Author's Note: This chap hella long and webnovel won't let me put the full goddamn thing in again so this is 1/2
Present time,
BAM
BAM
BAM
The chair crashed down again and again, splintering against the console with a savage rhythm.
Sparks flew as Morgana stood over the ruined dashboard, her breath ragged, her eyes wild.
The interface beneath her was a fusion of arcane glyphs and a sleek scientific design that cracked and crumbled beneath each furious strike.
Wires sparked, runes flickered, and Morgana didn't stop, not until her arms burned, every muscle aflame with the fury she refused to release.
Huff
Huff
Huff
Morgana exhaled in ragged bursts, each breath dragging her fury down from her face and burying it somewhere deep in her gut.
With a sharp clatter, she flung the weirdly unscathed chair aside, then turned to Saturnyne with her hands clasped, smile forced, and a performance of civility stretched over simmering rage.
"I don't believe we've had the pleasure yet. Saturnyne, is it?" Morgana let out a simmering chuckle, the softness in her voice disturbingly at odds with the smoldering wreckage beside her, wires twitching and metal glowing red-hot.
"I'm Morgana," Morgana said, extending a hand with a smile so tight it looked carved into her face.
Saturnyne didn't move at first as she simply stared at the offered hand, her expression unreadable, though there was a flicker of something, as if the thought of touching that unwashed hand disturbed her more than all the lives it had taken.
Finally, with slow, almost bored movements, she uncrossed her arms and took the handshake.
"The pleasure, I'm sure, will be mine," Saturnyne said dryly, reluctantly taking Morgana's cold hand into her own.
"I've only heard the most gruesome tales imaginable." Saturnyne's joke hung in the air, brittle and sharp, but it fell for the most part, flat.
Morgana didn't so much as flinch, her attention already drifting, clearly uninterested in sharing the humor of the room much less spending more time on it.
Morgana retracted her hand with a soft shake of her fingers, as if brushing off some invisible dirt.
"I'm flattered," Morgana said airily, unfazed by the barb as her gaze lingered on Saturnyne, studying her with a calm, measured chill.
"I assume you're familiar with the saying, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'? Shall I consider you an ally under that convenient little banner?" Morgana mused aloud, lifting her eyes just as a flicker of purple light passed through them that was so brief, but too unmistakable.
Saturnyne saw it, and Morgana knew she did.
However, oddly enough, the quiet, instinctive threat behind Morgana's gaze didn't unsettle Saturnyne and if anything, it put her more at ease.
There was something reassuring about knowing exactly how dangerous someone was, and that understanding let a sliver of comfort pass between the two snake-like women.
"For the most part," Saturnyne replied, her thin, unreadable smile barely shifting as she stood still.
It was then that Morgana playfully circled her slowly, but her eyes glazed over with that same eerie purple hue, like blades slicing through to the core of her opponent.
"Oh?" Morgana said suddenly, stopping just beside Saturnyne and glancing up at her with a sharp side-eye.
"You're a witch, aren't you?" Morgana asked, tilting her head slightly, her voice tinged with a mix of condescension and curious challenge.
The other witches, still lingering at the edges like shadows weighed down by broken worlds, suddenly perked up at the familiar tone as the entire room shifted their gaze toward Saturnyne.
"I am." Saturnyne said simply, carrying neither pride nor shame in the admission.
"However, there are no covens in my world or mutants, nothing that falls outside the strict definition of human." Saturnyne said plainly, her eyes fixed ahead though her pupils told of a childhood trenched in civil wars.
But her words hung in the air like a quiet declaration, a clear distance from the shared banner the others clung to so tightly.
"What sort of witch?" Morgana pressed, looking past the obvious trauma as her tone implied she already had her doubts as a small squint followed.
"I specialize in space and time augmentation through magical means," Saturnyne said steadily, meeting Morgana's gaze without a hint of hesitation.
It was then that Morgana's lips twitched into a smirk, rivalry sharp and sweet on her tongue as she actually felt a little jealous.
"How quaint." Morgana murmured, then turned away as if dismissing the claim with ease.
The gesture was subtle and quick, but Morgana understood exactly what Saturnyne's words meant.
Meanwhile, the witches lingering at the edges were still recoiled, overwhelmed by the flood of revelations they'd only just begun to grasp.
Left out of the circle of knowledge, they found themselves once again excluded from schemes that went beyond even their coven, facing someone neither born of their world nor bound to their generation.
Saturnyne, standing before them all with a quiet arrogance, was one of the rarest magical archetypes in the multiverse: a space and time augmentor.
Simplifying the utterly complex definition, Saturnyne wielded the power to manipulate the fundamental archetypes of time and space, bending and reshaping them like an artist molding clay.
However, she was bound by a significant limitation: she couldn't create new realities or alter the course of events in their entirety.
Instead, she could only manipulate and augment what already existed.
Her magic allowed her to shift the flow of time, distort the perception of space, or alter the course of certain moments, but always within the bounds of reality as it stood.
Any change she made was limited to adjusting what was already there, never creating something entirely new.
It was an incredibly complex and deeply ambiguous grey corner of the magical world, its true nature shaped entirely by the eyes that beheld it.
But Morgana wasn't interested in subtlety; she wanted to corrupt the very space around them with her violet intent.
"Good, good," Morgana muttered under her breath, pacing steadily as her mind raced through a web of possibilities, every outcome feeling like the weight of the world balanced on the next move.
She absorbed every scrap of information and every tool within reach, weaving them into the threads of a plan.
Each step was deliberate, measured, like the first stones laid for something monumental yet to come.
Because, in truth, her urgency wasn't driven by the stakes of a few bastards or whores.
What truly unsettled Morgana's mind wasn't that she might fail the one thing he'd asked of her, it was the very idea of sharing Ricky that gnawed at her.
Then sometimes, as if beyond her control, those gnawing thoughts deepened into dark possessiveness, imagining the moment when it would all end and Ricky would have to leave.
It was in that departure that she imagined wrapping metaphysical chains around him, binding him to her in ways no one else could, ensuring he would be hers, forever.
Forever.
That was the kind of ownership she craved.
But even after spending only a short time with him, she realized something unsettling: any bond they formed, any relationship they might build, would be forever tainted, almost ruined before it even had a chance to begin, if she let slip the one thing Ricky had entrusted to her.
There was something deeper at play here, a fragile trust between them that couldn't be broken, or it would shatter everything they could ever build.
Morgana knew that.
His other whores, or at least, what Morgana would refer to them as, were entrusted within her care.
The only thing Ricky asked of her was currently being put in jeopardy by the very person she herself assured she would protect them against.
Their deaths didn't mean a single thing to Morgana, but Ricky's trust did.
She couldn't afford to lose that, not yet, not with everything that hung in the balance.
Not with her throne on the line.
"It's useless," Cedric finally huffed, his worn voice rough as the magic binding him to his knees fed off his own fading power, holding him immobile without Morgana needing to pour any of her strength into it.
"To go against Merlyn is to go against fate itself," Cedric whispered, his voice strained as his eyes flicked up to meet Morgana's side-eye, now twisted with a sharp, dangerous edge.
"He is a being-"
"Oh please, you utterly useless man, you don't even know who Merlyn is." Morgana scoffed, her smile fading into a look of pure disgust.
