Chapter Text
There’s a scrabbling outside of Juliette’s window.
She’s been half conscious for hours, suspended somewhere between wakeful tears and slumbering guilt, but her senses prick up at the noise, like her body can tell that it’s something important.
Juliette peeks over the window frame, and the garden below is lit terribly. For a moment, all she sees is the creeping ivy that trails lazily up the trellis below her, but the clouds shift, the breeze picks up, the moonlight sharpens, and her instinct kicks in.
Cal.
Juliette would know her anywhere.
Cal is loitering outside, like in that one dream, right after the severing. She has a handful of rocks that she’s nervously shuffling in one hand, and she’s still wearing the sweats and the sleeveless tee from earlier. Her shoulders are hunched, and her eyes are shifting anxiously, but seeing her calms something in Juliette right away.
They had just had a fight. A bad one, yes, but all of the fights were bad when their families were involved. Calliope showing up, being here, now, was a sign that she wants to work through things too.
Juliette knew Cal loved her back.
She leans out the window slightly, and she can feel a toothy grin ease across her face.
“Cal, hey,” Juliette greets. She can’t even conceal the relief in her tone.
Calliope looks up, so obviously uncomfortable, Juliette longs to be down in the garden to comfort her.
“Hey,” Cal is quiet. She looks over her shoulder quickly, like she hears rustling, and Juliette can see a quiet panic written on her face when she looks back up. “Can we talk?”
That’s all Juliette has wanted, all night long. She beams brightly, then tries to mask it, sensing, somehow, that Cal might not be on the same wavelength.
“Come up?” Juliette asks hopefully, cocking her head slightly. Cal looks over her shoulder once more, the darkness almost swallowing her uncharacteristically diminutive frame, then shakes her head once.
“Could you come down? I want to stay outside, if that’s okay,” Cal’s shoulders shrink in on herself as she speaks. She hugs herself tightly, hands alternating between squeezing and scratching at her arms.
Juliette has never seen her this unsure.
It’s unsurprising. All the events of the past few days, everything tonight, with Theo — it’d be almost too much for anyone to bear.
And no matter how beautifully bold, brave, and strong Cal was, she is still only a kid at the end of the day. They both are.
Juliette is just happy Cal’s here to see her.
She nods quickly to respond to Cal, gestures with one finger to indicate for Cal to wait, then pulls on slippers and a robe, in case there was a breeze. It was always better safe than sorry with Savannah nights.
She pads quietly down the stairs, noticing that her parents door is firmly shut. She can hear soft breathing, but only from one set of lungs — her father’s lost humanity always manifests in unconscious, practiced moments. If he’s sleeping peacefully, though, it means her mother must be curled up beside him; they are never far from one another.
Juliette wants a love like that. Even when the rest of the world is falling apart around them, her parents manage to make their romance look golden. It’s like the rest of the world disappears for them.
They’re proof that humans and vampires can find a way to make it work.
Juliette is so happy Cal wants to make it work.
She hurries once she makes it to the ground floor, too excited to care if she makes too much noise.
She’s out the side door, and she can’t quite see Cal yet, so she ducks around one of her mother’s rose bushes until she’s close to where her window is.
Cal’s silhouette under the moonlight is striking; Cal’s defined muscles and long, slim limbs have a subtle glow. She’s breathtaking.
Juliette has to stop. She rests one hand on the wall, pausing to admire the girl she loves. The girl she knows loves her back.
And then she calls out, quiet, but excited. “Cal!”
Cal’s head turns, and her face is stoic, almost…sad?
There’s a sharp snap in the bushes across from Juliette. Her ears prick up, but she isn’t sure if something is actually wrong.
“Cal?” Juliette is looking at the girl in front of her, half-worried that some rogue monster or another has followed her here.
Cal is looking straight at her, and the stoicism melts away, replaced by a small smile.
“Hey Jules,” Cal says. Juliette’s tension abates. She relaxes her shoulders, takes quick steps into the clearing, and stops an arms length in front of Cal.
“Hey,” Juliette smiles up at her. “You wanted to talk?”
Cal is looking over Juliette’s shoulder, though. Cal’s heart is beating out of rhythm. Cal isn’t looking her in the eye.
“Cal?” Juliette tries again. She lifts one hand halfway between them, reaching out to grab at Cal’s hand.
