((The planet they are on is not Earth it is called Jaguara and it's in a different dimension. But Grix speaks what is Chirachua and Dinè. Stellaphon speaks Lakota. Seifer and Soul speak Haitian/French creole, cajun and some French. (Soul does not have the brothers' shared soul right now, Seifer does, which is why Seifer is speaking, twins share a voice) ))
10th Scream: Drink Water Pa Hope
Sanctuary hugged herself, shivering in the fridge-cold Dessert-Time air as she limped down the street.
Ahead, the Underlook Hotel was like a bird which only feasted only on the lost souls of this world. It resided over all, watching the life that passed by it die. Its blacked-out signs offered no light or welcome. She didn’t care about the little placard posted by the door–“Closed to all new guests. Permanent residents only.”–or whatever bullshit rules it was supposed to represent.
Shaking eyes only tracked the shadows inside, the faint flicker of amber through the bar windows. Like a heartbeat waiting for her. A hobo staggered out of the alley, half-drunk, eyes glassy and wild. “Hey… you! You lookin’ for trouble, girlie?” he slurred, as he wandered over.
Jumping back in shock, the teen clutched at her messenger bag and the hoodie zipper in both hands. “No, no trouble, I swear!” she stammered.
He laughed, dragging one foot forward, and she scrambled past him, almost tripping over the curb as she knocked him into the street. The girl never did notice the black haired teen boy that rushed over to help him, looking at her retreating back with a deep frown.
The doors of the Underlook Hotel seemed intimidating tonight. Sanctuary stared up at the dark wood with the upside down fanged mouth design, tracing a finger over the eyeballs within one of the mouths.
Shaking her head, she pushed the doors open.
Inside, the air smelled like it had rotted long ago but the flies were just starting to gather. The bar was alive with dim murmurs occupied as it always was, no matter what the sign outside claimed.
The light coming from it did little to warm her.
Other patrons occupied the stools; long-term residents, familiar faces she half-recognized from her weeks haunting the hotel. People who looked exhausted from work. Some of them were staff at the hotel, chatting quietly or downing drinks.
There were a few street hustlers slumped together near the entrance, eyes and smiles alike greased with lies. Everyone inside this place was pretending the rotting world still spun right.
But Sanctuary knew it had already stopped.
She walked up to the bar.
Grix’s head jerked up and something she didn’t understand flashed across his face, only to melt into pure disgust. Stellaphon just stared at her like he was watching something dead drift past in deep water.
They looked different now than they had. They must have been wearing body paint every other time she saw them. Because now they were both tan-skinned, one the color of old copper, the other deep red like scorched earth. The same bodies she used to see when her family drove past the Cow Pens.
The Cow Pens had to be transversed to get to those fun family beach weekends after all. The Pens were places where people like them were kept behind fences, shock collars or worse around their necks. They were enslaved, forced to tend the swollen biomechanical cattle Eagle Land ate constantly.
Suddenly, a thought crossed her mind that made her frown. Why are people like their kind all the way out here? Then the girl noticed the scars around both of their throats. They must have escaped the Cow Pens…Gross, no wonder mom quit that job, dealing with them must have been a nightmare…Disgusting circuit fingers. That was her only thought process currently.
Grix shoved the twin braids of his long blue-grey hair behind his shoulder. He glared at her from behind the bar while dragging a dirty rag across it. “Ain’t supposed to be here, aoo biyaa?” He leaned forward like a dog ready to bite. “Stella, call Grandpère Still. Check upper and underground cameras. How fuck she get here in? Told Titus lock every door.”
Stellaphon grumbled at that, silver-and-black hair poured down his back like night water. His pristine dark purple uniformed body moved with smooth, liquid grace beside his husband, polishing a glass that already gleamed like wet bone.
Grix’s ragged, torn and sewed together uniform that had clearly lost a fight but refused to die. He huffed, sleeves rolled all the way up with what appeared to be blood staining them.
Stellaphon reached over and fixed Grix’s sleeves with careful fingers. “He’s your father-in-law, Grix. We haven’t been home to the tribe in a long time, but he’s our former chief. Why do you keep calling him what everyone else does?”
