Short chapter is short for reasons.

Chapter 9

Noah:

Noah woke with a gasp, a sob on his lips. The back of his head ached with the thrum of his pulse, and bile rose in his throat. His sobs were wild, uncontrolled, violent enough to make him hiccup as he rolled over to vomit onto his bedroom floor.

"Noah, hey Noah!" Natalie called, her hands on his face, wiping his tears from his cheeks as she'd done so many times after she'd saved him. His mattress dipped with her weight, warming slowly to her body. She'd been there every night after that horrible afternoon, soothing his terror, calming him until he could drift back into a fitful sleep. He'd been in the hospital for nearly a month, two weeks of that spent in a coma, and she'd been there every night, hugging him tightly around the waist, telling him that no one would ever be able to hurt him again if she had anything to say about it.

He'd been a failure of an older brother, he knew that. Knew it like he knew the back of his hand, or the nuances of the engine of his mustang, or the intricacies of Barry's obsessions and his large hands. He was supposed to be the one protecting her, not the other way around. She should have never had to hurt anyone for his sake. She should have never had to drag him from the forest as his blood slicked down her shoulder. She should have never had to shake him from his nightmares, or heard him sob over the phone.

He'd lied to her, telling her he didn't remember much of anything, not how he'd gotten there nor who had done it, that he only remembered the agony and feeling of betrayal. She'd never told him that Barry had been the one to hurt him, had never had the heart to tell him his best friend would have sacrificed him to get what he wanted. That was alright, though, because he had never told her a lot of things too. She had told him though, so so many times over, that he should request a new roommate, if anything. It was already too late by that point, though. He was sullied, broken. Barry's hand prints were burned, bruised into his flesh.

She shushed him, stroking his hair, moving a trashcan beneath his mouth as he cried hard, ragged tears and saliva and bile spilled from his lips. "It's alright. You're alright, Noah. We're in your room, not the forest. Everything is fine." She startled to stillness as laughter spilled from his lips. "Noah?" she asked tentatively, fear lacing through her voice.

"He's gone. He's gone and he's never coming back," he laughed, pushing his hair from his forehead with a trembling hand, a fragile smile pulling apart his lips, "He's going to be locked away, and he'll never be able to hurt me again. He won't be able to use me, for a sacrifice or my body." Flipping onto his back, his laughter morphed back into sobs. "He'll never be able to touch me again."

Natalie was silent beside him, her weight and warmth a comforting reminder that he wasn't alone, that he didn't need to allow Barry to destroy him so he wouldn't be alone. He reached out, and felt the others waking around him.

Gansey:

Gansey woke with a night-shattering scream. It reverberated though the Lynch family home, dragging the other occupants from their dreams with the force of a thousand oxen. His scream rose high and shrill and piercing, his hands slipping across his skin with the sweat that soaked his clothing. He slapped and clawed invisible insects away from his body, flailing in his bed.

"Richard!" Helen shouted, bursting through his door, climbing onto the bed and grabbing his wrists. "Richard, stop! There's nothing there! It was a nightmare!" Her fingers dug painfully into his flesh, her nails piercing through his skin.

He struggled against her hold, trying to jerk his wrists from her grasp, but she held steady. "They're everywhere! They're going to kill me! Get them off of me! Get them off of me!" he shouted at her, a breathless sob breaking through his teeth as his lungs decided that air was an unobtainable substance. He gasped for breath, his movements coming to a halt as strength and oxygen made their way from his body. Black spots bloomed in his vision.

"Richard, breathe. You're alright. There's nothing here, just you and me, Chainsaw and Ronan. That's all, nothing else, nothing to hurt you," Helen told him, loosening her grip slowly, watching him closely as he inhaled one breath after another. "Deeply, breathe deeply. You're going to be alright. I promise."

"You can't promise that," he whispered frantically, staring at her, "You can't promise that. You can get hurt at any time, by anyone. Noah was almost shot, and I got his thumb broken on the gun. You can't promise that because it would be lie. You can't. You can't. You can't." He buried his face against her shoulder, breathing harshly.

Releasing his wrists, she grimaced at the half moons cut into his skin from her nails. She grabbed his shoulders. "Alright, alright, I won't promise. I won't promise."

Gansey stared down at his hands resting in his lap. Blood was crusted beneath his nails.