Cal flinches away and cuts her eyes back to Juliette. Their eyes lock. Why does Cal look so conflicted? Another rustle from behind her.
There’s a dull thud, and Juliette is falling, a dark cloud playing over her vision, her knees buckling.
The last thing she sees before she loses her sight completely is Calliope Burns, majestic as ever, kneeling beside her, tying her hands with burning silver chains.
The world goes black.
Juliette startles awake.
Her eyes are still closed and her mouth is dry. She’s lying on her side, chained to the floor, and her wrists are raw and sore. She thinks she’s barefoot, can’t feel her slippers, which sends a pang of disappointment through her. Those slippers were her favorites.
The back of her head is pounding where something must have hit her, and she can tell the room she’s being held in is brightly lit. There are people moving around, too; she can hear three distinct heartbeats.
One that she knows especially well.
She doesn’t want to open her eyes, not without knowing what’s coming next, but they must have been watching her closely, because there’s a boot nudging at her ribs.
“Up,” comes a gruff voice, and Juliette blearily blinks her eyes open.
Jack Burns is squatting down in front of her, silver dagger in one hand. In the other he holds…a spray bottle?
Not exactly how she wanted to spend time with the in-laws.
Juliette’s brain is moving too slowly to fully comprehend what’s happening. She feels like every connection in her body is sluggish, like there’s not enough oxygen going to her brain.
She’s not sure what she’s feeling right now. It must be some awful dream, some nightmare brought on by the bond because of how things went with Calliope. She must be making this up.
There’s no way Calliope would promise to keep her safe and then lead her into a trap.
“I said up, blood sucker!” and the boot to her stomach that follows leaves her retching and gasping for breath.
She’s panting hard when she finds out what the spray bottle is for. Jack presses it gently and there’s a mist of fire burning across her skin.
Holy water. Excellent.
She hisses involuntarily and her fangs make a brief appearance, as they always do when her body decides there’s imminent danger. She pulls them back, but Jack takes it as an excuse to dig the tip of his boot into her ribs again.
Juliette is almost impressed at how accurately he manages to hit the same spot over and over.
She rolls onto one elbow heavily, then has to pause to catch her breath. There’s a pounding in her ears, but she’s not sure if the sound is just echoing heartbeats from the other people in the room, or if something tore in her ear when she was hit in the head.
She heals fast, usually. But when she has access to blood. When her mom knows where she is.
Juliette wants her mom now.
But Jack Burns is impatient, and she can hear him shuffle closer, so she presses herself awkwardly off the ground, trying to protect her ribs and muffle a groan.
She leans her back up against the nearest support, a skinny pole, too small to provide any real comfort, and her head tips back. There’s something wet and thick leaking down her forehead, and if her senses weren’t so overwhelmed, she’s sure she’d be able to smell copper.
She winces once, then forces her eyes open. She can’t brace against the light, so she squints, vaguely making out the shapes of Calliope and the other brother, the loud one. He’s pacing, hands behind his head, and she can’t make out his expression, but she thinks she can hear his heart racing, thinks she feels the vibration of every nervous twinge in his body.
Calliope is further away, and not facing her. Her posture is stiff, shoulders squared, Juliette can tell even from far away. She can’t hear Calliope’s heart, but she’s sure — well, she hopes that Cal’s worried, and working on a plan to get her out.
Juliette thinks about earlier that night, when Cal promised to keep her heart safe. She thinks about Calliope, holding a spear to her chest.
She knows Calliope must be conflicted. She hopes the Cal that loves her wins.
Jack has let her be quiet for too long, and she knows it, knew that his silence was a temporary reprieve so he could analyze her more closely.
He’s wearing thick black gloves when he grabs her chin and forces her to face him.
His face is murderous, as he growls, “Stay away from my daughter.”
Juliette won't lie. She's scared. Jack Burns is holding a dagger to her throat, and it won't kill her, no, but it will carve through her if he wants it to.
Her eyes are swollen and heavy, but she chances a look over at Calliope anyway.
Cal is still facing away.
Juliette's tongue is thick in her mouth, but she musters up enough strength to reply.
"I-I'm sorry, sir," she stammers out. "I didn't mean for any of it, and Theo, I was trying to help —"
"Shut up," Jack stands quickly. "Don't say his damn name."
