32: My Brain is Scattered.

After Sam left for his fancy French movie neither Dean nor Zarya had any interest in, Dean knocked on her door. She greeted the flash of concern on his face with a smile; she had been sitting in front of her laptop with her glasses on again. If her hair wasn't so short no doubt it would have been in a bun. "I'm just checking headlines for anything unusual, don't worry," she laughed lightly.

Dean nodded stiffly. "I'm going to the bar for a bit. Wanted to see if you wanted to come with."

"Thanks, but, maybe next time? I'm just not feeling it today. Headlines are lame so I'm thinking nap." She grinned.

He lightened up a little and offered her a half smile. "Maybe Sammy and I should try that sometime. Alright, then I'll bring back pizza so don't go trying to burn the bunker down for a grilled cheese."

"I burned one pan and you act like it's the end of the entire kitchen!"

Once he was gone and the door shut behind him, Zarya returned to her computer screen. Across it displayed was not headlines, but access into the dark web that Lethia gave her. Sam and Dean had asked her how she took Katia's death in particular since they had started getting close. She couldn't bring herself to tell them how much it actually hurt her and how she was going to brutally murder whoever did it, so instead she just insisted she would be alright. Without Zina's bracelet, Zarya decided to see if there was a spell that could allow her to at least call upon someone's spirit on the Other Side. She needed to know what the dhampir knew for so long, and she needed to know what happened in the end.

It didn't take as long as she thought it would have to find one, let alone having everything at the bunker. She scribbled everything down quickly on a piece of paper before closing out and shutting off the laptop. She bee-lined for the basement and started grabbing everything. At first Zarya thought she screwed up somewhere. The match's fire erupted a deep blue when she tossed it in last, but nothing else happened. She ran her hands through her hair, the shortness adding some frustration to the situation. She was ready to go back upstairs.

"You really are the smartest of our family, aren't you, Zarya?"

The hunter whipped around at the door to meet Katia's dark eyes. As much as she just wanted to run over and hug her, Zarya knew that wasn't part of the spell. All Katia was was a ghost. "What happened to you?" She finally found the voice to say.

"Remiel happened. I don't know how much time your spell allows me away from the Other Side so I'm going to have to get straight to the point of everything. Do you understand? Are you ready for that?"

"Why does it sound like you're about to unload a whole boat load of bullshit onto me?"

The dhampir shrugged with a solemn and grave look on her face. "Because I basically am. As I fled from Whitmore I tried to call my mother, Zina. I was stolen away as I ran and when I awoke I was captive with two other dhampirs of our clan and Nessa."

"Nessa? Why Nessa? Who were the other two?"

"Anja Lenora and Claudia. They had been held there for at least a century and a half each."

"Fuck," Zarya cursed loudly. "Apparently Clara was at Whitmore this whole time. The family of creepy doctors experiment on vampires so why not a dhampir?"

"And that is why they wanted you - because you carry the gene dormantly in your blood cells. Their research from Clara is what was given to Saskia who has been working with Auriel to fry every one of us with the gene attached. Now, before the Mark of Cain sends you into a red rage, it was because Remiel was prepared to use every one of us for vessels until she got hold of you which is proving painfully difficult for her."

"Yeah, it's going to stay that way. She's getting the same 'fuck you, no' her brother got repeatedly."

Katia blinked a couple of times and then she realized. "Zarya… you misunderstand. Remiel can't find you because of the warding put on you."

"What warding?" The dhampir timidly pointed to her side where the scars laid beneath her shirt. She chuckled darkly. "No. That's not warding. That was a torture technique."

"Were you going to say 'yes' after?"

"Absolutely the fuck not."

"So," Katia stepped closer knowing nothing could be done since she was a ghost, "in essence, no amount of torture would make you say it to anyone. Not a damn thing."

"I thought you said you had to get straight to the point of everything for the sake of time, Katia."

She sighed. "Granted, he could have done it plenty of other ways, but it really is the most effective. By unfortunately scarring it into your skin, it literally put an invisibility cloak over you to Remiel and any ties to Remiel like if she had a witch track you. So long as it ties back to her mark, her name, and her sigil, his reflects it. And even though his method was by far cruel, he made certain you would be able to handle yourself before Remiel if his warding ever failed."

Zarya's green-blue eyes were wide at the revelation. She screamed in her mind not to believe it, but the tiniest voice that told her otherwise felt so much louder. "Why the hell would he do that?" Her voice was shaky. "He wanted me to say 'yes' to Remiel because he wants his sister back."

"He had to make sure you could reject anyone under any circumstances. Putting on the pressure and making you rise above the fear would make you stronger than whatever anyone else could do to you. I mean, if you've been tortured by the devil himself, what else is there really left to do to try and break you?"

She was basically forcing her breaths to be as steady as they were. Her heart was pounding in her chest. "Why would he do that?" The words came out breathless. Katia looked to her with deep emotion in her raven eyes. She shook her head. "No."

