om_magik: (Sobbing)
[personal profile] om_magik posting in [community profile] om_main
Illyana escapes. Nico doesn't.

Disclaimer: Contains some vivid imagery, references to abuse, and scattered quotations from the King James Bible, 2 Peter.





She hurt.

It was Illyana's first semi-coherent thought as she fought her way through the gray fog in her mind to consciousness. Not much, but it gave her something to focus on other than the voice droning on overhead, even as her mind tried to flinch away, to pull her back to sleep. She hurt, and she couldn't feel her hands. Something about that fit together, but she wasn't sure why or how.

"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment..."

She tried to force her eye open, wincing as only one responded and managing only a slit, there. Enough to realize it was dark, and that the cold, hard surface beneath her was a floor. She tried to sit up, and choked as what motion she could manage only served to make her stomach reject breakfast, peppered with a strong copper aftertaste.

Blood. But how...

"The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished."

It all slammed back into place with the subtlety of a mach truck - the graveyard, the men, the blurred sight of Nico charging towards them. The gunshot. Had they...no. She'd already been falling unconscious, but she was pretty sure she'd know if she'd been shot. But if not her...

"Nico?" she whispered hoarsely, feeling as if her mouth were stuffed with cotton, but there was no response, however much she strained to hear otherwise. Her eyes sparked for a moment, a sharp counterpoint to the whimper that escaped her lips. No. No, they couldn't have shot Nico. Not for raising the dead. They couldn't have...

"But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;"

Demon spawn. Corrupt. She'd heard them say it as she passed out, and whatever religious service was being piped in overhead was full of it. They'd thought they were demons, unclean. The zombies, her eyes...damn it, they couldn't have shot him. Could they? He couldn't be...

"And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;"

No, he couldn't. He was the King of the Dead, wasn't he? Even in her nightmares, Nico was always the one person who survived, or if not that, then the first back to life. If she could just get to him, they could get out of here.

She rolled to the side, away from the puddle of vomit, biting back a desire to scream as the motion jarred shoulders pulled back into an unnatural position by something around her wrists. She needed to concentrate. Kitty was right - they'd won the sweepstakes in "you can't keep me" abilities. She could get out of here, and get Nico, and...

"Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:"

Cursed children. That was them. Her. This was her fault. All of it. If she hadn't wanted to go off somewhere, if she hadn't dangled a graveyard in front of Nico as a lure, he wouldn't have been there. Wouldn't have been captured - captured, not killed, he couldn't be dead. He couldn't. Except he'd had the quote all picked out for his tombstone already...

Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

Fuck, why was it so hard to think?

She took a breath and instantly regretted it as the smell of mold, dirt, and her own vomit assaulted her nose, and she choked down the urge to throw up again. No. Bad enough she still had the taste of blood and whatever it was they'd clamped over her face in her mouth. She swallowed it down, then froze as she heard a faint echo of voices and focused on them, trying to block out whatever was being spouted though the overhead speaker.

"You check on her, Anne?"

"Right, me. I'm not allowed anywhere near, Daniel, you heard him. Getting above myself again. You want her checked on, you go do it."

"Hell no, not me. I already got stabbed by the other one. Anyway, what's the point? She's gonna be dead soon enough, anyway; ain't like we've got to feed her or get her ready for the fire."

"That's assuming she don't get out. The devil knows his own."

There was a laugh, and the male voice countered with, "Didn't do much for the other one, did he? 'Parently even the devil don't much care what happens to them."

Illyana bit at her lip as the voices grew too soft to hear, then instantly regretted it when her teeth encountered the spot she'd bitten into when they'd hit her. They were going to kill her. From the sounds of it, they'd already killed Nico. Her mind tried desperately to reject the thought, but it remained, taunting her.

It was all her fault. All of it. And even if she got to Nico, what could she do? Even if...

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

Illyana's eyes clamped shut, blurring with tears. There wasn't anything she could do. Not like this, not with her head scrambled and her hands tied and damn it, she was going to have to do it, even knowing it might be too late by the time she got back. If it wasn't too late already. If it was? She didn't care what anyone said. Someone was going to pay.

She bit her lip again, trying to focus in on the pain, letting the blood pulsing in her ears drown out the voice overhead. And offered a prayer to whoever or whatever might actually listen that she wasn't too late as she summoned up a stepping disk and disappeared.

Profile

Omnia Mutantur

December 2016

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314 151617
181920212223 24
2526 2728293031

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 24th, 2025 01:22 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios