Chapter Text
Gavin's stomach burned with an almost unbearable anticipation. I've never had two to play off each other before. And Vera...god, I want to break Vera. His hand tightened on the collar around Tori's neck and he dragged her higher. She choked and thrashed weakly against his grip.
Vera took a step forward...god, that burning in her eyes, that desperation to protect Tori, to help her...the things he could do with that. He imagined how she would look when he hurt Tori, really hurt her. His mouth watered.
"Ah ah ah." His father's voice was low. "No." She shuddered and her muscles locked. He could see her straining forward, towards Tori. "Good girl. No, you're going to come back and stay with me."
"And I figured, why don't I stay with my dad for a while and bring Tori?" A laughed bubbled out of his chest, a warm rush of excitement and pleasure. "Let you two actually be together, considering how cute you are. And considering how much we can teach Tori about how to hurt you. She wants to so badly, you know." He'd seen it. That spark of shame in her eyes, the way she shut down when he asked her about it. Tori's struggles were growing weaker.
"Tori..." Vera's voice was hollow, tortured. He let the collar go and Tori slumped to the floor at his feet.
"And, you're going to be so good for us." Gavin's stomach lurched at the hopeless terror in Vera's eyes as his father cradled her face. "Because if you don't...I'm going to make you kill Tori." Gavin's heart sank for a moment. I want to be the one to do it. I want to kill her. He considered, though, the abject torment that would rip through Vera's body if he forced her to pull the trigger. If he broke and broke and broke her until she did it herself. His mouth was dry. "You were together for a few months, yes? You love her?" Her eyes were fixed on Tori as she nodded. "Hm. Then you're going to behave for me, aren't you?" She nodded again.
Gavin's laugh was mirthless, cruel. He was buzzing with pleasure. "Wish I'd have known this trick with you before, Vera. Coulda saved myself a lot of overhead. And a lot of hospital bills." Rage swept through him and he kicked Tori in the back.
Vera's body jerked like she'd felt the blow, too. Gavin watched as she spiraled into herself, collapsing, breaking, giving herself over to the hopelessness. Bitter tears streamed down her face as she looked down at Tori, her chest heaving with sobs. Gavin felt a flutter in his chest at the sight of her.
Then something changed. The pain in Vera's eyes dropped away. She's under. She's ours. A grin spread across his face. Vera stepped towards his father, pressing her body against his. She turned her face into his neck, nuzzling gently. Is this what he made her? Is this what I could make her again? An entirely different sensation flooded through him, familiar, strange. Warmth, heat, pressure, starting in his throat and moving lower, through his chest, through his abdomen, lower still... It was the feeling he'd gotten seeing Isaac in chains. It was the same thing he felt when he'd looked into Isaac's eyes and saw that desperate struggle to stay strong, feeling the break coming, as inevitable as the tide... He swallowed. I can make her beg me, too. I can make her do that.
"Hm," his father whispered. "I might not even have to break you in again." Her eyes dropped to Tori, huddled on the ground, wailing into the gag in her mouth. In that moment, Gavin realized he'd made a mistake.
Vera had the look he'd seen on Isaac's face when he'd threatened Sam's life. Just before Isaac had almost killed him. Vera's eyes snapped to Gavin's. The only thing he saw was cold, vicious rage. Terror swept through him before he could process what that meant.
She raised her arm and fired off a single shot.
He flew back, shock wiping his mind blank before he even felt the impact. The breath rushed out of him, punched out by the bullet. He was falling, hanging in the air for what seemed like an impossible eternity, falling, falling. Then he hit the floor. The impact shattered him. There was the pain. I can't breathe.
"NO!" His father's voice was distant, like he was shouting from across a lake. His eyes rolled in his head. He convulsed against the piercing agony in his chest, heaving and choking against the blood he could already feel bubbling in his lungs. "BAD GIRL."
He tried to push out a breath, push out a single word. Help. This was not like the pain that clutched him when Isaac had beaten him senseless. This was deeper. More vital.
This pain was going to kill him and he knew it.
His eyes found his father, clutching at Vera's throat, holding her back. He sobbed in terror and pain. He tried to raise a hand to reach out to his father, to beg him to help, to beg him to turn around and cradle him and carry him out of that house. His limbs felt like they were made of lead. He was paralyzed by shock and jagged pain. He could only lay crumpled on the floor and watch in disbelief.
He could only watch as Vera was consumed by a feral rage. He could only watch as she lunged at his father, could only listen as his hand pressed against her throat until the breath whistled out of her, could only watch in uncomprehending horror as Vera opened her mouth against his father's throat. Could only watch as she sunk her teeth into his flesh and ripped.