"None of us, no one, knows who Merlyn really is, or what kind of man he is, because he's not a man at all." Morgana laughed abruptly, her tone dripping with disbelief, as if even thinking of Merlyn left her feeling disillusioned.
"He's a monster." Morgana laughed, spreading her arms wide as Cedric's eyes narrowed fiercely, his bound body jerking forward in defiance.
"YOUR A MONSTER-"
SLAP
Morgana didn't hesitate and instinctively, she slapped down the insolent voice that dared to rise beneath her, all while everyone, Saturnyne included, watched silently from the sidelines.
"You-" Cedric began, his voice low and heavy with a simmering threat, but Morgana cut him off swiftly, winding up her hand again before he could finish.
SLAP
SLAP
SLAP
Over and over, Morgana slapped Cedric's face, forehand, backhand, each strike silencing any words before they could escape, driving his defiance deep into his gut.
Only when blood spilled from Cedric's mouth did Morgana clamp her nails into his chin, forcing his gaze back up to meet hers.
"Do you think people make choices, real choices?" Morgana asked quietly, her tone mocking his name but not expecting a reply, just silence.
But Morgana could see the truth, she could see Cedric's truth.
"You do, don't you?" Morgana hummed pleasantly, actually smiling at this revelation as Cedric's marked face scowled at her.
"No, people think they make choices." Morgana said, waving her finger in his face but not just to belittle him, but as if she was externalizing her own trauma.
"They believe they're turning pages in their own story." Morgana smiled, the fakest smile imaginable, bearing the full weight of her words, only to drop it all like a collapsing stage before Cedric, letting the silence slam harder than her voice ever could.
"But they didn't write the book."
"The ending was penned long before they ever learned to read the lines." Morgana said tiredly, scribbling out the lines in mid-air as if mocking him.
"You have most likely believed your actions truly mattered in the grand scheme we call life." Morgana said, releasing her hold on his chin and slowly standing over him.
"But they don't." Morgana slowly released her grip, standing over Cedric as her eyes curved into crescent moons, mocking him silently.
"You know nothing of what it means to be in control of your own life, let alone what it has in store." Morgana waved her hand, laughing a little at him in the process.
"You're just an ant, blind to the authors scripting your fate, spelling out each syllable of your long, drawn-out speeches about a better tomorrow that vanishes with the flick of an eraser." Morgana said, slowly walking backwards until she was shoulder to shoulder with Saturnyne.
"And with that, Saturnyne, honey, about the barrier-"
"It's impossible for me to manipulate it." Saturnyne's tone was firm, almost dismissive, as if she had already considered the situation from every angle.
The barrier, a master spell maintained by the current Sorcerer Supreme, was a critical line of defense.
It reinforced the boundaries between Earth and other dimensions, preventing extradimensional invasions and maintaining the fragile balance between realms.
The sheer complexity of the spell was something that only the most skilled sorcerers could hope to control, let alone alter.
However, despite its power, the barrier wasn't flawless.
This showed in how beings managed to slip in every now and again since even if it was one of the most initiative barriers to ever be created by man, there were cracks in its design.
"No, no, no, you're looking at it all wrong," Morgana chuckled softly, shaking her head as she leaned in closer, her voice a whisper just beside Saturnyne's ear.
"I don't need help getting around the barrier, I need your assistance in propelling me forward fast enough-"
Morgana, well-versed in maneuvering around the barrier for her own gain, was also intimately familiar with the intricate spellwork etched into the floor of her private chambers, a spell far too complex and time-consuming to recreate within the Citadel in such a short amount of time where every second is precious.
Her eyes flicked toward the coven gathered at the side, where a hot-blooded young woman grew increasingly restless, his gaze locked on Cedric with simmering intensity.
"I cannot stand around any longer." The woman angrily gnashed her teeth, taking a step forward as some other immediately grabbed her to hold her back.
"Elaine-"
"No, HE SACRIFICED OUR KIN!" Elaine screamed, wrenching her arm free from the other coven members and pointing a trembling nail at Cedric's beaten, bound figure.
"HE-" Elaine's anger cracked, swallowed by a sob as tears spilled down, her hatred faltering as she locked eyes with Cedric, who lowered his head in a silent shame.
"We trusted you, followed you, and put you on a pedestal, only for you to kill us? To sacrifice us?" Elaine's voice cracked, carrying the heartbreak of everyone in the coven who once believed in Cedric.
"I sacrificed what I loved most for the greater good." Cedric's gaze swept over them, worn and heavy but their meaning fell on deaf ears.
"How can you say that?" Someone cried out within that huddled group of the coven, disbelief thick in the air.
"Because even my family, my coven, and the one I cherished most." Cedric shouted, eyes burning as if tossing away any of the guilt or shame he once had for what this was all for.
"It meant nothing when I stared down the barrel of the end of the world!" Cedric roared, his white hair sprinkling over his worn and wrinkled face.
"You judge me, all of you, when you fight for a man who is no greater than the one you are opposing." Cedric laughed, showing his true thoughts on the matter that is Ricky as the coven members immediately looked away.
"You all saw it!" Cedric's voice rose, fierce and unyielding as his chest ramped up with a rage that he only held for one man.
"You saw how he brutalized that poor city, how he seized the underworld with an iron grip, you all saw it!"
"He said it was for our safety, your safety." Cedric spat, voice rough with bitter truth.
"But how many lives were sacrificed for one man's greed?" Cedric asked, his eyes reflecting that day as he watched from Long Island.
"How many had to fall as he tore through the streets, staining them with the blood of anyone who dared to resist?" Cedric asked genuinely, his voice heavy with memories of those trembling souls, people curled up in their homes, shaking with fear, as if at any moment someone would burst through their doors.
"You judge me like I'm some villain, but look inside yourselves, look at what's already looming over you, a demon cloaked in white!" Cedric shouted, his words causing one or two within the group to flinch.
"Ricky Luciano isn't a savior; he's a harbinger of ruin!" Cedric proclaimed, his voice carrying the weight of an apocalyptic prophet foretelling the end of days.
"If humanity follows men like him, we will surely collapse from within." Cedric gripped his fists tightly, closing his eyes and seemingly vowing something in his heart.
"That's why the promised king exists, why I follow a man worth sacrificing all your loved ones for." Cedric's gaze hardened as he spoke his final words, conviction burning in his eyes.
"When the light shines down upon Camelot, I will bear my sins, but only for the man who stands for justice, not for those who revel in ruin." Cedric's deposition was firm, his ideals unshaken, even as the coven's hatred simmered before him.
Snap
The sharp click of Morgana's fingers silenced Cedric instantly as those familiar purple chains, the very ones binding him, rose from the ground like living serpents, whipping through the air to coil tightly around the coven members before his stunned eyes.
"W-What-" Cedric stammered, struck dumb by the sudden turn.
"What am I doing?" Morgana finished his stammering, stepping closer and locking her gaze on him, demanding his full attention.
All while desperation flickered across the faces of the witches as they tried to summon their magic, but their grimoires snapped shut with a harsh finality.
Dark, sinuous bindings slowly slithered up to cover their mouths, sealing them in silence as they all were brought to their knee's exactly as Cedric was right now.
"You didn't know?" Morgana asked, a hint of shock in her voice as she covered her mouth. Cedric glared at her with burning hatred.