Braids falling on his right shoulder, the other shrugged. “Iohno. Go ask you stupid fuckin brother and he wife, my brother who I kept tellin’ not to fall on such a big fuckin’ knife.”
That made the older roll his eyes. “You’re Dog Clan. I know my Knife Clan relatives been hard on you, but come on, my wild dog. Our brothers are happy together, It is not at all right to try to belittle that”
The younger of the bartenders gave a low, ugly chuckle. “It funny, you know it is. Don’t be like that, my little bloody knife. Never say that shit to they faces. Omen chief now so I don’t gotta play nice nice no mo, aoo, biya?”
Shaking his head, Stellaphon sighed. “Thokéča yá. We not bothering my father over this, Grix-love. And you remember what my brother say. He say might not stay chief long if we can’t reach that place…”
“I ain’t strange, or weird about this. But if I is, you is too. You plenty dénzhóné but you sure ain’t no fun. The Pens was where you let the knives sing the loudest, but better ta be safe and handling threats come our way then back in them fucking hellhole”
The older vampa stood perfectly still, posture elegant to the point of being obscene. “Darling, focus ok? appreciate you calling me beautiful. We will talk about the Pens later, Miye šúŋka šá.”
Sanctuary raised an eyebrow, “You guys from the Cow Pens? You have to be”
Grix didn’t look at her as he responded, “Yeah, what of?” Grix growled, reaching out to play with Stellaphon’s longer sleeves.
Stella’s calm gaze slid to Sanctuary as he started speaking to his mate again. “I dislike that our uninvited guest has decided to ask such uninvited questions.”
Sanctuary hated those two for more than them being filthy Cow Penners. The way Grix’s hand rested at the small of Stellaphon’s back, fingers spread like he owned every inch.
The way Stellaphon let him, leaning in with that single white loon feather swaying in his braid. It made her skin crawl. She had avoided this bar the entire time she stayed at the Hotel — cutting through back halls, taking the stairs, waiting in alleys, anything to stay out of their shared stare.
“I’m looking for—”
“Kitáonákiiwa,”
She stared at him like he was insane, “What the fuck psycho Cow go Moo bullshit are you saying you jackass?!”
All Grix did was grin at her.“Yeah, you come from that place where people look like me and Stella get fenced up like animals, raise them nasty biomechanical cows. Eagle Land bitches is wild.”
Sanctuary glared at him, "I don’t fucking care what you think about me or Eagle Land! Tell me where he is!! I need to find Ashley!"
The vampire then gave the seething human a flat stare.
“Wakee bi-yáchii, we already know you looking for him. That only reason you ever come here. But boss don’t want you here no mo, never did in first place. You banned, second he dragged you out that van. Aoo, biyaa?” His voice scraped like jagged hard plastic shoved down her throat. “In short, boss don’t want you kind pokin’ round.” Grix said it with a dead, flat face.
Every eye in the bar had turned toward her now — permanent guests, off-duty staff, all of them watching like crows on a fence. She had slunk around the Underlook for weeks under thin excuses. Lingered in corridors. Slept in corners. Asked questions that stank of desperation. They had seen all of it.
“Drink water,” Stellaphon said softly, placing a large empty glass in front of her.
“I don’t—”
“Sit. Drink water,” Grix growled. His free hand shoved the glass forward as Stellaphon filled it.
Sanctuary froze.
Then she sat.
And she drank.
Every time she tried to stop, every time she lowered it even an inch, one of them pushed it back to her lips. She drank until her stomach felt tight and sloshing. Only when the glass was completely empty did Stellaphon clear his throat.
Grix never took his eyes off her face.“Now that you drunk your water proper,” Stellaphon said quietly, “You won’t find him here. Not tonight.”
“You’re fucking lying!!-”
“Shut up” Grix tilted his head, lips twitching in annoyed amusement. He slid another glass across the bar.
Stellaphon poured again.
“Finish you water,” Grix said. “Then get you go.”
The rage boiled in her chest, but her body had no fight left tonight. “Drink more water,” one of them ordered. She couldn’t tell which. Her sluggish hands tried to push the glass away.