"He does care about you, Zarya."

"No!" She yanked open the door and proceeded to storm down the hall. Tears had already been brimming in her eyes.

"Zarya!" The dhampir called after her.

She stopped and spun back to her. "You can't… you can't say that shit to me because then I hear it and I think about it and everything starts making horrible, horrible sense and when that does I do stupid things. I'm also beginning to think I'm all out of small, stupid things to do. Pretty sure the next one is gonna be, like, nice and fucking stupid. And that's gonna happen if I start doubt being here." She gestured to the bunker. "And I will doubt being here, and staying with Sam and Dean, if I've got that in the back of my damn head!"

"If you don't want to believe it so badly, and you don't want anything to do with so much as the thought, then why is it such an issue for you?"

"Because I have already avoided every possible encounter that could involve Dean finally admitting that he loves me because I just can't say it back to him. Not like that."

Katia watched the tears slip down Zarya's cheeks that were pink with emotion. "But with the second mark on your soul, I thought…" Zarya shook her head and the dhampir understood entirely at last. Remiel had marked Lucifer, and while he did care about her he never returned the mark. Dean loved Zarya enough that it left an impression on her soul, but nothing she returned. It was nothing she could return. Not when a claim had already been laid. "This… might anger you," she started slowly with her hands up defensively as if to say 'please-don't-kill-the-messenger', "but Lucifer's mark on your soul… it's called an 'imprint'."

Her eye twitched for a split second at the word. "A what?"

"It was assumed that it was a God given bond, kind of like dangling good behavior in Lucifer's face, but it seems as if Remiel's creations might be out of His jurisdiction. Obviously I don't actually know because He's kind of fucked off for so long, but it was a powerful enough mark to last entirely unaffected for so long. It's… well, it's in relation to the bond Nova and Damon share because it appears they unknowingly imprinted on one another as well…"

Zarya's hands were palm to palm, her thumbs under her chin and index fingers pressed against the tip of her nose. There was unmissable rage in her fiery eyes. "You mean to tell me that after Katherine Pierce ran my parents' car off the road which killed me, I slipped past the Other Side and wound up at the foot of the fucking Cage, just for that son of a bitch to think I was, what? So adorable and crafty that when he broke out of jail he was hoping it was when the Bonnie to his Clyde was fucking legal?"

"Zarya, I can see this has angered you, but I'm going to need you to think about the situation rather than react and-"

She was already shaking her head slowly. "Ohh no, Katia. I think I'm gonna do something pretty stupid today instead like I figured I would."

"So, back in the '50s," Sam explained as he and Cas walked towards a house, "Oliver Pryce was a kid psychic. He performed everywhere - carnivals, Atlantic City, you name it. He was the real deal. Now, the Men of Letters were teaching him how to control his powers when they got… you know."

"Brutally slaughtered," the angel offered tactlessly.

Sam shook his head a little. "The point is, he's one of the good guys. He might be happy to see us."

Cas then noticed several 'no trespassing' signs across Mr. Pryce's fence. "Or not."

The hunter boldly continued to the door and knocked loudly. "Mr. Pryce? Oliver Pryce!" He called.

"I could break it down."

"What? Dude, chill."

"What? I'm helping."

"Just follow my lead. Mr. Pryce? This is Sam-"

"Winchester," the older man snarked when he whipped open the door. "You're Sam Winchester, Man of Letters."

"Yeah… H-how did you, uh…"

"Mind reader, remember? And you're…" He looked to Castiel with widening eyes. "What are you?"

Cas looked to Sam who shrugged. "I'm an angel of the Lord."

Pryce blinked a few times. "That… No, you can't be."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm an atheist!"

Sam chuckled a little. "Not anymore."

"Zarya, you don't want to do this," Katia urged.

The hunter played with the syringe in her hand as she sat on the edge of her bed. "No, I want to do this. It's quite unnecessary, but I'm sick of being kept on a leash about what I find out and why. He told me once he would never lie to me."

"So you're going to kill yourself just to hash it out with him? If you don't come back quick enough, or at all, then you will turn, Zarya. And what if the Winchesters get back while you're dead on your bed but lashing out downstairs?"

"Sam and Dean aren't going to be back for a while. I know Sam didn't go see some weird ass French movie about a mime. He's got some pretty odd taste but that was the worst cover ever just to make sure Dean didn't go with him. And Dean went to go get drunk without me so he's either going to come back entirely plastered or after a bar fight."

"But what if you don't return?"

"He'll send me back before anything happens. Especially if I'm cussing him out."

"You can make certain of that?"

She laid down, staring up at the ceiling before exhaling. "I trust him." She closed her eyes to brace herself before slamming the needle of potassium down on her chest. There was a swift, lightning-like jolt and then nothing. When her eyes opened again she was no longer in the bunker.

"Suicide doesn't look very good on you, Rya."

She jumped to her feet at the sound of his voice. "It was a shot of potassium to the heart."