"KNOW WHAT!"
"That for me to reach my vessel on Earth in time, I would need either a very complex transmutation circle or enough magic to forcibly enchant myself there." Morgana said, twirling her hand in the air as the coven members at the side writhed in pain as their magic was being forcefully sapped from their bodies.
"Magic is somewhat unfair that way," Morgana sighed lightly, shaking her head.
Honestly, she had enough power to do it herself, but why drain her own magic when she could use others, that was her thinking on the matter.
"THEY DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! I'M THE ONE YOU WANT!" Cedric screamed, his voice raw with desperation as the fading chains seemed to weaken, their grip slipping just like his hold on the coven he once led.
"Why would I throw you away now? You're far more useful as a gift to Ricky," Morgana said smoothly, her eyes cold as she kept Cedric alive, something to offer later, a bargaining chip to gain Ricky's favor.
"And besides, the whole reason I brought you useless witches was for a purpose just like this." Morgana said, shaking her head with a hint of bitter amusement.
Though Merlyn had trapped her again, she'd anticipated complications since nothing was ever easy with that monster.
But instead of rushing into backup plans or continuing onward, Morgana stretched the moment, reigning in her temper with careful control before operating forward.
"From the start, you were simply batteries to me and now I need your-"
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Elaine's scream tore through the room, shattering the tension as the chains binding her tightened, veins bulging as her life force was cruelly ripped from her.
"Charge." Morgana finally finished, but the impact of her words was swallowed by Elaine's piercing scream, cutting through the room like a blade and shattering the moment she had carefully built.
Sigh
"Saturyne, you know what to do, right?" Morgana asked, moving her hands as the bound witches and warlocks circled around her as she shook her head once before uncrossing her arms, eyes sharp and commanding.
"Yes, I understand," Saturnyne replied calmly, stepping forward to enact her role.
The anguished screams of the witches and warlocks echoed through the chamber, their pain and magic streaming outward and instantly projected onto Merlyn's back-up globe, showing that he hadn't stopped monitoring them for even a single second.
In the background, the grotesque black orb, a twisted fusion of science and magic, throbbed with unnatural life.
It wasn't simply automated; it was partially kept alive, sustained by writhing tendrils that had appeared earlier to Morgana and Saturnyne.
Those tendrils hadn't been black at first, they were clear, like transparent tubes.
Now, their pitch-black hue pulsed with a strange, viscous liquid, pumping relentlessly into the monstrous orb.
Each pulse made the abomination thump like a heartbeat, an eerie rhythm foreign and alien to this mechanized monstrosity.
"It's finally happening." Merlyn's eyes narrowed, his gaze fixed on the orbs aligning like planets around their sun, his throbbing black sun, looming ominously behind him as he slowly rose.
"All the failures, the missteps, they have all led to the perfection I have agonized toward." Merlyn quietly spoke, turning around to gaze towards his masterpiece.
"But it was all worth it, it will be all worth it," Merlyn whispered, his hands slowly reaching into the black mass before twisting it like some dark, ancient dial.
THUMP
The black mass pulsed like a savage heartbeat, each thump three times louder and heavier than before.
It was revealed as Merlyn's eyes slowly lowered that the translucent tubes had been dyed black by the very essence they were draining from its powersource, living beings.
The viscous liquid flowing into the mass suddenly surged with frantic speed, and the strained, pained grunts from the chained figures gradually gave way to silence.
Merlyn's eyes darkened, glinting with an eerie black hue which reassembled Ricky's as his gaze swept across a dozen figures.
All gagged, bound, and writhing beneath a tangle of tubes and wires embedded deep into their flesh.
The similarity was glaringly evident, Morgana wasn't even the first to wield such a method, revealing how Merlyn's understanding of her ran far deeper than anyone realized.
"Soon, our existence will have meaning," Merlyn intoned coldly, turning the dial embedded within the pulsating mass as the bound figures writhed in agony beneath him.
"Soon, fate will no longer bound our existence."
Thump
"Soon, we will be whole."
Thump
The grotesque black blob thumped with every pulse, magic fusing with the oily ooze as if animating a heart of its own.
A heart that pulsed not just with life, but with purpose.
Each beat surged with gathering force, dark enchantment weaving into its every spasm, like a drum signaling war.
Just as Barko's own heart now thundered in his chest as a sudden spike of blood pressure jolted through his veins, muscles snapping to attention, his body working on all cylinders, caught in the grip of the same rising energy that now fueled that abomination.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Screams echoed through the streets of Brooklyn, not from the usual chaos lurking in the city's shadows, but from Barko barreling through like a war-torn maniac in his monstrous werewolf form.
"Come on, COME ON!" Barko roared to himself, every muscle taut and straining as he sprinted, his eyes locked on the familiar silhouette of Italiano's, the office Ricky had poured so much blood, sweat, and time into lately.
But even though he had gone to warn the family about the war, the long night had already begun and the bloodshed only seemed to echo towards Alina's house like a curse refusing to end.
"You got it, boss!" The guard at the helm of Alina's house called, turning towards the figures and shooing them away.
"You heard him, scram-"
But before he could finish, the central figure raised her hand as a sudden stream of water shot through the air and down the guard's throat, cutting his words short.
His eyes bulged, arms flailing as he choked on the forceful flood pouring directly into his mouth, his expression twisted in alarm.
GARGLE
The man buckled forward, eyes bulging as he choked, coughing only for the stream of water to keep coming, pouring down his throat like a hose from hell.
But it wasn't simply water, it felt as if it had real weight, pressure, and the intent to slither further down his throat and block all ways of air.
He tried to turn his head, to spit, to even just scream, but the liquid forced its way in with unnatural precision, like it knew how to suffocate him.
His hands clawed at his throat, nails tearing at the skin in a desperate bid to make space, to find breath, but it was useless.
Even trying to close his mouth did nothing as the water pried it open, parting his jaws like a crowbar.
His teeth shuddered, his jaw strained as if cracking under the pressure while the stream slithered between his molars, past his tongue, and into his gullet.
He dropped to one knee, gagging out except nothing came up.
There was no time to vomit, no space for air.
Just water, always more water, impossibly so and as his belly began to swell, grotesque and taut beneath his shirt, his chest heaving like a drowning animal who had never left dry land.
His eyes rolled up, veins in his forehead and neck bulging blue and still, the water flowed.
The second guard reached for his sidearm, fumbling at his belt with shaking hands as his face was frozen in a silent scream of disbelief, terror blooming behind his eyes as he couldn't stop looking at the horrors before him.
But that only made the other two witches only smile.
They didn't lift a finger because they didn't have to.
They stood like statues in golden robes as if the horrors unfolding before them were as nature as the air they were breathing.
Like they'd done it before, like they'd enjoyed it.
The calming sunset breeze that drifted in was utterly drowned out by the gruesome sound of the first man falling face first into the ground.
A final twitch.
Then silence except for the soft splash of water pooling around his limp and dead figurge
"W-What the f*ck?" The surviving guard stammered, staring in horror.
What do you even do after seeing all of that?
The guard was just a regular guy with a gun, someone who would stand frozen while watching the man, his friend, literally drown before him.
But it was then, after that remark, that this moment in time seemed to freeze.
Vito, the runners, and Marco holding Moxie, who had turned around mid-sentence to tell Vito to cut the kids some slack.