Juliette can't control the whimper that escapes her. Jack's chest is heaving; he looks capable of anything. He takes a step closer and Juliette is paralyzed, watching his gloved hand bring the dagger hilt down.
She doesn’t see it, but she feels a warm, wet burst of pain on her left temple. Her ears are ringing and there are fireworks dancing in front of her eyes, and she can feel Calliope and her brother both recoil and look up at their father.
Blood trickles down and wets her lip. She still hopes none of it sprayed back on him. Juliette doesn’t think Cal would love it if her father was paralyzed, however inadvertently. Calliope doesn’t need more excuses to resent her.
She blinks away blood, looks warily up at Jack Burns’ sneer, just in time for him to bring the hilt of the dagger down again, hitting hard at the same spot. It knocks her to the floor, her jaw hitting hard against concrete. Bitter, stale blood floods her mouth.
Legacy blood tastes bad, she muses. She decides to avoid tasting it further, if she can help it.
She stays down this time, doesn’t lift her head, tries not to call any more attention to herself.
She’s always been a fast learner.
She rests her palms flat against the cool concrete to steady herself, is about to take a deep breath to give her the strength to push herself back up, but before she can, Jack is stepping forward.
The pain now is blinding. She realizes she has never known real hurt before, but this, this is a classroom and she is learning. She thinks about her soft, protected life, a lie that her human visage had bought her, and she thinks about her birthright of blood. She feels it all now, as her thin wrist being ground down upon by Jack’s steel toed boot.
Juliette can’t contain it; she screams. It rips from her throat and she isn’t sure how long it goes on for, seconds or hours or days, lying on a basement floor, begging for mercy.
She curses her enhanced senses, knowing that she will never be able to un-hear the sound of her bones crunching, tendons snapping, blood gushing, racing to fill newly empty spaces in her mangled wrist.
Jack steps off and Juliette doesn’t dare look up, doesn’t dare make eye contact, gasping for air. She can’t even think of moving right now, her entire body frozen in shock. Her bruised eyes are open as wide as she can make them as she stares at her ballooning wrist.
She’s leaking blood from everywhere. She can’t tell if the red droplets that are landing on the floor in front of her are from the wound in her temple, the cuts on the inside of her mouth, or her cursed bloody tears.
Juliette can’t close her mouth properly, not without whimpering, and she watches the ground, in a trance and out of her mind, as red-tinged saliva pools around the growing puddle of blood.
Just as she takes one shaky breath through her nose, in an attempt to calm herself, Jack is stomping down on her other wrist.
And this one hurts more . This time, she knows exactly what the aftermath will feel like as soon as he lifts his boot. This time, she is still feeling the aftershocks of pain radiate up her right arm, as Jack decimates her left wrist.
She’s wailing, begging, crying, and she’s lost track of Calliope, but she hopes to Lilith that her Cal isn’t watching. There’s no world in which Calliope wants this for Juliette. She knows that for a fact.
Right?
Cal wouldn’t lead her into a trap, knowing that this was awaiting her.
But Calliope was boasting earlier about the plans they had drawn up before the raid on her consecration ceremony. Calliope was proud to be a monster hunter. She had made it clear that she thought Juliette was nothing more than a soulless beast.
But still — Cal had promised.
Juliette decides she can hold onto that for now.
It seems that Jack is done grinding her wrist into the ground, so she manages to swallow the last of a scream as he steps away. Her vision is black-tinged around the edges, and she can feel her fangs edging their way past her lips.
She huffs out small controlled puffs of air, willing herself to be able to move her wrists again. She knows she will heal well eventually; it’s another perk of being a Legacy, impermanent injuries. The issue is that she needs blood to speed the healing process. It won’t work as well unless she can feed, or takes a pill, or something.
Juliette considers the likelihood of the Burns gym-slash-torture chamber of a basement having a blood fridge, and she almost smiles, despite herself.
Suddenly, there are thick fingers being tangled in her hair, yanking her up roughly, and she cries out as she is dragged to her feet. The silver cuffs are digging in to her swollen wrists, and she’s sure she can smell the acrid stench of her flesh sizzling against the metal, but Juliette can barely feel the heat of a burn.