"Ooh, so you came with a purpose." Even though there was a playfulness to his tone, Lucifer's face showed nothing of the sort. His arms were crossed as he watched her walk up to him. "What is it now, Rya?"

"You don't want me to say 'yes' to your dumb cunt of a sister." Zarya got to the point quickly and sharply. She noticed the way he didn't even flinch at her language.

"Now where would you get that idea? I thought I've been quite clear."

"Yeah, you have, but always in the most backhanded of ways. You put the weight on my shoulders to make sure I was strong enough to tell her 'no' regardless of what I endured because you knew what she could do to me. That alone is enough to make anyone's head spin, so let's add on why in all of existence you would possibly do that."

"Because you're trying to fish for reasoning, Rya. You've looked too much into it aside from the obvious."

"You can't even bring yourself to lie about anymore, can you? You didn't even flinch when I referred to Remiel, who was once your most beloved sister, as the dumb cunt that she is because you agree with it!" She had walked up so boldly that she was within arm's reach of the bars staring up at the archangel with fire burning in her eyes. "And it's because you don't want Remiel, you want me."

He scoffed and looked away from her. "Someone seems to think rather highly of themselves I see. Growing more daring knowing that becoming a dhampir is on the horizon for you?"

"For the love of… drop the act already, Lucifer!" Her voice rose with the anger. She was losing whatever may have been left for calm. "Your mark on my soul wasn't a coincidence. You knew it was there because you left it there. You imprinted on my soul and then did the same thing to my side!"

Lucifer slammed a hand against the bars, glaring down at her with a burning in his own eyes. She didn't flinch at the echo the slam made. "You really want to hear it even though you seem to think you know everything? You came here for nothing then."

"Don't bullshit me," she hissed as she narrowed the distance again. All that separated them was the wrought iron bars. "You said you wouldn't lie to me. So don't."

He bent down just enough to be eye level with her. She was clearly enraged enough to not only kill herself to go to Hell and talk to him, but her gaze never faltered. Not once did she look away. She barely even blinked she was so infuriated. It was a sight to behold. "Fine, Rya. You're so desperate for the truth? Yes, I laid claim on you; you are mine. At the end of the day and at the end of time itself there is nothing you can do about that. There isn't even a damn thing Remiel can do about that."

"Why?" Finally her voice shook through grit teeth. "She was your ward; your favorite sibling!" In a fit of rage her hand slammed against the bars the same way his had.

"Because in the end, I chose you!" That got her to take a small step back down. He eyed her carefully, noting their subtle similarities. "You think I expected to? Remmy was my everything until she lost her fuckin' mind. I held out hope for so long that I could save her until you magically landed in front of me. In a child I saw my sister's destruction. I saw someone rise above her when I didn't think that was possible. So I claimed you as mine before she could take you away."

She ran both of her hands through her hair and turned her back to him as panic tried to set in. "I do not belong to you," she forced her voice slow and steady with her eyes closed. "I am not a possession."

"No, but I'm sure you're waiting on me to toss you back up before you start to become all dhampir like."

Her eyes sprung open and she whirled back around getting up close to him. "I know you're going to send me back before I start to turn."

"Oh yeah? What makes you so sure, because I haven't done it yet? I don't know Rya, what do you think the price of the truth is?"

Zarya's hands wrapped tightly around two of the bars until her knuckles were white. Her heart was racing nearly out of her chest. He could see the fear starting to take over the anger in her eyes. "You never wanted me to. Not unless it was something I was ready for or wanted to do if you had the option to stop it. I'm trusting you to do it again, Lucifer."

He just stared at her for a minute. The green and the blue in her eyes seemed almost entirely distinct from one another. Fear flashed through them no matter how hard she tried to choke it down. "I suppose knowing the truth going back is enough punishment." His hands wrapped around the bars just above her by less than an inch. He leaned as close to her as he could, his voice low. "The imprint forever on your soul, is because I love you, Rya."

Her eyes widened. Before she could even comprehend a single word to say he slid his hands over hers, sending her away.

Zarya shot up in her bed coughing, wheezing, and sweating. Once she was able to steady her breaths to a not hyperventilating pace she chugged a water bottle on her table. Katia was nowhere to be seen; the spell must have worn off while she was dead. How long had she been out? She assumed Sam and Dean still hadn't returned since it was dead silent. Checking her phone with no new messages she saw it had only been four hours.

Only four hours. Dead. Arguing with Lucifer in Hell.

"Why is my life such a disaster?" She groaned before throwing herself back on her bed face down. She tried so desperately to even slightly ignore the echoing of his final words with absolutely no luck at all. She didn't want to bash her skull in with a hammer so badly even when he sang Stairway to Heaven on repeat. Finally an idea struck her and she grabbed her phone.

"What can I do for you this time, kid?"

Zarya bit her lip at the sound of Nova's voice on the other end. "I need someone to talk to. And to get out of Kansas for a while."