All of them stood, paralyzed, blank expressions plastered across their faces like statues as they all saw a man clearly drowning on dry land.
But Vito wasn't idle for long and with a side glance toward the runners, his hand flew to his side.
BANG
BANG
"Rawr~" The witch purred, mimicking a playful cat as she pawed at the air, resulting in the bullets never reaching her.
The stream of water that had murdered the guard reshaped itself midair, rippling into a glistening, curved shield that deflected the shots with a soft, mocking splash.
"Ladies, if you'd please~" The central witch said with a playful lilt as she dropped her hood with a theatrical flick, revealing herself at last.
It was Isabella, Samuel's aunt and the one who was with him when he impaled Chores with a knife.
"Yes, Lady Isabella." The other two witches replied in eerie unison, their faces serene as they approached the last surviving guard.
The guard simply backed up, his legs literally shaking as his mind told them to run but his nerves seemed to be locked in terror.
Vito didn't bother looking back and instead, he bolted straight toward Marco as the runners remained stuck in place, watching another display of horror unfold that they would never forget for the rest of their short lives.
Paolo's heart pounded like a war drum, David's breath caught in his throat, and together they watched.
Helplessly they all watched as the witches placed their hands on the guard, and began to draw the water from inside his body.
Never before had they seen a human body begin to shrivel up, watching the skin slowly cling to the very bone and the lips peeling back from the teeth as his eyes sank into his own skull.
It was silent, save for the soft, wet crackling of tissue surrendering to sorcery.
Isabella turned back toward the house and casually flicked her wrist as her blue grimoire turned the page.
THWAP
A liquid whip sliced through the air without warning as it hurled itself toward Marco like a blade.
The boy was still, like a deer in headlights, looking onward at the fast approaching spell.
Marco didn't move an inch, but Vito moved in strides.
He tackled Marco and Moxie just in time as both of them crashed to the ground as the water-whip slammed into the house behind them.
CRUNCH
Two support beams snapped in half as a portion of the porch instantly collapsed, the arched entryway crumpling into splinters, burying itself in the ruins.
"GET YOUR SH*T TOGETHER! THE FAMILY'S UNDER ATTACK!" Vito roared from behind a fractured piece of the doorway, glaring at the stunned runners.
One of the witches tilted her head toward Isabella, dropping the husk of the drained guard like a piece of trash.
"Lady Isabella, I thought we were supposed to keep the child alive?" The witch innocently asked, looking next to her at the other witch who shrugged at her words.
"But I thought the woman had a child with another man?" Isabella paused, raising a brow, turning back to the witch as if it wasn't anything too much to think of.
"The report said it was a girl." The other witch added with a lilt of amusement.
"Ohhhhhhhhh, well, that was close." Isabella blinked before she giggled as if it was a harmless mistake.
It was then that she turned her eyes towards the now partially destroyed porch, watching Vito scramble in alongside the undead that slowly started to unbury themselves and limp, run, or crawl towards them.
"Deal with these horrid undead and don't play too long with these children, we've still got another house to burn." Isabella commanded, water flowing around her like a ring before it shot forwards at the growing hoard unhookings itself from the very earth she walked.
The other witches grinned wider, looking at the undead briefly before turning their gazes toward Paolo and David.
"Sh*t." They muttered at the same time.
"So lively~" One witch cooed, reaching out her hand.
The moisture they'd drawn from the guard's corpse spun through the air like mist before solidifying into a pressurized lance aimed at the runners.
"INCOMING!" Paolo shouted, breaking into a sprint just as David leaped beside him.
BOOM
The impact cracked like a cannon, a concussive burst of pressure slamming into the ground and throwing both runners like ragdolls as their bodies ricocheted off a tree like pinballs.
GASP
Paolo gasped, the air knocked out of his lungs as his back slammed into the tree as he looked up, vision blurred.
The witches weren't even aiming for them in the first place, not entirely, instead they were directing their attacks at the zombies still not burying themselves from the dirt.
However, amidst the rotten flesh, he saw those who hadn't moved fast enough.
Three of the younger runners, caught at the center of the blast, now crushed into paste, smearing the earth with blood, tissue, and shattered limbs barely recognizable as human.
BLERGH
David hurled up his breakfast at the very sight, body trembling as fear gripped his mind only for his collar to be yanked hard by Paolo.
A high-pressure stream of water slammed into the spot David had just vacated, blowing apart the dirt and rocks like a grenade had gone off.
The two witches had cast a joint spell, transforming the space around them into a massive water kraken.
Its tendrils thrashed violently in every direction, lashing out to repel the oncoming wave of undead.
CRUNCH
Another runner wasn't so lucky to have Paolo yank it's collar as one of the tendril struck him square in the back, folding his spine with a sickening snap.
He collapsed like a broken marionette, limbs twitching violently before going still.
In the next second, screams filled the air, shrieks of young voices with their tone raw, high, and terrified as they all just to just get out of the way.
However, a problem was beginning to frustrate the two witches as the undead weren't staying down like the runners.
Even after being crushed, their mangled bodies reassembled and kept charging forward. It became so relentless that the witches were forced to unleash torrents of water, slamming it down to pin the corpses in place.
They wanted to enjoy themselves, to revel in the chaos and screams of these children but now they were stuck just trying to keep the horde at bay.
"David! Use your f*cking mutant power!" Paolo shouted, peeking from behind the tree, switchblade drawn with shaking fingers as he watched the two witches use a short-term method to deal with these undead.
"I can't!" David shouted back, pressing his back into the tree that stood as his only cover to those psychotic witches.
"What do you mean you can't!?" Paolo barked, caught off guard as David, pale and sweating, yelled back.
"I just have rows of shark teeth! I CAN'T FIGHT THAT!" David, almost hysterical at this point, screamed at Paolo who simply blinked, glancing at the thrashing tendrils of water carving through the outside of the house.
"But you're like a shark, right? Sharks swim in water, they sort of use water-"
"HOW DO SHARK TEETH TRANSLATE TO ME BEATING A MAGICAL STREAM OF WATER!?" David cried, voice cracking as he crouched low, hands over his head.
Paolo bit his lip so hard it almost bled as he didn't have an answer since now that he thought about it, the train of thought was kind of stupid.
"Goddammit!" Paolo turned back toward the chaos, where kids were running like headless chickens, stumbling over roots, trampling each other in a blind panic.
"GET BACK! COME BACK TO THE TREES!" Paolo bellowed at the top of his lungs.
Something in his voice be it the sharpness or the desperation cut through the noise like the switchblade in his hand.
And like instinct, like muscle memory in a warzone, the surviving runners responded as they immediately ran toward the trees, toward Paolo, toward cover, toward anything that wasn't out in the open.
But when Paolo gazed at the witches, thinking they were going to give some counter attack, his eyes only shrunk.
Because the witches didn't even react with their magic, they simply laughed louder.
Mocking, cruel, and almost giddy that these children have some sort of fight in them.
It only made them more desperate to subdue and pin down the undead—just so they could have their fun.
They started to help a few of the fleeing children, who were almost caught up in their wild, thrashing spell if only for the thrill of it.
As if letting the kids live a few seconds longer was the most amusing game they'd played all week
"Oh Ava, you're incorrigible~" One of the twin witches playfully said, holding her mouth to lightly laugh as the other twin pushed a child out of the way so that one of the tendrils wouldn't crush them.
