'but I am very homesick for arms that have never held me.' unknown

Original Chapter

Her tongue maneuvered on its own. Dancing around the silk thread of lies she weaved under Stiles' words. In the tight confines of the Beacon Hills Police Precinct, between the shadows and law attempting to realign order stood the two of them. Whispering with sounds and contortions of the optical muscles. The clamoring of boots against slick floors, orders being drawn, testimonies being shared, something began to untwine.

"Tell them she did it, she took you."

Leather squeaked against vinyl. Fabric ground across flesh. "Who is she?"

His tongue coated his lips, captive between his teeth. He struggled to will himself to tell her the truth.

"Who?"

"She...she's the one who did the fire. That fire." His breath hitched as he met her blank stare. "The Hale House."

Beneath the sway of moonlight, her blood lust grew. An act of revenge formed in her throat, pressing against the teeth she gritted. Hours of re-living all that was taken from her. She balled her hands into fists to restrain her body from recoiling. Writhing in a fetal position, wishing to be back in that form to unlearn the knowledge of pain. Mental. Physical. It would all be the same.

"It was never about you."

She rang in her mind, ricocheting against the sulcus and gyrus of Neviah's brain. She resided there, unrest and unwell. Full reign to remind Neviah of anything she wished. To remind her of how unwell she was.

It was never about her. The guilt of six years flooded back for a boy she cursed? It was never that simple. She was naïve to believe so. Strings connected between the points she stared deeply at individually. She needed to step back to find herself intertwined, nowhere near the center. Just another piece to the greater game. False beliefs formed false narratives, like the idea Peter had killed her for his own greed. Easy to fall for as she remembered how manipulative he could be years ago came to the forefront of her mind. His goal was only to place her on the board for something greater. He had a flare for dramatics. Derek would always say she got it from him.

But the picture still stood unclear. Pieces blurred, missing, unsolved...or forgotten and overlooked. All Neviah could see was red and Kate was just another piece to remove.

Knowing her, who she was, and what she looked like was irrelevant. She knew who Kate murdered. That was enough. She cast the woman's fate the moment she parted her lips with the memories of burnt flesh swirling inside her mind. Tears periodically rained down her cheeks as the lies spewed. It would be enough.

"Her name...is Kate. I only saw her for a few minutes before he took me somewhere. She said...she said." Neviah paused, choking on the eyes of Noah, Damian, and Stiles. Placed in the Sherrif's office, tightly packed between unsolved cases and guilt.

"Take your time, Neviah," Noah told, his eyes soft but his jaw clenched. He sat despite his body urging him to move, bouncing his leg, dragging the heel of his boot against the grout. If he hadn't been human, the grip strength he held his pen with would have snapped. Instead, the ball-point tip pressed against the notepad, awaiting her next words.

She inhaled sharply, strings of salvia stretched and split from her dry lips. ""I have to finish it." That's what she said. He took me somewhere in the woods and kept me in a van. I couldn't open the doors." She tilted her head down, staring into the shadows that inched over her shoes. Shadows blanketed over the forest as she followed Peter. Air growing stale. The look in his eyes as he held her life in his two hands. "The windows were blacked out. I tried screaming...but no one could hear me." Stuck for days, floating in nothingness. A vague memory, like a brief recollection of a dream just before she woke. "I don't remember how long I was there. I think four...five days. He fed me fou—no, five times. Each day because he wore something different. I thought she was gonna come, to finish it. She never did."

She fidgeted with Stiles' fingers, and he let her. She refused to do the interrogation without him, not that Noah or Damian were going to follow the rules for this. They ushered the teens into the office before any other officers could attempt to formulate a story. She couldn't look at her dad. His eyes pierced down at her. He had almost looked fearful of her at first sight. How he couldn't move his hands to hold her like a father would. He most likely knew it was all a lie. He always knew. Resentment would grow from his heart. His own flesh and blood, a liar and a monster. She could convince herself it was real to fool him. Her mind already blended the days to fit her new truth.

Noah shared a look with his most trusted co-worker. "Is this what the woman looked like?" Noah placed a photo of a dirty blonde woman. The woman at the gas station. She had the same sinister look in her eyes.

"Yes."

She found herself unable to tear her eyes from the photo. She had seen her before. Before the gas station. Her breath quickened. Slipping her hands from Stiles, her brain flooded with moving images. Basking in a moon-less night sky, she stood with her men, a child at her feet. A debt to be paid. A deal made with the devil herself.

It flashes over her eyes. The room began to shift, contorting and melting. Shadows morphed into towering trees, concealing secrets of death that loomed. The men stood unfazed as the world collapsed.

