starter for @presstocontinuestory

It was hard to avoid the opinions of people who thought she should have just gotten over it by now. She knew that even within the group of acquaintances she had that they all shared the similar opinion - that after the last two years of her newly acquired immortality she still shouldn’t be losing her mind over her lack of mortality. Memories of times when she was so vulnerable, so easily harmed played through her mind. There’d been that time that didn’t feel like so long ago where she’d served as a punching bag. She was sure she’d stopped keeping track of the times she’d been killed and brought back. 

Maybe it wasn’t the newfound strengths and abilities that bothered her. Maybe what truly bothered her was the fact that she found herself without the shield she’d been so accustomed to. There was no more clock ticking over her head counting down the days until one of those deaths would finally stick. Thriving and living was no longer something she could brush aside by simply telling herself that she only had a few years left. She had a long immortal life ahead of her. And the fact she didn’t have a clue how to spend it was haunting her. 

So she’d been on a quest of sorts. Nothing productive that was. Sure, when Soren turned her he’d laid out a list of things to avoid. It was a pretty simple list. But there was so much he didn’t know about exactly what she’d made. A monster like her had never existed before. So she wanted to put that to the test. Something she did at every cost. 

Tonight’s errand was a bridge. Well - another bridge. But this one was higher. Nothing else had worked. It had hurt - but pain was just another part of the job at this point - but her broken body, if it broke at all, quickly healed from the damage and she was good as new. There was actually a nice view from the particular bridge so she took out a cigarette and lit it up. With Haelyn, she’d made a purpose of limiting her little habit to when the small child wasn’t around. 

Juleiette Solo XIV

Trigger Warnings: Death, self-harm.

Immortal.

What a strange concept it was to her. As an angel, she hadn’t really thought much about it. She’d been a girl in love. Nothing but a girl. Even all the darkness and depression that made her grow faster than the others didn’t change the fact that she had been young. The only concept of immortality she grasped at the time was the idea of forever with Nathan. She had been staring down years of what she thought would be happy memories made and smiles and laughter shared with the love of her life.

As an undead, immortality was temporary and fleeting. She would never age, never change or grow. But she was still chased by the clock that most mortals were haunted by. Her neck had been broken, she’d been stabbed, throat slit. So many different deaths. She remembered them each, or part of her did. This part of her saw them as all blurred together. Meshed into one area that ended in blackness. And then she had woken up. The concept of immortality had been fleeting, but as an undead it meant invincibility, at least until the clock finally ticked down to that final stroke and her life was taken from her once more, this time for good.

For a long time, the ticking clock seemed to mock her. Every day and month reminded her she was just a step closer to death. A step closer to being where she should have been in the first place. It mocked her because she was alive, and for a long time she hated every minute of it. Her invincibility was another taunt. It simply reminded her that each time she closed her eyes and hoped it may be the last, there was that nagging knowledge that it wouldn’t.

That ticking clock had become a reminder. A reminder that she was living on borrowed time, and soon it would be up. And just like the first time she’d went, she would explode everyone else around her. It became a crutch, a security blanket. It allowed her to isolate herself, gave her reason and justification for being alone, to stop living. She wrapped it around herself and hold on so tightly. She molded herself into a bitter person and shoved everyone away.

It was easier. And she could justify it, could find reason in being alone. She was dying. Pushing others away didn’t protect her, it protected them. When her life flickered out like a candle, there would be no causalities this time. She had been sure of it. It was why she had avoided going to her parents, even during the times she’d been let out of the cursed asylum. Why she had never bothered to reunite with her sister upon her own desires. Why she never allowed herself to let people in.

She had cradled herself in the loneliness, had let it convinced her that she didn’t deserve to get the second and third and fourth chances so many others never got. Had convinced herself that she didn’t deserve the chance to live again. It had given her a reason not to.

Things were different now. Immortality meant something again. She wasn’t staring down a few years until she was ultimately dead. Nor was she looking into the future with the idea that she may be happy and smiling with a person that was her soulmate. Now she was alive, with no death sentence hanging over her head. She could do whatever she wanted with eternity just about. Her crutch and reasoning had been ripped away from her just like that.

She wasn’t sure how to deal with it. The years of being stuck in her own cynical mind made it near impossible to try and picture a happy few years ahead of her. Instead she looked into her future and didn’t see much at all. She’d become a monster, in more ways than one. Pushing people away had become so second nature she didn’t know how to stop. Avoiding pain and feeling had become pattern. Breaking it was near impossible. Now she stared down the eternity and she couldn’t imagine anything. Nothing but darkness.

No hope, like perhaps some would have. No gratefulness for being brought back. Just this hopeless feeling that this life would just be an endless repeat of the other she squandered. In truth, it was driving her a little mad, thinking about it. And she had plenty of time to think now. Given that she didn’t spend much time outside of her room at all.

Her daily routine of taking care of Haelyn had ceased. She wasn’t sure how dangerous the beast she had been turned into was to the baby. She didn’t take her usual missions on earth because she feared the feeble hold of control she had on her powers would snap and she’d end up hurting someone. Maybe she was going stir crazy, all alone. She supposed she should have been used to it by now, given how much time she’d spent alone in the past.

Either way, she had eventually decided staring at the same four walls in her room in Soren’s little palace was driving her mad. So she decided on a walk. A walk might help. Fresh air, take in the sights of Soren’s little island. It had comforted her before. Maybe it would do such a thing now. Perhaps she’d look around and see a life there. See a future start to form for her. She doubted it, but she could try at least.

There were a few wary looks cast on the way out, but no one stopped her. Not exactly shocking. Soren wasn’t sure exactly what she was, and she knew well enough he’d told the guards to be wary of her just in case. She didn’t blame him. She’d be wary too. She’d want to keep her people safe from the abomination as well. But, as much as she felt the need to isolate and protect herself, she was sure she was more a risk if she was certifiably insane.

Her walk carried her to a more secluded area. Still a chance in surroundings, but no people. No potential casualties if her powers did strike out. The place was nice, full of plants and rocks and creatures that she was certain the most creative human mind couldn’t dream up. Or at least, she knew she wouldn’t have thought of them. And while there was the striking beauty and color of it all, none of it appealed to her. None of it stuck out, inspired her. It was all just…background. It didn’t matter.

Getting distracted by her own thoughts, she ended up tripping over something. Awkward and still learning her new balance, new body, she ended up collapsing to the ground in a not so graceful matter. Her arm hit the ground hard, and she heard the crack as the bone gave way to her fall. The pain hit her a second later, or perhaps she was just delayed by shock but she shouted out in pain, cursing as she got up. The pain had faded significantly by the time she managed to right herself enough to survey they damage. And when she looked down at her arm, she could already see a small bruise fading away.

Even as an undead she hadn’t healed so quickly. It was a marvel to her, to a degree. Being so impervious to harm. Being able to recover so quickly. Defend herself in a flash and heal from wounds just as quickly. She couldn’t help but wonder just how far such a thing went. If she was truly invincible. How much she could withstand.

Juliette rose to her feet and glanced around briefly. She spotted a tree that seemed to appeal for what she wanted and walked over to it. Sizing up one of the branches, she grabbed it and snapped it off. It was so…simple. Just like that, it came off in her hand, splintering and snapping. She snapped it once, more, this time in half.

She held one of the pieces in her right hand, clenching it hard. There wasn’t even a hint of pain to remind her that she’d just broken her arm. Keeping that almost too tight grip on the branch, she held out her left arm, positioning the point of one side of the breaks against her skin. She dug in, probably a little too hard because the sharp end pushed past her skin, cutting into her. She didn’t wince as she dragged it back, letting it slice through her skin. Not the best instrument, she knew that. But it was effective. Dropping the branch, she looked down at her left arm.

The cut was already healing. The drops of red blood that had been pooling up where the wound had been were the only evidence it had even been there. She wiped the blood droplets away. Not even a scar to blend in with the others that littered her arms. Gone. Just like that. No evidence it had even existed on her body other than the crimson smear staining her arm.

Curiosity rose in her as she wondered exactly how far this went. Sure, Soren had told her there were things she had to look out for. Things like mountain ash. But what things could she get away with. What limits did this new immortality allow her to push? What boundaries had collapsed when Soren had turned her into this monster? She wasn’t sure, but she wanted to find out. She didn’t quite know how to accept this new nature. It was strange and foreign to her. And just one more reminder that she didn’t have that ticking clock to comfort her, to be her security anymore.

An idea popped into her mind. One quite a few would probably label her as crazy for. Maybe she was. Maybe all the trauma and death in her life had finally driven her insane. She didn’t care. And soon her feet were carrying her where she wanted to go anyway. At least there was something to drive her, something to do besides stare at the four walls of her room and ponder what she was to do with the eternity facing her down.

It took a bit. She wasn’t entirely familiar with the way there, but she knew enough to know the general direction to go. But she got where she wanted to go after a bit of wandering in the direction she headed. She finally emerged from the tree line and headed down a dirt road of sorts. Even though most on Soren’s island had wings, not all did, and some used horses and carriages as means of transportation anyway.

She walked along the road. It was clear of anyone. Perhaps Soren had given word to avoid the places close by his palace area. Perhaps he was properly worried she was a danger to his people and they’d been told to stay away from places she might wander. She wasn’t sure. Maybe it was just coincidence that no one was traveling that road the day. Either way, a part of her was thankful. Despite everything, she feared hurting someone.

The road led her to where she had been hoping to get. A bridge. It was pretty simple. A dirt path across, the base and rails of sorts built of stone. Ivy grew up the sides of it. Or something like it. It was pretty, serene looking almost. The water below was running quickly. The rapids creating an interesting pattern underneath. Another scene she might have thought of as beautiful, if she could register such things.

Juliette made her way onto the bridge, moving to about the middle of it. She headed towards the sides. They weren’t too tall. She supposed they didn’t have to be, not when most of the people who lived there were as impervious to harm as she was. Even if the drop was rather large. Slowly, she got up onto the side, letting her shoes plant firmly onto the stone. Her gaze stared down at the water for a few moments.

Slowly she turned around so she was facing the bridge once more. A part of her thought of stepping back onto it. Would save her the wet clothes and a trip wherever the water brought her. But, too much of her was curious about it. What the water would feel like, if she would drown. What would happen? She held her arms out, almost like she was a child pretending to be an airplane. And then she just let herself fall back, not a drop of fear coming of what might happen when she hit the water.

Immortal.

Juliette Solo XIII

Trigger Warnings: Death, murder, gore.

Stubborn was probably one of the easiest words to describe Jules. Perhaps the most accurate. Some called her evil, or horrible, or just plain mean. Some tried to say her unmoving nature was just resolve, but those who really knew her knew that while in some ways, that was true, in most, her behavior came straight down to being stubborn. There was only one person who knew her well enough to know that. A certain blonde.

She wished she could have as much stubborn will power in the moment as she did when she had refused to see Ainsley off. Juliette knew it was a suicide mission. She knew Ainsley had been up against the man time and time before and now was just the same as it had been any time before. Ainsley was going to lose. She just hoped that she would lose and have time to get away with her life in the process. Either way Juliette certainly wouldn’t be sending her off with smiles and wishes for good luck.

She scoffed at the other friends for doing such a thing for the blonde. Idiots, the lot of them. She shook her head slightly. She had as much faith in Ainsley as the next person, but she wasn’t undead anymore, she would die and she wouldn’t come back this time if she went on. The man who had been responsible defeating her over and over again would just do it again. Juliette wouldn’t be a witness, and she certainly wouldn’t stand by and support the girl in a stupid decision that could only end in one way.

Holing herself up in her little room at the castle was how far she went to protest Ainsley’s stupidity. She sat at her desk, trying to focus enough to write some letters up to send out. Mainly a few to her parents, to Millie. Ever since she’d told them that she was alive, she sent them letters every now and then, mainly because she didn’t want them to think they were crazy, and so they’d know she was okay. She didn’t really bother including a return address. There was no point. They had grieved her already, and she knew if given the chance they’d just take her back and grow reattached. Then in a few years, she’d die again.

She was in the middle of a paragraph, just a little one explaining that things were well. It was a complete brush over what was going on. It wasn’t as if she was going to tell her parents she was stuck in an arranged marriage with a man who was part of a secret and horrid race. It would really make them insane if they even delved into that topic. And god knew someone might try to hurt them if they knew too much.

Then it hit her. It was like a crashing wave, hitting her all at once and pulling her down under the water so she could never escape. Couldn’t catch her breath. The pain was like hundreds of needles piercing her head all at once. No, needles was too light a pain. Nails. Hundreds of nails. And each one of them was searing hot. And it felt like there was some kind of pressure building in her skull. She couldn’t explain it. There was such an overwhelming amount of sensations.

She clenched the pencil in her hand so hard she could feel the wood snap and splinter. She didn’t care if any of the splintered shards dug into her palm. Any pain it would have brought rarely registered compared to the shattering ache in her skull. It didn’t take too long to recognize the pain in her skull. It wasn’t some normal migraine. She didn’t get those before anyway. This was something entirely. This was one of her banshee visions, and after she suffered for hours, a scream would come, and as her wail permeated the room and likely the wing of the castle, it would serve as the final toll of the clock of someone’s life.

The life of someone she knew.

There were not many people she knew that would be on the brink of death in the moment, close to dying. Except one. Even through the practically blinding pain, she could figure it out rather easily who was about to die. The same person who refused to see reason when it came to her vendetta against a man she couldn’t defeat. Ainsley.

Juliette growled a little. But she didn’t waste time. Despite the way the pain seemed to paralyze her most times when she was in these states, there was something stronger inspiring her to do something besides curl into a ball on her bed and wait until it was over like she so often did. Despite the pain, she forced her feet into her boots and pulled on one of her jackets haphazardly. It was a little clumsy, the dizziness causing her head to spin, but despite that, she managed it well enough.

Without another thought, she was out the door, and she was determined to find Ainsley before she did something so incredibly stupid that she couldn’t reverse it.

She might have been a little late, and had definitely missed the sendoff party. But at least she caught her in time, before she went off wherever she had planned to meet Nikolai. She immediately grabbed her arm as she was ready to head off. She could see a smug look crossing Ainsley’s face, which only had Juliette rolling her eyes.

“I knew you would come,” Ainsley told her. Juliette didn’t have time to psychoanalyze Ainsley, or the focus for that manner. Even if she had fought through the pain enough to be there in front of the blonde woman. She didn't have enough focus to properly think.

“You have to stop this. Ainsley you can’t go,” Juliette said, trying to hide some of the rasp of her voice from Ainsley. She had become very good at hiding away and making sure no one knew how much pain she was in when she had a vision.

“You won’t talk me out of this,” through Jules blurred vision, she could set the firm, stubborn set of Ainsley’s lip.

“You are going to die if you go up there Ainsley. You will not make it out alive,” Juliette said, gripping the woman’s shoulders. “Trust me. I know, I can feel it,” Juliette clenched her jaw, trying to block out the pain as best as possible. “Please, do not go up there. You have kids, you have Essyn, please do not do this,” she begged the woman.

“I have to, please understand that I have to.” Ainsley tugged from her grip.

Juliette was on the brink of tears. From the pain maybe, or because of Ainsley not listening to her. She gripped her head a little, pressing her fingers to either side of her head as she winced. “Ainsley just listen to me,” she shouted the words more angrily than she intended. “I’m having a vision, and who else do we know whose about to do something so stupid.”

“Did Jess put you up to this? Tell you to fake this vision so that I wouldn’t go? I can’t believe you’d go along with that,” Ainsley seemed grumpy. And Jules was certain she was just about ready to strangle the woman for the way she was getting on. “I’m going, that’s the end of it,” she turned to leave.

Jules growled again, reaching out for the woman. She would drag her kicking and screaming if she had to. But of course, as soon as she gripped the back of the woman's jacket, she disappeared. Just as soon as she’d been holding a fist full of leather material, she wasn’t. Nothing rested in her clutches palm. Not one thing.

“Goddamn it,” Jules snarled, her clutched fist slamming into the wall. The pain in her knuckles was a brief relief from the pain in her head. It didn’t last long though. It didn’t matter how, she had to go after Ainsley.

--

Using the portals had not been easy, especially considering her brain felt like mush at this rate. She was deteriorating, the pain seeming to make up every nerve of her body. All she wanted to do was just collapse. Die. If it got her away from this terrible pain in her head she’d take that in the moment. An out, any out.

She kept on though and found one of the portals, and convinced one of the people with powers to help wield it to her desires. Sure enough, it took her to Ainsley. Or at least where Ainsley was. Which happened to be the snowy mountain tops of Sweden. It was cold, and her thin jacket didn’t help much. But her skin had a strange bite back against the cold. As if she could feel it but it wasn’t intolerable.

Juliette wasn’t spit out by the portal too far from where Ainsley happened to be. She could hear the voices. Hear Nikolai, hear Ainsley. Even their voices was too much for her head. But she forced herself one step after the other up over the hill. Her feet implanted into the snow and she was careful not to slip. She was more than out of breath by the time she reached the top of the hill and could get a view of the battle field.

“Carson! Ainsley, I swear to whatever god exists,” she huffed, grasping her hand on her side. She was pissed. Pissed that Ainsley hadn’t believed her. Pissed that she had gone in the first place. Anger darkened her gaze, and though she was mainly angry with Ainsley, she let her gaze come to level with Nikolai, the promise of death in her eyes. Turning her look back to Ainsley, she leveled her angry gaze at her. “If you die, I will bring you back and kill you myself. You hear me?” Juliette wasn’t supportive, but she knew it was too late to stop it. She would just try to do what she could.

The two were a flurry of movement. Steel flying, flashes and glints of it showing in the little tornado that danced across the space. They were almost too quick to keep up with. She could only tell by the occasional flash of blood hair which was Ainsley. She wanted to get in the middle, wanted to focus her power, but she was scared she might wound Ainsley in the process. And she wasn’t even sure she could wield it with the pain. Red flashed on the steel, stained and melted the snow at their feet.

She was too distracted in the moment. The pain, trying to decide if she could help. By the time she the woman’s figure, it was just a second too late. She saw the bow raise, and then she immediately through herself in front of Ainsley. Not a thought in the mind. She knew that there was a chance that whatever enchantment on the weapon meant to kill a demon would hurt her too. But she didn’t care. All she knew was that she had to save Ainsley.

The dive was too late. She did catch some of the arrow, but it was too strong. The force behind the bow had it going right through her shoulder and into Ainsley, right into her chest. She wouldn’t need to open Ainsley up to know that the arrow pierced her heart. She felt the pressure building in her skull finally come to a climax, build so much it felt like she was exploding. And the scream rose from her throat and poured out her lips easily. The sheet power of it knocking the woman with the bow back. Her throat felt raw by the time it stopped. And despite the weakness in her body from the blast of power, she turned to Ainsley’s fallen form.

Red stained the snow around her. Juliette dropped to her knees, she gathered Ainsley in her arms. The tears she was so good at holding back were free falling now, coming easily, without problem. It was too late. She had tried so hard, she had come, she had thrown herself in front of the arrow. But her friend was there, dying in her arms. She couldn’t stop it. She felt helpless. “Please, come on Ainsley. Please. Just hold on,” she begged. “Jess will be here soon I’m sure. She’ll come after me after she hears. Just hold on. She’ll heal you.”

She had her doubts that Jess would make it in time. With her teary eyes, she could see Ainsley try to open her mouth to say something. No words came out. And then she felt her go still in her arms. It was like having the woman disintegrate in front of her. Her powers seemed to give her the ability to practically feel her soul pouring from her body.

Pressing her forehead to Ainsley’s, she sobbed quietly. “Come on, come back.” Yet she knew she couldn’t.

~~

Nikolai and Kennedy had cleared out rather quickly after they’d accomplished their goal. Juliette was a small fish, now that Ainsley was taken care of, they didn’t seem to have cared about Jules much. She swore one day she’d make them pay for what they’d done to Ainsley. She’d of loved to see them go up against someone who wouldn’t be so easily killed. She might not have been skilled, but she’d become their nightmare for what they’d done to her friend. The sister she’d never had.

Still hoping that maybe if she got Ainsley to Jess quickly enough, it might be enough time to bring her back, Jules decided to expand her wings and took off flying with Ainsley’s form in her arms. She wasn’t super strong by any means, and had to stop a lot to adjust to the odd weight of the woman’s form in her arms. There was no help from Ainsley’s body, it was dead weight.

Finally, she got to one of the portals she used when she was moving back and forth between earth and the Underworld. She was allowed through it, and just like that she was back in the Underworld, carrying Ainsley’s body to the common room where the friend’s often hung out, hoping to god the kids were all still with Vincent where they’d been when she got back.

Essyn was the first to see her there. Things were fairly blurry from there on. Maybe it the exhaustion with all the adrenaline leaving her, or the shock of what had happened. Things happened in a flurry. Suddenly everyone was there, someone took Ainsley’s body from her arms. Something she didn’t want, but she couldn’t fight much with the exhaustion. She heard the voices. Hear Essyn screaming at Jess to do something. She heard Vincent yelling back at the woman to calm down and let his wife work. She could hear sobbing. So much sadness. It was drowning her. She stumbled back against the wall, her blood covered form letting it hold her up. She wanted to sink down against it but couldn’t even find the strength to let her legs unlock.

“The arrow,” she heard Jess’ shaky voice. “It makes my entire body quiver. Dark magic, it’s meant to kill demons, I don’t know how.”

“How did they access such magic?” Vincent.

“I don’t care how she died! Bring her back!” Essyn.

“Maybe a spell,” Persephone.

It all blurred together. She knew they wouldn’t be able to manage it. She could feel it. Ainsley would be gone for good. Essyn would be left without someone she loved. Ainsley’s kids would be orphans. Jess, Persephone, even Christian would all have lost a friend. And she had lost someone who’d been like a sister to her. Someone who had become so important. What was she going to do?

“I have to get out of here,” she said, feeling nausea rise up in her stomach. She wasn’t sure anyone heard her. Or if they did they didn’t care. She couldn’t be bothered to think about it. She had to get away from it all, had to escape the aura of death and sadness that permeated the room. Jules forced her legs to move. They barely carried her out of the room and down the hallway before she had to stop and bend over, hurling any food she’d eaten up and onto some ornamental rug Jess had laid out for her hallway. She didn’t even care. When she’d emptied her stomach, she straightened up.

Starting down the hallway further, as far away as she could get from the room where Ainsley’s body was, she eventually found herself somewhat lost. She gave up trying to find her way out of the interconnecting hallways and slid down against the wall, curling her knees to her chest. It didn’t hit her all at once.