"Oh stop, Zara, you're making me feel like the bad guy~" Ava giggled, her voice sing-song as she laughed alongside her twin sister, delighting in the thrill of sparing the children, if only to chase them down and kill them moments later.
"Holy sh*t, they're enjoying this~" Paolo whispered, almost in a scream, clapping a hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting.
He turned to David, who had curled into a tight ball with his arms wrapped around his legs, rocking back and forth.
Tears streamed down his face as he buried his head in his knees, trying to shut out the nightmare around him.
"I don't want to die-"
SLAP
"Snap out of it!" Paolo shouted, striking David across the cheek but not just to jolt him back to reality, but as if trying to shake himself out of the nightmare too.
"We just got to-"
"OH, SISTER, SISTER, LET'S PLAY HIDE AND SEEK!" Ava squealed, bouncing up and down as Zara's eyes lit up with delight.
"YES, YES!" Zara echoed, hopping alongside her twin while Paolo frantically looked around for an escape.
"WE CAN FINISH OFF THESE GROSS UNDEAD WHILE PLAYING A GAME!" Ava clapped her hands, her voice giddy with excitement.
Zara's eyes widened, sparkling like a child on Christmas morning.
"ALRIGHT KIDDIES, YOU GET 100 SECONDS BEFORE WE MURDER YOU~!" Zara sang, skipping over to a tree with Ava.
Together, they covered their eyes and began counting down in perfect, eerie unison while their spell thrashed and subdued the undead.
"100!"
"99-"
SIGH
"Oh, girls~" Isabella sighed dramatically, feigning disappointment, though the wicked curve of her smile betrayed her delight.
"But what can I do? I did say to deal with them, I just never said how." Isabella let out a light chuckle, casually flicking her finger to the side as a massive wave of water surged forward, sweeping away the debris blocking the door.
"If you're in there, make sure to struggle, it's more fun that way!" Isabella called out towards the house, her laughter echoing coldly through the walls.
Inside, Vito scrambled in panic, clutching Marco and Moxie as the sound of Isabella's voice sent a chill through them all.
"V-Vito, what's happening-" Alina called out, hearing the rumbling from outside just as Vito bolted upstairs to grab Sophie.
"Mistress, there's no time to explain! I need you all out of here!" Vito shouted, charging like a bull toward a door adorned with a pink bow, the unmistakable sign it belonged to Sophie.
BAM
The door splintered under the force of his charge and Sophie, caught trying on Alina's lipstick, flinched and spun around, clutching the tube behind her back.
"I-I wasn't-EEEEEEP!" Sophie started to protest quietly but was abruptly scooped up by Vito and rushed down the stairs.
"Vito-"
"LET'S GO!" Vito shouted, sprinting with Sophie in his arms while hoisting Marco, who was clutching a terrified Moxie as Alina was pulled along beside them.
The garage was out of the question, it opened directly onto the chaos outside, and Vito knew there was no way to drive out if a massive water blob was chasing them.
That's why he planned to use the backdoor, hoping to reach the street, hijack a car, and get everyone Ricky cared about to safety.
He knew it was wrong to leave those kids behind to die, but Vito had a job: protect this family, not the runners.
It's just a shame that it wouldn't be that easy.
"Oh that's no fun~"
The words echoed in his ears as Vito's eyes widened and just then, a torrent of water shot toward them the moment he swung open the back door.
BAM
"Argh!" Marco grunted as he was thrown across the kitchen, rolling hard while shielding Moxie with his body.
"Sophie, Sophie! Are you alright?!" Alina cried out, catching Sophie in her arms but stumbling backward to the floor as she quickly checked her only daughter's face.
"Uh-huh," Sophie whispered, her quiet answer making Alina's eyes dart around, only to realize Vito was nowhere in sight.
BANG
BANG
"Really?"
The words made Alina turn her head sharply, her eyes locking onto Vito struggling near the back door after taking that hit and breaking at least two ribs.
He was clutching a pistol, but as he fired, a swirling mass of water wrapped tightly around the weapon.
The bullets hit the water, losing momentum and falling harmlessly to the floor in slow, wet drips.
"I must say, you have quite the reaction time," Isabella mused, tapping her chin thoughtfully as she watched Vito literally throw four people out of harm's way before her magic could even strike which was an impressive feat indeed.
"But I suppose that is all you have."
CRUNCH
"ARGH!" Vito grunted, his right hand clutching the pistol painfully crushed by the water it was entrenched in and compressed the further Isabella's fingers closed down on her palm.
Squeezing tighter and tighter as the water compressed Vito's hand further and further into the gun.
SPLAT
Blood splattered across the floor as the water orb encasing Vito's hand darkened to a deep, sickly crimson as Isabella's grip crushed down relentlessly, turning his hand into a blob of mush.
"Ah, ah, ah~" Isabella purred, raising her other hand as her grimoire's pages flapped wildly, creating a furious wind that blocked Vito's desperate punch before it could reach her face.
"Vito!" Marco called out, eyes wide as he looked up at the supposed charging bull weakly turning towards him.
"Run-" Vito began, but before he could finish, water was forced into his mouth, cutting him off.
It was then that Vito struggled for air that Isabella's smile widened into a delightful, yet cruel one.
"Am I to assume you're Alina?" Isabella asked with a gentle smile, her gaze unflinching as Alina's face drained of color, watching helplessly as Vito drowned before her eyes.
"My-............how beautiful you are." Isabella's smile slowly vanished, looking at Alina and her figure for all it was.
Isabella knew she was pretty, but not breathtaking, never having the kind of beauty that stopped people in their tracks.
Never having a figure that made people just stop and stare, she didn't have beauty like that.
Alina, however, carried a beauty that demanded attention, even Isabella's.
Yet she was simply pretty.
But what she wanted was to be beautiful.
That yearning, over time, twisted into bitter hate, a resentment for anyone who was ever deemed beautiful in this world.
"This won't do." Isabella said, almost disgusted at how even now, scared, Alina looked like a gorgeous deer amidst a pack of wolves.
Just beautiful.
GASP
Vito choked, collapsing to the ground as Isabella withdrew the water from his throat, letting him gasp for air.
"Alina." Isabella called out to her quietly, eyes fixed on her beauty as Alina backed away, pulling Marco along.
Isabella's eyebrow twitched with something unreadable as if it were amusement, irritation, or something darker.
"ALINA!"
"Y-Yes?" Alina finally whispered, tears welling in her eyes, only to draw a sneer of disgust from Isabella, who roughly grabbed Vito by the collar.
"Are you scared, right now?" Isabella asked, turning her face towards Vito's gasping expression but keeping a steady side eye on Alina.
"ANSWER ME!" Isabella screamed, the veins in her foreheads bursting as even Alina's tears made her heart swell in a disgustful admiration.
"Y-Yes!" Alina cried, pulling her children closer to her as if it would help from the horrid woman before them.
"Good, good," Isabella laughed, eyes cold as she glanced back at Vito, who was still struggling to reach for her neck.
"You're so beautiful, you know that?" Isabella said with a mock tenderness, forcing her face into a flawless smile, careful not to let it crack or crease.