"Neviah," her dad called, crouching before her. His hand hovering over her cheek. He thumbed away a tear. "You're okay. You're safe. Kate is dead."

Her eyelids were unable to stretch any further apart. She met his gaze, the wavering uncertainty of truth and lies. Kate may have not kidnapped Neviah a week prior, but she had taken someone six years ago. "She was there. That night. The fire. She was going to kill all of us."

Unable to breathe as the smoke filled her lungs, staring into her father's eyes, she was there again. Brittle leaves beneath her Wednesday socks on that Thursday night. The wind brushed against her bare, lanky legs. Perfect for dancing as Laura would say. Cora would have taught her simple ballet moves. Not that the girl would ever join her friend's classes, she only wanted to know how it felt. To dance gracefully as if she were a snowflake drifting from the clouds. She had only ever seen her legs be as wobbly as a fawn.

"Where are we going, mama?"

"Questions make the journey less fun."

"Cora's supposed to show me how to do a plié."

"Hm."

Despite it being night, the sky appeared a navy blue, coated with faint clouds that migrated away. Stars shimmer through the thin veil. Without a moon they stood brighter. The ones farther away had a chance to be seen. Neviah scoured for the North Star, the one taught to her by a boy named Theo. Quiet and kept to himself, but when he spoke, he knew plenty. She learned that about him when she sat next to him instead of Stiles to annoy the freckled boy. Not that she understood why, but the why couldn't have been more fun than his reaction.

"Are you coming home tonight?"

Her mother turned her head back. Her feet still moving through the bristle and barren trees. Her figure had been engulfed by the shadows, contorting her shape. Her eyes remained visible, an emerald glow. How she had done it, Neviah would never know. Her mother never let her secrets known. They were remnants of the self. Release it all and what were you? Just like everyone else. Neviah never knew anyone like her mother.

"Not yet."

"When will yet be? I like time frames; everything can be scheduled around them."

"That's not how life works."

"It's how school works and I'm in school for all the important years of my life...or so I'm told."

She laughed; a symphony was released into the world. A smile grew on Neviah's lips. She wished to be like her. To fill a room and shine brighter than the sun. She would be like her mother, less like her father, if she could do anything about it.

"Those days will feel like the distant past."

Neviah pursed her lips, twisting her fingers with each other. Crossing and uncrossing. Twist and untwist. The forest she believed to be endless was not, as it surrounded a singular tree stump. Sliced neatly in a circle, the great tree stretched its roots beyond. No other tree dared to near it. Not for several meters.

Yet a body had. It leaned against the stump, slumped over. Their chest rose and fell in long intervals, like when one was asleep. Rugged hair with broken leaves and blades of grass. Hands covered in grime, glistening wet. A dark red stream splintered from the hills of knuckles, down the valleys between veins.

"Mama?"

"Where's the boy?"

The girl's eyes followed her mother's once she realized she cared very little about the slumped body. Something swelled in her chest. The feeling she got whenever her room would get too dark and she noticed how much the darkness engulfed her space. It consumed and consumed, inching towards her. Something lurked inside. It peered down at her. She peered down at her.

A blonde woman who held Lilith by the collar of her baby blue jacket. She fought the woman, scratching at her, stomping on her feet. Only ten, she weighed nothing. Fit to be a graceful snowflake, she remained human with a touch of magic. Aggression was all she knew; anger was unable to be locked away by any jail.

"Couldn't find him in time." The woman threw Lilith to the ground, baring her human teeth at the child. "She has a mouth on her."

Lilith whimpered, cowering on the ground. The fear in her eyes had never been a common occurrence. Neviah ran to her. She dropped to the ground, scrapping her knees on roots. She couldn't feel the tearing of her own skin. All she could feel was Lilith's cold frame wrapping around her torse, holding her as they did whenever they got hurt. They weren't like Cora or Derek, they couldn't heal. All they could do was make the pain unnoticeable.

"Mama, she's hurt." Her arms sheltered Lilith as her eyes pleaded. Her mom's eyes were unreadable. Eyes were always readable. She enjoyed remaining eye contact for that very reason—to search for unsaid answers. "What did you do to her?" she asked the woman who peered down at her as if she were prey.

"What I'll do to you if you don't stay quiet- "

A song in response. Neviah could see her mother's mouth moving as if words were coming out, but it was a song without words. A vocalization that instigated curiosity. It placed a chain around the neck of the woman, she guided it over her neck already addicted. It wavered within the air, slicing the molecules in half to ricochet her voice between. Her power resided in her voice, untouchable, nearly indestructible. The woman's irises faded white. No, it flushed over her irises like a wave. The seafoam crashed into the sand, taking over before bubbling away.