But it slowly crept in, the realization that Ainsley was gone. And as that hit her, so did the sadness. It was crippling. Unlike any other pain she felt. She wanted to scream, the curse the world for taking Ainsley out of it. But she knew it wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring her friend back, wouldn’t save her, wouldn’t bring her back from the dead or undo time. There was nothing. Not one thing she could do. Feeling entirely helpless, she grasped handfuls of her hair and sunk her face down in her lap, letting the tears that had built up fall freely.

~~

Juliette felt empty. Everything she did was robotic. Every move she made was mechanic and stiff. She was crushed, weighed down by the force of her grief. She felt like she would drown in it. Not even Haelyn could make her smile. While she still got up to take care of her every morning, she didn’t want to move at all. She wanted to stay in bed and mourn.

It was hard to be around any of the kids in the Underworld. So young and confused. Especially Ainsley’s kids. They looked like her, and they were constantly asking where their mother was. No one would tell them. It was hard to be around any of them, really. The adults too. They were sad, mourning for their friend that seemed to be gone completely. Not even Jess was sure she could bring her back.

Instead of dealing with them, she’d gone to the eroseelie realm and decided to stay on Soren’s little island. It wasn’t much better. Soren tried to offer some help, advice. But she just rebuked him, often meeting him with hostility whenever he even tried to brush the subject. She stayed in her room with Haelyn, and the time that she wasn’t with her, she was either sitting in silence in her room, or pouring over books to find a way to bring Ainsley back.

The redhead eventually found herself looking in a book about a creature that was rumored to have been banished to the eroseelie realm. After tricking several creatures into bargaining for their deepest desires only for the deals to kill them in the end, he was finally captured by the seelie Queen and sentenced to an eternal sentence within the walls of the prison realm. Interest peeked, Juliette decided to find more research.

She consumed it all, eventually figuring out how she might go about summoning him. It was a risk, but she knew it was one she would have to take if it meant getting her friend back. So she left the home that Soren had her staying in and made her way out of the island. She went by flight. It wasn’t too long, and eventually she found herself in the non-sheltered part of Vankila. She wouldn’t bring the trickster being to Soren’s Island. Wouldn’t risk letting it harm the people there.

It took a while to gather up the things she needed, and when the summoning was complete. She waited. She stood against a tree and tried to stay calm as possible, though every limb in her body was electrified by nervousness. Sure enough, he appeared. A little bit of alarm shook her when a form appeared in her, one that was the spitting image of Chris. She blinked a few times. “Chris?” She asked slowly, unsure if she could trust her own eyes.

“Try again, deary,” it sounded just like Chris. But different. She quickly realized that this was how it worked. Maybe the being didn’t have its own form. Or maybe its form was so ugly that it had to appear as something trusted. Immediately, she wiped the shock of her face, any sign of vulnerability.

“It must be boring I suppose, I take it you’re not finding many who fall for your tricks here,” she commented, trying to steel her voice.

A humorless chuckle left his lips. She didn’t let herself cringe at the way it sounded like Chris but not like him at the same time. “You are right, business isn’t exactly booming lately,” he remarked, tilting his head to the side and shaking. Then the blue eyes focused on her, blue eyes she’d looked into so many times, but colder this time. “Now you, you are something interesting. How on earth did you ever end up here?” He asked, stepping closer. His gaze made her feel stripped bare. Whatever he was, he seemed to know what she was. Or that she was something different. “Immortal, but not. Indestructible, practically, how delicious,” he said, a rather Cheshire grin forming on his lips. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can give you, is there?”

“I’m not like the ones you tricked before, I know what you want. You give me what I want and take my life so I never have the chance to enjoy it,” Juliette said, reciting it as if she was bored by such information.

“Well if you already know my tricks, why are you here?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I want to make a deal. You can have my life, my temporary immortality, whatever you want, but you have to bring my friend back,” she told him. She didn’t care about the consequences. She knew she would be gone, that she’d die, but she didn’t care. She had to save Ainsley, whatever it took to do that.

“Some people call it selfless, honorable, sacrificing one’s self for another. But after seeing thousands of people throw themselves at my feet to bring back their loved ones, I’ve learned it’s just stupidity,” he droned on.

“I didn’t come for your opinions. I came for a deal, unless you’re not interested of course, in which case I will find someone else to help me,” she responded, clenching her teeth. She was bluffing. She knew he was one of the few options she had unless she went into the belly of the beast and found out what kind of magic Nikolai had used on the weapons that had killed Ainsley.

“Don’t get so touchy little one. It’s a deal,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.

“I’ll meet you here at midnight,” she told him, nodding briefly once before turning to walk off. She knew he wouldn’t deny her, he was probably the type of creature that feasted on the lives he took. And he was probably ravenous. It was a theory, but it seemed to be proven right when he didn’t tell her that it had to be now.

~~

She didn’t have much time to get her affairs in order, but she had enough to at least write Soren a letter. Maybe it was cruel, to leave him in charge of everything, to leave it hanging on his head to tell the others. But surely it would only be a short term annoyance as opposed to having to spend the next few years married to her. She knew they had become more than just enemies. And she knew she could trust him. She knew he cared enough about Haelyn for the responsibility she was about to put on him.

Sitting at her desk, she started writing.

“Dear Soren,

I know this is a lot. I’m sorry to put this all on you. I don’t really know how to explain this to you, what I’m about to do. I guess it’s just easier to say that a few years ago, I shouldn’t have been brought back. When Freya killed me. I should have stayed dead. I was ready to go. I was tired. Learning that being an angel didn’t change things all that much, being a victim to Noah and the other demons. I was ready to go somewhere better.

I was marked by death then. And I’ve escaped it far too many times since. Each time I escape I feel more and more tired. But, more than that, for so long I didn’t feel I had a reason for being alive. I felt that being brought back was just pointless torture, and that being brought back was just someone’s idea of a cruel joke to make me suffer longer. It felt wrong, as if death had a hold on me and was telling me I did not belong in this world.

But then I found things. Things that gave me a reason to be alive. That showed me I was meant to be here. I helped Ainsley deliver her twins, helped bring Haelyn into this world and saved her from being abandoned to die by the horrid people of the asylum. I believe I was here for a reason. I had to do those things. But now there’s something else I have to do.

I have to save my friend. I swore when she named be godmother of her son, that I would protect him, protect his sister. I swore to those kids I would protect them from anything that might hurt them. But now they’re suffering a loss of unimaginable pain. Their mother is gone, and their father is gone. They are alone in this world. And there’s nothing anyone can do, besides me. I’m the only one who can do something to save them, and I have to protect them.

Staying here, it’s tempting almost. I want to be here, to see Haelyn’s adoption through. To make sure she goes to a good home, that she ends up in the right hand. I want to help bring peace and stop war between the eroseelie and the people of the Underworld. But I can’t. In a perfect world, maybe I would be fit to keep Haelyn, to be the mom she deserves. Maybe I wouldn’t be a ticking time bomb that’s going to devastate everyone around me when I die. But it’s not a perfect world.

With you, I’m entrusting Haelyn. I’ve seen that you are good with her. And as much as it pains me to trust anyone with her, I know I can trust you. I know you’ll make the right decision for her, that you’ll keep her safe. If you choose to give her to the parents I chose, I know it must be right. If you perhaps decide something else, if you look after herself, I believe you’ll do well.

You’re…not so bad after all Ikelos. I know we started out roughly. But I know there’s so much more underneath the façade of an arrogant asshole. Or well, there’s a heart in there somewhere. I know you would have done right by me, when we were wed. And I know you’re not the nightmare everyone says you are. I know you’re better than that. So, don’t make me regret trusting you. Goodbye Soren.

Jules.”

It was almost hard to say goodbye, even in the letter. Slowly, she closed the letter, writing his name on it. She carefully walked over the Haelyn’s crib and set the letter beside her. Leaning down, she kissed the baby on her forehead gently. “Goodbye,” she murmured gently. That one hurt. She knew if she stayed any longer she’d talk herself out of it. So instead, she headed off, making her way to the spot she said she’d meet the creature to.

It seemed like too short a journey to get there, but she knew she had a mission. She knew what she had to do. Soon enough, she arrived in the clearing and crossed her arms over her chest as she stood there. Her gaze flickered around briefly. Maybe the creature wasn’t going to show. She was anxious that he wouldn’t, and anxious that he would at the same time. Such a strange feeling.

“Have you said your goodbyes?” The voice took her by surprise. Immediately she turned on her heel, whipping in the direction of the voice.

“Yes, I have,” she said, trying to keep the sneer out of her voice.

“Why bother? Why not just let the dead stay dead?” The creature asked. For once, not mean and malicious, but curious, as if it couldn’t grasp the concept.

Usually, she’d shoot a snipe. But since she was about to die, she supposed there was no point in wrapping herself in the cover that was the hard façade. “Because that’s what you do for people you love, you make any sacrifice you have to in order to keep them safe.”

The creature seemed to ponder that for a moment. As if it was genuinely trying to grasp the concept. “Alright deary, are you ready?” It asked.

“Yes,” she said. She wasn’t, but she told herself she had to be. It was time. It was her time. It had been her time for a while. She had cheated death too many times. The pain was dim at first, like something was being pulled from her. Something small at first. But then it felt as if she was in the middle of a game of tug a war. Her body didn’t want to let go of whatever was being pulled from her.

She winced, trying not to show weakness in those final moments. But it was brutal, maybe even more so than her banshee visions.

“Since you won’t be telling anyone, I’ll share a secret,” the creature said, approaching her. Each step it took, the pain seemed to get stronger in her body. She winced a little. The creature looked so much like Chris that for a moment, she wanted to hold onto it. She knew the difference though. “I have seen so many people march to their deaths for those they love. And I wonder what it is to love and be loved enough to make such a sacrifice.”

The pain was overwhelming, but it was bringing her to hysterics almost. She wanted to laugh a little at such a strange confession. Soon though, the pain stopped, and then there was nothing. Only blackness.

Juliette Solo XII

Trigger Warnings: Smut.

Juliette found a certain amusement in the irony of reading a book based on a mortals ideas of the fae realms. Ever since she’d become exposed to the world of the supernatural in something much further than just having an open mind, she found herself much more amused by what mortals believed certain creatures to be.

It was only recently that she’d started truly reading again. After Freya had killed her and she’d been isolated, she’d lost a great deal of will to do anything. To get up in the morning, to eat, to talk to people, to live really. Something she’d always loved before the unfortunate incidents was reading. It didn’t matter what the book was. Fiction, real-life recounts, romance, informational, she’d read just about anything she could get her hands on. It had taken letting go of some of the guilt, and the pain and the rage to finally start doing things she enjoyed again.

Laying on her stomach, sprawled across the bed Soren called his own in the Underworld without a care in the world, she read through her book, enjoying her sweet irony. The redhead was fairly engrossed, the book series was far better than most happened to be. It didn’t follow the same beat and track of most books in the way that it was filled with more unique twists, and lacked the unfortunate favoritism towards a typical misogynistic tale of supposed love.

Pouring over the pages and taking in each word, she barely noticed it when Soren entered. There was a distinct energy about him, but they’d both figured out rather quickly that the powers he and his kind carried rolled off of her like water droplets. The burning desire that usually effected those he was around didn’t seem to carry with her. It was if she could feel it, feel the distinct way the energy felt, but without the adverse effects. The distraction of her book kept her immersed in that.

Months ago, she might have jumped when he had entered, stood at attention and watched him as if he was a dangerous wild animal that might very well attack at any second. Now, his presence offered more than just fear. It brought her some excitement, some joy even, something she wasn’t even sure she would feel after things had ended with Chris. There was still the bordering concern and worry, the need to slam down her walls and hide from the world to avoid being hurt, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before.

“I know that my charms don’t exactly work on you but is adding insult to injury by completely ignoring my presence entirely necessary?” His slightly accented words filled her ears, and a look of slight amusement crossed over her lips.

“Who is to say I wasn’t just waiting to greet you. Maybe I was going to bow or curtsy to you to honor your royal highness,” her words were dripping with sarcastic venom, each one arriving one after another with the intended amount of attitude.

She’d made it quite clear from the beginning she wasn’t exactly the type to bow or curtsy, and the sarcastic venom was just added to ensure the fact she was mocking him got across. Despite the feelings that might have emerged, her smart mouth was still more than active, and quick to attack in more cases than one. It often got her a glare or two, but she was at least somewhat grateful that he was able to keep up with her. She wasn’t sure she could properly respect anyone who wasn’t able to.

A little surprise hit her when she felt a wave of power. Different from the one brought by his presence. No, oddly enough this wave of power that hit her was direct, stronger. There was no effect, but she could feel the directed energy. It was rather convenient being immune to the powers. It meant she wasn’t constantly having to worry about being driven to insanity via lust when she was in his world, and he didn’t always have to mute his powers around her.

“You know, if that’s the only card you have in your deck to get a woman’s attention, your seduction skills need some serious works,” she remarked, an amused smirk raising on her lips, though she kept something of an attention on her book. “You eroseelie must get so incredibly lazy that you probably wouldn’t even know what to do if I gave you a map to seduce me,” the words were easy, though there was a range of flirtation in her words that didn’t usually accompany her sharp tongue.

She was certain she could practically here Soren bristling at her taunts, huffing like an insulted child. “I don’t need a map,” he stated the words with a rather comfortable ease, though there was a smug tone in his voice when he spoke.

“I’d say you would need more than a map. You’d probably need a map, detailed instructions and some form of tech support,” she grinned widely at her remark, furthering on with her taunts.

“Are you sure about that?” He asked, and she could tell just by knowing him that his brow was raised.

“Oh I’m certain,” she wasn’t sure what had come over her, but she suddenly recognized that it was a challenge of sorts. She was challenging him, taunting him, seeing what he would do. She wondered if it would be anything but berate her for her smart mouth.

Making her focus on the book and not their back and forth, purely to be stubborn and get under his skin further, she kept reading, even as she heard his footsteps approaching. She didn’t look up, didn’t spare a glance, continued to make it look as if she was more interested in reading her book than in looking up at him. Juliette felt his hand brush against her skin, rather lightly against her shoulder. His touch was feather light, as if his hand was trained on something else. His fingers hooked into the strands of red hair that were hanging down, pulling them back and bringing her massy of fiery locks over one shoulder. She wasn’t exactly sure what the purpose was.

“You know, I quite enjoy your hair,” she heard his words, low, husky in a way. She felt his body moving closer, felt the warmth of his body radiating off of him. It was a nice contrast to the cold her body seemed to generate. She was cold all the time. A side effect of being technically dead she supposed. His breath was warm against her neck as he leaned in close, lightly brushing his lips up along from the base of her throat to behind her ear, causing shivers to brush through her spine. “It’s a shame that damn smart mouth of yours is always running,” he remarked. There wasn’t much acid in his tone, mostly just that lust, that husky tone to it.

Juliette bit down on her lip, but made it her soul purpose not to react, to pretend as if her one and only interest was the book in front of her, even though the trailing of his lips along her neck had certainly caught her attention, spiking more than just her awareness. The book was rather suddenly very uninteresting to her. In fact most of her attention was focused on him, hovering over her. He paused, likely measuring for a reaction, but she could still feel the warmth of his breath against her throat.

When they didn’t find a reaction, they started moving, trailing back down the pattern they’d traced, only this time with open mouthed kisses, ones that also sparked her arousal. It was a struggle with her body not to make a whimper, not to make a sound of some sort, or tilt her head to the side so he could access the sensitive flesh better. She stayed focused on her book, even though she was barely reading the words in the moment. Every nerve ending seemed to awaken, becoming electrified by each kiss he left.

With what seemed to be a rather quick movement, his body was on hers, pressing against hers, radiating that wonderful heat, but not holding too much weight on her. Blessed supernatural speed she supposed. It certainly had its perks. She tried to remain as still as possible, as if she didn’t notice at all that he was on top of her. It only seemed to make him more determined to get attention away from the book. His lips trailed down over her back, as far down as the top she wore would reach. Nothing more than a thin tank top.

The kisses were primarily down along her spine, something almost as sensitive as her neck. She was focused on keeping her breathing even, on trying to tame the arousal that was starting to pool at the apex of her thighs. Knowing whatever powers it was he had, he could probably sense it off her from a mile away. It wouldn’t have surprised her in the slightest. That was likely in his range of powers.

His hands reached up, hooking into the back of her shirt, gripping the material. One quick rip had the thing tearing right in half. It left her back was exposed, but the nearby heat of his body guarded her from a great deal of any cold she might feel from it. She bit her lip, trying desperately to at least look at the book instead of focus on the lust that had come about her. She was barely even reading the words. She was just seeing them, not taking anything in about them. Her awareness, her focus was on him.

His lips were on her skin again, trailing over her back with those open mouthed calculated kisses along her spine, hitting for the most sensitive place, bringing shivers through her body. She closed her eyes, refusing to give in any more. No movements, no sounds. There was no way she would give up her stubborn little act, at least not yet.

She was pretty resolved until his lips went off course, tracing along her back, and then up towards her shoulder blades. She didn’t know what he was gunning for until he had made contact. This time his careful kisses were making contact with the all too sensitive wing slits. The open mouthed kisses, his tongue brushing along the sensitive part of her back, she was taken aback by the pleasure it brought. A moan escaped her before she could stop it, and she could feel the smirk curling on his lips against her skin.

Jules wasn’t sure if she was ready to give up or not, even though she had a feeling in his mind he had already won the battle. The redhead started to close her book, more than ready to put it aside and focus on everything he was doing to her. She had lost her ability to properly think about it, to focus on it. All she wanted was him, her mind was consumed by her lust and need for him.

“Don’t,” he said rather quickly, the words taking her by surprise.

“What?” She said, her words coming out in more of a rushed breath.

“Open your book,” he said, his words confusing her more than before.

“What?” She asked, surprise in her tone. She wasn’t quite sure about what he was saying, if she had heard him right.

“I said,” he placed a kiss right above the wing slit on her back, his hands trailing down over her exposed sides, earning a little shiver from her, “open your book.”

Slowly and uncertainly, she opened the book, not quite sure what he had in mind for her. She bit her bottom lip, her attention somewhat drawn away from the lust she had seemingly be drowning in moments ago. It wasn’t all there, but there was some attention drawn by her curiosity.

“Read to me,” he murmured, another of those traced of open mouthed kisses attacking her wing slit, the other one this time. She moaned out rather quickly, not quite holding back the sound even though her confusion was still there. She definitely wasn’t going to deny the fact that his request was strange. His kisses broke off rather quickly. “Read, the line you left off on,” he told her, the words a command.

Juliette looked down at her book and started reading from where she left off. “Good. I said. A bit of hollowed-out air pushed against me, like a flicker of night,” she read the words out, though her voice was somewhat shaky as his lips started trailing down once more. They were on her spine again. She was starting to put it together rather quickly, the difficulty she would have with her reading while was distracting her, using his seduction. Proving how hard it was to focus on the book.

His lips were trailing lower, moving down along her spine more. She bit down on her lower lip slightly, trying her best to focus on the book. “That power along my bones and blood stirred an answer,” more shaky.

His kisses stopped where the simple skirt started. His hands gently lifted her skirt, pushing it up to expose the panties she wore under it. She nipped her lip but quickly released it. When his fingers hooked into the hem of her simple panties and started tugging them down, she tried not to think about how much she was aching to be touched where he had decided to leave her body exposed.

“I made to jump off the stone, but he gripped my chin, the movement too fast to detect. His words were a lethal caress as he said, did you enjoy me kneeling before you?” Her mind was on one track, because she wasn’t thinking about the character, she was thinking of Soren on her knees in front of her, his mouth between her legs, leaving kisses like they had on her wing slits.

Soren’s hands were on her hips, tugging them up slightly. She quickly shifted the weight onto her knees, adjusting to the new position rather quickly, knowing exactly what it made more available to him. “Keep reading,” his words were a warning, as if he might deprive her of what she wanted if she were to stop her words.

“I knew he could hear my heart as it ratcheted into a thunderous beat. I gave him a hateful little smirk, anyway, yanking my chin out of his touch and leaping off th-,” her words were cut off rather suddenly, by a loud moan as his mouth made contact where she’d been desperately hoping for, where she’d been thinking of only moments ago. It felt…better than she imagined, but it hardly satisfied the aching. That one slow lick between the folds of her sex. The trace of his warm mouth along her center, the feeling of his skilled tongue pressing more against her clit as it brushed by.

Juliette tried her best to regain some focus on the book, remembering what his words seemed to threaten, that he’d stop if she did. And she didn’t want him to stop now. She was certain she would lose it if she did. She was certain she would lose her mind properly if he didn’t satisfy her needs now, if he didn’t give her what she craved, what she was throbbing for.

“-Off the stone,” she didn’t even get to another sentence before the moaning had her words distorted all over again. His skilled mouth was going to work on her, taking those long languid licks along her center, making her legs quiver each time his tongue brushed along her sensitive bud of nerves. Her hands gripped onto the pillow in front of her. “I-I,” the words were shaky at best, she was barely getting them out. Moans and whimpers were hard to avoid with the calculated use of his mouth between her legs. “I might have aimed,” she managed to get the words out in a rush.

Soon it became a challenge for him, she could tell. Every time she managed to get out a few words, conquer some control over her moaning, he’d make it his goal to have her moaning. He’d make it his goal to overwhelm her with pleasure. She didn’t even take stock of what she was reading. She was trying desperately to get enough control of herself so she could still manage the lines.

As soon as she managed to get through that paragraph, his tongue dove into her core, making quick skilled assaults on the walls of her core. Moan after moan left her lips, and she was barely managing to get through the one sentence she was on in the book. Every word was broken by a moan, she’d trail off for seconds, then find her way back to where she’d been before by some miracle, reading out the words.

She could feel it, building inside of herself. Feel the heat knotting in her lower stomach. There was a tension in her body. Her walls were tightening, clenching. Her back had arched, raising her hips higher off the bed, and the words were almost completely lost, just broken pieces. It was only a matter of seconds before she became lost in a powerful climax. She found a new height of pleasure with each wave of the climax that hit her. His tongue worked her center for each and every second, undoubtedly dragging out that climax. Finally, when she had ridden out each and every second of her climax, she relaxed against the bed. Soren withdrew rather carefully, kissing back over her spine.

His hands gripped her hips once more, quickly flipping her onto her back. The redhead’s green eyes looked up at him, still a little dazed by lust. “Good girl,” he remarked, the tone was husky, more so than before.