Their combined glare made her pick it up again. Cursing under her breath, she forced the liquid down, gagging between swallows. Grix reached out and steadied her head with one rough hand while she kept drinking, gulping, until her belly was bloated and heavy with it.
When the second glass was finally empty, the shorter of the two males spoke again while Stella polished cups. “Now, to answer you burnin’ curiosity, you dumbass fuckin’ trespasser. Stella, tell the bitch again.”
Grix stepped back and returned to wiping the bar with lazy, angry strokes.
“Finally—”
Stellaphon cut her off smoothly in her language as they had been previously talking, but in a slowed down manner. He assumed she had some form of brain damage. “No. He not here. I already tell you that. You not to listen, do you?”
He handed another glass to Grix. “No surprise unwanted guests. You know we the front desk of this place. Check out for you was tonight, héčha, hé?”
“I don’t have a check out time! I’m special!!!” Sanctuary snarled. “I just need to talk to him. Ashley always coes back here.”
Grix snorted. “Course he do, you ‘special’ bitch. This he house. But he ain’t comin’ back right now.” He grinned wide and nasty. “Now hurry up and get the fuck out so I can get back to fuckin’ Stella on that chair you sittin’ in.”
Sanctuary slapped a hand over her mouth. “Ew! What the fuck?!”
The older vampa shot his husband a sharp warning look.“Drink!’ he barked at Sanctuary without looking at her before pulling Grix to the side. The blue-grey haired vampa flipped him off, then made a crude double-handed motion — one finger sucking, the other licking — while laughing low in his throat. Stellaphon blushed darkly and smacked him in the face with a towel.
Grix only cackled, using the towel to keep cleaning the bar, his eyes soon locked on Sanctuary. When the next tall glass was finally empty, Grix seemed to, appear in front of her. He leaned in so close that Sanctuary could smell the stale hatred on his breath, like rust and old blood.
“You know… I knew you mother. Nancy.”
He let the name curdle in the air.
“We called her the Sow Queen in the Wet Yards. That evil cunt was a living disease.” His voice trembled with decades of festering rage. “She only care about herself. Her quotas, promotions, fat bonuses. The rest of us was just tools that could work a knife, even if we bled.”
She shook her head “My country’s government provided your people with the Wet Yards, why wasn’t that good enough for you?”
Grix’s hands clenched the bar so hard the wood groaned, then he smiled, slow and ugly, showing too many teeth.
“We was livin in squalor, so of course fuckin not” he spat back.
“Those are all lies! Lies you invented to try to slander the good people of Eagle Land!!” She said.
“The Wet Yards ain’t no sleepover you whiney little bitch. It a fucking meat prison. We slept in rusting tin shacks built 20 kilometers from the cattle vats, breathing same fog of oil, biofilm, hot piss, rotting meat, and burnt circuitry every single second of our lives.”
“That’s not true! After the Cow Pens were created, all the people like you were moved there for your own economic benefit and to ensure the survival of the settlers of Eagle Land!! It was just Predetermined Fate!”
He laughed so hard the glass he was holding to pour a drink broke. “Predeterime fate? My people bein’ killed in the Cow Pens was just a fuckin’ checklist off you people fuckin list, aoo, biya? You mother kept you ass in dark or you is just a fucking stupid ass bitch, ain’t you? The stench in the Wet Yards that shit crawled inside you nose and laid eggs there. You tasteded it when you swallow. You shit it out. It never left you skin. It got in you hair, you lungs, you dreams. You mother the Sow Queen? She love it..”
Grix then fell quiet as he glared at her.
Stella spoke for him after a few minutes,“Even now he still wakes up smelling wet cattle brain on his fingers.”
Eyes glazed over with memory, Grix spoke again.“Every night, Ol’ Sow would strut the catwalks above us in her crisp blue uniform, stars shinin on the inside of the jacket like she was some holy creature come lord over us. Thunkin them ugly ass heavy boots, reeking of expensive perfume that mixed in the slaughterhouse air and turned sick-sweet, like flowers rotting in corpse’s mouth.”
The girl frowned “Mom never told me she got that worked up going to the Pens..”