“Stand straight,” Jack commands, and Juliette keeps her eyes down, does her best to get her clumsy feet to follow. The moment has narrowed to the throbbing in her wrists now; she would do anything she was told at this point.
Jack tugs the silver chain high overhead, fastens it securely around a high-up beam, then tugs hard.
Juliette feels her knees give out as her shattered wrists are propelled skyward. It doesn’t matter if she can’t find her footing though — Jack has cut the slack on the chain completely. She is being held up only by her arms.
Sight is lost to her, sound fades to a shrill buzz as she forces herself to adjust to standing. Her head is spinning, but all she can really feel is the blood rushing to and from her trembling, throbbing wrists.
Mind over matter, Juliette recites to herself, though she doesn’t even know what the fuck that means right now.
She takes harsh breaths in through her nose, and the ringing in her ears slowly abates. She can hear Jack’s low voice, facing away from her. Her grasp on consciousness is tenuous at best, but she strains to pay attention anyway.
“…don’t know where your mother has gone, but we traded out one vamp for another, as far as I’m concerned. And this one might actually be able to answer our questions, as long as we keep it subdued.” The dark spots floating in front of Juliette’s vision grow more nebulous, dominating her whole field of vision.
“We’re…just going to keep her here?” Jules hears incredulity in his tone as Calliope’s brother shifts uneasily. Calliope is silent. Juliette can’t hear her heart. She has no idea what Calliope is thinking. She can barely hear herself think.
“We’re going to see how cooperative it is,” Jack corrects gently. “And depending on what it gives us, we’ll see what happens next.”
“Next?” Calliope’s brother tests.
Juliette’s neck is too unsteady to keep her head straight, and against her will, it snaps forward, her chin hitting her chest.
The last thing she hears before she passes out is Jack saying, “We take what it tells us, and we use it. That’s all.”
In her dream, Juliette is in Cal’s arms. They’re back in Apollo’s car, but in the backseat this time. Cal is sprawled out across the seat and Juliette has tucked herself between Cal’s legs, snuggled in close.
“This isn’t real,” Juliette feels she should acknowledge, but she presses further into Cal’s chest anyway.
“No,” Cal nods, agreeing. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it anyway.”
“We never did this, right?” Juliette asks. Her memory is hazy. She turns her head so she can look Cal in the eyes.
Cal examines her sadly. “There’s too much we never did.”
Juliette lowers her head slightly.
“There’s too much we’ll never get to do together,” Cal whispers, mournful.
Hearing that sends a spike of dread through Juliette’s chest. She sits up slightly, pushing away.
“Never?” she asks.
Calliope’s eyes are so sad when they look at her, but her voice is cold and far too deep when she replies, “No rest for monsters in my house.”
That’s her last true dream for a while.
Lightning wracks her body, and Juliette is shocked into consciousness.
Faintly, she can make out three distinct scents, once she’s relegated her own burning skin to the background. She has gotten too good too quickly at filtering that one out, but it is coming in handy.
The cattle prod retracts, and Juliette follows its retreat, lets her eyes travel up to Jack Burns’ guarded gaze.
“I need you two to watch carefully,” Jack calls over his shoulder.
Juliette’s stomach drops.
Later, when this is all through, she will never be able to get the timeline right. She will never be able to detail the sequence of events as she experienced them. She will never be able to explain just how much she lost in that room.
But it comes in flashes, in nightmares.
Tied tightly to a gurney, with water dripping down onto her face, into her lungs. If it had been regular water, she might have been fine, mostly annoyed at the interruption to her normal breathing habits, but this was more holy water. It burns a trail, singeing the insides of her nostrils, dripping down her throat, and she feels it scorch at the inside of her lungs.
Jack pulls her aching half-healed wrists above her head again, and informs her, very clinically, that the bones won’t heal right if they’re positioned like this while they’re healing, even for a vampire.
“You’ll have to get them re-broken,” he says, monotone. “It’ll be good practice for Apollo and Cal, so I’ll let them have a go tomorrow.”
Juliette watches Apollo blanch, shooting a glance at Calliope, who is staring steadfastly at the ground. Juliette holds her tongue, but she wants to fall to her knees, cling to Cal, be held, be protected.