Juliette reached up, quickly pushing her book aside as she looked up to meet his eyes, her teeth nipping her lips. “I think that’s the most fun reading I’ve ever had,” she remarked rather carefully, her breathing still left rather ragged from the powerful orgasm.

“Still think I’m incapable of seduction?” He asked her, a somewhat smug smirk resting on his lips.

“I don’t know, last I checked I haven’t given in to much yet,” she remarked, challenging him once more, trying to even the playing field for the fact he’d had her in his complete and utter control.

“Well, the night’s still young,” with that, he leaned in, his lips meeting hers. She eagerly met the kiss, the taste of her still resting on them.

Juliette Solo XI

Trigger Warnings: Death, child abandonment, hints at death of a child, birthing complications, gore.

Juliette was in a worse mood than usual. Christmas was coming up. And her mind was poisoned with the memories of a happier time, when she was surrounded by her family on Christmas day. When she would get to see their faces at the gifts she’d given them, or the excitement of opening her own. Then there was Church on Christmas Eve, even though now she’d resented the entire idea of it, she’d still be surrounded by people she had cared about there. She could remember working with the toy drive to give less fortunate kids presents on Christmas Day. There had been something rewarding about it. And now there was nothing.

There was no joy, no feeling of fulfillment, just emptiness. The same as last year, and the year before that. It seemed she was always empty these days. She’d forgiven herself, or tried to. But the pain wasn’t gone. The pain was always there, lingering and lurking, waiting to drown her. She was barely staying afloat. And nobody realized really. Nobody was willing to listen. It was better that way. It was better for her. And it was better for them. Nobody needed to feel the weight of her sorrow, and she didn’t need anyone.

It was rather late. That was the only time she really went out. She should have been a vampire, it was fitting. She was never out in the day. She didn’t like it. There were too many people out then. Too many people hustling and bustling about, open to run into. The last she needed was any unnecessary touching, any people’s deaths to feel. She had enough misery as it was without piling on even more.

The redhead was only stepping out for a bit of fresh air, she needed it. She’d been mostly taking advantage of the fact Noah had been occupied in another room with his wife to be and actually spending time in her own room instead of making herself scarce like she would every time that he was there. She didn’t like to admit it, but he still scared her, putting her on edge more so than she usually was.

Juliette made her way down the hall of her dorm. She was heading towards the middle of the building, there was an exit at the back she would usually take. Back when she’d been going to meet Chris. Naturally that had changed considering his avoiding her, and apparent interest in Nicole that the rumors seemed to be floating about. But she still knew the exit well, as a place not many people used.

The hallway was barren and empty, and she assumed the inhabitants were all sound asleep. It was in the early hours of the morning anyway. That was how she liked it. The less people she ran into the better. Reaching out, she pressed her hands against the metal bar on the door, pushing open the door and starting to step through it. Then it happened. A hand gripped her arm and the vision shook her.

--

She was so tired.

There was a dull aching agony between her legs. She wasn’t sure what it was. There was relief. It wasn’t as bad as it had been a few moments ago. It was like it was further away. Like she was further away. There was peace in that. She felt like she was drifting off. Maybe she was going to sleep. The pain faded further and further, drifting away.

She was so tired. It reminded her of the surgery she’d had when she was child, and the drugs they’d given her so she would sleep during it. Like she was underwater, like all of her limbs were being dragged down, and there was a rolling drowsiness in her mind that prevented her from thinking completely. Safety, there was worry there too. Had to protect her. Had to protect her.

Her dry lips parted. “Have to…keep safe,” a broken whisper came out. The sound was rough, and her throat was scratchy as she spoke, like she needed some water. The voice wasn’t hers. No, it had to be hers. The vision. It was the vision.

All of her energy was gone and she fought to separate herself from the vision. But she couldn’t. Under and under she was being pulled. So tired. She was so tired. She needed to sleep. She blinked a few times, trying to see. Her vision was too blurry. There was nothing but vague shapes. The sound of crying, screeching.

“No no no!” that was her voice. Her voice. But not. Vision. Vision. This wasn’t her. It felt like her though.

So tired. She was pulled into the vision once more. Pulled into her exhaustion. She thought she felt her eyes shut, it didn’t matter. The world faded to black, and she drifted off into a sleep she hadn’t known would be eternal.

--

Juliette came out of it with a shock, and for a moment dysphoria had her. She felt like herself again, and there was no arguing now that it had not been her dying. Just like the other times, it had felt so real. Vividly real. Just as real as her own deaths had. Something new to add to the list. There was confusion too, more than just trying to figure out who she was.

“You’ve got to help me,” she heard the words spoken, they’d been her words a moment ago. She shook her head, forcing herself back into reality by digging her nails into her skin. It helped, the pain reminded her of who she was, that she wasn’t all the visions she had gone through. Rather harshly, she yanked her arm back. There was a female in front of her. And at firs the dysphoria left over from the vision kept her from fully understanding the situation. All she knew was she wanted out of the touch.

She could see now through her green optics that even the harsh yank of her arm free of the grip set the woman stumbling. And then she felt the urge to seek out why she was so weak. That was how she saw it. The woman’s stomach was bulging, rounded. And it wasn’t because she’d over eaten or had intentions of dressing like Santa Claus. It was because the woman was pregnant. Her friend Ainsley had been pregnant.

Juliette felt immediate discomfort and more confusion. Why would the woman want her? Why would anyone want help from her? She didn’t recognize her. Not her features at least. But she recognized her voice only from the vision. Her voice wasn’t quite so cracked, but it was weak. And she could tell by the way the woman had stumbled she was weak too.

“Why me? Can’t you just go to the infirmary?” Maybe it was mean. But Juliette was uncomfortable. Especially if the woman knew her. Even if she was confusing her for Millie, neither of the twin sisters were ones to approach for help.

“Won’t make it,” the voice was broken and the woman hunched over, releasing a cry of pain. Juliette was beginning to panic, her heartbeat picking up in her chest, adrenaline flooding her veins. Oddly enough, concern too, for the woman in front of her. Juliette stepped forward, gripping one of the woman’s arms, trying to tug her off in the direction of Juliette’s room. More cries of pain told Juliette they wouldn’t make it that far. This woman was too far. Whatever was happening, this baby was coming now, in the next few minutes.

Juliette switched pathways, trying to bring her off into the stairway. She managed to half pull and half lift the woman off into the stairway. At least there was a door between them and the rest of the dorm hallway. The last thing she needed was to try and fend off supernatural creatures who would likely be the type to kill the woman before she could even deliver.

As soon as they got there, the woman’s legs gave from underneath her. Juliette caught her as much as she could, feeling an instant protest from her own upper arms and back. She cried out briefly, but quickly got back into gear, trying to let the woman lay back down against the floor as slowly as possible. “Alright, alright,” she said, panic overcoming her. She’d done this once before, but it didn’t mean it had been easy for her. This woman was a complete stranger. She doubted she’d be happy with Jules if she messed up somehow. Taking a few deep breaths, Juliette tried to bring herself about to a clinical mindset, convince herself that everything was okay. “Just stay calm,” she wanted to slap herself. Stay calm. What a moronic suggestion. Maybe it was a better one for herself.

Another cry of pain from the woman filled her ears, and she didn’t waste much more time. This was no time for her to start freaking out. Though the panic rising in her seemed to disagree. Juliette put work to getting the pants off the woman. She seemed to be trying to help, but she quickly smacked her hands away knowing she was only hindering the situation. It’d been one thing doing this for a friend, but for a complete stranger, it was rather uncomfortable. It gave the panic another peg to rise up on. She forced herself to breathe deeply, reminding herself the woman needed the help. Once she discarded the lower layers of clothing, she tried to remember what she did for Ainsley, hoping her hands would fall into some sort of muscle memory. Blood stained flesh that should have been lighter in color, marking it with a wet crimson. Had there been that much blood before?

There was something already there, a part. Juliette thought it was the head at first. That was what it appeared to be. Then she quickly realize. It was the baby’s bum. The panic rose in her and she heard herself breathing out more heavily. It felt like there was no air in the room, like it’d all been gone. She was gasping. “Breech! Its breech what do I do?” She was shaking. She felt like resuming to the corner and curling up. She tried to force through the breaths, but her lungs weren’t agreeing with her attempts to breathe at all.

“Get her out!” The voice practically screamed at her. It didn’t help the panic much, tears form in her eyes. She knew she had to do this. But how. She never had before. She’d never done anything like this before. For a split second, she lost it. Her hands pressed on her ears as she tried to calm herself, tried to force calm into her body. Hot tears of panic, confusion and guilt spilled over her face, her usual insecurities slipping through to tell her what a mess up she was.

The scream broke through her body shutting down. It was one of pain, another one. More blood. There was so much blood. Juliette forced herself to maintain some sort of calm. Any kind of it. It wasn’t easy, not even a little bit easy. The redhead forced her lungs to work, forced air to calm out in something besides the tiny and rushed pants that had been escaping her.

She tried to remember anything she’d learned in school about breech births. There was nothing. Especially not a step by step guide for delivering the baby. But she tried to do what she did for Ainsley, forcing her shaking hands to wait, wait for the baby to come through, occasionally pushing and apply her own pressure to try and aid it.

“You have to push,” Juliette said, though her voice was shaky and distorted, like she didn’t know if she was entirely right about that. The baby had to come out, but would pushing damage the infant somehow. She didn’t know. She just knew she had to try and get through this, get herself and the baby and the mother through this alive. She grabbed the woman’s pants, knowing it was the best bet she had to a blanket of some sort to try and cover up the baby with when it was there.

The woman’s screams and pants filled the room, accompanied by the sound of Juliette’s heavy gasps for breath. She kept trying to whisper encouragements, but it didn’t work much. There was so much blood. More of the baby presented itself. The small body was curled up, with a pale unhealthy hue. She didn’t like that. Once more she had to force herself not to panic more than she already was. Finally the baby was out, and through her teary blurred vision she could see something, murky, vaguely blue shaded color of the baby’s umbilical cord was wrapped around the child’s neck. Her hands were moving as quickly as possible, and she quickly unwrapped the cord from the child’s neck.

She wrapped the pants legs somewhat awkwardly around the small infant, avoiding contact with its skin as much as possible. The last thing she needed was a vision. “Come on, come on,” she said to the infant, her voice not quite her own, filled to the depths with panic. All she needed to hear was the cry. The cry that would show the infant was alive, that it was okay.

A throaty screech echoed through the room, the tiny mouth of the infant opening to release it. She breathed out in relief, carefully setting the infant down. That was when she saw it, all over the ground. The crimson shaded the floor, in something of a pool beneath the woman. There shouldn’t be this much blood. There hadn’t been this much when Ainsley had given birth.

She quickly grabbed for her quarter sleeved cardigan, yanking it off her body and trying to press it against the woman’s body. “There’s too much!” She exclaimed, her voice shaking just about as her own hands were. The sound of the infant crying accompanied her own panicked breaths being drawn in all over again. “It won’t,” the warm crimson was easily seeping through the material, her words were cut off by a hiccupping sob. “It won’t stop, it has to stop!” Panic was completely grasping her now, and even as she tried to stop the bleeding with the material, it wasn’t working. It kept coming. The blood soaked through the white material of her cardigan.

“Have to…keep safe,” this was it. Juliette’s veins ran with ice as soon as she heard it. Her vision, it was her vision.

“No no no!” Juliette practically screamed it, desperately trying to press the cardigan there. Hot tears spilled over her face. The woman couldn’t die. She couldn’t. Yet she knew her vision couldn’t have been wrong. They never were.

“Come on, you have to stay alive! Your baby needs you!” She was screaming at the woman, as if it would shake her out of it. Through her blurry vision, she could see the woman’s head tipping to the side as her body stilled.

Juliette shifted, crawling to the woman’s side. She gripped her shoulders and started shaking her. “Wake up!” She said, not screaming this time. She kept shaking her, kept telling her to wake up. “Come on! Wake up, please wake up,” she begged and pleaded, as if she could reason with the woman who was now nothing more than a corpse. Her voice eventually rose to a scream, but there was no response. No response other than the silence from the woman and the squealing from the child.

Juliette half crawled back to the child. Her shaking hands shifted under the child as she lifted her a little. It was nothing more than a little brush of her skin on the baby’s, but she was rolled into a vision once more.

--

Nothing made sense.

It was all jumbled. There was so much pain. It hurt so much. It was agonizing, blinding. All she could feel was the pain. She felt smaller, as if she had shrunken somehow. It was a vision. That was what reminded her it was a vision, the fact she could feel how tiny her body was. Her throat hurt too. Screaming. She’d been screaming for hours with no answer.

It was so cold. Something was cold against her back. Only her back was small. All of her was small. There was an entire blur of dysphoria, confusion in her own body, uncertainty of who or what she was. All she knew was she needed something. Something she wasn’t getting.

The pain persisted. She cried harder. Not her. It was the baby. The vision. She seemed to be pulled back down, eclipsed in the pain. The pain rolled through her, accompanied by a weakness in her entire body. She wasn’t sure how long it took, but soon the darkness rolled over her, rushed her and flooded through her. It pulled her down, wrapping her in its embrace.

--

She flooded back into her reality. Suddenly realizing where she was. Once more confusion and dysphoria hit her. Too many visions. Too many versions of herself. Not herself. She had to keep reminding her it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. Slowly, she started to realize where she was again. There was a weight in her arms. A baby. She glanced down, blinking through blurred eyes as she slowly remembered why her vision was so blurry. She’d been crying.

It took her another few moments to remember the entire situation. Slowly she curled the child to her chest as far as she could with the umbilical cord. She shifted closer to the body, rocking the child gently as she desperately tried to sooth the crying infant, as well as herself. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” she cooed, her voice thick with sadness. She knew it wasn’t. This baby was an orphan.

Her vision was beginning to make sense though. She started to understand. The child was going to die of something in its tiny helpless state. She wasn’t sure how, there would be cold. Someone would abandon it, likely the doctors or whoever found it if she left it here. She couldn’t let it happen. She’d already failed the mother, failed the baby in a way too by failing to bring her mother through the situation alive.

“We’ll be okay, I got you,” she whispered to the infant, rocking both her and the child back and forth as she spoke.

Juliette Solo X

Inspiration: Weekly Solo Prompt ⤞ ❝I will set my soul on fire, what have I become? I’m sorry.❞

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of death and suicide.

Juliette wasn’t entirely sure where to begin. Throwing the walls of cold hard stone up had seemed like such a good idea at time. At first, the layer had been so thin. Like a fragment of the stones she’d once been able to see near her doorstep. Shale rocks her mother had told her. Then another layer. And another. They kept going one by one. Fueled by each goodbye. Fueled by each drop of respect that refused to drip. Fueled by the mourning of a life she could never have. Fueled by those cursed of visions of death. Yet the greatest goodbye, was the one she’d never gotten to say. The greatest respect she’d lost was that for herself. And the darkest period of mourning was for the person she had lost. And in all the cursed visions of death, she’d never seen the one death that had happened so long ago, the death of who she had been. And each layer, well they were meant to hide the truth of who she’d been, and who’d she’d become.

Beneath all those layers of her castle made of stone, she’d forgotten what it was like to be truly honest. It wasn’t unlike her to spout the truth of her opinions on things like politics, on the pathetic dramas that ran rampant through the asylum walls, on the people who’d left her behind. But she’d only realized such a short time ago that the true honesty was buried underneath layer upon layer of sediment and compacted dirt. How she felt, underneath the guise of depression and rage at the world, at herself, was a concept she’d long forgotten how to speak of. Even when it’d come down to it, in the midst of a world of passion, of blinding intensity, of raw feeling, and genuine emotion, she had barely been able to formulate words that had once come so easy to her.

Slowly, the troubled redhead carefully picked up her pen. She’d written plenty of times, scribbling things down for school, so she could remember what she was thinking. But this was different. This writing was the thing she feared so much within her isolated castle, it was honesty. It was a goodbye. It was mourning. It was death. She closed her eyes, the eyes that sometimes appeared green in the light, other times an almost golden brown color, trying to get a grasp on something she was sure she’d lost: her humanity. Once more, in an action driven purely by willpower and gathered strength, she opened them and pressed her pen to the paper.

“Dear Mom and Dad,

It’s been…over a year since I’ve spoken to you last, since I’ve gotten to hear your voices. It’s funny, they say that’s the first thing to go, the voices. But those are the things that haunt me the most on many days. The voices of those who’ve hurt me, the voices of those who once loved me, the voices of those I loved back. I remember them so clearly. I remember the way you tried to smother the southern accent that you got from being raised by Grandpa, mom. I remember how when you were really mad, or really emotional a slip of the old country slang would kick in. I remember how embarrassed you used to be when it did. And dad, I remember the way your voice kind of rumbled when you spoke. It reminded me of thunder, deep and booming. Even though you were never angry. You never yelled, never lost your temper with me, which is a miracle, because the truth is I’ve lost my temper with myself. I miss those voices. In my teenage years, I remember hearing those voices sometimes and in the shrouded walls I’d thrown up to protect you from who I was, I’d feel like I was tired of them. Now that I know I will likely only ever have the memory of them, and that one day that memory will fade, you can say I’ve arrived at an epiphany, because I regret every moment I took those voices for granted.

I don’t know how to properly explain why I left you. I don’t know how to put it into words. But I’m going to try. I owe you that much, I owe myself that much. The truth is, you were always right. I had something…I’m not sure if it was bigger. But there was something else there for me. Angels and demons, two sides of the same coin, yet I ended up stuck somewhere in between. I wasn’t myself, before I left. I wasn’t who I’d been. I wasn’t the daughter you knew. I was lost so far within myself that I couldn’t look past it. I didn’t realize how truly blind I had been until now, in which I feel like my vision is still impaired, but at least I can see some things I’ve never seen before. They say I was destined for light, yet somehow darkness had me in its grips. I guess it was part of the weight of what I would become, and part of the aching sadness that came with the self-sentenced isolation.

It hurt so much some days. It hurt to breathe. I was always waiting for tomorrow. I didn’t even realize what was happening in that day. It was all I could think about, becoming an angel. I didn’t realize what I had. I didn’t realize that one day the memories of who you were would slip away from me. I was so eager, that I numbed that part of myself that knew better. So when he came to me, when he offered me the chance at the life I lusted for, I took it. I grabbed it and barely thought twice about the consequences. I guess a part of me knew, that either way I would finally be free. Not from my life, from the people who’d been with me throughout, but from myself.

And then I woke up, and I was not free at all. I was swamped with responsibilities. I was an heir apparent to a throne I knew nothing about. And I was instilled with this deep-rooted fear of the person who’d goaded me into what I thought and prayed would be escape. But the truth was it wasn’t escape. It was just a new prison, with gilded bars and not a drop more clarity than I’d had before. And as much as I’ve tried so hard to cling to that person, because once everyone had told me that was exactly who I had to be, that’s not who I am. That person is an out of reach dream, and in the end it is intended for far better than me.

The fear only got worse. Fear that I was misleading people, fear of this tumultuous new world that I knew about as well as I knew myself, fear of loss, fear of the darkness that was not just inside myself, but projected into those outside of me. It was paralyzing. Even when I was not backed into a corner physically, I felt so hard pressed that sometimes it felt like my very skin was too tight. I kept trying, for him, for Nathan, to make him happy, to make him proud. I kept trying for them, my angels, to protect them, to give them a leader they could support, that they could look up to, and rely on as someone who would always be there. I kept trying for me, because maybe, just maybe if I had to admit that all this trying, all the marks of destiny could not hide the one truth that I knew: this was not me.

I’ve seen death over and over. I’ve seen blood flow. I’ve felt my own flow, watched the life pour out of me. More memories that haunt me every day. It is one thing to feel in control of your own fate, but to know it is completely controlled by another person? Maddening. And now I fear I am mad, because those that have taken my fate in their own hands so many times have shaped my dreams into nightmares, a constant repetitive of all the times I failed. Finally, my body gave up. I think it was because a part of me gave up too.

Maybe it was all the failure. The fact that no matter how hard I tried to be this person, I couldn’t make it so. I had failed him. I failed my angels. I failed you, because in the end I was weak. I failed myself, and I do every day because I am still weak. And finally it was too much. There is only so much a soul can take before it crumbles, before the very thing that fills our bodies with vitality crumbles. And mine had enough. I was ready to give up, to be where I’d meant to be in the first place. Surely, this was what I deserved. In my mission of telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, most days I still wake up and wonder if it’s what I deserve. But there’s been chips, the smallest of chips in those rock walls, and they’ve granted me the clarity I’ve always sought after.

There was a new normal for me. That became death. It became constant visions of not just my own repetitive, plaguing nightmares, but the visions of others. I had once relied so much on those I’d touched in my life, and those who had touched me, but now each time physical contact was made, I recoiled, stricken with violent, or sad images. This was just the lead up to one of the many more walls. I couldn’t handle watching so many people die like I had, I couldn’t handle pioneering their fates when all my life I’d only wanted to know my own. I couldn’t handle the way people looked at the scar on my neck when they saw me, or the pitiful looks in their eyes when they realized I’d become nothing. And so I wanted everyone to forget.

I thought that maybe, since I’d lived my whole life relying so heavily on the decisions of others, that if they’d forgotten me, I would forget the stranger I’d become when I looked in the mirror. I wouldn’t have to see the ugly scar, or the obsidian wings I hid so deeply beneath my skin. I would see maybe who I’d been before, or who’d I’d been trying to be. It didn’t work of course. Because while everyone else had left me behind, I still had to deal with how utterly empty I felt knowing how easy it’d been for people to let go of me. I still had to deal with how much I hated this person in the mirror, and the person who lurked beneath my skin.

And another wall went up. They kept going. And as I started to recognize this new, miserable face in the mirror with the dead blank eyes, I realized that the person beneath my skin was gone. I had been twisted by others, by fate itself, but most importantly by myself in this desperate search to know who I’d been, who I was, who I was meant to be and who I am. The walls were so strong sometimes they could shield me from this too, from me.

I’ve always tried to be something else for other people. First it was wanting to be important, for the fates themselves. And yet this greeted me with death. Then it was wanting to be kind, and courteous and graceful and wise for my angels and for Nathan. This too resulted in another death. Then it was wanting to be so dark, and so repulsive that people would not touch me. I played the offense, because playing the defense had become exhausting. Death gripped me. And finally I gave up. I stopped playing. And yet my life was still taunted, forced on the line of death. Here I am, stuck in these walls, with scant chipped holes of brightness and clarity, I’m starting to wonder if that is exactly what I’m supposed to walk: the line between life and death.