Blue:

Blue rolled from her bed, still half asleep, half delirious, slamming into everything that she possibly could as she scrambled from the room her mother and Mr. Gray shared most days. He was gone though, off being a hit man or hunting down a strange object for a client or teaching a class. She pushed into their room without knocking, standing in the doorway, worrying at the hem of her oversized t-shirt until Maura rolled over to blink at her.

"Blue?" she mumbled, glancing at her clock, "What's the matter? It's very early. What's wrong?" Blue dove beneath the covers as Maura lifted them for her, wrapping her arms around her mother. "It must have been a really awful nightmare. You haven't done this since you were a child." She stroked her fingers through her daughters hair, waiting patiently for her to spill her fear.

"Do you know who I am?" Blue finally whispered, true fear filling her voice.

Maura's hand paused. "Of course I do. You're my daughter. Your name is Blue. You're a sensate, and you make things louder. Why wouldn't I know you?"

"You don't care that I'm not psychic? That I didn't know I was a sensate until recently?"

"Of course not, why would that matter? You're my daughter, Blue."

Blue nodded, rubbing her tears into the fabric of her mother's shirt, tightening her hold around her waist.

Adam:

"No!" Adam shouted, rolling from his bed onto his floor. He scrambled away, his back slamming into his neat, makeshift desk. His breath came in quick, short gasps, his eyes darting around his small, shitty apartment in search of his father. It was always his father. Everything was always his father.

Burying his face in his hands, he shook his head violently. "No, no, no. It was just a nightmare. It was just a nightmare," he repeated over and over, his body shuddering with the force he was shoving into forgetting the details of the dream. He could smell copper, see crimson spattered across the walls, dripping from his father's knuckles. He could hear the boy's pleas for help, see his mangled remains.

How was he supposed to protect his sibling when he still couldn't face his father's fury, when he was running away? His sibling was going to grow up hurt and afraid and hated, and he wouldn't be able to stop it. There was nothing he could do. He was worthless, worthless, worthless.

An arm, slim and familiar, slid around his shoulders, spreading warmth down his back. A soft, gentle voice shushed him. "It's alright, Adam. It was just a nightmare. You're alright, it wasn't real," Natalie murmured, pulling his head from his hands, into her shoulder. "I'm here for you, for all of you."

He buried his face against her neck, folding in on himself and curling into her. She pulled him against her, wrapping both arms around him as the first sob wracked his body. "What am I going to do? What if he hurts them? What if he kills them? How can I protect them? I have to protect them," he whispered, clutching at the front of her shirt.

"You'll protect them, you'll see. I know you will. I have faith in you, Adam. You won't let your father hurt them," she told him confidently, stroking her fingers down the curve of his back. "I know the kind of person you are, Adam, and I know that you won't let them be hurt no matter what."

"You can't know that. I'm a coward," he whispered.

"I do know that, and I also know that you're not a coward. Believe me, Adam, even if it's the only thing you can do right now. Believe me, because I believe in you."

Ronan:

It had been a very long time since Ronan had cried. He couldn't remember the last time he had. He woke with his mouth bone dry and tears slipping down his cheeks. Somewhere in one of the other rooms, he could hear someone screaming, or was it two people? He couldn't make himself care. He could only think of the children he'd given up, the children he hoped had been adopted together, but knew had probably grown up being pushed from one foster home to another.

Letting the tears flow freely, he allowed himself to feel the regret and guilt he'd forced away all those years ago. Why had he given them up? He couldn't remember his reasons anymore. It had seemed like the right decision at the time, but it hadn't been. The right decision would have been to keep them, to raise them. They would have had a family instead of just each other.

He should have kept them. Even with everything that had happened between then and now; his transition, Niall Lynch's murder, Aurora Lynch falling into a self-induced coma, the fighting and the drugs and their father. They would have been better with him because the fighting and the drugs and their father never would have happened if he'd had them, he was sure.

He should have held them, learned them, watched them grow into their names. He should have been raising them, teaching them values, teaching them to defend those weaker than them, teaching them that they could be whoever they wanted, no matter who that was.

It was too late. They were gone, they would forever be gone. He'd never get to meet them, hug them, love them. There was no one to blame, but himself.

After the first sob fell from his mouth, he couldn't stop the torrent that followed.