The best she can do is stammer out, “Don’t-I can’t-”
Jack barks out a bitter laugh, like he isn’t enjoying this, but he has no other choice. “We need a practical demonstration first, I think.”
He reaches up, and quickly, casually, snaps back Juliette’s first finger on her left hand. The world is too bright and Juliette’s throat is raw from crying out in pain.
She makes the mistake of looking at Calliope when Calliope is looking directly at her. There is barely any recognition, barely any feeling at all.
Calliope looks empty. Jack moves onto her other hand. The sound of breaking bone is too familiar.
Juliette closes her eyes and screams. That’s becoming familiar too.
The hallucinations take the place of the dreams. The difference is obvious, in that now, Juliette never really sleeps. She is always in the basement, and the specters of the Burns family accompany her through the endless twilights. The dark crawls against her skin, and there is a humidity that lingers with every exhale. She forces herself to stop breathing, to conserve energy, tries to squeeze her eyes shut and fall into a peaceful slumber, but every time Jack turns off the lights, her exhausted body decides to host a film festival featuring the Burns family’s greatest hits.
She sees Apollo swinging a sword sometimes, hacking at a battle dummy. She sees visions of Theo studying hard, of Talia and Jack smiling at one another next to open cases of weapons. She sees Calliope, all the time.
She spends her alone time like this, or locked away in blissful unconsciousness. It isn’t restful, to pass out because of pain, but at least it takes everything away for a little while.
One night, Juliette comes back to her mind, and behind the blindfold, she can't tell if it's day or night.
And Cal is there. It’s very obviously a hallucination. It must be.
Cal squats down in front of her, and Juliette tries to lift her head to look Calliope in the eyes, but her neck aches from where the silver collar had burned welts into fragile skin.
Calliope is gentle though. She hooks one finger under Juliette's chin and tilts upwards. Juliette lets out an unsteady breath through her nose and closes her eyes.
They're still for a moment as Calliope examines Juliette's face. Juliette opens her eyes and lets herself drink in the sight of Calliope in front of her.
If it's a hallucination, it's a damn good one. Calliope looks uneasy, leaning forward.
Juliette is startled when Calliope lifts up the corner of Juliette's lip and runs one finger gently over Juliette's exposed fang.
Her fangs aren't retreating anytime soon, no matter what Juliette does. The lack of blood and the constant threat of danger have left them perpetually bared.
It's embarrassing, like walking around exposed.
Juliette tries to shy away, but Calliope grips tighter at her chin and lifts Juliette's lip higher.
"I thought they'd be bigger," Calliope muses quietly. "They're not so scary after all."
Juliette manages to pull away enough to close her mouth, but the effort is immense and leaves her panting. Calliope looks up at her, an unfamiliar expression on her face, like she’s trying on some role.
"You don't want it?" Calliope asks, reminding Juliette almost of Elinor, a sense of cruel arrogance dripping off her. "You used to like it when I had my hands on you."
It feels rehearsed.
"Cal…" Juliette chokes out. "Please."
Calliope's expression changes minutely at the sound of Juliette's voice, but she quickly hardens herself.
"Don't call me that," she demands. "You have no idea who I am."
Juliette shakes her head weakly.
"I know you," she strains. "I love you."
Calliope can't steel herself fast enough.
"Stop it," she insists, but Juliette perseveres.
"Do what you need to do," Juliette manages to get out, her throat rasping in protest. "I deserve it. Whatever will make this right."
Calliope stands and backs away quickly. She turns to leave the room, but chances one more perplexed glance back at Juliette.
Juliette sends her a blood-smeared smile and lets her head loll forward.
Between sessions, Juliette is blindfolded and tied tightly down, silver cuffs around her wrists, silver chains on each ankle, and a delicate garotte is fastened around her neck, so close she can feel it when she swallows.
She was never scared of the dark before this, but she is now.
It feels childish. Her family is the stuff of nightmares, she has an uncle who is the inspiration behind the bogeyman, but now, closing her eyes is yet another moment that she’s off guard.
She loses track of the days, only seeing the back of the blindfold or the blinding fluorescent light that Jack aims at her before each session. She hasn’t fed since draining Theo, the same night she was taken, which feels like a lifetime ago. Her body isn’t healing the way it should, but she is still alive, so she supposes it deserves some credit.