On one hand, I feel guilty. I feel guilty for those I’ve left, I feel guilty for those I’ve hurt, I’ve feel guilty because I killed a person, I killed myself. Yet, on the other, I do not. The person I was, was a liar. Because I’ve learned that sometimes kindness is a lie too. Perhaps truth shaded in anger is not the answer, but the real truth is. Kindness, when it is false means nothing. Kindness is only something when it is also the truth. And before, when I smiled in the face of those who hurt me, or the ones I was worried I was failing, I was lying to them, and I was lying to myself. I’ve learned not to be a liar anymore. I can’t promise that I will lose all my anger. Because I am still angry. I am still so angry. But a part of me understands now, that this is who I am.

I strived so hard to get what I wanted, and ironically, in a way I always have. As a human I wanted to be important, as an angel I wanted to go back to peaceful nothingness, and now, as this, as a woman who now knows there is more to the world than rainbows and sunshine, I wanted people to remember me somehow, yet forget me at the same time. And they have. I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand what I did. Because I was not always a sheltered soul buried within the walls of isolation. People forgot who I was long before I asked them too. I don’t think I will forgive. But I guess the funny thing is I don’t have to. I don’t have to because I’m here. Because I have the choice to forgive. But I can let go. I can let go of all that I’ve been holding onto. As crushing as it was to realize, to know that there was nothing I could do to keep me from death, I also realized there is nothing I can do to keep me from life.

Maybe in one of those sappy movies Chris likes to make fun of a lot, someone would give this really inspiring speech about living, about finally getting every aspect of myself, the kind that movies everyone to go home and hug their parents and look at the world around them thoughtfully. I don’t have a speech. Because I don’t know who I am, not fully. I still can grow, I will grow every day for the rest of my life, and this time I will choose to live it. I will grow every day because I am tired. I’m tired of being held back by those so stuck in their own lies that they try to project who they are onto me.

I’ve been growing. In all this death I’ve seen life too. I’ve watched these two beautiful babies get born into this world. I’ve gotten to know that not everything I touch is pure agony, sheathed in death and darkness. I’ve grown because I held my god son, and knew that even if I was not meant to be the Queen of Life itself, I was not the Queen of Darkness and that there was still life in me and that I could still do something good. I’ve grown because even though I still wake up and wonder if I’m worth loving, I know that sometimes, some mornings I’ll wake up and feel that I am. I’ve grown because I know that although my wings are black, they are mine and I’ve owned that. I’ve grown because I know that in not all kindness is truth, and that in not all anger is lies. I’ve grown because I can have doubts, and agonies, and pain, and grief, sorrow, anger rage, fear, happiness, bliss, and know that it’s what makes me human, despite the monster people have labeled me as. I’ve grown because despite all the walls I’ve put up someone saw me. I’ve grown because I am alive. I’ve. Grown.

I wish this meant that I would suddenly be okay. But I know I won’t be, because I guess that means there’s still growing left to do. But I know that it means I can at least begin to try and peel back the layers. I know that it means I can try every morning when I get up to deal with the nightmares instead of hiding from them. I know that it means I might get hurt in the cases that I do give my heart away, but I’ve also learn that loss happens no matter what you do, so it’s better to choose what’s worth the risk. I know because maybe even though there might be ten days of darkness their might be just one day like this, one day of truth.

I don’t know if you’d be proud of who I’ve become. I don’t know if my god son will be proud of who I am. I don’t know if the people I’ve sought to impress all my life will be proud of who I am either. Hell I don’t know if I’m proud of this person either. But I don’t have to. I have time to learn, and grow, and feel pride.

I am alive.

Your daughter,

Juliette.”

Juliette was certain that this was her soul in paper, and she had come to realize that this letter wasn’t for her parents at all. Maybe it had started that way. She just remembered before everything, once upon a time they were the best people to help her figure things out, to grant her feelings of clarity. They supported her in everything. And still, even like this, departed from them, she still sought them to learn about herself. She carefully reached up, brushing a bit of wetness from her cheeks. It felt odd. For once she wasn’t just cry out of pain and rage and guilt. She was sad, there was no arguing that. She felt the ache in her chest. But for once it wasn’t blurred in the confusion of emotions. She was crying because there was clarity in that moment, and in a way she’d found it all in her own.

She did not know who she’d become, not entirely. But she knew that someone had seen beyond all of what she’d pretended, and now she was starting to see herself. The walls would not come down all in one day, but Rome had not been built so quickly either. She would not destroy the person she’d been, but as she said, she would grow. Juliette felt a few more tears slide down her face as she set down the pen she was clutching. She grabbed the lighter from the drawer, carefully flicking it to ignite the flame. It wasn’t easy, to let go, but she knew she had to.

Slowly, she brought the paper to the small blaze that radiated heat against her thumb. She let the corner catch. She watched the orange hues of tapering flame start to consume the paper, leaving thin black, vulnerable ash in its wake. And so she set her soul on fire, yet for once that clarity was more real than ever. She did not close her eyes and flinch away, she watched, even as she placed the smoldering paper in the waste been to ensure the fire did not become of concern, so for once she could face it head on.

Juliette finally watched the flame dance out. Smokey scents permeated the air, and she could see areas where the blackened ash had given way from its foundations. She knew it was time for the apology to the one person she let down the most. It was time to apologize to the person she’d most left behind, who she’d lost the respect of. It was time to at least say it, so at one time she could know that maybe when that one good day became four, she could start to learn what forgiveness was.

She turned in the chair, and looked to face the reflective frame on the wall. In there, she saw the red curls, the eyes that danced back and forth between colors, but now seemed to be leaning more towards a green color again. She saw that jagged scar on her neck. She saw her plump lips, naturally a light pink. She saw the developed bone structure. She saw the person she’d been, and she saw the person she was. She saw herself. A few more crystalline slid down over her face as she forced herself to gain more of the courage that she had so lacked in these few days. She did not turn away, but she held her breath as she fought for the words to say.

It was not easy. That was for certain. She knew that the one she’d closed off more than anyone was herself in her walls of stone. And now, even peeking through one of the chipped holes, one she’d formed herself, it did not just fill her with strength. No, she had to fight for that. And she did. She battled for it within her own head as she forced herself to look upon who she’d betrayed the most in her life times.

One more second.

Breathe.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, her voice twisted with emotion as she faced herself.

Juliette Solo VIII

Trigger Warnings: Smut.

“Come on little angel, don’t you want to braid my hair anymore?” That was a voice she was sure she’d never forget. Freya’s, the head demon. Juliette had just been trying to be friendly to say the least, but the demon had taken it exactly the wrong way.

Juliette took a few steps back. She couldn’t help but be reminded of Noah. The way he stalked her like a predator, like she was nothing more than a pathetic mouse compared to him. She was always the prey. Juliette tried to search out the corner of her eyes for the best exit. She had to get away. Maybe then she’d be safe enough to find out some way to get out of the line of sight for Freya. She’d be able to talk to an angel, or someone else who could help somehow. It was hard to look for exits when she was so focused on trying to dodge the woman who was prowling towards her like a cat.

“Guess you winged freaks really are cowards,” Freya’s chuckle was shrill and heartless. There wasn’t a drop of proper emotion in it.

It wasn’t long before Juliette ended up pressed against the wall. The wall was cold, but it was barely noticeable, her focus was on the cold hearted demon in front of. Juliette was pretty sure she could feel her legs quivering she was so frightened. “We’re not cowards,” Juliette hiccupped slightly. The woman didn’t respond, instead she ran her fingers through Juliette’s red hair. Juliette wanted to flinch at the touch but refused to. She couldn’t make that sort of name for her angels. Maybe she could be branded a coward, but her angels wouldn’t be, she couldn’t let them.

“Such pretty hair,” the woman’s voice was light this time, not as shrill, almost resigned for a second. Then her other hand came to grip Juliette’s jaw, forcing Juliette to look at her. Her eyes met the woman’s own ones, doing her best to ensure the gaze was nearly unflinching. It didn’t last long, because soon the pain was all she could feel. A scream escaped her throat, and then there was nothing.

~~

The same scream that had ripped through her throat within her dream echoed around the room as she darted upright in bed. She was in the state that was similar to sickness, before when she’d been human. Like ice was running through her very veins, yet her forehead dewed with sweat, and her entire body felt sticky, like her clothes had somehow been pinned onto her body. She was certain it was just that all too familiar feeling of claustrophobia. There’d been so many times she’d been sat in this very place, in the exact same situation, waking up from another of her horrid nightmares.

Heavy pants left her as she grasped for the smallest drop of sanity to hold onto. She tried to focus her mind. It was so difficult to think, or breathe on most days. And somehow it was even harder with the frequent nightmares haunting her. Sometimes it was Freya who made an appearance in the dreams, sometimes it was Noah and Hailey. They only got worse as more people were added into the mix, creating the perfect storm of guilt, fear and utter helplessness in her head.

“Jules,” a deep, but gentle voice prodded. It was so familiar. She turned her head slightly, offering a weak smile in the direction of the one. She felt a gentle hand rest on her back. It was a comfort. The warmth wasn’t the unruly, intrusive kind. This warmth was real. “Was it that dream again?” He asked carefully. It probably wasn’t hard to know by the nightly screaming that she was haunted by nightmares, but most ignored it. Most just would have rather found a way to push her aside. Not him.

She bit her lip gently. Whether he knew or not, it wasn’t easy to talk about it. Deep down she still felt like she’d failed somehow. Her angels had relied on her, and she should have been stronger. She should have fought back instead of branding the people she was meant to protect with a cowardly title. Even though he was here, his athletic form lying in bed beside her like it did so often, even though he’d stayed through all the darkness, she wondered if something she’d do still might leave her waking up alone. “Chris,” she hummed lightly, her voice low, her throat hoarse from the screaming. “Freya,” she said carefully, that one word all she needed to explain the nightmare. Her eyes shifted over her shoulder a little as she tried to force a weak smile. She couldn’t help but feel timid, exposed.

“I know the nightmares are awful, but just know you’re here. You’re in this bed…you’re with me. You’re not there anymore. You’re alive Juliette,” his voice still gentler. He hadn’t done any sort of one-eighty with her, but when she woke up from her nightmares, she had no doubt she resembled a terrified deer stuck in the headlights in the car. It was one of the few times she was truly vulnerable, and it wasn’t often anyone saw that. In those moments, she saw his softest sides, the ones she loved just as much as his dark ones.

“I know,” she said slowly, as if it took her a moment to truly believe that this was all real. That she was here with him, and that for once she was safe. The smile was more genuine as she slowly forced the adrenaline from her veins, making her terrified shaking limbs calm themselves. When his hand left his back, a small part of her expected him to turn over and go back to sleep. Even if she couldn’t sleep normally, she knew he deserved to. But instead his hand reached for the facecloth she kept on the nightstand for the times she woke up like that. She felt the cloth gently dabbing her forehead, wicking away the dewed sweat.

“Feel better?” He asked as he set the cloth back on the bed side table, that hand returning to her, only on her side this time. She could still feel the comfort of the warmth on her skin through the thin material of her nightshirt. His other hand rested on her upper arm. Gentle, soothing circles were traced into her skin where his fingers rested, and she closed her eyes for a moment, using that touch to allow herself to fully come back to this moment.

“Much,” she commented softly. Once upon a time, the touch comforting her had been her own. There’d been no gentle hands to tether her to reality. There’d been no kindness. Only her. And now he was here, helping her find strength within herself, yet offering her something she hadn’t quite had before; an equal.

Once again, her gaze shifted back over her shoulder, glancing over at him from his position in the bed which only happened to be a short distance behind her. She offered him another smile, genuine this time. Her eyes, a faded green color in the moment watched as his head gently bowed down, those perfectly sculpted pale pink lips pressed lightly against the small area of skin exposed from the draping of her nightshirt on her shoulder. His eyes held hers as his soft kiss brushed on her creamy pale skin.

His lips lingered for a moment, and even with her focus on his eyes, she could still feel his touch on her arm and side. The touch was less feather light now, his fingers had pressed in a little more. The sensation was more dominant, she could feel a shiver rushing through her body. She was certain he noticed it too. The heated gaze didn’t break though. It held, unwavering, neither of them quite wanting to break it. She wasn’t sure if it was the competitive fire that burned between the two of them, or the lingering intimacy that was not so unfamiliar to them.

She had been so caught up in the intense gaze that she hadn’t even noticed the way her head was tilting closer to him. She hadn’t even realized she was inching closer, at least not until his lips left her skin. Her eyes fluttered shut only a second before her plump lips made contact with his. It didn’t take any time at all for his mouth to respond to hers. There was a familiarity in the kiss that made it so easy to just give in, to let their mouths mold together in the in sync pattern she was so accustomed to. Yet the desire spurred on when they were with each other made it new all over again, it made being with him so utterly real.

The position wasn’t the easiest for locking lips. But she didn’t care. With him the world disappeared. It was just the two of them. His scent lingering in the air, his electric touch alighting every nerve ending of her body, the sound of his breathing, the familiar taste of his lips. Everything stilled around them for the moment, but it only took a few moments of that slow, yet passionate kiss for her to crave more. She pulled back slightly, the movement away from him a reluctant one for certain. But she knew the moment she was free to move it would only allow her to get closer to him. Not that he got the message right away. She could feel his finger sinking a bit harder into his skin, and she knew full well he didn’t want to let go any more than she did.

“Hm,” she hummed playfully, rotating her body in his direction, shifting one leg over his lap to allow her knee to plant into the cushion of the mattress. She positioned the other leg more comfortably on the opposite side of his lap, letting the mattress cushion this knee as well. With this new position, she straddled his lap. The warmth of his skin was all too evident this time. With the bare skin of her legs pressed right against his legs, the heat radiating from him was strong enough to heat her body she was sure. She didn’t waste much time with this new position, not even to take in the desire already burning in Chris’ blue eyes. The redhead quickly closed the space between them, her lips crashing against his this time.

Their lips easily molded together, working in the utter synchronicity they’d so perfected. It was a heated kiss, so much more heated and intense then even the gaze they’d shared. The kiss was rough, hard and open mouthed, a perfect collision of intense desire. This time she was in just the right position to allow her hands to travel. A moment into the kiss, she allowed her hands to rest on his shoulders, starting there was the perfect point. Slowly she let them trail down, exploring the expanse of his bare chest left open to her. With a slight pressure applied in her finger tips, she let her manicured nails sinking lightly into his skin, just enough to add to the sensation, but not enough to leave a trace of red marks. Her hands continued their exploration, sliding down past his chest and to his abdomen, over each perfectly defining line of muscle. Once she’d been so careful with her touch, but she never had to worry with touching him. That electricity was evident where her fingers met his skin. She wondered if he felt it too.

With more reluctance, she pulled back from the kiss again. This time she had a much better reason. This time she would allow her mouth to explore. A more detailed exploration then her fingers had done even. Juliette’s lips barely moved back an inch. She could still feel his breath brushing against her lips. She started at his chin, letting her lips trace back in carefully plotted, yet open mouthed kisses along his jaw. She felt his hands gripping at her hips once more, this time there wasn’t much holding back at all. The touch was bound in desire this time, not gentle comfort.

The nature of her kisses altered as she reached his throat. She let the open mouthed kisses become much more sensory bound. As her plump lips traced his throat, she’d briefly latch on with each kiss, sucking gently at the skin each time. Not quite enough to leave a mark, but she knew if her touch had traced any sort of electricity, this would be more like a fire. And clearly it had some effect. The sound of a low rumbling groan bubbled from his throat. A grin traced on the same lips she’d latched to his neck. Her assault of plotted kisses continued over his throat, eventually leading to the more sensitive spot on his neck. She latched on this time, gently letting her teeth sink in as she sucked at his skin, knowing a love bite would form at the wake of her lips. Another groan of approval greeted her with the tightening of his grip on her hips.

When she was satisfied with the mark she was sure she’d left, she pulled back a little, letting one of her hands trace back up from his abdomen, over his chest and to his throat, her thumb lightly brushing over the mark. “Hm, you might want to loosen your grip there Chris, you might break me,” she hummed, her voice low and seductive with a playful hilt lingering within the tone. There wasn’t the slightest concern of him breaking her, and she could think of plenty of other places she wanted his hands at in those moments.

“I doubt I could…but perhaps if I did you’d stop being a tease,” he grumbled, his fingers digging in a little more for playful emphasis.

“You consider that teasing? And here I thought you were mister demon bad boy, maybe I’ll be disappointed,” she teased lightly, placing another kiss at the base of his throat. With a quick jerk, she was no longer simply straddling his lap. She was straddling his hips, in the perfect position for the bulge that had clearly been growing within his boxers to press right up against her sex through the all too thin material of her panties. One hand shifted to his shoulder, her nails sinking into his skin slightly as she let out a sharp breath. The other hand wrapped around him, holding her place. There wasn’t much space between their upper bodies either. Her chest was pressed against his, and even with the layer of her nightshirt she was sure she could feel that familiar electricity between them. She could only imagine the explosion of sensation that would come with the skin to skin contact.

“I doubt it,” his voice was deep and seductive when it escaped his lips this time. She nipped on her lower lip as she tilted her head once more to meet his gaze. She could see just how much his blue eyes had darkened with lust, she could imagine her hues had done the same. She could also see the glint of deviousness within his eyes. He started to lean in once more, and she was expecting another heated kiss as her eyes shut. Her plump lips parted into an “o” shape as his lips mouth made sudden contact with her throat, a low moan leaving them. Her kisses might have been calculated, but he was like a striking cobra, with a sudden quick movement of his mouth latching onto her throat that already had her dissolving into her own arousal.

She could feel the curve of a proud smirk as soon as the sound rolled off her tongue. But his actions didn’t stop. Instead those open mouthed kisses traced down her throat, his teeth nipping lightly at her skin, latching on and no doubt leaving far more love bites than she’d left on his skin. Each movement of his mouth had a new sound pouring from her lips. It was between whimpers and low moans. Her head tilted back, her red curls falling over her back as she left her skin exposed to him. With the delicious pleasure elicited from each of his open mouthed kisses, she could feel the arousal pooling at her core. It only made matters so much more torturous with his bulge pressing against her. His hands holding her hips in place prevented her from rolling her hips down and getting any friction from the contact, she was certain it was all purposeful, a way to show her what he thought teasing was.

His lips soon latched on the more sensitive spot at the base of her throat, eliciting another moan from her lips. Soon there wasn’t much thought on her mind of teasing him. The fingers of the hand on his back curled, her nails digging into his skin as she dragged them down while the hand on his shoulder gripped tightly, as if somehow her tight grip would hold some of the aching arousal at bay. The reaction she got from the mix of her moans and her clawing nails was a twitch of the growing bulge in his pants. It only added to the teasing, just enough friction to make the way her hips were held in place that much harder. His lips finally detached themselves from the place on her throat, only to trace back up once more. This time his hands finally left her hips, and she was immediately tempted to roll her hips, to grind down against the bulge within his pants and get more of the pleasure he was taunting her with.

She displayed some restraint at least. When his lips left her throat she almost groaned, but the sound was quickly seized as his hands gripped the hem of her nightshirt to tug it up over her head. She was a bit nervous, but it wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen the scars on her body before. Her hands shifted once more, raising the slightest bit to make the removal of the shirt that much easier. When the material was gone, she was only one more step closer to finding herself completely bared to him, left in the material of simply black lace bra and panties. Her hands still started to instinctively move to hide the scarring on her stomach. It wasn’t the first time though, and his hands slowly came to grip her wrists. This touch was gentle. Many times or not, when it came to the marks her didn’t push her beyond what she was ready for. After a moment, she relaxed a little, letting him move her arms back.

His hungry, lust darkened blue eyes drew in her body and she nipped at her lip, a combination of nervousness that even after the times he’d already seen her like this he wouldn’t be satisfied and of the way that look made her arousal bloom even more. It was confusing, but it quickly became uncomplicated as he leaned in, kissing her shoulder lightly, right next to the inner side of her bra strap. She watched for a moment, her hand coming to cradle the back of his hand, her fingers running through his shirt hair as his lips traced in light kisses down along the strap of her bra before outlining the cup. Her teeth sank a little more harshly into her lower lip, and it didn’t take long at all for her to decide that she wanted that bra gone. After another light kiss pressed between the valley of her breasts, his lips trailed back up, outlining the other cup. She couldn’t decide what was more agonizing, the open mouthed, wet kisses, or these light, gentle, teasing ones. Both. Both stirred a desire within her that had the arousal soaking through the thin material of her panties.

This time his hands slid slowly up her stomach, a little shiver running through her. Around the time his fingers gripped either side of her bra to unclasp it, his mouth had made its way back to her shoulder, and his mouth had latched onto her skin once more, his teeth sinking in faintly to only add to the sensation of it all. She kept her lust darkened eyes open though, watching as the clasp on her bra was undone with a simple click. His hands didn’t leave the material as it was pushed off, the straps pushed down over shoulders. Soon that was gone too, leaving her breasts exposed. His mouth left her skin once again, and once more his hungry eyes took in the newly exposed skin. When the bra was discarded, one hand came back to rest on her hip again, while the other trail up over her stomach, making a clear path towards one of her breasts.

She found herself eagerly anticipating his touch. Just as his hand made contact, his mouth did too. One hand cupped one of her breasts, while his mouth focused on the other. Just like with the outlining of her bra, the kisses along her breast was light at first. They traced lightly around the tip of her breast, while his thumb traced around the other. This time the groan got out. Surely there had to be something he would do that wouldn’t be so damn teasing. He didn’t even falter in his actions when she groaned, even though she could see the glimmer of another smirk on his lips as another kiss was planted upon her skin. She could feel the pink tips of her breast hardening slightly at the attention. More than frustrated, the redhead finally took advantage of the freedom of her hips, rolling them lightly, grinding herself down against the bulge within his pants. The action surprised to both of them. With the desperate ache of soaking arousal at her core, even that slightest bit of friction had a moan leaving her. And clearly he hadn’t been expecting it either as she watched the brief falter of expression on his face.

She watched his lips press into a firm line for a moment. It was evident he was just as aroused as she was, and her action had only played on that. With another one of those quick movements, his mouth latched on again. This time there was no skirting about. This time his mouth encircled the pink tip of her breast, latching on and adding enough suction that a low whimper escaped her. Her head bowed back once more, her eyes closing as her fingers lightly tugged at his shorter hair. Her eyes fluttered shut once more as she gave herself over to the sensation he provided. The urge to grind herself down against the bulge once more was strong, but she couldn’t help but notice the tightening of his grip on her hip, no doubt preventing her from doing so. Of course the grinding had only pushed her closer against him, and now with the way he was pressed against her, the pleasure friction brought was just a breath away, yet so out of reach.

