A/N It's the big one, you guys.
WITH THE LIGHTS OUT
CHAPTER 25
June
The jungle is an indistinct mass of shape as June moves through the night after Rick and Grant. They walk so smoothly and quietly that at times – despite the fact they are less than a few feet in front of her – June loses them in amongst the shadows. They both hold their rifles loosely into their shoulders, as if they expect a shoot-out at any minute. Rick often uses his scope to glass the trees; by the small, red light, June guesses the gun has some kind of infrared technology. June's heart is in her throat as she tries to follow them silently, mentally cursing every time she trips over a vine or audibly rustles a bush. She can hear Melissa behind her; the careful steadiness of her breathing telling June that the older woman is unnerved, too.
The moon slips and slides through the dense foliage above her head and June feels a slight twinge of uneasiness as she surveys their small group.
She's sure she's right. The heart couldn't fall into the wrong hands. It was too much power for a person or group or government with an agenda. The strength of her conviction was enough for her to risk everything and come back to this place – her own, personal hell.
But now there were three other people whose fate would be determined by that conviction. Three other people whose lives would be affected by her choice. And, really, how likely was it that they would all walk away from this with little more than a slap on the wrist? They were all risking so much.
The temple is a misleadingly far walk – despite the fact that it seemed to loom, close and threatening over the camp. They begin to climb up a rocky, almost vertical incline and Rick reaches a hand down to help June up and over one of the bigger boulders. It's the first time he's looked at her since they set out, and June finds herself trying to prolong the moment. She'd stared at his back most of the way here, hoping that he would turn around and say something that would reassure her that they were okay. But Rick had led the way with a steely, no-nonsense attitude – more a soldier than a man. He didn't have time for emotional detours – that's not how he and his men had been trained - but June reaches up and touches the side of his face again. The side that she hit.
"Are you okay?" she asks, nervously. She strains her eyes in the darkness to catch a hint of the expression on his face, but as usual Rick just tries to reassure her.
"'m fine."
She doesn't believe him. The guilt that she feels for slapping him is unbelievable – almost overwhelming her annoyance that he'd tried to push her around. She didn't appreciate him man-handling her like she was nothing more than a rag-doll, rather than his girlfriend. "I'm sorry," June winces apologetically. "Does it hurt?"
The corner of Rick's mouth lifts. "A bit," he admits, though there's a perverse kind of pride when he tells her: "You've got a pretty good arm on you."
It's enough for her to know that he's not holding a grudge. Despite the twinge of relief, June also feels her face heat up with a blush. She withdraws her hand from his jaw and scuffs her toe against the ground.
"Still…it wasn't okay."
Rick just sort of laughs in the back of his throat and June winces at his amusement. "I can't believe I hit you."
"Oh really?" he smirks.
"Yeah! I'm not…that's just so not me," she protests, wrinkling her nose.
"C'mon - you're pretty feisty."
" - but I'm not violent."
Rick rolls his eyes, rubbing a hand up and down June's back absentmindedly as Melissa finally reaches the rocky out-crop that she, Rick and Grant are standing on. "Like I said - don' worry about it," he mutters, pushing her forwards gently.
"…like that's possible," June mutters sarcastically under her breath. She doubted she'd ever forget the moment she slapped him across the face – it was now permanently burned into her memory along with an emotional cocktail of mortification, guilt and embarrassment.
As they climb up towards the temple, June deliberately tries to focus on the ground beneath her feet rather than what is in front of her. Now that they are close, she can't help but remember what happened to her the last time she was here. The pit. The skulls. The sickening feeling of violation as her body was inhabited. June rubs a hand down her throat, swallowing heavily.
She reminds herself that this is the end – not the beginning. This will all be over soon.
They are about to reach the brow of the hill and the opening in the rock that leads into the temple when Grant abruptly stiffens. He wordlessly gestures for them to get low, cutting left to use a small bush as cover.
June's throat constricts – it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what Grant is going to say.
"Guards," he informs Rick under his breath, his expression grim. "At the entrance."
"What?" Melissa hisses, wide-eyed. Her expression tells June that they're feeling exactly the same way: they're screwed. "How many?!"
"Two."
The two men look at one another, both crouched on their haunches – silently communicating something that June doesn't understand.
"June?" Rick asks, eventually, looking down at her. "How sure're you about this?"
"I'm sure," she insists. "But what are you -?"
