29: You Are Still Lost in a Dream Like a Memory.
"No consequences, no pain, no sorrow…"
Zarya sighed as she wiped down her last table of the night. She couldn't stop thinking about Nick and, by default, Lucifer. Jackie had been surprised that she came back so soon, especially with how distraught she looked. The older woman tried to send Zarya back home but she insisted on working. She needed something to do. Jackie didn't need to know the real reason why.
"Nick's here for ya, Zarya!" the brunette woman called from behind the counter.
She froze as she was bent over the table wiping with a rag. It wasn't Nick. Not anymore. The door chimed when Jackie let him in but still Zarya could not find the will to move. She started forcibly scrubbing when she heard them talking just to freeze again.
"How are ya holding up, darlin'?" Jackie asked with empathy in her voice as she finished cleaning the counter. "Zarya doesn't seem to be doing too well…"
Zarya could feel his eyes on her back while she cleaned the last booth. She refused to look up but listened to them talk. "Yeah… it's… it hasn't been very easy. We're actually thinking of leaving Pike Creek." That was when she froze again with the rag in her hand.
"Really? Anywhere in particular? You two have been here just about all your lives. Maybe it's good if you get out and see something new. A fresh start, right?" Jackie smiled kindly at him.
The ravenette finally looked up and met his eye. Rather than smiling at Jackie, he smiled at her. "That's exactly what I'm thinking."
Jackie practically ushered Zarya out herself after that, handing her a paycheck and saying bon voyage. If only she knew the truth. Zarya played it cool as if it really were Nick picking her up from work again. She tugged the hair tie from her ponytail while she walked beneath his arm holding the door open for her. She could play his game if that was what he wanted to do. Even as they walked down the dimly lit street they merely appeared to be Nick and Zarya no different than any other night. Zarya was the only one who could see the difference in his eyes. Nick's blue eyes were always so boyish and filled with emotion. Every time Zarya looked up to the same eyes she could see a playful, devilish stare boldly eyeing her. She could see it was Lucifer.
"You're awfully quiet," the archangel commented to break the silence.
"I'm trying to figure out your motives," she quipped back immediately.
He chuckled at her boldness and quickness. "So you two have really lived in this dingy town all your lives?"
She nodded, green-blue eyes turning towards the starry sky as she walked the same path she had for several years. "Spent our childhoods in Maryland and wound up out here as soon as we were adults."
"Sounds as if you were trying to get away from something."
"Sounds as if you're trying to fish for something."
Another chuckle at her quick wit. "Nick's memories… they're all about you. Save for his wife and child. It's not much of a story to piece together; more so spending time with you. Since day one it has been nothing but you. Why is that?"
Zarya sighed. "Because my birth family didn't want me." She shrugged. "They had some other, stupid, bullshit to deal with that was more important than raising the child they just carried for nine months. So they handed me off to some friends. Nick was always there. He was the only one who was. He's the only reason I stood a chance of growing up remotely normal and not so horrendously abandoned." When Lucifer remained quiet for longer than she anticipated, she looked up at him.
"Your parents didn't deserve a child then." He told her simply without looking at her. "Do you want to leave Pike Creek?"
She scoffed. "Does it matter what my answer is? My boss already shoved me out the door and told me to start a new life."
"Fine. Let me rephrase then; where would you like to go outside of this depressing town?"
"Does my opinion matter?"
He stopped walking abruptly which caused her to stop a couple of step ahead. "You're making it incredibly difficult to be patient with you, Rya. What the hell are you smiling at?"
She hadn't actually realized she was smiling, though she knew why she would be. "Nick says that to me at least five times a day. His eyebrow twitches like that too." Her gaze shifted back towards the shimmering stars and bright crescent moon above them. "I guess somewhere further north… I never really thought about it."
"You seriously never considered leaving… this?" He gestured around at the dirty streets, and endless blocks of brick buildings. "Why north if anything?"
"Pike Creek is the first home I made for myself away from everything. My first 'fresh start' I guess. And north because I don't really care for south or west. I'll visit a beach once or twice a summer, but that's about it."
Lucifer offered her a half smile and shrug. "We'll go north then."
Dean stared at his phone while he sat at the table. He kept hoping Zarya would call or text or something. Even with all of his own cuts and bruises he was still worrying endlessly about her. What could she have possibly gotten herself into? He was broken from his thoughts only when Sam sat across from him.
"Still nothing from Clarke?" He asked quietly. His brother shook his head. "Dean, um, you know, what you did back there, it was incredible. You know, if you can do that without losing yourself… that's cause for hope, even without a cure."
His olive eyes looked back down at the phone. "Yeah… maybe." He heard Castiel join them. "Have you found Zare yet?"