"You must always hear it from others in the form of compliments, whispers, and little praises, right?" Isabella said, her eyes cold as she looked at Alina.
Watching the tears streamed down Alina's glowing skin, as if even the gods themselves were mocking Isabella.
"Yes~" Alina cried, giving Isabella the answer she was looking for as she slowly nodded towards the crying mother.
"You know, I try so hard, so very hard, to be pretty while you exist to be beautiful." Isabella asked in a pained tone, grabbing Vito's cheek as her nails dug into his flesh.
"Isn't that unfair?" Isabella asked softly, her eyes welling with tears as if the cruelty of the world weighed heavily on her heart.
"Y-Yes~" Alina cried, agreeing with her as Isabella slowly nodded at this answer.
"I think so too, and that's why I have to prove to everyone that I am prettier than beauty." Isabella laughed, as if she didn't have a choice in this matter, as if she were trapped by fate, pressing her hand against her chest and squeezing tightly.
"So, let's see how you look when you're terrified." Isabella raised her hand, and Alina's eyes widened in horror as the swirling water dragged Vito under once more, drowning him in its icy grip.
"37!"
"36!"
"35!"
"We gotta do something!" David shouted at Paolo, finally summoning some last-minute courage as Paolo shoved him aside.
"What do you think I'm doing, huh? I already thought of something!" Paolo snapped, grabbing a runner and helping him into the trees above, letting them use his legs as a step stool to get upwards and out of sight.
"While you were busy sucking your thumb, I'm out here putting pen to paper." Paolo hissed, pushing the runner up the tree, his shoulder worn raw from acting as a ladder.
"What is putting them in tre-"
SLAP
Before David could finish his sentence, Paolo suddenly slapped him across the face so that he wouldn't say where they were.
But David's eyes widened in shock as Paolo yanked him to the ground, both crashing into the dirt with a harsh thud.
"WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM-"
WHOOSH
In a split second, a towering stream of air surged over them, its force so strong it yanked the two backwards causing them to roll like ragdolls, even though they'd seemingly dodged the full brunt of the attack.
"I-I'm alive?" David muttered, pushing himself up and patting his chest as Paolo whimpered softly, rolling onto his side after his stomach slammed against a jagged rock.
"Not for long~"
Three words caused the hair on David's arms to stand straight up as he turned his head over to the twins skipping over to them.
"You're really bad at hide and seek!" Ava laughed, gripping her sister's hand tightly as the ruined debris and rubble behind them held the undead pinned beneath swirling masses of water.
"Really bad!" Zara agreed, skipping happily alongside her, their hands clasped as they danced ahead.
BAM
David's body jerked backward as a powerful stream of water slammed into him.
Paolo, just rising to his feet, tried to chase after him, only to be struck by an identical blast that knocked him backward, crashing him down beside David as if giving him his wish.
"What should we do, Ava?" Zara frowned, glancing sideways at the two boys struggling to catch their breath as Ava sighed heavily.
Paolo looked up, blood streaming down his face from a shallow cut near his right eye, causing it to squint at the witches walking towards him.
But this was all part of the plan.
Simply put: Paolo was going to sacrifice himself while running away, drawing the witches' attention so the others could escape.
It's just that plans, however, rarely go the way you want them too.
"I guess we could just kill them and-" Ava sighed, rolling her eyes at her sister, only to be cut off by a sudden sneeze.
ACHOO
She spun around and froze, eyes widening as she saw the very children they'd been searching for, huddled quietly in the trees above them.
"P-Please!" one of the kids whimpered, tears streaming down his face as he raised one hand in surrender and used the other to steady himself.
Sniff
Hic
No matter if they were runners for the Luciano family or just kids at school, they were still children at the end of the day.
They weren't adults, no matter how much they tried to pretend, and beneath it all, they were still vulnerable, emotional kids.
And no child wants to die.
COUGH
COUGH
"WAIT, WAIT, WE'LL PLAY, WE'LL TRY HARDER-" Paolo screamed, reaching out desperately, but everything came to a brutal halt with a single, sickening sound.
SPLAT
His gaze froze in horror and David, finally struggling to his feet, turned to see Paolo's face drain of color.
SPLAT
Another gut-wrenching sound of flesh being crushed echoed through the air.
Paolo's head refused to move, until, with trembling eyes, David finally glanced toward the source and saw the two twins laughing, cruel and unbothered.
They were laughing, relishing every moment, having the time of their lives, while the runners screamed desperately for help.
Paolo, who had stranded them up in those trees, stood frozen in horror, paralyzed by the gruesome scene unfolding before him.
Ava and Zara began popping their victims' bodies like twisted balloons, the sickening sounds echoing as Paolo's guilt and terror swallowed him whole.
"C'mon, now's our chance!" David gasped, breathless, trying to pull Paolo away only for Paolo to shove him back.
"Paolo, what are you doing-"
"I'm not leaving them behind. And if you're really family, you know that too." Paolo ground his teeth, pulling out his knife as his eyes became bloodshot.
"You gonna get yourself killed, it ain't worth it-"
"AHHHHHHHHH!" Paolo ignored the warning, his eyes burning with pure vengeance.
The twins, splattered with fresh blood from another runner, glanced his way with a chilling, almost playful glint.
"KUERK!" Paolo gasped as a thick water tentacle suddenly coiled tightly around his neck as Ava circled him slowly, predatorily, like a shark sizing up its prey.
"I like you~" Ava murmured, her voice syrupy sweet but laced with venom beneath the surface as she tapped his nose gently.
"Boop." Ava narrated the sound with her voice, amused by the fire in Paolo's eyes unlike the rest of them.
Beside her, Zara prowled with feline grace, grinning wickedly as she watched the hunt unfold.
"Oh sister, he's just bait," Zara said airily, and with a flick of her fingers as a liquid tendril tore through the air.
"DAMMIT!" David screamed as the water-born tentacle coiled around his ankle, snapping his body up like a rag doll as he soared until the treetops swallowed his outline.
"I know that," Ava sighed, dragging her words like a girl savoring the last bite of something sweet.
"I just wanted the fun to last a little while longer~"
From their perch above, the runners were frozen in fear, wide-eyed and clutching trees that offered no salvation.
"Then let's play again," Zara beamed, lifting her arms as if inviting a storm as her laughter rang out, bell-like and cruel.
"But this time with only two hiders."
"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT-" Paolo screeched amidst the tendril wrapping around his neck, unknowingly dooming the fate of the rest of his friends.
SPLASH
A massive torrent of liquid suddenly crashed over Paolo that was warm and almost burning.
But the cruelest part was this: it wasn't water.
Paolo's scream was cut short as his entire body jerked, frozen as a huge torrent of blood splashed onto his being.
The rest of the runners gruesomely exploded as the water trapped within their bodies, bursting from every joint, every pore, every soft crevice of their skin, detonated with savage force.
The twins had saturated the air before the game began, dispersing fine particles of water throughout the forest like a fisherman casting a deadly net as if already knowing that was where the little fishes would swim too.
Unaware of the creeping doom winding its way through their bloodstream, the kids breathed it in.
Now, with a mere thought, the turn of a page, and some mana, Ava and Zara bent that hidden threat to their will.
The water inside them churned like a storm in a bottle as their veins ballooned, hearts stuttered, lungs shriveled and drowned Paolo in a tide of their warm blood.