"And you stay silent." Neviah's lips clammed down against each other. The words formed from the song. They did not exist until her mother directed them to her, opening her ears to the alluring piece. Neviah's body was no longer her own.

Her mother winced, pinching the bridge of her nose as she tore her eyes from her child. "You had one job: bring the twins."

"I'm not a babysitter. I'm not tracking kids."

"You're a hunter, that's your job. You track and hunt supernaturals!" Her mouth became a speaker, amplifying every word in an inhuman manner; fangs piercing outward, reminding Neviah her mother was never human. Calliope's eyebrows knitted together, crinkling her forehead as it always had when she was angry. "Go finish the job. Try not to fail that."

The woman did as she was told. Like a robot, she went off into the forest with a lighter in hand. Flickering flames in her palm. The shadows enveloped the light.

"Get up."

Neviah had no choice but to listen. Drawn by her voice, she acted upon Calliope's desires. Her brain followed commands as if it were Calliope's brain instead of Neviah's. It wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want to pull away from Lilith as tears bubbled in her eyes. Dirt smeared across her chubby cheeks. Neviah wanted to hug her, to tell her it would be okay as they always had. It would be okay. What was the alternative to okay? They never knew. After getting in trouble, fear would bubble and blister, but they knew they would live beyond that moment. A distant memory. This would burn in her mind for eternity.

Her mother stepped in Neviah's place, crouching before the whimpering girl. Neviah focused on her mother's frame. How in her position, even in this moment of still air and blood and dirt, she remained herself. Her shoulders pulled back, head up, undisturbed by the disturbance. "This will have to do without the boy. Lilith, sweetheart, remember what we talked about?"

Lilith scrunched her nose, pulling her lips beneath her nostrils. She shook her head, ribbons drooped and bounced at the movement. "I don't want to do it. I want my mom- "

"Your mother would want you to do this for your auntie." Neviah couldn't recognize her mother's tone. It was her voice, but it couldn't have been her saying it. Her gentle laughter and soothing cadence were undetectable. Anger grew restless in the body shaped like her mother. Calliope was what Neviah knew her as. The other version lived in the skin of her mother.

"Lilith...don't," the body against the tree groaned. Malachi Alexander. His name was pronounced the same as Malikai, but Neviah remembered they carried different meanings. She had been fixated on the differences for a short time, mostly to annoy Malikai, but because it rotted inside her brain as most things had. It colonized her way of thinking. Alexander meant protector of men. For years, Malachi had told her, his family stood as soldiers in war. They fought for the greater good of the world.

But them. Malachi and Malikai were meant to be messengers. One of God and the other of Angels.

Yet he who spoke to God faced the devil. Splayed against the tree, his body battered and bruised. Dry blood trickled from the corner of his lips. A bruise bloomed around his right eye. His body pressed on the stump like he had during Halloween. His arms were out against the windowsill, a red flannel over his arms as pieces of straw stuck out from his sleeves. He would have a bowl of candy in his lap and when a kid would reach in, he would jump. The scarecrow protected his earnings, but he always rewarded the fearful and fearless with candy bars. A smile plastered on his lips. A laugh hung from his throat.

He had run out of it all.

Neviah's mother sighed, not bothering to look at the man. "Do you like your powers, Lilith? How does it feel running through your veins whenever you use them? How it feels to be in control?"

Lilith's lip quivered. Her eyes flickered to her dad. His hugs were the best, Lilith would say to the girls. They would argue that their fathers had given the best hugs. Their fathers would always be there to hug them. In their arms, there stood nothing to harm them.

"Answer!"

Neviah flinched, unable to stop the echoes from reverberating within her skull with her hands pressed against her ears. The ground quaked, as did the trees. They groaned at the disturbance. Birds escaped their homes to find more solace. Their children followed suit, knowing nothing more than their parents' presence.

"Yes, Ma'am. It does."

"If you do what you are told, there will be an endless supply of it. You and Neviah won't have to worry about being scared or being the weakest. You can be powerful."

Neviah looked down at her hands. Power? What of it? They were ten. Still playing with dolls, crafting stories to follow each day. Power didn't make sense in their small world. They didn't need power to imitate the dancers on the TV. They didn't need power to do their schoolwork. What was power, anyhow? Make believe. Fiction. Things for adults to worry about like money and jobs.

"I just want to give Cora her present."

"Cora will be the least of your worries. Now will you do it?" She held out her hand to Lilith.