Castiel's face was grim. "I can't locate her, Katia, or Nova. All three have vanished from sight without a trace…"
Sam's hand twitched at the news and he instinctively grabbed his laptop. "She said she was headed to Virginia, right?"
Dean closed the laptop before his brother could turn it on. "Something's up at Whitmore College and we are not going to go running in, guns blazing." Sam and Cas' eyes widened. "I'm gonna go sleep for about four days, and then we are bringing down Whitmore if Zare doesn't give us proof of life by then."
"What if there is no proof of life by then, Dean?" Sam exclaimed. "What if she hasn't called yet because they've already got her?"
"Who knows what they could find out about the Vasiles or Zarya in specific," Castiel added.
Dean stood and started walking out of the room, patting Cas on the shoulder when he reached the angel. "I feel more bad for the people holding her captive when she gets the upper hand, because she will."
Sam watched his brother walk out and towards his bedroom. Part of him still wanted to get on his computer and try to find Zarya. Begrudgingly, the younger brother decided he would at least wait until morning. He looked up to find Cas' face riddled with concern. "How is he? Sam?"
He rubbed his face. His hazel eyes were distraught and exhausted. "Cas… they're both in trouble. And I'm not sure if we can save both of them…"
When Zarya and Lucifer finally came to her neighborhood, they noticed an unfamiliar car parked a bit of the way down from her house. She insisted she knew everyone's vehicles on the block and the older but still shining Impala was not one of them. Lucifer told her she was right, that the car belonged to two of the people after her.
"Who the hell would come after me?" She whisper yelled at him. "Why would anyone bother?"
"Because of your parents, Rya," he replied low. "I can explain once I get you out of here so you're going to run straight up your stairs and grab the first handfuls of things you can. But I'm going to need you to trust me. Do you understand?"
Her eyes widened. "You don't think they're waiting inside for me, do you?" When he didn't answer she rubbed her face and let out a soft groan. "Cool. Let's do this then."
Acting as if it were any other normal night Nick walked Zarya home again, they walked up her pathway to the front door. The second the locks clicked open she flung open the door and flew up the stairs. Footsteps rounded the corner on her wood floors but she was already at the top of the stairs by time Lucifer blocked the path of whoever it was. She could hear some kind of chatter/yelling while she rushed about her bedroom shoving things into a backpack. Something broke which caused her to jump.
"Rya! Window! Now!"
Her green-blue eyes widened as far as they could, her dark lashes brushing her eyebrows. No, he couldn't mean what she thought he did. Her gaze turned to the large, bay window in her room. She almost laughed. No, not even the devil was that psychotic, right? She bit her lip and clutched the strap of her bag so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"But I'm going to need you to trust me."
A gunshot rang through the house and made Zarya literally jump. Her heart was racing. Eyes kept darting between the door and window. What the hell was she supposed to do? How could she have let Nick put her in such a position?
"No consequences, no pain, no sorrow… maybe he'll do more for you than I could…"
Tossing the bag on her back, her feet padded across towards the door. She quickly shut and locked it before turning with her back against the wall. Her hands gripped both straps on her shoulders tightly with panic. Heart beating nearly out of her chest, her feet thudded against the floor straight for the window. Zarya braced herself and spun just in time with the momentum to crash through the window with her side and back. As she started to fall, her eyes shot open and looked again to the shimmering stars. Just before doubt could creep in there was a flutter of feathers and she felt like she was being sucked into oblivion with arms tightly around her.
Katia groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. Her head was pounding. Her eyes fluttered open in time but her vision still had to focus. It was just a matter of time until she realized her arms were held straight above her by tight and thick chains. She tried to tug at them but her body was still too numb with no sign of strengthening. It was difficult for her to breathe and she could feel no psychic connection to anything. Her heart began to pound in her chest.
Eranthis hyemalis. Winter aconite.
"Don't bother, kid," came the sigh of Nessa Vasile on an opposite wall. Katia's eyes finally focused through the dark and realized it was a small, cement cell with Nessa across from her and two others on the other walls. "Whatever your poison is is all over that metal; they cuffs are saturated in it. You've already been injected with it. There is no escape."
"What the hell is this place? I have to get back to Zarya and Nova before Whitmore does who knows what to them!" The young dhampir argued with concern.
"Nova?" a soft, German accent spoke. She finally looked up, her deep blue eyes shimmering in the dark. "Romania's Nova Vasile? She is still alive?"
"Yes and yes! She escaped her parents' tyranny and fled to America."
The blue eyed girl was silent too long for Katia's liking. In truth, she was just trying to reserve whatever energy and life she had left in her. "I had heard of her in Germany… My father was notified when she abandoned her home and was labeled a traitor. My name is Anja."