Soon his other hand followed suit with his mouth, his thumb gently brushing over her other nipple a few times, forming it into a semi-hardened pink bead. This touch was much lighter, but it only added to the sensations his mouth provided. Those whimpers had quickly turned to moans, and the ache of arousal only got stronger. She was edging on desperation at this rate. All she wanted was some satisfaction, something to fill the desire that seemed to be so strong within her.

When both tips of her breast had been turned to hardened pink beads, he withdrew from her, his hand sliding down over her side, and his mouth starting to trace kisses up over her chest once more. She was panting, each breath heavy as she tried to suck in the smallest bits of air. Every inch of her body was alight with lust and desire, and she just wanted some relief. With all the pent up tension, she was certain she would burst if one of her needs wasn’t satisfied.

Once again, his lips latched onto the sensitive spot at the base of her throat. Moans tumbled off her tongue in a constant melody, and the warmth of his mouth on her throat had shivers running through her all over again. “Chris,” she hummed lowly in a quiet whimper.

“Yes?” His voice was smug, spoken against the skin his mouth had been latched on and sending a light vibration through that area, but laced within the pride of his tone was a desperation of his own. Clearly his actions were not without consequences, and it was more than clear he wanted her just as badly as she craved him.

She couldn’t bring herself to speak. She was certain he’d get far too much satisfaction from her desperation to have her cravings fed. Soon his lips were lightly trailing up and down her throat once more. They’d move down to the base of her throat, then back up and along her jaw. It was so faint, yet so taunting she didn’t even notice that his hand was sliding from her hip and along her leg. It wasn’t until his touch was caressing the far more sensitive skin of her inner thigh did she completely realize. With how much she wanted him, even that simple touch had her hips bucking a little, eager to roll down for some form of friction. His grip was too tight. It locked her in place, completely vulnerable to that teasing touch. While his lips kept up the trailing cycle, his finger moved along her inner thigh inch by inch, getting closer to where she was aching for his touch. Of course as soon as it was close to where she wanted it, his finger ended up tracing along the hem of her panties, the touch so feather light it was barely there. She groaned audibly once more at the teasing.

Around the time of her groan, his lips had been tracing her jaw, ending up next to her hear. “Juliette,” he hummed lowly, his voice a seductive tease. “Have some patience,” he teased lightly, his fingers moving to trace the inner thigh of her other leg. “Must be hard though…” his words trailed off for a moment. “I can feel the heat radiating from you, I can smell your arousal,” he took an audible breath in, “delicious.” More of those shivers ran down her spine, and she was sure that even though it was near impossible, she could feel core pooling with more wetness. The material of her panties were definitely soaked. “And even on the very edge of your panties, I can feel just how wet you are,” his last words were quick, more teasing, and he resumed to the light kisses immediately after he’d spoken.

Her cheeks heated a little. She assumed there was some conspicuous nature to just how aroused she was. But clearly he had noticed. It seemed he took her brief distraction of embarrassment to his advantage. Instead of shifting back to the other leg this time, as his fingers finished tracing the outline of the hem of her panties, they slipped underneath the soaked material, pressing between her slit. Starting at the sensitive bud of nerves, which only received a light teasing touch — something still enough to have her hips rolling once more, not that his grip on her hip had loosened in the slightest — slowly sliding down to her aching core that was the source of her soaking arousal. Even that light touch had a moan escaping her. With all the teasing, even that brought the most delightful satisfaction.

In a pattern with his usual teasing, his fingers rubbed lightly around her entrance, and she was more than ready to release another needy, frustrated groan. The need for that was quickly eliminated as two of his fingers sunk into her core, causing a moan louder than ever to escape her this time. With her free hand, she gripped onto his shoulder once more, needing all the strength she had not to fight against that grip he had on her hip that preventing her from pushing herself down on his fingers and earning even more of that pure bliss brought.

After a moment hung between them once more, he started to move his fingers. The movements were slow at first. She hadn’t expected any less. But even those slow movements brought satisfaction to her. With the pure and utter desperation and aching, this had her world exploding with pleasure. His movements picked up in speed, his fingers curling so each time they pushed into her, they hit against that oh-so-sensitive pleasure spot that only heightened everything. This time it was only moans leaving her lips, rolling off in a symphony of endless pleasure sounds, a soundtrack mixed with his heavy breathing.

Finally the grip on her hip lightened, allowing her to roll her hips down to meet each and every single one of the movements of his fingers. It was just like their kisses, perfect synchronicity. With her hand not tangled within the short strands of hair, she gripped his shoulder once more, holding onto him into a grip similar to what he’d had on his hip, her nails sinking into his skin hard enough to probably leave angry red crescent shaped imprints from her nails. Her grip only tightened as the coils of heat made themselves present within her lower stomach. A climax was building.

“Have I ever mentioned just how hot it is when you purr like a little kitten in my ear like that?” Once again, his voice was rumbling and seductive, whispered lowly in her ear. His words were only accentuated with a rougher movement of his fingers, only bringing her more pleasure, to the point it was practically blinding.

Juliette’s moans were soon bordering on cries of pleasure as that climax continued to build. The signs read clearly all over her body. Between the quivering that had started in her legs and had spread throughout her body, her nails had sunken into his shoulder and her fingers lightly pulled on his hair. The inner walls of her core were tightening around his fingers each time they pushed into her. She wasn’t able to hold herself back much. “Chris,” she warned him in a raspy moan. That was all she could get out between the other sounds leaving her lips. She was teetering on the very edge, barely able to hold herself back.

“It’s alright Jules,” he hummed. As soon as he spoke she finally let herself go, allowing herself to fall easily over the edge and into the grips of her climax. Her face buried into the crook of his neck this time, trying to muffle the loud cry of pleasure she let loose as she began to orgasm. She wrapped her arms around him tightly, her nails easily sinking into his back, clawing along his skin and leaving more of those scratches. Those same signs painted over her, but this time they were far pronounced. Every part of her showed just how much bliss she was in from the release she gained with her climax.

Her body quivered, the walls of her core tightened rather harshly around his fingers which had stilled for the most part within her and the mix of moans and cries rolled off her lips, muffling only slightly against his neck. Finally, after she’d ridden out each wave of pleasure that hit her, she relaxed the slightest bit against him. After a few seconds, he pulled his fingers from her core. Her heavy lidded gaze carefully looked up as she watched his perfectly sculpted lips encircle his fingers, sucking off the remnants of her orgasm.

“You taste so sweet,” she heard him speak in that low seductive tone. She couldn’t help but bite on her lower lip. “Maybe I’ll have to get a better taste sometime,” he teased lightly.

Once she had managed to recover her breathing from heavy panty so a semi-moderate pace, she sat up a little, a playful grin on her lips. “Who said the night is over yet?” She asked teasingly, allowing a single finger to trail down over his abdomen and hook into the elastic of his boxers once again.

Even though there was surprise in his eyes, his tone didn’t lack his usual teasing nature. “And here I thought you might be too tired after that.”

“That was only a warm up,” she said playfully, grinning a little. Slowly she unhooked her finger from the waistband of his boxers, carefully tracing her finger along that line, pondering on teasing him like she had her. With his hand moved once again though, she could once more feel just how his length reacted to her touch, and he was certainly reacting. The decision not to tease him was a quick one. She placed a few kisses along his jaw as she lifted herself the slightest bit, tugging down his boxers to allow his length to spring free. A small smirk rested on her lips, but she made sure not to let those light kisses along his jaw falter.

Deciding to utilize another distraction technique, she started tracing her finger up and down along his length. She heard a quiet groan leaving his lips. Once again she came to the conclusion that he was just as affected by his own actions as she had been. It was trickier, using one hand to get out of her panties but she managed it, not stopping with those light kisses and the trailing of her finger as she did. Finally they were both completely exposed, naked in every way of the word.

“Not too tired?” She teased, using a similar statement to his own to taunt him. A low grumbling growl was her response to her question. Juliette moved back to the same position of straddling his hips, only this time she was much more careful. She could all too evidently feel his length against her now, and it was all too easy to ignite her arousal once again.

Positioning herself carefully with the tip of his member at her entrance, she pushed herself down onto his length. This time when sounds of pleasure escaped the room, they were escaping the both of them. A low groan from him, and a loud moan from her. Once more, she met his lips, locking them in a heated, passionate open mouthed kiss that served mostly as a way to muffle the sounds that escaped their lips. She began her movements. First, she started with slow rocking, working herself up and down on the girth of his length. Just like his fingers had, she gained in pace, filling both their needs each time she would bring herself up and down on his length.

~~

Juliette slowly opened her eyes. She blinked a couple times, trying to fully gain back her sleep blurred vision. As soon as she was sufficiently awake, or at least awake enough to roll over, she slowly turned onto her side, her hand reaching out. “Chris,” she hummed lightly, searching for him on the side of the bed. When her hand was meant with only empty sheets, cold ones at that she finally snapped the rest of the way out of her sleepy daze, reality hitting her like a slap in the face.

Her eyes went wide and she quickly sat up. It took her a moment to fully comprehend the reality that was hitting her in that moment. But when she’d caught on, she had to blink a few times. A dream within a dream. She’d had those a few times, sure, but not often enough to suspect something so vivid, so real was only purely imagined.

Chris had never been there.

The moments in the dream were just that, moments within a dream. And as soon as he figured out what she’d been thinking about, she could already imagine just how smug he’d be. She quickly pressed her lips together. No way was he ever going to find out about that dream, she vowed to herself. Though she had plenty of the reminders in those moments. Juliette had to take a solid few minutes before she could lay back down again. Her hands gripped the comforter in a bar tight grip as she laid back, staring up at the ceiling.

The bed was cold, empty.

Her emotions were running wild. There was a mix of embarrassment, anger, part relief and the smallest bit of arousal, a remnant of the rather steamy dream. She could swear she could still feel some of the touches lingering. But of all that, she’d expected it. Those emotions were predictable. What wasn’t was the feeling that permeated her chest as she realized the other side of the bed was empty. What wasn’t was the way her heart sank a little as she realized there was no arms wrapped around her body to greet her. What wasn’t was the emotion of sadness. What wasn’t was the…disappointment she felt as her eyes looked over at the empty side of the bed.

Juliette Solo VII

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of death and suicide.

Flashback.

She’d been waiting for weeks.

She knew that there was a plan for her, that Nathan, and God would help her, but sometimes the dark desires got so bad she wondered when she’d find any light again. It was all she could think about most of the time, hurting herself, getting closer to being an angel. It helped that she knew, of course she’d known for months, but it helped a little. It was good to know she wasn’t crazy. But still, when Nathan wasn’t here, or Roland, she thought she was going out of her mind.

There had been one thing that brought her a bit of reprieve from her darkened mind. It was rare amongst many things that just reminded her of what she so badly wanted to do, even with the knowledge that it was wrong. There wasn’t much that could truly distract her outside of the company of others. At least until prom had become popular.

This was her senior year, she’d known prom was coming of course. In the beginning of the year, she’d been so lost, still in the dark in the early signs of fall, she hadn’t really noticed as the girls of her class got excited over the upcoming event. All she’d thought of was her own inner turmoil. Even with her thoughts darker than before, she had her knowledge now. That brief bit of awareness was enough to give her the clarity to actually think about the event most girls dreamt about all their lives.

Sure, before the onslaught of true dark thoughts, she’d dreamt of it too, but it was never the way that other girls did. She didn’t constantly think of it. She didn’t dream of the man she’d go with. She didn’t know the exact details of the dress she’d wear. She didn’t image dancing the night away with some mysterious stranger. Her dreams were not mixed with the fairy tales she’d been told when she was child. But she did think of it.

Sometimes she’d think about volunteering for the decorating committee, or even actually signing up for planning. The first was still something she’d stuck to. She’d signed the sign-up sheet on Monday. But the second had become a distant dream. With her borderline outcast status, she knew she wouldn’t be getting near the elite squad of populars who were planning prom. But that was okay, she was happy with her small part.

Along the way she’d even gotten a date. Nathan had promised he would go with her. Most of their conversations were taken up by angel business. What was going on in Heaven, what his responsibilities were, what the other angels were like, what it’d be like when she eventually went to Heaven as an angel herself, none of it was really about her human life. They didn’t talk about her AP classes, her failure on the ropes in gym, the tests she had coming up or the books she was reading for class. She was okay with that, most of the time.

Roland was always there to provide a listening ear on her normal life. Most nights, when he was working the graveyard shift as the newest deputies were always responsible for, she’d go with coffee and a few pastries from the local café, and sit down with him. They’d talk about all the things she didn’t get to talk to Nathan about. Sometimes he’d even take her fresh perspective on cases they were working on. Not a lot of those were in their town, nothing happened there. Most were in the surrounding towns. Her times with him, late nights in the police station were among the few times she thought about her future, and not the angelic one.

Sometimes, with him she thought about going to school. She had countless offers. Her academic and volunteering experience spoke for itself. She thought about studying criminology, and psychology, and mathematics. She thought about a normal life, becoming something that wasn’t an angel. To her mind, the one convinced being an angel was the way, those were traitorous thoughts, ones she often would silence, not that it was easy to do so.

Prom stayed though. She had had that in the back of her mind for the last two months. It was March, and in two months there’d be prom. She’d acted fully engaged in all the angel drama, but lingering was the excitement for that one normal rite of passage. Once again, she knew it wasn’t like the normal girl’s concerns, that much was easy to tell, but it was enough to actually find that small distraction.

Three weeks ago she’d been with Roland, enjoying one of their late coffee nights reviewing a case when he asked her about prom. Apparently one of the station’s officer’s had a daughter who was going to the prom too. She’d been a little nervous in those few moments, because at the time she’d been so consumed by the thought of the usual darkness and angel business.

~~

Three Weeks Prior to flashback.

“Shouldn’t you be thinking about prom now, Jules? And not this…stabbing from three counties over?” He didn’t ever show distaste towards the cases, no matter how brutal, but she had a feeling the discontent in his voice was supposed to exaggerate his point.

Taken a back, she realized she’d barely thought of prom since the fall. “Oh…um…truthfully I haven’t thought about it much. I’ve had other stuff on my mind. And besides I’m certain this, stabbing from three counties over as you put it will be far less dramatic,” she offered a weak smile, hoping it’d distract from her odd reaction, something he’d no doubt notice anyway.

“I have no doubt about that, if my prom has any mark on what yours will be. You are eighteen though, perhaps you should be concerning yourself with…normal things, not this brutality,” his disgust was genuine this time, though it was about the case, it was that she’d rather focus on the case than her prom.

“Well, I don’t think about it much, I suppose,” she shrugged once more, putting her focus on paper-clipping three pages back together before putting them back in the file. “Don’t you think you should be focused on this brutality, instead of teenage things?” She teased, making a recovery from her initial bashfulness over not truly thinking of her prom.

“Consider keeping you in line part of the job,” he joked back, offering her one of those smiles that was nothing really but a small crook of his mouth, yet seemed something amazing to her. Maybe it was because it didn’t happen all the time.

“Keeping me in line? You’re keeping me in line. That’s cute Ayres. Everyone at this station knows you only keep me around because I hold /you/ in line,” she teased, flashing a real grin at him.

“Oh that’s it,” his voice was still playful, but he abruptly stood up from his desk and motioned his hand at her. “Come on, come with me,” it was a gentle suggestion, yet still she followed after him as he led her into the sheriff’s office after getting up from her chair. As they entered, she saw the briefest flash of guilt on his face. Even if the sheriff had told him months ago that they could go in if they needed to, she knew Roland felt the need to ask each time.

“You know just because he leaves us alone here all the time doesn’t mean we can just barge in when we please,” she told him, not at the same teasing pace she had before, but hardly serious.

He didn’t say anything until he reached the desk and motioned to the seat. It was red, with basic wooden armrests placed over the metal frame, and two cushions, one for the seat and one for the back. It was worn enough so she could see the yellow foam of the cushions. He pulled out the chair after his brief motion and she sat.

“What on earth are we doing?” For once she was completely in the dark.

He leaned over her, close enough so she could catch a brief scent of whatever aftershave he used. It was light, as it always was when they were at the station. The older keyboard let out a few shaky clicking noises and when he pulled back, they were on a search engine, looking at prom dresses. Of course these were for junior prom. She grinned at him for a second. “You do know that these are for junior prom right? The long ones are for senior prom,” she told him, ready to exit out. But looking at the different dresses, comprised of lace and satin and chiffon, she decided to stay put. Instead of leaving, she typed in the type of dresses she was looking for, the longer ones.

“So, I don’t really know how you girls look for these things, because truthfully they all blur together and look the same to me, but we’re staying right here until you pick something,” he seemed determined, and when he was determined he was always set in his ways.

“You know this could take a while, right?” She asked, glancing up at his form lingering over her.

“I know,” he told her, his emerald green eyes returning her glance turned gaze. They stayed like that for a second, just looking at each other. His expression was soft, gentle, handsome as usual. She wondered what she looked like to him. After maybe a minute, she broke the stare. “Well, if we’re doing this, you might as well pull up a chair,” she told him.

He did.

~~

They’d picked a green one after, or she had. It was a light green, bordering on mint and seafoam. He’d mostly just waited, silently and patiently as he often would when she was focused on something. His opinion would occasionally come in, but only if she asked for it. After she’d set on that one, she’d sent the link to her email, leaving shortly after.

And now after those weeks of waiting, it’d finally come. She’d been monitoring the deliveries to her mailbox and door pretty closely over the past while, having her parents alert her if anything came. Mostly it was spam mail or university pamphlets, but today when her mom called out, she’d told her it was a box.

For the first time in months, she excitedly moved out of her room and hurried down the steps. Her mom was in the dining room, and sure enough the package was on the table. It was a brown rectangular box, tape holding down the flaps. Pretty basic. But for the first time in months she was looking forward to something, even if it was just opening that basic box. The redhead got the keys from the magnetic basket on the Friday and used them to cut the tape. The slices were a little jagged, as expected. Once it was cut she didn’t even bother to set the keys back as she usually would. Instead she opened the box to reveal the dress.

It was perfect, exactly what she’d wanted.

A smile rested on her light pink lips.

~~

Present Day.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d done it. At the time she’d never thought she’d go to a prom. She hadn’t gotten to go to hers before her first death. Yet still, after she’d first come back, and found herself trapped within the confines of the asylum, she’d used her angelic powers to materialize her dress in her room. It was cool, being able to just think of something and then have it be there. Usually she’d used it for food and small things. The prom dress she’d picked out had been the biggest thing she’d summoned.

And it hadn’t been much good either. All it’d done was linger at the very back of her closet. Strategically placed so it was the last thing she’d come across. Looking at it was just another reminder of the life she’d left behind. It made her think of the abrupt pause her life had come to. It made her think of the night she was supposed to remember, the night she was supposed to dance with Nathan, and laugh and think about normal things instead of angel business. It made her think of taking thousands of pictures with her parents because her dress didn’t look right in one.

That wasn’t a safe place anymore. It was a painful place. It was a place of fantasies. Because that’s all they were, fantasies. There was no dancing. No Nathan. No normality. No pictures with her parents. She no longer had a reason to dance about. Nathan had left. Her life was anything but the normal she craved. And the only pictures she had with her parents were the ones taken before her death. The newest pictures of her were probably the ones taken in the morgue. Maybe the asylum had taken a few shots too. She wouldn’t be surprised. Surely they had to keep track of their patients somewhere.

Something had stirred lately. She wouldn’t call it happiness yet, it was too soon. Nearly a year of disappointment had taught her not to get over excited by anything, at least not quickly. But there was the possibility of hope blooming. Roland was here, however that was, they still hadn’t exactly figured out what he was, and at least she wasn’t entirely alone anymore.

And now there was prom. She thought it was ridiculous, being stuck in here and they wanted to throw a prom. Maybe it was some twisted social experiment. Maybe some patient had rebelled and decided to throw a prom for the one all the younger ones were missing. Whatever the reason, prom was coming, and the asylum had been thrown into just as much excitement as if they were actually seniors. She could almost scoff.

Yet a small part of her wanted to go. She felt a greater need than ever to be normal. Sure she was going with a group of supernaturals, if she did go, but it was normal. It was what she’d missed out on last year because she’d been too busy with Nathan and the angels. It’d all been a waste too, that was the real kicker. All the wasted time when she could have been living blissfully human and she’d been prepping for a role she never really got to play.

Finally, after a few days of glimpsing into the back of her closet, she gave in and made her way in, past all the blouses and dresses until she finally made her way to what she was looking for. The green dress. Wrapped in a plastic sleeve the only sign it showed of its time in the closet was appearing a little flat. It took a few minutes of deliberation before reaching out and taking it off the hanger and going back to her room.

“This is so stupid,” she shamed herself as she set the dress on the bed and unzipped the clear plastic garment bag.

Her hand ran over the chiffon material of the skirt, feeling the intricate tracing of white embroidery along the hem. It was beautiful, more than she remembered, even with the painful memories attached. With one more breath, she used her other hand to detach the small thin satin hanger targeted straps from the hanger, followed by the off the shoulder sleeves that had been strategically placed so they’d contribute in holding up the dress.

Despite her mixed emotions to the ball gown, she regarded it carefully, with gentle hands. After removing it from the bag, she undressed herself. Starting with her cardigan which she slid down over her arms, then her skirt, that she did a brief roll of her hips as she slid it down over her softer legs, and then the tank top. It left her in a plain bra and matching set of panties. Nothing overly special. In the mirror the only real noticeable feature was her scars. The jagged one on her throat, the thin self-harm ones on her arms, even a couple of small ones on her knees form bike accidents as a kid.

She was pretty eager to stop looking at all the marks. Eager enough to get the dress on. She stepped into the dress, the top left open because the corset back was undone. She shimmied it up over her legs, eventually slipping her arms into the off the shoulder sleeves. Her arms bent awkwardly to get the corset back tightened a little. She’d need help when the day came. But it was enough to get the basic idea.

Her gaze turned up to look at the mirror. It didn’t fit just right with the strings loosened, but she could get the picture. Slowly, she folded her hands over her stomach, making sure the self-harm scars were hidden. She allowed her red curls to fall forward to tumble down over her chest. For a second she could pretend she was normal.

“And Cinderella you shall go to the prom,” she muttered sarcastically to her reflection.

Juliette Solo VI

Trigger Warnings: Death, mentions of suicide and self-harm.

Juliette had failed, she was sure of that now.