She is no frail human. She can withstand so much thanks to the Legacy she inherited. That doesn’t mean she wants to.
She might not be able to die, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t mean she thinks she’ll survive this.
But, she knows her family would be proud. It never really mattered before, but suddenly it feels like the only real thing in the world, that she refuses to betray their most valuable secret, even if it kills her.
It won’t kill her body, no, but Juliette can feel the person she always wanted to be slipping out of reach. She finds herself hating, wishing Jack was close enough to pull to her mouth and drain. She finds herself wishing Apollo would slip when mopping the blood in front of her every so often so that she could pounce before he placed the blindfold and garrote back into their designated spots.
She finds herself wishing for a moment alone with Calliope. A chance to repay Calliope for the betrayal.
She pushes all the feelings away. It’s the only way to survive.
There is so much she could say about the Emerald Malkia, but her grandmother had trained them well, the hostage simulations she and her siblings had been forced to participate in from their childhood finally coming into good use.
Juliette remembers her father looking on in dismay as her mother calmed him, waving away his every fear.
“It’s better that they know and never have to use it,” Margot shrugged casually, but rested a comforting hand on Sebastian’s shoulder. “Good practice.”
“Those are my babies,” Juliette remembers her father saying. “Who would want to hurt them?”
Margot had given him a sharp look. Soon after, he cleared monsters out of Savannah, launched his campaign for DA, kept them safe the best way he knew how. But Juliette had a vampire’s memory. She never forgot.
The quiet moments, behind the blindfold, were the worst. They were the moments that all of the memories of her life before came rushing to the surface.
It was a tactic, she knows. Enough time alone in the dark, and it should be enough for the human mind to collapse in on itself, every vulnerable human weakness exposed.
But Juliette isn’t a human.
Even if the silences bring forward messy feelings, even if she can’t stifle the shiver that course through her body every time her blindfold is ripped away, even if she can’t calm her heavy breathing or quiet the screams when Jack is ripping her apart, stitch by stitch, she is not human.
She thinks of cool, unflappable Elinor and her unfettered pride in their heritage. She’s starting to understand it.
If being a vampire means surviving whatever life can throw at you, she will take it. She’ll embrace it.
She vows to Lillith she will try harder.
She doesn’t beg for a second chance. She knows no true vampire would even have the urge.
Things change when Talia comes home.
Her blindfold is pulled off, but there are cool, gentle hands on the side of her face. She hasn’t been touched with tenderness in too long, and it makes her shrink back. The hands retreat quickly, and she hears footsteps stop a few paces away.
Juliette looks up blearily — she can’t tell how much time has passed since the last session, but she can hear Talia whispering furiously.
“...she is a child,” Talia hisses “We should be better than torturing children.”
“That’s real nice coming from the woman who jabbed a screwdriver into that vamp’s brother's throat,” Jack scoffs dismissively. Juliette hears him sharpen something and she winces preemptively.
“Oliver knew what he was getting into. He stood against the boys and made a choice. Juliette never hurt anyone on purpose,” Talia defends hotly. “She saved Cal when Cook was making moves, that girl is the reason our son isn't gone —”
And Juliette hears Jack spin around, hears him pull himself up to his full height, can feel the air in the room go still, before he booms “Theo is dead."
Talia is quiet for a moment. “Jack…”
“My son is dead,” Jack says firmly. “This beast killed him. And we're going to use whatever means necessary until it gives us the information we need. If you have a problem with that, talk to the Guild.”
Juliette hears Talia sigh. “Let me at least get her some blood.”
Jack is startled, but laughs disparagingly. “And where are you going to get that?”
Juliette doesn’t hear a reply, but she has been in enough school-principal meetings with Talia Burns to imagine the stare Jack is receiving.
She doesn’t hear from Talia for a while — she wouldn’t be able to say how long, really, but it’s enough time for Jack to explore her exposed skin with a cattle prod, holy water, and the sharp point of a silver dagger, burning coiling designs into her skin.
The dagger never cuts deep enough to bleed, but the burns penetrate deeper and are harder for her starving body to heal.
She remembers her mother telling her, during a hostage training session, “The injuries that aren’t obvious on the outside are always the worst. You will get better, but only if you have fed recently.”
Juliette has been trying to take stock of her internal injuries.