"I love when they break all at once, like glass." Ava giggled, her eyes shimmering with the thrill of it all.
"Ooooooh, or like chalk!" Zara whispered, leaning her head against her sister's shoulder, her voice dreamy.
"When it snaps right down the middle." Ava blushed, holding her cheek as Zara held her face with two hands.
"Mmmmmmmmmmmm, that sound~" Zara bit her lip, quivering almost at the perfect snap of chalk and replicating it with the human body.
"Okay, so, this time, hide better and-"
"Zara, Ava, bring two of those kids here and deal with the rest!" Isabella suddenly called out from the house in a sharp command as the two twins immediately stomped their feet.
"Ahhhhhhh, but we were-"
"No buts, get in here!" Isabella snapped from inside the house, her tone sharp enough to cut through their childish defiance.
The twins straightened like scolded pets, pouting as they obeyed while each grabbing a child of their own while dragging them towards the house.
Inside the house, a twisted objective was unfolding as Isabella sought to prove that being pretty was far more adventurous than being beautiful.
Isabella stood beside the table, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently against the floor and beside her lay a large man sprawled out like a rug.
Vito's body twitched violently, his suit drenched and chest barely rising as his face turned a deep shade of blue as he spasmed uncontrollably against the cold floor.
GASP
Vito convulsed as if struck by lightning, the water exiting his mouth as his lungs finally dragged actual air back into them.
Sigh
Isabella simply sighed, pulling the water like thread as it exited his nose, his mouth, in rivulets like worms squirming from drowned soil.
Vito's rolled over as his eyes finally showed, the blood vessels had exploded beneath the whites, filling them with streaks of crimson.
He blinked wildly before he gagged violently, right when he received a decent amount of air, more water descended down his already bruised throat past his vocal cords.
The strain and stress caused thin streams of blood to trickle from his nose and ears, tracing faint crimson lines down his strained face.
"STOP IT, PLEASE!" Alina screamed, her voice cracking, trembling as she clutched Marco, Moxie, and Sophie behind her, shielding them.
"Stop it, please~" Isabella mocked, reiterating Alina's words as her anger and annoyance seemed to mount with every second.
Instead, she looked down at Vito, face slackening as his eyes rolled backward and jaw frozen open like a statue caught in a silent scream from the water forcefully trickling in.
His limbs thudded uselessly against the floor, muscles spasming as his lungs ballooned to capacity.
"It's fascinating, you know." Isabella murmured while her hollow eyes watched Vito's agony.
"How the body keeps fighting, even when it's already lost." Isabella narrated Vito's situation before her eyes slowly turned towards Alina who flinched.
"You see it, don't you?" Isabella laughed, her body trembling with rage as her maniacal eyes gazed towards Alina's shaky, plump figure.
"You see his devotion, his desperation, his agony, that is all for you, FOR YOU!" Isabella words mounted off of one another as she took a step forward.
Her boots splashed through the puddle of water Vito had just expelled in a violent cough.
She tilted her head back, staring up at the ceiling as if it might steady her, but instead, a long, spiraling trickle of laughter spilled from her lips just like the torrent of water pouring from Vito's lungs.
"Is that what makes people like you so beautiful, Alina? That people are willing to die choking just for the chance to save you?" Isabella wondered, watching now with the corner of her eye how Vito was trying to claw his way towards her.
"AND YET LOOK AT YOU!" Isabella screamed, her eyes fierce as she gazed at Alina's trembling figure, one that Ricky had slathered himself over time and time again because of what she was doing now.
The way she whimpered, the way her innocence sprouted like a flower, and how heartbreakingly beautiful she looked when she cried.
It drove Isabella further into madness.
"LOOK AT THESE TEARS! YOUR EYES! YOUR EXPRESSION! WHY, WHY, WHY, WHY?!" Isabella shrieked, inches from Alina's face as the mother sobbed.
Vito, crawling while barely conscious, reached out and grabbed Isabella's ankle in a final plea to stop her, as if it would change anything.
But the infuriated witch snapped her head back, wild with rage.
BAM
"WHY!"
BAM
"WHY!"*
BAM
"WHY!"
Isabella's heel drove down onto Vito again and again, her heel jabbing his already exhausted body repeatedly until she started to hear slight cracks and crunches.
But through it all, his fingers twitched, still wrapped around her boot like a dying animal refusing to let go.
"Stop, please~" Alina begged in a whisper, voice threadbare, a ghost of defiance choking behind her sobs.
Her body swayed like glass on the verge of shattering, knees trembling as her arms tightened around the children, trying to protect them, with all she could, with her embrace.
"YOU DON'T GET TO CRY!" Isabella shrieked, turning back on her heel, splashing through Vito's blood with wet, frenzied steps.
"You don't get to f*cking cry, not when you look like that! Not when the world gave you everything!" Isabella's breath was ragged now, pointing her finger at Alina's face like it was a crime.
"Do you know what I see when I look in the mirror, huh?" Isabella asked as if Alina should know the answer.
"Pretty, I just see pretty, enough to be admired, never enough to be loved." Isabella mourned, clenching her heart and dramatically backing away from the trembling Alina.
"But you, even like this, even dirty, terrified, trembling with snot down your lip and blood on your cheeks, you're beautiful." Isabella's voice cracked with hatred, seething and uneven.
"And that's why I have to break you, not kill, not mangle, I have to break." Isabella motioned with her hands, knowing it would be too easy to disfigure beauty, she needed to prove she could break it.
Sophie whimpered behind Alina's arm, Marco held both her and Moxie tightly, whispering something the witch couldn't hear, but Isabella didn't care as her world was narrowed to one person now.
Alina.
Her trembling, her tears, the intoxicating trace of perfume still clinging beneath the stench of blood, it all lingered.
But Isabella's fury felt misplaced as she huffed, gaze fixed on the woman now standing protectively in front of her children, shielding them with her body.
Isabella's breath slowed, her rage faltering as her eyes, once wild, now softened, shadowed with something else: sorrow.
She looked at the kids, then at Alina, and for a strange, bitter moment, she thought of her own.
Because somehow, Alina embodied everything Isabella wasn't
"You think you're motherly?" Isabella asked bitterly, changing the course of everything the situation originally stood for and shifting it into a different direction with a slow, deliberate steps now, arms out like she was approaching prey.
"Do you think protecting them will matter when I strip their skin off one by one, while you watch?" Isabella wondered out loud, her words making Alina's head shake violently, shielding the children tighter.
"P-Please, I-I'll do anything," Alina choked, her tears puffing even further as she whined out towards Isabella.
"Just don't hurt them, don't hurt the children,I-I'll go with you, I'll do anything you want, just leave them out of this!" Alien begged, throwing herself before Isabella while her children stood behind her back.
But in that instance, Isabella stopped because of one thing.
That.
That exact expression.
Even now, of all times, Alina looked beautiful in her self-sacrifice while trying to protect her children.
The witch twitched at this, at it all, because she couldn't take it anymore.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Isabella screamed like a banshee and flung her hands toward Alina.
Water slithering around her arms like snakes ready to pounce, to rip out what was holy about her.
But something interrupted her or more like grabbed her.
HUFF
HUFF
HUFF
Isabella looked down because somehow, somehow, Vito was still conscious and what's worse, moving.