She’d done her best, she was sure when she’d closed the eyes in the bathtub it would be for the last time. She was so confident that she’d be ready, to become an angel and fulfill her destiny, that was what Nathan wanted after all. He’d told her so. Where was Nathan? Since she’d become aware once again she hadn’t seen him. He should have been here. Unless he was disappointed in her.

She didn’t blame him, she was disappointed in herself too. The one thing she was supposed to do and become, she’d failed at. She was supposed to be an angel now. She was supposed to wake up, and be an angel and be with Nathan again. That was how it was supposed to be. She was so sure. Something had gone wrong. Maybe someone had found her and brought her back.

The redhead was sure she’d been in her room one minute, but then, in what felt like a flurry, she was somewhere else. It was like a whirl wind pulling her forward, bringing her towards something. And then it just stopped. She was free to move on her own once again. When she looked around, she realized she was outside her house, on her street, next to the hedges her neighbors kept around their yard.

She blinked a couple times, trying to figure out how she’d gotten here. When she tried to grasp at that thought it’d slipped away, like she couldn’t quite get a hold of it. She decided to push her absent mindedness away, deciding to take in her surroundings. She realized that there was the evident flashing of red and blue lights, her gaze shifted over and she quickly realized it was an ambulance.

“I hope Mrs. Thompson is okay,” she mumbled. Mrs. Thompson was the elderly woman across the street. She was sickly, and Juliette used to help her by cleaning her house for her while having bible passages read. She’d liked that so much, before the depression set in. Then she stopped going as much, her interest in spirituality growing more and more confusing as she met Nathan.

Part of her wanted to check on the woman, but another part of her seemed entirely against it. Like she couldn’t quite get herself to move from that place. At least not in that direction. She willed her limbs to bend to her will, to bring her a step forward so she could make sure they elderly lady wasn’t hurt. But she just couldn’t. It was as if something held her back.

Finally, she gave up when she got that odd absentminded fuzziness about her once again. There was quite a spectacle, and the more curious she got, the more guarded off from her own mind she felt. Maybe this was it. Maybe she was truly going crazy. Perhaps she’d imagined it’d all, hurting herself. Maybe she was fine, or not fine, crazy.

The redhead looked down at her wrists, checking for evidence of the wounds she’d left. There was nothing. Just the normal scars from the harm she so often did to herself. She shook her head, trying to grasp her thoughts. Like slippery pasta, they evaded her still, leaving her clueless to what was going on. She felt so lost. The redhead clapped her hands on either side of her head, bobbing it slightly as she tried to get a hold of herself.

“Come on Juliette, come on, get a hold of yourself,” she muttered, shaking her head slightly.

That was when she heard it. Heavy footfalls coming down the sidewalk, quickly too. She immediately looked up, flushing with embarrassment over her little outburst. The face she saw was strikingly familiar. The tall, athletic build, the handsome but gentle features. She’d know that face anywhere she was certain of that. Roland.

Immediately she started to move towards him, too excited to know that each footfall she made did not make a sound like his. She was just desperate to seek comfort from a familiar person. She opened her mouth to get a word out but she was quickly silenced. Not by the nagging feeling in the back of her head. No the silencing came from Roland. He lurched over and emptied the contents of his stomach in to the bush. She had to turn away for a second. That was always something she’d never had the stomach for. But after the heaving and gagging stopped she turned around, ready to provide comfort and if need be medical care for her friend.

“How the-,” her voice was cut off midsentence, this time by a different person.

“Ayres, are you alright boy?” It was an older man, maybe mid-fifties. She recognized him, he was one of the higher ranking members on the police force. Not that there was many ranks to rise in with a taskforce made of twelve men. He had an air of authority about him that instantly made her quiet down. The last thing she was going to do was keeping mouthing on and end up earning his ire and perhaps a bad discussion with her father. With how she’d been lately, no doubt she was already on thin ice.

There was no response, just another hiccupping heave that had her thinking she’d have to turn her back before he ended up vomiting into the hedges again. He didn’t though, but she noticed he looked absolutely broken. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but he’d looked like he’d been hit by a bus, or lost everything that had ever mattered to him. She supposed the first would be mercy compared to the ladder. As soon as the man was gone, she’d do her best to help. He was always there for her after all. She noticed that when they’d first met he’d told her she didn’t have to be okay for everyone yet she couldn’t help but feel like that’s exactly how he was about himself.

In the months she’d spent as his friend, she’d rarely seen him truly let loose, even though he had that laid back feel to him. She sometimes wondered if he ever had fun or if he was just trying to make sure she learned how to. Though remembering the bright smiles, she hoped it was true. She didn’t want everything to be a total waste, at least not on his part. She knew it wasn’t on hers.

“You knew her, didn’t you?” The man’s voice was solemn for a second, as if he too was saddened. Juliette’s face fell immediately. Past tense, somber expressions. She immediately wanted to go to Mrs. Thompson, to see if there was anything she could do. But once again, she was held back. She was unsure if it was because she needed to be there for Roland or because of that odd block in her head.

“Yeah,” his voice was gruff, thick with turmoil. She’d thought the other officer’s voice was sad, well he had nothing on Roland. The sound of his voice matched that same expression as if everything he held dear had been snatched away. “Yeah I did.” It broke her heart a little to see him so sad. She felt helpless for a second that she couldn’t do anything.

She wanted to reach out, to do anything to get that expression off his face. She’d never seen him so down before. It was so unlike him. She felt a little bit guilty. All the time she’d known him he’d been the strong and stoic type for her. He was playful sometimes, yes but she’d never seen him so completely crushed. Maybe he’d known Mrs. Thompson well. She wouldn’t be surprised. He seemed like the type everyone got along with, even religious old ladies.

“Listen, Ayres why don’t you take today off? I’ll handle the report, and the Sheriff, you go home and…take care of yourself.” That was almost stranger than Roland’s emotional nature. The man seemed awkward, not quite used to feelings. She’d never seen him look so out of place before, so ruffled, like there was something he just couldn’t grasp.

“I should probably stay,” he started to protest. Juliette immediately wanted to scold him. That was just like him. How many times had they had coffee late at night at the station while he worked on something overtime? Too many to remember.

“Roland, you look like hell, go home, that’s an order,” the man’s authoritative attitude was quick to show before giving Roland and awkward pat on the shoulder before taking off back to the scene of flashing nights and neighbors in their PJ’s.

She watched Roland release a heavy sigh, and run his fingers roughly through his short hair. It was usually relatively tamed but now it was uncharacteristically messy for him, and not in the way all the boys liked to style their hair to try and look cool. He did look like Hell. She frowned slightly and looked over at him for a few minutes.

“Hey, Roland, it’s okay. You can’t be everyone’s White Knight, some people just aren’t meant to make it,” she said softly, hoping the words would comfort him. He didn’t even look her way. Instead he just sat down on the curb, continuing to thread his hands through his hair. She was sure that he was trying to find a way not to cry.

“Come on, don’t ignore me. I know you’re all hero guy, and you breeze in a rescue damsels but sometimes it’s okay to not be okay for everyone else. You were the one who taught me that if I remember correctly,” she smiled meekly as she sat down on the curb next to him. It felt odd, like she was weightless almost. Usually the solid cement of the curb would press into her legs as she sat, but this time there was nothing, absolutely nothing.

Nothing from him either. Just a sad blank stare.

“Roland,” she mumbled, frowning slightly. Deciding words weren’t working, she reached out her hand. Sometimes a comforting gesture could always help. But when she went to place a hand on his back, it passed right through, as if she was made of nothing but mist and fog. She stared at her hand in horror.

Once again, she tried to reach out to comfort him.

Once again her hand passed through.

She stared at her hand in horror, as if it was detached from her body. It might as well have been. Her gaze shifted away completely from Roland for a second, scanning her arms she saw no evidence of what had happened to her. No evidence of the scars. Yet she still wore the outfit she’d worn when she’d gotten in that bathtub. She was still fully clad in those clothes.

“Roland,” she whispered shakily, unsure of what was happening in the moment. She desperately needed someone to tell her it was all a joke.

He didn’t turn.

“Roland please this isn’t funny!” She exclaimed, desperate for him to tell her that what she was thinking wasn’t true. She felt like her world was closing into her. She also noticed there were no more rubbery thoughts anymore. She understood more. Only this time she didn’t want to get a hold of what she was thinking. She didn’t want to think at all in fact.

No response.

“Roland,” his voice was a desperate whisper on her lips this time.

No response.

She immediately threw herself in the direction she was sure she’d find a sickly Mrs. Thompson in. There wasn’t much holding her back now. In fact she was certain that what had been holding her back was herself, and her denial of what had happened. She’d failed indeed. Something had gone wrong. She was dead.

“No,” she told herself firmly, denying it once more even as her footsteps carried her in the direction of the sounding ambulance siren. She made her way closer and closer, and people seemed to freeze around her. Nobody could see her, she was nothing to them. Yet still, her world was frozen. She couldn’t think of anything else.

She tore past the others, not that it felt like they were moving anyway. That’s when she saw it. There was a stretcher. Only on it there wasn’t a body just a body bag. There was a suited man starting to zip it up, but not before she caught the flare of red hair and the skin that had once had the pink tinge of life that was now devoid of any sign of life.

The face wasn’t peaceful at all, like the bodies looked in movies. The girl, she looked at rest. It took her a moment to realize why that was. She wasn’t at rest. And this wasn’t just a girl. It was her. The unrested face was hers.

Nobody could hear her, but it didn’t stop her from letting out a horrified, ear splitting shriek.

~~

Nothing.

Literally nothing.

She wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It was like when she was suddenly on her street the night of her….the night of her death. She supposed she had to get used to saying it. The only mark that time had passed was that now, when she opened her eyes she was in what she recognized as Roland’s apartment. She wondered why she kept drawing herself her.

Maybe it was because she felt too ashamed to see anyone else. Her parents they had to be crushed in that time. And well, Nathan had to be disappointed in her too. After all she’d failed him. All the talk and promises of becoming a Queen, or becoming his Queen and now it was nothing. She was nothing but a ghost of those promises. No pun intended.

Juliette hadn’t quite gotten the ghost thing down. Not that she had the time to. She had been…wherever she’d been for the past few days. She was hardly read to start walking through walks yet. So like an ordinary person, she started to turn the corner into the hallway. And then nothing, she just stopped. She realized why.

Down the hall came Roland. He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans. It was fairly casual compared to his police uniform he usually wore. She only saw him dressed like this every now and then. That was the only thing normal about him though. The look on his face was completely abnormal. When she’d thought however long ago that he looked like Hell, now he looked worse.

His eyes were bloodshot, his hair was a mess, no doubt from him running his fingers through it. His dawning stubble was the sign that she hadn’t been out for very long. Maybe a day. She could tell he hadn’t slept. Those bloodshot eyes bore dark circles on top of that. He looked deflated, no longer filled with life as he usually was.

“Roland,” she whispered solemnly, feeling immediate guilt for what she done. She’d done this to him. She’d hurt him like this. It was her fault. How stupid had she been? Too stupid to think about.

He didn’t respond to her, something that was strange. He was always such a good listener. He listened to everything she said. Every story she told, every rant and complaint, every dreamy review of whatever she obsessed over, he’d listened to it all. And now, seeing him so despondent, well it wasn’t easy.

After standing there for a few moments, as if he was debating whatever he was about to do, he went into action again. He grabbed his leather jacket off a hook behind the door. She recognized that one well. It always smell like his cologne in the rare times she’d hugged him. Not too strong like most his age liked to pack it on in hopes of impressing women, just faint enough so she knew she’d remember it.

She sighed, knowing she had nowhere better to go and decided to follow him. Out of the apartment building and down to his car. It wasn’t like he was going to hold his door open for his invisible ghost friend so she was forced to go through it. It wasn’t like she could feel it, but she felt awkward that was for sure. She passed through the door. Apparently her powers were weird enough that even though she passed through the door, she wasn’t about to fall through the floor of the car.

The driving began, and she wasn’t pulled back anywhere. She guessed with him was where she was supposed to be. Maybe it was like in the movies, and there was a lesson she had to learn. Perhaps this was all just a dream and she’d wake up. She hoped it was at least. She desperately hoped it was. Even though she was certain after seeing her body that was not the case at all.

She looked out the window silently as they drove, waiting until they pulled up to their destination which wasn’t a place to eat, like she had hoped it’d be. She’d had a strong sense Roland hadn’t eaten, and the last thing she wanted was for him to starve himself. Once again, that was part guilt and part general concern for her friend.

It was the hospital. She almost sighed. He was going to see her.

She didn’t want to follow him, but she felt like she had to. And so her footsteps drew her after him as he walked through one of the less populated entrances and towards the morgue. There wasn’t a huge amount of security, all he had to do was flash his ID and he was quickly given a pass. She even managed to slip through the door behind him easily enough, without going through anything.

For a split second as she walked into the room she had to turn away. There she was, on display to the world. Sure it was just her face, but that thin sheet covering her naked body did no favors, she knew she was there, exposed. She hadn’t caught sight of any stitches in her. She was grateful for that. She was sure she’d lose it at that point. She wondered if ghosts could throw up, which distracted her from the disgust for a minute.

“Can I have a minute alone with her?” She heard a rather depressed voice of Roland. She hadn’t heard his voice since they’d been outside her house.

“Of course,” the woman, the doctor she guessed told him before stepping out.

For a few moments, she stood there, facing the wall of lockers that held the bodies of the dead. She was one of them. She shuddered a little, enjoying the moment of silence she was able to have as she tried to get a hold of herself. She was sure she would lose it at some point though. She swore to her right now would not be that time though.

His voice was what caught her attention.

“I don’t really know what to say to you, or how to say what I need to say…how to tell you what I’m thinking,” he sounded so lost and unsure. It drew Juliette to turn around, and in a second she was at his side, trying to focus on him and not the body.

“Listen, Jules…Juliette…” he trailed off again, and there was an almost bitter laughter escaping him after a pause. “Can you believe it? Being around you, talking to you, even if I didn’t talk a lot, it as easy as breathing, as easy as just being. And now that you’re gone and you’re not listening I can’t even formulate what I need to say.”

She closed her eyes for a second, holding her breath, or the ghost version of that. “I’m here,” she murmured, as if it’d somehow encourage him. She didn’t want to hear what he had to say, in truth. In fact the idea terrified her. The guilt she already felt so deep in her soul would only be amplified so much more. Yet he had to. She was the dead one, he had to go on living, and she had to make sure he did, even if it was hearing the hard truths.

“I can’t believe they missed this,” she immediately opened her eyes, hoping for some sign of life in the body she even knew was long dead. But of course that wasn’t it. She knew it wasn’t it. But she wanted so desperately to have hope for something, anything.

What she saw was him looking at her hand. Specifically a ring. Her ring. It was one her parents had given her for her birthday when she turned thirteen. They’d resized it to fit her hand one or twice as she’d grown. “You remember that picture Sheriff Lax got of us, after that night up working on that one case, the one I just couldn’t let go,” he trailed off.

“Because you were too stubborn,” even if he couldn’t hear her, she had to complete it.

“We were running only by the caffeine in our veins. I don’t think…I don’t think that’s enough to remember you by. Not that I could ever forget you if I wanted to. The truth is I don’t want to remember or forget you. I don’t want you to be gone. So I hope you, and I hope your parents don’t mind if I kept this for you. I’ll keep it safe, I promise,” she could see guilt shining in his eyes. He even paused as if regretting his actions already. It was so like him.

“It’s okay,” she promised, knowing he couldn’t hear. It reflected too. He took another long pause before he took her dead, lifeless hand as gently as he had the few times when she’d been alive, carefully sliding the ring off, holding it between his middle finger and thumb. He slipped it into his pocket and she could see tears shining in his eyes. She felt the urges to cry herself. But no tears came. Must have been something that came with being dead.

“You’re cold. When you were alive, and our hands would brush you were so warm, so full of life. You had some much left to live, so much life left to give to everyone. You touched everyone around you whether you knew it or not, and some were lucky enough to feel that warmth and compassion you carried inside you. Now you’re this…you’re a corpse. I see your face, sunken and pale. And all I can think of is who you used to be.”

She hiccupped a sob, apparently tears or no tears, crying was still an option.

“And I can’t help but think that this is all my fault. I don’t know if I can ever say it enough, and I know it’s too late. But I’m so sorry. You will never see another day, because of me. All your life is gone, and all those people you touched, you’ll never see any of that, because you’re gone. Because I let you down.”

A split second of horror, and a sickening, gut wrenching twist of guilt. Not only had she done this to herself, she’d done this to everyone else, and one of the best people in her life, her saving grace thought he was to blame. Apparently death didn’t mean she couldn’t feel pain. Because very clearly she could. She felt it so acutely.

“That first night, I should have brought you to the hospital even if it meant strapping you down. I should have made sure that you had the proper doctors, all the things you needed. If you’d gotten help, real help, you wouldn’t be here right now, you’d still be smiling and making everyone’s lives around your better. You’d still be here. Even if you hated me, it’d be better than this because a day were you hate me is better than a day I have to live where you’re not in this world. Juliette, I’m sorry. I put too much on your shoulders, I made you carry this, I convinced you that you could do it alone. I should have drawn a line and made sure you’d gotten the help you needed, and that’s my fault. And now you’re alone, and you died alone, and I can’t help but think that maybe if you weren’t so alone, that maybe you wouldn’t be here right now. That’s something I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life,” his voice was breaking near the end, she could hear it and once again her gut twisted, as if punishing her. She deserved it. She’d take a whipping right now if it’d take away his pain. She’d do anything.

For the first time in her life, she saw something she’d never seen before, Roland crying. Tears ran down over his fan, and he broke out in a sob that killed her just as much as the blade she’d taken to her skin had. She let out a sob of her own, and she cried with him. All the guilt and shame getting to her.

“I hope…I hope wherever you are you can forgive me for what I’ve done to you, for leaving you alone. I hope the world will forgive me for taking you from it,” he whispered in a heavy breath between his sobs.

“But I was never alone,” she whispered between her own sobs, reaching out with a hand, not pressing it to his back as she knew it’d pass through, but resting it there, hovering, as if the gesture would do anything.

Juliette Solo V

Trigger Warnings: Self-harm, Gore.

Juliette was used to being home alone.

She’d been reliant and trustworthy enough for that since she was twelve years old. Her parents hadn’t left her overnight until she was sixteen, but they’d been gone out enough to show that she had their trust not to destroy the house. It wasn’t unfamiliar territory to be alone at all really. Most of the times she was alone. Even though she kept her self-harm a secret, she was still one of the outcasts in school.

Yesterday afternoon was when her parents had left fort their trip to New York. It was a two day trip, they’d told her, a vacation for their anniversary. They had done it every year as far as she could remember. Before she could stay home alone during the nights they’d hired a sitter to look after her during their celebration. She never felt left out really from their celebrations, since her birthday was in such close quarters to the date, they often all celebrated the two occasions together with supper at a local restaurant.

This year it’d been her eighteenth birthday and their twenty second anniversary. She’d always been touched by her parent’s love, it was something so unique, and passionate that she always wished one day she’d have something like that. Part of her wondered if she’d ever meet someone like that, someone who would be there for her, through all of the craziness in her head.

She knew she wasn’t normal. Not by a long shot. But it felt normal. Despite her better thinking, her higher reasoning, when she hurt herself, when she felt even the slightest bit closer to death with the pain she caused, it felt right, like it was what she was meant to do somehow. Her parents didn’t know that much. She was careful, and had seen a lot of the kids at the school who suffered through their sadness cover their own marks.

She’d wear cardigans and long sleeves to hide the new marks, use make up to hide the old ones. Her parents were oblivious to it. A part of her was happy they were in the dark. As connected and spiritual as they were, they’d never quite understand why she did what she did. They’d take her to a hospital, to try and fix her. Yet another part of her felt dirty and dishonest. She’d almost always been like that, morally inclined. Keeping all the secrets were starting to weigh on her.

Hurting herself was one thing that made the factual side of her brain light up, but the secrets, well that made her start to descend into a new brand of self-hatred that she’d never faced quite so hard before. Despite what she did, she was mostly confident in herself, and in the decisions she made with her life. The insecurity, and the darkness and the sinking, churning pit of something, something she couldn’t quite identify hit her so suddenly lately she wasn’t sure what to do.

Or, she did to some degree. She knew the one thing that seemed to bring her clarity initially, even if there was confusion in the aftermath. The amount of times she sought the clarity through pain was becoming more frequent than ever recently. Only a few weeks apart. She felt like she was growing more and more desperate. With each pain she had to be closer to death each time to truly feel the clarity she sought out.

It’d been a week and a half since she’d last done it. The once red, jagged marks on the delicate, cream colored skin of her wrist had faded off once again into pale scars. Healing herself properly, with the proper antibacterial products and bandaging only meant they went away quicker. It wasn’t substantially better when she could look back on the wounds. In fact it often caused more of that churning darkness. But sometimes it would serve as a reminder, so she wouldn’t have to do it so soon again.

She’d been more on edge in the past few day, even had gotten to the point that she hadn’t gone to school the day before. It’d been the day her parents left, so she’d been able to use that as an excuse by saying that she’d wanted to spend time with them before they left. When in fact she’d spent most of the day in her room, trying to sleep away the day and her sour mood. It wasn’t like she’d miss too much at school. Fridays were always slow.

Today she knew what she had to do.

Once she’d been absolutely sure her parents weren’t going to sporadically return, it was around twelve o’clock AM, making it Sunday morning. She’d gotten everything ready. She’d laid out a towel on her bed. She’d gotten her disinfectant, the bandages she needed and finally she’d taken her hidden razor blades out from the secure hiding place she’d found.

Juliette glanced down at the silver unwrapped blade, taking a few deep breaths to calm herself. A small part of her wished the breaths were to calm anxious nerves. In reality, her anxiety was only from…excitement. She hated that more than anything. The logical part of her brain was constantly reminding her it wasn’t normal. It reminded her that she was destroying herself. But that part of her that craved it, that felt it was normal was stronger.

It was the part of her that smothered the smaller, less dominant part by reaching for the silver blade, carefully pinching it between her thumb and pointer finger. She was carefully not to cut her fingertips on the sharp edge of the blade. Her hand shook slightly, once again, it was with that eerie anticipation. She turned her arm, curling her fist as she lowered the blade to her arm, pressing it into her delicate skin. The skin parted easily at the touch of the blade, the wound opening as she sliced across her arm. It wasn’t deep enough to hit the veins, but it was enough so that she could anchor herself to the pain.