"...will it hurt?"

She looked back at Malachi, a smile curled over her lips. "Not for you."

Lilith took her hands, rising from the ground. Her hands glowed in Calliope's palm, a sun in the palm of their hands. Red string formed around their wrists before fading. Neviah didn't understand. Lilith was told not to bind herself to anyone.

It back the least of her worries as Calliope looked at her. Kindness was something she didn't know. Only yelling, destruction, and anger. Neviah would hear her through her walls at night. Minutes later her father would come to her room, check if she was awake, and kiss her forehead. He would apologize as if he had control over the beast that lived within his wife. He would stay until he fell asleep. No sound from Calliope for days.

She towered over Neviah that night. Lilith placed her hands over the stump until it glowed. Her father begged her to listen. It drowned away as Calliope filled Neviah's line of sight. She took her hands and held them. "We will be glorious."

༻❁༺

The memories of losing her mind stood clear to her. She hadn't just believed her mind was failing, it was the weight of the spells attempting to mesh together as torn flesh would. The inability to correct the spell would daze the subject. Their minds would begin to splitter, only growing worse until the caster undid the spell or cast a new one.

Neviah found seventeen notes, each a different time her mind began to shatter. Pieces trickled back to her at some moment. Others, her mind would spill from her head. It started in small increments, seeing something she shouldn't have. Small spells that adjusted her memories. Lilith died. Her mother left. They weren't enough. As her brain continued to grow, she continued to seek answers to fill the big picture. It was in her blood to finish the picture. She would wound up in the same spot. Every single time.

A pen and paper in hand. Tears dripped onto the page. She begged the infinite number of gods. One of them could fix her. She would promise to devote herself to them and believe in their word without question if they did her a single favor. No one ever answered her prayers.

At twelve, she wrote a note to her dead friends. Younger than Neviah wanted to believe. The girl blamed herself. Their voices grew too loud to fit her child-size brain. Before their forms haunted her, she could feel them.

I wish it was me, too. It should have been me. It would have been better if she killed—

Neviah tore her eyes from the page, throwing it back into the box. Her chest grew heavy. She sent it to the dark corner of her closet, buried beneath Stiles' clothes. She could push it all back into the depths of her mind, until it was consumed by nothingness, too far back for her to fathom. She would never need to acknowledge it.

But it stood over her, digging its claws into her shoulder blades.

"Found it." Her dad stood in her doorway. Adorning a Washington State University crewneck, Neviah had never seen before. Sweatpants he rarely wore. He had seemed more at home in the time she was gone than he ever had with her there. "I, uh, marked the pages for you so you know where to start and—"

"You know more." Neviah stood up, crossing her arms beneath her sweatshirt. No matter how many layers, she would still be cold. "You married one, right?"

Her words came out like drawing a gun when she intended to hold out her arms. She never knew the difference anyhow. A hug could become attempted murder if the attacker was strong enough.

"Alright."

Their living room had become disorganized. Books from his office were dragged and left on the ground. Unfinished boxes of take-out were scattered across the counters and filled the garbage bin. Damian had shuffled awkwardly to open the curtains.

He cleared his throat, sifting through the pages as Neviah sat down. "Half-woman, half-sea creature. Sometimes depicted as half-woman, half-bird. A siren.

"Sirens have been around as long as the Gods have. Their origin began as ladies to Persephone. Seven of them, each assigned to protect her as if their life depended on it. And it had. Three died attempting to protect her from Hades. The others were left broken in some way. They were punished for failing, cast away from Olympus onto a secluded island. They were burdened with the job of protecting those who couldn't protect themselves, from predators, and assaulters. They got their stereotype of luring pirates off their ships because they were, to no surprise, abusive and rapist. With humans, it became hard to differentiate good from bad. Actions in one moment did not always reflect every action after. Sirens aren't moral creatures, their choice in punishment stems from the victim; they seek vengeance for others."

"Makes sense." Neviah's brain scrambled the words of the book titles above and behind her father, crafting words of her own. A distraction she used to do. If she could control an intangible, imaginable aspect of reality, she could face whatever was truly in front of her.

Damian closed the bestiary with his thumb and ring finger. "Does it?"

She did not feel like she could control any part of what her life had become. "Yeah, I'm destined to be real-life karma. Batman but not a rich, white man."

"Neviah."

She snapped her eyes at him. He looked tired, exhausted even. Probably of her. Her throat tightened under her own imaginary hands. "Continue."