Katia's dark eyes widened. "Anja Lenora Vasile?"
She nodded. "I used my mama's maiden name for some time - Von Aleshire. You can call me Lenny if you would like. She used to."
"But if you're Anja… then…" Her head turned to the other girl on the last wall. Slowly, her head lifted and her blue eyes met Katia's. "C-Claudia…?"
With a grimace on her dirt caked face, she nodded. "Welcome to the party, little dhampir."
Horror struck Katia's bones. Anja had been a dhampir born to a peaceful Moroi man and his human wife in Germany. Claudia was born with the dhampir gene in her blood though nobody ever knew. Only when her Cursed Twin sister had her put under the guillotine for devil worship and witchcraft did the gene save her life. While Nessa was not a dhampir, she was however a vampire who could call upon magic, especially dark magic. All it would do is consume what humanity she had left in her. And Katia… well, Katia was a dhampir born to a Cursed Twin abandoned at birth and raped by a royal Moroi.
"Who did this…?" Her voice cracked. "Why…?" Both Anja and Claudia had been missing for centuries, presumed to either be deep in hiding or dead. Nessa had vanished after her run in in Mystic Falls.
Nessa rolled her eyes. "Come on, kid; you and Zarya are supposedly the smartest of all of us. Who snatched you up from whatever you were doing and dropped you in a dingy cell to weaken you?"
Her face contorted, nose scrunching up with disbelief. "Remiel? No, no that's not possible. And if so, why would she have been collecting us for so damn long? How long have you guys even been here?"
"Since 1876," Anja answered first with sorrow in her voice. "I could not even watch my children grow up… I was coming home from getting things in the town market when she took me away. In the middle of the street."
"1790," Claudia muttered as she looked to the cement floor. "My sister had a daughter and I made the mistake of wanting to at least see her through a window… Remiel got me before I could even lay eyes on my niece."
Tears of fear began to brim in Katia's eyes. She thought of Zarya, Nova, and her mother. What the hell was Remiel's endgame…?
It took Zarya some time to adjust to Detroit after all she had been through, but before long her colors were shining again. Lucifer would often find her passed out on the couch with some new book on lore or history from his library. More often than not she would wake up with the book on the coffee table and a blanket having been put on her. Every time without fail she would wake up and smile. Maybe the archangel wasn't so bad afterall.
She was quick, and strong. Angels and demons alike that found them one of them was taken care of in seconds. She could see the astonishment followed by pride one ambush when she grabbed his angel blade right from his hand and started stabbing. They made quite the duo and soon enough enemies just stopped trying to sneak up on them. It wasn't possible. Not with Zarya by Lucifer's side. When she was finally comfortable with her life, not even caring what the archangel could be stirring up, that was of course when it all began to fall apart.
Zarya watched Lucifer leave. She had even decided to give him a kiss on the cheek before he took off. She laid down on the couch with another book and her glasses when everything started to shake. Was it an earthquake? In Detroit, Michigan? She leaped off the couch just before the window near her shattered and dove to the floor. Her head started to pound violently causing her to clutch it tightly and scream.
"You barely slept an hour and a half, Zarya. Are you certain you're ready for this?"
"Do you have a better plan then, oh psychic one?"
"Zare?"
"Rya…"
As quickly as it all started, everything suddenly just… stopped. Fell silent. There wasn't even a bird's tweet or car engine in the background. Zarya laid where she was for a solid minute before releasing her skull or opening her eyes. When she saw shoes in front of her amongst the broken glass she jumped right up and threw her arms around the archangel. "What the hell happened?" She stepped back and looked at him but something didn't seem quite right. Why had he been so stiff when she hugged him? She took another step back. "Lucifer, what's going on?"
He sighed and rubbed his face, gaze never removing itself from the ravenette. "This is worse than I thought…"
"What are you talking about? Tell me what's going on, dammit!"
Lucifer chuckled lightly, his eyes seeming to almost get a little soft the longer he stared at her. "Well at least you've still got that mouth. That will never change, will it? Listen to me, Rya, this is all in your head."
Zarya blinked a couple of times. "I'm sorry, excuse you?"
"You've been completely off the map for days now, Rya. Whatever you've been living has not been your real life. Who did this to you? You need to remember quickly, Rya. Please."
Her eyes widened, pupils dilating as far as possible.