The scream that broke from his father's throat was inhuman. He sounded like an animal being torn apart. Vera's eyes flashed as she lunged in again, tore at his throat again. He could hear the flesh crush and tear under her teeth. Could hear the wet rip and bubbling sound as his father's trachea was torn open. He could hear the blood pour out onto the floor, sounding like a bucket had been overturned. He watched, helpless, as she ripped into him one more time.
The smell of blood was heavy in the room. He was dizzy with it. Mine, or his? Vera was covered in it, great rivulets of blood coursing down her chin, her neck, turning the front of her shirt and pants a brilliant, impossible red. She looked like a nightmare. She looked like a monster.
Gavin's mind twisted around a single, incomprehensible truth. She killed my father. She tore out his throat with her own teeth. A shudder coursed through his body as his very being rebelled at the thought. No. His father, dead on the floor, sprawled only a few feet away from him. His father, the man who had taught him to hurt people, taught him to hurt her, was torn open, bleeding, empty. His throat closed around a tortured sob.
An agonizing chill settled over his body as he realized something else: if I move she's going to kill me too.
He trembled on the floor, his breaths coming ragged and harsh. Tears streamed down the sides of his face into his hair and onto the carpet. All his thoughts, all the terror in his mind intensified and narrowed down to a single point: I don't want to die.
She was speaking. The woman, the plaything that had torn out his father's throat, she was talking, her voice pitched high and tense. A wave of sickness passed over him. Please, please don't kill me, please... Another voice rose. Tori. The one Vera had killed for. His throat clicked as he swallowed his terror, his terrible awe. Every breath sent an unbearable pain stabbing through his chest. His fingers dug into the carpet. He heard his pulse pounding in his ears. The words swirled through his head, confusing, meaningless. He could only grab one at a time, hold it in place, deduce the meaning, lose it again. A delirious realization passed through his mind. I was wrong about her. He felt like his chest was sinking into the floor. It would drag the rest of him down with it, he was sure. He was dying.
His mind drifted, untethered from his body, adrift in a sea of unending agony. Every breath, every breath, in, out, in, out, was pain. It was torture.
The pain flared and brought him back. He dragged in a desperate inhale. It took all of his strength to lift his head.
He was alone.
He heaved out a sob. His hand moved to his pocket, inch by inch. His fingers closed around his phone. His eyes fell on his father, the grotesque, butchered corpse that had stopped bleeding now. The corpse that was empty.
He cried out as he pulled the phone from his pocket, hands shaking. He lost his grip on the phone and it thumped to the floor beside him. He sobbed in helpless despair. His fingers closed around it again and he opened the screen.
He left smears of blood on the screen as he went to the recent calls. Scrolled back a few days. Found the number he wanted. The screen was jerky and didn't obey the swipes of his finger. The blood was making things harder.
He pressed the call button and sank back to the floor. He tried to hold the phone to his ear. It slipped once again from his grip and slid to the carpet beside his face. It rang once. Twice. A third time. Please.
A fourth ring. He whimpered. Please, please pick up, please...
A fifth. He sobbed brokenly. Please, I don't wanna die like this. I don't wanna die... He glanced at his father, the pool of blood around him creeping away from his body into the surrounding carpet.
A sixth ring. God no, please, please answer, please don't let me get the answering machine...no...
The seventh ring was cut off. Relief shot through him like an electric shock.
"Hello, darling." The woman's voice was warm. Comforting. His heart felt like it would rend itself from his chest.
"Mom," he rasped.
Her voice immediately changed. "Gavin? What happened? Where are you?"
He licked his lips, sweat beading on his face. "House on 72." He gasped. "Got shot. Please..."
"Oh my god. Oh my god. Gavin. Sweetheart." A rustling of fabric as she turned away. "Patty, get Andrews on the phone. Get the helicopter in the air. 6535 east county road 72. Gavin's been shot." Her voice was louder as she turned back to the phone. "Honey, where are you shot? Are you..." She stifled a small sob. "Oh my god."
"In the chest. Once in the chest." He trembled and dissolved into a weak wail. "Mom...I'm scared...please, I don't wanna die..."
"I know, sweetheart." There were tears in her voice. "We'll get the helicopter to you. It should get there..." Her voice faded again. "When?" She turned back to the phone. "Thirteen minutes, baby. Oh, Gavin...sweetheart..." Her voice broke. "Hang on for me, please..."
"Mom," he sobbed. "Mom." His lips felt numb. The words were clumsy. "She...she killed dad. Dad's dead."