But before she can finish her sentence, Rick and Grant have ducked out from behind the shrub – blending in with the shadows cast by the temple walls. June's eyes widen as she realises what they are about to do, and before Melissa can stop her she rushes out from their cover just in time to see Rick catch the first guard by surprise, violently smashing the butt end of his rifle into their face. There's a muffled crunch as their nose breaks – the split-second sound of a surprised grunt – before they hit the ground. Grant is upon the second guard before they can lift their weapon against Rick. He comes up behind them and uses a lethal-looking piece of long, black plastic to cut off their airway – bracing their body against his own. June watches as the guard struggles – his back arching up into the air and his body jerking in an attempt to throw Grant off of him. It takes all of a minute before he, too, slumps to the ground – limp. Grant lets him drop onto the dirt unceremoniously.
Rick turns around – about to tell Melissa and June that it's all-clear – before his eyes fall on June. June thinks she sees him hesitate before he strides over to her – transferring his rifle into one hand so he can cradle the back of her head with his other.
"You alrigh'?" he checks, taking in her shocked, scared expression.
She can see blood smeared on his gun, but she forces herself to meet Rick's gaze. She had known he was a soldier. She knew that he killed people. Seeing him and Grant do it up-close with such ruthless precision is a different kind of story, however.
"Yeah - yeah," she huffs out, her heart-rate slightly too fast. She swallows, attempting to sound more convincing. "I'm fine."
Rick nods to himself – his eyes now warily searching past her shoulder for any other sign of A.R.G.U.S. Apparently satisfied, he drops his hand to the small of her back, urging her forwards. "C'mon – we need to move."
But despite Rick's words, June slows a little as she reaches the unconscious bodies of the guards. She lingers – Melissa passing her by a full five paces before she realises that June has stopped.
The two men lie haphazardly on the ground. The first one's face is so bloody it's hard to make out his individual features – the second man's skin such an awful shade of blue she almost looks away. But June forces herself to keep looking: see the bloody chafe mark around his throat where Grant half-strangled him. These were the consequences of her decision.
"June."
She looks up quickly. It's Melissa who has spoken. Unlike Rick – who has become so desensitized to violence that he probably doesn't understand or can't remember how June is feeling right now – Melissa's eyes are sympathetic and understanding. "We need to go."
Her voice is softer than June has ever heard it – maternal where June had never considered Melissa particularly motherly. She nods, forcibly tearing her eyes away from the bodies and following them into the temple.
The cave is as June remembers; actually a collapsed wall in one of the highest windows of the temple. They have to climb down into the main chamber – picking their way down the landslide of stone. Moonlight filters in through the slit-like windows that have not yet been completely submerged underground, but it is still too dark to see the whole hall. Rick and Grant turn on the flashlights on the end of their rifles – picking out the swirling rock dust in the air.
June can feel her pupils dilate like a cat's as she tries to peer through the darkness.
"Which way?" Grant's tense voice echoes, hollow, around the hall. June realises that both the men are now looking back at her and Melissa for directions.
Whilst June tries to unstick her throat, Melissa glances at her. "The burial chamber is down here," she says, taking over – hesitating only briefly before walking out of their small pool of light.
Rick and Grant hasten to follow – lighting her way - but June hesitates. She's getting the strangest feeling of déjà vu…she recognises these pillars. This room. This was the throne room. This is where Dzmor set a man on fire. The memory superimposes itself on top of the crumbling, quiet relic in front of her. She can see the temple in all its glory – the people, the colour, the emotion. Now everything feels too-quiet, still touched by the scars of past mistakes. She can almost hear the whispers of the dead….Had the cave drawing really been a story…or a warning for those like her who would stumble upon the Enchantress and unwittingly unleash her power?
The burial chamber had been the Archaeological Institute's initial goal during their first excavation. It was the room that would have told them the most about the people who had lived here all those years ago, and June and Melissa are more than familiar with how to get there, even in the dark. They enter the old, damp water tunnel – Rick and Grant's flashlights picking out skulls and bones embedded in the walls. Rick has to duck his head slightly against the low ceiling.
They walk fast, knowing that Waller will soon discover they are missing from camp. But somehow June doesn't feel any of her old anxiety – just a dull kind of excitement. Her palms feel sweaty, and her heart keeps on jumping in her chest. She pushes between Grant and Rick the moment they draw close, and the two men exchange a glance as she walks forwards with a renewed confidence.