A sigh slipped from his mouth. He flipped through the pages, skipping ahead. "Known abilities: Siren song, can influence anyone to do anything they desire; sound manipulation, so long as it comes from their body; enhanced healing, strength—"

"I already know all this."

His eyes flickered from the page. Words rested in his mouth. He swallowed it down and replaced it. "Due to their connection to the sea, they are affected by the full moon. It will make you easily angered, you might want to hurt people, kill them, but we'll train to help you control it and find ways to de-escalate the situation."

"What if killing is the only option?" The blood seeping from the bodies of the men she didn't have to kill but did. It stained her hands. No matter how much she scrubbed, she could still feel pieces of them in between her fingernails. An overwhelming urge to remove the problem. She could have stopped there. Yet their flesh remained stuck between her fangs for a few days. She enjoyed it and that terrified her.

"It is a last resort." His jaw clenched as did his grip on the book. "There are other forms of punishment."

"And, let's say, eating them, would be just as bad?"

"Flesh and blood make sirens stronger. It drives your humanity away." A knowing look lingered in his eyes. Of course, he knew. He was a detective; she had started a poor habit of horrendously lying. She guessed it came from her amplified senses; she could feel her father's eyes on her even when she didn't face him; she could hear Scott on the phone with Stiles as he told his best friend of Neviah's return. How could she lie when reality now held the upper hand, confronting her ten-folds with the consequences of her own actions? "The two men...they weren't good people. You were most likely following the wants of their victims."

Her eyebrows knitted, nearly conjoining as one in her utter confusion. "How am I supposed to vengeance these people if I can't kill them?"

"There are plenty of ways of ruining someone's life without killing them. Like castration or paralyzing them."

Neviah nodded slowly, her lips kissing her teeth. His seriousness drowned in his own accidental sarcasm. "Interesting."

"There are other things you have to be wary of besides losing your humanity." All because her ancestors failed once. She wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear again. "Sirens were punished for their failures with their own guilt. They experience hallucinations of all kinds of the people they failed to protect. It happened to your mother but she learned how to deal with it."

He spoke of her as a dream. Something he vaguely recalled, unsure if he should even voice what he knew. He had pretended for years that she never existed. Perhaps it was better that way for Neviah. For him, it had been torment.

She could finger through the mental files of memories of her. A single file case for her. A single drawer for moments that Neviah remembered as good—the rest began to rust, rotting from the inside outward. If she inspected further, she might have found the lack of good in those memories. Rose-colored glasses blinded her innocent mind. "She didn't love us?"

"She loved you, Neviah. More than anything." He said it as if it were the only factual piece of evidence in the world since the creation of man.

Neviah saw herself as the Church who denied heliocentrism. "She would have fought it if she did. She would have stayed."

"You don't know what she went through—I don't even know what she went through."

"But you say she loved me. You don't do those things she did to the people you love." At least she thought that much. Her cold-blooded grip was tight around her jaw. Neviah's eyesight drowned in her fatty cheeks, but she could never forget Calliope's eyes. "But maybe you wouldn't know about that because you're never around either."

His chest tightened. She could hear his muscles squeezing against his ribcage, triggering his nerves as they ran near his heart. "Neviah..."

"No!" She stood up from the couch, clenching her eyes shut. She focused on her own body. The sounds every function made to bury him out of her head. With her heart pounding in her ears, she looked at him in the eyes. She wished she never did. Pain swelled in his brown eyes; sunken skin lost to sleepless nights. He had been burdened with the endless job of being her father. "If you were around, maybe I would still be human. I wouldn't remember what she did, or her at all. None of this would be happening."

"I'm sorry Peter took advantage of you." All he knew was to dance around the subject.

"Why weren't you ever there?"

"Neviah."

"Why weren't you there?"

Silence overtook him. It seemed like minutes had passed when it had been seconds. "Not all the memories will come back. No matter how much your brain attempts to connect the dots, you won't remember because depression does the same to supernatural brains as it does to humans. You won't ever remember the days you would disappear in your own head as the world went on; when you would cry for hours begging me to bring them all back. But I do. I will always remember how much pain you were in because of her. And I believed it was best to keep you from falling back into that darkness again."

Words weren't fathomable in her mouth. The thought of speaking sickened her. Her brain paralyzed her tongue before it could follow its own will and say something she hadn't meant again.

"I did what I thought was best for you because I love you. I'm sorry I couldn't love you in a way that you'd feel it."

His eyes went elsewhere. Neviah believed she could be wrong in very few subjects, her father being most of them. Shutting the book with his thumb and pinky, he placed it on the coffee table. "I need a second."