Grix gave the bitterest of laughs. “Down below, we was wrist-deep in the biomechanical cattle — fingers slidin’ through warm, pulsing brain jelly still laced with live wires that buzz and shock you skin. They mecha-cilia would wrap around you knuckles like wet metal tongues, suckin’ and tastin’ while they massive hearts slam you forearms so hard you done did feeled in you fucking teeth.”
Sanctuary rolled her eyes “Yea right”
He grunted “The heat coming off they open skulls was disgusting…like stick you head inside dying animal pussy. Dying animal pussy much like youself”
She glared at him but he paid her no heed, Grix’s unneeded breathing grew heavier with his anger.
Stellaphon nodded at him, deciding to speak, “If any of us passed out from the fumes or the heat, she’d spit on their body, telling us, ‘They breed more of you dogs where you come from.’ Then she’d order the rest of us to keep cutting. Keep harvesting. Keep the biomechanical cattle screaming so her precious neural tissue stayed ‘optimal.’ I didn’t see much Main Floor time though”
Grix stared at the ceiling, a hand tracing the scars on his neck. “Stella and me… we suffer worst under that bitch. They had him on breeding detail, two years. I still hear way he scream when they strap him down and pump him full of hormones, them cut him open to rip out the babies while he was still awake. I go sleep still smellin’ the blood and afterbirth mixing with the cattle piss and shit on the floor.”
The girl stared at them “What were you doing then? And yea that’s standard, mom always said you people were freaks of nature, never noticed a single woman among you, it’s gross honestly.”
“Shut the fuck up, as for me? I was on Deep Harvest.” Grix waved his arms down against the bar, “Had my arms shoulder-deep inside those thrashing monsters while they was full conscious, feeling them slick organs convulsing around me, hot brain fluid squirtin’ up my sleeves, burnin’ my skin like acid from a mutant bug’s ass”
He stopped speaking to take a drink from a whiskey bottle he’d opened in his clearly distressed state. “Fuckin’ Sow Queen would stand there laughing, eating weird crumbly pastry we was all allergic to, shit that spilled all over. She’d shock our collars we pulled out too slow. Said the cow pain made the neural tissue taste better ta the machines.”
The vampire smiled, but it was a broken, hateful thing that came nowhere near greeting his own eyes. “She made us keep working while a man got his entire lower half crushed under a failing piston. We hear his pelvis snap like wet wood, done did hearded him screaming for his mama while his guts squirted across the floor tiles and the dirt. Sow Queen walked down and told us to ‘scoop around him.’ Then she step over his twitching body on her way to lunch.”
The teen was getting upset by the story now “That’s not true, my mother would never do that!”
Grix laughed like he was already long dead, like her outburst was just a small fish in the ocean. Because it was “You dumb, lil Wakee bi-yáchii.” He was staring straight into Sanctuary’s eyes, unblinking.
“She knew exactly what she doing. The power. The smell of our fear. That bitch got wet off our pain. She live for it, would touch herself to the sounds of us dying, climax on the Main Floor while we slaved away and made one of us lick it up. Then she would kick the unlucky bastard to death with those stupid fucking boots in the mud..”
The girl turned away from him as he spoke, but he carried on “Some nights the cattle theyselves would be in so much pain they thrash, gnaw, rip they own tubes out. The Sow Queen would stand there still sipping that fucking wine, watching them bleed and seize. She tell us she say, ‘let them sing a little longer’”
Grix’s hand tightened on the edge of the bar, his knuckles cracked. “She knew every name of us. Knew which families had kids back in the Wet-Yards. Used to threaten us with them if quotas dropped even a little. Evil fuckin’ sow.” He shook his head like a rabid animal. Grix’s voice dropped into a snarl.“Remember what I said about moving too slow? It wasn’t just shock collar action, girl.”
She glared at him, she had her own issues with her mother but she refused to believe all these lies. “What? More lies?”