The ceiling of the burial chamber is domed and reinforced with bricks of stone. Each tomb is laid out in neat rows of eight – four rows in all. Yellow tape and cards mark out each grave: emperors and kings, every last one.
"So – which grave we digging up?" Grant asks, turning to look at Melissa – his flashlight illuminating her.
Her mouth twists into a grimace, immediately blinded. "Hey – point that thing somewhere else!" she snaps. "Jesus!"
" – it's this one," June cuts in, walking instinctively towards a tomb in the center of the room. It is intricately ornate, carved with markings they had tried for three years to decipher. Ultimately, it had been an impossible task with no prior knowledge of the history of the people. An entire, unknown civilization that had seemingly appeared out of the blue before disappearing just as quickly, no record left through history.
"Alrigh'" Rick mutters, walking up next to June and squaring his shoulders. "Take this-"
He hands her the rifle and June takes it from him clumsily. It feels bulky and alien in her hands, but she shines the flashlight at the tomb as Rick braces his hands against the stone slab that acts as a cover. The air in the cavern feels unusually still – watchful. But this time June has no 'bad feeling' – no sixth sense that is making her uneasy. There is only the anticipation pushing blood through her veins; the thud of her heart against her rib-cage. When Rick looks at her one, final time – as if to check she is really sure – June just nods determinedly – her gaze not moving from the grave.
Rick pushes hard and the stone shifts half-way. Grant hovers behind him – his finger hovering over the trigger of his gun as if he expects the boogie-man to leap out at any moment. When Rick pushes again, the slab of rock crashes to the ground with a small explosion of dust. He coughs, squinting.
June has seen enough tombs that the sight of the small, browning skeleton does not bother her. Her hands are full with Rick's gun. It is Melissa who leans over – Melissa who retrieves the rotting wooden box covered with a thick layer of dust. Her hands are shaking slightly as she looks at June, abruptly unsure. How intact could a human heart be after thousands of years?
But this wasn't a human heart, June reminds herself.
"O – open it," she tells the older woman, her voice abruptly hoarse. Rick moves to stand at June's side, taking his weapon back. The gun suits him better – looks less unwieldly and bulky. He holds it easily, as if it is an extension of himself.
They all watch as Melissa carefully settles the box down on the ground and then opens it.
"Fuck," Grant mutters under his breath – his tone a mixture of disgust and awe.
The heart is as fresh and healthy as it had been in June's memory. The organ is almost entirely black, with a dull, green light emanating from it. Somehow, separate from a body, it has survived on its own for thousands of years.
The rational part of June's head once again points out the obvious: the heart had been buried for a reason. It should be left…but they can't. Because of her, A.R.G.U.S now knew that there was something in this temple that could control the Enchantress – and they weren't about to rest until they had it.
"Impossible," Melissa breathes, lifting the heart off the ground carefully – gingerly holding it up to inspect it. "I've never seen anything like this."
"Because it ain't human," Grant shoots back, roughly, gripping his rifle more tightly. He looks at June and Rick for some kind of agreement. "Are you guys seeing this?" he demands.
But Rick just shakes his head. His jaw is slightly slack, his expression disbelieving. "You were right," he mutters to June.
Melissa raises both eyebrows at him. "What, and you wanted us to be wrong?"
Rick doesn't respond and Melissa's gaze returns to the heart, abruptly analytical. "I wonder how it can have existed this long…."
"Can we just bag it and go?" Grant interjects, impatiently.
"You want to take it? I thought we were ending this tonight?" Rick snaps. "Destroyin' it."
But Melissa seems to have abruptly had – for lack of a better phrase - a change of heart. " – We're not destroying this –" she growls, looking at him as if he's lost his mind. "This is incredible –"
"You said it yourself - that thing is a weapon –!" he snarls back; he and Grant quickly closing ranks – tall and intimidating. "We crush it."
June watches them argue. She feels strangely disjointed from her own body, as if she's floating within it and not in control. Her mind and her body – as of late, the two hadn't felt particularly connected.
Nobody else has noticed that since the heart has been removed from the wooden chest, it seems to be pulsating a stronger, brighter green. June half expects it to start beating of its own accord in Melissa's hand. She feels strangely giddy, a kind of electricity running through her veins. Was this magic? If it was, it was intoxicating. It was hard to imagine how people could be afraid of something that felt so…natural. It wasn't wrong. It wasn't disgusting or dangerous. It just was. For so long June had seen everything as alien – not of this world – but she's now beginning to understand that nothing is more ancient…nothing brings her closer to understanding this earth than magic.