One by one, a new cut opened on her arm, opening old scars that had faded from her wrist. It’d been a year since she’d started this habit, and there were plenty of pale faded scars, along with a few pinker newer ones. Soon she couldn’t see the scars at all, all she could see was crimson, dribbling down her wrist in uncoordinated lines at first. Soon they all blended together.

When she’d been satisfied with the amount of wounds she’d created, which was admittedly more than normal, she set the blade down, watching the crimson dribble from her arm and onto the towel she’d set out. Thick droplets of blood stained the towel one by one. She was so hypnotized by the scene, that she didn’t notice the pain at first. She didn’t notice the dizziness either.

When she finally did snap out of it long enough to realize she was dizzy from blood loss, for a second she didn’t want to stop. For a second those dark feelings, and the side that convinced her it was all normal merged. She suddenly felt as if this was right, as if this needed to happen. She could just go to sleep. It stalled her for another minute. For that minute she was ready to fade out. Part of her even wanted to pick up the blade and cut deeper, maybe she’d go faster then.

That minute ended.

A stunning clarity met her, every bit as alerting as if she’d been slapped across the face. The sting of what she was considering was just the same as if someone’s hand collided with her face. She quickly grasped the towel, wrapping it around her wrist. Even the motion of wrapping the towel made her dizzy. She wanted her head to stop spinning, but it didn’t seem to get the message on time. Looking at her hands, she could see that the crimson had stained them as well.

Desperately, with her hands shaking, this time not with anticipation, but from the fear of the harm she’d done to herself, she reached for her nightstand, for her cellphone. The smear of blood on her hand prevented her finger print from working to unlock it. She had to manually unlock it, only noticing the amount of time that’d passed through the crimson smear on the screen. Suddenly filled with terror, she opened up her dial pad and quickly called the emergency line.

“Emergency hotline, what’s your problem?” A woman’s voice answered. In a larger town, the dispatch might have asked her what targeted help she needed. This town was so small it was usually the police station working the jobs of firemen and EMT’s.

“I…I,” she hadn’t realized how hard it’d be to get the words out. Looking at her arm, seeing the blood not just staining her arms, but seeping through the material of her towel she realized she desperately needed help. “I hurt myself, I don’t know what to do. It’s bleeding so much. There’s so much blood. Help me, please,” her words came out in broken parts, slowly, and uncertainly. She was truly terrified.

“What’s your address?” The woman asked.

After shakily giving her address, she was assured help was on the way, and that she needed to keep pressure on her wounds until they arrived. Juliette pressed the towel on her arm, hearing the odd squishing noise of the liquid built up compressing. She felt a sickening wetness press against her hand and she knew she’d messed up badly.

She was trying to focus on keeping the pressure on her wounds, when it came to her in an almost hysterical after thought that the person wouldn’t be able to get in. Whoever was sent to get in couldn’t if the door was locked. Juliette stood up from the bed on quivering legs, stumbling her way out of her room, into the hallways. The hysterical state also seemed to dramatize how important it was to not stain the walls or the floors. Mother would be so angry.

She made it downstairs, but only halfway to the entrance before her shaking legs gave out from under her, causing her to fall to the ground with a rather harsh thump. Her emerald hues were a little blurry as she stared intently at the door, as if she could make it open just with a sheer force of will. Juliette’s grip loosened slightly on the towel, she felt weaker, and she didn’t feel like she could keep the pressure there properly.

Blinking a few times, the door finally opened. Not loudly, as if it was being busted open like in all the cop movies. It was more like someone had just unlocked it from the outside. Even in its addled state her mind was trying to figure out how it was being unlocked. There wasn’t any sort of large group raiding her house, just one guy.

“So this is the grand cavalry they send huh?” Juliette mused hysterically. Releasing something that sounded like a chuckle.

The man didn’t seem to be phased at all, even in her blurry view of him. In a second he was by her side, knelt down in front of her with what looked like the tool box her father had in the garage. She thought that was funny. Why would he have her father’s tool box?

“Can you hear me?” The voice, deep and obviously male sounded, concern laced in it.

“No, not at all,” she responded releasing one of those strangled laughs.

“I think you’re in shock. I need to stitch you up before I bring you to the hospital,” she immediately was flooded with awareness at that.

“No!” She jerked away. “No hospitals,” the awareness wasn’t complete. She felt like she didn’t have full access to her mind, but she knew she wasn’t going to be locked up in a hospital.

“Okay, it’s okay, just relax. No hospitals,” she wasn’t sure if it was a lie or not. But his voice was calm and gentle, she wanted to believe it. “Can I see your arm?”

Juliette forced her limb into awareness, pushing it forward so he had better access to it. It was still clad in the towel, though it was now sopping with her blood. With a careful, gentle touch, the towel was peeled away from her arm. There was a sharp pain met with that, as if a layer of skin was being pulled away. She winced slightly, but kept her arm extended.

It was turned, just slightly left, then right. The actions brought more pain. But with the pain came clarity, as much as she hated it. The part that told her this was normal no longer ruled. The part of her that wanted to live and fight was fully in control now. She was now fully surrounded by pictures of her family on the wall, and she knew she needed to live, if not for herself for them.

“What’s your name?” She was pulled back to the man in front of her. She was certain it was a technique to distract her from the burning pain radiating from her arm.

“Juliette,” her voice was shakier than she would have liked it, but she got out her name well enough.

“That’s a nice name. I’m Roland.” What an odd place for an introduction. She still managed to look at him instead of her arm. She knew looking at her arm would only strengthen the side of her fighting to convince her logic and reason it was normal.

“Hi Roland,” she whispered meekly, turning her head to face the wall.

“Hi,” when she glanced back briefly, she saw that for a second he was smiling at her. He was still blurry, but the corners of his lips made such a pretty smile she could notice. Everything seemed prettier in this blurry state. It was simple. Everything else was complicated, she always needed to know everything. Seeing everything in blurred figures was almost relieving.

The rest of the process was done in silence as he worked. She was working too, to fight the side of her that defied her logic. She was fragile enough as it was. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, not herself. Silently, she sat there, battling her own demons as the man who’d come to help her did his part in helping fight them away.

Soon it was over. The minutes of fighting the suppressed desire passed like hours, but soon, her arm once clad in a towel seeping with crimson was clad in pure white bandages. Her arm felt funny. Not quite numb, but as if it’d fallen asleep and was tingling as if it was just starting to awaken.

“Can you stand?” She looked to the man, seeing his face a bit more clearly now. Not quite crisply clear, but enough that she could pick out the shade of his eyes. It was similar to hers, a shade of emerald.

She nodded, and he was arising from his crouch, wrapping her good arm around his neck. When he started to lead her to the door, even on her shaky legs she knew there was no way she was going to the hospital. She quickly, and clumsily, turned on her heel to go to the dining room. “You promised no hospitals,” she muttered.

“I have to take you to the hospital and call your parents,” the man explained rather matter of factly, but also with a conviction that told her he had a strong set of morals guiding his actions.

“I’m eighteen,” she followed it up by quoting the exact law on the medical consent release of information that she’d memorized from one of her early law textbooks. The man seemed impressed, for a second, maybe stunned.

“Come on, let’s sit you down for a minute,” he said instead of fighting after that shocked minute of silence.

He led Juliette to the dining room table, going at a pace that almost seemed restraining on his part. She didn’t worry she’d fall once. He was sturdy. She was absolutely sure that he had her. When she got to the seat, she was blissfully able to sit down. Even though the chair was hard, it had more support than the floor.

“Do you have a bottle of water? You need to replace your fluids,” the man said sheepishly, as if he felt bad about inquiring the place of something as simple as water. He had to be new. Most people in the town would have rooted around in the fridge by now.

“In the fridge, there’s a couple there,” she commented, slumping into the support of the backing of the chair. After he’d opened the fridge door, once again looking painfully uncomfortable with it, he brought the bottle back to her and set it down before sitting in the seat across the table from her. She opened the bottle, taking a tentative sip.

“Does your arm feel okay, bandages too tight?” Once again, he seemed absolutely concerned. She shook her head a little, offering a tired smile.

“They’re fine,” she commented, unable to help but be a little amused by his over-concern.

“So why won’t you let me take you to the hospital?” She knew the subject was going to turn up again, but she couldn’t help but sigh a little.

“My parents don’t need the stress,” she commented, trying her best to brush him off.

“You mean they don’t know,” he inquired. Damn he was good. She wasn’t sure whether she should be impressed or unamused with his accurate guess.

“They don’t need to, I’m fine,” she commented simply, shrugging her shoulders, even though it caused a lancing pain in her arm. One she promptly ignored.

“You don’t need to be fine for everyone else all the time you know,” his voice was soft, gentle, as if it was supposed to soften the blow that came with the truth of his words. She wasn’t sure someone had ever matched her in her perceptive nature so quickly.

“Maybe I’m fine for me,” she commented stiffly, brushing off his words verbally, although they’d already stuck in her mind.

“Well, I’m sure even if you aren’t right now, you will be,” he assured her, and for a second she felt incredibly safe. Just a passing, reassuring second.

“How do you know?” She asked carefully.

“You’re strong, I can tell,” he offered that smile once more, the same reassuring one he had when he’d been bandaging her arm, though now she could see it much more clearly. With a small twitch of her lips, she gave a tentative smile back.

Juliette Solo IV

Trigger Warnings: Gore, suicidal ideation.

It was a constant reminder of everything she wasn’t.

Once upon a time, when she was free of the confines of her usual shirts, she would be able to extend her large, pure white feathered wings and just have the freedom. She remembered how odd it was to be an angel at first. Having her wings withdrawn felt odd. She supposed they divided the laws of several things with the way they could just ease into her back, but it still felt strange to her to have them tucked away. It almost always felt better to be free, to be herself.

Now she still suffered the same claustrophobic, trapped feeling, but she didn’t want them to be free. After she had first been brought back, she wondered if she’d still had them. After getting over the depression that came with being alive, she’d investigated, seeing that sure enough her wing slits were still there and she’d extended them.

She kept them like that, not caring enough to withdraw them, to tuck them away. And then she started to watch them die. The once pure white wings, a sign of the light she carried, a sign of who she was, had started to tinge with black. It was only the tips at first but slowly it took over each and every feathered edge. She watched them die, just as she’d felt herself die.

When she’d died, she’d remembered the darkness that had surrounded her, that she thought was filling her. The darkness of death. Maybe the mark of the death left was what bled into her wings, turning them into the charcoal feathered wings that they were now. She wondered about that sometimes. All she knew was that they were a reminder of everything she’d lost, of everything she wasn’t.

With her first death the wings had been a sign of hope. She’d lost her parents, and lost her old life but she was beginning a new. They meant she was a part of something greater than herself, and one day she’d be the head of everything, she’d be able to lead more people. They were hope that she’d one day become a support for other people. It was a hope that as she bore the wings, she’d be held in Nathan’s arms.

Now they were a sign of everything that she’d lost.

The ashen black wings, still soft as ever, would be the only thing wrapped around her. The only embrace she’d ever find. Not that she could find comfort in an embrace anymore either way. With each touch brought pain. Even the softest of brushes, a simple caress as light as that of one of her feathered wings would result in the pain of a death. As if feeling her own had not been enough, she was now cursed to feel everyone else’s.

Now they were a reminder that she not only nothing to others, no representation of hope for the angels, but she was nothing to anyone. She was no more important than the darkness that had surrounded her when she was dead. There was no hope for the future, or even the unfurling of something new when she saw her wings. There was just death, and the hollow shell of who she’d once been.

She wasn’t sure about what it was today. Well, she was actually. For months since she’d first returned from the dead, since she’d originally retracted her wings, she’d kept them there. She couldn’t bear to look at them and see the shame of who she’d been, who she could have been if she hadn’t been killed. They were a reminder that even though she couldn’t be dead, she carried death everywhere she went. It filled her, it was an unshakeable part of her that had the unfortunate enchantment of allowing her to walk around instead of her finally having the peace she so desperately craved.

Sometimes she wondered if she deserved it. After all the agony she’d put her parents through. Maybe she’d been the weird girl in school, but she was sure those that she had talked to were saddened by her abrupt passing as well. For months, she’d been pretend she was dead, when in fact she was here, walking and breathing. She deserved the suffering she went through. It couldn’t have had a dime on what her parents were feeling.

When she’d woken up that morning, it was in utter agony. Not from the usual emotional agony and emptiness she felt. But it was all up her back. She almost thought someone had decided to wake her with a vision, but this pain was all her own. The pain radiated, pulsating and making her scream and cry as if that would somehow make it go away. She felt paralyzed, like she couldn’t move because it’d all just make the pain that much worse.

It was blinding.

She tried to breathe in shallow breaths as she managed to still herself, pressing her face into her pillow as she cried out. Her back hurt so much. It was her wings. She knew it was her wings. She’d felt the cramping in them for the past few days. Ignoring their need to be expanded, to be free had come at a cost. She was just thought she was willing to see that as opposed to the awful reminder her feathered wings served.

Now, she knew she would have to unfurl them, or this god awful agony would never stop. Black spotted in her visions and she was sure if it got any worse she might pass out. She couldn’t focus on anything. Another throaty cry of pain left her lips, muffled against the thickness of her pillow. Tears formed in her eyes, the warmth dampening her pillow. She wasn’t sure she could stand this much longer. A part of her wanted to see if it would just go away, at least for those few seconds she wasn’t focused on the pain rupturing through her back.

It was too much, and just like that she let it free, knowing full well her wide powerful wing span would rip through the material of her shirt as she let go of that subconscious control on her wings. She willed them out, even though stretching them was nearly as painful as the radiating pain in her back. It was like having each individual limb cramped up and then stretching them. Painful at first. It was as natural as controlling a limb as she moved them slowly enough so that she didn’t get any lift, just enough so that the process would go by faster.

The pain dimmed into a throb, and then she was just left with the disappointment of how weak she was. She could see the black feathers out the corner of her eye, and it just added to her shame. She couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand looking at them anymore. It was just a constant painful reminder for her. The redhead just couldn’t take it, not anymore.

Before she knew it, she was acting. Being so powerless now was no easy feat for her. She felt defenseless. Any demon or dark species who wanted to take some sort of twisted vengeance on the angels, who had no clue she mattered as little to them as she did to the rest of the world could come in and torture her further. She’d kept a large stainless steel knife from the kitchen handy. It was large, and tucked into her nightstand should she ever need it.

She needed it now. She needed to cut away one more reminder of who she wasn’t anymore. If she couldn’t bury the wings. She’d take them away. She just hoped this time they wouldn’t come back. Maybe they’d stay away this time. She wouldn’t have to deal with them any longer. She wasn’t sure she could bare it if she had to.

The redhead pulled on the handle, opening the drawer with the squeaking protest of the old rickety system. She grabbed the knife from the drawer, setting it on the pillow before she pulled away the torn remnants of her night shirt. Once she was left in her bra, she grabbed the knife from the pillow and moved from the bed and to the floor. She didn’t want to stain up her bed sheets.

It wouldn’t be easy, she knew after the pain caused in her back, this wouldn’t be easy. But it was better than suffering every time she looked in the mirror. She already hated what she saw looking back at her, the shell of who she was. The last she needed was the constant reminder of what she could never be again. That’s all these wings were, she reminded herself.

It wasn’t the best angle either. Her arms weren’t meant to bend and extend in the way she’d need them to in order to steadily get rid of them. Not that she’d do this easily anyway. Either way she bent her arm behind her back, reaching up to grip under the base of one wing. She felt the thick bulk at the base of her wing. Pure muscle, maybe bone. She wasn’t entirely sure what made up her wings, but she didn’t care anymore.

Curling the knife in her hand she was able to brush her hair out of the way by uncurling her pointer finger. Once the hair was brushed over one shoulder to the side of her neck she steadied her grip around the handle, giving a look down at the seemingly sturdy knife. She took a few deep breaths. It wouldn’t completely get rid of her pain. But at least she wouldn’t be saddled with another reminder of it every time she turned around.

She slowly reached back, feeling a light twitch in the wing she was trying to grip on. They were an extension of her, maybe she was nervous. No she knew by her shaking hand that she was absolutely nervous. There was no way that she wasn’t. She wasn’t even sure if it was safe. But a part of her didn’t even care. Maybe it’d finally be enough to kill her and give her the first bit of piece she’d have in a while.

Positioning the blade as close as she could get to her back, hoping to remove most evidence of her disappointment, she took one more deep breath to steady herself, gripping the twitching wing as tight as possible. Juliette forced her hand to dig the knife in. Immediately, she was met with a biting sting. It wasn’t too much unlike when she cut, not that small amount. Cutting in further was what brought on the real agony.

As she forced herself to saw deeper and deeper into the muscle, each cutting inch was made pain lance through her back, right to the part of the brain the processed pain. She knew it was probably working on overdrive out of late. This pain wasn’t even the kind that sobered her. It was the kind that blinded her. It was as if she was trying to remove one of her limbs. And in a way she was.

Really she just wanted to cut away her past. It was agonizing, and the pain made her hands shake. Slick crimson coated the blade, and she could feel it dripping down over her back, staining her pale skin. She had to stop for a second. It hurt so damn much, each cut had a cry ripping through her throat even though she tried to swallow it. The hand gripping the blade slipped into her lap as she tried to breath, black spotting in her vision as she felt a few hiccupping sobs escaping her.

The warmth wasn’t just dripping over her back, it was pouring in a steady stream. She had to get this over with. She was just dragging out her agony even more. Juliette reached back once more, ready to rip in once again. She positioned the knife, forcing it back into the gaping wound. She couldn’t see it, but she could certainly feel it.

She felt dizzy, her head was spinning.

She forced her hand to slice in once more. She sawed desperately at the base of the wing, hoping to widen the already ugly jagged fixture. Throaty cries left her throat, stars starting to flicker in her vision along with the spots of black. It hurt so much. So much pain just to stop the pain inside her empty chest. Maybe it’d be easier to just cut out her heart.

The grip on the knife was loosened by the slickness of her red blood. The same blood that spread warmth down her back. She tried to grip tighter, but it only caused the knife to slip right from her grasp. She reached to grab it, the quick spin of her actions making her already dizzy head all that much worst. Even the slightest of movements had made the agony into something so pure and unable to ignore. She tried to grip for the knife, but she was just too dizzy, too shaken.

The redhead couldn’t really think right either. She was so shaken, so utterly ashamed of herself for being so weak that she couldn’t even get through a little bit of pain. The blackness took her vision and before she really knew it, she wasn’t sitting upright anymore, she was on the ground, buckled in the awkward position the way she’d been sitting had left her.

Her throat was raw from all the screaming. She couldn’t even bring herself to scream anymore. Her heavy eyelids shut. The last thing she could really think about was that pain. It was so raw and all encompassing. No longer just in her back but radiating throughout her entire body to the point she could feel nothing else. At least no physically. Emotionally she was more drained than she was physically. Emotionally she was more destroyed, taunted by the weakness of being unable to do something that would have been made easier when she wasn’t the pathetic mess she was now.

“Make it stop,” she whimpered hysterically, to nothing in particular. “I just want it to stop,” she knew there was no one there to help her. No one had been there for a long time. And when she spoke she wasn’t sure if she meant the physical pain, or the pain brought on by how painfully alone she was. “Please…” was the last word she whispered before she passed out.

Juliette Solo III

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of death, suicide.

It was so dark.

Why was it so dark? The blackness surrounded her, pushing her under like water. She felt like she was drowning, like all that darkness was filling her lungs, filling her body and becoming part of her. She wanted to gasp for air, or scream for help but no sound came out when she opened her mouth. There was nothing. Was it blackness that had her, or the nothingness? She couldn’t tell anymore. She felt like she was disappearing, like every fraction of her existence was being wiped away. She couldn’t help but think it already had been. It started to come back to her, slowly. She remember Freya’s hands on either side of her head, felt the sickening, dominating pain in her neck, and then nothing. There was nothing. No comfort, no warmth, no life. Nothing. Was that it? Was she dead? She wanted to be grateful, partially. This was where she was supposed to be. This was where her parents thought she was. They thought she was gone. She’d wanted to be gone after she’d lost almost everything. But she didn’t want to be here. It was so dark and cold here. It was scary. She screamed for anyone. For her mother, her father, for Nathan. But nobody came, no sound slipped out. She wanted to claw at herself, just to feel something besides the nothingness. But she couldn’t feel anything. It was like her senses were completely robbed from her. She was losing herself. Juliette could feel her mind slipping away. Things she’d once known better than anything were now sliding through her fingers each time she tried to grasp at them. She could vaguely remember them, but when she tried to grip at the details, at any solidity it would just slide away, like a soap bar she desperately wanted to hold onto but couldn’t. The nothingness was becoming part of her, and she was becoming part of it. Soon there would be nothing left. And a part of her was glad. Nothingness was better than this. Or was it? Would she still be aware? Would she become mad, trying to remember who she was, trying to beat down the walls that blocked her? She wanted to go away, but only if she truly disappear. And then it came. A halo of light surrounded a silhouette in the distance. As it came further into focus, as she could pick out the female, she noticed the darkness was starting to slip away. There was an agonizing pain that accompanied that, as it was being ripped right from her soul. Juliette squinted into the brightening light, trying to pick out the figure. It was only after it got so far into distance that she realized she recognized the person. The raven hair, the brown eyes that were usually cold and calculating but were now filled with a gentle nature she wasn’t used to seeing. Soft pale skin, and old fashioned dress. It was the Queen of the Underworld. She really was dead. This was it, she would finally get to cross over, to drift away. She’d be where she was supposed to be, and she wouldn’t have to feel like she was betraying her parents anymore just because she was alive. Peace. That was all she wanted. The agony stopped, finally. There was still a string, like there was more to be pulled away, but she no longer felt and unbearable pain. She was focused on something else now, the hope that she would finally be at rest. There were no words spoken by the woman surrounded by light. She only approached silently and then she felt a light touch on her arm, causing her to look down. She could see herself now, in the light. She felt solid again. Then there was another pain, a searing pain. Snap. She was hurtled backwards, sailing into more nothingness. She felt like she was falling, or flying might have been the better word for it. She’d only done that once, using her wide wing span. But this was different. She had no control of here she was going. Where she was being cast off too. She felt powerless, and it was so quick there was barely time for panic to set in.