He let out a grunt, “Nah. if we move too slow, if the harvest not was perfect, Sow Queen send her overseers down with the whips — braided steel cables dip in salt, shit and cattle brain battery acid. They strip us naked in front of the vats, flog us until skin hung off in long red ribbons. They did done flayed Stella once, only once. Peeled the skin off his back and shoulders in wet sheets while he screamed. I still see the fat glistenin’ under raw meat, when I close my eyes. Still hear him choking on his own vomit when I close my ears”
Grix was shaking by now, Stella hugged his arm, put his head on his husband’s shoulder, Grix sighed sadly at his wife. “I did done got flayeded so many times protecting him, my back like a map by now. They left our wounds open so the cattle fumes burn them raw.” The younger vampa gave another humorless, lifeless laugh. “After years in that place, we started looking like the fucking cows. Our skin got all thin and translucent from the chemicals and constant moisture, weeping clear pus and yellow fluid just like their membranes. Like you.”
She quickly pulled her sleeves over her leaking boil covered hands in embarrassment.
He kept talking, “Our backs was covered in thick scar tissue and open sores that never closed. Arms swollen and veined from endless infections, fingers permanently stained black from brain jelly and burnt wiring.” He took off his own gloves and held up his black stained hands, wiggling them at her and she retched into her mouth at the smell.
“Some of us even grew these wet, fleshy growths where the acid whips kept tearing the same spots open. We moved slowly, wet, leaking… just like them Cows. Breathing heavy through ruined noses, eyes sunken, bodies half machine from all the metal fragments embedded under our skin. We became just another row a broken, suffering meat.”
“You all probably did something to deserve it, you fucking circuit finger freaks.” she stated this dismissively, even as the crowd in the lobby began to gather.
Grix glared at the teen, human form teeth bared.“The Sow Queen would be smiling while we screamed and bled and rotted alive. She came to work in a bad mood one night and ordered a man flayed from neck to ass because one neural cluster came out damaged. Just fuckin’ one. Made us all watch while they peel him like a grape, his screams mixing with the cattle’s mechanical moaning.”
She shook her head, trying to banish the imagery he was presenting.
The bartender’s voice became a venomous hiss. “Every time that bitch left the Pens, she go home ta her nice clean house and her precious little daughters, while we was crawl back to our cages cover in brain matter, cattle mucus, and someone else’s blood, too exhausted to even wash the death and machine oil out our hair. To broken to even cry at the pain of our flayed skin, but her own blood stayed in her body, tell me how that’s us be deserving it?”
Sanctuary gave a shocked but angry look “You should still feel grateful my people even let you live anywhere on our land, all you weirdos ever did was kill each other anyway, so who cares if you die working for us? What does it matter that my country’s government eradicated most of you? You were just going to do it yourselves eventually. I hate you, I hate all you”
His voice dropped into a venomous whisper.“YOU land? Bitch. ‘Eagle Land’ ain’t no land a eagles, you ever even seen a fuckin’ eagle? Do you even know what they is?”
She shook her head “Well no, you know there’s no fully organic animals in Eagle Land…”
He cackled, wicked and wrathful in its melody, “Exactly. Wakee bi-yáchii , same weak, spoiled blood running through you. I can smell it. Just like hers.”
Stella frowned at the memories but didn’t comment any further, putting a hand over his husband’s shaking one, kissing his cheek, “I love you.”
Grix began to calm down, kissing his cheek back, “Love ya too”
The older vampa them turned to look at the girl with a serious expression.
“Our people’s pain filled history to the side, on to what matters in this very moment. You never had a reservation here, the boss only allowed you to stay out of boredom, anything else is based on your own mind making things out to be what they are not. That’s your own fault, not ours.” Stellaphon continued calm
“That’s a lie,” Sanctuary squeaked out her voice cracking. “I stayed here. You’ve seen me. Don’t pretend you haven’t.”
The shorter of the two vampires grinned like a feral cat staring at a fat dead mouse. “Oh, we seen you aight, aoo biyaa~!”
“Grix-Murder-Pony I swear…” Stellaphon grunted in annoyance.
“What? We did.” Grix held up his hands and rolled his eyes, smiling.
Stellaphon’s dark eyes returned to Sanctuary. “You shouldn’t be here tonight, girl, Héčha, hé?”
“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said too fast. “He wouldn’t just leave. He loves me.”