"Do any of you really think you can out-manoeuvre me?"
Melissa, Grant and Rick all whirl around. Amanda Waller is walking out of the tunnel in amongst two, single-file lines of about fifteen guards. Five are in army uniform – Rick's men – the other ten dressed in the navy blue of A.R.G.U.S. The burial chamber abruptly becomes a glaring, dizzying criss-cross of moving flashlights – pointed glaringly at June and the others. A bat spooks and flaps blindly around the ceiling. Rick and Grant raise their guns defensively.
June should be terrified on Rick's behalf, but she isn't. She doesn't care that Waller has found them. She doesn't care that they are outnumbered.
Somehow she knows that this time, A.R.G.U.S – despite its ruthlessness – despite its wealth and its legion of scientists – is not going to win. Because they are only human. They swarmed, desperate, like ants, to understand and control what they would never understand and control.
Waller and her men abruptly appear so insignificant.
June smiles slightly as Amanda Waller attempts to threaten and manipulate her way out of the situation: the only tools of power for a weak human woman. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way," she says, coolly, looking between June, Melissa, Rick and Grant. "It's your choice."
"Oh yeah?" Rick challenges, still not lowering his weapon – which is trained on the guard closest to Waller. Pointed at Rick himself are five guns, but he doesn't seem concerned. He edges himself in front of June, as if hoping that Waller will not see her. It's a useless gesture. "When have we ever had a choice about any of this?"
"This doesn't have to concern you, Flag."
"No," he agrees, not moving. "It doesn't. But this is the last time you mess with her. She's not a toy."
June hears the way Rick's voice turns tense with emotion, but nothing more registers. He may as well have been another one of Waller's personal bodyguards for all the attachment she was feeling.
"Doctor Moone is a civilian with a highly dangerous supernatural being possessing her body," Waller returns, walking several steps further into the no-man's land of space between Rick and her men, apparently unconcerned by the amount of weapons being pointed by either side. "Be smart about this. Stand aside."
Grant throws Melissa a look out of the corner of his eye. The older woman stands, clearly stalling – unsure of what to do. Waller instantly latches on to the show of weakness.
"Doctor Rodriguez," she murmurs, walking forwards even further – now barely a step away from taking the heart out of Melissa's hands herself. "You are holding the key to a power beyond your wildest dreams. You may not understand how to handle that kind of power, but I do. Give it to an agency where it will be contained and researched. I assure you there will be no consequences."
Melissa twitches, looking at Rick. Unable to take his eyes off the men opposite him, he merely shakes his head emphatically. "Don' do it," he snaps. "…destroy it! Now!" He glances back at June – as if suddenly remembering that she is there, too. The only one to have not spoken. "Do it –!" he appeals to both of them, frustrated by their inability to act.
"Don't you dare –" Waller interjects, coldly, also looking at Melissa. "You do that and I will personally make sure the four of you go to prison for the rest of your lives."
Melissa's eyes are wide. Like Rick, she glances sharply back at June as if waiting for her to say something.
She has watched quietly as they fought over the heart.
It was always the same…humans would never change. They could not trust one individual to rise above the rest. She remembers the video of Superman flying over a city – the golden, gleaming statues built in his honour. The crowds of people who had worshipped him as a 'national hero'; a God. If he hadn't died, he would have felt their wrath. They would have turned against him.
It was the way of humans.
June stalks forwards slowly.
She can see on the Melissa's face that she wants to give in – wants to place her trust in Waller. It was the easier option. She had made the same mistake, once. Not realising that power was not a form of responsibility, but a form of control.
She had lived that life – seen the consequences of that misguided trust.
The Enchantress moves June Moone's body like that of a sleep walker. She had been a good host. Compliant and easily to manipulate. She had got her to where she needed to be with admirable skill and determination…the Enchantress had enjoyed her time in her body. Enjoyed feeling the pureness of the girl's emotions. But June had been a slave in her own way, too; just as she had.
Suddenly, the Enchantress punches a hand through Melissa's back, breaking her spine and ripping through her lungs until her fist comes out the other side. She grasps her heart as the woman's body arches and spasms - pulls it back through the hole in her chest.
She would make the humans feel the pain she had felt. They would pay for their mistakes.
A/N Thank you so much to every single person who reviewed the last chapter. I know a few of you were hoping that no-one would get hurt here, but I decided to up the stakes a bit. (And there's more to come next time!)
Last Of The Lilac Wine