happy memory and Ayden whimpered when they disappeared because he wanted to hold onto them so badly. “If you lock them away with the visions, you will endanger them. Think of a place.” Their home was burnt to the ground and the new house they’d bought only held bad memories for him. So he thought of a motel room. It was a small motel room off of Route 66 where he and Johnny and stayed once. Ayden had just turned 21 and he’d gotten shit faced drunk and had puked into a toilet all night long while Johnny laughed at him and brought him coffee and Tylenol. It had been the best night of his fucking life even if he’d been sick because his brother had been laughing and happy and Annie had come over and yelled at him for getting his brother drunk but she’d laughed too and they’d been a family. A real family. So he thought of that motel room. “Good,” Dyani said in his head. “Now step inside. Your visions are waiting in there.” Ayden followed her instructions and when he crossed the threshold of the door, he screamed and cried out because there were a thousand visions scrambling around inside the room. He almost opened his eyes and broke out but he felt her fingers on his face and her voice was strong and stern and confident. “Do not flee. You are in control. You have power over them.” As she said it and as he listened, he realized he was standing in the middle of all the visions and they weren’t hurting him. They were coming at him, but they would go through him or turn away and they would never hurt him. “I’m scared,” he said before he could stop himself. “It’s alright to be scared, but use it. Do not succumb to it. Now,” she gripped his face harder. “You will give each of these visions a place in the room. You will assign them a spot and object. A painting on the wall, a strand in the carpet, a chair, a bed, a pillow, a pencil, objects that you can put in your room. Grab one of the visions and put it in its place.” Ayden cried because he didn’t want to reach into the dark pulsating mass of visions in front of him. He could feel tears on his face, melting the paint away but her fingers were firm against him. “They will not hurt you. Reach inside and grab one.” He hesitated, his hand just outside the mass. “Do it now!” she yelled and he stuck his hand inside and grabbed the first thing he could. When he pulled back, he saw the wood chipper and that would be the first fucking thing he’d pull out because that was supposed to be where they were going. But they’d come here instead. “Give it a place,” Dyani said. Ayden concentrated and tears slipped from his eyes because the vision was bucking and threatening to overtake his mind as he grasped onto it. “Give it a place,” she repeated and he forced it to take shape. He molded it and arranged it and then instead of the vision, he was holding an ashtray. A simple, glass ashtray. He turned it over in his hands and it was simple as that. From somewhere, he felt a little pressure relieve itself inside his mind and he set the ashtray down. “Good,” Dyani said and her thumb stroked his cheek. “Good. Do it again. Do it until they all have a place. Do it until you are the only thing moving and standing inside this room.” Ayden reached into the mass again and pulled another vision. It too morphed and shaped. He did it again and again and each time he felt relief and the pressure in his head lessen and the black mass grew smaller and smaller until there was none left and he was alone in the motel room with objects and paintings and pictures and everything around him and he’d built up the room and each thing in the room was a vision. “When you want one, they will be here,” Dyani said. “When you need to see a vision, you will come into this room and they will be here waiting and you need only pick one up and release it and then put it back in its place. Each time you get a new one, you will place it in here. You are in control. Not the visions, but you.” Ayden laughed and he heard it out loud and he knew that he had done it not only in his mind but in Dyani’s bedroom as well. She echoed the laugh and her fingers rubbed at his cheeks and he wondered how long they’d been sitting her. “Now,” she said. “Come out and shut the door.” He did and when he opened his eyes he saw her smiling at him with the paint still on her face. The sun had moved across the sky and he realized they’d been at this nearly all day. He reached up and felt his head and he laughed again because the visions were stored away and nothing was bleeding or burning or dying. “We did it,” he said quietly. Dyani shook her head. “No, you did, Cheveyo. Now, go find your brother and his woman.” .Wolfie. They sat quietly on the porch. Johnny smoked a cigarette while she stared into the falling snow.“What do you think she’s doing to him?” he asked after a while. He glanced back at the door and hoped his brother was okay. He wanted to believe that she was only trying to help him but he was scared for his little brother because bad things always fucking happened when he left Ayden alone. It was the one constant he could count on, whenever they were separated, bad shit went down. He took a drag off his cigarette and tried to tell himself that Ashley trusted her, even if she hated him, and he owed the bastard for that little surprise, which meant she probably knew how to help him. He had to believe that. He sighed and glanced at Annie as he asked the question. Ayden was the only safe thing they had to talk about and he couldn’t take the awkward silence. He wondered what she was thinking because he was just thinking about her and how she looked pretty with snow in her hair. It gave her a halo of white around her head and made her look like an angel. She still wasn’t looking at him and he was getting tired of the game awfully fast because he had already laid everything out on the table and it wasn’t fair that she wouldn’t even talk to him to say she hated him. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. She scuffed a boot off the stairs and sent ice clattering to the ground below in thick chunks. Clouds puffed out from her mouth every time she took a breath. She rubbed her hands together to keep them warm and stared off into the trees, looking anywhere but at Johnny. He sighed and flicked the cigarette into the snow, reaching over to take her hands and blow warm air into them. “Johnny,” she said slowly, trying to pull her hands away. “Don’t.” He looked up at her face and caught her looking at him. “Don’t what?” he asked her. She shook her head, pulling her hands back and tucking them under her arms to keep them warm. Her eyes dropped away from his, looking back out at the falling snow that was covering everything in a pristine white layer. It was pretty, anyway, even if he hated driving in or trying to walk through the stuff and it was cold as fuck. “Don’t try and act like nothing’s changed. It has, and you can’t just say you’re sorry and pretend it didn’t.” “I’m not,” he told her quietly. “I know all that.” “Well, then just stop,” she told him. The silence fell thick and heavy back between them. He wished he had a watch and he wondered what they were doing in there and if they would be done soon because this was killing him. He dug in his coat for another cigarette because what the fuck else was he going to do but smoke and feel bad for himself? He sighed, the lighter flickering to life in his hands and she cast a glance over at him. “You smoke a lot more than I remember,” she told him. Her voice was low and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to hear it or not. “So,” he drawled. “Are you seeing anyone?” She rolled her eyes and rubbed at her arms. “It’s none of your business.” “It’s just a question, Annie,” he snapped. He sucked in the smoke and blew it out through his nose, staring at her face. Her eyes were lidded and not looking at him and the tip of her nose was turning red from the cold. She sighed and looked down at the porch. “Well, what if I am?” His stomach churned at the answer. He felt sick and jealous and shifted uncomfortably on the porch because he didn’t like the idea of anyone else touching his Annie when she was sitting right next to him looking all pretty and sweet. “What’s his name?” he demanded, and he heard the low growl in his throat. He was still staring at her face and the curve of her neck and that little sweet spot that had always made her crazy. He imagined someone else kissing her and his hands curled into fists. He looked away and tried to focus on smoking his cigarette. She snorted out a cold laugh. “Why, so you can beat him up?” Johnny grinned a little at that, flicking ash off the end of his smoke. “Yeah, maybe.” She rolled her eyes and glanced over at him with a total lack of amusement. Her hand came out to pluck the cigarette from his fingers and she held it there in front of her to let it burn away. He felt his heart catch in his throat at the little motion and he wondered if she understood just what that meant to him. He wondered if she understood what kind of hope that gave him. “I’m not yours anymore Johnny. And no, to answer your question, I’m not seeing anyone, but I’m still sure as fuck not yours.” “Annie,” he drawled her name, pulling the cigarette from between her fingers and jamming it back between his lips. He didn’t know what to say but he wanted her to fucking talk to him so that he could say whatever it would take to make it better. He had missed her, still did, even with her sitting next to him because she felt like she was still a million miles away. Did she really hate him that much now? Maybe there was nothing he could say to make it better. “Will you just talk to me?” he asked softly. She wrapped her arms back around her frame. “About what?” “About us,” he said quietly. “There is no us,” she told him coldly. It felt like punch in the gut and he blew smoke out from between his lips as he tried not to show it on his face. It sounded so final, so emotionless when she put it like that and he wanted it to be wrong. He wondered when his Annie had gotten so cold, and it was probably the day he had told her no. He sighed and stuck the cigarette back between his lips and wondered if he should just let it go and let their relationship die peacefully. She sighed, pushing herself off the steps like she couldn’t stand to be that close to him anymore. He watched her as she started to wander the length of the porch, studying the rocking chair and the half finished woodcut lying next to it. Her fingers traced the ridges of it and it looked like it was halfway on its way to becoming a wolf. She pulled her hand away and then tucked them back under her arms, going to stand near the railing as far away from him as she could get. He bit his lip and watched her and wondered if he should keep his fucking mouth shut. He was tired of not talking to her. He was tired of missing her. Johnny stuck the cigarette in between his lips and then he was hauling himself up off the stairs after her. His leg still hurt and he limped a little as he dragged his ass over to her. He put a hand on the railing next to her so that she couldn’t run away from him and she glanced over her shoulder, unimpressed. He met her eyes squarely and she was the first one to blink. “There used to be an ‘us,’” he told her. “Doesn’t feel like that long ago either.” “Yeah, look how well that turned out,” she said, and there was so much venom in her voice it scared him. “Don’t do that, Annie,” he told her, glancing down at the wooden floor so that he didn’t have to see the scathing look in her eyes as she glared back at him. He flicked ash off the end of the cigarette and watched it float and curl to the ground like gray snow. “That’s not fucking fair. I fucked up once and you can hate me for that, but don’t let it color the rest of our relationship because we were fucking perfect together.” “Fuck you Johnny,” she snapped, and he heard her voice break. Then she shook her head and turned around, throwing her hands up in the air. “What did you expect? That I would just fall back into your arms as soon as I saw you again?” She looked like she wanted to run away, except he had one hand braced on the railing next to her and the other against the wall and he wouldn’t let her leave this time without fucking talking to him because he just wanted to know where he stood with her. There were tears in her eyes but she wasn’t letting them fall and he wished he still knew how to make her smile. “Expect?” he asked, shaking his head. “No. Hope? Yeah, maybe a little.” She laughed and then bit her lip like she wanted to take it back. She sighed and looked up at his face and this time there wasn’t hate looking back at him. “You’re an asshole,” she told him, but there wasn’t any force behind it. He smiled and stepped closer and she wasn’t running away from him this time. His hand came up to cup her cheek and she let him, eyes scanning his face for something. He didn’t know what. He gave her a lazy smile. “I’m not arguing.” “You can’t just do this,” she told him, and she sounded like she was on the verge of tears. “You can’t just act like nothing’s changed. You can’t act like you didn’t hurt me and you can’t fix it just like that. You fucking broke my heart, Johnny.” Her voice broke at the last word and she turned her face away as the tears started. He leaned closer and rested his head against hers and she didn’t push him away but she wouldn’t look at him either. “Annie,” he whispered. “You’re the one that walked out the door on me.” Her eyes flashed to his face and she looked angry until she saw the hurt in his eyes. Her gaze softened and then she looked down and shook her head. He heard a quiet sob escape her lips and then she was pushing at his chest and she was crying quietly, tears running down her cheek in thin rivulets. He raised his hand to wipe them away. “I hate you,” she told him softly, and he couldn’t tell who she was trying to convince. The words cut him deeply and he winced despite himself. He forced a smile onto his face anyway, to try and mask what hearing it did to him because he didn’t want to believe her. She just watched him with eyes of burnished gold. She wasn’t pushing him away and she wasn’t running and then he was pulling her face up to meet his. “Well I don't hate you,” he told her quietly, and then his lips were brushing against hers. He kissed her in a silent apology for all the things he’d left unsaid and all the things he hadn’t done and then he felt her lips parting under his and it felt like forgiveness. It was soft and sweet and all the things he had missed about her. Then they heard the door open and she was pushing him away, pink rising to her cheeks. Her gaze went over his shoulder to the door and then she was ducking under his arm towards it. He glanced back, sticking the cigarette back between his lips and his brother was standing there with a shit eating grin on his face and his eyes clear and focused and sane. “Oh sorry,” he said, and it was just so fucking Ayden to have the worst timing in the world that he felt a grin split his own face. “Am I interrupting something?” Wenston Annie hurried her way over to him and she stopped by his side, her hands ghosting over his arm as she scoured his face for signs of an explanation. Johnny hung back and Ayden grinned because his brother had that glow about him that meant he was happy and Annie had pink flushed in her face and he knew he’d walked in on something going on between them and that meant maybe they were making up. “You’re not interrupting,” Annie said quickly and Johnny snorted as he leaned against the railing, the snow soaking into his jeans and he stood back up quickly once he realized that. “Well?” Annie asked, looking Ayden in the eye. Ayden sighed and shrugged but he couldn’t quite pull off the act because he was grinning ear to ear still. “Well, good news is, I’m not going insane.” “That’s debatable,” Johnny grumbled but he too, like Ayden, couldn’t quite pull it off because he was mirroring Ayden’s grin as well. “Fuck you,” Ayden gave him cheerfully. “The bad news is, I think we owe her a huge favor.” Annie laughed and it was such a beautiful sound and then she was wrapping her arms around him and he melted beneath her hug because it had been a while since he’d seen Annie and hadn’t been fighting his own demons that it felt like they had just reunited for the first time. He hugged her back and then she pulled away and her hand lingered on his arm for a moment. Ayden let it and even leaned into the touch a little because he was still really tired and achy and it would be a while until his body caught up to the progress his mind had made. “Yeah I guess we do,” Johnny grumbled like he hated that idea. “And fucking Baker, too.” “You know,” he said and reached to the railing of the porch, gathering snow into his bare hands. He didn’t have his coat on, because he wasn’t used to being in a place with snow, but he was just so happy to be sane again that he didn’t care if he did this one crazy thing and not wear a coat. He formed the snow into a ball and it was freezing his fingers but he held onto it anyway. “Since love is in the air,” he glanced up at them and Johnny straightened and Annie rolled her eyes but neither one of them denied it. “Maybe we could get them back together and call it even.” He hurled the snowball at Johnny and it hit his brother square in the chest. “They were an item?” Annie asked, her eyes wide and she ignored the fact that a projectile had just been launched. Ayden waggled his eyebrows at her and all three of them were grinning because this felt right and normal and everything was okay and no one was going insane. Johnny glanced down at the lingering snow on him and then back up at Ayden, holding his hands out to the side. “You really want to start this?” he said and he meant for his voice to be serious but the teasing tone was there. Ayden sighed and reached for more snow, forming it into a ball. He glanced back at his brother and Johnny grit his teeth and held up a finger. “Don’t start what you can’t finish.” “Consider this payback for you trying to kill me,” Ayden said and he saw Johnny’s grin falter but that hadn’t been Ayden’s intention. He grinned to show he was playing and then hurled the snowball at his brother. It hit him in the side because he tried to turn out of the way of it. Johnny nodded, taking the cigarette out of his lips and stamping it out on the ground. He bent down and gather snowed off the porch. “Alright,” Johnny said. “If that’s the way you want to do it. Consider this payback for me having to drag your crazy ass around for the last week.” He stood and threw the snow at Ayden, who laughed as it hit him in the shoulder. “Okay,” Annie said, holding up her hands. “Why don’t we go inside before you freeze?” she tried to guide Ayden back inside the cabin. Ayden met Johnny’s eyes for a moment and then both of them were reaching for snow and at the same time launched their projectiles at Annie. She gasped as they hit her and then held her hands up, mouth open in shock, but it formed into a grin. “Oh, now you’ve done it.” By the time they were done waging a great snowball war with each other, all three of them were soaked and when they came inside the cabin, Dyani was there with her hands on her hips. She made them take off their shoes and then she was making Ayden change his shirt because it was wet and he was shivering. The three came to sit at the table and Dyani went to the stove. “Save you from your mind and you go out and catch pneumonia,” she was chastising as she pulled a bowl from her cupboard and dished some steaming soup into it and set it down in front of Ayden. The food in front of him made him realize how hungry and fatigued he really was. “Do we get any?” Johnny asked smartly and he waved his hand between himself and Annie. Dyani looked at him like he had spawned another head. “You have two fucking legs, don’t you?” she demanded. “Get it your damn self.” He didn’t rise to go and get any and Annie didn’t look ambitious enough to do it either. Dyani looked between them and then down at Ayden, who was stiring his soup but not eating it because he was feeling a little awkward and like they were overstaying their welcome. Dyani turned to Annie. “Honovi,” she said and when Annie raised her eyebrow she nodded. “Yes, you. It means Strong Deer. You have doe eyes and I’m certain you could kick his ass,” she pointed to Johnny, who snorted in response. “Help me in the bedroom, will you?” And it was such an obvious way of saying that Johnny and Ayden needed a minute alone that Annie rolled her eyes but stood and followed the woman out of the room without question. Ayden kept stirring his soup. He glanced up at Johnny, who was watching him intently. Ayden quirked a smile. “So,” he said because it had gotten to quiet. “Are you back together, then?” Johnny withdrew a cigarette and lit it up, smirking. “I don’t know,” he gave honestly. Ayden nodded, putting the spoon down. He pointed to the front door. “I mean, the car’s right out there, if you wanted to use the backseat while me and Dyani chill for a while…” He laughed when Johnny threw a napkin at him. His brother grinned though and he knew it wasn’t just because of the conversation, it was the fact that they were even holding a conversation, which they hadn’t been able to do since the hospital and that fucking kid. Ayden sighed when he thought of the boy. “Who was that kid?” he asked quietly. The smile slipped from Johnny’s face and he blew smoke out his nose then held his cigarette in his hand, frowning. “He’s like you, only….evil or something. He’s got a brother whose like me. That’s why I went all Shining on you.” Ayden snorted. “At least you didn’t try to kill me with an axe and say ‘here’s Johnny.’” Johnny gave a sober laugh. “Good line. I wasn’t exactly in control at the time.” “Yeah,” Ayden looked down at the table, outlining a coffee ring with his finger. They sat quietly for a moment before Johnny cleared his throat. “So, you’re really okay now? I mean,” he cleared his throat again and Ayden smiled because his brother was never good at these tender moments. “Everything’s okay up there,” he waved his hand at Ayden’s head. “Yeah,” Ayden said again. “Everything’s okay.” He chewed his lip for a moment. “They’re still there,” he said quietly and Johnny didn’t have to ask because he knew he was talking about the visions. “But I can control them and…Dyani’s really good.” Johnny quirked his lips but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he blurted. Ayden frowned. “For what?” “I couldn’t keep that fucking kid away from you and I force you to have all these visions all the time and I know every time I open my mouth and use this fucking power it rips your mind apart and I’m just so, so fucking sorry.” Ayden sat quietly, watching his brother because he knew that the apology had been years coming and Johnny looked like he was on the verge of crying but Ayden didn’t think he had anything to apologize for. It was Ayden’s own fault for not interpreting the visions for what they were. He should have known. The kid made it obvious in his visions, now that he looked back on them. “Yeah, you’re a pretty crappy older brother,” he said and Johnny looked up, his eyes wide but Ayden just grinned. “But I like you anyway.” Johnny seemed to relax a little bit, but the worry was still etched on his face. Ayden licked his lips, grinning. “You could make up for it by buying me ice cream.” Johnny snorted. “I could go put some snow in a bowl,” he grumbled. “Now you’re just being cheap.” “I thought you liked them cheap.” Ayden laughed and Johnny echoed it and then both fell quiet again because they were back into routine and it felt good. But then a voice from outside broke the quiet when it yelled, “Dyani Jones, I need to have a fucking word with you!” Ayden and Johnny exchanged a look and they stood as Dyani and Annie emerged from the bedroom. Dyani looked a little peeved and she pointed to them. “Stay inside,” she said and grabbed her shotgun by the door. She cocked it with one hand. “I have some assholes to chase off my property.” .Wolfie. Johnny was on fucking cloud nine.He tasted smoke on his tongue and watched his brother from across the table and he couldn’t remember the last time he had looked so relaxed and at ease. A weight he hadn’t even realized was there had disappeared in the space of a day and he wanted to ask what Diyani had done to him, but he wasn’t sure how personal it was or how much would make sense to him. Ayden was better, that was what mattered to him. He felt good. He felt like he had found his way back home and he hadn’t even realized he’d been looking for it. He still had the familiar taste of her on his lips and he didn’t know what it meant but it was something. It was hope, and that was more than he’d had in a long time. He rolled the cigarette on his tongue and grinned when his brother busted on him because that was how it was supposed to be and he felt strange baring his soul to Ayden like that. He was almost glad when he felt an angry voice from outside because any more and he was going to make one of them throw up. She barely got the door open before Johnny was on his feet with his revolver in his hand. Diyani shot a glare over his shoulder. “Stay inside,” she snapped again. “Like Hell.” Johnny snorted; dragging his boots back onto his feet and Annie rolled his eyes at him. She muttered something about a fucking cowboy and then he heard Ayden laughing. He shoveled a couple of spoonfuls of soup into his mouth and then he was standing up and grabbing his own shoes. Annie shook her head at both of them, crossing her arms under her chest and if it wasn’t for the small smirk on her face he would have thought she was mad. “You just can’t resist any opportunity to get into trouble,” she told him. “It’s part of my charm,” he told her with a smile on his face. She laughed and stuck her tongue out at him and he couldn’t help the grin that stole across his face. It felt like it used to, even if there were still things left unsaid between them. He knew it wasn’t completely fixed yet and that it might take a long time until it was, but for her, he would wait. He would stick it out as long as he had to. “Keep doing that,” he told her with a sly smile. “And I’ll bite it off.” “Jesus,” Diyani muttered, yanking the door open. “Just go get a room, and not mine.” Annie blushed and looked away and then Johnny and Ayden were following the woman out onto the porch. Annie leaned against the doorway as she pulled her shoes on to follow the three of them. Diyani already had the shotgun raised to her shoulder and it was pointing at a middle aged man standing in her driveway. He was leaning against a battered old blue truck, a gun sticking out of a holster at his hip. “Get the hell off my property,” she shouted at him. “Put the gun away, you crazy old bat,” the man snapped. He had black hair and tan skin, white scars glistening brightly on his face and neck. Johnny glanced behind him to the two other men hauling their asses out of the truck and they all were pretty big and scary looking. The one in front wore a flannel shirt under his parka and boots that covered his denim jeans. Johnny had a weird moment of déjà vu because the man reminded him of a bartender he’d met in Nevada, though considerably more alive. He had the same muscled build and the same dark look on his face. She let off a blast near his feet and the man cursed and jumped back. “Jesus fucking Christ, Diyani!” The two men who had been starting to climb out of the truck shouted in surprise and scrambled to yank out their guns. Johnny raised his and pointed it at the first one out, shaking his head. “Don’t fucking think it,” he said. They paused, glancing from Johnny to Diyani and then back to the man in front, swallowing hard and letting their hands drop away from their guns. They made him nervous because they were skittish and that meant they might do something stupid. They looked like people, like normal human men, so he didn’t want to shoot them, but if they made a move he would have to do something because he couldn’t just stand on the woman’s porch and watch Diyani get shot. Especially not after she had just pulled Ayden’s ass out of the fire and he heard his brother laughing quietly next to him. “Well, these guys have balls of steel, don’t they?” he said sarcastically, and Johnny felt a grin on his face. Annie sighed from behind him and when he glanced over his shoulder she was rubbing her temples. “Please try not to kill anyone,” she said. “I hate cleaning up the mess.” “I said get off my property,” Diyani shouted again, ignoring the three behind her. “Unless you want to stay here and help me practice my target shooting.” Her finger tightened on the trigger and the man yanked the door of the truck open so he could hide behind it. He didn’t look scared like he should have, just pissed off and Johnny didn’t like the expression on his face. The man had a hand resting on his gun and he looked like he wanted to draw it. “I brought you a message from Colby,” the man shouted over the truck door. Diyani snorted, taking a step forward with the shotgun still pressed to her shoulder. “And what’s that?” He leaned forward, giving his best attempt at a menacing glare, which would have been more believable without the two scared men peeking their heads out the side of the truck. They were younger and scared looking and he wondered why he’d brought these two for back up because they didn’t look like they knew which end of a gun to point out. They didn’t concern Johnny, but the man in front did because he was cool and unruffled, even with a shotgun pointed at him. “He says to stay out of our business. You’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong and it’s going to get you into trouble.” Another blast jerked her shoulder backwards and it went off by his front tire. He shouted and swore at her pulling himself into the truck and slamming the door shut. “Fucking crazy old bat!” one of the men shouted out the window, and she took another step forward, firing near the back tire. Johnny almost hoped she popped one of them, just to see them scramble to change it with a shotgun pointed at their backs. “You tell that rat bastard to keep off my property and keep his fucking dogs off my lawn!” she yelled at them. She kept her shotgun trained on the truck until it pulled out of sight. Then she sighed and sunk down in her rocking chair, resting the gun against the house next to her. She ran a hand through her dark hair and for a second she looked older than she was. Her eyes were tired and strained and her face just looked sad. She glanced up at the three of them who were confused as all hell and watching her patiently. She smiled and shook her head at them. “So I guess you kids are wondering what that was about,” she said quietly. Johnny snorted. “Damn right we are.” She grinned and nodded her head slowly. Then she was standing, hand curling around her shotgun again and heading for the door. “Well it’s none of your fucking business,” she snapped at him, yanking the door open and holding it for them. “Now get back in the house and eat some of my soup. It’s too much for one woman and I’m sure as hell not sharing with the cat. Stupid nosy kids, won’t just stay inside when they’re told.” Wenston Ayden followed Annie back into the house and Dyani moved her hand to wrap around his shoulders, letting the door hit Johnny in the back as he came in last. Ayden snorted because he knew the woman did it on purpose. Johnny didn’t look amused, but wisely kept his mouth shut. “Who’s Colby?” Ayden asked as Dyani steered him towards the kitchen. She made him sit down next to his soup and even picked up the spoon and held it out until he took it from her. He shot a look to Johnny, who snorted and went to sit on the couch. Ayden smiled a bit to himself because the woman was being nice to him. Not just the whole vision thing, but the mothering thing, made him remember what a crappy childhood he’d had. His own mother hadn’t given a shit about anything other than what was in the liquor cabinet. The closest thing he’d ever had to a mother was Annie’s mom and grandmother. But he hadn’t seen a whole lot of them because he’d usually been sporting bruises and wounds he didn’t want them to see. “You don’t worry about it,” Dyani said and pointed to the bowl in front of him. Ayden made a show of slurping down a large spoonful and that seemed to appease the woman because she nodded and headed into the living room, all but collapsing onto the sofa chair. Annie sat on the couch, next to Johnny and Ayden grinned when he saw that the space between them had diminished somewhat. Johnny watched her for a moment before he turned his attention to Dyani. “What sort of trouble are you in?” he asked. “Nothing, it’s politics, Wakiza. Simple politics.” Johnny raised a brow. “That didn’t seem like politics. That seemed like a fucking threat.” Dyani laughed but it sounded exasperated. “Boy, you are a stubborn sonofabitch, aren’t you? Just like that no good Baker. Are you sure you two aren’t related?” Johnny snorted again. “Uh, yeah, we’re not related. Thank God.” Ayden grinned because his brother wasn’t one to be distracted so easily. “Do those guys come around here often?” Dyani seemed to study his brother a moment and the amused look was off of her face. She leaned her head back and sighed like she had years of stress and worry building up inside her. Ayden put down his spoon and he wasn’t surprised when she called loudly, “Finish your meal.” Johnny and Annie turned to look at him and he scowled as he picked the spoon up again and ate a bit more. Then Dyani leaned forward and she was speaking lowly to Johnny. “Whatever it is you think you owe me, don’t. I don’t need or want your help or concern. So go and eat some soup and don’t get involved, Wakiza.” “Why do you call me that?” Johnny asked quietly back. Dyani leaned back in the chair again and shrugged. “It fits you.” “What does it mean?” he demanded. She just grinned. “Not yet.” She turned her head to look out the window and she suddenly looked exhausted. “It will grow dark soon. You’re welcome to spend the night but tomorrow, you’re leaving.” Ayden frowned, because he didn’t like that idea. He didn’t want to leave Dyani while she had a problem going on with whoever the hell had just been out in her driveway. He didn’t like the looks of those guys and he didn’t think that it was just politics like Dyani was saying it was. It seemed darker. It seemed threatening and scary. He felt protective of the woman, because she’d guided him back from the dark and he wasn’t going to leave until he knew she was alright. Annie spoke up and scooted a bit closer to Johnny. “Johnny and Ayden are really good at helping people,” she said. “You should let them help you with those guys.” Dyani snorted. “I don’t need the Godsent to do my dirty work.” At Johnny and Annie’s surprised looks, she laughed dryly. “Yes, I know what you are.” She peered sidelong at Johnny. “This isn’t a matter for you. You focus on what it set in front of you.” Johnny held up his hands. “We’re here aren’t we? Only thing I see in front of me is you and those fucking pricks giving you a hard time.” Dyani opened her mouth to protest again, but her eyes suddenly shot towards the kitchen and Ayden raised an eyebrow as she made eye contact with him. “Cheveyo,” she said his pet name and he lowered his spoon from his mouth, wondering what the matter was when suddenly it hit him. He gasped and it felt like something had been speared through his head. He felt himself tilt out of the chair and he felt his head crack open on the tiles of her kitchen, hot blood leaking down his forehead and then he was convulsing and kicking over the chair and the table and spilling the soup onto himself and the floor in the close quarters as the vision took over. He heard Johnny yell his name and then three pairs of hands were on him at once because he was thrashing and knocking over furniture and it was violent and bloody because his head was bleeding and it cracked heavily against the tile twice more before someone finally stilled it with their hands. “I thought you fucking fixed him,” Johnny snarled from somewhere above him. Dyani’s voice was calm and soothing when she replied with, “How to handle the visions once he has them yes, but they still hurt like fuck when they come in.” And then he was lost to the vision. † † † Dyani was there in her bathrobe with galoshes on her feet and her hair in curlers. She was clawing across the floor and leaving a bloody trail in her wake. She spit up blood and it was staining her bathrobe and her hands were shaking violently and she was crawling towards her shotgun up against the wall. A howl pierced the air and then fur and teeth and claws were descending and Dyani screamed as the beast dug into her and ripped her spine from her body. Ayden stood in the corner and watched it all and he watched the beast devour the woman who had saved him. And when the wolf turned, he gasped because the eyes looking back at him were familiar and they were on him and then the beast howled and moved away and Ayden screamed after it because he was pissed and scared and it couldn’t fucking be true. The beast had Annie’s eyes. † † † Ayden came to on the kitchen floor with a dishrag pressed to his head. Dyani was leaning over him and when she saw he was back, she leaned down and whispered, “Lock it away. Do not let it fester.” Ayden nodded and closed his eyes as he found the motel room in his head and he morphed and created a place for the vision. He could feel someone holding his hand and the grip tightened and he thought maybe he was taking too long. But he finished and opened his eyes again and Dyani was smiling at him. He couldn’t quite smile back. “We’re not leaving,” he told her and he saw her face falter for the first time since he’d met her. “We have to save you.” Then his eyes were moving to Johnny was at his feet, holding his ankles. Ayden must have kicked him in the face during his thrashing because he had blood coming from a split lip. Johnny looked pissed and worried at the same time and it always amused Ayden when his brother had that look on his face. But his eyes moved to Annie, who was holding his hand. He swallowed thickly. “And you,” he said. .Wolfie. “What are we dealing with?” he asked Ayden. He held out a hand to his brother and Ayden took it, clasping hands firmly with his brother. He let Johnny haul him to his feet, cracking his jaw with his other hand. Diyani stayed on the floor, rubbing a hand through her hair. Johnny’s gaze focused on his brother’s face and he had to choke down the sudden rage and fear. He stole a glance at Annie who was also watching Ayden. She looked concerned, but not terrified.He heard Diyani sigh as she sat back on the kitchen floor. “Wolves,” she told them quietly. “Werewolves.” Johnny raised an eyebrow at her. “You knew about this.” It wasn’t a question. She glared at him like it was his fucking fault and then she looked away again, hands resting on her knees. She picked at the edge of her robe and tossed little strings off onto the ground. “Yes, Wakiza, and it is… was none of your business.” She shook her head and shot an irritated glance at the ceiling. “It seems your God wants you to meddle in my affairs now. Stupid can’t keep their noses out of other people’s business.” He touched a tongue gingerly to the wound on his lip and nodded slowly because it put a lot of things into perspective for him. “So that guy, Colby? He has something to do with it? He’s a werewolf?” Ayden asked her, rubbing his forehead. Johnny was surprised and impressed because his brother looked like he hadn’t suffered any of the after affects that came with a vision. His eyes were clear and he focused. Johnny was glad that he had asked the question because he probably would have gotten a flip and bitchy answer for it. As it was she sighed and closed her eyes, nodding slowly. “He is the pack leader,” she told him, though she looked as though she wished she hadn’t. “Alright.” Johnny pulled out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips. The lighter flicked open and he blew the first plume of smoke out in front of his face. He started reaching for the car keys and grabbing his boots to pull them on because he was going to take care of this mess here and now. He didn’t like the way his brother had looked at Annie when he’d first come out of the vision and he wasn’t going to risk waiting. “You tell us where to find him then, and we’ll take care of this.” Diyani snorted. “Not tonight you’re not.” Johnny’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck you we’re not. This is what we do.” Her face instantly dropped into a menacing expression and then she pulled herself to her feet and stood in front of Johnny. She pushed a finger into the center of his chest and she had her eyes narrowed in a fierce glare. It didn’t matter that she was shorter than him, she could be an intimidating old woman when she wanted to be. “First, you ever cuss at me again and I’ll cut your balls off. Second, I’m not telling you a god damn thing until the morning. There’s a ring of protection around my house and we’ll all be safe for tonight anyway, so get your rest and we’ll talk more tomorrow.” “The vision took place in this house,” Ayden told her quietly and slowly, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked embarrassed that he was arguing with her and he looked at the floor when he opened his mouth. “You were running out of the bedroom and there was already a wolf in the house. It uh, it was Annie.” She kept glaring at Johnny and he wondered how that was fair because he wasn’t the one who had contradicted her. Her voice when she spoke was harsh and clipped. “Well,” she said. “I have two big strapping men to protect me, don’t I? See, you have a chance to prove you’re good for something.” “I’m not playing wait and see just to let Annie get hurt,” he growled out. “I’m standing right here, Johnny,” she said, looking at him with one raised eyebrow. Her arms crossed in front of her chest and her hips cocked. He knew that face. It was her ‘I may look little but I can still kick your ass’ face, and he always seemed to be in trouble when she wore it. “Who was it that got you out of that hospital? I can take care of myself, thanks very much. I don’t need you going all John Wayne just because of something that might happen.” “You get turned into a werewolf,” Ayden put in, helpfully. Diyani threw her arms up. “That’s all well and good but I’m still not telling you children anything until tomorrow. Get some sleep all of you. Cheveyo, you may sleep on my couch again.” She smiled comfortingly at Ayden and squeezed his shoulder. Then she flicked a glance up to Johnny and Annie and he wondered what he’d done to deserve that fucking glare every time she looked at him. “You two can fend for yourselves, but same rules as last night. Don’t have sex in my house. I don’t care if you go out to your car, but I don’t want to fucking hear it.” She past them and headed into her room, and there was a blur of gray as her cat slipped in behind her. There was a quiet click as she shut the door behind her and it sounded very final. Johnny knew better than to try and get her out again tonight or she might come out with a shotgun pointed at his head. He rubbed his temples and shook his head. “Something tells me she’s not taking this very seriously.” Annie cocked her head, still staring at the door. “I think she is. I think she just hates depending on anyone else.” Ayden smirked. “And who else do we know like that?” She punched him lightly on the shoulder and she was smiling at him. It was a warm, comforting thing and he saw Ayden answer it with a grin of his own because his little brother had probably missed this as much as Johnny. Their own family had been a shit one, so the two of them had always been the closest thing to home when they were with Annie, whether it was with her mom and her grandparents or in a shitty motel room. “Don’t be an ass.” Johnny slung an arm around his brother’s shoulder. “He doesn’t know any other way to be,” he said with a smirk. Ayden pushed him away. “Insult me all you want, but you’re still sleeping on the floor. You know, unless you both go sleep in the car…” and he found himself in a headlock before he could finish the sentence. Johnny was just jamming his knuckles into his brother’s forehead when the hurried words spilled from his mouth. “Alright, alright, I get it, I’m sorry.” He held his hands up in submission. Johnny shoved him away with a grin on his face and Annie was just holding her head in her hands and shaking it slowly back and forth. “I can’t believe you two sometimes,” she said. The smile died as he watched her because they weren’t treating it seriously either. It was how they dealt with nightmares every day, but he couldn’t deny the cold sweat trickling down his spine. He’d just gotten her back in his life, even if they weren’t back together as a couple, he didn’t want to lose her to some asshole werewolf already. He couldn’t take it. “What else did you see?” he asked Ayden. His brother shrugged and looked at the ground, which meant that Ayden was more bothered by it than he was letting on. Johnny couldn’t blame him because he was pissed off and scared just thinking about what his brother might have seen looking back at him from inside his own mind. He didn’t want to think about Annie turning into a monster, and he didn’t plan on letting it happen. “That was about it. Werewolf Annie killing Diyani.” He squeezed his brother’s shoulder on the way over to the phone and glanced at Annie briefly. She was staring at the floor too, her arms wrapped around her frame and she was chewing on her lip in a way that meant she was thinking deeply about something. “We won’t let that happen,” he told them both, and then he was picking up the telephone and pressing it to his ear. “Ashley Baker,” he said into it, because it was about time he called that asshole and got some things straightened out anyway. It started to ring after a moment and then the man picked up with a drawl in his voice. “Hey Johnny. I take it the visit went well?” He snorted into the phone, blowing smoke out through his nose. Ashley always knew the wrong thing to say right off the bat and he wished the man were there to explain to him exactly how much he appreciated the lack of forewarning they’d been given. True, Diyani had helped them like he’d said, but a hint about the shotgun and the hatred would have been nice. “Yeah, except she almost fucking shot me just for saying your name. That would have been good to know.” He heard Ashley chuckle. “I take it she’s still mad about that?” “Yeah, just a little, asshole, thanks a fucking lot.” He sighed into the phone and he didn’t sound sorry at all. Johnny wished he could reach through the receiver and punch him and he thought about using the voice to do just that. Just once, and he didn’t even think Ayden would mind it. He might even encourage the idea and he would have to pitch it to him one of these times. “We’ll you’re not dead, so I take it the visit went well? Little Ayden all back in one piece?” “Yeah, he’s good now,” he snapped, and then remembered Ashley was the one he had to thank for that. He sighed into the phone and took a drag off his cigarette. “Thanks for that, by the way,” he grumbled into the phone. He sighed and flicked ash into the sink, watching Annie inspect the back of Ayden’s head for goose eggs. He’d hit his head pretty hard on the floor but he seemed otherwise okay. He wasn’t in a coma and he didn’t have a concussion, so always good things. “But the bad news is, we’ve got werewolves,” he snapped. “And your ex looks like she’s on the menu.” Ashley laughed again and Johnny wondered if anything fazed the man. “I doubt that. She’s a tough girl and she’s got you boys there, so what’re you worried about?” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, because the last part was more of a favor than anything else and he had already asked enough favors. He didn’t know why Ashley helped them out all the time, but he was worried that one of these days their welcome would run out, or the man would retire or disappear and then what the hell would they do? “I was wondering if you packed us any silver bullets.” Ashley went abruptly quiet. “I’m not coming up there,” he said quickly. Johnny wondered what had passed between him and Diyani and he imagined it had something to do with their former relationship. He thought dryly that everything always came down to love and it was such a sappy fucking thing to think that he almost gagged himself. He made a note to ask Ayden about it later because he hated the idea of being stuck in the middle of some lover’s spat without knowing what it was about and then he winced because that was what he had done to his brother. They would have to have that conversation sometime soon. “Why Ashley, I never figured you for a pussy,” he said sweetly, shaking off his reservations. He heard a groan on the other end. “She’ll probably kill me,” he said. Johnny grinned into the phone. “Well, we’re both here to protect you, so what’re you worried about? Though I don’t know, she’s pretty fierce with that shotgun. We might not be able to hold her back.” “Go fuck yourself, Johnny,” he snapped. “I’ll see what I can do.” Then the phone clicked as Ashley slammed it down and he smirked as he settled it back in its cradle. † † † He jerked awake in the middle of the night to a sound outside It sounded like howling, he realized after a moment, and still pretty far away. He already had his gun out and at the ready but he didn’t see anything in the house and he relaxed in slow degrees. He let the hammer drop back on his revolver and glanced at his brother who was snoring next to him, drool trickling from the corner of his lips. Then he glanced up at Anne who’d fallen asleep curled up in the sofa chair. He’d taken the floor again because he sure as hell wouldn’t make her sleep on the floor and he didn’t want to press his luck. She had sat up at the same time, and her fingers were curled in the blanket, her eyes staring out the window where the moon was bright and full. “Hey,” he said quietly. “You okay?” She blinked and her sleepy gaze focused on his face. She was biting her lip and staring at him and he didn’t know what she was thinking. “Yeah,” she told him, but she didn’t even try to fake a smile. He stared back at her and the silence stretched between them until she finally licked her lips and looked at the floor. “Hey Johnny?” “What do you need darlin’?” he asked her, sitting up a little farther and resting his hands on his knees. She blushed and then she was shifting over in the chair and looking back at his face. “I can share,” she said softly. He only hesitated for a minute and then he stood and crossed over to her, sitting down on the edge of the cushion as he studied her face. “You sure?” he asked, because he didn’t want to pressure her but he wasn’t going to turn down anything she wanted to give him. She looked out the window again and nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she whispered, and then a sad smile fluttered across her face. “But it doesn’t mean we’re back together, and it doesn’t mean I forgive you.” “I know,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if I forgive myself.” He smiled back and settled into the chair beside her. She snuggled in next him, her head settling onto his chest just beneath his chin and her fingers curled into his shirt. He wrapped an arm around her and held her close against him. “Johnny?” she said after a minute. “I don’t really hate you.” He smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I would understand if you did.” “I know,” she whispered. “That’s why I don’t.” Wenston Ayden was dreaming and the sun was just coming in to the window when he rolled off the couch and landed with a thump on the floor. He blinked a few times and he heard ruffling on the sofa chair and then Johnny’s tired and slurred voice called out, “Ayden?” He turned to look at his brother and had to reach up to rub the sleep from his eyes before he could see him clearly. Johnny’s hair was sticking all over the place and Annie was sitting up next to him, her hair tangled about her shoulders. Ayden groaned. “You guys didn’t do it while I was in the room, did you?” he asked and Johnny rolled his eyes, leaning back into the sofa chair because he hated being woken up before it was time to rise. Annie gave him and evil stare. He held up his hand in surrender and then yawned and said, “Man, that was a weird dream.” “What was it about?” Annie asked. “The Terminator and Chuckie were blowing up the White House,” Ayden said without a beat and then he pulled himself to his feet, wincing because a bruise had formed on his head from where he’d cracked it against the floor yesterday. He touched it gingerly and then looked at the two, who seemed to be waiting for him to elaborate. He realized what they were waiting for. It had been a long, long time since he’d had just a regular dream. He shrugged. “What? They’d make a kick ass duo.” Johnny snorted and shook his head. “You’re such a fucking idiot,” he said because he was still half asleep and couldn’t come up with anything better. Annie chuckled and then she was snuggling into him. Ayden made a gagging sound and his brother flipped him off, eyes already closed again contently. Ayden shook his head and walked into the kitchen. He started up the coffee pot with little trouble and stood, half asleep on his feet as he waited for it to brew. He was almost drifting off, standing upright in the kitchen, when he heard a voice to his left call, “Ayden.” He let out a yelp and turned, slipping on some spilled water from the cat dish on the floor. He grasped the counter to keep himself upright and he turned to see Ashley Fucking Baker standing in the kitchen wearing one of his dumb ass Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts. He had long johns on underneath and he looked absolutely re-fucking-diculous. “Shh! Shut up! It’s me!” Ashley tried to shush him. The damage had been done and Johnny and Annie came bolting into the kitchen because they’d heard Ayden yelp. Johnny had a gun drawn and Annie was carrying a knife from who knows where she kept it. They paused, though, when they saw who it was. “Ashley?” Johnny asked and his voice was loud and ringing in the quiet of the morning. “For the love of God quiet the fuck down,” Ashley hissed. Ayden put a hand over his chest because his heart was beating really fast. He’d never known Ashley had the stealth of a god damn ninja. He let out a low breath. “Jesus,” he said and that gained all their attentions. “I think you gave me a heart palpitation…” He pulled over a chair and sat down, holding two fingers to his neck as he timed his pulse dramatically. Fucking Ashley Baker. Johnny snorted and looked back at the man, taking in his outfit for a minute before he grinned. “Brought us our silver bullets?” Ashley’s hands shook in front of him in frustration. “Shh!” he scolded, eyes darting to the doorway to the living room and then back to Johnny. “Keep your voices low. I’m dropping off the bullets and then I’m gone. She doesn’t even have to know I was here.” “Somehow I think she’ll know,” Annie said, not bothering to keep her voice quiet. Ashley threw his hands up in the air and gave a silent roar, which only made Annie grin wider. “Seriously,” Ayden said, hand now over his heart. “I think I need mouth to mouth. I think you should go find a hot chick. Preferably not a vampire. Although if that’s all there is, I guess I’ll make do.” Johnny ran a hand over his face, tucking the gun into his jeans and ignoring his little brother. Ayden beat his hand on his chest while Annie reached over to ruffle his hair. Johnny focused on the man in front of him. “Ashley, Dyani may need your help. Ayden saw her getting ripped apart by a werewolf.” Ashley snorted. “That woman needs help, but not from me.” Johnny sighed. “The werewolf was Annie.” Ashley actually quirked an eyebrow at that one. He bent to the side a little to get a good look at Annie, who looked a little ashamed. Ayden wondered what she could possibly be ashamed of. It wasn’t like she’d openly want to be a werewolf. Besides, they were going to stop that from happening. Because if they didn’t, they’d have to kill her and Ayden doubted entirely that Johnny would be able to do that. “Well, that’s something new,” Ashley grinned and it was such a cocky grin that Ayden saw his brother’s muscle tense like he wanted to hit the guy. “You having any unusual cravings for raw meat, lately?” The cocking of a shotgun stopped the conversation in its entirety and all four of them turned to look at the doorway, where Dyani was standing in her bathrobe holding the shotgun out and pointing it at Ashley. “What the fuck are you doing in my god damn house, Ashley Fucking Baker?” She drawled slowly and menacingly and if Ayden thought the woman was scary before, she was utterly terrifying now. Ashley gulped and then she was pulling the trigger and he yelled, “Oh Jesus Fuck!” and he actually turned and jumped out the window as she blasted the shotgun across the kitchen. Johnny whirled and covered Annie as the blast sounded and Ayden leaned over the table, covering his head. They all turned to look at her wide eyed because she’d actually been aiming to kill the man! Dyani turned and was stalking out of the house, shotgun at the ready. Ayden and Johnny exchanged glances for a moment before they both rose and were running after her, Annie at their heels. They burst out of the front door and she was standing on the porch while Ashley was scrambling to throw boxes of silver bullets out of his trunk and into the snow. Dyani took aim and fired a shot at Ashley’s convertible, that had the top up. Ashley’s head poked up over the trunk and he looked mortified. “Oh come on baby, not the car!” He yelled. “Don’t you come on baby me, you sonofabitch!” She yelled and took another shot, blowing out one of his windows. Ashley cried out like it was he himself who’d been hit and then he was holding up his hands in a symbol for a time out. Dyani didn’t care and shot one at his head, which he ducked under easily. “You two-timing, double crossing, snake tongue-” Ashley leaned out and held up a finger. “You liked my tongue,” he said and it didn’t help because she shot at him again and he ducked behind the car. Ayden sighed, because as much as this was entertaining him, and apparently Johnny and Annie too because neither of them had moved and both were smirking, he knew that they needed the man and there was a great possibility that he could actually be shot. He took jumped down the steps and came to stand next to Dyani. “Dyani, we need him,” he said and she didn’t even so much as side glance at him, but she didn’t fire another shot, even when Ashley poked his head out from behind the car again. “No one fucking needs that asshole. The world would be full of sunshine and rainbows without his bullshit,” she spat. Ayden snorted. “True, but he did bring us the silver bullets. And we owe him for sending us to you, so, can you at least not shoot him until we leave?” Dyani seemed to consider this for a moment and then she sighed heavily and lower the shotgun, her face still puckered and narrowed at him. From the porch, Johnny whined. “Aww, I wanted to see if he would bleed or implode.” “Oh he’ll bleed,” Dyani said and growled as Ashley tentatively took a few steps towards them. “And he’ll fucking whine about it until he’s blue in the face. “ Ashley grinned. “Better than being blue in the balls,” he gave and she pointed the shotgun at him again but Ayden held his hand up to grab it and guide it back down. “What the hell are you doing here, Baker?” Dyani demanded. “Had to bring the boys the ammo they requested,” Ashley motioned his head towards the boxes he’d thrown out in the snow. Then, before Ayden could stop him, he reached over and put Ayden into a headlock. “Plus, I wanted to see how my little buddy was doing.” Ayden growled as the man gave him a noogie. Ashley let him go and then pulled him in close, so that he was standing between Ashley and Dyani’s shotgun. Ayden rolled his eyes and he saw Johnny and Annie do the same from the porch. “He’s a peach, ain’t he?” Dyani narrowed her eyes and then turned on her heel, heading back towards her house. She shoved pass Johnny and Annie and Ashley let Ayden go, breathing a sigh of relief. Dyani turned back around at the door. “If you’re coming in my house, get rid of that ridiculous shirt!” she yelled. Ashley looked down at himself, tugging at his Hawaiian shirt. He looked up with a confused look on his face. “You always said you liked me shirts.” “I lied!” she yelled and then slammed the door shut behind her. .Wolfie. They sat at the kitchen table where awkward silence reigned supreme.Diyani sat at the head of the table, and Annie sat next to her, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee as she stared at the table. She sat on Johnny’s right and glanced up at him once and half opened her mouth to say something before shutting it again. Ashley sat next to Ayden as far away from Diyani as he could get. He changed the Hawaiian shirt but now he wore some tourist tee shirt from Joe’s Crab Shack and Johnny just kept waiting for his little brother to make a comment about that. The gray cat sat in the center of the table and cleaned itself, oblivious to the tension hanging over the room. “So,” Johnny said after a minute, because no one else was saying anything and he wanted to go kill himself some werewolves. He hadn’t gotten to shoot anything in days. He lit up a cigarette with one hand and tried to ignore the glare Diyani sent his way. She wouldn’t put down the shotgun and if it was making him nervous, he couldn’t imagine what Baker was feeling. The man was probably shitting himself. “Colby. Who is he, where is he?” She glared at him for a long time, before sighing and taking a sip from her coffee. Her hands curled around the ceramic cup and she looked like she really didn’t want to tell them any of it. He imagined that if his brother hadn’t had that vision, she probably wouldn’t have and he didn’t think like to think what would happen later. She’d done a lot to help them and he hated to think of her dying alone and cold in her house. Her gaze drifted to Ayden who was picking at the wooden table with a fingernail and shrugging to try and shake off the hand that Ashley had slung about his shoulder. “He is pack alpha, and he has been trying to expand his ranks of late.” “Awesome,” Ayden chuckled. “So he’s recruiting? How many has he got?” She shrugged, attention dropping back down to her coffee. She took a sip and stared out the window, because every time she looked at Ashley Baker her hand tightened on the shotgun leaning against the table next to her. “I don’t know,” she admitted quietly. “A dozen? Two dozen? I’ve done my best to protect those he targets, but it doesn’t always work.” She shook her head sadly. “They have grown quite a bit since he started.” Johnny sighed, flicking ash off his cigarette. “I hate werewolves,” he grumbled. They were almost as bad as vampires, because it was hard to tell at first who was one and who wasn’t. They could change at will and they were fast as all fuck. Not to mention how easy it was to spread it. Get mauled enough by one of those things and he’d be waking up on the full moon hungry for anything raw and bloody and there was no turning back. Werewolves were fast and deadly and scary and a step away from pure evil. They lost control to the wolf, even when they walked around wearing human skin. Ayden laughed at him from across the table. “You hate everything.” Johnny snorted at him. “You hate everything except vampires, apparently.” Annie leaned forward, ignoring the brothers. She was watching the woman’s face. “So the visit you got yesterday was because of that?” she asked. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and Johnny saw her hands shaking as she did so. He wondered if she had asked him to sleep with her because she was scared, and he thought of her face as she had stared out the window last night. His hand slid under the table to rest on her knee and she didn’t shrug it off as he squeezed comfortingly. He wouldn’t let that happen to her. “Because you stopped him from changing someone else?” She nodded slowly. “A girl from town. The preacher’s daughter.” Ashley laughed and seemed oblivious to the sharp glare she shot him. Johnny raised an eyebrow at him waiting for his explanation of why that was funny. He could only imagine it was something crude that had occurred to him and he saw Diyani’s hand tighten around her shotgun again. If it weren’t for Ayden, Johnny didn’t think he could have stopped her from shooting the man already, and as funny as that would be, it would make their jobs that much harder. “What?” he shrugged. “It’s always the preacher’s daughter.” “We’re talking about wolves, not your sexual exploits,” Ayden said with a smirk. “Please,” Annie said, resting her head in her hands. “Let’s never talk about your sexual exploits. I mean ever.” “Hey,” he said, leaning forward and pointing a finger at Annie. “I’ll have you know I am excellent in bed.” Diyani rolled her eyes at the end of the table and her lips were a thin angry line. Her finger slid to rest on the trigger of the shotgun and Johnny put the cigarette between his lips to keep from laughing. Then a lecherous smirk crossed Ashley’s face as he smiled at Annie. “And you know if you ever want to find out first hand…” A snarl escaped Johnny’s lips and he was on his feet at the same time as Diyani. She already had the shotgun pressed to her shoulder and she had moved faster than the eldest Marshall this time, whose hand was still pulling the revolver out of its holster. She was snarling curses across the table. “Just let me shoot him,” she pleaded. “Just once. I promise it’ll just be in the leg. Or the balls, please, no one will miss those.” Ayden laughed but then his fingers curled around the barrel of the gun and pointed it at the floor, shaking his head slowly. “I was kidding!” Ashley said, throwing his hands up and staying behind Ayden. “It was a joke! Jesus, just settle the fuck down.” Annie rolled her eyes before settling a hand on Johnny’s arm “Easy cowboy,” she said. He pointed a finger at Ashley, cigarette hanging from it and ashes falling to the table. “You’re going to get yourself shot,” he warned, and he heard Diyani laugh behind him. “So, Colby,” Ayden prompted, shifting so that his back was to Ashley. “Colby,” Diyani grit out, her eyes still locked on Ashley and her fingers were caressing the shotgun like a lover. Johnny could only imagine how badly she wanted to pull the trigger because he was feeling the same way at the moment. He felt Annie slip a hand into his and he felt the anger fade. “Is a no good son of a bitch, just like this asshole over here. He thinks he can bully me into letting him take more and more victims into his pack and he doesn’t like it when I prove him wrong.” “So where does he live?” Johnny pressed, taking a drag from his cigarette. She sighed and rubbed a hand across her face. “Godsent taking care of my business, what is the world coming to?” She downed the rest of her coffee in one gulp and then glanced out the window, staring at the falling snow. Another quiet sigh bubbled from between her lips and then she nodded to herself. “Alright. He lives up a small trail past the town. It used to be a reservation but those he didn’t turn into wolves moved out, so it’s nothing but a thieves den now. It should be easy enough to follow the signs.” Johnny nodded and stood up, sticking the cigarette between his lips and holstering his gun. They had dragged the silver bullets in out of the snow and he began to collect the boxes off the table, glancing up at Ayden as he did. “You ready?” he asked, flipping open his revolver and starting to load it up. His brother just laughed. “To charge recklessly into a den of werewolves? Absolutely.” Annie snorted. “So that’s the plan? Charge?’ Johnny shot a grin over his shoulder at her. “Do I ever have another one?” Wenston The snow was knee-high by the time they realized they’d have to hike it up to the reservation. Dyani had stayed back at the cabin and because Ashley would probably wind up dead, the man, for once, had chosen to come along with them. He sat in the backseat of the Cadillac with Ayden, because Ayden always gave his front seat up for Annie when she was along for the ride. He didn’t mind it. And he was just glad that Ashley had stopped using him as a human shield. “So,” Ayden said as Johnny pulled the car to a stop and growled because he’d been looking for a damn road, but Dyani had been quite literal in her reference to a “small trail” because it seemed the only way to get to the reservation was up a small hiking trail. Johnny hated the snow and the thought that now they had to hike in it made Ayden giggle on the inside. “How serious were you two?” he asked, looking at Ashley. “Oh, you know,” Ashley shrugged nonchalantly but he was clearly skirting the issue. “A few years, some hugging, some kissing, spooning on occasion. Married her, ahem,” he cleared his throat after the last part and pointed to the trail. “We going up there?” he deliberately changed the subject and then pushed the car door open, climbing out and slamming it shut before Ayden could process what he’d just said. Ayden let out a bark of laughter and flung his own door open, hearing Johnny and Annie doing the same. “You were fucking married?” he called to the man, who’d thrown on a ridiculous looking orange parka with fur and frills. He had orange ski goggles that he had pulled down over his eyes even while they were still in the car. So much for camouflage. Ashley shrugged. “Sure, for a while. Ten years maybe.” “You were married to Dyani for ten years?” Annie asked, sounding shocked and disgusted. “What did you do?” And the question made Ayden laugh out loud because it was so Annie to think that Ashley was the one who had fucked up the marriage. Although, Ayden had to admit, it sure sounded like that when Dyani was calling him names. He didn’t think the woman just made up the names out of nowhere. Ashley pulled out a gun, the only gun Ayden ever saw him with. It was a old time, ancient looking pistol that only carried two bullets at a time and the bullets had to be specially made. The gun was utterly useless because when did anything ever need just two bullets? But they had only ever seen Ashley shoot something once and he had to admit that the man was a pretty good shot. “Well, I…was tempted by the fruit of another,” Ashley grumbled out. “I can’t help it if the woman sagged before she was thirty. And the girl…I mean, she had to be a succubus or a siren or something. There was no resisting those legs, yum!” Annie held up her hands. “Alright, you’re going to make me vomit.” Ayden laughed and rounded the car to go stand next to Johnny, who was checking his guns one last time and glancing up every so often at the trail they were about to climb. He heard Ashley go on about the girl he’d been seduced by and how she was all curves and Annie groaned and begged him to stop but he blocked them out for a second, focusing on his brother. “Do you think it’s a good idea to leave Dyani alone?” he asked quietly so the others couldn’t hear. Johnny glanced at him sidelong, a cigarette puffing on his lips. He shrugged. “I think she’s capable of taking care of herself,” he said, equally as quiet. “Besides, if Colby’s here, this is the last place we want her to be.” “We brought Annie,” Ayden said, just above a whisper. Johnny glared at him and Ayden resisted the urge to sigh. Apparently Annie was still a touchy subject, even if they were slowly coming back together. “I’m not letting anything happen to her,” Johnny growled and then shoved pass Ayden none too gently and walked between Ashley and Annie who were now apparently arguing about who make better girlfriends, blondes or brunettes. Ayden’s lips twitched but he couldn’t quite pull a full smile because he could still picture werewolf Annie ripping apart Dyani. And Johnny talked a big game, but he got reckless around Annie. He hoped his brother could keep his promise. They made their way up the hiking trail quietly, because they didn’t know how far the reservation was and werewolves had distinct hearing. The trail was packed with snow and it was slow going because they had to tread through it. Johnny led the way, with Annie behind him, Ashley behind her, and Ayden bringing up the rear. He watched them as they climbed and he saw Annie slip once on a patch of ice, but Johnny caught her hand easily and the two exchanged a smile before they were moving again. Ayden felt like gagging. “God, I need to work out,” Ashley blurted after a particularly steep incline. Johnny and Annie both whirled to stare at him because he had broken the silence and he just shrugged at them. “What? I do. This is a fucking hike.” “Shut up,” Johnny snapped, irritated at the man. “You know, maybe I should wait in the car,” Ashley said, stopping and blocking Ayden’s ability to climb any higher. He sighed at the man but he had to admit, he was a little out of breath as well. Johnny and Annie paused in their trek to turn around again and glare. “Baker, we’re almost there,” Johnny hissed. “How do you know? I don’t see any tepees or wigwams or whatever the fuck they sleep in,” Ashley waved his hand, but didn’t start moving again. Ayden chuckled, garnering a glare from Johnny and Annie. He glared back at them. “They probably have houses, Ashley. Maybe even running water and cable television.” He waved his fingers around and went, “Ooh,” and Ashley turned to clap him on the shoulder, laughing. “Both of you shut the fuck up,” Johnny said and turned back around, starting to climb again, his eyes on the ground, watching his step. “Move your ass, Baker.” Ashley sighed and Ayden grinned at the man with a shrug. “Looks like you’re stuck with us. Hope your squirt gun works.” Ayden pointed to the pistol in Ashley’s hand. Ashley snorted. “You know, that’s usually something a woman says to me. I’ll have you know, I-” Whatever Ashley Baker was about to say was suddenly cut off with a sharp snap that echoed around them, bouncing off the pine trees. Ayden wasn’t sure what happened at first or what the sound was, but then Ashley screamed and sunk to the ground and when Ayden looked down the snow was staining red and Ayden’s eyes went wide as he saw the ugly, black metal bear trap wrapped around Ashley’s leg, its teeth digging deep into the skin. “Fuck,” Johnny swore and was hurrying back down towards them, Annie at his heels. “God, Ashley,” Annie said, putting a hand to his shoulder, trying to shush him. “It’s a fucking bear trap,” Johnny said needlessly. “Well no shit,” Ayden said, crouching and trying to remember what he knew about these devices. Ashley was biting his fist to keep from screaming and even though it looked like it was very painful, Ayden was impressed to see the man was in complete control of himself and not crying or whimpering. Ashley was tough, even if he acted like a pushover half the time. Johnny moved to try and pry the jaws of the mechanism apart, but Ashley bucked as the thing wouldn’t budge. Ayden slapped his brother’s hands away. “Let me think a second,” Ayden demanded, scratching his head because he’d watched a fucking documentary on these things once. “We don’t have a second,” Johnny replied and as if to accentuate his point, a loud, stiff howl filled the air. “Okay,” Ayden said, rubbing his hands together, ghosting over the metal and trying to ignore the blood gushing out. “There should be levers or latches. We just need to push them both down and the jaws will open.” Ashley removed the fist from his mouth and grabbed the front of Johnny’s shirt, pulling him over. Johnny lost his balance at the unexpected movement and fell on his ass in the snow. Ashley growled at Johnny and said, “Fix me, you asshole,” he yelled. Johnny growled and tried to pry Ashley’s fingers from his shirt. “You’re gonna be fine, just let him get this damn thing off you.” “I swear to God if you let me die, I’m coming back to haunt you.” Another howl pierced the air and then Ayden was pressing down on the levers and the jaws snapped open, causing Ashley to scream again. .Wolfie. Blood stained the snow in thick red swatches and then Ashley was collapsing into Johnny and Ayden’s hands.He was biting his lip to keep from screaming and his leg was a tattered mess of flesh and blood. Johnny couldn’t help but be impressed because his leg looked pretty fucking mangled and he was managing to keep it together, the gun still held in one hand and the other gripping his knee. His long johns had been shredded and Johnny thought he should count himself lucky that he hadn’t broken a bone or something. “Fuck,” Johnny swore. “Can you even walk? We need to get you back to the car.” “Fuck you,” Ashley panted. His face was pale and drawn and he was gritting his teeth. There was blood pouring from the puncture wounds and he leaned down to rip the remaining pieces of his thermal underwear and tried to tie it tightly around the wounds. Ashley let out a harsh whimper and then he was shaking his head back and forth like he was telling the pain no. “I told you I should have waited in the car.” Ayden snorted and shook his head at him. He dragged the man’s arm across his shoulders and started dragging him back down the path. “Well, now you get the nurse treatment from Diyani. Maybe she’ll even wear a little outfit for you.” “Why do you put these images in my head?” he asked. The man let out a terrible groan as he put weight on his injured leg and his teeth clamped down around his bottom lip again. His fingers dug into Ayden’s back as his little brother helped him start the slow descent back to the car. “You assholes owe me for this,” he spat into the ground, and it would have been funny if it wasn’t such awful timing. “Yeah, we’ll be sure to get you an extra special present for Christmas,” Johnny told him. “Johnny,” Annie’s voice came softly from above them. His gaze went to her and she had her back to him, gun pointed up the trail a little ways. Then his eyes focused on the dark shape lurking up there and a curse and a hiss of breath escaped his lips, his gun rising to point at the waiting monstrosity. The beast that sat above them was dark and black and probably twice the size of a normal wolf, but its build was almost human. Almost. It prowled along the top of the trail, golden eyes glowing gold. It bared its teeth at him and they were sharp and dripping. Its claws curled in the snow and then it tipped its head back and howled. The sound chilled him to the bone, and he felt a shudder go down his spine as he heard an answering cry from his left and his right. He didn’t like the sound of it because that meant they were close to being surrounded. “Get Ashley back to the car,” he spit out over his shoulder. The beast opened its jaws at him and he heard a low growl reverberate across the snowy ground. Then he raised his gun and fired at the wolf, gun blasts echoing in his ears. It dodged the first blast, but it didn’t charge him, and then the second shot caught it in the shoulder. It tipped its head back and howled again and it sounded horrid and sad and pained. Then it dropped its head and a low whine started deep in its throat and Johnny hated wolves because a little part of him wondered what kind of person the monster used to be. Whoever it was, they might not have had a choice. Hell, it might even have been the preacher’s daughter. Blood began to drip from its skin into the snow and then it turned and bounded away, leaving the three of them shivering in the cold behind it. He debated for a moment whether he should follow it or just get them back to Diyani’s to try again later. He ground his teeth together and stared at the empty space where the wolf had been a second ago. He hated that idea because they were already almost there and his gun was loaded with silver bullets and waiting just meant they were one step closer to Ayden’s vision coming true. That was what decided it for him because there was no fucking way he was going to let them claim Annie. His boots dug into the snow as he hauled his way up the trail, gun held out in front of him as he scanned for wolves. The trail evened out about ten feet up but the only sign of the beast was the puddle of red it had left behind. He could see whatever was left of the reservation through the trees, starting with a guard station with a fence that had been twisted and broken in. There were other buildings visible just down the pathway a little farther and he wondered if one of them housed Colby or if he was out in the woods somewhere, hunting them or something else. There was smoke rising into the sky in front of him and he wondered how much time they really spent as humans that they would start a fire. “Johnny,” Ayden called from below him. “The fuck are you doing up there?” He shook his head, not looking back. “Trying to find the fucking werewolf, what’s it look like?” His brother snorted and shook his head. He muttered something about god damned cowboys and Johnny heard the sound of something dragging over snow. He hoped it was Ashley because they needed to get him out of there. “Johnny, maybe we should head back. Ashley’s really hurt,” Annie said from behind him. She had followed him partway up but had stopped just before the top, her hands sinking into the snow to keep steady. “He’s bleeding a lot,” she added softly. He hesitated, because it was her asking and he glanced at her face. She was scared, and he didn’t like the expression on her face because it was unfamiliar. But how could she not be? His brother had told her she was going to become one of those monsters and all she had were his vague promises that he wouldn’t let that happen. Even if he had to kill every single fucking wolf in the state, he wasn’t going to let them destroy his Annie. He ground his teeth together again and glanced back down at his brother as another round of howls broke out across the dimming sky. There was a flash of gold behind them and he whipped out a second gun. “Ayden,” he shouted, and that was the most warning he could choke out. The wolf burst out of the trees and he heard Ashley shout in surprise as it struck both of them, knocking them back down into the snow in a spray of white. Jaws clamped down around the man’s arm and then he was jamming his two shot gun against his skull and pulling the trigger. The blast echoed in the forest as the beast crumpled in a heap, blood spilling out from the fresh hole in its head. “Jesus fucking God damn Christ,” Ashley spat, wincing at the fresh wound on his arm and letting Ayden help him up. “This is the last fucking time I try to help you two.” Another howl sounded somewhere to Johnny’s right and he heard an answering growl to his left and it sounded like all of them were right next to him now. He thought of some of those god damn Discovery channel specials on pack hunting and felt cold fear settle in his bones. He stepped down off the ridge next to Annie and she had her gun in her hand, watching his left side. “That’s a comforting sound,” she said dryly, and a humorless smile crossed his face. Then the first wolf bounded out of the trees. It drew his attention to he only got two shots off before it was hitting him like a fucking freight train and he went down under the weight. His arm came up to fend it off as jaws snapped at his neck and when they couldn’t reach that they closed around his arm and ripped and tore through the wool coat. He fired at it again with his gun and it barely even flinched, sinking claws into his skin and he heard himself grunt with the pain of it. A gunshot went off to his left and the wolf bit down once before it went still. When he glanced up Annie was the one standing over it with a smoking gun and god had he missed her. Then a wolf was slamming into her back. He saw claws shredding her coat and heard her cry out and his gun snapped up to fire shot after shot at its head and shoulders but it barely seemed to face the beast at all. Red holes bloomed in its shoulders and its chest and it wasn’t until the shot clipped its head that it whirled to snarl at him. He got another shot off at its head and then it was tearing across the snow at him, shredding through his skin like paper. He heard his brother shouting from somewhere below him and Ashley Baker’s strangled cry that he heard answered from his own lips as the wolf grazed his face. He felt teeth sinking into his leg and start dragging him towards the reservation, but he couldn’t sit up because there was already a wolf on top of him ripping him to pieces. He pistol whipped it across the jaw and heard an answering crack and then he was firing at the one down by his legs to try and get it to let him go. “Fuck you, you stupid dog!” he heard Ashley shouting and he hoped that was a good thing. “Ayden,” he shouted and kicked out at the wolf that finally released his leg. He scrambled backwards in the snow and his gaze locked on his brother who was standing over Ashley Baker with two guns in his hand. He felt a swell of pride for his little brother because he was a better shot than he gave the kid credit for sometimes. Ashley was hurriedly jamming bullets back into his stupid useless gun and then snapping it closed to fire at a wolf coming towards him. They had come out of the trees in a wave, and then he saw one coming at his brother’s back. “Ayden,” he shouted again and his brother whirled and fired a shot into the beast’s skull. Then he heard Annie cry out. His head snapped over and when he looked back there was a werewolf looming over her frame, jaws inches from her face. Her arm was limp and shredded next to her, fingers curling weakly around her gun. There were claws digging into her shoulders and blood pooling onto the ground beneath her. The wolf lowered its head to her neck, teeth bared in a snarl. It was smelling her. Wenston Ayden hated werewolves. And he especially hated packs of werewolves. He and Johnny had taken on werewolves before, but they were usually always solo. The packs tended to stay under the radar, quieted away. It was very rare that they could find a whole fucking nest of them and he wondered if luck or karma or fate or whatever the hell it was that was keeping them alive was running out or on holiday because the past few months they’d found nothing but hordes and hordes of Wicked. He almost missed the days when they would go to take on one thing at a time, instead of him and his brother against an army. Blood was coloring the snow red and Ayden didn’t like it. Most of it was Ashley’s, some of it was Johnny’s and a lot of it was Annie’s. Hell, he was the only one still on his feet and he felt like any minute now something was going to tear into him or bust his skull open or, if injuries followed patterns, snap an arm or a leg. He hated broken bones but they seemed to be attracted to him. But here he was, still standing, without so much as a scratch and it was making him nervous because the others were bleeding rivers into the snow. “Get the hell away from her!” Johnny’s voice broke through the sudden silence. The wolves were starting to retreat, licking their wounds and running back to the reservation. “Johnny!” Ayden yelled up to his brother as he saw him fire his gun at a wolf who’d been growling over Annie, pinning her to the ground. His brother looked pissed, even with his arm and leg and face bleeding. The wolf on top of Annie howled and then glared at Johnny as another shot fired at him. “The head, you asshole! Shoot its fucking head!” Ayden shouted and he heard Johnny roar back at him in answer. Johnny took aim but the shot hit the wolf in the shoulder and then it gave one last growl at Annie before it turned and took off down the path, leaving a blood trail in its wake. Ayden breathed a sigh of relief when Annie sat up, gingerly. Blood was leaking from claw marks on her shoulders and she held her arm to her chest. Johnny was shuffling up the snow towards her and he started inspecting her wounds even as his own were still bleeding. Ayden turned to look at Ashley, who had a look on his face that was more that of a four year old who’d just lost his favorite toy than that of a man bleeding to death. Ayden grinned, but the smile faded somewhat as he looked at the bodies now scattered around them. One thing that Ayden hated about werewolves was that when they died, they turned human again. There was a small, petite girl lying naked to one side and an older looking, clean cut man to the other. They looked normal and Ayden thought about the guy he’d killed in Nevada and his chest swelled a little because these were people once and people didn’t deserve the bad things that happened to them. He bent down, trying to push the bartender’s face out of his mind and he grabbed hold of Ashley’s arm, slinging it over his shoulder. The man cried out as he hefted him none too gently to his feet and then Ayden was looking back over at Annie and Johnny. The two were slowly climbing to their feet as well. Johnny looked a little unsteady, like his leg was bothering him and Annie looked a mess. They leaned heavily on each other. “I think we should tactically retreat,” Ayden yelled up to the both of them. Johnny turned to glare at him, the cocking of a gun his only answer. Ayden tried to shrug but it was made difficult as Ashley leaned on him. “The wolves will smell us coming miles away.” “That wolf was sniffing me,” Annie said, her voice withdrawn and her eyes glazed. Johnny held her tighter and Ayden saw his brother give her hand a squeeze and whisper something comforting to her. She seemed to snap out of it, because Annie wasn’t one to be taken in by fear or panic. She held tighter onto Johnny and then they were making their way down the slope and back to the Cadillac. Ayden helped Ashley into the front seat while Johnny helped Annie into the back. Before his brother could protest, Ayden grabbed the car keys from Johnny’s hand and then shoved him in after. “Hey, fucker!” Johnny yelled but Ayden just slammed the door on him and then hopped into the driver’s seat. He spun the car around and was speeding back towards Dyani’s place, the car fishtailing in several places on the slippery road. He heard Johnny swearing in the back and when he looked in the rearview mirror he grinned because his brother was more concerned about the car than he was about the blood that was still leaking from his wounds. Annie seemed to have gathered herself at least and was wrapping her wounds, moving on to Johnny’s. “How is it,” Ashley said from the passenger seat and Ayden glanced over at the man. “That you guys constantly kill things and that clusterfuck back there still managed to happen? Do you get this up close and personal all the time?” “Yes,” The three of them answered him at the same time. Ashley nodded for a moment. “Well, you guys better have one hell of a life insurance policy. And it better leave everything to me.” “I’ll leave you my dirty laundry in my will,” Ayden grinned and he saw Ashley glare at him. “Ow!” Johnny yelled from the backseat and Ayden snapped his eyes back to the rearview mirror. Annie was trying to wrap Johnny’s arm, but both their hands were slick with blood. “Don’t be such a baby,” she chastised lightly, but her hands were shaking. Johnny snorted, but was leaning his head back against the seat. He looked a little pale and Ayden wondered if it wouldn’t be a better idea to find a hospital somewhere. Probably not, because the wolves may track them there. Hell, they would probably track them back to Dyani’s, but she’d said she had a protection circle around her house. Plus, the woman was a medicine woman. She’d probably let Ashley bleed to death, but she wouldn’t do the same for Johnny or Annie. “You don’t be a baby,” Johnny grunted back at her and Ayden laughed because the comeback was weak and pathetic and it meant his brother was in pain. He drove a little faster. † † † Ashley was on the couch. Johnny and Annie had fallen asleep on the sofa chair. Ayden sat at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in his hands while Dyani was burning incense in the corner. He was watching his brother and Annie because Dyani had said that they were lucky they hadn’t bled to death. They hardly retreated, ever. But there was just too much to lose on this one. He didn’t like bringing them back to Dyani’s because the wolves would follow their scent here, but the woman had smacked him playfully on the arm when he’d voiced that fear and told him that they couldn’t come in the house. Ayden believed her, because she hadn’t given him a reason not to trust her so far. Ayden was worried. They were getting sloppy. He was still standing but one out of four was pretty bad odds. Annie and Johnny looked like damn mummies all bandaged and butterfly stitched. Ashley was out like a light and he was pale as the snow. Ayden would have thought the man was dead if it weren’t for the rise and fall of his chest. Yeah, sloppy. Ever since Louisiana, they’d been sloppy. Scars came with this job, that was a given. But lately, things had been getting worse. The baddies got bad-er and the hunts got harder and the sores got sorer. It wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t safe and one day one of them was going to die and when that happened, he hoped it was him. The thought of losing Johnny brought tears to his eyes and he had to sip his coffee to keep them at bay. Dyani had come back into the room and she sat down at the kitchen table, smelling of incense and smoke. She looked at him and smiled. He forced one back for her. “I think there might be too many,” Ayden told her quietly and she quirked a brow. “Wolves, too many wolves.” She chuckled and then her hand was snaking across the table to grasp his and he tensed beneath her touch without knowing why. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Do you believe in God?” she asked and he frowned because the question seemed to come out of nowhere. “I don’t know,” he gave honestly. And he didn’t. He didn’t know if there was truth behind this Godsent business of it if was just some sick, cruel joke the world was playing on him and his brother. He honestly didn’t know. “I pray a lot,” he said quietly. “But I don’t think anyone ever answers.” Dyani gave him a sad look and then she rose from the table. He watched her disappear into her bedroom for a moment and when she came back out, she had a necklace in her hand with pewter dream catcher and feather pendant. She put it around his neck and then sat back down in front of him. He looked down at it and then up at her with a curious quirk of his brow. “There may not always be answers,” she said softly. “But someone is always listening. You have those that watch out for you and those that protect you and those that would die for you.” Ayden sucked in a breath because he didn’t like that last one. She smiled. “And you would do the same for them all. It is that loyalty that will see you through this. Do not seek God to answer your prayers, but know that he hears them.” Ayden fingered the pendant around his neck and nodded his head. “We’ve never ran away from a fight before,” he said. Dyani snorted. “You had Ashley with you. He tends to ruin the best laid plans.” Ayden laughed. “We didn’t really have a plan.” She answered with her own laugh. And then a howl pierced the air. .Wolfie. Johnny wasn’t really sleeping.He probably should have been, but he couldn’t, not with the unfamiliar tendrils of fear snaking from his stomach outwards. He didn’t like being scared but there it was anyway and he wrapped his arms around Annie and tried to pretend he wasn’t. It wasn’t working so well without a gun in his hand or a cigarette in his mouth. He didn’t like that charging and shooting hadn’t fixed the problem because those were the only things Johnny knew how to do well. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d retreated from anything and he hated the feeling. He didn’t even count the god damned hospital in Kentucky because by the time they got out of there nothing had been left to kill. Nothing except a stupid kid named Marko and when they were done here he was going to track the little fucker down and make him swallow each one of those visions back down his throat. He had never wanted to hurt a human being more and he didn’t even care that the kid wasn’t so different from Ayden because Ayden would never force that on someone else. No, his brother took everything on himself, even things that weren’t his problem. So Johnny bore the weight for Ayden in return. He shouldered the gun and charged up the hill and stood guard along the watchtower because that was who he was. He was supposed to be the one that fucking fixed everything and instead he had made everything a train wreck and he still wasn’t sure how that had happened. He closed his eyes and he pictured it but he didn’t know what the answer was, or what he should have done. Was there anything he could have said to make it better except “die”? He didn’t ever want to say that again. Life and death weren’t his to decide. He heard soft whispering from the kitchen and wondered what Diyani and his brother were talking about. He hoped to Christ that he hadn’t just brought a maelstrom down on her head because no matter how much of a bitch she could be to him, she had saved his brother’s mind and for that he would always be grateful. She had given them a place to stay and a place to rest and even if her floor was uncomfortable as all hell he was getting kind of attached to the battered armchair and he couldn’t pretend it didn’t have something to do with the girl curled up in it next to him. Annie whimpered and shifted next to him, her eyes crushed shut and a thin line appearing in her brow as she frowned. Her hair was tickling his nose and her elbow dug into his stomach as she moved, but he didn’t care. Her head was tucked under his chin, arms held tightly to her chest and bound with white gauze. There was blood on her face and in her hair and she looked so pale and weak. He hated it, because Annie should never look weak. His hand came up to cup the back of her head, fingers running through her hair and lips brushing softly against the top of her head. It would destroy him if she left again. He already knew that without a doubt. He heard someone gagging and looked up to see Ashley pointing at his tongue as he mimed throwing up. He had a blanket thrown over his legs, the one stretched out in front of him and elevated on a pillow. “Seriously,” he said. “Just get me a bucket, I could be here all night. Assuming we live through the night, which I suppose could go either way. I hope you’re better at defense than you are offense, Johnny.” “Fuck you, Ashley,” he said, trying to keep his voice low so he wouldn’t wake Annie. Ashley snorted, shifting on the couch so that he was sitting up a little more. He winced as he jarred his wounded leg and Johnny had to admit he felt a little guilty about that. If Ashley had just taken off like he always did he wouldn’t have stomped in a bear trap and then maybe a hundred things would have gone differently. He really needed to learn to say thank you better. “You better watch yourself, Johnny, or you’re going to get someone killed.” Johnny snorted. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” The man laughed, but it didn’t sound amused. His face was pale and he looked annoyed and tired and he wasn’t smiling or joking like usual. Johnny wasn’t sure what to make of it, but he wasn’t sure he liked the look Ashley was wearing and he sure as hell didn’t think he’d like the words about to come out of the man’s mouth. “You get stupid around her. I get my fucking leg shredded and you want to keep charging? No, fuck you Johnny.” He ground his teeth together. “Shut the fuck up,” he told him. Then he heard the howl rip through the house. Annie jerked awake. Her hair was tangled around her face and her eyes wide and glazed with fear and sleep. Her hand slid down her calf to the knife she kept strapped there and it was already half out of its sheath before Johnny rested a hand on her arm. “It’s from outside,” he said quietly. She shivered and the eyes that looked up at him said everything that words didn’t. He could see the corpses of the men and women who had been turned reflected back at him because he could see her in their faces and he knew she was seeing the same thing. If they weren’t careful she’d be one of the things they were fighting. He wouldn’t be able to kill her. He knew it beyond a doubt. He would use the voice of God if he had to, but he would never hurt her. Unless of course a fucking asshole with the devil’s voice whispered through a phone that he should and his teeth ground together with the memory. Annie was nodding and struggling to her feet and he dragged his ass out of the chair to follow her, trying not to think about his past mistakes. Maybe Ashley was right because Johnny was really good at fucking up when it came to Annie. Not that he needed the man to tell him that. He followed her into the kitchen, a hand resting lightly on her back and he didn’t look at Ashley again. “Get me a gun!” the man shouted after him. Diyani was already cocking the shotgun by the door, dressed in her bathrobe and slippers. Then she turned and handed the gun to Ayden. “Watch the front door,” she told him, smiling and kissing him affectionately on the forehead. There was a necklace around his brother’s neck and he snorted because that looked new. Annie was already holstering her guns over her shoulders, their bullets still replaced with silver ones. Johnny lit up a cigarette and was reaching for his own when Diyani touched his shoulder lightly. “Wakiza, you follow me,” she snapped, heading back towards her bedroom. “I need your help.” He glanced at Ayden as she headed past him but his brother just shrugged. He followed her through the living room, Ashley watching him go. He held himself half off the cushion, pain making him look paler than he was in the faded light. “Hey, don’t forget,” he called after Johnny. “I want my gun. I’m not just going to lay here and get eaten if they come through the window, as much as you would like it you bastards.” Diyani laughed at him, slapping the back of his head as she passed. “At least that would shut you up,” she told him. She closed the door to the bedroom softly behind him and now he was getting nervous. His gaze flicked around the room quickly, not wanting to snoop, but he couldn’t help but notice the picture on the nightstand because he could never mistake the man in the photo for anyone else but Ashley fucking Baker. It startled him and pained him and he thought that maybe it wasn’t so easy to just stop loving someone, no matter how much it hurt. The cat was curled in the center of his bed and looked up at him before opening its mouth in a yawn and going back to sleep. Diyani crouched next to her bed and started to pull a box out from under it. He whistled appreciatively at the array of guns and bullets she kept under there, piled haphazardly in the box. She could’ve given Ashley a run for his money with the crap she kept under her bed. He crouched down to pick it up and carry it for her and her hand closed abruptly about his arm Her eyes were staring at the floor. “He won’t make it,” she whispered quietly. Johnny frowned. “Who? What are you talking about?” “It’s not your fault,” she told him softly. “You won’t expect it. Neither of you will. But he’s not going to make it.” He licked his lips to try and get moisture into his suddenly dry lips and he wasn’t sure if he was pissed or scared. Maybe it was both. “Ayden?” he asked, and he could barely choke out his brother’s name. Her gaze rose to his and he didn’t like what he saw looking back at him in their depths. All he could see was his brother’s dead eyes looking back at him and he ripped his arm away. “Fuck you,” he told her. “I won’t let that happen.” “I’m sorry, Wakiza,” she told him quietly. Then they heard a crash and a shout from the living room, followed by the sound of a shotgun going off. Wenston One of the wolves crashed through the front window, spraying glass and wood across the floor. Ayden shot at the beast in the chest and it collapsed. He wondered what the fuck had happened to the protection circle. His question was answered when a man kicked in the door and in his hands was a stone with a rune carved on it and probably one of many littered around the grounds. All it took was one misplaced stone to break the circle. Ayden hesitated, because he was a man, but it was a hesitation that cost him his right to claim he had gotten through this unscathed. The man flung the rock at his head and Ayden was surprised by the motion and didn’t duck out of the way and it clobbered the side of his head, sending him to the ground in a daze as blood streamed down from a cut on his cheekbone. Behind him, he heard Annie gasp and then she was firing and he wanted to tell her to stop because he was a man and not a wolf but he was dead before Ayden could clear his head enough to request it. Johnny and Dyani were charging out of the room now and Johnny had his bitch face on and Ayden wondered what Dyani had said to his brother. He tried to climb to his feet but his head spun for a moment and he fell back on his butt. He was kind of surprised when Johnny came to stand next to him instead of Annie, and now he really wondered what Dyani had told him. Dyani handed Ashley a gun. Ayden watched as she stood behind him and leaned down to plant a quick kiss on the top of the man’s head. Ashley looked just as surprised as Ayden felt but Dyani just smiled at him. “It doesn’t mean I would have taken you back,” she said quietly, meant only for the man on the couch but they all heard it. Ashley’s face darkened and Ayden wondered what she meant by it because Ashley nodded and squeezed her hand and then turned back to the window with his gun drawn. Johnny’s hand gripped Ayden’s arm and then he was hauling him to his feet. Ayden ran the back of his hand over his cheek to wipe the blood away and he felt it swelling and wondered if the rock had broken his cheekbone. That would suck. He’d never broken a bone in his face before. It would be something new. He realized that Johnny’s hand was still on his arm and he turned to look at his brother. Johnny’s face was dark and Annie had moved to stand closer to him but Johnny wouldn’t look at him. Instead, he growled out, “Get ready,” and finally let go of Ayden’s arm. Ayden nodded and tried to ignore the way his hands shook as he reloaded the shotgun. He watched Dyani’s cat run across the floor, scooting into the bedroom to hide beneath the bed. Then he cocked the shotgun and aimed it again at the window, while Annie and Johnny aimed at the door and Dyani and Ashley pointed between both. “Dyani,” A voice called from the porch. It was low and garbled and it dripped with malice and malcontent. “Did you send your hunters after me?” Dyani gave a noticeably groan and she laughed loudly, so the man on the porch could hear her. “Colby, if it was my idea to have you dead, I would have gone myself. But as it turns out, I’m kind of pissed off now that you sent my charges back to me bloody and broken. Why don’t you come inside so I can see your ugly face and put a bullet in it.” Colby, the voice from the porch, laughed and it was a sinister thing that sounded feral and bloodthirsty. There was a creak in the boards of the porch and Ayden tightened his grip on the trigger, just waiting for something to show itself. “Why don’t we make a deal? My mate died this morning. Why don’t you send the girl out? I could use a good fuck.” Annie let out a small squeak in the back of her throat and Ayden heard his brother growl. He physically had to reach a hand out to grab Johnny’s shirt to keep him from just marching out onto the porch and probably getting himself torn to shreds. Johnny paused and breathed out loudly through his nose. “Hey, Wild Kingdom, why don’t you come in here and I’ll blow your fucking dick off and we’ll see how well you fuck then, huh?” Johnny answered before Dyani had a chance to. Colby laughed again and then a wolf was jumping through the window, it’s claws lashed out towards Ashley, who was still on the couch. Ayden, Ashley and Dyani all fired at once and the wolf fell to the floor, dead, but Ashley put another bullet in its head just to be sure. Ayden watched it form back into a human being and he had to look away because it looked like just a fucking teenager. “Wakiza,” Dyani said quietly and Johnny glanced at her before turning his attention back to the door. “What?” Johnny snapped, a bit harsher than he probably meant to and for the third time, Ayden wondered what she’d said to him to piss him off. “I call you Desperate Warrior,” Dyani whispered, but they could all hear. “You use what is given to you only in times of desperation. You must learn to balance. Or people will die.” Ayden gulped because Johnny hated it when people told him that he couldn’t save people, but to his surprise, Johnny just grit his teeth and squared his shoulders and ignored her, eyeing down the sight of his gun. Ayden looked to Dyani and the woman met his gaze and gave a warm, sad smile. He didn’t know what the smile meant. Two more wolves came, one through the door and one through the window and Ayden shot at the one through the window and then he had to fucking reload and he felt Johnny shove him back behind him as he was firing both his guns. Ayden struggled to reload the shells and just when he snapped the shotgun closed, he heard a growl from behind him and by then it was too late. The wolf would have gutted him. He didn’t know how the fucker had gotten in the house, possibly a back window, silently while the guns were being fired and the two wolves were a distraction, but the damn fucking wolf would have gutted him where he stood. It was trying to get to Annie, but Ayden was in the way. Only Ayden wasn’t the one who got gutted. He liked to think that she would have done it if it was any one of them. But it was him. It was him above the rest of them and that fact would haunt him the way no vision or nightmare ever could. She didn’t make a sound. She didn’t scream or gasp or cry out, she just bled and the moment of Colby’s claws slicing through Dyani’s stomach as she jumped between the wolf and Ayden sent her crashing into the youngest Marshall and then they both fell to the floor. Ayden heard Johnny and Ashley yell at the same time and then the room was exploding in gun fire and howling and screaming. Ayden couldn’t focus because he was feeling hot blood leaking onto his pants as Dyani bled out onto him. He pushed himself up and turned, gently rolling her off of him so she was lying on her back. He barely registered the crash as Colby howled and escaped out a window in the back. Johnny was running to the window while Annie stepped to cover them should any more wolves come through the front. Ashley was swearing and cussing and trying to climb off the couch. But Ayden blocked them all out. His hands were on Dyani’s face as she was white as snow beneath the blood. He looked down at her eyes and she barely managed to look back at him. “No, Dyani,” Ayden said and his voice broke. Her hand found its way weakly to his face and she left blood smeared on his cheek in the forms of handprints. Her voice was quiet and barely above a whisper. “It won’t end well for you,” she choked and blood leaked from the corners of her mouth and then she went still and her hand fell limp. A sob escaped Ayden’s throat and then he shook her because this was the woman who had saved him. This was the woman who had pulled him back from the brink of insanity and had stepped between a wolf and death and saved him. She was the woman whose light touch and motherly kisses on his cheeks lingered still and he’d never had that until he’d met her and he’d only known her a few days but it was years in his mind because in the darkness and in the fear and in the pain he heard her voice and saw her hand reaching to pull him back to his brother and to himself and now she was there, beneath him, bleeding and cold and her eyes were staring and dead and blank. “N…no,” Ayden choked out and he shook her again and he didn’t realize that the room and quieted and he didn’t hear Annie cover her mouth and he didn’t hear Ashley praying lowly and all he could think of was that he knew someone who could fix this because this was not fucking happening. Ayden’s head snapped to the side and he looked up to his brother, who was still standing by the back window, his guns limp at his sides and his eyes glazed and wide as he was watching Dyani and her deathly stillness. “Fix it,” Ayden pleaded and Johnny’s eyes darted to him and widened more and his face paled. “Johnny, bring her back,” he cried. “Ayden,” Johnny’s head tilted and he shook it slightly and Ayden narrowed his eyes. “Bring her back!” Ayden yelled because why wasn’t Johnny doing it already? Why wasn’t he whispering the words to save her? He heard Annie let out a sob behind him that he thought was for Dyani. “Fuck,” Ashley said loudly as he sunk back into the couch and grabbed the cross around his neck, bringing it to his lips. Ayden would realize later it was made out of the same pewter as his dream catcher necklace. “Bring her back, Johnny, please!” Ayden pleaded desperately. And then he was crying. .Wolfie. Diyani was dead.Her eyes were open but they were empty and her jaw hung slackly to the side and there was no breath coming from her lips. Her chest didn’t move, her eyes didn’t blink, and she wasn’t telling him to be better or faster or stronger because he had already failed her and she was dead. He blinked and thought maybe when he opened his eyes again she would be alive but he did and she was still dead and she still wasn’t moving and he didn’t understand. His brother was crying and he hated it when his little brother cried. Johnny did his best to make sure that Ayden never had a reason to cry, because they’d been through enough shit with their dad that it wasn’t fair how much more the kid had to suffer. He remembered his little brother being six years old and he’d gotten a rat from the pet store because his parents wouldn’t buy him a cat and a rat was the best thing Johnny could afford when he was nine years old. He’d skipped lunch for a month to save up enough for that stupid rat and Ayden had named it Johnny after him because he didn’t have much imagination then. Their father had killed it. It had gotten loose from the cage and he had stomped on it. He hadn’t had the voice of God then. He’d just been a normal kid with a normal kid worries but even then his little brother had been crying and he had looked up at him with those sad gray eyes and he had whispered “Fix it,” to Johnny, like he could make everything better. He hadn’t been able to then, so he’d done the best thing he’d had. He sat on the floor with him and gave him a hug and cried and they’d had a little funeral for rat Johnny. “I’m sorry Ayden,” he’d said. “I can’t fix death.” His little brother was crying and looking up at him and he opened his mouth and whispered “No.” A harsh sob escaped Annie’s throat and she was slumping against the counter, a gun clattering from her fingers as she covered her mouth and shook her head like she was trying to pretend it wasn’t real. He couldn’t look at her but he felt his stomach roil and he was numb, inside and out. He didn’t know if she was crying for Diyani or the baby or herself or maybe all of them but no amount of tears would fix it. Ayden was staring up at him and he just looked confused because Johnny was supposed to make everything better. He saved the power for when it was needed the most and he knew his brother was thinking that this was the be all end all of desperate situations and he wanted him to say it and Johnny wanted to say it for him but he just couldn’t get any word but no out of his throat. Diyani was dead and she couldn’t come back and he couldn’t fix it because she was dead and it was too late to make it better. “Johnny,” he said again. “Just fix it. Just say the words and bring her back.” Johnny shook his head again but he couldn’t get the words out of his mouth. “Johnny,” Ayden said, and the tears had become a river down his face. “Just say it. Just tell her to live.” He shook his head again and licked his lips. “No, Ayden,” he said quietly and hoarsely because he felt something like tears pricking at his eyes and he couldn’t tell who they were for either. He swallowed down the lump in his throat and he looked back at his brother. “She’s already dead,” he told him softly. “I can’t fix death.” The words burned on his lips and he didn’t know how true they were but he said them anyway because he didn’t know how else to make him understand. Ashley wasn’t saying a word for once, a single quiet tear running down his face and he dashed it away with the back of his hand like he didn’t need it bothering him while he was working. He sat back in a kitchen chair by the door and he didn’t look at the corpse on the floor behind him. He didn’t look at the eyes of his wife as they stared lifeless and lightless up at the ceiling. He pressed the cross to his lips and then picked up the gun and watched the door. He didn’t look at Johnny or Ayden or Annie and he didn’t say a word to any of them. He just watched the door. “She’s dead,” Johnny whispered again, because Ayden wasn’t saying anything. “I know she’s dead,” his brother shouted, and his face contorted into a mask of grief and pain. He shook his head fiercely like he couldn’t believe they were having this conversation because Johnny should have already said the words. His hands tightened on her arms and a small whimper escaped his throat and then he looked back up at his brother. “But you can fix it. You can make it better, you can bring her back. She’s not supposed to be dead; I am. So just bring her back.” Johnny shook his head again and swallowed the lump his throat and tried not to stare at the dead woman and he tried not to stare at Annie. She was shaking in her skin and shaking her head back and forth and a fist was pressed to her stomach and he hated himself. He hated himself and he hated God and he hated the world and he felt himself take a step forward towards his brother, wishing he knew the words to make him understand why he couldn’t do this one thing for him. “I’m not God, Ayden,” he heard himself saying and he wished he hadn’t as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Another sob wracked Annie’s frame and he couldn’t even look at her. He couldn’t look at her or his brother. “Johnny,” his brother started to say again and he just couldn’t stay to hear it. He pushed past him, grabbing a shotgun off the table and loading it with shells and he impressed himself with how steady his hands were. He couldn’t look at the body on the floor and he couldn’t blink without seeing Annie’s tearstained face and all he could hear echoing in his head was his brother begging him to save a dead woman. Except he couldn’t fix death and even if he could he didn’t know if he would be able to take the consequences and he didn’t know if Ayden could either. They’d worked so hard to find a balance, so much of it thanks to her and now she was dead and he couldn’t fix it. He pushed past Ashley and ripped the door open, firing into the first beast in front of him. It was blasted back down the stairs and turned slowly back into a teenage kid who had died his hair blue. He wondered if the kid had a mother who was wondering where’d he’d gone or a brother who was hoping he would come home and play on their X-Box together and he didn’t know and he couldn’t care. He was just numb. His son would have been four this year. He fired off another shot as a wolf tore towards him and then he kicked its body out of the way. “Where are you going?” someone asked, and he didn’t even know who. “To get Colby,” he said. “Stay here.” He slammed the door behind him and then he was off into the snow by himself and he didn’t even care anymore. Someone was shouting after him but there was only static in his ears, a broken record of people he cared about begging him over and over again to fix it, to change the course of someone’s life by bringing them back from the dead and he just couldn’t do it because he was a coward. He wasn’t God, he was just the messenger, and he didn’t know what that would do. Diyani’s dead eyes stared back at him in his mind’s eye. Annie’s quiet pleas echoed in his ears and he tasted blood on his lips as something struck him and he went down with a thump. The shotgun skittered from his hands but then he was ripping the revolver out of his pants and jamming it into the wolf’s jaw and pulling the trigger. It’s brains splattered out the back and then it was just a man who was going bald and maybe had a family and a wife and a kid he got to teach how to play ball or maybe a grandmother who made him soup and made up nicknames for him. He didn’t know where he was going. His feet carried him after the trail of blood and he let them so that he didn’t have to think. The wolf hit him like a freight train, only he didn’t have a chance to tell it no this time. Jaws snapped at his face and he felt them rip through the skin. Blood gushed from his temple and his cheek into the snow and then he was pushing it off him and rolling over, gun up and firing at the beast. Another one hit him from behind and he rolled with it, feeling claws scoring his chest as he tossed it over his shoulder. He hit that one in the head with a silver bullet and it didn’t get up again. It turned into a woman and she had brown eyes and brown hair and she just looked sad. Then Colby was on him again and this time he felt the jaws sink into his throat. He felt blood bubbling up from between his lips as the jaws tightened and a low growl rumbled up in the wolf’s throat. It sounded like a laugh. Johnny thought about letting him finish the job. Then he thought about Ayden. He had to be there to protect him because Diyani had tried to warn him already that his brother might not make it without him. She made it sound like a certainty, but Johnny had the power to keep him safe, if he was quick enough. Johnny was never quick enough. He thought about the word he couldn’t say. He couldn’t say “I love you.” He couldn’t say “live.” No matter how much he wanted to, he could never make that word come out of his mouth because he was scared and it was the only line he wouldn’t cross. No matter how much Annie or Ayden begged him to, he couldn’t cross that one fucking line because it was all he had left reminding him he was human. People died and he couldn’t change it because he wasn’t God and he wouldn’t pretend to be. Even if the fucker was a lie preachers told to keep everyone in their place, he couldn’t make himself say the word. But he could say “die.” He was good at that one. He said it best with his guns, and he told it to Colby as he jammed the revolver against his temple and pulled the trigger. The gunshot blast went off right next to his ear and he felt blood trickling down the side of his face and he was used to the sensation by now. It blinded him and he didn’t care because he didn’t want to see anymore anyway. The jaws clenched convulsively as he died and he felt them sink deeper into the skin. A mournful howl echoed around him but he couldn’t move. He was staring up at the sky and it was beginning to snow. Wenston Ayden sat on the porch, surrounded by corpses and blood and bullets and snow. He didn’t have his jacket on and he didn’t plan on putting it on either because the shivering seemed stupid when there were so many bodies lying around. He’d stolen one of Johnny’s cigarettes and it was between his lips but he was breathing through his nose and not his mouth so it was wasting away to ash. He didn’t like smoking. He liked drinking, but the house was dry, so he had a cigarette because he needed something. He needed something to make the pain go away and if Johnny found solace in a cigarette, then so could he. But he didn’t. And he spat it out, disgusted because he didn’t see what Johnny saw in the damn things. Fuck Johnny. He thought the words over and over in his mind and he tried to ignore the quiet house behind him where Annie was patching up Johnny’s face and neck in silence because she couldn’t look at him again and Ayden wondered if she was pissed about Dyani or something else. He’d missed something, he knew. He just couldn’t tell what. But fuck Johnny. Fuck him and his Voice of God and his damn doubt and refusal to do anything Ayden wanted him to do. He knew the thought was stupid as soon as he had it because Johnny did a lot for him. Hell, Ayden would probably be lost without him, but damn it. This was something big that Ayden asked of him. This was something that if you have the fucking power to fix, then you should fucking fix it. He felt tears well up in his eyes and he reached up with his shaking hands to wipe them away. He couldn’t stop crying. How many people had to die? He could smell the copper scent of blood thick in the air and he thought about all the people they’d let die over the years. He thought about the bartender he shot in Nevada and the guy who’d gotten his dick bit off by the vampire and the bodies in the witch’s house they’d been too late to save and the doctors and nurses who’d been turned into meals in the asylum and he wondered if they were meant to save anyone. Who had they actually saved? Who had they actually kept from dying. He couldn’t think of a single fucking person. He knew there had to be someone, but all he could see was the blood on his hands and he rested his head in his arms and sniffled because he was crying and he was cold. So fucking cold. Why couldn’t Johnny just say the words? Why couldn’t he bring Dyani back. So what if he wasn’t God, he had the fucking Voice of God and they were Godsent. Sent to do fucking what? Watch people they were suppose to save die over and over and over again? Was God happy with them or did he think they were just fuck ups? Maybe he was holding his brother back. Maybe Johnny didn’t say the words because of him and the thought made more tears spill onto his cheeks and fisted his hands in his hair and wiped the tears on his sleeve. It should have been him. He didn’t care what Johnny had threatened in Nevada in the car. He didn’t care what Johnny thought or that he’d be mad if he knew Ayden was thinking it, but Ayden thought he should have died a long, long time ago. He should have died in a swamp in Louisiana. Or in a fire in Nevada. Or maybe even in an asylum in Kentucky. Hell, maybe he could have let one of the wolves rip his throat out right here in Wisconsin. Or maybe even longer. Maybe when his father had put a gun to his throat. Maybe when his father had first laid a hand on him. He should have just died. He should have just laid down and fucking met his maker. There was a soft sound next to him and when he turned to look, he saw Ashley sitting down quietly. It looked like he was still in pain and not just from the leg. Ashley had a cigar in his mouth and Ayden didn’t have the heart to tease him about finding the weirdest things in the middle of nowhere. Ashley puffed on the cigar and blew smoke out and then let the cigar rest in his hands as they sat quietly. “Sorry, Ashley,” Ayden whispered to the man. Ashley shrugged, his face remaining passive. “Ah, she knew it was coming,” he told Ayden, his voice normal, except for the slight quake. “It should have been me,” Ayden’s voice was quiet and broken and he wondered what Dyani would say if she were here to hear him say that. “Nah, kid,” Ashley shook his head and chuckled a little. “And she’d fucking pop you in the head if she heard you say that.” Ayden couldn’t quite laugh yet at that but Ashley quirked a half smile at him. Ayden looked at the snow between them and he shivered again. “Johnny could have brought her back,” he said bitterly, his voice raising and he didn’t care if his dumb shit brother heard him or not inside the house. Ashley outright laughed at that one and Ayden wondered what the fuck was so funny. Ashley clipped off the end of his cigar and then stuffed it into one of his pockets in his pants. He looked over at Ayden. “Here’s the thing about you Marshall boys. You have some pretty kick ass super powers, but in case you haven’t noticed, they come with consequences. Your fucked up head being just one of many. And before you go all super bitch on me, no, he didn’t not say the words just because of what it might do to you. He didn’t do it because who knows what the hell would come back. Dyani or…something else.” “Wouldn’t you rather find out than just wonder for the rest of your life?” Ashley had the decency to look a little stuck on that question. He turned his head to look back out at the bloody snow covered yard and kept quiet for a moment. “I didn’t cheat on her,” his voice was low and quiet and Ayden widened his eyes at the man. “I said I did, because I’m a fuck up and she needed to be away from me. But I didn’t cheat on her.” “Ashley,” Ayden whispered and he felt the pain and the anger swell up inside him all at once because Ashley had never told him a secret before in the years that he’d known the man. He’d never let on that he was married or even had a life outside of womanizing or screwing with the Marshalls. Anger for his brother pierced at his heart and he suddenly wanted to hit something. “I need to go to the hospital now,” Ashley interjected and then looked to the doorway where Annie was emerging, her face pale and drawn. “I’ll take you,” she said quietly, handing Ayden his jacket. Johnny came to stand at the door, a bandage around his neck and his face tore up with butterfly stitches. Ayden couldn’t look at him, so he just grabbed his jacket harshly from Annie and rose to his feet, climbing down the porch steps and towards their car. “I’m going too,” he announced. “Ayden,” Johnny called and the simple fact that he’d said his name burst whatever dam was holding back Ayden’s temper and emotions and rage over the past years. He threw his jacket to the ground and grabbed the first debris he could find, which happened to be a rock, and stood, chucking the rock back at his brother. “Fuck you, Johnny!” he screamed. Johnny side stepped it, but stumbled a little and looked at Ayden with wide eyes at first. But then they narrowed and Johnny grit his teeth. Annie was knelt down next to Ashley and the two of them were sitting quietly because Ayden hardly ever showed his anger in front of them. He was the level headed one. “Don’t fucking throw shit at me!” Johnny yelled back, but it lacked conviction. Ayden reached down and grabbed something else. It seemed like a piece of the plaster from the walls of Dyani’s house. He threw that up on the porch too and didn’t even notice when it almost hit Annie and Ashley, who both ducked out of the way of it. They didn’t seem too distraught over the near miss, but Johnny growled and took a step forward, pointed a finger at him. “Fucking cut it out,” he snapped. “What the hell is the matter with you?” Ayden demanded, clenching his fists because he was so fucking angry. “You can’t say one fucking word to save someone’s life?” “It wasn’t saving, it was bringing her back from the dead,” Johnny yelled back. Ayden screamed and picked up chunk of wood, lobbing it at his brother. Johnny barely ducked out of the way on time and then he was growling and making his way down the steps because obviously Ayden wasn’t going to stop throwing things and he might as well keep Annie and Ashley out of the line of fire. “What if it had been Annie?” Ayden yelled and that stopped Johnny dead in his tracks. He watched his brother’s face pale and Johnny brought a shaking finger up to point at Ayden. Whether he was shaking out of rage, blood loss or something else, Ayden didn’t fucking care. “Don’t you ever say that,” Johnny said, his voice frighteningly calm. “What if it had been me?” Ayden spat instead. “I’m warning you, I’m going to fucking knock you on your ass if you keep this little bitch fit up.” “Bitch fit?” Ayden squawked and his eyes went to Annie and Ashley as they gained their feet. Annie started steering the man towards his car. Ayden looked back at his brother. “People are dead and you say I’m having a bitch fit. Gee, Johnny, I didn’t know caring about people’s lives wasn’t in our job description. What’s the point of doing all this if everyone we try to help just ends up dead. I’m not in this to just shoot some things and play cowboy. But apparently that’s what it’s become.” “Fuck you, Ayden!” Johnny snarled. “I’m doing the best I fucking can.” “Then why didn’t you bring her back!” Ayden screamed. The car doors shut and suddenly Johnny must have realized that they were in Ashley’s car instead of the Cadillac. He rushed over to the car and rapped on the window. Ayden took a moment to compose himself because he was awfully close to losing it again. He ran his hands over his face as Ashley rolled the window down. “We’re leaving,” Annie’s voice was quiet and soft and sad and Ayden watched Johnny’s face darken. “We’ll come, just hang on,” Johnny said. “No,” Annie shook her head and Ayden held his breath. “Don’t bother.” .Wolfie. “Annie,” he said, but he couldn’t get his voice to rise above a whisper because that look was back in her eyes, the one that didn’t forgive and didn’t forget. His heart was constricting in his chest and he felt like she had her and around it and was just squeezing until blood poured from between her fingers. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, because he knew that look and it said she was leaving and he didn’t want her to do this to him again. “Don’t do this,” he said, and his voice fell to a whisper. It sounded like a plea and he hated how weak and desperate he sounded.Desperate warrior. Maybe Diyani hadn’t been so far off about him. “Johnny,” she said his name slowly, and she almost sounded sad. Her eyes went up to study his face and there was so much hurt there, so much that he had put there, that he had to look away. Then she shook her head, and there was nothing left in her voice but winter’s chill. She looked away from him, staring out the window and at the steering wheel and anywhere but at him. “I just can’t do this with you right now.” “Are you coming back?” he asked her, and he already knew the answer. “I don’t think so,” she told him. Ayden sauntered over next to the car and had his little bitch face on still. Johnny knew he wasn’t going to get over it quickly and he might not forgive Johnny this, but then neither had Annie and he still managed to make it through the day. His brother looked pained that she was leaving. He leaned up against the car, arm braced over the window but he didn’t look like he wanted to get much closer to his brother. “You’re going?” he asked her. “Why?” She stared at him for a moment with a frown on his face. She looked surprised and confused at the question and then something seemed to click in her mind and she looked back at Johnny, that hard cold look still on her face. She looked pissed and the last time he had seen her look that angry she was slamming the door of their apartment in his face. This didn’t feel so far removed from that, because here she was, leaving again, and it was still all Johnny’s fault. “You didn’t tell him,” she said, and it wasn’t a question. “You didn’t tell him why I left.” “No,” he whispered back, staring at the ground. Ashley Baker snorted from the passenger seat. “Real fucking nice,” he said, smirking to himself. A sigh escaped her lips and for a moment her head tipped back against the seat. She was taking even, steady breaths but her knuckles were white around the steering wheel. Her eyes closed and he wondered what she was thinking because he didn’t know her anymore. Then she shook her head, eyes opening and locking on his. “Tell your fucking brother Johnny.” Her voice was cold and angry and he knew he had screwed up again. “Annie,” he whispered again, but she just shook her head. She rolled the car window up and it felt like a door slamming in his face. Then she was shifting it into drive and pulling down the driveway, leaving him standing there in the snow with blood seeping into the bandage on his neck and his brother standing next to him with his hands curled into fists. Then the car disappeared around the bend and she was just gone. Annie was gone. She had left him again and just like the last time he had stood there and watched and didn’t know any of the right words to fix it because he never did. He knew how to kill things and how to destroy things and that was all he had ever been good for. Rage and sadness shared equal space in his head and he felt himself stalking back to the house, his boots leaving tracks in the snow. Then his hands were curling around the arms of Diyani’s rocking chair and he was heaving it across the porch. A wordless howl escaped his throat as it shattered into broken pieces and scattered across ground and he felt so fucking numb inside because she was gone. He wanted to cry but he didn’t know how. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” his brother snarled. “Don’t touch her stuff!” “Fuck you,” Johnny told him in a low snarl. He felt his hands curling into fists and he just wanted to hit and destroy and break because everything else was already in pieces. He kicked a boot at the railing where he had pinned Annie just a day ago to try and force her to talk to him and he’d thought that felt like forgiveness except he’d gone and fucked it all up again. He heard it crack under the blow and then Ayden had a hand in his shirt and he was punching him in the face. Johnny was surprised by the action and he felt his head snap back under the blow and his lip split. His brother pulled back to hit him again and he didn’t expect it so he didn’t stop the hit. “No, fuck you Johnny. You’re a fucking asshole. You hide behind this excuse that you don’t want to play God, when that’s all you fucking do. You get to decide who lives and who dies, not me, and you just fucking stood there and didn’t say a word to fix it,” his brother’s words dripped from his tongue like venom and he almost couldn’t take the hate looking back at him. He pushed his brother away, wiping the blood off his chin. “I didn’t fucking kill her Ayden.” “No, but you sure as fuck didn’t save her,” Ayden snarled. “Well neither did you,” he snapped. Angry tears welled up in his brother’s eyes and he knew as soon as he said it that it was one of those things he shouldn’t have said. He was shaking, his lip quivering like a kid again and his arms wrapped around his frame. It was a dick thing to say because he knew his little brother had to feel guilty about Diyani taking the hit for him. He could feel the apology on his lips but he couldn’t force it out of his mouth. Then his brother struck the tears from his eyes and his face went blank. There was a cold rage glittering back at him and he knew whatever he said next was going to hurt. “What did Annie want you to tell me?” Johnny felt his stomach drop. He shook his head. “We’re not going to fucking talk about it.” Ayden laughed but it was a harsh, dark thing and he didn’t like the sound of it coming from his brother’s lips. It was mean and it was cruel and it was everything Ayden wasn’t. He shook his head and the words that fell from his mouth were dark and mean. “No, of course we’re not, because we never fucking talk about it. It’s taboo, right? We can’t talk about it because then you have to admit that you did something bad enough to make her leave you, and Johnny can’t ever make mistakes, right?” “Shut the fuck up,” he snapped, finger pointed at his brother’s face and his hand was shaking because maybe it was a little too close to the truth. He still had the image of her leaving burned into the back of his mind, how cold her face was as she slammed the door. “Just shut the fuck up, Ayden, before you get yourself beat.” “Why did she leave Johnny?” Ayden demanded, ignoring the threat. “What the fuck did you do to her?” “I told you to shut the fuck up,” Johnny told him. “We’re not talking about this right now.” His brother was right in his face, rage and hate glaring back at him. “We never fucking talk about it!” he shouted, his hands curled into fists again and Johnny was sure he was just waiting for a chance to start swinging. Why did she leave? Was she fucking someone else? Were you?” A snarl escaped his lips at the words and then he slammed his brother against the wall with one arm. Rage darkened his eyes and fingers curled in his brother’s shirt as he held him against the wall. He tried to squirm loose and Johnny shoved him again, his brother’s head cracking off the wood and he didn’t even care. No one talked about Annie like that. Not even his little brother. “Never fucking talk about her like that again, you hear me?” “Go fuck yourself,” Ayden spit, pushing Johnny off of him. “I can talk about her however I want. She was my friend too you selfish prick. One of the only one’s still alive, no thanks to you.” “Diyani was already dead, Ayden! I can’t bring people back from the dead!” Johnny snapped. “Yes, you fucking can,” his little brother yelled at him. Ayden pushed him in the chest and he stumbled back against the railing, watching his little brother and al the rage and hurt playing across his face and the selfish little fuck didn’t realize that Johnny felt the same things. Diyani was dead and Annie was gone because everyone thought he should just play God whenever he felt like it but he was the one that would have to deal with the consequences. He was the one that would have to give up his whole fucking life to help his little brother out and act like a fucking cowboy and lose the woman he loved all so that he could try and help Ayden stay sane. And yeah, he didn’t mind it, because he was good at it, and it gave his useless life a purpose, but he was the one that dealt with the fallout. “You can do whatever you want, you just won’t, because you’re a fucking coward,” Ayden told him. “I’m a fucking coward?” he asked, and he shook his head at his brother like he couldn’t believe it. He stood up off the railing and pushed Ayden back. “What if she had come back wrong, Ayden? What if some fucked up monster had come back in her skin? Would you have been able to look her in the eyes and still pull the fucking trigger? What if she had the same voice? Could you hear her whispering to you and not think that maybe she was still the same, even as she ripped your god damned eyes out?” “At least I would know,” he said. “At least I would know if it could be done.” Johnny shook his head at his brother because he wasn’t going to make him understand. “Just shut your fucking mouth Ayden.” He released him and started to walk off the porch, grabbing his brother’s coat and the shotgun and throwing it in the back seat of the Cadillac. He popped the trunk and started making space for their shit to get packed away so that they could go somewhere else and almost die and keep fighting the good fight and watch more people die in front of them. It was never going to end until one or both of them were dead. Ayden stood on the porch, tears in his eyes and Johnny didn’t know if they were for Diyani or himself anymore. “I fucking hate you Johnny. I hate you and I hope you fucking die.” “Get your shit and let’s go,” he snarled, ignoring the words because then he wouldn’t have to admit how much they hurt. So what if Ayden thought he hated him? Neither of them had anyone else. Then again, maybe Annie would be happy to do the dirty work for his little brother and he kicked at a tire, lighting up a cigarette. “Come on, move your ass,” he said to Ayden, who still stood there with his eyes full of tears and his fists clenched. “Did you hear me?” he asked. “I said I fucking hate you.” Johnny rolled his eyes and lit up a cigarette. “Just get in the fucking car.” His brother picked a rock off the porch and he was heaving it at Johnny again. It struck him in the shoulder and he cursed when it did, cigarette falling from his lips into the snow where it hissed and died. “Don’t fucking start, Ayden,” he snarled, pointing a finger at his brother. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he said. “I’ll wait until Annie comes back.” “Annie’s not fucking coming back,” he told him, and the words sounded final and terrible on his lips. He wished he were lying. He wished he didn’t have to say them but there were tire tracks in the snow and he knew by now when goodbye meant for good and she was fucking gone and it hurt so bad he could barely breathe but he had to because his brother was screaming at him and throwing rocks and he had to keep being Johnny fucking Marshall until the day he died. “Yeah, and why is that Johnny?” His brother spat the words into the snow. “It sure as hell isn’t because of me.” Something snapped in him and it was pain and rage and all the things he pushed down to the bottom of his stomach where they could rot him away. He felt himself moving across the lawn, his hands curled into fists and he couldn’t see straight anymore. His brother had something else in his hand to throw but he didn’t get the chance because Johnny was slamming him up against the wall again, hands in his little brother’s shirt and mouth twisted into a sneer. “You want to know why she fucking left?” he asked, and he felt the words just pouring form his lips from behind the damn he had built four years ago. “She left because she asked me the same god damn thing you did when our baby died and I gave her the same fucking answer. She asked me to fix it, just like you, and I told her no. That’s why she left. So go ahead and tell me again that I’m a fucking coward.” Wenston For some reason, Ayden was thinking of Marko. He was thinking of words that he didn’t remember Marko saying but it was Marko’s voice and he must have said them while Ayden had been out of it, but they were ringing clear and loud and sound now. “You ruined his life, you know.” He wondered if that was true. He wondered if Johnny’s life was really ruined. Well, it probably was now. He wondered why he’d said no to Annie and why he hadn’t told Ayden about the baby and maybe that’s what hurt most. He knew there was a risk that telling something to live when they shouldn’t be alive might bring back something that wasn’t supposed to exist. Something Wicked. And then he wondered if what they did really mattered and he heard a strong, strong voice inside his head whisper “no,” and he was suddenly punching his brother. Johnny must not have been expecting it because his brother grunted and let go of the front of his shirt and stumbled back a bit. There was blood on his lips and Ayden only felt a little guilty because there was still blood seeping through the bandages on his neck and face. He pictured Johnny with a kid, because he’d seen it in a dream once and he’d seen Annie wrapping her hands around Johnny’s waist and they were happy and had a family and Ayden was nowhere to be found and maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe that’s what the ultimate goal was and Johnny had fucked that up too. He fucked that up because he didn’t say the words to bring his baby back. And maybe it was an eye for an eye type thing because for all the times they’d saved themselves, they’d lost countless others. Johnny lost a child and suddenly Ayden didn’t want to do this anymore. Words were coming out of Ayden’s mouth before he knew what he wanted to say. “You’re a fucking coward,” he said lowly and those weren’t the words he wanted to say, but they came out. He wanted to say sorry or fuck you or I wish I were dead, but his mouth was moving and he was twisting the knife and fueling the fire and he saw Johnny’s face darken and suddenly his brother was returning the punch tenfold. Ayden’s jaw exploded with pain and before he realized it, he was on the ground and Johnny hit him again for good measure and then seemed to compose himself and step back. He’d actually split open his knuckles on Ayden’s face and Johnny looked horrified for a moment because they’d never hit each other that hard. They both started at each other for a moment, each seeming to realize what had just happened between them. There was a line crossed here, one that had been invisible for years but at always been there. Ever since their father had started in on them when they were little. Ayden sobbed and brought a hand to his face to make sure it was still there. He could feel blood beneath his fingertips and Johnny had busted something open on his face but he couldn’t tell what it was because he was numb. He grabbed onto the wall and pulled himself to his feet and he must have looked a little unsteady because Johnny’s voice was broken and filled with regret. “Ayden,” he choked out. “I want to go home,” Ayden whispered and he wasn’t exactly sure where home was but he wanted to be there. He thought about the motel room in his head and even that hurt because it was based off of something he’d shared with Johnny and Annie. He thought about their childhood home, before the fire and he couldn’t go there, or the dump they’d moved into after. He couldn’t go to Annie’s mom’s house or even stay here at Dyani’s and he realized that everything the Marshall brothers touched fell to fucking pieces. Even each other. He didn’t hate his brother. Maybe he thought he did, but he knew deep down he didn’t. He’d said the words because he was angry and he wanted to see what the reaction would be but there was no truth behind them. Maybe he was angry at him and maybe he wanted to kick his ass, but he didn’t hate him. What he hated was the fact that maybe Johnny wouldn’t stick around if it weren’t for their powers. Maybe they wouldn’t be friends. Maybe they wouldn’t be brothers in anything but blood. But maybe he was asking too much of Johnny. Maybe it was asking too much to be alive and be in this together and Ayden thought about the gun he’d almost put in his mouth in the asylum and he should have fucking done it then and there and he knew it wasn’t Johnny who was the coward. It was him. It was him because he couldn’t pull the trigger and let his brother be free of him. Ayden went to the car and he was numb and quiet and all the anger and rage that had been built up inside him was gone and he just felt empty. Johnny was gathering their stuff and he was taking a little longer than normal and Ayden didn’t mind. He sat with his head against the glass and he was bleeding from somewhere on his face but he still didn’t bother to figure out where. Johnny slammed the trunk shut and hopped into the driver’s seat and they sat idling for a second because they were both lost in morose and horrible thoughts and neither one of them wanted to talk at the moment. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Ayden whispered and he didn’t need to look over at his brother to know that Johnny was gritting his teeth. But Johnny didn’t answer. Instead, he put the car into gear and they drove away from Dyani’s and Ayden let his head crack off the window whenever they hit a bump and the two stayed quiet. They reached a motel by nightfall and neither one of them said anything else and the silence was more hurtful than any words that could pass between them. Ayden carried his bag inside but just dumped it on the floor and then curled up on his bed while Johnny locked himself in the bathroom and Ayden could hear the water running and wondered if his brother was crying. Probably. Ayden rolled over so he could look out the window and not think about that. He thought about getting up and walking out and hitchhiking somewhere because if he couldn’t put a gun to his head, maybe he could run away. The thought was stupid because Johnny would just find him. He’d always find him. He’d tried it once when they were kids. He’d run away and although he’d only made it a few houses down and had been camping in their neighbor’s yard, Johnny had still been pissed and angry and Ayden hadn’t understood until years later that his brother had been terrified too. Johnny yelled when he was scared. The water in the bathroom shut off and Ayden heard Johnny emerge and go to sit down at the table near the opposite wall. He was cleaning his guns and being quiet and he knew his brother well enough to know he was thinking about Annie. They had almost had a fucking kid. A kid. Ayden sighed. “I don’t hate you,” Ayden said quietly, not looking away from the window. He heard his brother slow and then still his hands and when Johnny didn’t say anything, Ayden continued. “I don’t like you right now, but I don’t hate you.” “Alright,” Johnny said because it was all he could muster. Ayden tried not to let it hurt that his brother didn’t say he didn’t hate him back. He thought about saying he was sorry for being a pain in the ass and dragging Johnny down and for holding him back and saying mean things and making him second guess himself and getting in between him and Annie and their baby and for being just another stain on his really fucked up life. He thought about apologizing for all the times he’d gotten Johnny hurt when they were kids because he was too weak to fend for himself against their father. He thought about telling Johnny that he should just leave. That he should just go and find Annie and tell her they were done and get on with his life because Ayden didn’t mind going crazy or having seizures so bad it put him into comas if it meant Johnny could have a real and normal and good life. But he couldn’t quite make his mouth work or the words come. So instead, he reverted back to what he did best. He reverted back to the banter and the masks and the unspoken words because it’s what they both thought they wanted. “You owe me an ice cream.” .Wolfie. Session #5 : Prison Blues Johnny pressed his head against the tile and cried. He hated it. He hated crying. He hated how it made him feel, inside and out, because he felt weak and wretched and useless. It made his throat lock up and his eyes red and the worst part of it all was he couldn’t stop it. When he was around his brother he could hold it in, put on the Johnny fucking Marshall face and shoot his guns and play the fucking cowboy. When he had to kick down a door and kill a demon who wanted to shove a little girl in a wood chipper he kept his game face on and then he drove the next eighteen hours to the next town to do it all over again. The second he was by himself, he lost it. He was dead inside. He crushed his eyes shut and leaned into the tiles, feeling the water run over his back and into his mouth and he cried by himself and pretended it was just the water and it felt the same as it had four years ago when Annie had first left him because their baby was dead so he had moved out of their apartment and thrown Ayden in the passenger seat and they’d started moving around and left home in the dust because it wasn’t a home without her. It felt exactly the fucking same. He had handled it the same way then too, pretending that he was just a stupid fucking cowboy because that wasn’t so far from the truth that it felt like a lie. He was a stupid fucking cowboy, he just felt dead on the inside and when he was by himself all he could picture were the tears on Annie’s face and now it sat side by side with his brother’s as he said the word that had saved him and the word that had damned them all. He heard the slamming of a door in his face and he heard Ayden telling him over and over again that he was a fucking coward. He remembered the sound of his fist hitting his brother’s face. He slammed a hand against the wall and tried to breath but it came out as a choked sob instead because he hated himself and he hated that he had hit his brother and what made him so different from their fucking drunk of a father if he would strike his brother every time he said something he didn’t like? Ayden deserved better, he deserved a better family a better life and he didn’t deserve the ending Diyani had laid out for him. That was why Johnny was still alive. He had to change the future. When the tears dried up, he turned the water off. He caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror and there was nothing looking back at him. All he saw in the mirror was some asshole in a dead man’s clothes who should have been run over by a train sixteen years ago but he hadn’t, he’d told the fucking train “no” and that was the only word he’d been saying ever since and he felt like crying again but he didn’t have anything left. He was weak and empty and he didn’t know if he even missed Annie anymore because there was nothing left of him for her to come back to. He missed his brother but that was Ayden’s fault. It was his. Johnny had checked out on his brother, and he didn’t know how to get back to where he’d been. He stared at the face in the mirror until it fogged up and he couldn’t see it anymore. Then he pulled his clothes on and his fingers were numb and couldn’t quite remember how to work the buttons but there was no rush. Ayden was digging through his visions to try and figure out which one they should take care of next and Johnny couldn’t get himself to care what he decided. He pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket and jammed one between his lips. He hoped the look on his face was the right one. He couldn’t tell anymore. Ayden was sitting against the headboard watching television when he came out of the bathroom. He paused in the doorway to flick open his lighter and put a flame to his cigarette and then he put it away in his back pocket and focused on his brother. Ayden wasn’t looking at him, but he jerked his chin at the television. “Check it out,” he said. He smirked, but it lacked humor and Johnny glanced at the screen. “We’re fucking famous.” A rough sketch of their faces glared back at him and he almost laughed because the fucking police were the least of their concerns most days. Still, they were back in Texas and it made him a little nervous because the rap sheet they had was enough to get them the chair a few times over. He thought about Nevada and he thought about Wisconsin and he wondered what kind of body count the authorities would be happy to nail to their names. “That’s nice,” he said, blowing smoke out from between his lips. “You figure out where we’re going next?” Ayden rolled his eyes at his brother. “Well, if you’re sure you won’t take me to Universal…” he trailed off. Johnny smirked and it felt strange on his face. “Not a chance.” He sighed, flicking the T.V off. “Then Alabama it is.” † † † The pulled up to the gas station a few miles outside of Dallas. He put a cowboy hat on when he got out to pump gas, because their faces were plastered on the news and the last thing they needed was someone pulling a positive I.D. on them. He leaned against the car and rolled a cigarette between his lips but he didn’t light it because even if he was stupid he wasn’t that stupid. It was still daylight out and there were a couple other cars parked outside it, but no one seemed to notice the brothers. He wondered if he should’ve covered his license plate or changed it and if Ashley Baker could help with that, but he really didn’t want to see him or talk to him at the moment. He rolled the cigarette between his lips and wondered what they would do if the cops did catch up with them because they sure as fuck couldn’t shoot a human being. Especially not one that was trying to do the same shit they did, only with a different kind of Wicked and a different set of consequences. Johnny had thought about being a sheriff once when he was a kid, because they got to carry a gun and a badge and shoot bad guys. It was funny how life worked out sometimes. Ayden climbed out of the passenger seat, stretching his legs. He groaned as the muscle in his leg stretched and it wasn’t so long ago that there’d been a cast on that leg. “How much farther?” he asked Johnny, cracking his neck and glancing over at his brother. He looked back at him and he pictured him opening his mouth and screaming at him and telling him that he fucking hated him and wished he would die. Johnny looked away. He rolled the cigarette with his tongue and thought about lighting it anyway. “Another couple hours,” he said. Ayden groaned. “Great. Well, can I get a fucking soda or something then?” Johnny snorted. “Only if you’re paying for it,” he snapped, tapping out the nozzle when he was sure it was as full as it could go. Almost forty bucks to fill the fucking thing and he pulled out his wallet to check how much he had. It was enough to get them to Alabama anyway, and then he’d have to call Ashley fucking Baker and then he would have to listen to the awkward silence on the phone while he wondered if he should apologize for letting Diyani die or if he felt like ripping his own heart out and asking where Annie was and if she was okay. “Come on,” Ayden whined. “It’s like a buck. You still owe me a fucking ice cream. You can at least shell out for a soda.” “Fine,” Johnny snapped, and he didn’t know why he agreed except he didn’t want to talk to his brother anymore and that felt strange and unfamiliar. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and tucked it behind his ear as he went in to pay and buy his brother his god damned soda and he glanced at the bin of ice cream next to the counter and thought for a split second about being a good older brother. It was a two dollar ice cream that it would have told Ayden that he didn’t hate him. He didn’t. He didn’t hate Ayden, no matter what kind of venom his brother had spat at him. He hated himself, and he couldn’t take asking for forgiveness yet because if he couldn’t even fucking forgive himself how could he ask Ayden to do it? There was a drumstick in there and all he had to do was throw it at his brother and some of the awkward tension would be gone and they could go back to how they were before Wisconsin and maybe Johnny could start feeling like a human being again. It was a fucking stupid thing but it mattered somehow. He bought the soda and paid for his gas and turned to walk back outside. Then he saw the cop talking to his brother. Wenston Ayden needed a haircut. He thought humorlessly that he should have thought of this before going out in public with their faces plastered all over the news. Hell, maybe he should have dyed it. Black or maybe bleached it. Maybe he could get a Mohawk and dye it green. He’d always wanted to do that when he was a kid. He’d even started cutting his own hair one time. But his mother had walked in on him and she’d grabbed the scissors from him and had given him a proper drunken haircut that had gotten him beat up at school the next day. The poor bastards hadn’t known that they’d been messing with Johnny Marshall’s kid brother, however, and Johnny had taught them a thing or two about respect. The thought almost made him laugh but there was an oversized Deputy Sheriff standing in front of him and he didn’t want to be rude. “No,” Ayden shook his head and tried to keep the waiver out of his voice. “I can’t say that I’ve been to Wisconsin. I’m not a really big fan of cheese…or a football team that has the word ‘packer’ in it.” The Deputy snorted, apparently amused. Ayden couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind his ridiculous aviator sunglasses, but he could tell the overweight man was studying his face. Ayden tried to smile politely at him and he hoped to God and Buddha and whoever else that was listening that Johnny would just stay inside. Because separated, maybe they wouldn’t be recognized. But together? And together with a car that had their license plate, because apparently that’s what had caught the Sheriff’s attention, they were fucked. “Cute,” the Deputy said and looked toward the store. “You traveling by yourself?” His drawl was pure Texan and scary as fuck with the sheriff’s badge accented it. “Nah, with my girlfriend. We’re heading to Florida. Always wanted to visit Universal,” he glanced at the store and spotted Johnny at the register. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He turned back to look at the Deputy. “She’s in the john. I tried to warn her about the 7-11 sushi. I mean who the hell sells sushi in the middle of the desert, am I right? And at a convenience store? I mean you’re just asking for the shits with that one.” he snorted and elbowed the Deputy gently with a grin. Apparently the man didn’t find him funny. “I’d like to talk to her.” Ayden tried not to let the sudden panic flit across his face. He knew without a doubt that he was going to jail. There was no way to avoid that. All he could do was try to keep his brother out of it. Johnny didn’t need that on his plate right now. He didn’t need to be locked up in some prison somewhere with Bubba and Snake and whoever the hell else went to prison. What they needed was a smooth sailing hunt, something to shoot, and for the awkward air to be cleared between them. Ayden didn’t like it and he’d apologize to Johnny, actually, a few nights ago. “I’m sorry,” he’d said out of nowhere while they were getting burgers from some fast food joint neither one of them had heard of before. They were standing in line, waiting for their order. Johnny had quirked a brow, because he didn’t know what the hell Ayden was talking about and it was coming out of nowhere. “What the fuck for?” Johnny asked. “I shouldn’t have asked you to save her,” Ayden said and he hadn’t looked at Johnny. “Fuck you, Ayden,” Johnny had said and then their order was up and they didn’t talk about it anymore. If anything, the apology had ruined whatever ground they’d been able to gain since their fight, since Annie left. Johnny was quiet for hours until he had yelled at Ayden for tapping his foot on the dashboard and Ayden couldn’t do anything fucking right anymore. And now he was messing up again because the Deputy standing in front of him knew who he was and was just waiting for his brother to show his face before he took them down. Ayden hadn’t missed the way the Deputy had unbuckled his gun snap for easy access should he need it. But there was no way in hell Ayden would ever shoot a cop. Even if they were after them, he respected them. Because weren’t they all just trying to do the same thing? “Uh, sure,” Ayden finally said and forced the smile again. “She should be out any minute now.” As if on cue, fucking Johnny walked over with a soda in his hand and shoved it at Ayden’s chest before he looked at the Deputy. Ayden cringed and tried to hide it. “Something I can help you with, Officer?” The Deputy raised an eyebrow. “You must be the girlfriend.” Johnny looked confused for a moment and Ayden just sighed. When the Deputy pulled the gun, he knew they were both fucked. † † † They spent a few nights in county jail. Johnny had used his one phone call to call Ashley Baker and the man had laughed and laughed and wished them luck and then hung up the phone. Ayden figured he was probably still a little sore about the bear trap incident and the fact that they’d gotten his ex-wife killed. Hell, Ayden was still a little sore about it. Court went by without a hitch, for the prosecutors, and both Johnny and Ayden were sentenced to three consecutive life sentences a piece. Eligible for parole after 70 years, which was just something they did to fuck with people’s heads, Ayden had decided as he sat on the bus that was taking them to the prison. 70 years in prison. He doubted they’d still be there 70 years from now. They’d either be dead or they’d escape. Because in reality, all Johnny had to do was tell someone to let them go and they would. But Johnny didn’t seem to be in a big hurry to do that, so Ayden just went along for the ride. “You ever been in before?” A voice from Ayden’s right came. He turned is head to look at the inmate sitting next to him. Everyone was wearing identical looking blue jumpsuits. He saw Johnny, two rows ahead of him, turn his head to the side to hear better. “Uh, nope,” Ayden said, trying to sound cheerful. The man next to him was huge and bald and had tattoos all over the place, some of which Ayden wondered what the hell they meant. “First time.” The man nodded and patted Ayden’s knee with his handcuffed hands and Ayden felt more than a little awkward at the movement. He saw Johnny glance back and their eyes met for a second. Johnny smirked and Ayden glared at him. He didn’t think this was very funny. “Ah, well, the first few years are probably gonna be rough for you,” the guy said. Ayden quirked a brow. “Skinny little white boy like you. You’ll either join a gang or become someone’s bitch within the first few months, I guarantee.” Ayden heard Johnny snort and turn his head so it was facing the side again. He was going to have to have a word with his brother when this was over. And by word, he meant he really wanted to wipe that smirk off his face because this was fucking awkward. “Oh, great,” Ayden sassed and looked back out the window. “If you want,” the guy continued and Ayden wondered who or what he’d pissed off to deserve this when they weren’t even at the fucking prison yet. “I could claim you as my own and then you won’t have to worry about it.” Ayden tried to not let the look of horror cross his face but he knew he failed when Johnny looked back and the smirk was still on his face but he was looking at the huge guy sitting next to Ayden instead. Ayden knew that look and he was almost relieved to see it on his brother’s face. It was the “you don’t fucking touch my little brother” look and Ayden had been wondering if Johnny still even cared enough about him to pull that look off or if he’d burned that bridge when he’d called his brother a coward. Correction, a fucking coward. Ayden cringed. “Uh, n…no thanks,” he spluttered, face going red and he leaned his head against the chain fence covering the bus windows. The man shrugged. “Suit yourself. I woulda been gentle.” Ayden closed his eyes and shook his head. He really should have cut his damn hair. .Wolfie. The first thing they did was take his clothes.He didn’t bother arguing because he knew exactly how far that would get him. They took his boots and the crucifix he wore around his neck and he didn’t so much care about that because he didn’t know if he believed in God or Jesus but it had been nice to have in case they were real. The guard smirked at him as he dropped it in the box. “Don’t worry princess,” he said. “You’ll get it back when you leave.” The unspoken that made Johnny sneer at him was that he wasn’t supposed to ever leave. He would be almost one hundred by the time he was even up for parole, if he managed to live that long. “Go fuck yourself,” he told the guard, and he earned himself a punch in the gut for it. “You should watch your mouth around here,” the guard told him. He kept that same fucking smile on his face. Johnny felt anger surge through him and it was familiar and comforting because Johnny was always mad about something. Then he glanced back to where they were stripping his brother and he watched him pull the necklace off. It glittered for a second and it was a pewter dream catcher and he dimly remembered seeing it right before Diyani had died. She must’ve given it to his brother. His face fell as he dropped it in the box and Johnny looked away. They wrote down his scars and tattoos and Johnny stared at the wall. It took a little while, because he had a lot of scars. They wrote down the ones on his lips and his chest and his neck and he wondered if they ran out of room because he had so many scars he couldn’t remember where half of them were from anymore. He should’ve looked like a jigsaw puzzle but he’d cheated his way out of death so many times that he just kept walking around no matter how deep underground his scars said he should be. They wrote down the red crosses tattooed on his arm and then they gave him new clothes and sent him on his way. A nurse stopped him in the next room and she shined a light in his eyes and his ears and his nose. She listened to his heartbeat and he stared at the wall and wondered why he hadn’t said the words so that they could escape yet and then he wondered why he should bother. “Open,” she told him, and then shined the light down his throat and he looked at her in her nurses outfit and he thought of the woman who had been split open on a surgeon’s table in Kentucky. He was so fucking tired. They sent him on to the next room and a man with a clipboard greeted him and sat him down at a table. It felt the same as when the cops had interrogated him weeks ago, tossing pictures of dead bodies across the table at him. He’d recognized most of them, and he smirked a little at the charred remains that had been left behind at the brothel. He was glad the bitches had died in the fire. Maybe the couple Ayden had seen had gotten away and gone back to their home and never seen another Wicked again in their lives because somebody out there should get a happy ending. The man had kept tossing pictures and there were bodies lying in the snow with bullet holes in them. He recognized the girl and the teenage kid and he recognized Colby and he felt strange staring at his body because he looked like such a normal guy now. He was just another corpse in a pile of them and the cop had sighed and crossed his fingers on the table and looked right at Johnny’s face. “Have you ever seen these people before?” he’d asked. Johnny thought about lying, but they both already knew the answer. “Yes,” he told him. “I killed them.” The cop nodded and he sat back, gathering up the pictures. “We know your brother’s involved,” he said. He had glasses and he pushed them up on his nose with one finger and Johnny saw a ring on his hand. He wondered if his wife was proud of him and if he had kids and Johnny almost asked but choked it down. “Tell us how much he was responsible for and we might be able to cut your sentence by a few years. Maybe get you sent to a nicer prison.” Johnny laughed, because he knew it was bullshit. “My brother didn’t kill anyone,” he said. “It was all me.” The cop smiled a little. “We both know that’s not true,” he said. Johnny shrugged. “Believe what you want, asshole, but my little brother isn’t a killer. I am.” It didn’t matter if he was fighting with Ayden or if his brother hated him, he would go down if he had to for him. Annie could take over his job and kill the nasty things that went bump in the night and maybe Ayden would be better off with her because she was smarter and faster and knew when to get the hell out of Dodge. She’d left him easily enough. “Are you trying to tell me that you killed all these people by yourself?” the cop asked, raising an eyebrow. Johnny smirked and crossed his arms. “Yep. Hey, do you think you could get me a smoke?” He was sure he hadn’t helped his case any, but considering how the trial went it sounded like his little brother had sat in the next room and told the cops the same fucking thing as Johnny. Their trial had probably been the fastest in history, the verdict delivered in a day. He wondered why their lawyer even showed up. He tried a half assed attempt at an insanity plea but it had just ended with Ayden being assigned mandatory psyche evaluations. He settled into the chair across from the man with the clipboard and his questions were direct and emotionless. He probably got to sit in that chair all damned day long and ask prisoners how they were feeling and if they thought they would have any problems adjusting to their new lives. He wondered if the man even liked his job because Johnny would have been crawling out of his skin if he had to do that all the fucking time. The man barely even looked up at him, except to make sure he was sitting in the chair. “Do you have any history of addiction to either legal or illegal substances?” he asked. He snorted. “Cigarettes, maybe?” The man nodded and wrote it down and his whole life was being catalogued and locked away so that they could forget about him but then why should they be any different? Who was really going to remember him when he was gone? Not the little girl they’d pulled out of the fire because she was going to have nightmares about flames and death for the rest of her life and she wasn’t going to remember Johnny. The people at Saul’s Crossing would remember him as a killer. Annie would forget about him eventually. It was better for her that way. “Any other potential problems we should know about?” Johnny shook his head and stared at the wall and wondered if this was the moment where he should open his mouth and tell him to let him and his brother back out the way they came. He wondered why he hadn’t done it yet, and most of it was probably that he just didn’t care anymore. There was a little, niggling thought in the back of his brain that maybe he was insane, and there was no such thing as vampires or werewolves and he really had just killed all those people for nothing. Maybe he really had gotten run over by a train when he was thirteen and it had done something to him and none of it since had been real. “No,” he told the man with the clipboard, because that was what he was best at. He nodded and then they dumped sheets and a change of clothes into his arms and shoved him out the door to wait for the other new inmates. It struck him then, that he had really gone to prison and it just made him want to laugh because it felt so far removed from everything else in their life. He glanced out of the corners of his eyes at the guards who stood easy and confident with their chests puffed out and their uniforms spotless. They looked so fucking proud of themselves for guarding the scum of the earth and Johnny was down in the muck with the killers and rapists and maybe he deserved to be there. “Nice place,” his brother muttered from his shoulder, and he glanced back at him. “I’m sure you’ll fit right in,” he said. Wenston There had been a Wicked in their hometown before either Johnny or Ayden knew what a Wicked was. Back when they were just kids that liked to cause trouble and mischief and spent all day avoiding their abusive dad and drunk ass mom. He’d been a guy who lived down the street. Tom was all he was known by and they never knew his last name. He was skinny and pale and sometimes he was out in the yard and once Ayden had seen him at the store, but for the most part he stayed inside. He’d been a soul eater. He was also a pedophile who preferred little boys. Ayden barely remembered the man or the missing kids that had been all over the news in their town because he was little and liked G.I. Joe’s instead of watching the news. He recalled a police officer coming to their school to talk about Stranger Danger, but that was about it. Most of the memories at that time belonged to Johnny, because it was the first time he’d saved his little brother’s life, whether or not he realized it then or years later. Ayden was six and he was walking home from school alone because Johnny had detention for hitting some kid who’d been making fun of a girl in Johnny’s class named Annie. Johnny didn’t like girls then, but he didn’t like it when they cried either. Ayden’s feet were shuffling in the sandy road and he was watching himself leave a trail of zigzags in the dirt with his sneakers. He had a backpack on his back and a lunchbox hugged to his chest because it was a brand new Thundercats lunchbox and he was too damn proud of the thing to hide it away in his backpack. Johnny had bought it for him. He didn’t know where his brother had gotten the money. “Hello there!” A voice had broken into Ayden’s six year old concentration and he’d frozen in the street, eyes wide and alert because Officer Malone had just gotten done talking to them about Stranger Danger and he was trying to remember what the policeman had said. He’d been goofing off half the time, so he couldn’t quite recall. Tom was standing in front of him and he had some sheers in one hand and gardening gloves in the other. He was smudged with dirt and had a hat that looked odd on his head. Ayden gulped and stayed quiet, but didn’t move because the man was blocking his path down the road and he couldn’t cross the street without an adult yet. “Well that’s a nifty lunch box you got there,” Tom had said and took a step closer. Ayden gulped and took a step backwards to mirror the man. Tom’s eyebrow quirked and he laughed, but it wasn’t pleasant. “Oh are you afraid of me? I didn’t mean to frighten you.” “I’m not scared!” Ayden had shouted and then closed his mouth because he wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers. “Well good,” Tom smiled and took another step closer. Ayden stood his ground. “You know, I have a lunch box just like that one in my house. Would you like to see it?” Ayden did kind of want to see the lunchbox, Thundercats was his favorite. “It will only take a minute,” Tom coaxed and Ayden almost said yes. He almost nodded and went with Tom to his house and he almost wound up with his face on a milk carton and he would have been spared this whole Godsent business but his soul would have been devoured and something really, really bad would have happened right before that. But Johnny stepped in. Like he always did. And neither of them realized it at the time, but he saved his little brother’s life then. Johnny came rolling up the road on a bike and skid to a stop next to his brother, giving them a show and actually spraying Tom a little with dust. Johnny didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he grinned at Ayden, who looked at the bike with wide eyes and Johnny patted the handle bars. “Like my new ride?” he asked because he was ten but already thirty. “Where’d you get that?” Ayden demanded. “A kid gave it to me in exchange for not getting a beating,” Johnny looked smug and proud and then he spotted Tom and looked annoyed. “Who the hell are you?” “He has a Thundercats lunchbox too, just like mine!” Ayden said and pointed to Tom, who was grinding his teeth. Johnny laughed. “Probably gay as hell like you too,” he said and then patted the handlebars again before Ayden could protest. “Hop on, let’s go jump this thing into the river.” Ayden climbed up onto the handlebars and Johnny took off. “But you just got it!” Ayden whined. Neither of them saw Tom again until the man was arrested and his face was on the news and he was sentenced to death for the murder of 15 young boys. Ayden wasn’t one of them. † † † It didn’t strike Ayden that him and his brother wouldn’t be put into the same cell until a guard shoved Johnny into a cell and Ayden kept marching on. His brother didn’t even glance at him as he was being walked down the cellblock and maybe that hurt a little because he’d looked concerned on the bus, but now he was back to being shut off and cold. Ayden didn’t like it, but he didn’t know how to fix it. He’d apologized and had tried to get Johnny to realize that he really didn’t hate him, but it didn’t seem to go through. It was just words. So he just marched on and the bars closed behind his brother and Johnny didn’t even look at him as he was being taken further down the hall and Ayden hoped it was because he was studying his new friends instead of saying good riddance to a burden he’d been just waiting to get rid of. He wondered why Johnny hadn’t told someone to let them go yet. Every minute that ticked by he wondered if Johnny would ever get them out of here. Ayden didn’t want to be in prison. But if Johnny thought they should be, then maybe they should. He tried to steel his face as he was shoved into a cell and the bars were closed behind him. The cell was small, with barely enough room for all four of its occupants to stand. There were two bunks on either wall, two up top and two on the bottom. It looked like Ayden would be sleeping up top because that was the only one not occupied. He got a good look at his cellmates and he tried not to look small compared to them, but in all honesty, they looked like they’d been here a really, really long time. The one sitting on the bottom bunk beneath the bed that would be his was a large skin head with swastikas tattooed over each eye. He was bulky and huge and looked like he could break Ayden in half if he wanted to. The man on the top bunk opposite him was tall and thin. He wore glasses and had a buzz cut and looked like he was in his late fifties or early sixties. He looked laid back and casual. The man on the bunk beneath him looked to be about Ayden’s age. He had a scar across his neck that Ayden recognized as someone who’d gotten their throat slit. There were several scars on his face and he was missing a couple fingers. He was a scrapper. The older man on the top bunk sat up and eyed Ayden. “Are you a queer?” he asked and Ayden quirked a brow. “No,” he answered. The man studied him a little more and Ayden didn’t like the way he was being looked at. “Are you a nigger lover?” Ayden eyed the skin head with the swastikas. “I’ve never slept with a black chick, if that’s what you mean,” he said slowly. The scrapper from the bottom bunk shot to his feet and had Ayden pinned against the bars within seconds. The wind was knocked from Ayden’s lungs and he squirmed beneath the man’s strong hold. “That ain’t what he was asking, goldielocks.” “I…I don’t know,” Ayden stuttered out. “I don’t really hate anyone.” The room was quiet for a moment before the older guy snorted. It seemed to be a signal for the scrapper to let him go and Ayden resisted the urge to sigh with relief as the man sat back down. “You will,” the older man said and leaned back, pulling a book out and starting to read. The scrapper leaned back on his bed and started picking at a hangnail on one of his remaining fingers. The man with the swastikas was still looking at him. Ayden clung to the sheets in his hands and then climbed up onto the top bunk. He spread out the sheet and was squeaking the bed and the older man said, “Quiet the fuck down.” Ayden tried to go quieter, and when his sheet was spread out, he laid down on the bed and stared up at the cracked and chipping ceiling. Someone had scratched the words, “Die nigger die” onto the ceiling and Ayden frowned. Why the fuck wasn’t Johnny getting them out of here? “Hey,” Ayden turned his head to the side and his eyes were wide when the swastika guy was looking at him, head close to his. “You sure you ain’t a queer?” Ayden shook his head no. “Too bad,” the man said and disappeared beneath the bed to lay down on his own. A moment later the bunks were rocking and squeaking and Ayden wondered why the older guy didn’t yell at the guy beneath him and was that guy really doing what he thought he was doing? “I woulda let you suck my dick.” Ayden sighed and rolled over onto his side to stare at the wall. He really didn’t like it here. .Wolfie. Johnny had known his fair share of unsavory people. He’d known a couple of bookies and mafia guys back in that brief period of time when he was twenty that he’d tried a couple of fighting rings. They hadn’t really known Ashley Baker yet, though they’d run into him a couple of times, and he thought he could make some quick cash off it. The guys they’d thrown in the ring with him were brutal and mean and a couple of them were out on bail. He’d won some of the fights, lost a couple of the others. That didn’t even count the kind of folks they’d run into tracking down the Wicked. There’d been a guy in California a few years back that had gotten his fix on fucking preteen girls and then sucking the marrow out of their bones. He wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part was the god damned pimp who made his living off selling the girls and kidnapping new ones because he’d been a human. Just like the bartender he’d been a person who at some point had sold his soul and Johnny had shot him too. He hadn’t told Ayden about it because it had been murder. He didn’t feel bad about it. Maybe he should’ve, but he really, really fucking didn’t. He thought about the man from Nevada and he didn’t think that man was so different from the one in California, except that Ayden had pulled the trigger and Johnny hadn’t been able to protect his brother from that kind of pain either. He hadn’t protected Ayden half as well as he was supposed to. He’d led him straight to prison, after all. He thought about all the bodies in Wisconsin and he thought about Diyani and what she would say to him except she was dead and Johnny had let her stay that way. He thought about Annie and he wondered if she missed him. The guard shoved him none too gently into the cell and Johnny got to meet a whole new set of unsavory people. He was sharing the cell with three other men, the first of which was a big, bald, black man who was perched on the top bunk reading a nudie magazine and he glanced down at Johnny and then looked away. He was probably half a foot taller than Johnny and looked like he could bench press Ayden no problem, even on a bad day. He had tattoos wound around his arm and his neck and it looked like more across his chest but Johnny couldn’t make out any of the words. The second was on the lower bunk across from the black man and Johnny couldn’t really tell what he looked like because the last guy was standing up and getting in his face and he really wasn’t in the mood for this kind of shit. “So man, you’re our new cellmate?” he said. The guy looked like he was just out of his teens, and he was thin as a rail with bleach blonde hair. Johnny wondered what kind of stupid shit the kid had gotten into to land himself in prison. He looked like an Eminem wannabe that Ayden probably could have taken by himself. He wondered how his brother was doing and hoped some Bubba or Butch wasn’t making him his prison bitch because then Johnny would feel like an asshole for making them stay. He should have just said the words when the deputy had arrested them in the first place but Johnny hadn’t been in his right state of mind for a while now. “No shit,” Johnny said, pushing past him to dump his sheets and his clothes on the bunk below the black guy because it looked like that was the empty one. The man glanced down at him again and then over at the white kid and Johnny saw him roll his eyes before going back to his Hustler. He felt a hand on his arm jerk him back and the kid was trying to get in his face except he was shorter than Johnny and it didn’t have the same effect. “Well you know man, being cellmates is like being married, so which you wanna be? The husband or the wife?” There was probably a nice, easy way to get the kid to back down because he looked like maybe he was just scared or already someone’s bitch and trying to show off by picking on the new inmates. Johnny wasn’t good with nice and easy. Johnny was good with hitting things and breaking things so he punched the kid in the nose as hard as he could and watched him fall back and hit the bunk behind him. He grabbed him by the shirt and hit him again just to get his point across and then he dropped him on the pavement. “Stay out of my face,” he said calmly, and then turned around to make his bed. The kid whimpered and pressed his hand to his nose and then the last cellmate leaned out of the shadows and rested his elbows on his knees. He had stubble across his chin and an easy smile on his lips. He had a cigarette tucked behind his ear and Johnny realized he missed his smokes. His hair was blonde and unkempt and he reminded Johnny a little bit of himself and a little bit of Ashley and that was just a creepy thought. “Well, you’re just as mean as a rattlesnake, ain’t ya?” he said, studying Johnny. The man above Johnny snorted. “You’re just mad he beat you to it.” It didn’t seem like either of them expected an answer so Johnny finished making his bed and sat on the end of it, staring out the bars and watching the guards as they patrolled the corridors. He wondered if he could get used to this and he wondered why he and Ayden were still here because he should’ve just said the words and gotten them out. He chewed on his lip and thought about the fucking asshole on the bus who was already trying to fuck his brother and it was probably only going to get worse. He glanced back at the man with the cigarette and he was still staring at Johnny. “The fuck you want?” he asked, and the man smirked. “Nothin’. Nothin’ at all.” † † † He slammed his tray down on the table next to his brother to get his attention and then he slid into the seat beside him. His brother jumped half a foot in the air and Johnny couldn’t help but smile as his head whipped around to focus on him. “Jesus fucking Christ, Johnny,” Ayden said and he pressed a hand to his chest and his eyes were wide and startled. “I thought you were another fucking nazi looking to ass rape me or something. You can’t just fucking scare people like that.” “You ready to get out of here?” he asked, ignoring his brother. “Gee, I don’t know Johnny, this has been a whole lot of fun so far. Maybe I kind of like it,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Suit yourself. I’m sure you’ll look awfully pretty in the little pink dress that Bubba picks out for you. Like a regular princess.” Johnny smirked at his brother and tried not to think about how true that might be. He saw Ayden’s face pale and he hid his smile as he turned to his lunch tray. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was supposed to be. Chicken and biscuits, they claimed, and he wasn’t sure how true that was. “You’re just mad because I’m the pretty one,” Ayden said. Johnny rolled his eyes. “That’s it exactly.” Ayden leaned his head in closer so that no one could hear him and his voice dropped to a whisper. They were alone at the table so far but that didn’t mean there weren’t a dozen other tables set up with a dozen other convicts. It seemed like there was an invisible line in the place between the blacks and the Nazis and Johnny didn’t want a part in any of it. “But no, are you serious? Can we go now? Because this whole Shawshank Redemption thing just isn’t fun anymore.” “I’ll say the words right fucking now if you want.” Wenston “Yes, I want you to say the words, right fucking now, please,” Ayden pleaded with his brother because god damn it he really fucking hated prison. Not only was he getting hit on every five minutes, but being closed off and confined was never something he had enjoyed. He didn’t like to feel trapped, and that’s what they were here. That’s what he had been trying to escape his whole life, was being trapped somewhere. At least Johnny seemed to be in a half way decent mood. He still had that underlying sorrow in his eyes, but Ayden doubted that would be going away any time soon. At least now he had a look of amusement on his eyes and he was glad that someone found this place amusing, because he sure as hell didn’t. “Alright, get one of the guards, I’ll tell him to let us go,” Johnny said, putting his fork down and looking around for a guard. Ayden did the same and stood, intent on waving one of the guards over. He hadn’t even made it a step before light sparked in his eyes and then pain tore its way across his skull and he fell to the ground, a vision wracking through his head. He heard Johnny’s snarled, “Fuck,” and felt his brother’s hands on his arms as he thrashed and then he was gone to the vision. † † † The thing about visions was that they were just that, visions, nothing more. They were images that flashed in front of his perception that sometimes made sense but most of the time just scared him. Over the years, Ayden had grown accustom to sitting back and watching. He’d grown accustom to remembering details, to picking out faces or trying to identify what they would be up again. They were a tool to use to fight the Wicked. They were visions. But this vision wasn’t like that. This vision was a fucking nightmare. Ayden stood in a sea of flame. He could feel his skin singe and crack and peel away beneath the fevered touch of the flame. He felt the muscle and fat melt off his bones and he stood a charred skeleton in the middle of the burning and cell bars popped up around him and he watched because his eyes were still whole and still seeing and it was all he could do. There was a man. Ayden didn’t recognize him but he wore an orange jumpsuit and he held a weapon in his hand. It had been a toothbrush at one time, but the end was sawed off and burnt and now it was a knife. A deadly one and it was dripping with blood and the blood covered his hand and his wrist and his arm. Ayden’s charred bones reached for the bars and he watched the man stalk a woman in hospital scrubs as she stood with her back to them, oblivious of the fire and the danger and the bars. He could only watch. He could only burn and watch. The man came up behind the woman and he stuck the knife between her ribs. She screamed and it was a horrid sound that echoed around them and morphed into laughter and then sobs and then just a loud, loud ringing like the sound had left the room shaking. The man withdrew the knife and an ocean of blood leaked from her back and he sunk it in again, this time in her neck. She gurgled and when she coughed blood came out and formed words on the wall. They spelled out “Murderer” and “Rapist” and “Addict” and “Defiler.” The words leaked down the wall as the blood ran and when they reached the floor they turned into slugs and crawled until they reached the flames. Then they screamed and shriveled and charred. The man ripped the knife across her throat and her head fell backwards as he pulled on her hair and he jammed it into her eyes and then her cheeks and then he kicked her away and he plunged it into her back and her legs and her arms over and over and over again. A hundred agains. Then the bars held tightly in Ayden’s grasped suddenly slithered beneath his hands and when he looked at them they were snakes and the fangs were barred and they struck out at his eyes as he saw what they really were. One snake for each of his eyes. They ate them whole and the poison burned its way through his charred remains and he screamed until the poison quieted him. And then he heard a voice. “I will end this world with a whisper.” And it was dark and it was terrifying and Ayden wanted to cry and scream but he was a corpse and the fire was burning away his bones. And then it was over. † † † Ayden came to on the ground and the first thing he realized was that it wasn’t Johnny who was holding him down anymore. It was an older veteran guard who had a kind but steely face. He was murmuring quietly and there was another guard down at his feet and when Ayden rolled his head to the side, all of the prisoners were lying on the ground on their stomachs with their hands behind their head. Ayden wondered if the guards thought he was a distraction for something. Maybe they didn’t want to start a riot. “Easy, son,” the guard said and Ayden looked back at him because he didn’t want the guard, he wanted Johnny. Johnny would tell him that he wasn’t just a charred skeleton standing in a sea of fire. He rolled his head to the other side and he saw his brother lying on his stomach with that angry look back on his face but when he met Ayden’s eyes, the look faded somewhat and Ayden tried to smile but he felt tired and his head hurt. He closed his eyes and tried to file away the vision in the motel room in his head. The vision burned when he touched it inside his head and he must have cried out in real life because suddenly several more guards were rushing over and they were lifting him into a sitting position and one of them said something about the infirmary. Ayden was still battling the vision inside his head, trying to reign it in and place it like Dyani had taught him. But every time he tried to grab it, it hurt and it burned and he tried to give it the old Jedi mind trick stare to make it take shape and it started to morph but it was slow and he had to concentrate. “Look, he’ll be fine in a minute,” Johnny’s voice almost broke his concentration but he focused still on the vision and it was changing into a statue of a snake surrounded by flies and decay. “He just has these…episodes, just give him a minute. You don’t have to take him anywhere.” Johnny was yelling, but he also sounded worried. Ayden knew he’d heard him cry out and that wasn’t normal after a vision. The visions came and maybe they lingered with flashes, but never with pain. “Calm down or you’ll find yourself in the hole,” a stranger’s voice told his brother. “Son, can you hear me in there?” the guard’s voice said and Ayden watched the vision take on the final shape and he stood back in the room and stared at it and it stayed put so he slammed the door shut and opened his eyes. The guards were looking at him and Johnny was looking at him and all the other inmates were watching. Some seemed mildly disturbed, others looked like they wanted to gut him for ruining their lunch. Ayden gulped. “S…sorry,” he spluttered and his voice was hoarse and small and weak and he reached a hand up to feel his head because the vision had left it pounding. “Alright, son, we’re gonna get you up and you’re going to go see our pretty nurse,” the guard and one other helped him to his feet and he felt stupid because he swayed once he was there and the vision was threatening to get out of the room so he made a key and locked the door in his head. “Ayden?” Johnny’s voice made him open his eyes and he didn’t remember closing them but he looked at his brother and shook his head hoping Johnny would get the hint that they couldn’t leave. Not now they couldn’t leave. There was something in this prison they were meant to kill. .Wolfie. Johnny’s shoulders hurt from where the guards had pinned him to the floor and yanked them behind his back. His lip hurt because at first they’d thought he was trying to start a fight with Ayden and one of the guards had hit him in the face when they had pulled him off his brother. And now he was mad as hell because they were taking his brother away and if he didn’t tell him what the vision was than he couldn’t fix it and he didn’t like the little quiet head shake Ayden had given him because that meant he wasn’t supposed to say the words and that meant they couldn’t leave.“Can I go with him?” Johnny asked. There was a guard still pinning him to the ground and he craned his neck around to look at him. The hands on his arms relaxed and the guard holding him switched his grip so that he was helping Johnny to his feet. “Sorry, no. But don’t worry, your brother’s gonna be fine,” he said, and Johnny glanced at the man’s face. He was young, maybe younger than him, and he looked like maybe he still believed in what he did. It must’ve been nice. “They’re just taking him to the infirmary to get him all checked out. Does he have epilepsy or something else?” Johnny shrugged and brushed himself off. “He just has episodes,” he said. He didn’t like having this conversation again. He’d had to go over it so many fucking times when they were in school because the school nurse and the teachers all wanted to slap a label on his little brother that explained why he would go into seizures at random times. They couldn’t exactly say it was the hand of God reaching into his brain, but there had to be a reason, right? Grade school had been the worst, especially because Johnny had moved on to the high school before his little brother and that meant the teachers called their mom or dad when he had an episode. Their mom hadn’t been so bad. She had screamed and cursed them both out like it was somehow their fault, though maybe it was more Johnny’s than she knew, but at least she hadn’t hit them. Their dad hated getting those calls. He hated the embarrassment and he hated having two fuck ups for sons and one time he had been so mad that he didn’t use the belt, he just used his fists and he had broken Johnny’s nose and Ayden’s wrist. He rubbed feeling back into his shoulders and the guard patted his back like they were buddies or something. “He’ll be fine,” he said again. Then he spun in a slow circle, shouting to the room. “Everyone get back to your seat!” Johnny slid back onto the bench and stared at his tray because he wanted to know if his fucking brother was okay and he hadn’t liked the way his brother had cried out towards the end. The visions only hurt when he was slamming his head off the ground or having so many that there was blood pouring from his face. One vision shouldn’t have made him cry out like that. One vision shouldn’t have knocked him on his ass so hard and they wouldn’t even let him go see his brother to make sure he was okay and Johnny was slowly realizing that he didn’t like prison much. At some point he had gotten slow and stupid and that was why they were here at all but it was putting Ayden in danger and he was supposed to be keeping him safe. He picked at his food and kept his eyes to himself because this whole place was a disaster waiting to happen and he just wanted his brother to come back and tell him what he’d seen so that he could fix it because that was all Johnny was any good for. Someone slid into the seat next to him. He glanced up with one eye and kept his hand closed around the fork in case he needed to stab someone with it. The man had shaved his head and he had a giant swastika tattooed on the back of it and Johnny wondered what the fuck would compel someone to do that. The man shifted closer and he licked his lips a little bit and looked at Johnny’s face. “So the kid,” he said, jerking his head across the cafeteria in the direction of the infirmary. Johnny pushed his tray away. “What about him?” he asked. The man didn’t notice the look on his face. “Well, I saw you whispering. So is he yours, or can I have him?” His fist came back before he could think about it and he was punching the man in the jaw. It snapped back and he saw the guy start to stand and pull his own fists back and Johnny just hit him again. Then he was screaming and he wasn’t sure what he was saying but his hand shot forward and grabbed the guy by the collar and he just kept hitting him over and over in the face. He didn’t remember moving after that, but in the next second he had the man on the floor and he was kicking the shit out of him. “Don’t you ever touch my fucking brother,” he was shouting, and it felt good to shout and hit and break, so he kept doing it. He still had the guy by the collar and there was blood just pouring from his mouth now and Johnny wasn’t fucking sorry at all. Then someone was grabbing him by the shoulder and wrenching him around. A fucking giant of a man with a swastika on his throat was punching him in the face. He felt his nose crack and the second hit split his lip open again and then he was tackling the guy to the ground, digging his shoulder into his gut and then he was hitting him too. He heard shouting from across the room but by then the room had erupted into one giant brawl. Johnny just sat in the middle of it, hitting the fucking giant until he stopped moving and then he climbed off him and was tackled by a skinny guy with a sharpened spoon, so he broke his wrist and slammed his face into the table and then he went back to kicking the guy who wanted to fuck his brother because he wanted the asshole to bleed and bleed and bleed. A cafeteria tray hit him in the side of the head and he ducked under the next hit and slammed up into the guy’s stomach. His fist hauled back and he hit him across the face and kept hitting him until he went down and then the guards were on all of them and ripping the room apart faster than it had started. He felt a hand grab his and he turned around and hit the guy grabbing him and it was the same guard that had tried to tell him his brother was going to be okay. Then his shoulders were wrenched back behind him and he was being shoved into the table. “Looks like you get to visit him after all,” the man growled. † † † “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Ayden asked. He was sprawling on the blue couch in the infirmary, watching as the nurse stitched Johnny back up. He looked none the worse for wear anyway, and almost smug as he studied the bruises on his brother’s face. The eldest Marshall chuckled and he couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face because fighting was something Johnny had always been good at and it made him feel a little bit more like himself again. Then he winced and let out a small hiss because the woman was putting something on the cuts on his face and it stung like a mother fucker. She smiled at him and it worried him how much she enjoyed his pain. “Hold still,” she told him firmly. “Anything you say, darlin’,” he said, giving her his best charming smile. He saw Ayden roll his eyes and the nurse shook her head at him and pressed down a little harder on the cut slicing open his temple. He couldn’t remember if that was from the cafeteria tray or if it was from Sasquatch’s fist but either way it was going to leave a mark. Not that another one mattered so much. He turned his attention back to his brother and wished the nurse would leave so he could ask him the important questions. “Some asshole asked my permission to marry you. I told him white wasn’t your color,” Johnny told him. Ayden laughed. “Told him with fists?” “It’s the only language I speak.” Johnny smiled at his brother and it didn’t feel quite so strained this time. The grin split his lip open again and the nurse sighed and glared at him but didn’t say anything. She was probably used to this kind of shit by now. Johnny wondered if he should get used to it too because it was only their second day and they were already in the infirmary and at this rate Ayden would have a cast on some body part or another by the end of the week. “So,” Johnny said slowly. He glanced at the nurse and then over at his brother. “I guess we should get comfortable?” Ayden smirked humorlessly. “Turns out if we can’t go to work, work comes to us.” Wenston The yard was just as segregated as the cafeteria. The gangs tended to stick to race and ethnicity and they spread out and claimed their spots and kept people who watched out for rivals while the others did whatever it was they had to do out in the yard time. Johnny and Ayden didn’t want to associate themselves with any of them, so they found a nice little spot in the grass by the fence where Ayden sat down and kept his eyes down and Johnny stood and kept his eyes up. Ayden really didn’t like prison and he hated the fact that prison was only made harder for him because he was a “pretty boy” as Johnny had told him. Although he felt a little stupid because so far everyone was just talking and weren’t trying anything and he prayed to God and Jesus and every deity in the world that they’d be out of here before something happened like that. “So,” Johnny began and Ayden glanced up at him. Some of the light was back in Johnny’s face, even if he was covered in bruises and cuts. Ayden was happy to see that and when his brother had smiled at him in the infirmary Ayden had felt a weight being lifted off his shoulders because Johnny was slowly but surely coming back. Ayden made a mental note to remind Johnny to just hit something the next time he became all broody and depressed. It always seemed to make him feel better. “What’d you see?” Johnny asked and Ayden’s face fell a little. He looked away and picked at the grass. “It was weird,” Ayden said and he knew that’d piss Johnny off but he didn’t know how else to describe it. “Well that helps,” Johnny snorted and then nudged him with his knee. “Come on, the sooner you tell me, the sooner we’re outta here and your skinny ass is safe and sound.” Ayden sighed. “The nurse dies,” he said quietly. “Alright,” Johnny said slowly and finally sat down next to him, his eyes going to the yard once to see if anyone was paying them attention. No one seemed to be. A few people would glance in their general direction, but mostly people were leaving them to themselves. Ayden wondered if Johnny had scared some people off with his fighting display in the cafeteria. “What kills her?” “An inmate. With a toothbrush.” At Johnny’s raised eyebrow, Ayden brought up a hand and tried to mimic a filing down motion. “A sharpened toothbrush.” Johnny was quiet for a moment and Ayden brought his knees up to his chest and rested his chin on top of them. He looked out at the place and he tried to picture it burning. The place had been on fire, but it hadn’t seemed real. It hadn’t seemed normal. And the bars turning into snakes and the blood turning into slugs, he just didn’t know where this vision had come from. “Well, I mean that sucks, but it doesn’t sound like anything out of the ordinary for a place like this,” Johnny said and Ayden could feel his eyes on him because he could tell his brother thought he was leaving things out. He was, but he didn’t know what was important and what wasn’t. Ayden shrugged. “It was weird,” he repeated his earlier statement. Johnny ran a hand over his mouth and was obviously trying not to push on what Ayden had seen. Ayden appreciated it for the moment, just until he could figure it out a little more. “Did it hurt?” Johnny asked and the question caught Ayden off guard. “What?” he asked, looking to his brother. “The vision,” Johnny explained. “I mean, did the vision hurt. Sounded like it did.” Ayden frowned for a moment because how the hell was he going to explain to Johnny that he’d had trouble filing away the vision into the motel room in his head. That wasn’t something they’d discussed before and he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell his brother that part because he might think it was weird or he wouldn’t understand. So he just said, “Yeah,” and left it at that. “Did you see who the inmate was?” Johnny changed the subject for the both of them and Ayden was relieved. “No,” he shook his head. “You know I have an appointment with a psychiatrist tomorrow?” Ayden asked suddenly. Johnny snorted. “Oh yeah? What are you going to tell them?” Ayden shrugged. “What do you think they’d do if I told them the truth?” “You’d trade roommates for padded walls.” Ayden had a comeback for his brother, a really good one too, but he shut his mouth as he saw a guard carrying a shotgun approaching them. Johnny’s heard turned that way too and Ayden could practically feel his brother bristling beneath the idea of an armed guard messing with them. He knew his brother was missing his guns. Or at least his machete. Or the sword. Probably all of them. The guard came to stand in front of them and was quiet for a moment as he stared down at them. Ayden watched him, because he didn’t know what they’d done to deserve this sudden visit. Johnny sighed and stood, brushing off his jumpsuit from the grass and he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the fence. “You boys are causing a lot of trouble for your first day,” the guard drawled and it was Texan and heavy and threatening. Ayden chewed his lip and looked at his brother because the guard was staring at Johnny and didn’t even seem to be paying Ayden any attention. Johnny shrugged like he didn’t care. “Just making ourselves at home,” he said. The guard smirked and nodded his head like he’d just confirmed something. “I hear you hit one of my guard’s today.” “He got in my way.” The guard had Johnny pinned up against the fence faster than Ayden realized the man could move. He went to stand up to maybe help his brother but the shotgun was suddenly pointed at his face and he sat back down. Johnny growled but whether it was because he was pinned or because there was a gun aimed at his little brother, Ayden didn’t know. “You listen to me,” the guard growled. “You will never lay a finger on one of the guards in this place again or I will make sure your life is a living hell while you are within my walls.” Johnny had the audacity to laugh and Ayden resisted the urge to rolls his eyes. Sometimes his brother needed to know when to push and when to just smile and nod. “Well, Wyatt Earp, you tell your boys that if I’m getting jumped by skinheads all day long, they’d better just let me have my fun and try not to get in the way of my fist.” The guard tilted his head a moment, studying Johnny for a moment. He let him go, which somewhat unnerved Ayden because he brought the gun back up and now had it pointed to the sky. But his eyes were still on his brother and Ayden didn’t like that. He didn’t like that they were in separate cells at night because he couldn’t help Johnny if he needed it. Maybe Ayden wasn’t the best in a fist fight, but he’d still be able to help. All he had to do was distract and Johnny would take care of the rest. And Johnny wasn’t exactly making friends in this place so far. “You think you’re tough,” the guard observed. Johnny shrugged, a smug grin on his face. “We’ll see,” the guard continued and then turned around, walking back over to his other guard buddies and standing against the wall. He and Johnny had a staring match for a little until a loud noise brought the guard’s attention to a pair of guys who were playing basketball. Johnny growled and sat back down, looking satisfied. Ayden just glanced at him and chuckled. “People really don’t like you,” he said. Johnny grinned. “It’s a talent.” .Wolfie. Ayden rolled his eyes at his brother. “Well maybe you could find a talent that doesn’t involve pissing off prison guards.”Johnny scrubbed a hand over his face and tried not to think about the look in the guard’s eyes or the way he had pointed his gun at Ayden. He hated it when people threatened his little brother and he was pissed and scared because they were in separate cells and couldn’t watch each other’s backs if something happened. He didn’t trust anyone here, not even the woman in the little nurse’s outfit and nurses made him nervous now anyway, ever since that stupid hospital in Kentucky. His hands played over his lips and felt rough little scars under his fingers. He didn’t like being scared. It sat in his gut like a lead weight and he glanced over at his brother because that was his biggest concern right now. He hated the thought that one of these assholes would corner him and hurt him and Johnny would be locked behind bars unaware and helpless. He was trying to stay on his toes but it was easier to just sit and feel sorry for himself and maybe he just needed to beat the shit out of someone every day to remind them why they shouldn’t fuck with him. Maybe it would remind him who he was. He forced the grin back on his face as he crouched back down next to his brother. “Yeah, well I prefer pissing people off to having them play grab ass when I’m in the shower,” he said. His eyes scanned the yard, focusing on the basketball court for a moment. One of the guys playing was his giant of a cellmate, and he was just ripping the other guy apart. He wondered if it was because he was just that good, or because he was just that scary, because he was probably the biggest guy in the yard. Ayden groaned. “See, this is just not fair. All the wrong people want to jump my bones.” Johnny chuckled and slapped his back. “Well, it could be worse.” Ayden tilted his head to the side and stared at his brother. “I really don’t see how.” Ayden said, stretching his legs out in front of him. Johnny watched his brother who was being careful not to make eye contact with anyone and he wondered just how many offers he’d gotten for his pretty mouth already. Johnny felt a fresh surge of guilt for keeping him here this long already and maybe he could tell them to let Ayden go while he stayed and took care of it and maybe he would never leave. Johnny should’ve been in prison for all the shit he’d done and he sighed and looked back down at the ground. “Sorry Johnny, but your ‘bad sex is still sex’ argument really, really doesn’t fly here,” Ayden told him. “Oh come on,” he said, feeling his lip split open again when he smiled. “You know you love being the prettiest girl in the class.” It felt good and normal to tease his brother and he saw Ayden smirk a little bit and roll his eyes. It wasn’t really that funny, but it was something to fill the awkward silences and ease the tension that had cropped up between them ever since Wisconsin. Johnny slapped his brother on the back again and then stood up to stretch his legs. He felt an apology on the tip of his tongue but he bit it of and choked it down. He kicked at the dirt and the grass and wished he had a fucking smoke or his guns or both. He wished they could just go back to how it was. He wished he had made so many different choices but he couldn’t fix them now and he wanted to hit something because it always made him feel better. “Anyway,” he said, because he didn’t want to think anymore. “I guess we need to keep an eye on the nurse then? Want me to beat the shit out of you, so you can go see her again?” Ayden snorted. “Fuck that, maybe I should beat the shit out of you, and then you can keep an eye on her.” “Aw, but then who’ll protect your precious virginity?” Johnny chuckled. His brother shook his head. “Fuck you, asshole,” he said, and he was still smiling but Johnny looked away anyway because suddenly all he could picture was his brother screaming at him that he hated him and wished he were dead. He looked down at the grass and kicked a clod of dirt over and he wanted to tell his brother that sometimes he wished he were dead too, but he didn’t, because he never said any of those things out loud. He glanced at Ayden and his brother’s face had fallen and he had that guilty puppy dog look on his face like he was going to apologize again and Johnny couldn’t take that. He didn’t have to, because then the whistle blew. He glanced up and the guards were gesturing from the doorway, riot guns cradled in their arms and bitch faces on. Johnny smirked, and reached a hand down to help his brother up. “I guess recess is over,” he said, and he forced a smile on his face because he didn’t hate his brother and he didn’t want him to think it. He should’ve told him he was sorry or that he should’ve told him about the baby but he didn’t. “Hey Ayden?” he said. His brother looked over at him, raising an eyebrow. “Hey Johnny?” Johnny smirked and clapped him on the back. “Watch your ass.” † † † He got two steps in his cell when a hand clamped down on his shoulder. The big black man who had the bed above his leaned down next to him and he wore a lazy smile. “Hey man,” he said, and Johnny couldn’t imagine what was going to come out of his mouth next. He wondered if he could take him in a fight, and his hand curled into a fist just in case the guy tried to start one. “Nice job on the skinhead. You ever find yourself getting gang raped in the shower, you just shout for Big D and I’ll help you out.” “Uh… thanks,” he said, startled by the words. The man smiled and clapped him on the back. “No problem,” he said. Then he let go of his shoulder and retreated to his bunk, climbing up on the ladder with a practiced ease. He pulled the nudie magazine out from under his pillow and got himself settled and Johnny looked away because he didn’t really want to watch if the guy whipped his dick out or something. The Eminem looking kid was already in his bunk and he was curled in the fetal position facing the wall. His back was shaking and Johnny wondered if he was crying and he couldn’t afford to care. The last guy was stretched out on his bed and he was reading something with a German title that Johnny didn’t recognize, not that he really expected to. Johnny hadn’t exactly been a genius, and he still wasn’t. He sat down on the edge of his bed and stared out the bars. He hoped Ayden was okay and that he wasn’t getting his ass beaten. Johnny wished he had his guns, or at least a fucking smoke, and he glanced over at the guy again because he had a cigarette between his lips. He caught Johnny looking and smirked. “You want one?” he asked, holding out the pack. Johnny glanced at his face and then back at the smokes. “What’ll it cost me?” he asked. The guy laughed and sat up, putting the book aside as he tapped out a cigarette. “First one’s free. Next one you have to buy. These things are worth a lot in here, you know.” He came over to sit next to Johnny and handed him the smoke, digging out a little book of matches. “You’re practically burning money right now,” he told Johnny, striking a match and setting flame to the cigarette and Johnny grinned as he sucked smoke into his lungs. “Thanks,” he told the guy. “You got a name?” “Vaughn,” the man told him with a smile. Then he jerked his head towards the cell door. “I hear boots coming.” Johnny took a long drag from the cigarette and blew smoke back out through his nose and he breathed a little easer because of it, even if it stung at his split lip. Then he licked his thumb and pinched the end of it, sliding it behind his ear just as the guard came around the corner. He wasn’t sure if they were actually supposed to smoke them, or if maybe they weren’t supposed to smoke them in the cell, or if they just wouldn’t give a fuck. He didn’t care about causing problems or getting thrown in the hole, but he didn’t want the only cigarette he’d had in months taken away from him already. The guard that stopped in front of the door had a riot gun slung over his shoulder and he was the mean son of a bitch from the yard. Johnny smirked at him and he knew as soon as the guy showed up that he was looking for trouble. Johnny didn’t like that little glint in his eyes and he wondered if this was going to turn into a fight. He fucking hoped so. He grinned through the bars at Johnny and gestured a hand towards him. “Why don’t you come over here, Marshall, so we can have a chat?” Johnny stood up and crossed close to the doors. His cellmates watched, but they didn’t say anything and they didn’t move. “The fuck do you want?” he asked him, smirking smugly back. The guard grinned at him and ran a tongue over his teeth. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and his eyes were chips of ice in his skull as he studied Johnny. “You still think you’re tough?” he asked. “Because I think you need to learn a little lesson. I think you need to learn about respect, and about who’s in charge in here.” Then his hand shot through the bars and he was a fast mother fucker, Johnny would give him credit for that. His hand closed around the collar of Johnny’s jumpsuit and pulled him closer to the bars. “Why don’t you open this fucking door and try to teach me then?” Johnny growled out. The guard laughed and then released him and stepped back. “Oh no,” he said, and he didn’t like the grin on his face or the way his hands were caressing his gun. “I got better ways than that,” he said. “We’re just going to sit here and have a nice little chat while a few of my boys start the lesson with your brother.” Wenston It turns out Ayden wasn’t taken back to his cell. He watched as his cellmates turned one way and them him and four guards turned another way. He sighed loudly because he knew this couldn’t be good that he was being taken off alone. He wished his brother was here and then immediately tried to push that thought out of his mind because one day he’d have to man up and realize that his big brother wouldn’t always be there, and maybe didn’t always want to be there to bail him out of the constant shit he was getting himself into. Truth be told, Ayden didn’t know why it was always him who wound up in these stupid situations. Johnny could always go off by himself and nothing would happen to him. His brother just had that look that said you didn’t want to fuck with him. Ayden wondered what he himself looked like. Was there a big fucking target on him that said “kick the shit out of this asshole” and that’s why the world was always beating on him and the Wicked always gunned for him and prison guards always wanted to mess with him? Probably. Well you know what? The world fucking sucked. Ayden was led down a hallway and they cut across the mess hall and wound up in the kitchen. One of the guards grabbed a stool and stood on it and unhooked the camera in the corner of the room and that washed away all the doubts Ayden had about what the guards wanted. His hands were still handcuffed behind his back and as soon as the camera was off, the guard that was escorting him shoved him away and Ayden whirled to face them. There were four of them. Three of them middle aged, one younger. Two were big, two were skinny. One looked like a boxer and Ayden doubted he could take that guy, but the other three, possibly. He wished his hands were free. “Uh, I think you might want to get that camera looked at. Might have a glitch,” Ayden said because when he was nervous and needed to chatter. One of the guards snorted and pulled a billy club out of its holster at his side. Man, they really, really weren’t going to make this fair. Ayden just stared at him and tried not to look scared. “Yeah, that camera glitches a lot.” And then they were on him. Ayden had to dodge to the side to keep from getting cracked in the face with a billy club. He fell backwards into a tower of metal trays and it gave way beneath his weight, tilting precariously before finally making its descent to the floor. Ayden was already moving on as the trays hit the floor with an ear shattering crash. He was making a dash for the mess hall because there had to be some guards in this place that didn’t like to beat up on inmates. A hand caught his shoulder and shoved him into the wall and as he turned to try and kick out at the guard, he was socked in the gut with a meaty fist and the air rushed out of his lungs with a whoosh. He fell on his ass as he slid down the wall and he kicked out at the guard’s ankle with a precision hit that Johnny had shown him once. He felt triumphant when he heard and felt the guard’s ankle crack beneath the kick. The guard howled and backed away and Ayden used the spare time to scoot his hands down and bring his feet up and managed to get his hands in front of him. Johnny had always made fun of him for being limber. No sooner than he’d won that small victory he was caught off guard as something cracked him across the face. He cried out because the pain was sharp and rocked his head to the side and then he was falling to the ground and black and white spots danced in front of his eyes. He felt someone grab a fistful of his hair and pull him roughly to his feet and there was blood on his face now. For a moment, Ayden thought about his father. He thought about the beatings he’d used to get as a child, as a teenager, and the final one he’d endured the day he was supposed to move in with Johnny and Annie. The day Johnny had told the man to die and he did. He’d always just sat and took it. He’d always just let his Dad rain blow after blow after blow on him and he never did anything about it because from an early age, that’s the way things had always gone. You took the hits and you’d be allowed to keep breathing so long as you didn’t make him more angry by hitting back. Now, Ayden realized that was bullshit. He realized that it shouldn’t have been like that. He should have fought back. He should have been fighting back a long time ago. And with that thought, he growled and brought his hands up club the guard in front of him in the side of the head. He heard the man grunt and the hand let go of his hair and he took the opportunity to lift a foot and kick the guard away, into a metal shelving unit. He advanced on the man, because there was blood running into his eyes and he couldn’t see where the remaining two were. He heard the guy whose ankle he broke moaning still behind him. It fueled his ego just a little. Ayden was hitting the guard who’d fallen into the shelves as best he could with his hands still cuffed. He felt the man’s nose crush beneath his fists and then his jaw snapped and maybe some teeth came lose because Ayden’s wasn’t punching, he was bludgeoning with his fists. His fingers ached and maybe some of them were broken but he didn’t care. Why couldn’t people just leave him the fuck alone? Why couldn’t Johnny and him ever get a fucking break. Because assholes like this didn’t know what was outside of these damn walls, haunting the dark and filling the world with blood. Assholes like this didn’t realize that what he and his brother did saved lives. Maybe not all the lives, but some. And as Ayden was smashing this guys face in, he felt sobs come out of his throat because all he could think of was that he wanted to apologize to Johnny again because he didn’t want his brother to die and he sure as fuck didn’t hate him. He was his brother, his best friend, his partner in this fucked up thing they called a life and he wanted him back and all these things and all these guys just kept fucking stuff up. Ayden wasn’t expecting the mace as it was sprayed into his eyes and he brought his bloody hands up to his face and yelled because that shit burned right along with the tears that were brimming there. It distracted Ayden long enough for someone to club him over the head with a billy club and then Ayden was on the floor again and someone was swearing above him. “Mother fucker,” someone said and it was accentuated with a kick to Ayden’s ribs. He grunted and brought his arms down to the side to grab the guy’s boot. It didn’t quite work as the fourth guard, who’d been staying out of it watching the door, suddenly joined the fray and kicked Ayden in the face. The momentum from the kick actually flipped Ayden onto his back and his hands were back on his face because now his nose was broken and blood was leaking down his throat and he felt sick and dizzy. “Get him up,” the same guy said and hands were grabbing his arms. He tried to struggle but then he was in a choke hold and he couldn’t breathe. “You and your brother haven’t learned who’s in charge around here,” the guard holding him said and then he kicked him in the back of the knee and Ayden was forced to his knees, still in the choke hold and unable to breathe. The guard finally released his neck and wrenched his arms up and behind his head, grabbing Ayden’s hair and holding him still. Ayden blinked and tried to clear the blood and sweat from his eyes and he saw the guard standing in front of him and it was the boxer looking one that he didn’t think he could take. He imagined fire around the man’s head and maybe there was a snake crawling around his shoulders and then it was gone. Ayden struggled weakly and then spat blood onto the guard’s boot when that did him no good. He really wished Johnny was here now. He couldn’t even take on these assholes properly. Johnny must think he was so fucking pathetic. Maybe that’s why he’d given up and hadn’t gotten them out of the prison right away. Maybe Johnny thought he was just pathetic and didn’t want to put up with this shit anymore. “Now,” the boxer guard said and leaned down, slapping his billy club in his hands. “You broke Granger’s ankle and, shit, I don’t even know if Klein is still breathing over there. You put up a pretty good fight kid. But, now it’s my turn.” He stood and Ayden swallowed thickly because he knew this was going to fucking hurt. “Oh, and tell your brother this has been a lesson in respect.” The guard jammed the butt of his club into Ayden’s gut and he couldn’t breathe all at once. The next blow came before he could gasp in a breath and it struck him across the face. His ears were ringing as his skull was jarred and another blow hit him on the other side of the face. He gasped as a third struck him in the cheekbone and there was a loud crack and he wondered if his face had just broken because he’d never broken that before. Then the guard dropped the club and grabbed onto his arms, his hands next to his buddy’s and he was kicking Ayden in the stomach over and over again. Ayden wondered why he was still conscious because he felt blood leaking from all over his face and he spit up blood and with each kick to the stomach he wondered what internal damage the fucking guy was doing. But he couldn’t move because two sets of hands were holding him down and his head was spinning and his right eye was already swollen shut while the left just showed the world as a red, hazy place he couldn’t make out. The guard kicked Ayden until he tired himself out and by then Ayden was only half conscious and the only thing keeping him up were the hands on his arms. The pain was unbearable and he had a fleeting thought that maybe he wouldn’t make it through this one and the last time he’d felt this awful was when Johnny told their Dad to die and he started crying because right now he wanted his brother to tell these fuckers to die and what the hell was wrong with him that he wanted someone to actually die. But he did and he hurt and it was so numbing and painful all at once that he couldn’t understand it. “Uncuff him,” the Boxer said and Ayden listed to the side as no one was holding him up. A hand caught his hair and it gave his neck a painful jerk and then someone grabbed his arm and he was being dragged a bit on the ground. He didn’t notice the blood trail he left behind and he felt his hand being set down on a table and his sleeve rolled up and he wondered what they were doing. His question was answered in the next second when he felt something heavy come down on his arm and there was a loud snap and a flare of pain and he was screaming. Then the world gave way to darkness and he didn’t remember what happened after that. .Wolfie. “Let me out of this cell,” Johnny said. He couldn’t feel his lips move but he heard the words and they were calmer than he felt.“You’re not really getting the point here, are you?” The guard smirked at him and leaned against the railing outside his cell and didn’t say a fucking word. He cradled his gun like a baby and watched Johnny as his knuckles turned white against the bars. He yanked on them like he could bend them by sheer force of will. “See? Look at you pissing yourself in there. But you can’t do shit, because you’re not in charge here. I am.” Johnny ground his teeth together and he was seeing everything through a haze of red. He took a breath and it hurt. He blinked and for the second his eyes were closed all he could see was the barrel of a shotgun resting under his brother’s chin. All he could see was the glazed and empty expression on his brother’s face and he hadn’t even known that death was looking down on him because he’d already been shot in the shoulder and he was bleeding all over the floor and Annie was crying and Johnny had opened his mouth and told the old man to die. All he had to do was open his mouth. The words were right on the tip of his tongue. He could’ve told the man to die and he would drop down right in front of him from a heart attack just like the old man. He could tell him to open the fucking door and the door would be open in a second. He bit down hard on his tongue and he tasted blood in his mouth. His hands were fists around the bars and he wished they were around the man’s neck. “If you hurt my brother, I swear to Christ it’ll be the last thing you do,” he choked out. The man laughed, his finger going to rest on the trigger of his gun. “So you’re a little slow, ain’t ya?” The words came out in a snarl. “Don’t fucking touch my brother.” The man was still laughing and then he sauntered back up to the bars, the barrel pointed towards Johnny. A sneer crossed his face as he leaned in close and his breath stank of chewing tobacco and garlic. “You know what’s happening right now? Right now my boys are educating your brother on respect. They’re going to beat him and they’re going to break him and there isn’t a fucking thing you can do about it.” He snorted and spit on the ground, the sneer still in place. “I bet he cries like a little bitch the whole time. He looks like a crier.” “I’m going to kill you,” Johnny told him. He stepped a little closer to the bars and swung the barrel of the gun away so that Johnny couldn’t reach through and grab it. That god damn smile was still stretching his face and Johnny was going to wipe the floor with it. “See, you’re getting all pissy when it should really be your brother getting mad. He wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for you. So just sit your ass down and shut your mouth before you make things any worse for him.” Maybe the guy was right. Maybe it was all Johnny’s fault that Ayden was getting hurt. Maybe it had always been Johnny’s fault because he was the one that pissed people off and then they took it out on his little brother. He was the one that stood up to their dad and got both of them beat half the time. He was the one that had opened his fucking mouth and told the train no and it never should have worked and he should have been a splatter on the railway but it had and of course it had hurt his little brother. Maybe Ayden wouldn’t stop getting hurt and broken and abused until Johnny was dead. Maybe he would feel bad about all that later. His hand shot out of the cell and curled around the guard’s collar and maybe he was fast, but Johnny could be fucking fast too and then he was yanking his hand back through the bars and slamming the guy’s head off the metal. There was a loud crack and it sounded like a gong going off and he heard a hiss and a strangled laugh behind him. He didn’t turn around. He loosened his fingers and then yanked them back again and hit the guy’s face off the metal again. There was blood running from his head and Johnny hoped it hurt like a mother fucker. “Let me out of this fucking cell you fucking cocksucker or I will break your neck where you stand,” he said. The man tried to pull away and Johnny yanked him back into the bars and he hope Ayden would forgive him for what came next. He hoped he didn’t get his brother hurt, just by trying to help him. He licked his lips and he leaned down towards the man’s face so that no one else but the guard would hear what came next. He felt the power swell under his lips and it had been a while since he’d used it but it was still there, waiting for him to form words to it. “Take me to my brother,” he said. † † † The first time Johnny had used his power, he was thirteen. He hadn’t used it again for the next four years. It wasn’t that he was afraid of it or that he had even known what it did to Ayden at the time. He just didn’t know how. He’d tried once or twice, with stupid shit like telling his dad he should buy him a car. The man had laughed at him and then slapped him on the back of the head and told him if he wanted a fucking car he should get a job and buy it himself because he wasn’t shelling out a dime so that Johnny could crash some heap of metal the next day. The second time he used his power he was seventeen and he thought Ayden was going to die. It had been a year since he’d first taken his dad’s shotgun and gone down by the river to save a girl from whatever the fuck the thing he’d killed was. Johnny took it all in stride, because he couldn’t pretend that he hadn’t seen a train stop dead in its tracks before hitting him and anything after that was just icing on a very fucked up cake. He tried to keep up with his brother’s visions but it was hard because it was mostly just him at the time, so one day when he was seventeen he decided to let his little brother tag along. It had been some fucking Loch Ness monster type thing and it had been living in a lake fifty miles north of their town. It had drowned two little girls before they got there but no one would ever know because it had devoured their bodies with jagged teeth. Johnny found one of the girl’s little pink bikes by the edge of the lake and later he would cry while he was in the shower so that his brother didn’t know and his dad wouldn’t call him a fucking pussy bitch. It had gotten its claws hooked into Ayden and it had dragged him to the bottom of the lake. Johnny swam in after it, and he had killed it with his dad’s boot knife by jamming it in the thing’s eye. Not before it had drowned his brother. He wasn’t dead, or at least Johnny didn’t think so, but he wasn’t breathing and he tried CPR but it didn’t work and maybe it was because Johnny wasn’t doing it right, so he had slammed his fist down on his brother’s chest and he had screamed at him. “Breathe,” he shouted, and then Ayden’s back had arched off the ground and his eyes rolled white and empty back into his head. And he started to breathe. † † † They had broken his brother’s arm and his face. He sat next to his bed in the infirmary and clenched his teeth together as he studied his brother. His skin was a canvas of bruises and cuts. He had been painted in purples and blues and reds and Johnny couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his brother so ripped apart. Maybe when their dad had put him in the hospital the day Johnny had killed him. He’d had bruises on his face and a shotgun wound in his shoulder and Johnny could still find most of those scars on his brother’s skin. This was brutal. He looked like he’d been put through a meat grinder and spit back out in pieces and Johnny felt his hands closing into fists. Ayden was unconscious, but the nurse swore it was from the painkillers. He didn’t know if he believed it. He wondered if Ayden had been conscious when he was brought in and he wondered what kind of bullshit story the guards that “found” him had made up. He wondered how many people he was going to have to kill because no one, not one of the Wicked and not a fucking human being, was allowed to hurt his little brother like this and make it out alive. Fuck the consequences, he would rip this place apart until he found the bastards that did this, starting with the gun toting Wyatt Earp that had taunted him while his buddies did this to Ayden. “Who brought him in?” he asked the nurse. She hesitated over the metal table and Johnny blinked and saw a metal slab where a nurse was being gutted, her eyes and lips sewn shut and then he opened his eyes and it was gone. She glanced back over her shoulder but she couldn’t meet his eyes. She picked up the tray in her hands and she was shaking as she walked over to his brother. She started to stitch up the wounds on his face and she still wouldn’t look at Johnny. “A few of the guards,” she said noncommittally. She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and focused on his brother. He smiled and it wasn’t nice or sweet. “I need names,” he told her. Wenston Johnny was in his cell. Nothing was happening except for his brother was pacing back and forth and every so often he’d look out the bars or hit the wall with a fist or he even sat down once and ran his hands over his face. But nothing happened. No one died an there wasn’t a Wicked ripping people apart or shanking them in the showers, it was just, normal. And maybe because it was normal Ayden knew this was the strangest vision he’d ever had. He was watching from the sidelines and a little part of him remembered what happened and maybe he realized he was unconscious, but he didn’t care. He was watching his brother and he was watching is brother’s cellmates and they weren’t doing anything. Johnny maybe looked more and more agitated and maybe Ayden saw his hands shaking but they just stayed there. And then Johnny hopped off his bunk and he stood in front of a big black guy and told the guy to punch him. The black guy was confused and protested but Johnny insisted and with a shrug, the black guy clocked his brother in the face and then Johnny was being taken to the infirmary and then the vision got a little weird. Ayden was standing over himself. He was already stitched up and he had an IV and he looked a mess. He almost didn’t recognize himself lying there and it was horrible and awful because the minute he saw himself was the minute the vision ended and he started hurting. He dreamt of his father after the vision. He dreamt of the man the way he should have been, without the anger and the alcohol and he saw himself playing Lego’s with his dad and Johnny came in and stomped all over the Lego castle they’d been building and Ayden started crying and instead of getting beat, their Dad just scooped Johnny up and made him apologize and then all three of them were building a castle together and Johnny even let Ayden talk him into creating a moat around the building. It was a nice dream. But it faded away into pain and then Ayden groaned and he felt a hand on his head. “Mr. Marshall?” a woman’s voice broke into the haze of pain and drugs he was currently in. He felt her hand stroke his forehead and even though she was being gentle, it fucking hurt. She withdrew her hand and was then talking to someone else. “I’m going to give him more painkillers, it will keep him asleep.” “What?” And in that one snappy, angry, worried word, Ayden heard his brother and he tried to roll his head to the side but groaned because it hurt to move. He wanted his brother. He was scared and hurt and he wanted his fucking brother so bad because Johnny always made it better and he always made it safe and right now he was trying not to think of the four guards that had just beat the living shit out of him and tried to just concentrate on opening his eyes. Well, maybe one would open, but other felt like it would never open ever again. “Can’t you just let him wake up for a bit?” Johnny was asking. “He’s in a lot of pain,” the woman’s voice came back and she sounded farther away. She was preparing something at the other end of the room. “He’s going to have surgery later, we need to keep him as still as possible.” “I can keep him still,” Johnny said. And then, “Surgery?” “He broke his cheekbone. He needs pins to fix it.” Well shit, that didn’t sound good. Apparently his brother didn’t think so either because he went quiet and Johnny was hardly ever quiet unless he was broody or sad. Ayden managed to pry and eye open and it was foggy and unclear but he saw a lump sitting next to him that may have been Johnny. He felt a hand on his shoulder and it was more gentle than he ever remembered his brother being and maybe that scared him more than anything else because he remembered how he looked in the vision and was he really that broken and beaten? He tried to say his brother’s name but it came out an “Mmm.” “Ayden,” Johnny said and his voice was calm and collected. Ayden tried to focus on him but he was having a hard time. He tried to reach out to Johnny, but there was a plaster cast on his right arm and he heard the snap of his arm echo inside his memory. “Lay still.” Ayden complied to what his brother was asking, but he turned his head with all the strength he could muster and waited until his foggy and hazy vision cleared and he saw Johnny watching him and Johnny looked hurt and sad and Ayden didn’t like that. Why did stuff always happen to them? Why couldn’t Ayden be better at this crap by now and Johnny must think he’s such a fucking weakling and god damn he hurt everywhere, even in places he didn’t know he had. His ribs felt like they were on fire and he could feel the gauze wrapped around them but he didn’t think any of them were busted, just really, really bruised. Licking his lips took more out of him than it should have and he closed his eyes for a moment to gather some strength before he forced them back open and finally managed a word. “Johnny.” Johnny looked relieved and some of that visible anger seemed to deflate a little, but Ayden knew his brother and he knew he was just tucking it away for a later use. “You look like shit,” Johnny said but there was a smile on his lips and Ayden couldn’t help but return it because this was getting old and every time something like this happened it seemed like just another step in a long running comedy gag the world was putting on. It wasn’t very fucking funny. Ayden tried to crack back at him, something about being the prettiest girl in school but those weren’t words that escaped his mouth. Instead he whispered, “Hurts.” Johnny seemed to bristle at that and Ayden wondered what his brother was thinking. He wondered if Johnny planned to do anything to the guards and that was a big, fat, “yes” inside Ayden’s head. How could his brother not have something planned? He’d hurt people for doing far less to people he cared about. Ayden almost felt bad for the guards. Almost. “I bet it does,” Johnny said and he scooted closer to the bed. “I mean, the arm, we’re used to. But the face? Are you trying to find new and unusual bones to break?” Ayden laughed but he hissed and winced afterwards because that motion hurt. He closed his eyes and he heard the nurse come back over and when he opened his eyes again she as injecting something into his IV. Ayden felt heat rush through his left hand and spread across his chest and then the pain seemed to dull and it was getting harder and harder for him to keep his eyes open. He felt Johnny’s hand on his shoulder again and he rolled his head to the side to look at him. “I think I killed one,” he whispered but it was slurred and his tongue was tripping over itself. He felt a little loopy. Johnny quirked an eyebrow and looked over at the nurse. She looked at Johnny and then had to look away. “He’s not dead,” she said and retreated back to her nurses station. “In a coma, but not dead. He also broke one of their ankles.” When Johnny turned back to look at him, there was a grin on his face and Ayden grinned back. “Well shit,” Johnny said and Ayden slipped his eyes closed because the painkillers were taking their toll and he just listened to his brother, trying not to pass out on him. “You did half my work for me.” Ayden chuckled but it hurt his chest so he stopped. “Johnny?” he murmured. And he didn’t exactly know what he was asking or why he was calling for his brother but he didn’t want to go to sleep and wake up without him being there and he almost cried when Johnny’s hand withdrew from his shoulder because he was still scared and hurt and in pain. “Yeah?” Johnny answered and leaned in closer. “Don’t go,” he whispered and he wasn’t sure if his brother heard him or not. .Wolfie. Johnny was pissed.He sat on a bench during yard time and tried to focus on anything but the battered and bleeding face of Ayden lying in a hospital bed once again but he could still see him every time he closed his eyes. His hands rested on his knees but every time he heard a noise he felt them curl into fists and he was on ten kinds of pins and needles waiting for the next blow to come. He knew it couldn’t be over because he’d fucking bashed Wyatt Earp’s face in and there would be some kind of payback for that. His eyes snapped back over his shoulder as he heard someone’s steps behind him. Vaughn was walking up to the bench, hands shoved in the pockets of his jumpsuit. “Hey, Marshall, is it?” “Johnny,” he snapped, and the man just nodded to himself. Johnny wondered what he wanted, if he was going to ask if his little brother’s ass was for sale or if Johnny’s was, and his hands had formed fists at some point midway through his thought process. “Somethin’ you want?” he asked, and he tried to keep his tone light and easy but he didn’t trust anyone in this fucking place except for Ayden and he was under the knife. The man ignored the question. “How’s your brother doing?” Vaughn asked him. He settled down on the bench next to Johnny and offered him a cigarette from his pack. Johnny glanced at him and then took it without questioning it this time. He breathed a little easier when the man set light to the end of it and he felt smoke coiling in his lungs and then he let it slip back out from between his lips. “He’s in surgery,” he told him, and he didn’t know why he answered except the man had given him two smokes now without asking anything in return. “Fuckers broke his face. I know the kid breaks easy, but still, they broke his fucking cheekbone.” Vaughn chuckled dryly, pulling his own cigarette from behind his ear and lighting it. Johnny was staring across the yard at the guard pacing along the wall and he felt his teeth grind together because there was the fucker that had orchestrated his brother’s beating and he was still walking around with a gun slung over his shoulder. He met Johnny’s eyes and then dropped him and he knew he had scared the man when he had used the voice on him. He was glad. He wanted him to be scared. He wanted him to be as scared as Ayden was. “Ouch,” Vaughn said, sucking on his cigarette. “That’s gotta sting.” Johnny snorted and looked down at the ground as he kicked at the dirt and the grass and he wanted to hurt and break someone like they had hurt and broken his brother. “Yeah,” he snapped. “Just a little fucking bit.” He wanted to make whoever had done it cry like a little bitch when he was through with them and even if Johnny wasn’t sure he could kill one of them he sure as hell was going to think about it for a while. His chest constricted as he thought about his little brother and the way his voice had come out more like a whimper than anything when he’d said Johnny’s name. He had stayed there as long as he could and he didn’t leave until they’d taken him in to surgery and Johnny had thought about using the voice then too, but he didn’t want to start jamming more visions into his brother’s brain so he’d let the guards lead him to the cafeteria and then the yard. They didn’t try anything with him. They didn’t say more than a fucking word to him and he wondered which one of them had been responsible for breaking his brother’s arm. Ayden was a shattered mess, and someone was going to pay. He flicked ash off the end of his cigarette and his eyes focused on the guard again. “So I gotta ask,” Vaughn said, “How did you boys ever end up in this dump?” He smirked as he asked it and maybe it was because it was the cliché prison question or maybe because he thought the answer would be funny. Johnny wasn’t sure but he looked down at the ground and flicked ash of his cigarette and wondered how much he should lie or if it even fucking mattered. He sucked another wave of smoke into his lungs and it helped him relax in slow degrees. “Killed a couple guys,” he told the man and it would have made Ayden laugh to hear him say it so noncommittally. He’d killed more than a couple, except they weren’t all men and they weren’t all human. He squinted against the sun and focused back on the guard across the way and he thought about killing him because he couldn’t shake the image of his brother lying in that bed so fucking mangled and Johnny had just sat behind bars and rotted while it happened. If he had just opened his damned mouth outside that gas station in Texas they wouldn’t be here now. But he hadn’t and they were and so he would have to fix the problem the best way he knew how. Vaughn laughed and he glanced back over at the man. He had little wings of white in his already blonde hair but it was impossible to tell just how old he was. He could’ve been Ayden’s age, or he could’ve been Ashley’s, and come to think of it Johnny wasn’t really sure how old he was either. “Even your brother? Because he looks like one of those little yuppie pricks that gets sent in here to teach ‘em a lesson for a DUI that daddy couldn’t buy them out of.” “Don’t talk about my brother like that,” he snapped. Vaughn held his hands up. “Woah, sorry, didn’t mean to strike a nerve there.” Johnny took a breath and the smoke in his lungs helped to calm him because at least the guy wasn’t asking if Ayden’s mouth was as pretty as it looked or any of the other fucking messed up things these asshole’s kept thinking about his little brother. At least he wasn’t saying he had a cute ass. “Yeah, well,” he said, flicking ash off into the grass. “Just watch what you say about my kid brother. He’s tougher than anyone gives him credit for.” Johnny put the cigarette between his lips and frowned because it was probably the nicest thing he’d said about Ayden in a while and the kid wasn’t around to hear it. He stared off at the guard again, who was making his way slowly across the grass and Johnny could make out the bruises on his face and it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t suffering enough for what he’d caused Ayden and the poor kid had to wade through so much shit thanks to Johnny that it just wasn’t funny anymore. It wasn’t fucking fair that his little brother kept getting broken and hurt and he wasn’t even mad anymore that Ayden said he hated him. His brother was welcome to hate him. He probably earned it. “Alright,” Vaughn said, and he sounded strangely sincere. “Sorry, Marshall.” “What about you?” he asked, glancing over at Vaughn. The man had been studying his face, taking in the stubble and the dark circles and the bruises Johnny wore like fucking badges because he had given back tenfold the scars that he’d received. His fingers dragged over the scars on his lips again and then fell away. Vaughn smirked and looked down but not before Johnny saw the gauging, measuring look in his eyes. Johnny took another drag from the borrowed cigarette and ignored it. “What’re you in for?” He laughed and shifted lower on the bench, stretching his legs out in front of him. “A little of this, a little of that.” Johnny snorted, turning away from him again. Wyatt Earp was crossing close to the fence now, his gun slung over his shoulder and a hand resting in his belt. He was glancing back and forth and he looked nervous as he crossed under the shadow of the building and Johnny wondered how long it would take the other guards to reach him if he went over there and taught that asshole his own lesson in respect. He closed his eyes and when he did he saw his brother’s battered face and he felt hatred and rage settle comfortably in his gut and when his eyes opened again he just wanted to beat the fuck out of the man. “You feel like doing me a favor?” Johnny asked, and now he was down to the end of his cigarette and he was sad to flick the last of it into the grass where it sizzled and died. He already wished he had another but he had a big enough favor to ask, so he wouldn’t bother him for smokes. He raised an eyebrow at Vaughn who had a strange grin on his face. He finished up his own cigarette and then leaned back and rested his elbows on the back of the bench. “I don’t know. Depends on what you want.” Johnny shrugged. “I was just hoping you could cause a distraction for a minute.” His gaze settled on the guard again and he wondered if he really wanted him to die, but then he saw the lazy smirk roll across his face and a quiet voice in the back of Johnny’s head whispered a definitive yes. This was the man responsible for hurting his kid brother. Maybe someone else had held him down and beaten him and maybe someone else had broken his arm, but Johnny would settle with them later. His hands closed into fists and he almost didn’t care if Vaughn agreed or not. He felt himself standing and brushing the pants of his jumpsuit off and Vaughn chuckled darkly next to him. “Yeah,” he said. “Alright. But you fucking owe me now, Marshall,” he told him with a grin. Then he was standing up and trotting across the yard to a small pocket of skinheads. Johnny didn’t know what he said next, but whatever it was had one man swinging a fist at Vaughn and someone else started screaming racial slurs across the yard. A few of the guards started to move and Johnny figured that was his cue. Wyatt Earp was just heading away from the fence when Johnny caught up to him. He didn’t expect the blow that suddenly came at his head and there was a loud and satisfying crack as his knuckles smashed into his nose and it made a grin stretch across Johnny’s face. The guard stumbled back and a sneer crossed his face when he saw Johnny standing there with blood on his fists. “I wondered how long it would take you,” he spat, and then he was swinging the gun off his shoulder. “So go ahead and try it.” The guard was fast. Johnny had figured that out early on. But Johnny was faster, and more than that, he wanted this man to bleed. He wrenched the gun aside with one hand and then he was smashing his fist into his face again. He started to crumple and he slammed his knee up into his gut and then he was twisting the gun out of his hand and using it to batter the man’s face. He crashed into the ground and there was blood pooling in the grass but he was still trying to get up so Johnny brought his foot down on the small of his back and sent him back into the dirt. Somewhere behind him he heard shouting and warning shots being fired into the air. He crouched down next to the man and put the gun under his chin, bringing his eyes up to his. He was smiling and he felt warm and satisfied and he liked the blood covering the man’s face because it was all his and he should’ve bleed a river for the shit he’d pulled on Ayden. His face didn’t look half as bad as his brother’s and Johnny wanted to keep beating him until every bone in his body was broken and he was crying but no one would answer. His finger curled around the trigger and he saw the fear in the man’s eyes. A lazy smile made its way across his face and he almost pulled the trigger. He almost blew the guy’s brains out the back of his head but he hesitated only for a second, because there was something horribly, wretchedly familiar about a shotgun barrel resting under his chin and then he glanced down at his hands and he thought of his father. He didn’t want to, because this man was nothing like Ayden, but when he looked up again all he saw was a scared man in a uniform. “Leave me and my brother the fuck alone,” he said quietly, the anger still in his voice, but not the hate. “This is your last warning.” Then he snapped the gun open and took out the bullets. He tossed them on the ground next to the man’s head. Wenston When Ayden woke, it was slow and painful and hazy and he heard whispering off to his side but none of the voices belonged to his brother and that was weird because he didn’t remember anyone else being in their motel room. He opened his eyes and they both opened this time, though one only halfway and he was having trouble making that eye focus. He blinked until the room came into view and he lights stopped hurting his eyes and then he rolled his head to the side and he saw the nurse in her scrubs and a balding man in a suit and bifocals sitting in a chair next to his bed. He instantly didn’t like him because he never liked guys who wore suits. They were always up to no good. The two didn’t seem to notice him. They were quietly arguing about something and Ayden took the opportunity to look around the room. He felt like a fucking five year old when he realized he was disappointed that his brother wasn’t there. He was a grown man for pete’s sakes, he needed to stop being so fucking clingy with his brother and let Johnny get on with his own life without his gimp ass brother always dragging him down. The morbid and morose thoughts made Ayden groan out loud because he didn’t know why they kept coming. He heard the whispering die down and then the man cleared his throat and called out, “Mr. Marshall? Are you awake?” Ayden felt like telling the man to fuck off but instead he just rolled his head to the side so he could eye him again. The man smiled. “Ah, good. Mr. Marshall, my name is Doctor Roberts. I’m a psychologist here. Do you remember we were supposed to have our appointment tomorrow?” Ayden wondered if the man realized that he’d just fucking got out of surgery or if he’d actually drawn the PhD behind his name in crayon and called it a degree. Ayden decided to humor him. “Yes,” he said and he frowned because the right side of his face was numb. He started to lift his right hand to feel it, but remembered the cast, so he brought his left hand up. The nurse came forward and gently grabbed his wrist, guiding it back down to his side. She smiled sweetly at him and it was the first genuine smile he’d gotten in this place. “You’ve just gone through surgery. It’s going to feel numb for a while and we’re going to be keeping you on painkillers for a few days. But you should heal up. Won’t be able to go through metal detectors, though,” she patted his hand and then brushed some hair out of his face and he watched her because she was really pretty and really nice and what the hell was she doing working in a prison. “We had to insert pins to secure the bone.” Ayden licked his lips and when he talked he tried really hard to not drool on himself in front of the hot nurse. “Do I look terrible?” She nodded and there was amused sympathy on her face. “You look pretty awful,” she said and Ayden half smiled the best he could with half his face numb. “But you’ll heal and you’ll be back to normal.” The psychologist cleared his throat again. “Candice,” he said and he sounded annoyed. Both of them turned to look at him and he gestured for her to go back to her nurses station. Ayden didn’t like the gesture but the nurse patted his hand one more time and then walked over to her station and sat down. She pretended to do work, but Ayden saw her keep glancing up at them. She gave Ayden a wink and he quirked an eyebrow because he wasn’t sure what that wink meant. “Mr. Marshall,” Dr. Roberts said and Ayden turned his head to the side. “Ayden,” he managed to grit out. The man smiled. “Ayden,” he nodded and then put a hand to his chest. “Call me Robert.” Ayden frowned. “Your name’s Robert Roberts?” The man merely smiled but it was reserved and fake. “Parents’ had a sense of humor,” he quipped dryly and then scooted his chair closer to Ayden’s bed. “Ayden, do you know why the court appointed you mandatory psychological exams?” Ayden sighed. “Lawyer fucked us?” Robert Roberts didn’t seem amused. He pushed his glasses up further on his nose and pulled out a clipboard with a thick pile of papers on them. He crossed his legs and Ayden thought the man looked like a prick. Johnny would have punched him by now. “You were found guilty for multiple counts of murder,” the man said and Ayden shot a glance to Candice, the nurse. She met his eyes for a second and then looked away and Ayden really didn’t like this guy, but he couldn’t exactly disagree with him. They had killed people. Well, some people, mostly things. “It was still unclear to the court which one of you did the killing, as you and your brother both claimed to have a sole hand in the murders.” The man looked up at him. Without missing a beat, Ayden nodded. “Johnny didn’t kill anyone,” he said and it sounded like a broken record, even to him. “I did. I killed all of them.” “Uh huh,” Robert Roberts said and scribbled something onto his notepad. He didn’t look up when he continued. “I hear your brother was in here for a bit a while ago.” Ayden kept quiet because he didn’t want to get anyone in trouble. Robert Roberts looked over to Candice and he looked aggravated. “Did you know that inmates visiting other inmates in our medical wing is strictly prohibited?” “No,” Ayden said and it was the truth. He glanced at Candice again and she looked angry and was clearly not doing the work she was pretending to do. “Well, he won’t be coming to see you again while you’re here,” the man said and scribbled something else down. Ayden frowned. “I doubt you can stop him,” he said before he could bite his own tongue to keep the words at bay. The man lifted a brow and looked at Ayden. “What do you mean by that?” Ayden shrugged a little but it hurt his body even through the painkillers and he wondered why they were doing this right fucking now and not tomorrow when he was at least able to sit up on his own accord. Maybe the prison was working against him. Maybe this guy was buddy-buddy with the guards and he was here to break Ayden’s mind. He narrowed his eyes at the man as he said, “Because my brother does whatever the fuck he wants.” “I see,” Robert Roberts said and pushed on his glasses again. He folded the paper on his clipboard and started scribbling something else. Ayden frowned and really wanted to grab that fucking clipboard and see what the bastard was writing about him. He didn’t like psychologists. When he was younger, he’d been forced to go see one once while he was in grade school. It hadn’t turned out so well and had ended with Ayden being suspended for a week for calling a grown up a “fucking asshole cunt,” a term which he had so easily acquired from his older brother. “Perhaps a transfer is in order, then. We could easily move you up state. I wonder if Frank is awake this time of night,” the man was talking to himself but Ayden was barely listening because he was still stuck on the “transfer” part of the man’s words. He lifted his good hand and shushed the man angrily. “What do you mean transfer?” he demanded and his voice sounded stronger and more alert than it should have after surgery and a beating and the painkillers. Robert Roberts smiled and it was verging on being nice and warm but the words were like a shot to Ayden’s heart. “I’m going to recommend that you and your brother be separated. Separate prisons, separate sentences.” “Why?” Ayden shouted and his eyes were wide and wild and he looked at Candice and demanded, “Why?” of her too. She leaned back on her stool and sighed and looked sad and sympathetic and maybe on the verge of an apology, but the prick wouldn’t let one come out of her mouth. “Ayden, do you know what Stockholm Syndrome is?” Ayden looked back at the man and just stared because no, he didn’t know what it was. “I believe that’s what you’re suffering from. Depression and paranoia as well. But,” he leaned forward and he was talking to Ayden like he was talking to a buddy and Ayden didn’t fucking like it because he’d just told him that he was going to try and separate him from his brother. “I believe that you have been living against your will with your brother for so long that you’ve developed a strong emotional attachment to a person who does nothing but abuse, ridicule and force you to do things against your will. I’d like to try and break the tie you have with your brother, give you your life back. Your father died when you were eighteen, right?” Ayden could only stare. He had to take several deep breaths to keep himself from leaping off this fucking bed and snapping that fucking asshole’s neck. He couldn’t peel his eyes away from the man, even though he wanted to look at the nurse and tell her that’d she’d better fucking sedate him or someone was going to get their ass kicked and he’d already filled his quota for the month so it was someone else’s turn. Johnny wasn’t keeping him against his will. Whatever this prick had convinced himself of, it wasn’t fucking true. If anything, it was Ayden that was keeping Johnny against his will. It was Ayden that was forcing his brother to care about him because he couldn’t leave and he couldn’t escape and Ayden was so fucking sorry that he’d ruined his brother’s life and he kept just disappointing him and failing him and god damn it he just wanted to break this asshole psychologist’s jaw. “Well,” Robert Roberts said when Ayden didn’t respond. “I’ll go put in for the transfer and we can have you out of here by the end of the week.” Candice let out a noise and Ayden heard the stool shove back but he couldn’t peel his eyes from the man. “Dr. Roberts, I don’t think that’s such a good idea. I don’t think you’re reading these boys right.” “Thank you for your input, Candice, but I’m the one with the degree.” “But…” “That’s enough,” Robert Roberts said and when he said it, Ayden knew it was true. He growled and he swung his legs off the bed and he didn’t know where this rage and this anger and this adrenaline was coming from but he was leaping at the man and pulling his IV over and his legs were shaky but he crashed into the man anyway and then they both fell to the floor. The man let out a startled yell when Ayden hit him with his cast. Candice gasped and Ayden would have felt pain flare over him if he hadn’t been mostly hopped up on drugs. “I’m not going anywhere, you asshole!” Ayden shouted as he broke the psychologist’s nose in one hit with his cast. He hit the man a few more times before he felt a prick in his neck and then the world started tilting and swirling and he fell backwards and would have hit the floor but Candice was there to catch him. He looked up at her but she was fuzzy and her blonde hair was all he could see. “Sorry,” he muttered to her and his eyes slipped closed. She shushed him and pulled him away from the bleeding psychologist and he heard her whisper, “It’s alright. I won’t let him take you away,” before he was out like a light. .Wolfie. He was asleep when they came into his cell.They grabbed him roughly and dragged him from the bottom bunk. His hand went compulsively under the pillow for his revolver but it wasn’t there because he was in fucking prison. He wasn’t sure what was happening until they were slamming him into the cement, guns pointed at his cellmates to keep them in their places. “What the fuck is this?” he growled, and he felt someone jam the butt of their gun into his face. He felt the cuffs snap around his wrists and then they were dragging him back up. The nice security guard from the cafeteria was there. He had a bruise on his face. “Someone filed another report against you. That’s three strikes, Mr. Marshall,” he told him coldly. “That means solitary for a week.” Johnny growled a “fuck you” out before they were shoving him through the door and pushing him off down the hallway. He heard the door slam and lock behind him and then someone’s hand was closing around his arm and dragging him down the stairs towards whatever wing they kept the solitary cells in. He glanced over his shoulder at the cold faces of the guards following behind him and thought about using the voice, except it seemed like a stupid reason when Ayden was still confined to the infirmary anyway. The odds of someone hurting him under the nurse’s supervision were slim, so he let them drag him through the prison. The solitary cells were off another small corridor and behind a locked door. A row of small cells with three inch barred windows lined the hallway but it didn’t look like they had a lot of them, only six or so. As soon as they opened it he heard the sound of someone screaming and someone else was banging on their door. “Oh Jesus Christ,” the guy behind him grumbled. “Is he still going at it? He’s been screaming for three fucking days already.” The guy holding Johnny snorted. “Call the shrink then. He thinks someone keeps whispering to him.” “Yeah, ‘cause Roberts really knows what the fuck he’s talking about,” the guard spat, and then he was passing Johnny to open a door. “Well, enjoy your stay, Marshall,” he said, whistling a little as he pulled the door open. There was a grin on his face and it pulled another growl from Johnny’s throat. He knew it wasn’t this guy’s fault, but he was getting real fucking sick of being locked up, especially when his little brother was hurt. “You’ll probably be back here again.” “Go to Hell,” he snarled, and then they were unclipping his cuffs and shoving him through the door. It slammed behind him and he was left alone in his cell. The lights were still out for the night so the only brightness came in through the tiny three inch window. He could still hear the man across from him screaming and it didn’t sound like words, just garbled cries. He sighed and wished he had a cigarette as he glanced around the cell. It was the same as the one he shared, only smaller and darker and much louder. Johnny sat on the edge of the bed. It creaked under his weight and he sighed, glancing around the darkened room and wishing it had a T.V. or something because this was going to be boring as all fuck. He heard the guy from across the hall as his screaming turned into harsh cries and then he was sobbing something that sounded like words. “The whispers,” he called out. “Can you hear them?” and then he sobbed and screamed louder. Johnny heard a thump of something hitting the wall and he sighed, kicking back on his bed and closing his eyes. “Will you shut the fuck up?” he shouted. The thumping and the screaming continued anyway. Johnny groaned, covering his face with the pillow as he tried to sleep. † † † Johnny was dreaming and in his dream he was happy. He was back in the old apartment and Ayden was out on a date and he was happy his brother was seeing someone and he was happy because that left him alone with Annie. He lay on his back on the couch and his shirt had already been tossed to the floor. She was straddling his hips and there was a soft, beautiful smile on her face and love in her eyes. She leaned down to kiss him and her hair was brushing across the skin of his chest and his fingers were digging into her hips. “I missed you,” she said. She kissed him again and her tongue slid against his. He smiled at her and ran a hand through her hair, pushing it out of her face so that he could look at her because it had been too long since he’d seen her and smelled her and kissed her. “I missed you too,” he said softly. Then his face fell and his hand tightened on her hip. “Annie, I’m so fucking sorry about everything.” He pulled her closer to him so that he could kiss her again and her hands were running over his chest and his stomach. “It’s okay, Johnny. I told you I forgive you and I meant it,” she breathed the words into his neck as she trailed her lips across his skin. “I know baby,” he said. “I just… I’m sorry.” She smiled and then she kissed his mouth again and it left him breathless. “Johnny,” and he loved the sound of his name on her lips. “Just shut up.” Then she was kissing him again and his hands were running up under her shirt. She laughed as he peeled it off her skin and tossed it carelessly to the floor and she sat there for a moment looking down at him with her hair a tangled mess and her face warm and glowing back at him. “I love you,” he whispered, and the words came easily to his lips here. She smiled at him, hands splayed across his chest as his traveled across her skin and everything was perfect and right and how it was supposed to be if he hadn’t fucked it all up. His fingers curled around her hip and ground against her and a quiet sigh escaped her lips and then suddenly she wasn’t smiling and she just looked sad. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry it’s going to end this way. I’m sorry you can’t stop it.” Then her boot knife was in her hand and she was dragging it across her throat. A strangled cry escaped his lips and her blood was flowing down her skin and across his chest and he could taste it on his lips. “Annie,” he shouted, reaching for her as her head fell slack and she slumped towards him. “No, baby don’t do this,” he was screaming and his hands held her as she fell over. He couldn’t see through the tears and then he was whispering. “Heal,” he told her, except there was no power in it and she didn’t move. “Heal, baby come on, heal, live, just don’t die on me, please, please not you, please baby,” and he didn’t even know what words were spilling out of his mouth but nothing was happening. “Annie!” he screamed and he was holding her to him but she was limp and lifeless in his arms and her eyes had gone dead and cold. He was crying and rocking her back and forth but she didn’t move and didn’t breathe because she was gone. She had died right in front of him and he had opened his mouth to say the words but they didn’t mean shit and they didn’t change anything and how was he supposed to go on if she was dead? “I will end this world with a whisper,” someone said. His head came up and someone was sitting at the table behind the couch. They were in the shadows so he couldn’t see their face but he wouldn’t have been able to see them anyway through the tears and the blood in his eyes and he felt a strangled sob escape his throat as he pulled Annie’s body closer to him. “I’m sorry it had to be this way,” the man said. Then he stood and came into the light and Johnny didn’t recognize his face but he knew the voice. He had heard it on the phone once, in a Kentucky hospital. “You killed her,” he whispered. Vincent smiled and nodded and put his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “Yes.” Johnny laid her body down on the couch and then he was standing, pulling her knife from her hands. “You’re a dead man,” he told Vincent and then he was up and moving. Vincent held out a hand. “Wait,” he said, and Johnny did. The voice coiled inside him like smoke, a vicious snake’s whisper in his brain and he heard a snarl escape his throat. Vincent smiled at him and then walked past him to the door. When he pulled it open Johnny didn’t see the hallway of their apartment building. It led out onto a terrace on the top of a hill and Johnny followed him out onto the stones, covered in Annie’s blood and tears. “Look,” Vincent told him, and he gestured with both arms wide to the scene that lay before them. The first thing he saw was the cross. Ayden was on it. He had been crucified upon it and it looked like it had only just happened because the blood was still bright and crimson. His mouth had been sewn shut so he couldn’t cry and someone had gouged his eyes out so that all that was left were the empty bleeding sockets. He had been stripped to the waist and someone had carved an eye onto each bicep and a pentacle onto his stomach. The eyes glared out at Johnny and he felt himself falling to his knees. He was shaking, and his arms wrapped around his chest to try and hold himself together but there was blood under his fingers and it was Annie’s and there was blood in his eyes and it was Ayden’s. He felt a noise tear its way from his throat and it started as a sob and turned into a scream because they were both dead and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He leaned over and then he was throwing up onto the stone. He was crying and he was screaming and he started shouting at the earth for his brother to live but the words were just words and they dripped to the ground with the bile. “That’s disgusting,” Vincent said. Then he was grabbing his arm. “Come on, that’s not what I wanted to show you.” He dragged Johnny to his feet and pulled him past the cross and over the stone terrace. An asphalt road twisted and curved down the hill into a small town. The streetlights were all dark and dead and the houses looked empty and abandoned. A few people stumbled down the road in small clumps, no expression on their faces. “The world will end when God shuts his eyes,” he told Johnny, and then he grinned at him. “See?” Then he turned to the town and whispered “Die.” They did. All of them did. Even Johnny. † † † Johnny shot out of bed with a strangled cry and he was shaking and sweating, his fists curling in the sheets. His heart thundered away in his chest and he could still taste blood on his tongue and it was a long time before he realized it was because he’d bitten his lip sometime in the night and split it back open again. His breathing was harsh and ragged and every time he closed his eyes he saw flashes of Annie and Ayden and they were bleeding and cut open and dead and he heard a whimper escape his throat and suddenly he wanted out of the cell so he could make sure his brother was still alive. He tipped his head forward and buried it in his hands he could still hear the whisper echoing off the walls and back at him and all it said over and over again was “Die.” He heard himself whimper again and he curled his arms around his head and tried not to think of his brother sightless and dead and dying and he wanted to call Ashley and ask where Annie was but he couldn’t because he’d been put in fucking solitary. It was a long time until he realized he was hearing quiet whispers from the hallway. He pulled himself off the bed and he was shaking as he stumbled to the door, pressing his face against it and looking out into the corridor. It was still dark out and three guards had the door across the way open. He watched as they pulled a body from the room and he guessed it was the man who had been screaming. His face was bloodied and cracked and it looked like he had slammed his head into the wall until he died. The guards whispered to each other, but Johnny wasn’t hearing them. He was hearing Vincent. Wenston When the numbing effect from the surgery had worn off, Ayden had been in a world of hurt. He’d had broken bones before, but there was nothing like breaking your cheekbone. And having metal inserted into his bone to hold his face in place was not something he enjoyed or would recommend to anyone. It made his teeth hurt and he had a headache in his temple that just would not go away no matter how much painkillers Nurse Candice, who he was now affectionately calling Eye Candy because she giggled when he called her that, gave him. It had been almost a week and he was getting ready to return to his cell. He wasn’t looking forward to it. But he wanted to see Johnny. Candice had told him Johnny had been taken to solitary and he was getting out the same day Ayden was allowed to get out of bed. Ayden had been worried at first and had begged her to do something because she seemed to get things done around here. She’d convinced Robert Roberts to not file anything against Ayden and to keep him from getting transferred, which he would forever be in her debt. He didn’t know how she did it, but she did, and he wouldn’t question small miracles like that. She’d also convinced Ayden that his brother was probably safer in solitary than any other place in the prison. The more Ayden thought about it, the more he convinced himself she was right. No one to fight when you’re by yourself. And maybe Johnny needed some time to think. Besides, if he wanted out of there so bad, he would have just made the guards let him out. So Ayden was sitting on the edge of his bed and his feet were bare and the floor was cold beneath his toes. He had his pants on but he still hadn’t pulled his shirt on because the cast on his arm was in the way and bulky and broken arms always took a little bit to get used to. Especially since it was his right arm, which was his writing, shooting, and…other activities arm. The shooting he could do with his left arm. The writing, well, he didn’t write a whole lot anyway. And the other activities, he almost chuckled when he thought that it would be easy to find some help in this place. The chuckle morphed into a shiver and the absolute non-hilariousness of that thought. He started to pull his shirt on over his head, but a soft touch caught him with his arms above his head, trapped inside his shirt because the cast had snagged the edge. He turned to spot Candice behind him and she smiled but it didn’t quite meet her eyes and he wondered what was wrong. For the week that he’d been in the infirmary with her, she was always smiling and happy and she joked with him like he was a person and not an inmate. The one time she didn’t joke was when they had brought up a body from solitary and Ayden had instantly thought it was his brother, but she’d calmed him and had shown him that it wasn’t and for some reason that made him trust her. To know she cared enough to show him his brother wasn’t dead. Candice was just out of med-school and she had tried to intern as an RN at the county hospital while she worked to get her PhD, but the only place that would accept her was the prison. And instead of wasting her degree, because she couldn’t move away from her mother who was terminally ill, she chose the prison. Ayden liked that about her. That loyalty and the fact she still loved her job despite where she worked and the people she dealt with. She deserved better. And now her hand was on his arm and he was stuck in his shirt and she looked sad because she was looking at the scars that were littering his back and stomach. He knew she’d seen them all before, because she’d had to check him out for broken ribs and they thought spleen had been ruptured in the attack but it hadn’t. Her hand gently guided his arms back down so they were folded in his shirt and in his lap. He felt her other hand come up and touch the scars on his shoulder where his Dad’s shotgun had ripped a hole through his body. Her fingers were soft and warm and she was being expertly gentle. “Where did you get all these?” she asked and her voice was quiet. Ayden had to look away from her because he started to rattle off in his head where they all had come from. A good portion were from his father. Some were from ghouls, werewolves, vampires, a poltergeist they’d fought in Chicago, a couple demons they’d taken out in Indiana, and he had a scar on his lower back, just above his hip from where a demon had tried to suck out his bone marrow when he was sixteen. Johnny had shot that fucker in the head and he smiled at the memory because Johnny was really, really good at what they did. He bet Johnny didn’t have half as many scars as Ayden did. Or maybe he did but he was just better at hiding them. “Comes with the job,” Ayden said and then she was helping him pull the shirt on over his head and he gasped slightly as his cast caught and she forced him to hold still and she was wrapping her arms around him to mold him in the way she wanted him to put on his shirt. He watched her with an amused smile on his face and then had to look away because he felt guilty. He felt guilty that he was flirting while his brother was rotting away in a cell all by himself. “Some of these scars look like animal attacks,” she said as she finished pulling on his shirt and then leaned back and straightened it out on him until it was sitting just right. He couldn’t help but smile at her and when she realized he wasn’t answering, she looked in his eyes and then blushed, looking away and pointed to his foot. “Like the one on your leg.” “That’s from an alligator,” Ayden said and watched her eyes shoot up. He gave a half smile. “We were in Louisiana.” She laughed and it was sweet an innocent and Ayden liked it. “What were you doing in Louisiana?” she asked, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. Ayden almost blurted out the truth. He almost blurted that they’d been hunting a witch who was mutilating bodies and summoning demons. And maybe he would have told her if he didn’t think she’d call Robert Roberts back in here with a straight jacket and a few burly men to carry him away. So instead he just looked down at his feet and shrugged. “Work.” Candice was quiet for a while and then she surprised him by hopping up onto the bed next to him and swinging her feet because they didn’t quite meet the floor. He turned to look at her. “I don’t think you’re a killer,” she said and she sounded so sure of herself that Ayden almost believed her. But then he remember the bartender in Nevada and he had to look away. She surprised him again when she reached a hand out to set it down on his knee. He was a little nervous at the contact, and he could tell she was too because this was very, very against the rules and if he had been a killer or a rapist or just a bad person, she would have been in trouble with more than just her bosses. “I don’t believe that you killed anyone. Or if you did…I don’t know, maybe they…maybe the deserved it.” Ayden closed his eyes and he knew he had to put a stop to this before he got her hurt. They didn’t have a very good track record for taking care of the people they cared about. He lifted his good hand and gently took her wrist, pushing her hand away from his knee. “No one should play God except God himself,” Ayden said and the words sounded bitter and ridiculing on his tongue and he thought about telling Candice about Dyani and how she died and how his brother had refused to bring her back but he bit his tongue and kept those secrets locked away because a part of him really liked this nurse and he didn’t want her to think he was a fucking lunatic. “I should get going, it’s almost chow time and Johnny’s gonna…” He didn’t get a chance to finish as Candice suddenly reached up and grabbed the back of his head, holding him still as she brought her lips to his and he was sitting there wide eyed as she kissed him. Ayden pulled his head back any how and pushed on her shoulder gently. “I don’t…” he started. “I’m sorry,” Candice blurted and then she stood up and shook her head, turning her back on him and clenching her fists, looking like she wanted to run out of the room but not quite gathering herself to. “I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry. I don’t, I don’t normally do that.” Ayden was speechless. He was watching her with wide eyes because he hadn’t been expecting that. He felt himself blush and again he felt guilty because Johnny had just spent a week in the hole and here he was flirting and kissing and he felt in way over his head again. “Uh, it’s…it’s okay,” he stuttered and scratched his chin a little, making an awkward face which hurt his cheek. He brought his fingers up to feel his face and he looked at her again and she was still just standing there with her fists clenched. “I…should go,” he said and climbed to his feet. He was a little unsteady and his ribs were aching and his face pounded and his arm made him feel lopsided, but he slipped on his shoes and started heading to the door of the infirmary where a guard would meet him and take him back to his cell. Candice looked over her shoulder and her face was blushing and the nurse in her took over when she saw him wavering on his feet. She came over and placed a hand on his arm and took his pulse real quick and then nodded. “Okay, you’re free to go,” she said and she turned to head back to her nurse’s station. Ayden reached out and grabbed her hand a she glanced up at him and when their eyes met Ayden sighed and leaned in and kissed her because he could and then he pulled away and was walking towards the exit and he didn’t look back because he didn’t want to drag her into their lives. He opened the door and the guard was waiting and it was the guard who’d held him while the boxer had snapped his arm. He sighed and hoped he wouldn’t be brought right back to the infirmary. As the guard clamped a handcuff on Ayden’s wrist and the other side of it on his because it wouldn’t fit over the cast, Ayden realized he couldn’t remember the last time him and Johnny had been apart this long. And when he realized that, he also realized he really wanted to talk to his brother. .Wolfie. “This is the world I will build when the voice of God falls silent,” he said.Johnny followed him through the broken ruins, stepping over puddles of red and in his ears he could hear whispering but when he turned around there was no one there. Everything was dead or dying, and Vincent led him through it like the messiah of a new age, and the people that still lived fell to their knees before him. He led Johnny through the flies and the stink and the mud and Johnny didn’t say anything to any of it. He watched with bleary eyes as the world he knew crumbled and burned around him and in the faces of the dead he could see the faces of people he’d known. He saw the face of his father, half blown away by a shotgun blast and next to him he saw the twisted and charred body of his mother, a cigarette still hanging from her lips. They stepped over their bodies and Johnny didn’t say a word. They passed by an old woman pushing a shopping cart and Johnny couldn’t see her face until a ghoul climbed from the shadows and began devouring her, piece by piece. It was Annie’s mom. Vincent looked back at him and he smiled. “This is the world I will build with a whisper,” he said. He led him past an old broken fountain and there was blood pouring out of the spouts and a four year old boy was stomping in it, looking for coins. He looked up as Johnny passed and he smiled and his eyes were black as sin. “Hello papa,” he whispered, and Johnny looked away. At the edge of the square, someone had made a statue out of flesh. The mangled corpses of Ashley and Diyani were bound and entwined above the streets like broken puppets. Vincent led him under their bodies. “This is the world I will build when God closes his eyes.” Johnny knew what happened next. This part always came next. He was led up the winding stone street to the top of a small hill. A church stood dark and terrible at its peak and two men in robes were holding his brother between them. Vincent smiled kindly at them and he stepped closer to Ayden, pulling a blade from a sheath at his side. His brother’s eyes flicked past him to Johnny and his mouth opened. “Please,” Ayden whispered. “Help.” Johnny didn’t say a word. He watched Vincent as he dug the knife into his brother’s face and he could hear his screams echoing in his mind as he dug at the skin, tearing his eyes out one at a time. Johnny heard laughter and when he looked behind Ayden he could see Marko sitting on the steps and there was a witch crouched over him, petting at his hair. Then Ayden screamed again and Johnny looked to his brother where only dark gaping holes remained. Vincent tossed his eyes over to Marko and the witch and then he nodded to the two men in robes. They dragged his brother back to the church and then they began to nail him to the door. Ayden began to scream as they sunk into his skin, but Johnny never said a word. He would have. He would have said any of the words it took to keep his brother safe. He would have told Vincent to die and go to Hell, he would have told the men in robes to let him go and he would have told Ayden to heal and run and never look back. He wanted to open his mouth and say all of those things, but it wouldn’t have mattered even if he’d tried. Vincent had cut his tongue out. † † † Johnny woke as he had every night for the past week. He was sweating and shaking and scared and he bolted up in the bed except this time he hit his head off the bunk above his and he sunk back down into the bed with a groan. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, because anymore when he fell asleep he had dreams and the dreams were always terrible and brutal, even if they didn’t start out that way. A man he’d never met whose face he couldn’t remember kept entering his dreams and his thoughts and he swore he could hear whispers around every corner. He closed his eyes and he saw broken and mutilated faces. So he tried not to sleep. He felt hazy and dazed and he knew it was bad because he was out of solitary now and he needed to be awake and alert because he’d pissed some people off. He was good at that, and he wondered if Wyatt fucking Earp would be looking for revenge and he put a hand to his head because it hurt and he was so very fucking tired and his eyes were sliding shut again and he didn’t want to be asleep. Ayden was supposed to get out of the infirmary today. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been separated from his brother for so long. When they were kids, Johnny had stuck close because people liked to pick on Ayden and Johnny liked to beat people up. It had been a solid, dependable system and it had only intensified over the years, only the things that picked on his brother now were bigger and meaner, so he had to use guns instead of his fists half the time, but that was alright. His bed creaked and he jerked up again because he’d been falling asleep. He relaxed in slow degrees when he saw it was Vaughn, and the man grinned at him, but didn’t offer him a cigarette this time. Johnny couldn’t complain because he’d had enough freebies but the way his body ached and how rattled his mind was, he would have killed for one. “How was solitary?” he asked, flashing him a grin. He had a smile that always looked like he was sharing a joke with his best friend, but Johnny couldn’t return it. “Shitty,” he snapped. “Boring.” Full of nightmares and screaming and whispers he couldn’t get out of his head. Vaughn nodded slowly to himself, looking out at the room and fixating on the empty bunk across from him. “They took Shady there yesterday,” he told Johnny, nodding up at the top bunk. He hadn’t noticed it was empty until Vaughn said it and he rubbed a hand across his eyes because he wasn’t paying enough attention to anything and he thought maybe he was losing it. He heard quiet laughter coming from somewhere and he didn’t think it was real. He was having a hard time telling the difference. “The little blonde kid?” he asked, because he’d never known his name. Vaughn nodded again. “Kid kept getting assaulted in the showers. They figured it would cool everyone off if they separated him from the group for a week. Might want to keep an eye on your brother.” Johnny almost snapped at him that he always fucking watched out for Ayden but he bit the words off because if they were true, his brother wouldn’t have been in the infirmary for a fucking week. If they were true, they wouldn’t be in prison and he wouldn’t have to worry about watching his ass all the time and he would be living happily somewhere with his girlfriend and a dog and a white picket fence. “I will,” he said instead. Vaughn smirked at him. “Well good, because Klein’s still in a coma and your buddy Otto didn’t forget that little stunt I helped you pull in the yard. You still owe me for that, by the way.” Johnny snorted and rolled his legs off the bed. “I’m not sucking your dick.” Vaughn tipped his head back and laughed. “Well good, because you’re not my type. Too much stubble, I’ll get scruff burn.” Johnny laughed but it felt forced and strained. A bell started going off somewhere outside his cell, and that meant it was lunch time and he felt a little thrill of excitement and mingled fear because that meant he was going to get to see his little brother for the first time in a week. He was scared of what kind of condition he would be in and then he remembered his dream and he felt a cold chill run down his spine. Ayden wouldn’t be dead. He knew that logically. He still saw his brother’s mangled corpse every time he closed his eyes. “Lunch time, kids,” Vaughn said, slapping him on the back. The door slid open and two guards waited to take the three of them to the cafeteria. He let them cuff him and he was nervous and anxious and he wondered what he would say or if his brother had cleared his head enough to be pissed at Johnny for getting him into trouble in the first place. If he’d just kept his fucking mouth shut they would have left Ayden alone and maybe they would be out of this god damn hole and Johnny could be back to shooting things and feeling sorry for himself on his own time. Ayden was already in the cafeteria when he got there. He had his head down and buried in his food but the table around him was blessedly empty and no one was giving him a hard time or beating him up. Then his head rose a little bit and he glanced over his shoulder and Johnny hadn’t realized until right then just how scared he’d been. His brother wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead and he had both his eyes and yeah, his face was a little bruised but he wasn’t just a mangled mess of cuts and blood and he wasn’t nailed to a door and his eyes weren’t pouring blood and Johnny almost felt like crying with relief. He crossed the cafeteria to his brother and Ayden smiled weakly up at him, struggling to his feet as he studied his brother. His arm was in a cast and his face was swollen and battered, but he looked better than the last time Johnny had seen him. He was relaxed and awake and his voice held steady when he said “Hey Johnny. You look like shit.” Johnny felt himself smile at the words and it was better than crying like a little pussy bitch. Then one arm came out and he was dragging his brother into a hug. Wenston Ayden was seven and he was standing tentatively in front of his Mom because she was half passed out on the couch and he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to wake her up or not. She’d probably call him stupid. She’d probably get mad and tell him to fuck off and leave her the hell alone because she’d always wanted daughters instead of sons but apparently God hated her enough to damn her with two lousy boys and have the last one tear her up so much that she’d never have children again. So she drank to cover her disappointment in her children and her husband and herself. And Ayden was afraid to wake her up. “Mom?” he asked and his voice was small and nervous. His hair was scruffy because it had been a while since she’d taken him to get it cut but he kind of liked it that way even if Johnny thought he looked like a girl. He had a decorated piece of red construction paper in his hands that had macaroni and glitter glued onto it and most of the glitter had gotten onto his hands and face too while he was at school. They’d had a glitter fight, actually, and all the kids in the classroom had been just as glittery and ridiculous looking as he was. His Mom moaned and rolled her head to the side and he caught a whiff of whiskey and smoke roll off of her. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Mom?” This time she groaned and peeled her eyes open. She turned to look at him and for a second her face remained passive. He saw his Mom in there behind the alcohol and the depression and the wallowing self pity. He saw a woman who was gentle and kind and without the disappointment of her sons. But then she frowned and she was angry and she moved her foot towards him to try and guide him away from her because she just wanted to sleep. “God, go ask your Dad for food,” she grumbled drunkenly and Ayden stumbled a little as her foot pushed at him. But he stood his ground and shook his head. “No, I don’t want food,” he said and she let out another groan. He continued before she could get mad. “I made you something at school.” He held it out for her to see and it was a Valentine’s that said “Mom” in little kid writing and outlined in macaroni. There were stickers and he’d drawn Cookie Monster on it and a Power Ranger and the Thundercats symbol because those were his favorite things. “It’s a Valentine’s because Mrs. Greene said to make them for-” She cut him off by grabbing the Valentine out of his hand and tossing it onto the end table next to her. Then she was pushing him away again with her foot but it was weak and pathetic and Ayden let her because his eyes were still on the Valentine that she’d discarded like it was nothing. He looked back at her and his face fell because she was curling back up and going to sleep on the couch and she hadn’t even looked at the thing he’d made her. Looking down at his feet, he turned and shuffled out of the room and tried not to cry because he hadn’t wanted to make her one anyway but the teacher had made him. He sniffled when he got to his bedroom and when he opened the door, Johnny was sitting on his bed reading a comic book. He looked up as Ayden entered and then went back to reading. Ayden felt like crying but he didn’t want to do so in front of his brother. “Why do you look like a fairy?” Johnny asked from behind his comic book. Ayden frowned. “What?” he didn’t understand. “The glitter, dude,” Johnny pointed to him. “You look like a fairy princess.” “No I don’t,” Ayden protested and felt like crying all over again and Johnny must have heard it in his voice because he lowered the comic book to look at him. Ayden puffed his chest and jutted his chin because he was starting to get an attitude because he was seven years old and knew everything there was to know about the world. “We were making Valentines at school,” he said. “Sounds gay,” Johnny had said because that was his favorite new insult. “You’re gay,” Ayden shot back and then he was crying and he didn’t know why and he scurried up the ladder to his top bunk and shoved his face into his pillow and he didn’t want to be a fairy princess. Ayden felt the bed move and then Johnny was half way up the ladder and leaning against Ayden’s bunk but not saying anything because maybe he was just as confused as Ayden was as to why he was upset. “Well,” Johnny started and he seemed to be struggling with what to say. “Who’d you make a Valentine for? Your girlfriend?” “I don’t have a girlfriend!” Ayden shot back and when he turned to look at his brother some tears slipped out of his eyes and he felt stupid for it so he wiped them away on his sleeve. Johnny looked even more confused and so Ayden said, “I made one for Mom.” “Oh,” his brother said and nodded. “Well, did she like it?” “She didn’t even look at it.” Ayden stuck his pillow in his face and muttered, “She hates me.” The boys were quiet for a moment because both of them kind of knew there was truth to that statement and they didn’t know what else to say about it or what would fix the situation because their Mom hadn’t always hated her sons. Ayden was just too young to remember a time when she didn’t try to pawn him off or refuse to take care of him. And their Dad was a whole other story. Johnny was the only parent Ayden had ever truly had. He sniffled a little and kept his face in his pillow when he said, “I made one for you too.” “You did?” Johnny asked. Ayden nodded but still didn’t look out at his brother. “Where is it?” “In my backpack,” he said and finally turned his head to the side to look at him. He watched Johnny climb down the ladder and go to Ayden’s backpack. He unzipped it and pulled out the orange construction paper that had doilies and glitter and stickers glued all over. There was a stick figure in the middle with Johnny’s name above it and there was a lizard to one side and a butterfly to the other. “You’re fighting Godzilla and Mothra,” Ayden explained. Johnny snorted. “I would totally kick their asses.” He looked up and he looked happy so Ayden smiled. Johnny walked back over and hopped up the ladder to sit on Ayden’s bed, looking at the Valentine in his hands. “I like it,” he said. “You do?” Ayden asked and curled so he could see his brother better. “Hell yeah,” Johnny proclaimed. “And I don’t even think it’s gay.” Ayden giggled and then kicked out playfully at his brother. Johnny laughed and punched him in the leg. He never made another Valentine for his Mom again. † † † Ayden was a little taken aback when Johnny pulled him in for a hug. He couldn’t remember the last time his brother had so openly displayed affection without one of them being on the verge of dying. And maybe Ayden was sore and a little beat up, but he was far from his death bed so the hug surprised and worried him. But he felt relief sweep through him and he didn’t know how tense he’d been because he felt a tension in shoulders give way and Johnny gave him a squeeze before pulling back and looking at him. Johnny’s hand didn’t leave Ayden’s shoulder. “Well,” Ayden said because he didn’t know what the hug was about or why his brother looked like he hadn’t slept in months. He wondered if solitary was really that scary. “That just broke all the rules we had about personal space.” “Fuck you,” Johnny said but he smiled and seemed to relax and Ayden watched him as he sat down at the table, finally taking his hand off of Ayden and when he did so he looked like he was on the verge of collapse. Ayden slid into the bench next to him and looked at him. “I’ve been trying to avoid that, thank you very much,” Ayden said, studying Johnny’s face. “But I think your open display of public affection is going to give people the wrong impression about us.” Johnny half laughed but it was tired and riddled with exhaustion. He scrubbed his hands over his face and then turned to eye Ayden again. Ayden watched him as he studied the bruises on his face and then moved to the cast on his arm and he tried to sit up a little straighter but it still hurt his ribs when he straightened them and his stomach and chest were still painted blue and purple with bruises. “How’s your face feel?” Johnny asked and Ayden was surprised when he actually reached out and took Ayden’s chin, moving his head to the side. Ayden let him, because he could tell something was bothering his brother and it was more than just the bruises and the cast and the fact that he’d just gotten out of solitary. Something was wrong. Johnny was staring at him and he realized he wasn’t answering his question. “Fine,” he said and then frowned and quickly added, “Are you okay?” Johnny’s eyes widened a little at the question and he let go of Ayden’s face and nodded, folding his hands in front of him. He looked down at them and then reached out and stole Ayden’s roll off his plate. He tore a chunk off and chewed on it a bit. “Yeah,” he said but it didn’t sound convincing. He shook his head. “Yeah, I’m fine. I…” he trailed off and shook his head again. Ayden could only watch him because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Johnny so shaken up. Johnny seemed to mentally steel himself and he turned and smiled at Ayden and it was a little bit forced, but there was also genuine happiness there. Maybe because they were allowed to see each other again. “I’m fine,” he said again. “Sure you are,” Ayden said because he wasn’t sure what else to tell his brother who was clearly upset. He didn’t like it when Johnny was upset. Angry, broody, pissed off – he could handle. But sad and scared? He wasn’t sure what to do. “I’m sorry,” Johnny said and it was so sudden and abrupt that Ayden could only blink at him. “We’re in here because of me and you got hurt because of me and I’m…I’m just so sorry. I’m going to get us the fuck out of here, Ayden, I promise.” Ayden frowned. He felt a little shaky and his brother was scaring him, badly. He wondered what happened in solitary and he thought about asking but he knew that Johnny didn’t like talking about things like that. “I know,” he said softly. Johnny scrubbed his face again and Ayden almost asked him what was wrong but a guard was approaching and Ayden felt a small spike of fear race through him. Johnny looked at him and saw his apprehensive look and then his head was turning to eye the guard and Ayden didn’t miss the way he moved so he was purposely sitting between the guard and him. This guard wasn’t one that had hurt him, but just the club that was at his side was enough for Ayden to not want to be around anyone who carried one of those. “You boys have a visitor,” the guard announced. .Wolfie. Ashley wouldn’t stop laughing.Even after they sat down at the table across from him and Johnny gave him his best I-will-fuck-you-up glare he just kept on laughing, tears streaming from his eyes and his hands pressed on his stomach to try and calm himself down. Then his eyes would crack open and he would see the orange jumpsuits and start the cycle all over again. “The motherfucking Godsent,” he breathed out and then he started laughing again, slapping at his knee to try and stop. “I fucking hate you,” Johnny grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he slumped down in the chair. Ayden shook his head. “It’s not that funny.” Ashley covered his face with his hand as it turned red and tried to hold in the tears and the laughter but it didn’t seem like it was working. “Oh yes it is,” he choked out. “It really fucking is.” He buried his head in his arms as laughter shook his frame and Johnny didn’t think it was that fucking funny. Ashley took a couple of deep breaths, letting them out slowly. A few chuckles slipped out and he shook his head, running a hand through his hair as he tried to calm himself down. “Alright, sorry, just… the fucking Godsent, in prison.” He snorted and stared up at the fluorescent lights to keep from laughing again. “You come here for a reason, or just to laugh at us?” Johnny snapped, leaning back on the chairs back legs. He was tired and his head hurt and he was hearing something like whispers in the back of his mind but he was trying to ignore them because they meant he was crazy or paranoid or both and he rubbed a hand across his face and glanced at his brother. He was shaking his head at Ashley and then wincing because there were fucking pins in his brother’s face. Ashley held up a hand. “Would you forgive me if I said I brought presents?” Johnny’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe. What kind of presents?” Ashley grinned in return and then pulled up a paper bag he’d had on the floor and dropped it on the table. He dug out a pack of cigarettes and tossed them at Johnny who caught them easily in his hand. He felt a grateful smile pull across his lips and he was almost willing to forgive the laughter. He broke the seal on the package and slid one behind his ear and tucked another between his lips. Then Ashley was turning to grin at Ayden. “I couldn’t get a dead hooker or a six pack in here, but maybe this will do,” he said. Then he pulled out a necklace with a pewter dream catcher hanging from it. Ayden’s breath escaped in a hiss and he glanced around as he took it to make sure no one else was watching. “How did you get this?” he asked quietly, hanging it around his neck and tucking it underneath the jumpsuit. Johnny couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad to have it back or maybe a mix of both but he looked away from his brother and rolled the cigarette between his lips and tried not to feel guilty. It didn’t work. Ashley shrugged, but the laughter had faded and left a sad smirk on his face. Johnny watched his expression change and he thought about that picture on Diyani’s nightstand and maybe she wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been able to let it go, even with all the hurt and the tears. “I have my ways,” Ashley said with a wink. Johnny watched the mask fall down over his face and he was jealous of how easily Ashley could slide it into place. Then he leaned forward bracing his hands on the table. “So,” he said. “What the fuck is going on? I mean, you both look like shit, and let’s be honest, why are you still here?” “I had a vision,” Ayden told him. “We can’t leave yet.” “Oh?” Ashley raised an eyebrow at him. “What kind of vision?” Ayden shrugged and his face darkened like the first time he mentioned it. He was chewing on a hang nail and staring the table. He had that same faraway and sad expression on his face that he’d worn when Johnny had asked about it. He thought about his dreams and shivered because if they were anything like that than he wasn’t surprised his brother didn’t want to share, except Ayden had to go through them all the time and Johnny turned away because he didn’t have any right to be freaked out about a dream when Ayden went through shit like that every damned day. “I don’t know,” he said. “The bad kind?” Ashley rolled his eyes. “Yeah, that’s probably why it’s a vision and not a wet dream. So what are you fighting?” Johnny shifted in his chair and he was a little embarrassed at the answer because they’d been stuck in this fucking hellhole for a week and he still wasn’t sure who or what they were after. All he’d done so far was get himself thrown in the hole, get Ayden broken in half, and piss off a lot of people that wanted to fuck him up. He’d gotten so easily distracted and he rolled the cigarette between his lips and thought about lighting it. “Well, we haven’t actually figured that out yet,” he told Ashley quietly. Ashley stared at him. His mouth opened and then shut and then he shook his head and braced it in his hands. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he said. He took a heavy breath and he chuckled weakly. “The fucking Godsent,” he muttered to himself and then he pushed his head off the table and focused back on Johnny’s face. He was still staring at the table and trying to figure out how he had gotten so far off track because killing the Wicked was what he did and instead he had been fighting with security guards and getting his brother beat. “Well, what was the vision about?” Ashley asked. “An inmate stabbing the prison nurse,” Ayden told him. His fingers were at his shirt, playing with the necklace. Ashley grinned and leaned forward, momentarily distracted. “You get a nurse? Is she cute?” Ayden blushed and Johnny would remember that for later. “I don’t know,” he told Ashley, still chewing on his nail and not looking either of them in the eyes. “She’s eye candy,” he told him and there was a quiet smirk there that made Johnny curious and he almost asked his brother what it meant. Ashley laughed. “Well, aren’t you a lucky bastard? Alright, so this vision, your eye candy gets stabbed? What else?” The blush faded from Ayden’s face and he tipped back in his chair, turning to stare at the wall. Johnny studied his brother’s face because it had darkened and shut off again and he didn’t like how Ayden pulled away because that meant the vision was really, really bad. He thought about the strangled cry his brother had let loose when it had first hit him and he wondered if any more had struck while he was in solitary. “I don’t know, it was weird,” Ayden said, and it was the same answer Johnny had gotten the first time. Ashley through his hands up in the air and shook his head. “Jesus fucking Christ, you two are killing me. So who the fuck cares if some convict stabs a nurse, it’s why he’s a convict. What made it a vision? There’s gotta be a fucking reason you two are still rotting in the can.” “I don’t know,” Ayden said again. Ashley dragged his hand across his face. He looked irritated and tired now and he leaned forward, arms braced on the table. “This is fucking ridiculous. I can’t believe you two are still alive.” He shook his head and held his hands up again. “Seriously, how can you function if you don’t fucking talk to each other? I mean Christ Ayden, how can Johnny fix it if you don’t fucking tell him your vision, and Johnny, don’t even get me started on you right now.” “Sorry dad,” Johnny spat out. “Fuck you,” Ashley said, and then sighed, rubbing his face again. “Alright. So your vision. Tell me about the fucking vision.” Ayden hesitated and he was chewing on his lip and when the words came out they were a low jumble. “Well, I don’t know. I mean, it was about this convict and he was stabbing the nurse to death, but there was fire too, and the bars turned into snakes and I don’t know what the fuck was happening but it hurt to watch.” Ayden had paled a little bit and Johnny put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed comfortingly. He didn’t even get mad that Ayden had left it out because he didn’t know what it meant anyway, and his brother was shaking with the memory of it. He was just glad Ayden was alive. Ashley was frowning, and Johnny didn’t like the look on his face. “I see,” he said and he was suddenly very calm. His voice sounded distant and thoughtful and Johnny frowned because he sounded almost scared too. He tried to think of a time that he had heard Ashley fucking Baker really sound scared and he didn’t think that had ever happened in all the time he’d known the man. Even when he had a fucking bear trap around his leg. “Was there anything else? Anything at all?” he asked quietly. Ayden hesitated and chewed at his lip. “Well… there was a voice. He said ‘I will end this world with a whisper.’” Johnny didn’t see the way Ashley turned to ice, but he felt his own stomach drop as his brother said the words, because he had heard them before. He had heard them over and over again in his nightmares and he felt his fingers curl around the table but he couldn’t breathe because when he blinked he saw Ayden’s eyes and they were nothing but gaping and bloody sockets and then he blinked again and it was gone but the afterimage was still burned in his mind. “Well that’s not good,” Ashley said after a minute. “That’s not good at all.” Wenston Ayden was finding comfort in the necklace around his neck. His hands were shaking and he felt cold and he’d not had a vision that had scared him as much as this one had. To be honest, he hadn’t thought about the vision the entire time he’d been in the infirmary. He’d been too drugged up to remember his dreams and that was a first and he didn’t want to admit that he thought about asking for a permanent prescription to whatever drugs Candice had had him on. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d been there. Sometimes she’d stay the night and Ayden wondered now if she only did that because of him. He hoped he hadn’t led her on too bad.“What’s not good about it?” Johnny asked and Ayden glanced at him because his brother’s voice was shaking. Johnny cleared his throat and Ayden wondered again what had happened in solitary. He didn’t look beat up or more bruised than normal, so he didn’t think the guards or another inmate had messed with him. Not that Johnny would have told him that if they had. Ashley was right, they didn’t tell each other anything unless it was absolutely essential, and sometimes even then they left parts out. “I need to think a minute,” Ashley shook his head and leaned back in his chair. He glanced between the two of them. “And this is the only vision you had?” “Yeah,” Ayden said quietly. Johnny was quiet a moment and then he licked his lips and frowned and Ayden knew he was struggling to force himself to say something. “Uh, there was a guy, in solitary. He kept talking about he heard people whispering. Said the same thing Ayden heard in his vision. He bashed his own head in on the wall.” Ayden studied Johnny for a second. His brother looked pale and was swallowing thickly and he knew him well enough by now to know he was lying. If Ashley Baker hadn’t been sitting across the table form them, he may have pushed him on the subject. He doubted that his brother would get upset that some schmuck killed themselves in front of him, but something was bothering him. Something was making him antsy and nervous and scared. “Well, shit,” Ashley said and looked resigned. “I know what this is.” “What do you know?” Johnny asked. Ashley was scratching at his chin and he looked between the two of them. “You boys need to be careful with this one,” he said and all the mirth was out of his voice and he was more serious that Ayden remembered him ever being. “We are being careful,” Johnny said. Ashley snorted. “Yeah, I can see that,” he said and looked pointedly at Ayden’s arm and his face. Ayden frowned because this wasn’t due to a lack of being careful. He heard Johnny sigh next to him and he wondered if Johnny knew the guards had beat him up because of him. They hadn’t talked about that part of it. Ayden hadn’t told Johnny what the guards had said about being a lesson in respect. Somehow, he figured that Johnny knew. “No, I mean you had better watch your cute little asses on this one. When you find what you’re looking for, kill the bitch and get the hell out of dodge, do you understand me?” “You’re freaking me out a little, Ashley,” Ayden said quietly and Johnny remained quiet and was looking at his hands which were fiddling with the cigarette box. “Good, you should be freaked out,” Ashley said but he quirked a smile to soften his words. He sighed and leaned forward across the table. “Okay, my two favorite Godsent, I’m going to give you a quick lesson on the way of the world and the meaning of life. Got your pen and paper ready?” “Jesus Christ, just fucking tell us,” Johnny bit out. Ashley laughed but it was dry and bitter. “Alright. I’ve been looking into that kid and his brother you guys ran across in Bumfuck, Kentucky. I don’t got much other than the names you gave me. But I did find out one, teeny tiny bit of information about them.” He paused for dramatic effect and Ayden pictured his brother reaching across the table and strangling the man. It almost made him giggle. “If they really are like you, then I guarantee you they have a guy like me helping them out.” “A dipshit that wears funny shirts?” Ayden asked before he could stop himself. Ashley paused and looked at him, his hands held up in the air. He grinned and reached over to cuff Ayden’s shoulder because it was the only part of him that wasn’t bruised. “Aww, Little Buddy, I know I mean more to you than that.” “You also give me tiny guns.” Ashley pointed at him. “Saved your fucking life, didn’t it?” “Ashley,” Johnny ground out and Ayden glanced at his brother. He looked pissed and worried and he was pale and his hands were shaking. “Get on with it. What do you mean a guy like you?” Ashley sighed. “The fucking voice of reason, that’s what I mean. They got eyes that aren’t the eyes,” he pointed at Ayden, who frowned but let him continue. “They’ve got a guy that spies and finds things that will interest them and supplies them with whatever the fuck they need and basically helps them do whatever it is they have to do with the gifts that the Powers That Be gave them. They’re the ears and the voice and the eyes all wrapped up into one shiny package without the fucking power.” “What?” Ayden asked and he wasn’t understanding what was going on. Ashley sighed and waved his hand at Ayden while looking at Johnny. “Johnny, will you explain things to your little brother, please?” Before Johnny could answer, Ayden was leaning forward and holding out his good hand. “No, I mean, I understand what you’re saying. But why are you saying it? What does it have to do with what’s going on here?” “Little Buddy,” Ashley said and looked pointedly at Ayden. “When have your visions ever been straight up nightmares? And yes, I do know that all of them turn into nightmares, but when has the actual vision itself been one? Has any other vision had fire and snakes? Probably some sort of bugs that you didn’t tell us about?” Ayden leaned back a little and he saw Johnny glance at him. He scratched beneath his cast and looked down at his lap because just talking about the vision was bringing it back to his mind and he felt himself growing cold and shaky again. He nodded his head. “Slugs, actually. Made of blood. They were words, on the walls, but then they turned into slugs. They were, um, they were crawling off the walls and they were replacing my skin because it was melted away in the fire and-” He didn’t realize he was rambling or that a tear had leaked out of his eye until he felt Johnny’s hand on his arm. It startled him somewhat and he reached up to wipe his face and he glanced at his brother who was looking at him with concern and then at Ashley who just looked understanding. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Yeah, there were bugs.” Ashley nodded and Ayden was somewhat surprised that he didn’t tease him about the tear or the rambling. “Visions like that, the ones that don’t show you something real – the fucking metaphorical ones, that just means that you’re really fucking close to the source of all evil.” At Johnny and Ayden’s blank stares. Ashley guffawed. “The Devil? Lucifer? Satan? Beelzebub? Any of these ringing a bell?” Johnny growled and leaned forward. “You’re still not answering what the fuck that means.” Ashley growled back. “It means that me and my counterpart don’t just do what we do for shits and giggles. We do it because we got connections. Really high up connections. Or…really low in this fucker’s case.” He leaned in closer. “What I’m saying is that you’re looking for an evil Ashley Fucking Baker that can call the Devil up whenever he damn well pleases.” .Wolfie. Johnny’s hands were shaking as he lit up the cigarette. “Well that’s just fucking great,” he growled.Ashley smirked, but there was no laughter behind it. “Just here to brighten your day,” he said. Johnny rolled his eyes and sucked smoke into his lungs and tried not to think about his dream. He wondered if that was a part of it and for a second he thought about telling Ashley about them. He glanced at Ayden and he pictured him with eyes carved onto his chest and he looked away and choked it down. “Just keep your eyes fucking peeled boys, because you’re looking for the Devil’s right hand here, and that could be anyone in there. It could be the guy raping you in the shower or your eye candy nurse.” Ayden frowned. “It’s not her,” he said quietly. Ashley snorted, waving the smoke from Johnny’s cigarette out of his face. He looked annoyed and he pointed a finger at Ayden. “How do you know? You’re looking for a servant of the motherfucking snake himself. You can’t trust anyone, especially a pretty face.” Then he grinned and leaned forward. “In fact, you should never trust a pretty face. Didn’t Nevada teach you boys anything? Jesus, it’s like talking to a brick wall.” Ayden shrugged, staring at the table. “I’m telling you, it’s not her,” he said again quietly. Johnny kicked at Ashley’s chair under the table. “Anything else we should look out for?” he asked, trying to draw the man’s attention away from his brother because he knew the dark look on his brother’s face and he wasn’t thinking about the vampire whores from Nevada, he was thinking about the dead man and the reason that maybe they should be in prison. Ayden had killed a man and Johnny had covered it up and his hand squeezed his brother’s shoulder again. He tried not to think about the stupid fucking dreams haunting his thoughts or the words that he kept hearing whispered in the back of his mind. Vincent’s words kept mingling with Diyani’s, and together they told him over and over again that Ayden wasn’t going to make it and when God closed his eyes the world would end and nothing Johnny did or said would stop it. He breathed the smoke into his lungs and it coiled like a snake around his veins. It wasn’t comforting him and it wasn’t calming and then he realized Ashley was staring at him strangely, one eyebrow arched at him. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “You start hearing those whispers, you run. Leave the woman, leave the prison, just get the fuck out.” Johnny nodded. “I’ll remember that,” he said. He knew he should have told him then. He should have told them both that every time he closed his eyes now he could hear Vincent’s whispers in his mind and that he could see them all dead or dying and bleeding out into streets and that sometimes he could hear the words so clearly and he thought maybe he knew what would happen at the end of the world. He should’ve told them that he saw them both dying a hundred times over and that he was already looking around every corner. He should’ve told them both those things but he felt his jaw clamp shut around the cigarette and he didn’t say any of it. Ashley’s eyes flicked over his shoulder to the security guard making his way across the room and he let out a heavy sigh. “Well, looks like it’s time for me to go,” he said. His face dropped and he looked deadly serious for a moment, his eyes looking between the two of them. “You boys watch your asses and don’t do anything stupid. Well, anything else stupid. Oh, and one last thing boys,” he said, the charismatic smile split his lips. “Don’t drop the soap.” “Go fuck yourself,” Johnny snapped, tucking the cigarettes inside his orange jumpsuit. Ashley just laughed and waved as the two guards came over and clipped the handcuffs back around their wrists and led them out of the room. Ayden was quiet next to him, staring over his shoulder at Ashley. He gave him a small goodbye smile and then his brother dropped his head and he looked thoughtful and scared. Johnny wondered what was going on in his head and he was glad when they led the two of them to the yard and unclipped them. “Play nice with the other kids,” the guard at his shoulder spat, and then gave him a shove into the yard. Johnny grit his teeth and ignored it, because he wanted to talk to his brother. “You okay?” he asked quietly as they wandered across the grass. A few of the other convicts paused to watch them and he wondered which one of them was the right hand of the Devil himself. It could have been any fucking one of them, any of the murderers and rapists and pimps and killers. It could have been the nurse or the stupid fucking security guard that Vaughn had called Otto and Johnny just kept thinking of as Wyatt fucking Earp. He was grateful for the cigarettes and waited until his brother had settled against a tree, his broken arm cradled to his chest, to light another one up. Ayden shrugged, looking out across the yard where a fight was breaking out on the basketball court because someone had cheated or shoved or something equally as stupid. “I don’t know,” he said. He sighed, looking down at the ground and Johnny didn’t like the bruise still on his face or the way his cheek was still a little swollen where the pins had been jammed into the bones just to hold his face together. “I’m scared,” he said quietly and the words were muffled because the Marshalls didn’t admit things like that. Johnny sighed, crouching down next to his brother. He flicked ash out onto the grass. “We’ll take care of this,” he said. It wasn’t what he wanted to say. He wanted to say he was scared too. He couldn’t. He couldn’t admit it to his little brother because he had to be the strong one and if he admitted he was scared then they were already fucked. He looked out at the yard and he thought he heard something and turned his head towards the whispers. He could see that god damn mother fucking security guard patrolling the outskirts of the yard by the fence, where no one else seemed to wander, and for a second their eyes met and he knew he hadn’t forgotten and he knew he was the one who had gotten him thrown in solitary. He wondered if he was the Devil’s agent and his fingers tightened around his cigarette. “Why did you lie to Ashley?” Ayden asked quietly, and Johnny’s head snapped back down to his little brother. “About what?” he hedged, because he should have known his little brother would have picked up on that. He swallowed hard and looked back out across the yard and he thought he heard a hiss in his ear telling him that the world would end with a whisper and he pressed a hand to his forehead to try and ignore it because it was so loud in his head anymore. He took a desperate drag from his cigarette and the smoke ate away at his lungs but not his nerves. Ayden laughed but it lacked humor. “He’s right you know. We don’t talk about the important stuff. Like what happened in solitary.” Johnny shot his little brother a glance and then looked away again. He was right. It was the kind of shit he should have told them, but he felt stupid opening his mouth and telling him that he had a bad dream and more than that it had scared the fuck out of him and he was afraid that if he said it out loud than maybe he would make it true. Speak of devils, and they come and all that. He didn’t like the feeling, didn’t like the fear rotting away at his gut, but hating it didn’t make it go away. “I…” and he hesitated and looked at Ayden’s face again because he was bruised and battered and it was Johnny’s fault so how could he sit here and tell him about a stupid fucking dream when he should just be protecting him. He looked down again and took a drag from his cigarette and then Ayden’s hand was resting on his shoulder and his little brother didn’t look annoyed, he just looked scared, because he knew Johnny was holding out on him and he didn’t know why. He sighed and flicked the ash off the end of his smoke and he forced the words out of his mouth in a rush. “I had a dream.” “A dream?” he prompted. Ayden watched his face and Johnny laughed because he could read his mind. Just a dream wouldn’t scare Johnny fucking Marshall. Just a dream wouldn’t make him lose sleep because Johnny hated missing out on sleep and he was a little bitch about it when he did. “Yeah,” he snapped, a little harder than he meant to. “They’re fucking nightmares. Every time I close my eyes and try to sleep I dream about the end of the world. I dream about you dying. That’s where I heard the line,” He said, sucking on the filter of his cigarette. “Vincent said it in my dream.” He couldn’t make himself say that he dreamed about Annie dying because they didn’t fucking talk about Annie. “Oh,” Ayden said slowly, because he didn’t know how to react. “Why didn’t you tell Ashley?” “Fuck off,” Johnny said. He snorted, flicking the stub of his cigarette out into the grass and standing up. He stretched out his legs and cracked his back and didn’t look at his little brother because he knew he was fucking right but he didn’t talk about this shit because it was just dreams. Nothing major, nothing life threatening, just stupid fucking dreams and it was messing with his head. His brother wasn’t dead and Annie wasn’t dead and he wasn’t the sight of God, just a stupid asshole having stupid dreams. He just needed a good night’s sleep, and everything would be fine. “It’s stupid, forget it,” he said, forcing a smile on his face. He reached down and clasped his brother’s arm, pulling him to his feet because he needed to move and he needed to walk. Ayden stuck by his side but he stared at the ground and Johnny wondered if it was because he didn’t want to draw the attention of the inmates or because he couldn’t look at his brother’s face. “So,” Johnny said, forcing the most fake ass smile he could on his face. “Eye candy huh? There are benefits to spending a week in the infirmary?” Ayden laughed and blushed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well not like, benefits, but the view wasn’t bad.” Johnny grinned and slapped him on the back. “Aw, does my little brother have a crush on a girl? Did you put gum in her hair to prove you really, really like her? Have you had your cootie shots?” He kept the smile jammed on his face and kept his mouth moving because if he stopped for a second he would think that he could hear someone calling his name from his left and then he would turn and Annie would be getting her throat sliced open and Ayden would be hanging from a tree even though he was right fucking next to him and it was just a fucking dream so why couldn’t he stop? “Shut the fuck up,” his brother grumbled, pushing him away. There was a small smile on his face, even if he still wasn’t looking at his brother and Johnny tried to pretend it was enough. Something hissed next to his ear and it sounded like death so he looked up at the sun and let himself be blinded by the light because then he wouldn’t have to look and see if everyone around him was already dead. “You’re just mad because everyone knows I’m the pretty one,” Ayden said. “You know,” he said, nodding at his brother’s arm. “I bet it’s tough keeping a firm grip on the soap with that cast on your arm.” Ayden held up his arm. “Bend over and I’ll show you how good my grip is.” Johnny tipped his head back and laughed and it almost sounded right. It almost sounded like what his voice was supposed to and it almost sounded really amused. He almost let himself believe it, his eyes still looking up at the sky because then he didn’t have to look at the building and imagine it a rotting and desiccated church with his brother’s body hanging outside of it and Annie lying in a pool of blood on the floor. “Fucking faggot,” he said. Ayden grinned back, and his face was battered but not dead. Johnny just had to keep reminding himself of that. “Stupid asshole.” † † † Johnny was dreaming. His dream was simple this time. He sat at a table and he was playing that stupid scammer’s game where he was supposed to guess which card was the Queen of Spades except he knew whatever he guessed would be wrong because at some point the dealer had slipped the card up his sleeve. “I’m not playing this game,” he snapped, and he looked up into the face of the man dealing cards and the man he imagined was Vincent looked back at him. “You’re already playing,” he said. “And you’re losing. Now guess.” He sighed, pointing at the middle card. “That one,” he snapped, and he knew it was wrong. It was always the wrong fucking card. There was no way to win this stupid game and then Vincent was flipping it over and it wasn’t the Queen or King or Ace of Spades, it was a trump card and it wore death’s face. He winced and shook his head. “Sorry Johnny,” he said, and the grin stretched across his face. He looked like the fucking Devil himself and Johnny wondered how the fuck they were supposed to try and kill the Devil. “Looks like you lose,” Vincent told him. “Feel free to play again.” He awoke abruptly in the middle of the night. Someone had opened the cell door and they had their fingers tangled in his shirt and were dragging him out of bed. He managed a strangled shout and hit his head off the bunk and eighteen years of sleeping on the bottom bunk should’ve had made him used to it by now but the pain still startled him. His hand went under the pillow and he forgot again for a moment that there was nothing there because he’d spent half his life with a gun under his pillow. Then he was being slammed up against the bars. “The fuck is going on?” someone demanded, and it sounded like Big D. There was the quiet click of a gun and Johnny’s stomach dropped, because he was in trouble now. Then he realized the gun wasn’t pointed at him, it was pointed at Big D who had jumped down from his bunk and stood in the middle of the room and he looked like a fucking linebacker. “I said what the fuck is going on?” he demanded and took a step forward. The man holding Johnny never said a word, just pulling the trigger and the gunshots echoed off the wall as they struck his cellmate. The man froze and looked down at the holes in his chest and then he crumpled to the ground. The gun swiveled to Vaughn who was sitting up in his bed but at the sight of the gun he held his hands up and shook his head, swallowing hard. “I’m staying,” he said, and he shot an apologetic look to Johnny. He growled low in his throat and then it didn’t matter because he was being tossed out of the room onto his stomach and the door was slamming shut behind him. He struggled to come to his feet and he wondered where the other guards were and why no one was running at the sound of gunshots. Then he was being grabbed by the back of the neck and he was being dragged somewhere, the gun pressed against his temple. He was taking him back to solitary. He tried to jerk away and felt a meaty fist sink into his stomach for it. The tendrils of fear were just spreading through his gut when they reached the corridor. The man’s fingers curled in Johnny’s shirt and then he was being slammed up against the wall. He grunted as his head struck the wall and he heard a sickening crack. His vision blurred and went fuzzy and when he opened his eyes again he could see the face of his attacker and his eyes were black. He felt the rage curl and sink in his stomach. The bruised and battered face of Wyatt Earp stared back at him and he felt a snarl escape his lips. He pushed at his chest and the fingers tightened and slammed him off the wall again. He felt blood trickling down the back of his head and then he was being thrown onto the ground where his limbs struck the hard cement. “He will end the world with a whisper,” the man told him, and then a boot was slamming into his face. He felt his nose crack and blood was pouring down his face as he was rolled over to his back. Had he always been that strong? Johnny couldn’t remember, and then the boot was landing in his stomach and he felt breath and blood being expelled from his lips. “He will end it with a sigh. He will sharpen instruments of death, while the sunlight slowly dies.” The man was still talking, but it didn’t sound like his voice. It sounded like the whispers in the back of Johnny’s head. It sounded like the voice of the devil in his mind. “The voice of God will fall silent,” he said, and then the boot was cracking into his jaw and he let out a strangled cry at the sharp pain. The boots kept kicking him and he tried to curl into a ball, a hand covering his face as he bled out onto the cement. A heavy blow landed in the small of his back and forced him back into the ground. “While the silence drowns the screams.” He heard laughing from somewhere above him and then hands were grabbing him and slamming him face first into the wall again. He felt the cold barrel of a gun being pressed into the back of his head and he could hear quiet laughter echoing in every word the man said to him now. “The city walls will break and crack, while the world splits at the seams.” “Fuck you,” Johnny growled, and pushed off the wall. They both slammed into the bars behind him and he heard the man grunt as the gun was forced out of his hand and clattered to the ground. Johnny whirled and slammed a fist into his jaw and his neck snapped back with the force of the hit. He tried not to give him any time to recover, hitting him again in the stomach and then a fist was hitting him in the side of the head and Johnny crumpled to the ground again. His vision blurred and wavered around him and then it cleared and he could see the gun lying a foot away. He lunged for it, fingers closing around it as he whirled around. The man cracked him across the face again and he was talking in that strange, demonic whisper still. “Well all will bleed and all will weep as we all fall down and die,” he told Johnny and then he started laughing, grabbing him by the shirt and hitting him across the face again. Johnny felt blood pouring from the cuts in his face and he was feeling delirious with the pain. He couldn’t help but think Ayden didn’t have to worry about competing with his looks anymore. “The world will burn and finally end, when God closes his eyes,” the man told him. Then Johnny was jamming the gun into his throat and pulling the trigger. He didn’t realize what he’d done at first. Not until the man slumped down on top of him, blood bubbling out of his neck and his eyes still wide and black. He lay on the ground feeling his face ache and burn and the red pouring from his skin and he stared up at the fluorescent lights, the gun still held loosely in his hand. He didn’t know if this was the right hand of the Devil but somehow he didn’t think so. Somehow he suddenly thought that this guy was just another poor bastard caught in the middle of a war that he didn’t even know was being fought. Johnny closed his eyes tightly and struggled to breathe. He felt it rasping in and out of his chest and then he could hear the whispers in his mind, shoving their little fingers deep into his thoughts and he knew he had to find whoever the Wicked was and he had to find them now. He struggled to his feet, shoving the body off of him and curling his fingers around the gun. He kicked the body one last time and he felt a strange grin cross his face because the man had deserved to die. He had been working for the other side. Johnny wasn’t sorry he killed him. He wasn’t sorry at all. Wenston Ayden startled awake to the sound of his cell door opening, and a hundred cell doors echoed it through the prison and he rolled over at looked at the doorway. His cellmates were doing the same and when they realized the cell was open, the bars were gone, there was nothing holding them in this tiny, overcrowded and despicable room, all three of them jumped up and rushed out at the same time. There was shouting in the hallway and Ayden sat up as a few other prisoners ran by. He gulped and slid off the top bunk, landing on the ground with only a slight grimace at the jarring of his ribs. He poked his head out of the cell. The prison was in a frenzy. All of the cell doors were open and prisoners were running freely and screaming like they’d all just won the fucking lottery. Ayden heard screams and shouts and curses and he saw people fighting each other and there was a guard being beaten on by five different guys in the corner. Ayden jumped back as a mattress came hurling down to the floor in front of him, thrown over the ledge by a prisoner on the floor above his. It was followed swiftly by a prisoner who had blood staining his chest and he landed with a sickening crunch while people that Ayden couldn’t see above him cheered. This had to be Johnny’s fault. Only his brother could cause this kind of trouble. The mere thought of his brother seemed to spawn him and Ayden gasped when he saw the state Johnny was in. Blood covered most of his face and ran down the back of his head and neck from a cut to his head. His face was swollen and bruised and he was staggering on his feet but when he saw Ayden, he seemed to collect himself and made a beeline for him. “Jesus Christ, Johnny,” Ayden hissed when he came closer. He reached a hand out to grasp Johnny’s arm when his brother threatened to topple over. “What the fuck happened?” “Wyatt Earp,” Johnny spat out and Ayden frowned because he didn’t know what that meant and he hoped his brother wasn’t delusional. He looked fucking awful and beat up and Ayden didn’t like it one bit. But Johnny didn’t give him a chance to respond. He grabbed a fist full of Ayden’s shirt and turned, practically dragging him down the hallway while prisoners ran pass and joined in the fray of the riot happening near where the guards had come out with shields and guns and tear gas. Johnny was pulling them away from the commotion. “We’re getting the fuck out of here.” “Did you start this?” Ayden asked and it seemed like a stupid question to ask when he had so many other better ones running through his head. “How did you get the doors open?” Johnny held up his gun to show Ayden and it was shaking in his hands. Ayden reached out to grab it from him and he was somewhat surprised when Johnny let him take it. “People tend to do what you ask with a gun pointed at their heads,” Johnny slurred and then Ayden sucked in a breath as his brother listed to the side. He reached forward and wrapped an arm around Johnny’s waist, grabbing his wrist and slinging one of his arms over his shoulders. Ayden’s ribbed ached at the weight of his brother, but he ignored it because Johnny had done this for him countless times and it was time he repaid the fucking favor without complaint. “We’re leaving this fucking place,” Johnny grouched. “You’re hurt,” Ayden said needlessly as they continued to walk and Johnny’s steps got slower and slower and he was leaning more and more on Ayden. “’m fine,” Johnny gasped and to prove the point, he tripped over his own feet and Ayden had to grab onto the railing next to them to keep them both off the ground. Ayden snorted. “Sure you are,” he grunted and hefted Johnny back up. His brother was half conscious but seemed to be trying to bring himself back around. “We’ll make a stop first before the great escape,” Ayden said but knew he was talking more to himself than to his brother because if Johnny was listening, he didn’t let on. He let himself be guided in a different direction than the one they’d been headed in. Ayden was taking him to see the nurse because Johnny wasn’t okay, even if he claimed he was. He was beat the fuck up and he needed at least a band aid, because that was about the extent of Ayden’s knowledge about first aid. He knew how to do stitches, but not stitches in the face and that’s where Johnny was bleeding the most from. His brother’s face was already turning purple and blue and Ayden thought they must look like such the pair with matching cuts and bruises. The hallway to the infirmary was thankfully devoid of people but when Ayden reached for the door to the room, he found it locked. He pounded on it and didn’t hear anyone on the other side. “Candy!” he yelled and hoped she was in there. “Candy! It’s me, it’s Ayden! Please let us in.” At first his heart constricted because he didn’t think she was in there and he didn’t know where else to go because he couldn’t carry his brother out of here. But then the door squeaked open and he saw her peek out and she looked terrified. Then she swung the door open and was throwing her arms around Ayden and it was made awkward because he was still supporting Johnny. “Oh god, I’m so scared!” she cried and he tried to pat her back but he was still holding the gun. “It’s okay,” he said softly and forced himself not to stop and take comfort in her arms around him or the smell of her hair or the soft touch of her skin. He pulled back and looked at her. “Johnny’s hurt,” he said needlessly because her eyes were already on his brother and she was coming around to Johnny’s other side and helping him carry him in to the infirmary. They put him on a bed and Johnny didn’t protest and maybe that was testament enough to how beat up and out of it he really was. Ayden turned and went to the door, locking it while Candice inspected his brother. He watched her and he felt his hands shaking because she was being really soft and gentle and that meant Johnny was hurt bad. “There’s a riot out there,” she said and Ayden nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him. She turned to look at him, her eyes trailing to the gun in his hands. “Put down the gun,” she said and Ayden looked down at it. “They might shoot you if they see you with it.” He gulped and nodded, setting the gun down on the table next to them. He came over and stood beside her, looking down at his brother. “We’re pretty good at getting the shit kicked out of us, huh?” he said and he meant for it to be funny but his voice shook. She glanced at him and then her arms were around him again and he hugged her back and felt tears well up in his eyes because he didn’t like prison. He didn’t like being here and getting beat up and worrying about guys wanting to fuck him. He didn’t like that he him and Johnny’s relationship was rocky and they were dancing on pins and needles around each other. He didn’t like that Johnny was scared and lying and having nightmares and he sure as fuck didn’t like that Johnny had gotten the shit beat out of him and he didn’t know by who. Candice pulled away and touched his face lightly and then was heading to get the sutures and gauze to fix up his brother. He looked down at Johnny, who was blinking and seeming to come around again. He looked up at Ayden and frowned. “What the fuck?” he asked. Ayden grinned because at least Johnny was talking and conscious. “I think you fainted,” he said and he chuckled when Johnny glared at him. “We’re leaving,” Johnny said and sat up, but winced and his hand came to his stomach. Ayden held out a hand and pushed him back down. “Not until Candy looks at you,” he said. Johnny blinked again and seemed to realize where they were. His eyes shot towards Candice at her nurses station and then turned accusatory towards Ayden. Ayden just shook his head. “You’re hurt. And I’m not carrying you out of here.” “But she-” Ayden growled. “She’s not,” he cut him off before he could finish that thought. Candice wasn’t the evil Ashley. Ayden didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. She couldn’t be. Maybe he was just convinced because he didn’t want it to be so. Maybe he just didn’t think life could be that cruel to him. But she’d not given him a reason to think it was her and she’d been nothing but nice and loving and beautiful. She wasn’t whispering evil things in his ear and he just fucking knew it couldn’t be her. He didn’t want it to be her. He turned his eyes to look at her and she was leaning over a metal table, collecting more supplies. “It’s not her,” he whispered and then looked back at Johnny. “So just leave it.” Johnny growled. “You heard Ashley,” he said and Ayden frowned at him because his brother was being mean and something was wrong with him. Something more than just being hurt and angry. Something had happened and Ayden thought about how his brother had mentioned the nightmares. He thought about Ashley telling them to leave when they started to hear whispering and as he was watching Johnny, his brothers eyes kept darting to the side like he was seeing or hearing something. Ayden growled back because now he was mad. He was mad that Johnny never told him anything and that they never talked about things and when they did it was like pulling fucking teeth. Ayden wouldn’t think less of his brother if Johnny admitted his mistakes. If anything, he was more angry that Johnny hadn’t told him about the baby with Annie. And that was a big fucking deal. “Ashley’s not always right,” Ayden snapped and he watched Johnny frown and look up at him and open his mouth to protest or apologize or something, but Ayden doubted it was an apology. But then his mouth snapped shut and he looked pissed off. “When has he ever not been right?” Johnny grit out. “That doesn’t fucking matter. He said it could be her. And I’m saying it isn’t. Or does my opinion not matter anymore?” Johnny looked surprised at that and he sat up, tilting his head at his brother. “What the fuck does that mean?” he snapped. “Nothing,” Ayden snapped and then crossed his arms over his chest. Candice was heading back over and Ayden glared at Johnny and grit out, “You never fucking tell me anything, that’s what it means.” But their argument was cut off short as she crossed between them and set the tray down on the table. She moved the gun onto the bed and was then working on cleaning the blood off Johnny’s face and neck. Ayden turned and went to stand by the doorway and he could feel Johnny still watching him and knew his brother wanted to continue this discussion but Ayden didn’t. He didn’t know why he’d even started it or had even brought any of it up. Maybe because he didn’t know how to handle Johnny being hurt. Maybe because he was angry and he didn’t know who to direct his anger at because Johnny didn’t tell him who had hurt him other than it was Wyatt Earp and Ayden didn’t know who the fuck that was. “You’ll be fine,” Candice said and Ayden turned to watch her. He avoided Johnny’s eyes because he truly wasn’t mad at his brother. He was mad that Johnny got hurt, but not at him and he didn’t want to see the hurt or sad expression on Johnny’s face. “I mean, I probably won’t give you the same bedside manner as your brother,” she was talking and Ayden knew it was because she talked while she worked to calm down her patients. It’s how he’d learned so much about her. “No kissing,” she said and Ayden was still too angry to blush. But he did move his eyes to his brother. Johnny must have been seething still too because he was just watching Ayden and he didn’t even seem interested in the fact that she’d been talking about kissing. “No whispering sweet nothings in your ear,” she said. The seemed to gain Johnny’s attention and he turned his head slowly to look at her. Ayden frowned because Johnny had that look on his face that said he was on the path of an idea or a clue and about to solve a mystery. He was making revelations inside his head and Ayden growled low in his throat because he thought he knew what those revelations were and they were fucking bullshit. “What?” Johnny snapped and Ayden pushed off the door. “She didn’t mean like that,” he said and was crossing the room because he knew what his brother was thinking. Candice seemed oblivious. “I do that with all my patients,” she said and Ayden paused and if he would have thought about it he would have thought maybe he could see how Johnny would take this before she said it. “Talk to them while they’re sleeping. Whisper in their ear. I find it just makes them calm down and heal faster. But you won’t get the same whispers as your brother-” Johnny cut her off by shoving her away and he was reaching for the gun at the same time Ayden was running forward because he’d seen the moment when something clicked in Johnny’s mind and he knew what he was about to do. Johnny’s hand curled around the gun and then he was bringing it up to point it at Candice and she gasped and Ayden yelled and grabbed Johnny’s wrists and they were suddenly fighting over the gun. “It’s not her!” Ayden yelled and he heard Johnny growling and groaning because he was still sore convinced she was the Devil’s sidekick and Ayden wasn’t exactly being gentle because he didn’t want her to get hurt and he didn’t want Johnny to shoot someone innocent and he was convinced that she was. “Let go,” Johnny spat. “You let go,” Ayden said and he was having a hard time aiming the gun away because his cast gave him the disadvantage in this fight. He thought about hitting Johnny with it and knocking him out until his brother calmed down, but that wouldn’t serve any greater purpose than to possibly give his brother brain damage. So he gave Johnny a shove and both of them startled as the gun went off with a bang. There was a metallic cling as the bullet ricocheted off a metal bowl near the nurses’ station and then Ayden gasped sharply as pain flared in his arm. The room seemed to freeze. Ayden’s eyes were locked on Johnny’s and then he tore them away from his brother and glanced at his shoulder. There was a small hole in the fabric of his shirt and he wondered where that came from, but then blood started to blossom on his shirt and he realized he’d been hit with the ricochet. He watched it drip down his arm and stain his cast and he felt Johnny let go of the gun and it fell to the floor between them because Ayden had let go too at some point. His hand came up to his shoulder to stop the bleeding and he felt numb and scared all at once because he didn’t know what was going on and why they had been fighting and he didn’t like this place. He looked at his brother and Johnny was staring at his shoulder. Then their eyes met again and Ayden’s face fell and he felt dizzy because he never liked being shot or seeing his own blood, even though it happened a lot. “Did you just shoot me?” Ayden asked. .Wolfie. Johnny didn’t know what was real anymore.Ayden was bleeding and then he was falling forward and Johnny was just barely catching him and they were both crumbling to the ground. There was blood spilling from the hole in his shoulder and he couldn’t stop staring at it because he had put it there and he couldn’t remember why anymore except he thought he could hear someone laughing in the back of his mind. All he could think over and over again was that he had just fucking shot Ayden. He wasn’t possessed this time. He was fucking tired, yeah, but he wasn’t possessed or acting under the Devil’s whisper, he was trying to shoot a fucking nurse and Ayden had gotten in the way and he had shot him instead and Johnny couldn’t tell if this was real anymore because it was suddenly very loud in his head and the whispers had turned to screaming and he let go of his brother and fell backwards because he had just fucking shot him. “Oh God,” he said, because he couldn’t believe that had just happened. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered. Candice was crouching down next to Ayden and she was pressing something to his shoulder to stop the bleeding. “You fucking shot me,” Ayden said, and he was staring at his brother. Then Johnny was scrambling forwards, shoving Candice out of the way. She fell back with a startled gasp. “It’s okay,” he whispered, and his voice was high and panicked and didn’t sound like him. “I can fix this,” he said. “I can fucking fix it, it’s okay.” Maybe if he kept saying it then he could make it true and then his hands were covering the wound he’d put in his brother’s shoulder and he was telling him “Heal” with all the power of God behind it. For a moment he was suddenly terrified that it wouldn’t work because it never worked in his dreams and Ayden always died and Annie always died and his tongue was ripped out to silence him. Then Ayden jerked, the wound closing up and the bruises on his face fading and disappearing until he was only left with scars. Candice let loose a small gasp, but Johnny still had his hands on Ayden’s arms because then his eyes were rolling back in his head and his back was arching off the ground and he was jerking with a fresh vision. Johnny held him steady, even when his brother thrashed and hit him in the stomach and he stared at him with the screaming in the back of his mind and just kept thinking over and over again that he had fucking shot Ayden and it was in the same god damned spot his father had shot him. All that was left was a little round white scar, but it didn’t erase what had happened. “Ayden?” he whispered when the vision passed, and then his brother was sitting up, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I’m sorry,” Johnny told him, and then he was letting his brother go again because he didn’t have any fucking right to touch him and he couldn’t breath. His fingers scrambled for a cigarette and he realized he was crying and he crushed his eyes shut against the tears but they came anyway and when his eyes closed he saw the bloody bleeding gaze of his brother and the laughter of a man he’d never met echoing in the back of his head. “Ayden?” Candice said, and he opened his eyes to see her putting her hands on his brother’s face and turning him so that she could look at him. Her hands were shaking and her face was pale. “How?” she whispered, and her eyes were wide and disbelieving. She studied Ayden’s face and traced where the bruises used to be with her fingers and Ayden tried to smile for her and pull her hands away from his skin but then she was leaning forward to kiss him. Ayden looked startled but not offended and Johnny looked at the floor where ash fell from his cigarette and the gun still sat between them. He reached forward and picked it off the floor, comforted by the heavy weight in his hand. Ayden’s eyes shot to him and then he was shifting, putting an arm around Candy and pushing her behind him. “Johnny,” he said slowly, drawing his brother’s eyes to him and Johnny saw him and he saw blood pouring from his eyes and from the hole in his shoulder and he wondered if this was what going crazy felt like. “Give me the gun,” Ayden told him, holding out his hand. Johnny looked past him to Candice and studied her eyes and he remembered her words and her whispers and he really, honestly believed it was her. Except Ayden was holding out his hand for the gun and he had just fucking shot Ayden, so who should he fucking listen to? He slowly handed the gun to his brother and the whispers in his head were just screams. He thought about bashing his head against the wall like the poor bastard he’d left in solitary or maybe he should have shot himself in the head just to stop the screaming and the cries that told him to kill and break and tear and he couldn’t tell where they ended and he began anymore. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and this felt so much like the asylum that it wasn’t fucking funny anymore. He grabbed the edge of the bed and hauled himself to his feet, looking at the floor so he didn’t have to look at his brother. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and he felt his mind cracking under the pressure. He wondered when he had stopped being Johnny fucking Marshall and became this instead. He wondered where the breaking point had been and what had pushed him over the edge and maybe it was the helplessness and the fear of having his brother beaten and broken while he rotted behind bars. Maybe it was when Wyatt fucking Earp had tried to kill him or maybe it was just when they had left him alone for a week with his own head and he wondered if this had been coming for years. “I should’ve told you,” he said, and he didn’t know why those words came out now. He knew by the look on Ayden’s face he didn’t understand what he was trying to say. He was staring at his brother and outside in the hall they could hear shouting and gunshots and there was a shiny new scar on his brother and he probably didn’t need the fucking cast anymore because when Johnny said heal, he meant heal everything. Ayden swallowed and stared at him because maybe he could tell that his brother had completely broken down and Johnny was supposed to be the one that fucking fixed everything. “About the whispers?” he asked. “And don’t fucking tell me you’re not hearing them.” He was. He still was. He should’ve told Ayden about that too. But that wasn’t what he was talking about. “About the baby,” he said quietly. He took a drag from the cigarette but it didn’t fucking calm him and he felt the world spinning slowly around him. His face hurt. His side and his chest hurt and everything hurt and his eyes blurred and burned and he wondered if he was still in prison or if he was in a town somewhere and outside the world was crashing and burning to the ground because the end had come when he shot Ayden and the world would end when God closed his eyes. He ignored his brother’s look and he had fucking forgotten Candice was even in the room because he couldn’t tell what was real anymore. He smoked his cigarette and stared the floor and watched the ashes fall from the end of it and it reminded him of the sky when the world ended and something hissed in the back of his mind and reminded him of what he had to do. He had to kill and break to make it better. Something crashed outside the door and he heard Ayden standing up behind him and he was saying something to Candice but he didn’t hear the words. “Ayden,” he said quietly. “Maybe you two should get out of here.” “Johnny,” his brother said from behind him and he looked over his shoulder but he couldn’t meet his eyes. He stared at the scars on his shoulder and he felt the old familiar dead feeling settling in his chest over the whispers only this time he couldn’t fake it and this time he couldn’t put on the lie for his brother and he wished Ayden would just use the gun in his hand and end it. It would be so much fucking easier because maybe if Johnny was gone the visions would stop and maybe he wouldn’t die strung up with his eyes missing because the world would end when God closed his eyes. Maybe stopping the visions would be enough. “You gonna use that?” he asked quietly, nodding to the gun in his brother’s hand. Ayden’s face dropped and he looked fucking pissed. He ground his teeth together and then he was grabbing Johnny by the front of his shirt and it shocked him because he couldn’t remember his little brother ever getting up in his face like this. “What was it you said to me in Nevada?” he growled. “‘Don’t for a second think that we won’t talk about what you just said later.’ Now snap the fuck out of it and stop listening to those stupid fucking whispers because you’re stronger than that and I’m sick and fucking tired of you feeling sorry for yourself.” “I’m just so fucking tired,” he whispered to his brother, and Ayden shook him again. “Get over it,” he snapped, like it was as easy as that. “I fucking shot you,” he shouted out and he was just so tired and pissed and he felt himself crying and he fucking hated that so he pushed his brother away and dashed them away with the back of his hand and it broke open half the cuts and bruises and he thought about the man that had given them to him and he was lying in a puddle of his own blood because Johnny had shot him too. He covered his mouth with his hand he fell back against the wall and he didn’t know what was real anymore. “I fucking shot you, Ayden,” he whispered, and he looked up at his brother but couldn’t say he was sorry again. “Yeah, Johnny, I noticed,” and his voice was calm. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here so you don’t do it again.” Then Ayden was grabbing Johnny’s arm and pulling it around his shoulders and he wondered when his brother had gotten so old on him because Johnny was the one that was almost thirty and he was the one that was supposed to fix everything and instead Ayden was the one yanking the door open and checking down the hallway with his gun at the ready. Candice walked on the other side of him, her arms wrapped around her frame. “There’s a back way out for employees,” she said quietly to his brother. “If we can get downstairs I can get us out of here.” He nodded and then his arm tightened around Johnny and the three of them set off down the hallway. They heard shouting up ahead and Ayden had the gun at the ready and Johnny didn’t know what the fuck was happening anymore because he was watching his feet on the tile and he was leaving bloody footprints behind him and he couldn’t remember whose it was. “I killed someone,” he told his brother abruptly, and Ayden lost his footing for only a second. “He probably deserved it,” Ayden said after a moment. Johnny shook his head. “I don’t know anymore,” he said, and then he was quiet. The riot had gotten worse while they were in the infirmary. All he could hear was screaming and shouting and he wasn’t sure how much of it was in his head anymore and how much of it was actually from the prison. A shotgun went off somewhere underneath them and Ayden winced as he rounded the corner to the stairs. There was a startled gasp and Johnny raised his head as Vaughn lowered his gun to point at his brother. “Wait,” he barked out, both of them with their fingers on the trigger. “Johnny?” Vaughn said quietly, his eyes widening in surprise. He chuckled as he holstered the gun and then he was moving forward. “Well, fuck me sideways, I didn’t think there was anyone in here meaner than you.” “Not anymore,” he muttered and Vaughn laughed. The laughter stopped when Ayden held the gun out to point at his face. “Stop right there,” he growled out. “Who the fuck are you?” Vaughn stopped in surprise, glancing between Johnny and Ayden. “Vaughn,” he said. He held his hands up in a placating manner and he didn’t miss the hostility in Ayden’s voice or in his gaze. “Just looking for a way out before the whole place goes up in flames. They’re setting fire to anything that burns down in the commons and I’d like to get out of here before that happens. After that I swear I’ll leave you folks alone.” He glanced at Johnny and he smiled a little, that fucking best friend’s smile of his. “Come on man,” he said. “You owe me a favor, remember?” Ayden rolled his eyes, his grip tightening on Johnny as he hauled him higher up on his shoulder. The world was starting to tilt and spin around him and he couldn’t remember if he had stopped bleeding but the back of his head still felt wet and his eye was swelling. “Let’s just go,” his brother said, and then nodded at Vaughn. “But you go first.” They followed him down the stairs, Ayden’s gun still held at the ready. Johnny felt like a fucking dead weight, being dragged down after his brother, his shoes scrapping on the stairs and he missed his boots and his cigarettes and the shitty motel rooms and the cheap beer and he almost laughed as he realized how fucking happy he was that they were leaving prison and maybe then the whispers would stop because they echoed in his head now and the world would end when God closed his eyes and it would end with a whisper and the voice of God would be silent and still. He took a breath and then they tripped and he felt himself falling. It was Vaughn that caught him, grabbing onto his arm firmly with one hand and the railing with the other. “I got you man,” he said with a grin and Johnny couldn’t get himself to return it. He glanced back at Ayden who looked pissed and scared and then Vaughn was dragging his arm over his shoulder and they were off again. He wanted to push him away. He wanted to tell him that Johnny fucking Marshall didn’t need help from anyone. He was a shitty liar. “It’s this way,” Candice said, gesturing to her right and they were heading off that way, Vaughn still dragging his useless ass as he bled all over the fucking floor and he heard gunshots go off as Vaughn shot a guy coming around the corner without hesitation. He heard Ayden’s startled gasp and the man just kept going, stepping over the body of a blonde kid in an orange jumpsuit without slowing his pace. “The fuck was that about?” Johnny grumbled. He heard Vaughn laugh over his head. “He got in the way,” he said with a shrug. “This the way out?” he shouted over his shoulder with Candice and she nodded. They barreled through a doorway into a hallway and at the end of the hallway was a bright red exit sign. There were no signs of guards and maybe they were already dead or maybe they had gone to call for back up or maybe they were putting out the fires that Vaughn said were ready to burn the place to the ground. Johnny didn’t know because then he was slipping from his shoulder to the ground and he heard Ayden shout as Vaughn slammed the door in his brother’s face and slammed the lock home. He looked up at the man through bleary eyes. Vaughn crouched down in front of him and then he was digging in Johnny’s jumpsuit for the pack of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting it. He was studying his face with a strange expression and Johnny was so fucking slow in putting it all together, even as the man lit it up in front of his eyes and blew smoke across his skin. “You want to play a game, Johnny boy?” he asked, and then he was grinning. “It’s called ‘you lose.’ Ever play?” Wenston “Johnny!” Ayden was screaming and pounding his hands against the door and he really fucking hated the cast on his right arm because now it was worthless and the soft thud of the plaster instead of the bang of his fist was pissing him off because he wanted to break down this mother fucking door to get to his dumbass brother on the other side of it with Satan’s right hand man and Ayden was ready to burn down this entire fucking building to get to his brother. He gave a yell and kicked at the door and he heard Candice give a small scream behind him and he whirled, his gun aimed at the convict who’d just come running up the hallway. The big black man in the orange jumpsuit had a shotgun he’d stolen from a guard in his hands and he had it aimed at Candice, then moved it to Ayden, then back to Candice. “Get the fuck away from us,” Ayden snarled because he didn’t have time for this bullshit. Johnny was on the other side of that door and he was in a state of mind that Ayden never, ever wanted to see him in and he was with the fucking guy responsible for all of this. Ayden wondered how long the fucker had been messing with his brother’s head and he growled just thinking about it because he’d noticed something was wrong but they’d been separated for a week and he should have fought back when the guards had jumped him because maybe he would have caught it earlier. Johnny had asked him if he was going to use the gun on him. That had hurt like nothing else Johnny had ever said to him. He wanted to believe that it was because of the whispering in his head, but a part of him thought that maybe the whispering was just fueling thoughts that were already there and Ayden would have beat the shit out of his brother if he wasn’t already torn to hell. Ayden wondered if he should call Annie. Surely she’d be able to talk to Johnny if they thought he was suicidal, right? She’d come back. Maybe she wouldn’t come back and love him and marry him, but she’d talk to him and she’d fix him and Ayden could have his brother back. Johnny had cried. Ayden couldn’t remember the last time Johnny had cried. Granted, Johnny had never shot him before and yeah, that fucking blows, but the voices in Johnny’s head must have been really, really bad for him to cry like that in front of Ayden. Ayden was the pussy, not Johnny. Johnny was the strong one. He was the hero and the savior and the big brother that made everything right. Ayden was just not good at it. The convict in front of them was standing still, his eyes darting around wildly and Ayden thought about shooting him just so he could focus on getting to his brother again, but he didn’t know this man and not everyone in here deserved to die. So he tightened his grip on the gun and took a step forward. “I said get the fuck away from us!” he screamed and the man gulped but didn’t move. Ayden yelled in frustration and raised the gun and shot at the wall above the man’s head. The man’s eyes widened and then he was turning around and running. Ayden heard Candice let out a strangled sob next to him because she wasn’t used to this violence and this adrenaline. Her cry just fueled the heat that was burning inside Ayden and he whirled back to the door, aiming his gun at the handle and firing out two shots. Then he raised a foot and kicked the door open and ignored the way it hurt his foot because he was fucking pissed off and sick of this shit. On the other side of the door, that fucker Vaughn was bent over his brother, who was slumped against the wall and bleeding anew. He had one hand on Johnny’s chin, holding his face still, and another holding a knife and it was halfway to Johnny’s mouth and Ayden roared because there was no fucking way he was going to let someone cut out his brother’s tongue. Vaughn looked up and looked somewhat surprised that Ayden had gotten the door open. But then Vaughn stood and he hurled the knife at Ayden, who ducked to the side and the knife clattered uselessly to the floor. It had served its purpose thought because then Vaughn was tackling him and the gun clattered out of Ayden’s grasp and slid across the floor. He heard Candice scream and cry and Johnny was moaning and pressing his hands to his ears and scrunching his eyes shut as tears leaked out of his eyes and ran with the blood on his face. Ayden had had enough. As Vaughn cocked a fist back to hit him in the face, Ayden brought his cast up and clobbered Vaughn in the side of the head. It took the man by surprise and he rolled. Ayden didn’t let him go. His hand was fisted in Vaughn’s shirt and he rolled with him, using his legs straddle Vaughn’s waist. He felt the man squirm beneath him and it was like an animal with its prey. Ayden wanted to kill this man. He wanted to hit him until he was bleeding out of every inch of his body and then hit him some more for what he’d done to Johnny. So he did. He brought his cast down on Vaughn’s face again and he heard the sickening crunch of his nose breaking. He felt the plaster of the cast crack and give and it hurt his arm beneath it but his arm wasn’t broken anymore so he did it again and again and again. Vaughn’s hands were coming up to try and fend off the blows but Ayden was moving fast and strong and the adrenaline was pumping through his veins and he heard Candice crying behind him and Johnny moaning next to him and he thought about how Vaughn wanted to cut out Johnny’s tongue and it just made him hit harder. “Leave, my, fucking, brother, alone,” he screamed and accentuated every word with a blow to Vaughn’s face. He couldn’t make out the features of Vaughn’s face anymore. His nose was crushed and his cheekbones were smashed and Ayden just kept hitting him because he kept moving and kept fighting back even if it got weaker and weaker. The cast on his arm was falling apart and his wrist was smarting beneath it because the force of his blows was pushing the plaster against his wrist and he thought vaguely that maybe he would actually need the cast again after this was all over. “Ayden,” Candice’s soft voice broke into Ayden’s head and he paused with his arm held above his head and he looked at Vaughn’s broken and smashed face and the man was gurgling on blood but he was still breathing. Ayden wanted to fix that but he forced his eyes up to look at Candice and he realized that he was crying and his breathing was coming short and ragged. Candice was knelt next to Johnny and the both of them were looking at him. Johnny was looking a little more coherent and maybe it was because the source of his problem was now laying bleeding and broken beneath Ayden. “Please, stop,” Candice pleaded and she was crying and scared and Ayden lowered his arm and looked away from her and back down at Vaughn. Ayden pointed at the gun lying on the floor near them. “Give me the gun,” he said and he was surprised at how confident and in control his voice was. This was a different side of him and he knew that. He was never the leader, the fighter, the confident one. That was Johnny. But Johnny was leaning against the wall with his hands over his ears and tears in his eyes and on his cheeks and maybe he was watching all this but Ayden doubted he was actually seeing it. Candice just shook her head because she was too scared to move. “I…I don’t…” Ayden sighed. “Candy, please, give me the gun.” She started to lean forward. And that’s when Vaughn suddenly started to fight back. Vaughn’s hand shot up and caught Ayden by the throat before he knew what was happening. He felt the man practically crush his windpipe and he wondered how he could see anything after Ayden had just smashed his face in. But Vaughn flung him against the wall and rolled over and punched him in the side of the face. Ayden heard Candice cry out and then he was punched again and Vaughn’s face was close to his and he swore he saw a fucking snake tongue flicker out from between Vaughn’s missing teeth. “You die at the end of this,” Vaughn snarled and Ayden was choking and trying to breathe and barely listening but he heard. “You die bloody and scared and alone.” And he hissed and Ayden pictured a snake holding him there and his eyes started to roll up because he couldn’t breathe and the spots were dancing at the corners of his vision. A gunshot made it all go away. Vaughn jerked and Ayden saw his brother jerk too and then Vaughn was letting him go and Ayden was gasping for breath. He coughed and slumped to the floor and his hand came to his throat because it was burning and he was wheezing and it hurt to breathe. Vaughn stumbled away and Ayden looked up. He saw Johnny and his hands were coming away from his ears and he was looking around him like he was seeing his surroundings for the first time. His eyes shot over to Ayden and Ayden gave him a quick glance back and then he looked to Vaughn, who was bleeding from the shoulder. Candice had shot him. Vaughn snarled and screamed and he kicked Ayden in the face out of anger and frustration. Johnny growled from across the hall and then Vaughn turned and ran and he was out the door before they could stop him. Ayden used his sleeve to wipe blood away from his mouth and he looked back over at Johnny and Candice, who was still holding the gun. “I shot him,” she said like she couldn’t believe it. Ayden looked away from her because even though she was cute, he couldn’t deal with a traumatized girl right now and he focused on his brother, who was staring at him. “Johnny?” Ayden asked and his voice was raspy from being choked. “You okay?” Johnny just sighed and closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall. Ayden took that as a no. .Wolfie. Someone was talking and it sounded like Ashley fucking Baker.“See?” he said, and his voice kept rising in pitch the longer he spoke. “This is what I’m fucking talking about. You two don’t fucking talk to each other and you don’t talk to me and where does it get you? Johnny’s fucking beat to hell and you got shot and the whole fucking thing might have been avoided if you’d just fucking told me that he was fucking hearing the voice of the god damned mother fucking devil in his head!” It had turned into a shout and Johnny groaned because it hurt his ears and his face was throbbing and he felt a soft hand on his head, smoothing out his hair. “Annie?” he whispered, and the car got quiet around him and all he could hear was the soft sounds of the radio and it was on some oldies station and he could hear the sounds of Jimmy Buffet coming out of the speakers as he sang about Margaritaville. It smelled like old leather and desert wind and he realized slowly that they were in Ashley’s car and he wondered where his Cadillac was. He wondered why he wasn’t driving. “It’s Candice,” a quiet voice said from above him. “Oh,” he whispered back, and he felt himself drift back into sleep and it was dark and dreamless. He woke again because someone was stitching his face up and for a moment he thought he was back in an asylum in Kentucky and there was a dead surgeon trying to sew his mouth shut and he sat up with a snarl, feeling stitches rip out of his face. His hand closed around the arm holding the needle and he heard a surprised cry from next to him. His eyes went to the woman’s face and it wasn’t a crazed surgeon, it was just a little blonde nurse who was pale and shaking and watching him with frightened eyes. “Sorry,” he said to her, and his fingers relaxed around her wrist. He looked behind her and he could see Ayden and Ashley sitting at a table and he knew this hotel room because they’d stayed here a couple times before and he could still see a cigarette burn in the carpet from where he’d put out a smoke and maybe bloodstains from his brother’s visions and when had he stopped being that Johnny? They glanced over at him and Ayden rose to his feet, letting his cards drop to the table. He sauntered over and his eyes were guarded and Johnny felt nervous and didn’t know why. “Just hold still,” Candice was telling him. She was digging something out of her bag and her hands were shaking as she pulled out a needle but Ayden put a hand on her shoulder. “How are you feeling?” he asked Johnny, and his brother could hear in the tone of his voice that he was asking a million and three fucking things with those four little words. He swallowed hard and raised a hand to his face and it felt bruised and broken and he wondered if Annie would still find him attractive. “Fine,” he said, and it was the biggest fucking lie in the world. Ayden snorted and shook his head. “You’re such a fucking liar,” his brother said, and then he turned around. Candy took that as a signal and he felt the needle pierce the skin on his arm and he felt a blissful numbness spread through his limbs and he sank back onto the shitty motel bed. She leaned over him, needle back in her hand and he didn’t feel any pain as she went back to sewing his face back together and he let his eyes slip shut as he fell into the blackness again. He didn’t have any dreams. Sometimes he started to wake up and he thought he heard Ayden and Ashley fighting again but he couldn’t be sure. When he woke the third time it was quiet and there was light coming in through the window. He lay in the bed and stared outside and he heard birds and cars driving by and he thought he heard Ashley’s voice and then the slam of a car door. He wondered if he was leaving. He wondered if he was saying goodbye and never looking back because everyone eventually left Johnny, one way or another. He thought about sitting up and moving but his face hurt and his stomach hurt and everything felt bruised or broken and he didn’t fucking feel like moving so he stayed in the bed and stared out the window and wondered where his brother was. He heard the door open and shut in the next moment and that answered his question. He shut his eyes because he didn’t know if he could face his brother yet because Johnny was a fucking coward like his little brother had told him and he was just so tired of fucking up all the time. He heard the creak of a chair and then the sound of someone settling into it and then he heard his brother’s quiet voice. “Johnny,” he said. “You awake?” He sighed and let his eyes open but he didn’t roll over. “Yeah.” “Will you fucking look at me then?” Ayden said, and Johnny didn’t like the tone in his little brother’s voice. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and his stomach protested because it was bruised and hurt and he remembered a boot slamming into it and into his spine and he couldn’t help the groan that escaped his lips as he sat back against the bed. He stared at the comforter for a moment and it was plain and blue and boring and he couldn’t pretend to study it anymore so he looked up at his brother’s face. Ayden was staring at him and for once he couldn’t read the expression he wore and he swallowed hard and Johnny realized he was scared. He was scared because he didn’t want his little brother to hate him. “Where’d your woman go?” he asked. “Ashley took her home, after she finished sewing you up.” Ayden was still studying him and he didn’t even bristle at the question. His eyes traced the bruises and cuts and fresh stitches. He reached a hand up and felt them under his fingers and he wondered how much of a Frankenstein monster he looked like. His brother was too quiet and it was making him nervous and he wished he had a cigarette or something. He glanced at the table but they were so fucking far away. “Why would you ask me that?” Ayden said quietly. Johnny frowned, not understanding the question at first. “Ask you what? Where your woman is?” Ayden snorted, but his expression didn’t change. He looked hard and cold and distant and Johnny shifted uncomfortably on the bed because his little brother wasn’t supposed to look so God damned old. Johnny was supposed to be the bitchy, broody one, the one who asked the fucking uncomfortable questions and felt like an asshole for putting stitches in Ayden’s face. Being on the receiving end felt strange and awkward. “If I was gonna use a gun on you?” Ayden asked him quietly. He felt himself freeze at the question and he looked out the window. He wondered how he should answer it, if he should tell him that he asked it because a part of him had wanted Ayden too and another part thought that’s what his brother would want. That maybe he would be better off without him and that maybe all Johnny did was get him hurt and make him bleed because he was a stupid asshole that couldn’t keep his mouth shut and just kept on charging up the hill when he should have stopped. “Oh. I don’t know Ayden, maybe because I just fucking shot you?” He shrugged. “Seemed fair at the time.” “Jesus fucking Christ Johnny,” Ayden hissed, and Johnny wondered why his brother looked so pissed off. “If you fucking lie to me again I swear I will punch you right in your face and it’s already looking not so pretty.” He snorted, resting his arms on his knees. “You know, that’s the kind of shit I usually say.” Ayden wasn’t amused. “Just answer the fucking question.” Johnny sighed and looked away from his brother again and his mouth felt dry and tasteless. “I don’t fucking know Ayden, alright?” he said, and he thought about the shit Ashley had said about being honest with each other and maybe he was right because if Johnny had opened his fucking mouth about the whispers maybe he wouldn’t have shot his little brother. “I was a little out of my head and it… it seemed like maybe you would be better off without me. That maybe I couldn’t get you hurt anymore.” His brother’s lips parted and he shook his head. “Are you fucking serious, Johnny?” He stood up and his legs were shaking but he walked to the table anyway and grabbed his pack of smokes off it. He didn’t like how his hands trembled as he lit one up and then he was sucking smoke into his lungs and he didn’t know how to tell his little brother all the shit that went through his head and how he had died a little inside the day Annie had left and Ayden had said he fucking hated him and there was so much self loathing that he didn’t know how to look himself in the mirror anymore. “You said it, you know,” he told him quietly, and he knew the words would hurt both of them but he said it anyway because it hurt them not saying it even more. “You said you fucking hated me, and you wished I would die. I just thought… I thought maybe that was your chance. If that was what you wanted, then I’d do it. I’d die for you.” Ayden’s hands were curling into fists on the back of the chair and he looked like Johnny had just sprouted a second head. “Johnny…” he started, and then he had to stop himself. Johnny watched him take a deep breath and then open his eyes again. He couldn’t read the expression on his face anymore but it looked mostly like anger and Johnny felt the fear coiling in his gut again because he didn’t hate Ayden and he didn’t want him to hate Johnny. “I don’t hate you. Sometimes you piss me off and sometimes I don’t like you, but I could never, ever fucking hate you. Don’t ever think it.” Johnny snorted and leaned against the wall because he was tired of lying down and being unconscious and being fucking weak. He had been so fucking helpless in that stupid prison and he didn’t ever want to feel that again. “Yeah, well, sometimes I hate me, so I wouldn’t blame you for it.” “Why?” his brother asked, and his voice was so broken and sad. Johnny slumped down against the wall and rested his head against it, flicking ash off onto the carpet. He thought about the question and how to answer it and he didn’t know how to explain all the things he should’ve said. His head tipped back against the wall and he watched his brother with lidded eyes. “I should’ve told you about the baby,” he said quietly, and he knew he’d said the words before and he knew it didn’t completely answer the question but it was close enough. “Why didn’t you?” he asked as gently as possible, because all things concerning Annie usually ended in anger and shouting and sometimes blood. “That’s a big fucking deal, Johnny.” “I know,” he snapped, and he saw his brother’s face fall. He took a breath and tried to calm himself down because he was supposed to be fucking honest with his brother and he’d shot him, so he deserved that much. “I know it was. I was just… I got scared.” He laughed at himself, rolling his head so that he could look at his brother. “Johnny fucking Marshall got scared. I don’t know, I was just fucking terrified that I’d be shit as a dad so I didn’t say anything. Then it was too late, and she left, and… I just couldn’t talk about it. It hurt, you know?” He ground his cigarette butt into the carpet, leaving another little burn hole in its surface. “It still hurts,” he said quietly. Ayden sighed and then he stood up from the chair and went to sit against the wall next to his brother. He slid down, stretching his legs out in front of him and not looking at his brother. “You can tell me these things, you know,” he said quietly. “We should be able to fucking talk to each other. I hate to say it but this time Ashley’s right.” “I know,” Johnny said, and he grabbed for the pack of cigarettes because he needed another one. Ayden sighed and his nail picked at the carpet. “I drag you down,” he whispered. Johnny snorted, glancing at his little brother as he snapped open the lighter. “What?” he asked. Ayden wasn’t looking at him and he sounded like maybe he was on the verge of tears either. “I drag you down,” he said again. “If you didn’t have to worry about me, if you didn’t have to look out for me all the time, you could do whatever you wanted. You have all the power of God in your voice, you could have a family and a home and all those things. You could’ve saved your kid.” Johnny shook his head and he heard the anger in his own voice because his brother could be so dense sometimes. “There’re so many things wrong with that I don’t even know where to start. First off, I didn’t tell Annie no because of you. I told her no because I didn’t know what it would bring back and if I would put something back inside her that might kill her. You think I could’ve lived with myself if that happened? Secondly, do not ever, ever say that you drag me down again or I will put my boot so far up your ass you’ll be gagging on my shoelaces.” Ayden snorted and almost laughed. “But it’s true isn’t it? I’m the weak one, the pathetic little brother that can’t take care of himself.” He slung an arm around his shoulder. “That’s just bullshit, right there. I’m sorry, was it someone else’s little brother I saw beating the shit out of Vaughn? Was it someone else’s little brother that saved my ass in the swamp? I don’t fucking think so.” Ayden laughed quietly, staring at his jeans. “I’d understand, you know. If you wanted to stop.” “I don’t,” Johnny spit. “What the fuck else am I gonna do? Can you seriously see me working at the fucking minimart? It’s not like I can run off and be sheriff with my stellar criminal record, and nothin’ else will pay me to shoot a gun. So shut your fucking mouth and accept that you’re just stuck with me.” Ayden laughed quietly and he didn’t shrug off the arm around his shoulder and Johnny didn’t make a joke about them both being fucking faggots and it felt good and normal again, even with all the shit that passed between them. “Hey Johnny?” Ayden said quietly, still staring anywhere but at his brother’s face. His finger picked at the burn hole that Johnny had just left in the carpet, scraping off the bits of black just so his fingers had something to do. “Yeah?” Johnny asked, taking a drag from his cigarette and resting his throbbing head against the wall. “I love you,” his brother said quietly. He nodded to himself and took a drag from his cigarette. “Yeah,” he grumbled, squeezing his shoulder. “I love you too.” Wenston Session #6: When the War Comes Ayden thought he was dreaming. Not visions, just dreams. He was lying alone in the dark. He wasn’t sure where he was and he couldn’t see a fucking thing. He didn’t remember going to sleep and he didn’t remember waking up, he was just here suddenly and he didn’t know where here was but it was quiet and cold and it was the darkest and blackest place he’d ever been in. He tried to think what he’d been doing or where he’d been going, but his mind was foggy and fuzzy and hazy and he couldn’t remember and couldn’t recall. He wasn’t scared yet, but he thought he probably should be. He moaned and his voice came out dry and hoarse and when he tried to smack his lips his mouth was dry and felt like it was full of cotton. His lips were cracked and parched and when he tried to turn his head the dark, dark world spun and faded and tilted around him and he didn’t know whether his eyes were open or not because there was no difference in what his eyes were seeing. It was all just black and cold and lonely. He thought maybe he was blind, and this was a strange dream. He lifted his head because he realized he was lying down and he gasped sharply when his head hit something wooden and flat a few inches above him. He lifted a hand to his head and it didn’t hurt but it felt real and he screwed his eyes shut tight and rubbed his forehead and there was a lump forming. It brought clarity to him and the fuzzy, foggy world cleared but didn’t lighten. He listened to the darkness and there wasn’t a sound but his own breathing and his own heartbeat. He removed his hand from his head and brought it up to touch whatever he’d hit his head on. It was a flat wooden surface and he ran his hand along it trying to find its edge. His fingers caught a corner and he traced it all the way to the surface he was laying on. He sucked in a breath. Ayden thought he was dreaming. Not visions, just dreams. But this one seemed real. He could feel his hands shaking as he brought both of them up to feel around him. He tried to find a break in the wood, a part that was not entrapping him. He brought his knees up and they clunked against the surface and then he kicked out with his feet and there was wood beneath them. He reached behind his head and there was wood there too. A small, breathy gasp escaped his throat because he was starting to realize what this was. He tried to roll over, but he didn’t make it far. He ran into walls on every side, upside and down, in front and behind. He was trapped in the dark in a box and he couldn’t see a fucking thing. He screwed his eyes shut and then flung them open in the hopes that it would go away, it would transform into something more pleasant, something more familiar. Hell, he’d even take monsters instead of this lonely, cold and dark. But it didn’t change. It didn’t fade away and he was still in this box. He reached his shaking hands for the pockets of his jeans because maybe there was something in them that he could use to help. But they were empty. His wallet was gone and the loose change he usually kept in his pocket that he stole from Johnny when he made him pay for a soda was gone. The thought of his brother made him gasp again because he couldn’t remember where he was or what he’d been doing and that meant he couldn’t remember where his brother was or what his brother had been doing. And surely if he was in trouble, his brother would be coming. His brother always came. “Oh God,” Ayden squeezed his eyes shut because he was starting to panic because he was alone in the cold and the dark and he didn’t know what happened to Johnny and he hoped he was alright and was coming to get him. Ayden thought he was still dreaming. Not visions, just dreams. But this one seemed real and he panicked and kicked and bucked and fought the box entrapping him alone in the cold and the dark and he screamed and jammed his eyes shut and pleaded over and over again to wake up, wake up, wake up. But he didn’t. Because this wasn’t a dream. And it wasn’t a vision. It was real. † † † Earlier… “Johnny?” Ayden’s head was resting against the car window and he didn’t know why he was bringing up this subject again except that it had been on his mind ever since they’d had their heart to heart in the motel room. That was a few days ago. Johnny’s face was still torn to hell, but the stitches were gone and now they were just red and angry looking all around his skin. The bruises had faded and the swelling had dulled. His brother’s eyes had stopped looking half dead and when he laughed it didn’t sound fake. Johnny was back and Ayden was happy and he didn’t know why he was bringing this up again. “Yeah?” Johnny asked flippantly as he leaned against the driver’s side door, one hand slung lazily over the steering wheel while the other was rubbing at a scratch on his forehead. They were driving as far away from Texas as they could because they’d just escaped prison and Ashley Baker had given them some fake IDs, a new license plate and even some credit cards in their new names. Ayden had question where he’d gotten them, but he had complained about the names. Francis and Doogal Howard. He knew Johnny wouldn’t appreciate being called Francis and Ayden didn’t even think Doogal was a real fucking name. Ashley could be a prick sometimes. Ayden cleared his throat and thought about just scrapping this conversation before it started because he didn’t want to open wounds that were mending. But Johnny looked over at him and puffed smoke out of his lips from a cigarette that was dangling there and snorted. “Just say it,” Johnny said but his voice was teasing. “Honesty, remember? It’s the new thing we’re trying?” Ayden laughed and scratched at his cheek. The cast was off of his arm. They’d had to cut it off with a saw and Ayden had told his brother that if he sawed his arm off, he was going to beat him with it. He glanced at his brother and Johnny looked happy for the first time since Annie and Ayden sighed. “I don’t think you’d be shit as a dad.” Johnny’s face tightened somewhat and he didn’t turn to look at Ayden but glanced in the rearview mirror and pretended to look interested in something behind them before looking back out the front windshield. He shifted a little uncomfortably in his seat and sat up a little straighter and cleared his throat. “Uh, why do you say that?” Ayden shrugged and picked at the hem of his shirt. “Because,” he said and almost didn’t elaborate but they were trying this new thing called honesty and exposing their hearts and thoughts to each other and Ayden had already started and if he stopped now his brother wouldn’t understand. He shrunk into his seat a little bit and said in a quiet, stupidly shy voice, “You did fine with me.” They sat quietly and awkwardly for a few minutes and there was a country song playing on the radio that wasn’t doing a very good job of filling the silence between them. But then Johnny swallowed thickly and snorted cockily and Ayden relaxed a little bit because his brother wasn’t mad or angry, he was just awkward because it was a compliment and he hadn’t been expecting it. “That’s…not exactly the same,” Johnny said and it sounded a little forced like his brother hadn’t been expecting Ayden’s words. Ayden just shrugged and looked out the window again. “You were more of a dad than Dad was,” he said quietly. The car fell into silence again and Ayden thought maybe he’d crossed the line from honesty to Dr. Phil’s wet dream and he sighed and hoped Johnny wasn’t mad at him. The car jerked suddenly and Ayden grabbed onto his seat to keep from falling out of it. Johnny was cutting through two lanes of traffic on the highway and speeding down an exit ramp. Ayden shot a wide-eyed glance at his brother as Johnny sped down the street and squealed the tires as he pulled into a parking lot. Ayden didn’t even noticed where they were, he was just watching his brother. “What the hell?” Ayden demanded when Johnny put the car in park and unbuckled his seatbelt. Johnny glanced up at him and then flung his door open. “Get out of the damn car,” Johnny said and it was short but not angry. Ayden raised an eyebrow and wondered why his brother was pissed at him now. He hadn’t meant to piss him off and his heart leapt to his throat. He should have kept his mouth shut. “Why?” Ayden asked and looked out to see where they were. He frowned when he saw frozen treats sign glowing neon and bright. When he looked back at Johnny, he didn’t look angry anymore and there was a half smile on his face. “Because it’s about time I bought you a fucking ice cream,” Johnny said. .Wolfie. “You really think I’d have made a good dad?” he asked.He leaned on the hood of the car and smoked his cigarette. His brother was trying to eat his ice cream cone before it melted all over his hands but he was failing miserably and another bit dropped to the ground underneath him. He looked happy as a pig in shit anyway, and Johnny made a mental note of it. Turns out next time his brother got bitchy or Johnny made some asshole comment he could just buy the kid a Klondike bar to patch things up. “If I say yes, will you keep buying me ice cream?” his brother asked in between mouthfuls. Johnny smirked and he scrubbed a hand through his hair and then dragged it over his face, feeling the little scars under his fingers. His face was healing better than he’d hoped, though he still looked like he’d been run over by a car. The pain had abated a couple of days ago and now he was left with itching lines as they healed. He scratched at one and watched his brother try and fit the last of the cone in his mouth. He hid a laugh with his hand as he pushed the cigarette back between his lips. “Maybe,” he told his brother. Ayden grinned. “Then Hell yeah I do.” Johnny laughed and punched him lightly in the shoulder, blowing smoke out through his nose. “Prick,” he said, and then looked out at the road. He didn’t know if he believed it, but it was nice to hear. He sighed heavily and he felt the old familiar ache but it didn’t cripple him this time. It had hurt to talk about it, but he felt a little better now that his brother knew what had happened with Annie because he didn’t have to keep it all to himself anymore. He sighed and flicked the rest of the ash off the end of his cigarette and he thought about keeping the question to himself but they were supposed to be honest now, right? “Do you think I should have told her yes?” he asked quietly. He glanced at Ayden’s face and his brother was staring at the ground, wiping the ice cream off his hands. He sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know Johnny,” he told him as gently as he could. Johnny shifted on the hood of the car, blowing smoke out through his lips and wishing he hadn’t asked it because it was suddenly awkward and it didn’t matter anyway, because he couldn’t take back something he’d never said. “I mean, you know your powers better than me. If you think it’s dangerous, it probably is.” He tilted his head and looked Johnny in the eye and there was guilt on his brother’s face. “I don’t really think you’re a fucking coward, Johnny.” Johnny laughed and it shouldn’t have been funny but he felt like he needed to laugh because it felt weird having these serious talks with his brother. “Well thanks,” he said, and he shifted on the car’s hood because it wasn’t exactly an answer, but he wasn’t telling him he was wrong. He didn’t need to be right, he just needed to know that he hadn’t been a complete fucking asshole because then maybe he could still get Annie back. “I’m sorry I hit you,” he said, and those words had been a long time in coming. Ayden grinned slowly. “I hit you first,” he said. Johnny smiled coldly at the ground. “I hit you harder. After I tried to kill you. And then I shot you.” Ayden laughed and Johnny wondered how his little brother could do that, because none of the things he’d said were really that fucking funny at all but then Ayden was scooting up on the hood of the car next to him and flopping out like he was on a California beach. “Well, yeah, I guess you are the shittier brother. I guess you’ll just have to make it up to me. I hear Universal is nice this time of year. And it’s pretty far away from Texas.” Johnny smirked, leaning back on the car and looking up into the sun. “We’re not going to Universal,” he said. “Disneyworld then?” Ayden grinned hopefully. “You could get your picture taken with Tinkerbell and everything. Come on, let’s go to Disneyworld. We could even bring Ashley. He’d fit right in with those stupid Hawaiian shirts. Though he might try to play grab ass with Cinderella, but still, good family memories waiting to be built here.” Johnny laughed and shook his head. “No fucking way,” he said. Ayden sighed. “Las Vegas then? Can we go there at least?” Johnny thought about it for a moment, pulling smoke into his lungs. He did like Vegas. They hadn’t been there in a while and he didn’t remember the last time so clearly because there had been a lot of alcohol involved and he was pretty sure there were a couple of places they still weren’t allowed in. He felt a grin cross his face and he nodded slowly to his brother. “Maybe Vegas. As long as it doesn’t involve vampires.” Ayden rolled off the car onto his feet and he was bouncing a little on his toes. “Maybe as in maybe yes?” Johnny smirked. “Maybe as in maybe.” “Asshole,” his brother sighed, leaning against the car. “Getting my hopes all up.” He stared out into the streets as the cars rolled by. Someone pulled up in a minivan and a brunette soccer mom ushered her trio of children to the ice cream stand. Two of them were boys and they were fighting over a dinosaur action figure and the third was a little girl with pigtails that reminded him of a little girl he’d met a hundred years ago with feathers in her hair. Her dad had brought them back for her from some casino gift shop and they were supposed to real eagle feathers blessed by Indians or something. They were campy and ugly and she had loved them anyway because her dad had gotten them for her and he was never around, so she took whatever scraps he brought her. Some kid had picked on her for it when she was eight. Johnny had beaten the shit out of him. Ayden must have been thinking the same thing because then his voice came, quiet and soft and maybe even a little scared. “I miss Annie,” he said. He glanced at Johnny’s face because even if they were talking to each other about everything she was still a sensitive subject. He didn’t know why it was harder to think or talk about her than the baby, because it should have been the other way, shouldn’t it? Johnny took a breath and fought the urge to snap at his brother. “I miss her too,” he said slowly. His brother looked deep in thought about something and he was still studying Johnny’s face. He glanced over at Ayden and he tried to keep himself from losing his temper because he knew his little brother missed her and it was his fault she was gone and that was still hard to work through. He didn’t expect the question that came next because it was the kind of thing that would have gotten Ayden hit a month ago. “You love her?” Johnny looked away. He thought about the words he couldn’t say and the words he should have said and the things that he usually screamed at his brother so he didn’t have to think about it. This was usually the part where he told him to shut the fuck up and mind his own business and of course he fucking loved her but he was the asshole that couldn’t say it, even when she was leaving him and it was the last thing she should have heard from his lips. She’d told him she loved him all the time, and he couldn’t say it back, just that once. “Yeah,” he told his brother. “I think I do.” Ayden nodded slowly. “You ever tell her?” Johnny frowned, and he snapped out the word. “Maybe.” Ayden chewed on his hangnail and he wasn’t looking at Johnny anymore and maybe he realized he was starting to walk on thin ice and Johnny tried to calm himself down because the last thing he wanted now was a shouting match. He liked being able to talk to his brother and he didn’t want to fuck it up so soon. He just didn’t know if he was ready to talk to his brother about her, but they hadn’t exactly put restrictions on share time and it wouldn’t be fair of him to get mad because he had fucking shot Ayden and that got the kid a free pass for a while. “You should tell her,” Ayden said slowly. He sighed, leaning forward and rubbing his hand over his face. He fought the urge to scratch at the little cuts still healing on his skin because that would just make them worse. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I guess I should.” Ayden smirked at him. “Well then. Do it,” and he nodded to the phone on the side of the building. Johnny ground his teeth and looked at the ground because he didn’t mean he should tell her right fucking now, in the middle of an ice cream shop. The boys were practically wrestling over the dinosaur action figure and he smiled sadly as their mom pulled them apart because when Johnny and Ayden had fought mom had just screamed at them that if they didn’t shut the fuck up she would tell their father. “You love Candy?” he asked, hoping to distract his brother. Ayden smirked and ignored it. “So you’re all talk then?” “Fuck off,” he snapped, but there was no force behind it. Then he sighed and pulled himself off the car. He hesitated, staring at the pay phone and rolling the cigarette between his lips and then he was walking over to it with his hands shoved in his pockets. He stood for a long time with it pressed to his ear and he was biting at his smoke because he wasn’t sure he could really do this. He wasn’t sure he could actually say the words to her and what if she wasn’t there? What if it was just Ashley fucking Baker, and maybe that would be easier than actually telling her the truth, that he missed her and he loved her and he wanted her back. Then he growled Ashley’s name into the phone. Johnny kicked at the wall as the phone rang in his ear. He sighed and then leaned his back against it and he could see his brother leaning casually against the Cadillac, his eyes squinting in the evening sun. He smirked because there was ice cream in the corner of his mouth and he covered it with his cigarette as he pulled smoke into his lungs. “Hello?” the voice on the phone finally said and he sat up a little straighter, even though he couldn’t see him. “Baker,” he snapped. “I’m looking for Annie.” He heard something clatter and drop and then the phone went dead silent because Johnny had never said those words and Ashley knew as well as Ayden that he didn’t fucking talk about Annie and he didn’t think about her because it hurt too god damned much. Except he had figured out a lot of things from prison, mostly that if he had something to say he should just fucking say it and he had a lot of things he had to tell that woman. The silence stretched on and on and it almost made him laugh. He took another drag off his cigarette and then blew the smoke back out through his nose. “She’s not here,” he finally said, and his voice was low and quiet and sounded weird coming from Baker. Johnny snorted and wondered if he was lying, because he knew Ashley had kept tabs on her. They didn’t talk about it because he never fucking talked about it but he knew she hadn’t exactly gone back to Texas and settled down and had a nice life and he felt sort of happy about that and mostly scared. “Alright,” he said. “Well when you see that woman you tell her that I need to have some words with her.” Ashley whistled quietly into the phone. “She might shoot the messenger.” He turned his laugh into a cough because he couldn’t help but feel a weird sort of pride at that. That was his girl. Never taking shit from anyone, especially not from the Marshalls and Ashley fucking Baker. It was part of what he had always loved about her and he looked down at the ground as he flicked ash onto the sidewalk. “Well I can’t make any promises about that, but I sure as fuck will if you don’t give her the message. You hear me Baker?” Ashley sighed into the phone. “Alright, I’ll tell her. But don’t make a habit of putting me in the middle of this.” He grinned and looked up into the sun. “Bye Ashley,” he said, and then hung up the phone. He turned around and leaned against the wall, glancing back at the car. Ayden was still standing with his back to Johnny and he bet the little bastard had a smug smirk on his face because for once he’d gotten his brother to do something for his own good that he didn’t want to do. He grinned and flicked the cigarette away from him and watched it roll across the asphalt. He watched a van pull up to the sidewalk and didn’t think much of it. Not until the door slid open and a guy dressed in all black was grabbing his brother by the front of the shirt and forcing his hand over his mouth. “Ayden!” Johnny shouted, taking a step forward, and then someone had their arm around his throat and he felt something wet and foul smelling clamp over his nose and his mouth. His hand was already going for the gun in his belt as he heard the kids start to scream. Wenston He was in a van. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew it was a van, but he felt the vibrations of the engine and the bumps of the road beneath tires and shocks that were old and probably fading away. His cheek was pressed against the cold metal of the van floor and when he blinked it was hard to get rid of the fuzzy haze the world have become. He smelled some sweet and sickly lingering on his face and he’d never been chloroformed before but now that he had, he knew he didn’t like it. It left his head feeling heavy and foggy and his mouth was dry and he thought he was going to be sick so he closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing. “He fucking shot me,” someone grouched and Ayden hadn’t realized there was anyone else in the van with him. The thought was stupid because obviously there was, there had to be someone driving. Then he thought about Johnny and that seemed to clear his head right quick. The guy had come out of nowhere and had a cloth shoved at his face quicker than Ayden could comprehend something bad was happening. He’d heard Johnny scream his name and then a gunshot but he’d been sinking into oblivion before he could find out who was hurt. He hoped it wasn’t his brother. Ayden opened his eyes again and blinked heavily. He caught sight of his brother, tape wound around his mouth and head so he couldn’t speak and his hands were bound behind his back with thick, course rope. Ayden knew his brother’s wrists would be scared because rope left burns like no other bindings ever did. He was unconscious still. He didn’t like that Johnny was bound with rope, or had his mouth taped shut and he tried to analyze himself because maybe he could help. His hands were free because he could see one of them lying next to his face and he felt the other one trapped beneath him. His mouth wasn’t taped either. Why was this crap always happening to them? Ayden’s visions were coming sparingly now, maybe because he was running out of room up top in that motel room in his head. Or maybe it was because they kept running into Wicked things before the visions got a chance to show them where to go. They went to prison and found Vaughn, that fucker. They went out for ice cream and they get kidnapped, those fuckers. Fate was doing God’s work for him, it seemed. There were two guys in the back of the van with them. One buy was bleeding from a fresh bullet wound in his arm and the other guy was wrapping it up with gauze. They hadn’t noticed Ayden was awake. “Serves you right, I told you to watch his hands,” the guy wrapping the other’s arm said. “Well,” the bleeding guy said and then growled and turned and kicked Johnny in the face. Johnny didn’t even react, just rolled with the kick and lay on his back, rocking with the motion of the car. He was out cold. Ayden sneered a little and couldn’t stop the growl that escaped his throat and tried to push himself up. He didn’t like it when people messed with his brother, especially when he couldn’t fight back and when they kicked him in his already messed up face. “Hey,” the guy who’d finished wrapping his arm said. “The little one’s waking up.” “Well we’ll just have to fix that, won’t we?” the bleeding man said and Ayden didn’t like the glee in his voice. It frightened him. “Said not to hurt this one. Other one we can fuck up as much as we want. But there’s something special for this one.” Then someone was grabbing his hair and pulling his head back and a rag was stuffed over his mouth and nose again and he struggled against the hands holding him but he had to breathe and when he did the sweet and sickly and bitter smell invaded his nostrils and filled his lungs and his vision wavered and then his eyes rolled back and he didn’t remember what happened after that. † † † Ayden felt fingers moving gently across his forehead. Then brushed his hair out of his eyes and were then curling behind his ear and the fingers were gentle and loving and Ayden thought it was strange because the last person to touch him like that was Eye Candy and he hadn’t seen her in a week. Opening his eyes, it took a while for the world to come into focus but when it did, panic surged up in his chest because the face that belonged to the fingers was still a mangled mess and there were wires holding his jaw in place and bruises under his eyes and around his mouth and his nose didn’t even look like a nose anymore. He didn’t know why that sick fuck Vaughn was touching him like he loved him but he didn’t fucking like it. Jerking his head away, he tried to bring his hands up to defend himself, but metallic clasps clanged heavily and he realized his arms were tied to the arms of a chair. He felt similar clasps around his ankles and there was duct tape across his mouth. He was also missing his shirt and pants and he was down to just his boxers and Dyani’s necklace around his neck. His eyes darted around the room in a panic and he caught sight of his brother, who was awake this time, and looking mighty pissed off. He was still bound, but his arms were tied above his head and he was hanging a few inches above the ground. He still had his clothes and Ayden didn’t think that was fair. He looked a little roughed up, but he was awake and coherent and he was staring at Vaughn like his gaze alone could kill him. “Hello little brother,” Vaughn said and the words and his voice were so sincere and gentle that Ayden didn’t want to look at him so he looked around the room. There was an older man standing behind him, holding a knife in one hand and a bowl in the other. He wore black robes and had a pentagram drawn onto his forehead in blood. Vaughn’s hand grabbed Ayden’s chin roughly and the gentleness was gone from him. He forced Ayden’s head around and made him look into his eyes. Ayden yelped behind the tape covering his mouth and he heard Johnny growl from across the room. He saw his brother swing and blood was trickling down his brothers arms because apparently he’d been trying to get free for some time. “Johnny boy was right,” Vaughn said and the grin on his face looked mangled because he was still missing teeth and his lips were cracked and bruised and swollen a bit. “You’re tougher than you look.” Ayden just glared at the man. “You know you’re just a pawn in this game, right? You’re not the hero and you’ll never be anything more than dead weight on your brother’s shoulders. The Eyes are always such pain in the asses. And they’re always the first to go.” Vaughn grinned. Ayden heard Johnny yell from across the room, the tape blocking the words and Ayden realized that it would also block any power Johnny could have. He hoped his brother could get free to stop this, because he didn’t think this would end well. Then Vaughn was leaning forward and he pulled Ayden’s down and kissed the top of his head and Ayden didn’t like that one bit because it felt dirty and wrong and he shivered beneath it like some energy or power was coursing over his skin. Vaughn kept his hand on Ayden’s head and said, “This is how it starts, little brother. You see, we’re going to win. And I could just kill you here and now, but you don’t think we get our power from just killing everything we’re supposed to, do you? No, we get our power from siphoning those we kill. Sacrificing. He blesses those that kill in his name and he rewards those that spill blood to him.” Vaughn fisted his hand in Ayden’s hair and pulled his head back so he was looking up at him. “I told you, you would die. You die bloody and scared and alone. And this is where it starts.” He grinned and looked over his shoulder at Johnny who was squirming against the bonds that held him. Johnny was looking more and more pissed and more and more terrified at the same time. “And Johnny boy’s going to have a front row seat, ain’t that right Johnny boy?” Ayden could hear the muffled “fuck you” through the tape over Johnny’s mouth. He was shivering because Vaughn’s hands were on him and he didn’t feel right. He gasped loud and suddenly as something sharp slid across his left wrist. Vaughn let go of his hair and he whipped his head to the side to see what the fuck had just happened and he hadn’t seen the robe-clad man cross the room and bend by Ayden’s side. The knife in his hand was bloody and Ayden’ wrist had a cut clear across it. The man held a bowl beneath it and blood was dripping freely into it. “In the name of the Voice,” the man said and Ayden watched as he placed the bowl on the floor. He pulled another from a bench beside him and came around to Ayden’s other side. Ayden struggled against the bonds holding him but it was no use. “In the name of the Rebuilder,” the man said and Ayden screamed behind the tape as the knife slid across his other wrist. He leaned his head back against the chair and bucked because that cut had gone deep and his hand was tingling and numbing from it. The priest set the bowl down to collect that blood too and then he stood and the knife was hovering near Ayden’s face and he tried to turn away but the man grabbed his hair while Vaughn grabbed his neck and the top of his head, holding him in place. Ayden cried out behind the tape and he heard Johnny answer it with an angry, raging yell of his own. “By blood be shed, make us stronger.” Ayden felt the knife start to carve away at his face and he squirmed and tried to pull away but the hands were holding him in place. “In Vincent we follow,” the priest said. “And by Vincent’s word, the Eyes of the Creator be damned.” The priest stood back up and Ayden wondered what he had just carved into his face. He turned to Vaughn, who let go of Ayden’s head. Ayden let his head drop limply to his chest because he was getting dizzy and he felt strange and weak. “The first stage is done,” the priest said quietly but Ayden heard. “We will prepare the Isolation.” Vaughn nodded, shot a grin at Ayden and then turned, heading over to Johnny. Ayden was having trouble keeping his eyes open and he wondered what Vaughn was going to say to his brother. He hoped Johnny snapped that fucker’s neck. .Wolfie. “This is how you shoot a gun,” his dad said.Johnny was only eight but the old man was ripping the gun out of his hands anyway. He was shaking and he was scared but he didn’t know how to say it because the old bastard wasn’t shy about using his belt or his fists or his boot and so he choked back the fear and held the box of shells for his father and wished he could wake up. He watched his dad as he pressed the shotgun to his shoulder and sight along the barrel. “You see boy? You gotta be careful not to dislocate anything or what fucking good is that? You get one shot off and then what? One shot isn’t shit, two means it’s really dead.” “Yes, sir,” Johnny said, and he was only eight years old. “Watch,” his dad said, and then his finger was tightening around the trigger. The gunshot was one of the loudest things Johnny had ever heard in his life and he winced against it but didn’t clap his hands over his ears because that would have been weak, and if there was anything pops hated it was weakness. He had raised his boys to be better than that and he didn’t want to see any pussy bitch crying or whimpering. His dad grinned behind the barrel of the shotgun and then he fired again and Johnny didn’t want to look at what he was shooting at. The old man didn’t give him a choice. He grabbed Johnny by the arm and then he was dragging him through across the grass and the dirt to where the body lay curled and whimpering in the grass. The shotgun blast had ripped through its shoulder and its throat and it was bleeding out into the ground in a flood of red. The first shot had just caught it in its hind legs and kept it from running while the second shot had killed it and Johnny hated his dad right then. He hated him more than he had hated anything in his life, and probably more than he ever would again. He felt his hands curl into fists but he didn’t say anything and he didn’t move. “See that boy?” he asked, spitting on the dog as it whimpered and twitched. Johnny watched as its eyes dimmed and he felt tears pricking at his eyes, but he didn’t dare let them fall. His jaw clenched and unclenched and the box of shotgun shells felt like a heavy weight in his arms that he didn’t want to be carrying. He wanted to throw them at his father’s feet and run away except maybe the old man would shoot him too. “That’s what you do when something starts shitting on your property.” Johnny wished his father was dead. Right then, he wished God would just strike him down and leave him bleeding next to the dog. “Yes, sir,” Johnny said, and he was only eight years old. † † † Johnny was pissed. There was blood running down his arms from the rope around his wrist but it didn’t hurt half as much as seeing the blood running down his brother’s face. His head was listing to the side and Johnny saw him struggling to keep his eyes open. He said his name but it was nothing but a muffled shout because they had duct taped his mouth shut and that was just frustrating and embarrassing at the same time. His brother blinked and he was pale and Johnny wondered how deep the cuts were and just how much blood they had drained from him because his eyes were too distant and hollow. They had carved an eye into Ayden’s forehead. The red trickled down his nose and dripped off the end of it as it stared back at him, and this was way too fucking close to his nightmares. He tried to say his brother’s name again and he jerked at the ropes, feeling them stretch tight and cut into his skin and he didn’t fucking care because that was his little brother and maybe he was bleeding to death and maybe he was just hurt, but either way Johnny had to get to him. He just didn’t know how yet. “The voice of God will fall silent,” Vaughn said. He was walking across the room towards Johnny and he wore that same fucking smile on his face, only this time it was missing teeth and looked like he had been shoved into a meat grinder. Johnny grinned at him and he thought about breaking his jaw even farther open. He had to admit, Ayden had done a pretty good job of fucking the guy up and he felt a swell of pride at that. Now Johnny just had to finish the job. Then Vaughn was grabbing him by the back of his head. He wrapped his fingers in Johnny’s hair and pulled his face down so that his lips were next to his ear. He grunted at the pain as it dug the ropes deeper into his wrists and he felt blood soaking into his shirt. “You’re in over your head, Johnny boy,” he said, and he was grinning behind the metal wires. “The Devil’s already got his fingers in your brain and you let him in.” His fingers tightened on the back of Johnny’s head and he couldn’t see the grin anymore but he could feel it. “Your brother’s going to die. You already know it. He’s the weak link and when that’s broken it all falls apart. Including you.” “Fuck you,” Johnny tried to tell him again, but it was just a muffled noise and he hated that once again he dangled fucking helpless and useless while his brother was hurt and he was going to kill this man. He was going to kill him slowly and painfully and it wasn’t going to be pretty and he tried to tell Vaughn all these things but the duct tape drowned him out just as thoroughly as black thread had cut him off in a Kentucky Asylum. Johnny was getting really fucking sick of this. Vaughn’s fingers tightened in his hair and he was laughing quietly. “You know what? I actually liked you, Johnny boy. You’re a fucking cowboy, but you’re mean as a rattlesnake, and I can appreciate that.” He was grinning and his fingers were running through his hair and Johnny felt a chill run down his spine. “So fucking easy to play with too. So easy to push and prod and manipulate. So easy to turn into a killer. You think half those men knew what they were doing? No. None of them except you, and that’s why I like you, Johnny boy. I think you’re playing for the wrong side.” “I’m going to kill you,” Johnny wanted to tell him, but maybe it was better he didn’t have a warning. He laughed quietly and Johnny heard the hiss of metal being drawn. The hand on the back of his head shifted so that it was wrapped around his chin and the thin fingers tightened on his jaw. He felt the duct tape stretching and pulling at his skin but it didn’t hurt half as bad as what he was going to do to Vaughn. He was holding up a knife and he turned it slowly in the candle light so that Johnny could see it reflecting back at him. The smile stretched his face into a morbid canvas of broken teeth and bruised skin and he thought he saw a snake tongue in his mouth. “What good is the Voice of God when you don’t have a tongue?” The knife was just slicing through the duct tape and into his skin when he brought his knee up into Vaughn’s jaw. There was a sickening crack as it connected with bone and the knife jerked, cutting deep into Johnny’s cheek. He heard himself cry out as a burning pain sliced through his skin but Vaughn was crumpling to the ground in a heap. The wires were twisted around his face and there was fresh blood pouring from his mouth and it was really fucking satisfying. The knife had ripped his cheek open in a Glasgow smile but it didn’t matter because it had cut through the duct tape too, and now he could get words out. “Obey me,” he snarled out and Vaughn hissed back at him like a snake. “Cut me down,” Johnny told him. Across the room, Ayden gasped and jerked in the chair but for once Johnny was grateful he was bound up because he couldn’t hurt himself half as bad that way. Vaughn stood on shaking hands and his eyes were dark as he picked the knife off the floor. His hands were shaking and maybe he was trying to fight it but if Johnny couldn’t resist the Devil’s whispers, then the serpent’s bitch sure as hell couldn’t resist the voice of God coming from his lips. There was blood running from the man’s mouth around his jaw and he made Johnny look like a fucking beauty queen at the moment. He felt the bindings relax and his wrists throbbed and burned as they relaxed. Then he was dropping to the floor and he stumbled a little but didn’t fall. He raised his head and opened his mouth to tell Vaughn to set his brother free and then the priest was hitting him full force in the chest, knocking them both to the ground. “Imposter,” he snarled at Johnny, and then the man was hauling back to hit him and he really wasn’t in the mood to get hit in the face anymore. He cracked the man in the jaw and saw his head jerk back. Then he was rolling him over, pinning the priest underneath him and he was hauling back to hit him again and he heard a satisfying crunch as his fists connected with his face. His nose snapped under the hit and he tried to pull his hands up to block it but this man had just cut his brother open to bleed him for some stupid fucking ritual because he was a dumb shit that somehow thought Vincent was the good guy in all this and he heard himself let loose a howl as he struck him one final time in the eye. The man went limp underneath him and he sat back with a heavy breath. “Johnny?” he heard Ayden whimper softly. He looked behind him, reaching up to rip the duct tape off his face with one hand and try to push himself back to his feet with the other. Ayden still slumped weakly in the chair, blood running down his arms and trickling to the floor and Johnny didn’t like how big the puddle underneath his brother was. There was no sign of Vaughn and he spat out a curse when he saw that, but then he was scrambling across the room to his brother. “I’m here, Ayden,” he said, and his brother’s eyes were unfocused, staring past him at the middle of the room. “Hey, look at me buddy,” he said, and he didn’t know why he called him that. He yanked off his shirt and then he was ripping it into shreds, wrapping it around his brother’s wrists. There was too much blood and it was scaring him. Ayden’s eyes rolled in his head and it fell slackly to the side. He tried to look at Johnny, but he could tell his brother was fighting just to stay awake and alert. Johnny yanked roughly at the bindings holding his brother down and when that didn’t work he stood and went back to the priest. The man was groaning but he wasn’t conscious and he didn’t protest when Johnny searched his pockets. He came up with a key and then he was running back to his brother’s side. His eyes were slipping shut and he patted at his cheeks, trying to shake him back up. “Hey,” he snapped. “Look at me Ayden. Open your fucking eyes and look at me or I swear to God I’ll take advantage of you in your sleep.” Ayden’s eyes flickered and he laughed a little but it was weak and distant and when his eyes met Johnny’s he saw that old familiar look staring back at him. His brother had watched him die in his head, and it hadn’t been pretty. “Faggot,” he grumbled, and then the locks clicked open and Ayden was slipping sideways into his brother. “Yeah well, I take what I can get,” Johnny said, hauling his brother’s arm around his shoulder. Wenston Ayden was cold.He could barely feel himself anymore and his feet weren’t cooperating. His head was bobbing to the side and he couldn’t quite seem to lift it so he just let it rest on his brother’s shoulder. He was too lazy to even joke about the fact they were both topless and Ayden was missing his pants and Johnny had just threatened to take advantage of him. His head was spinning and if it didn’t stop soon, he was going to get sick. Johnny was talking steadily beside him and every so often he’d give Ayden a shake that seemed to wake him from a sleep he didn’t remember falling into. Ayden was having trouble focusing on what his brother was saying. “Where the fuck are we?” Johnny growled and Ayden tried to blink and take in their surroundings. He didn’t see much pass the haze in front of his eyes and he felt something trickling down his face and dripping off the end of his nose and he remembered that they’d cut into his face. He hoped it wasn’t something obscene. One time, when they’d been invited to a party, Johnny had passed out after challenging another guy to a drinking game. Ayden, because he was such an awesome little brother back in those days, had drawn some not so nice things on his face. When Johnny had woken up, Ayden had blamed it on one of their friends. He wondered if Johnny ever knew it was him that had done it. He felt himself chuckle and then Johnny was shaking him again. “Stay with me,” Johnny’s voice was scared and angry. “Ayden,” he demanded and Ayden liked his lips. “I drew the dick on your face,” Ayden slurred. Johnny paused for a moment in dragging his brother along and he crouched, letting Ayden lean up against a fence. Ayden wasn’t sure when they’d made it outside and he wondered where they were. He could make out houses around him, but all of them were dark and the place looked fucking dreary. But it may have been the blood loss making it look that way. “What?” Johnny asked and he kept a hand on Ayden’s arm to keep him from tilting over as he looked around, trying to figure out where they should go. “At Luis’s party. When you drank those kamikazes,” Ayden almost drifted off mid-thought but he scrunched his eyes shut and then opened them and Johnny was checking the scraps of his shirt tied around Ayden’s wrists and they were soaked with blood. Ayden wondered if he had anymore blood left in his body and by the way his heart was racing and his breathing was rapid, he didn’t think so. “I was the one that drew on your face.” Johnny snorted and was then lifting Ayden’s arm around his shoulders again. “You know I beat the fuck out of Enrique for that.” Ayden groaned as Johnny lifted him up and the world tipped and turned around him. Johnny had one hand around Ayden’s waist and the other holding his arm in place. He let go of his arm for a moment to slap him lightly across the cheek. “Hey, hey, come on Ayden, stay awake,” he said calmly. “He deserved it,” Ayden forced out, because his brother was demanding this small talk and he didn’t want to disappoint him. Hadn’t they just had this conversation about how Ayden was always getting his ass handed to him? Well he wasn’t doing a very good job of proving himself wrong. But really, how was any of this fair? He’d just been minding his own business, enjoying his fucking ice cream. “Fucking cheater.” Johnny actually laughed, and they were moving again but Ayden didn’t hear what his brother said after that because he was shivering and his head was on his brother’s shoulder again and he just wanted to go to sleep for a little bit, was that too much to ask? He must have passed out for a little bit because the next thing he knew he was sitting on the ground and startling at the sound of breaking glass. He blinked and looked up and Johnny had his elbow through the glass pane of a window on the backdoor to some house. He withdrew his elbow and reached in to unlock it. He popped the door open and then turned and hurried back over to Ayden. One of his hands came to Ayden’s cheek and he was pushing Ayden’s head up so he was looking at him. “Ayden,” Johnny demanded and Ayden was trying really fucking hard to focus on his brother. “I’ll fix this,” Johnny said and Ayden could practically see the words forming on his brother’s lips. He let out a whine and shook his head and struggled against his brother and Johnny looked confused and concerned. “N…no,” Ayden pleaded. “Please, Johnny, no more visions. Not yet,” he knew he sounded weak and whiny and like a stupid shit little brother but he couldn’t. Not yet. He couldn’t watch Johnny die again because when he’d been tied to the chair he’d watched his brother’s tongue get cut out. And then Ayden had died and Vaughn had beat on his brother until he was bleeding all over. But Johnny didn’t die there. He didn’t die for weeks because they were torturing him and Ayden could still hear his brother screaming a tongue-less scream. Johnny had a constipated look on his face and Ayden wanted to make fun of it but didn’t have the strength. They just stared at each other for a moment. Ayden almost faded out on him again and Johnny looked like he wanted to say the words anyway, but then he was growling and picking Ayden up again and they were heading inside. “You are such a fucking pain in the ass,” Johnny was muttering. “Johnny,” Ayden croaked suddenly because his stomach was finally revolting. He felt his brother turn his head to glance at him and he managed a choked, “’m sick,” out before he was doubling over and gagging up ice cream and soda because that’s all he’d had in his stomach. Johnny swore and held Ayden steady as he got sick all over the floor. Ayden wondered whose house this was and whether they would be more pissed about the broken window or the vomit. Johnny’s hand tightened on Ayden’s arm and slumped against his brother when he was done. Then Johnny was guiding him down a hallway and they made their way into a room. Somewhere along the way, Johnny had picked up a lamp and apparently intended on using it as a weapon should they come across anyone, but the house was empty. It looked like it had been empty for a while. “Here,” Johnny was saying and Ayden wondered when he’d wound up on the bed. He realized suddenly that he was wearing pants again, even if they were a bit big for him, and he didn’t remember how he’d gotten them on. He was suddenly mortified to think that Johnny had helped him put his pants on and they were going to joke about that later, when Ayden wasn’t half delirious. Johnny was leaned over him and he had a shirt in his hands. He’d found a shirt for himself that was way too big on him. Then he was helping Ayden slip into a shirt and Ayden hissed because his wrists and hands were numb but still seemed to hurt when they were moved. “Ayden,” Johnny said once the shirt was on and he was hovering over Ayden’s face. He tried to look up at him but he was having a hard time and it was getting more and more difficult to stay with his brother. Johnny reached for Ayden’s face and turned his head so he was looking at him. “Stay awake, I need to call Ashley and find out where the fuck we are.” “Tell him…” Ayden had to take a breath and swallow because he was still feeling sick. “To bring ice cream.” Johnny laughed but it was nervous and he patted Ayden’s arm before standing up. “Fucking addict,” he gave playfully and then gave Ayden’s ankle a squeeze before turning and heading towards the hallway. Ayden watched him as best he could. He saw him disappear into a room and reappear a moment later with a white box in his hand. Then he ventured further into the house and out of Ayden’s view. He didn’t like it that he couldn’t keep track of his brother but his eyes were closing against his will. He didn’t know how long he was out, but he felt the bed dip and the movement woke him. He didn’t open his eyes right away because they were lead and heavy. He rolled his head towards the movement on the bed and took a breath. “What’d Ashley say?” he slurred. There was no answer and Ayden frowned and opened his eyes. He gasped, startled, when he didn’t see his brother kneeling on the bed next to him. Instead, there was a girl and her blonde hair fell about her shoulders and her throat was slit. She was dead, that much was obvious. But she was kneeling next to him and her eyes were wide and her mouth was ajar. Ayden screamed back because he was honestly scared of what was in front of him. He rolled and he didn’t know how he found the strength but he kicked out at her and then they both toppled off the bed. Ayden was blinking and trying to stay conscious on the floor. Then she screamed and shouted, “He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!” .Wolfie. The phone screamed at him with a steady beeping that said it was disconnected.He’d never tried calling Baker on a disconnected phone before, but he didn’t think it should be that much different and he was growling his name into the receiver anyway. He wondered how long it had been since the last time he’d called him because he had no fucking clue he’d been unconscious in the back of that van and no idea how far away they were from the stupid little ice cream stand that they had been fucking abducted at. Somehow through the worry and fear he still found time to be pissed off about that. He could understand getting into shit while they were locked up in prison. That made a weird sort of sense to him because they got into shit wherever they went. The ice cream stand though, that was just fucking ridiculous and he was starting to worry about God’s sense of humor. He wondered how they had even found him and then he wondered about what Vaughn had said to him about the Devil’s fingers being in his brain and then the phone was ringing. “Johnny? The fuck you want already?” Ashley’s voice sounded groggy and he realized he didn’t even know what time it was. The sky was gray and dark and he didn’t think it was after sundown but he couldn’t be sure and maybe this place wasn’t even on the map anymore. Maybe they had passed into the first circle of Hell and he felt a chill run down his spine because he didn’t know that wasn’t right. He didn’t like how the town had looked as they scrambled down back alleys because it reminded him way too fucking much of the nightmares he’d had in prison. It looked like the town Vincent had told to die. He wondered if that was what had happened. “We need help,” he snapped into the phone. Ashley yawned into the speaker and Johnny was ready to scream because the first aid kit in his hand was a heavy reminder of the shape his brother was in. He was bleeding all over the fucking place and he didn’t know how much he had lost already but it wasn’t good that he was throwing up and it wasn’t good that he couldn’t keep his eyes open for more than a fucking minute and a dull panic started in his chest that he would walk into the room and his brother would already be dead. “Well we know that,” Ashley was saying with a snicker. “But even Dr. Phil wouldn’t touch you two.” “Fuck you and fuck Dr. Phil, Ashley. We need some fucking help over here because I don’t know where the fuck we are and Ayden’s bleeding all over the fucking place and somehow your Devil’s right hand fucking man found us and maybe you could shut your fucking mouth with the fucking jokes and help us the fuck out,” the words came out in a stream of obscenities and Johnny was punching the wall because he was scared and he hit things when he was scared. “Jesus, Johnny,” Ashley said, and he wasn’t laughing anymore. “What happened?” “I get off the phone with you and we get abducted, that’s what happened. They bled Ayden for some ritual and I don’t know what it is but they carved a fucking eye into his forehead and what is that supposed to mean, Ashley? What the fuck did they do to my brother?” He was shouting into the phone now and he hoped that there was no one too close by because they would probably be able to hear him but he couldn’t seem to keep his voice down because there was fear settling darkly in his gut and he needed to get back to Ayden because if his brother was dying he needed to be able to say the words to make it okay. “Alright Johnny, calm the fuck down,” Ashley told him. “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down,” he growled back. “Just get your ass here and help us.” “Alright,” Ashley said slowly, and he must not have liked the tone of Johnny’s voice because he didn’t make a crack about being ordered around or them begging for help. He just agreed quietly and maybe it had something to do with Vaughn, he didn’t know anymore. “But keep your brother as far away from them as fucking possible because if they’re trying to work the ritual I think they are then you boys’ll be in a world of hurt if they get through it.” “I figured that much out,” Johnny snarled. “Now are you going to drag your ass out here and help us or not?” He punched at the wall again and he felt his knuckles split and he didn’t care because he could hardly feel the pain of it at this point. His borrowed shirt was covered in Ayden’s blood and his own still trickling from the slice in his face but he couldn’t care about that right now because he didn’t like how his little brother had kept drifting off on him and he didn’t like the way his words had slurred when he tried to talk to Johnny. He couldn’t even remember what they’d been talking about, as long as he kept his mouth moving. “Yeah, alright. I’ll see what I can do. Leave the phone off the hook and I’ll try to get there,” Ashley was saying. “Good,” Johnny growled, and he dropped the old telephone out of his hands. It hung from the wall in the kitchen and he didn’t like that the only phone in the place was downstairs and far away from his brother because bad things always happened to Ayden when he left him alone. Even if he was just across the parking lot at an ice cream place and still had his brother in view, trouble seemed to find them anyway. He hurried up the steps, ignoring the pictures on the wall next to him. He tried not to wonder where the owners were. He tried not to think about the nightmare where they gouged his brother’s eyes out and strung him up over a dying town because this place felt the same. It felt empty and damned and he hadn’t liked how dark the sky was outside and how abandoned it had been. Even the town with fucking vampire whores had been more vibrant and alive than this place. Here there was just nothing left, nothing but Vaughn and his church of Vincent. He heard the thump and the strangled scream just before he heard a girl shouting. “He’s here! He’s here! He’s here!” the voice said. He scrambled up the stairs because he didn’t like what that could mean and burst into the room where he’d left Ayden. There was a girl sitting on the floor next to his brother and she wasn’t attacking him but the shout was coming from her mouth and it sounded like a fire alarm going off. Ayden’s eyes were wide and awake and then they flicked over her shoulder to Johnny. The girl’s head swiveled, still shouting the words and Johnny felt a hiss of surprise escape his lips because her throat had been slashed and her eyes were wide and empty. Maybe something was pulling the strings in there, but nobody was home. He still had the first aid kit in his hand so he whipped it at her head. It struck her jaw with a thump and it snapped to the side but she kept screaming anyway. He wondered if she was plague carrying zombie or voodoo puppet zombie or if she was reanimated by a necromancer. He hoped it was the voodoo one, because they were the easiest to deal with. Necromancer’s zombies had to be cut up into little pieces but they didn’t die until their masters died and plague zombies were just fucking scary to think about. He grabbed the lamp he had left on the dresser and then he was railing her across the back of the skull with it. He almost felt guilty. She looked like just a little blonde girl and he bet she hadn’t asked for Vincent to come fuck up her town because he was pretty sure that was what had happened here and he doubted anyone but the stupid fucking priest had wanted what had swept through. He hit her again and there was a crack and her body was falling to the ground. “He’s here,” she said into the floorboards and there was no emotion in her voice because she was already dead and then Johnny was leaning over to hit her one last time and he felt like a piece of shit for it. He crouched down and grabbed the first aid kit. Then he was reaching for Ayden. “Come on,” he snapped. “Time to go.” His brother looked up at him and then let him drag his arm back around his shoulder. He tired not to think about how heavy he was because that just brought the words dead weight to mind and it fucking pissed him off just thinking about it. His brother wasn’t dead weight and he wasn’t useless and he was just mad at Vaughn for cutting his brother up again and that asshole needed to pay for the shit he’d done to Ayden. He was seething as he dragged Ayden back down the stairs and he hated having to move him again without stitching him up first. “Where are we going?” his brother mumbled, and Johnny tightened his grip on his brother’s waist as he guided him through the door. “I don’t know,” he told him. Ayden nodded and his head rolled against Johnny’s shoulders. He wondered if his brother even knew what he was talking about anymore because then his mouth was opening. “I want to go home,” he said. “Can we go home now?” He felt his chest constrict with pain because his brother had asked him that once before when Johnny had told him he couldn’t save Diyani and he couldn’t fix everything and he didn’t know where home was anymore. He didn’t say those things. “Yeah,” he told Ayden. “We’ll go home. As soon as we get you somewhere safe.” Ayden nodded like he’d actually fucking fixed anything and then Johnny was throwing him over his shoulder because he was kicking a door open and needed a free hand in case there was anything waiting outside. There was. There always was. A man was coming up the sidewalk and his eyes were wide and dead and he couldn’t quite hold his head straight because his neck had been snapped by something and he was coming towards Johnny with a gun in his hand. “Imposter,” he moaned, and the hand rose. “Fuck,” Johnny said, and tossed Ayden to the ground and he would have time to feel guilty about that later because he was too busy dodging a bullet at the moment. He charged forward into the man and knocked him to the ground, hauling his fist back and hitting him in the face. The gun came up again and Johnny grabbed his arm and twisted so that it was pointed up and away and another blast went off next to his head. He hit the guy again and he felt bone cracking but it wasn’t enough because the man was already dead and he needed the gun out of his hand so he bashed it off the sidewalk until the knuckles wouldn’t work. He grabbed for the gun and pointed it at his head and he didn’t want to think about what splattered on him when it went off. He scrambled off the body because there were things coming out of the shadows now and his eyes rose to the streets of the town and he felt his stomach roil because he had seen this place before. He almost looked for the bodies strung up along the streets and he just had to keep moving because if he kept moving then he didn’t have to stop and think about it. He ran back to his brother and Ayden was groaning because he had hit his head off the ground. “Sorry,” he said, and he wished his little brother would just let him fix it. Ayden didn’t say anything back and he pulled his brother’s wrists out to him. They weren’t closing up. He didn’t know what Vaughn had done to him, but the wounds weren’t closing up and they wouldn’t until he made them. He sighed and pulled Ayden back inside the door and shut it tightly, bracing a boot against it. “I guess we’re going to have to do this here,” he told his brother, and he wished he had some painkillers or something, but he didn’t. He dug through the first aid kit until he found what he wanted and then he was pulling the bloody rags of his tee shirt away from his brother’s wrists. Blood pumped out of them and Johnny wondered how the kid had anything left in him. Then he took a deep breath and he wondered who this would hurt more, him or Ayden and it was probably Ayden because he was always getting hurt. Then he slid the needle into his skin and he winced with his brother as he cried out in surprise and pain. Johnny’s hand tightened around his brother’s arm and he held him steady while he worked. “Sorry,” he said again, and he didn’t look at his brother’s face. “They’re coming,” Ayden said, and Johnny didn’t question how he knew that. “Yeah,” he told his brother, and then tied off his left wrist and it was angry and red, but it stopped the bleeding. He wiped it away the best he could with gauze and wished he had Eye Candy or Annie here to help him because he was shit at patching wounds. Then he pulled his right wrist forward and tried to ignore the sound of someone pounding on the back door. The gun sat on the wooden floor next to him and it was slightly comforting anyway. Something hit the front door and it jarred his hand and his brother whimpered when he stuck him with the needle. “Jesus, I’ll owe you like a fucking years worth of ice cream for this, won’t I?” he grumbled. Ayden laughed, his head rolling against the wall and Johnny wondered if he even knew where they were anymore. “With sprinkles,” he muttered. “There better be some fucking sprinkles.” Wenston There was a voice whispering in the back of his mind. It was soft and soothing and alluring. His body felt numb and his eyes kept slipping closed and when he closed them the whispering just got louder and closer. He felt warmth on his face and on his soul and it was comforting and pulling and he didn’t want it to stop. It was lulling him and guiding him towards the source and in his mind the whispered words made sense and they were telling him to come. Come home. “Ayden,” Johnny’s voice was distant, but when he put a hand to Ayden’s face it jerked him awake and the comforting touch on his soul felt more like fingernails digging in and he whimpered because that hurt in a way he couldn’t explain. He pried his eyes open and Johnny had finished sewing his wrists closed and he was wiping the blood of Ayden’s face. Ayden looked at him and he noticed Johnny’s own cut across the corner of his mouth and he wondered when that had happened and he should have noticed that by now. “I’m going to fucking say the words if you don’t keep your eyes open,” Johnny snapped. Something was banging against the door to their left and Ayden tried to roll his head so he could see but Johnny held him still and then he was pulling Ayden up because he’d been slipping down the wall. Johnny propped him against the corner and reached to grab the gun that was laying next to him. Ayden wondered where that came from and he sighed because he kept missing things and couldn’t focus. Ayden groaned and shook his head because he didn’t want another vision and he knew that wasn’t a fair thing to ask of Johnny but he had to. He didn’t want to see them die again because it was wearing on him and he couldn’t do it right now. He just couldn’t. The whispers were stronger and he gasped as a sharp pain tore itself across his forehead and then his chest. Johnny’s hand came out to grab his arm and he must have thought it was a vision because he was holding him still. But Ayden opened his eyes and looked at Johnny and for a minute he didn’t recognize him. For a minute Johnny’s mouth was moving but it wasn’t his voice coming out. It was the whispers. And they were telling him to come home. “Ayden?” Johnny asked because he didn’t know what was going on. A crack sounded from the back door and that drew his brother’s attention to the horde of dead things trying to get inside the house. Ayden felt fire spread down his face, originating from the wound on his forehead and he still didn’t know what they’d carved into him. But the fire spread along his neck and his arms and his chest and torso and legs. It spread to his fingers and his toes and then pulsed back through him and the whispers became more persistent telling him to come home. Come home. Ayden reached up and grasped Johnny’s arms, pushing them away. Johnny turned back, looking confused and wide eyed because Ayden hadn’t even been able to keep his head up a second ago but now he was gripping his forearms with deadly strength. “I have to go,” he said. He had to go home. Johnny frowned and quirked his head to the side and then he was scrambling forward because Ayden was trying to get to his feet. “What the…” Johnny spat and his hands were on Ayden’s arms as he rose and didn’t even sway on his feet. He stood without any help from Johnny and the two stared at each other a moment. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Johnny snapped, but he sounded scared and confused. The whisperings were pulling at the back of his mind and he didn’t hurt anymore and the one voice turned into a million and they were all whispering at once. They sounded tortured and chained and pained and Ayden wanted to go to each and every one of them. They were calling him. They were summoning him. They were guiding him and he was obeying. “Home,” he said and it didn’t sound like his voice because it was strong and steady and he was walking for the door. Johnny grabbed his arm to try and halt him. Ayden tried to yank his arm away because Johnny wasn’t supposed to come and his hand on his arm burned like it was on fire. But Johnny’s grip was strong and suddenly it wasn’t Johnny grabbing him anymore. It was Vaughn and he had a snake tongue slithering out between his teeth and his eyes were yellow and oval and fangs stuck out from behind his lips. Ayden gasped and tried to pull away again. “Ayden, stop,” Johnny said. But Ayden heard, “I’ll fucking kill you,” because he was looking at Johnny but seeing Vaughn. “And then I’ll kill your brother,” Vaughn added. Panic and fear rose up in Ayden’s chest and he was suddenly turning and grabbing a dish off the counter next to him. Stale cookies still sat atop it but they clattered away as Ayden swung the dish and watched it collide with the side of Vaughn’s head. He heard the man cry out and he let go of Ayden’s arm, taking a few steps back, his hand coming to a now bleeding wound on the side of his head. The man in front of him flashed to Johnny for a bit and he saw his brother bleeding and looking at him with a fierce, wide eyed gaze and for a second Ayden thought he’d made a mistake and had just clobbered his brother. But then he was morphing back and Vaughn was there and he was laughing and pointing at him and saying, “I’ll cut out his tongue. I’ll hang him from my ceiling. You’ve seen what I do to him. You’ve seen how he cries and he begs and he dies.” Ayden growled because he had seen it. He’d seen Johnny be tortured for weeks in his vision. He lunged forward and tackled Vaughn in the midsection. The two went down to the ground in a heap and Ayden didn’t give Vaughn the chance to react before he was grabbing his hair and smashing the back of his head into the floor over and over again. “Leave my brother alone!” Ayden screamed. He felt Vaughn’s hands reach up and try to fend him off. They were clasping around his wrists and he momentarily felt pain as his wrists started bleeding again. He thought he heard Johnny yelling from somewhere for him to stop, but when he looked around he couldn’t see his brother anywhere. There was only Vaughn in his grasp. He bashed Vaughn’s head into the wooden floor again and then he was standing up and kicking the man in the face. Vaughn’s head snapped to the side and he lay still, not moving except for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Ayden was shaking and he turned around because he had to find his brother. He rushed to the door and unlocked it and flung it open. There were people on the other side and the whispers in the back of his mind told him to follow them because they could lead him home. They could lead them to the place he was being called back to. They could lead him to Johnny. He didn’t give Vaughn lying on the floor behind him another thought. .Wolfie. Johnny was twelve years old and he didn’t want to fucking play hide and seek.“Please Johnny?” Ayden asked him again, bouncing on his toes. He sighed and shoved his hands in his pockets and he didn’t want to play and why was his little brother always bothering him? Didn’t he have any friends of his own? Didn’t he have something better to do than bother Johnny? He had places he wanted to go, and bikes to steal and kids to beat up. He had his own shit to do and he didn’t need his little brother trailing behind him. “I don’t want to play,” he snapped. His brother’s face dropped. He looked like Johnny had just punched him in the gut and then his brother was looking at the floor and trying to hold in the tears. “Oh,” he said quietly and then he nodded to himself because he should be used to disappointment by now. Their parents didn’t play games with them, not unless the game was ‘go get mommy another glass of bourbon’ or ‘keep your fucking mouth shut before I beat your ass, or maybe I’ll just do that anyway.’ Johnny sighed and ruffled his little brother’s hair and how was it fair that he tried to make Johnny feel guilty for not wanting to play his stupid game? It wasn’t, that’s how fair it was, and he grinned at his brother. Ayden didn’t catch the malice in it. “Alright,” Johnny said, and his brother looked up with wide hopeful eyes. He began to bounce on his toes again and he was smiling and happy and didn’t know when to recognize when Johnny was lying yet. “I’ll play hide and seek. I’ll stay here and count to one hundred. Now go hide,” he told him, and he shut his eyes tightly while he listened to the sound of his brother laughing and his feet retreating. He counted to ten and then he left. He got on his bike and drove down to the river and stole some kid’s fishing tackle and then threw it in the water. At some point he ran into Enrique and the two of them went and stole candy bars from the minimart and Johnny forgot that he’d left his little brother playing hide and seek by himself. The kid would probably get bored or scared or disappointed and come out and find something to do, like watch T.V. or something. He didn’t think about it until he went home at night and his mom was screaming at his dad for not replacing her bottle of sloe gin and his dad was screaming back that the fucking bitch couldn’t even be bothered to cook dinner and neither of them noticed that Ayden wasn’t around. He searched all over the house and his parents didn’t notice or care. He was starting to get panicked and scared when he finally went and checked the basement. He didn’t think Ayden would be in there because he was afraid of the dark and the things that crawled in it and their basement was ancient and still had dirt floors. “Ayden?” he called, and he didn’t hear an answering voice, but he thought he heard sniffling coming from somewhere. He shivered because he didn’t like the basement either and there were cobwebs hanging from the ceiling and an old furnace that made terrible clunking noises all the time. “Ayden?” he called again, and this time he definitely heard something whimpering. “Ayden?” he called again and then he heard it coming from the corner. He found his brother in an old metal cabinet that had been shoved into the basement and forgotten about. He’d crawled inside it to hide and gotten locked in and when Johnny opened the door he was pale and shaking. He threw his arms around Johnny and he was biting his lips to keep from crying and Johnny just hugged his brother back because the kid looked scared out of his mind. “I knew you’d find me, Johnny,” he whispered. He was shivering and clinging to his brother like the fucking hero of the day and he couldn’t have felt more like an asshole. Johnny didn’t have the heart to tell him he hadn’t even been looking. He hugged his brother and fought the urge to start crying himself and upstairs he could hear his parents still screaming at each other and neither of them had known their son was shivering and scared and crying in the basement for hours. Johnny wiped his sleeve across his nose and ruffled his brother’s hair, forcing a smile on his face and he promised he would never let his brother down again. “Yeah, Ayden,” he said. “I found you.” † † † At first Johnny couldn’t tell if he was awake or dreaming. He floated in and out of consciousness and in his dreams Ayden was screaming at him and hitting his head off the floor and he could feel his vision blur with every hit until his eyes were swimming in their sockets. He was bleeding from his head again and it was warm on the side of his face. In his dream his brother was kicking him in the face and his head was snapping to the side and then he was fading out of consciousness again. It had to be a dream, because his brother would never hit him and he didn’t understand why he would dream about something so terrible and stupid. In his dream, someone was shoving something in his mouth and then binding his face with duct tape again and he didn’t like that, so he tried to sit up. Someone grabbed at his arm and he swung a fist out at whoever was grabbing him and felt it connect. Then something was striking the side of his head and he was falling over into the wooden floor. He heard laughter and cursing and then something was hitting him in the stomach. “Fucking asshole doesn’t know when to stay down.” “Fucking asshole doesn’t know how to dodge a punch,” someone else said, and he heard chuckling. “Go to Hell,” said the first voice, and then it got quiet. In his dream they were rolling him over onto his stomach and his arms were being wrenched behind his back and his wrists were still sore and bloody from the first time this had happened. No one seemed to notice or care because then his wrists were being bound with thick rope and he was being dragged across the ground. He felt his head bounce off something solid as they pulled him through the door and he groaned and rolled over onto his back. There was blood running down the back of his throat and in his dream it was because Ayden had kicked him. After a while the dreams stopped and he was left in darkness. The darkness was better. It was comforting and quiet and it didn’t hurt there. There were no dreams. Johnny didn’t like dreaming, because it was never anything good. He never got to just enjoy a nice dream about his ex-girlfriend getting ready to have sex with him on their couch, not without blood and screaming entering into it. How was that fair? Every fucking day was a nightmare for him and Ayden, so why couldn’t he at least have nice dreams once and a while? He didn’t know how long he was out, but he woke to someone slapping his face and he tried to open his mouth to ask if maybe they could leave his fucking face alone for once. Hit him in the stomach or something, but his face was bruised and broken enough as it was and he didn’t want to add any more stitches. As it was, he felt the cut on his cheek cracking open and there was more blood on his tongue. The rag they’d shoved in his mouth soaked most of it up, so at least it wasn’t running down his throat. “Is he awake?” someone asked from the doorway, and his head rolled as he tried to look at who it was. He snorted when his eyes rolled up and he saw the devil’s fairy fucking princess himself, Vaughn. The man grinned when he saw Johnny looking at him, but he didn’t come in the room. He looked up at the man who’d been slapping Johnny, and he was one of three men in the room. His head was clearing too slowly and he still couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. All he remembered was a dream about Ayden attacking him and hitting him and he realized that his head was throbbing and hurt and maybe that wasn’t a dream. He didn’t like thinking that. He didn’t like what it meant because no fucking way would his brother do that on his own. They must have done something to him when they were draining him or maybe that stupid ugly eye had done something but either way, it wasn’t Ayden. He didn’t have any fucking doubt about that, and it just made him pissed. “Let me go,” he tried to snarl at Vaughn, because the man still had to do what he said, right? Except he had a rag shoved down his throat and tape over his mouth again and he was so fucking frustrated with being muted like this. Vaughn grinned at him from across the room and someone had bent the wires back into place around his head. Maybe he had done it himself, but they looked like shit and he smiled just looking at him. “Do what you want to him,” Vaughn snapped at the guy in front of him. “Then cut out his tongue and bring him to me. We still have to prepare the Isolation, so take your time.” He grinned at Johnny again when he said that part. “You hear that Johnny boy? Get comfortable because you’re going to pay for that little stunt of yours. Just not as dearly as your brother.” Johnny knew he said it just to get a rise out of him but he couldn’t stop the rage and panic that swept him at those words. Ayden was in trouble, and he was under Vaughn’s influence and they were going to hurt his little brother. Then Vaughn was turning away from him, focusing on the man next to him one last time. “Whatever you do,” he said. “Don’t let him speak.” Wenston Ayden couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d done something terrible. He was sitting in a chair in the middle of a room that looked somewhat like a church with all the pews cleared out. Sometimes when he closed his eyes and opened them, he thought maybe there were people moving around in the room. People clad in black robes with a snake embroidered onto the back and an eye over their hearts. But the people kept fading away and he thought maybe he was going crazy. He was alone in this room. The whispers told him so. He wondered where Johnny was and he thought for a second that maybe he remembered something about bashing Johnny’s head against the floor over and over again, but that was silly because he’d never do that. Maybe that had been a dream. Or a nightmare. But it still didn’t change the fact that he wanted to find his brother. Something seemed wrong. So he stood up and maybe he heard someone tell him to sit back down, but he was alone in the room. His legs felt heavy as he walked and he wasn’t sure exactly where he was going, but there was a room off to the side and if he thought really hard about it he could hear noises coming from the other side of the door. He reached for the handle and maybe there were people telling him he couldn’t go in there, but he was alone, so he opened the door and for a moment his heart stopped. There was Johnny. He was tied to a table. There were two guys that were beating him. They stopped when they saw the door open and Ayden watched Johnny’s head roll to the side and their eyes met for a moment. “Johnny?” Ayden croaked and he almost ran forward. A hand on his arm stopped him and he gasped as his forehead burned hotly. His eyes scrunched shut tightly and then there was a voice in his ear. “That’s not me, kiddo,” the voice said and it turned into Johnny’s voice. “That’s Vaughn, see?” And when he opened his eyes, he did see. Johnny melted away and Vaughn was tied up there and he was looking scared as fuck. There was no one else in the room but sometimes he caught a glimpse of a flash of a robe. Ayden turned his head to look at his brother and Johnny was the picture of health. There were no scars on his face and no bruises under his eyes. He looked happy and healthy and comforting. Ayden relaxed a little because Johnny was here and he was fine. “Oh, okay,” he said because he didn’t know what else to say. Johnny smiled and looked to Vaughn strapped onto the table. “We got him,” he said. “He’s not going to hurt us anymore.” Then his face spread into an evil and malicious grin and Ayden tilted his head to look at it because he’d rarely seen that look on his brother’s face and it didn’t look natural. He blinked for a moment because this didn’t feel right. But then Johnny was squeezing his arm again and his forehead burned and he closed his eyes again as warmth washed over him and when he opened them, Johnny nodded at Vaughn. “Let’s teach him a lesson.” Ayden looked at Vaughn, strapped to the table, and his eyes were wide and fearful and there was something familiar about them that didn’t belong to Vaughn. But Johnny was holding his arm and telling him everything was alright. “Okay,” Ayden whispered and then Vaughn was struggling against his bonds. Johnny pulled a knife and held it out to Ayden. He glanced down at it and then up at Johnny, who was watching him. “Go on,” Johnny coaxed and for a moment it didn’t sound like Johnny but it looked like him so Ayden reached to grab the knife. “Cut him up.” The knife in his hands felt heavy and he stared at it for a moment before raising his eyes to look at Vaughn. He was trying to yell something, but there was tape over his mouth and Ayden couldn’t hear what he was saying. This felt wrong. This wasn’t right. “This isn’t right,” Ayden voiced out and he shook his head, taking a step backwards. Johnny’s hand tightened on his arm and warmth flooded through him again. “Yes it is,” Johnny insisted. “He tried to kill me. He tried to cut out my tongue. Don’t let him do it, Ayden. Don’t let him hurt me.” His brother had never begged him to help him like that before and it made him glance at his face again. But Johnny was just standing there and pleading with him so Ayden tightened his grip on the knife and moved forward, next to the table, so he was standing over Vaughn. Vaughn bucked against his bonds and he was talking up a storm behind his gag but Ayden couldn’t hear what he was saying. “Johnny…” Ayden said and he wasn’t sure who he was talking to. “Do it!” The Johnny behind him screamed. Ayden cried out as he plunged the knife down into Vaughn’s thigh because this felt wrong. Vaughn screamed behind his gag and Ayden let go of the knife because for a second the scream sounded like Johnny. He whipped his head around to look at Johnny behind him and he was smiling and looking pleased. “Good,” Johnny said and Ayden was shaking and he didn’t know why. “That’s my good little brother.” But Johnny wouldn’t come further into the room. “Now, come with me, I have something to show you.” Ayden turned back to look at Vaughn, who was breathing heavily through his nose. He had his eyes closed for a moment but then they forced open and were looking at Ayden and Ayden thought that they didn’t look like Vaughn. He shook his head. “This is wrong,” he said and ran a hand over his eyes. “This isn’t right,” he said. “Ayden,” Johnny called from behind him. “Come on, let’s go. I have something to show you.” Ayden dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and he let out a whimper. This wasn’t right. Something was wrong. He wanted Johnny and he didn’t know where he was even if he was maybe standing right behind him. “I can’t,” Ayden whispered and he heard Vaughn trying to talk to him behind the gag. Johnny sighed. “Ayden, you’re hurting me,” he said and Ayden’s eyes went wide and he whirled around to look at Johnny, who looked sad and disappointed. “Please, come with me. I don’t want to hurt anymore.” Panic and guilt rushed through him because the words were true but he couldn’t comprehend how true they were. “I’m sorry!” he cried out and rushed back over to Johnny. Johnny caught him with open arms and wrapped his arms around him and Ayden did the same. He missed the way Johnny shot a malicious smile towards Vaughn on the table with a knife in his thigh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Ayden whispered again. “Shh, it’s okay,” Johnny comforted him. “Come on now, there’s something I want to show you. I think you’re really going to like it. Will you come with me? Will you come with your big brother?” Ayden nodded into Johnny’s shoulder and then looked up at him. “Okay,” he said and Johnny smiled and strung his arm around Ayden’s shoulders and then was guiding him out of the room. Ayden turned to glance at Vaughn over his shoulder and maybe that was Vaughn lying on the table but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there were two other guys in the room and one of them was twisting the blade in his thigh but maybe there wasn’t. He didn’t know. All he knew was that Johnny wanted to show him something and he would do whatever Johnny asked him to do. They walked out of the room and closed the door behind them. They walked further and Ayden was having trouble keeping track of where they were going but suddenly they were standing in front of an altar and there was a wooden box lying open on the altar. It looked like a coffin but it was just a box. “Want to play a game?” Johnny asked and Ayden didn’t know if he did or not but he nodded his head anyway. “How about hide and seek? This is the perfect spot to hide, don’t you think?” He held his hand out to the box. “Yeah,” Ayden whispered because it was a pretty good spot. “Well, I’ll let you have this one,” Johnny said and gave him a little shove forward. “I’ll find my own spot.” Ayden didn’t even know who they were hiding from but he nodded his head and then climbed into the box. Johnny leaned over it and smiled down at him. “That’s a good boy, that’s a good little brother,” he said and touched the side of Ayden’s head before he closed the lid down on him and Ayden was plunged into darkness. He sat for a moment and his vision blurred and the warmth that had been pulsing through him went away and he was suddenly cold. Before he lost consciousness, he couldn’t help but think that this didn’t feel right. Something was wrong. He wanted Johnny. .Wolfie. When Johnny was seventeen his father had beaten him so badly he’d put him in the hospital.At the time Johnny had thought he knew the meaning of pain. The old man had taught it to him over and over again over the years, with his belt and his fists and sometimes when he was really drunk he brought the shotgun out and threatened them with it. He never shot them, not until that last time when Ayden was just eighteen and they tried to leave, but sometimes he would hit him with it and scream at him and tell him he was a fucking failure who wouldn’t amount to anything. When Johnny was seventeen, his brother had a vision, and of course that meant he had a seizure. He had it in the middle of the old country diner and old man Marshall had been fucking pissed, but he couldn’t show it in the middle of the diner because there were people all around them and he wanted to finish his beer and his burger. So he held it in and the anger simmered and burned under the surface and Johnny knew when they got home it was going to be bad. He didn’t meet his father’s eyes, but he heard the old man’s voice when Ayden’s seizure stopped and left him weak and shaking in the booth next to them. “Take your brother to the fucking car,” he snapped at Johnny. They didn’t finish their dinner. He took Ayden to the car and they sat there in almost silence as they waited for mom and dad to finish eating. Ayden tried to pretend he wasn’t crying and Johnny tried to pretend that everything was going to be okay. Neither of them were very good liars. His brother didn’t tell him what the vision was about, because he was too fucking scared at the time, but later they would go over it and Johnny would take the shotgun and go take care of the monsters under the bed. Their dad waited until they got home and then he dragged Ayden out of the car by his arm. By then his brother was crying and shaking and it just made it worse. His father struck him across the face with the back of his hand and Ayden went straight to the floor. Then their dad just started kicking the shit at him and he was screaming at him. “My own fucking son, nothing but a fucking cripple! If you ever fucking embarrass me in public like that again, I swear to Christ I’ll shoot you in your fucking mouth, you hear me boy?” He was kicking Ayden to enunciate each word and their mother was blowing past them to the kitchen to get a drink. Johnny couldn’t watch it. He couldn’t just fucking stand there and watch. He grabbed his father by his arm and he knew as soon as his fingers closed around the muscle that he was asking for a beating. He did it anyway because Ayden was whimpering into the floor and if he didn’t stop his dad he would just keep going until the kid was unconscious or dead. So he swallowed the fear and grabbed his father around the arm and tried to pull him back away from his brother. “Stop it,” he shouted at their father. “He can’t fucking help it.” His father whirled and then his fist was striking Johnny in the mouth. “You want to mouth off to me boy?” he was shouting. His fists hit Johnny in the face again and he saw stars because his father was a mean mother fucker and his age didn’t slow him down any. He felt the blows rain down upon him and he didn’t know when he hit the ground but he could see Ayden bleeding into he floor across from him. His dad just kept hitting him. He hit him with his fists and his boots until he finally struck Johnny in the side of the head and he felt the world go black. He didn’t know how long his dad kept striking him. He didn’t know if Ayden was okay. He woke up three days later in the hospital in a world of hurt. He thought his father had taught him everything he needed to know about pain. He still had a scar over his eyebrow from where that last boot had struck him in the temple and knocked him out but it was nothing compared to the scars he had on his face now. It was nothing compared to what the fucking cultists were doing to him because the beatings he could take, but they liked to cut too, and that hurt like a mother fucker. His dad had never used knives. His dad had never threatened to cut his tongue out and his dad had never sewn his mouth shut and his dad hadn’t made his brother stab him in the fucking leg. He didn’t want to scream but his body tried to anyway, even if it was choked off by the rag in his mouth. They were cutting into his back with thin knives and he strained against the bonds holding him down and it didn’t matter. Struggling just ripped up his wrists even more than they already were and he could see and feel the blood trickling down his skin and onto the floor. They just kept cutting and he wondered what they were carving across his spine and he wondered if he cared because he just wanted it to stop. They had started by beating the shit out of him and he had taken that as soundlessly as possible because his father had taught him about that kind of pain. This was different. This was a burning in his back and his skin and each cut stung and bled and he screamed because there was a wound in his thigh and his brother had put it there. They had twisted the blade in deeper and his leg was on fire with the pain because Ayden had done it and he had watched his little brother do it with wide and confused eyes, like he didn’t even know what he was doing anymore. He’d tried to tell him. He’d tried to call out to him. It didn’t fucking matter because his mouth was duct taped shut. Vaughn had laughed and grinned at him but he still didn’t enter the room and Johnny wondered if he was afraid of him or just liked to watch. He was going to kill that mother fucker for what he’d done to his brother because Ayden’s eyes had been wide and empty and had done what he was told like a confused child and he didn’t like the words that had come out of Vaughn’s mouth because he was whispering in his little brother’s ear and twisting his mind with his devil’s words. Johnny was going to kill him. He was going to kill him and bleed him. He was going to kill Vaughn as soon as he escaped and maybe he was still working on that part but he would get out because he had to because he didn’t know what the Isolation was but it wasn’t anything good for his little brother and he was scared. He cried out again behind the gag and pushed at it with his tongue but he couldn’t get anything but muffled shouts to go beyond his lips but they were holding his hair and waving a knife in front of his face. “You think we should cut his tongue out yet?” someone was asking. There was a laugh and then a blade was slicing into his ribcage and being drawn across his skin with the hiss of metal. He cried out because it didn’t feel like they were writing words into his skin anymore. It felt like they were just playing with him and someone rolled him over again, dragging the knife down the scar he already had in his chest. They followed the white line the surgeon had left him and he felt sudden panic at the remembering. He missed Annie. He wondered where she was and if she was okay and if she got the message and if she still loved him. Then the knife was digging into his chest and someone was just drawing on him for the hell of it and he was a mess of red lines and pain and he crushed his eyes shut so that he wouldn’t fucking cry. “I don’t know,” a voice was answering, and he had already forgotten the question. “Vaughn said to have our fun with him. And he’s still conscious. Maybe we should wait until he’s out to try and take his tongue.” “Well, let’s knock him out then. I’m getting bored,” the first voice said. He heard laughter again and then a quiet “Alright.” Something cracked into the side of his head and he choked out a muffled shout because it hurt like a mother fucker. He gritted his teeth against the pain and his vision blurred and darkened but he had to stay awake. He had to stay conscious because if he went out he was going to lose the one weapon he had left and he wished now that he had just said the fucking words and healed Ayden and he wished that he hadn’t been so fucking stupid and let himself get captured again and then another blow was knocking his head to the side and there was blood running into his eyes. He forced his eyes to stay open and it wasn’t going to matter much longer because everything was getting dark around the edges and something slammed into his temple again and he felt the shadows overtaking the light. He remembered his father kicking him in the head and he wondered if he was going to wake up in a hospital in three days and if Annie would be there and if Ayden would be alive and okay and he screamed in frustration because he had to save his little brother. A gunshot went off somewhere over his head. He dreamed it was Annie, shooting through a surgeon and then taking him home. Wenston Ayden thought he was still dreaming. Not visions, just dreams. But this one seemed real and he panicked and kicked and bucked and fought the box entrapping him alone in the cold and the dark and he screamed and jammed his eyes shut and pleaded over and over again to wake up, wake up, wake up. But he didn’t. Because this wasn’t a dream. And it wasn’t a vision. It was real. Ayden screamed himself hoarse inside the box. He was shaking and shivering and he remembered a time when he was little and was playing hide and seek with Johnny and he’d crawled into a cabinet and had gotten locked in. This reminded him a lot of that. He’d been in that cabinet for hours, but he’d had no doubt that Johnny would come get him. But this wasn’t like that. Because he wasn’t even sure if Johnny was still alive. His memory was coming in bits and pieces. He remember a knife and remembered plunging it into his brother and he started crying because maybe he had killed his brother and if that was true, he would be following shortly. Ayden lay in the box, with his head turned to the side and his breathing was labored from blood loss, anxiety, panic and because the air was getting thicker and thicker the longer he was in here. He was cold throughout his body, but it was hot inside the box. He didn’t understand that part. He knew he had his eyes closed because he could feel the tears slipping out between his lashes. He hated that he was weak and crying and he knew back in the day it would have gotten him beat, but wasn’t he already beat? What more could they possibly do to him now? “Johnny…” Ayden whispered into the darkness and his voice was scratchy and quiet because he’d been screaming. He hated the dark. It was possibly the thing that scared him the most, other than losing his brother. “Help,” he croaked out and then sobbed because he didn’t know if his brother was coming and he thought maybe he wasn’t because he remember beating him and stabbing him and if Johnny wasn’t dead then he was for sure hurt and maybe he couldn’t come. Ayden wished he could get out of this box and help his brother, pay him back for all the times Johnny had come to his rescue. For all the times Johnny got hurt because of him. Ayden wanted to save him. But he couldn’t. From the darkness, there was a rumbling chuckle. It startled Ayden and he flung his eyes open but all he could see was black. He whimpered a little because the chuckle echoed all around him and it was coming from inside the box. He kicked out and swung his arms but they just cracked against the wood around him and didn’t connect with anything solid but there was something here with him and he didn’t know what it was. Then a voice came and it was hissing and slimy and it burned at Ayden’s soul. “Mine,” it whispered and Ayden gasped and arched his back because as the words came it felt like a hand was reaching into his chest and squeezing his heart. He brought his hands to his chest and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He distantly heard chanting coming from somewhere outside the box but then the blood was rushing in his ears and all he could hear was the roar of his soul being pushed aside and infiltrated and the chuckle had turned into a laugh and was mocking him. “Oh…god,” Ayden choked and the laugh turned into a cackle and whatever was squeezing his soul dug claws in and Ayden was bucking in the box, his head hitting off the roof of his tomb and he felt trapped with the pain and it was almost unbearable. “Your god cannot stop me,” the voice said and he could feel hot breath on his face and it stank of rot and decay. He couldn’t breathe and it choked him and then he felt hands on his arms but there was nothing there. He cried out as the hands reached for his mouth and pried it apart and Ayden thought his jaw was going to crack off his head. Then something was shoving its way down his throat and as it reached his heart and his lungs and his soul, he flinched and went still and the world faded around him. He heard laughter. And it was sinister. It should have ended there. It should have ended and the world should have ceased to exist for him, but it didn’t. He vaguely thought he felt a hand holding his and pulling him, but the world was on fire around him and then he was out again. When the world faded back into view, he was in a motel room. He knew this motel room, because he’d built it inside his head. He was sitting on the floor in the middle of it and he was alone. Ayden blinked and tried to remember how he’d gotten here. He looked down at his hand because he thought someone had been holding it, but he couldn’t remember. He rubbed his hands together because they were tingling and he saw the ugly jagged scars running across his wrists. Then something was banging against the door to the motel room and Ayden’s head shot up to stare at it. The door held and was locked from the inside. Ayden gulped and climbed to his feet and he was surprised to feel that he didn’t hurt or feel dizzy and he could move on his own. He knew this was all fake and in his head but he somehow didn’t care. He took a few tentative steps towards the door while something kept banging against it and it got more and more violent and Ayden’s heart was racing in his chest. Finally the banging stopped and Ayden paused a few feet away from the door to listen. He could heard heavy breathing on the other side. Then someone sucked in a breath and let out a low chuckle. “This is a new trick,” someone said and Ayden frowned because he didn’t recognize the voice but it was low and sinister and utterly, utterly evil. He took another step closer to the door and the voice called out again. “I know you’re in there, Son of God. Why not open the door?” Ayden closed the distance between himself and the door and put his hands on either side of the peephole. He hesitated for a moment before leaning forward and looking out. What he saw would haunt him for years. On the other side of the door was pure evil. It was a image that he couldn’t comprehend but at the same time he knew exactly what he was looking at. A demon, straight from the bowels of hell itself stood on the other side and he was peering into the peephole back at Ayden. The demon smiled at Ayden and tilted its ugly head to the side. “I own you,” the demon hissed and its words threatened to seep through the cracks beneath the door. Ayden looked down at them and when they started to filter in, he stomped on them with his boots and then looked back out the peep hole. The demon threw its head back and laughed. “Let me in and this will all be over. I control your body. Now give me your soul and I will make this end.” Ayden felt tears stinging at his eyes because this was the scariest thing he’d ever fucking seen before. Just the sight of the demon in its true form standing on the other side of the door was enough to make Ayden feel weak and helpless. There were some things that people just weren’t meant to see. Pure evil was one of them. He tilted his head down so he wasn’t looking at it anymore and leaned his forehead against the door, trying to collect himself and keep the door locked and the demon out. “Fuck you,” Ayden whispered. And then he balled his hands into fists and he pounded back against the door and screamed, “Fuck you!” The demon chuckled. “Do you know who I am, Son of God? I am Amon. I am a Marquis of Hell. I am a decorated warrior in His army and you will not defeat me, mortal. You cannot win.” Ayden shivered as the demon spoke and he reached to keep a picture hanging on the wall in place. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. “Then open this fucking door, Marquis!” he snarled and was actually proud of himself that his voice didn’t quaver or shake. The demon laughed like it was a joke and Ayden cried because the laughter hurt his ears. “You think this door will keep me out?” the demon snarled. “I will burn your trick to the ground!” it screamed and the room shook with its power but Ayden just closed his eyes and concentrated harder on keeping everything in its place. “And when I do, I will be complete and I will be the puppetmaster and together we will destroy the world and bring hell on earth and there is nothing you can do to stop it. The world will die. All those you love will die. And it will be by your hand.” Ayden whimpered and he thought about Johnny. He thought about himself plunging the knife into Johnny’s leg and he steeled himself because maybe Johnny was still alive. Maybe he was hurt and now was not the time to be weak. Now was the time to stand up and take charge and stop dragging his brother down with him, even if Johnny insisted that he didn’t. Ayden knew he did. He knew his brother always got hurt because of him. Not this time. This demon would not take full control. Even if Ayden had to stay locked up in this room for eternity. He would not let himself hurt Johnny again. “Go ahead and try you ugly mother fucker.” .Wolfie. “Well, I gotta tell you,” Johnny said. “You are the last mother fucker I expected to come to my rescue.”He heard a laugh and then his shirt was being tossed at him and he pulled it over his head. He tried to ignore how badly the wounds on his back and his side and his chest stung as the cotton stuck to his skin, but he didn’t have time to patch himself up with gauze and butterfly stitches because Vaughn had his brother. He had his fucking snake fingers inside his brother’s brain and Ayden needed his fucking help. Enrique laughed, swinging a bag of his shoulder. “Well,” he said. “I owed your friend Ashley a favor. I may or may not have borrowed money from him at some point.” He looked up and tried to put an innocent look on his face but Johnny didn’t buy it for a second. He wondered if Ashley did this shit on purpose, keeping tabs on all their old friends and using them at his will. Johnny would think about it later, because right now he was more interested in the guns Enrique was pulling out of his backpack. He holstered two handguns at his hips and then started to load them. He glanced only once at the bodies on the floor, and maybe they were human, but he wasn’t sorry they were dead. He rubbed at his mouth, feeling the scab on his cheek rip open under his fingers. “You know where they took Ayden?” he demanded, eyeing Enrique as he slid the bullets home. He hadn’t seen the guy in probably a decade but he didn’t look much different. He looked older maybe, and his hair was longer, falling out of a ponytail around his face. He had always been a little guy, with dark eyes and dark hair and a penchant for lying to try and make him look better than he was. He was a decent shot though, and Johnny didn’t care who Ashley sent, as long as they got Ayden the fuck out of here and Johnny got to shoot Vaughn in the head. “I don’t, but there’s some bad shit going down out there, so I’d like to get going if that’s okay with you.” Johnny’s head snapped up and he almost shot Enrique right then and there except it wasn’t his fault that they were here and he should be fucking grateful the little Mexican shit had come at all. “We’re not leaving without Ayden,” he said quietly and coldly. He felt a sliver of fear run down his spine, or maybe that was just more blood, but the more time slipped by the more afraid he got for his little brother. He would never leave him behind. Not if it killed him. Enrique met his eyes and he looked like maybe he wanted to argue but then he shrugged. “Fine,” he said. “This bad shit that’s going down,” he snapped, because if there was trouble that would probably be where Ayden was, because that was where he always was. It would probably be where Vaughn was too, and he snapped the gun closed as he finished loading it. He holstered one and kept the other one out because he was going to shoot some mother fuckers today and he had passed the point where he cared if they were humans or monsters and he wondered what that made him. “Where is it?” He had lost track how many people he had killed. Maybe that should have made him feel guilty, but mostly it made him feel sick and a little scared because he didn’t think he felt bad at all. He wasn’t sorry Enrique had shot the three cultists torturing him and he wasn’t sorry he had killed the prison guard. He wondered if Vaughn had just been twisting his head too and he should feel bad, except he remembered the man’s cocky smirk as he told him his brother was being brutalized and he remembered the cold look in his eyes as he had beaten Johnny’s face to a pulp. That had been self-defense, hadn’t it? Never mind that he could have just said the words and made him stop. He’d said the words to make his dad stop. He’d said the words to Colby with his bullets and to the witch and to that fucking pimp in California and he wondered where the line was drawn that made someone stop being a person and become one of the Wicked. He wondered when he had crossed the line that made him not even care anymore and he wondered at Vaughn’s words, because maybe he had stopped playing for the right side and maybe someday he would open his mouth and the power wouldn’t work anymore. Enrique sighed. “Right outside this door, Johnny boy,” he said, smirking at him. Johnny growled as he pushed past him to the door. “Don’t ever fucking call me that again,” he told Enrique. Then he was yanking the door open and his guns were at the ready, but no one was looking at him. They were all looking at the front of the church where a wooden coffin sat on an altar and Johnny felt sick with the fear settling in his gut. The room was filled with men and women in black cloaks and they kneeled on the floor and had their hands clasped in prayer and Vaughn stood at the head of the processional with a smile on his crooked broken face. He had poured Ayden’s blood over the coffin and it dripped off the side onto the floor in puddles and it was a lot of fucking blood. Johnny felt a growl escape his throat and then he was shooting the closest cultist in the head because he already knew what was in the box and it made him mad as Hell. Ayden hated being trapped, he hated the dark and closed spaces and Johnny knew it was his fucking fault again because he had left his brother there to rot. He limped because of the wound in his leg but it didn’t stop him from charging into the room with guns blazing. “Joder a vaquero,” Enrique muttered at him, and then he was following Johnny. They hadn’t been expecting the attack, so the first few went down easy, and then they were scrambling to hide behind pews. He heard shouting and someone was crying and holding the bleeding body next to them and Johnny shot them in the head too because they had a fucking eye over their chest and it looked the same as the one they had carved into his brother’s forehead. Someone screamed and charged at him and he saw a glint of metal in their hand and his revolver snapped up and fired two shots into their chest. Enrique let out a whoop as he leapt over a bench and he fired down at someone hiding behind the wood. Johnny didn’t care, as long as they left him alone. He was stalking across the room; guns held tightly in his hand he pointed it at Vaughn’s head. “Where is my fucking brother?” he snarled, and he already knew the answer but he asked the question anyway. He pressed the cold metal to the man’s cheek and he saw his face curl into a wretched grin. His teeth were jagged and sharp in his mouth and his eyes flicked to the coffin. Johnny growled and stepped closer and he was grabbing Vaughn by the back of his neck and jamming the gun into his face. “I said where is my fucking brother?” “He’s in there,” Vaughn said, holding his hands up in a placating motion. He nodded to the coffin with his head and then he was laughing and it was a terrible sound that echoed in the back of Johnny’s mind. “What’s left of him anyway.” “The fuck is that supposed to mean?” He demanded, trying to shake the answers out of him. Vaughn was still laughing and Johnny almost pulled the trigger then. He heard Enrique’s gun going off behind him and he was laughing too but Johnny didn’t think any of this was really that fucking funny. “It means,” Vaughn began, his words hissing out from between his teeth like a rattler’s hiss. “That what’s in there isn’t your brother anymore. It’s just crawling under his skin, and it’s going to destroy you and burn this world to the ground.” Johnny bashed the gun into the back of his head and then Vaughn’s eyes were rolling up in his skull as he crumpled to the ground. He turned to the box and then he was shooting the sides of it off and he was yanking it open and he tried to ignore that he was scared out of his fucking mind because maybe this time he had been too late to save his brother. He couldn’t believe that. Ayden would be okay, and if he wasn’t okay then Johnny would fucking make him okay with the god damned mother fucking voice of god because if it couldn’t fix Ayden then what good was it? “Ayden?” he said, when he saw his brother’s body lying in the coffin, and he never wanted to see that sight again. His eyes opened as Johnny’s fingers curled around his arm, but he knew something was wrong as soon as Ayden sat up. It wasn’t Ayden. It was his body and his face and his scars, but his eyes were all wrong. “Hello, Son of God,” he said, and it wasn’t his brother’s voice or his smile. It was something awful and wicked and wrong and Johnny thought he could hear something in the bag of his mind hissing and curling and dark and it echoed like the voice of the devil in his brain. He released his arm and stumbled back but he couldn’t get himself to pull the trigger even though he knew that wasn’t his brother in there looking back at him. The thing in Ayden’s skin pulled himself upright and out of the box and it was smiling. “Where’s my fucking brother?” he snarled, and he didn’t know what he hoped would happen but he felt tears pricking at his eyes because his brother was right in front of him but he was gone and he didn’t know what to say to get him back and he didn’t know if there was anything left in there of him and then the thing was tipping its head back and laughing. It echoed in the church and felt like nails on a chalkboard scraping past his ears. “Gone,” he hissed, and he was still laughing. “My name is Amon, and through me lies the way to the suffering city.” “Not if you’re fucking dead,” Enrique said from next to Johnny, and he hadn’t even heard the little Mexican shit come up next to him but he saw the gun rising and saw his finger tightening on the trigger and he felt his hand curl around his arm and force it upwards. The bullet ricocheted up into the ceiling and something broke and crumbled around them. Enrique snarled something like a curse at him but he didn’t care because he had to save his little brother. “No,” he snapped at Enrique and the man’s eyes were wide and angered and he didn’t fucking care. “Don’t shoot him. It’s Ayden, he could still be in there,” and then whatever he was going to say next was cut off because Ayden’s hand was slamming into Enrique and knocking him into the first row of pews. He hit them hard and wood cracked underneath him and then he sunk to the floor and was still. He hoped he was okay, because the little bastard had come here to save them, but then he felt the hand curling around his neck and Ayden was lifting him off the floor. “You’re wrong, big brother,” he said with a smile. “There’s no one left in here but me.” Wenston Ayden was sitting on the bed. His hands were resting relaxed on his knees and he was staring at the motel door. Amon was still beating against it, but the wood held. It wasn’t even budging against the demon’s attack and Ayden was keeping it that way. His whole body was relaxed, his face slack, and every ounce of his concentration was on the door and keeping it still and shut and the demon out. Because if it got in, it would be all over. Amon was howling and the noise was sickening and if Ayden had lingered on the noise, it would have made him vomit because it wasn’t natural and it wasn’t something human ears were supposed to hear. But he was blocking everything out and he was focused and there was absolutely nothing that would make him lose his concentration because the minute he did, the minute he stopped holding the door shut, Amon would get in and it would all be over. Nothing would distract him. Except for when the television popped on. Ayden’s eyes snapped to the side to glance at the snowy static and then he was darting them back to the door because the waiver in his concentration had sent a splinter up the doorframe and he growled. “You’re not coming in!” he screamed to Amon. The demon stopped pounding on the door and then his low, rumbling chuckle was filling the air. Ayden swallowed thickly because he hated that chuckle and he would hear it in his nightmares until the day he died. And maybe even after that. “Anything good on the boob tube?” Amon asked and his voice was casual and cocky and Ayden snarled his lips. His eyes moved to the television and he paused because that static had gone away and instead he was seeing Johnny and his brother was looking down at him. Ayden sucked in a breath. Amon laughed because he must have felt it. “Was that a tremor in the force, young skywalker?” Amon asked and Ayden had had about enough of the bastards pop culture references. He was a fucking demon. He should be talking demon, not entertainment. “You know my favorite movie? Seven. Although, the sins don’t get enough face time. I particularly like the quote, what’s in the box? What’s in the box?” and he was mimicking the actor’s voice to perfection and Ayden growled because he’d hated that fucking movie. “Shut up,” Ayden spat. Amon laughed. “Son of God, they opened the box. And we were inside.” Ayden gasped when he saw himself get up on the television and climb out of the box. He was seeing himself like a camera was following him and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like the look on Johnny’s face because his brother looked scared and confused and helpless. He was bleeding all over and he just looked like shit. But the scared look on his face was something Ayden hated worse than the bruises and the scrapes and the cuts. He didn’t like it when Johnny got scared because that meant things were really bad. Then Ayden saw a person come up behind his brother and he frowned because what was that little Mexican cheater shit doing here? Johnny didn’t see him come up behind him and they were both standing there, looking confused and scared as hell. Amon pounded on the door and Ayden growled and held up a hand because he was pissed off and the door didn’t budge. Ayden glanced at his hand and then the door. He kept his hand up because just the sheer force of will behind his hand was keeping the door from opening. He looked back at the television and then he watched himself send Enrique flying. He felt just a little smug because he’d always wanted to beat the crap out of that fucker, but then he felt bad because maybe he’d just killed him and he hoped not. Then the humor disappeared from him altogether and he remembered what was going on because he was watching his hand wrap around Johnny’s throat and lift him into the air. Johnny’s hands came up to grab Ayden’s arm and he was struggling, his face turning red. “No,” Ayden whispered and he pushed himself off the bed and stood up. “No!” He screamed and with all the force he could muster her held up his other hand and tried to uncoil his fingers from Johnny’s throat. His hand shook against the power and force it took to do so and then his arms started to shake and then his whole body was shaking, but it worked. It worked and he watched his fingers uncoil and Johnny fell to the floor. “Well now,” Amon called from outside the room. “How are you at multi-tasking?” And then he was kicking the door in and Ayden turned and threw both hands at the door and it shut on Amon’s face and Ayden drew in a sharp breath that sounded suspiciously like a sob because the demon had actually managed to get the door open. But then he was laughing again and when he turned to look at the television, he saw Johnny looking up at him and he was standing over him and he held a gun in his hands. “No!” Ayden screamed again and he saw Johnny frown and had he just yelled that outloud in the real world? He didn’t care if he did because he was forcing himself to toss away the gun. But that left the door wide open and then the demon was charging through it and tackling him onto the bed. Ayden cried out as the demon raked its claws along his face and he saw himself in the television and he was staggering away from his brother and there was blood trickling down his face now and Ayden gasped because that meant whatever happened to him in here was real. “You’re mine now,” Amon roared and Ayden turned his head to focus on the demon that was lying on top of him. Ayden was sick of this shit and he was sick of demons and sick of watching himself and his brother get hurt and he felt rage building up inside him and power surging in his hands and suddenly he was screaming and shoving his hands at the demon’s chest. He didn’t even hit him. The power that he flung from his hands flung the demon across the room. He crashed into the wall and knocked a few things that had been hanging there to the floor. Ayden gasped again as they cracked and shattered on the floor and the visions were suddenly lose. But they stood and they were looking at Ayden and they weren’t killing anything, they were looking at him. “They chose someone worthy,” Amon growled and picked himself up off the floor. Ayden quirked his head at the demon, because that was the first time any of the baddies had ever said he was worth something. He glanced at the television and he saw himself stalking forward towards his brother. Ayden growled and made himself stop. Johnny was looking up at him with wide, scared eyes. Then his brother crawled to his knees and was ducking his head. “Ayden?” he asked and Johnny’s voice echoed through the room. “I’m here, Ayden,” his brother whispered and the words seemed to fuel him. They seemed to energize and empower him and he slowly turned his head back to look at Amon, who was smirking and watching him with interest. He heard Johnny say again, “I’m here, buddy.” And Ayden didn’t mind that he called him that, even though it was something new. “Amon,” Ayden whispered slowly and he heard himself echoed on the television. Johnny was hearing this. He missed the way Johnny’s face fell because he thought that Amon was correcting him on the name. But Ayden jutted his chin and balled his hands into fists and he saw the visions, a ghoul on one side and a banshee on the other and they both turned towards Amon. The demon quirked his head to look at the both of them and then he was chuckling and it was low and a rumble but Ayden mirrored it with his own. “This is my playground,” he snarled and he heard himself say it outloud. “Leave my brother alone and get the fuck out of my head.” Then he flung open his hands and the ghoul and the banshee descended on Amon and the demon was howling again and with the door open it nearly shattered Ayden’s eardrums. He put his hands over his ears but he kept focused on Amon and the battle his visions were fighting against the demon and he was shaking with the amount of exertion it took to control everything. He felt his nose bleeding and he was biting his lip so hard it was bleeding too. Amon ripped apart the ghoul, but not before it ripped shreds into Amon’s back. Then he beheaded the banshee but not before she sliced scars along his ugly face. Then Amon turned to Ayden and he was bleeding and on fire and Ayden stared back at him. Amon pointed a finger at Ayden. “This ends now, Son of God,” he growled and he heard Amon’s voice echoed in the television. Johnny must have heard that too because then his brother was saying, “Hey Ayden, kick that fucking demon out of your head and I’ll buy you a god damn ice cream truck.” And his brother was trying to sound brave and confident and in control but Ayden could still hear the uncertainty in his voice and the fear because Johnny was either going to watch his brother win or lose and if he lost, they were both dead. Ayden wouldn’t let that happen. Amon rushed forward and Ayden roared and then they were wrestling on the ground. Amon’s claws raked at Ayden’s chest and arms and neck and face and he felt slices rip open all over him but he was growling and fighting back and even if he could see himself getting ripped open on the television and he heard Johnny screaming for him because he thought he was losing, Ayden was grinning and laughing because he was using the pain and he as using Johnny’s fear and his own. He put his hands to the side of Amon’s head and pulled the demon’s face down close to his. And because the devil spoke in whispers and that was all they seemed to understand, Ayden said very quietly and very calmly, “Get out.” And with all the force of not God nor the Devil but just Ayden Fucking Marhsall behind him, he twisted the demon’s head around and felt the demon’s neck snap and then Amon was screaming because his head was backwards and he was being sucked out of the room. Amon retreated. Ayden felt the moment he came back in control of his body because he suddenly wasn’t in the motel room anymore. He was standing in the middle of a church and he was ripped to shreds and he was gasping and gagging because the demon was climbing out of his throat in a smokey presence and when it was out Ayden fell to the ground and sucked in air and sobbed because that was the worse fucking feeling he’d ever felt in his life. His back was arching off the ground because he was in so much pain all over and he’d been conscious and in this much pain because the demon had shredded his body and his soul on the way out and oh jesus fuck it hurt. He heard Amon laughing in the church and he tried to stop crying or sobbing or gasping but he couldn’t. Because Amon was out of his head and in thi playground, he had no control. .Wolfie. Johnny didn’t like fighting things he couldn’t shoot.He especially didn’t like fighting his brother, because he knew if Ayden lost the battle in his head, then they were both dead men. It didn’t matter if Johnny was strong enough to fight the demon, because he would never be able to look into his brother’s face and pull the trigger. It didn’t matter if it was just a demon wearing his skin and there was nothing left underneath, because once he pulled the trigger there would be no hope and no chance of ever getting his brother back. He didn’t think he could do it. He didn’t think he would be able to pull the trigger. His throat hurt and he rubbed a hand across it and his chest and his back and his sides hurt because there were still long bloody cuts in them and he felt the blood running down his skin while his wounds throbbed and burned. Every muscle in his body was tired in sore, but all he cared about was Ayden. All he cared about was whether he would still have a brother at the end of this and he didn’t like the wounds blossoming on his skin. “Ayden,” he screamed, and he hoped his brother was winning. Ayden’s spine was arched at an unnatural angle and his face was tipped up towards the ceiling and Johnny couldn’t do a fucking thing but watch as red lines drew themselves across his brother’s face and his skin. There was sound coming out of his brother’s mouth, but he couldn’t tell who was talking or who was winning and he kept the gun at the ready for whatever came next. Somewhere behind him he heard Enrique groan but he didn’t dare look away. Then suddenly Ayden wasn’t moving anymore. His body grew still and the curve of his spine relaxed and something like a smile crossed his face and Johnny felt his finger tighten on the trigger and tears were pricking the corners of his eyes because he didn’t know what that meant but he couldn’t help the terror rampaging through his brain that any second those eyes would open and there would be nothing left inside there but Amon and maybe he would be able to shoot the fucker after all. Except then his brother opened his mouth and he just said “Get out,” very quietly and very calmly and then he was screaming. He bent over the ground and something dark and wretched was crawling from his mouth. It came out claws first, digging into the floor as it pulled its way free from his lips. Johnny felt sick. He couldn’t imagine what that fucking felt like and he felt the terror give way to things he was way more comfortable, like a churning, blinding rage. He watched the demon pull free from his brother and he heard Ayden crying and gasping and something like a whimper and a scream was coming from his lips. Johnny’s fingers tightened on the trigger and then the demon was free of his brother and he was free to shoot. The first blast caught it in the shoulder and it whirled to hiss at him before scrambling under the pews. “Oh no you don’t, you fucking piece of shit,” he growled, and he didn’t even feel the bleeding wound in his thigh or the stinging wounds on his back and his chest because this fucking thing needed to die and go back to Hell where it belonged. He was stomping up on top of the wooden benches and Enrique groaned and rolled over, watching Johnny with wide and confused eyes as he tracked the fucking demon through the church. “The fuck…?” the little Mexican groaned, and Johnny ignored him. He only looked back for a second when he heard Ayden whimper, and he wasn’t moving, his face pressed into the ground. Then he caught a glimpse of the demon scrambling under the pew in front of him and he pulled the trigger on his revolver, sending another bullet ripping through its spine. He heard it scream and it was an earsplitting shriek that was never meant to be heard on this earth and he fought the urge to clamp his hands over his ears because he was a little two fucking busy a the moment. He fired again and it caught it in the leg and he watched it stumble. That was all the opening he needed and his boot cracked down on its spine as hard as he could fucking hit it and he heard it scream again. It rolled over under the blow and then it was launching at his face and he felt one of his guns get knocked from his hand. It bowled them both over and Johnny hit the ground hard, his hands coming up to try and fend it off. It was screaming in his face and its voice was even worse coming from its actual mouth instead of filtered through Ayden. “You think you’ve won?” it hissed at him and he felt claws raking his side and trying to reach his face. “This is one small battle in a war you don’t even know you’re fighting. You haven’t won. You’ll never win. You’ll die choking on your own blood while those you love die around you and there’ll be nothing you can do but scream with a tongue less mouth.” “Maybe,” he said. “But you die first, mother fucker.” He jammed the gun up into its head and then he pulled the trigger. It tried to dodge at the last second but the blast blew through side of its face and it was screaming again and he felt claws raking the side of his face. He kicked it off him with a heavy blow and it hit the pew behind it with a thump. Johnny grabbed the edge of a wooden bench and hauled himself to his feet, bringing the gun up and firing again into its spine. It tried to run away but he had slowed it down and he kicked it hard in the side. It rolled over under the blow and it whirled and hissed at him. Johnny bashed his boot into its face again and he heard it scream and writhe underneath him. Its claws lashed out and raked at the air and he felt them ripping through the skin of his leg and he just didn’t care. He held it down with one boot on its neck and then he was pointing the gun at its head and pulling the trigger. Its skull shattered under the bullet, bits of blood and bone bursting onto the floor and it screamed again. He felt his ear drum pop with the sound and there was warm blood trickling down the side of his head, so he shot it again and that ripped through its mouth. The screaming stopped, but the demon still didn’t stop moving. It thrashed and squirmed underneath him and its mouth was open and gaping as it tried to curse him or damn him or threaten him but it couldn’t do any of those things because Johnny had already shot it twice in the head and he shot it again because it made him feel better and then he emptied the whole fucking clip into its face. Its legs twitched and he felt the claws grasping at him like hands now, dragging bloody lines down his calf. He didn’t know how high up in the hierarchy of demons Amon was. He didn’t pay attention to that shit. That was Ashley’s job and then he told Johnny just how big the guns he packed needed to be. Apparently his revolver wasn’t big enough because even with nothing left of its face it still struggled weakly and he saw it try to regenerate its flesh. It wasn’t dying, and he didn’t like that shooting it hadn’t killed it because that killed just about every fucking thing on the planet. He snarled and then he was crouching down next to what was left of its face and he saw one eye roll in the broken socket to look at him. “Can you still hear me Amon?” he asked. “’Cause I got only one fucking thing left to tell you.” He leaned down and his voice was nothing but a low snarl as the voice of God came from between his lips. “Go to Hell.” If he thought the screams the demon had made before were bad, they were nothing compared to the howl that erupted from its throat now. Fire burst in its eyes and Johnny stumbled back away from it as the fire raced down into its mouth and there were flames blossoming all over its body as it twisted and writhed. He could smell burning meat and sulfur and it was shrinking in front of his eyes, devoured by fire and shadows and the horrible scream intensified and he felt his other ear drum pop and he hoped it didn’t leave him deaf when it was done. Then the fire snuffed out, and all that was left on the floor but embers. He spit on them and there was blood in it, and then he was hurrying back to Ayden’s side. His brother’s eyes were still rolled back in his head, and Enrique stood over him, gun held warily pointed at his face. “Put that fucking thing away,” Johnny snarled at him, pushing him aside and slumping down to the ground next to his brother. His fingers closed around his arms as the last of the vision passed through him. His body went slack and for a second Johnny was afraid again, because there was blood trickling from his brother’s lips and his eyes weren’t opening. “Ayden?” he whispered, and he didn’t like being so fucking afraid. Then his eyes opened and his brother smiled at him. “You owe me a motherfucking ice cream truck,” he said, and his voice was weak and quiet, but it was his brother lying on the ground and his brother’s smirk and his brother’s wince of pain as he spoke. He reached a shaking hand up and he was wiping the blood off his lips as he sat up. His gaze went to Johnny first and he grinned again and then it fell into an expression of guilt and sadness as his eyes focused on the bruises around his neck. Johnny didn’t want to hear any fucking apologies. “I better get on hijacking you one then,” he said, smiling back. He heard a thump from behind him and glanced over his shoulder. Enrique stood over Vaughn’s body, guns holstered at his hips and a sneer on his face. There was blood running from a cut on his forehead, but out of the three of them he was probably in the best shape. Not that he would take it that way. He was a fucking whiner sometimes, and Johnny watched as his fingers gingerly touched the wound on his head and came away bloody. He sighed and then wiped it off on his jeans, jerking his head down at Vaughn’s unconscious form. “So, what the fuck do you want to do with him?” Johnny stood and his leg was starting to hurt, but he made himself get up anyway, and his hand was tight around his gun. “I’m going to kill him,” he said. Wenston Johnny didn’t waste time killing Vaughn. Ayden knew his brother would have preferred Vaughn be awake for the first shot because there were things Johnny wanted to say to him. His brother was saying them anyway and none of them were pleasant and all of them were personal. Ayden had rarely seen his brother so angry or so vengeful. It was a little unnerving but he figured his brother deserved to vent and rage and take it out on Vaughn’s body. The first shot killed Vaughn because it was straight between the eyes. His body twitched and them hissed like a balloon was deflating but then he laid still and didn’t move or speak or burn like Ayden thought he would. He was just a body, lying there. Johnny emptied his clip into Vaughn’s head so that there was only a mass of flesh and bone and blood and brain laying there. Then he borrowed one of Enrique’s and emptied that one too. He was swearing and cursing the whole time and threats poured from Johnny’s mouth and some of them had to do with Ayden but all of them were useless because Vaughn was gone and he would never hurt them again. Ayden just sat and watched. He watched his brother and watched the blood drip from wounds he didn’t remember Johnny getting and it looked like he’d fucking been tortured and Ayden wished there was still something alive that he could shoot. But he just let his brother handle it because Johnny needed to shoot things. He needed to be in control right now so Ayden just let him. His eyes went to the wound in Johnny’s leg and he noticed how his brother was favoring his good leg and that wound would probably hurt for a while. He felt tears prick at his eyes because he’d done that. And he hadn’t had a demon in his head at the time. He should have been stronger. It should have never happened. Johnny handed Enrique his gun back. The little Mexican shit just took it and kept quiet because maybe Johnny had scared him too. Then Johnny turned around and was limping his way back over to Ayden. Ayden thought about climbing to his feet so his brother wouldn’t have to help him up, but he couldn’t. He could still hear his own blood dripping off the coffin behind him and they had taken so much and Ayden wasn’t exactly sure how he was awake or functional right now. And then there was the fact that a fucking demon had just crawled up his throat. He couldn’t explain that kind of pain. It wasn’t physical, though he was sure it should have been if even just a little. His body was just tired and the scratches and the claw marks over him burned but they would start to hurt later. The pain that was keeping him from getting up was something that had to do with the inside. Something that couldn’t bleed, or if it could, it wouldn’t be blood. That demon had torn up his soul and he felt crippled beneath it. He didn’t know how to explain it. Other than there was a deep depression settling over him and there was no reason for it. He felt stretched out because the demon had wedged itself into him and he hadn’t broken, he’d only bent. Johnny bent down beside him and they looked at each other for a moment, each seeming to assess the other. Then Johnny reached to take hold of Ayden’s arm and he was being gentle but firm. “We’re getting the fuck out of here,” Johnny said and his voice was deep because he’d been sobbing curses at fucking Vaughn while he’d shot his head to mush. Ayden watched him for a second, his eyes flickering to Vaughn’s body lying head-smashed on the floor across the room. “You’re Johnny, right?” Ayden whispered because he had been certain while he was watching the television in his head, but now there was an inkling of doubt in his mind that he didn’t think he’d put there. Fucking Vaughn’s fingers had left marks on his consciousness. Johnny looked hurt by the question but he nodded his head and when his voice came it was small but sure. “Yeah,” he said and then wrapped Ayden’s arm around his shoulder. “Yeah it’s me.” A smile broke Ayden’s face because he believed him. Johnny hauled him to his feet and it was a little unsteady because Johnny was wavering a little himself. Ayden fisted his hand in Johnny’s shirt to keep himself up and to keep Johnny close because he needed him to be close for just a little bit. He was shaking and scared still. “I threw up a demon,” he said and looked at his brother who made a face. “I know,” Johnny crinkled his nose. “That was sick as shit.” Ayden laughed but it felt hollow because he was still really scared and the demon had left him shredded mind, body and soul. The door to the church opened and Johnny was turning Ayden so he was blocking him from whatever was coming in. Enrique yelled because he was startled and his guns came up automatically. But the sudden fear drifted away at the familiar sight of the Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts and flip flops standing in the doorway. Ashley Fucking Baker had his two shot pistol held in one hand and a shotgun slung over the other. He was wearing sunglasses, even though it was dark as sin outside. He stepped into the church and pushed his glasses up on top of his head and looked between the three of them and then what was left of Vaughn on the floor. “Well,” he said and grinned that stupid cocky grin of his. “Looks like I’m right on time.” † † † They’d said goodbye to Enrique and the little shit had called them assholes and said they were even now. But Johnny had told him that if he ever needed anything, to call Baker and he’d get a hold of them and they’d come. Enrique looked a little devious at that offer but had took him up on it and had driven off with a sense of pride that maybe he’d finally earned because he’d just saved their lives. Then they’d piled into the back of Ashley’s convertible and Ashley put the top up for them because they already looked like they’d lived through a fucking hurricane, they didn’t need to look anymore windblown. They started to patch each other up because they were going to drive a few states before stopping at a hospital because it would be harder for people who were looking for them to find them that way. Ayden knew Johnny would probably have to have surgery on his leg and his ear to fix the damage, and he hoped his brother wouldn’t have a permanent limp or hearing loss. Ayden didn’t know about himself. He didn’t know if a hospital could fix the pain the demon had caused him and he didn’t know if anyone could. Maybe it would just take some time. So he stopped thinking about it and let Johnny boss him into getting stitched up first. Johnny cleaned and stitched the claw marks all around Ayden’s body and he redressed Ayden’s wrists because they still looked horrible and Ayden wondered if people would think he’d tried to off himself. Probably. When Ayden turned to do the same for Johnny, his hands were shaking. He kept sticking Johnny with the needle and he would hear his brother hiss but keep quiet and he kept whispering small apologies. Then he got to the wound on Johnny’s thigh and he couldn’t do it. He swallowed thickly and looked up at Johnny, who had his head resting back on the seat and his eyes closed. He looked pale and uncomfortable because they weren’t using any painkillers and Ashley had offered them whiskey but with the blood loss, they didn’t think it would be a good idea. “I’m sorry,” Ayden said firmly and strongly and Johnny’s eyes opened and he turned his head to look at him. “For stabbing you,” Ayden said and pointed to Johnny’s leg. Ashley snorted from the front seat and they glanced at him for a second. He was watching them in the rearview mirror. “Are…are you actually talking about deep shit to each other?” Ashley feigned shock and horror. “Fuck you,” Johnny told him and then looked back at Ayden. “And I don’t want to hear another fucking apology come out of your mouth about this whole thing. You have jack shit to apologize for.” “I should have been stronger,” Ayden said weakly. Johnny snorted. “Stronger? You pushed fucking Amon out of your head.” Whatever Ayden was going to say was cut off when Ashley spat out, “Amon?” Johnny nodded at him in the rearview mirror. “Yeah. You know him? We just fucking sent him back to hell tonight,” Johnny said proudly and Ayden smiled a little at his brother because he had to admit that was pretty cool that his brother had thought to tell a demon to go to hell. Ashley swerved the car off the road and Ayden was flung into the back of Ashley’s seat. He gasped and Johnny was cursing because his whole body was aching and it had just been jarred. “What the fuck?” he demanded. Ashley turned the car off and turned around in his seat to stare at them. “Amon?” He asked again and Ayden nodded. Ashley looked at Ayden like he had sprouted another head. “You were able to push fucking Amon out of your head?” Ayden shrank away a little from Ashley because he was still scared and he didn’t like talking about stuff that went on inside his head. He managed a small, “Yeah.” Johnny leaned forward because maybe he sensed Ayden was uncomfortable. “Ashley, what’s wrong with you?” Ashley laughed and shook his head like he couldn’t believe it. “Did Amon happen to tell you who he was?” Johnny glanced at Ayden and Ayden suddenly felt scrutinized beneath both of their gazes. He tried to shrink away again but he was trapped inside this car and he flashed for a moment to himself trapped inside the box and he had to swallow thickly. “He said he was a Marquis of Hell,” he said quietly. “He said he was a decorated warrior in Hell’s army.” Ashley snorted. “Decorated warrior?” He laughed unbelieving and shook his head. “Smug fucking bastard.” When he turned back to them, his face was serious and he looked worried. “Amon is the General of Hell’s army.” He paused to let that sink in but Ayden didn’t understand. Johnny seemed to squirm in his seat for a bit and maybe his brother was picking up on something that he wasn’t. Ashley reached up and tapped the cut on Ayden’s head. Ayden jerked his head away and ran his hand over the eye shaped scar on his head. “So,” Ashley continued. “You killed Vaughn and you overpowered Amon and sent him back to hell.” He paused again and when he laughed it wasn’t funny or humorous. It was scared. “Let me put this into words you’ll understand. You killed the Devil’s Messenger,” he pointed to Johnny and then his finger moved to Ayden. “And you overpowered the second most powerful demon Hell has to offer other than Lucifer himself. And then you sent him back to Hell.” Johnny and Ayden sat quietly for a moment and Ayden was having trouble concentrating because he didn’t like that Ashley was scared and Johnny wasn’t boasting about their accomplishments. Finally, Johnny shrugged but there was no heart behind it. “So?” he said. “So,” Ashley ran a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ, if you weren’t on Satan’s radar before, you sure as fuck are now. You boys, you just started a war. They are going to come after you with literally the fury of Hell behind them.” .Wolfie. “Well then,” Johnny smirked. “I guess we’ll just have to kill the Devil.”He said it because he was fucking terrified, and he hated the feeling, but Ashley was whipping his head back to look at him and his eyes were wide. Ayden laughed weakly because it was a stupid joke but it was all he had because Ashley’s words were sinking into his gut and he didn’t know how much more they could take. One demon had been bad enough, taking over his brother and ripping him to shreds from the inside. He wasn’t sorry he had killed Vaughn. He was just sorry he hadn’t looked the fucker in the eyes while he did it because he’d wanted to put the fucking fear of God in him before he died. “You fucking stupid asshole.” Ashley spit the words and he looked back at Johnny with disbelief and fear written all over his face. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? You think this shit is bad? You think fucking… swamp witches and werewolves are bad? They’re nothing. They’re children just fucking around.” His voice dropped and he was looking at Johnny and shaking his head slowly because Ashley was afraid and that made Johnny afraid. “He’ll send Legion.” “The fuck is that?” Johnny asked, kicking back in the seat. Ashley tilted his head back and laughed but it lacked humor. “Legion?” he prompted, looking back at Johnny. He shook his head. “Jesus, didn’t either of you ever go to church? You know, the demon that’s multiple demons all in one terrible package? ‘My name is Legion, for we are many?’ Any of this ringing any bells? How about this, the fucking badass demon that’s going to come and destroy anything you’ve ever touched and anyone you’ve ever loved and then when he’s done with that he’ll skullfuck you both and maybe when he’s done that you’ll finally get to die.” The words hurt on the way down, and Johnny wished he were deaf in both ears instead of just the one because he didn’t like what he was hearing and he felt a shiver run down his spine. He thought about Diyani and the cold dead look in her eyes and then he thought about Annie. He thought about the dream he’d had where the world burned around them and she slit her own throat open in front of him and he could still imagine the taste of her blood on his lips. Then he thought about Ayden’s body lying in the coffin. He thought about a dream he’d had where he was crucified and sightless and it was the end of the world. He didn’t realize the car had gone dead silent until he heard his brother choke out a strangled “Fuck you.” He glanced at his face and he was pale and maybe it was from blood loss but he didn’t think so. Then his brother was kicking the door open and stumbling out into the desert, his movements jerky and uneven. He slammed the door behind him and Johnny didn’t think he cared if either of them followed. “Way to go, asshole,” Johnny snarled at Ashley. The man held his hands up. “Don’t blame the messenger,” he snapped. “Of course not,” Johnny said, kicking open the car door. “It’s never your fucking problem, is it?” He slammed it behind him and he could hear Ashley cursing at him through the door but he didn’t fucking care. His brother was walking off down the side of the road and he didn’t look like he knew where he was going. He probably didn’t care. Johnny limped after him and felt blood running down his leg because he hadn’t stitched up the knife wound yet and all the cuts were starting to hurt and throb. “Ayden, wait,” he said, grabbing his brother around the arm. Ayden whirled, his hands curling into fists like he wanted to punch something and his arm even came back like he was about to hit Johnny. Then he seemed to realize it was his brother and his fingers relaxed and then fell slackly to his side. There were tears in his eyes and he shook his head at his brother, trying weakly to pull his arm away. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said in a low whisper. He was still shaking his head and then his voice was rising in pitch. “I just can’t fucking do this anymore! We didn’t ask for any of this!” “I know,” Johnny told him, and he wasn’t arguing. “And how the fuck did we start this war?” he screamed, and he was yelling at Johnny now but he didn’t stop him because his brother needed to say these things and there was no one else to hear them. “We were minding our own fucking business! I just wanted to eat my stupid fucking ice cream! I didn’t ask to be kidnapped! I didn’t ask to have a fucking demon jammed down my throat or an eye carved into my forehead, so how the fuck is that our fault?” His brother wrenched his arm away but he stopped trying to run off down the highway. He kicked at a rock and when it only bounced a foot he picked it up off the ground hurled it into the desert with a frustrated scream. “I didn’t ask for any of this,” he shouted, and then he was slipping to his knees in the dirt. His body was shaking with the sobs he tried to hold in and Johnny went to crouch next to his brother. “It’s not fair,” he said. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be fucking Godsent or to have these stupid visions jammed in my brain or to have seizures or anything.” No, Ayden hadn’t. Johnny had just put them there. Johnny rested a hand on his brother’s back. “I know,” he said quietly again. He opened his mouth to tell his brother that he was sorry he had stopped the train and done this to them and that maybe if he’d kept his mouth shut Ayden could have lived a normal, happy life. Maybe he’d have gotten away from their parents and gone to college, but he knew in the back of his mind that it never would have happened like that anyway. “I know you didn’t,” he said. “It’s not fair,” he said again. “We do all this shit for God, what did that fucker ever do for us?” Johnny shook his head and he didn’t have an answer. Ayden was crying and he turned his head away so that Johnny couldn’t see and he snorted because he wasn’t their fucking father and he didn’t think less of his brother for it. They drew pale tracks through the dirt on his face and then dripped to the ground. His voice had fallen to a low whisper and Johnny could barely hear him because one of his ears wasn’t working right so he tipped his head to the right and tried to catch the words. “I can’t do this anymore,” he said. Johnny squeezed his shoulder, his own voice low. “Then we’ll stop.” Ayden shook his head and he stared at the dirt, not looking at his brother. When he spoke there was such a defeated tone in his voice that it scared Johnny, because he had never heard his brother sound so low. “It won’t stop,” he whispered. “It won’t stop until we’re dead.” He wanted to argue with him. He wanted to tell him it wasn’t true, that maybe someday they would pay off their penance or whatever the fuck this was and God would be done with them and he would take back the sight and take back the voice and they could just be people again. He didn’t think that was ever going to happen. He couldn’t see himself going out any other way then in a puddle of blood and a blaze of bullets. He just didn’t want Ayden to die that way. “Alright,” he said slowly. “Then we’ll just stop for a little while. We’ll go to fucking Universal or Disneyworld or something.” Ayden laughed, and sat down hard on the dirt. He ran his hands through the sand and let it run through his fingers in a thin trickle. “You mean that?” he asked. “Can we really do that?” Johnny snorted. “Why the fuck not? We need a fucking vacation. I mean Jesus, look at the two of us. You’ve had more broken bones in the past few months than in the last ten fucking years. And fuck, right now you really are the pretty one, and that shit’s just not right.” Ayden looked up at him. “What about Legion? What about Satan and the furies of Hell?” Johnny shrugged. “If they show up I’ll just tell them to go the fuck home.” Ayden laughed quietly and bent his head. He shook it slowly and then he looked up at Johnny again and the tears were still pouring from the corners of his eyes. Johnny sighed and pulled his brother into a hug and to Hell with what Ashley fucking Baker would say about it. His little brother was in pain and he needed to fix it. “It still hurts,” he whispered. “It’s like the demon ripped a hole in me, and I can still feel it.” “It’s going to be okay,” Johnny told him, and he didn’t know if it was the truth or not. “It’ll heal.” “Maybe,” Ayden said slowly, but he didn’t sound like he believed it. His hand rubbed at his chest and Johnny couldn’t imagine what that felt like, having a demon forced into him and then having it crawl its way back out. It wasn’t the same as having those fucking whispers in the back of his mind. It was something worse and dirty and violating and he wished he could take it back. Maybe he could’ve said the words and made his brother forget, but that was a different kind of violation and he would never do it. Johnny’s arm tightened around his brother’s shoulder and he sighed, digging in his shirt for a cigarette. “Don’t fucking maybe me,” he told him, and he thought maybe those were the words he needed to say. “If I say it’ll fucking heal, it’ll heal.” Ayden laughed and looked back at the sand running through his fingers. “See?’ he said quietly, and then he looked up at Johnny’s face. “I told you would’ve made a good dad.” Wenston Session #7: Grease Paint and Monkey Brains When Ayden was fifteen, he got mono and ruined the only vacation his parents had ever planned. It had been the Friday before spring break and at lunch time he’d gone to see the school nurse because he was used to being hurt and pain, but he wasn’t used to being sick. The nurse had told him he had to go home because he’d had a fever of over 103. Ayden had been so out of it he hadn’t even stopped her from calling their Dad. He’d just curled up in the chair in the office and had dozed. The nurse’s aide, which just happened to be Annie at the time, must have gone off to find Johnny because he showed up about ten minutes before their Dad did. He’d sat with Ayden and waited because they both knew their Dad was going to be pissed. They were supposed to leave after school to go to Arizona to some resort their parents had gotten a free week’s stay in after going to some time share seminar. It was free and it was a vacation and they had a mini-bar, was what their Mom had told them. When their Dad showed up, sure as shit he was pissed the fuck off. He’d managed to keep his cool in front of the nurse and even in the car ride on the way home, while Ayden was half passed out in the backseat with Johnny trying to keep him awake. Johnny had suggested just once that maybe they should go to see the doctor. Their Dad had shut him up right quick and when they pulled into the driveway, he was pulling the backdoor open and flinging Ayden out of the car and to the ground. Johnny had rounded the car and helped Ayden to his feet while his Dad was screaming at him that he’d done this on purpose and why couldn’t he just give them a fucking break and what a god damn useless failure he fucking was and Ayden would remember those words for the rest of his life. Somehow, because even the Marshall’s were granted small miracles every now and then, Johnny convinced their parents to go to the resort without them and he’d stay home with Ayden and nothing was ruined and maybe they’d have more fun without them. Their Dad had said hell yeah he’d rather be without them and then they were both driving away and Ayden was in his bed with a temperature nearing 105. Johnny had called the doctor and he agreed to make a house visit and when he came he said Ayden had mono and to make him stay in bed and then he was gone because he knew the Marshalls and he knew about their home life and he just didn’t fucking care or else he would have done something about it. The week that their parents were in Arizona for a week, Johnny and Annie took turns taking care of Ayden. He’d never felt so sick before in his entire life but all he kept doing the whole week was apologizing to Johnny for ruining his spring break. It took nearly a month for Ayden to get over that damn virus. By the time he did, he’d lost too much weight and he looked sickly even when he was healthy again. He was still a sophomore in high school and it didn’t help his reputation a whole lot and maybe that virus had ruined any chance he had at fitting in at school. A few weeks after Ayden was better, Johnny and Annie had jumped him in the bedroom and told him to pack his shit because they were going on vacation. Ayden didn’t know where they planned on going or just what type of vacation this was going to be, but he did as he was told and he groaned out loud when they walked a few blocks down the street and there was a tent set up down by the river. They spent the weekend, the three of them, fishing and camping and cooking smores with a lighter and it was the best and only vacation Johnny and Ayden ever had as kids. He always remembered that trip. † † † Ayden was having trouble writing a letter. Well, not the letter itself, because that had been just a steady stream of consciousness that had poured itself out onto a piece of paper in his awful chicken scratch. Maybe a little bit of his soul was spilled into this letter and he thought was just a little bit weird because he wasn’t even sure if Candice still wanted anything to do with him, but he thought maybe it was worth a shot. He just didn’t know how to end it. Should he say sincerely? Or regards? Or with love? He couldn’t think of the right thing to write down because he wasn’t sure why he was writing this letter other than he was more relaxed and felt more normal today than he’d felt in a very, very long time. They were at the beach. They hadn’t made it as far as Universal or Disneyworld. They’d been planning on it, but they’d gotten sidetracked by a motel that was on the beach and the sight of the ocean and the relaxing in the sun and the swimming pool was enough for Ayden to make the call that they should just stay here for a while. They should just relax and heal and take it easy. Johnny had gone for it without much coaxing. So Ayden was sitting on the deck of the motel, trying to write a letter to Candice and Johnny was down on the beach getting a tan and Ayden thought that was one of the funniest things he’d seen in his whole life because Johnny was like a fucking fish out of water with all this rest and relaxation. The first day they were out here, Johnny had been a lobster because he’d fallen asleep in the sun. Ayden had laughed his ass off at his brother and even Johnny had laughed a little, but he moved gingerly for a few days. Their wounds were almost all healed. Johnny’s face looked almost back to normal. He would always have a few scars left from their time in prison and he had one on his cheekbone from where Ayden had hit him with that dish. But for the most part, they were gone. And even with all the scars, Ayden was amazed at his brother’s ability to attract the women on this beach. All he had to do was sit there and smile and the girls would practically fall over him. And he’d politely turn them down because he only had eyes for one girl and Ayden wondered how Annie would feel about a place like this. Did she like the beach? Probably. They should have called her. Yeah, their wounds were almost all healed. Except Ayden still felt like his soul was stretched out and weak and he’d meant what he’d said those weeks ago when he told Johnny it felt like the demon ripped a hole in him. It was still there and it wasn’t getting any easier to deal with. He’d wake up sometimes in cold sweats and yeah, he wouldn’t be screaming, but he’d feel like something was inside him, something was crawling around and tugging at his soul and he couldn’t explain that to his brother. So he just said they were nightmares. Even if they were being honest and talking to each other, he couldn’t talk about something he didn’t understand. The waitress came over and Ayden covered the letter self-consciously with one arm as she smiled at him and put a carved out pineapple with a pina colada inside and a little umbrella with a picture of a hula girl on it. Ayden smiled up at the waitress. “Thanks,” he said politely and she giggled at him because it was a girl’s drink but he didn’t care because it was fucking good. He reached out to take it and paused when he saw Johnny approaching. His brother was still dripping water and he was in his swim shorts and when he got close enough, he shook himself like a dog. “Hey!” Ayden protested and tried to shield his letter from a watery doom. “What the hell is that?” Johnny asked and it was loud and annoying because his brother had to have surgery on his ear but he still had issues with hearing out of it, so sometimes he talked louder than he was suppose to and Ayden almost always made fun of him for it. “What?” Ayden asked innocently. “That,” Johnny pointed to the fruity drink and Ayden blinked in surprise because he thought his brother was talking about the letter. “Fucking fairy princess drink,” Johnny snorted. “It’s good,” Ayden defended himself and removed his hand from the letter to grab the drink. He’d fallen for Johnny’s trick and his brother snatched the letter up off the table. “Hey!” Ayden grouched but didn’t make to grab it back because he was lazy and didn’t want to get up. Johnny gave the letter a quick once over and then looked at Ayden, grin wide across his face and his eyebrows arched. “A letter to Eye Candy?” he chuckled. “Really?” “Give it back,” Ayden demanded and he held out his hand for the letter. Johnny laughed and handed it over. “Of course. Wouldn’t want to keep you from getting some from your woman. Just remember who it was that got you two to meet.” Johnny sank into a chair and leaned back, signaling to the waitress that he wanted the same kind of drink Ayden had been drinking. Ayden snorted. “Oh you mean Vaughn?” Johnny turned a not so amused look on Ayden and droned, “That’s not even funny.” “I thought it was kind of funny,” Ayden shrugged and sipped at his drink. Johnny just shook his head and grinned charmingly at the waitress as she brought over a half pineapple with the drink inside. When Johnny took a sip, his face twisted into one of disgust. “God, how can you drink this fruity ass drink?” “Very easily,” Ayden said smugly and took a long sip just to show off. Johnny snorted and slid his over to Ayden. “Yeah, well, when you’re drunk off your ass because you can’t taste the rum in that, I’m not carrying you upstairs,” Johnny sighed and put his hands behind his head, leaning his head back. Water was still dripping sporadically from his hair as he looked at the sky and Ayden watched him for a second. They’d needed this. They’d needed this break. “So, are you gonna ask Eye Candy on a date?” Johnny asked and it was light and casual but Ayden heard the hesitation behind it. He knew why it was there. “I don’t know,” he said and looked down at the letter. “I think I shouldn’t even send it.” “Why the fuck not?” Johnny asked and pulled up his head to look at Ayden. Ayden rolled his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know Johnny, maybe because we pissed off Hell and they’re sending people after us to destroy everything we love. Hey you know what, that sounds like the perfect time to get into a relationship.” And he hadn’t meant for the words to come out so harsh or cruel, but he was still upset over it all. Johnny raised a brow at him and then reached across the table to steal back his pineapple drink. “That’s enough for you,” he joked and took a sip. Ayden sighed and ran a hand over his face because they’d gone for weeks without arguing or thinking about Hell and he’d managed to just erase all that time they’d spent relaxing. “Sorry,” he said and he still sounded tired, even after this vacation. “You bet your sorry ass you are,” Johnny said and Ayden glared at him. “And you’re gonna mail that fucking letter.” Ayden just sighed and he wrote his name, without a closing, then folded up the letter. “Yes sir,” he quipped to his brother. .Wolfie. Johnny nodded, satisfied. “That’s more like it,” he said, grinning.Ayden put the pineapple drink to his lips and stared at the letter on the table. He glanced at Johnny and his brother could see the thoughts running through his head because he’d had the same ones over and over again since that conversation in the car. He tried to remind himself that they were on vacation and he was going to enjoy the sun and the alcohol and the beach as long as he could. He didn’t pressure his brother to go swimming, because he knew he was afraid of having a seizure in the middle of the ocean or the deep end of the pool, but he wasn’t going to let him mope and brood. He kicked at his chair. “You want to go visit her?” he asked, grinning at him. “Maybe she’d make time for a conjugal visit.” Ayden glared at him and flipped him off. “Go fuck yourself, Johnny,” he said, smiling sweetly. “Hey, I’m just trying to help you get some from someone who isn’t a dead chick or your hand.” Johnny laughed and kicked back in the chair, listening to the sound of the ocean over the edge of their motel. The wind was warm and comforting on his skin and no one was shooting at him or cutting him with knives and so what if those fucking cultists had left a goddamn poem on his back, they were all dead now. At first he’d been bored, with nothing to do but sit around and smoke and swim, but he was starting to get used to it. They needed vacations more often. He was surprised his brother hadn’t had a vision yet. This was usually the part where God shit on them. He pulled his pack of cigarettes off the little table and put one between his lips. He lit it up with a quick flick of his lighter and then inhaled smoke into his lungs and he wondered if it was even possible for him to kill himself with those things because he’d had to heal himself so fucking often in the last few months. His hand lingered on his face afterwards, tracing the scars that still remained etched on his skin. Most of them had faded quickly enough, but he could still feel the jagged line where Vaughn’s knife had cut into his face and he thought his nose was a little more crooked then it used to be. The sun and the beach and the relaxation had wiped most of it away faster than anything else and he tipped his head back, feeling it bright and warm on his face. The last time he’d felt this content and at ease there had been a girl in his arms telling him she loved him. He felt the smile falter a little, but he didn’t let it fall. He still missed her and now it hurt even more. He was putting her in danger, just by caring about her and he wished he could stop. Maybe they were both stupid. Ashley’s words were burned into the back of his mind like a warning beacon. He had sworn that everyone and everything they touched or loved was going to die, and while he had only said it so explicitly that one time, he had suggested maybe they start cutting ties. He had said it over the phone in such a soft and quiet tone that at first Johnny hadn’t heard him, because he still had trouble hearing out of his left side and he hadn’t wanted to hear him anyway. “I said,” Baker told him, a little louder. “That you should think about cutting ties.” Johnny snorted. “With who?” he growled, daring the man to say it. He did. The fucking asshole actually opened his mouth and said it. “You should think about cutting ties with Annie.” Johnny felt the growl rise in his throat and his hand was curling tightly around the phone because he wanted to smash it into the box. “Fuck you. I’m not going to let anything happen to her,” he snapped. He wanted to believe he was telling the truth, but he knew that just saying it could get her killed. He pictured her with her throat slashed and he didn’t know what would make her safer, keeping her as close as possible or as far away from him as she could fucking get. He knew which one hurt more. He knew which one was the smarter answer too and he didn’t like that little voice in the back of his head telling him he would get her killed. “So did you tell her?” he said finally in a smoky breath. The silence stretched out on the other end and Johnny wondered if maybe Ashley had already hung up on him. He scratched at the scars on his lip and smoked his cigarette and tried not to start screaming at Baker because he was still pissed at him. He was still mad about what he’d told them in the car because he couldn’t forget it. It had scared him, and he didn’t like being scared and he didn’t like Ashley fucking Baker making his brother cry when he should just be proud of himself for forcing a demon out of his head. He still couldn’t tell how badly just doing that had hurt him and he didn’t like it. “I told her,” Ashley drawled slowly. “But you’re not gonna like the answer.” Johnny frowned and tried to pretend he didn’t care, but just hearing that hurt a little bit. He was stupid to think he could just call up and act like she was still his woman and hope that she still loved him. He was stupid to think that he could fix it at all and he put the cigarette to his lips and thought about just hanging up and forgetting about it, because she would be safer if he did that anyway. Except he couldn’t forget her and he couldn’t let her go. “Just fucking tell me what she said, Baker,” he snarled into the phone. He sighed and the hesitation was killing him because he needed to know if she had told him to go to Hell or go fuck himself or never try and contact her again. Even if it hurt like a mother fucker, he had to know where he stood with her and he felt his teeth grinding together. “She said, and I’m quoting here, remember, ‘tell that arrogant son of a bitch that I would rather have my tongue bitten off than have to sit through a conversation with him.’ So, yeah,” Baker finished lamely. “That’s what she said.” He felt sick and sad at the words, because he was right and she didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. Then he realized what she said. He rolled the cigarette in between his lips and he felt a grin slide across his face and he knew it was broad and stupid but he couldn’t help it. “You sure that’s what she said?” he asked quietly, because he didn’t want to be reading this wrong and he didn’t want to have hope if he shouldn’t but maybe that was her way of telling him that she still loved him without having to say it to fucking Baker. “I mean, is that exactly what she said?” Ashley sighed into the receiver. “That’s what she said.” “Well alright,” he said, and the sloppy grin was still on his face. He bit down on his cigarette, trying to think of what to say back to her and trying to think what this meant and maybe there was still hope for them and maybe it was going to get her killed. He knew he should have just been scared or anxious and he should have told Baker to tell her to stay the fuck away from them but he missed her. Maybe Ashley was right and Johnny did get stupid when it came to Annie. “You just tell her that I would be happy to take care of that for her, any time she likes.” Ashley groaned. “I told you I wasn’t gonna get caught in the middle here.” “You just tell her,” he said. “Johnny,” Ashley said slowly, and his voice was serious and concerned. It was never a good thing when Ashley started getting serious because he could be a condescending prick sometimes. “What the fuck are you boys doing? Building fucking sand castles and drinking pina coladas? Hitting on girls? You’re the fucking Godsent. You’ve got work to do.” He left unsaid the things that would be coming after them, but Johnny heard the threat anyway. “Fuck you Ashley,” Johnny growled into the phone, and then slammed it down on the cradle. “You think they’re already out looking for us?” Ayden asked softly. Johnny jerked because he’d been drifting off to sleep, the cigarette still dangling between his lips and maybe that was too much like mom for his comfort. He pulled it from his lips and snuffed it out on the ash tray, rubbing his hands through his hair as he tried to focus on what his brother was saying. He had the pineapple drink still held in his hands and he was staring at that instead of Johnny. Then his brother realized what he was talking about. “Ayden, what day is it?” He rolled his eyes, because Johnny had done this to him like eight times already this week. “It’s Saturday,” he snapped. Johnny grinned. “You’re fucking right it is. We go back to work on Monday. Saturday is for drinking half a quart of tequila and if you make me do it by myself I swear to Christ I will vomit in your hair.” Wenston “Okay,” Johnny said and his eyes were glazed and his words were slurred. “Are you ready?” he asked his head dipped at the question and almost didn’t come back up. But then it bounced back up and Johnny was giving him a look that might have been trying to be threatening but it didn’t work. Ayden sat across the table from him and he was staring at his brother. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly and leaned an elbow on the table to point at Johnny. “You’re drunk,” Ayden slurred back at him. Johnny sighed loud and heavily and he slapped his head with a sounding smack. “Yes, we’ve established that the last nine million fucking times you’ve pointed that out. You’re stalling. Now lift your fucking shot and toast me, asshole.” “I was just saying,” Ayden defended himself with his eyes half-lidded. He shrugged and lifted his shotglass. “I wasn’t stalling. Stallin’. Stalin. Wasn’t he from Russia?” “Oh. My. God,” Johnny snarled and actually leaned down to hit his head off the table in mock frustration. When he brought it back up, he had a red mark on his forehead and Ayden snickered because it was so easy to piss off his brother when he was drunk. Johnny slammed is shotglass into Ayden’s and the last of the tequila mostly sloshed out of it but Ayden didn’t really mind, he’d already had way, way too much. “We’re toasting,” Johnny announced. “To what?” Ayden asked. Johnny seemed to think for a moment and then grinned. “To biting off tongues.” Ayden scrunched his nose and pulled his shotglass back. “I’m not toasting to that. You have a morbid sense of…” Ayden rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. “What’s the word?” “Kink?” Johnny supplied helpfully. “Kink?” Ayden mocked and looked mortified. “Where do you come up with this shit?” Johnny laughed and held up his hand. “Alright, alright.” He held the shotglass out again and Ayden was a little hesitant but he clinked his with his brother’s again and waited for Johnny’s new toast with mild annoyance. “Okay, we’re toasting to a good vacation, filled with days in the sun and pineapple drinks and lots of pretty ladies with big boobs in tiny bikinis.” Ayden shrugged because it was better than toasting to biting off tongues and he didn’t have a clue where his brother had come up with that. They both threw back their shots and then slammed the glasses down hard on the table. The tequila burned on the way down and Ayden resisted the urge to bring it all back up all over his brother. He closed his eyes a moment and when he opened them, Johnny was watching him. “Dude,” Johnny slurred and he seemed to get even more drunk after that one shot. Tequila had that effect on people. “Just so you know, if you pass out, I’m totally drawing a penis on your face.” “I would totally kick your ass,” Ayden slurred back. Johnny snorted. “You could try.” “I would win.” † † † Ayden groaned before he was fully awake. He rolled over in his bed and stretched his arms out above him and his legs down below him. He felt his right leg cramp and he quickly pulled it back up. Ever since that fucking alligator had broken it, it had never been the same. The doctors said there had been muscle damage. Ayden could fucking care less and after Johnny had healed him in prison, he thought it would be better, but it wasn’t. So maybe it was all in his head. Like everything else. “Fuck me,” Johnny groaned from the other bed and Ayden snorted, rolling his head to look at his brother. Johnny was pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. He hadn’t bothered to take off his clothes last night and he looked like a fucking hungover college kid. Ayden blinked against the light coming in through the window and he squinted at his brother and immediately his eyes widened when he caught sight of something on Johnny’s face. Oh fuck, he brother was going to be pissed. He didn’t even remember doing that last night! Johnny stood and stretched and groaned against because his stomach was revolting. He turned and looked at Ayden and Ayden tried to keep the laughter and grin back. He cleared his throat and his stomach roiled and maybe the tequila would come back up later but not right now. “Mornin’,” Ayden gave and his voice was deep and sick from a night of drinking. Johnny just sniffled and ran his hands over his face and went into the bathroom. Ayden counted in his head and stared at the ceiling and sure enough, when he got to ten, Johnny’s voice was yelling from the bathroom. “What the…Ayden I’m going to fucking kill you!” Ayden couldn’t help but burst out into laughter and it felt unnatural but good and it had been a while since he’d laughed like this. He turned to look at the bathroom door that flung open and Johnny stalked over to him and he pointed to his face, where a very phallic looking image had been drawn onto his face. “Are you fucking serious?” Johnny shouted and he looked pissed, but not in the ‘I’m going to kill you’ sort of way that scared Ayden. More in the ‘I wish I had a little sister’ way that always just cracked Ayden up more. And so he started laughing harder. He sat up when Johnny grabbed Ayden’s pillow and hit him with it. Ayden held his hands up in surrender. “I swear to God, Johnny, I don’t remember drawing that on your face.” “Yeah fucking right,” Johnny snarled. Ayden laughed but shook his head. “I swear,” he promised and the laughter was bubbling up out of his throat against his will. Johnny seemed to take a deep breath and if Ayden didn’t know better, he could almost swear there was a smile threatening to break out on his lips. “I will get you back for this,” Johnny threatened and pointed a finger at Ayden before he stalked back into the bathroom and slammed the door. Then he yelled, “This better not be fucking permanent marker!” Ayden fell back against the bed and rolled over. He spotted the permanent marker sitting on the table between the beds and the laughter just came harder. He pushed himself back up and swung his legs off the bed. He ran his hands over his face and shook his head because these few weeks had been the most fun he’d had in a long time. It was like they were normal again and Ayden scratched his arm and couldn’t help but thinking it felt like he was home again. Home with his brother. Things were great. Things were happy. So of course God chose that moment to dump on their parade. The vision struck him hard and maybe it was because he hadn’t had one in weeks and maybe it was because they weren’t allowed to be happy or take vacations and this was God’s way of telling them. But one minute Ayden had been making his way over to the table and the next pain laced through his head and he felt himself collapse with a thud on the ground and he was shaking before the vision truly came. † † † There were clowns. And that was scary enough. But there was more. There were clowns and they had white faces and colorful hair and red noses. They were running around and some were driving bicycles and all of them had fire in their eyes and blood running from their mouths. There was a Ferris Wheel. A kid was stuck at the top of it and he was screaming as the clowns climbed up the ride like insects. Like sharks, frenzying over their prey. There were mirrors and Ayden was reflected all around himself. The mirrors shattered and when they did the clowns laughed and there was circus music and an elephant was running at him and there was a lion tamer that had claws marks along his face and neck and the lion was chewing his arm. There was a concession stand that was selling hearts on a stick. And there were always clowns. And that was scary enough. And the vision was over. .Wolfie. Johnny had to scrub his face for twenty minutes in the shower to get the fucking dick off his face.His face was raw and red by then, but it didn’t hurt half as bad as his stomach or his head. He had forgotten just how bad he hurt the next day after that much tequila and he thought with a self-deprecating smile that he was getting old. The last time he had been this drunk was the last time he’d had a penis drawn on his face and he was going to get his little brother back for this. He owed him two now and he felt himself laughing because the kid had gotten him pretty good. Laughing reminded him of the pain in his head, and he groaned, letting it rest against the tile and waited for the water to wash away most of the pain. His whole body ached and his stomach felt like it wanted to crawl out his throat just to get away from him and he hoped he didn’t throw up. He couldn’t remember half of last night and for once that didn’t bother him because it was a normal kind of forgetting. He had gotten drunk with his little brother and he had hazy images of going shot for shot and laughing when Ayden spilled tequila on himself and he felt better than he had in a long time. He turned the water off and climbed out the shower, scrubbing his head with a towel. One day left. One more day, and then they would go back to work and the horror and the pain and he would add more scars to his already decorated skin. He twisted in front of the mirror, because he was still trying to figure out what those stupid fucking cultists had written all over his back. It looked like Latin or Italian or some shit like that, and the only other language Johnny spoke was asshole. He probably could have asked Ashley Baker but he didn’t feel much like talking to him if he could help it, let alone stripping for him and hearing “Oh, well that’s just a curse to let the Devil possess you because I feel like shitting on your lives some more.” He almost made himself laugh at that, and then he dragged the shirt over his head. “So, what do you feel like doing today?” he shouted through the door, pulling his pants on and digging in the pockets for a cigarette. He hoped the answer was anything but drinking fruity fucking pineapple drinks or any more tequila and he felt his stomach twist and revolt at that thought. If he never saw another shot glass again it would be too soon because he was in a world of hurt and he could only imagine how Ayden felt because the kid was littler than him and didn’t have the same constitution. Then again, Johnny was the one who’d woken up with a dick on his face. The room outside the bathroom was quiet and Johnny rolled his eyes because his brother was probably whispering just to fuck with him. He was such an old man now, almost thirty, practically deaf in one ear, and he couldn’t hold his liquor for shit anymore. Another year and Ayden would be putting him in the retirement home to play shuffleboard with all the old biddies and maybe Thursday Bingo if he was lucky. “You hear me asshole?” he shouted. He pulled the door open and the words dropped from his lips. Ayden lay on the floor, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and the side of his head and at first all Johnny could think was “Oh God he’s dead.” It froze him in his tracks and he felt the cigarette drop from his lips and he felt all the air being crushed from his lungs and his head was pounding and throbbing because there was a little voice in his mind screaming at him that his brother was dead. He took a shaky step forward and whispered “Ayden?” Then his brother groaned and rolled over, eyes blinking up at the ceiling. Relief swept through Johnny and he bent to pick up his cigarette to hide how shaky he was. “What happened?” he asked, walking over to crouch next to his brother. Ayden’s head flopped to the side and his eyes were sad and cold and resigned and Johnny knew what had happened. He’d gone to take a shower and his brother had a vision. He couldn’t leave the kid alone for a second without something shitty happening to him. “What do you think happened?” Ayden snapped, letting Johnny take his arm and help him into a sitting position. “I guess God decided our vacation was over a day early.” He rubbed the back of his head and sneered at the red on his fingers. He had hit his head pretty hard and Johnny bent his neck over so that he could check out the wound. He had a sizable goose egg on the back of his head but it didn’t look too bad. The cut was a superficial one and he wiped it away with the edge of his sleeve because the shirt smelled like sweat and tequila anyway. “What was the vision about?” He asked, blowing smoke out into his brother’s face. Ayden glared at him and waved at the air. “Clowns,” he spat. “Fucking scary ass clowns.” Johnny shuddered and sat down hard on the floor next to Ayden. He hated clowns. They were probably his only irrational fears because all his other ones were perfectly justified. Like the fear that everyone he knew and loved was going to die a horrible death screaming and drowning in their own blood. “Well good,” he snapped, forcing false bravado into his voice. “I’ve always wanted to shoot a clown. Creepy ass fuckers.” Ayden laughed and rubbed at his head again. “You’re fucked up.” “What?” Johnny asked, sticking the cigarette back between his lips. “You telling me you don’t want to shoot a clown, after that creepy ass fucker at the county fair?” He shuddered at the thought and about the smeared face and bloated stomach. He could still remember the smell of him because he had smelled like mom. Whiskey and bourbon and sweat and shame and Johnny wondered what mom would think of them now. He wondered if she even would’ve thought about them. Ayden shook his head at him and his eyes were blank. “What are you talking about?” Johnny frowned. “You know, the fucking clown at the county fair… he made you cry?” Ayden kept staring back at him and shook his head slowly again. “He was drunk off his ass and wanted to know what fucking balloon animal I wanted, so I kicked him and told him to go to Hell.” He wished now that he’d kicked him a little bit harder because every once in a while he still had nightmares about that stupid fucking clown. “Mom and dad were in the beer tent and we got lost trying to find them again?” His brother laughed and his eyes looked like they were starting clear. “When was this?” Johnny shrugged. “I don’t know. I was seven?” “Man, I don’t even remember that,” Ayden said, hauling himself to his feet. He wavered a little and Johnny reached out a hand to steady him. “You have some serious deep seated issues. Maybe you should talk to someone about this. They can work you through your fear of clowns.” He glanced over at Johnny grinned at him as he dug his clothes out of his bag. “Maybe they can help you work through your latent homosexual tendencies.” “Alright, you can just shut the fuck up now,” Johnny said, whacking his brother in the shoulder. “Go get a shower and I’ll start getting our shit together.” He sighed and looked out the window where the sun was bright and he could see a glint off the ocean. He was going to miss the beach. He was going to miss the sun and the sand and the ocean and maybe if they lived through this then some day he could retire in a place like this. Then he sighed and took another drag from his cigarette. He forced a smile onto his face for Ayden. “I guess vacation’s over.” Wenston They were driving to Utah. A town outside of Salt Lake City, to be exact. When Johnny had called to tell Ashley Baker about the vision, the man had knew exactly where to send them. They never bothered to ask how Ashley knew all this stuff, nor did they really want to know. Sometimes Ayden thought Ashley was behind all of this, but he’d never tell Johnny that. He’d never put that sliver of doubt in his brother’s mind because then it would always be there. And even though Baker could be a right fuck sometimes, Ayden trusted him. Though sometimes he wondered, he still trusted the man to tell them the truth. Ayden had his head rested against the window as Johnny drove and he was feeling just a little depressed because this was supposed to be their last night of vacation and maybe he could have convinced Johnny to go out for karaoke or something equally as lame but hilarious he could get his brother to do after a few beers. But instead, they were on their way to freaking Utah to take care of another vision and they both had hangovers and Ayden had a headache that felt like he’d been kicked in the head by an elephant. He wondered if that was God’s way of foreshadowing because he’d seen an elephant in his vision and it would really, really suck to get kicked in the head by one of those. Sighing, he leaned forward and popped the glove box and pulled out the bottle of extra strength Tylenol. He popped a few into his mouth and slammed the glove box closed. “Everything alright?” Johnny asked and Ayden was surprised that he’d actually forgotten his brother was in the car and watching him. He didn’t like to show that he was hurting in front of his brother, especially before they were about to go kill something, because Johnny always got into that over protective big brother mode when he knew Ayden wasn’t at the top of his game and it usually ended with Johnny getting hurt. “Headache,” Ayden cringed out and then leaned his head against the cool glass again and closed his eyes. “Too much tequila,” Johnny said and Ayden could hear the smile. He snorted but stayed quiet and then his brother said, “We’ve still got a few hours if you want to sleep it off.” “Thanks,” Ayden whispered because he was already dozing. † † † Ayden was dreaming. And in the dream, Amon was there. He was ripping his way into Ayden’s soul through his mouth and he was spreading Ayden’s jaws apart and Ayden heard his jaw snap and his skull crack and Amon was crawling his way down his throat and that evil, evil laughter was there. He was reciting some chant, some poem or incantation and Ayden recognized it because it was the same words he’d seen sliced into his brother’s back when Johnny didn’t know he was looking. Then Amon was taking over his body and they walked around the world and destroyed the earth and raised an army from Hell made of bone and blood and brimstone. And then, it was gone. A hand was folding into his own and he was being dragged away from this and he saw Amon screaming and chasing after, but soon they lost him and then he was sitting inside the motel room on the floor with his legs crossed Indian style and he was looking into the eyes of Dyani. She looked good. There weren’t so many bags beneath her eyes and her hair was a little less gray and she was sitting there and smiling sweetly at him. He felt relief wash over him and she reached out and took his hands and held them and he calmed beneath her touch. “Dyani,” he whispered her name and she smiled. “Hello, Cheveyo,” she said back. She motioned around the room. “It’s getting full up here.” “Yeah,” he said and followed her gaze around the room. “What do I do when I run out of room?” Dyani laughed and squeezed his hands. “You build a bigger house.” Ayden looked away from her and down at their hands clasped together. “They’re going to come after us,” he whispered to her but the words sounded loud and echoing and dangerous. “I know,” she whispered back. He looked up and he was crying and couldn’t stop it. “What if they kill Johnny? Ashley said they’d kill everyone we love and what if they kill Johnny? Or Annie? I can’t do it. I can’t handle that. I-” She reached forward and cupped his face with her hands. He watched her and she dragged him close to her. “You are Cheveyo,” she said and her voice was strong and certain. “You will prove your worth and you will save them. You, Cheveyo. You will save them.” “I’m not the hero,” Ayden whispered. “Johnny is.” “Your brother will need you.” And then her head tilted to the side and she smiled softly at him. “Wakiza is calling you.” And as soon as she said it, Ayden heard Johnny’s voice. † † † “Ayden,” Johnny was demanding and Ayden jerked awake. He blinked several times and he still felt Dyani’s hands grasping his own and that feeling lingered for a while even after he was awake and looking around the car. He turned his head to look at his brother and Johnny looked worried. “Sleep well, Princess?” “Fuck you,” Ayden spat but there wasn’t venom behind it. He sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Seriously, though,” Johnny said and Ayden turned to look at him because when Johnny said he was being serious, he was being serious. “You were sleeping pretty soundly there. Maybe I should take you to get your head examined.” Ayden glared, but didn’t comment because he thought maybe Johnny was right, but not in the sense that Johnny was talking about. He didn’t have a concussion. He’d had concussions many, many times before and he knew what they felt like. But there was something going on with his head. When he sat here and had dreams about Dyani, something wasn’t right. Though the dream wasn’t scary and she had saved him from his nightmares, it was still unnerving because she was dead and yet here she was, talking to him, guiding him, giving him advice and playing prophet for the future. He wasn’t sure he liked what she’d told him because when the fuck had Ayden ever been the hero? “Where are we?” Ayden asked, ignoring his brother. He looked out the window and frowned because they were pulled into a parking lot that was make of dirt and rock and there was a circus with rides and big tents and everything going on. He could see the lights and hear the laughter and the screams from the rides. He sighed and turned to look at his brother. “We’re at the clown place,” Johnny said and he had such a forlorn look on his face that Ayden started laughing. Johnny frowned and looked at him. “What are you laughing at, asshole?” Ayden just shrugged and shook his head. “You need me to hold your hand?” he asked. “Fuck you and get out of the car,” Johnny snapped and then shoved his door open, swearing at his stupid shit little brother. Ayden snickered and rubbed his hands together because Dyani’s hands were still on his. Then he climbed out after his brother. .Wolfie. “I fucking hate clowns,” Johnny grumbled. Ayden laughed at him but Johnny wasn’t sure he believed it because his brother’s eyes were still distant and sleepy. He didn’t know if he believed that Ayden was okay because he hadn’t been quite right or quite all with it since the demon had taken up residence under his skin and he couldn’t say he blamed him. He wondered at the vacant look in his eyes and wondered what his brother dreamed about. He said he was just having nightmares and Johnny wanted to believe him, but he was worried all the same. “You want me to get you a balloon animal? We could get you a poodle.” “Fuck you! If you’re going to get me a balloon animal you better get me a fucking T-Rex and it better not be pink.” He snorted and lit up a cigarette. The place was crowded tonight, the lights bright and irritating the lingering hangover. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and wished his head would stop throbbing but it probably wouldn’t stop until he went to sleep again. At least the stomachache had passed, even if he still didn’t feel like eating anything. Maybe they could’ve waited one more day. “This place doesn’t look evil,” Ayden said. “Just really fucking redneck.” Johnny laughed, because it was true. Jim Bobs walked by with their guts hanging out in a beer clasped in one meaty fist, right next to Sally Mays with black eyes. He wondered if he was the only one with a gun stuck into the back of his jeans and he was a little annoyed when they had to come to places like this and he couldn’t just wander around with a shotgun cradled in his arms. He hated having to limit himself to the one handgun and the knife strapped to his calf because inevitably that was when they got into a situation where he had to take down a fucking zombie alligator or something. So far it looked like every other stupid circus he’d ever seen with parents dragging their screaming kids behind them and teenagers passing through in clumps. A guy passed by on a horse and he gave them the evil eye while his horse took a dump in the middle of the path. He heard someone shout and he glanced over as a baseball struck a target and sent someone in a clown outfit into a dunk pit and he shivered because he really, really hated clowns. They heard an elephant trumpet from the main tent and Ayden’s head twisted to look that way. He hoped they wouldn’t have to fight a zombie elephant. Ayden’s steps faltered and he had that distant look in his eyes again that told Johnny he was seeing something beyond what most could see. He elbowed him lightly in the gut to draw his attention back. “So where do you want to start? The main attraction? The haunted house?” He waggled his fingers at his brother and a grin stretched his face. “Want to go look at the house of freaks? Maybe we can hook you up with the bearded lady or Elephant woman.” “Yeah, and maybe we’ll hook you up with Chang and Eng,” he sneered back at Johnny. “Since you’re so fond of twins.” Johnny laughed at Ayden and slapped him on the back, taking another drag from his cigarette. His gaze wandered across the tents and focused on someone selling candied apples. Almost thirty and he’d never tried a candied apple. It looked like a pain in the ass to eat though. Another clown walked by and he was riding a unicycle and Johnny felt like a kid again because he had the urge to jam a stick in the spokes. It had a smile on his face and for a second he looked at him and he shivered. He really fucking hated clowns. “So? Where do we start? What did you see in your vision?” Ayden grinned at Johnny. “You mean besides clowns?” He laughed at the look on his brother’s face, but it died out when Johnny slapped him across the back of his head and he immediately felt like an asshole because his brother had hit that off the floor once today already. Ayden glared at him as he rubbed the back of his head and then he shrugged and looked forward. “I don’t know. I saw a hall of mirrors, so we could start with that.” “Alright,” Johnny nodded, and they turned down past a row of tents selling pizza and funnel cake. A pair of kids screamed and ran past them, shoving Johnny out of the way without another thought and the way the one kid glanced back at him he double checked to make sure his wallet was still there. They had dirty faces and he wondered where their parents were and if they were getting drunk a beer tent somewhere. “Jesus Christ,” Johnny spat. “This place is ridiculous. Now I know why we never came to the circus.” Ayden laughed. “You’re so angry at everything. It could be fun, you know, if it weren’t filled with scary evil clowns.” “See, why bother saying scary and evil in front of clown? It’s like in the fucking word already,” he spat. His brother just laughed again and shook his head. Johnny watched his face for a moment as Ayden picked his way through the crowd to the house of mirrors and he wanted to believe the smile on his brother’s face was genuine, but he’d been too quiet since they’d left the resort. Maybe it was too soon to come back to this. Maybe tomorrow was too soon too. Maybe Ayden needed a year off and maybe they just needed to quit all together because he believed his brother when he said he just couldn’t do anymore. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to Ayden and it wasn’t fair that Johnny had jammed the visions into his brain because he hadn’t wanted to die when he was thirteen. It wasn’t fair that God picked them and didn’t give them a choice and it wasn’t fair that they couldn’t just give the gifts back. They’d been dealing with this for sixteen years, so when did they finally pay off the debt? They’d sent a demon back to Hell and killed the Devil’s messenger and it didn’t seem to be enough. According to Ashley it just made everything worse, so what the fuck did they have to do to please the man upstairs? Maybe Ayden was right. Maybe it would be over when they were dead. He followed his brother into the house of mirrors and the crowd seemed to thin out a little bit because everyone was heading towards the big top in the middle for the elephants and clowns and trapeze artists. He kept the cigarette between his lips but he only saw his own face reflected back at him in every slick glass surface. “Well this is a fucking waste of time,” Johnny spat, though he paused in front of one mirror that made him look eight feet wide. Ayden snickered at him. “That’s a good look for you.” Johnny glanced at the mirror in front of Ayden and jerked his head. “Oh yeah Dolly Parton?” Ayden glanced at the mirror in front of him and it was warped to give him an hourglass figure. He snorted out a laugh and then headed past it into the maze part of the house and Johnny felt his palms get a little sweaty. He glanced behind him and two teenage girls were standing in front of the mirror Ayden had just vacated, studying their reflections and plumping themselves. He rolled his eyes and turned back around and walked smack into a mirror. Ayden laughed from ahead of him. “Watch the first turn,” he said. “It’s a little sharp.” “Yeah,” Johnny said, flicking ash off his cigarette. “Thanks for the fucking warning, asshole.” He snickered. “Always here to help.” Then he lost sight of his brother as he turned another corner and Johnny was left looking at his own reflection on every side. He took a breath and turned to the right, trying to follow Ayden into the maze and he was getting a bad feeling about this place because he didn’t like the circus or the maze or the fucking clowns wandering all over the god damned place. He whacked his head off another pane of glass and he fought the urge to smash his fist into it because maybe he would have been overreacting just a little. “You doing okay over there?” Ayden asked. Johnny rounded the corner and he thought he could see his brother looking over his shoulder back at him, but he was more concerned about the bloody mouthed clown standing right next to him. Wenston Ayden heard his brother smack into another mirror and he snickered to himself. Johnny could be such a doofus sometimes when he was out of his element. Ayden didn’t know that a house of mirrors would be Johnny’s downfall, but he was finding it pretty fucking funny because Johnny hated things that pissed him off that he couldn’t shoot or punch. Ayden supposed his brother could just take out his frustration and smash all the mirrors, but that would be more unwanted attention that they didn’t need. He could hear Johnny cursing and he grinned and turned around to see how his brother was faring. “You doing okay over there?” He called back and he saw Johnny round the corner and stop short. Johnny’s face paled and he didn’t understand the reason until his brother was withdrawing the gun from his belt and aiming it at something Ayden couldn’t see behind some of the mirror’s to Johnny’s left. His brother didn’t get a chance to fire the gun as a white gloved hand reached out and grabbed his wrist, smashing it into one of the mirrors. The mirror shattered and Johnny’s gun fell to the floor with a clatter. “Johnny!” Ayden yelled and then watched his brother get shoved back and out of his sight. Oh man, if Johnny hated clowns before this, he was going to fucking boycott them after this was all over. His brother was cursing from wherever he was and Ayden was glad for that because it meant Johnny was still conscious and just pissed off. Ayden thought for a moment that there sure were a lot of things that pissed his brother off, but he pushed that thought aside as he raced towards the spot he’d last seen his brother. “Johnny?” Ayden called again. He heard Johnny curse low beneath his breath and then he was saying, “Stupid fucking mirrors,” and he heard something smash. He chuckled a little and rounded the corner, ready to reprimand his brother for breaking shit, but he stopped short because it wasn’t his brother standing there in front of him. It was the clown. And the clown’s head was tilted to the side and its grin spread its face and the paint was smeared and dripping and its teeth were sharp and there was blood running from its mouth. Ayden gasped sharply but didn’t have time to withdraw his gun before the clown was backhanding him and he was flung sideways into the mirror. It cracked outwards in a spider web pattern beneath his skull and when he slid to the floor because he was dazed, he left blood behind on it. The clown stepped over him and was running off into the maze. “Ayden?” Johnny’s voice came because he must have heard the gasp and the hit. Ayden still couldn’t see his brother and at the moment he was blinking the stars out of his eyes because the clown hit like a fucking semi-truck. “Fuck, Ayden?” Johnny’s voice sounded distressed because Ayden wasn’t answering. “Yeah,” Ayden called and it was the most he could manage at the moment. His eyebrow was bleeding from where the mirror had cracked under it. He brought a hand up to touch the red running down his face and then he looked to the side. He felt panic swell up in him because he saw two little boys running through the maze, laughing and giggling. He recognized the older boy as the kid who’d been atop the Ferris Wheel in his vision. “Shit,” Ayden spat and hauled himself to his feet. He was running after the kids and he forgot about Johnny for a second. “God damn fucking mirrors,” Johnny was yelling behind him and he heard the mirrors smashing as Johnny was trying to build his own fucking path through this stupid maze. “Hey,” Ayden called to the kids and he saw them both pause and look over their shoulder at him. They scowled and then took off running and Ayden swore beneath his breath. “Hey, wait!” he called because in his vision, the older boy didn’t look happy or safe and he wanted to get them the fuck out of this circus before that part could come true. “Wait!” he called desperately and he saw them round the corner and in the mirrors he growled because he could see the clown standing somewhere, waving at him. He was starting to join his brother’s hatred of clowns. Ayden rounded a corner and ran smack head first into a mirror. He brought his hands up to his face and swore loudly because that had fucking hurt and he was tired of hitting his head. He kicked out at the mirror but not hard enough to break it because he swore this was the way he’d seen the boys run. Fuck this damn house of mirrors. He turned back around and gave a sharp gasp as he ran into another mirror that he was abso-fucking-lutely sure was not there just seconds ago. The panic started then because the way he’d come in was not the way he could go out. He put his hands against the mirror and then felt to his sides and there were mirrors there too. He tested behind him again and found a mirror there. He spun in a circle three times and on the third he concluded that he was completely enclosed by mirrors and he stood for a moment in the middle of them because how had this fucking happened? He closed his eyes for a moment because sweat had broken out on his forehead and it trickled down his back and he was trying not to imagine himself inside a box with his wrists slit an a demon shoving its way down his throat. He tried to listen for his brother, but he couldn’t hear anything but the beating of his own heart inside his ears. This was too fucking familiar. He leaned his head against the glass and took steady, even breaths because he wasn’t in the box and there was no demon, he was just trapped in a house of mirrors with a killer clown. Somehow, he found solace in that and he laughed at himself and then cringed because wasn’t laughing out loud at oneself supposed to be a sign that you were going ape shit fucking nuts? Opening his eyes, Ayden pounded his fist on the mirror and willed it to break, but he must have gotten the only fucking unbreakable mirror in the joint. He could hear mirrors breaking around him and he knew Johnny was having a field day but probably worried out of his mind. Then the lights shut off and Ayden felt weak in the knees. The place was quiet for a second as everyone inside waited to see if this was a fluke or part of a gag or what. But when they didn’t come back on, when the whole place was plunged into complete and utter fucking darkness, that’s when the screaming started. The first person to scream was one of the kids Ayden had been chasing after. Ayden listened and his breathing was getting uneven and ragged because that was a kid screaming and any time one of the visions took them to a kid, Ayden got upset. He heard the other kid yelling and it wasn’t out of fear, it was out of anger. Then Johnny started in with the yelling and there was more smashing or mirrors and maybe Johnny was yelling his name. He heard some girls screaming because things were being smashed and it was utter and complete darkness. He didn’t even know there had been any girls in here with them. Ayden stood perfectly still. Because if he didn’t move and if he didn’t try to bust out of his mirror cage, he could pretend he wasn’t trapped and he could just sit here until Johnny came and smashed one of the mirrors and he could pop out and pretend he hadn’t been scared out of his mind. But then one of the kids started crying, and it was the one who had just been yelling. “Michael!” he was screaming through sobs. “Michael, where are you?” The kid sobbed. “Help! Somebody! Help! He took my brother!” Ayden sucked in a breath and his hands were shaking. He kicked at the glass in front of him and then took a step backwards, his back pressed against the mirror behind him. He tried to kick out harder at the glass, but it just managed to hurt his foot and he wondered again if this mirror wasn’t made out of fucking plexi-glass or something. “No,” Ayden protested because here he was again, locked inside a box in the dark. He was trying to ignore the laughter he heard at the back of his mind because he knew it wasn’t real but it was fucking Amon who’d left scars on his soul and when he was alone in the dark or enclosed in a small space, it was Amon he thought about and Amon who plagued his waking nightmares. “No!” he yelled and kicked out at the glass again. It didn’t budge. “Fuck you!” Ayden screamed and did it again and again but the glass still wouldn’t break. He felt tears pricking at his eyes because this was way too fucking familiar. He heard Johnny yelling for him because he could hear Ayden’s distress. Then the mirror to his right was shattering and he couldn’t see who or what it was in the dark so he swung a fist out and felt it connect with someone’s jaw. In his mind, he was punching Amon because the demon’s laughter was building up and curling around him and his chest hurt because it had been stretched out and shredded when Amon had climbed in and again when he’d climbed out. But it wasn’t Amon who cursed because he just got his face punched. It was Johnny. .Wolfie. “You fucking punched me,” Johnny said, disbelief in his voice.He put a hand to his nose and felt blood dripping off the end. At least it wasn’t broken. If his brother had broken his nose he swore to Christ he would have punched him back because he had gotten his fill of having his face broken in. He shook the blood off his fingers and let off a string of curses because even if it wasn’t broken it still hurt like a bitch and he lashed a fist out into another mirror because he was pissed and wanted to break something. “You fucking punched me!” “Well, maybe you shouldn’t sneak up on people in the dark,” Ayden said, his voice rising defensively. “How the fuck is it sneaking if I break the mirror in front of your fucking face?” Johnny snarled. Ayden pushed past him and if Johnny didn’t know better he would say his brother was wiping tears off his face, and not just sweat. He was pulling his gun out and his hands were shaking as he double checked the bullets but he could barely see all this because at some point the lights had gone out. It made him nervous because there was a clown somewhere in here and he could hear a little kid shouting and the two girls screaming. He fucking hated clowns. “Yeah, well how the fuck was I supposed to know it was you and not the killer clown?” he said. Johnny had a comeback ready on the tip of his tongue and then he bit down on it because he didn’t like the look on his brother’s face. Maybe those had been tears, because he looked shaken and scared. Johnny sighed and wiped the blood off his nose with his sleeve and tried to be a good big brother and let this one go. “Well thanks for not breaking my nose anyway,” he said, punching him in the shoulder, and maybe he could’ve been a little gentler. “No problem,” Ayden spat, flipping his gun closed. “Now where’d those kids go?” Johnny shook his head, flicking his lighter open in one hand and holding his gun tightly in the other. “What kids?” he asked, kicking through the broken glass and trying to figure out where all the shouting was coming from. He’d broken a trail through the maze because he’d heard his brother shouting and he couldn’t find him and he’d gotten scared. He hated being scared and he hated god damned clowns and he didn’t like the panic he’d heard in his brother’s voice because he’d thought something was really, really wrong. “The kids, the two little ones that went through before,” Ayden snapped. “One of them was in my vision.” “I’m guessing it doesn’t end shiny happy,” Johnny said, kicking his foot out at a mirror and crashing through it. His brother didn’t need to answer, but he didn’t get the chance anyway because as soon as they rounded the corner something smashed into the side of Johnny’s head. He slammed into the mirror and heard it crack and split under his weight and there was glass raining down around him. The worst part of it was the laughter. It was high pitched and wretched and reminded him of the demon when it had screamed and ruined the hearing in one of his ears and it was fucking laughing next to his head. He went to raise the gun and he felt something smash into his arm and it clattered to the ground. He heard Ayden let loose a curse and then a gunshot went off. He heard a crash and the sound of glass breaking but the laughter didn’t stop. He blinked his eyes and looked up just as the clown was disappearing around the corner. He left a trail of blood behind him though, so maybe Ayden had at least clipped him. Johnny pulled himself to his knees, fingers curling around his gun as he hauled himself off the ground. “The fuck did he hit me with?” he snarled out. “A baseball bat,” Ayden told him. “I’m going to fucking kill that clown,” Johnny spat out and there was blood in it. He pressed a hand to his head and that was red too and maybe the vacation had just made him slow. Maybe Ayden was right, and it could never end and they could never stop and the whole thing was just making him angry. He kicked out at the next mirror and broke it into a thousand little pieces and it wasn’t enough because he could still see his scarred face reflected back at him. Somewhere in the mess he heard a kid shouting and then the shout turned into a scream. “Shit,” Ayden said, and his brother’s eyes were wide. “Well get them,” Johnny told him and then he was hurrying through the house of mirrors and he hoped he wasn’t lying. He didn’t think either of them could take watching a couple of kids die and he didn’t like thinking about. What good was the voice of God if he couldn’t even stop a fucking clown from killing a kid? He slammed through the house of mirrors and he couldn’t stop himself from punching at one of them as he walked by because he just had to hit something. The clown was waiting for him. It let out a high pitched laugh as he turned the corner only this time Johnny ducked the swing and the bat just crashed into the mirror next to him. His fingers curled around the bat and he wrenched it out of the clown’s hands, tossing it on the ground behind him. The laughter turned into a howling scream and then it was throwing itself at Johnny. He pulled the trigger of his gun right as it reached out for his throat. It stopped and stumbled and listed to the side and he shot it again in the chest and when it still didn’t go down he bashed his gun into the side of its head. For a second, he wasn’t even seeing this clown, with its bloody jagged teeth or its bright white face. He was seeing a drunken old man who was grabbing a little kid by the arm and screaming at him and he really fucking hated clowns. He bashed it in the head again and there was a crack as it started to slip towards the floor and he hit it again with his gun and then kicked it in the stomach and he thought about shooting it again just to be sure but he didn’t want to waste the bullets. “Michael,” he heard a little kid shouting and crying. “Where are you?” The lights still weren’t coming on, and the screaming still hadn’t stopped. He heard the girls crying out from somewhere to his left but they sounded far away now and he wondered how big this stupid maze was. “You hear where that’s coming from?” he asked Ayden, flipping his gun open and digging two more bullets out of his pocket to replace the two he’d used on the clown. He glanced at the body and it reminded him of a ghoul. Maybe it was. Just a ghoul with really creepy face paint and that stupid smile. “I don’t know,” Ayden said, turning in a slow circle. “Michael?” the kid shouted and then he heard a crash from his right. “Mother fucker!” the kid shouted. Ayden snorted. “Sounds like you,” he muttered, and then Johnny was putting his boot through the mirror next to him. The glass shattered and broke and light spilled in from the emergency exit, the door propped open by a metal bar. The kid was crumpled on the stairs leading out of it, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth and a clown had its hand curled around his arm, its mouth ajar and blood staining its teeth. Johnny shot that one in the head and he couldn’t help but smile when he dropped it. Ayden crouched down next to the kid. “Are you alright?” he asked, gripping him by the arm and trying to pull him up. The kid jerked his arm away, pulling himself to his feet and shrugging off Ayden as he tried to touch the wound the kid had on his temple. “Let me go,” he snarled, turning and kicking the clown once in the gut. He didn’t seem to care or mind that it was dead and Johnny raised an eyebrow, putting a cigarette between his lips and pushing fresh bullets into the chamber of his revolver. “I need to find my brother,” the kid said to Ayden, stepping back away from him. Ayden laughed and muttered darkly. “Yep, definitely sounds like you.” Wenston They stepped out of the emergency exit and then Ayden was ushering the kid across the opening while the security guards were heading towards the front of the house of mirrors. Johnny, Ayden, and the kid were rounding the building and then slipping away and into the crowds. They walked steadily and Ayden didn’t know why the kid wasn’t running away or protesting. Maybe because he was just a kid and he’d seen Johnny shoot a fucking clown that was trying to eat him and now those clowns had his brother. “So,” Ayden said and looked down at the kid. “Your brother, Michael is it?” The kid glared up at him and Ayden raised an eyebrow because the kid looked so much like Johnny he would have laughed if he wasn’t scared the kid’s brother might already be dead. “Yeah. Mikey. And I’m Ben. Who the fuck are you?” The kid spat and stopped moving. Ayden did the same and Johnny almost tripped over the kid because he was watching the crowd and probably watching for a swarm of killer clowns. Ben turned his glare on Johnny who glared back and Ayden couldn’t help the smirk because it was like watching the same person with a twenty year difference have a stare down. “I’m Ayden,” he supplied happily. “And this is my brother Johnny.” “You have guns,” Ben pointed out and Johnny looked down at himself. He’d tucked his gun into the front of his jeans and he quickly pulled his shirt over it because the last thing they needed was to attract that kind of attention. Not that two bleeding adults and a child who looked like he’d been on the receiving end of an abusive parent didn’t attract a lot of attention. But Ayden found that no one was paying them any attention. They were probably use to shit like this. “So?” Johnny asked and Ayden sighed because his brother was still pissed about being punched in the face. Ayden hadn’t meant to hit him. He was still a little shaky and Amon’s laughter was still echoing somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind. Ben shrugged. “Well are you cops?” he asked and it was snotty and bratty and Ayden had to hide his smirk behind his hand because Johnny just glared harder at the kid. “Fuck no,” Johnny answered. “Then you’re criminals.” Johnny seemed to actually give it some thought. Finally he shrugged. “I guess.” “But we’re not bad,” Ayden was quick to add and Ben turned to look at him, the bratty look on his face seeming to die a little at Ayden’s words. “We’ll help you get your brother back.” Ben studied him for a moment and his face softened and Ayden could see unshed tears sparkling in his eyes and he almost wanted to reach out and pull the boy into a hug because he reminded him so much of Johnny it hurt. “He’s scared of clowns. He didn’t even want to come to the stupid circus. Our Mom made us.” “Where is your Mom?” Ayden asked and looked around like he should know what she looked like. Ben snorted. “Try the beer tent.” Johnny snorted in response and Ayden glared at his brother. Johnny reached out a hand and squeezed Ben’s shoulder. The boy didn’t pull away because the adrenaline and excitement was wearing off and fear and worry for his brother was starting to set in. He looked up at Johnny and when the boy didn’t smart mouth him, Johnny seemed to hesitate for a moment. “You stick close to us,” Johnny said and he dipped his chin so he could look Ben in the eye. “And I mean you don’t fucking leave my side.” “You’re not a pervert are you?” Ben asked and tilted his head to the side. Ayden did let out a laugh at that and patted Johnny’s shoulder when his brother looked exasperated. “Only on the weekdays, so you’re safe.” Then he paused and he spotted the Ferris Wheel shining brightly in the distance. He quirked his mouth to the side and looked at his brother. “We should try that,” he said. Johnny glanced over his shoulder and looked at the ride, then back to Ayden with a curious look. Ayden lowered his voice. “It’s where I saw the kid.” Johnny seemed to get the hint and then squeezed Ben’s shoulder again and started ushering the kid towards the Ferris Wheel. Ayden trailed behind the two and watched them. They were so similar and he couldn’t help but smile. He hoped they got the kid’s brother back and he hoped that he wouldn’t be just a corpse or in pieces or digesting. He hoped the kid was alive and fine and they could handle him just being scared but not hurt. Ayden watched the two of them and he wondered what Johnny’s kid would have been like. He wondered if the kid would have the same attitude as Johnny or the as Annie. Then he wondered if there was really that much of a difference. Both were stubborn as mules and both could cuss like a sailor when they wanted to. But they were both really good hearted and their kid would have probably been like a Saint with some bad habits like stealing and cussing and drinking thrown in here and there. He wondered what he would have taught the kid. What would he do as an Uncle? He’d probably get the kid to tease his Dad mercilessly. They would so team up against Johnny. Then Ayden stopped thinking about it because it was too late. Johnny wasn’t having a kid and maybe he never would and there was no point dwelling on something that wouldn’t happen. He wondered if Johnny thought like this sometimes and Ayden felt sad when he thought about that because he knew losing the baby had torn a hole in his brother’s heart that would never heal all the way. The closer they got to the Ferris Wheel, the thinner the crowd got and Ayden wondered why. Usually the Ferris Wheel at these things was the busiest ride in the place. It’s where teenagers went to make out and where couples went to have a romantic and thrilling ride. Ayden wondered if Johnny ever took Annie on a Ferris Wheel to make out. They climbed their way up the ramp to where the line would normally form for the ride. Ayden realized quickly why the crowd was thin down here. Because the Ferris Wheel was out of order. There wasn’t even a maintenance man around or anyone to point them in the right direction. In fact, when Ayden looked around, there wasn’t anyone down here at all and Ayden couldn’t help that foreboding feeling that washed over him. “Where’d you see him, Ayden?” Johnny called and he didn’t look back at him because he was looking up at the Ferris Wheel as they approached it. Ayden looked up too because it was taller than most he knew. He thought about the clowns climbing up the ride like insects swarming and he shivered a little because they’d been moving not like humans but like monsters. Ayden opened his mouth to reply, but never got a chance to tell his brother up at the very tip top of this monstrosity of a ride. He never got a chance because suddenly something was cracking in the air and he felt wrap itself tightly around his neck and snap at his face and immediately he felt his face split open from above his eyebrow, across his eye, and down his cheek to his jaw. He cried out and then his air was viciously cut off as he was tugged backwards. His back hit the railing and he toppled head over heels to the dirt below and the wind was knocked out of him. And it didn’t stop there because then he was being dragged along the ground. He struggled to draw breath, but the thing wrapped around his neck was choking him. His hands came up to grasp it and try to relieve the pressure and he shot a glance in the direction he was being dragged in. A lion tamer in a red leotard and a top hat was standing pulling on the whip in his hand and dragging Ayden across the ground. But that’s not really what make Ayden’s blood run cold. What scared him the most were the two fucking lions sitting on either side of him, their mouths open as they panted and watched and waited for Ayden to be dragged over to them. Ayden hated the fucking circus. .Wolfie. “Let go of my fucking brother,” Johnny shouted. His hand curled around the railing as he launched himself over it, ripping the gun from his waistband in one fluid motion. The lion tamer in his top hat paused for only a second to glance over his shoulder and Johnny couldn’t see his eyes in the shadow but he felt a horrid feeling sink into his gut anyway. Then a grin stretched across the lion tamer’s face and his hand rose to point at Johnny.“Go,” he said. Two years ago in Mississippi he and Ayden had gone after a man in the woods. He’d been raising and training hellbeasts for something, they never found out what. Maybe just so that he had the fucking things guarding his lawn. Either way, he’d had two massive monsters that only vaguely looked like dogs anymore. They’d had red flaming eyes and dripping fangs and they had been fast as shit. Johnny still remembered the sight of the first one tearing across the lawn after him, mouth wrapping around his leg and ripping bloody tears in his skin. The lion that came after him was only vaguely like that, because it was a million times faster than the hellbeast and three times its size. He didn’t have time for the panicked shout to leave his throat. He had just enough time for his finger to curl around the trigger once and the lion barely flinched as the bullet tore through its shoulder because then it was on top of him and Johnny went down like a ton of bricks. His arm came up to protect himself and he felt the massive jaws closing around his forearm and he felt panic welling in his gut because there was a motherfucking lion on top of him and he was going to die. “Johnny,” he heard Ayden cry out, and it was a strangled and terrified sound. He felt claws digging into his side and he hoped they didn’t puncture a lung. His hand came up with the gun in it and then the lion tossed its head and he felt the jaws dig deeper into his arm and he would be lucky if he wasn’t shredded and he amended that because he would be lucky if he wasn’t fucking dead in the next twenty seconds. He heard a shout from his left but he couldn’t spare the time to look and then the lion jerked because a rock was hitting him in the head. “Get the fuck off him,” someone was shouting. It was the little kid. The little kid was standing there and he was throwing rocks at a motherfucking lion. Johnny would have laughed except the lion was lifting its head and turning towards the little morsel. It freed his arm and he whipped the gun around and jammed it underneath its jaw and pulled the trigger. It didn’t make a sound, not a roar of pain or a cry or a whimper. It just crumpled on top of him and the thing had to weigh three hundred pounds. Its eyes went wide and cold and black and he felt like an asshole for a minute because it just looked sad now. Then he felt the stinging in his ribs and the burning, ripping pain of his arm and he didn’t feel quite so bad anymore. He struggled to his feet and there was blood leaking from too many places already. “Let go of my fucking brother,” he said again, and he had to drag the words out of his lips with an almost physical effort. He raised the gun and the lion tamer had reached his other pet, the whip still wound around Ayden’s neck. His feet kicked at the ground as he struggled to free himself but it looked like he was choking. Blood was running down his face from the cut running across his eye and his cheek and he was blinking to try and clear the red from his eyes. The lion tamer was laughing and hauling the whip up, dragging his brother up by the throat. The lion’s jaws were opening but it didn’t move because its master hadn’t told it to yet. Ayden’s face was red and he was gasping for breath now and for a moment his eyes met Johnny’s and they were wide and panicked. “I said, let go of my fucking brother,” he said again, and his finger tightened on the trigger. He didn’t know if the lion tamer was a person or one of the wicked, but he could guess the later. Not that it mattered because if he didn’t let Ayden go this fucking second he was going to shoot him anyway. The whip tightened around his brother’s throat and he saw his eyes roll back in his head. So he pulled the trigger. The bullet caught him in the shoulder and jerked him backwards a step, but the whip slipped from his fingers and Ayden fell forward into the sawdust and dirt and hay. The lion stood on its pedestal but didn’t move and he hoped it fucking stayed up because he was still shaking and filled with adrenaline from when its partner had tackled him into the ground and he felt blood running down his side. Ayden was reaching for the whip around his neck, but the lion tamer got to it first. He yanked it off his brother’s throat and it jerked him backwards onto the ground with a strangled gasp. Johnny took another step forward and he was ready to pull the trigger when the whip snapped out again, catching him across the hand and knocking the gun to the ground. The whip cracked up and the lion tamer was grinning as he got ready to snap it back at Johnny and then Ayden was up and hitting him in the gut, knocking them both to the ground. He was hauling back and punching him in the face and then the man’s lips were parting and he shouted “Attack!” The lion was off the pedestal in a second and Johnny was scooping the gun off the ground and running forward but he already knew that he was way too fucking slow and the lion hit his brother like a freight train. Its jaws closed around the back of his neck and sent Ayden crashing into the ground on top of the lion tamer. He saw its giant claws come up and they were curling around his brother and he was terrified that they were going to come up and be covered in red. He raised the gun and pulled the trigger and a small blossom of red burst across its back but he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. He didn’t want to say it. He didn’t like saying it. He thought about his dad and the shotgun he’d pressed under Ayden’s chin and about Colby as he had ripped through Johnny’s arm and buried his fangs in his throat and the lion was eight times bigger than him and was going to crush his brother’s skull in his head and he couldn’t lose Ayden. He thought about what Diyani had said to him, calling him desperate warrior and how he needed to find a balance and Johnny was so fucking imbalanced it wasn’t even funny. So he said it. “Die,” he cried out, because it was going to rip his brother apart and he couldn’t take that. The lion shuddered and went still, its weight sinking down on top of Ayden and the lion tamer. He ran forward and kicked at the lion, trying to force it off his brother and he heard a quiet groan underneath it. He had to put his shoulder into it and then he glanced down and Ben was next to him, shoving at the back legs with both hands and all he could think was how fucking cool this kid was. He had thrown rocks at a motherfucking lion, and for a second Johnny was looking at him and he wasn’t seeing a kid named Ben he was seeing a kid he would have named Shane and he would have taught him how to ride a bike and shoot a BB gun and he never, ever would have hit him or left him with a fucking scary ass clown to go to a beer tent. Then the lion shifted under their weight and rolled off into the dust. Ayden was laying underneath it but he wasn’t getting up because the lion tamer had wrapped his whip around his throat and was pulling tightly and his face was turning blue, his eyes rolled back in his head as he went into a seizure. Johnny pointed the gun at the lion tamer’s head and pulled the trigger and its hands fell away from Ayden and he lay still and quiet as he bled out into the dirt. Johnny crouched next to his brother, holding him still while the vision rocked through him. When it was done he squeezed his shoulder and Ayden’s eyes slipped open and focused on Johnny’s face. They were distant and sad for a moment and he wondered how it would have gone if he had kept his mouth shut. Maybe he could have stopped the lion with just his bullets, but he was terrified that it would have ended with his brother being ripped to pieces and left to bleed out on the ground. He reached a hand out and tipped his brother’s head back to inspect the wound across his face and the marks on his neck and Ayden was pale and shaking. “Well,” he said quietly, because he was scared and he didn’t like being scared. “I guess that makes me the pretty one again.” Ayden snorted and crawled to his knees. His head jerked at the Ferris wheel. “Up there,” he said, ignoring the bad joke. “The kid’s up there.” Johnny turned his head and looked up at the ride and he could see movement in the very top seat. He couldn’t see much else because the lights on the ride were dark since it was out of order, but it looked like there was something else up there and he felt fear settle in his gut because it was probably a clown and Johnny fucking hated clowns. The kid Ben stood and took a step forward, his eyes focused on the top of the ride. “Michael?” he shouted. The seat rocked and then they heard a quiet cry echoing down at them. “Ben! Help me!” Wenston Ayden ran a hand over his neck and grinned at his brother. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” he asked and his voice sounded harsh and sore, scrapping against his raw throat on the way out. Johnny turned and gave him a look and he looked a little pale in the dim light. Ayden’s eyes drifted to Johnny’s side that was soaked in blood and he wondered if Johnny would be able to make it to the top. Ayden reached a hand out to squeeze Ben’s shoulder. “Ben and I will stay on down here, for back up.” Ben snorted. “No, I’m going to get my brother,” he protested and moved forward to try and climb back up onto the ramp. Johnny’s hand came out and stopped him, pushing him back towards Ayden, who was slowly climbing to his feet. Ayden felt a little weak and he didn’t miss the way Johnny glanced at him so he tried to suck it up because his brother had just been fucking mauled by a lion and at least Ayden wasn’t bleeding everywhere. So what if he’d almost been strangled to death? That was like a daily fucking occurrence these days. “He’s right,” Johnny said and looked back at Ben. “You two stay down here.” Then Johnny was sliding his gun into his belt and walking back up the ramp with a little less energy than he had jumping off of it. Ayden watched his brother grab onto the spokes of the giant Ferris Wheel and start hauling himself up. Ayden felt a little spike of panic course through him because his brother’s side was dripping blood and now he was climbing up the world’s tallest fucking Ferris Wheel and Ayden suddenly wasn’t sure if this was a good idea. But he could hear Michael’s soft cries coming from the top cart of the ride and his hand tightened on Ben’s shoulder because the kid was standing there with his fists balled and his teeth grinding. “He’ll be okay,” Ayden said and he wasn’t sure which one of them he was trying to convince and which of their brothers he was talking about. He hoped both. “Mikey’s a tough kid,” Ben said and Ayden glanced down at him. The boy’s eyes didn’t move from the cart and Ayden smiled slightly to himself. “Must run in the family,” Ayden said and Ben finally glanced over at him. The kid managed to crack a smile and then they were both looked back up at Johnny as he made his way up the Ferris Wheel. Ayden heard his brother cussing when he got about half way. “You all right up there?” Ayden called up when Johnny paused. Johnny didn’t turn around to look down at them. He just answered with, “Fuck you!” and started climbing again. Ayden snickered a little despite himself because Johnny always had to do the weird shit. Like falling in a pit of swamp water and left over body parts. Or getting a poem carved into his back. Or getting his mouth sewn shut. Johnny always got the weird injuries. He hoped his brother didn’t plan on adding falling off a fucking Ferris Wheel to that list. “Yeah, he’s all right,” Ayden said quietly. “Uh, Ayden?” Ben asked and Ayden tilted his head, but kept his eyes on his brother because Johnny’s foot slipped and he almost tumbled off the ride, but then he regained his composure and started pulling himself up again. “Yeah?” Ayden asked. When Ben didn’t answer Ayden turned to look at him and he saw the kid looking behind them, his eyes wide. Ayden whirled around to see what he was looking at and Ayden mirrored his disbelieving and shocked expression because there was a mother fucking elephant standing behind them. And how the fuck they’d managed to not hear that damn thing approach, Ayden would never truly fucking know. “Oh,” Ayden said and they both stood there for a moment because how the hell were you supposed to take on an elephant? “Is that elephant evil?” Ben asked and his voice was quiet because it was like staring down that fucking T-Rex from Jurassic Park and maybe if they didn’t move, it wouldn’t see them. But the beast was bobbing its head and stomping its foot. “I don’t know,” Ayden answered and he tried not to sound lame, but failed terribly. Then the elephant was trumpeting and Ayden heard Johnny swear loudly and then bang against the Ferris Wheel as his feet slipped out and he was hanging on by just his arms. Ayden glanced up at him briefly to make sure he wasn’t falling to his death and he saw his brother swing his feet in, get a good hold, and then turn down to look at them then the elephant. Ayden turned back to the animal and he reached a hand out slowly to Ben’s back because the elephant was looking more and more agitated. Then it was charging. “Fuck, move!” Ayden yelled and he was shoving Ben out of the way. He pushed Ben in front of them as they jumped out of the way and they both rolled over the railing and into the dirt as the elephant charged pass and collided with the Ferris Wheel. Ayden heard his brother swear loudly as the whole ride shook and creaked and cringed beneath the elephants weight. Then the beast was backing up and charging into it again. At the top of the ride, Michael was screaming and yelling for his brother. Ben cried out back for him and Ayden looked up at Johnny, who was holding on for dear life. “Ayden!” Johnny yelled and Ayden wondered if his brother was more worried about himself or about Ayden. Ayden growled because that fucking elephant was going to topple the Ferris Wheel and bring Johnny and Michael down with it. “Ben,” Ayden said and climbed to his feet. Ben looked at him and he was wide eyed and scared. “We have to get it away from the Ferris Wheel,” he said and Ben nodded. He ran to pick up a rock and Ayden grinned while he did the same. “Ready?” he asked breathlessly and when the kid nodded, they were both chucking rocks at the elephant. At first, the assault didn’t seem to work. But then one of Ben’s rocks hit the elephant in the eye and the beast trumpeted and turned and it was faster than Ayden knew elephants could get. Ayden looked up at Johnny, who was watching them with wide eyes. He hadn’t drawn his gun because he was still clinging to the machinery. “Get the kid!” Ayden yelled to his brother. Johnny looked confused at first and then angry. “Don’t you fucking dare!” Johnny screamed back. Ayden rolled his eyes and pointed up at him. “Just do it!” he yelled because somehow, for some strange reason, Johnny had it in his head that whenever they were separated, Ayden always got into shit. He didn’t know where that ridiculous idea came from, and yeah, whenever they weren’t together maybe bad things happened, but they happened when they were together too, right? The elephant gave a roar and Ayden didn’t know elephants roared, but this one did. He hit Ben in the chest with the back of his hand and then the two were turning and running and the elephant was chasing after them and this was reminding him a lot like that damn dinosaur movie except this dinosaur was a fucking elephant. “Go, go!” Ayden yelled and they were running away from the Ferris Wheel and away from their brothers and there was an elephant stampeding after them and it maybe have been one of the scariest things Ayden had ever had the pleasure of feeling because his little gun that he was withdrawing and firing back at the animal wasn’t doing anything but pissing it off. He tried to aim for the head, but the bullets didn’t seem to penetrate. “In here!” Ben suddenly yelled and Ayden whirled just in time to see Ben dash between two buildings. Ayden sucked in his breath and ran after him. He heard the elephant crash into the buildings but it seemed to have effectively stopped it. Ayden turned around and looked at it and the animal looked dazed and confused. He took a few steps towards it and shot at its eyes. He saw one explode in blood and puss and then the elephant was roaring again and shaking its head and tripping over its own feet. Ayden emptied his clip at the elephant’s eyes and the animal finally went down. Ayden stared at it for a moment because maybe it wasn’t evil, maybe it was just an animal and an endangered one at that and Ayden felt like a jerk. But then Ben was screaming and Ayden whirled around with an empty gun in his hand and his eyes went wide because there was a man in a leotard with a barbell moustache and he had knives around his waist on a belt and held six more in each hands, expertly positioned between his fingers. Ayden pulled the trigger of his gun instinctively because the man as charging at Ben and when it just clicked open in his hands, he was racing forward and he drew his hand back and chucked the useless gun at the knife man. He gave a triumphant yell when he saw it hit the guy in the forehead and blood trickled down the man’s head. “Ben, run!” Ayden yelled and the kid hesitated for only a second before he darted to the side. Ayden tried to run after him but he gave a harsh yelp when something sharp sliced into his calf. His knee buckled from the pain and he went down to his hands and knees. He looked over his shoulder at his leg and there was a small three inch blade stuck in his calf. He growled and hissed as he reached back to withdraw it. He didn’t get a chance to pull the knife fully out of his leg before someone’s foot was smashing into his face. He saw stars for a moment but he was quickly brought back to reality when something suddenly pierced the palm of his hand and he felt it cut through tendons and bone as it exited the back of his hand, effectively pinning it to the ground. He screamed, because that fucking hurt and rolled to try and draw his hand away from the pain, but his hand had just been stabbed and pinned to the ground. Ayden felt sick and he looked up at the knife man standing above him and the guy was grinning down at him like some sick fuck. He had a knife in his hand and he pulled his arm back like he was about to bring it down. Ayden winced because he thought maybe this was the end and he wondered how Johnny would react when he found out he was dead. But then Ben’s voice came and he sounded pissed for a little kid. “Hey asshole!” he screamed and both Ayden and the knife man turned to look at him. The kid had a rock in his hand and he pulled his arm back and then flung it at the knife guy with all his might. The man dodged the rock and grinned like he’d just won. But it was all Ayden needed because in the next second the guy was aiming a knife at Ben and Ayden wasn’t having that. He could get stabbed all day long, but he would not sit back and let some kid, especially some kid that reminded him of his brother, get stabbed. He grabbed the metal hilt of the knife in his hand and yanked it out, ignoring the whimper that escaped his own mouth and the blood that spluttered out with it. Ayden stood and lunged and the knife was cutting into the man’s jugular and blood was squirting Ayden in the face but he didn’t car because he was dragging the knife across the man’s throat and maybe this was the bloodiest and most up close and personal kill he’d ever had in his long career as a Godsent. The man gurgled and coughed and then he was falling to the ground and the spray from his severed arteries was covering Ayden in blood and he took steps back, breathing hard and looking down at the man. When he was sure he wasn’t getting up, he turned to glance at Ben, who was looking a little shocked, but he met Ayden’s eyes and grinned. “That was fucking cool.” Ayden just swallowed and dropped the knife and tried to wipe some of the blood off of himself. “You know, you and Johnny should grab a root beer sometime,” he muttered. .Wolfie. Johnny wasn’t afraid of heights, but he was starting to be because this was fucking ridiculous.He hung from the side of the Ferris wheel, hauling himself bodily up the side of it and his arms were screaming in protest because sometimes he couldn’t get a good foothold and he just had to pull himself up. He could feel the blood pulsing from the wounds in his side and trickling across his skin to the ground. At least it hadn’t punctured a lung because he didn’t think he could make it up this fucking thing if he couldn’t even breathe. It was hard enough as it was. Somewhere in the circus he heard a trumpeting scream and his head turned back down towards the ground. Tents and lights were spread out underneath him and he scanned hurriedly for any sign of an elephant because he didn’t think he would recognize his brother from up here. The ground swayed uneasily under him and he felt his boot slipping on the metal bar underneath his foot. He hoped his brother was okay because he was already hurt and that was a motherfucking elephant chasing after him and Johnny didn’t know if even he could kill one of those things. Every time he left his brother alone, something bad happened. “Ben?” came a weak cry above him, and he cursed darkly to himself as he started to climb again. His hands were slick with blood and he slipped on the metal, feeling his fingers slide off it. He snarled curses out because it helped him stay angry and angry kept him strong. His hand tightened on the bar and he pulled himself higher on the Ferris wheel and he could see the bucket with the kid in him swaying just over his head. He pulled himself hand over hand up the metal bar and he felt his stomach lurch as the whole thing creaked in the wind and he really didn’t want to fall off this fucking thing. “Hey kid,” he shouted, because the wind was trying to pull his voice out over the circus. “It’s gonna be okay.” He heard a whimper and he still couldn’t see over the edge, so he pulled himself higher on the Ferris wheel. If he could get to the top he could shimmy along the bar to the bucket and then he could at least sit for a minute because his arms were killing him and he wished the claw marks in his side would just scab over already. He hauled himself up another foot and then he was hanging almost parallel to the seat. He was afraid of what he was going to see. He hoped the kid was alive and well and that there wasn’t another fucking clown waiting for him because Johnny hated clowns. “You hear me kid? It’s gonna be okay,” he shouted, and he hoped he wasn’t lying. He grunted as his hand stretched up to the next bar and he pulled himself up. His foot slipped on the bar and he gasped, hanging there by the tips of his fingers and they were already slippery with sweat and blood and he made the mistake of looking down at the ground because it was really, really far below him. He couldn’t even see the corpses of the lions anymore, at least not clearly. He swallowed the fear and looked up at the sky because that was less scary. His hands tightened on the bar and he swung himself so that his foot was on the edge of the bucket and it rocked underneath his weight. He heard the kid let loose a strangled cry and Johnny could see him now, sitting in the darkness. He wasn’t by himself, and he wasn’t completely unharmed. A strangled cry escaped his throat because there was a clown holding the kid by his throat and there was blood running down the side of his face and on the kid’s hands and he wasn’t sure where it had all come from but the clown was licking it off the kid’s temple with a wide crooked grin. The kid whimpered. “Oh you mother fucker,” Johnny snarled out, and he let one of his hands slip from the bar so that he could grab the gun from his belt. The kid screamed when it went off but the bullet hit the clown right between the eyes and then it was tumbling forward off the edge, its hands still around the kid’s neck. Johnny let loose a curse and then he was throwing himself forward, hand coming out to catch the kid’s arm as all three of them slid towards the edge. His shoulder jerked and popped as he grabbed onto the back of the seat, but it held. The kid was still screaming as his hand caught the kid by his arm because the clown’s fingers slid sharply across his throat and left bright red welts in their wake. That, or maybe because he was dangling a hundred feet off the ground and the only thing keeping him from falling was a bloodstained lunatic he’d never met. Johnny gritted his teeth and pulled the kid back towards the swaying seat. His little hands came up and curled around the bar and then he was crawling back into the metal bucket next to Johnny. He was crying softly as he pulled himself into the seat and he wiped them away hurriedly with the back of his hand, trying to pretend they were never there. He was shaking though, and the kid looked awfully pale, not that he could blame him. Johnny didn’t let go of his arm until the kid was settled and then all the air escaped his lungs in a hiss as he let himself collapse into the seat. “See? I told you it would be okay,” he said lamely, because he didn’t know how to talk to kids. The boy looked up at him, studying the blood staining his shirt and his hands. He looked at the gun he was stashing back in the waistband of his jeans and he made a mean face. “Who are you?” he asked. “Name’s Johnny,” he said, tipping his head back against the seat and focusing on breathing. “You’re Mikey, right?” “Michael,” he corrected, and he wondered what kind of look the kid was giving him and right now he just couldn’t care because his arms were sore and he wondered if he’d just dislocated his shoulder. He wondered if Ayden was okay and his head tipped to the side, scanning quickly for signs of an elephant. He didn’t hear it anymore. Maybe that was a good sign. He heard a lot of screaming too, but that could’ve been from anything. “If you’re some kind of pervert, my brother’ll beat you up.” He laughed, because he couldn’t help it. “I believe he would,” he said. Lights flickered on next to his head and he let it fall weakly to the side, watching as the machine began to jerk slowly. The chair rocked and Michael let out a startled gasp, hands wrapping firmly around the safety bar and he looked like he was shivering. He looked hurriedly to Johnny’s face. “It’s okay,” he said again, and he didn’t know why he kept saying that because this had to be fucking traumatic for the kids. He thought drunken clowns were bad, he couldn’t imagine evil clowns with jagged teeth trying to eat them. “Where were you hurt?” he asked, as the ride began to move. The kid shivered again and tilted his head to the side where a lump was forming. It had been bleeding, but it was already scabbing over though there was still some red smeared across the side of his head. Johnny reached out a hand and tilted the kid’s head to the side for a better look, but it didn’t look like the clown had hurt him too bad. The red lines on his neck didn’t look too fun, but they hadn’t broken skin. “Are you a cop?” the kid asked, studying Johnny’s face. “Nope,” he said. “I just really fucking hate clowns.” He shook his head slowly, and the kid pulled his face out of Johnny’s hand when he did. He laughed, slumping a little in the seat so that he could get to his gun easily if they got to the bottom and had clowns or zombie elephants or lion tamers waiting for him. He wanted to be grateful that he hadn’t been knocked off the damn Ferris wheel, but mostly he just hoped his brother hadn’t been squashed flat. The ride ground to a stop and Ayden leaned his head around the corner. Johnny smiled when he saw him and didn’t bother getting up yet. His brother had a shit eating grin on his face and he wondered what that was for and then Ben came ripping around the corner. “Mikey!” he shouted, and he ran forward, grabbing his little brother and pulling him into a hug. Then he stepped back and punched him in the arm. “This is what happens when I leave you alone,” he shouted, and the yelling was laced with worry. “You always get into trouble!” Johnny couldn’t help it. He laughed to himself and then Ben kicked him in the shins. “Ow,” he grumbled. “What was that for?” “For not being faster,” he snapped, and Johnny wondered which one of them the kick was for. He sighed and looked up at his brother. He had his hand held tightly to his chest and there was a lot of blood leaking out of it. He didn’t look trampled though, and he didn’t appear to be gored through the chest by an elephant tusk, so there were bright sides here. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette because he was still shaky and tired and couldn’t get up yet. “Well you look like the cat that ate the canary. You get laid or just kill something really big?” Wenston “You killed a fucking elephant?” Ayden sighed because that was the hundredth time his brother had asked that stupid question and how many times did Ayden have to say it before Johnny could accept it? Well, maybe he’d just say it a few more times because he was really fucking proud of that accomplishment. Johnny had wrapped Ayden’s hand with part of his shirt and they were going to have to go clothes shopping soon because all of their shirts were covered in blood or ripped to shreds. Ayden couldn’t feel his hand at the moment and when he tried to move his fingers, pain just laced its way up his arm and all he could manage were small twitches. He wondered if he’d be able to use it ever again and he sure fucking hoped so. But even that couldn’t bother him. Because yes, he had just killed a fucking elephant. He grinned at looked over at his brother. “Yes, Johnny, I did.” Ben, who had his arm wrapped around Michael, looked over his shoulder at them because the two boys were out front leading the way back to the beer tent to find their Mom. Ben looked happy as hell but he was sticking very close to his little brother and couldn’t seem to let him go. “He also slit a guy’s throat.” Johnny raised an eyebrow at that and looked at Ayden, who just shrugged. “He stabbed me in the hand,” he gave as his defense. “How’s that doing, by the way?” Johnny asked around his cigarette and Ayden shrugged and tucked his left hand closer to his chest. Blood was soaking through the shirt tied around it and he was still covered head to toe with the knife man’s blood. He wondered distantly what people would think when they saw him and he wondered if they were headed for another stint in prison. He hoped Johnny was in a good enough mood to not let them actually make it that far this time. “It’s fine,” Ayden lied because Ben and Michael were looking at him and he grinned at them. They turned back around to watch where they were going and Ayden’s eyes darted to Johnny, who was studying him. Johnny frowned slightly because he could always tell when Ayden was lying and then he was looking away too. “You killed a fucking elephant,” Johnny muttered and Ayden grinned again because yeah, he had killed a fucking elephant. “I mean, I knew you were a good shot, but damn.” “You’re just jealous,” Ayden snickered. Johnny snorted. “I am jealous. I want to kill a fucking elephant. I mean, that’s gotta be the biggest thing we’ve ever killed.” “What’s this we business?” Ayden mocked and they rounded the corner of a tent and the beer tent was in sight. “This one was all me. I was saving your ass.” “Oh, I see how it is,” Johnny chided. The bickering was stopped when Ben and Michael suddenly halted in front of them. Johnny almost tripped over the kids again and Ayden paused and looked around to see what the matter was. He didn’t see anything and that made him frown because, literally, he didn’t see anything. There weren’t any people walking around, the beer tent was empty, and now that he thought about it, he didn’t hear any rides going or kids screaming or people laughing and having a good time. The circus had just gone quiet and empty and dead and it gave him the creeps. “Where is everyone?” Ben voiced the question they all were thinking. Johnny ignored the kids for a moment and looked over at Ayden. “Ayden, what did we miss?” he asked lowly. Ayden shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered quietly and then looked at Johnny. He let his shoulders fall slightly because he really hated drudging up visions and he didn’t want to if he could help it. But he sighed and closed his eyes and he heard Johnny take a step forward to put his hands on both of the boys’ shoulders to keep them quiet while Ayden escaped to the corners of his mind and found the motel room that housed all his visions. He quickly found the circus one that he filed away and watched it play out again. They’d found the clowns. They’d found the Ferris Wheel and the kid, which is where they both had thought this would end. But apparently not. They’d found the house of mirrors and the elephant, which Ayden had fucked up, and they had found the damn lion tamer. Ayden gasped and opened his eyes and Johnny turned around to look at him. Ayden reached up and scrubbed his right hand over his face and then nodded because he knew what they missed, but he didn’t want to say it in front of the kids because they’d been through enough trauma for one day. “We need to find a concession stand,” he said quietly, because he was picturing a guy selling hearts on a stick and maybe they looked like candy apples but beneath the caramel they were hearts. He shuddered a little. Johnny raised an eyebrow. “You want an elephant ear?” he asked and there was humor in his voice but it was a bad joke and bad timing. Ayden gave him a look that expressed that and Johnny snorted. “Right,” he said and nodded, looking around. “Concession stand.” Then he squeezed Ben and Michael’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, we’ll find your Mom.” Ben clicked his tongue. “No rush on that one.” Michael pouted and shoved his brother. “She’s not that bad,” the younger boy whispered. Ben didn’t seem to buy it. “She probably doesn’t even know we’re missing.” “Maybe she does,” Michael protested weakly and Ayden felt the words tug on his heart strings a little because he remembered the time he’d tried to give his Mom the Valentine and she’d just shoved it away and used it as a napkin for the ash of her cigarettes later. Michael’s face was all too familiar and he suddenly hoped they didn’t find their fucking Mom because if she was anything like their Mom, these kids deserved way fucking better. “She doesn’t, so just shut up!” Ben snapped and it was mean and cruel and Michael’s eyes teared up a little. Ayden watched Ben and Johnny sigh at the same time and he thought maybe his brother was remembering something about their own Mom and he just stayed quiet as Johnny’s hand squeezed Ben’s shoulder. Ben shook it off and then walked over to his brother and strung his arm around his shoulder. “We’ll find her,” Ben said and it was the best apology he had. Michael just nodded and then he was ducking his head onto Ben’s shoulder and he cried a little because he’d just been kidnapped by fucking clowns and he was only a little kid and that had to be scary as fuck. Ayden swallowed thickly because these were tough little brats and they deserved so much better. Johnny was watching the two of them and he turned his head a little and glanced at Ayden and the two made eye contact for a moment. Silent words passed between them and Ayden gave a little nod because they were both thinking the same thing. When they found these kids’ Mom, they were going to put the fear of God in her that she’d better fucking take care of her sons or they would pull some strings and make sure they made her life a living hell. Saving people’s lives from Wicked didn’t have to be the only thing they used this power for. Saving people from their fucked up lives could be one of them too. “So, concession stand, huh?” Johnny said and that seemed to clear up the air a little bit. Ayden nodded. “What exactly are we looking for?” Ayden sighed. “Human hearts.” .Wolfie. “I’m sorry,” she said.He only remembered her saying it once, as she drove him home from the hospital. His father hadn’t come, because he was too pissed off that Johnny had to be taken there at all and maybe if it was up to their father he would have just let Johnny bleed to death on the floor where he’d put him. If he was that fucking weak to die from a couple of head wounds then maybe he didn’t deserve to live anymore. Johnny sighed and looked out the window because he couldn’t look at his mom’s face. “If you’re so fucking sorry, why don’t you stop him?” he asked quietly. There were a thousand more questions he wanted to ask, like why she didn’t just leave him or why she just didn’t care or why she crawled into the bottom of a bottle every fucking day. He didn’t, because it all came down to the same question and he didn’t look at her as he asked it because he was tired and his head still hurt. He’d needed stitches in his temple and still had gauze around his chest because his ribs were sprained. He was lucky his father hadn’t broken anything, if lucky was the word for it. “You know your father,” she said. She tried to fake a smile but it just looked like a sneer. Her hands were shaking on the steering wheel and she had a cigarette clasped between her fingers. “Yeah,” he snapped. “I do.” He thought maybe there were tears in her eyes but he couldn’t tell for sure. He sighed and looked back out the window as they drove through town. His head bounced off the seat and it didn’t even hurt. “What happens when he tries to kill one of us?” he asked her, and he couldn’t help the anger laced in his voice. He thought about how his father had thrown Ayden to the floor and the mask of rage he’d worn and he wondered what would happen the day the old man was too drunk to stop himself from using the shotgun. “That’s not going to happen,” she said, and the words sounded practiced and rote. “You’re such a fucking liar,” he told her. “Don’t talk back to me like that,” she snapped, and the apology was gone from her voice. Her hand reached over to smack him on the back of his head and it hurt because he still had a lump there. She was crying now and maybe it was because she was drunk and maybe it was because she was just too sober. “I’m your mother and you will fucking respect me,” she told him, taking a drag from the cigarette and ash fell on her lap. “Fuck you,” he snarled. “Why should I respect some drunken bitch that lets her kids get beat?” “You just shut the fuck up! You think I wanted you? You think I wanted either of you? You think this is what I wanted my life to look like?” The words stung worse than the slap that caught him across the face, worse than the still throbbing bruises on his face and his side. She slapped him again and she was crying harder, tears and ash falling into the driver’s seat and he knew his dad was going to be pissed if she left cigarette holes in the upholstery. She parked the car in the driveway and Johnny left her there as she cried because he didn’t know what else to say. She never apologized again. She crawled back inside a bottle and three years later she burned the house and herself to the ground. † † † “Hello?” Johnny called, the cigarette still dangling from between his lips. “Anybody home?” He leaned his head inside one of the concession stands but it was as empty and deserted as the beer tent. Empty Styrofoam cups rolled across the dusty ground next to bags of half eaten popcorn and cotton candy. He snorted and reached in to grab an unopened can of soda off the counter and he tossed it to Ayden as he leaned back. “Nothing,” he said. Ayden frowned, catching the soda in his hand and popping the top. “So where’d they all go?” Johnny shook his head, taking a slow drag from his cigarette. “I don’t know,” he told his brother, and they glanced at each other because they didn’t know, but they could guess. They had seen only brief glimpses of people since they’d left the beer tent but none of them had looked at the brothers. They were heading towards the center of the circus and that was the only source of sound left. Everything around them had gone quiet except for the big top where they could hear slow, eerie circus music playing and he had a bad feeling festering in his gut. He flicked ash off his cigarette and glanced at the kids. They were starting to look tired and run down now they weren’t pumped up on adrenaline. They were strong little kids though, and he would have been proud of them if they were his and he had to cut that thought off before he got all broody and melodramatic on his brother again. Ben glanced up at him when he felt him staring and raised an eyebrow. “You want something?” He laughed and patted the kid on the back, taking a drag from his cigarette. “Nope. Just keep looking out for each other.” Ayden glanced at him curiously when he said that and he smiled up at his brother for an instant before flicking the butt of his cigarette into the dirt. His brother had killed a motherfucking elephant. He almost laughed at that but his brother would have asked him what was so funny and he’d have to listen to another round of Ayden patting himself on the back. He wondered about the guy whose throat he’d slit and he would have to ask him about that too. He wondered if it should worry him that Ben thought that was fucking cool, but when he was a kid he probably would have said the same thing. His eyes went to the cut on his brother’s hand because the way he was holding it worried him. He wondered if he could close it or bend the fingers and maybe his brother hadn’t been as unscathed as he thought. He glanced at his face and Ayden forced a smile back at him and pulled his hand out of sight. There was still blood soaking through the remains of his shirt that he’d wrapped hurriedly around him and he wondered if he’d need stitches. Someone passed out of one of the tents in front of them, drifting towards the big top. She glanced over her shoulder at them for only a moment, but that was enough. “Mom?” Mikey cried, taking a step forward. His eyes were wide and he shrugged off his brother as his hand curled protectively around his arm. Ben glanced for a second at Johnny and he didn’t miss the sad look on his face or the way his jaw had tightened almost imperceptibly. He thought about his own mother and he felt a growl in his throat and then Mikey was ripping free of his brother’s grasp and taking off after the woman. She turned out of sight and it looked like Mikey was going to keep following her anyway. “Mikey!” Ben shouted. “Get back here!” He tore off after his brother and Johnny cursed, grabbing for his arm to stop him. “Shit, Ben, wait!” he told him, and Ayden was starting to jog after the littler one. Ben slipped through his grasp and then they were both chasing after the woman. “Mother fucker,” Johnny grumbled, because his side still hurt and now he had to chase after kids and then he and Ayden were running after them and he felt fucking ridiculous. He pulled the gun out because nothing good could happen next and he wanted to be prepared this time. They rounded the corner and the music was louder now because the big top was right in front of them, lights on top glowing brightly and sound coming from under the open door flaps. They caught a glimpse of the woman stepping inside, followed by the two little kids and Johnny shouted Ben’s name before letting loose a flood of curses now. Ayden caught him by the arm as he ground to a stop and he had to bend over to catch his breath because there were claw marks in his side and they were bleeding again, and the excessive amount of smoking probably didn’t help him anyway. The kids hadn’t turned around. “We’ve gotta go in after them,” Ayden said, glancing at Johnny’s face and then at the blood on his side. “No shit,” he growled out, flipping the gun open and making sure it was fully loaded. He was ready to shoot something because he was bleeding and pissed and they’d saved the kids, so why couldn’t they be done with the fucking circus already? They still hadn’t found the human hearts concession stand and he wondered if the wicked just sat around all day trying to think of the creepiest fucking thing they could, just to mess with them. He stomped forward and Ayden grabbed at his arm. “We got a plan?” he asked. Johnny snorted because his brother already knew the answer. “I only ever have one,” he snapped back, and pulled his arm away. He heard Ayden sigh behind him and he knew the answer was charge, because that was all Johnny was good at. He hoped they could catch up to the kids before something really awful happened and he felt an uncomfortable squirming in his gut because the last thing he wanted to happen was to see them get their hearts ripped out or eaten by clowns or something equally as terrible. They hadn’t asked for this to happen, but then, neither had him and Ayden. He pushed the flap open and he felt his breath come in a hiss. A line coiled around the big top, ending right next to the door. It started at the center of the circus. A man in a top hat with a white skull painted on his face stood at the center of it all. A series of tables were set up behind him and they were piled with candles and dark, dead things. A phonograph sat on one of the tables and that’s where the music came from. He saw little dolls and he felt a groan escape his lips because he hated fucking voodoo witches or priests or whatever the fuck they called themselves. A glass tank was set up behind that and he saw the body of a magician and his apprentice bound and dead inside it. The trapeze wires crossed over his head and the bodies of the trapeze artists hung limply from the ceiling, cords wound around their necks. All of their chests had been pried open and there was nothing but a gaping hole where their hearts should have been. He heard a whimper and glanced over to his right where the two little kids stood by their mom. Mikey had his hand wound in hers and he was pulling desperately at her as she stood in line, waiting her turn for whatever was coming. “Come on,” he hissed, and Ben stood next to him, hand on his shoulder but not touching their mother. “Hey,” Ayden said, and he walked over and put his hands on their shoulder. Johnny looked back to the center of the circus and a woman was stepping up to the man in the top hat. He smiled broadly and there was blood on his teeth. His hand came out to rest on her cheek in an almost loving motion, but there was a knife in his other hand and then it was flashing forward into her chest. Her mouth opened like she wanted to scream but it never left her lips. It was cursedly, eerily silent, even as the blade dug deeper into her skin, cutting away at her flesh. Behind him a trio of clowns laughed and he watched them take discarded hearts and put them on sticks in a wheeled, metal cart. “I fucking hate clowns,” he muttered, and then he was raising his gun. Wenston Johnny fired his gun and immediately Ayden groaned because Johnny was always being a fucking cowboy. The man in the top hat looked at them and then the three clowns that had been standing behind him scattered and disappeared behind the flaps of the tent. The voodoo priest or whatever the fuck he was at the center of it all just smiled broadly, his mouth dripping with blood. Then he started chanting and went to the table and grabbed a doll. Johnny fired again but he was too far away and the voodoo priest didn’t even flinch. “Why are you always pulling guns?” Ayden griped and tried to pull the kids away from their Mom, who was standing there like a mindless zombie. Mikey was crying, sniffling and he wiped his nose on his sleeve while Ben was watching the woman with a look of disappointment and failure on his face. Ayden knew that look and he wondered if the woman was anything like their Mom had been and if she was, they were going to have a few words. “Because,” Johnny said and Ayden glanced over his shoulder at his brother, who was still standing in place. He had one hand holding out the gun and one hand had come up to his side because it was still covered in blood. “If I can’t kill something with a fucking bullet, then I-” Johnny turned to glance at him and his eyes immediately rose. His expression changed and he managed a sharp, terrified warning of, “Ayden!” Ayden didn’t have a chance to even turn around to see what had scared his brother. He saw Johnny bringing the gun around and he himself was turning his head slightly to see what was behind him, but then suddenly he was being sacked in the back and he felt his neck crack and his spine pop and he let go of the boys and that was maybe the smartest and quickest reaction he’d ever had because in the next second, he was on his face on the ground and he was rolling with something on top of him. Ayden heard Johnny swearing but he was too busy trying to orient himself and figure out what was attacking him to hear what Johnny was saying. Then they rolled off the platform and fell a good ten feet to the wooden floor below. Ayden’s head cracked on the ground but the fall managed to shake whatever had tackled him off and he lay there stunned for a moment. He blinked and he felt the whip lash on his eye open up and bleed again and where he’d split his eyebrow open in the mirror house was bleeding and his leg was on fire from where a knife had entered his calf and his hand was throbbing but numb. He groaned a little and lifted his head and when he did he saw a man lying next to him that was tattooed head to toe. The man had rings in his ears and rings in his nose and his eyebrows and on his tongue and in his lip and there were studs in his cheek and he looked like a fucking robot with all that metal in his face. The tattoos that covered his skin were snakes and dragons and eagles and all sorts of animals who were made to look like they were ripping his skin open and apart. Ayden found that he was actually frightened of this man, simply by the way he looked. “Sonofabitch,” Johnny’s voice came from above and Ayden heard the kids screaming. He heard Johnny’s gun go off several times and he wondered what they were fighting up there. Ayden felt dazed and the world was going in slow motion around him. He lifted a hand to his forehead and Johnny was right because he was the pretty one again because a lump had formed on his forehead and blood was now flowing freely from that too. Then Johnny was peering over the edge of the platform and yelling, “Ayden?” and he sounded terrified and worried. Ayden blinked several times and looked up at his brother who visibly sagged with relief upon seeing his eyes open and somewhat focused. Ayden opened his mouth to call up to Johnny when suddenly a cackle echoed around the big tent and Ayden looked towards the center stage where the man in the top hat was grinning and gave Ayden a little wave when he made eye contact. Ayden didn’t know what it meant, but in the next second, the floor was opening up beneath him and he was falling another fifteen feet and he landed with a sickening crack on the dirt ground below. He’d flipped in the air and landed on his back and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. He heard Johnny yelling again and then he heard clown laughter billow up around the tent but all Ayden could do was lay there and listen to the gunfight and the kids scream and his brother cuss and swear. He wondered briefly if another trap door was going to open and this time he’d fall straight into hell itself. He wondered if the world wasn’t just one big trap door and beneath it all was where they would all end up. Because they had the voice and the sight of God, but so far, Ayden had seen more of the Devil’s work than he’d seen of God’s work and he was really starting to doubt that things were the way they seemed. Maybe now wasn’t a good time to think about it. Ayden gasped when his lungs decided to work again and then he was coughing and rolling onto his side because his ribs felt bruised and when he moved his back felt like it was fucking on fire. He lay on his shoulder and coughed into the dirt and the straw and the garbage that had fallen down to this pit beneath the big top and he wondered where the fuck he was because they’d been on ground level and the big top seemed to just be one giant pit with trap doors. “Ayden, answer me!” Johnny was screaming and Ayden realized that he’d zoned out for a minute. He put a hand to his head and then rolled onto his hands and knees and pushed himself up. Ayden heard someone jump down from the platform to the main floor above Ayden and he heard Johnny tell the kids, “Stay there!” Ben was the one that answered. “Can’t we come with you?” he was asking. Johnny snapped back with a short and sweet, “No!” and Ayden knew his brother was worried because he sounded mean and violent. He heard Johnny hurrying over to the trap door and he heard the gun go off and he could imagine him putting a bullet into the tattooed man’s head. Ayden wondered if the rest of the freak show would show their faces and he hoped not because he really didn’t want to fight a bearded lady. An elephant was enough. “Ayden, damn it, answer me,” Johnny called and then Ayden sat back on his legs and turned his head up to the trap door that was swinging with a creak above him. He saw Johnny peering down at him and his brother looked pale and far away and that was a fucking long way down. “Ouch,” Ayden answered and Johnny sighed again but a relieved smile crossed his face. Ayden pointed to the swinging trap door. “Watch the first step.” “Yeah, no shit,” Johnny snorted and then looked around. He glanced back up at the kids, who were watching him intently. “He’s fine,” Johnny told them and then turned back to look down at Ayden. “You’re fine, right? Nothing broken?” “No,” Ayden answered with a sigh of his own. He rubbed at his head again because it was pounding and bleeding and he hurt all over and he thought that he was going to be one giant, walking, talking bruise after this night was over and if he fell off one more thing he was going to throw a hissy fit because he fucking hated the damn circus. Ben’s voice sounded frantic from behind Johnny. “The guy! That guy’s gone!” he yelled. Ayden looked back up and Johnny was looking towards the center stage and he cussed and looked at the kids and then down at Ayden. Ayden smiled weakly. “Stay with them, I’ll find a way out,” he said. Johnny snarled because he didn’t like that idea but Ayden was already climbing to his feet. He had to stand for a second with his hands on his knees while the room spun around him but then he straightened and looked around and then up at his brother. “Be fucking careful,” Johnny said and there was an empty threat in his voice. He tossed an extra clip of bullets down to Ayden, who tried to catch it with his hand, but forgot that his fingers weren’t working properly. It clanged to the ground and Ayden growled at it and then looked up at Johnny with a scowl. “You did that on purpose,” Ayden blamed. .Wolfie. Johnny grinned at his brother and didn’t answer, reloading his own gun swiftly and efficiently. He could still hear laughter around him and he wanted to shoot every one of those fucking clowns right in the head. There were a few bodies laying around him already, some tattooed guy with a lot of metal in his face and a beast of a woman with a tiny man growing out of her shoulder. He didn’t really want to stop and think about it, they were dead and they weren’t going to eat the kids and that’s all that counted. He glanced back at him and Ben and Mikey stood at the railing, the youngest clinging to his older brother. “Come on,” he said, holding out his arms and helping them off the platform. He could hear his brother cursing and scrambling around in the hay below him. He hoped he would be okay down there. He didn’t like leaving his brother alone but he couldn’t exactly jump down and he didn’t know how the hell Ayden didn’t break something because the stupid shit was always breaking some bone or another and he had just fallen like twenty fucking feet in the space of a minute. He swore and wiped the blood away from his eyes because the tattoo guy was quick and had punched him in the head before Johnny had taken him out. The kids followed closely behind him as he made his way across the ring. He tried not to think too much about how many fucking hearts were already in the cart because there were a hell of a lot of them and that meant somewhere there were a lot of corpses. He kicked at the table with the dolls on it as he passed and he wanted to kick over the one with the candles too but the last thing they needed was for this whole fucking place to go up in flames. “Did you see where he went?” he asked over his shoulder, gun held out in front of him at the ready. “I’m not sure,” Ben said. “I think through the platform that way?” He glanced quickly to where the kid was pointing and of course it was shadowy and dark. He sighed, dodging around the dunk tank and trying not to think about the two poor bastards floating inside it. They’d probably died when their hearts had been cut out and not when they’d been dropped back in the watery death trap, not that it made it any better. There were puddles of blood on the floor from the trapeze artists and he wanted to cover the kids eyes because they shouldn’t have to see all this at their age. No one should. His eyes scanned the shadows and then he saw a red stained face grinning at him as the clown burst out of the bleachers and headed for the exit. He pulled back on the trigger as it moved. The clown was laughing and then it was screaming as the bullet caught it between its eyes and it went down in a heap. He heard another laugh from down the darkened path and he saw a flash of a white face and he fired again but the bullet just ricocheted off the metal pole and off into the tent somewhere. He muttered a curse and then he was jogging forward, looking for the man in the top hat. “Ayden’s a better shot,” Ben muttered behind him. His head snapped back and he was opening his mouth to tell the kid off. He never got the chance. One second his foot was on the floor, and the next it was giving way below him and he was falling abruptly downwards. He heard Ben cry out and a strangled shout escaped his throat and then he felt himself hitting water. For a second he had a panic attack because this felt just like falling through the floor in the witch’s house in Louisiana and he wondered if he was about to be devoured by a snake demon with four fucking mouths because it had failed the first time. He didn’t get a chance to take a final breath before he was sinking under the water. The force of his fall carried him all the way to the bottom and then he was kicking off the metal floor, trying to swim towards the top. He could see the bright lights shimmering somewhere overhead and then suddenly they were cut off as something covered him in and he felt a fresh wave of panic sweeping through him. His finger stretched out in front of him and then he felt hard metal in front of him. His eyes widened and he shook his head because there was no fucking way this was happening. He spun in a slow circle in the water, hands still pressed against the metal closing him in. He saw lights and movement around him and he kicked forward, hands stretching out. They met a slick, smooth surface and it must have been glass or plastic but he hoped to fuck it was the glass one. His boot slammed into it and it shook under the blow but it didn’t bend and it didn’t break. His lungs were beginning to burn and he blinked against the water because there was red flooding out around him in a small cloud and he didn’t think he should still be bleeding. His arms stretched out to either side and he braced himself on the walls as he kicked out again. The wall shook under the blow, but it still didn’t break. He closed his eyes to hold in the welling panic but it wasn’t working because he was going to die here and he couldn’t open his mouth and speak the words here because the water would just swallow them up and drown him anyway. He didn’t want to die underneath a fucking circus with those god damned scary clowns running all over the place and Ayden still needed him because for some reason Diyani’s words were burning themselves into the back of his mind now, telling him that he won’t make it. His lungs were burning and he kicked wildly at the wall but his blows were weak and the glass was barely shuddering now. His mouth opened and he was screaming in frustration but it never left his lips because water was flooding into his mouth and choking him. He gagged and tried to suck in a breath but there was nothing there but the water and he was slipping from the surface now. His hands struck out weakly at the wall as he slid down the side of it, blood still blooming around him in thick clouds. His gun lay somewhere below him, a useless weight at the bottom of his grave. There was black seeping in the edge of his vision and he went to wipe it away before realizing it was just him dying. He pressed his palm against the glass and wondered if Annie would miss him when he was gone. He wondered if they could’ve gotten back together and maybe gotten married because he couldn’t see himself with anyone but her. The girls that had come before and the girls that came after were just fuzzy blips of memory. She was the only one he’d ever loved and he had never fucking opened his mouth to tell her. He wondered if Ayden would be okay without him. He didn’t think so. He thought about that day on the train tracks and wondered if maybe this was how it was supposed to end all along. Maybe he was supposed to die and when he did maybe it would take the visions back and his brother could just be a normal person again. He knew Ayden wanted that, more than anything, to just have his gifts taken back and Johnny couldn’t blame him. If he had to see nightmares every time he closed his eyes he would lose his mind. He tried to blink the darkness out of his gaze and then he realized it was his eyes shutting down on him and it hurt more than he thought it should. His gaze was getting fuzzy and dark and his lungs were burning in his chest and then the pain began to dim. There was something bright in his eyes. It started as a small glow and then began to spread until all he could see was the white and he didn’t hurt anymore. He felt warm and safe and maybe this is what home was supposed to feel like. He didn’t feel his hands drop away from the glass and he didn’t feel his heart as it began to shut down. He didn’t feel his eyes rolling back in his head or when he stopped trying to suck air into his lungs and only got water. He didn’t feel his body sink into the bottom of the tank and come to rest against the glass. He didn’t feel anything anymore. Wenston Ayden was trying to fit the clip of bullets into his gun with only the use of one hand. It was hard. And this was bullshit. It was dark beneath the main floor and every little noise had him jumping and startling. He fucking hated the dark. There was a banging noise coming from somewhere down towards where he imagined the center stage was. Ayden finally managed to slip the clip into place and he made his way towards the noise. He hoped Johnny and the kids were okay. He wanted to kill this damn top hat voodoo priest and get the kids back with their Mom and put the fear of God into her and then get the hell out of this place. He was ready to leave and he didn’t care where they went, he just wanted to go. Maybe he could find a vision in his head of some place nice and one that didn’t look hard because they were getting the crap beat out of them and yeah, they had just had a vacation, but it still seemed too soon to be getting back into this shit. The banging in the dark was getting more and more desperate and Ayden felt nervous and he didn’t know why. It sounded like someone was trying to get out of something and he thought about the box he’d been put in and how he’d fought to get out of that and that’s what this sounded like. Maybe somebody was trapped some place? The lights suddenly snapped on and Ayden yelped because in front of him was one of the clowns that had been on stage and he didn’t know when that fucker had shown up because he hadn’t heard it sneak up on him. The clown was fast and knocked the gun out of Ayden’s hand and it went skittering across the floor. Ayden brought up his limp left hand to club the clown upside the head, but the clown backhanded him and Ayden fell to one knee, dazed. He whirled around to take on the clown and maybe tackle the fucker or bite off an ear or something because he was feeling like a god damn super hero today. But the sight at the far end of the room stopped Ayden dead in his tracks and his blood ran cold. There was a dunk tank across the room. It had three metal sides and one glass one that was facing Ayden. His brother was submerged in the water and trying to kick out the glass. Ayden felt his heart leap into his throat because the banging noise was coming from his brother trying to save his own fucking life and not drown. “Johnny!” Ayden screamed and climbed to his feet, forgetting about the clown. He didn’t forget when the clown tackled him, though and they both fell back to the ground, rolling around on top of one another. Ayden growled in frustration and panic because his brother was fucking drowning and he had to get to him. He felt the clown aim a few good punches at his face and there was blood blossoming from his already open wounds but Ayden didn’t care. Johnny needed him right fucking now. Ayden struggled to get some leverage beneath the clown and he kicked up, flinging the terror off of him. He rolled onto his stomach and his eyes fell on his gun lying across the room. He scrambled over to the gun on his hands and knees because the clown was crawling after him. Ayden’s right hand curled around the gun as the clown reached his legs and he felt the clown’s hands clamp down around his ankles and give a hard tug backwards. Ayden landed on his chest with an oomph and then he was yelling because the banging against the glass had stopped. Whirled and bringing the gun up, he shot the clown between the eyes and then without hesitation, he was turning and scrambling over to the tank. He could see Johnny sinking weightlessly to the bottom. A strangled, “No, god!” escaped Ayden’s lips and then he was aiming the gun at the glass towards the opposite side his brother was nestling into and firing. He gave a small prayer that he wouldn’t shoot his brother and then the glass exploded and the water burst forth and Johnny came with it, limp and motionless and white. Ayden gave a sob because Johnny wasn’t moving. Not even the rise and fall of his chest. He was just laying there. The clowns were forgotten. The elephant and the knife thrower and the lion tamer faded away and even Ben and Mikey because second fiddle. Because Johnny wasn’t moving. He wasn’t coughing or cussing or even fucking breathing. Ayden felt panic spike through his chest and he started to shake even as he fell to his knees beside his brother. He shoved the glass away and didn’t even care that the shards were cutting into his hands. He pulled his brother free of the dunk tank and laid him flat on his back. Johnny’s head lolled to the side and water was trickling out of his mouth but only a little. “Johnny!” Ayden yelled and he laid his head against Johnny’s chest and there was nothing there. Not a heartbeat, nothing. “No!” Ayden cried and immediately positioned himself over his brother and folded his hands beneath his sternum and started pumping at his chest. Ayden had drowned three times in his life. There was once when they were fighting a lake monster, it had been his first time hunting a Wicked with his bother. There was the time with the alligator in Louisiana. And there was the time before they were Godsent and Ayden was playing by the river and swinging on a rope and the rope broke and he fell in the river and hit his head on a rock. Johnny hadn’t been there. No one had been there. Ayden had been unconscious and underwater and he didn’t remember how he’d gotten out or who had saved him, but someone had. He’d woken up alone and cold and scared but alive. He walked home and his Dad had beaten the shit out of him for tracking mud in the house. He’d never told Johnny about that time. Because he couldn’t explain how he’d gotten out of the river. But he didn’t like drowning. It wasn’t pleasant and it wasn’t peaceful like people thought it was. It hurt. It hurt a fucking lot. And now Johnny wasn’t breathing and his heart wasn’t beating and he was pale and blue and dead. Ayden plugged Johnny’s nose and tilted his head back and breathed into his brother’s mouth and he didn’t even hesitate or think about cracking a joke because he would do anything for his brother. His brother would do anything for him. And Ayden couldn’t do any of this without him and the thought that maybe Johnny wouldn’t wake up was eating away at Ayden and making him shake and cry and sob. Johnny started compressions again after he was finished breathing with no results. “Come on, you sonofabitch,” Ayden sobbed out and Johnny didn’t answer. He finished compressions and breathed and listened and nothing. He started a third round and Ayden felt dread sneaking up his toes and his fingers and stopping his heart and paling his face because Johnny wasn’t breathing and his heart wasn’t fucking beating and he was fucking dead. “Come on!” Ayden screamed and slammed a fist into Johnny’s sternum. He moved to breathe again for his brother. And then Johnny spit up water. Ayden gave a shaky gasp and rolled his brother onto his side as Johnny coughed and gagged and vomited water onto the ground. Ayden kept his hands on his brother’s arm and only one of them could feel the tremors jarring his brother as life forced its way back into his system. Johnny shivered and gagged and then Ayden was pulling him into a sitting position and moving around so he could kneel in front of him and look at Johnny’s face. “Johnny?” he asked and his voice was shaky and scared and tentative because Johnny wasn’t saying anything, he was just blinking and maybe he had been in the water for too long and Ayden wanted to go back and shoot the clown in the head nine million more times because if he’d messed up his brother’s brain, then there was going to be hell to pay. Johnny’s eyes finally rose and he coughed again and it sounded wet and watery and he was sitting a little limply but his eyes met Ayden’s and then he groaned. “Oh god,” Johnny groaned out and it sounded painful and tired and weak but it was Johnny. “Did we just kiss?” Ayden laughed weakly and there were tears streaming down his face and he cocked his fist back and then slugged Johnny as hard as he could in the shoulder. Johnny’s mouth opened like it hurt and Ayden bet it did but he didn’t care. “What…?” Johnny couldn’t finish as he broke off into a coughing fit. Ayden didn’t wait for it to pass. He hit his brother in the shoulder again and Johnny looked pissed because, well, he’d just drowned and now his brother was hitting him. “You’re an asshole!” Ayden yelled and his fear and panic was quickly being replaced by rage. “You’re a fucking asshole!” and he hit him again for emphasis. “You just charge into these things without a plan all the time and you expect to just shoot everything and they’ll fall over and you’re not John Fucking Wayne or…or…Jesse James or whoever the hell you think you are! You’re my fucking brother and you’re not invincible and you almost fucking died and I can’t do this without you and you’re a fucking asshole.” Ayden sobbed. They sat quietly for a moment. And Ayden wasn’t surprised in the least when Johnny reached out an arm to snag around his shoulders and pull him in for a hug. He wanted to hate it. He wanted to hate the fact that Johnny was the one that almost died and it was still Ayden who needed to be consoled. Ayden sniffled and tried to hold back the tears. “I still think you’re an asshole,” he muttered into his brother’s shoulder. .Wolfie. Johnny had died.It hadn’t scared him as much when it was happening, maybe because drowning had cut off all the fucking oxygen to his brain, but he was feeling it now. Another cough wracked his frame but he didn’t let go of his brother, even when he had to turn his head and spit up more water onto the floor. His head was throbbing and his side was stinging but he was alive now and he felt a chill run through him because he had died and he hadn’t been able to stop it. He’d known it was coming and all he could do was kick weakly at the glass while water filled up his lungs and he had fucking died. His arm tightened around his brother but he didn’t cry because he knew Ayden was on the verge of it and he didn’t care that his shoulder hurt where he’d slugged him. “You’re a fucking asshole,” Ayden muttered again, his voice sounding choked and wretched and he was shaking. He coughed again and there was still water in his lungs and he felt weak and drained and he couldn’t even move to pull himself off the floor yet. He had fucking died. His body had given out on him and betrayed him. He still didn’t know if there was a heaven and hell. He had felt warm and peaceful at the end, but maybe that was just his body shutting down his nerves first. He shivered and he felt so fucking cold and weak now and he coughed again. It hurt every part of him just to do that, because his throat was raw and pained and his lungs still couldn’t believe that they were pulling in air and not water. He was glad it hadn’t actually ended that way. He felt it when Ayden finally started crying and he squeezed his shoulder. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Ayden kept telling him he would have been a good dad, but his little brother was crying and he didn’t know what to fucking say to him to make it better because he had just died on him and if Ayden hadn’t come along he never would have woken back up. He looked up at the broken pieces of the dunk tank and he would have just floated in there, a bloated corpse waiting for someone to find him. Maybe it would have been the voodoo priest and he would’ve cut Johnny’s heart out and put it on a stick and then tossed the corpse in a pile with all the others. “You’re not going to kiss me again, are you?” he finally asked. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, faggot?” Ayden grumbled. He punched Johnny in the shoulder again. Johnny laughed and patted his back and the laugh turned into a cough and it really hurt his throat. He should’ve just said thank you, but Johnny was no good with what he was supposed to say. Ayden pulled out of the hug and struggled to his feet. One of his hands wasn’t supporting his weight and Johnny focused on that one because it was limp and mangled and didn’t look right. Then Ayden’s other hand was grabbing him around the arm and trying to pull him up. “Come on, asshole,” he spat. “For the record, Clint Eastwood,” Johnny told him. His legs were shaking underneath him as his brother helped him up and he was more surprised than he should’ve been at how weak he was. Apparently dying took a lot out of him and the thought was almost funny if it didn’t make him feel dizzy and a little sick. He had died. He had been dead for a minute or two minutes or who knew how long and his little brother was the only reason he was breathing and he squeezed his shoulder again. “What about him?” Ayden asked, pulling Johnny’s arm around his shoulders. There was broken glass sticking to both of them and it had cut into Johnny’s palms and his back when he had been lying dead on the ground, but it was a small price to pay. He coughed again and he didn’t think there was anything left in his stomach or his lungs but he felt more water come up and he was surprised he hadn’t just swallowed the whole fucking tank. His pack of cigarettes was soaked and useless and his gaze went to the gun in the bottom of the tank because maybe that wasn’t. “I’m totally Clint Eastwood. The man with no name? He’s a fucking badass,” Johnny told him. Ayden snorted. “Clint Eastwood never drowned.” “Nope,” Johnny said. “But he got hung once and shot a couple of times. I figure that’s close enough.” Ayden punched him in the shoulder again and it was going to be fucking bruised by the time his brother was done with him. “You ever die by hanging I swear to Christ I will shoot you myself. You’re not allowed to fucking die on me,” his voice broke halfway through and Johnny felt like an asshole because there were tears pricking at his brother’s eyes again. Everyone kept telling him to be more fucking careful and he just kept charging every single fucking time. “Yeah, well you won’t let me,” he said with a grin. “Look at you, motherfucking hero of the day.” “Yeah, well I shouldn’t have to be,” he said. He looked down at the ground where glass lay scattered around them in the puddle that had flooded out of the broken dunk tank. “You’re falling behind Johnny. You owe me a beer and an ice cream truck, you better start catching up,” he managed a smile onto his face and it wasn’t cracking quite so much anymore but Johnny wondered if his brother would wake up later dreaming about his body floating in the tank, bloated and already dead and he wondered if he would too. This place was going to give him fucking nightmares. “I owe you a beer now? When did that happen?” he asked. He took a shaky step forward, standing on his own weight and maybe his legs were a little unsteady still but he managed it. He retrieved his gun from the bottom of the tank and he didn’t like standing anywhere near the fucking thing because it felt too much like a coffin closing in around him. The gun was soaked and the bullets were probably no good, but he did his best to wipe it off and hoped it would still work. “When I had to fucking make out with you just so that you wouldn’t fucking die,” Ayden said. Johnny snorted. “We’ll see.” He jerked his head at the ceiling, where the trap door had shut. “The kids were up there,” His brother’s eyes widened. “Shit,” he said, hand tightening around his own gun. It was unspoken that nothing good was going to happen to them, and he just hoped they didn’t get up there to find them with their hearts already torn out. He swallowed hard and set off towards a ramp on their right. There were bright lights pouring in from above and he didn’t like what that meant. He didn’t like what kind of show might be going on upstairs. Ayden grabbed him roughly around the arm and jerked him to a stop. “We need a plan,” he said. Johnny scowled. “I have a plan.” Ayden rolled his eyes but he still looked pale and shaken and he tossed his head back and forth. “Charge is not a plan. Charge is the stupid shit you try every time and it gets you mauled and shot and cut up and we’re not going to fucking charge because then you’ll get your heart carved out or something and you’re not allowed to fucking die and it’ll be really hard for me to drag your ass around with a fucking hole in your chest.” His brother took a breath because he was rambling and the words had just poured out of him and Johnny stared at him for a moment. “You feeling okay there, princess?” he asked after a second. Ayden glared at him and then he laughed a little hysterically and punched Johnny in the shoulder again. He wondered if his brother’s knuckles would be bruised by the end of the night and if he hadn’t just saved his ass he would be giving him a bruised shoulder to match. He rubbed at his own, still staring back at Ayden who was taking deep breaths to calm down. “We need a plan,” he said again. Johnny rolled his eyes. “Alright, well since you don’t like my plan, what’s your plan?” “We’re going to try sneaking. You know how that works? It involves being quiet, and not shooting right away. Can you manage that?” his brother’s voice was dripping sarcasm and to Johnny that meant he was still upset. His hand was shaking as he ran it through his hair and Ayden didn’t seem to notice the trail of blood he left in its wake. His face was covered in lumps and bruises and that long whip slash that ran across his eye. “I’ll do my best,” Johnny said. “How’s your hand?” Ayden grunted, moving towards the ramp as slowly and quietly as he could. “Fine,” he snapped, and he wasn’t looking at Johnny, he was staring up into the lights. He had his bitch face on and Johnny sighed because his brother was just going to keep telling him fine whether it was true or not. He followed his brother on shaky legs, moving to the opposite side of the ramp and moving slowly upwards. He heard a panicked shout echo down at them and it sounded like Ben. He glanced at Ayden who just shook his head at Johnny and he didn’t like this not-charging business. He licked his lips and snuck to the edge of the ramp and they were just outside the main circle. The voodoo man was back, bloodied and wicked clowns around him and in front of him, Mikey lay stretched on a table, his hands and feet bound. The man was holding a knife in one hand and a snake in the other and Johnny didn’t want to know what he was going to do to the poor kid. The circle of people waiting to get their hearts cut out had tightened and they stood blank and mindless in a ring. Then he saw the giant. He reminded Johnny a little bit of the man with a false face, because he was probably the same height and build. He was over seven feet tall, and built like a brick shithouse. One of his hands was wrapped around Ben’s head and the other was holding his arm tightly and to the kid’s credit he was still struggling against him, his eyes focused wide and scared on his little brother. He bit down on the giant’s finger and the man growled something and then shook Ben forcefully. “This, I offer to you,” the man was saying, holding the snake over Mikey. The kid screamed and thrashed against his bindings. “Now can I charge?” Johnny asked quietly. Wenston When Johnny was in the hospital for three days after Ayden had his seizure in the middle of the country buffet, Ayden went to visit him just once. It was all he could afford. He’d been sitting by Johnny’s bedside and he was looking at the bruised and battered face of his brother and the tubes that were keeping him breathing and Ayden had cried at first but then he’d stopped and he’d prayed. He was never a praying type until that moment because every time he’d tried to pray, tried to ask for help or forgiveness or whatever else a kid who was 14 years old prayed for, no one ever answered. But Ayden prayed for his brother because he didn’t know if Johnny would wake up. And praying just seemed right. The doctor had come in and it wasn’t the same doctor they normally saw. It was a lady doctor and she took one look at Ayden, who was just about as bruised and contused as Johnny was but not unconscious and she’d closed the door behind her and sat down in a chair and told Ayden to finish his prayer. When he did, he sat back in his chair and stared at her because if she was like the other doctors, she wouldn’t care. She wasn’t like the others. “Were you riding bikes with your brother?” she asked and Ayden’s eyes went to Johnny unconscious on the bed and he nodded because he didn’t know what his Dad had told the doctors about what happened. The doctor nodded and licked her lips. “I know he wasn’t hurt riding a bike,” she said quietly. Ayden felt trapped and a little panicky and his eyes darted around the room. She held up a hand to try and calm him down. “It’s okay,” she said and her voice was soft and sweet and caring. Ayden wasn’t used to it. “You know, sometimes, bad things happen. And we just don’t have anyone to talk to about them.” She studied him and her next words were very careful. “Do you need someone to talk to?” Ayden had stared at her with wide eyes and he thought about saying yes. About nodding his head and telling her everything because maybe, just maybe, someone cared and someone could stop this and Johnny would never have to be hurt because of him again. But he shook his head. Because he was scared. She seemed to understand. She gave him a card with her home phone number on it and Ayden put it in his pocket and she checked out his brother and said there was no change and then she squeezed his shoulder and it was the most comforting thing he’d had in years and she was out the door. Ayden didn’t go back to see his brother because he didn’t want to see her again. Johnny came home three days later and Ayden didn’t think about the doctor again until his Dad had beat him with his belt for almost twenty minutes a few months later. He’d called her. He’d called the doctor and a man answered the phone and he sounded sad when Ayden asked for her. Turns out someone was listening to Ayden’s prayer, but it wasn’t who it was meant for. The one person in the world who would have helped them had been killed in a car accident just a few weeks after Johnny got out of the hospital. Ayden rarely prayed after that. † † † “No,” Ayden snarled and he brought his gun up and aimed it at the top hat wearing voodoo priest. He fired one shot and the man staggered backwards as the bullet ripped through his shoulder. His hands came down and the knife fell limp but the snake still hung there looking agitated. Ayden growled and then he was running forward. “I’m charging,” he spat at his brother over his shoulder and he fired another shot at the voodoo guy and saw him jerk from a bullet wound in the opposite shoulder. He didn’t know why he didn’t just shoot him in the head. Maybe because he wanted him to suffer. Johnny snorted behind him and said, “Fucker,” and was then firing at the giant holding onto Ben. The voodoo guy brought the snake up and both snake and man hissed at Ayden at the same time. But Ayden was pissed. He was pissed because Johnny almost died, correction – he did die – and it was this fucker’s fault. So Ayden kept advancing and he shot the snake right in its wide open, venomous fang bearing mouth. He heard Ben crying and shouting and fighting and Johnny was firing shot after shot at the giant but Ayden’s eyes were on Mikey and the voodoo creep hovering above him. “Get away from him you ugly fuck,” Ayden spat and he felt the rage and adrenaline pumping now and he aimed for the man’s head but his gun snapped and he growled because it was jammed and they were getting lazy because they’d just gotten off of a vacation and maybe hadn’t cleaned their guns as well as they should have. He threw the damn thing to the side and then he was leaping over the table Mikey was strapped to and tackling the guy who had caused all this pain and suffering. The two fell to the ground and Ayden felt the knife in the man’s hand slice across his left arm and he yelled because that arm was going to be fucking useless if they kept this up. So Ayden cocked back a fist and he was hitting the voodoo guy in the face and he felt the man’s nose and teeth shatter beneath his fist. When the fucker finally stopped squirming beneath him was when Ayden pulled back and looked over his shoulder. Johnny had managed to get Ben away from the giant, but he was now battling the huge guy and it looked like his brother was getting frustrated. Ayden wondered if Johnny wished Annie was here because they’d taken down the last guy they’d had to fight that was this big together. Climbing to his feet, Ayden went to Mikey who was still strapped to the table and did his best to untie the ropes binding Mikey’s arms and feet. “It’s okay,” Ayden said breathlessly because he’d just beaten a guy half to death. “You’re okay,” Ayden said when he saw the wide eyes and tears on Mikey’s face. The kid nodded and when Ayden had his arms free, the kid sat up and wrapped his arms around Ayden’s neck. The movement surprised him a little, but he let the kid hug and latch onto him as he worked on freeing his feet. Ayden’s left hand was now completely useless and he cursed quietly to himself because this would require a hospital visit. There was no doubt in his mind. His eyes darted to Johnny when his brother started coughing and he saw him almost doubled over while he held his gun out and fired at the giant who was coming at him. Ben, because the kid was that fucking cool, was standing behind Johnny and shouting obscenities at the monster. Mikey hissed suddenly and tightened his grip on Ayden. Instinctively, Ayden whirled and he let out a startled cry as the voodoo priest sunk sharp teeth into his neck and then withdrew just as quickly as he’d come in for the bite. Ayden reached up and put a hand over his neck. Blood leaked from between his fingers and he just stared at the priest in shock because that fucker had bit him. It reminded him a lot of a girl named Meg from Nevada. The voodoo priest turned and grabbed something off the table behind him and then he was dancing around the table and he brought the thing to his lips and Ayden saw it was a straw doll of some sort. His eyes widened fractionally as he realized what was happening The voodoo priest, whose face was smashed in but he somehow was able to be up and dancing around like a fucking fairy, licked the doll and left Ayden’s blood on it. Ayden tried to run forward but the priest whipped the doll up and let out a cackle and Ayden felt his body suddenly freeze up on him and all he could do was stand there. “Mikey, go to Johnny,” Ayden said quietly and slowly, trying not to scare the kid. “But…” Mikey started. “Go to Johnny, now,” Ayden said a little more forcefully because the priest was grinning and tilting his head back and forth like he liked his new doll. When the little kid still didn’t move Ayden said, “Now!” with a voice his father had always used on him and he felt a little bit guilty when Mikey started crying and hopped off the table and was running to Johnny and Ben, who were still fighting the giant and were oblivious. Ayden saw Mikey reach Ben and wrap his arms around Ben’s waist. Ayden was breathing heavily because he was trying to control his body, but he couldn’t and this was a lot fucking like the demon except he was in complete control of his mind. He growled at the voodoo priest and watched as he leaned forward and whispered something at the doll in his hands. Ayden let out a strangled cry as he felt himself bend down and his hand curled around the knife. Then he turned and he was facing Johnny and the giant and the kids. “Johnny, get down!” Ayden yelled and he saw his brother pause in shooting at the giant to look over at him. Ayden gulped and then he was throwing the knife at Johnny’s head. His brother ducked, thank god, beneath the knife and it sailed pass them and clattered to the floor. Johnny turned and gave Ayden a confused, “what the hell” look and Ayden gave his most apologetic look. “He has a doll,” Ayden said and then he was walking towards his brother and he couldn’t stop himself. “Of me, sorry.” Johnny’s eyes darted between Ayden, the voodoo priest, and then to the giant who was full of bullet holes but still not going down. “God damn it,” he said. .Wolfie. He felt his gun click as it jammed and he should’ve expected that because it had been drowned right next to him in that fucking dunk tank. He scrambled back, still pulling the trigger and hoping that one of his remaining bullets was any good. He kept an arm out, pushing the kids back behind him as he pointed and clicked at the giant. He tilted his head at Johnny and then grinned because he realized the gun wasn’t firing at him anymore.“Fuck me,” Johnny ground out, and then he was bending to rip the knife off his calf. “Johnny!” Ayden shouted again, and his gaze flicked to his brother because he was grabbing another knife off the table next to him. His movements were jerky and strained and behind him the voodoo priest was laughing and manipulating the little puppet in his hand, whispering to it and making it walk. He saw his brother raise the knife and he saw a flash of movement as the giant came towards him, raising its arms and Jesus if everyone wasn’t out to kill him today. He dodged under the giant’s swinging blow and leapt at him, knife up in his hand. He jammed it as hard as he could through his chest and the man howled and roared with the pain of it, but still didn’t go down. He wondered how Ayden had brought the elephant down because maybe this would be a good time to know that kind of thing. He wished Annie were here because then she would be moving her quick little ass in to help him, except she wasn’t because he had fucked it up her. He twisted the knife harder and then he felt the man’s hand curling around his neck and Ayden was hauling his arm back to throw his blade. Johnny snarled, kicking the giant in the chest with all his strength. He grunted and stumbled back and Johnny twisted in his grip, boot crashing against the table and then pushing off. He didn’t need to get loose, he just needed the man to turn and he heard Ayden laugh triumphantly as he threw the knife at Johnny and it buried itself in the giant’s back instead. The man howled again and the arm not holding Johnny around the neck grasped at his back to try and pull it out. The smile fell from Ayden’s face in the next second because the giant was pulling the blade out and now he had Johnny in one hand and a knife in the other. “See? Johnny shouted over his shoulder as he struggled. “This is why I do the charging!” “Fuck you!” Ayden yelled back at him weakly. He was moving closer and reached towards another knife on the table. “Buy me dinner first,” he said. He kicked out at the giant and it had about as much effect as the dunk tank. The fingers around his throat tightened and Johnny couldn’t speak anymore because he could barely breathe. The giant held him higher in the air and his feet were dangling off the ground. He clawed at the hands choking him but the giant just grinned up at him as he struggled weakly in his grasp. His boot lashed out and he caught the man in the face with a solid kick. He heard a crack and there was blood leaking from the man’s nose and he howled up at Johnny, shaking him like a ragdoll. “Let him go!” Ben shouted, and he wondered how many times today the kid had said that. The giant ignored him. Johnny gargled and choked as the man tightened his grip around his neck. He was smiling as he raised the knife in his other hand and Johnny was scared to look behind him and see where Ayden was and that fucking voodoo priest was just over there laughing his ass off. “Stupid mother fucker,” Johnny snarled in a low gasp and he really just wanted to put a bullet in that asshole’s forehead. Then a beer bottle sailed past him and struck the giant in the mouth. He jerked in surprise and turned his attention to Ben as another beer bottle struck him in the eye. The giant roared, shaking himself like a dog and he let Johnny drop hard to the ground. He coughed and put a hand gingerly to his throat but he didn’t have time to examine himself because a knife was flashing down towards him. He jerked himself to the right and rolled off the table as Ayden slammed it down into the wood and he was watching Johnny with a panicked expression. “I’m sorry!” he said. “It’s the doll.” “Yeah,” Johnny spat. “I got that. Just hold on a second while I take care of this first.” The giant was bearing down on the two kids and Johnny tried to remember what his woman had done in the asylum. He ducked and rolled under the giant’s arm and threw himself at his chest, hands closing around the blade still protruding from his skin and yanked down with all his might. The man howled and screamed as it cut through his skin, ripping a sharp red line through his flesh. A hand came down hard on Johnny’s head and he felt stars bursting in his vision but he didn’t let go. He twisted the knife sharply and he saw the hand rise to hit him again. With a snarl of rage and pain he put all his weight into the blade and jammed it in as far as he could. The giant took a step forward, and then all the breath left his body in a shuddering wave. Blood trickled from his mouth and then his eyes grew dim and empty. Johnny stumbled back weakly as he collapsed towards him and just barely managed to keep from getting crushed by the falling body. The ground shuddered when he fell into it, and for a moment Johnny just stood there panting because he was getting too old for this shit. “Johnny!” Ayden shouted again, and then he looked up to see his brother stumbling forward and bringing the knife down towards him. Johnny dodged out of the way, but he could feel the rush of air by his face as the knife sliced down next to him. His brother lashed out with another slice and this one managed to draw a bright red line across Johnny’s chest. He almost laughed because what was one more knife wound in him at this point? “The doll please?” Ayden said, and his eyes were helpless and sad. Johnny caught him by the arm and flipped him over, pinning him into the ground. “Sorry,” he said, wrenching Ayden’s arms behind his back and ripping the knife from his grasp. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one trying to kill you, so get the fucking doll!” Johnny’s eyes darted up to the voodoo priest and he wasn’t smiling and he wasn’t laughing anymore. He held the little doll in his hand and a sneer crossed his face as he raised it up over the candles. He heard Ayden gasp under him and suddenly he could smell burning skin as the man twisted the little doll over the flickering flame. He glanced at his little brother and he could see his skin getting red and his mouth was opened in a startled, pained gasp. Johnny’s throat ached with the snarl that came out of it and then he was up and running across the ring, knife held loosely in his hand. The voodoo priest opened his mouth to say something to him, but he never got a chance because Johnny was driving the knife into his mouth. It burst out the back of his head in a spray of blood, his body slumping forward. Johnny let him drop, the corpse hitting the ground with a sickening thump, blood already pooling out around him from the wound in his head. He still held the little Ayden doll loosely in his hand. Johnny sighed and crouched next to him, plucking the doll from his fingers. Ayden was still on the ground when he walked back over, but Ben was crouched next to him, keeping Mikey behind him in case Ayden still didn’t have control yet. His brother looked battered and bruised and his skin was looking red and burned and pained. Johnny leaned down, pressing the voodoo doll into his brother’s hand. “You might want to hang onto this,” he told him, smirking and ruffling his hair. Ayden raised his head weakly, focusing on Johnny’s face. “You’re a fucking asshole.” Wenston Ayden was sitting on some bleachers a few attractions up from the big tent eating cotton candy with Mikey. As soon as Johnny had skewered the voodoo priest, the crowd that had been under his powerful spell snapped back to reality and Ayden had nearly died laughing watching his brother try to explain to a crowd of over three hundred people why they were all in a tent they didn’t remember walking into. Or the macabre displays of bodies all around the tent, which Johnny had tried to pass off as being part of a hypnotist’s act. After everyone was appeased, and had even applauded his brother, Ayden and Johnny had ushered the kids out, reconvened at the bleachers and then Johnny and Ben had gone off in search of Ben and Mikey’s Mom. Ayden was feeling tired and his body ached and his face hurt the most. His hand was still numb and now that he was sitting and no one was dying, he was poking at his fingers and he sighed because he couldn’t feel any of it. When he tried to move his fingers, they twitched but the pain inherently stopped them so he didn’t think the hand would be completely useless, but it would take a while for it to be back to full capacity. He wondered if he’d have to take Johnny to the hospital to have his lungs looked at. Inhaling water was never a good thing. “Johnny’s pretty cool,” Mikey said and his mouth was full of melting cotton candy and his face was stained pink with the sugar that hadn’t quite made it into his mouth. Ayden looked at the kid and grinned because he knew his face probably looked the same. “So is Ben,” Ayden said and waggled his eyebrows. Mikey giggled and broke off another piece of his cotton candy that Ayden had stolen from one of the concessions stands for them. “Isn’t he? He’s the best brother. Even if sometimes he steals my Legos and one time he blew up my G.I. Joe’s with a firecracker.” Ayden snorted. “My brother put my ninja turtles in the dryer once. They melted onto my favorite shirt.” Mikey’s eyes widened like it was the coolest idea ever. Ayden tried to hide the smile. “Did you still wear it?” Mikey asked. “I would have!” Ayden’s smile faltered as he thought about it because he hadn’t worn the shirt. In fact, when their Mom had pulled the shirt out of the dryer and seen it, she’d thrown a bitch fit and had taken away all of Ayden’s toys and their Dad had been so pissed that he’d busted one of Ayden’s ribs with the beating that followed. Johnny had apologized profusely for the action and every day after that for a month he’d sacrificed part of his lunch money to buying Ayden an ice cream. It’s probably where his taste to ice cream came from. But Ayden wouldn’t tell Mikey any of this. “No, I didn’t wear it,” he just said and he was a little sad even when he didn’t mean to be. “You yelled at me,” Mikey said and narrowed his eyes in the way little kids do when they disapprove of something. Ayden had to think a moment and then he realized what Mikey was talking about. “I was trying to keep you safe. That guy was making me do things.” “Like the Puppet master?” Ayden frowned and Mikey shrugged. “Ben likes scary movies. That one is really scary.” Ayden snickered and nodded. “Then yeah, like the Puppet master.” Then he added, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.” Mikey watched him for a second and then reached up to the cotton candy bag and dug out another handful of the sugary snack. He brought it to his mouth and then paused, watching Ayden. “Ben cries sometimes,” he said quietly and Ayden almost didn’t hear him. Then he stuffed the candy in his mouth and sat there, feeling it melt. “What does he cry about?” Ayden asked and he knew he was treading on dangerous ground. Mikey shrugged. “I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me,” he scowled and Ayden smiled because he knew that look all too well. Then Mikey’s shoulders fell. “My Dad went on vacation,” he said and he was watching Ayden to see his reaction. Ayden kept his face passive, but his eyes must have given him away because Mikey sighed and looked down at his feet, his sticky, dirty hands playing with his shoelaces. “I think Ben cries about that sometimes because he didn’t even say goodbye.” Ayden scrubbed his good hand along his face and glanced towards the diminishing crowd, wondering where Johnny and Ben and the Mom were. He looked back at Mikey and then reached out and grabbed another piece of the cotton candy. “Johnny cries sometimes.” Mikey looked up at him. “What does he cry about? Did his Dad go on vacation too?” Ayden nodded. “Yeah. But he cries about other things too.” “Like what?” Mikey asked, his mouth full. Ayden thought about it for a moment. “Things he has no control over,” he said tentatively and he thought about Johnny and the baby he lost and Annie leaving and Dyani dying and their Dad dying and their Mom burning alive and the train that buckled and snapped and didn’t kill him. “And some that he does.” Mikey was quiet and he studied Ayden and Ayden didn’t think that the kid understood what he was talking about because to him, Johnny and Ayden were just two dudes with guns and the word Godsent had no meaning. Then Mikey was giggling and he pointed to Ayden’s hand. “If you get a hook and an eye patch you’ll look like a pirate!” Ayden snorted. “Gee, thanks a lot,” he laughed and swatted at Mikey who giggled and scrambled back out of Ayden’s reach. Ayden sighed and relaxed a little because it had been a long day. His hand went to his pocket where the straw doll was sitting quietly and he hoped the damn thing didn’t have any magic left in it because if it did, what the hell was he supposed to do with it? Then Mikey was standing and yelling across the fairway. “Mom!” he screeched and Ayden turned his head and Ben and Johnny and the Mom were strolling up the way. Mikey broke out into a run and when he got to his Mom, Ayden was surprised when she actually bent down and enveloped him in a hug. She held his head to her shoulder and soothed his hair and Ayden felt his stomach knot and his heart stiffen and he wished his Mom had held him like that, just once. Ben was grinning next to them and Johnny was walking over towards Ayden. There were sirens in the air and they were getting closer. Johnny slid onto the bleachers next to Ayden and eyed the cotton candy, then Ayden’s face, then turned back to the family with a grin. “Enjoying yourself?” he asked and he was smug and happy and tired sounding. “It’s the fucking circus,” Ayden said. Then he nodded his head towards the Mom who was hugging both her sons. “What did you say to her?” “That she better take care of her damn kids,” Johnny said. “With your voice?” and as soon as the question was out of his mouth, Ayden knew that was stupid because he hadn’t fallen over into a seizure or anything. Johnny snorted. “No, genius,” he said and Ayden sighed. Johnny was quiet a moment and Ayden gave him the quiet time because Johnny looked like he needed it. His brother dug a fresh pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and lit one up and he looked content. “I told her that if she didn’t tell her fucking kids that she loved them every single fucking day, I would come back and rip her heart out of her chest myself.” Ayden blinked and then grinned. “You’re dark,” he said and grinned when Johnny just chuckled low in his throat. It still sounded wet and painful. “How’s your hand?” Johnny asked but didn’t look back at him because his eyes were on the kids and their Mom. Ayden sighed and looked down at it and the bleeding had stopped but it was one giant bruise and looked purple and blue and his fingers were swollen. “I can’t move it,” he admitted. Johnny looked over his shoulder at him and there was worry etched there as his eyes went to Ayden’s hand but he didn’t get a chance to say anything because the kids were running over to them. Ben stopped just shy of them but Mikey wrapped his arms around Johnny’s neck and squeezed him. Johnny scrambled to move his cigarette so he wouldn’t burn the boy but then his arm was coming awkwardly around to pat the boy on the back. Then Mikey let go and did the same to Ayden. Ayden squeezed the little boy and ruffled his hair and Mikey giggled. They both turned to look at Ben who was holding his hand out for Johnny to shake. Johnny took one look at it and then reached out and pulled the kid into a hug. Ben looked embarrassed at first but then relaxed and hugged Johnny back. “I mean it,” Johnny said and pointed at his face. “You watch out for your brother.” Ben nodded and then rolled his eyes. “I always do,” he said and it was snotty and bratty and Ayden loved that little kid. Then Ben looked at Ayden and grinned. “Stay cool,” he said and Ayden quirked an eyebrow and watched the two of them turn around and run back to their Mom, who put her hands on either of their shoulders and looked at Johnny, who grinned but it wasn’t pleasant or nice, it was a warning. She nodded and ran her hands through her children’s hair and then turned them around. “Do you think they’ll be okay?” Ayden asked. Johnny puffed on his cigarette. “Yeah,” he said without much hesitation. Ayden watched them walk away and the sirens grew louder and he saw Johnny rising to his feet because that meant it was time to go. “Hey, Johnny,” Ayden called. He watched his brother turn around and look at him and he pictured Johnny floating lifelessly in the dunk tank and he saw him spitting up water and breathing and all the times he’d saved Ayden’s life flashed before his eyes and for a moment Ayden wanted to tell him thank you and to never die again and to please don’t ever, ever, ever leave him because he couldn’t do this without him. But he just forced a grin and stuffed some cotton candy in his mouth. “I killed a mother fucking elephant.” .Wolfie. Session #8: Ten Years “I thought you knew how to change one of those?” Ayden asked from behind him. “The fucking lug nuts are stuck. I’m having a hard time getting them off,” Johnny grumbled out between his lips, the cigarette waving in front of his face as he spoke. He heard Ayden laughing from behind him, and he spared a glance over at his brother. He was pacing along the side of the road, a ball clasped in his hand as he flexed around it. They’d had to stitch his hand twice, because they’d sewn him up before realizing that the fucking knife thrower had cut through tendon too. So they’d sliced him back open, sewn his tendon up, and then stitched his hand up again and given him a fucking ball for physical therapy. “I thought you were an expert at that sort of thing?” Ayden said, grinning over at him. Johnny grumbled something and went back to yanking on the metal bar in his hand because the fucking things were jammed shut. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had to change a tire on the beast, and he wondered if that was thanks to the trinkets hanging around their rearview mirror or if he was just that lucky. The spare lay next to him on the ground and the tire still on his car was flat and airless because of something he’d run over and he didn’t even know what. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and tried not to think about how fucking hot it was. They were somewhere halfway through New Mexico, and Ayden kept telling him they should just go to Vegas and take another vacation. It had only been two weeks since their last one, but he had all kinds of new scars thanks to that lion and his brother had a white line running down his face. He just wanted to go to sleep without dreaming of that fucking dunk tank. He just wanted to wake up once without tossing the covers off because he thought they were drowning him. Ayden hadn’t been much better, but he always had nightmares. Johnny just noticed it more now, because he was already awake and at the table cleaning his guns when his brother jerked out of bed, covered in sheen of sweat and his eyes lost and distant because he was lost somewhere in nightmare land. It had been worse before, like when that stupid kid Marko had jammed his dirty little fingers into his brain and left behind a thousand dark and rotting presents, but ever since Johnny had drowned in that dunk tank, Ayden had been strange around him. Johnny had always said that Ayden got into trouble when he wasn’t around, but his little brother seemed to have decided the same about him. He thought it was stupid, because Johnny could take care of himself. He yanked harder on the tire iron and his hand slipped and banged hard against the side of the car. “Son of a fucking mother god damned whore,” he shouted, jerking to his feet and holding his hand to his chest as blood bloomed over the knuckles. It throbbed with pain and he had bashed it pretty fucking hard on the metal. He bit down hard on the cigarette and then he had to spit ash and tobacco out of his mouth and fuck it all if his little brother wasn’t laughing behind him. He turned, still holding his hand to his chest and his brother was pretending to look up at the clouds scudding across the sky. He pointed a finger at Ayden, glaring dangerously. “You just keep your fucking mouth shut.” “Didn’t say a word, Johnny,” he said innocently. Johnny kept glaring, watching his brother fight to keep the laughter from spilling out. He wouldn’t look at Johnny’s face, just standing there holding that stupid ball in his fist as he clasped and unclasped his hand around it. Johnny kept his eyes on his little brother as he brought out his pack of cigarettes, lighting up another one before turning back to the car. He grabbed tightly onto the bar and yanked it with all his might and the metal and rust flaked off of the bolt as it finally began to turn. He yanked the bolt off and tossed it in the hubcap with its brothers, pulling the wheel off and dropping it into the dust. His hand wiped at his forehead again and then he was jamming the spare onto the car and at least he kept a fucking full size spare because he didn’t want to drive around with a donut on his back wheel. “What did you hit anyway?” Ayden asked from behind him, and he could hear his brother trying not to laugh at him still. He wiped the blood off his knuckles onto his jeans and didn’t turn around because if he saw that fucking smirk on his face he was going to lose it. “A jackalope,” he snapped, and he heard his brother laugh. He kept the wheel braced with one hand and started to screw the nuts back on and there was sweat running into his eyes. He hated changing flat tires, but he hated it more when the car overheated and it had been doing that a lot lately too. He probably should take it to a mechanic but he hated the idea of turning the beast over to some asshole in a pair of overalls who was just going to tell him that he needed a new radiator when maybe he could just get away with replacing the thermostat. “You almost done down there? I’m sweating my balls off,” Ayden said. Johnny took a drag from his cigarette to calm down and glanced over his shoulder. “You could help, you know.” “No thanks, I’m good.” Ayden laughed and he tossed the ball up into the air, trying to catch it with the wounded hand. He didn’t quite manage to grasp it as it fell down and he cursed as the ball hit the dust and rolled into the road. He glanced left and right down the road before following it, scooping it up with one hand and turning around. “So you think you’ll be done some time today? Because I was kinda looking forward to Vegas and-” Whatever his brother was about to say was cut off abruptly as a vision slammed into him full force. He growled and dropped the tire to the dust, hurrying to catch Ayden before he hit the asphalt because the jackass was still standing in the middle of the road. Johnny grabbed his arms as it rocked through him, eyes rolling back in his head and his back arching off the ground. He was shaking pretty bad this time and his hands were curled into claws, small whimpers and cries escaping this throat. A car roared by in the other lane but it didn’t stop and Johnny was glad for that. Ayden was sweating when the vision finally stopped. His eyes slid open and they were sad and confused and then his mouth opened. “Annie,” he whispered, and Johnny felt his veins turn to ice water. His heart constricted and he couldn’t breathe and it felt like drowning all over again just because of her name. He hadn’t heard anything else from her through Ashley and he didn’t want to ask because the man had been a pissy little bitch lately. Johnny didn’t know if he was still pissed about the bear trap, or Diyani, or the fucking furies of Hell that were supposed to be after the Marshalls, and he didn’t want to ask. Ayden let his eyes close and he was still shaking. Johnny squeezed his shoulder tightly and watched his brother. He wondered what Diyani had taught him to do because when he opened his eyes again the vision was gone and his brother was left looking back at him. It didn’t used to be so easy for him to shut them away, but whatever she had done kept him sane. He focused on Johnny’s face and his eyes looked bruised and sad. “It’s Annie,” he said again. “Where is she?” Johnny said, crouching down next to his brother. He tried to keep his voice cool but it sounded desperate even to him. Ayden blinked and focused on his face and his eyes still looked sad. “Home,” he whispered. “She’s home.” Wenston Annie was fighting something in the vision. It looked like a man, but old and wrinkly and like he was knocking at death’s door and had been for centuries. His hair was white and thin and his skin grey, eye sunken, teeth rotted. He wore a suit that didn’t fit his body and when he howled at Annie and opened his mouth it looked like he was trying to suck her in and devour her. She was shooting him but he didn’t seem to mind and he kept advancing, movements jerky and rigid and arms outstretched like some sort of Frankenstein monster. Then the vision faded into something different and there was a little boy and he was four years old and someone’s arm was above him and bleeding red onto a carpet like a faucet. The boy grinned and his eyes were black as sin and he dipped his head beneath the blood and caught it in his mouth and it dribbled down the sides of his cheek but he was lapping it up. “Thanks, Papa!” the boy squealed and his mouth was red with blood like it was candy. The vision faded again and then he was there. He was standing at the edge of the kitchen and his face was blank and devoid of emotion and he was staring at the boy sitting at the table, shaking and shivering and cowering in fear. The little boy sobbed out a choked, “I’m sorry.” Ayden didn’t know what the apology was for. But then he was advancing and unbuckling his belt and he grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and slammed his head down onto the table and held him there as he struck him over and over and over again with the belt across his back, leaving slashes in his shirt and welts on his skin and tears on his face. The boy screamed and sobbed and then went quiet. The beating continued and normally the visions didn’t carry on like this and weren’t as painful as this but he flung the child to the floor and kicked at his ribs and kicked at his face and kicked every inch of him. Ayden didn’t even know what the child had done. But the child was him. † † † “So that’s it?” Ayden sighed and leaned his head against the window and watched the landscape pass by them in a blur because Johnny was breaking the fucking sound barrier speeding along the highway and if a cop came along, he was absolutely sure Johnny would just go tell him to fuck himself using the voice and the cop would do just that. He didn’t care though. He knew why Johnny was in a hurry. It wasn’t because they were going home. If that were the case, this damn car would be moving like a fucking turtle. It was because of Annie. And when it came to Annie, Johnny got stupid. “Yeah, that’s it,” Ayden said quietly and it sounded like the lie it was, even to him. Johnny snorted but was obviously trying to remain calm. Ayden squeezed his left hand tightly around the ball in his hand but it never seemed to be tight enough. He wondered if he’d ever get full use of the hand back, because as it was, he had no feeling in his pinky or ring finger and when he curled his hand into a fist, they didn’t move because he told them to. They moved because the others moved and they were just following suit. “So, just Annie fighting an old dude and a kid that drinks blood,” Johnny said and it wasn’t a question but there was sarcasm in his voice and Ayden wasn’t in the mood for it because even though he had filed away the vision, he still saw his face whenever he closed his eyes and felt the belt on his back and subconsciously his shoulder was starting to hurt from a shotgun blast he’d suffered when he was 18. “Yep,” Ayden snapped because he didn’t want to talk about the damn vision anymore and he heard Johnny growl because it wasn’t too long ago that they’d decided they were actually going to talk to one another and hey, it only took a kidnapping, a vacation and a circus to bring them right back to keeping secrets from each other. Or maybe it was just Annie that drove them to do that. He couldn’t figure out what the cause was. “So how do you know she was home?” Johnny asked and his voice was straining to stay low and calm. “I just do,” Ayden spat out and his hand fisted around the ball and then he loosened his grip too significantly and the ball slipped the floor and Ayden stared at it for a moment before kicking it and looking back out the window. He didn’t need that stupid ball anyway. “Ayden,” Johnny said and his voice held a threat and a warning. Ayden slammed his healing left hand into the dashboard and it seemed to surprise them both because he was suddenly angry and there wasn’t really a reason for it. But then he was growling and yelling, “I don’t want to talk about it!” and he slumped down in his chair and sat there brooding like a moody fucking teenager and he thought about just saying it because it was Johnny and if there was one person that understood how Ayden felt about their father, it was Johnny. But he didn’t want to talk about it because talking about it made it real and maybe if they saved Annie and the kid then maybe their Dad wouldn’t be there. He didn’t even know why their Dad had showed up in the vision anyway because the man was dead and had been for some time because Johnny had told him to die and he did. This was just stupid. Johnny was gripping the steering wheel hard and his jaw was tight and he looked so fucking pissed off that Ayden wondered why he didn’t have a black eye or busted lip right now. But Johnny just breathed out slowly and then said as calmly as he could, “I don’t care if you don’t want to fucking talk about it. This is Annie, we’re talking about. So just tell me what you fucking saw.” “No,” Ayden said and crossed his arms over his chest and sunk lower in the chair and he could almost hear his old man yelling and the unbuckling of his belt buckle and the whipping of the leather of his belt and he had to close his eyes to block out these sounds and sensations. “Damn it, Ayden, fucking tell me!” Johnny yelled and he was done trying to be calm. “Or I swear to God I’ll make you tell me.” “Then do it and stop being a bitch about it,” Ayden snarled back and he saw Johnny’s hand tighten on the wheel and he heard him growl low in his throat and he thought for a second his brother was going to actually force Ayden with the voice of God to show him what he saw. But then Johnny was yelling again. “Just fucking tell me!” Johnny screamed and his hand hit the dashboard too and it was hard and jarring and probably hurt his fist a little and Ayden felt panicked because his brother was really, really pissed and he was maybe seeing a little bit of their father in him and it was scary. “It was Dad!” Ayden yelled back and he saw Johnny’s face pale and that and his brother frowned and glanced at him but Ayden slumped back against the door and tried to stop shaking. “It was Dad,” he repeated and he banged his head against the window because he hated that. He hated going home. .Wolfie. “How is that even fucking possible?” Johnny asked, and the anger was fading from his voice because it was being replaced by confusion and maybe a little fear. His brother was slumped in the seat next to him and didn’t answer, just shrugging his shoulders and staring out the window. Johnny watched him for a second and then sighed and turned his attention back to the road. He turned up the music and smoked his cigarette and let his brother be a little bitch. If he wanted to play the silent game they could play it for the rest of the fucking drive, he didn’t care.He ground his teeth together and jammed the cigarette back between his lips and he pressed down harder on the peddle because they were still a good three hours away and even if they had passed the border into Texas, he didn’t feel any closer to home. He was scared and he didn’t like being scared so he compensated with being violent except he had to get there before he could kill anything. The wind whipped at his hair as they flew down the highway in a blur, the sun still bright over his head. Annie was in trouble, so Johnny was scared. He wondered what the vision was even supposed to mean, and maybe that kept him scared. He didn’t understand why an old man was such a danger to her and he didn’t understand what a fucking kid drinking blood had to do with anything. He didn’t understand why the fuck their dad would be in the vision because Johnny had told him to die with all the power of God and the old man had done it. He had watched him die, watched his heart stop and seen his eyes go dark and empty. He had been the one to kill him. He shifted in his seat and turned the radio up louder and he didn’t know if he was trying to piss Ayden off or not. His brother shot him a look from the passenger seat but didn’t say anything. He rested his head against the window again and didn’t seem to care when it bounced off the glass and Johnny bit back the urge to yell at his brother and tell him that if he fucking broke his car he was going to have to get himself a real fucking job and pay for it and he didn’t like thinking these things because it was the kind of shit his dad would have said. So he bit down on his cigarette and didn’t say anything. He wondered if Annie would be happy to see them. He wondered if she meant what she had said on the phone or if he had just fucking misread it and maybe she had forgotten about that first kiss and maybe she really didn’t want anything to do with him. He wondered if her grandfather would meet him at the door with a shotgun like the old bastard had promised almost a decade ago. He swallowed hard and he thought maybe the man would follow through, because Old Man Richards had sworn that if Johnny broke his little Annabelle’s heart, he would put a bullet right between his eyes. He took a drag from his cigarette and realized he wasn’t scared just because of the vision. He was scared because it was Annie and the last time he’d seen her, she was rolling the window up in his face. He’d been covered with blood and not all of it had been his and she had been pissed and angry because he’d kept the most important fucking thing in their life to himself and hadn’t told Ayden a word of it and he was the one person besides her he should’ve been talking to. He glanced at his little brother out of the corner of his eye. Johnny wondered if Ayden still had nightmares about their dad and his shotgun. The look on his face said yes. The look on his face said that he was reliving them right now in his head and Johnny sighed, blowing clouds of smoke out between his lips. He wanted to be mad at his brother. He was being a bitchy little girl but it was because he was scared. He reached a hand forward and turned down the radio and Ayden glanced at him. Johnny didn’t meet his eyes but he reached a hand out and grasped his brother’s shoulder. He didn’t say it was going to be okay, and he didn’t say that there was nothing to be afraid of, because they both knew by now that ghosts had power. He didn’t say he was going to fix it, but he planned on it. † † † Ayden was asleep in the passenger seat when he finally pulled the car into the driveway. Johnny was content to let him stay there. He stared up at the house and pulled on the cigarette in his lips and he’d probably gone through an entire pack on the drive here and now that he was actually in her driveway he was fucking terrified. He’d driven the car through town and he’d gone slowly so that he could try and see if anything had changed. It was all the same, and it was all different at the same time. Half the same buildings were still standing, half the same people still sat on their porches and watched the cars go by and bitched about the kids in this town. Except it wasn’t his town anymore. It wasn’t his home, and even if he recognized the place, he didn’t think anyone would recognize him. He hadn’t set foot in the place in four years and he hadn’t been there constantly in over a decade. Maybe old bitch Mary Gleason at the corner shop would, because she loved to spread rumors and talk about who was fucking who and whatever else she could get her paws on, but he couldn’t think of a single other person that would really care if the Marshall boys were back. Alright, maybe the sheriff would care. He took a breath and realized he was stalling for time because he was scared out of his mind. The house looked the same. It was a two story old farmhouse and it still had the old man’s rocking chair out front, even if he spent most of his time in the living room or down at the bar with other good ol’ boys. He glanced over and Annie’s car was parked behind the old truck and he wondered how long she’d been home, if maybe she’d come here right away after leaving Wisconsin and if she was done with them and done with this life and maybe he should just turn around and leave. He tried to tell himself he was here to work. He tried to tell himself it wasn’t personal. He was such a fucking shitty liar. The door slammed behind him and he saw Ayden jerk up in his seat when it did. He sneered at his brother through the window and watched him flip him off through the glass. He returned the gesture and then snuffed the cigarette out with his fingers and pocketed it because he didn’t want to piss Annie’s grandpa off by leaving cigarette butts in his driveway because the old man was already going to be mad enough at him as it was and he didn’t know why he cared so much about what Annie’s grandpa thought except he’d always respected the old bastard. The man had fought in one world war and Vietnam and had probably had just as many wounds as the Marshalls had. At least he’d gotten some purple hearts for it. Ayden had gotten an ice cream cone and Johnny had gotten a couple of new scars. He sighed and stretched his legs and he watched Ayden get out of the car because it was easier than watching the door and he wouldn’t be surprised if she already knew they where here. “You gonna go knock, or just creep outside?” Ayden snapped, and Johnny rolled his eyes because his brother was still bitchy. He didn’t bother answering but his heart was pounding in his chest as he walked up the porch and his hand was shaking more than he liked to admit when he finally knocked on the door. He took a step back and shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for an old man with a shotgun to come charging out and gun him down. He didn’t know if it was better or worse that it wasn’t him that answered the door. It was Annie. Of course it was Annie. She looked good, better than she had a couple months ago, but that could have been because she was at home and not living out of a motel room with two degenerates and fighting werewolves and psychos in an asylum. She was wearing a white dress and it looked good on her because that’s who she used to be, before Johnny had charged in and fucked up her life. She was a frills and lace kind of girl, who just happened to know how to use a gun and kick his ass. “What the fuck happened to you two?” It wasn’t the hello he’d been expecting, but it could’ve been worse. Her eyes were wide in her head, her gaze darting from one face to the other as she scanned them quickly. At first Johnny didn’t understand what the problem was, or what she was staring at and then she was grabbing Ayden’s face in her hand, twisting his head so that she could get a better look at the pale white scars of an eye carved into his forehead. “What the fuck is this? What the fuck happened?” She was cursing a lot, spitting the words into the ground, which meant she was upset and scared. Johnny coughed and looked down at the ground because he didn’t exactly know what to say to make her feel better. The two of them had been fucked up pretty bad since the last time he’d seen her and he hadn’t realized until right about now just how much worse they looked. He glanced at his brother and he was looking a little uncomfortable with her fingers tilting his head so that she could study his scarred and bruised skin. Ayden’s hand came up to try and pull her fingers from his face. “We ran into a little trouble, that’s all.” “A little trouble?” Her eyes were still wide and they went to Johnny’s face like he should have a fucking answer. She let Ayden pull her hand away and her gaze flicked to his arms and Johnny groaned because she’d just seen the scars on his brother’s wrists and he knew how that probably looked. Her eyes went back to his face and she looked so sad and pained that it hurt him and this wasn’t at all how this was supposed to go. “Ayden?” she whispered softly. Her arm snaked out and pulled him into a hug, whispering fiercely in his ear. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you ever fucking dare try that again, you hear me?” “Annie, it’s not…” Johnny started to say, and then she was whirling on him. “And you! What the fuck, Johnny? You’re supposed to protect him, why are there fucking scars on his wrist? And what the fuck happened to your face?” Then her hands were on his skin and even if it was a cold and impersonal touch, it was Annie and she was right in front of him with her fingers on his skin. She tilted his head to the side and then her other hand was tracing the scar running from the corner of his lip across his cheek. “Annie, calm down,” he told her quietly. “We’re okay. Things just got a little rough, that’s all.” “Wrong thing to say, Johnny,” Ayden muttered under his breath. Wenston “So, this was part of a ritual?” Annie was trailing her fingers lightly over the scars on Ayden’s wrists. They were sitting on the couch in her living room and Johnny was sitting on a loveseat next to them. There was a wicker chair on the other side that sat empty because Annie’s Grandpa was apparently out at a VFW meeting. Annie had calmed down a bit and they’d been trying to tell her everything they’d gone through, but she just looked horrified every time something new came up. She still seemed unconvinced about the scars on Ayden’s wrists and she kept glancing at Johnny like she wanted to touch him but her hands weren’t straying from Ayden’s arms. “Annie, he wouldn’t do that,” Johnny drawled and he had his hands clasped in front of him and he looked awkward and Ayden could tell that he really wanted a cigarette but her Grandpa had never allowed smoking in his house. Annie looked up at Ayden’s face and Ayden forced a smile. “I wouldn’t do that,” he repeated and it surprised him that it didn’t sound too convincing. He glanced at Johnny and his brother was watching him with an unreadable look on his face and Ayden just shook his head because he didn’t like these looks and this attention and he sat back on the couch and pulled his arms out of Annie’s grasp and crossed them over his chest. “They needed blood, for the demon,” he said quietly. Annie watched him a moment and then folded her hands in her lap. “And, this guy Vaughn?” she glanced over at Johnny. “The one who brought the demon? You met him in prison?” Johnny snorted. “Yeah,” he said simply. “And he’s like Ashley?” she asked. “Was,” Johnny said and then glanced at Ayden before looking down at the floor. Ayden couldn’t handle the awkwardness of this all. “I killed him.” Annie nodded slowly, like she was filing away all this information and trying to comprehend what it all meant. Ayden cleared his throat. “Johnny drowned in a dunk tank,” he said and Annie’s eyes widened and looked over at him. Johnny growled and glared at Ayden. “You don’t have to tell her that.” “Why not?” Ayden demanded, glad that Annie’s attention was off his wrists. “She has a right to know when you die.” “I’m not dead,” Johnny growled and he looked angry, like Ayden was giving away a secret that Annie wasn’t supposed to know about. Johnny pointed at Ayden and looked at Annie. “Ayden killed an elephant.” Ayden was going to come back with another one of Johnny’s accomplishments, but Annie gave a frustrated yell and held up her hands, silencing them both. They both sat quietly, watching her and she looked like she was counting backwards in her head. When she seemed to calm down, she looked at Johnny and her face was sad. “You’re getting sloppy,” she whispered and they barely heard what she was saying but Johnny sat back and rolled his eyes and put on his bitch face so Ayden knew his brother had understood her. The room fell into an awkward silence after that because they all knew there was truth to those words. They couldn’t keep going on like this. They couldn’t keep running into these places and coming out with new and improved scars because pretty soon there would be scars on top of scars and they would be nothing left but empty shells going around doing the work of God or they’d be dead. Ayden thought that he was already part way there. He absently raised a hand and rubbed it across his chest and he didn’t look at Annie or Johnny because he didn’t want to see their thoughtful or worried faces. They all knew that pretty soon their luck would run out. They all knew that this life wasn’t for people who wanted to grow old. Hell, how many times had Ayden almost died? Johnny? Fuck, even Annie? How many times should they be six feet under by now but they weren’t. The odds were stacking against them. And one of these days, someone was going to die. And those who remained behind were going to feel pain like they’d never felt it before. Ayden thought a part of him was already dead. He was rubbing his chest because it had never fully healed from when Amon had crawled inside and tried to take over his body and his mind and his soul and it had been weeks now since then and it still hurt. There was still an empty void and he often times wondered if Amon had taken something with him when he’d crawled back out Ayden’s throat. Maybe he’d taken a part of his soul. Maybe it wasn’t just shredded and stretched, maybe there were chunks missing. He wondered which one of them would be the first to die. He turned his arms so he could see the scars on his wrist and he hoped it was him because he was a selfish bastard and he didn’t want to be the one left behind. “So, why are you here?” Annie asked and she was careful with the words but Ayden still saw his brother flinch because he took them in the worse way possible. Johnny was reaching for the cigarettes in his shirt pocket but he stopped when he remembered where he was and just chewed on the sides of his cheek. “I had a vision,” Ayden said quietly and Annie turned her wide eyes towards him and she looked sad and a little scared. “About what?” she asked. “You,” Ayden said and he glanced at the dress she wore and he didn’t like that it was a white dress because he’d seen her die in a white dress in a vision he’d had in Louisiana when there was an alligator trying to tear his leg off. He swallowed thickly and tried to focus on the newest addition to the collection he had going on upstairs in his head. He absently reached a hand to his temple because he had a headache coming on because he was thinking about the visions too much. “You were fighting an old guy. And there was a kid, drinking blood.” Johnny sighed and Ayden almost snapped at him to keep his mouth shut, but his brother was talking before he could stop him. “He saw our Dad, too.” Annie’s gaze turned slowly to Ayden and she reached out and took his hand in hers and Ayden chewed on his lip and couldn’t look her in the eyes and he heard Johnny gritting his teeth because maybe he was jealous that she was sitting by Ayden instead of him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Ayden and her voice was soft and kind and he’d missed her because she was really way more straightforward with her emotions than Johnny was. Ayden just nodded and then Annie was looking back at Johnny, but her hand was still holding Ayden’s. “What do you think it is?” Johnny shrugged but he sounded annoyed and Ayden couldn’t look at him either. “Fuck if I know. Mr. Fucking Mood Swing over there wouldn’t tell me anything else.” Ayden rolled his eyes but he felt Annie squeeze his hand and it kept him calm and the yell that was threatening to burst from his throat stayed behind his lips. He glanced at Johnny, who was looking pissed off and Ayden knew for sure now that it was because Annie was over here with him instead of over there with Johnny. “Can we stay with you, Annie?” Ayden asked softly and he looked over at her. She looked apprehensive and her eyes went to Johnny and it looked like she would say no, but then she sighed and her shoulders dropped a little. Maybe she was scared because whenever Ayden had visions about someone, it never meant anything good. She turned to Ayden and her smile was forced but there was genuine caring behind her gaze. “For tonight,” she said and he didn’t ask her to elaborate on what they would be doing tomorrow night. He nodded and stood up and he felt Johnny and Annie watching him. “I’ll get our things,” he said and he looked pointedly at Johnny, then pointedly at Annie because he was telling them silently that they’d better have their fucking shit worked out between them before he came back inside. He walked to the door and pulled it open and then headed to the car. He’d give them a few minutes to talk. He hoped they didn’t kill each other. .Wolfie. The door shut firmly and he didn’t like the sound.He didn’t like it because it meant he was alone with Annie and he didn’t know what to say to her. He had thought all the right things to say a thousand times over when he was by himself and now that she was sitting across from him he didn’t have a fucking clue what words the was supposed to say. The silence sat heavy and awkward and tangible and he stared at the floor because he was too much of a fucking coward to look at her face. His fingers traced the scars around his lips and he wished he had a cigarette. He heard her clear her throat and the silence had to be awkward for her too. “You died?” Annie asked softly. He coughed again and shifted in the seat and cursed his brother for telling her that little bit because he knew she wouldn’t take it well. “Yeah,” he said, and he didn’t like how his voice sounded. He sounded defensive and agitated like a bitchy teenager who was waiting for mom to yell at him. “Only for a minute,” he added, like that was supposed to make it any better. A minute was long enough. A minute was enough to make his brother cry and hit him and scream at him. He cautioned a glance at her and she was covering her mouth with one hand and staring out the window. Tears were in the corner of her eyes and he felt like an asshole because he didn’t know what to say to make it better. She looked like she was on the verge of crying and he didn’t want her to cry. “Annie,” he whispered, and she glanced at his face. She shook her head slowly and then looked away again. He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face and stared at the floor because this was fucking awkward. His fingers traced the scars on his mouth compulsively and he had started doing that in prison because he hadn’t had any fucking cigarettes then either. He wondered how long Ayden was going to stay out there. He wondered if his brother was going to come back with a long sleeved shirt because he was sick of people looking at his scars and he ran the conversation over again in his head because he didn’t like how his brother’s voice had sounded when he’d said he would never try to kill himself. He wondered if that was true. He didn’t know if he should believe it now. He wondered how he had missed it, because he should know if his brother was suicidal. It was the kind of thing he should’ve fucking noticed. He sighed and scrubbed at his chin and maybe he should’ve shaved and maybe it didn’t fucking matter and maybe he was trying to think of anything but the girl next to him because she was covering her mouth and trying not to cry and he was the asshole sitting next to her in silence. She rose abruptly from the couch in a fluid motion and walked to the window. Her hand was still covering her mouth but he saw her back begin to shake as tears stole their way from her eyes and sobs wracked her slim form. She was crying. He had made her cry. None of this was going right. He rose from the love seat, coming up behind her and resting his hands on her arms. She was shaking under his hands and he seemed to just make her cry harder. “Hey,” he whispered, rubbing his hands up and down in a slow, soothing motion. “It’s okay. We’re fine.” “You’re not fucking fine,” she shouted at him abruptly. She whirled and her hands were striking him hard in the chest. “You’re not fine, neither of you are fine. Look at you! Look at him! You keep finding new places to put scars and what happens when you run out of space? Jesus Johnny, you died.” His hands closed tightly around her arms and held her as she began to cry in earnest and her fist struck at his chest in fear and pain. He thought maybe she would leave bruises and it reminded him of Ayden punching him in the shoulder. “You fucking died, Johnny,” she finally sobbed out. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he didn’t even know what he was apologizing for. She hit him again and then her face was pressed into his chest and her hands were curling in his shirt as she cried. He pulled her tightly to him as she shook and he hated it when she cried. “Fuck you, Johnny,” she whispered. “You’re being too fucking sloppy and you’re going to get one or both of you killed. The kind you can’t come back from.” He bit off the reply that came immediately to his lips. He wanted to tell her that he would never let anything happen to his little brother, except that was a lie, wasn’t it? Ayden was just as scarred as he was and he didn’t even know if his hand was going to work right ever again. He’d had a demon jammed down his throat and Johnny hadn’t been there to stop it because he was too busy being fucking tortured at the time. He wondered what would’ve happened if Johnny had stayed dead in that fucking dunk tank and if Ayden would have made it out okay by himself. He thought about that fucking giant and the voodoo priest and he tried to imagine Ayden killing them by himself and it just kept ending in his head with his brother bleeding out onto the ground. He thought about the cultists and the church and the fucking asylum and all the shit that he tried to keep his brother safe from and none of it fucking mattered because the kid just kept getting shit on, over and over again and Johnny hadn’t saved him from that had he? “I’m doing my best,” he told her, and the words felt like an excuse. They felt like a useless fucking excuse on his tongue and she knew it because his best wasn’t good enough anymore. “You’re a fucking liar,” she snapped coldly. Then she was pulling out of his arms and he hated the distance that opened up between them when she did. “Annie,” he whispered. He reached forward to try and stop her, reaching for her hand and twining his fingers in hers. She shook her head and wouldn’t look at his face but she let him hold her hand, if only for a second. “I miss you,” he told her quietly, and it wasn’t a defense but it was the only thing worth saying. He squeezed her hand and she was wiping the tears from her face like was embarrassed she had been crying in the first place. “Johnny,” she said slowly, and she was staring at his hand and there were scars and blood on his knuckles and he couldn’t even remember where it was from anymore. “I don’t think I can do this with you right now,” she told him, shaking her head and pulling back from him, her fingers slipping from his. “Alright,” he said softly, and he felt his throat constrict and it hurt to talk. “When, then?” She shook her head, arms folding over her chest as she shut him out again. She rubbed at her arms and she looked cold and distant. “I don’t know,” she told him quietly. She kept staring at the floor and her hair was a dark curtain around her face, making her eyes black and hollow. “Not now,” she told him again. She swallowed hard and there were tears in her eyes again and she wouldn’t look at his face and maybe that hurt the most. “Maybe never.” He was wrong. Those words hurt the most. It all hurt more than he wanted. It hurt that she wasn’t looking at him and that she had gone to sit by Ayden instead of him and that she had held his hand and looked at his hurts and asked if he was okay. Johnny wondered if she even still cared if he was okay. He wondered if she would’ve been happier if he just left and never came back and he knew for certain that she would be safer. He sighed and shook his head, staring at the ground because it was easier than looking at her because he had wanted her for so long and she was so far away. He wanted a cigarette so fucking bad. “Well,” he drawled slowly, and he knew he was opening a can of worms, “That’s not good enough.” She snorted and glanced at his face and at least she was looking at him now, even if that look was annoyed. Her head tilted to the side and he knew that look. It was the look that told him he was treading on thin ice. “It’s gonna have to be, Johnny.” “It’s not,” he snapped, and he heard the irritation in his voice and he wanted to stop his stupid fucking mouth before it got him in trouble but once again it betrayed him. Her eyes were narrowing at him and he knew he was pissing her off but he couldn’t stop himself because he missed her and it hurt and he didn’t know how to tell her how much it hurt. It hurt worse than the scars on his face or the scars on his chest or the way his lungs had burned when he was dying but it was closer to the last one. “You’re gonna talk to me god damn it, because I have some things I need to say to you.” “Then just fucking say them,” she snapped, and there were tears in her eyes again. “Alright,” he said, and he felt suddenly awkward because this wasn’t how this was supposed to go. He wasn’t supposed to be angry and she wasn’t supposed to be hurt and he felt like a stupid asshole cowboy. He took a breath and tried to calm himself down and his fingers were running over the scars on his face and he wished he had a cigarette. “I just wanted to say that I miss you,” he said, and his tone was like that fucking bitchy teenager again. “Okay,” she snapped, and looked down at the floor. He tried not to notice that she didn’t say it back. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat and stepped closer to her and she didn’t move back, so that was something. He didn’t try to touch her, but he wanted to, because she was right there in front of him and he missed her. “And that I want you back,” he said, and he sounded a little more like himself now. She shook her head and didn’t say anything and she was biting her lip and trying to hold back the tears. His hand came out to cup her face and he knew he was treading dangerous ground now. She still wasn’t looking at him, staring at the carpet like it had all the answers in the world and he wondered what she was thinking and if she missed him too and he was too much of a fucking coward to ask. He was stalling, he realized, because he was terrified of what would happen when he said the words he really needed to and maybe it was because he was an asshole and maybe it was because he was scared she wouldn’t feel them back. “And that I love you,” he said, and the words were a harsh whisper. Her eyes snapped to his face and he didn’t look away from it this time. She studied his expression and he watched her gaze travel the scars on his skin. “Johnny,” she whispered and she shook her head slowly. She bit her lip and looked away and her face was pressing into his hand and he wondered what she was thinking. “I just spent the last four years hating you,” she whispered. “I don’t know if I can go through it all again with you.” “Well,” he drawled and inhaled sharply. “I love you, Annie. Always have. Always will. I’m just the dumb asshole who couldn’t say it until it was too late.” She looked down at the ground. “It’s not too late,” she whispered. “No?” he asked. The words sunk into his head and into his heart and it felt like hope. He took another step closer, sliding an arm around her waist and she didn’t run away from him and she didn’t hit him or push him away but she was still covering her mouth and he wondered if he had made her cry again. Then she looked up at him and she was studying his face again. Her hand came up to brush the scars on his face and he leaned into the touch because it was soft and caring and he had missed it. She shook her head slowly and maybe that was a smile curling her lips and maybe it was still sad and slow but it was his Annie again. “No,” she reaffirmed quietly. He smiled and it didn’t feel forced and it didn’t feel awkward. He leaned down and then he was kissing her, lips pressing against hers and they were soft and welcoming and kissed him back. She tasted like tears and pain and he thought maybe if he kissed her long enough he could wipe all that away and replace it with something good again. One of her hands came around and curled around his neck and she was holding him tightly to her. Then she pulled away and she was hitting him in the chest again and she wasn’t being gentle. “You need to promise me you’ll start being more fucking careful. You need to take care of your little brother, you fucking asshole.” He rolled his eyes and she hit him again, but it was light and playful this time. “I promise,” he grumbled. He pulled her in to kiss her again and she let him, pressing back against him. Then she pulled again and her lips slid against his as she spoke and he almost told her she needed to speak up because he was half deaf in one ear but maybe that was a bad time to mention that. “And you need to promise me you won’t break my heart again,” she whispered. Her voice shook as she said it and it hurt to hear it. His hand tightened around her waist and he wanted to apologize but maybe she didn’t want to hear it again. His fingers ran through her hair and he was looking at her face. “I promise.” He kissed her again and it felt like it used to, like it had that day in the slaughterhouse and she was soft and warm and kissed him back like maybe she’d missed him too. She kissed him like maybe this time it was for real and maybe this time they could make it and if that’s what was happening he was never going to let her go again. Fuck the visions. Fuck the visions and fuck Ashley Baker and fuck Diyani because he was kissing Annie again and neither she or Ayden were going to die because he wouldn’t fucking let them. He didn’t care about Legion or Satan or God because if they came for these people he would fucking shoot them right between their fucking eyes because he felt like was home again and he wasn’t going to lose either of them, no matter what he had to do to keep them safe. They heard the door opening and she slid out of his grasp quickly. She squeezed his hand as she headed for the entry, glancing over her shoulder at his face. She offered him a small, sad smile and he wondered what it meant. Johnny could hear voices and his mouth felt suddenly dry and he was nervous because that sounded like old man Richards and he wondered if this was the part where he got a bullet between his eyes. “Hey Grandpa,” Annie was saying, pulling the door open and she turned the smile to her grandfather as he came in the door. Johnny stepped up behind her and he wondered if that was going to save him. The old man looked about the same as he remembered. Maybe his white hair had gotten a little thinner and the lines in his face were more pronounced, but he was still going strong. As far as Johnny could tell, he had walked to his VFW meeting and Johnny could only hope he looked that good when he was his age. He still had the limp in his left leg where a piece of shrapnel had gotten him in one war or another but he couldn’t remember which one and he doubted the old man would tell him the story. The old man had Johnny’s duffle bag slung over his shoulder and his other hand was resting on Ayden’s back. He had done his best to watch out for the Marshall boys when they were younger, but he wasn’t the type of man to tell another how to raise his kids. Though once when he was seventeen and his dad had put him in the hospital, Annie said he’d gone over to talk to his father. He always wondered what the old man had said. He smiled when he saw Annie and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Hey little lady,” he said. Then his eyes went past her to Johnny and his gaze was hard and cold as he studied him. “Hey Johnny,” he said, and his voice was the model of politeness, even if it didn’t match the look in his eyes. Johnny swallowed past the fear in his throat and wondered how it was an old man three times his age made him feel like the bad dog that had dragged mud and shit into the house. The old man had fought Nazis and Vietcong and he didn’t doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot Johnny if he thought he deserved it. “Hello Mr. Richards,” he said, and reached forward to take his bag from the man. He let it slip into Johnny’s hand and he caught him by the arm for a second. For that moment his eyes were cold and calm and they were scanning Johnny’s face for something. He didn’t know what. Then he smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “How’ve you boys been?” Wenston Ayden was sipping at his lemonade, sitting at the kitchen counter, while Johnny and Annie were outside on the swinging chair on the porch. Mr. Richards was working around in the kitchen to make himself a sandwich and Ayden was watching, fascinated, because the man knew how to make a damn sandwich. He was somewhat surprised when Mr. Richards cut it in half and split it between two plates and then passed one half across the counter to where Ayden was sitting. “You need some meat on your bones,” Mr. Richards said and Ayden blinked and looked down at himself. He thought he looked alright enough. Scarred like a soldier, but he was at least healthy. He looked back up and Mr. Richards was giving him the look that meant there wouldn’t be any questioning. “Yes, sir,” Ayden said and grabbed his half of the sandwich and took a bite. Mr. Richards smiled and leaned against the counter and then did the same. Ayden briefly wondered why wherever he went people were trying to make him eat or sleep or lie down for a bit and he wondered if he really looked that sick or exhausted or starved. He didn’t think he looked any worse than Johnny did, and no one ever made Johnny eat or sleep or lie down. “You boys look like hell,” Mr. Richards said, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin. Ayden chewed quickly and swallowed, but the old man continued. “That a new look you going for?” He asked and nodded towards Ayden’s forehead. Ayden reached his bad hand up to rub at the eye shaped scar on his skin and he shook his head. “No, I…uh,” he couldn’t quite think of a way to explain it to the old man because he wasn’t sure how much Mr. Richards knew. He wasn’t sure what Annie had told him about them or about what they could do or the type of trouble they got into. He watched the man’s eyes travel to his hand and then he tucked that beneath the counter self-consciously but he wasn’t surprised the man knew something was wrong with the hand. “Just some assholes,” Ayden said and then his eyes went wide. “Sorry,” he said when he realized he’d swore in front of him. Mr. Richards chuckled and shrugged. “I’d call them assholes too if they were carving things on my face,” he said and eyed Ayden tentatively. Ayden took another bite of his sandwich and tried not to feel scrutinized. He’d always like Annie’s Grandpa. The man had always been nice and looked out for them when he could. There were times when Johnny and Ayden had shown up on his doorstep bruised and bleeding and the man hadn’t asked questions because he already knew the answer. He’d just offer them his couch or the spare room and some dinner and he’d just be there when they needed him to be. When they needed to see that not everyone was out to get them and not everyone would hurt them. “So,” Ayden said and wiped at his mouth with his hand to wipe away some mustard. “How have you been?” Mr. Richards nodded and chewed slowly. “Good,” he answered and went to the fridge to pour himself some lemonade. “Knee’s been acting up lately, but I just walk it off.” He closed the fridge and came back over. “Doctor’s got me on this new diet.” He pointed to the sandwich. “This isn’t on it.” Ayden grinned and looked down at the food. “At least it’s not a cheeseburger.” Mr. Richards laughed and nodded. “Well, that’s true, I suppose.” His eyes went to the window when Annie’s laughter trailed in with the afternoon breeze. He looked back at Ayden. “Is he here to stay?” he asked and Ayden chewed on his lip because he didn’t know the answer to that. Annie had been smiling and her and Johnny had been holding hands so he assumed they had patched things up. He hoped they had. “I think we’re just passing through the town,” Ayden said and didn’t mention that they’d be killing something on their way out. “That’s not what I meant,” Mr. Richards said. He pointed to the window. “That dipshit brother of yours broke her heart and I told him I’d shoot him if he ever did that. If I didn’t know that Annabelle still loved him, I’d do just that.” Ayden smiled because it always amused him when someone called his brother a dipshit. He shook his head though. “He loves her,” he said simply. Mr. Richards seemed to think about that for a moment, contemplating the words and rolling them around in his head. Finally, he nodded and said, “Good. Hate to have to end the boy. Always liked him.” Ayden snorted. “Yeah, he’s all right.” Mr. Richards stared at the window a moment and Ayden chewed slowly, watching the old man because he looked far off and distant and his eyes were cold and sad. Ayden wiped his mouth again with his hand then the man was looking at him. “You ever wish things could be different?” Ayden quirked a brow at that. “What do you mean?” he asked and he didn’t like the way the man was looking at him. Apparently, Mr. Richards seemed to change his mind about whatever it was that was bothering him because then he was shaking his head and smirking and waving his hand to dismiss the topic. “Never you mind,” he said. “Just an old man rambling.” He pointed to the sandwich. “Eat.” “Yes, sir,” Ayden snorted and finished his sandwich. † † † “Are you sure you want to do this?” Annie was in the passenger seat of the Cadillac and Ayden was in the back seat trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking. Johnny was keeping the car in idle because if he shut it off it would mean that they were going to go through with this and no one in the car wanted to do what they were about to do, but it had to be done because that’s why they’d come here. Johnny growled and then flicked the keys and the engine shut off. “No,” Johnny said but threw open the door and then slammed it shut. Annie turned around to look at Ayden in the backseat and she offered him a warm, encouraging smile, before he followed his brother and climbed out of the car, going to stand next to him. Ayden took a deep breath, closed his eyes and tried to calm his nerves, then opened his door and stood beside them. In front of them, the skeleton of a burned down house stood like dead, charred bones sticking out of the ground. No one had bothered to tear it down and no one had bothered to rebuild or remodel or anything. There were beer bottles and the butts of joints and other assorted garbage lying around in the debris and maybe the house had become home for teenagers wanting a place to go to do whatever it was teenagers did these days. It was their house. It was where their Mom had burned down their lives and went up in flames with the rest of it. Annie’s hand was clasped firmly in Johnny’s because this was the first time they’d been back here since the day they’d tried to salvage what they could after the fire. They’d never had the desire to come back and they’d sworn they never would. Until Ayden had the fucking vision of their Dad beating the shit out of him in this house, they never thought they’d have to. “Well at least Dad’s not here,” Johnny said and it was supposed to be funny but it wasn’t. Annie sighed and her hand was stroking Johnny’s arm lightly and Ayden wondered if his brother was shaking just as bad as he was. Ayden’s eyes were scanning the charred and aged remains and he didn’t know what to make of it because in the vision it hadn’t been burned down and their Dad had been alive and this was the only lead they had other than Annie and Johnny was determined not to let her out of his sight until they were sure she wasn’t in danger. Ayden wondered if Johnny remembered about Legion and the whole fucking army of Hell that was after them and if that meant he was just never going to let Annie go, ever. His brother would probably try, but he didn’t think Annie would go for it. They hadn’t told her about Legion. They hadn’t told her about what Ashley said about Hell trying to kill everything and everyone they loved because they hadn’t wanted to scare her. They would have to tell her eventually. Soon. Because she had to know to be on her guard. He wondered if when they left, if she would come with them. “What do you think we’re looking for?” Annie asked quietly. Johnny shook his head, turning his gaze on Ayden, who couldn’t look back at him. Johnny’s hand came out to squeeze his shoulder and he’d been doing that a lot lately and Ayden wondered when he’d lost control and everyone thought they needed to protect him and cheer him up and encourage him. He wondered if it had always been like that and he’d just never seen it or if it was more recently. Annie had yelled at Johnny when she’d seen his scars and had told him that he was supposed to protect him. He tried not to be offended and he tried to convince himself that he could take care of himself, but that was obvious it wasn’t true. “I don’t fucking know,” Johnny said and then he was walking towards the house, with Annie holding onto his arm, her white dress blowing in the hot afternoon wind. Ayden sighed and clenched the ball in his hand because he was nervous and this was an excuse and it did seem to relax him a little. He wished Mr. Richards had come with them because he felt safe around the man. “An old dude, a kid that drinks blood, and Dad,” Johnny said and the sarcasm and frustration was dripping in his voice. “Good to know,” Annie said and even she sounded a little discouraged. Ayden ran his hand across his face and he was getting a headache, but he followed after them to the remains of their house. .Wolfie. Johnny stopped where the main hallway used to be and tried not to remember the sensation of blood running off his skin.He took a breath and fought the urge to dig out his pack of cigarettes. Annie still held his hand and she was running her arm up and down his skin in a slow motion and there was some small comfort in having her here. He kicked at a chunk of burned wood and watched it crumble under his boot and he wasn’t sure exactly what he was supposed to feel. He turned in a slow circle and all that was left of their old house was a charred ruin. He glanced at Ayden and he was shaking in his skin, running his hands up and down his arms like he was cold, but Johnny didn’t think it had anything to do with the weather. This was the house they’d grown up in, the house the house they’d been beaten and battered in. They’d played hide and seek in the basement and Johnny had left his brother there in the dark for hours and he’d put his ninja turtles in the dryer and taken his dad’s shotgun out of this room and gone to shoot the first Wicked he’d ever seen. He’d been born in this house and his mother had died in it. Except it wasn’t that house anymore. The house didn’t hold any ghosts or memories except what Johnny brought back with him. All the house had left was its burned and rotten foundation and the scattered remains of beer bottles and cigarettes. It wasn’t that house anymore, it was just wreckage and he didn’t know how that made him feel but he thought he should feel something. He felt like he should’ve been looking for some sign of what Ayden’s vision might have been about but all that was here was a hollowed out ruin. No signs of ghosts or their father, no signs of a blood drinking child or an old man. It was just a shell. He shook his head slowly. “There’s nothing here,” he said quietly. Annie squeezed his hand and he glanced at her, the sun bright and gold on her face and he squeezed back because he was glad she was here. The white dress waved out around her and it was a strange thing to wear to a broken down house but he liked it on her. It reminded him of when they were teenagers and life had been hard and awful, but simpler. He was glad she was holding his hand and that maybe she was his woman again. “I know,” Ayden said, and he sounded irritated. He passed by them and Johnny watched his little brother roam the shattered remains of what had once been their home. He hated to think of it like that, because this fucking place shouldn’t have been all he had to think of when he thought of home, but it was. He watched Ayden wander under the falling archway into the living room and then his head tipped back and he stared up at the ceiling where their bedroom used to be except the second floor was completely gone now and he was just staring up at the sky. Johnny wondered what his little brother was thinking because his face was so dark and shuttered. His hand flexed around the ball and he kept staring up at the sky like he was waiting to figure out some big mystery and Johnny wondered what the question was. He wanted to ask about the vision again because maybe it wasn’t a new one, but a really old one. He didn’t know how it worked, or if that was possible, but maybe Ayden wasn’t seeing something that was going to happen, but something that had already come to pass a long time ago. Maybe he could’ve been warned about his dad and the shotgun. Maybe then Johnny could’ve stopped it sooner. “Let’s go,” he said softly. Ayden glanced down at him and then back up at the sky and he blinked something out of his eyes and it could have been tears or it could have just been memories. There was nothing here but ash and shadows and whatever they needed to look for, it wasn’t here. He squeezed Annie’s hand and wanted to ask her if she’d pissed off any senior citizens lately but he didn’t think she would find it very funny and neither would Ayden. His brother nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.” He was quiet as he climbed back in the car but the silence wasn’t an awkward one, just a necessary one. Johnny’s hand slid over across the seat and curled around Annie’s again and it felt good that she wasn’t pushing him away. It felt good to have her next to him when he went to the old house and he glanced at the husk of it sitting dark and rotten in his rearview mirror and wondered what he was supposed to be feeling. Mostly he just felt sad and a little bit bitter because that fucking place was the closest thing they had a home and it was just a dark and rotten ruin crumbling into dust. “You okay?” he asked his little brother, and Ayden was just staring out the window. He blinked, like he was surprised at the question, and met Johnny’s eyes in the rearview mirror. His eyes were distant and sad and Johnny didn’t believe him when he whispered a quiet response. He almost couldn’t hear him and he had to tilt his head and he felt like a fucking dog when he did that but his hearing was still damaged. It was a bad sign when Ayden didn’t make fun of him for it. It was a bad sign when his brother looked away from his face and back out the window. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’m okay.” † † † He parked the car on the sidewalk and glanced in the mirror. “Stay here,” he snapped at his brother. Ayden had been zoned out but he glanced up at that. He hadn’t spoken more than those three words since they’d driven away from the old house and Johnny didn’t like the silence because it meant he wasn’t alright. He wasn’t busting on Johnny or making fun of him or forcing him to be better, he was just sullen and quiet and something was wrong with his brother and maybe it had been for a while and he just hadn’t noticed. He rubbed at his eyes and they’d been unfocused and distant and then he zeroed in on Johnny’s face. “Why are we stopping?” he asked. Annie was watching him curiously. She leaned over the driver’s seat as he climbed out of the car and raised an eyebrow at him. “You alright?” she asked. He smiled, leaning back in the window and he kissed her quickly because he could and because he’d missed being able to do that and he didn’t know when it might change again. He hoped the answer was never, but he wasn’t going to take his chances. “Just stay here,” he told her, giving her a quick wink as he turned and headed into the store. It had come under new management at some point and they’d done a total remodel, but they still kept the ice cream next to the counter. He tossed a drumstick up on it and pulled out a five from his wallet, glancing at the man behind the register. He didn’t recognize him, and he thought maybe he should’ve, because at some point he’d known every old bastard in this town, and the guy had to be older than fifty, at least. He was gnarled and wizened and leaned back on his stool, reading the paper. He glanced up once, eye slashing a line across Johnny’s face and then getting Johnny’s change. Someone had set up a little miniature well next to the cash register and he gestured at it as he put the money back in Johnny’s hand. “Put a penny in and make a wish,” he told him, giving Johnny a smirk. “It’s for good luck.” Johnny shrugged, shoving the dollar bills back in his wallet. “I don’t wish,” he said. The man tipped his head back and laughed, his eyes studying Johnny’s face a little more curiously now. He folded the paper up and leaned down to get a back, putting the ice cream inside it. Johnny opened his mouth to tell him he didn’t really need a bag for a stupid ice cream cone, but the guy didn’t give him a chance. “Everybody wishes. Everybody has that one moment they wish they could take back, or change, or live a little bit differently. You telling me you’ve never fucked up?” Johnny snorted and turned, but then he caught Annie’s eye for the glass window and for that second he hesitated. One thing he would’ve changed. One thing he would have done a little bit differently. “Yeah,” he said, sighing and digging a penny out. “Alright. Here’s your penny, old man,” he told him, and he thought the wish quietly in the back of his head so that he couldn’t quite hear it himself, but he wished he’d never let her go. He wished he’d said whatever it took the first time to keep her because then he wouldn’t have spent the last four years without her. “You have a nice day now,” the old man said with a grin. Wenston Johnny climbed back into the car and tossed a bag into the backseat at Ayden. Ayden managed to catch it and he glared at Johnny in the rearview mirror while his brother started up the car. Opening the bag, he peeked inside and his shoulders slumped because that was the last thing he expected his brother to get him and he knew that it was Johnny’s way of making a peace offering and trying to cheer him up. He sighed and put his head back on the seat and he saw Johnny staring at him in the rearview mirror. Ayden leaned his head forward and said, “Do you think ice cream just magically solves all the world’s problems?” Ayden snapped and it was meaner and nastier than he meant for it to sound because he was trying to joke but it sounded terrible. Johnny narrowed his eyes and Ayden narrowed them back. “Well doesn’t it?” Johnny countered and he looked so sincere and so pleading that Ayden felt his chest constrict a little because he didn’t know what Johnny wanted him to do or say. He didn’t know if his brother wanted him to say that he was okay with a little more conviction, or if he wanted him to say that the vision was just a fluke, they didn’t have be here anymore. He didn’t know what Johnny wanted. But he had to give him something, because he was trying and it took Johnny conscious effort to try and show signs of affection sometimes. “Maybe,” Ayden relented and looked back down in the bag. He heard Johnny snort and then the car was pulling away from the store and heading back to Annie’s house. Ayden pulled the ice cream out and he felt a moment of depression when he realized that he didn’t really want the ice cream, but Johnny had bought it for him and if he didn’t eat it, he would think something was wrong. Maybe something was. “And you better not drip any of that in my car,” Johnny snapped but it was playful. Ayden laughed at that. “If it’s anything like the last one you bought me, I’ll be hurling it up all over your car soon.” Johnny’s face fell and Ayden felt like a jackass but he didn’t apologize. He just sat back and ate his ice cream in silence and he watched Annie reach across the seats and grasp his brother’s hand. He held onto her back and Ayden tried not to feel too hopeful that maybe she was back because he thought she was back last time. Oh, and the fact that there was an army of Hellspawn chasing after them and if she came with them, she’d be in danger. He thought about telling her, right then and there. He wondered what Johnny would say if he told Annie about Legion and everything else Ashley Baker had said and his brother would probably be pissed and maybe that would be crossing the line between moody little brother into full on jackass. He didn’t even know why he was upset or angry anymore. They’d gone home and there had been nothing there. Just bones of their old life. Their Dad hadn’t jumped out from behind anything to try and whip them with his belt or bust in their skulls. There was no kid drinking blood and there wasn’t an old guy chasing Annie. Maybe if he saw it again. Maybe if he took another look at the vision he’d pick up something that he didn’t notice before. He sat a little straighter in the backseat and closed his eyes. He was standing in the middle of the motel room in his head and there were still pieces lying around from where Amon had nearly ripped the room to shreds. Most of it he’d managed to pick up and rearrange. The vision was tucked away in the dresser and he pulled open a drawer and dug it out. It was a belt and he thought it had been symbolic at the time. He laid the belt down on the floor and kneeled next to it, almost afraid to unleash it again so he could see. But then his hand was reaching forward and as soon as his fingers brushed it, the vision was open and back and full force. He watched it play out and he took notes on things he thought maybe he missed before. Annie was fighting the old guy, and it looked like they were in a basement somewhere, or a storage room. There were boxes. He couldn’t read what was on them. Then there was the boy and the arm above him and the blood dripping into his mouth. The boy maybe looked familiar, but Ayden couldn’t place where he knew him from or if he even knew him at all, just that he looked familiar. He tried to cut the vision off there, but it went on against his will and he was in the kitchen of their house and his father was wailing on him again. Ayden winced physically and tried to remain passive as he watched it happen. His own screams echoed around him but Ayden took in the room and took in the surroundings. It looked the same as he remembered. Except... Ayden focused on the fridge and he was looking at the drawings that had been attached there with magnets and they didn’t seem right. There was Ayden in the middle. His Mom to the side. His father in the back. And that was it. Ayden glanced around the room again and the beating had turned into his father kicking him over and over and over again and he tried to ignore the scene going on in the center of the room. There was something missing in this room. There were three chairs at the table and it had been pushed against the wall. The kitchen was a little bit messier than he remembered. There was one pair of shoes in the mudroom, instead of two. And when he looked out the window into their back yard, he could see his bike, but only his bike. Ayden sucked in a breath when he realized what was missing. This vision was completely devoid of anything and everything Johnny. The vision was over and Ayden filed it away again, tucked deep beneath the clothes in the dresser and then he opened his eyes. They were just pulling into Annie’s driveway and Ayden realized his ice cream had melted in his hand. He looked to the floor and saw that some of it hard dripped there and he cursed and leaned forward to try and wipe it up because Johnny loved this car and he hated it when it got stained. Ice cream was probably the least of the stains, but Ayden still felt bad. He glanced up as Johnny put the car in park and then climbed out and he realized his heart was beating fast in his chest. He pushed open the door and climbed out and Johnny looked at the melted ice cream in his hand and then at his face and Ayden had to look away because he didn’t recognize that look on Johnny’s face. His brother looked like he wanted to say something, or yell something, or maybe even hit him. He looked like Ayden had just insulted him or crushed him. Annie came around to the front of the car and looked back at them. “You two coming?” she called. Johnny turned to call over his shoulder, but his eyes were still on Ayden and he held out a hand to tell Ayden that he’d better not fucking move. “We’ll be right in.” Ayden watched Annie for a moment and she seemed like she wanted to stay or protest but then she nodded, gave him a smile, and headed inside. When the door was closed, the brothers stood in front of one another and it was silent and awkward and Ayden still had ice cream melting all over his hand. Johnny looked hurt. Not the physical kind of hurt, but the kind that left scars no one could see. Ayden wondered what was wrong. Did the ice cream really mean that much to his brother? He’d still eat the damn thing if he wanted. “Tell me that you’re okay,” Johnny said and his voice was quiet and he was looking at the ground and Ayden felt his heart speed up a little more because he didn’t want to have this conversation. “I’ll eat the ice cream,” Ayden responded because he was scared and he didn’t want to lie to his brother. Johnny’s head came up and he was looking Ayden in the eyes. “I don’t give a fuck about the ice cream,” he said and his eyes were studying Ayden’s face. “Tell me you’re okay.” He wished he could say the words. He wished he could just give Johnny what he wanted and he opened his mouth to say that yes, he was okay, but that’s not what came out. “I can’t.” “Why?” Johnny asked and his eyes were sad and his face was solemn. Ayden shook his head and he looked away from his brother to watch the ice cream drip from his hand and onto the ground. He shrugged a little. “Because you died,” he said quietly and then looked back up at Johnny. “You died and I had a demon shoved in me and there’s an army of demons after us and we still haven’t figured out what the deal is with Marko and Vincent and now we’re home and Annie could be in trouble and I keep seeing Dad everywhere.” He took a deep breath because that came out of nowhere. “Dyani died,” he added. “Your baby died. This…stuff just keeps happening and…” he looked around and felt his throat closing up and Johnny was just watching him. Ayden was searching for the right words but he couldn’t find them. He just shook his head. “We just…we’re so messed up.” He gave a crooked laugh after that and looked at his brother because he didn’t know how Johnny was going to react. Johnny was quiet for a moment and they just stared at each other. He looked like he was about to say something, but Ayden beat him to it. “I saw Annie get her throat cut.” He watched his brother’s face pale and Johnny looked speechless for once, so Ayden continued. “In Louisiana, with that alligator. That’s what I saw. Someone was telling her to kneel and obey and then he cut her throat. And then in Kentucky in that asylum when Marko was being a little fuck I saw someone tell her to love him and die for him and then he cut her throat there too. That’s twice. That’s two different visions. And they’re all up here in my head and they all end the same. Someone always dies.” Ayden took a breath and continued. “Johnny, I don’t think that we’re meant to win this.” He dropped his shoulders and he knew that he’d just dropped a bombshell on Johnny and his brother was standing there looking shocked and confused and there were tears in his eyes. “So, I can’t tell you that I’m okay because I’m not. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay. And neither will you. And that’s why I’m not okay.” He growled at the last part and then held up his hand with the melted ice cream. “But I’ll eat the damn ice cream.” .Wolfie. “Forget about the fucking ice cream,” Johnny said abruptly.He sounded mean and cold and angry and he knew it was because he was scared but he couldn’t stop himself anyway. Ayden sighed and looked down at it and he just looked so fucking tired. He raised it to his lips to show Johnny that he was going to eat it and that he understood what Johnny had tried to say with it. It was Ayden’s way of telling him he didn’t hate him and he wanted things to be okay but his words hung heavy and horrid in between them. Johnny just felt stupid because he had though a fucking ice cream would fucking fix it and fix whatever was wrong with Ayden and it hadn’t and it couldn’t. He didn’t understand what had happened to his brother and he didn’t understand why everything was wrong now because not even a month ago they had been doing okay and now it was all just ash in his mouth. “I said forget the fucking ice cream,” Johnny snarled and he didn’t know if he was mad or just hurt. Then he was yanking the cone from his brother’s hands and tossing it into the dirt. “Just forget it, Ayden. It doesn’t fucking matter.” The look on his brother’s face was like a knife through his heart. He looked sad. He looked sad and scared and alone and he just stared at the ice cream in the dirt. He looked like maybe he was going to cry or like he already was and it just hadn’t reached his face yet and Johnny didn’t fucking know anymore. He didn’t know what to say to make it better and every time he tried he just made it worse. If he knew what words he needed to say to fix it, he would. If he knew how to keep them safe and how to stop the bad things coming to kill them, he would. But Johnny was just a stupid fucking cowboy, right? He jammed a cigarette between his lips and it didn’t still the shaking. “Johnny,” Ayden started to say, but his brother cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Why didn’t you tell me about Annie?” he asked. His voice was low and angry and he saw his brother flinch at the sound of it and he just couldn’t help it. He was pissed beyond belief and he wanted to hit Ayden except he looked so fucking sad and lost already. He ground his teeth together and watched his face as he retreated back into himself like he always did and Johnny shut his mouth and didn’t tell him that he’d had a nightmare in prison about her getting her throat slit. Ayden looked at the ground, but his voice was defensive and a little sarcastic. “We don’t talk about her, remember?” Johnny slammed his fist into the car door so that he wouldn’t hit his brother but he jumped at the motion anyway. “Fuck you, and fuck that. Maybe the first time, you let it go. Maybe I let you. But you have two visions about the same thing and after all the shit we went through you just keep it to yourself? Fuck you, Ayden. This is Annie we’re talking about.” His brother looked up and his face was contorted into an expression of rage and hurt. “I’m not the one putting her in danger here.” He slammed his fist into the car again and it hurt his knuckles and made a dent in the frame but he did it again anyway because he needed to fucking hit something and the cigarette between his lips wasn’t helping ease the pain or the fear or the anger. “I’m not going to let anything happen to her,” he told his brother, and maybe if he said it with enough conviction and enough rage then he could make it true. Maybe if he said it loudly enough then that alone could keep her safe. Ayden laughed and it was wretched and humorless. He kicked at the ice cream cone on the ground and it was seeping into the grass and the dirt. He crossed his arms over his chest and didn’t look at Johnny’s face. “You don’t know that. You can’t make that promise. What if just being here right now is leading Legion right to her?” “And what are we supposed to do?” he shouted, throwing his hands up and walking away. He took a drag from his cigarette and then turned back to face his brother, gesturing in front of his face. “Just fucking lie down and die? Is that what you want? Maybe it would be better if I’d never saved myself in the first place.” He leaned in and Ayden was shaking his head but he wasn’t looking at him. Johnny snorted and shook his head and the next words were quiet and mean. “Maybe everything would be better if I’d just let myself get run over by that fucking train.” He had never said the words out loud before. As soon as he did they hung in the air like a dark cloud between them. Ayden shook his head and still wouldn’t look at Johnny. “Don’t say that,” he whispered. Johnny snorted, taking a drag from his cigarette before flicking the butt off into the dirt and stomping on it hard with his boot. “Why not? You telling me you’re not thinking it? With the furies of Hell and Legion and fucking Satan after us?” He tipped his head and smiled darkly at his brother. “You telling me you’re not thinking that maybe your life would be just a little bit fucking better if I had died at thirteen?” Ayden shook his head again, but he didn’t answer. Johnny laughed coldly and he didn’t like the sound of his voice when he did. “That’s what I thought,” he snapped, and he hit the car one more time for good measure and he fucking loved that car but right now he would’ve beaten it into a twisted piece of scrap metal if he thought it would help anything. He turned on his heel and walked away from his brother, leaving him standing next to the car in the driveway with his ice cream in the dirt beside him. “Johnny,” he started to say, and he just held his hand up and cut him off. His feet were a heavy weight as he walked up the stairs and he wondered if he should just leave. All this shit kept happening to them and they kept getting hurt and hurting everyone around them. They brought nothing but death and pain everywhere they went and Johnny was shaking as he pulled open the door because of the horrid truth of it all that he felt settling around his heart and squeezing with cold fingers until he thought it would kill him. All of it, all the things that went wrong and got them hurt and got him killed, was Johnny’s fault. All the things that had left holes and scars in his brother’s soul had been left there because he was too slow or too stupid to stop it. He knew Ayden didn’t mean it that way, but it didn’t matter because that was all Johnny heard. The pains they’d suffered were just a checklist of mistakes Johnny had made. Diyani was dead because Johnny had gotten sloppy and then when he could’ve fixed it he’d said no. The woman had saved his brother’s life and he’d let her die. The baby he was supposed to have with Annie was dead because he had looked her in the eye and watched her cry and he had told her no. Maybe all he’d ever had to do was say yes. Maybe if he’d just told their child to live four years ago then none of this would’ve happened. He couldn’t do a fucking thing right. Maybe Johnny should’ve just died and then everyone around him would be better off. His mother and father had never wanted him, she’d told him enough once. Maybe she had let herself burn to the ground because she didn’t want to live with the constant reminder of a life she’d never wanted. He wished he’d just let the train hit him. Annie was sitting on the edge of the couch, her hands resting lightly in her lap and she was pretending to watch the television but he knew she hadn’t heard a word of it. She looked up when he walked in and her eyes swept his face in a quick sweep. Her grandfather was sitting behind her in his chair and his eyes were closed because he’d fallen asleep in front of the television and he didn’t think he would ever live to be an old man in his armchair. “Johnny?” she asked. “Is everything okay?” He looked at her face and he pictured a knife slashing across her throat and spilling her blood out onto the floor and onto his skin. He licked his lips and he remembered the taste of her blood and then his brother’s words were echoing in his head. Ayden had seen her die twice already. He’d seen her die twice and he hadn’t told Johnny and she was right there in her white dress looking sweet and beautiful and Ayden had seen her die. He shook his head slowly but he couldn’t get his mouth to open and lie to her. She rose from the couch, her eyes focused on his face and she could always tell when something was wrong. She crossed over to him and her hands were cupping his face. “What’s wrong? Where’s Ayden?” she asked, and Johnny just shook his head slowly. Her grandfather had woken up when Annie had stood up and now he was looking over at Johnny, blinking the sleep from his eyes. He cleared his throat and then he was standing, stretching his back out. He limped over to the door and squeezed Annie’s shoulder as he walked by. “I’ll go get him,” he said, exiting the house, and Johnny was grateful somehow because his brother shouldn’t be alone but he couldn’t make himself go out and get him. He hoped he didn’t run because he was too pissed off to track him down but he would never let his brother do any of this shit alone. Then Annie was pulling his face down, her eyes locking with his. “Johnny, are you okay?” “I won’t let you die,” he said in a low, harsh whisper. “Johnny?” she asked and her eyes were confused and concerned. He couldn’t answer her. He couldn’t explain about the visions and about Legion and the furies of Hell that were going to come and kill her and kill her grandfather and burn their house to the ground and leave nothing but ash in its wake. He took a step forward and then wrapped her up in his arms and he was pressing his face into her neck. He was shaking as he held her and she just let him because Johnny fucking Marshall didn’t cry but he was on the verge of it now. “What happened?” she asked, and he shook his head because he didn’t know how to explain it. She sighed and her hands ran through his hair and over his back. “Johnny,” she sad, and her voice was sad and low. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.” He laughed and it was a sad, awful thing. “We’re getting sloppy.” Wenston Ayden watched Johnny walk away and he saw the defeated slump of his brother’s shoulders and he heard his brother’s words bouncing around inside his head and it was more painful than having a demon shoved down his throat and more painful than getting a beating by four prison guards and more painful than anything he’d ever experienced before in his life because he couldn’t whole heartedly disagree with his brother. And that hurt. He would never, ever wish that Johnny had died on those train tracks. Not one part of him wished that his brother was dead or wasn’t around. But a part of him did wish that they weren’t Godsent. He wished that they were just two normal guys from Texas who grew up with abusive and drunk parents and lived to work and have families and grow old. He wished he didn’t know what a Wicked was and he wished he went to church on Sundays and prayed to a God that he didn’t think was a prick. He wished he never heard of Ashley Fucking Baker or Vincent or Marko or Dyani and he wished that he didn’t have to organize his thoughts into a motel room inside his head to keep from going crazy. These are things he wished. But not ever that Johnny was dead. And he was an asshole for saying so. Ayden clenched his hands into fists and he turned and stared at the car. He thought about hopping in and hotwiring the sonofabitch and driving off and leaving Johnny here with Annie where he wanted to be. Where he preferred to be rather than with his stupid little brother who couldn’t take care of himself and cried all the time and got beat up by everyone and their mothers. Why would Johnny want to stay with someone like that? Ayden growled. His brother was a dumb shit. A stupid fucking dumb shit. The dent Johnny had left in the car glared at Ayden and he yelled and kicked out at the tire. It hurt his foot and suddenly he couldn’t stop himself. He was slamming his fists and his boots over and over again into the driver side door and he was leaving dents and scratches behind and there were tears in his eyes on his face and he didn’t care because Johnny was a fucking asshole and dumb as hell. “You stupid sonofabitch!” Ayden screamed and accentuated the words with his fists slamming against the metal. He felt his knuckles pop open and start bleeding but he just kept hitting and the window shattered and he pulled the side view mirror with all his might and it came off and he didn’t even hear the footsteps approaching him from behind but suddenly hands were on his shoulders and he was swinging around and his fists were flying but they never connected with anything. The hands on his arms used his own momentum to flip him and then he was on the ground, lying in the grass and his arm was wrenched behind his back and a knee was pressed firmly into his back and Mr. Richard’s voice was calm and demanding when he said, “Easy, son.” “He’s an asshole!” Ayden screamed and he was bucking against the old man but Mr. Richard’s had two wars behind him and he knew how to keep a young pup on the ground. The old man’s hands tightened on his wrist and Ayden thought he was going to pop his shoulder out of place but he didn’t care. “I hate him!” “No you don’t,” Mr. Richards said and slapped him upside the head and Ayden went still because he couldn’t believe the old man had hit him and it knocked the rage and anger out of him and he just lay there panting in the grass with tears leaking onto his cheeks. “Don’t you lie to me, son. You just told me a couple hours ago that your brother was all right. So don’t you say you hate him and don’t you ever let me hear you say that again.” Ayden breathed heavily through his teeth and he was staring out at the lawn and it was hard and scratchy beneath him because it was Texas grass and he closed his eyes because he knew Mr. Richard’s was right and he didn’t hate his brother. He was just pissed off that Johnny had said Ayden would prefer him to be dead. Because that wasn’t fucking true, not even a little bit. “Yes, sir,” Ayden ground out and he felt the man release his arm and sit back on the grass and pull Ayden to a sitting position next to him. Ayden brought his arm around and rubbed at his shoulder and stared at his sneakers and kept his mouth shut. Mr. Richards ran a hand over his face and sighed loudly. “You boys always were little spitfires.” Ayden closed his eyes and rubbed at his temple because he had a headache again and he wondered why he was getting so many of them so often but he forced that thought out of his head because now wasn’t the time. Mr. Richards looked over at him. “So, what did the car do to deserve your wrath?” Ayden snorted and let his shoulders slump. “It belongs to my dumbass brother, that’s what it did.” “Okay, so what did your brother do? You two seemed fine this afternoon.” “We’re not fine,” Ayden snapped and he glanced at the man to apologize but Mr. Richards didn’t look angry, he was just looking at Ayden curiously. Ayden sighed and rubbed his hand over his face again and he swore and flung his hand away because his two fingers still didn’t have feeling and he didn’t like that. He growled. “Johnny thinks that I wish he wasn’t around.” Mr. Richards raised an eyebrow. “Do you?” “No!” Ayden yelled and tore up a handful of grass and threw it to the side. He stretched his legs out in front of him and he saw Mr. Richards do the same, rubbing at his knee. He felt stupid because he was making the man sit on the ground when he should be napping in his easy chair and enjoying a quiet evening. “Well, did you tell him that?” Mr. Richards asked. Ayden huffed and opened his mouth, but then closed it because he hadn’t denied it to his brother and that made him feel like an asshole himself. But he frowned and growled and pointed a finger at Mr. Richards. “Johnny gets mad when I tell him things. And he gets mad when I don’t tell him things.” He thought about Annie and his visions. He growled. “So there’s no winning with him. He’s an asshole!” he yelled and then turned around and pouted again and he felt like he was four fucking years old. Mr. Richards snorted. “You know, me and my brother used to fight like you two do. I busted his nose once, when we were teenagers.” Ayden quirked his mouth but kept listening. “But, when it came down to it, we only fought because we loved each other. We figured out that sometimes we just have to throw in the towel and give up our pride and overcome our fears and just tell each other how we felt. He made me mad sometimes and he was a dumb shit, but I was too. And I’m sure I pissed him off just as much, if not more, than he did me.” “But I’ve told Johnny that I can’t do this without him,” Ayden whispered. “And then he goes and says that I wish he wasn’t around? He’s an asshole,” Ayden growled again. Mr. Richards laughed and put a hand on Ayden’s shoulder. “Then maybe you got to tell him in a way that his dipshit brain is gonna understand?” Ayden sighed and ran a hand through his hair and he glanced at Mr. Richards and maybe the old man was right. Maybe they could talk all they wanted to, but there were just some things that couldn’t be expressed through words. He grit his teeth and nodded his head and confirmed in his mind what he had to do. “You’re right,” Ayden said and he climbed to his feet and helped Mr. Richards up to his. “You’re absolutely right.” And then he was stalking towards the house like a mad man. He threw the front door open and it banged with a little extra force than what was necessary. He heard Mr. Richards snort behind him and then he was stalking into the living room and he saw Johnny and Annie standing by each other and they looked surprised to see him. Johnny looked on the verge of tears and Ayden almost changed his mind but he was too wound up and too ready right now to “tell” his brother how he felt. “Ayden…” Johnny said and his voice was small and maybe annoyed and maybe angry but Ayden didn’t listen. He stalked over to Johnny and before his brother could go on, he clocked him hard in the jaw. Annie gasped and reached out to steady Johnny as he reached a hand up to hold his face and turn wide eyes to Ayden because his little brother had just fucking hit him. Mr. Richards let out an incredulous laugh behind them but Ayden didn’t give anyone time to respond. He pointed a finger at Johnny and he growled and shouted, “Don’t you ever fucking say that to me again!” Johnny looked confused and just blinked back at him and Ayden punched him again in the shoulder. Annie held out her hands and stepped between the two. She whispered his name quietly and he ignored her for right now because he could only handle one thing at a time. “Don’t you ever, ever tell me that I’d be better off without you again or I swear to God I will beat your ass to a pulp you stupid dumb shit.” “Jesus Christ, Ayden,” Johnny said and Ayden couldn’t tell what his brother was thinking or if he was surprised or confused or astonished. Ayden waved his hands and cut his brother off. “You’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you and I’m gonna throw my bitch fits because that’s what I do and you’re gonna get pissed off because that’s what you do, so just fucking get used to it and accept it and don’t ever say anything like that again.” Ayden took a deep breath and held it in for a second. He let it out quickly and he was surprised that he actually felt much better. He looked at Johnny who was staring at him with an unreadable expression. “I’m going to bed,” Ayden said and looked around because everyone was staring at him and he was still yelling needlessly. He couldn’t let the anger or the moment go to waste so he pointed at his brother again. “And you owe me another ice cream because you threw mine on the ground!” And then he stalked off to the guest room and fuck it if they hadn’t decided where they were going to sleep Ayden was taking the damn bed and Johnny could go sleep wherever, he didn’t care. As he walked down the hallway, he heard Mr. Richards give a stout laugh and then say, “Well, that’s not what I had in mind, but the boy’s got style.” .Wolfie. “He fucking hit me,” Johnny grumbled, and he still had a hand to his jaw.Annie bit back a smile and then her fingers were on his face, tilting it so that she could see the bruise already forming. She winced a little but he didn’t find her sympathy very convincing. “That was a pretty good hit,” she said, biting down hard on her lip. Mr. Richards was heading into the kitchen laughing unashamedly. His little brother, the dumb shit that had hit him, was already halfway up the stairs and Johnny was just standing there dumbly because Ayden had fucking hit him again and it wasn’t fair that the kid kept getting to wail on him. He knew Johnny wasn’t going to hit him back, not after the blow at Diyani’s house. He guessed that meant his brother wasn’t mad at him anymore, and he wasn’t even sure what he’d done in the first place. It didn’t erase the things he’d said but he wasn’t depressed and looking like he wished he was dead, so that was something. He ran his fingers over the lump on his chin and it had been a pretty good hit and that meant he’d really pissed his little brother off and some part of him was grateful that the kid had come in and told him he didn’t want him dead. “That’s not fair,” he said. “I can’t hit him back.” She laughed and then her grandpa was coming out of the kitchen with a frozen bag of peas. “Here,” he said, handing it to Johnny. He wore a grin on his face and Johnny wondered if the old man had put his brother up to it because it sure as hell felt that way. He took the vegetables from him and pressed them to his jaw so now he was cold and sore and the old man looked like he was ready to laugh his ass off at him. “Guess your brother doesn’t wish you were dead.” “No,” Johnny said, rolling his eyes. “Just in pain.” The old man laughed again, slapping Johnny on the back and he thought the man was hitting him a little harder than necessary. “Well that’s just the kids way of saying he loves you,” he said with a grin. Johnny rolled his eyes and the old man slapped him again this time on the back of his head. He felt his fingers curl around Johnny’s neck and he was leaning his head in. “Listen, you boys haven’t had it the easiest, not when you were kids, and not now. You’ve only ever had each other. I’d had to see whatever business you’ve got goin’ on now ruin that.” Annie’s eyes were locked on his and he felt her hand slip into his and give him a comforting squeeze. Mr. Richards gave his neck a final squeeze and then he patted him on the back again and the smile was a little bit easier. “I’m just sayin’, you boys just keep looking out for each other and you’ll be alright. Now I’m goin’ to bed. Neither of you stay up too late, and keep the noise down. I’m an old man and I need my rest.” Annie stretched up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “’Night old man,” she said with a grin. He laughed, kissing the top of her head. “’Night my little lady. ‘Night Johnny.” Johnny swallowed and reached a hand up to rub his neck as soon as the man let him go. He felt like he had left bruises, and he already had one on his face thanks to his brother’s fist. “Goodnight Mr. Richards,” he said, watching the old man head up the stairs. He shook his head and laughed, pulling the peas away from his face to rub at his jaw. “Your grandfather scares the piss out of me sometimes,” he snorted, raising an eyebrow at Annie. She laughed, leaning into his chest, arms wrapping around him. “He’s harmless.” “Harmless to you maybe,” Johnny grumbled, and then he tossed the vegetables on the coffee table and slid his arms around her waist. She went easily into his arms and he had missed this. He had missed holding her and it felt good to be able to touch her again without all the awkwardness and the fear and the guilt. “He never threatened to shoot you between the eyes.” She laughed. “No, he didn’t. But as long as you stay on my good side, he won’t shoot you either.” He smiled and looked down at her. “And what do I have to do to stay on your good side?” She stretched up on her toes and then her lips were brushing against his throat, nipping at the skin. “Come to bed with me,” she said softly, and the words sent shivers down his spine. He studied her face and she wasn’t hesitant or scared. She wore a soft smile and her eyes were looking up at him through the lashes. His arms tightened around her waist and he pulled her closer to him, pressing a kiss to her lips. “Anything for you, darlin’,” he said. Her hand slipped into his and she smiled at him as she turned, pulling him along behind her. He followed easily and he felt like a teenager all over again as she led him up the stairs. Here they were again, almost a decade later, and they had to be quiet because her grandpa had gone to bed and if they woke old man Richards up because Johnny was in his granddaughter’s bed then he would be in a world of hurt. She pulled him into the room and shut the door softly behind her, turning so that her back was pressed against the wood. His fingers curled around hers and then his hand was bracing itself next to her head as he leaned in for a kiss. “You sure about this?” he asked, and his face fell as he studied her expression. It had been four years since they’d been together and no matter how easily they fell into the old steps, things had changed. They had both changed and he felt her fingers come up to brush the scars on his face. The new wounds and new marks were only a small part of what had passed while they were apart. She was biting her lip and following the line across his cheek and the one on the bridge of his nose and she hadn’t even touched the scars on his soul yet. She bit her lip in thought and then she was brushing her lips over his. “I want this,” she told him. Then she looked down at the ground and a blush was blossoming on her cheeks and somehow that seemed strange that she was embarrassed now. “I did miss you, you know,” she told him, fingers twining with his. “As much as I hated it, I did miss you.” She pressed another kiss to his lips and then she was slipping past him towards the bed, pulling him towards her with her fingers still laced in his. Her other hand was going around her back and the sound of her zipper was loud in the dark room. “Annie,” he whispered and he followed her towards the bed. The white dress landed in a puddle on the floor and his breath came in a sharp hiss because she was as beautiful as he remembered. He reversed the grip on her hand and pulled her back towards him, kissing her as his hands slid over the bare skin. He felt new scars under his hands and he ran his fingers over them, trying to commit it to memory. Her mouth dropped from his lips to his neck and then she was kissing the hollow of his throat as her fingers pulled the buttons loose on his shirt. She peeled it off him and then dropped that to the ground next to the dress and then she was pulling at the hem of the undershirt. “You wear too many clothes,” she said quietly, the smile echoing in her voice. He laughed, fingers finding the waistband of her panties. “So do you.” A sharp gasp escaped her lips and her hands curled in his shirt, holding tightly to him as his fingers continued their exploration of her body. “Johnny,” she whimpered, teeth sinking into the skin of his throat. “I want you,” she told him, and he felt a quiet groan escape his lips because he had missed her so fucking much. She pulled away from him and his hands, sliding back on the bed and drawing him with her by his belt buckle. Her hands were clumsy as she pulled the belt loose and he reached down to help her, sliding the leather free of the loops. Then her fingers were popping the button of his fly and pulling down the zipper and he groaned again as her hand wrapped around him. “Fuck, Annie,” he whispered, his hands sliding into her hair and pulling her into a kiss. He heard her laugh softly. “That’s the idea,” she told him, lips moving against his and then her tongue was tangling with his inside his mouth and her hands were stroking him with soft slow motions and he had missed all of this, the tiny noises and the feel of her skin sliding against his and all the sensation of her hands on him. He groaned and kissed her harder and then his hands were grabbing hers and holding them above her head with one hand and ripping his jeans and boxers off with the other. She laughed at him, nuzzling into his neck. “You forgot your socks,” she told him. “I don’t care right now,” he told her with a grin. She laughed, and then he was trailing his kisses down to her breasts. She let loose a hiss of breath as his teeth nipped at her gently, lips running across her skin. His hands slid down to her hips and then he was pulling at her panties. She shifted under him and let him pull them off and toss them to the ground with the growing pile of clothes. “Condoms are in the nightstand,” she told him quietly. He pulled himself over her and stretched towards the nightstand, releasing her hands so that he could work. Her hand curled around him again and he groaned at the touch because her hands were soft and warm and she knew just where to touch him. Her lips closed on his neck again and he felt her tongue sliding against his flesh. They were being slow and careful and he didn’t mind it because he wanted to remember all of this in case he fucked up again and then her hand was moving and his eyes shut tightly because it was so hard to think when she was doing that to him. “Devil woman,” he told her, grinning as he moved back over her. “Don’t you forget it,” she said with a smile, and then her hands were helping him put the condom on and guiding him where she wanted him to go. A soft cry escaped her lips as he entered her, her back arching off the bed and her hands wrapping around his shoulders. He felt her nails digging into the skin and he didn’t mind the sharp pain because it was nothing compared to the feeling of being inside her again. He buried his face in her neck, teeth scraping along the skin. “Annie,” he breathed her name, and then he thrust sharply inside her. She cried out again, biting down on his shoulder to try and keep quiet because there were people still trying to sleep in this house and he grinned because he liked it when she made noise. He began to move inside her with long, slow strokes and he loved the tiny whimpers and moans that escaped her lips. Her nails dragged down his back and over the scars there and his hands were sliding across ridged lines on her ribs, the pads of his fingers memorizing every inch of skin he could touch. He felt his own answering groan as she arched and moved under him, and he bit at her neck again. He braced himself over her with one hand and the other dug into her hips, pulling her tightly against him. Her legs had come up and slid against his as she moved with him, her breathing harsh and ragged as they rocked together in slow, forceful movements. “I love you,” he told her and his voice was soft and low. It wasn’t hard to say anymore, not now that the words had already been said and especially when she was moving under him like that, her hair spread across the pillow and her lips parted like that. She whimpered and her head tilted back, breasts arching off the bed. She was getting close, and he wasn’t far behind. He thrust inside her again and his movements were getting faster as he drove them both towards the edge. The hand on the bed came down to grip her around the waist and he was driving into her quick and hard. “Johnny,” she cried out, her back arching off the bed and her nails were scoring long lines in his back as she came apart in his arms. He groaned and thrust one last time into her and then he was coming with her, shuddering as release swept through him. Then it was over, and he collapsed on top of her slim frame. Her arms wrapped around him, sliding over his skin and it was slick with sweat. She nuzzled her face into his neck again, her breathing heavy and ragged and he grinned down at her because he felt good and he felt whole. “As good as you remembered?” he asked softly, pressing a kiss to her chest. A soft contented sigh escaped her lips and she was smiling slyly. “Not bad.” He laughed and then he was rolling over, bringing her with him. She snuggled in against his side, cheek resting against his heaving chest. Her fingers were tracing the thick white line running down his sternum and he didn’t mind it. “Is it enough to keep me on your good side?” he asked, arm curling around her to hold her tightly to his side. She smiled and kissed the scars. “Maybe. If you promise to make me breakfast.” He laughed and it felt good to mean it. “I promise.” Wenston Ayden woke up to Annie screaming. At first he thought he was still dreaming, because she’d been screaming there too, right before she got her throat slashed, but now his eyes were open and they were staring at the ceiling of her Grandpa’s guest room and he still heard her. And she was screaming Johnny’s name and not in the good way. Ayden growled and shot out of bed, his foot getting caught in the sheets and he landed with a hard thump on the ground. “Ow, fuck!” Ayden yelled and reached to untwist himself from his sheets. When he was free, he kicked the bed because it was pissing him off and then he was bolting out of the room and down the hall because Annie was still screaming. Ayden didn’t even pause, didn’t even stop outside the door because he’d never heard Annie so desperate before and he grabbed the handle and flung the door open and the thought that maybe he should have stopped to get a gun crossed his mind for a second. But then he saw what was on the bed and his mind went numb. Johnny was lying there and he looked peaceful with his eyes closed and his face slack. He looked like he was sleeping and he was comfortable and content. But Annie was on top of him and she was wearing a tank top and just her underwear and Ayden didn’t even have time to be embarrassed because her hands were on Johnny’s face and she was shaking him and crying and screaming at him. Her hair was falling about both their heads and veiling Johnny’s face but he saw his brother just lay there and not responding, not moving. He couldn’t even tell if his chest was moving. “Wake up! Johnny, please!” she screamed and shook his brother fervently. She sobbed when there was no response and put her head to his chest and cried. Ayden felt his heart stop. He pictured Johnny in the dunk tank and how pale he’d been. He pictured Johnny stuck to the railroad tracks. He pictured all the times he’d seen his brother die inside his mind and he shook his head. No, this wasn’t happening. “No,” he told the world and then he was moving forward and he was pushing Annie out of the way and she shoved him back but he didn’t budge from his place kneeling next to his brother on the bed. His hands went to Johnny’s neck and pressed into his skin and he closed his eyes and waited for what seemed like forever. There was a heartbeat. Ayden let out a quick breath and he moved his hand to Johnny’s nose and mouth and he felt his brother’s hot breath coming in slow and even intervals and he was breathing and had a heartbeat so that meant he wasn’t dead. He just wouldn’t wake up. Ayden felt Annie hit him and he turned to look at her and there were tears on her cheeks and she was shoving at Ayden because her Johnny wouldn’t wake up. Ayden gulped and grabbed her wrists and tried to be gentle when he subdued her. “Annie,” he said and she sobbed and fell into him and he let go of her wrists and held her, his eyes straying to Johnny’s face to see if he would wake up and see them hugging above him. But Johnny didn’t make a sound and didn’t move a muscle and he just lay there and what the fuck was wrong with his brother. “It’s okay,” he lied. “Why won’t he wake up?” Annie sobbed and Ayden had never seen her this upset or distraught. “He promised,” she cried and Ayden didn’t know what his brother had promised her but he was an asshole for not following through. “He promised,” she repeated. Ayden pulled back and looked down at Johnny and then over at Annie. “What happened?” he asked. He was trying to remain calm but this was his brother and he was just lying here and not moving. Ayden put his hand on Johnny’s chest just so he could feel the rise and fall of his breaths and be sure that they were still there. Annie sobbed and crawled forward, leaning over Johnny. Her hand came up to stroke his forehead and she planted a kiss on his temple and still he didn’t move. “I don’t know,” she said and she looked at Ayden and maybe she was starting to think clearly again because her hysterical crying was turning into just crying for the man she loved. “He just wouldn’t wake up. He was fine last night, but he just…” she turned her head and buried her face into Johnny’s neck and then she was slamming her fist into Johnny chest. “Wake up!” she screamed. Moving forward, Ayden put a hand on her shoulder and he watched her for a second because something had occurred to him. He backed off the bed and she looked up at him. “Stay with him, Annie,” he said and his voice was unusually calm for his brother lying there and not waking up. She frowned at him. “Where are you going?” she asked. “Just stay here,” he demanded and then he was turning and running out the door. He thought about stopping to put some pants on but he bypassed his room and continued down the hall and he didn’t knock on this door either. He’d welcome the old man to punch him or fill him full of buckshot right now if it meant the alternative wasn’t true. He flung Mr. Richards’ door open and stared at the old man, who was still lying in his bed. He hadn’t woken up when Annie had been screaming. “Mr. Richards?” Ayden asked quietly so Annie wouldn’t hear. He came into the room and stood above the man’s bed and the man didn’t move. Just like Johnny and what the fuck was going on around here? He reached forward and felt for a pulse and there was one, strong and steady. Ayden held his breath for a moment and didn’t know whether to panic or feel relieved because at least if there were two of them who weren’t waking up, it meant that it wasn’t something medical. It wasn’t something that Ayden couldn’t fight and couldn’t shoot and couldn’t fix. But Annie was gonna flip. Closing the door behind him, Ayden raced down the stairs and he thought about going to grab his gun again in case there was still something in the house, but he bypassed the front door and ran into the kitchen, pulling the phone off the wall and snarling, “Ashley Baker,” into the receiver. It took one ring for the fucker to pick up and it was one ring too many. “John-John,” Ashley greeted and it was too happy and too buddy-buddy because Johnny was in Annie’s bed and he wouldn’t wake up. “What can I do for you this bright and early morning?” “Try again, asshole,” Ayden growled. “Ah, Little Buddy,” Ashley paused because he must have caught the moodiness and severity in Ayden’s voice. “What’s wrong?” “Johnny and Mr. Richards won’t wake up,” Ayden said and his voice was calm and collected and he wondered why he was managing to stay calm. Maybe because Annie was falling to pieces and her Grandpa and his brother were unconscious, maybe dying, so someone had to be calm and take control. “They’re alive, they just won’t wake up.” Ashley was for once quiet for a second. Ayden could practically hear him thinking. “You’re at Annie’s house?” “Did you hear me, they won’t wake up!” Ayden yelled. “I heard you, Jesus Christ,” Ashley said back and then added, “Just stay calm. I’ll think of-” “Is this Legion?” The question must have caught them both off guard and Ayden realized as his own mouth was moving that he was terrified. He was acting calm and he was acting like he was in control but he was absolutely and utterly terrified that Legion had come for his brother and now Johnny wouldn’t ever wake up again and Ayden’s fear of being the last man standing would come true. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it and if it was Legion, he didn’t know what he’d do. He needed Johnny to fight that bastard because Ayden was the eyes and Johnny was the voice and the voice was a lot fucking stronger than the eyes but he wouldn’t wake the fuck up. “No,” Ashley said after a while and Ayden let out a shaky breath and leaned against the counter and at least that fear was alleviated, but it still didn’t tell him why Johnny was unconscious or in a coma or whatever the fuck was wrong with him. “No, it’s not Legion. That bastard wouldn’t come for you in your sleep. He’d come head on and stare you right in the eye and he’d make you suffer before he killed you.” Ayden didn’t know whether to take comfort in that or piss himself. He decided he’d be scared later. “Then what is it? They were fine yesterday.” “What are you doing at Annie’s house?” Ashley asked and it seemed like an off the wall question. Ayden growled when he answered. “I had a vision. Of Annie and our Dad so we came home.” “Tell me what happens in the vision.” “Annie’s fighting some old guy. I’m getting wailed on by my Dad. And there’s a kid and he’s drinking blood.” Ashley was quiet for a moment. “How old is the kid?” “I don’t know four or fi-” Ayden cut himself off because as he thought about how old the kid was, something occurred to him. He pictured the kid and he pictured the kid’s face and his hair and his clothes and his eyes that were black as sin but still looked familiar. He gasped and sucked in a breath and he was sure of it before he even said it out loud. “Oh my god, it’s Johnny’s kid.” “Uh,” Ashley said and Ayden could practically see the man on the other end of the line twisting his shirt collar awkwardly. “I mean, Johnny did tell you that the kid is dead, right?” “Yes, fuck you!” Ayden yelled and then whirled around, slamming his fist into the counter. “I know that, you asshole but so is my Dad and he was in the vision too. And Johnny wasn’t in that part. He wasn’t around. These are…these are other realities or something, they’re not true.” “Sounds like bad dreams to me,” Ashley said and Ayden would always wonder if Ashley knew what he was talking about half the time or if he just had good luck when it came to being sarcastic because his words struck Ayden like a smack across the face. He must have stayed quiet for too long as he processed his current thoughts over in his mind because Ashley said, “Little Buddy? You still there?” “Bad dreams,” Ayden said and he turned back around and looked at the stairs. Was Johnny dreaming? Was he caught up in a bad dream about his kid? Was Ayden supposed to be having a bad dream about his Dad and a life devoid of Johnny? His brother had just been talking about that yesterday, that’s why he’d slugged him. He shook his head because he was jumping to conclusions but it made fucking sense. “Ashley, you’re a genius.” “Of course I fucking am,” Ashley said and then he paused. “What did I do?” “They’re dreaming. They’re having bad dreams and they can’t wake up,” Ayden turned back around, his eyes scanning the kitchen as he thought about this and kept thinking. His mind was working a million miles a minute and maybe it was because if he stopped to think about what was happening he’d realize his brother was upstairs and he wasn’t waking up. “But why them? Why those two? Why not me and Annie?” “Well, did those two do something that you and Sweet Annie didn’t?” Ashley asked and Ayden shook his head even though the man couldn’t see him. “No,” he answered and his eyes were scanning the kitchen. “No, we were all together. We went to see our house and then we-” And Ayden cut off again because his eyes were on the open trashcan and they had caught something buried there. He moved forward and dug a little through the trash and when he uncovered it he growled out. “That fucker.” And he pulled up the ice cream wrapper and he thought about Mr. Richards talking about how he was on the diet and he knew the old man had a weakness for ice cream, just like Ayden did. Ashley sighed on the other end. “You really need to stop having epiphanies and not telling me what you’re finding.” Ayden ignored him. “Ashley, I gotta go. I’m gonna fix this.” “Whoa, hey!” Ashley yelled and it stopped Ayden from hanging up. He listened though because his feet were itching and he needed to go and he needed to take care of this right fucking now because Johnny was unconscious and needed him. He didn’t like the kid from his vision and he didn’t like that he was drinking blood and the more he thought about it, the more the arm in the vision looked familiar and he should have fucking seen it. Maybe Johnny wasn’t the one getting sloppy. Maybe he was. “You be careful, Little Buddy,” Ashley said. “You wouldn’t have had a vision about your Dad unless you were meant to deal with it, you understand?” “I’ll be careful,” Ayden growled and he moved the phone away from his ear and almost hung up, but then he pulled it back and he said, “Thanks, Ashley.” Ashley snorted. “Anything for you, my man.” Ayden clucked his tongue and hung up the phone and then he was racing back upstairs to the guest room. He pulled his pants on and didn’t bother to change his shirt but he pulled socks and shoes on and then he was running down the hall to Annie’s room and she had curled herself around Johnny’s form and was petting the side of his face. She was still crying, but she seemed to have calmed down. Ayden didn’t want to tell her about her Grandpa lying in the same state in the other room. “Annie, I’ll be back,” he said and her head popped up at that and suddenly the calm, collected, smart and beautiful Annie was back instead of the hysterical sad one because she had that protective frown on her face and he held up a hand. “I’ll fix this.” “Where are you going?” she demanded. “They both bought ice cream,” he said as way of explanation and he watched Annie’s face transform into one of confusion and anger because he was being obtuse and abstract. He shook his head. “Just stay with them.” Annie’s eyes widened. “Them?” she said and her voice was small and quiet and panicked. Ayden cursed himself and held up his hands. “It’s okay, I’ll fix it Annie.” He tried not to think about how often his brother had said those same words. “It’s not Legion. I can handle this. I’ll be back and they’ll wake up. So just stay with them and keep them safe.” He knew he was rambling but the longer he stood here, the longer his brother was lying there not moving and the longer Ayden was just sitting by and watching it happen. He didn’t miss the way Annie’s face contorted at the mention of Legion but they’d have to have that conversation later. Ayden glanced one more time at his brother and he steeled himself because this was Johnny. This was his brother and fuck the person who was messing with him. “I’ll fix this,” Ayden said and then he was turning and running down the stairs. And he was going to kill every last mother fucker that got in his way. .Wolfie. Johnny was dreaming.It was already slipping away from him when his eyes opened and he felt sad and empty at that because he thought it had been a good dream. He thought Annie had been in it and they had been together and happy and in love. He closed his eyes and tried to hold onto that but it was already slipping away, fading into static in his mind. He sighed and sat up on the bed, reaching for the pack of cigarettes on his nightstand and lighting one up. His eyes glanced to his left anyway and he felt his chest constrict and ache at how empty the bed was. The sheets were a tangled mess on his side but on hers they were still neat and unused and he reached over and ripped the comforter back because it made him feel a little bit better. He puffed on the cigarette and rubbed at his temples because his head hurt and he felt like there was something he was supposed to be doing or something he was supposed to remember and he didn’t know what. Maybe that had just been in the dream and he wondered what it had been about. He looked around the bedroom, his eyes dark as he took it all in. The shades were pulled tightly because Johnny couldn’t sleep anymore unless it was completely dark. To his right a couple of framed pictures stared back at him, pictures of him and Annie and Ayden from five or six years ago and they were happy and smiling and he missed those days. He missed them so much it hurt and he bent over the bed and smoked his cigarette and wondered why he did this to himself. He wondered why it was worse today because he had gotten over all that. Hadn’t he? He pulled himself out of bed, still wearing his pajama bottoms and a wifebeater. The answering machine was blinking at him and he pressed play as he started to put coffee on. The first message was from Ashley Baker and he rolled his eyes and hit delete because he was just saying what he always called to say. “Hey Johnny. Give me a call. It’s important.” Maybe it was, but Ashley always said it was important and it was always a demon or a witch or something nasty that needed killing and Ashley didn’t believe him when he said he didn’t fucking do that anymore. If he called him back he would just hear the same old lecture about how he was one of the fucking Godsent and he was supposed to be saving the world or some shit like that. The next message hurt him to hear. It was from Ayden. “Hey Johnny,” he said, and his voice was shaking. It sounded like he’d been crying or screaming or something worse and Johnny braced himself against his counter because he hated himself every time his brother called. “It’s me… It’s Ayden… I mean you knew that, but I don’t know, I guess I just needed to hear my name… I forget it sometimes, you know? I forget who I am, there’s just so much… well, it doesn’t matter. I just… I’m getting better. They say that anyway. They say I’m getting better. The nurses and all, I don’t know, maybe they just get paid to say that.” His brother trailed off and then there was a long stretch of silence and Johnny hated that the most because that meant his brother was having a vision or seeing something he wasn’t supposed to and his knuckles turned white against the counter because this was all his fucking fault and he knew how to fix it and he never would. He couldn’t fix it this time, because he had made his choice when he opened his mouth and told Annie yes and he couldn’t take it back. Sometimes he wished he could. Sometimes he wished he’d told her no. Not that it mattered anymore. “Anyway, I think I’m getting better. Maybe you could come visit me sometime? I don’t know, you don’t have to, I just… I miss my brother. Just let me know you’re still alive and okay because sometimes I get these visions… I don’t know. I don’t know what they mean. Maybe nothing. Maybe they’re just dreams. I don’t’ know. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t do this to you. Maybe, maybe just forget I called. Um, just… just erase this.” There was a quiet click as Ayden hung up on the answering machine and Johnny bit his lip to keep the anguished cry from escaping his throat. He poured himself a cup of coffee and smoked another cigarette for breakfast and stared at the refrigerator. Crayon drawings of a little boy and his dad covered the freezer and he smiled when he looked at them because it was easier than crying. There was no sign of the kid’s mom in the pictures. There was no sign of his uncle or his grandpa because he didn’t know those people. He only knew his dad. Johnny had kept it that way. He had to, because they wouldn’t understand. His eyes focused on the newspaper clipping all the way on the right. Annie Richards. Dead four years, from complications while giving birth. He snorted at that and sucked desperately at the cigarette as the memory rose up dark and wretched in his mind and he hated that word. Complications. It was the nice way of saying she had died screaming and in pain as all the blood just flowed out of her body. He hadn’t been there. He had been in South Dakota getting ripped to shreds by a Fenrir and he still had the scars on his back from that fight. He hadn’t been there to tell her to live or that he loved her and now she was gone. He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands and he wanted to cry and he didn’t know why this hurt so much today. It felt like he was reliving all of it over again, his mind pulling up bits and pieces from his memory. At first they were fuzzy chunks of information and then they settled into his gut with horrible clarity as he remembered what had happened and he felt himself shaking but he didn’t let the tears fall. He thought about calling Ashley back, but he didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He wouldn’t understand. A little part of him felt slow and sluggish and he wondered what it was Ashley wouldn’t understand. He thought about calling Ayden, but he didn’t know what he’d say. “I’m sorry,” wasn’t going to fix it, because he had stopped hunting monsters when Shane had been born and he couldn’t go back to it now. His hand scratched idly at his arm and he felt the scabs rip open under his finger nails and he couldn’t remember where the wounds had come from at first. He glanced at them and saw the half healed flesh and the teeth marks in his skin and he frowned because he didn’t think they were supposed to be there. He looked at his other arm and there were scars on that too. For a second, the world melted and flickered around him and he crushed his eyes shut because there was something important about that, something he was supposed to remember. Maybe it had something to do with his dream and he tried to recall what it was about but all he could pictures was Annie’s face as she tipped her head back and said his name in a soft cry. He slammed his hand on the table once and then ground the heels of his hands into his eyes and tried to think because he had forgotten something really, really fucking important. “Dad?” A small voice called, and then it was gone. The world snapped back into place and when he let his hands drop away and his eyes focus on the world again it was all how he remembered it being. Shane stood in the doorway, watching his dad with a cautious expression on his face. He was chewing on his lip and the motion was so painfully like Annie that he felt the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes again. “Hey kiddo,” he said, and leaned back in his chair, stubbing the cigarette out in his ashtray. Shane smiled and then he ran across the room and gave his dad a quick hug. “Morning, papa,” he said. Johnny smiled back at him and wrapped him up in a quick hug. The kid was small and too thin and he wasn’t eating enough and somehow that thought made Johnny’s stomach clench and he felt sick and scared and he couldn’t remember why. He ran a hand through the kid’s hair and he was blonde like Johnny but his eyes were black as sin, darker than Annie’s had been and he wondered where he got that from. The smile wavered on his face and he swallowed the lump in his throat as he looked down at his son. “Ready for breakfast?” Wenston Ayden was pissed. He blew through two stop signs and a red light and he wasn’t slowing down until he got to the fucking store. He had a gun in his hand and the wind was whipping at his face because he’d shattered the window and pulled off the mirror and yeah, it had been a little hard to open the door and Johnny would be pissed when he woke up. Not if, when. Because Ayden was going to fix this and he was going to kill some things and he was going to save his brother because it’s what Johnny would have done. And he owed him. The tires screeched to a halt as Ayden pulled up in front of the store and he closed his eyes a moment and thought about Johnny lying to serenely still on the bed and he thought about Annie’s tear stained face and to hell with what the consequences of a plan like “charge the fuck in there” were, he was going to do it. He threw open the car door and slammed it shut. There was a gun tucked into his belt and he held two more in his hands and he was going to use every bullet he had if he had to. He looked around and the street was thankfully empty because it was still early in the morning. He stalked over to the door and the sign was flipped and read, “Closed” but Ayden didn’t care. He shoved on the door and when it didn’t open, he just broke the glass and reached in and unlocked it, holstering one of the guns in his hands to do it. There was a moment when he thought that he sure as hell hoped this was the right place and he hadn’t just made everything up in his head because he didn’t want to get arrested for breaking into a stupid corner store. But he pushed that away quickly because of course this was right. He was a smart guy, even if sometimes he did dumb things, and the pieces fit and were falling together so this had to be right. Pushing the door open, he stepped inside and listened to the glass crunch under his sneakers and the door slam shut behind him with a tinkling as more glass fell to the floor. Ayden looked around the store and found it was completely empty. He growled and there was a door behind the counter that maybe led to a back room. He walked over and paused in front of the counter. A small little wishing well was sitting on the counter and it caught Ayden’s eye for a reason he didn’t understand. He growled and knocked it over and watched as the water and pennies skittered across the floor. Then he was kicking the door open and looking in at the back room and his felt his chest constrict because the back room was familiar. It was where Annie had been fighting the old guy in his vision and that solidified all of Ayden’s suspicions. He held his guns out in front of him and kept his chin low, scanning the room because there were piles of boxes that created a sort of maze around him and there could be something Wicked hiding behind each of them. “Hey fucker,” Ayden said, deciding that if there was something in the room with him, they probably already knew he was here. “I’m going to give you one chance to show your fucking face and I’ll make it quick and painless for you. Otherwise I’m going to rip your heart out through your fucking throat. Now show yourself!” Ayden screamed and he felt himself shaking but it wasn’t from fear. He’d never been this angry in his life. And it was because Johnny was lying dead to the world and Annie was crying and Mr. Richards was sleeping in his bed and that just left him and he was the last one standing and he fucking hated that. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take the opportunity to fix it. Something in the corner of the room crashed to the floor with a clang and Ayden whirled, whipping his guns out in front of him and trying to see if something was moving back there. He saw a tin rolling around on the floor and his eyes scanned the corner but he didn’t see anything. A laugh came from his left and he felt hot breath on his neck and the laugh tickled his ear. He whirled and pulled the trigger because there was something standing right next to him. The bullet ricocheted off the cement wall and he growled because this fucker was fast. He saw something move out of the corner of his eye and he was turning and firing again. The thing laughed again and shoved over a pile of boxes. The boxes almost fell on Ayden but he jumped out of the way and kept his eyes peeled. A tin can flying at his head and Ayden ducked beneath it but kept his gun trained and he fired. A scream pierced the air and it was unnatural and ugly but it made Ayden laugh because he’d hit the fucker. He regained his feet and hurried around a pile of boxes. There was blood staining the wall and it was leading away in a trickle on the floor. Ayden followed it, slowly and soundlessly, his guns held out in front of him. When he came to the corner, he paused for a second to hold his breath and his fingers itched at the triggers of his guns. He felt adrenaline pumping through his veins and he heard Annie crying over his brother echoing in the back of his mind. He saw Johnny’s face, eyes closed, calm and serene and he didn’t look right without a scowl or a frown on his face and Ayden didn’t like it. He whirled around the corner and pulled the triggers of his guns at the same time as something came hurling at his head. He ducked and it managed to breeze over his head and he heard another scream and this time he saw the thing. It was an old man in a suit and Ayden knew him because he’d been in his vision and Annie had been shooting him. Ayden crouched on the floor and watched the old man fall back against the wall because he had two brand spanking new bullet wounds in his chest and his hands were clawing at the wounds as blood leaked out from between his fingers. He growled and looked up at Ayden and when he opened his mouth his teeth were rotted and some were missing. Ayden aimed and fired again and two more wounds bubbled up on the man’s chest and he cried out. Ayden grinned because he was winning. Blood leaked from the corner of the man’s mouth and Ayden was walking forward, guns held out at the ready. He came within a few feet of the man and he lowered one of his guns so it was dangling at his side. The other came up and he aimed it straight at the man’s forehead. “This ends now,” Ayden said and his voice was deep and angry and he surprised himself with how evil he sounded. He didn’t know what this guy was and he didn’t know what he’d done to his brother or if shooting the guy in the head would help, but it should. It should help because God fucking owed them a favor and Ayden thought about the bastard and all the shit he’d put the Marshall brothers through and he owed them, damn it. “Wait!” the old man cried and his hands were shaking violently and he was shielding his face from the bullet. Ayden knew he should pull the trigger. He knew he should end it. But he faltered. “There is no waiting!” he yelled and his finger squeezed around the trigger. “I’m giving him what he wanted!” The man cried and Ayden’s heart leapt into his throat. The trigger was pulling at his finger, it was begging Ayden to pull but there was a voice in the back of his mind telling him that he needed to hear what this man was saying. He growled and the man opened an eye to look at him, blood leaking out of his mouth. He leaned forward a bit and Ayden shook the gun in his face so he stopped. “Your brother wanted this,” the man said and Ayden was too distracted by how much those words hurt to think about how the man knew who he was or that Johnny was his brother. “I’m giving him what he wished for. He’s happy, he’s content. He has what he wanted.” “You’re lying!” Ayden screamed and the gun shook. The man let out a pitiful sob and Ayden didn’t know if it was just for show or what because he’d never seen a Wicked be scared before. “He’s in a coma because of you!” Ayden screamed. “He’s with his son,” the man whispered and Ayden’s chest constricted and his heart was beating fast because yeah, that’s what Johnny would want. “I helped him. He’s with his son,” the man repeated and Ayden made the mistake of looking at his gun because those words were so painful it was distracting him. He didn’t notice the man lean forward. “And he’s away from you.” Ayden’s face darkened at that and whatever doubts he’d had in his mind flew out the window because the man may think he knew Johnny, but those words weren’t true. He growled and looked up and startled because the old man was so close now. Too close. “Let me give you what you want,” the man said and touched Ayden’s arm before he could pull the trigger. Then Ayden fell to the ground and he didn’t get back up. .Wolfie. Johnny finished his coffee first, the kid sitting on his knee with his arms wrapped around his neck.He always ate breakfast second because the few times he’d tried to eat and build up his strength before feeding Shane, he’d just lost it again. He’d thrown up from the smell of blood and the sight of his child feeding and so he just couldn’t do it anymore. Instead he drank his coffee and smoked his cigarette and that was his breakfast until his son was fed and that was his life now. He shivered and hugged his son closer and downed the last of the bitter drink. “Do you miss mom?” Shane asked him quietly and Johnny felt himself freeze because he didn’t know where the question had come from. They didn’t talk about her because Johnny got mean when they talked about Annie. He thought about the dream and about Annie and it had been four years since he’d seen her face but it felt like it was just yesterday. He could still imagine the taste of her lips and the sound of her voice. He could picture her so clearly in his head, still imagine the feel of her skin under his hands and he swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “Yeah,” he snapped, and then he bit his tongue because it wasn’t Shane’s fault she was dead. It was Johnny’s. He put him down in the chair and then walked to the counter, pulling open a drawer and sliding out the knife he used every day. He glanced down at his arm and the scars there and they were getting worse. They were thicker than they had been at first because just a little bit of blood wasn’t enough anymore. Just a few drops had been enough when he was a baby, but the older the got the more he needed and Johnny wondered what it would take to keep the kid alive by the time he was ten and if there would be anything left on his bones or if he would have to use the voice to keep himself whole. He turned back to the table and the kid was watching him with those black eyes and for a second, just a second, Johnny thought about using it on him instead. He thought about ending the kid and going and breaking Ayden out of that fucking hospital and going back to what they did best which was killing everything wicked in the world and his kid was part of that because whatever he had brought back wasn’t really a human child. He couldn’t do it. He knew even as he thought it that he would never do it because there was too much of him and Annie in the kid’s face and his eyes were watching Johnny with a hopeful, trusting expression because Johnny would always do whatever it took to keep his son happy and safe and healthy. He closed his eyes and he felt like crying and he wondered why this was so hard today and for a second the world flickered around him and he thought he heard someone screaming his name but it was all just in his head. His son was staring at the ground and his face was sad. “I wish I could’ve known her.” Johnny stared at him, the knife held in his hand and he shook his head slowly. “I do too,” he said, but something about the words bothered him because all he could think was that Johnny didn’t make wishes. He didn’t make wishes because for someone like him, when he opened his mouth and said the words, they came true. He frowned and looked down at his arms and the scars there and it was strange because he knew where he had gotten them but he couldn’t remember it actually happening and even as he thought it the memories came from somewhere and filled in the gaps in his thoughts. Then he took a breath and crossed back to the chair, settling into it and holding his arm out. His hand was shaking as he held the knife. His son looked up at him expectantly, and he tried not to shiver as he saw the boy lick his lips. There was something so wrong about this. He knew it, deep in his gut where he shoved everything so that it could rot and eat away with him. He knew he shouldn’t have to do this to feed his child and that maybe the little boy was the reason Annie was dead and maybe he hadn’t brought back a child when he’d told him to live, but something wicked instead. He knew all those things deep inside where he buried all the pain and the hurt and the fear, but it didn’t matter. Shane was all he had left of Annie, even if what was left was just a monster. The knife cut into his skin and he winced at the pain but he kept pushing anyway, until blood began to run off his arm and onto the floor. His son smiled and then he was sitting forward and lapping up the blood from his father’s skin. Johnny winced and looked away and it was with a shaking hand that he lit himself another cigarette. He winced as he felt his son’s mouth on the wound and it stung and hurt but not as much as the knowledge that his child wasn’t right and he should’ve killed him or let him die but he didn’t and it was too late now. He grimaced again as he felt teeth dig into his arm and he felt the skin ripping as his son fed on him. The tears were there again at the edge of his vision but he didn’t let them fall. He bit down on the filter of his cigarette and breathed in the ash and the smoke so that he had something else to focus on besides the pain of his child’s teeth tearing little chunks off his arm. He glanced over briefly and he felt a shiver run down his spine because this was just so wrong. He had to feed his son. He had to be a good father. The boy was grinning again and his little teeth were digging hungrily into Johnny’s arm and a sharp grunt escaped his throat as he bit a little harder than usual and ripped off a little more of his skin than he was used to. The boy kept feeding, even when the skin was ripped away and he could see the muscle and he tilted his head back and tried to focus on breathing because it hurt so fucking bad. His breath came in a hiss because it felt like his teeth were scraping over bone now and a tear slipped from the corner of his eye. “Slow down, kiddo,” he whispered. Shane looked up at him, smiling weakly and there was blood running from his lips and he looked like one of the wicked. He looked like a monster and Johnny was supposed to kill monsters and he felt his hand curling around the knife and he thought about doing it. Then his son looked down at the ground and he looked sad and genuinely apologetic. “Sorry papa,” he said quietly and the back of his hand came up to wipe the blood away from his lips. There was so much blood everywhere. It was worse than it normally was, and his arm looked like a mangled mess. He felt his stomach drop and churn as he realized he could see the tendons through the torn and ripped flesh and he thought he might be sick but there was nothing in him to throw up except coffee and smoke. He put a hand over his mouth to try and hold in the horror and pain and something about that struck him as so strange because his fingers slid over his mouth and there was nothing but stubble there except didn’t he used to have scars there? As soon as he thought it the world seemed to waver around him and he shook his head because that didn’t make any fucking sense. His fingers ran over his lips again and he remembered the feeling of thin white lines on his face and where had they come from, and where had they gone? He frowned and focused on that and not on the horrid mess that was left of his arm and he realized that he could barely flex his fingers. He closed his eyes and his fingers kept going over his face and he thought there was supposed to be a scar running across his cheek except that wasn’t there either. Where had he gotten those? What the fuck was wrong with him? “Papa?” his son asked, and he opened his eyes and focused on his son’s face and the feelings disappeared. “It’s okay,” Johnny told him, and it wasn’t. It really, really fucking wasn’t. Wenston Ayden groaned and sat up. He was on the floor in the kitchen and he didn’t remember how he’d gotten there. Maybe he’d drunk himself there, but that was stupid because he normally made it to his bed when he binged at night. He’d built up a tolerance over the years because he’d started at an early age. He could hold his own against his Mom in a drinking contest, and that was saying something because that woman could hold her liquor. Ayden scrubbed a hand over his face and climbed to his feet. He was a little unsteady there and he rolled his head to the side, cracking his neck. He stretched his arms above his head and looked around. The kitchen was fucking filthy and there was mold growing on the dishes stacked in the sink. He thought about doing them but he didn’t know where that thought came from because he wasn’t the one that did the fucking dishes around here. He wasn’t their damn slave anymore, he was the only one bringing in the fucking money. Ever since his Dad busted his leg at the mechanic’s shop a couple years ago, Ayden was the only one with a job because the man had sat on his ass for months and when his leg was healed, he’d just never gotten back up out of that damn lazy boy chair. “Ayden!” a voice yelled from the living room and Ayden rolled his eyes, heading to the cupboard to pull a glass out and pour himself a drink. Never too early to start. “Ayden, bring me the gin!” Her voice sounded desperate and angry and Ayden poured himself a double shot of whiskey and downed it , closing his eyes against the burn in his throat. “Fuck you!” he yelled back and he heard the recliner snap back into a closed position and there were boots scuffing their way across the living room. He turned and leaned against the counter with the bottle of whiskey in his hand. He wiped his other hand on his stained wife beater and then picked at the waistline of his jeans as he saw his father round the corner and stand in the doorway. For a moment, Ayden was terrified and he didn’t understand why because his father hadn’t laid a fucking finger on him since he was seventeen and had beat the piss out of him back. He shook the fear away and stared at the man. He saw his mother come up behind him and Ayden wondered why he felt like he was looking at the two of them for the first time in years. He couldn’t escape them, he would wish to get the fuck away from them because they were leeching his money and drinking themselves out of house and home. “You don’t talk to your mother like that,” his Dad growled and pointed a finger at him. “I’ll talk to her however the fuck I want,” Ayden snapped back and the man bristled. Ayden quirked his head to the side and dared him to come over here and mess with him. His fingers tightened around the bottle in his hand and he really just wanted to smash it across that fucking bastard’s face. “She’s your mother,” he said. “She’s also drunk half the time and almost burned our house down,” Ayden took a step forward and he felt a swell of pleasure when he saw the both of them take a step back. “I’m the one who brings home the money. I’m the one who decides how to talk in this fucking house.” “We’ll see about that,” his father spat and then stalked off. Ayden didn’t think about where he was going or what he was doing. His eyes went to his mother and she was just staring at him, shaking her head. “What?” he demanded. “Want your drink? Come and get it, you fucking bitch.” Her eyes filled with tears and Ayden tried to understand why he felt bad about that. Then she shook her head and turned away and said, “It should have been you that died.” Ayden’s heart leapt to his throat. He didn’t understand why because that was her favorite insult and he was used to it and it had stopped hurting a long, long time ago. He thought about the train tracks. He thought about his brother and how his foot had gotten caught in the tracks and the train that had been blaring and screaming and pleaded for him to get out of the way. He thought about how his brother had opened his mouth and screamed no. He thought about how the train had plowed into him and left smear of blood and bone and mush that used to be his brother across the tracks. He’d had a dream once. He’d dreamt that the train had stopped when his brother told it to and it had buckled and folded and they’d been safe. He dreamt about growing up and having an older brother around. He’d watched Johnny become a man and stick up for him and he didn’t have to be so tough or violent or depressed. He didn’t have to be because his brother was there and he took care of him and he protected him and Ayden wasn’t left to fend for himself alone in the world. It had been a good dream. But it was fake as shit because Johnny was dead and had been for a long, long time. “Probably,” Ayden whispered and she was walking away. He heard his father rummaging around for something in the closet and he rolled his eyes because the old man was probably looking for his shotgun and Ayden had stolen that and hidden it months ago. He turned around and poured himself another whiskey. There was a knock at the door. “Fucking get the door!” Ayden yelled but no one answered him. He sighed and smashed the glass in his hand on the counter, watching as it shattered into a million little bits. He stalked out into the living room and glared at his mother who was sitting on the couch watching tv. She didn’t even pay him any attention. His father was still down the hallway, swearing now because he couldn’t find his gun and he wondered what the bastard planned on doing with it because Ayden would kick his fucking gimp ass. Pulling the door open, Ayden growled out, “What the fuck do you want?” before he even saw who was truly there. He was surprised when someone slapped him straight across the face. “You watch your mouth!” the woman on the doorstep yelled and Ayden had to think for a moment, a hand coming to his cheek where she slapped him. He frowned and studied her and thought she looked vaguely familiar. Her dark hair was graying but she looked good. She stood and crossed her arms over her chest and was looking at him like he’d just done something to disappoint her. “I’ll say whatever the fuck I want!” he yelled at her because he didn’t recognize her but he thought maybe he did. She slapped him again and this time he blinked and he thought he could see her lying on a floor somewhere in Wisconsin with blood leaking out of the corners of her mouth. His eyes widened and they darted back towards her. He said her name before he could even remember it. “Dyani?” A small smile broke across her face but she still looked pissed the fuck off. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded. He was at a loss for words, his mouth slightly ajar and his face still stinging from her slap. He turned to look over his shoulder at his mother and she wasn’t even acknowledging that he was there or he was getting slapped and this was suddenly all wrong, all very, very wrong. He shook his head and looked back at her. “Nothing,” he defended weakly. “Cheveyo,” she said and suddenly his chest constricted and he brought a hand up to his heart because that word brought a flood of memories he had thought were just dreams. It stole his breath away and he felt her hand come up and grasp his shoulder to keep him from falling over. “This is not real,” she said firmly and he nodded because he knew the words were right. He closed his eyes and he could see the brother he’d grown up with, the brother he’d been best friends with and who’d protected him and loved him and fought with him like brothers do. He saw Annie, a girl he’d never known in this life but who he’d come to think of a sister in a different one. He saw Ashley Baker and Dyani and Mr. Richards and all the people they had saved. And then he saw the Wicked. And the word Godsent crashed into his mind and he cried out and fell forward but Dyani was there to catch him. “Easy, Cheveyo,” she whispered to him. “You must fight it.” Ayden gasped and gripped the door frame and then he was on his knees and he remembered, everything. “Johnny,” Ayden whispered because he could see his brother lying still and calm in a bed and he’d gone to the store to kill a Wicked and he’d gotten trapped instead. He’d failed. He’d failed his brother and wasn’t that the fucking story of his life. Dyani ran her hands over his face and he looked up at her. “You can fight this,” she said to him and he nodded. “This is your playground.” And he remembered the words he’d said to Amon when the demon was trying to take over his mind. Dyani was saying them to him now and he nodded and pulled himself to his feet because she was right. This was his fucking playground and if that Wicked wanted to try and trick him into this life, he was going to fucking fight back. “Dyani…” he didn’t know what to say. Thank you didn’t seem sufficient. “Go,” she said and then her eyes darted behind him and she disappeared. He turned and his father was there with the shotgun held to his shoulder. He sucked in a breath because he was scared of the man again instead of being the one in his father’s abusive, alcoholic shoes. He would have time to contemplate and brood over that later. The shotgun went off and Ayden ducked. .Wolfie. When Annie was eight, her father had brought her eagle feathers.She didn’t know if they’d been real. She figured later that he’d probably bought them in a casino gift shop because that was where he’d gotten most of her presents. Like the rest of them, they were cheap and tacky and impractical and she had loved them anyway. She’d put them in her hair and pretended she was a real Navajo warrior and that her father was a Chieftain who’d loved and adored her. She’d been good at pretend when she was a kid. She had tied them into her braids and worn them to school because she wanted to show off the gift her father had gotten her and she felt pretty and interesting and proud of her old man even if he was never around. Halfway through recess some kid named Bobby Green had started making fun of her for it. He’d called her Pocahontas and pulled her pig tails and laughed at her. It made her cry because they were from her father and it was the only way he knew how to show her he loved her and she felt stupid and worthless and wretched. That was how she’d met Johnny Marshall. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You don’t make girls cry!” he’d yelled at the kid, and everyone knew he was a badass because he was nine years old and already dropping the f-bomb. Then he’d punched the kid in the nose and made him bleed all over the floor and he’d probably gotten a detention for it later. He didn’t seem to notice when the kid cried and curled up in a ball and held his bleeding nose. He just turned to Annie and looked at the feathers and her tear stained face and he’d smiled at her and said “I think your feathers are pretty.” She knew. She knew it then, even if she was only eight and didn’t understand love or boys or life. She knew she would love him for the rest of her life. Annie curled around Johnny’s frame and she thought about those things because it was easier than thinking about what was happening now. The tears had stopped a little while ago and now she just felt tired and hollow and empty. Her fingers ran over his bare chest and lingered on the scars on his skin and he had so many more scars now that it made her ache just seeing them. She buried her face in his neck and kissed him gently but he didn’t move and he didn’t wake up because something was wrong and she didn’t know what it was or how to fix it. “You’re an asshole,” she whispered to him quietly, and he didn’t move. He didn’t wake up and try and argue with her and that was the worst part. Her hand came down on his chest and she said it a little bit louder. “You’re an asshole, Johnny Marshall. You broke my heart once and then you come back in here like you’re going to fix everything and then you just go and try to break my heart all over again because you won’t wake your stupid ass up.” He didn’t move. His breathing stayed steady and even, but he didn’t move. She buried her face in his neck again and her hands were stroking his cheek and she was whispering quietly to him. “Please. Please wake up. I’m so tired of living without you. I love you.” She pressed a kiss to his skin and tears were dripping off her face onto the bed and none of it was waking him up and none of it was bringing him back. She sat up slowly, her fingers lingering on his chest and she bit her lip and waited for him to do something, anything, but he just didn’t move. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t just wait for him to wake up. She wondered where Ayden had gone. She dressed slowly and carefully because her fingers didn’t remember how to work quite right and she had trouble with the button of her jeans as she pulled them on. Then she was slinging the gun holsters around her shoulder and pulling Johnny’s discarded flannel shirt on because it smelled like him and she wanted him close to her but he wasn’t moving off the bed so this would have to do. It was still on the floor where she had dropped it the night before and for a moment she had to stop and press her hand to her mouth to stop another sob coming out because it wasn’t fair that she’d just gotten him back and now he wasn’t moving. She needed to stop acting like a basket case. She needed to help Ayden fix this. “I’ll be back,” she told him quietly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. She hoped he woke up and she hated that he was still out of it but a little part of her wondered what he would think if he woke up and she wasn’t there anymore. Would he think she’d left him again? Her hand ran over his forehead and then through his hair and she studied his face for a moment because she thought that for an instant she had seen it change. His expression was peaceful and serene and it looked strange on him because Johnny was always frowning or yelling or swearing, but he was never at peace. The man would die with a curse on his lips. She was about to stand up again when she heard the quiet whimper and she whirled to look at him. “Johnny?” she whispered, and he didn’t answer and he still didn’t wake up, but she saw his brow furrow into a frown. He was breathing heavier and she heard another whimper and Annie didn’t like that one fucking bit. “Johnny,” she said, and she shook him again but he didn’t move. Then the bleeding started. She felt something warm and wet under her fingers and stepped back and that was when she saw it. A thin red line was growing across his arm and she felt a strangled cry escape her throat. Johnny winced in his sleep but he still wasn’t waking up, even when the cut grew deeper and she saw the blood begin to seep out of his skin and into her sheets. “Johnny,” she shouted, but he didn’t move and he still wasn’t waking up. She whirled away from him and grabbed a shirt out of her drawer and she didn’t even care what one it was because Johnny was bleeding from an invisible wound. Except by the time she turned around it had gotten worse. She cried out again when she saw his arm because the skin was being ripped off it in small, bite sized chunks and she could only watch in horror as the hole in his arm grew deeper and then the muscle was tearing away and she felt herself screaming as she pressed her shirt hurriedly to the wound. The blood soaked into it and then it was on her hands but it wasn’t stopping. Johnny whimpered quietly and sadly in his sleep again, but he never woke up. She was afraid to look, but she pulled the shirt back slowly and he was a mess. She could see tendon. She could see bone. She wrapped the shirt around his arm and then she was stumbling towards the door because she had to find Ayden and ask him what had happened. The last thing he’d said to her was that they’d both bought ice cream and she was terrified and didn’t want to leave Johnny but if she didn’t he might just bleed to death in her bed. She wondered how that was fair, that she finally got him back there just for him to die in it. She stumbled leaving the room and she glanced down the hallway towards her grandfather’s room. Ayden had said ‘them.’ He’d said they’d bought ice cream. As in her grandfather too, and she didn’t know why she was so slow and stupid today because that thought should have occurred to her sooner too. She should’ve realized he wasn’t bursting in the room with his old twelve gauge in his hand and he wasn’t threatening to shoot someone between the eyes because that’s what her grandpa did. Her steps were steadier than she had any right to expect when she walked down the hall. The door was already open, which was her first clue something was wrong, and when she pushed it open she could see him lying in his bed, eyes closed. He was breathing steadily, sheets tangled around him because the old man never slept easily, and one of his pillows thrown on the floor. He was alive. He was alive but he was just like Johnny and he wasn’t waking up and she walked over to him to scan him quickly for wounds. She didn’t see any blood pouring out of him, but he looked tired and wasted and she bit back a sob because her old man should never look so dead. The old bastard would never die, he just couldn’t be killed. “I’ll fix this old man,” she told him, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Ayden should’ve been back by now. She wondered where he’d went and she was trying to steady her own breathing because the most important men in her life needed her to be strong and stable and she was none of those things at the moment. She headed back down the hallway and downstairs where her boots were kicked by the door and by the time she got those on, she already had a pretty good idea of where she was going because Johnny didn’t eat ice cream and the only one he’d bought he’d thrown in the backseat for Ayden. She didn’t know why it was all important, but if that’s where Ayden had gone, that’s where she would go too. Her hands were shaking as she got behind the wheel of her grandpa’s old pickup truck but she kept it together as she drove through town. She didn’t have the stomach to wave back at the folks already outside because she was afraid if she took her hands off the wheel she would fall apart again and she had to fix this because Johnny and her grandpa weren’t waking up and if either of them died she would just lose it. Her grandfather had been the man to raise her and she couldn’t imagine a world without him and she had only just gotten Johnny back, so he better wake his ass up and make her breakfast like he promised. She pulled up to the corner store and parked on the street and she didn’t miss that she was right behind Johnny’s car. She wasn’t scared, not yet, not of what she might find. She was scared they might not wake up and she was scared that Ayden was in trouble but she wasn’t scared of having to fight an old man like in Ayden’s vision and she wasn’t afraid of killing him either. The driver’s side window of Johnny’s Cadillac was bashed in and for some reason that just made her mad. She had a lot of good memories in that car. The door was already bashed open and she pushed it open with her boot, hands sliding under her borrowed shirt to draw one of her guns. There was broken glass on the floor and a little plastic wishing well lying on the ground with pennies and water scattered all over the tile and she stepped over them towards the door behind the counter. She licked her lips because her mouth was dry and she thought about calling for someone but she didn’t want to make any noise in case they didn’t know she was here. She had fought wicked by herself before, but this felt different somehow, because it was more than just her own life on the line. She pushed the stock room door open with her boot. It was dark inside but she could see piles of boxes and she heard a low, raspy breathing coming from somewhere beyond it. She slid quietly into the room, pulling out her second gun and holding them at the ready because the door was broken into and Johnny’s car was outside but she hadn’t seen his little brother yet. It seemed like whenever he was alone, he was always getting into trouble. She bit her lip to keep her voice from betraying her. Ayden lay on the floor, his skin pale and drawn and his head turned limply to the side. She could see blood coming from the back of his head and it looked like he had hit it on the way down. His guns were still clasped in his hands, but someone was pulling them out from his fingers and then stretching a hand over his face. She heard a wicked hiss escape the man’s lips and then she focused on his face and she couldn’t call it a man anymore. White hair was thin and wild around his face and his skin was gray and sunken. He looked like a corpse, or a demon, or maybe some mix of the two and his eyes were rolling in his head as he leaned over Ayden. His hand flexed over his face and Ayden gasped sharply under the motion and then she could see it. Something white and almost like smoke was slowly rising out of his throat and the man was smiling with rotten teeth as he opened his own mouth. Her hands tightened on the guns as she saw him breathing it in and she had the sickening thought that it was Ayden’s soul, and that the bastard was doing the same thing to Johnny and grandpa. She didn’t say a word, even when she raised the gun and fired it. He jerked in surprise and pain as it struck him in the chest and he fell backwards off of Ayden. His head whipped up and he looked surprised to see her and then she was taking another step forward, firing both of her guns into him and she felt calm and confident and maybe a little bit like Johnny fucking Marshall because she wanted to see this asshole bleed. He sneered at her and then cried out as another shot jerked his shoulder back and then he was raising his hand. “Stop,” he cried out. “He’s happy, they’re both happy.” Annie laughed coldly and her fingers tightened on the triggers. “Now that’s bullshit. I know Johnny’s not happy, because he’s missing a fight.” Then she fired her guns into his head. Wenston Ayden ducked beneath another blast of the shotgun.He saw his father crack open the gun and pull a few shells from his pocket and reload and Ayden knew it was now or never because in a few moments he was going to get a face full of buckshot and he knew how that felt and he didn’t want that to happen again. He growled and launched himself at his father. Ayden’s hands grasped the gun first and he was ripping it out of the man’s hands. He heard his Dad yell like he was surprised and then it morphed into something sinister and wicked. Ayden ignored it because he needed to get the gun away from his Dad. The gun was the difference between a homicidal man and an abusive man. Ayden would take getting his ass kicked over getting shot any day. Wrenching the shot gun away he threw it towards the side and it clattered against the wall and slid to the floor. Ayden didn’t have time to relish in his victory because then he was being struck across the face. He staggered backwards and his face was smarting and he recognized this feeling. He recognized the knuckles and the feel of his old man’s hands. He recognized the strength behind it and the grunt that accompanied it. He recognized the pause afterwards because the man always paused like maybe he was thinking about what he was doing. He recognized the anger and the frustration and the heartache that threatened to suck up all the air in the room. This was his Dad. And he may just be in his head, but it was still him and for a moment Ayden was scared out of his fucking mind because the last time he’d actually seen his father, and not this dream whatever the fuck father was standing in front of him, but his real father – the man had been holding a shotgun to his throat and Johnny had been telling him to die. Johnny. Ayden didn’t like this world without his brother. He didn’t like the asshole he would have become if his brother died and he didn’t like how mean and drunk and just like his father he would have been. He didn’t like the years he had stuffed in his mind of growing up without a brother. He didn’t like that he could still see and feel and smell his brother’s entrails on the train tracks. But he knew it wasn’t real. He knew Johnny was alive. He was just unconscious in Annie’s bed and he wouldn’t wake up until Ayden fixed this. But he couldn’t if he was trapped here fighting his father. Another blow caught Ayden off guard because he was struggling to stay focused and rip the two lives apart from one another in his mind. He was having trouble separating them because he could remember both. He remembered growing up with his brother and he remembered watching him die. He remembered being Godsent and he remembered being just Ayden Marshall, the abusive drunk down the street. His father’s fist connected with his stomach and he doubled over and he decided right then and there that this world could go fuck itself. He’d lived through this abusive past once. He was not going to do it now because now, he wasn’t a kid anymore. When another blow was aimed at his head, Ayden brought his hand up and caught his father’s fist and he heard the man let out a startled gasp. Ayden growled and threw his father’s fist away and then he was swinging his own at the man’s jaw and when it snapped beneath his fingers he gave a wicked cackle because this was what fighting back felt like and he’d never done that before in the real world. He could remember doing it in this dream world, but this pain in his knuckles from the man’s hard head was welcome and new and he loved every fucking minute of it. “Fuck you,” Ayden snarled and then he was swinging his fist again. It connected with his father’s temple and the man crumpled to the ground. Ayden leapt on top of him and straddled the man’s waist and then he was laying into him. His fists were coming down onto his face and shattering bone and muscle beneath them. It left his hands bruised and battered and his knuckles split open and some popped and he would be bruised and sore but he didn’t care because his father was bleeding under him and Ayden was crying because how many times had this scene been reversed? How many times had his father had him pinned to the ground and was beating the living shit out of him. How many hospital visits had Ayden made because of this man? How many times had Ayden walked in on his father doing this very same thing to Johnny? That thought only made him hit harder. The cocking of the shotgun paused his fists in midair and he whirled around, with his father bleeding beneath him, and he saw his mother standing near the television with the gun aimed at him. His eyes widened because he’d forgotten about her. He’d forgotten that she’d been alive in this dream world because he could still smell her burnt flesh and see her blackened corpse as she’d gone up in flames with their house. “You probably pushed him in front of that damn train, didn’t you?” she sobbed out and Ayden lowered his fists to look at her. He’d never known her like this. He’d never known her to express love or sorrow towards her sons and it hurt that she was missing Johnny and wanted Ayden dead and he wondered if this is how it really would have been or how the sick fuck old man who had given him this dream world thought it would be. He didn’t like to think about it. “Put the gun down,” Ayden said and his voice was calm. “I’m done living under your tyranny,” she said and Ayden pictured her saying those words to his father and for a moment he was so sad he thought his heart was going to stop beating because those were words she should have said years ago but she’d never been sober enough to do. And here, in this world, she was hurling them at Ayden and she had the gun aimed at him and he was across the room and couldn’t stop it. His fists were bleeding and his father was choking on blood and his mother had the gun aimed at him and this was not the way it was supposed to be and he forgot for a moment that this wasn’t real and he wanted Johnny here right fucking now. “No!” Ayden yelled as he saw her finger curl around the trigger. He heard the blast. He saw the shot. It never hit him. Ayden woke up with a gasp and his bleeding hands came to his chest because there should have been a shotgun blast there but there wasn’t. He was breathing hard and he his head felt like it weighed a million pounds. He felt something hot and sticky in the back of his hair and he knew enough about head injuries by now to know he’d smacked it off of something. His eyelids felt heavy and there was a deep, deep ache in his chest that couldn’t be attributed to anything physical. The hole that Amon had torn in his soul seemed bigger. “Ayden?” Annie’s voice came and he blinked because suddenly she was kneeling next to him and her hands were on his face. He looked up at her and she was running her thumbs along his cheekbone and she looked terrified because he wasn’t saying anything. “Annie?” he asked because if this was still a dream it sure felt fucking real. She smiled and her hands moved to his, her fingers running over his busted knuckles and bruised fingers. Then she looked back at his face and she was pulling him into a sitting position. Her hand came to his cheek as the world spun around him and his chest hurt because for a moment he thought Johnny was still dead but he remember Dyani showing up at his front door and then he thought about how he’d beat the shit out of his Dad and how his mother had aimed a shotgun at him. “Johnny?” Ayden asked and he looked at Annie because what was she doing here with him and not with Johnny. Annie shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said and then she was pulling him to his feet and she was eager to go. “We have to get back.” .Wolfie. Johnny couldn’t feel his arm anymore.At some point he had slipped out of the chair and he was lying on the floor and he was bleeding a lot more than he thought he should’ve been. He heard something and he thought it sounded like chewing but he couldn’t be sure. He stared up at the ceiling and there was smoke rising above his head in a cloud because he still had the cigarette between his lips but he couldn’t get himself to breath it in and there were embers and ash falling around his face. Something was wrong. Maybe everything was wrong. His son sat up beside him and his head fell to the side so that he could look at him. His lips were covered in red and it was Johnny’s blood on his mouth and Johnny’s skin hanging from his teeth and he watched his kid suck it in like it was spaghetti and swallow it down and Johnny felt like he might throw up. “Shane,” he said quietly, and he thought there were tears running down his face but he couldn’t tell. “I think you’ve had enough.” His son’s face fell and he looked sad and disappointed and Johnny just felt sick and slow and tired. He tried to sit up but his body was sluggish and aching and he couldn’t move. He was afraid to look at his arm but he turned his head and did anyway and his son had eaten his flesh away to the bone. He tried to move it and he felt a strangled scream try to rise in his throat because he didn’t have the muscle to move it anymore because his child had devoured it. “I’m still hungry, papa,” the kid whispered, and Johnny looked at his face, the only thing he had left of Annie, and he hated him. He closed his eyes and he remembered the dream he’d had, where she was alive and still loved him and he wished he were dead. “I said that’s enough,” he spat, and he didn’t like how mean and cold and like his old man he sounded. He put his other hand on the ground and pushed himself into a sitting position and his arm was just a heavy, bloody weight that he dragged across the floor. It left a red smear in its wake and he didn’t like that he was bleeding so much or that his head felt so foggy or that he tasted the metallic tang of it on his tongue. “I’m still hungry, papa,” the kid said again, and Johnny felt a sob pull its way from his throat. His hand slammed down on the floor and he was shouting at his and Annie’s son. “That’s enough, I said!” The boy’s lower lip trembled and shook and he saw the tears begin to well up in his eyes. He wiped the blood off his lips with the back of his hand and then he ran it over his face because the tears were starting to fall and papa didn’t like it when he cried because it made him a little pussy bitch and Johnny shook his head because this all just felt so fucking wrong. “I’m sorry papa,” his son told him and he had named him Shane like he’d planned and he was going to teach him to ride a bike and shoot a gun and talk to him about girls even though his girl was dead. “It’s okay,” he told him, and held out an arm. Shane looked like he still didn’t trust him but he crawled across the bloody floor and let his father pull him into a hug. Johnny felt sick and wrong just doing it because his child was one of the wicked and he was supposed to kill the wicked, but how did he look him in the eyes and shoot his own son? He ran a hand through his hair and his other arm lay limp and useless next to him, still spilling blood out onto the floor and he would have to bind it up before he bled to death but his son was still hungry. “I’m sorry too,” he whispered. “I mean it,” the little boy said, and Johnny wanted to believe him. “I’m sorry.” Then the kid’s teeth were sinking into his neck. He heard himself cry out, and he heard it echo around his head like maybe two of him were screaming at once and that didn’t make any fucking sense but then his eyes were snapping open and he hadn’t realized they’d been closed. The scream still hung in the air and he thought about doing it again because he didn’t know where he was or what was happening but suddenly he wasn’t in the apartment and there wasn’t a child being hugged with one arm and he was alone. He was alone, but he still felt weak and tired and there was blood running down his neck. He sat up gingerly and he realized that he was in Annie’s room and suddenly his heart was slamming against his ribcage. His mind was foggy and sluggish and he looked down at his arm and that was real and mangled and there was so much blood soaking into Annie’s sheets. Then he looked around and there was her dress still crumpled on the floor and his pants next to that and that was real too and his head hurt so fucking bad. This was just like the dream. He wondered if he was dead. He didn’t feel dead. His body hurt like a mother fucker and it wouldn’t hurt if he was dead, would it? His memories were warring with each other in his brain and he couldn’t tell which one of them was real and which one was the dream. He closed his eyes and he pressed his good hand to his face and tried to concentrate and then he felt the scars shifting against the skin of his hand. The scars on his lips, the ones he’d gotten in an asylum in Kentucky, and there was the gash across his face from where Vaughn had tried to cut his tongue out and they were real and his son wasn’t. He tried to lift his arm and he heard himself cry out with the pain of it. He used his other arm to pull it to his chest and there was nothing left of it anymore. He felt bile rise in his throat and then he felt the rage and pain and anger rising in a tidal wave and how the fuck had he been so stupid? How had he believed that he would ever ditch his brother in a hospital for a fucking monster baby? Except maybe if that had happened four years ago, he would have. Maybe if Annie had died giving birth four years ago then he would’ve done just that and dumped his brother to raise his kid and that hurt like a bitch. He heard footsteps outside the room and he raised his head. Mr. Richards stood in the doorway and he was pressing a hand to his forehead. He met Johnny’s eyes over the bed and he took in the blood pouring from his arm and smeared across his face. He kept waiting for the old man to start screaming at him and asking what in God’s name he was doing in his granddaughter’s bed and where was Annie and why was Johnny’s arm torn up. He didn’t say any of those things. He shook his head and rubbed his temples and then Johnny heard him curse for probably the first time in his life. “What the fuck was that?” Wenston Ayden could see Annie’s car up ahead of him. He was feeling tired and anxious and restless as he drove behind her and he kept glancing at the broken window. He hoped Johnny was awake and okay and would yell at him for busting out the window and he started to think about what lie he was going to give his brother because the window was broken before this whole mess had even started. Maybe he could blame it on the thing Annie had killed inside the store? The only other person to see him bust the window was Mr. Richards and he didn’t think the old man would tell on him. He hoped Mr. Richards was awake too, to keep his secret. Annie had said Johnny was bleeding. She said his arm had looked like someone was chewing away at it and that made Ayden grip the steering wheel until his knuckles started bleeding again and turned white because that pissed him off and he hoped Johnny was awake and could heal himself. And if he was stupid enough not to heal himself, he was going to punch him again until he did. Because Ayden was in the mood to hit things and his hands were already fucking killing him so what was one more thing to hit? He saw Annie’s car turn the corner up ahead to her street and she was speeding up and he could only imagine how nervous and anxious she was to get back to his brother. He was feeling anxious too and he put his foot down on the gas pedal a little bit harder. Annie’s car disappeared out of his line of sight and he didn’t know why but that scared him. He sped up a little more. Then he heard a grunt come from the back seat. His eyes shot to the rearview mirror and he let out a yelp because there was an old lady sitting in the backseat and she looked like nothing more than skin and bones and she was the exact same thing as the fucking guy they’d just killed in the store. Only she looked pissed and not scared and he wondered if this was that guy’s mate or lover or something, because the look on her face was a lover scorned. She screamed and reached forward to touch him and he wasn’t having it because he’d already been in a fantasy dream land today and he wasn’t going fucking back there. He jerked the steering wheel hard to the left and the tires squealed and screeched as he rounded the corner and went up the curb then back onto Annie’s street. He saw the woman slide across the back seat and slam into the door, her head cracking against the window and splintering it into a spiderweb of cracks and breaks. Man, Johnny was going to be pissed. Then she was reaching forward again and Ayden grabbed his gun off the passenger seat and whirled and aimed it in the back seat. He kept his left hand, slightly numb, around the steering wheel and his foot on the pedal but he wasn’t watching where he was going because his eyes were on this bitch in the backseat. Her hands wrapped around his wrist before he could fire a shot and he braced himself to wake up in a different world but it never happened. Instead, white smoke seeped up and out of his skin and he gasped loudly because it felt like something inside him was ripping and shredding and tearing and he knew that feeling already and why couldn’t people just leave his soul the fuck alone. She inhaled and the smoke sucked into her mouth. He fired the gun but her head snapped to the side and he ended up blowing out the window instead of her head. She turned and screamed and the smoke billowed out the window. Ayden whirled back towards the front because he realized he was still driving and he slammed on the brakes because Annie was parked in her driveway and she was scrambling out of the car because she’d heard his gun go off. He saw her run around the car with her guns drawn. Johnny’s car slid to a screeching halt and he felt the woman slam into the back of his seat. He growled and turned to shoot her again. She cackled and caught him with a blow across the face and then she was wrenching the gun out of his hand and scrambling out of the car, a lot faster than he thought an old woman like her should move. He growled and went to get out as well but he froze as he looked out the front window and saw someone standing in front of the car. The shirt was familiar. It was a blue mechanic shirt that had the name Gary embroidered in red over the left breast. He may not have recognized the man at first unless it had been for that damn shirt. Ayden had gotten up close and personal with that fucking shirt so many times and it always ended with pain and to this day he never liked blue mechanic shirts. They always reminded him of his father. The man looked nothing like how he had been in Ayden’s dream world. His skin was rotting and falling off. His eyes were yellow and hollow and there was blood dripping from his mouth. Ayden thought he looked like a really bad extra in a zombie movie. He was grinning and he was staring right at Ayden and Ayden felt his chest constrict because this was fucking scary. This was his Dad. And this wasn’t a dream land. This was real and the man was fucking standing right fucking there. “Ayden?” Annie’s voice came and his eyes moved pass his dad and he saw her walking towards his father slowly, guns held out in front of her. She looked mortified because she’d been scared of their father too. Then Gary Marshall was turning and he was looking at Annie and Ayden didn’t like that. “Mother fucker,” Ayden growled out and he pressed the gas pedal and the brake pedal and he heard the tires squealing and screeching and he saw his Dad turn and look at him and then he let go of the brakes and the car lurched forward and struck the man and Ayden just pressed the gas down as far as it would go. He saw Annie jump out of the way. And then Johnny’s car was colliding with Annie’s and there was a squelching sound as his Dad was squished between the two. The car came to an immediate stop and Ayden was flung forward, his head smacking the steering wheel and he felt his forehead bust open and everything went dark for a moment. He heard the crush and grind of metal and there was a dripping and then someone was tugging on the driver’s side door. He had to blink for a few seconds because there was blood running into his eyes and he distantly thought that he was going to have a word with his brother because where the fuck were the air bags? Annie ripped the door open and then her hand was on the back of his head and she was looking at his eyes and she was talking but he couldn’t hear her. He blinked again and swallowed and all of a sudden his head really, really fucking hurt. He tried to lift his head but it was just so fucking heavy and he wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep but that wasn’t right because Annie was still out there and Johnny and Mr. Richards needed him too. He focused on Annie and her moving mouth and when he tried to listen, his hearing came back. “Come on,” she was saying and her eyes were darting around frantically. “We need to move, Ayden, please.” She begged and she was tugging at his arm. Then the windshield shattered and Ayden felt someone grab him around the collar of the shirt and yank him forward. He found himself face to face with his father and he gasped because this version of his Dad was a lot scarier than the one in his dream world. “Let him go!” Annie screamed and she stood and aimed a gun at Gary Marshall’s head. Ayden’s eyes darted over to her and he gasped out her name because there was someone approaching her from behind. It was an old woman, and not the creepy old one. It was one that Ayden thought he recognized. The old woman touched Annie’s shoulder and Annie whirled around and then gasped loudly. “Annabelle,” the old woman said. “Are you trying to be one of the boys?” Annie’s hands were shaking as she held the gun. “Grandma?” she whispered. Ayden wanted to help her, he really did. But his father had a hold of his shirt and their faces were so close and Ayden had blood trickling down his. He felt one hand let go of his shirt and he saw his father’s fist cock backwards. Then the front door to Annie’s house flung open and all eyes turned towards the door. Mr. Richards came out first with a shotgun pressed to his shoulder. His eyes opened wide when he surveyed the scene. Ayden nearly cried out when he saw who was following him. His arm was mangled and held tightly to his side. He held a gun that didn’t belong to him in his other hand and he looked at Annie, then to her Grandma, then to their father and his eyes widened a little bit and then fell on Ayden who just felt so fucking relieved to see his brother up and moving. Ayden’s body suddenly went slack because it was okay now. Johnny was here. And he was awake. And he wasn’t lying dead on a train track. Then the dead Gary Marshall who was still pinned between the two cars and who had Ayden pulled halfway out of the windshield punched Ayden across the face and Ayden grunted because this felt really fucking familiar. His vision blurred and his head hurt and there was so much going on at once that he couldn’t concentrate. But he heard Johnny swear and he smiled because his brother was fucking awake now. .Wolfie. Johnny didn’t know why but he was thinking about the dog his father had killed when he was only eight years old. He was thinking about the words his father had said and they kept repeating themselves over and over in his head as he told him “This is what you do when something start shitting on your property” and he just wanted to scream them back at the old man as he yanked his brother through the windshield of his beloved Cadillac.His arm raised and he was firing the gun into his father’s head and maybe he should’ve felt a little weird about that but he’d already killed the man once and when Johnny told something to die it better fucking stay that way. “You fucking piece of shit you get the fuck away from my brother,” he shouted. He was just shouting curses and maybe later he would apologize to Mr. Richards but right now he was pissed and he was hurt and there was blood running down what was left of his arm and he couldn’t even raise it because half the muscled had been devoured by a child he’d never had. The bullets caught his father in the neck and the jaw and his head snapped back. His fingers loosened on Ayden’s shirt but his brother was just laying there, his eyes dazed and glazed over and Johnny was snarling as he walked forward. He couldn’t spare a hand to pull his brother back because that meant holstering his gun. His other arm was fucking useless right now and that made him mad too because right now he just wanted to unload both clips into the bastard in front of him and he didn’t know what he was screaming anymore but they were all curse words and they were all mean. He shot his father again and his head slammed back against Annie’s car, bone blowing out the back. Behind him, he heard Mr. Richards shout something and he stole a glance over his shoulder. The man had the shotgun held tightly to his shoulder and there were tears in his eyes but he wasn’t hesitating, taking slow, limping steps forward to the woman he’d married a hundred years ago. She was lying on the ground and Mr. Richards had blown one of her legs off at the knee. Annie was stumbling back from her, one of her pistols clattering to the ground and there were tears in her eyes. She looked sad and broken and lost, but not nearly as much as her grandfather. “Please,” the woman on the ground said. Her hand reached up towards him. “Frank, don’t leave me.” He watched the old man’s face harden into an unreadable mask. “You ain’t my wife,” he said quietly, and then he pulled the trigger. Annie cried out as the gun went off and he saw one of her pistols fall from her hand but she didn’t move forward to stop it as the shotgun ripped the woman apart. Maybe she looked like her grandmother and had her voice and wore her skin, but her grandmother was dead and the old man knew it better than anyone. “Johnny,” Ayden shouted behind him, and that was all the warning he got before the fingers closed around the back of his neck and forced them both to the ground. He felt his fists striking him in the back of the head and he knew the shape of them because he’d felt those fists a thousand times when he was a kid and he was sure he still had scars in their shape. His arm bounced off the ground and he cried out because it fucking hurt like a bitch and then he was rolling over, jamming his elbow back into the man’s face. “You stay down, boy,” the old man growled at him and it sounded like the old bastard too. “Fuck you,” he snarled back and he felt another fist hit the back of his head. For a second he saw stars and he remembered being seventeen and beaten until he was unconscious for three days. The old man was rolling him over and now he was being struck in the face and he felt his nose snap under the blow. The eyes looking down at him were dark and maybe this was the walking corpse of his father, back from his grave to get revenge on the son that had killed him. Maybe he wasn’t just some twisted dream world dad gone wrong and maybe this was the real deal. Johnny didn’t fucking care anymore because either way the bastard was going to die a second time. “Heal,” he told himself as he felt the fingers close around his throat. He heard Ayden gasp from the car and he hoped the kid had his seatbelt on anyway because Johnny couldn’t get to him to hold him down right at the moment. His father’s grip tightened around his neck and he felt them bruising as they tried to choke the life out of him. He felt the skin and the muscle screaming as it grew and knit back together in the gaping wound where his arm used to be and then he was hitting his father in the side of the head as hard as he could. The old man jerked, his skull snapping back with a crack and then Johnny was tackling him to the ground. “I told you to die, mother fucker,” he snarled at him. “That means you fucking stay dead.” He kept hitting him, even after his face wasn’t recognizable anymore. He kept hitting him until he stopped struggling and he was just making wet, smacking sounds as he pounded his fist into the dirt. He kept hitting him until he stopped being afraid that he was going to get up and then he sat back heavily on his knees and he glanced over at Annie. She wasn’t looking at him and neither was her grandfather, because something else was stumbling out of the shadows and they were watching that. It was a little boy. It was a little boy with blood on his face and he looked at Annie and opened his mouth and said “Momma?” He heard Mr. Richards gasp sharply and the old man’s finger tightened on the trigger but he couldn’t make himself shoot a child, especially one that might have been his great grandbaby. The kid stumbled forward and he looked tired and sad and Johnny recognized those big, aching eyes and for a second the lines between fiction and reality blurred and he watched his child reach for the mother he’d never known because giving birth to him had killed her. Except that had never happened and this wasn’t their child and it never would be their child. He felt himself snarling as he hauled himself to his feet and left his father’s battered corpse in the dirt and then he was grabbing Annie by the arm and pulling her behind him and firing bullet after bullet into the kid. Shane screamed as they ripped through him and he heard Annie scream in response and she was clinging to his arm and striking him at the same time and he understood it. He kept pulling the trigger until the gun was empty and then he grabbed her fallen pistol out of the dirt and kept firing. The kid crumpled like a puppet. He fell down into the dirt, filled with bullet holes and maybe four years ago Johnny wouldn’t have been able to do that. Maybe four years ago before he knew what it was like to live without her he wouldn’t have been able to shoot down their kid. He wasn’t that man anymore. He didn’t know who he was, but he didn’t feel bad and he didn’t feel guilty because the thing that collapsed into the dirt wasn’t a child. It was a ghost and he was just putting it back under ground. He turned and pulled her into his arms and she was shaking and hitting him. “You killed him,” she whispered, and she was sobbing. “No baby,” he told her. “He was already dead.” Another sob wracked her body and he was going to have a lot of making up to do when this was all over. He pulled her closer to him and his eyes went over her shoulder to his brother and he let loose a panicked shout because his little brother was sitting limply in the driver’s seat, the door hanging off its hinges and later he was going to throw a shit fit about that because he fucking loved that car and now it was a junker and maybe he’d said he would destroy the car if that’s what it took to fix everything but he hadn’t fucking meant it so literally. Then he focused on the woman crouching in front of Ayden and he felt another wave of rage and fury sinking through him because she was doing something to his brother and it was nothing good. Her fingers were on his face and she was holding his head up so that she could look into his eyes. Her mouth hung open and the teeth inside were brittle and yellowed and she was sucking something out of his brother. Pale white smoke was drifting out from between his lips into her mouth and Ayden wasn’t moving to stop her. He released Annie and then he was stalking forward. His boot connected with the back of her head and he was slamming her into the bottom of the car. Her head cracked hard and loud against the metal and he heard a scream pull its way out of her lips and she should’ve been fucking screaming and he hit her again with his foot to make sure she kept doing it. “You fucking bitch whore from Hell you keep your fucking dirty fucking paws off my fucking brother,” and he was cursing up a storm and his boot was coming down on her face again and he saw her teeth fly off under the car. She tried to move when the next blow came and he let her scramble away from the car because he wanted to shoot her, but not the beast because his poor beast had suffered enough damage. She was clawing and dragging her way across the ground and he shot her through the spine first to make sure she stopped trying to wriggle away. She cried out when the bullet hit home and then she was rolling over and looking sadly up at him. “Please,” she said, and it made him mad that she was begging. “I can give you anything you wish for,” she told him. He snorted. “I don’t make wishes,” he said, and then he shot her in her fucking mouth. Wenston Ayden sat on the couch and ran his fingers over the newly sewn up gash on his forehead. He couldn’t help but think that at least this scar made the eye that had been carved into his skin look not so obvious. He was staring at the television and he snorted when he realized it was on a trivia show and he knew how much he fucking hated those trivia shows. He could hear Annie and Mr. Richards out on the front yard, cleaning up and a part of him felt guilty because it seemed like they were always leaving someone behind to clean up after them. His head hurt. His chest hurt. And his soul was a little tender but it was at least still there. He closed his eyes and rolled his head to the side. He didn’t realize he’d been drifting off until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Rolling his head back he saw Johnny standing behind the couch. His brother had a spatula in one hand and Ayden’s eyes fell on the fresh new scar on his arm that looked hideous. He couldn’t imagine what it felt like to be eaten and he wasn’t sure if that’s what really happened but it sure fucking looked like that. “Don’t sleep,” Johnny said and Ayden sighed because he hated concussions and their stupid no sleeping rule. He was fucking tired. Johnny rounded the couch and practically fell into the loveseat and he leaned back, toying with the spatula in his hands. Ayden watched him. Johnny looked sad and Ayden didn’t like that so he cleared his throat and his brother looked up at him. “I’m sorry.” Johnny frowned. “For what?” “I don’t know, lots of things,” Ayden said and he sighed. Johnny snorted and shook his head, looking at the ceiling and they sat there quietly for a moment. Ayden picked at the hem of his shirt. “Was that your kid?” he asked softly. He watched his brother’s eyes snap down and glare at him. “No,” Johnny said and his voice was cold. He was being unusually quiet and less talkative than normal and maybe it was because he was upset. “That was a ghost, that wasn’t my fucking kid.” “Okay,” Ayden said and he sounded like he was defending himself. He fidgeted a little on the couch and rubbed his knuckles because there were band aids on them. He frowned a little and didn’t look at his brother as he said, “I’d be an asshole if you died.” Johnny was quiet a moment and then finally said, “What?” Ayden rolled his head on the back of the couch and looked at his brother. He felt stupid saying this to him but Johnny needed to hear it because it was only yesterday they’d argued about Ayden being better off without him. “If we weren’t Godsent,” Ayden’s tongue curled around the word in a snarl. “If you’d died on the train tracks. I would have been an asshole, when I grew up. I would have been an alcoholic and…I woulda turned into Dad.” His brother just stared at him for a moment. He licked his lips and his hand came up to feel the scars over his mouth and he’d been doing that a lot lately. Ayden watched him and he wondered what he was thinking. Then Johnny smiled and it was half hearted because it was too painful yet to talk about this stuff and they would have to talk about it later. “Well I’m glad I didn’t die, then,” he joked. “Me too,” Ayden said and he said it quickly and it surprised them both. Ayden felt his heart pounding in his chest and he looked away from his brother. His heart still hurt a little bit too much to have this conversation right now and he could still see the vision his brother had forced into his head of their Dad out on Annie’s front lawn choking Johnny to death. He closed his eyes and he kept them closed for a little too long because Johnny kicked the couch and he growled when he opened them. “I didn’t get to kill anything.” Johnny snorted. “You did a pretty bang up job on my car.” Ayden turned wide eyes to his brother and Johnny was struggling to keep the smile off his face. “I’ll pay to fix it,” he said before he could stop to think about how exactly that would work. His head was fuzzy and he wasn’t thinking straight. “Oh yeah?” Johnny tipped his head and looked amused. “How do you plan on doing that?” “Okay, Ashley will pay for it.” Johnny actually laughed and then he leaned forward and scrubbed his hand over his face. He looked tired and worn out and maybe it was a good thing they were here for a little while. Then Johnny looked up at him and his face was sad. He looked like he wanted to say something, like he wanted to tell Ayden something or apologize or just get up and give him a fucking hug, but he couldn’t quite do it and Ayden wondered what his brother had seen in his dream land other than the kid. He wondered what could hurt him that deeply because the wounded look on his brother’s face ran deep. Ayden saved him from talking about it. “Are you cooking something?” he asked and pointed to the spatula in Johnny’s hands when his brother gave him a blank look. Johnny looked down at the spatula in his hands and then he shrugged and looked back up at Ayden. “Breakfast,” he said like it was just that simple. “Breakfast,” Ayden repeated and Johnny nodded, like he didn’t understand what the big deal was. Ayden snorted. “Dude, you never cook.” Johnny chuckled a little. “I promised Annie.” Ayden nodded, because that made sense. Then he paused and frowned because that made sense, but breakfast usually followed…. “Oh god, did you guys do it last night?” he asked and there was a grin spreading on his face. A cocky grin quirked the edge of Johnny’s lips and Ayden groaned loudly as his brother laughed and climbed to his feet without saying anything. “Does that mean you’ve made up, then?” “I guess,” Johnny shrugged. Ayden nodded and looked towards the kitchen because he smelled smoke. “Are you burning something?” “Oh shit,” Johnny said and ran towards the kitchen. Ayden laughed and climbed to his feet. He wobbled a little and had to grip the couch to keep from taking a nose dive into the coffee table. “This is why I do the cooking,” he called after his brother. The front door opened and Ayden looked up as Annie and Mr. Richards came inside. Ayden tried to give them a half hearted smile, but they both looked serious and he wondered what they’d been discussing outside. He knew Mr. Richards had seen and heard Johnny use his power. He’d seen the Wicked things and he wondered if Annie had just filled him in on the details. By the way the man was looking at him, that’s exactly what happened. Johnny came back into the living room and he smiled at Annie and said, “I hope you like your toast extra blackened.” Annie smiled softly back, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. The question that came out of her mouth next they weren’t expecting. “What’s Legion?” .Wolfie. Johnny’s eyes snapped to Ayden and he saw his brother looking conspicuously down at the floor. He wondered how much his brother had let slip and he had to bite his tongue to keep from yelling because this wasn’t how he wanted to have this conversation. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorway, staring down at the carpet. Annie had asked the question in front of her grandfather, so that meant she didn’t care if he heard the answer. He cleared his throat.“Legion, is, um, he’s a demon. Well, many demons. In one.” He ran his fingers over the scars on his lips and didn’t look at her. He heard her take a breath. “Alright. Well, what does he have to do with you?” Johnny winced and he didn’t know how to explain. He didn’t think she’d take it well if he just burst out that Legion was the demon who was going to come fuck up their lives and anyone in it, but he wasn’t exactly the most tactful person in the world. He wondered if she was going to leave him when he was through talking. He hoped not, but maybe it would be better if she did. She would be safer, anyway. “Well,” he drawled. “You know how we said Vaughn used Ayden to summon a demon?” She nodded slowly. “The guy you met in prison.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and Mr. Richards wasn’t saying anything but he wondered if this was the part where he finally got a bullet between the eyes. He didn’t know if Annie’s grandfather had been aware of their prison time but he sure as hell did now. Then again, their faces had been plastered all over the news, so maybe Annie had already had that conversation with him. The man’s face was an unreadable mask and he settled into his chair, arms resting on his knees as he studied Johnny. He rested his chin in his hands and it covered his mouth as he listened. “Yeah,” Johnny nodded. “That’s the guy. Well…as it turns out, Vaughn was sort of… an evil Ashley Baker. Hell’s go-between.” “Okay,” she whispered, and he wondered what she was thinking. Ayden was being too quiet. He glanced at his brother for back up, but he wasn’t saying anything and he wasn’t looking up off the floor. He wondered if his brother just wanted him to handle it or if he was afraid of saying the wrong thing, or if he was thinking about the demon he’d had shoved down his throat. Johnny rubbed a hand on the back of his neck and looked back at Annie. She was wearing his shirt and it looked better on her. He had missed her. He had missed calling her his woman and suddenly he just felt so tired because he’d been bled dry already today and losing her again was going to hurt. He sighed and let his head fall back against the wall with a heavy thump. “We killed him. I killed him anyway. I killed Vaughn and Ayden forced the demon out and then we killed him too. I sent him back to Hell all gift wrapped with a pretty bow.” His hand ran over his face and he felt stubble and scars and the one that Vaughn had given him under his fingers and he wondered how many more he would have when this was all through. “Well, according to Ashley, that just put us on top of the devil’s most wanted list. According to Ashley, we started a war with Hell.” He glanced back down and both Annie and her grandfather were staring at him. Ayden sighed and looked up. “We shouldn’t have come here,” he said quietly, and his voice was sad and low and Johnny couldn’t argue with the words. “Legion is the first demon the devil is going to send after us, if he’s not already looking for us. Ashley says he’ll destroy everything we touch before he comes for us.” Ayden shook his head again and looked down at the carpet. “We shouldn’t have come here,” he whispered. Annie swallowed hard and her arms crossed over her chest. “When were you gonna tell me this?” she asked quietly. His fingers danced over the scars on his lips and he really wanted a cigarette. He hadn’t really planned on telling her if he didn’t have to and suddenly that seemed like a really stupid plan because they should have warned her the second they set foot in this house except Johnny was terrified she would have kicked them right back out the door. “I don’t know,” he said, and his voice sounded like that stupid bitchy teenager again and he hated it. “I was waiting for the right moment. We weren’t gonna leave without telling you.” “Were you planning on leaving without me?” she snapped, and he couldn’t tell what she was more mad about, that they might leave without her or that they hadn’t told her about Legion. She looked angry but he didn’t even know what to start apologizing for this time. He smelled something burning in the kitchen and she would probably be mad about that too. Johnny’s rubbed the back of his neck and he wished he had a cigarette. “Darlin’, that’s up to you,” he said quietly. She rolled her eyes at him and threw her hands up in the air. “Jesus Johnny, you’re so fucking stupid sometimes I wonder how you can take a piss by yourself.” “He can’t,” Ayden said with a grin. He was startled when her grandfather started laughing. He glanced over at the old man and even Annie seemed surprised at the reaction. He was still sitting in his chair, hand covering his face and he wasn’t trying to hold the laughter in. He shook his head slowly and then he stood up and he was still grinning. “Well Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph,” he said. He walked across the room and gripped Johnny hard by the shoulder. “I always knew you boys had a knack for finding trouble, but to piss of the God damned Devil himself?” He tipped his head back and laughed again. “Grandpa, that isn’t funny,” Annie said darkly. He chuckled and turned to her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Sure it is, little lady. It’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day.” He turned back to Johnny and he was looking right in his face. “You say you boys started a war? Well, nobody won a war just hidin’ out in the trenches. You want to get out of this thing alive, you better get your guns and start stormin’ the beach. Now give me the damned spatula before you burn my house down.” He took it from Johnny’s hands and strode past him into the kitchen. “I better help him,” Ayden said abruptly, following her grandfather out of the room. He grinned at Johnny as he passed and he rolled his eyes because his brother was less than subtle about wanting giving him and Annie a chance to talk. He wondered if it would just end in him getting his ass beat. Johnny focused on Annie’s face and she was just shaking her head. “Have I mentioned your grandfather scares the piss out of me sometimes?” “Me too,” she admitted. She sighed and turned away from him, sinking down onto the couch cushion. He felt strangely awkward again but he followed her anyway, sitting down next to her. He reached out to hold her hand and she squeezed his fingers back, glancing down at the brand new scar he had on his arm. It was practically his entire forearm, just a mass of thick and ugly white lumps and he shivered because he could still remember the sensation of teeth sinking into his skin. It just made him mad, because what kind of a fucking moron was his dream self to just lay there? All the sensations and emotions had felt almost the same, but the overwhelming sense of wrongness had never left. Johnny fucking Marshall would never hesitate to shoot one of the wicked, no matter what face it was wearing. He wondered when that had happened, when he had crossed the line, because maybe once he would’ve paused. He would’ve thought twice about it and he would have looked into the eyes of his child and been paralyzed. Maybe it was after the second time Annie had left him. Maybe it was after Vaughn had put his whispers in his head and Johnny had killed a man possessed. He ran his fingers over the scars on his face and he was suddenly thinking of the words Vaughn had told him, that the devil already had his fingers in his brain and that Johnny was playing for the wrong team. His hand tightened around Annie’s and he glanced down at the scars on his arm and thought about the scars on his back and he wondered if this was really who he was or if there was something else going on under his skin. “That kid,” she said quietly, and his eyes went to her face. Her voice was shaking but she didn’t look like she was ready to cry and he wondered what she was thinking because they had never talked about the baby after he died. They’d hardly talked at all after that. He wondered if she still hated him for that and if she was ever going to forgive him. He wondered if he was ever going to forgive himself and he gave her hand a small squeeze and looked at the ground. She was staring at his arm, her fingers coming up to trace the thick white mass. “That was our son.” He shook his head. “No,” he told her, and he tried to keep his voice gentle. “Our son died.” She nodded slowly and her face was a cool mask. “I know,” she said, and then she met his eyes. “But you wished he hadn’t.” “I don’t wish,” Johnny said stubbornly, and he slumped down on the couch next to her. He scrubbed his other hand through his hair and looked up at the ceiling because it was easier than looking at her face and wondering what was going on in her head. “But no, that’s not what I wanted. I wasn’t even going to give him a stupid penny, but then the old man asked what’s the one thing I would’ve changed.” His voice lowered and he tilted his head to look at her. “It was you. I wished I’d never let you go.” She smiled sadly and leaned her head into his arm. “Why did you?” He snorted and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “’Cause I’m too fucking stupid to take a piss, remember?” She laughed and snuggled in closer to him and he didn’t understand why she was still here and not telling him to get the fuck out of her house or slamming the door in his face again. He wanted to ask, but he was afraid if he did maybe she would realize that’s what she should’ve been doing. “That’s why you’re gonna need my help against Legion,” she told him, and he loved that there was no doubt in her voice. “No fucking demon is going to hurt my boys, the devil go fuck himself.” “Annie…” and he trailed off because he wasn’t sure what he should be convincing her of. He wanted to tell her that she should stay in Texas and with her grandfather and away from them. He wanted to tell her that the closer she got to him, the more she would get hurt and maybe she would get her throat sliced open and he wouldn’t be able to fix it. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry, for a lot of things he’d done wrong, but he didn’t want to wear the words out and he’d already said them enough. What he really wanted to tell her was that he loved her and he would never let her go again. “Maybe, it’s better, if we just go,” he whispered. She sat up and turned to face him. “Johnny,” she said quietly. “Shut the fuck up.” He opened his mouth to argue with her and she silenced him with a kiss. It was slow and soft and forgiving and he didn’t understand why she didn’t hate him. He didn’t understand why she wasn’t slamming the door in his face and telling him to go deal with Legion on his own and stop fucking up her life. Her hand squeezed his and she kissed the scar on his cheek one last time before rising from the couch. “I’m going to eat my breakfast and then we’ll go.” “What about the beast?” he asked, and he hated how sad and pathetic his voice sounded. Just thinking about his poor Cadillac made him depressed because he loved that car and the thing was little more than scrap metal now. She laughed and bent over the couch to kiss him again. “Grandpa’s going to fix it for you,” she said. “Old man needs something to keep him busy anyway.” “I heard that,” Mr. Richards called from the kitchen. She laughed softly. “We’ll take my car in the mean time. It’s gonna take a while to fix, you know,” and he wasn’t sure if she was still talking about the beast, or their relationship. Annie smiled again and then her fingers were brushing the scars on his cheek and she looked so fucking sad that he wondered what he’d done. Her lips brushed over his forehead. “No more secrets, Johnny,” she told him. He nodded slowly and she gave him that soft, sad smile again and headed into the kitchen. His brother came out a second later, a piece of toast dangling from between his lips. He leaned over the back of the couch and shook his head at Johnny, smiling slowly. “Don’t you ever eat?” he asked, dropping crumbs from his lips into the couch. They fell on his shirt and he brushed them off carelessly. “Nope,” Johnny told him. “I live off cigarettes and bullets.” Ayden laughed and then he slid into the seat next to Johnny. “Is she staying?” He sighed and tipped his head back. “She says she’s going with us. Didn’t really give me a choice about it.” He smiled a little at that and he didn’t know if he was more scared she was going with them or that he’d thought she might leave. He sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face and focused on Ayden’s. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said abruptly, and he almost swore as soon as the words left his mouth because he was about as subtle as a freight train. Ayden raised an eyebrow. “Do what to me?” “Ditch you like that. Put you in a hospital,” and he almost couldn’t meet his brother’s eyes. Ayden sucked in a breath and he looked nervous now because it always seemed to make him uncomfortable when Johnny told him important shit. He saw the moment when Ayden realized that meant, what had happened in Johnny’s stupid wish dream. “Oh,” he said and he picked at the couch with his thumb. He was still chewing a mouthful of toast and he swallowed it hard. “I know,” he said, and maybe he did. “I just thought I’d tell you. In case you weren’t sure or somethin’. I’ll always be there for you,” his voice was low and he almost couldn’t hear himself out of the bad ear. He looked at his brother’s face so that he could be sure Ayden heard him because he never wanted to hear that broken, lost tone in his brother’s voice again. He had left him in some stupid hospital, nothing but a shell of a man, and Johnny wanted to punch his stupid fucking dream self in the face for it because he was supposed to look out for Ayden, not ditch him to protect some fucking wicked baby. Ayden nodded slowly. “I know,” he said again. Johnny smiled and slapped his brother on the back. He looked down at the ground and rubbed his fingers over his lips and wished he had a cigarette because they were bad at the sharing their feelings and their souls but his brother had to know and Johnny had to tell him that he would never fucking leave him like that. “Yeah, well. Don’t you fucking forget it.” His brother nodded again and he swallowed the last of his toast. “Hey Johnny?” he said, looking up at his brother’s face. Johnny raised an eyebrow at his brother. “Yeah?” “You still owe me another ice cream.” Johnny snorted and smirked. “Yeah, well you owe me a fucking car. Which by the way, you are never allowed to drive again.” † † † Old Frank Richards stood on the porch with a shotgun in his hand. He could hear cussing and yelling from the other side of the door and he heard the thump of a fist striking flesh. He’d heard it enough times when he was a kid, heard it when his father hit him or his brother and the old fear never quite went away. He’d been overseas and seen men die and made men die and the one thing that still scared him was the memory of his old man beating him stupid. He gritted his teeth and stood up a little straighter. The door was yanked open and Gary Marshall stood there, his right hand still curled into a fist and his eyes red and bloodshot. “Frank,” he said, and he tried to force a smile on his face. There was blood on his knuckles and Frank felt his teeth grinding together. It wasn’t his family and they weren’t his boys. He wasn’t the type of man to stick his nose into other people’s business, but his little Annabelle was at home right now, crying her little eyes out because Johnny Marshall was in the hospital and right now they weren’t sure if he was going to wake up. “Hey Gary,” he said. “Can I have a word?” He pulled the door shut behind him and stepped out on the porch. He was eyeing the shotgun in Frank’s hands and he could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. He kept it cradled loosely in his arms and he didn’t threaten him or raise it to his shoulder, not yet anyway. “What can I do for you, Frank?” he asked, and he crossed his arms over his chest and tried to look casual. He smelled like liquor and blood. “I just wanted to talk to you a minute about Johnny. My little girl’s real broke up about it.” He watched the other man’s face as he said the words. He saw his jaw tighten. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re pretty shook up about it too. My youngest isn’t taking it so well.” He wondered why the man wouldn’t say Ayden’s name. He wondered how he could stand there on the porch and act like it was a god damned bike accident when everybody and their neighbor already knew he had beaten his boy into a coma. He wondered how he could just stand there and wear his son’s blood on his hands like there was nothing wrong with that. He managed a cold smirk and nodded his head. “Yeah, I bet he is. But listen, I just wanted to show you something. You see this gun?” He nodded at the shotgun in his arms and Gary nodded slowly, licking his lips nervously. “Well, me and this gun have been through some pretty rough times together. You know I killed a man with this once? Killed a man with some other guns too, but this one’s special. You ever seen a man die, Gary? You ever looked in his eyes and watched the life just leave his body? You ever seen that moment where suddenly there’s nothin’ but a corpse in front of you?” Gary shook his head slowly and he didn’t say a word. Frank nodded like he’d answered him. “I have. Let me tell you, once you kill someone, it stays with you for the rest of your life. Sometimes it gets easier, sometimes it’s harder, but you never forget it.” He sighed and cracked the shotgun open. “Right now, this gun ain’t loaded. Right now the bullets are sitting in a box at home. But Gary, I’m gonna tell you, you ever, ever put one of your boys in the hospital again, I’m gonna come back here, and we’re gonna have this talk again. Except next time, this gun’s gonna be loaded. You understand me?” Gary Marshall nodded his head slowly and Frank smiled, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Good. Because Gary, I gotta tell you, I hate repeating myself.” Wenston Session #9: Route 66 There were nightmares, and then there were nightmares. There was watching your brother die and drown in a dunk tank beneath some big top with clowns laughing around him. There was watching him get mauled by a lion or gutted by a ghoul or having his tongue cut out by a man named Vaughn who had a forked tongue of his own. There was watching him get smeared across the train tracks at thirteen years old. There was watching him waste away to nothing, a drunk and abusive alcoholic after having yourself get shot in the throat by your own fucking father. These were all things that could have been and should have been and would have been. And then there were the nightmares that didn’t have a purpose, or if they did, he didn’t know it. They weren’t there to show him the future or the past or some alternative reality. They weren’t a warning or a prophecy and they weren’t God’s word or the Devil’s whispers. They were just nightmares and they were scary as fuck. Ayden had been having the same nightmare for the past week and it wasn’t getting any less scary as the days went by. They’d been on the road for a week and a half because Ayden’s concussion had literally knocked him on his ass and they had laid low in a motel room for a while so he could recover. He thought he was over it, the concussion, but the headaches were coming more frequently now and maybe he’d had one concussion too many because didn’t it take six for a person to be brain damaged or was that just a myth? The nightmare was something he couldn’t explain. He’d thought it was maybe God or the Devil fucking with him at first, or maybe Amon had left a time bomb inside his head that was slowly trying to drive him crazy. But it was scary and awful and horrid and abstract. It made no sense but at the same time when he woke up, he woke up screaming and that meant Johnny and Annie woke up and he was all out of apologies for them. They didn’t seem to mind. The first couple of nights, maybe. Johnny had cussed at him and told him to go back to sleep because he was cranky when he was woken up in the middle of the night. But the third night, Annie had hopped from her bed with Johnny to his and had held his hand until he stopped shaking and had stroked his head until he could see the world clearly without the nightmare resonating all around him. “What are you seeing?” Johnny had asked him on the fifth night and he hadn’t used the voice of God to ask him but he’d been fucking close because he thought the nightmares were fucking with Ayden’s recovery from his concussion. Maybe it was. Ayden had just been shaking, with Annie’s arm around his shoulders and he could only answer with, “I don’t know,” before he laid back down and fell back to sleep because he was so fucking tired. It was always the same. Ayden would be standing in the dark. There would be a million voices all around him, whispering at him through the dark and all of them were whispering his greatest fears. He heard voices telling him his brother was dead, that he was going to hell, that he was all alone, that he was enclosed, encased, encompassed by the dark. They whispered that his father was coming. They whispered that his mother hated him. They whispered that the Devil was coming to take over the world and there was nothing he could do to stop it. And then his eyes burned away in their sockets and he was left with empty, scorched craters on his face and when he screamed, a million voices screamed with him. It was this nightmare that had Ayden yelling and gasping and sitting up in the backseat of Annie’s car. One of his hands was gripping the shoulder of the driver’s seat in front of him and his other hand was placed firmly over his heart because it was beating ten million miles a minute. He took heavy, steady breaths to try and calm himself down. Sweat was beaded on his forehead and he could feel it trickling down his back and soaking through his shirt. He closed his eyes and he tried to file away the nightmare but he couldn’t because it wasn’t a vision, it was just a nightmare. Then he felt a hand on his arm and it was soft and gentle and he opened his eyes and turned to look at Annie, who was in the passenger seat, half turned so she could look at Ayden. Her hand was gripping his forearm to secure him to this world and keep him from slipping into the dream one. He swallowed thickly because he was always embarrassed when he woke up screaming in front of them. It had happened every day for the past week. “Sorry,” he whispered to her and he saw the smile ease its way onto her face. She gave his arm a squeeze and then he was pulling himself around so he was seated normally in the backseat instead of laying down, trying to rest. Ayden’s eyes went to the rearview mirror and he caught Johnny watching him. Ayden looked away because he knew the question was coming and it was the same question his brother had been asking him for the past week. But Ayden didn’t have answers. He couldn’t tell Johnny why he was having the same reoccurring nightmare or what it meant. Maybe he’d seen one scary thing too many and this was his brain’s way of telling him it had had enough and it was going to crap out on him soon. He thought about Johnny telling him that he’d never leave him, that he’d never leave him behind like he had in that stupid fucking dream world. Ayden had never pushed Johnny on the subject or tried to get his brother to tell him what it was like, because the truth of the matter was, that scared Ayden. It scared Ayden because Marko’s brother had done that very thing to him and look at how he’d turned out. And now Ayden had all those visions crammed into his head, the same visions that had drove Marko insane, and how many more could he fit? Johnny cleared his throat and Ayden felt his shoulders slump but his brother surprised him. “You hungry?” and it was his brother’s way to divert attention away from Ayden’s nightmare. They were driving to Tennessee, somewhere near Nashville because Ayden had been sifting through his visions and he’d found one that seemed easy. Johnny had agreed to one more hunt, to take care of one more vision before they tried to figure out how to deal with Legion. Because as it was, they were at a loss. They didn’t even know if Legion had been sent, they were just going off what Ashley Fucking Baker had told them. “No,” Ayden said, leaning back in the seat and settling in. He was so tired. He perked up a little bit though and smirked at his brother in the front seat. “Unless it’s ice cream.” Johnny snorted. “You’re a junkie.” “You still owe me,” Ayden argued. Johnny let out a laugh. “And you still owe me for making me drive this piece of shit car.” “Hey!” Annie cried and slapped Johnny in the chest. Johnny laughed and grinned over at her. “This is my piece of shit car and it’s my pride and joy, thank you very much,” she said, pouting a little. Johnny chuckled and reached a hand over to brush it along the side of her face. “Oh, come on darlin’, no pouting. You know I hate it when you do that.” Annie smiled coyly and then stuck her tongue out at Johnny, who laughed and made to grab it. Annie laughed and jerked her face away from him. “Now that’s more like it,” Johnny drawled. Ayden looked between the two and groaned loud and obnoxiously, drawing both their eyes to him. “You guys really need to get a room and stop eye fucking each other in front of me.” “You know we did it in the back seat there, right?” Johnny asked and winced with a laugh as Annie slapped him again. Ayden made a show of putting a hand to his chest and blowing his cheeks out. “I hope you fucking bleached this car, Annie. No telling what diseases he has.” Annie laughed and Johnny scowled and Ayden just smiled because this felt good. It felt good that Annie was back with them. And maybe they were in her car instead of Johnny’s Cadillac, but so what? This felt normal and he didn’t know how much he’d fucking missed this. The last time Annie had been back, Ayden had been losing his mind because that little fucker Marko had just shoved 14 years worth of visions into his head. So he hadn’t enjoyed having her back. And this was good. “Are we there yet?” Ayden asked and he couldn’t stop the laughter that was bubbling up in his chest because his brother groaned and this was a game they played sometimes. Ayden would pretend to be the annoying, obnoxious little brother and his brother would think that he actually fucking was. “Yes,” Johnny growled playfully. “Why don’t you open the door and take a walk?” “Okay,” Ayden said and he reached for the door handle and he heard Johnny suck in a breath. Ayden snorted and leaned back in the seat. “That’s what I thought,” he narrowed his eyes at his brother who was staring back at him in the rearview mirror and he wondered if Johnny thought he was actually going to do it. He shifted a little under his brother’s stare because Johnny had that look on his face like he was studying and trying to figure Ayden out. Maybe his brother was just as concerned about the nightmares as he was. “So, this thing in Nashville,” Annie said and turned to look at Ayden. He glanced at her and nodded. “Swamp monster, you think?” “Seemed like it,” Ayden said and lowered his eyes because even the easy visions were still scary. “But we should keep Johnny away from bodies of water.” Johnny snorted out a quick, “Fuck you.” Ayden chuckled and reached a hand up to his head because his temple was pounding and a headache was growing behind his eyes. He leaned back in the seat and looked out the window and he really wanted to go back to sleep but the nightmare was still fresh in his mind and there wouldn’t be any escaping it for the rest of the day. He wondered if he’d ever be able to sleep through the night again. The quiet between the three was suddenly broken as the car sputtered. Ayden lifted his head and looked at his brother, whose eyes were darting between the road in front of them and the gauges on the car. “Oh fuck you, car, don’t do this,” he growled out. “You have to talk sweet to her,” Annie said and reached forward to rub the dashboard. “I’ll show this piece of shit sweet talking,” Johnny growled and then in answer, the car spluttered and smoke started coming out of the engine and it slowed and then rolled to a stop along the side of the road. There was a final clink and a clank inside the engine and then it went out completely and the car shut off. Johnny pounded his fist against the steering wheel because they were in the middle of fucking nowhere. “God damn it, this is why we don’t drive anything but the Beast.” .Wolfie. “I think it’s dead,” Ayden said from over Johnny’s shoulder.He snorted and the three of them just stood and stared at it for a long time because when Ayden said it was dead, he wasn’t lying. Oil covered everything in a black sheen while smoke just poured out of the engine. He could hear a hissing sound as water and antifreeze dripped to the asphalt and he couldn’t see a place where it wasn’t leaking something. He jammed a cigarette between his lips and tried to focus on the smoke in his lungs instead of the smoke still coming out of the car. It looked like the radiator had exploded. He wondered how much that would be to fix. “I told you to sweet talk her,” Annie said next to him. “She’s a fucking bitch, how’s that for sweet talking?” he growled, kicking at the tire. A popping noise sounded in the air and then they grew quiet as a hiss filled the air, echoing off the trees next them. Johnny watched with gritted teeth as the tire he’d kicked slowly began to deflate and they stood and watched as the car slowly sunk to the left. Annie tipped her head back and closed her eyes. He heard his little brother take a breath and maybe he was trying not to laugh. “Yep,” he said slowly. “I think it’s definitely dead.” “You killed my car,” Annie said, tilting her head at him. “Do you have to kill everything?” He heard Ayden laughing and he pointed a finger at his brother’s face. “This is your fault, you know,” he told him through the smoke. He waved a hand in front of his face to try and clear the air as he headed back towards the trunk of Annie’s car and kept his eye on his brother. Ayden bit back another laugh and tried to look innocent, pointing a finger at his chest. “Yes you,” Johnny snarled. “You wrecked the beast. You owe me big for that.” “Now that’s not fair,” Ayden whined, and he was still doing the little brother bit. Johnny rolled his eyes and yanked the trunk open and he was surprised that wasn’t filled with smoke or water too because it looked like the whole thing was just blowing up on him. Annie followed behind him, her hand resting lightly on his back as he tried to take the necessities out. He shoved a gun in the waistband of his jeans but he was going to have to leave the rest. Maybe if they were lucky, someone would stop for them, but no one in their right mind would stop for hitchhikers carrying an arsenal. Annie pressed a kiss to his temple. “I forgive you for killing my car,” she told him. He glanced at her face and she was smiling at him, that warm slow smile that was all Annie. He smiled back at her and reached down to squeeze her hand because he had missed having her with him. There were still a million things to be afraid of and a million things to fight and deal with, but her just being around made them all easier. Things weren’t perfect between them yet, but they were getting back to how they used to be. “Thanks darlin’,” he drawled sarcastically. She laughed and her lips were brushing his. “No problem,” she told him. He heard his little brother groan. “Will you guys just fuck and get it over with so we can start walking?” Johnny sighed and leaned back, slamming the trunk closed. He pointed at his brother with his cigarette, glaring at him. “Keep it up and I will shoot you in the foot,” he threatened, and he saw Annie rolling her eyes at him. She let her hand fall away and then she was walking up to Ayden and he had noticed how protective she’d gotten of him of late. Part of it was the nightmares that he’d been having lately, the ones he couldn’t talk about that woke him up screaming. It scared him, because Johnny remembered what it felt like to have those kind of horrible nightmares shoved on him every night. He’d gone through it in prison and that was only for a week but it had fucked up his head. Sure, part of it had been because of Vaughn, but sometimes bits and pieces of those dreams still seeped in while he was sleeping and he couldn’t forget the horror and despair of those dreams. His little brother had always had bad dreams, but it seemed like the latest round was worse and maybe he had just been through too much too fast and he was falling apart. Maybe it was because of seeing their dad again. They hadn’t really talked about it afterwards, because neither was really sure what to say about it and there was always Legion to worry about anyway. But it was still on Johnny’s mind and it had to be on Ayden’s. He thought about what his little brother had said about his dream world and he couldn’t be mad at him for imagining a world without Johnny. At first he’d been a little hurt, that his ideal world had involved him dying sixteen years ago, but then he thought about his brother’s voice as he told him what he’d become and the hurt had just melted away. Besides, his fucked up wish world hadn’t looked much prettier. “We’ve been over this Johnny, you wouldn’t shoot me in the foot because then you’d have to carry me,” he said with a grin. Johnny rolled his eyes, slinging an arm around his little brother’s neck and squeezing tightly. He gestured at the trees around them as he talked and they headed off down the side of the road. “Maybe I’ll just shoot you and leave you on the side of the road then. I’m sure some nice man with a banjo will come along and make you real comfortable for the night.” He sneered at his brother’s face and Ayden laughed and pushed him away. “Still jealous that I’m the pretty one, aren’t you?” Ayden sighed and shook his head. “Real pretty mouth anyway,” Johnny said. Annie snorted and rolled her eyes. “Jesus, you two are so fucked up,” she said, shaking her head slowly. She plucked the cigarette out of Johnny’s hand and just held it as they walked, letting it burn off to ash. He thought about trying to steal it back but he had missed her little quirks, so he just smiled as the cigarette burned itself up. His fingers came compulsively to his lips and danced along the scars instead. They fell into an easy silence, the sun beating down on them through the trees as the trudged along the road. At some point Annie’s hand slipped into his and he just smiled. Ayden walked in front of them, slapping at a bug on his neck. It left a bloody smear behind and he watched his brother study the red on his fingers. Then he wiped them off on his jeans and he was shoving his hands in his pockets, trudging along the road like a sulky teenager. Johnny wondered if his brother was really okay, because once he had told him that he really, really wasn’t and he didn’t think that had changed. He almost opened his mouth to ask. He almost asked about the nightmares and about Ayden and if he was okay. Then he heard the roar of an engine and he glanced over his shoulders. Behind him he could still see the sad, smoking remains of Annie’s car and that didn’t break his heart half as much as seeing the beast like that. He missed that fucking car because it had been his home and his world since he was seventeen and had first saved up his money to buy it. The guy that sold it to him told him flat out that it was only good as a parts car, but Johnny had put his blood and sweat and tears into that thing and put it on the road again. He pulled Annie to the inside of the road and stuck his thumb out. It was an old pick up truck and for some reason that made him think of every horrible horror movie ever made. It slowed down next to them and there was an old, skinny man sitting behind the wheel. He reached over and leaned out the passenger side window and Johnny got a good look at his face. He was wrinkled, with graying hair sticking out under a trucker cap and he was missing a couple of teeth but he smiled at them anyway. “That your car back there?” he asked. He heard Ayden snort. “No shit,” he said, and Johnny shot him a look. “Yeah,” he told the guy, stepping up to the window. “You think you could give us a lift to a phone or something?” The man laughed and shoved the door open. He kicked a couple of beer cans off of the floor and off into the street and then leaned back into the driver’s seat. “Sure, that ain’t a problem,” he said. “You folks climb in and I’ll give you a lift to the house. You can use the phone and maybe if you’re lucky my daughter’ll let you have one of her pies. Woman makes the best damn meat pies this side of the Mason-Dixie line.” “Is it made of soylent green?” Ayden asked quietly and he heard Annie bite back a laugh. Johnny sighed and tried to ignore the bad feeling in his gut as he climbed in first. Wenston As they pulled up to the old man’s house, Ayden looked out the window and couldn’t help but think this was the most Podunk freaking house he’d ever seen in his life. The four of them were crammed into the front seat of the truck. Johnny was sitting next to the old man and trying not to touch him. Annie was next to Johnny and Ayden was crammed up against the door. He was feeling a little claustrophobic and trying not to think about being locked inside a box, because he could open the door any fucking time he wanted and he could see outside. But he was still feeling cramped. “Here we are!” the old man said cheerfully and he put the truck in park and then leaned back in the seat, putting one arm behind them and Ayden held back a snicker because Johnny looked hilariously awkward with the man sprawling out next to him. The man eyed his brother and then looked at Annie and he grinned, toothless and ugly. Annie squirmed a little bit and then reached over Ayden to open the passenger side door. Ayden practically fell out, but he caught himself and then turned around to watch Annie and Johnny crawl out. His brother hopped down and then turned to look at the old man as he, too, climbed out of the truck and rounded to the front. “Come on inside!” the man called, waving his hands for them to follow. “Phone is in here. I’ll get Daisy Mae to start making her pies. Meat’s fresh as last Tuesday, so it’ll be good!” Ayden felt his stomach roil because that sounded fucking disgusting. He looked over at Johnny, who was lacing his fingers with Annie’s and they too looked disgusted at the man’s words, but then they followed him inside. The house, which at one time must have been lavish and luxurious, was now decrepit and falling apart. There had been typical redneck attire on the front porch. Tires, a wood chopping axe, a porch swing with one side off the chain. There were even two old hunting dogs that laid lazily to the side and didn’t even bat an eye as the three strangers approached with the old man. They looked skinny and starved and sick and Ayden thought they were probably carrying rabies or distemper or some other disease. The inside of the house wasn’t much better. Ayden had watched a crime show once on a man who had been classified as a hoarder. He’d had piles of junk littering his house, years worth of trash and garbage filling his home. The smell had been too much for the investigators to handle, they had to wear masks. And there had been rodents of all kinds. This house reminded him of that crime show. There were piles of trash and garbage everywhere. The walls were littered with pictures and paintings and stuffed animal heads and there were things hanging from the mounted taxidermy products. Trinkets and decorations that were collecting dust. A few cats skittered away and hissed as they came inside the house. Ayden leaned over to his brother. “Hey,” he said and Johnny turned to look over his shoulder at Ayden. “You remember that movie we watched on Halloween once. The one with the chainsaw and the cheerleaders?” Johnny rolled his eyes and looked forward again. “Don’t fucking start,” he said but he snorted in amusement because this house really did look like the one from that cheesy ass movie. “I’m just saying,” Ayden said with a shrug. “I mean, bring on the cheerleaders.” “Can we just find the phone, please?” Annie asked and they both looked at her. She looked uncomfortable but not scared. She took a step towards Johnny and leaned into him, her hand twisting in his and she looked at him pleadingly. She didn’t like it here. “Yeah, alright,” Johnny said, nodding his head and following after the man who’d disappeared around the corner. “Uh, sir?” Johnny called and Ayden snickered because his brother was always awkward when he was trying to be polite. The man poked his head out and it was so sudden and unexpected that all three of them jumped. Johnny sucked in a breath and then smiled to cover his surprise. “The phone?” he asked. “Oh, right, right,” the man said and waved them around the corner. “This way! This way!” Johnny looked back at Ayden and Annie and he didn’t look happy to have to go deeper into the creepy house. But then he tipped his head and they went over to Johnny and the three of them walked into the man’s kitchen. It was a mess. Pots and pans were strewn about the place and there were chunks of meat and blood everywhere. Ayden gulped. “I really hope that’s venison.” “Me too,” Annie whispered and she reached back to take Ayden’s hand, which he took gratefully. And it wasn’t because he was scared, or at least he would deny it until the day he died. “Here it is!” the old man said and pointed to an ancient looking phone on the wall. Johnny sighed and smiled at the man and walked over to it, picking it up and holding it to his ear. He frowned and looked over at the man. “It’s dead,” he said. “It is?” the old man asked but he didn’t look surprised. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.” Johnny’s face faltered for just a second but Ayden caught it. He felt Annie’s hand tighten around his and she must have caught it too. Then Johnny smiled and shrugged. “Oh, here we go, just got a dial tone.” Ayden recognized it as a lie because he knew his brother and he knew when he was lying. “Ashley Baker,” Johnny drawled into the phone. Ayden looked to the old man and the smile had slipped off the man’s face. He was standing with his eyes narrowed at Johnny and all of a sudden he didn’t look friendly or pleasant anymore. He was sizing Johnny up, studying him, and leave it to his stupid brother to piss off what could possibly be a fucking psychopath. The sooner they got out of here, the better. Ayden heard Ashley’s obnoxious voice come on the other end of the line, but he couldn’t make out the words from the other side of the room. Johnny still had his eyes on the old man as he said into the phone, “Our car broke down,” and his voice was calm and calculated and Ayden knew that Baker would pick up on the trouble in the way he spoke. “Could you send a tow?” The old man suddenly moved forward and before Johnny could stop him, he’d grabbed the phone and hung up. Ayden clenched his free hand into a fist because a normal, sane person wouldn’t do that. The old man turned and grinned at Johnny but it wasn’t pretty and there wasn’t any mirth behind it. “I’ll give you a ride into town,” the man said and his words were calculated. “But you should join us for dinner first.” “We’re not hungry,” Johnny said and Ayden saw his brother’s hand moving slowly towards his belt and the gun that was hidden there. “Oh hello!” An overly cheery voice suddenly came from behind them. Annie yelped and Ayden nearly jumped two feet in the air. They both whirled and he saw Annie’s hand come to her mouth because she’d always taken pride in not being the screaming out of fear type of girl. Ayden felt his heart racing a mile a minute but he brought a hand to his chest to slow it because there was a plump, round woman standing behind them. She looked to be straight out of the fifties with her flower dress and apron and oven mitts. Her hair was in curlers and she was smiling so wide her eyes were mere slits in her bloated face. “Are you here for dinner?” “Yes,” the old man said at the same time Johnny said, “No.” “Oh come on then!” she chirped and then reached forward and pinched Annie’s sides. Annie let out a startled gasp. “We need to put some meat on your bones.” Then the woman turned to Ayden and pinched his cheek and Ayden tried to jerk his head away because he hated that. “And you are just adorable. You’ll love my pies!” she squealed and wrapped an arm around his, pulling him back into the living room. Ayden gave a terrified glance over his shoulder because this cheery, fat woman was more scary than the actual scary dude who hung up the phone on Johnny. He saw Annie glance at Johnny and then the both of them were following after him. The woman led them into the dining room and she practically shoved Ayden into a seat. Then she turned around and bellowed at the top of her lungs. “Kids! Dinner!” Then she turned around and grabbed a pie tin off the wood stove in the room. She placed it down in front of Ayden and Ayden felt his stomach churn because there was meat and blood and bone all mixed together inside the tin. He had to look away and swallow thickly because the bile was traveling up his throat and he was going to blow chunks just thinking about this disgusting meat pie. “Eat up!” the woman said cheerfully and grasped Ayden’s shoulder before placing a similar looking pie down in front of every chair around the table. Ayden’s eyes shot over to Johnny and Annie, who were standing in the doorway. Johnny looked disgusted and Annie just looked horrified. Johnny finally growled and shook his head. “You know what? I think we’ll just go wait by the car for the tow.” A hand suddenly clamped down on Johnny’s shoulder and if Ayden wasn’t absolutely positive that this family was fucking nuts, he would have laughed at how startled his brother was. The man the hand belonged to emerged into the room and he was big and graying and he wore overalls and a no shirt. His gut and flab hung out of his clothes but the grip he had on Johnny’s shoulder looked tight and demanding. “Don’t be rude,” the man said and then forcibly made Johnny sit down in a chair. Johnny looked pissed and his hand was near his belt again, but Annie touched his arm as she sat down next to him. The man looked satisfied and then sat down at the head of the table. The ground seemed to rumble and they all turned to look as a monstrosity of a man had to duck beneath the door frame to enter the room. He was huge and tall and fat and he wore a mask over his face and Ayden was absolutely sure they had died and woken up in a cheerleader chainsaw movie because this was a guy that would have fit in perfectly with that. The oversized masked man sat down next to Annie, his face studying her intently. Ayden saw Johnny reach out to squeeze her hand and glare at the man. If that wasn’t enough, a little girl in pigtails suddenly came bounding into the room. She surveyed the guests and then grinned when she spotted Ayden. She skipped over to him and she had a doll in her hand and it was a clown. Ayden tried not to shiver. “Hi!” she squealed and pinched his arm. He jerked away from her and she giggled. “Want to come play with me?” “Uh,” Ayden said and this was all way too much for him to handle. He looked at Johnny and Annie. Annie was leaning away from the masked man who was eyeing her closely. Johnny was growling at the man. “No, honey,” Ayden said and shook his head at the little girl. “I, uh, I think we should be going. This all looks very lovely,” he said to the fat man at the head of the table who was glaring at him. “But, we really, really need to go.” The little girl made a distressed noise and tugged on Ayden’s arm. “Oooh, please? Please play with me! I love playing!” Ayden let out a slow breath and Johnny reached across Annie to shove the masked man away from her because he was getting too close and making her uncomfortable and they weren’t paying Ayden any attention. “Sorry, sweetie,” Ayden said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to play.” The girl’s face contorted and she pouted and there were tears welling up in her eyes. Ayden clenched his hands into fists. “Oh, come on, don’t cry.” She stomped her foot like a typical little kid and then whirled, heading to the corner of the dining room. Ayden turned back to the table and this was unbelievable. Johnny looked about ready to draw his gun. Annie looked about ready to get the fuck out of dodge. The fat man at the head of the table had his eyes narrowed at Ayden and his hands were holding a fork and a knife and he hadn’t started eating his pie yet. “You made her cry,” he growled. Johnny growled too and he shoved the masked man again. “Back off,” he spat at the man, who just tilted his head. Ayden was about to tell Johnny that they should just go. He was about to tell his brother that this was fucking enough and he saw this movie before and he knew how it fucking ended. He was going to maybe make a crack about Johnny being an ugly cheerleader or Annie looking good in a skirt with pom poms. But whatever joke or plea or idea he was going to say went flying out the window. “I said I want to play!” The little girl suddenly screamed and Ayden turned to tell her sorry again, but he was met with a vicious, harsh blow to the side of his head that had him flinging to the side and tumbling out of his chair. He hit the ground with a thud and there were stars and lights flashing in his head. He felt hot blood leaking out from a gash on the side of his face and he wondered what the fuck had just happened. He heard Annie gasp and Johnny yell his name and then shit hit the fan. .Wolfie. Johnny’s chair clattered to the floor behind him as he jerked to his feet.The gun was already half out and his other hand was pulling Annie up before his brother finished hitting the ground. Later he would have to make fun of him for it because standing over him was a little girl with pigtails and she had just decked his brother with a doll. Of course it was a doll of a motherfucking clown. Later he would tease Ayden mercilessly for it, but right now his brother was lying on the floor with blood pouring from the gash in his forehead. The freakshow family was just sitting around watching and the little girl was raising her doll to hit him again. He raised the gun and pointed it at the guy at the head of the table. “I think it’s time we left,” he said, and he surprised himself with how calm his voice was because this place was a fucking nuthouse and he was mad as hell. They should have gotten the fuck out of here as soon as he’d picked up a dead phone. The man at the head of the table was staring back at him but there was a cold smile on his face that made Johnny nervous. Annie slipped from his grasp and then she was kneeling by Ayden, brushing the hair out of his eyes and trying to help him to his feet. “He’s mine!” the little girl screamed suddenly, and then she was lashing out at Annie with the doll. She jerked back out of the line of fire but it made her slip and hit the ground hard and for that one second Johnny was watching her and not the other four people sitting at the table. He heard a howl and a roar and then the giant man in the mask was up and plowing into him, slamming him hard into the wall. A strangled yell escaped his throat as his head snapped back against it and he felt the gun clatter from his fingers as stars burst in his gaze. Fingers the size of sausages curled around his neck and slammed him back against the wood again. He heard Annie shout and he glanced past the man to see the fat woman wrapping her fingers around her arm and haul her to her feet. Annie yanked her arm away and she punched the woman in the face and she seemed surprised that Annie had hit her. Then her gaze narrowed into something mean. “Well that wasn’t very nice, dearie, not nice at all.” And then her hand lashed out and slapped Annie across the face. “You get the fuck away from her,” he shouted, and then the man in the mask slammed him against the wall again. The stars burst in his vision again and he didn’t like that he couldn’t see because he could hear yelling. The man was lifting him up by the neck, sliding him up the wall and he was making strange, guttural noises in his throat but none of them sounded like words. He could see Ayden on the floor and the little girl was hitting him over and over again with her stupid fucking clown doll. His brother had an arm up to try and protect him but she just kept bringing it down towards his head over and over again and she was screaming “Play with me!” at him in a harsh, horrid scream. “No means no,” Ayden yelled at her, and Johnny loved his little brother for that. At some point, the man at the head of the table had moved and he was walking over towards them. Then he was crouching down and picking the gun off the floor and he pointed it at Johnny. He heard Annie gasp and when he looked at her again he saw blood on her knuckles and it matched the blood on the woman’s face. He hoped his woman hit the bitch really fucking hard “Well,” he drawled. “That’s awfully fucking rude of you, isn’t it? I invite you into my house, offer you food off my table, and what the fuck do you do? You draw a weapon on me and mine. That just ain’t right, is it, Mamma?” Ayden froze and looked up at them and his eyes focused on the gun and then on Johnny and his face fell. Johnny knew that look, because he’d seen it enough over the years and especially lately. He had seen it a lot after the incident with the dunk tank because it said his little brother was imagining Johnny dying. He had done it once already and Ayden was afraid it was going to happen again. He held his hands up slowly and he was looking between Johnny and the gun and maybe he was wondering if he could do something to get in the middle of it and Johnny just gave him a small shake of his head. He didn’t want his little brother dying for him. “Not right at all, dad,” the woman said, and she was grabbing Annie by the arm again. She yanked it out of the woman’s fingers and took a step back away from her and he wanted his woman to punch the bitch again. The man turned the gun on her and Annie froze her face paling a little bit as he cocked the hammer back. Johnny growled low in his throat and struggled against the fucking giant holding him and how did he always end up fighting the guy twice his size? The big man holding him heard the noise and slammed his head against the wall again and he could feel a lump forming there already. “I think we need to teach you folks a lesson in respect,” he said, nodding his head. “I think what you need to do is go fuck yourself you piece of shit,” Johnny snarled at him. He didn’t like how close the words were to what Wyatt Earp had said to him in prison and he remembered the sight of his brother with his arm broken and his face mashed in and he felt the strange sensation of panic rising in his chest. The man was looking at him and bringing the gun back to point at his head and Johnny opened his mouth to tell him to freeze. The word was on the tip of his tongue and that was all he had to say and then they could get the fuck out of here. He didn’t get the chance. He went to spit the word out onto the ground and before he could the man holding him had his big meaty fist hauled back and then it was striking him in the face. Pain burst under his eye as his knuckles struck his cheekbone and a startled yell escaped his throat instead of the word he meant to say. He heard Annie cry out and then she had her hands wrapped around the giant’s arm as he hauled back to punch him again. She yanked back hard on his arm and the man’s head twisted, tilting his head as he focused on her. Then his fist relaxed and he was petting her hair and Johnny didn’t like that one fucking bit. The woman laughed. “Looks like Billy’s got a little crush.” The man holding the gun laughed and then he patted the giant on the back. He still had Johnny pinned with one arm and that one arm was as big as his fucking leg, and the other hand was reaching for Annie’s hair. She ducked away from the touch and then the woman was grabbing her by the arm again. “That’s my boy. We need to put some meat on her bones first, but she’s a fine catch, a fine catch. But you,” and he turned back to Johnny. He waved the barrel of his gun in front of his eyes but Johnny was just watching his face. He could taste blood in his mouth and he spit it onto the ground. “What’re we gonna do with you?” The fingers tightened around his throat and he gasped for air and he still couldn’t choke one fucking word out. The man grinned and tilted his head like a dog. “What’s that? I can’t hear you.” The giant laughed and it was a horrible, awful thing because it sounded completely demented and almost childlike as it boomed out of his throat. There was black inching into the edge of Johnny’s vision as the fingers cut off his air and he clawed desperately at them, kicking his boots out at the man. He felt them connect with his chest but it just made him mad and there was a growl next to his face as the fingers dug deeper into his throat. He felt them bruising his skin and he heard Annie cry out. “Stop it,” she shouted. “You’re killing him!” The woman behind her laughed. “That’s the idea, dearie,” she said, and she was stroking her hair. “Get the fuck off my brother,” he heard Ayden shout and he couldn’t see what happened next because his eyes were rolling back up into his head. He heard a thump and he heard Annie cry out again but he didn’t hear Ayden’s voice. He just heard a wretched cackling and his own panicked gasping for air. Then the black crept into his eyes and his head was throbbing and he couldn’t breathe and it was almost like drowning all over again. Wenston Ayden was barely conscious from his spot on the floor. He didn’t know what he’d just gotten cracked over the head with, but he was on the floor again and he really needed to stop ending up there. He tried to lift his head because Annie was cussing and screaming Johnny’s name and that never meant anything good. But his head was cooperating with him and it clunked back down onto the floor with a dull thud. The room was spinning around him and he saw his brother’s feet dangling in mid air and they were shaking and kicking but then they stilled and Ayden sucked in a breath. He may be half conscious, but he still knew what it looked like when his brother was dying. Ayden growled and he heard Annie crying and he didn’t know if it was because Johnny was dying or she was being hurt because he was kind of out of it lying there on the floor with his head bleeding. He pushed himself up on shaky hands and in the next moment, he was crawling across the floor and he grabbed onto the giant’s leg that still had his stupid fucking hands on his brother. He hugged the man’s leg and did the only thing he could think of doing at the moment. He bit the fucker’s ankle. Johnny was going to make fun of him so bad after this all was over. First he gets the shit kicked out of him by a little fucking girl, then he bites someone’s ankle. He really needed to kill something this time around because he hadn’t killed something in a while and his brother was going to have enough fodder for the fire to tease him for years after this. He could almost hear his brother now. Oh, remember when that little girl knocked you on your ass? The giant screamed as Ayden’s teeth sunk into the tendons of his ankle. It had the desired effect, even if it left a ridiculously bad taste in Ayden’s mouth because the giant dropped his brother and Johnny fell to the ground in a heap but he was gasping, even if his eyes were closed. Ayden didn’t like the raspy, choked sound of his brother’s breath and he hoped the giant masked man hadn’t fucking crushed Johnny’s windpipes. But he didn’t have a chance to dwell on it because in the next moment, the giant had grabbed him by the back of the shirt and was lifting him into the air. Ayden struggled weakly but the room was spinning and he couldn’t see where Annie was but he heard Johnny gasping. “That wasn’t fucking nice,” someone said behind him and he thought maybe it was the Dad of this rag tag bunch but he couldn’t tell. “Throw that one away,” he said and Ayden wondered which one of them he was talking about. “And take this one upstairs for Billie Jo to have her fun with.” Ayden didn’t like the sound of that and he tried to strike out with a fist at the giant holding him up like that stupid fucking girl held her stupid fucking clown doll. But then the giant’s giant fist met Ayden’s face and he couldn’t remember what happened after that. † † † Ayden was waking slowly. His eyes were rolling around inside his head and that was flopping around listlessly because it was the weight of a fucking bowling ball right now. He had to blink several times before he could start making out shapes and colors in the room around him and hadn’t he just fucking got over a fucking concussion? Life wasn’t fair sometimes. He almost drifted off again, but then he tried to reach a hand to wipe at the blood on his face and he found that he couldn’t. His arm was strapped to the arm of a chair. That seemed to wake him up right quick and he forced his head up, his neck protesting the movement. He looked around and he couldn’t remember where he was and he didn’t recognize the room and that scared him a little because he didn’t like waking up in strange places tied to a chair. He looked down at his wrists and frowned because the straps holding him there weren’t the conventional straps one would use to tie someone up. They looked like wire. Metal wire and the damn things were cutting into his wrists and he already had scars there. Life really wasn’t fucking fair. He swallowed thickly and tried to move his feet but found the same wire wrapped around his ankles. His shoes and socks were missing. He tried to move his head and he groaned because he could feel wire around his neck too. Who the fuck tied someone up with metal wire? This was ridiculous. Then he remember Johnny. And he remembered Johnny gasping for air. And Annie screaming his name. That seemed to sober and wake him up a bit and he groaned out loud. “You’re awake!” a shrill voice came from his right and he startled a bit, the wires pulling at his skin. He turned his head to look and the little girl in her pigtails was standing next to him. She had a huge grin on her face and she might have been cute if she wasn’t filthy dirty and her hair weren’t in tangles and her teeth weren’t rotted away. The clown doll in her hands had blood smeared across the top of it and he growled because that was his blood and he wondered if the gash on his head had closed up yet. “Where’s my brother?” Ayden asked and he didn’t like the way the words tripped coming out of his mouth because his tongue wouldn’t work. The girl giggled. “They put him in the pit!” she said like it was the most exciting thing in the world and Ayden didn’t like the sound of that. He thought about his brother falling through the floorboards of a cabin in Louisiana and the being eaten alive by a snake monster there. Johnny hated pits. Or, at least Ayden thought he should by now. The girl, Billie Jo, moved forward and patted Ayden’s arm. “Don’t you worry. You’re my doll now and we’re going to have fun!” Ayden frowned and shook his head. “I’m not a doll,” he whispered because the room was spinning again and he really fucking hated fucking concussions. “Yes you are!” she sang to him and giggled as she skipped away. He watched her as she hopped up onto a bed that was against the wall on the opposite side. “I have lots of dolls!” she yelled as she started jumping up and down on the bed. He shook his head and rolled it to the side and his eyes widened a little bit because in the corner of the room there was a pile of bodies. Just sit there like it was a pile of fucking laundry. Ayden’s head cleared immediately because the bodies were naked and pale and in different degrees of rotting. The girl squealed in delight and jumped off the bed. “See?” she said and ran over to the bodies, giving them a pat like she would a toy or a pet. “My dolls!” Ayden felt fear delve itself deep into his chest because he didn’t know where Johnny was and he didn’t know where Annie was and there was a pile of bodies in the corner of the room and a little girl who wanted to turn him into one of them. He swallowed thickly and shook his head. “I don’t want to be a doll,” he told her. She frowned, because apparently that was the wrong thing to say. “Yes you do,” she said and her face turned into a scowl. Her voice low and demanding. Ayden shook his head. “No, I don’t.” He pulled at the wires around his wrists. “Let me go. And take me to my brother.” “No!” Billie Jo screamed like a little kid and stomped her foot in a tantrum. “You’re gonna be a doll!” Then she huffed and stomped over to a machine to his left that he hadn’t noticed. She flicked a switch and suddenly Ayden felt something snap to life all around him. The wires around his wrists and ankles and neck were suddenly biting him and he felt a current running through them and into his skin and crackling inside his bones. He tried to yell but the current was stopping his body from doing anything. His heart wasn’t beating and his lungs weren’t working and he was just shaking with the electricity moving through his body. He was being fucking electrocuted. The world stopped and paused and all there was, was a blinding pain coursing all throughout his body. Billie Jo flipped the switch again and suddenly Ayden could breathe and his heart pounding in vibrant protest in his chest. He went slack in the chair and gasped in air because his whole body was on fire and his muscles was left in spasms because the current had left them jolting. He cried out because he’d never been electrocuted before and it fucking hurt. He blinked against a darkness that threatened to encroach on him. “Fuck,” he whispered and turned his head to spit on the ground because his teeth had rattled together and his mouth was dry and full of cotton. “You’re going to be a doll,” Billie Jo said and her voice was low and dangerous. Ayden was gasping as he turned to look at her. He didn’t have time to protest as she flipped the switch again. .Wolfie. Johnny woke up when he hit the bottom of the pit.He landed on something hard and lumpy and something was digging into his ribcage. He struggled to sit up and every time he took a breath it hurt his throat and he could hear himself gasping as the air clawed its way in and out of his lungs. His hand slipped on something slick and wet underneath him and he didn’t want to know what it was. This reminded him too much of that fucking pit under the witch’s house and for a minute he froze, listening for the rustling sounds of a snake demon with four mouths coming to devour him. He didn’t hear it. It didn’t make him relax any, but it reminded him that he was in a different time and a different place and that probably wouldn’t be the way he died. He put a hand to his throat and it was bruised and tender and sore. He was having a really hard time just taking a breath and he could hear himself rasping in the darkness. He was almost grateful for that, because the stink in the air was so thick he could taste it on his tongue and it was foul and rotten. He thought about those fucking meat pies and he wondered again what was in them. He struggled to sit up and his limbs were sinking into the mass underneath them and he felt his hand slip again and it felt like a leg. His stomach roiled and it was too dark to see but he had a pretty good idea of what he’d find. He dug in the pocket of his jeans for his lighter and then he closed his eyes and counted to three because he really, really didn’t want to see where they had dumped him. Then he swallowed the fear because Johnny fucking Marshall didn’t get scared and he flicked his lighter on. He was sitting in a pile of bodies. His stomach roiled and then he was throwing up. They lay around him and under him and it was just a mound of corpses thrown in a pit. He could see the rock walls flickering around him and maybe once this had been a well, but now it was just a mass grave. There were dead men, women and children, all mutilated without discrimination. A dead cheerleader lying next to his hand and he jerked it away and thought in a dull fog that Ayden had guessed right on that anyway. He crawled to the side and tried to ignore what his hands were slipping on. They weren’t all full corpses. He saw disembodied limbs lying in the piles, half gnawed arms and legs tossed carelessly away and he wondered if they’d fed them to the dogs or to the children. He felt his stomach churn again and then he pressed his hand to the wall and threw up again and there was nothing left in his stomach but he gagged again anyway because the sight and the stink pressed in around him and he was gasping for air. They weren’t even wicked. They weren’t even monsters that had done this, they were a family of people and a strange, strangled noise escaped his throat. He took a breath and leaned against the wall because it was made of rock and it was safe and was smeared with blood but not coated with it and it hadn’t once been a person. His fingers curled against the hard surface and he tried to concentrate on breathing and remembering and keeping focused. They had tossed him down here, so where the fuck had they taken his brother and Annie? He felt sick again when he thought that, because that fucking monster with a mask had some sort of sick crush on his woman. If they fucking touched her, he would kill them. Well, he was going to kill them anyway. But maybe he would make it quicker. He tipped his head back against the rock and flicked the lighter closed. It cast him into darkness again, but he was fine with that for the moment. They were already dead, they couldn’t hurt him and it wasn’t the bodies he should be worried about. His eyes strained to see the top of this stupid pit and how was it he kept ending up tossed in places like this? He fell in the fucking dunk tank and the witch’s hole and he was tired of being the one who ended up in the god damned pits. “Ayden?” he shouted, and he wondered where they’d taken his fucking brother. He screamed his brother’s name again but it just echoed mockingly off the walls back at him. He slammed his fist into the wall and it felt good to hit something so he did it again and he screamed Annie’s name but no one answered him. They’d pulled something over the top of the pit and he could see a tiny sliver of light trying to make its way into the well and that was the only sign he had that there was still a world outside this fucking graveyard. He pressed his head back against the wall and tried to think. His fingers dug into the wall and he tried to pull himself up it but it was too slick and his hands slipped as soon as he tried to put weight on them. A string of curses and obscenities poured from his lips and he slammed his hand against the wall again because he didn’t know where Annie and Ayden were and he had to fucking find them and get the hell out of this place. He had to get out of this pit so that he could kill the mother fuckers that put him here and he promised that fucking bastard in the overalls he would send him to a special corner of hell when he was done with him. “Let me out,” he screamed, and he hit the wall again. The stone cracked under his fists and it made him feel a little bit better. “Let me out you mother fuckers,” he shouted again, and he hit the wall again and then he was slipping because there was a corpse under his feet and it rolled when he moved. He fell backwards into the bodies and he felt hands against his back. He knew they were dead. He knew they weren’t going to hurt him. He felt a little bit of panic anyway and he scrambled to get away from them because there was something about dead hands touching him that made him feel like throwing up again. He looked back up at the line of light above his head because it was easier than looking at bodies he couldn’t see. He had the voice. He should’ve been able to think of something. Maybe Annie was right and he was too fucking stupid to piss because he didn’t know how it was going to help him this time. He was scared to try something abstract like teleportation or weird superpower shit like that because he wasn’t fucking Clark Kent. He took a breath and pressed his head against the wall again and it was cool under his forehead but it was wet too and he didn’t want to think about that because his throat already hurt and his mouth tasted like shit so he didn’t want to throw up again. He had stopped a fucking train with his voice when he was thirteen, why couldn’t he figure his way out of a fucking well? He flicked the lighter open again and he looked around him in a quick sweep. All that was in here were just bodies on top of bodies and a rock wall that was too fucking slick for him to climb. He swallowed and looked up at the door closing him and then down at the corpses again and he had a sick and horrible thought cross his mind. He needed to get out. He needed to get to his brother and to Annie or they were going to be dead or worse. He tried to picture what might be happening to them and as soon as he did he felt his stomach lurch and he bit down hard on his lip to keep from gagging. He tried not to look at what he was doing. He tried not to think about it too much as he dragged the bodies into one pile against the wall. He tried not to look at the cheerleader’s face as he tossed her on top of a forty year old man. A woman with dark hair and dark black eyes went on top of that and he just kept dragging the bodies until they formed a slope against the side of the wall. He tried not to think about what he was doing or what he was touching as he scrambled up the mountain of corpses. He thought might throw up again. The exit was just above his head. Maybe if he jumped he could catch the lip of it and pull himself out but that stupid fucking door was in his way and trapping him in here so he looked at it and hoped Ayden was okay and didn’t hurt himself. He hoped just using the voice didn’t get his brother killed. “Move,” he snarled at the door, and it cracked and splintered as it burst out away from the well. He took a breath and it rasped against his still sore throat and then he jumped. His fingers caught the edge of it and he hung there for a minute, his arms straining with the weight. Then he was dragging himself out of the grave into the light. Just in time for one of those stupid dogs to attack him. Its jaws closed around his forearm and he snarled a curse at it because why was it he kept getting attacked by animals and thrown in pits and having his mouth sewn shut? Why couldn’t someone just try and shoot him or something because he was really fucking tired of getting all the weird shit thrown at him. His hand closed around the scruff of its neck and it was sick and weak or maybe it would’ve killed him. Instead it just left a bloody bite mark on his arm and then he was throwing it down the well. There was a yelp as it struck bottom and he almost felt bad for a second and then he wondered how many of those bodies the dog had devoured or what it would have done to him if he’d let it. His fingers brushed the bruises on his neck and he really fucking hated this place. His eyes scanned around him and it looked like he was in the backyard, a high fence rising around him. He pushed himself to his feet and he was covered in blood and bile and he would think about that later. Right now, he had to find his brother and his woman. Wenston This was a vision. Johnny was standing on a pile of corpses and a few inches away from his outstretched hand was a wooden door covering the mouth of what once must have been a well. Johnny was reaching because he had nothing to grab onto and the door was blocking his way. He was covered from head to toe in blood and muck and guts. His fingers were outstretched and they were stained red and brown. They were inches from the door and from freedom. Then the pile gave way beneath his feet and Johnny was tumbling backwards. His head smacked off the rocks and there was a snap. Johnny’s body fell with the rest of them into a heap at the bottom of the well because he’d snapped his neck on the way down. He rotted and festered in the deep depths of the well and no one ever knew he was down there. But this was just a vision. † † † Ayden gasped as he came to and his head was flung backwards so his face was pointed towards the ceiling. The wires around his neck were cutting into the skin and his whole body was aching and stressed and tired. He felt his heart beating in his chest and it didn’t feel right because it was thready and too fast and sometimes it felt like it beat an extra time because there was a fucking electrical current that kept surging through his flesh and maybe this little fucking girl was doing some real damage to him. He never remembered the convulsions when he woke up from visions. He could just feel the spasms linger in his muscles and since his were already all weak and sore from being electrocuted, he could barely tell the difference. He hoped the vision meant Johnny was okay. He hoped it wasn’t a vision that told him his brother was dead. But when he saw things like that, even though he always saw his brother die, a part of him was happy because it meant Johnny was saying something to save himself. Ayden didn’t mind seeing the possibilities if they didn’t come true. “Dollie!” Billie Jo was calling to him and he let out a quiet sob because he really fucking hated this little girl. He rolled his head to the side and looked at her. She was still standing by the machine that controlled the current. She had a confused look on her face because he’d just had a seizure on her and she probably wasn’t used to that happening when she tortured and killed her dolls. “Were you dancing?” she asked, giggling. Ayden closed his eyes and swallowed thickly and hoped Johnny would hurry the fuck up and find him already. When he opened his eyes again, he looked down at himself and cringed because he caught sight of his wrists and the wires had cut into his skin and left them bleeding. They were blackened too, burned and scorched and he imagined the same could be said about his ankles and around his neck. He whimpered slightly because as soon as he saw that they started to hurt and that was stupid because his whole fucking body hurt, why would he give a fuck about a little burn? “Dollie!” Billie Jo screamed and Ayden looked at her. “I asked you a question!” “Fuck you!” Ayden yelled back at her and she gasped, putting a hand over her mouth. “You said a naughty word!” she cried, shaking her finger at him. “Daddy doesn’t like those naughty words! You have to be punished.” Ayden groaned and looked away from her because he didn’t want to be electrocuted any more. On his list of things that he never wanted to happen ever fucking again his life, electrocution was pretty high up there. Probably right beneath Johnny drowning in a god damn dunk tank. He was surprised when the current didn’t come charging through his system and instead and felt the little girl climb up onto his lap. He blinked and couldn’t help the terrified sob that escaped his throat because his body was acting against his will and he was shaking because his muscles were backfiring on him and his heart was beating too, too fucking fast and it was making him sweat. Billie Jo leaned forward and put her face close to his, her tiny hands coming up to his cheeks. “I like you, Dollie,” she said. “But you need to be punished because you said a naughty.” Ayden growled, because he really, really didn’t like this little girl. He closed his eyes a moment and braced himself for what he was about to do because this was going to hurt. Then he shot his eyes open and snapped his head forward. The wires cut into his throat, deep enough to make him bleed but not deep enough to kill. His forehead smacked against her face and he heard something small and tiny shatter and then she was falling back off his lap and landing in a heap on the ground. Ayden closed his eyes and ground his teeth together and his mouth tasted coppery because somewhere along the line he’d bitten his tongue and his cheeks when there’d been electricity flowing through his body. He opened his eyes again when he heard Billie Jo scream and he saw here sitting on the floor with her eyes wide and her nose shattered and there was blood coming down her face. Her pigtails were a mess and she was looking at him with a shocked expression on her face. “Daddy!” she screamed suddenly and burst into tears. “Daddy! Dollie is being mean!” There was no answer from outside Billie Jo’s bedroom and Ayden was breathing heavily through his mouth and with each breath he was gasping a little and he didn’t like that because that meant he was hurt pretty bad and maybe this whole electrocution thing was designed to do just fucking that. When no one answered the little girl, she growled and screamed and kicked Ayden in the shin. He cried out and it shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did but his body was in pain all over. She kicked him again and then again and then she was hitting his stomach with her little fist and again it shouldn’t have hurt because she was just a little girl but it did. “I hate you!” she screamed and he didn’t fucking care if she hated him because he hated her back. The both of them froze and quieted when there were heavy footsteps on the stairs. Ayden saw Billie Jo’s face curl into a vicious grin and then she was leaning forward, but out of range of his head because she didn’t like to be head butted. “My Daddy’s coming,” she told Ayden, taunting him. Ayden tried to curl his hands into fists but he couldn’t quite manage it. “He’ll teach you to be mean! He’ll teach you!” The footsteps climbed the stairs and Ayden felt dread build up and well up inside his chest with every one that got closer. He felt tears stinging at his eyes and he hated that they came because he was always fucking crying and how the hell did Johnny put up with a little brother as weak and pathetic as he was? When the footsteps reached the top floor, Ayden sucked in a breath and held it. The person who came into the doorframe was not who they were expecting. Johnny stood there and he was covered head to toe in blood and muck and guts. There was a look of surprise on his face but it quickly morphed into one of anger when he took in the scene. Ayden just felt so fucking relieved because Johnny was here and he was alive and he was covered in blood and muck and gore but he was out of the pit and he wasn’t dead. The giant hadn’t choked him to death and he hadn’t snapped his neck falling into the body pit. A choked sob escaped his throat and that seemed to make everyone in the room move at once. Johnny was racing forward at the same time that Billie Jo was darting for the machine. Ayden had his eyes on his brother, so he wasn’t excepting the sudden high voltage current that came crackling out of the wires tied around his wrists and ankles and neck. The world paused around him and was replaced by pain and agony. But he heard Johnny snarl, “You fucking bitch,” and he would have to make fun of him later for swearing at a little girl. .Wolfie. Johnny backhanded her across the face.He heard her scream and cry out and he probably lifted her a foot off the ground with the blow. She flew backwards through the air and landed with a crack and a thump against the pile of corpses she had collected. There was blood streaming down her face and the thought he saw one of her teeth go flying when he’d hit her. He almost felt bad when she raised her head because there were tears streaming down her face and maybe she didn’t understand why this was wrong yet and maybe it was her parents fault and not hers. Then he heard his brother’s strangled gasp and that went right out the fucking window. Ayden was twitching and jerking in the chair, his mouth opened in a silent scream but his throat was locked up and no sound escaped his lips. There was blood on his face and the gash in his forehead looked jagged and ugly and painful. Johnny could smell hair and skin burning as his brother was electrocuted. Black burn marks lined his wrists and his ankles and his throat. He heard the crackle of electricity and the quiet hum of energy in the air and the source of it was the machine next to him. He yanked on the switch and the electricity left the air, leaving dead silence in its wake. The little girl broke it with a strangled sob. “My daddy’s going to kill you.” Johnny snorted. “Not if I kill him first,” he growled, and he strode over to Ayden’s side, leaving the little girl in a wretched, bleeding pile on the floor. What the fuck was she going to do to him, hit him with a doll? He crouched down next to his brother, holding his face up with his hands. “You still with me little brother?” he asked, trying to force a grin onto his face. His eyes kept sliding shut and his head rolled to the side, trying to focus on Johnny’s face. “You cursed at a little girl,” he snorted. Johnny smirked and checked his brother’s heart rate. He didn’t like how erratic it sounded and he didn’t like the little gasps his brother had to keep taking just to breathe. “Yeah, well you got beat down by one. You’re the badass motherfucker that killed an elephant and you got beat by a little girl. Come on, you’re slacking off on me.” Ayden laughed and it sounded raspy and awful as it left his throat and Johnny didn’t like that black line around his neck. He kicked at the chair and yanked on the wires around his brother’s arms. He grunted as he struggled with them, feeling them cut into his fingers as he tried to free his brother. One of them snapped and came loose under his hands and Ayden’s arm fell weakly to the side. It worried him how limp his brother’s arm was and his heart rate didn’t seem to be calming down any. “Come on man,” he said, patting his cheeks because his brother’s eyes were fluttering shut on him again. “Stay with me Ayden. Open your fucking eyes or I’ll leave you here to play Barbie and Ken. And I think you’re Barbie.” Ayden snorted and his eyes cracked open. “I’m so much prettier.” Johnny laughed and then the second wire came loose from his brother’s other arm. Ayden was raising a hand to his throat when the doll hit Johnny in the head. He wasn’t expecting it and it hurt more than he thought it should as it cracked off his temple. He slipped and hit the ground, head whipping around and the little girl was hauling back with another doll to throw it at him. “I hate you!” she screamed and threw the doll at him. He knocked it aside with his arm and then he was pulling himself to his feet. There was blood running down her face and in her mouth but she didn’t seem to notice as she grabbed another doll off the shelf and threw it at him. “Get away from my Dollie!” “Fuckin’ bitch,” he snarled, ripping the doll out of her hand. She lashed out with little fists at his chest and he caught her hands easily, wrapping a hand around her neck. He glanced around the room because he wasn’t sure what to do with her and part of him thought he should just kill her. He’d shot his son easily enough, but at the end of the day that had been something wicked and wrong and this was just a fucked up little girl. His eyes landed on her dresser and then he was dragging her across the floor kicking and screaming. “Let me go,” she shouted at him, hands clawing at the arm around her throat. “My daddy’s going to kill you! He’s going to kill you both and then we’ll eat you up!” “Just shut the fuck up,” he snarled at her, and then he was wrenching the bottom drawer open and shoving her inside. She screamed at him as it slammed closed and then he tipped the whole thing over. A startled cry came from inside as the wood hit the ground and then she was howling and pounding from the inside of the dresser and he heard Ayden snort behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and his brother was yanking weakly at the wire around his neck. “Don’t let anyone tell you you’re not good with kids,” he said dryly. “Yeah, well there’s a reason I don’t have any,” he said and he started to say them with a grin. It fell from his face as soon as he realized what he said and his brother was watching him with one eye. Ayden smiled at him weakly and he tried to pretend he never said it because there were a lot of reasons he didn’t have kids and most of them were his fault. He came back to his brother’s side and curled his fingers around the wire, yanking hard on it. It popped off the chair and Ayden gasped because he could suddenly breathe much easier. He rubbed the black line around his neck and focused on Johnny’s face. “Where’s Annie?” “I don’t know,” he said, crouching down next to his brother’s feet. “That’s what we need to find out.” “The fuck is this place anyway?” Ayden asked and he was still rubbing his throat. His arms were shaking as he rested them on his knees and his whole body looked weak and drawn. Johnny wondered if his brother realized how stilted his breathing still was and the small tremors that ran through him. He growled low in his throat as he slammed a fist into the chair, because his patience was running out and he was worried about Annie and what they might be doing to her and he thought about that big dumb animal with the mask and how he’d petted her hair and he needed to kill something. “I don’t know,” he snarled. “Ed Gein’s fucking dreamhouse. I really don’t give a shit.” The last wire snapped off and Johnny leaned back, still crouching on his feet. He looked up at his brother and he wasn’t moving to stand yet and his skin looked like it was going to vibrate off his bones. He ran a hand through his hair and the fingers were shaking. The burn marks around his hands and his wrists were thick and ugly and leaking blood around the black. He glanced up at his brother’s face and Ayden was crushing his eyes shut and rubbing a hand over his skin. “Can you stand?” he asked quietly and his brother’s eyes slid open. His brother swallowed and licked his lips and then he was pushing himself out of the chair. His legs were shaking but they held and he noticed Ayden breath a small sigh of relief because maybe his brother hadn’t been sure of the answer either. He took a stumbling step forward and he was looking at the dresser. The back of it was shaking as she pounded little fists against it but she wasn’t going anywhere. They could still hear cries and shouts coming out of it and he snickered and glanced at Johnny. “I’m surprised,” he said. “I thought you would kill her.” Johnny shrugged and rose to his feet next to his brother, using his arm to try and wipe some of the blood and gore off his face. The smell lingered in his nose and it smelled like death and rot and other things he didn’t want to think about. He could still feel the slick sensation of blood and gore under his fingers and it was under his nails and in the cracks of his skin. At least he hadn’t gotten any of it in his mouth this time, and he knew if he said that his brother would make a stupid joke about it so he kept it to himself. “Yeah, well, I’m going to kill her whole fucking family, so don’t think I’m doing her any favors.” Ayden laughed and put a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. Johnny pretended he didn’t know his brother was bracing himself to walk. “You are dark,” he said, shaking his head, and it was the second time his brother had told him that. He wondered if that should worry him. He wondered if he should be worried that he could kill people without hesitation now because he hadn’t always been able to do that. Vaughn’s words lingered in his head and he didn’t like them because they seemed like they were always in the back of his mind now. He wondered if the devil’s fingers were still in his brain and he wondered distantly about the scars on his back because he still didn’t know what they meant. He wondered if he was still playing for the right side. Then he thought about Annie and what they might be doing to her and he didn’t care anymore. That was his woman and he felt his gut roil with the thought of them touching her or hurting her. He knew she could take care of herself but there were four fucking psychos missing and the big guy alone might be enough to subdue her. Besides, she hadn’t come charging into the rescue this time, and if she was free she would never leave without them. He forced a smile onto his face and wrapped an arm around Ayden’s shoulders and he knew he was getting blood and guts on his brother. He didn’t know if he’d be able to walk without the support and he wouldn’t make him ask. They hobbled towards the door and Johnny leaned his head out first, eyes flicking up and down the hallway. He knew there were at least four other fuckers around here somewhere, he just wasn’t sure where. He missed his gun and then he missed his Cadillac because if he had that they never would have been here in the first place. “Well,” he snorted, “Down the hall or down the stairs?” Wenston “Hall,” Ayden said, licking his lips to try and get some saliva back in his mouth. “I can’t do the stairs yet.” He almost regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth because his brother shot him a worried look but Ayden just tried to grin back at him. His whole body was shaking and his heart was still beating way too fast. He felt a little dizzy and though is legs were holding him up currently, he didn’t know how long they would last. He really, really didn’t like being electrocuted. “Hall it is,” Johnny said and they started moving down the hallway. Johnny kept peeking into the rooms, keeping an eye out for Annie or any of the other psychos that lived in this house. Ayden tried to pretend that his head wasn’t flopping along with their steps, but he was having trouble keeping it steady and up. He needed to talk because he was starting to drift off. “Dude, you smell like ass,” he half slurred out and he saw Johnny turn a pointed glare at him and it made Ayden chuckle because his brother was currently still holding him up and their faces were really close to each other. He didn’t miss the fact that the gore and blood that covered Johnny looked awful or that his brother was pale beneath the disgusting mush that covered him. He’d seen what was inside the pit with him. “Well, excuse me if I keep getting thrown into fucking body pits,” Johnny growled and he looked back towards the hallway, pausing outside of one door to poke his head inside and look. Ayden chuckled and cleared his throat because it got caught on his tongue. He brought a free hand up to rub at his chest because his heart was still going too fast and was fluttering and he hoped he wasn’t going to have a heart attack because he was too young for one of those. “Yeah, what’s up with that?” Ayden quipped. “You’re gonna develop a fetish soon.” “Oh, like your fetish for getting tied up and being made someone’s bitch?” Johnny snorted to him. Ayden snorted back mockingly. “You should try it sometime,” he grinned as Johnny rolled his eyes. “You might like it.” “Fuck that,” Johnny said and he poked his head into another room. Ayden didn’t know what his brother saw, but in the next moment, Johnny was shoving him to the floor and ducking out of the way as an axe came slamming down towards his head. The axe thwacked into the floorboards, right next to Ayden’s ankle and he scrambled back a little bit as Johnny snarled because that was really close to not only cutting off Johnny’s head, but cutting off Ayden’s foot too. “Fucking bastard,” Johnny growled and he was rushing forward to grab hold of the axe. Ayden could see scrawny arms trying to pull the axe up out of the floor and then the old man was kicking out at his brother like some sort of freakish ninja. His foot hit Johnny square in the chest and he fell backwards, against the wall and to the ground because the wind was knocked out of him. If Johnny got to tease him about being brought down by a little girl, he sure as hell was going to tease Johnny about being karate kicked by a fucking old geezer. Later, though, because the man had gotten the axe free of the floorboards and he was raising it above his head to bring down at Johnny again. Ayden scrambled forward and his limbs were like rubber but he managed to climb to his feet and then he was tackling the old man because no one aimed an axe at his brother. The two of them fell to the floor and Ayden got a boney elbow to the face. He groaned but kept his weak arms wrapped around the geezer’s waist, trying to keep him pinned. Johnny gathered himself and was then rushing into the fray. His hands slipped around the axe’s handle and he yanked it away from the man. “Ayden, move!” Johnny yelled as he raised it above his head. Ayden sucked in a breath and let go of the man and rolled to the side. He got disoriented in his retreat and his chest hurt and he brought a hand to his chest because his heart felt like someone had it in a fucking vice. He barely registered the wet thwack that sounded behind him or the spray of blood that caught him in the back. He heard Johnny grunt as he retracted the axe and brought it down again with another smacking whack. Then the axe clattered to the floor and Johnny’s hands were on Ayden’s shoulders because he was sitting there gasping and holding his chest. “Ayden?” Johnny asked and Ayden realized he had his eyes squeezed shut. He opened them and looked at his brother and he had new blood splattered across his face and if Ayden didn’t know him, he’d be terrified of him because Johnny had just killed a guy with an axe and he looked like a bad guy in a horror movie. “Oh, this is the biggest one I ever had,” Ayden grit out and he saw Johnny’s face contort into a look of confusion. “You hear that, Elizabeth? I’m coming to join you honey.” Ayden was breathing heavily and his swollen hands were clawing at the shirt over his heart but he felt the invisible hand that was squeezing his heart start to fade away and it started beating again, fast and thready still but still moving. Johnny’s hand came to Ayden’s neck and dug into his skin to feel his pulse. Ayden tried not to wince because the motion pulled at the burns and lacerations around his neck. Johnny’s brow was furrowed and he looked worried and that frightened Ayden a little bit. “Did you just quote Sanford and Son to me?” Johnny asked and withdrew his hand, looking Ayden squarely in the face. Ayden nodded. “Yeah,” he said weakly because his chest hurt and he was trying to calm his breathing. “Did it work?” Johnny snorted and dragged Ayden’s arm across his shoulders, hauling him to his feet. Johnny ignored him and growled out, “If you fucking have a heart attack on me I’m going to kick your ass.” “What about just mild cardiac arrest?” Ayden asked breathlessly. “I’ll still kick your fucking ass,” Johnny said and reached to grab the axe, then he turned them around because that was the last room on this floor and now it was time to head for the stairs. Ayden tried to keep his feet moving to keep up with his brother but his chest was still on fire and he thought about telling Johnny how much it hurt because maybe Johnny would fix it, but he kept his mouth shut. Because a part of him knew that Johnny might have to use his power to save Annie and that would be three visions in a day and Ayden’s head would probably explode. He didn’t want to make his brother choose between him and Annie, ever. So he chose for him and kept his mouth shut about the pain and they’d deal with it once they were all out of this hillbilly horror house. “You just killed a guy with an axe,” Ayden slurred as they got to the stairs. “I did,” Johnny said and then they were descending the stairs and Ayden’s legs threatened to give out beneath him and every step down was like a knife in his chest, but he kept quiet and didn’t cry out or make a sound because they needed to find Annie. They reached the bottom of the stairs and paused because Johnny was looking around and trying to decide where to go. Ayden stood, feeling a little loopy. He just grinned and shook his head because he was picturing Johnny hitting the old guy with the axe. “You’re so cool,” he said and maybe he hadn’t meant to say that out loud but it was too late to take it back now. Johnny snorted. “Yeah, and you’re out of it.” “Only a little,” Ayden shrugged. Whatever Johnny was about to say in response was suddenly cut off as a scream filtered up through the basement. They were moving before Ayden could register what was going on. Johnny was cussing and snarling and kicking in the basement door. Ayden just let himself be dragged along and it took him a moment but then he realized what had his brother in such a tizzy. The scream had belonged to Annie. .Wolfie. Johnny was thinking of the dream he’d had in prison.He was thinking about Annie’s face as she dragged a knife across her throat and the way her eyes had died right in front of him. He was thinking about her blood falling to his chest and his face and the taste of it on his lips. He thought about the way she had crumpled like a broken doll into his arms and his own voice echoed in his head as he screamed at her to open her eyes and live and she never did. The memory kept running itself over in his mind because Annie was screaming now from somewhere below him and he was blind with rage and fear. He kicked the door open and hauled his brother bodily down the stairs beside him. Ayden’s head rolled and landed on his shoulders and he knew he was struggling just to keep his eyes open but he couldn’t get himself to stop or slow down. His knuckles were white around the axe in his hand and he was going to coat the fucking thing in blood. He heard Ayden’s sharp inhalation of breathe. “Annie,” he whispered. His brother wasn’t doing well and he knew it. His eyes were glazed and his hand was coming up to clutch at his chest like Johnny wouldn’t fucking notice it. He hoped he didn’t go into cardiac arrest or something because Johnny was shit at first aid and CPR and the only other alternative was to use the voice. His boots thumped off the stairs as they barreled down them and Johnny noticed distantly that his brother wasn’t wearing shoes and he wondered why he hadn’t noticed that before. He heard Annie scream again and then he was barreling into the basement. It had a dirt floor and there were boxes and old farm equipment forced into every corner of the fucking place. A table was set up against the far end and there were tools and bolts scattered across it. The furnace next to him grumbled and roared but he didn’t see any of the fucking psycho family around the corner and he didn’t see any sight of his Annie. He heard a growl rumble out of his throat and then he saw the door across the room and there was a flickering light spilling out from under hit. He dragged Ayden across the dirt with him and then his boot was slamming into the door, splintering it into pieces as it flew open. Ayden let out a strangled gasp from next to him as they saw what was beyond the door. An altar sat at the far side of the room and there was a bright red pentagram drawn on the floor in front of it. Candles flickered and danced on top of it and the smoke coming off them smelled strange and unnatural. In front of the altar stood the last three members of the fucked up little psycho family. The dad stood directly in front of it and Johnny could see his gun sticking out of the front of the man’s pants and he felt a familiar, comforting rage at that. The man held a knife in his other hand and he was just sliding it out of the sheath and he thought maybe that was why his Annie had screamed. His hand tightened around the axe and then his eyes flicked to the man’s left where his hulking son stood, a mask still over his face. They’d put a tie around his neck and Johnny didn’t even wonder about that until his gaze flicked to Annie and then he felt a snarl rising up his throat. She was wavering on her feet, but the mother was holding her up with hands curling punishingly into her arms, nails drawing bloody lines on his woman’s skin. They had put her in a wedding dress. The white fabric was stained with yellow and ripped at the hem. She wore a tattered veil over her face but he could see her eyes as they turned to him. Blood was trickling down her forehead from a gash they’d put there and his hand tightened around the axe. He was going to kill them all. “Johnny,” she cried, and her voice cracked a little. There was so much relief in her voice that he felt bad it had taken him this long to get to her. “Get ‘im boy,” the dad shouted. He hadn’t seen the dog lying in the shadows, not until it leapt and slammed into him and his brother. He grunted as he hit the ground, but he kept his grip on the axe. Ayden groaned as he hit the dirt next to him and he was pinning his other arm down so Johnny didn’t have anywhere to go when the jaws snapped at his face. He felt the teeth close around his throat and he didn’t like that feeling one fucking bit. He brought the handle of the axe around in an arc, striking the beast in the skull and he heard it help as he struck it again. Something cracked and then it was bleeding on top of him and he hit it again for good measure before kicking it off of him. “I’m real tired of you boy,” the man said, and the hand with the knife fell to his side as he reached his other hand for Johnny’s gun. He shoved Ayden off him hurriedly, scrambling to his feet to try and get out of the way. The gun blast was loud in the small space and he heard Annie and Ayden shout his name at the same time and then a bullet from his own motherfucking gun was ripping a hole in his side. Sudden pain burst through him as it tore through his abdomen and his hand came up to cover the wound. Blood was already pulsing from it and he stumbled against the wall, trying to hold it inside where it belonged. He heard his brother cry something and then his eyes widened in surprise because his brother was charging across the ground at the man still holding the knife. He slammed into his midsection and the dad cried out as Ayden knocked him backwards into the altar. His fingers were curling around the gun and he slammed it into the stone. Johnny could hear knuckles crack against the hard surface and then his gun was clattering to the ground. Ayden was screaming something and he didn’t know what the words were anymore but he had the man’s head firmly in his hands and he was slamming it against the altar. The big son howled and roared and stumbled forwards toward Ayden. Johnny’s fingers curled around the axe again and then he was moving across the basement, ignoring the blood pulsing from his side as he raised the axe over his head. He brought it down hard into the masked man’s back and he let out a guttural roar as it struck deep into his flesh. He whirled on Johnny as he yanked it back out of the man and then the monstrosity was charging him instead, hands reaching for him as he stumbled forward. He brought the axe down again and this time it cut deep into his neck. The man howled and reached a hand towards the wound and then Johnny was swinging down at that too. Both the mom and the son screamed this time as the axe bit deep into his wrist, hand flopping uselessly. He distantly noticed Annie’s head snapping back and hitting the woman firmly in the nose and she stumbled back, holding her bleeding face. His woman was whirling on her, hands still bound behind her back but that didn’t stop her from charging the bitch and knocking her to the ground. Ayden was still slamming the father’s head into the altar, screaming and shouting and he thought his brother was crying but he didn’t understand why. Then he was swinging the axe down again and the huge man took a stumbling step forward, hand still flopping uselessly. He had gashes in his back and his neck and he was still coming forward so Johnny raised the axe high over his shoulder and swung it at his neck again. It bit deep into the flesh and blood burst out at him in an arc but he didn’t care because he was already fucking covered with it. The man stumbled, and then he fell forward into the dirt. The ground rumbled as he struck it and red flooded around him in a dark puddle. Johnny gasped and stepped past him towards his woman who had the bitch mother trapped underneath her, knees digging into her arms. “Annie, move,” he snapped out. She glanced up at his tone and then she saw the axe and she scrambled backwards. The mother let out a keening scream as he brought the axe down on her, blood spraying across Annie’s white dress. The axe fell from his fingers as he crouched by Annie, pulling her tightly into his arms. “Johnny,” she whispered, and he heard the relief in her voice as she pressed her lips into his neck. Behind her, Ayden finally released the man and stumbled back with a soft cry. Without Ayden holding him there, the dad slipped from the altar, his eyes wide and dead because the back of his skull had been bashed into mush. Brains and blood and bits of bone lingered on the altar and Ayden was whimpering softly as he fell back into the dirt. Then his hand was coming up and curling around his heart and he was gasping for air, his eyes rolling back in his head. “Ayden,” Johnny called desperately and he scrambled across the floor to his brother. His heart was beating too fast and too irregularly and he could hear it fluttering in his brother’s chest. “Come on,” he snarled. “Don’t do this to me.” Ayden’s back arched off the floor and his breathing was too desperate and raspy. He clawed at his chest like he was trying to pull his heart right out and there was fresh blood beginning to trickle out around the burn scars on his neck. Johnny grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into his lap, hands tight around his brother’s shoulders and he wondered if hitting him in the chest would do any good. His brother gasped one last time and then his body went slack in Johnny’s hands. For a second he couldn’t breath. For a second he thought his brother had just had a heart attack and died right in front of him and he had just sat there and watched. He felt his throat lock up and he didn’t want to move because he was scared and empty and his mind had gone completely numb on him. “Ayden?” he said, and he was afraid to shake his brother in case he didn’t move because Johnny couldn’t handle it if that happened. Then his brother took a breath and his head rolled to the side, focusing on his face. “I killed the dad,” he said, and his voice was little more than a whisper. Johnny laughed and squeezed his shoulder. “Yeah, well I killed the Incredible Hulk.” Annie cleared her throat behind him. “I’m still tied up.” Wenston Ayden felt his brother pull him into a sitting position and Johnny’s hand lingered on his back for a moment, rubbing soft circles there and it felt unusual to Ayden but not bad. He hadn’t meant to scare Johnny. He knew what it must have looked like and felt like to his brother when he’d just gone slack in his arms. But his chest had hurt so fucking bad and he was shaking all over and his heart was still beating irregularly. He’d thought Annie was going to die. He saw her in the white dress and he saw the altar and the man holding a knife and it reminded him too much of his vision. He could practically see her getting her throat slit and maybe some of the details were off, but it was happening and Ayden had charged in after the father like some fucking nut. It had scared him that this could be the moment when Annie died. It would destroy his brother. Annie dying would destroy him, Ayden knew that. He couldn’t let that happen. Johnny’s voice was quiet when he said, “I’ll be right back,” softly to Ayden. He waited for Ayden to nod and acknowledge the words before he stood and went back to Annie. Johnny’s movements were a little slower now that everything was dead and Ayden didn’t like the amount of blood that was coming from the bullet wound on Johnny’s side. He sighed and it was ragged because he thought that maybe they would have to go to the hospital and they were going there too often these days. Ayden watched his brother couch in front of Annie and battle the ropes tied around her wrists. As soon as they were loose, her arms came up to wrap around Johnny’s neck and she was kissing his face fiercely, not even acknowledging the blood and guts she was smearing onto her own. Then her hands went to Johnny’s side and he heard his brother drawl that he was all right and Annie shook her head and called him a name. Ayden looked away from them to give them some privacy. How was it that they couldn’t even drive down a fucking road without running into something that wanted to kill them? He reached a hand up and ran it over his face because he was so fucking tired and the swamp monster they’d been originally out to get was going to be put on the back burner again and Ayden was going to suggest another vacation. This was all getting to be too much for him. He couldn’t keep doing this. He thought about what he’d told his brother when Johnny had asked if he was okay on Annie’s front lawn. About being messed up and how he didn’t think they were supposed to win this. He’d just been talking, his mouth moving against his will and he didn’t realize when he said it that he didn’t know what it was they were supposed to win. A war? The war between heaven and hell? Where were all the players? Was it really just the Marshalls and their messed up friends versus Satan and his entire fucking army? There had to be others. There had to be other people to fight in this war, others that would fight the Wicked and help them defeat whatever it was they were supposed to defeat to be rid of this curse that was placed on them. Ayden scrubbed at his face and he tried to ignore the fact that parts of his face felt numb. He wondered if his lips were blue because the feeling reminding him of the time when he was a kid and swallowed a Lego and couldn’t breathe except for in short gasps and Johnny had to take him to the hospital on his bike because his parents were at the bar and their Dad hadn’t paid the phone bill. It felt a little like that. And Johnny had made fun of his blue lips for weeks afterwards. He’d been angry at first, but years later he would realize just how scared his brother had been that day. He sighed and could still hear Johnny and Annie talking quietly to themselves. He lowered his hands and opened his eyes and his mouth parted to tell them again that they should just fuck and be done with it so they could escape this hellhole. The words died on his lips as he saw the dark shadowy smoke billowing up from the edges of the altar. His eyes widened and he felt his heart stop but not because he was suffering after effects of electrocution. He recognized that smoke and he felt sick as he saw it flutter and jerk in the air unnaturally. “Johnny,” Ayden croaked and he heard their annoying lovers whispering stop. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the smoke to see if they were looking at him. He startled and gasped as a clawed, blackened hand suddenly shot out of the earth and it wasn’t human or any beast that Ayden knew but he recognized it. His mind screamed, Amon, but he knew this wasn’t the same demon. “Fuck,” Johnny’s snarl shot through the air and Ayden watched as the demon clawed itself out of the ground. The blood on the altar dripping down to the floor and the demon’s skull-like head snapped and cracked and a forked tongue lashed out and lapped at the blood even as it dragged itself free from hell. Then it moved with the speed of the supernatural and it was racing towards the father lying broken on the floor. It pried the man’s jaw apart and then shoved itself down the man’s throat. Ayden winced because he knew what that felt like and a part of him hated that dead man enough that he wished he was still alive so he could fucking feel it. “Ayden, fucking move,” Johnny was growling. Ayden finally peeled his eyes away from the demon and glanced at Johnny and Annie. She looked scared and he looked pissed. Johnny was trying to scramble to his feet, but his hand was still pressed over the gunshot wound on his side and there was blood seeping between his fingers and it looked like his legs weren’t cooperating with what he wanted them to do. Ayden shot his eyes back to the father as the man stood up suddenly. He reached up and cracked his own neck, then rolled his head and his eyes fell on Ayden, who was the closest to him. Johnny cried out Ayden’s name from the other side of the room and that just pissed Ayden off because he was tired of getting fucked with when he didn’t even do anything. Mustering strength he’d had reserved god knows where, Ayden made a mad grab for the gun still lying on the floor. His hands curled around the handle and he almost brought it up, but the demon dad’s foot slammed down onto his wrist. Ayden cried out because his wrists still fucking hurt and were burned. “Ayden!” Johnny yelled again and Ayden looked to his brother. He saw Johnny’s mouth open and his brother was about to say something, he could see the power building up behind Johnny’s eyes. The power of God ready to burst forth from his lips. But then the demon dad raised his hand and that was all it took to shut Johnny up because then his brother was flying backwards and he hit the wall with a crack and then fell to the floor in a heap. “Johnny!” Ayden yelled because his brother wasn’t moving. He wasn’t swearing or getting up. Annie cried out and scrambled over to him. Ayden growled and tried to tug his arm away from the foot pinning it to the floor. Then a fist curled into his hair and lifted his head. Another hand came around his throat and the foot released his arm but he choked and gasped because he was being lifted into the air. He tried to kick out but the demon shook him and it was enough to still his aching body. “I am Rimmon,” the voice that came out was low and evil and echoed around the room. There was hellfire and brimstone behind it and it was almost nothing more than a whisper but it was the loudest thing Ayden had ever heard because it stuck and screamed inside his head. “Ambassador to Hell.” “Go fuck yourself,” Ayden grit out between his clenched teeth and choking throat. Rimmon laughed and it sent shivers over Ayden’s body. His feet were dangling off the ground but Rimmon was just holding him, not killing him. His eyes darted to the side as he saw Annie running at them with the axe. She looked furious but Rimmon just snapped his head towards her and then she too, like Johnny, was flying across the room. She hit the wall and then slid to the floor, dazed and blinking. Ayden growled because he hated it when she got hurt. Rimmon’s eyes came back to Ayden and the meat suit’s grin curled along his face and then he was pulling Ayden so their noses almost touched each other. “I know who you are,” the demon said and it was loud and echoing in the room. “I can still smell Amon’s stench on you.” Ayden gulped and there were tears pricking at his eyes. “You are Son of God, Eyes of God.” Rimmon cackled and let go of Ayden’s hair to put a hand to Ayden’s chest. Ayden let out a pain gasp because his heart was pounding against his chest with more strength and ferocity than he could handle. From the other side of the room, Johnny groaned but Ayden couldn’t tell if his brother was awake or not. He hoped so, so he could tell Rimmon to go to hell, just like he’d told Amon. Rimmon brought Ayden closer and when he spoke, it felt like fingers and snakes and worms and all sorts of creepy crawlies were slithering their way across his skin. “You ask yourself every day why you do this. Why you fight. You tell yourself that in the end, it will be your ticket into Heaven, that God will welcome you and what you do will be worth it. I tell you now, Son of God, it is not. Your soul is tainted. Amon ripped a hole in you so big you struggle to open your eyes in the morning and find the will to pull yourself into the day.” Ayden was shaking in Rimmon’s grasp and he wasn’t sure whether it was because of his heart, the hand around his throat, or the words coming out of the fucking demon’s mouth. He was hitting too close to home and Ayden was started to feel numb. Rimmon cackled again. “He left you shredded and damaged and tainted. Do you really think God will allow a soul like yours into Heaven? A dirty, ugly, shredded soul like your pass the gates of Heaven? You will sully his host and taint his paradise and he will never, never let you inside.” Rimmon squeezed Ayden’s neck and suddenly all of his air was cut off. He pulled Ayden closer and Ayden could feel the meat suit’s stubble on his cheek. He focused on a point on the wall and he tried to escape the words because this demon knew how to hit below the belt. “When you die, you will come to my house. You will come to hell and sit among those you sent there. And we will welcome you, but we will not be gentle.” .Wolfie. Johnny was bleeding.He could feel it pouring out of his side and out the back of his head and it was warm and wet and hurt. He groaned and tried to sit up but he felt weak and dizzy and when he forced his eyes open the world was swimming in front of him. The shadows seemed thicker and darker and he blinked and tried to focus his eyes because there had been a demon crawling out of the dirt and into the corpse of a man Ayden had killed and his brother was probably in trouble. He blinked and he focused on the corpse and his brother was being held off the ground by the throat. Then he heard the words the demon was whispering to him. He heard the words echo in his mind and his heart and it hurt to hear them. He heard the demon tell his brother about the wound left in his soul and why hadn’t Ayden told him that it still hurt? Why hadn’t Ayden told him that nothing had gotten better since the day Amon had crawled out of his throat? His eyes slipped shut as the demon kept talking and he heard it tell Ayden he would never set foot in heaven and then he heard his brother make a quiet, strangled noise and it sounded like despair. He felt tears slip from his own eyes and for a moment he felt the same sort of despair, settling deep in his soul and he didn’t know why they kept fighting either. He heard the words the demon whispered into his brother’s ear and he heard the same whispers in the nightmares Vaughn had put in his head. He closed his eyes and he could see Annie and Ayden dead and dying and bleeding into the dirt and it was all just ash in his mouth. Everything they did, everything they tried to do, none of it would matter in the end and he could feel that terrible certainty in his bones. His eyes slid open again and he looked across the room where the demon was holding his brother. He thought all those horrible dark thoughts that the world would end in pain and torment and they would burn in Hell like the rest. He thought them and something dark and terrible rose in him because maybe that’s how it would end but Johnny fucking Marshall would never let it happen without a fight. Johnny fucking Marshall would die on his feet with his god damned boots on and he would make sure his brother was standing next to him if he had to carry him the whole fucking way. If they died, if they all died, they were taking some mother fuckers with them. Johnny was pissed. Johnny was more angry than he’d ever been in his life and it wasn’t all for the demon saying those words to his brother. It wasn’t all for the demon holding him above the ground and choking his life out and telling him that he was nothing more than a broken pawn for God and the devil to play around with it. He was mad at himself for failing his brother when the cultists had carved an eye into his forehead and jammed a demon down his throat. He was mad at himself for not seeing the problem and not finding a way to fix it. He was fucking pissed as all Hell at God. “When you come to Hell,” the demon was whispering. His lips pressed against Ayden’s ear but his eyes were locked on Johnny’s across the room and he was smiling at him. “We will cast you into the lake of fire with the beast and the prophets and the sinners and you will burn like all the rest.” He laughed and pressed a kiss to Ayden’s cheek and he heard his brother sob as he clawed at the hands holding him. “You will know such sweet torment. You will burn so beautifully.” Maybe the demon was lying. Maybe he was full of shit and he was just trying to scare Ayden and hurt him where it would strike home. Maybe he was just jamming a knife into his heart and twisting it, but somehow Johnny didn’t think so. He’d never put much faith in God because all he’d ever done was dump these powers on him and Ayden and then leave them to figure the rest out. Right now, he hated the fucker. He hated that he would abandon his little brother on his dying day and leave him to burn in a lake of fire because he had been hurt and torn apart. Where the fuck was God when that had been happening? Well fuck God, because Johnny fucking Marshall would never abandon his brother. His fingers dug into the wall and then he was hauling himself to his feet. He didn’t care about the blood pouring from his gut onto the floor or about the throbbing of his head or the way the world tilted and spun darkly around him. He saw Annie slumped against the wall and she was blinking dully. His brother was whimpering and his feet were kicking at the demon but there was no strength behind it and he was going limp and slack in the meat suit’s hands. Johnny raised his hand and pointed at the demon and he hardly recognized his own voice when it dragged its way from between his lips. “You put him the fuck down right now you piece of shit,” he told the demon. The demon smiled with a mouth that wasn’t his and tilted his head at Johnny. “Sit back down,” he said. Johnny didn’t say the word out loud. He didn’t say it with his voice or the voice of God, but he saw the demon’s hand rise to toss him like a child against the wall again and in his head and in his heart he told him no. He saw the demon flex his fingers and he felt the power pushed at him and it was dark and wretched and smelled like sulfur when it washed over him but something had changed. This time when he felt it hit him it wasn’t a freight train running him over. It was the breath of Hell against his skin and it burned and it hurt but it didn’t stop him and it didn’t slow him as he moved across the basement. “You sit the fuck down,” he snarled at the demon. He saw its eyes go wide and he realized that he was supposed to be hitting the dirt again and maybe cracking his head open and dying covered in his own blood, except he wasn’t. He was stepping up to the demon and he was punching him in the face as hard as he could and he felt his knuckles split and bleed as they hit the dead man’s face. The meat suit’s head snapped back and he stumbled under the blow, his fingers slipping around Ayden’s neck. Johnny’s hand grabbed at the arm holding his brother and then he hit the demon again. He let Ayden go and then he was whirling on Johnny, slamming his fist into his face and he felt his skin split open and his head snap back but he could take a hit like nobody’s business and he wore a feral grin when his head turned back to the demon. He saw the man’s eyes widen and he saw the demon churning below the surface of his skin. “Well, this is unexpected,” he said, and his head tilted unnaturally to the side as he studied Johnny. His arm snapped forward and then he was grabbing the demon by the throat and lifting him off the ground. “If we ever come to Hell, you’re gonna be the one burning,” he growled out. His hand tightened around the demon’s throat and he felt it cracking and breaking under his fingers and there was blood pulsing under his grip and spilling to the floor. His eyes were wide and startled and Johnny wondered for a moment when he had gotten so strong and why it was he wasn’t dead against the basement wall. He would think about it later, because right now he was just concerned with the sound of his brother gasping for air behind him and the sound of it rasping harsh and painfully in and out of his throat. He heard a strangled sob escape his brother’s throat and he squeezed harder on the meat suit’s neck. The demon laughed, clawing at the hand’s holding him. “Well,” he snarled. “I didn’t expect to find the Voice here. I didn’t realize you’d come.” He leaned forward and he saw something dark seeping from between the corpse’s lips and he could see eyes looking out of the mouth at him and they were red. “You think that’ll help? You think you’ll be able to save the Eyes of God? My master knows your name and he knows your face. Legion is risen and he will burn your world to the ground.” “Maybe. But you'll burn first,” Johnny snarled. “Now go back to Hell.” Wenston There were nightmares, and then there were nightmares.Ayden thought once that he could tell the difference. Now he wasn’t so sure. He’d watched his brother die at the hands of a demon and it was just another vision to file away with all the other ones that were just like it. He’d been tortured and burned and scarred and he saw his brother get shot and Annie get hurt and a demon rise from the depths of Hell to crawl its way into the body of a dead man Ayden had killed. He watched a family get killed and a little girl get locked in a dresser upstairs and he didn’t feel regret or remorse for the lives that were lost. He thought once, that all these bad things that happened, all these horrific events that were or could have been or will be, were classifiable and he could distinguish between the nightmares that kept him up at night and the nightmares that did something worse. But he had been wrong. They were walking along the highway, back to Annie’s dead car. Annie was supporting Johnny because he had a fucking bullet wound in his side. Johnny was keeping close to Ayden, who refused help and had shoved his hands in his pocket and didn’t care about the rocks and gravel that kept pinching at his bare feet as he walked. He didn’t care that his heart was threatening to pound its way straight out of his chest or that his wrists and ankles and neck were burned raw. He didn’t care that his throat had been crushed or that he could still feel the demon’s hands suffocating him. He just didn’t care. And he felt numb. His mind was racing faster than his heart was. He thought about a witch they’d killed in the swamps of Louisiana. He thought about the vampire nest they’d wiped out of existence and the man he’d shot in the head there. He thought about all the Wicked things they’d killed in an asylum and about the werewolves they’d wiped off the map in Wisconsin. He thought about Vaughn and his dead, smashed face and Amon burning in Hell. He thought about the clowns and the circus and the voodoo priest they’d slaughtered. He thought about the zombies and the soul eaters in their hometown. Then he thought about the thousands of people they’d saved and the hundreds of people they didn’t. Why wasn’t it good enough? Before he was a Godsent, before Johnny told the train to stop and he’d seen his brother die inside his head, Ayden had a reoccurring nightmare from the time he was six years old until he was nine. It didn’t come every night, and sometimes it would leave him alone for months. But it was the same every time he had it and it always ended with him trying to slip into bed with his brother because he was too scared to sleep alone and his parents would have turned him away or backhanded him. He was standing in a field and he was holding a kite. It was red and shiny and it reached the clouds and kissed the sun and tickled the blue, blue sky. Ayden was laughing and smiling and he kept letting the kite go higher and higher because it was going to pull him up into the sky with it. But it always ended the same. It always ended with vicious black clouds rolling in and the wind picking up and the kite yanking from Ayden’s hands. He’d chase after it and he’d watch it disappear and the rain came and the thunder came and the lightning crashed and he was left alone in the dark and the storm while his kite flew high above it all and away from him. Ayden never understood what the nightmare meant or why he would have one about a kite because he’d never flown a kite in his life. But he was thinking about that nightmare as they were walking down the highway because today, of all days, it made sense. God said no. The same way Johnny told the train “no,” all those years ago. The same way he told Annie no when she begged to bring back their baby or the way he’d said it to Ayden when Dyani had died. He hated that word. He hated hearing that word. When it came from Johnny, it pissed him off. But when it came from God himself, he didn’t know the emotion that invoked inside him. He’d never felt pain like that before. A part of him tried to convince himself that the demon was lying. But he knew, deep down he knew, it wasn’t. He was the one living with a hole in his fucking soul, he knew how it felt, he knew how empty and hard and dead it made him feel. He knew when the demon spoke, it was the truth. It was an ugly thing that was left inside him. It was ugly and putrid and if he could cut it out all together, maybe he would. He was going to Hell because God didn’t want him. Ayden sucked in a breath and he looked around them at the thick trees lining the road. Annie’s dead car sat just up the road. He wondered what God was like. He wondered if God was more like their father or their mother. Did he give them these powers just to see them be ripped apart and shredded like their Dad would have done? Or did he give them these powers, regret it, and then turn a blind eye to them, like their mother? He didn’t know which one he’d like better. It didn’t matter really. Because he was going to Hell. “Ayden,” Annie’s voice was soft and he didn’t turn to look at her. It was the first words any of them had said to each other since leaving the house. “We can slow down, if you need to,” she said. He wondered if he looked as bad and defeated as he felt. He licked his lips and shook his head. “No, it’s okay,” he said quietly. “Are you sure?” Annie asked. Ayden nodded and there was a smile on his face but it wasn’t happy or pleasant. “You know what the first thing I’m going to do when I get to Hell is?” He didn’t know where the question came from. He didn’t know why he was joking or why there was laughter bubbling up in his chest. He just didn’t know. “Ayden…” Johnny’s voice sounded hurt and not just because he’d been shot. Ayden didn’t like it, so he didn’t give his brother a chance to continue. “I’m going to punch Amon in the face,” Ayden nodded his head like he was convincing himself of that. “And then Rimmon. And then Legion. And then the Devil himself. Hey, do you think Dad’s down there because I’d like to punch him too. Maybe Mom. Suicide’s a sin, right? So maybe she’d be down there. I mean, she technically killed herself. Oh, and maybe Vaughn. I could carve something into his face, see how he likes it. Maybe I could draw a dick on his face.” He laughed but it sounded strangled. Ayden felt his brother’s hand grip his arm and try to pull him to a stop. He knew and could recognize when Johnny wanted to talk. When his brother thought they needed to discuss something and he couldn’t do it right now. He just couldn’t. Ayden shook his head and shook off Johnny’s arm. “I mean, what’s he gonna say?” Ayden continued and his voice was rising a few notches. “Go to Hell, Ayden? Oh, sorry, Vaughn, we’re already here. And hey, thanks for that by the way, I loved having a demon shoved down my throat, best experience of my fucking life. You know what felt even better? When he fucking crawled out and left a mangled mess of shit and vomit behind that was so rank and putrid that my good old buddy God didn’t even have the stomach to clean it up. I mean, you’d think he’d have the stomach for that sort of thing, you should see the stuff he puts in my head. You think Hell is bad? What’s a little fire and brimstone compared to watching your brother die every five fucking minutes? I mean, you haven’t seen anything unless you’ve seen Johnny Marshall get eaten in pieces by a snake monster in a body pit.” Ayden’s voice broke and he wasn’t sure if it was the words that broke them or the fact that his throat was constricting or he’d just been strangled and shouldn’t have been talking that much. He didn’t know why he couldn’t shut his mouth off or why his brain just kept going. He didn’t know why he was saying the things he was saying. He sobbed and would have continued, but then stepped in front of him and Ayden ran into him and Johnny’s arms wrapped around him and Johnny’s hand came to the back of Ayden’s head and he was pulling him in tight and it took Ayden by surprise because maybe he forgot that Johnny and Annie were there. He buried his face in his brother’s shoulder and he didn’t even mind that Johnny was getting blood and guts on him or that his side was leaving blood stains on Ayden’s shirt. Johnny’s grip was strong and comforting and Ayden just felt so fucking numb that he would take any anchor to reality that he could get. “I won’t let it happen,” Johnny whispered and Ayden felt sobs build up at the back of his throat and in his chest but they refused to come out because he’d cried too much already. “I won’t let it happen, Ayden,” Johnny repeated and his brother squeezed him. Ayden couldn’t even hug him back. He just stood there with his mind racing and his heart pounding. Johnny pulled back and then his hands were on the sides of Ayden’s face and he was forcing Ayden to look him in the eye. “Hey, do you hear me? I won’t let it fucking happen.” Ayden sniffled a little bit. He stared at Johnny’s face and his brother just looked so desperate and sad. Ayden’s shoulders slumped a little bit. “You said we,” he whispered back to him. Johnny frowned, his eyes darting to Annie, whose face was red and there were tears in her eyes but they hadn’t spilled over. She took a step forward and ran her hand along Ayden’s back. “What?” Johnny asked, looking back at him. “You said, if we ever come to Hell, you’re gonna be the one burning. You said that, to Rimmon.” “Because it’s the truth,” Johnny spat and he was angry, but not at Ayden. Ayden shook his head, even though Johnny still hadn’t let go of his face. “I don’t want you to go.” Johnny frowned and Ayden just kept shaking his head. “I don’t want you to…to follow me there. I don’t…promise me,” he demanded and Johnny was gritting his teeth. “Promise me you won’t go.” Johnny let go of Ayden’s face and it took all of Ayden’s strength to keep his head up and his eyes on his brother. Johnny squared his shoulders and held his chin up. “No,” he said simply and there was that word again. The word Ayden fucking hated. He wanted to punch his brother. He wanted to clock him across the face. But then Johnny said, “I told you, I would never leave you like that. Not in a hospital and sure as fuck not in Hell.” Ayden kept his eyes on his brother’s face and he wanted to argue. He wanted to tell him that he’d better fucking not go to Hell just because that’s where Ayden was going. If Johnny could go to Heaven, then he was going to fucking go. But then he stopped and he thought, because he’d been thinking a lot lately, and he thought about Heaven and what it would be like reversed. What it would be like if Johnny went to Hell and Ayden went to Heaven and he wondered if there could be such a thing as Heaven if your brother was burning and rotting in Hell. He didn’t think so. So he just nodded and he brought up a hand and fisted it in Johnny’s shirt because he didn’t know what to say and he’d talked too much. A calm settled on Johnny’s face and his brother sucked in a breath and then yanked Ayden into another hug. This time Ayden weakly wrapped his arms around his brother and stared out at the road and tried not to think about the demon’s words. He doubted it. The sound of an engine brought all of their attentions to the road and they looked up as a familiar looking red convertible came speeding over the hill, actually coming a few feet into the air before the tires squealed and the car came to a jerking stop next to them. Ashley Baker sat in the driver’s seat and he had a fucking arsenal in the passenger seat and the back seat. He leaned over to look at all of them, a stupid fucking grin on his face and ridiculous looking sunglasses on his nose. “What did I miss?” he asked and the three of them just stood there and stared at him. Maybe they could stop it. Maybe they could keep Ayden from going to Hell and maybe Johnny would keep his promise that he wouldn’t let it happen. But the demon’s words still echoed in his mind and they his soul was still shredded inside of him and there were the headaches and the dreams and the visions and the Wicked and there was Legion. Maybe Johnny could stop it. But Ayden doubted it. Because there were nightmares, and then there were nightmares. And this was one of them. .Wolfie. Session #10: The Unforgiven Johnny woke up sweating and gasping for air. He was having a nightmare. He didn’t usually dream and he didn’t usually have nightmares, but he was having one now and it lingered and burned his skin. It reminded him of the brush of Rimmon’s breath over his flesh and the power that had hit him when he had been knocked on his ass in Tennessee. It reminded him of the smell of sulfur and brimstone on his tongue and the sound of a demon wailing in his ear and deafening him and the feeling of knives cutting into his skin and of Annie’s blood on his lips and of Ayden being crucified like a God damned martyr on a cross with his eyes cut out. He ran a hand over his face and he felt the scars under his lips. A shiver ran through him and he felt the sweat pouring down the back of his neck because the dream was about his brother burning in a lake of fire and being ripped apart by legions of demons, piece by piece. He was startled when he felt the soft hand on his back and he jumped a little, hand going for the gun under his pillow. “Shh,” Annie whispered, and her hand stroked his hair. “It’s okay. Just a dream.” Johnny shook his head and leaned his head into his hands. “I don’t know that baby,” he whispered. He was trying to keep his voice down because his brother was in the bed next to him, but he didn’t think he was sleeping. He was too still and too quiet and his breathing was too even. He thought Ayden might be awake and he shook his head slowly at Annie as she looked at his face. The streetlights outside were casting a dim blue glow into the room and it landed on her hair and shone like a halo. He reached a hand back and curled his fingers with hers and tried to remember how to breathe. He felt her fingers on his back. He felt them run over the scars there and then she paused. “What is this?” she asked, and she sounded surprised because she hadn’t noticed it before and Johnny had forgotten about them. He shook his head and reached for his pack of cigarettes because he needed something to calm him down and something to remind him he was human and breathing in real smoke and not the smoke pouring off a lake of fire in Hell. “It’s nothing. Just a present those fucking cultists left me.” A present in the shape of words he didn’t know with a meaning he didn’t know and maybe he was afraid to ask, but what did it matter anymore? Maybe it marked him for Hell. Maybe he didn’t have a choice but to join his brother there and he felt a shiver wrack his form again. “What’s it mean?” she asked, and her fingers were tracing the lines. They were soft on his back and he leaned into the touch, even if it was on his fucking scars. She was in his bed again and she was his again and it didn’t stop everything from going to shit around him but just having her around made some things easier to take. She narrowed her eyes and tried to read them but it was dark and they were nothing but thin white lines in his back. “Per me si va ne la città dolente…” His hand reached back and brushed her lips. “Don’t,” he told her. “Don’t read them out loud.” She tilted her head at him. “Why not?” she whispered, and she rested her chin against his shoulder. He sighed and leaned back to kiss her because she was pouting and sad that he had snapped at her and he should apologize. He held the cigarette loosely in one hand and slid his other through her hair as he kissed her slowly. Her face wrinkled because there was still smoke in his mouth but she didn’t pull away and she didn’t tell him to stop. “Because words have power,” he whispered quietly to her when he pulled back. “Because some things you cant’ unsay.” † † † Johnny leaned against the car and smoked his cigarette. “So what else did he say?” Ashley asked him quietly. Johnny shook his head and ran his fingers over his lips. He felt the little familiar scars under his fingers and they reminded him of what being helpless felt like. They reminded him of what it felt like to be tied to a metal table and to know that somewhere his brother was being hurt and tortured and was in pain and he couldn’t do anything but scream and choke on his own blood. He ran his fingers over his lips and they reminded him that he had to be better and faster and stronger because if he wasn’t then everything he ever cared about was going to die and never get up again. “You mean besides that Legion is here, and he’s gunning for us?” He blew smoke out from between his scarred lips and he looked over at Ashley Baker. The man stood in front of him with his arms crossed and he had never looked so serious in his life but he was watching Johnny now like he expected something from him, like he was waiting for Johnny to give him the worst news of his life and Johnny opened his mouth and did it. “He said Ayden was going to Hell,” he told him quietly, and he watched his face for a reaction. His eyes widened slightly and he tilted his head. “That’s stupid,” Ashley told him. “Kiddo’s Godsent, the Godsent don’t go to Hell.” He watched his face. He watched his eyes and the way they looked back at Johnny and he waited for that one moment he knew was coming. The scars were rough under his fingers and he took another drag from his cigarette as he stared down Ashley Baker and there it was. He saw his expression falter, only for a second, but it was there. He saw the doubt creep into his eyes and his stomach was a lead weight in his gut. He snorted and looked down at the ground. “Ayden’s not going to Hell,” Ashley said again. “No,” Johnny snapped. “He’s not.” He didn’t say it because Ashley told him he wasn’t. He didn’t say it because he really believed God wouldn’t fuck his kid brother over like that. For some reason his dad was on his mind, the abusive drunk that he was, and maybe the bastard had brought him into the world, but he didn’t give a fuck what happened to them after that. He wondered if that’s what God was like, if he had dumped all this on him because one day he’d gotten too drunk or too fucked up and maybe they were an accident of birth. Maybe they were never supposed to make it out alright to begin with. He didn’t give a fuck what God said. His little brother wasn’t going to Hell. Or at least, he wasn’t going alone. “He said that Amon left a hole in him,” he continued. He watched Ashley’s face and he waited for a reaction and he thought maybe he wanted to hurt him because Ashley was supposed to be the go-between, the fucking messenger from God and maybe if he made Ashley feel a little bit of the pain Ayden felt, he could get his boss to change his mind. “He said that he head left a gaping wound in his soul and that God wouldn’t want that in his house. He said that he wouldn’t want him tracking dirt in his house.” Ashley shook his head and kicked at the stones. His Hawaiian shirt was bright in the noonday sun and he pulled the sunglasses down over his eyes. Johnny didn’t know if it was because of the glare or because he couldn’t take Johnny watching him anymore. He hoped it was the later. He thought about punching Baker but he knew it wasn’t his fault and he knew it wouldn’t solve anything. He was supposed to fight the wicked. He was supposed to fight Legion and the Devil and all he wanted to do was go into God’s house and give the motherfucker the beating of his life. Maybe Vaughn had been right about him. Maybe he was playing for the wrong side. Maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. “So how did you beat him again?” Ashley scrubbed his hand over his face and leaned back against his own red convertible. Johnny’s eyes went past him to the little hula girl rocking on the dashboard and next to her curled a gray cat. It was Diyani’s cat and it hurt him to see it because it reminded him of something else he hadn’t done because he’d been afraid of the consequences. He should have said to Hell with it. He should have told Annie yes and told Ayden yes and fuck all what God thought about that. He snorted and tipped his head back, looking back at Ashley. “We told you already. I kicked his ass and told him to go to Hell.” Ashley tilted his head at him and he hated those fucking sunglasses because he couldn’t read his expression. “Yeah, you told me that. But how did you get back up? You said he threw you against a wall without ever touching you. You said he had you both by the balls, and then you just got up and told him no? Did you use the voice?” The questions came in a rapid fire stream and Johnny snorted and kicked at the tire of Annie’s car and he wanted his fucking beast back already. He kept waiting for the tire to deflate on him again and wouldn’t that have just made his day. His head turned and he glanced over at the motel room. Annie was inside with his brother. Last he’d checked they were playing Go Fish and watching cartoons. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, Baker,” he snapped. “I got up, I hit him, I choked him, and then I sent him to Hell.” Ashley nodded and his arms shifted over his chest. He took a breath and he wasn’t joking around and he wasn’t looking at his Playboys or making crude comments about him and Annie. He was standing there talking to him and asking him questions and suddenly Johnny didn’t want to talk to him anymore. He should’ve been asking about Ayden. He should’ve been promising Johnny he’d look into it and find out where the kid was going or at least lie to them so he could tell his little brother it was going to be okay. “Yeah, yeah, I got that. But he didn’t try to throw you again? He didn’t even try?” “Fuck off, Ashley,” he spit the words out with so much venom he saw the other man flinch. He flicked his cigarette off onto the asphalt and then he crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head at Ashley. “He tried, and it didn’t work. End of story. He fucked up, I killed him. Now, you got anything to give us before we go fight Legion, because I’d like to take care of this asshole before he does too much damage.” Ashley nodded slowly. “Yeah, alright. Take what you need.” He popped the trunk open and then he walked back to the hotel without glancing back. Johnny watched him go and he felt like he had missed something. He ran his fingers over the scars on his lips and he thought about how it felt to have his mouth sewn shut and what it felt like to drown and see the other side of the glass but not be able to break through it. He thought about his fists pounding weakly and the feeling of water flooding his lungs and not being able to do a single fucking thing to stop it. Ayden had saved his life. Johnny owed him for that. He started with the guns, the bigger the better. He loaded shotguns into the trunk of Annie’s car and then he loaded hand guns. He took boxes of blessed bullets and regular bullets and silver bullets and every other kind of fucking bullet there was and this thing was going to be dragging by the time he was done. He looked for a machine gun but he didn’t see one and he almost smiled at the thought but it was so hard to smile these days. There were books in piles and he left them in the car and looked at the trinkets hanging from the metal lid. There were crosses and stars of David but he left them all there. He already had one crucifix around his neck and it didn’t seem to be doing him much good so far. He thought about chucking it, just to prove a point to the bastard who was supposed to be watching out for him, but it seemed a little too much like throwing a hissy fit so he left it hanging around his neck. He sighed and took two more machetes and the sword Ashley had lent him once upon a time because he felt like it. An envelope with cash was already shoved inside his wallet. He didn’t know what else they needed. He closed the lid and sighed, lighting himself up another cigarette. Then he turned and walked back towards the hotel room. He glanced up at the sun and it was too bright and sunny and it just pissed him off a little bit because he felt like there should have been a fucking hurricane going on out here. Maybe God could summon another flood and just drown them all and put them out of their misery. Maybe it was time to wipe the board again. Maybe people weren’t even worth saving anymore. Ashley was leaning over Ayden’s shoulder as he walked in and the three of them looked up as he kicked the door shut. Annie smiled at him but it didn’t reach her eyes. Ayden focused on his face for a second and then he looked away. He wondered what his brother thought of him these days, but he wasn’t leaving any fucking doubt in Ayden’s mind about where he stood. If they were going down, they were going down together. If they were going to fail and die and wreck and burn they were going to do it side by side and Johnny wasn’t going to let his brother fall behind or let him down. He had never been more certain about anything in his whole fucking life. If they were going to burn in Hell, they would do it together, and they would take Legion with them first. “You ready?” he asked, trying not to taste the ash on his tongue. Wenston Ayden sucked in a breath because a part of him really, really didn’t want to do this. There were still scars around his wrists and his ankles and his neck. There were other scars that ran too deep for anyone to see, but he tried not to think about those. They had healed the best they could and yeah, they had gone to the hospital and given fake information because Johnny had a bullet wound and Ayden’s heart was fucked up. But they were mended and better and they had taken it easy for a while and that meant it was time to get back in the saddle and do what needed to be done. But that didn’t mean Ayden had to like it. He was sitting cross legged on the floor with Johnny seated across from him. Ashley was in a chair by the table in the motel room and he looked a little nervous. He’d never been around for one of Ayden’s visions and he was about to sit through a pretty good show because they didn’t share these visions often, but when they did, it usually got interesting. Annie was seated on the floor a little ways behind Johnny. She was watching them, interested, because she’d never seen them share a vision either. Ayden tried not to feel like a fucking circus attraction with all the eyes on him. He’d been self conscious and quiet and just, numb lately. He wasn’t being whiny and he wasn’t being sad, he was just quiet. Johnny tried to break him out of it sometimes, with light banter and mocking tones, and Ayden would return it the best he could but it never seemed to bring him up. “You ready?” Johnny asked again and Ayden thought his brother kept asking because maybe Johnny wasn’t ready for this. Ayden nodded and when Johnny leaned forward to grab the back of Ayden’s head, Ayden held up a hand. “Don’t head butt me this time,” he said and quirked a smile, just for his brother. Johnny snorted and grinned at him and Ayden returned it half heartedly. “If I remember correctly, you’re the one that cracked your hard head against mine.” “No, I seem to remember it differently,” Ayden chuckled. “You guys are adorable,” Ashley said from the table and both Ayden and Johnny turned to glare at the man. Then Johnny was pulling Ayden’s head towards his and their foreheads met and Ayden looked into Johnny’s eyes and it was a little weird to have his brother’s face so close to his but then Johnny was growling and he snarled when he spoke. Ayden would think later that the snarling meant Johnny didn’t like this any better than he did. But he said the words anyway. “Show me where Legion is.” And then he did. † † † Their names were Bonnie Jo and Christopher Jameson. He liked to go by Chris and she liked to go by BJ, even if it made her fifth grade class giggle when they found that out. She was a teacher from Missouri and he was an accountant who worked hard at his job and was up for a promotion in a few weeks. They were newlyweds and they were enjoying their honeymoon on a beach in California instead of the Bahamas because they were saving up for a new house. They sat on the beach in their swimsuits and worked on their tans and drank pineapple drinks with little umbrellas and twisty straws. He would lean over and kiss her neck every so often and she would giggle and sip at her drink. Their hands would meet between the beach towels and their fingers would move over one another and dance to no music together and they were happy and content and married. When the water of the ocean spurted up in a spew of white and blue, they didn’t think anything of it because they were too busy playing footsie to notice. The second time it happened, Bonnie leaned forward and put her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. “Chris, what was that?” she asked and her fingers were still intertwined in his. He sat up and didn’t look out at the water because he was planting kisses on the nape of her neck. She giggled and swatted him away. “What was what?” he asked and moved in for more. “That, look!” she said and he sighed and looked out at the water. At first he didn’t see anything and sometimes BJ thought she saw things when really she didn’t. It was her medication, Chris had found out. He was going to tell her there was nothing, but then he squinted and ducked his head forward because there was something dark and big out in the water. Then the water spewed up in a sprout again and Bonnie gasped while Chris smiled. “That’s a whale, honey,” he said and he stood, pulling her to her feet. There were other couples and people and children on the beach and a few of them had spotted it too. They started down towards the water and stood pointing and telling their friends. “I don’t know what he’s doing so close to the beach though,” Chris said and he frowned a little because the whale was very close and kept getting closer. “He’s coming awfully fast,” Bonnie said and Chris had to agree. He suddenly grasped her hand and they ran back, away from the water because the whale was over the sandbar and still jetting towards the beach. The crowd gasped and scrambled away and the whale swam with full force into the sand, water spraying around it as it came to a sudden and dreadful stop. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Bonnie squealed, because she wasn’t the type of person to swear, being around fifth graders all day. “What do we do? Should we call the National Guard?” “Uh,” Chris said because he knew a thing or two about whales and he knew this wasn’t normal for a whale to beach itself so violently. It was one thing to get trapped on the wrong side of a sandbar. It was another to swim straight into the shallows at full force. “We should call someone,” he said. A scream came from somewhere to their right and when they turned and looked, they saw a fin in the water. A family of four was scrambling back and away and then a shark was jettisoning our of the blue ocean and into the air and it reminded Chris of the documentaries he watched on sharks as they went after seals and could go airborne. But when the shark came back down, it wasn’t on water, it was on land. Bonnie gasped and put a hand to her mouth. There was a low rumble of chatter from the beachgoers because this wasn’t normal and this wasn’t natural and another whale beached itself a quarter of a mile up the beach and three more sharks came after that and then a killer whale. A school of fish threw themselves from the lapping ocean and there was a sea turtle crawling slowly out of the water further up the beach. “Chris,” Bonnie said and she was hugging her newlywed husband close. He hugged her back and watched the dying animals as they lay on the beach. “I’m scared.” Then a little girl was yelling from a balcony behind them. “There’s a man in the water!” Bonnie and Chris looked up at the little girl and saw where she was pointing and then looked out into the water and sure enough, a man was emerging. He was naked and wet and covered in ocean gunk. But as he pulled himself out of the ocean, he stood on the beach and the water on him turned to steam and the mud turned to dust and it all melted away. “Stay here,” Chris told Bonnie and he started walking towards the man. “Hey, fella! Are you alright?” He called. “Chris, don’t!” Bonnie yelled after him. “I don’t like this.” Chris just waved a hand back at his newlywed wife and approached the man. The crowd was gathering around and the naked man who’d crawled out of the water just stood still, his feet sinking into the sand. “Sir?” Chris asked and he was within an arms length of the man. “Are you alright?” When the man didn’t answer, Chris rubbed his sweaty hands on his swim trunks and tried to duck his head to see the man’s face. “Can you tell me your name?” “Yes,” the man said and when he spoke he spoke with a million voices. Then he lifted his head and said “We are Legion.” Then Chris was screaming because his eyes were burning in their sockets. Bonnie screamed because Chris fell over and had smoldering craters where his eyes should have been. Then her eyes were burning too. The man named Legion turned and looked at the crowd and then they were all screaming and burning. As Legion turned his head towards the world in front of him, he grinned and it was wicked and evil. “Come to me, Godsent,” he said in a million voices. “We are Legion.” .Wolfie. Ayden was screaming.Johnny had come out of the vision flat on his back and there was blood pouring form a gash on his forehead. It took him a long time to realize that Annie was leaning over him and shaking his shoulders because the vision was still fresh in his mind and he felt it burning into his own eyes with the intensity of it. He could hear the screaming and the dying and over all of it he could hear the sound of a million voices as they called across the dirt to them. His breathing was harsh and ragged and Annie was shaking him because he wasn’t looking at her face, he was staring at the ceiling and feeling those eyes burning through him and into his soul and he thought he could still hear screaming. Then he realized it was because Ayden had the second vision hitting him between the eyes and his voice was harsh and terrified as it tore through him and he was howling at the ceiling. Ashley Baker slid from the chair and he was grabbing Ayden around the shoulders to hold him steady but he was thrashing and wailing and one of his hands struck the man across the face. Johnny pulled himself upright and then he pinned his brother down to the ground as the seizure wracked his form. There was blood running into his eyes. He barely felt it. Annie’s hand was on his back and he thought she was talking and maybe Ashley was talking but he couldn’t hear them and it wasn’t because he was half deaf in one ear. It was because those million voices were echoing in his head and his gaze was locked on Ayden. His brother’s eyes had rolled back in his head and they were pale and white but he could see blood beginning to trickle from them and the last time that had happened was when Marko jammed his dirty little fingers in his brother’s brain and forced all his visions down his throat and the bastards just couldn’t leave his brother alone. Ayden gasped and then he went still under Johnny, his eyes opening and focusing on his face. His mouth opened and then it closed again and he looked like he wanted to scream or cry or break but he didn’t do any of those things. He swallowed the fear and then Johnny helped his brother sit up and he was pulling him into his shoulder in a hug. He didn’t know if it was because his brother looked like he needed it or because Johnny just needed to let him know he was still in this with him. He felt a shiver run down his spine and he hugged his brother tightly because they had just witnessed Legion. They had seen Legion and he had seen them back and he was scary as fuck. “What happened?” Annie was asking. He felt her hand on his back and she was rubbing slow, soothing circles into his skin. He tried to let it comfort him but suddenly he didn’t know if there was enough comfort in the world for what they’d just seen. Her other hand was curling around Ayden’s shoulder and she was squeezing it tightly but Johnny still didn’t let his brother go. He didn’t sob or cry, but he didn’t pull away either. “What did you see?” “Legion,” Johnny whispered. Ashley crouched down next to them. “Nothing like a demon from Hell to bring a family together,” he snorted. Johnny thought about hitting Ashley and it wasn’t for the first time today. His head turned so that he could look him in the eye and the man was smiling but it wasn’t reaching his eyes. He was waiting too. He was waiting to hear what they had seen and Johnny opened his mouth to tell them but he wasn’t sure he knew how to explain the gut wrenching horror of that vision. He’d shared a couple of visions with Ayden before. He’d looked into his head and he’d had his nightmares and he’d seen his share of awful things up close and personal. It didn’t compare. None of it compared to the sweeping terror he had felt when that man had stepped out of the waves and in his head he had been screaming and begging those people to get away from him, to run as far and as fast as they could because there was nothing they could do to stop him. They could only burn and scream and die and the words had never left his lips because he didn’t have a throat or a mouth there, so they had screamed, and they had burned, and they had died. And Legion had looked into his eyes, looked into the world, and he had asked for the Godsent. Ayden pulled away from Johnny slowly, putting a hand to his head and there was bruise forming there. He rubbed a hand over his face and his fingers came away bloody. Johnny didn’t know if it was from his bleeding gaze or from his bleeding forehead but for a second he saw the blood and he looked numb and lost and sad. Johnny squeezed his brother’s shoulder and Ayden looked up at his face and he couldn’t read the expression looking back at him but he thought it was fear. Then his eyes went to the knot on Johnny’s forehead and the small smile wasn’t completely forced. “I thought I asked you not to head butt me this time?” he said. Johnny snorted, pushing himself to his feet. He was shaking in his skin as he took a step towards the table and he was ripping a cigarette out of the pack and jamming it between his lips. “I asked you if you were ready,” he said with a smirk, and it wasn’t really funny. None of it was funny because they were so fucked. How were they supposed to fight against a demon that could burn their eyes out of their sockets and spoke with a million voices and scared nature itself out of the water? “Boys, stop holding out on us,” Ashley said, going back to his seat. “What did you see?” He sighed and ran his fingers over the scars on his mouth. “We saw Legion,” he said again. Annie was helping Ayden sit back on the bed, and she was dabbing at his brother’s forehead with an old tee shirt. “Okay,” she said slowly. She at least was trying to be gentle because she was looking at Ayden’s bleeding face and heard the quaver in Johnny’s voice and maybe she wasn’t used to seeing them afraid. She glanced over her shoulder at Johnny and raised an eyebrow. “Did you see where he was? What was he doing?” Ayden chuckled dryly. “He was going swimming.” Johnny smirked at his brother but all of it was forced because he was a little bit scared out of his mind right now. He took a breath and shoved it down because he didn’t have a choice. Either they killed Legion or he killed them but either way they were going to have to face the motherfucker eventually. Better now, when they were ready and no one they cared about was dead and they alone could go down shooting without dragging anyone else into Hell with them, if that’s what it came too. “He was on a beach in California,” Johnny said, and he said the words so that they didn’t make Ayden. He wondered what his brother’s second vision had been about, if it was about Legion finding them instead of them finding him and he didn’t want to know because if he asked he might see that distant, aching look in his brother’s eyes that said he’d seen Johnny die. “There was a whale, and then a shark, and then a thousand other things, all beaching themselves just to get away from him. And that’s when he came. Legion. He came out of the water and he burned out the eyes of anyone looking and then he spoke with a million voices.” Johnny’s voice was shaking. He didn’t like it and he shoved the cigarette into his mouth. Ashley took a hissing breath. “Alright. What did he say?” Ayden laughed darkly and he buried his head in his hands. His fingers scraped over the scar across his eye and across the stubble on his cheek and dragged lines of red across his skin. “He said ‘We are Legion’ and then he said ‘Come to me, Godsent.’ So I’d say we don’t have the element of surprise.” Then his brother was laughing and holding his head in his hands and Annie sat next to him and ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” Ashley muttered, and he shook his head. “Burned their eyes out, you said?” Johnny nodded slowly and Ashley cursed again. He tipped back in his chair and covered his eyes with his hands for a moment, and then they dropped to his side. He shook them out like a dog and then he was nodding his head and standing up. “Alright, well I got some wards I can give you. Little things, keep in mind, but they might protect you a little bit if he tries to slap some wicked mojo on you. Gotta tell you though, you boys might be in over your heads on this one.” “Yeah,” Johnny snarled. “So you’ve said. Just give me the fucking keys and tell me what I’m grabbing.” Ashley pulled them from his pocket and tossed them at Johnny. He caught them easily in one hand. “In the trunk,” Ashley told him. “First said of necklaces from the right. They’re called Metatron’s Cube, and they look like a crazy ass gyro. They’ve got a Star of David in the middle, and thirteen little circles around the outside. Strange as shit, but they should help out a little bit.” Johnny nodded and acted like he knew what he was talking about, but he would figure it out. It couldn’t have been that hard, he just had to pick the ones that weren’t a crucifix or a pentagram. “Annie, can you come help me?” he asked, and he was about as subtle as his brother when it came to wanting to talk to his woman. She ran a hand through Ayden’s hair and he smiled up at her to try and tell him he was fine. Neither of them believed it. She sighed and patted him one more time on the back and then she was rising and following Johnny outside and maybe she already knew what he wanted to say because she had that look on her face. She crossed her arms over her chest as she followed him to the car and she was being just as quiet as he was. He took a breath and knew he was about to start a shitstorm. “I think you should go with Ashley,” he said quietly, popping the trunk. “No,” she snapped, helping him pull the trunk open. She didn’t blink, not for a second, and that was part of why he loved her so much. That was why he should let her go. That was why he should tell her to leave and never look back and forget about Johnny fucking Marshall and he should apologize for ever dragging her into this, but sorry didn’t mean much anymore. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face and felt the scars under his fingers and he wouldn’t stand by helplessly while she died, not if he could do something about it. She should leave him and have a good life and babies and go to Heaven because that’s where she belonged. “Annie,” he said quietly, resting his hand on the car. “You got no business being here.” He knew the words would piss her off. He saw it in the way her jaw tightened and the way her eyes narrowed as they snapped to his face. She looked like she wanted to slap him and he hoped she would. He hoped she would slap him and storm off and leave with Ashley and be far the fuck away from Legion and never get her eyes burned out or die screaming with her throat slit. Then she took a breath and she was pulling three necklaces out of his car. “I know what you’re trying to do, Johnny Marshall,” she told him quietly. She leaned forward and slid one of the necklaces around his neck and it was a heavy weight against his chest. Then she kissed his lips and they were soft and warm and he didn’t want to lose her, not ever, and he was terrified he couldn’t protect her from this. “I know you think you’re a big damn hero and you can do this by yourself. But if you really want to help your little brother, you’re going to need someone else to watch your back. So shut the fuck up and don’t ever try and tell me to leave again. Because it’s not going to happen.” He should have yelled at her. He should have told her to get the fuck out of Dodge and don’t look back. He didn’t. He kissed her back and tried not to picture her with her throat slit. “We’ll leave in the morning then.” Wenston Ayden sat on the bed with his head in his hands. He was trying to rub Legion out of his eyes. It was funny, because the second vision had been worse than the first but Legion was far more scarier and seemed to linger longer. The second vision had just shown the aftermath. It had shown all of Texas burning. Whole cities wiped off the map as Legion burned his way across the country looking for the Marshall brothers. There were so many corpses and there was so much suffering and pain and Ayden wondered what they’d gotten themselves into because innocent people were dying now because they’d pissed off the devil. At least Texas was still breathing now that they’d ought Legion out instead of the other way around. Ayden wondered when he’d become so jaded because it was either a million people dying or a thousand people dying and neither one were good but he was happy that just a thousand were dead. Johnny and Annie were outside and Ayden was a little grateful because he knew what Johnny was going to do. He didn’t think Annie would go for it, because she was Annie and she wouldn’t leave when the Marshalls needed her the most. Ayden couldn’t shake the dreaded feeling that they were going to get her killed. But that thought alone made him laugh because that’s not how Annie died. He’d seen how Annie died. She died in a white dress, getting her throat slit, while someone told her to kneel and obey or love and die for him. He vaguely wondered if the man in his visions was Johnny because he’d never seen his face, but the way he talked reminded him of his brother. There was a distant thought that he knew of someone else who spoke like that, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it because Ashley Baker chose that moment to clear his throat loudly. Ayden dropped his hands from his face and he ignored that there was blood smeared around his eyes and on his forehead and this whole Legion hunting business was starting out great because he was already a fucking mess. Ashley was tipped in his chair, eyes on Ayden like he was studying him. “You don’t look so hot,” Ashley said and Ayden narrowed his eyes because the man had to be fucking kidding him. Then Ashley leaned forward and he clasped his hands between his knees and put the joking aside and surprised Ayden when he said, “You’re having headaches, right? Nightmares? Probably pretty fucking scary ones?” Ayden gulped and thought about the nightmare where his eyes were being burned out and there were a million voice whispering and that reminded him a lot of Legion now that he thought about it. His eyes snapped to Ashley’s face and he nodded in response. Ashley ran a hand over his mouth and seemed to be judging whether or not he wanted to say anything further. He seemed to decide against it and Ayden wanted to know what the man had to say. “Do you think we can beat Legion?” Ayden asked softly. Ashley seemed to think about it for a moment and then shook his head. “I don’t know, Little Buddy.” Then Ashley leaned forward and the question that came out of his mouth confused Ayden. “Has Johnny had any…close calls lately?” Ayden frowned. “Close calls?” he asked and he sat up a little straighter because why the fuck would Ashley want to know that. “Every day is a close call,” Ayden snorted. The Hawaiian shirt wearing man chuckled and nodded his head, leaning back in the chair and glancing to the window to see where Johnny and Annie were. Then he looked back at Ayden. “Any bad ones, though?” Ayden’s eyes went distant and for a moment he could see Johnny floating lifelessly, pale and bloated in the dunk tank beneath the big top. He shook his head to shake away the vision and then he stood up because he had blood on his face and Ashley was making him uncomfortable with these questions. “He drowned. I had to give him CPR,” Ayden said as he walked towards the bathroom. He leaned over the sink and turned on the water and then he was scrubbing the blood away from his face. He startled a bit when he opened his eyes and Ashley was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame. He hadn’t heard the man move or get up or cross the room. Ayden watched him in the mirror and narrowed his eyes. “You keep a lot of secrets from us,” he accused. Ashley snorted and reached to hand Ayden a towel. “It’s called duty and a need to know policy on operations.” Grabbing the towel, Ayden ran it over his face and watched as it stained red because the new gash on his forehead was bleeding. His forehead looking like one massive scar these days and he was glad his hair was shaggy enough to cover it up. He kept the towel over his mouth for a second and watched Ashley as Ashley was watching him. “What’s God like?” Ayden asked and Ashley seemed uncomfortable with the question because he squirmed a little bit against the door. “I mean, is he a douchebag?” Ashley actually laughed at that and he reached out to clap Ayden on the shoulder. Ayden thought the man’s hand lingered a bit longer than it should have on him and that confused and frightened him. He wasn’t sure if Ashley was keeping secrets or just scared that he might never see the Marshall boys again. He didn’t like that Ashley couldn’t tell them if they were strong enough to beat Legion. He didn’t like that Ashley wouldn’t tell him what God was like. “He has his moments,” was all Ashley gave before he turned and walked back into the motel room. Ayden sighed and shut off the water and he heard Johnny and Annie come back inside. He stared at himself in the mirror for a moment and he thought about telling them about the nightmares and how he thought it was Legion. He thought about telling them that he didn’t think they’d win against the demon. He thought about telling Johnny they should pull up and Johnny should just tell Legion to die right off the bat because if they fought him, they’d die. “We’re leaving in the morning,” Johnny was saying and Ayden ducked his head to stare at the red in the sink. “Don’t suppose we can talk you into coming with us? With your little two shot pistol, we might have a chance.” Ayden smirked because sometimes he just loved his brother so fucking much. Ashley squawked like he’d just been offended. Then he shook his head. “No, I ain’t coming with you. In fact, I will be on the other side of the fucking country so don’t even think about calling me unless Legion is dead or they give you one free call from Hell.” The room outside the bathroom fell silent and Ayden stood a little straighter in the bathroom. He could imagine Ashley’s face as he realized what he’d just said. He could picture Johnny’s glower and Annie’s annoyed look because she hated it when people underestimated her boys. The silence felt so awkward and Ayden wasn’t even in the room. He threw the towel into the sink and took a steadying breath before he emerged into the room. “I’ll be sure to call collect,” he said and all of them turned to look at him. Ashley looked a little pale, because he hadn’t meant to bring up the going to Hell business in front of Ayden. But he smirked a little bit. “I’d deny your call. I ain’t paying for that long distance.” “Not even for me?” Ayden asked, putting on a mock look of hurt. Ashley snorted. “Maybe for you,” he said. “But only to ask you how the weather is down there.” Johnny growled suddenly and they all looked at him and his eyes were narrowed and his chin was low. “No one is going to Hell except for Legion and any other fucking demon that gets in my way.” Ashley laughed and clapped Johnny on the shoulder and he didn’t look too amused by that gesture. Then Ashley was heading towards the door. “I like your spunk, little Marshall.” Ashley paused in the doorway to turn and look back at them. He looked like he wanted to tell them good luck or be careful or maybe even not to go. But he just smiled. “You’re taking the cat.” .Wolfie. Johnny was having a nightmare.He knew it was a nightmare. He knew he was dreaming and that none of what was happening was real, even as it was happening, but he couldn’t stop it and he couldn’t change it and the terror of that was very fucking real. He hated being afraid, even in a dream world. He hated the feel of it under his skin and the way his stomach churned and maybe he hated the helplessness that came with it because if he was afraid that meant he thought he wouldn’t be able to stop it. Fear meant a little part of him had given up or thought he might fail and Johnny couldn’t afford to fail. He was having a nightmare, and he didn’t think a nightmare should hurt this much. Ayden was screaming. He had been screaming for a long time, but it was getting louder and it was hurting his ears. His brother was screaming because his eyes were burning slowly out of his sockets and there was ash and embers falling from his face like black snow. The smell of burning skin filled the air because the flames were eating away at his eye sockets and deep into his skull and he kept screaming even when the flames burned up his tongue too. He had his head tipped back and he was nailed to a crucifix overlooking a lake and the lake was on fire too and there were a million more screams coming from the burning lake. He thought maybe he was in Hell. He thought maybe this is what it would really be like, fire and torment and pain. Johnny wanted to stop it. He was supposed to fix it and make everything better and make the pain go away and make the demons die. He tried to open his mouth to say the words, any words, but he couldn’t. Black thread pulled at his lips and blood poured into his mouth but he couldn’t get the words off his tongue. He started screaming then, but it never left his lips. He saw Legion rise from the lake of fire and open his mouth and he heard the million voices speaking at once. “Come to me, Godsent,” he said, and then he smiled and his own eyes were flaming in his skull but he wasn’t screaming and he wasn’t in pain. Johnny clawed and ripped at the stitches on his face and he could feel blood running down his skin and onto the ground where it sizzled and sparked and died. He closed his eyes and when he opened them Legion was standing in front of him. He reached his hand towards Johnny’s face and he was afraid. He touched his skin and his touch burned and he felt his own eyes burst into flames and he tried to open his mouth to scream. He couldn’t. He choked on the blood in his mouth and he wept, but he never screamed. He shot up in bed and he was gasping for air and sweating and this was twice this week already and he didn’t like it one fucking bit. Johnny didn’t dream and he didn’t have nightmares. He put a hand to his head and it was shaking as it touched his sweating skin. Then he heard the gasp next to him and Ayden jerked awake with a scream half formed on his lips still. He watched his brother and the fear and despair lay bare on his face and for once he wasn’t burying it under a pathetic excuse for a smile because he hadn’t realized Johnny was awake yet. He scrubbed his hands through his hair and he heard his brother stifle a sob and he wanted to cry with him. It wasn’t fair what God had done to the kid. It wasn’t fair that he was being damned for something he didn’t have any control over. He wanted to call Ashley and make him promise that the demon had been lying. He wanted to call him even though he’d just left and make him promise that no matter what happened, Ayden was guaranteed a spot in Heaven. Even if Johnny had to take his place, even if he needed to use his own soul to patch up Ayden’s, he would do it, because it wasn’t fair that the kid had to see so much death and horror every night just so he could suffer an eternity of it. “Johnny?” Annie mumbled in her sleep, and her hand slid across the sheets as she reached for him. Ayden’s head rose when he heard her voice and he saw Johnny watching him. He swallowed hard and Johnny watched him plaster the smile on his face again but it never reached his eyes. He studied his brother’s face and Ayden looked away from him like he couldn’t take Johnny seeing too much or too deeply. He knew he was just the stupid cowboy, but he could read his brother like nobody else and he didn’t like what he saw. He cleared his throat and his voice was a low whisper. “I could try to heal it,” he said quietly. Ayden looked at him and he looked like maybe he wanted to say yes but maybe he was too scared it wouldn’t work. He shook his head slowly. “I’ll be fine,” he said, and then he lay back down with his back to Johnny. He watched his brother and he felt his heart crushing itself in his chest. Annie’s fingers slipped over his hand and he heard her whisper his name again and he sunk back into the bed but he wasn’t tired anymore. He closed his eyes and he could see the fire in his brother’s face and smell the burning skin and hear his screams. Fuck God if he thought he could turn Ayden Marshall into a martyr for him. Fuck all of them if they thought Johnny would let that happen. Annie’s hand slid over his chest as she snuggled against his side and he tried to focus on that. He tried to focus on anything but the slow burning rage in his heart, because he was saving that for Legion. † † † “This cat is creeping me out,” Ayden said from the backseat. Johnny glanced in his rearview mirror and the cat was blocking half his line of sight. It was perched in the back of the car and it was just sitting there, in that Egyptian cat pose, its eyes wide and gold. It was staring at Ayden. It wasn’t blinking, it was just staring at his brother and he bit back a chuckle. Ayden shifted uncomfortably and scooted to the front of his seat, leaning his head between the seats. “Seriously. It won’t stop staring at me. You think there’s something wrong with it?” Johnny snorted. His arm hung out the window and the wind was whipping by them at eighty miles an hour as he cruised down the highway. A cigarette dangled from his lips and he breathed in the smoke and tried not to compare it to the smell of brimstone and burning skin. Occasionally he could see Annie’s fingers tighten on the armrest and she’d already made a couple not so subtle comments about letting her drive the rest of the way. “Maybe there’s something wrong with you,” he said playfully, grinning at his brother so he didn’t take the words too seriously. At first they hadn’t wanted to take the cat, but Ashley fucking Baker had made them. “Listen,” he said. “Clearly, Legion creeps the fuck out of nature. So take the damn cat with you and keep an eye on it and when it starts to freak out then you know you’re in trouble. Not sure what you’ll be able to do about it, but at least you’ll have some kind of warning before you all get your eyes burned out of your sockets.” No one had ever said Ashley was the most comforting of people, but sometimes Johnny thought the man made him look tactful and considerate. “Great,” Ayden had said. “A furry alarm system. What will they think of next?” Annie shot him a glare and then smiled back at Ayden. “Maybe she just likes you.” “Well, maybe you can get some action from the cat then. You want to borrow the car, get to know her a little better?” He waggled his eyebrows at his brother and the look on Ayden’s face made him laugh. Then he cursed because it made him drop the cigarette onto his jeans. “Fuck,” he muttered, grabbing it before it could burn a hole in his pants or in the seat. He heard Ayden snicker at him from the backseat and he shot his brother a glare. “You realize I did that with my mind,” Ayden told him with a grin. Johnny rolled his eyes. “Right, you’re a regular Jedi fucking master, aren’t you?” “Damn straight,” Ayden nodded. “We just gotta get Ashley Baker to get me a lightsaber and then I’ll be set.” Johnny smiled and shook his head, turning his attention back to the road. It was weak, all of it, and it still felt like a struggle to try and fall into the old banter and jokes that kept them going the last decade, but it was something. It was fake and it was forced and it hurt but it was better than letting the despair and the fear eat them alive. “Welcome to California,” Annie said from the passenger seat as they blew by the sign. Her hair was whipping around her face in dark tendrils and it made her look a little bit wild and all kinds of hot. He was grateful she was here. He didn’t want to be, but he was, because maybe she could hold them together. She sighed and shook her head, turning her smile to Johnny. “Some day you’ll have to take me here when we’re not hunting something.” Her hand slid over into his and gave it a quick squeeze. He smiled and brought it to his lips, brushing a kiss over the knuckles. “Anything you want, darlin’,” he told her. He wanted it to be the truth. He wanted to be able to promise her that he would bring her back to the beach, maybe on a real vacation, even if it was just an excuse to see her in a bathing suit. He wanted to promise that the three of them could get drunk on the beach drinking those gay ass pineapple drinks his brother liked and maybe they could get that Candy woman to join them because his brother had seemed to like her an awful lot. He hadn’t heard anything about her in a while and maybe that was because Ayden had forgotten her and more likely it was because he was terrified he was going to get her killed. The fire in his heart grew a little bit at that thought because Ayden should get to have those things. God was a motherfucker. They left unspoken that they could only come back if they survived. He kept the words to himself but they hung in the car anyway and it grew quiet around him. He let Annie’s hand slip from his and he reached forward to turn on the radio. Something with a lot of drum beats and rap lyrics blasted out at him and he frowned, spinning the dial as he looked for a country station. “Can’t you put on something that isn’t twangy and depressing?” Ayden asked from the backseat. Johnny grinned at him in the rearview mirror. “I would, but then the world would end.” “It’s gonna do that anyway,” Ayden snorted. Johnny forced himself to laugh. “Well then at least this way I die listening to Johnny Cash." Wenston “Why do people even like cats?” Ayden griped. They had pulled off the road and parked the car and had walked onto the beach. Ayden held Dyani’s cat in his arms and the damn thing was still fucking staring at him. It had its two front paws on his shoulder and it’s head was just turned, surveying Ayden’s face and Ayden wondered if the cat knew that its master had died for him or something. He wondered if the cat remembered the bloody massacre in its house and how its life had been turned upside down in the span of a day and he wondered if the cat blamed him and now it was just waiting for the perfect moment to gouge Ayden’s eyes out. He wondered why everyone was out to get his eyes. Maybe he should just gouge them out himself and be done with it. Maybe then Wicked things would leave him alone. He frowned to himself as he walked behind Johnny and Annie because that was a dark and depressing thought and he didn’t like himself lately because of these thoughts. “They’re cute,” Annie answered. She was walking along next to Johnny and Ayden could tell that she wanted to hold his hand. But her hands were dangling free and there was no hand holding when you didn’t know if you would need to pull your gun quickly. She had guns holstered to her shoulders and two more on her thighs, along with a knife. There were pouches of bullets strapped to her hips and if it wouldn’t have been violating his brother to say it, he would have said she was hot with all that ammunition. Johnny had a shotgun slung over his shoulder because that was always his weapon of choice. He had his handguns near his hips and a string of bullets strapped across his chest like a motherfucking cowboy from back in the day. The sword was on his back and Ayden wondered what his brother planned to do with that. He remember Johnny going axe murderer on that family they’d run across that had summoned Rimmon and he couldn’t help but think once again how awesome Johnny was with weapons without having any formal training. It was a little unfair, because Ayden had to work really hard to become the spectacular shot that he was. Ayden felt his own two handguns riding low on his hips. He had a machete strapped to his thigh but that was all he was packing because he held the cat in his arms and he was starting to realize that maybe he was allergic to the damn thing. He sniffled a little. “Does cute outweigh the smell?” Ayden bitched. “Can you teach them to sit or fetch? You know cats only use you for food and once they get that, they throw you away. Kinda like ex-girlfriends.” Ayden looked at the cat because it was kneading his shoulder now and had started to purr. “Hey, hey! I think it’s getting ready to eat me.” Johnny chuckled from up ahead and turned to look over his shoulder. “We can probably leave the cat here.” Ayden tried not to let his face falter at the words but Johnny’s eyebrow quirked and he knew he must have seen it. Ayden looked at the cat and then sighed and stopped walking, which caused Johnny to stop and Annie paused when she saw his brother had stopped. “Can we pause for a second?” Ayden said, even though they were already stopped. “What’s wrong?” Annie asked and Johnny was tilting his head at Ayden. “Can we just, acknowledge that we know exactly where the fuck we have to go to find Legion?” Ayden growled out because he was done trying to pretend that this was just another hunt for them. He saw Johnny suck in a breath and Annie just looked confused. “I mean, look around, Johnny. You don’t have to be a genius to guess where Legion’s hiding out.” Johnny sighed and ran his hand across his mouth. Ayden watched him and knew that his brother had been thinking the same thing. They’d led Legion here. The Marshalls had been on vacation on this beach not too long ago and Ayden was right, it wouldn’t take a fucking genius to know where they needed to go. Ayden wasn’t sure whether he should feel guilty or not. He hadn’t told Johnny about the second vision and about all of Texas burning and then a steady, burning path being blazed across the country as Legion sought them out. But that didn’t change the fact that this beach and the people who’d had their eyes burned out weren’t dead because the Marshalls had spent some time sipping tequila and drinking pineapple drinks just a mile up the beach from this exact spot. “What’s he talking about?” Annie asked, looking to Johnny for answers. She glanced at Ayden, concerned, and then stared at Johnny when his brother didn’t say anything. “Johnny?” Johnny looked away and towards the hotels lining the beach and none of them could miss the fact that the hotels were empty and deserted and not too long ago there had been tons of people around all enjoying themselves. Johnny growled low in his throat. “We stayed at a hotel out here for a while,” Johnny said lowly and he looked at Annie and his face was cold and hard. “We brought Legion here.” Annie studied Johnny a moment and her face was masking the emotions rumbling beneath the surface. The she shook her head and reached and hand for Johnny’s arm and she whispered, “None of this is your fault.” She glanced at Ayden. “Either of yours.” Ayden watched Johnny closely and he could tell his brother didn’t believe a word of that. He knew what his brother was thinking and he could tell he was remember the train and the “no” he’d screamed at the world and the life he’d caused for both of them. Ayden wondered if that was really how it worked. He wondered if Johnny had really brought this upon them or if it was always with them and it had just taken that moment to burst forth. Either way, he didn’t blame Johnny. If anyone was to blame, it was probably the big man himself, God. Ayden snickered a little and when Johnny and Annie looked at him he realized he’d done it out loud. “I, uh, was just thinking that God probably was punishing us for having a good time. Probably slipped Legion the info, on the down low, you know?” The joke didn’t come across the way he wanted it to because Johnny’s face darkened and Annie was just smiling sadly at him. He wondered if he sounded like he’d given up on the world. He wondered if Johnny noticed that he’d stopped praying. Because sometimes he prayed, but not lately because he had nothing to say to that bastard. The awkward silence Ayden had induced was suddenly broken as the cat in his arms hissed and twisted. Ayden instinctively tightened his grip but then the cat’s claws were digging into his shoulder and slicing across his cheek and he yelped as he let go of the animal and the cat took off down the beach. Ayden reached a hand to his face to rub at the small scratches and he tried not to let the hurt show on his face because the cat belonged to Dyani and he was watching it run away and wasn’t chasing after it. Then he heard Johnny cock his shotgun and Annie draw her hand guns and Ayden sighed and withdrew one of his, eyes still watching the retreating form of the cat. “So I guess that means we found Legion,” Ayden said and he tried to sound joking but it just came out tired and scared and he hated that. Johnny snorted. And then a howl pierced the air. .Wolfie. The howl echoed off the beach and Johnny spun in a slow circle, pulling the shotgun to his shoulder as he turned. His eyes flicked across the sandbar and the water and the parking lot just over the ridge, but he didn’t see any movement. He could just see the distant lumps of bodies beached upon the sands and they were dark horrible shadows in his vision. A second howl split the air and it sounded like it was coming from behind them but he couldn’t see anything but empty cars and empty lots and the retreating form of Diyani’s cat just before it disappeared under a car.His brother pulled his guns from his hips and he didn’t like how slow and resigned the movements were, like he wasn’t sure it would even do any good. He hoped his brother hadn’t given up because he sure as fuck hadn’t given up on him. His finger tightened on the trigger as he looked for signs of movement. Annie was next to him, her arm brushing against his and she was facing the direction they’d been walking in. “You see anything?” he asked over his shoulder. She shook her head. “Just bodies,” she breathed out. He nodded and took a step backwards, his eyes narrowed in concentration. There was sweat trickling down his forehead as the sun beat down on them but he didn’t bother to wipe it away because he was keeping both hands on his shotgun. A third howl echoed over the beach and it sounded like it was coming from the parking lot. It sounded strange and guttural and he didn’t like the implications of the noise at all because he had thought they’d just be dealing with Legion, not some fucking Hellbeasts too. “You think Legion brought some friends with him?” Ayden asked with a dry laugh. “Just another body to add to the pile,” Johnny said, and he was proud of how steady his voice was. He slung the shotgun back over his shoulder to dig out a cigarette but his eyes never left the beach as he set flame to the end of it. He thought he caught a glimpse of a dark shadow moving across the parking lot, but it could have just been from the flag fluttering in the dull breeze. He pulled the shotgun back into his arms once the cigarette was lit and he blew smoke out between his lips and ignored the look Annie was giving him that said he smoked too much. “Let’s keep moving,” he said with a jerk of his head. “That’s right, because we wouldn’t want to stand up Legion. Then we’ll never get a second date,” his brother snickered darkly. Johnny glanced at him and tried to keep his expression blank. He didn’t like the bad jokes and the dark humor and the despair he heard in his brother’s voice every time he opened his lips. He didn’t like how his brother spun his guns in his hands and barely looked around him and Ayden wasn’t focusing and he wasn’t ready. Maybe he would never be ready, but they didn’t have a choice. It just made him nervous and sad because for the first time in his life he wasn’t sure if his brother would have his back when it counted. He knew it wasn’t Ayden’s fault. He knew the kid wouldn’t purposely let him down or slip up, but he wasn’t concentrating. Johnny wondered if he really thought they could kill Legion or if he just kept thinking he was walking to his death. He didn’t fucking like thinking that and he didn’t like that he doubted his brother. Ayden was the one who had shot up a dunk tank to save his life, but he didn’t know if the Ayden in front of him would be fast enough if he had to do it again. Ayden looked over when he felt Johnny’s eyes on him, and then he looked away. Johnny sighed, blowing smoke out between his lips as he started trudging up the beach again. His boots slipped and sunk in the sand but at least it wasn’t mud and at least there weren’t flies and bugs swarming around his head. He could take California over Louisiana any day, and at least if they all fucking died today it would be on a sunny beach in the presence of a beautiful woman. He thought about telling her now that he loved her, at least one more time, but he felt like that might be admitting he thought they were going to die and he was going to do everything he could to make sure that didn’t fucking happen. The howl sounded next to them again and it was keeping pace with their trek up the beach. “It’s herding us,” Annie said quietly, and Johnny glanced at her. She met his gaze and he just nodded slowly because he thought she was right. The howl echoed from behind them, but not in front of them and they weren’t being attacked yet which meant whatever hunted them was biding its time. He growled and tightened his grip on the shotgun because when it came he would have to move fast and it seemed like Johnny was never quite fast enough. He rolled the cigarette between his lips and gritted his teeth. “Like lambs to the slaughter,” Ayden muttered, and his brother holstered one of his guns so he could run a hand over his face. Johnny didn’t say anything to that. He didn’t have anything worth saying. His eyes narrowed as they reached the line of bodies lining the beach. Fish and eels and crabs all lay dead and bleached in the sun, and he hadn’t realized just how bad the smell was. It smelled of rotting fish and flesh and death and burning, and the animals were only the first step. A whale lay huge and awful in front of them, its eyes cold and dead in its skull and they stepped around it, watching for anything else that might rise out of the waves. Johnny didn’t think it would happen, but he was being cautious for once. The farther along they got, the bigger the bodies got, and then they started reaching the people. They were just like in the vision, lying slack and horrid on the ground in their bathing suits. He heard Annie let loose something low and lost like a whimper as they passed an entire family with nothing but burned out craters where their eyes used to be. The mom, the dad, and the two little girls were all empty eyed and broken dolls. Another howl sounded from their right and this time it sounded like a laugh. It was closer than Johnny liked. The hotel they’d stayed at rose up in front of them and it was too quiet and too dark. He wondered about the waitress who’d brought them their pineapple drinks and if she was lying dead and broken up by the pool. He wondered about the man who’d checked them in at the desk and the maid who’d come into change their sheets every morning and his mind was just pulling up images of people he’d seen and spoke too and then casting them down into a pit of fire in his head because they were all dead. Thousands of them were just dead because they had decided to take a fucking vacation. They were dead because this was the first place they’d gone. They were dead because of Johnny. He gritted his teeth and thought about that train and the day he’d told it no and the series of events that had fallen down around him ever since that day. He thought about how he’d been too slow and too stupid every time and the surgeon dragging him through the asylum and then sewing his lips shut. He thought about how he’d charged in and gotten dropped into a dunk tank and then drowned and he thought about the vampires in Nevada and the man he’d let die because he had been too fucking slow every single time and he thought about the girl who had screamed with her bloodied eyes the day they walked into the witch’s house. All these images flashed through his head and they were all reminders of how slow and stupid he was and how it wasn’t good enough. He thought about Ben and Mikey and that was the next place they’d gone and if they didn’t stop Legion here, maybe he would go there next. A growl rose in his throat and he shoved all the doubts away because he didn’t have time for them. He couldn’t change it. He couldn’t turn back the clock and change any of that. He could only change what happened next. They made their way onto the patio in back of the hotel and that’s when the attack came. There wasn’t a warning howl, just a flash of black and red in his vision and then the beast was launching itself over the concrete towards them. His gun came up and he yanked the trigger back. There was a blast and he saw the scattered shot rip itself into the monster’s chest and then it was hitting him with all the power of a freight train or maybe that fucking lion because this thing was as big as one. He heard Annie scream and Ayden shout as he went down and he was falling through the air onto his back. Both arms came up because there were three fucking mouth’s snapping at his face. He felt one mouth close around his left arm and it hurt like a bitch. Sharp and wicked teeth were sinking into the flesh of his arm and adding more scars to the already whitened skin. The jaw on the right closed around his other arm and he forced himself to put all his weight into rolling backwards because there was a third fucking head right in the middle and it was snapping down at his face with huge dripping jaws that could have fit his whole god damned head inside its mouth. He threw it over his shoulder and then he rolled, yanking the shotgun back to his shoulder. There was a flurry of bullets as Ayden and Annie both unloaded their clips at the thing and then he was firing his shotgun at it again. He took a moment to study it and he didn’t like what he saw because this made Hellbeasts look like little tiny kittens. The three heads were massive in size and the thing was bigger than he’d thought. It was bigger than the lion and it had crimson red fur covering its body with black markings on its head and running down its back. The jaws opened wide and all three heads tipped back and howled into the blue summer sky. Then it was charging again. It didn’t seem to notice when the bullets ripped through its skin or when one of Ayden’s hit it in the eye and Johnny was proud of his brother because he was a really good shot when he focused. One of its heads jerked to the side with the blow but it was still coming at Johnny. He jumped back and kicked a table in front of him and it just plowed through it like a freight train, shattering it into broken bits of wood. He pulled the trigger back on his shotgun and the blast rocked it for a second before it was ducking up under his arms and slamming into his chest. His hand ripped out one of his handguns, letting the shotgun clatter to the ground. He forced it under the jaw snapping towards him and yanked the trigger back, the blast loud and deafening in his ears but the damage had already been done on that front. The bullet exploded out of the back of its head and the middle one’s eyes glazed and went dark but the fucking thing wasn’t dead yet because it was a monster from Hell and still had two fucking heads left. He was surprised when it spoke. He was surprised when its heads leaned down towards his face and whispered at him. “Through me the way to the eternal pain,” it growled and then it laughed and he didn’t know how that was possible. It rasped across his ears and it sounded like Amon echoing in his head. “We will swallow this world whole, little Voice. You think others haven’t come before you? You think others haven’t fought this same fight and died screaming with blood choking them and fire in their eyes? We will devour you and you will burn and rot and weep for this world.” He saw the jaws snapping down at him. He fired the handgun again but Johnny was never fucking quick enough. Teeth sunk into his skin and the jaws were closing around his cheekbone and shredding the skin around his eye and he bit his lip to keep from screaming. Wenston “Johnny!” Ayden screamed and it was a guttural, horrified scream that tore itself from his throat. The beast had its claws in Johnny’s arms and one of its heads had its teeth in Johnny’s face and for a horrifying second, Ayden thought his brother was dead because he wasn’t making a sound and there was a lot of blood all at once and it was all coming from Johnny. Ayden froze and his handguns were held out in front of him and he couldn’t shoot. He couldn’t squeeze his fingers around the triggers because Johnny wasn’t screaming and he was crying and he wasn’t cursing. He was just laying there with teeth in his face and maybe the dog was eating his eye and maybe Annie was screaming and shooting but Johnny was just lying still. Bullet holes were exploding on the beast’s back and shoulder and it wasn’t letting go of Johnny and Johnny wasn’t moving and how could he fix this and make himself better if he was already dead? Then a scream finally tore itself from Johnny’s throat and Ayden didn’t even mind it because if he could still scream, then he could still talk. Blood was pooling beneath Johnny and his face was a mangled mess as the dog pulled its jaws back, blood dripping from between its teeth. He went in for another blow but Annie’s gun caught it in the side of the head and blew its brains out its ear. The remaining head shot up to look at Annie and then it howled because it only had one fucking life left. The three headed dog released Johnny and pounced towards Annie. Ayden could hear her gun firing but his eyes stayed on Johnny a moment because his brother was curling onto his side and one of his hands came up to his face to cover his bleeding and mangled eye and the other hand was reaching for the shotgun because the dog was going after his woman and Johnny wasn’t Johnny unless he was fighting for someone he loved. A yell from Annie broke through Ayden’s stunned silence and he whipped his head towards her. The beast had knocked the guns from her hand and it had her pinned awkwardly up against a round picnic table on the patio. Annie’s face was contorted in pain and there was blood coming from a wound on her side and the beast had her wrist locked in the jaws of its only remaining head. She cried out as the beast jerked it’s head to the side and flung her towards Johnny, who was whirling around with his shotgun, still seated on the floor. Annie slammed into Johnny and both of their blood was mixing together on the floor. They were trying to untangle each other from themselves and Johnny was cussing and Annie was gasping because she was hurt and her wrist was shredded and her side was bleeding. Then Ayden realized that he was just standing by and watching this happen. He realized that he still had his guns in his hands and he had them pointed at the three headed dog and he wasn’t shooting. He’d been watching the show play out like he was detached from it all and he wondered if this was a vision, because he did that sometimes in visions. He wondered why he wasn’t moving to help them or squeezing his triggers or yelling or screaming because both Johnny and Annie were bleeding. He wondered when he’d gotten slow and sloppy and could just stand by and watch the people he loved get mauled and tossed around like dolls and he thought bitterly that he’d been doing that his entire Godsent life. He was always just watching, just letting things happen and leaving Johnny to clean up the mess and maybe that’s why God was damning him to Hell. Maybe God thought he was weak or pathetic because he was always just standing by and watching. Well, he’d show God what he thought about that. He growled low in his throat and turned his attention back to the beast. It was stalking towards Johnny and Annie who were frantically trying to scramble off each other but their wounds were slowing them down. Ayden aimed his gun and he fired and he hit the beast right in the ass. The beast actually yelped and it didn’t sound like a dog, it sounded like a man and then it’s remaining head was whipping towards Ayden and Ayden smiled because he had enjoyed that. “That’s right,” he said as the beast growled at him. “I just shot your ass.” “Godsent,” the beast growled and turned to face Ayden. The crimson hackles on its back shifted and rose and the muscles, though full of holes and bleeding, tightened beneath its fur and its claws dug into the wood of the porch. Ayden knew enough about animals to know it was getting ready to charge. He held his guns out in front of him but didn’t fire, because a part of him wanted to hear what the thing had to say. It couldn’t be anything worse than what had already been said to him. “Yes, Fido?” Ayden snarked and the beast actually snickered, nothing more than a low rumble in its beastly throat. “You die at the end of this,” the beast said, it’s voice low and rough and terrible. Ayden felt the hairs on his skin stand up because he’d been told those words before. “You die bloody and scared and alone.” And Ayden was hearing two voices saying those words because they were the exact words Vaughn had told him in the prison. They were the exact words that had kept him up at night and he wondered if this thing knew Vaughn and if they had been buddies or something. He wondered if the words were true because they had been said so many times. Ayden snorted and aimed his guns at the beast’s eyes. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said weakly. Then the beast was charging. It was coming at him like a bat out of hell and he heard Johnny growl and scream and the shotgun went off and one of Annie’s gun’s blasted but the beast was still coming and Ayden just stood there. He thought about letting it happen. He thought about getting it over with and letting the beast maul him and rip his throat out and dying in the blood and the sun. He was tired of wondering. He was tired of trying to figure out who was lying and who was telling the truth and whether he would go to Hell or Heaven or somewhere between the two. He was just tired. But Johnny was screaming his name and there were powerful words bubbling on his lips behind his name and Ayden didn’t want that and he didn’t want to leave Johnny here or put him through that so he pulled the triggers of both his guns and the bullets ripped through the beast’s eyes and then he shot again and they blew the brains out of the back of its head and he shot a third time and its snout exploded and its tongue rolled out of its head and it collapsed into a heap at Ayden’s feet. Ayden toed the thing’s head and watched as it lolled and stayed on the ground. He snorted because he’d thought the beast would be a little bit tougher. He looked up and saw Johnny walking towards him and Ayden focused on Johnny’s eye because it was a mess and blood ran down half his face. His arms were clawed and bitten and shredded and blood was leaking from dripping from his fingertips. “Are you okay?” Ayden asked and his voice sounded tired. He totally did not expect his brother to grab him by the front of the shirt and slam him harshly into the metal gate behind him. Ayden didn’t make a sound and Johnny snarled out at him, “What the fuck was that?” Ayden tilted his head because he didn’t understand and he just let his brother manhandle him. “What?” Ayden asked. Annie stood a little bit behind Johnny and Ayden could see her looking at Ayden with sad, glassy eyes, like she was on the verge of tears and he wondered what the big fucking deal was. He wondered what he’d done to make them both angry or sad or whatever the fuck they were. “Why didn’t you fucking shoot it?” Johnny growled. “I did shoot it,” Ayden said and his voice was weak. “I killed it, didn’t I?” he spat and kicked the beast’s head that was closest to him. “Fuck you,” Johnny said and it said it so truthfully and honestly that Ayden frowned and he tried to not look hurt. He didn’t know why his brother was so upset. He didn’t understand. “If you would have waited two more fucking seconds, we’d be picking your intestines up off the porch.” “I had it under control,” Ayden said back but the defense sounded weak, even to him. Johnny gave an incredulous laugh. “Jesus Fucking Christ, Ayden. I may be willing to go to Hell with you, but I’m not in a fucking hurry to get there.” .Wolfie. “Well who the fuck asked you to come with me?” Ayden snapped.Johnny’s fingers curled tightly in his brother’s shirt and he felt the slow burning anger in his chest. “Go fuck yourself, Ayden,” he growled, and he surprised himself with how much he meant it. He could barely see him through all the blood in his eyes and all the pain radiating away from his face was making him dizzy. It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to see his face to know the expression he wore and that he was being a little bitch right now and Johnny was hurt and sore and he was feeling more than just a physical ache. His little brother had let him down. He’d known Ayden wasn’t himself and he’d known that he wasn’t alright in the head, but he didn’t think he’d had a death wish and he didn’t think he would let him down so hard. He had just stood there. He had just fucking stood there, the guns little more than weights in his hands while a fucking three headed dog had ripped apart Johnny’s face. That part didn’t even hurt the worst. It hurt more that Ayden had just fucking stood there while it charged at him. The moment of hesitation on his brother’s face when it had come for him hurt more than anything. Yeah, he was willing to go to Hell for his brother. But that didn’t mean he was ready to die today. He shook his head at his brother and his face hurt too much to cry. “Just go back to the fucking car,” he snapped. His brother’s eyes narrowed and he was pushing Johnny away from him. He let him. He let Ayden’s shirt slip from his fingers and he turned his back on him because he couldn’t stand to look at his face. He was scared and he was angry and he wanted to hit his little brother and if he kept looking at him then he probably would. “What? The fuck is your problem, Johnny? You’re such a big bad motherfucker you think you can take Legion by yourself?” He snorted and shook his head because he didn’t know how to answer that. Annie stepped into his line of vision and her face was shuttered and cold as she started to clean the skin around his eye. Her wrist was gushing blood but she’d already torn a strip off the bottom of her shirt and bound it tightly. He was more worried about the wound in her side. A hiss of breath escaped his lips as she pressed down on the gashes over his eye and he blinked but he couldn’t tell yet if he could see out of it because it was crusted with blood and the skin around it was swollen and pained. He was already half deaf. He hoped to Christ he didn’t end up half blind too. Annie’s fingers were gentle and loving on his face as she tried to wipe the blood away. He looked at her because he couldn’t take looking at his brother and she wasn’t meeting his eyes but she looked so sad standing there in front of him and he thought about telling her to go again but if she actually did it then Johnny would have nothing left. He winced as she pressed against the wound and he could see the worry on her face so it must have been really bad. Annie had gotten hurt. She’d been mauled and Johnny hadn’t been fast enough once again and he was pissed at himself but right now he was more pissed at his fucking brother because he’d just stood there and watched her get pinned. She could have been killed. He could have ripped her face off right in front of them and Ayden had just stood there and watched like he was witnessing some kind of slide show. He shivered and his hands caught at her fingers because she had almost died and he loved her and couldn’t lose her and he loved his brother but right now he hated him for putting this fear in his gut. “I’m not going back to the car,” Ayden said stubbornly behind him, because Johnny hadn’t answered him. He looked back over his shoulder and focused his good eye on Ayden. “We’ll have a better chance without you there.” He saw the words hit home. He hadn’t said them to be cruel but they were the truth right now, because the last thing he needed was to worry about his little brother and if he was going to stand there and get his eyes burned out by Legion because he just didn’t care enough to stop it. He didn’t know when his brother had picked up this stupid, careless death wish and maybe it had always been there and he just hadn’t noticed. They would deal with it later, if there ever was a later, but right now he needed someone to watch his back and Ayden wasn’t it. He didn’t want either of them getting hurt Annie she would fight tooth and nail for both of them. He didn’t know if Ayden would, and he couldn’t take the risk. “Oh fuck you, Johnny,” his little brother said, and something in Johnny snapped. “Fuck me? Fuck me?” he snarled, and then he had his hand twisted in Ayden’s shirt again and he was slamming him hard against the fence because if he didn’t he was going to use his fists. He was breaking himself in half trying to think of ways to save his little brother and he was willing do burn in Hell for fucking eternity for him and he wanted to scream all those things at him but what good would it fucking do? “How long were you just gonna fucking stand there, Ayden? Until he killed me? Until he killed Annie?” He gestured over his shoulder at her and she was pressing a hand to her side. She looked out towards the ocean and didn’t say a word. Ayden licked his lips. His eyes went past Johnny to Ayden and she wasn’t meeting his eyes and maybe that meant more to him than watching Johnny die at this point because he’d seen that so many fucking times. He cleared his throat and looked back at Johnny’s mangled face and the rage etched there and he waited for an answer. His brother opened his mouth and then he shook his head and when he spoke his voice was quiet and sad. “I wasn’t…” Johnny snorted and didn’t let him finish. “That’s fucking right you weren’t. You weren’t doing a god damned thing.” “Johnny…” he tried again, and Johnny just shook his head. “You know, we’ve gone through all this shit together. We’ve killed fucking vampires and werewolves and swamp witches and voodoo priests.” He took a breath and pushed his brother harder against the wall and he didn’t know how to make him understand. “I fucking died, Ayden. I died, and through all of it, I thought I could always count on my little brother when things got rough. He killed a fucking elephant for me. He brought me back from the dead. So let me know if he decides to show himself again, because whoever this is standing in front of me isn’t him anymore.” Suddenly, Johnny was just so fucking tired. His fingers relaxed and he let his brother slip to the ground. Annie was still there and her hand caught his and squeezed tightly but she didn’t smile because it would have been a lie. He glanced down at their fingers and he remembered the wound in her side. He ripped a sleeve off his shirt and pressed it tightly to her side and she winced at the pressure but didn’t pull away. Not even inside the building yet and they were already torn up, and that almost made Johnny laugh. “It’s still me,” Ayden said behind him in a small voice. “I’ve still got your back.” Johnny wondered if he meant it or even believed it anymore. He just shook his head. “Just don’t get in my way,” he told him, and the words felt cold and mean on his tongue but he said them anyway. He brushed past Annie and let her fingers fall from his as he collected the shotgun and reloaded it. The world was in a haze of red right now and there was an aching, throbbing pain spreading its fingers out around his eye and he hoped he didn’t get an infection from that ugly fucker’s mouth because that was the last thing he needed right now. He picked his revolvers off the floor and then turned around. They looked awful. Annie had bloodstains all over her and some of them were from her and a lot more of them were from him. She was watching him carefully and he tried to smile at her but it felt forced and tired as he did it. “You ready?” he asked her, and he didn’t even glance at Ayden because it hurt him too much to even look at him yet. He missed his brother. He missed the brother he’d fought all his life to protect, because that had been a man worth saving. He wondered where he went. He hoped he came back. Annie flipped open her guns and double checked them and then she nodded at him. “Lead the way,” she said with a soft, sad smile. Ayden just stood there behind her and maybe he had more to say and maybe Johnny didn’t want to hear it. He hoped he picked his guns up. He hoped he picked his guns up and followed Johnny into the hotel and watched his back and stopped being this man he didn’t like and start being his brother again. He hoped all those things, but he didn’t expect them. He took a breath and swung the shotgun down to his shoulder and his boot slammed the glass door open. There were maybe twenty-five people already waiting for them inside. They were gathered around the pool and most of them looked like the people that would already be there on any given day. There was a cluster of college age kids at the far side of the room and the three waitresses carrying trays that didn’t have anything on them. There was a family in swim trunks and Hawaiian shirts that would have made Ashley Baker proud and all of them looked like maybe they could’ve belonged there. Except as soon as the door crashed open they all turned to look at him and there was nothing left in their eyes but black empty craters. “We see you, Sons of God,” the said as one, and he felt the voice burn into his soul. “We are Legion, and we have come.” “Well,” he drawled, pulling the shotgun against his shoulder. “I’ve come to send you back.” Wenston Ayden heard Johnny’s shotgun blast and Annie’s hand guns fire simultaneously and he just stood still, leaning against the fence. He was playing Johnny’s words over and over in his mind. The way his brother had asked him where Ayden was and who this empty fucking shell of a man standing in front of him was because it sure as hell wasn’t his little brother. About how his brother had told him to go wait in the car like he was a hindrance or a liability. He’d let his brother down and it hurt so fucking much that Ayden had to put a hand physically to his chest because the hole Amon had left inside of him was pulsing and nothing hurt the way this hurt. Nothing hurt the way the look on Johnny or Annie’s face had hurt him. Maybe he was already dead and he just didn’t know it yet. Maybe he’d died and his body was still walking around and functioning and there was no one home. He wondered if he was already in Hell and they had just been taking the demon’s too literal because when Johnny turned his back on him, it had ripped the hole in his soul just a little bit bigger in a way that Amon would have never been able to do. Ayden listened to the sounds of guns going off and brains splattering and skulls exploding. He listened to Johnny and Annie as they tangoed in a deadly dance around the hotel, shooting whatever it was that was inside and he didn’t know what they were fighting because he was still pressed up against the fence and here he was, standing back and not doing a fucking thing again. His eyes fell to the floor and he looked down at his hand guns lying there and he distantly thought about putting one in his mouth and pulling the trigger so his brother would finally be rid of him because he was tired of hurting Johnny and getting him hurt and if Johnny didn’t have to worry about a pathetic little brother, he’d be free to do what he wanted. He almost bent down to pick one up and do just that. Almost. And then he thought that this was the lowest fucking point he’d ever had in his life and that devastated him. He’d had some low, low points in his life. He’d gone through hell on earth and he’d go through the real fucking deal after he died. He’d been introduced to blood and pain as a child and they’d been inseparable ever since. He’d seen his brother die hundreds of times. He’d seen himself die more. He wondered if somewhere along the line he’d grown numb to that sensation because it didn’t seem to affect him like it use to. That scared him more than anything. It scared him more than how little he cared for his own life anymore. It scared him that he could watch Johnny die in his head and not come back crying for hours. He closed his eyes and listened to the symphony of bullets playing behind him and the blood that was splattering the inside of the hotel and he could see Annie and Johnny clearly and they were side by side as they took on the monsters and he played their countless deaths over and over in his head. Something started swelling up in his chest and a growl escaped his throat and he reached down and grabbed his guns because fuck Johnny and fuck Annie and fuck this life they led and fuck the God that had put them here and fuck Legion for being a damn asshole. Fuck Ashley Baker, fuck Dyani’s cat and fuck the world. Fuck the numb shell of a man who was standing here now listening to Johnny and Annie as they blasted their way to their deaths. He wouldn’t let it happen. Because right now, he pushed aside being the eyes of God, he pushed aside being Godsent or a soul damned to go to Hell. He pushed aside being Ayden Marshall and he focused on just being Johnny Marshall’s little brother. The little brother that one could count on to be there. That one could bring along for back up and know that he’d have their backs. Maybe that man was still alive somewhere inside this shell and maybe he was pissed as hell for what he’d become and the dark cloud of despair that had settled over him and maybe he was ready to come out and take care of fucking business. Ayden stepped away from the fence and came to stand in the doorway of the hotel. He took just a second to survey the scene. Johnny was on one knee with a eyeless zombie gnawing on his arm. He’d lost the shotgun and he was tugging on the zombie’s hair to get it off of him but there was blood gushing down his arm again and there was still blood over his eye. Annie was on the opposite side of the room and she was cornered behind a table by a group of three zombie college kids. One of her guns was tossed into the pool and the other was lying on the ground a few feet away. She had a machete in her hands. Ayden took a breath, he felt something snap inside of him, and then he was firing. He took out the zombie biting Johnny’s arm and one of the college kids at the same time. One shot to the head for both of them. Then he swung his arm around and took out the other two cornering Annie. He stepped inside the room and he ignored how Johnny and Annie turned to look at him because he was shooting fish in a barrel and the zombies were the fucking fish. He’d worked hard to become the shot he was. He’d practiced with the BB guns when they were kids. He’d taken Johnny out countless of times and he’d taken Annie out a few and Ayden was usually the last one standing when they had their fake shootouts. He was good. And he worked to be that way. And he was going to show Johnny that he could go fuck himself if he expected Ayden to just go sit and wait in the car. He swung his guns up and he was blasting the brains out of two tourists who were running around the pool to get at him. There were two children climbing over chairs and he didn’t hesitate to shoot them between their missing eyes because he’d hesitated enough today and now his brother hated him for it. Ayden just kept on shooting and the zombies kept on coming. He made his way around the pool and there were a string of corpses in his wake and he didn’t care. Behind him, Johnny was grabbing his shotgun and adding his buckshot to the fray. Annie was clambering over to her gun and then she was firing too. Ayden just kept shooting and when his guns clicked open he didn’t bother to reload because there were only four zombies left and empty guns weren’t going to stop him because his brother hated him. Johnny hated him. He swung the gun down on one of the zombie’s heads and he felt it crush beneath his blow. Blood splattered his face and there was a vice like grip on his arm suddenly. He brought his other hand up and bashed that zombie too but it didn’t fall like it’s companion and it grabbed Ayden’s other arm and suddenly he was being flung into the remaining two zombies. They grabbed his arms and Ayden heard Johnny’s shotgun go off and the zombie who’d flung him melted to the floor with half his face gone. Ayden felt teeth sink into his neck and then someone was biting his opposite shoulder and he yelled and kicked his feet off the floor and the teeth sunk deeper into his skin and there was blood coming now but they were all three of them falling backwards and the ground wasn’t there but the pool was and the zombies weighted him down as they splashed into the water but Johnny still hated him. Ayden remembered an alligator in Louisiana and suddenly he was spinning in the water because the zombies still had their teeth in his flesh and when he spun, they were forced to let go and he kicked off the bottom of the pool and broke surface and gasped in a breath before hands grabbed his feet and pulled him back under. He thought about Johnny in the dunk tank. He thought about the lake monster that had fed on children and had dragged Ayden to the bottom of the lake when he was fourteen. He thought about the time by the river when someone had pulled him out and he never got to see who it was. He fought with the zombies that had hold of his legs and he could feel their teeth sinking into his calves because zombies didn’t fucking breathe so of course they could still function under the water while Ayden couldn’t. He growled and no matter if water got into his nose and his mouth because he was reaching down and his thumbs were seeking out the open eye cavities and he was pulling their heads away from his legs and they were taking chunks of his skin away and the water was turning red but Ayden didn’t care because Johnny hated him. He thought about his brother and how he’d said he’d never leave him behind. He thought about how he’d said he’d go to Hell for him and Ayden wondered if Johnny was just saying things or if he really meant them. He wondered if his brother knew how much Ayden really loved him and couldn’t do this without him and how fucking sorry he was that he’d given up on life. Ayden felt hands on his shoulders and for a moment he struggled and he accidentally sucked in a breath and all he got was water because he thought it was zombies lifting him out. His head broke the surface and he spluttered and then there was a gun firing and bullets struck the zombies that Ayden was pulling up with him and the zombies let go of his legs so he let go of their heads. Johnny’s arm was wrapped around his chest and they both fell back onto the floor as Ayden was pulled free of the water. They sat there just breathing for a moment. Then Ayden growled out, “I’m not going back to the car.” .Wolfie. “Good,” Johnny said quietly. His hand squeezed his little brother’s shoulder because he thought that’s who this was. The man who’d come in this room and shot it all to Hell had looked like his brother and he wanted to hope that’s who it was. His arm was wrapped tightly around his chest but he didn’t move to let him go. He felt blood trickling down his face and it stung and hurt but it didn’t cripple him. There was blood on his arm too, but he wasn’t sure if it was his or his brother’s because he had a nasty bite mark in his neck and on his shoulder and another one bleeding darkly into the pool. Two bodies floated there, holes in their heads and holes were their eyes used to be. He felt his brother start to shake in his arms and he squeezed him tighter. Ayden’s hand came up and closed around his arm to keep him there for a moment and he could barely hear his brother when he spoke. “I’m sorry, Johnny,” he said, and his voice was a low whisper. Johnny swallowed hard and all the anger and hurt just melted away with those three quiet words because it sounded like his brother even if he was lost and broken. “Please don’t hate me.” Johnny growled low in his throat. “Don’t be fucking stupid,” he snapped. He heard a clatter from across the room and he glanced up briefly. Annie was trying to reload her guns and she was cursing because her hands were shaking and she’d dropped some of her ammo across the floor. He watched a bullet roll to a stop next to the bodies of two little kids and his fucking sharpshooter brother had shot them right between the eyes without hesitation. That was the Ayden he’d grown up with. That was the Ayden he was going to Hell for. “I just don’t want you to hate me,” he whispered again, and his fingers were white and pale around Johnny’s arm. “You just shut your fucking mouth,” Johnny snarled, and he felt his brother wince at his tone. He sighed and then he was pushing himself to his feet and trying to ignore how fucking tired he was already and they hadn’t even made it to Legion. Maybe by the time they got there they would be nothing but zombies hobbling up to him. Maybe if they were lucky, Johnny just had to get close enough to tell him to go back to Hell, and then they could go back home to Texas and sleep for a week. His hand curled under Ayden’s arm and he pulled him up next to him. His brother was shaking and staring at the floor and Johnny wondered what he was thinking and that was stupid because he knew what his dumb shit brother was thinking. He had asked Johnny if he hated him. He wondered how he could even get those words out of his mouth, after everything they’d been through. He wondered how he could even think them but they were there anyway and his brother wasn’t looking at him because he was afraid of what he might see looking back at him. Johnny had already told him he loved him, he was willing to die for him and fight Legion for him and fight a thousand other things just so he didn’t go crazy with the visions in his head. He was going to Hell for him. He wasn’t going to let him down, not ever. They were just words, and he shouldn’t have to fucking say them again, but words had power when they came from Johnny. So he reached out and wrapped his arm around his brother’s shoulder and pulled him tightly into a hug and his brother was stiff and awkward because they had never exactly been the hugging type, at least not until recently. “I don’t hate you,” he said slowly and firmly. “I love you, little brother. And if you ever think otherwise again I’ll fucking kick your ass.” Ayden hugged him weakly back and he heard something like a sob escape his lips and then it was gone. “Please,” he said. “I could totally take you.” Johnny snorted and let his little brother go, slapping him on the back once. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?” he said. Then he crouched to start picking their weapons off the floor. His guns were damp from the puddles of water around the pool but not soaked and he wiped them off with his shirt before holstering them. His shotgun was lying somewhere back towards the door next to a zombie corpse because he’d run out of shells and had to ditch it. Maybe now would’ve been a good time for that machine gun. Annie was striding back across the hall towards them. “You know,” she said with a smirk on her face and maybe it was forced but maybe he was glad she was trying anyways. “You keep up this up I might actually start to think you like each other.” Johnny chuckled dryly, digging the cigarettes out of his back pocket. She pulled a pouch of ammo off her hips and tossed it to Ayden. He caught with a small smile that was painted with relief. Annie squeezed his brother’s shoulder tightly and then pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Glad to have you back,” she said softly. “Woman, you keep that up and I’m gonna get jealous,” Johnny snapped. “Yeah, well at least he doesn’t stink of ash all the time,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. “And if you keep that up,” he said, brushing by her. “I’m gonna bite it off.” He saw Ayden roll his eyes, shaking his head as he loaded his weapons and Johnny’s gaze lingered on his because his brother had shot like he was alright and spoke like he was alright but Johnny wanted too desperately to believe it was true. He wanted to believe his brother was back and he didn’t have the heart to tell him to leave, but he was still worried about that one moment where he stopped looking behind him and Ayden stopped looking where he was going. He hated it. He hated the doubt festering in his gut so he tried to ignore it and maybe it would go away. He scooped the shotgun off the floor and wiped the blood off on his jeans. Smoke poured from between his lips as he reloaded the weapon and he heard Annie whispering something quiet and comforting to his brother. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug and Johnny snorted and wondered what she was saying. “Woman, what did I just tell you?” he shouted across the hall to her and she just laughed back at him. He snapped the shotgun closed and then took a deep breath before tossing the rest of his cigarette into the pool. They still had Legion to find. He wondered if he’d brought any other friends or maybe the Devil himself would come to visit. He cracked his neck and fought the urge to touch the wounds on his face because if he fucked with them too much it might not heal right and he wasn’t willing to waste the voice on himself. Not if he didn’t have to. He was saving that for Legion. He was saving his voice to tell that motherfucker go back to hell and burn and maybe he would tell him never to come back while he was at it because he never wanted to see a scene like on the beach again. Ayden was the first one to the door and Johnny smirked because maybe the kid thought he had something to prove. “You gonna wait for the rest of us?” he asked, coming up beside his brother and bringing his shotgun to bear. Annie stood behind them both and he cast a quick glance over his shoulder at her but her guns were already up and ready and she had that hard look on her face that said she was as good as the boys and wasn’t scared of what came next. He loved that about her. He loved everything about her, but that had always struck him the most. She wasn’t afraid. Even when things got totally fucked up and wrong and she should have been hiding under the covers and screaming, Annie wasn’t afraid. “That depends,” Ayden asked dryly. “You gonna shoot something or keep eye fucking her?” Johnny snorted a laugh. “Can’t I do both?” “No,” Annie said from behind him, and then his foot was crashing into the door. He didn’t know what he expected to find beyond it but there was nothing there. A wide hallway stretched out in front of them. He thought the hallway on his right led down into the dining hall and he couldn’t remember where the one on the left went but he thought maybe it went to a basketball court or some shit. The one straight ahead led to the lobby and the elevators. “Where do you think Legion’s at?” Johnny asked, moving slowly and cautiously into the hall. He kept the shotgun to his shoulder and his eyes kept flicking left and right because with their luck another horde of zombies was going to come charging out at them. At least they were easier than getting mauled by fucking three headed Hellbeasts and at least they weren’t motherfucking clowns because if Johnny had to see a clown now he might just lose it. Ayden was next to him and his guns were pointed in front of him, his fingers resting lightly on the triggers and he looked ready to shoot. Maybe he was. Johnny hoped so, anyway. He felt a startled, strangled noise escape his throat when a loud ding echoed down the hallway. It wasn’t the manliest moment of his life and he glanced at his brother but he wasn’t saying anything. He was fighting to keep a grin off his face and Johnny gritted his teeth and looked forward again. Annie laughed quietly behind him and he felt her hand rest on his shoulder. “It’s the elevator, honey,” she told him. “It’s not going to bite you.” “You don’t know that,” he said bitterly. “Maybe it’s an elevator from Hell.” Ayden snorted. “Or an elevator to Hell.” He slid out into the lobby, gun pointed towards the elevators and they were open but empty. Nothing piled out at them and nothing was trying to kill them and that feeling felt strange and unnatural. He kept waiting for the horde to come. He kept waiting for Rimmon or Amon to show their faces and rip them both apart because as battered as they were, it had been easy so far. It was never a good sign when it started out easy. He sighed and glanced at his brother whose face was hard and determined. He liked that look a lot better than the lost empty one. He hoped it was there to stay. He loved his brother and he wasn’t going to let him down but his shoulders were starting to hurt from all the weight he was carrying around. “I think that’s the closest thing to an engraved invitation we’ve ever gotten,” he said with a smirk, jerking his head towards the elevator. It stayed open and there was quiet, eerie music coming from it and he was surprised they didn’t just post a neon sign on it that read “trap.” He wondered just how dumb they thought he was. “I’m more of a party crasher, myself,” Ayden said with a weak laugh and Johnny glanced at him. His brother swallowed and licked his lips and Johnny wondered if he was thinking about that coffin and Amon. Probably. It had to be on his brother’s mind all the time anymore and he growled because he didn’t like that these fucking demons had left so many wounds on his brother’s soul and he almost wanted Vaughn to still be alive so he could kill him again. “Well,” he said. “I vote we take the stairs.” Ayden laughed weakly and then he was nodding his head. “I second that,” he said. Johnny nodded and he kept his shotgun on the elevator as they headed towards the door marking the staircase. He didn’t like the idea of being trapped in a little box headed to Hell knows where, even if it was just to the penthouse. They could fucking walk, thanks very much, and he wasn’t about to just saunter on in there without a care. There was a zombie waiting on the other side of the door when he kicked it open, but a shotgun blast to the face took care of it quickly enough. It stumbled backwards into the railing and he watched it fall the ten feet to the concrete floor. He was wearing a bell boy’s uniform and he was wearing a name badge that read “Alex” and somehow that made Johnny feel just a little bit guilty for all of this. They’d brought Legion here. They’d brought him into the world and they’d brought him into this place and maybe Alex had just been working to save for a ring or for college but it didn’t matter because he was dead now. Then his mouth opened, and it wasn’t his voice. “I see you Sons of God,” he said with a million voices. Johnny shot him in the face again, and then he started making his way up the stairs. “That never stops being creepy,” Annie whispered from behind him and he wanted to reach back and take her hand but he had to keep both of his on the shotgun. He stayed close to the wall as they moved up, and he kept watching above him for anything that wanted to jump out or surprise him. He wondered if that fucking Hellbeast was the only one of its kind and he really hoped so because that thing had torn him up pretty badly. His face was throbbing and it was throwing off his depth perception a little. They didn’t bother stopping at the second floor, or the third. They kept heading up the stairs and Johnny was beginning to feel it in his chest and maybe Annie was right and he should stop smoking so fucking much. Ayden stayed close to him and Annie brought up the rear. At some point a waitress came out of the door to the fourth floor and Johnny kicked it shut before shooting her between the eyes. A man and a woman came up behind them some time after that and Annie and Ayden both filled them full of holes. It was too quiet. It made him nervous. Then they reached the fifth floor and Johnny had to stop because he thought he could hear something behind the door. It was the first sound of real life they’d heard since the elevator and it sounded like the same fucking lame ass music echoing into the stairwell. He glanced back at Ayden and Annie and they both nodded at him. He took a breath and braced the shotgun and then his boot slammed into the door and it banged against the wall as it flew open. There was music coming down the hallway. It was coming of the elevator and it was waiting with open jaws. Johnny snorted and then looked the other way. There was a room at the end of the hall and the door was cracked open. He could see light spilling out from under it and it was soft and golden and filled him with dread. There was noise coming from that way too and it sounded like harps or something equally as out of place. He stayed close to the wall as he headed down the hallway and his hands were getting slick from holding his shotgun so tightly but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it go. His boot nudged the door open and what he saw wasn’t what he expected. A woman lay in a huge bed in the center of the room, sprawled lazily and dressed in something gauzy and sheer and she was built like she could pull it off. Her hair spilled around her pillow and in her hand she held a cup she was drinking occasionally from. She was surrounded by half naked men, but all of them had their eyes burned out and they were nothing but walking corpses. Then he noticed the beast in the corner of the room and it was as big if not bigger than the three headed Hellbeast they’d just killed except it had seven fucking heads instead of three and things just kept getting better, didn’t they? Then she noticed them. Her head swiveled and her eyes narrowed as they flicked from face to face. Then she smiled broadly and her teeth were sharp. “Godsent,” she said, and her voice was a hiss. “Come have a drink with me.” Wenston “Why are all the hot ones Satan’s bitches?” Johnny snorted as Ayden said it and then they were both firing their guns at the woman on the bed. She howled and their bullets bounced off an invisible wall in front of her and fell useless and harmless to the ground. Ayden growled low in his throat because when you took away his ability to shoot, he wasn’t much good. Johnny kept firing but he was walking closer to the woman. Annie, behind them, was drawing her machete out and Ayden pulled his off of his thigh. “Johnny, do you think ammo grows on trees?” Annie spat from behind them and Johnny snarled in response and then shoved his gun into its holster and withdrew the sword from his back. Ayden tried not to snicker because Johnny always looked badass when he was holding a sword. You know what, Johnny pretty much just always looked badass and he felt a swell of pride and love for his brother. He wondered if it really had just taken Johnny telling him he loved him to bust out of the numbness that had overcome him the past few weeks or if the snap he’d felt earlier deep within his chest before he’d gone Rambo on the room full of zombies by the pool was something he should be concerned about. “I’d be a fucking farmer if they did,” Johnny called over his shoulder and then he was running forward because the half naked dudes standing around the hottie were all running at them. Ayden tightened his grip on his machete and he saw Johnny cut the head off one of the men and then he lost sight of his brother and of Annie, who had been heading for the seven headed beast and sometimes she could be as much of a cowgirl as Johnny was a cowboy, because he was fighting with a Hulk Hogan wannabe with muscles the size of melons. He swung the machete down at the man but was surprised when the man stepped swiftly out of the way. He felt a muscled hand reach out and take hold of his wrist and he swore to God if the fucker broke his arm he was going to throw a hissy fit because it had been a while since he’d broken a bone and he was liking not having to wear a cast. The man yanked Ayden’s arm and Ayden yelped as the muscles twists and strained and it wasn’t broken but it was probably sprained badly. The machete fell from his grasp and clanged to the floor. He heard Johnny give an angry yell on the other side of the room and he wondered if his brother had heard his yelp because even though is brother was half deaf, he still had an ear for Ayden’s cries of pain. Then the man backhanded him and the world spun for a moment as the man tossed him like a fucking ragdoll onto the bed. Ayden lay stunned for a moment before his face was smarting and he could feel his eye swelling shut and he tried not to think about the time when he was four and his Dad had backhanded him for the very first time because he’d ran over his toe accidentally with his Tonka truck. This felt a lot like that, because his eye had swollen shut then too and he’d had a lot of injuries between that time and now and he didn’t know why he was thinking about that, but he was. There was a soft hand on his shoulder and for a moment he thought it was Annie. But then a pale crimson haired woman leaned over him and Ayden sucked in a breath because she was smiling at him and it wasn’t nice. He tried to sit up but she shoved him back down with strength she shouldn’t possess and she ran fingers through his hair. “I am Mystery,” she told him and her voice sent shivers over his body and he tried not to let it feel good, but it did and he thought that was disgusting and wrong. Her hand ran down his chest and then she was pulling her cup close to him and he thought distantly about shoving her away and pulling himself off the bed and chopping her head off, but her eyes were locked on his and he couldn’t move and all he could do was stare deep into them. There was fire burning in her pupils and passion on her lips and then she was bringing the cup to his and she was tipping its contents into her mouth and all it took was a drop and she whispered, “Love me.” Fire erupted inside of him as soon as the liquid hit his tongue. His back arched off the bed and there was a silent scream stuck behind his teeth and his eyes jammed shut. He heard Johnny scream his name from across the room where he was still decapitating zombies and then Annie was yelling for him and then they both went quiet or he stopped listening and he was sitting up and her hands were on his face. The fire faded away and when he looked into her eyes, he saw the promise of passion and lust and desire behind them. He reached forward to touch her and she took a step back, out of his reach. Longing and desire swelled up inside him and he wanted her so badly but she was staying just outside his grasp. Then Johnny was by his side and yanking on his arm, trying to pull him off the bed. “Fucking bitch,” Johnny snarled at Mystery and how dare his brother talk to her like that. Ayden yanked his arm out of Johnny’s grasp and his brother turned to him with a frown. Then Ayden snarled and kicked Johnny in the knee and it stopped supporting his brother and Johnny fell. He held onto the bed to keep from falling all the way and his eyes were wide and then angry as he looked at Ayden. “Don’t talk to her like that!” Ayden yelled. Johnny looked confused for only a second before there were hands suddenly on his head and his arms and Johnny was struggling against the zombies that were holding him. Ayden watched as Mystery came over and the zombies tilted his brother’s head back and Mystery let a drop of her cup fall into Johnny’s opened mouth. Johnny’s back arched and his mouth opened in a silent scream and Ayden was jealous. He was jealous of his brother because he wasn’t going to let him have Mystery. He was going to keep away his desires and his lusts and his passions. Johnny blinked and shook his head and then his eyes slowly turned to Mystery and she smiled and it was beautiful. She pointed to Ayden. “Only one can have me,” she said. Then Johnny and Ayden looked at each other. Their eyes met and Ayden didn’t see Johnny kneeling there on the floor, he saw competition. Johnny didn’t look like he saw Ayden sitting on the bed either because a scowl came over his face. They were both up and moving at the same time. Ayden tackled Johnny in the midsection and Johnny brought his fists down onto the small of Ayden’s back as he was sacking him across the room. Ayden yelled because it hurt and then he was shoving the competition up against the wall and pulling back and cocking a fist back. He hadn’t seen the sword still in Johnny’s hand. The hilt of the sword smashed into Ayden’s nose and he felt it shatter beneath the blow. He stumbled backwards and then the sword was coming down at his neck. He ducked back and it managed to just slice a clean blow across his chest. Blood blossomed and leaked down his front. He snarled and looked at Johnny’s face. “She’s mine!” he screamed. “She’s mine!” Johnny yelled back. There was howling coming from the other side of the room and it was the seven headed beast that was down to five because Annie had cut two off. Annie’s voice didn’t break the sudden spell they’d found themselves under. “What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed over at them. Mystery stood in the corner and laughed. .Wolfie. He was trying to keep her from him. He was trying to come between him and the woman he loved.Johnny snarled when his brother hit him hard in the chest and they both went down in a heap. He curled his fingers tighter against the sword but his brother was holding his arm down with one hand and pulling back to punch him with the other. He felt his knuckles strike him hard in the face and it was where his eye was already wounded and scored with bloody lines. He let out a strangled scream and then his hand came up and curled in Ayden’s shirt. He pushed off the ground with his legs, flipping his brother off him and he hit the ground with a hard thump. From behind him he heard a woman cry out in pain, but he didn’t care because it wasn’t his woman. It wasn’t Mystery. She was the only thing that mattered to him, the burning need in his heart and nothing and no one would come between them. Her voice whispered in the back of his head, telling him that only one could have her and he felt such a swell of jealousy and rage that anyone would try and come between that. He needed her in a way that set his whole body on fire and nothing and no one would take her from him. He didn’t see Annie’s sword swinging through the air and taking off another one of the beast’s heads. He didn’t see the muscled Fabio hit her hard in the back or slam her against the wall and she was shouting his name but he didn’t hear it because it wasn’t coming from Mystery’s lips. He didn’t hear her sharp cry of pain when the man struck her across the face and sent her to the ground or the growl that escaped her throat as she brought the machete up and hamstrung the man across the back of the legs. He landed in a pile and she brought the machete down on his head before whirling back to the beast. “Johnny,” she cried again, because one of its heads snapped out and caught her around the arm. He didn’t hear her. He was focused on Ayden who was panting and watching him from across the floor. His hand tightened around his sword and then he was swinging it around towards his brother’s face and it caught him across the cheek and drew a bright red line. He cried out and scrambled back across the floor as Johnny brought the sword down again. Johnny struggled to his feet and stalked closer to his brother whose back was hitting the wall. He was breathing heavily and his eyes were narrowed because this man wanted to come between him and the woman he loved. Only one could have her and that was the worthy one, and Johnny was going to be it. He felt her hands slide across her chest and he shivered at her touch, the only touch he’d ever needed. “There must be blood,” she whispered in his ear. “For me to be yours, there must be blood.” Ayden’s eyes widened underneath him as his brother brought the sword up and then he was snarling something and lunging at Johnny. He grunted as his brother struck him in the chest hard. He stumbled back but didn’t let go of the sword and Mystery stepped away from him, clapping her hands and laughing. He smiled because she was smiling and he wanted to please her. He wanted to make her happy and he wanted to prove to her that he was worthy of her love. That meant there had to be blood. Ayden hit him hard in the face and he felt his head snap back. He brought the sword around again and struck him across the temple and his brother’s head jerked to the side as it made a loud crack in the room. He heard someone else shouting and he heard the sound of a body hitting the floor but that didn’t matter, all that mattered was pleasing Mystery and the harder he hit Ayden the harder she laughed. His brother’s head whipped around and then he was pulling his fist back and hitting Johnny. He took the hit and felt his fists strike him again and then his hand was reaching out and curling around Ayden’s shoulder and he was thrusting forward with the sword. He felt it part flesh. He felt it vibrate through his arm when it sunk into Ayden’s stomach and out the other side and he saw his eyes go wide with it. He took a step closer and pulled his brother in because he was sorry he had to die, but only one of them could have her and it had to be Johnny. He loved her. He needed her more than anything else in this world, so he tightened his grip on his brother’s shoulder and pushed the sword in deeper. Then he heard a scream from behind him, and it sounded like her. He gasped and whirled and there was a woman there, covered head to toe in blood and she was raising her arms above her head. She had a machete clasped tightly in them and then she was swinging it down towards Mystery and Johnny and Ayden howled with her as the machete hit her flesh and severed the hand from her arm. The glass was still clenched tightly in it, even as the limb fell away from her body. Blood arced in the air and he saw her eyes go wide with pain and fear. She was hurt. Someone had hurt her. He pulled the sword from his brother’s stomach and then he forgot about him as he crumpled to the floor. He forgot about everything but her because she was hurt and the woman holding the machete had hurt her. He watched the hand fall towards the floor and he was already moving. His hand curled around the woman’s wrist and she cried out because it was already bloody and wounded and then he yanked her around to face him. He almost killed her. He pulled the sword back and he was ready to swing it down towards her head and her eyes were wide and sad. Then the hand hit the floor, and her glass shattered into pieces. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Pain and fire shot through his spine and he felt his back arching as he stood there, his eyes rolling back in his head and something inside him was burning up and turning to ash. He tried to breathe but his throat was locked up and he couldn’t quite manage it. He heard someone shouting and someone screaming next to him but he couldn’t hear them and it wasn’t because of the deaf ear. Then he shuddered as the last of it burned away and turned to dust and his eyes slid back into his head where they belonged, even if one of them was blinded by blood. The first thing he saw was Annie. The second thing he saw was Mystery, whose remaining hand was curled around his woman’s throat and lifting her off the ground. Annie clawed desperately at the arm holding her and the nails just dug in deeper, digging bloody holes in her neck. She gasped for air and the woman’s face just curled into a snarl. “You dare?” she asked, her voice a wicked hiss. “You dare strike at me? Do you have any idea who I am?” Johnny’s fingers tightened around his sword. “Just another corpse,” He told her, and then he brought it down hard on her arm. It sliced clean through it, sending her limbs tumbling to the ground and Annie was gasping for air as she pulled the fingers from her neck. Blood sprayed |
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