His crushed nose and bruised face dripped out blood yet, his eyes spoke of a hateful fury that would only be quenched with death, like a charging bull.
"F*ck-........you." Vito struggled to say, trying to gain Isabella's attention for even a moment longer as his only hand gripped down onto her ankle.
Then silence, after it all, there was simply silence.
"I just don't understand~" Isabella sang, her voice lilting like a lullaby wrapped in madness as she shook her head.
BAM
Striking her foot across his face, Vito rolled a bit away as she walked over to the side window and peered through the cracked glass, eyes narrowing.
Outside, the twins, Avai and Ezra, dragged two half-broken kids through the muddy gravel like discarded dolls.
One of the boys was limp, doused in blood and traumatized from what had ensued.
The other clawed weakly at the ground, trying to resist, until Ezra gave him a swift kick to the ribs that silenced him.
"They're such good girls, so obedient, so efficient, so pretty." Isabella spoke, her voice soothing as a genuine smile crept across her face.
Then she turned her head toward Alina without fully pulling away from the window.
"They are two but they were supposed to be three, a beautiful three." Isabella tapped her temple, her eyes sparking a crazy light.
"The third was lost and that's why I vowed to be just as beautiful as them, so they wouldn't feel the loss," Isabella laughed bitterly, her voice trembling. She tried to keep her face perfectly composed, but that buried ugliness was already starting to crawl across it.
"P-Please-"
"I should flay those children of yours right here, see if you are still begging with their skin in your lap," Isabella said, voice calm again as Marco held Moxie and Sophie closer as Alina shielded him as they pressed even further against the wall.
"I think I know how to make you like me." Isabella crouched low, her voice a breath against Alina's face as her hand gently caressed her cheek.
Her finger slowly rubbed in circles before it rested on lip, pulling it back as Alina closed her eyes as tears rolled down.
Blood glistened on her cheeks, smeared like war paint across her lips and throat, her eyes wide with the pleasure of cruelty.
"Let me show you what it means to be a true mother."
"When you lose it, your beauty."
Alina trembled violently, curling around the children like a cracked statue, shielding Marco, Moxie, and Sophia with arms that shook too hard to hold anything steady.
"Maybe your beauty doesn't lie simply in your looks, but with your children, like it did with me." Isabella cooed, tracing a bloodstained finger across Alina's jaw.
"But before I head to the main course, I'm going to give you just a little taste, an appetizer, of what it means to lose one." Isabella said, wanting to give her that little taste before she devoured everything Alina represented.
BAM
It was then that the door flew open, causing Alina to flinch.
"We've arrived~" The twins sang, dragging Paolo and David inside by their broken wrists like carcasses.
Their bodies flopped to the floor, moaning, faces swollen and bloodied from whatever hell they'd been dragged through.
"Anything but my children, anything but my children~" Isabella mocked, twirling around the room like a child playing house, mimicking Alina's earlier words.
She passed by shattered dishes, bloodied footprints, the stench of iron thick in the air, looking for something until she found it and finally, her eyes landed on the pathetic heap of flesh that was Vito.
Her grin split wide, seeing a small breath escape his swollen lips.
"Ah, still alive, good" Isabella harmoniously said, kneeling beside him as Vito tried to do something but everything felt as if he were moving mountains.
HIs limbs felt heavy, his breath thinning, and his mouth twitching in a futile effort to speak.
It was then that Isabella revealed the double-barreled shotgun she had found, the one Ricky gave Marco, the one meant to protect this family.
"Please, no, Isabella, PLEASE!" Alina screamed before she even understood why.
"Oh, shut up," Isabella growled, snatching Vito's arm like a rag and forcing his twisted fingers around the gun.
It sagged toward the floor, too heavy for him to hold but she didn't care as she crouched behind him, slipped her arms around his mangled shoulders, and lifted the weapon with him like a ventriloquist raising a corpse.
The barrels pointed between Paolo and David.
The two runners were forced forward by the twins behind them, giving way to a brutal play where the three control Vito, David, and Paolo like puppets in a theater.
Put onto their knees, Paolo and David just looked up at each of their own within the double barrel of the shotgun.
Blood streamed from Paolo's nose, his eyes bloodshot and swollen nearly shut.
David whimpered something but his voice was barely audible, mouth busted, teeth missing.
"So here's what's going to happen," Isabella purred, resting her chin on Vito's ruined shoulder, her lips brushing the shell of his ear.
"You're going to hold this gun, just like this and Alina over there is going to choose." Isabella whispered just high enough so that Alina could hear.
"Which child do you want to save and which child do you want to kill?"
But it was in those words, the meaning words that no one else knew except Isabella, that her fury finally shattered the fragile mask of amusement she had worn like armor.
Beneath it lay a raw, festering wound with pain that clawed at her from the inside out, then twisted her into the person who was carrying out such a wicked display of false amusement.
This wasn't about Alina, it never had been.
Isabella had been forced to choose once before as Melryn had torn her world apart, demanding she pick between her own children, triplets.
Two spared, one lost.
The memory of that impossible choice, of the screams and silence that followed, twisted her soul with relentless cruelty.
Her hatred for Alina, towards beauty, wasn't truly about women.
It was a dark projection, a reflection of her own shattered heart, her own ugliness.
Isabella loathed the beauty Alina embodied, the effortless grace and love she wielded, so utterly foreign to the bitter scars carved deep into Isabella's flesh and mind.
That beauty was a reminder of what Isabella never had, what she had lost and could never reclaim.
Now, standing over Vito, blood and water mingling in a sick, viscous pool at her feet, Isabella was consumed by the need to make Alina understand the hell behind that beauty, the loss, the control ripped away, the agony of watching everything break apart.
"No, NO!" Alina sobbed, crawling forward until Marco grabbed her, crying too hard to speak.
She tore herself free, dragging herself toward Vito, toward the two, toward Paolo and David on their knees.
"I'll do anything, I'll take their place-"
"You think this is about you?" Isabella shrieked, the veneer of amusement cracking open like a volcano.
"This is about me, you selfish, sniveling bitch WHEN WAS THIS ABOUT YOU!" Isabella screeched, needing this to happen more than any mission Merlyn had assigned to her.
SLAP
Backhanding Alina backwards, Marco caught his mother as she jerked Vito's hand, the gun jerking wildly with him.
"You like playing mother? Then mother up Alina and say a name, say it out loud, and pick one. Or they both die. Right here. Right now." Isabella said, huffing as the twins smiled widely but there was a broken fragment within them that made them two thirds broken enough to go along with this.
"Say it." Isabella's voice was low now, a vibration of rage.
"Pick one so we can get on with the real fun."
Alina was sobbing so violently her throat had turned hoarse as the children behind her clung tighter while Paolo was whispering something and David's pants were wettening.
"I can't~" Alina whispered, holding her face at the inability to pick and choose who lives and who dies.
"Fine," Isabella said coldly, making the choice for her as she aimed the barrel at David, only for Paolo to shift, nudging himself in front of it.
"Paolo?" David whispered, eyes wide, staring at the boy who smiled through the pain, through the blood smeared across his face.
"Paolo~" Isabella echoed mockingly, her voice sing-song, like a cruel child at play as she cocked Vito's finger back on the trigger, then gently laid her own over his trembling one.
"You both make me sick."