All she could do was stare. Watch his shoulders tense as he walked, falling out of view to disappear into his office. The sound of the door shutting echoed in her brain. Like a trigger in her brain.

He exuded his love silently. In ways that others couldn't see. Mundane action, remembering details. His mind had been built on details. Every night he worked late, a container of her favorite food rested on the counter with a specific time to warm it—not too hot to singe the flavor with electromagnetic waves, but enough to bring back a hint of the taste it would have had after being cooked. He ensured the meals were not repeated. She would grow tired of it, failing to eat it. He was never gone long enough for her to get bored of whatever he left her to eat alone.

He left notes plastered. Visible and invisible. He enjoyed her games—he introduced her to his favorite. A never-ending hunt for clues. It lacked her favorite aspect, loopholes, but still managed to elicit excitement whenever she found a cream sticky note. He wrote her reminders of her brilliance, hinting at the next hiding place.

They co-existed in their home. They didn't need to speak more than necessary to understand each other. Not because of his cowardice or his lack of love for her, but due to the abundance of it. The silence was their solitude.

Somewhere along the road, she lost their meaning of silence. Her mind contorted the word. Silence was an act of violence. And her father perpetuated his violent tendencies upon her.

She couldn't breathe correctly. She grew lonely in that house; she forced herself to fill the empty space of time to make it harder to notice the silence that rang. She became obsessed with becoming seen, she became blind to see she was not the only one drowning in the absence of truth. Silence rested on the floors like dust, corrupting itself by losing its meaning. It grew and grew and would grow and grow until someone screamed. But she learned to stay silent from her father. Settle in bed with grief like a lover; it would be the only thing to ever stand you.

She could stand in front of a mirror and all she would see was her father. She had been more like him than she wanted to accept. Pretend, pretend, pretend, until the performance held you by the throat.

The dust was suffocating. Settling in her lungs, itching as she inhaled and exhaled. It would rub against tissue, begging to be released. Sound did not exist in a house without life. Neviah left to seek air. Gently shutting the door behind her despite knowing he would have heard regardless. She pulled out her bike from middle school, rusted and flattened tires, and rode it west to where she could mutter a word. She could not scream, barely form a sentence.

Not now, not then. Frozen in place, a victim to time as it continued on without her. Her father taught her to be silent because she consumed all that sounded.

Calliope peered into her soul, attempting to dig her way into Neviah to find the greed they should have shared. But by then, Neviah had never had a reason to let it surface. "You've always wanted to know what I am. We are the same, my love. We are sirens."

She could only stare. Any will to speak left her, any ability to do so was stolen. Neviah stood in the forest with a monster wearing her mother's face, her best friend, and her dying father. She wanted to go home. To submerged in silence that not even her thoughts were sound. She wanted to hear the jingle of her dad's keys as he rested them on the hooks, sighing as he tugged his overcoat off. He filled space through his noise, disrupting the silence he would leave her in.

She could live like that, she thought as her Calliope waited for her answer, she could live in the large house with nothing but silence and the sounds her dad made. She could live without not wanting more than she needed. She could live in solitude.

But Calliope didn't care about what Neviah wanted. "You can speak."

She had no reason to. She was a statue in memorial of a girl she was beginning to lose. For a girl who knew very little of loss, she knew she was going through it with her own self. She saw it in Stiles' as he lost his mother. His sarcasm would hide behind anger, whenever he spoke gasoline only lined his tongue until he had spoken too swiftly that he exploded. Childish manner diminished. He lost himself with his mom.

Neviah couldn't say the same. Her mother massacred who she was.

"Neviah," she said slowly, grabbing the girl by her bicep. "This is what you've wanted."

What did she want? To sleep. To watch Cora open her presents. To eat cake. To forget.

"What is wrong with you?" Calliope's motherly attempts faded. Her grip grew tighter. She yanked Neviah from the spot she planted herself in, forcing her in front of Malachi. Her mother never liked the silence.

Neviah stumbled, trying to find her footing. Her eyes were glued to Malachi. A once-warrior left damaged. Weak. Bloody and bruised. Like the deer she found with Derek in the woods. Malachi was unable to fight, he could only recoil in pain.

A butterfly knife thrust into her hands.

"You have to kill him," the monster commanded. Lilith tilted her head upward to look at them. "It's either that or dying yourself."

Kill him? The man who would take all the children to watch movies every Friday night. The man who spent hours on every holiday making food for the three families. He owned Ray's as did his father and his father before him. He gave food for free to those who couldn't afford it. He would give them the shirt of his back. Kill him, or die?