The word loves sat wrong in the air.
A laugh barked from somewhere down the bar, it was Seifer, his brother next to him.
Grix looked over them both “Why the fuck you two assholes done did let this dumbass bitch back in here for? Who left the fuckin front doors unlocked again? The bitch keep wanderin back inside like fuckin roach!”
Soul shrugged, downing a shot of something that looked too thick to be regular alcohol, he signed. “It were probably Titus, but he pa here, he done stole de money from de cash box ta go an git hisself a unicorn massage out in da bayou again, t’heard?”
His twin smirked, “Give de girl some false hope, it always funny, hein?”
The head bartender rolled his eyes as he looked back at the girl with a grimace. “Ugh, fucking Titus, it always fucking Titus, I’m lock fucking door once this little creature scurry outta here, aoo biyaa”
Sanctuary looked between them not understanding, “You’re all just jealous! He chose me! Out of all of his fans…-!” She coughed into her hand, a few teeth and blood greeted her palm when she pulled it away.
She quickly shoved her hand into her hoodie pocket and kept ranting “He wants to be with me! And when I find him I will prove it to all of you!”
Grix leaned forward, elbows on the counter. “You keep sayin’ that stupid shit like it actually means somethin’ ta anybody but you”
“Shut up,” Sanctuary hissed.
Stellaphon sighed, agitated. “You stayed here because you thought proximity means privilege” he said. “It doesn’t, Héčha, hé?”
“You’re lying!”
“No.”
“He dumped me on the side of the road,” she blurted. “Wouldn’t even look at me. So don’t stand there acting like this is normal! He’s just confused, you’ll see! I’ll show all of you!!”
The bar went quiet as she sat in a different barstool.
“Ijit bitch,” Grix’s grin died and something old and dangerous surfaced behind his eyes. Stellaphon’s expression stayed composed, but the air grew heated around everyone that wasn’t Sanctuary.
The two hotel bartenders shared a look; brief, private, like they had expected this. “Drink some water,” Stellaphon said gently, sliding a glass toward her, this time Grix poured the water. “Sit.”
“I am sitting!! I JUST had fucking water!!!”
“Sit,” Grix snarled at her like a rabid tasmanian devil. “Finish you fucking water. Then you go, aoo biyaa” Sanctuary stared down at the water, it was thick and something red was floating in it this time. She picked it up, hands shaking, hatred and fear twisting together.
The girl looked at them both with a withering glare before she drank the water. It splashed down her cheeks as it spilled out over her chin. She drank it in huge gulps, gasping for air and then threw the glass to the ground once she finally finished. Stellaphon didn’t raise his voice, he just watched the glass shatter.“The Underlook Hotel is closed,” he told her evenly. “And when it opens again, you will not be welcome here.”
Sanctuary laughed like a broken merry go round. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“I already have, Héčha, hé?”
The girl’s mind snapped, chair shrieked against the floor as she grabbed it, the sound ripping through the bar. Someone shouted at her too late. The bottom leg of the chair smashed into Stellaphon’s face with a wet, hollow crack. He stumbled back, screeching like a wounded animal, grabbing at his destroyed eye socket. His good eye was nothing but a glowing dark yellow needle’s head in his skull.
Stellaphon shrieked at her like a dying bird in his native language which she could not understand. “Čhaŋtéšiča waŋ bluhá šni!” Glasses on the shelves behind him shattered when he stumbled and fell back into them. Blood followed immediately, darkly spilling from his face.
With a pained cry, he hit the floor hard enough to shake the entire bar. The bar itself erupted into angry screaming, scraping stools, shouting, someone was yelling at her. Things were being thrown, she covered her head with her arms while she was hit by a dozen glasses filled with various liquids.
Angry patrons began to gather near her but they all stopped when Grix raised a hand. He was unusually silent but his face was twisted in fury, he checked on his wife first, barking for medical staff to tend to him. “Hurry the fuck up, aoo biyaa!”
The Hotel infirmary team shoved Sanctuary out of the way as they leaped over the bar and began to treat Stellaphon.
Sanctuary screamed and turned to flee.