She’s fairly confident her spleen has ruptured, either from being kicked in the stomach, or from the shock from the cattle prod that Jack had applied immediately afterwards.
Other than that, and the fact her wrists are still swollen, she thinks her internal injuries are fairly minimal. Jack hasn’t been interested in too much permanent damage, mainly pain.
And he’s succeeding.
Juliette hurts. Her whole body feels like it’s being ripped apart, like she’s being pried apart, someone taking a seam ripper to every place of connection, and tearing one stitch at a time. She feels like she’s one of Elinor’s old dolls.
And her body aches, but her heart hurts worse, knowing that every time she sees Cal, she is going to feel a fire of the worst sorts. The passion that consumed her upon Cal’s mere presence has changed into panic.
And more, that Cal wasn’t going to do shit to protect her anymore. Calliope never even looks at her anymore. She never says sorry.
There’s only one day that Juliette remembers them actually being alone. Apollo stumbles up the stairs after a particularly brutal session, and with one frustrated backwards glance, Jack follows him.
Calliope is frozen on the bench across from Juliette, eyes fixed on her own hands.
"Cal," Juliette knows she's begging. She doesn't have any pride left to tarnish. "Cal."
Calliope can't make eye contact. She stares at the ground. Juliette hopes Calliope is satisfied now, if she knows that this is what it entailed when she said she wouldn't rest until all the Legacies in Savannah were dead. That none of them would reveal the secret, no matter how much they had to endure.
Somehow, Juliette is sure Calliope didn't understand what she was signing up for.
Calliope crosses the room quickly, holding her breath. She does the routine check of the chains as she has seen her father do so many times before. She won’t look at Juliette.
Good, Juliette thinks. She should be ashamed.
Calliope takes a deep breath after checking all of Juliette's bindings. The silver handcuffs that sizzle away and leave the gym smelling vaguely like burning flesh, the thin metal garrote circling Juliette's delicate neck, leaving a thin red smile dripping slightly whenever Juliette swallows out of habit, the chains around her ankles that rattle every time Juliette goes to stretch.
Calliope looks up to the side, thinks hard, opens her mouth: "I-"
And then seems to think better of it, closing her mouth quickly, standing fast, and turning to go up the stairs.
Juliette's frustrated, on top of all the hurt, and it's that pure anguish that lets her call after Calliope.
"You can't run from this," she says around the blood coating her mouth. "I'm still going to be here tomorrow, Cal. You said my heart was safe with you."
She knows Calliope is frozen at the top of the stairs. Juliette closes her eyes and tries to force back tears. She had just been trying to help Theo. She wasn't trying to hurt anyone.
But, she supposes, sometimes things go further than we want them to.
Calliope's heart is pounding at the top of the stairs. Juliette can hear it.
She can hear it when Calliope sits gingerly out of sight, buries her head in her hands, and starts to quietly cry.
She can tell that this is her Cal, the girl that curled up with her on the floor with the M.A.A.Ms patrolling outside.
Everything else is Calliope Burns, monster hunter.
There is no sympathy, no recognition, in Calliope's eyes when she's in front of Juliette lately, just cool detachment, and more than any of the silver, that burns at Juliette, makes her flinch hard.
But the Cal that is hunched over and trying not to let anyone hear the way her breath hitches between sobs? Juliette knows that girl.
She feels sick for smiling. She doesn't try to hide it though. Just closes her eyes and leans her head back against the pole.
Talia does bring Juliette blood, pack after pack that Juliette gulps greedily down. Afterwards, Talia sends Jack upstairs, sits Apollo and Calliope down, and insists that they take cloths to gently clean up all of Juliette’s half closed wounds.
“We’re better than this,” Talia tells her children. “We do not stoop to this level ever, do you hear me?”
Apollo speaks up. “Dad-”
“Your father is wrong,” Talia is resolute, unwavering. “This is not how we get what we need.”
She looks at Juliette, and there is kindness in her eyes.
Juliette doesn’t want to trust it, but she can’t help but feel drawn to Talia’s gentleness. She has been starved of any comfort for too long, and Talia is nothing if not a reassuring presence.
Juliette doesn’t bother looking for Calliope’s reaction. She can’t help that her traitorous heart still wants to seek Calliope out at every turn, but she also knows that it can’t bear one more disappointment.