The pearlescent metal sent chills down her spine. Jolts of sensations reminded her that she was still alive. For how long? She didn't know.

"The neck will be the easiest way to do it. Stab and pull. Just like you did with the deer."

Neviah's lips parted. "I was ending its pain."

"And you can end his." Her cold-blooded finger took hold of Neviah's jaw, maintaining her line of sight on him. She had the power to crush the child's bone if she wished. "Do you see how much pain he is in? You can fix that."

"...you did that."

Her grip became tighter. It couldn't have been but a silver of her strength, yet Neviah's face ached. For some reason, she didn't try to command Neviah to do the act like she had commanded her to be silent. Calliope fought herself to not do so. She couldn't. Not for this. If she wanted Neviah to change, Neviah had to do it herself. Calliope released her face.

Clouds of smoke towered over the trees. The wind carried the smell of burnt wood and flesh. Malachi groaned in pain. His breathing turned hoarse as his eyes began to glow green. Lilith's eyes returned to the stump. Her hands glowed blue before shifting black. It grew up her arms, filling her veins to the brim as they illuminated against her pale skin. She cried with her dad.

"Let's go, Neviah," her mother insisted, tugging the child by her wrist.

"Why are you doing this?" she cried, planting her feet to the ground and pulling back.

"Power comes to those who are willing to take it." Calliope yanked Neviah toward her. "No daughter of mine will be weak." Her hand returned to her face but accompanied the other. Her fingers cupped the sides of her face. Love undetected in her eyes, only grief. "It'll be over before you know it."

Before she could kill her own flesh and blood, she screeched in pain. Letting go of Neviah, she held her own head. It rattled in pain. Neviah stumbled backward, falling to the ground.

Kory neared with her palm facing Calliope, muttering incoherent words that were buried by her family's cries. The Earth cried with them all. Writhing in pain as one side of their scales sunk.

Unable to comprehend what was happening, Neviah was engulfed in a body. They held her tightly between their warm arms, shielding her as a second screech fired, only amplified. Tears pricked her eyes. It was a dream, she attempted to rationalize. It would be over when she opened her eyes.

She peeled them open slowly. Still in the forest, only her dad stood in front of her. His eyes glowing red, hair growing from the depths of his skin to coat his face. "Everything will be okay. You need to hide."

It was the only thing anyone said that night that made sense. So, she ran. Only she didn't get far before sounds of pain exploded behind her. Lilith screamed. Curiosity and fear got the better of Neviah. She turned back with the hope she could reach out for her friend, and she would take her hand. Naïve she was.

A scene of horror before her. Black tar continued to flood the skin as blood spilled on the ground. Talon drove into Malachi's chest. Calliope yanked her hand out, splattering blood around her. A heart in hand. She faced Kory with the expectation of doing the same to her. Then a second sun was ablaze.

Neviah used her arms to block the light. When she cleared her vision, there were only three bodies by the tree. Two alive and one dead. Neither were Calliope or Lilith.

༻❁༺

Her knuckles rapped against the white wooden door. Fake cobwebs sagged over the windowsill, used to house inexperienced spiders that could not spin their webs. Pieces were torn to build nests in preparation for spring. The deteriorating decorations were more likely to finish the decade through than Neviah. She was sure of it.

More so when Kory Alexander opened the door. She aged in gentle kisses; gray hair sprinkled and worry lines formed from her son. "Neviah. Come in."

The Alexander house had never felt lonely. Housing two people, it managed to be filled with life in a way that made sense for the two. Decorated with memories and nothing more. Never anything more than necessary. Plants filled the space where trinkets and books would have. Herbs buoying in the air. A hot teapot was always on the stove anticipating guests. "Sit," Kory instructed before going to make Neviah a cup.

She returned with a single, traditional Chinese teacup. Her fingers grazed Neviah's as they exchanged the cup. "How are you feeling?"

Neviah stared at the liquid. Kory preferred her traditions rather than assimilating herself to America. "What is in this?"

"Tea."

"Will it make me forget again?"

Undisturbed by her accusations, Kory sat on the other side of the couch. "How much do you remember?"

"How does he?" Neviah's eyes turned into slits. Her hands absorbed the heat from the cup as the feeling of it being in her hands faded. "He thought she died in the fire, too."

That struck a nerve in Kory. Her hand raised; Neviah half expected the glow to be aimed towards her. Instead, Malikai's door had been veiled with a warping gray light.

"He's studying for an exam, it better not to disturb him."

Neviah maintained eye contact to search for information. Kory kept to herself after the fire. Rarely went out unless it was to take care of Ray's. She stuck to what was familiar to her. She refused to indulge in the town's rumors of her.