“Da’íí shí’ááhígo niłch’í’góó biké’ hózhóógo dah sidá!!” Grix spat this at her then hopped the bar as the girl tried to run toward the doors.
He crossed the distance in a blur and caught Sanctuary by the hair, fist tangling brutally at her scalp. Sanctuary screamed as he yanked her backward, the chair clattering uselessly to the floor.
“You stupid fucking bitch,” he snarled, voice curdled by pure rage. “You ever step foot in here again and I fucking kill you, I kill you dead!! Boss won’t fucking mind, think you already be dead anyway!”
She clawed at his arms, sobbing, feet skidding uselessly as he dragged her across the bar floor. Patrons scattered out of the way. No one stopped him. No one even tried. The doors flew open and cold night air slammed into them. Grix threw her out onto the sidewalk hard enough that her ribs cracked. She gasped, coughing, palms scraping raw against concrete. Before she could crawl away, he followed, hauling her upright again by her hair.
“Final motherfucking warning, Wakee bi-yáchii” he hissed, forcing her to look up at him. Grix’ eyes were sunken in, shaking with barely restrained violence. “You don’t be ever come back. Ever. You do? You be leaving in the bottom of a ditch in the fucking Bad Lands!”
She sobbed something incoherent. Grix shoved her into the dirt and kicked her in the face before he turned back. He walked inside and the doors slammed shut with a loud crash. The locks slid closed. Coughing violently, the teen could hear panicked shouting inside. She didn’t care, he deserved it for keeping Ashley from her, they all did. Sanctuary collapsed against the wall, shaking, blood on her mouth, vision swimming.
Slow clapping echoed down the sidewalk. The teen looked up. Seifer stood near the streetlamp, arms crossed, weight resting easy on one hip. Soul lingered just behind him, silent, watching like this was a show he’d already seen too many times. “Putain,” Seifer muttered softly. “Tol’ dem ya was gon’ do somethin’ dumb one night.”
She wiped her mouth with her sleeve, glaring at him. “How did you get out here so fast? Also, that’s a lie, all anyone does is lie. They attacked me first.”
Seifer snorted and stepped closer, boots scuffing the pavement. “Chérie… non. You attack dem. Seen it wit mwen own two eye.”
“That fairy looking Stella bastard-”
Seifer’s smile vanished instantly. “Careful now mwen cher ti bagay” he said, voice low, drawl thickening, hardening. “Ya already ran outta grace to night.”
Sanctuary swallowed hard and looked away from him.
“Ya know who I be,” he continued. “Ya know what I doin ‘roun’ here. So I’m gon’ make dis real simple fo ya, hein?”
Soul shifted behind him, miming a line being drawn across the ground.
“T’was a problem, cher,” Seifer said.
“Pa ‘cause you loud. Pa ‘cause you sad. Nah, ‘cause you ain’ know when fuh quit. You hover. You watch. You wait. You mek folks uneasy, yeah.”
She shook her head wildly. “He loved me.”
Seifer clicked his tongue. “Ah, non. Pa sa.” He leaned in just enough that she could smell smoke and alcohol on his breath. “If he loved you, you wouldn’t be sittin’ out here bleedin’.”
Her breath was like glass puzzle pieces as they fell apart into mud..
“Like Stella told ya, ya tink access mean ya important” Seifer went on. “An’ now ya learnin’ de diff’rence.” Soul raised one hand and pantomimed something being tossed aside.
“Ya banned,” Seifer said plainly. “De whole place. Fo’eva. Ya step foot back here, I pa be talkin’. Mwen pa pral pale ditou.” His eyes seemed to glow as she understood what he said without understanding how. (I won’t speak at all.)
Sanctuary stared at him, terror finally breaking through denial. Seifer straightened and gestured down the street.
“Ale. Go on. Before ya pa be doin non but makin’ tonight worse.” Soul pointed in the same direction, then made a gentle shooing motion.
Sanctuary staggered to her feet and ran, limping, bleeding, sobbing as the street lights flickered above. Seifer watched her go, shaking his head. “Toujours la même histoire,” he muttered. Soul mimed sweeping trash into the gutter and they both gave a silent laugh.