Juliette was desperate to get a grip on something, anything to stop the speed. She was terrible. If she didn’t stop now she would hit something surely. Really, she wasn’t sure where she was going. Was this going to be her new eternity? Falling and falling with no place to go. Her heart pounded viciously inside of her chest, as if it was trying to hammer its way through her ribs. She was so terrified. “Mom!” She screamed, this time she could hear her voice. “Mommy!” She felt like she was two again, desperately calling out for her mother for help. What was happening to her? “Dad!” They were the next words that left her mouth. Sure, they weren’t quite as close as Juliette and her mother were, but he’d been there for her. She could remember a few times he’d provided supports for her. She just wanted them there now.

How selfish could she be? After purposely leaving them, in a way so horrid, in a way that’d break their hearts, she was now desperately wanting them to save her. She felt ashamed of herself. Not that shame and guilt were unfamiliar feelings to her anymore. They were the exact opposite. At this point they were like an old glove she’d long since worn in. It weighed on her nearly every day. Everything she’d done had been a true waste. Because now here she was dead, Queen of nothing, and she wasn’t with Nathan either. All this had been for nothing. At least now she was where she belonged.

Even if she was terrified. She supposed nothing worse could happen to her now. She really was dead. There would be no more tomorrow. Just this. Was this was death was? Falling endlessly. Would she ever touch the ground?

“Nathan!” Was her last helpless word. Sure he’d left her long before this. And he couldn’t save her this time. He hadn’t been able to save her the first time either. But she was desperate. She just wanted someone to help her. She wanted someone to stop this falling. Couldn’t everything just slip away? “Please,” she whimpered, that feeling of falling continuing on.

Juliette wrapped her arms around herself rather tightly. This was how it would be. No one to hold and comfort her besides herself. She kept that grip around her body tight, glad she could hold on now. At least she had someone. The redhead closed her eyes, not that she could see much anyway, and tried to stop herself from all the whimpering.

The falling almost slowed for a second, and it was less like she was racing to her doom and more like she was just floating, like a feather drifting down. She wanted to open her eyes, but instead she just kept them closed, trying to relax, trying not to cry so hard. And almost as abruptly as she slowed, she sped up again.

She did her best to pretend she was somewhere else. A part of her wanted to envision her parents, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She felt guilty reaching out to them in a time like this. She’d left them alone in their morning. She’d wondered who’d been there to hold them and love them after she’d left them. It wasn’t her. She certainly didn’t deserve the comfort, not anymore.

And then she was hammered back into something, almost like a wall. Except not quite. She sunk into what she ran into, becoming part of it. It felt normal, like it was where she was supposed to be, yet she felt different at the same time. She didn’t feel right, not entirely. Like she’d been in a shirt that had one fit her, but she pulled the wrong thread and it’d tightened somehow. She couldn’t place the feeling, not entirely.

The falling had stopped, but she was still being fit back into…whatever it was she had hit. After a few more uncomfortable seconds, she finally felt whole once again. Or not whole. Whole wasn’t the right word because there was a newfound empty pit in her chest that she was sure hadn’t been there before. Or at least not to this magnitude.

The first thing she felt was pain. It was unbearable. But it was like a new bruise. Only the bruise surrounded her neck. Her neck. She could feel it again. Her eyes were heavy, she couldn’t open those yet but when she willed her hand to move, it did. Carefully exploring, she slid her hand up over her stomach, a rough shirt covered it, and there was a loose sleeve slipping over her arm, a robe maybe. She slid her hand over her chest and to her neck slowly. Tentatively, she probed her fingers along her neck, instantly met by pain.

The source of her pain was soon found. A thin jagged line. A scar maybe. Low on the base of her throat. It still hurt. Her curiosity was caught, and she forced her heavy eyes to open. It was almost like when she was sick, and she had to force her eyes open. Once she did, she could see, she could see it all. Around the room she was met by the familiar white walls. They were blank and empty, just like she felt inside. Her room. She was in her room. The hand that wasn’t on her throat came to grip the sheets of the bed. This was definitely her room. She remembered the familiar feeling of the thick comforter she’d used her magic to summon. Slowly, she sat up. Her head spun when she did so. She was definitely here, alive, she was sure of it. How was it possible? The redheaded swung her feet over the side of the bed. Her feet met the cold floor. She desperately wanted a pair of slippers but instead she walked across the floor anyway, going for the bathroom. She needed to see herself. Even though she was sure she was alive, and not caught in some endless loop of being in hell, she had to be sure, she had to see herself. It didn’t take much to cross her room floor as she made her way to the half opened door of her bathroom. She pushed it the rest of the way open, making her way in. She saw her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes looked sunken almost, dark circles under them. Her skin was pale, washed out. She could see it though, what she’d felt in the mirror. She saw the scarring on her neck. It was a jagged scar along the base of her throat, disappearing around her neck. She reached up to brush her fingers against the back of her neck. Sure enough it went all the way around. She didn’t recognize herself. In this mirror, in the plain grey robe and navy shirt she looked truly like someone who belonged in the asylum. This wasn’t who she wanted to be. She didn’t want to exist like this. She didn’t want to exist at all. She’d been more than ready to die. In fact she craved it. Why couldn’t she just be gone? This wasn’t her. This couldn’t be her. Emotion bubbled inside of her, and she was terrified it would boil over. She hadn’t felt something so pure like this in so long. She felt tears brimming in her eyes, felt her heart racing once again. She wasn’t sure what she felt. She should have been happy to be alive. If she’d been guiding someone else as an angel before, she would have told them to be grateful they were here. But instead of happiness, she felt a mix of disappointment and angry. “I’m supposed to be dead!” She screamed the words at her reflection, a reflection whose features contorted in the same emotion, that’s mouth opened as if the words would come out but the only things that sounded were Juliette’s own words. In a surprising burst of emotion, unsure of how to deal with it, her fist that had balled at her side crashed into the glass, shattering it at the point of contact. “I’m supposed to be dead,” she repeated, huffing.

“I was ready to die,” this time there was no real volume to her voice, just a quiet whisper. Slowly the hand she’d used to punch the glass with came down to rest on the counter. There was a pain radiating from that hand, no doubt from the force of the punch. She was sure if she looked down there would be crimson there. She didn’t care though.

Instead she sunk down against the two cabinet doors of the base of the sink. She buckled, her knees pressing against her chest. She rested her arms on the tops of her knees, resting her forehead against her arms. She could feel her eyes watering, feel the salted warmth sliding down over her cheeks, dripping off onto her arms. “I was ready to die,” she whispered pathetically to nothing in particular.

Juliette Solo II Trigger Warnings: Mention of murder, death, suicide.

Sometimes being in her room was just too much for her. She wanted to be alone. She did. Every bit of her ached for it. Before she’d isolated herself because she didn’t feel like she fit with any of the humans. Now it was because she was cared of the visions of death she would be forced to face upon contact with another person’s skin. It was a scary thing.

She’d accepted all of her quirks. Her drive to hurt herself, to end her life. It’d become pattern, although it all almost faded soon after she became an angel, although it was replaced with the slightest bit of regret, that she’d fallen for Noah’s tricks. But she’d been happy, for the most part. And then, throwing fate into the wind, she’d gotten her head ripped off by Freya.

So much for destiny. Now she was the Queen of nothing, only her own misery.

After waking up once again, as an undead, she’d realized there was nothing left of her angelic powers, and that she’d already been replaced. A blonde angel she remembered was now head angel. It stung. She’d felt miserable her whole life, took herself from her parents only to have someone come in and take the position right out of her hands. She wasn’t often petty, but her sacrifice lost all meaning when she’d lost her title, when she’d lost Nathan. The white walls were bare. She had taken down the photos of her parents. She was too ashamed. She couldn’t even look at their faces. All she could picture was their sadness, crying at the funeral, finding the bloody horror show in the bathroom. Juliette couldn’t believe she’d been so silly and stupid, to throw it all away. Now it was worth nothing. As if it couldn’t get any worse, she’d touched someone, when she’d come back, only to be greeted by a painful vision of death. Not just a vision. It was like she’d experienced it herself. Every time she did it, it would happen again. This was not a quirk she could get used to. This was not a power she could adjust to. She was certain it would only bring her pain. How could she ever adjust to seeing the death of others? She wasn’t adjusting so far. Which was part of why she was locked up in her room, to avoid people. They were too much trouble, not like there was much to see anyway, just the shell of what she’d been. There wasn’t much left anymore. Just a set of char black wings that replaced the white ones she’d once had. She’d woken up to the plain barren white walls, after Freya had killed her. Sometimes if she stayed there too long, she’d keep thinking of when Freya killed her, or when she’d killed herself. Or the misery she would face now, trapped in the life of a broken girl. It was all too much. She felt like she’d never escape the pain or finish mourning the loss of who she had once been, and the life she had had. Finally, it’d all been too much for her. It was just too…quiet. There was nothing more torturous being forced and left alone with her own thoughts. She jerked up out of bed, making a rash decision to go for a walk. It was night time, the chances of running into anyone was fairly low. Who would be out at this time of night? She doubted anyone would be. Or she hoped at least. She shoved on her knee high boots. They were waterproof, fashionable and would guard her from the few layers of snow that had fallen to the ground. She grabbed her green coat, pulling it on and grabbing her gloves from the pocket, slipping those on her hands as well. She made her way out of her room, and left the door building as well. Soon enough she found herself walking around the back side of the building. She’d gone through the fire exit, to avoid any guards. There wasn’t much light, but Juliette didn’t really need it. She wasn’t scared of the dark. She was only scared of going back to the room and being alone with her thoughts. She was still alone with her thoughts. But at least the biting cold did enough to distract her even in the slightest of ways. It was better than what else she wanted to do, which was going back to bad habits. Juliette was coming up to the side of the building. Pale yellow light illuminated the snow near the area, though the rest was consumed in shadows. She decided as soon as she met that side she would end up turning around and going back. A few more laps around the back of the asylum would do her fine, and then she would go back to her room. Just as she was rounding the corner of the building, she saw the first person that she’d seen in weeks. A male. A handsome one, darker looking. He was smoking a cigarette, the puffs of smoke puffing out of his lips. She definitely could take notice of his features, but she wasn’t going to gawk. She was hardly the type. The last thing on her mind at this point was a pretty boy. For a few moments, she froze, wondering if she should approach him or not. Part of her wanted to socialize, wanted to reach out and contact another person, human or not. But the other part of her, the depressed part wanted to isolate herself back in her room, keep hidden away so she couldn’t touch anyone and feel the horrible pain of another death. “Don’t you know those can kill you?” She called out. The male didn’t seem surprised by her reaction, but merely spared her an icy glance. “I’m a demon, death isn’t my concern,” he retorted back, his voice just as icy as his glance had been. Juliette decided to cross the distance between them, her feet leaving prints in the snow with each stride. She wasn’t even sure what she was doing. He was a demon, she was an ex-angel. Even talking to him felt wrong to her. Or it should of. But she didn’t care how wrong it was. The part of her that wasn’t entirely dead still craved human interaction, or some sort of interaction. Maybe there was hope for her after all. “What’s your name?” She asked curiously, leaning against the wall. “Chris,” he commented, staring off into the distance. She was certain she was just an annoyance. “Don’t bother with your name, I know who you are, you’re the angel with the broken wings, Juliette.” She wasn’t too happy about having that pointed out on her. She glanced over at the cigarette carefully. “Can I have a draw of that?” She asked curiously. He turned to look at her, with a slight grin on his lips this time. She wasn’t sure if it a smirk or a grin. “Don’t you know these can kill you?” He asked, mimicking her own question. For a split second, she smiled back before taking the cigarette from him, careful not to let her skin touch his. She didn’t need to see his death. She encircled the end of the cigarette, drawing in a breath and then puffing it out again. “I’m already dead,” she responded, glancing back over at him and holding out the cigarette for him to take. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a bit dark for an ex-angel?” He asked, there was an almost dull amusement in his tone this time, replacing the icy tone. “I’ve heard it before,” she said, her voice unamused. It reminded her of what she became, just for a few moments. But for once, she wasn’t just drowning in her misery. She was actually talking to someone, actually getting out of her own way. And Chris intrigued her. There was something more to him than just the icy cold façade. And for some odd reason, she almost wanted to stick around and find out what it was.

Juliette Solo I

Trigger Warnings: Suicide, mentions of self-harm.

His words played in her mind, Nathan’s words. She was both nervous, and excited at the time. Her whole life she’d struggled, she’d wondered if she’d ever become the something more she’d always felt as if she was destined to be. The world had just never felt like it was her place. And she’d wanted to leave it.

The friendships hadn’t mattered, she’d cut the majority of those off. She’d isolated herself, hurt herself recklessly and carelessly. She had always felt as if she was the odd one out. It wasn’t something she could help. She was the freak obsessed with dying and death, the one who hurt herself and hid it from her parents. Maybe no one knew about the hurting herself, but she felt like an outsider as it was, it all just added to it, thinking she was crazy.

The darkness that had weighed on her all that time presented itself meanly. It practically placed each cut when she’d lost friendships. She couldn’t be bothered to care about them. Or maybe a part of herself was protecting them from her. She wasn’t sure. It scared her, that darkness. She hadn’t known what to do with herself. Isolation had just come naturally to her.

The only clarity in her life came from Nathan. He’d breezed into her life right on time, keeping her from making a mistake of hurting herself before it was her time to become something more. She’d grown to care for him, to trust and love him even. He’d been her one help in making her feel normal again, or at least like she was not crazy.

She’d been waiting patiently for his say so to finally become an angel and rule with him. It was important, he’d promised he’d tell her when the time was right. All of it was so exciting, she’d finally be with who she was meant to be, around others that would understand who and what she was. Yet she was a little nervous to leave her life behind.

The excitement took priority for the most part. And finally, after months of waiting, he’d given her the say so. It was time. Time for her to become an angel. He’d left only a few moments ago, told her he’d be there when she’d woken up, and reminded her to use the blades instead of the pills. Only he knew about the blades. Those were the ones she’d used to harm herself so many times before, the ones that left marks on her creamy skin.

She was a little nervous, or a lot nervous. Part of it was worry about leaving her life behind. The other part was if Nathan would like her as an angel, or if all the other angels would finally come to accept her. That was what she wanted more than anything, to finally find acceptance. But she also knew she’d miss her parents when she went to heaven.

But she knew she had a purpose. She was going to be a Queen. The Queen of angels. That was a big deal. She was needed. She was important to someone. She finally was no longer a freak of nature, but someone who had a place. And then she’d be with Nathan, or she hoped at least, as long as he still wanted her. He would be her King. He’d have to want her. She shook that thought out of her head quickly. If they’d be together, she wanted him to want her, not just be forced to be with her.

Juliette carefully pulled open her dresser drawer, plucking the small bracelet box from the drawer. It was where she hid her blades. She might not have been under a watch for any sort of self-harm by her parents, but she knew well enough to know if her parents caught her with the blades, they’d know what she was doing to herself. So she’d hidden them. It wasn’t like they were used all the time.

The redhead glanced down at her bed, the one she was sitting on and realized that leaving bloodstained sheets in her wake wasn’t a good idea. Her parents would be broken enough without having to find themselves forced to clean up the mess of blood their daughter had left behind. It was one of the small things she was worried about.

Her bathroom was an ensuite one, and it didn’t take too much work to get to it without being spotted by her parents. She didn’t want them to ask her what she was doing, or she’d back out. She couldn’t back out now. She was going to finally fulfil her purpose. She had to. And that meant no risks of back out of it.

Juliette carefully climbed into the tub. She didn’t want to fill it up, just figured it’d be easier. She wondered how it would all work. Nathan hadn’t been clear on that. In fact he’d seemed a little off. Maybe he was just excited too. Yeah that must have been it. Or she hoped so at least. She didn’t want to end up finding out he was having second thoughts about her.

She shook her head as she lowered herself to a sitting position, stretching her legs out in the tub. Juliette took a few more deep breaths before opening the jewelry box she clutched. The razor was still there, embedded in the small slit in the lining, wrapped in a piece of paper, probably to take away some of the danger of handling the blade. The irony of it was every time she’d used it had been for endangering herself.

With shaky fingers she unwrapped the blade, taking it in a way so she didn’t cut into her fingers. She wasn’t sure why she cared so much, she was about to hurt herself in a way that she wouldn’t come back from. Not as a human at least. But she did. She hoped it wouldn’t scar too much. Maybe her body would be healed when she turned. She hoped so.

She closed her eyes, taking a few more calming breaths. When that was done, she brought the tip of the blade to her the pale skin of her inner arm, right at her wrist. She dug in, and drew it down, pressing as much as she could. A wince escaped her lips as she drew the blade downwards, she immediately closed her eyes. There was a burning sting coming from her arm, one she promptly ignored. It just meant she was one step closer to joining him, and being with him at last.

She followed suit with her other wrist, setting the blade down on the side of the tub. Her eyes watched carefully. The blood was more than evident, practically pouring out. It was almost hypnotic, watching it drip down over her arms and onto her lap and the porcelain of the tub in a steady stream. She’d always watched it when she’d hurt herself, waiting for something to come of it. Something would come of this though. She’d be who she was meant to be.

It wasn’t long until she found it harder to keep her eyes open, like there was a tiredness weighing on her. She knew this was the end. Or the beginning, whichever way she wanted to look at it. She closed her eyes. There wasn’t much to think about. She was too tired to think. And finally, unconsciousness took her over, and her world faded to black.

⇋ Name: Juliette Henley Harmon.

⇋ Nicknames: Jules, Julie, Kitten.

⇋ Age: 18. [Real Age: 28.]

⇋ Birthday: July 29th, 1991.

⇋ Astral Sign: Leo.

⇋ Sexuality: Heterosexual.

⇋ Hair Color: Red.

⇋ Eye Color: Green/Hazel.

⇋ Height: 5’3.

⇋ Identifying Marks: Scars on the lower arms, three scars on chest, scar on neck, scarring to the stomach, two wing slits over each shoulder blade.

⇋ Unique Features: Black feathered wings with leathery wings tipped with claws over them.

⇋ Species: Undead Angel/Banshee/Eroseelie.

⇋ Occupation: Princess Consort of the eroseelie realm.

⇋ Parents: Janice Harmon, David Harmon.

⇋ Known Siblings: Millie Harmon (sister).

⇋ Children: TBA.

⇋ Other Relatives: N/A.

⇋ Marital Status: Engaged.

⇋ Romantic Partners: Nathan Shaw (ex-boyfriend), Chris Fleming (crush), Roland Ayres (crush), Soren Ikelos (fiance.)

⇋ Inhabitance: North Carolina (formerly), Henderson Asylum (formerly), Underworld (currently).

⇋ Faceclaim: Holland Roden.

⇀ Personality; Once, Juliette had been known for her kind and caring personality. She was sweet to everyone around her, she cared for those she came across. All that changed under the weight of the trauma and the depression. On the outside, she's dark, sassy and short tempered. She puts up walls and walls and can some be cruel in order to keep people out so she isn't hurt again by them, as she feels abandoned. On another, deeper level she also pushes people away as a means to protect them should she ever get killed again. She's very loyal to the friends she does have. Juliette is also incredibly intelligent, with a high IQ. Deep down, Juliette is shrouded in darkness, guilt, and pain. She doesn't really know who she is and has lost herself, and still suffers from not knowing who she is. Juliette has more good days then bad, but past all the walls she puts up, to the people who really try to get to know her, she's become wiser with what she's gone through.

⇀ Biography;  Juliette was not born to angelic parents, instead, she played to part of a prophecy that a human with the heart of an angel would later rise and wed the future King of Heaven. Nor she or her parents knew of what this prophecy suggested what was in store for her. She had a fairly normal upbringing, with loving parents who were not outwardly religious but spiritual. She was never particularly exposed to it, nor was she often brought to church in her childhood. She had a fairly mundane upbringing, aside from her remarkable intelligence. She had a few friends, and often immersed herself in things like volunteer work. Around twelve, the fascination hit. With heaven, with the afterlife. She was sure there was something more out there. She did all sorts of research in angels, in miracles, in the afterlife. She believed wholeheartedly that it was all true. Her parents supported her beliefs, even if they didn’t necessarily believe them themselves. However, the longer she felt the call and could not fulfill it, the more darkness filled her. She grew depressed and isolated herself. By the time she turned sixteen, she turned to self-harm, finding some relief in the pain. It made her feel grounded, and satiated the small fraction of her nature to be close to death, to becoming what she was, and therefore took away a bit of the darkness. Yet there was only so much the self-harm could do. And the longer she remained a human, the more depressed she grew. Her parents never knew of the cutting, but they tried to help her with antidepressants. Nothing worked for her. No treatment, no diet, no exercise provided any relief. She didn’t understand was she was so broken. Then she met Nathan, at first, they met through the volunteering circuit, and then he confessed what he was, and what she was meant to be. He told her she was part of a prophecy and when the time was right, she would die and join him in heaven. Some relief was brought with this, it made sense of all her thoughts. She hoped it would be the end of her depression. Little did she or Nathan know the side affect her destiny had cast on her, and the depression only worsened. The more time she spent with Nathan, the more she grew attracted to him. She immersed herself in everything angel involved, withdrawing almost entirely from anything normal in her life. Nathan’s much darker twin Noah learned of Juliette and wanted to destroy all happiness in Nathan’s life. So he went after her. He impersonated Nathan and convinced her it was her time. With no knowledge Noah was Nathan, she did as he said, and killed herself in the bathroom. She died, and Nathan only reached her moments before she took her final breath. He fed her his blood, and left her there for her transition. It didn’t go any more smoothly after she was caught by the asylum. She did not feel safe anymore. She felt paranoid and scared all the time. And things only worsened when Noan killed her once more, and Nathan decided to leave her for her own safety. It continued to go downhill from there. When the girl returned for a second time, she found herself having her life taken away from the female head demon, Freya, and this time for good. The girl woke up an undead, stuck in the walls of the asylum with no one to hear her scream through the pain she has experienced. There was another gene that was buried within her family tree. A dormant banshee gene that was awoken when she became so linked with death. The powers her banshee side gifted her only led to more bitterness and anger with the world. Juliette grew apart from most, a great deal shunning her, others just forgetting her. The ones who stayed she scared off, not wanting to deal with anyone else. She stayed alone for a long time, the only person she truly spoke to being a demon named Chris. Later, she grew closer to another woman named Ainsley. And in her third year in the asylum, she delivered a baby, and when the mother died, she took the child in, planning only on keeping her until she could find a home. When everyone was released from the asylum, she went to the Underworld, mostly for Ainsley. She lived there with the child she’d taken in for a long time. When an adoption was closing in on the child, and a second war threatened the Underworld, she agreed to take part in a marriage alliance with the eroseelie prince. When Ainsley died, she sacrificed the remaining years she had left as an undead to bring her back, and was revived by Soren as an eroseelie.