"He knows about your mother, knows that she went mad with power and tried messing with nature."

All adults knew was to dance around the subject. "Does he know what happened to Lilith?"

"Do you know?"

Neviah remembers flashes, the agonizing pain across her angelic features before fading in a bright flash. "She didn't die...she went somewhere."

Kory nodded. Her features were unchanged. "Lilith bound herself to Calliope. When I sent Calliope away, she went as well." Unlike her dad, Kory had long accepted what happened that night. Grief and guilt no longer held her as a slave. "I cannot do the things I did to you to my son. His knowledge is too important for the sake of Beacon Hills. But I could take that away, the difference between lost and dead. He would grieve all the same but with one he would believe he could save her."

"He deserves to know the truth."

"Then what?" She furrowed her eyebrows. Her lack of emotions was unnerving, but it made sense. Neviah knew the truth; Kory had no reason to perform around her as she did with others. She was probably the only one who would be blunt with her. "He would be forced to relieve it all again like you have? He is my son, Neviah. You'll understand one day, or you won't. I hope you don't."

Neviah knitted her eyebrows. A pang ached in her chest. Being blunt was one thing, Kory had just slapped Neviah in the face with reality. She never thought of having children of her own. Sure, she thought babies were cute, toddlers were sometimes, and children were bothersome, but never dipped into the idea of having her own. And having someone tell her they hoped she wouldn't hurt. Neviah knew it was because of her blood, who she came from. She couldn't correct the evil that was laced in her DNA. It made Neviah who she was.

And why she could never do the same to someone undeserving and innocent?

"I hope neither of you has to do the things your father and I had to do in order to protect you. I had hoped Peter would have never been so swayed by your mother and his greed. But it is better now than when either of you were children."

Neviah glanced at Malikai's door. She rarely lied to him. She found no reason to. Anything she knew, he could know if he asked. Maybe if he had done the same, she wouldn't be here right now. Riddled with guilt she needed to dispel it like wet clothes. She returned her sight to Kory.

"You can reconstruct your life with what you know again, you can be better or worse. There's no need to make it worse for everyone around you."

The veil melted into the ground. Kory nodded her head, allowing Neviah to go to her son. She watched her carefully, gathering her stiff posture as an unspoken answer.

He noticed her presence immediately. Dropping his headphones over his textbook and slid his chair back. He stood over her, scanning her person for any abnormalities. If he was better at it, he would have seen that all of her was abnormal. She guessed some part of him knew that; he waited for her to make the first move. Magnetizing to his body, he welcomed her in like she was a part of him.

Questions ran through his mind. She didn't need to be a mind reader to know it each one lined up at the tip of his tongue, running down his throat. Yet, it was expected that all that came out was, "I'm sorry."

She stepped back. His room had always been empty. Only what was necessary. It did not reflect how he acted beyond the four walls of his house. You would expect it to be lived in; lacrosse gear scattered with worn clothes that were deemed not fully dirty to be clean and not fully clean to be returned to his drawers, posters from games and movies lined up against his walls, memories. It appeared as if he would be ready to leave without a trace.

"There's nothing you could've done to change it."

"I could have—" He swallowed it down. Could have, would have, should haves weren't going to change what had already been done. "How do you feel?"

He looked too much like his sister when he was cautious. "I want things to go back to normal."

He pursed his lips. "This is technically your normal."

She gave him a look before taking a seat on his bed. He mirrored actions, sitting back down in his chair. He adjusted swiftly to her needs. He leaned back, relaxing his muscles. "Everything is jumbled in my mind and none of it makes total sense. It's like I'm playing Uno but no one clarified what rules we're following."

"It's because you're not used to not steering the wheel," he explained carefully, not because he viewed her as unable to handle the truth but because he didn't know how to say it. He feared his own choices for failing her before. "You're not in control and that scares you."

"Doesn't it scare you?"

A bittersweet smile formed on his face, splitting his lips enough to let a chuckle slip out. "Everything in my life has been predetermined for me. I'm meant to balance nature, not make it something it's not. Things happen and I just do my best to adjust to it."

"How do you?"

He grabbed her hands, leaning closer. "I got six years to readjust, all those six years came back to you in a day. It'll take time."

"It doesn't feel like I have time." Her throat grew tight as if her mother or Peter was holding her by it all over again. "It feels like the moment I accept everything as real, something bad's gonna happen." 

this is the longest chapter I've ever written and I'm so proud of myself. I hope the length makes up for the long wait. /7.8k words

edited: 12/2/2024