It’s better to keep her face turned away.
By her best estimation, two weeks pass.
Juliette hasn’t given anything real away, including Theo’s whereabouts, because she can’t lie about something she doesn’t know.
She does let slip that her brother Oliver’s girlfriend, the witch, offered a spell to turn her human in exchange for her cooperation. She watches Jack and Apollo exchange a look. She knows they’re thinking of Theo.
She doesn't say that she doesn't trust Carmen as far as she could throw her. They will discover the limits soon enough.
It must be two weeks of torture, she decides, because any less time locked up, and the full reversal of her morality would be untenable.
But she’s realized Calliope’s perspective was right all along. Their world was black and white, humans and monsters.
The shades of gray that she had tried to hide in, the petty farce of humanity she had clung to her entire life, school, friendships, Ben, love… all of it was a lie.
Calliope knew better from the start. Calliope saw her true nature the first time they met and made things simple. Calliope had been so steadfast, and moreover, she had been right.
They were never going to be anything more than what they had.
She can love Cal from afar. She probably will forever. But she recognizes that Calliope is a different person entirely. It’s freeing.
It’s fucking tragic.
Juliette sags against the pole digging into her back, tries to call up another fond memory to avoid the dark pressing against her on all sides. No matter how enlightened she wants to pretend to be, she can’t escape from the cold quiet of the dark basement. She hears noises. She’s on edge the whole time.
At least when the lights are on, she knows where the hurt is going to come from.
The dark is dangerous.
She hasn’t slept much for the past two weeks, just slipped into a blissful unconsciousness when Jack misjudges a hit or carries on too much.
Neither Apollo nor Calliope have lifted a finger, begging off each time Jack suggests they learn how to conduct an interrogation.
Every time, Juliette sends a silent thank you to Talia, who only ever shows up to bring blood and clean Juliette up a little.
She knows it’s probably some form of Stockholm Syndrome, but she’s convinced that Talia Burns is entirely too good a person.
Juliette manages to distract herself enough with thoughts of how motherly Talia is that she almost misses the creak of the door above.
As soon as she hears it, her ears prick up. Two heartbeats move quietly down the stairs. The blinding lights that Jack flips on as soon as he opens the door are still off. The timing is off — Jack was here too recently to do anything but pummel her further, and the heartbeats don’t sound like his.
They sound like —
She must be hallucinating again.
Except, her wrists are being lowered, slowly, slowly down. The blindfold is still on, but she can smell coconut and lavender in front of her as the silver cuffs are unlocked.
The sudden lightness around her wrists has her stumbling, and strong familiar arms catch and steady her.
Could it be…?
It must be another fucking hallucination.
“We have to move her now,” Talia’s voice is unmistakable, and Juliette is so confused, but her legs are weak from disuse and also: torture.
Her blindfold is still on, but her arms don’t work, tied above her head for too long. She tries to follow Talia’s voice, but her step falters, and almost sinks to the ground. She is exhausted, her whole body, and now that she isn’t tied up, all of the adrenaline that was allowing her to stay upright has vanished.
Talia is hushed when she asks, “Can you-” and before Juliette can think to interpret what that could mean, she is being lifted, bridal style, into muscular, capable arms.
She isn’t letting herself believe it. She can’t. Hope has been beaten out of her. It has been weeks.
It has to be Cal.
No one else would be so gentle, cradling the back of Juliette’s neck like it’s precious.
Juliette didn’t have Cal for very long, but she has replayed the feeling of Cal’s arms around her a thousand times. It has to be Cal.
They move quickly, and Juliette tries feebly to lift the blindfold, but her wrists don’t work and there is a solid chest behind her and strong arms holding her close and it’s all she can do to stay awake right now, so she just closes her eyes as she is folded into the backseat of a car, still tight against a warm body.
Whoever is holding her is whispering comforting phrases, quiet encouragement, into her ear, but Juliette can’t make out any words. She doesn’t know where they’re going. She just wants to go home.
She thinks she says something, mumbles out a quiet plea, but she doesn’t remember. She doesn’t remember the rest of the journey.
All she knows is waking up on her doorstep, looking up at her mother and father’s faces, pale and worried.
All she knows is she was wrapped in a blanket, one that smells like coconut and lavender, and delivered home.