"You have to survive until dusk as Nova…"
"Nova…" She breathed. Her green-blue eyes started darting all over the apartment. She clung to the voice and the thought of Nova before dashing off into the bathroom. Lucifer called her name before following her down the hall. He stopped in the doorway of the bathroom as Zarya had a pair of scissors to her hair. She looked as if she were struggling with herself to cut the hair, her jaw set tightly. "Nova's hair…" She grit out as she forced her hand to her own raven locks. "It's short… and I…" Finally the scissors cut off a giant chunk of her hair, leaving the rest to her shoulder. A smirk spread across her face as her eyes lit up with fire before she hastily chopped the rest of. When she was done, she turned to him with her short hair just like Nova Vasile's. "I was trying to bust Nova out of Whitmore House with Katia and I had to look like Nova. So I had to cut my hair like Nova did. What the hell is going on?"
Lucifer's lips pulled towards a prideful smirk of his own. "What happened when you went to Whitmore? They have to have you sedated or compelled because this is all make believe to keep you tame inside your head."
Her eyes widened as she remembered. "I was kicking ass until they got me… They stuck me with this needle full of some yellowy-white looking liquid."
His expression then mimicked hers which heightened her concern. He stormed back down the hallway with Zarya in tow and tried to put the windows back in place to no avail. "The fucking irony…" He muttered with anger boiling in his tone. "Since you had to be Nova, I'm sure you were also warned about her weakness being atropa belladonna, correct?"
"Deadly Nightshade, yeah. What of it? Those Whitmore bastards knew mine…?"
"Datura inoxia." Lucifer answered grimly before turning to face her. "Devil's trumpet. So since I made it into your mind to try and find you, now I'm stuck here with you unable to do a damn thing."
Zarya's face deadpanned, her lips twitching with annoyance. "You have got to be fucking kidding me. I'm stuck here with you?!"
"Oh, forgive me for trying to make sure you weren't deceased when I couldn't feel you anymore!"
"Then stop making it your concern whether or not I turn up 'deceased'!"
"Maybe I will the day you suddenly decide you want to be a dhampir!"
She balled her fists and let out a scream before hitting him repeatedly in the chest. Lucifer just took it, seeing the tears well in her eyes. As she finally slowed to a stop her small hands just clutched his shirt tightly while she sobbed. "We're never gonna get out of here…"
"Sure we will," he told her quietly before hesitantly putting his hands on her upper arms. "Sam and Dean… they'll come and get you. Even if you told them not to."
She looked up at him, still gripping his shirt tightly with tears running down her cheeks. "Dean made a move on Cain." Lucifer's brows raised at the statement. "One way or another, we are on our own."
"Come on, Rya," he gently made her release his shirt so he could step away from her and walk towards the kitchen. "Since when do you doubt the Winchesters? Doubt Dean? He'd probably take out all of the demons in Hell just to find you."
She stormed into the kitchen behind him. The tears in her eyes had turned angry with guilt. "Then tell me why the fuck I have been here, slaying angels and demons alike for you!" He spun and met her eyes with astonishment across his countenance. Before he could open his mouth she was continuing her little tirade. "Tell me why," her voice began to shake, eyes clamped shut as the memory resurfaced, "I killed Dean with my gun here after he shot you with the Goddamn Colt."
The gunshot echoed through her mind. It had been one of the things she was originally crying about in the living room and then Lucifer had to go and throw Dean's name around. The same phrase haunted her, only that time the pain drove her to vengeance.
"Dean Winchester shot a gun called the Colt in an attempt to kill me. All it did was kill the human soul inside."
Sam and Dean had gone to the apartment in an attempt for Sam to say 'yes' so they could use the Horsemen's rings to the Cage. She had been on the couch reading with Lucifer in the library working on whatever. Bacchus let them in eagerly and as soon as Zarya laid eyes on them she drew her revolver. Without hesitation she shot Sam in the leg, knocking him to the floor. Lucifer had come out clapping slowly. The words faded from her mind as the second bullet rang out, lodging deeply into Dean's chest before he could even draw his gun.
"I ki- I killed him," Zarya cried with her hands in her hair. "I killed Dean…"
Without a second thought Lucifer pulled her close and held her tight. "No you didn't," he told her as calmly as he could force himself to. "Not the real Dean. None of this is real, Rya. None of it. You see how it's all gone now? Just you and me left? You get out of here and you'll make it home to… your Dean."
She had stopped sobbing although the tears continued to fall silently. Part of her could actually feel how much it seemed to genuinely hurt him to say what he had. She tried so hard to keep thinking back to the engravement forever scarred on her side, but it became increasingly difficult the longer she remained held to him. The hunter in her, the part that was always so loyal to Sam and Dean, she screamed as loud as she could for Zarya to just step away. Yet she seemed to make no sound at all, forcibly mute as Zarya's arms clasped around Lucifer tightly for some kind of safety.