"It's all my fault." He buried his face in his hands, the revelation of what had transpired after his youngest charge's unnecessary banishment weighing heavily on his shoulders. "I allowed that to happen."
"I won't lie to you brother, I never have, and I never will, there is much blame on your shoulders."
The Viceroy looks up at his younger brother. "Is she okay?"
"That's a ridiculous question." He leans against his older brother's desk. "Of course, she's not okay. Just last week she suffered a mental break. Akriel is working with her now, with the help of her brothers, they talk every day. I won't lie to you, the things she's told him are heinous, if I could I'd find those beasts myself and enjoy the suffering I would inflict over them."
He knew that it must be bad to warrant the gentle, understanding Healers wrath, and he buried his face in his hands once more. "I wondered why they've all been ignoring me, rather blatantly so, for the last week." He lifts his head slightly, hands covering the lower half of his face still, nodding softly. "I understand now."
Raphael pushes away from the desk when Michael stands from the chair behind it. "I have to see her."
"I'd say that's at your own risk. She spends most of her time with Abraxos at her side. I do believe there might be some hostility." He points a finger at the older archangel. "She is having a good day, today. Do not turn it into a bad one."
…
She was with Abraxos. As he had expected her to be. Curled up on one of the loungers in the Lounge, pressed against his side, her head resting in his lap. He was reclining back, leaning against the large pillows behind him, legs out stretched and crossed at the ankle, reading a book out loud to the both of them as he stroked the fingers of his free hand through her short blonde locks.
He approached them cautiously, out of all her brothers, he expected Abraxos to be the most hostile. He'd always been closest to her, taking on a role of older brother from their very first meeting, he cared for her just as much as he, himself, cared for her. It had been to him that she had taken her first steps. Her first word being A'e. Him who got her to bed when she got really fussy at night. There had been numerous occasions he had come to find her, both of them fast asleep, and the little hatchling curled up comfortably on top of him, and one of his arms curled around her protectively. They had always been as close as close could be.
Abraxos was the first one to notice his arrival, his little companions eyes were closed, and his reading aloud came to an abrupt halt.
"Abe, why'd you stop….?"
"What are you doing here?" Her eyes opened at his tone of voice, and she visibly stiffened at the mere sight of him, it broke his heart. "We aren't taking visitors at the moment, thank you."
Michael stepped forward, stopping at the way she ducked back into her older brothers lap, her head pressing to his lower stomach. "I…I had to see you, Aba."
"I told you not to call me that." She glares up at him from her brothers lap, her glare as heated as ever, his little spitfire. "Only my family get to call me that." She spits at him. "And you, you are not my family."
"Please, Aba..Abraxas…" He kneels, his knees popping at the action, joints stiff after as many battles as he's fought in, and still fights in. "There is no excuse for what I did to you. I was not in my right mind. I wronged you in a way that is unforgiveable."
"This is all your fault." She holds her arms out, twisting the bandages one, shaking her bandaged hand. "This is your fault." Her voice cracks and her brother curls his fingers around her forehead. "What they did to me is your fault." She shakes her head, rubbing tears away with her free hand, reaching above for her brothers, his fingers curl over hers and she pulls his hand down to curl against her chest. "I cried for you. I screamed for you. I begged you to come for me. And you didn't, not once, you left me there to suffer. Locked in that small closet. Bound to that bed. Stuck in that 'training' room. You left me there." She presses the back of her brother's hand to her trembling lips. "You never came. Did you hear me? Did you hear me calling your name?"
Truth be told, and it his shame to live with for the rest of his life, he had heard her calling him. Their bond would be there forever, like a two way link between two graces, he felt her pain and her terror and her breaking. He had heard her calling for him, begging him to come for her, crying out his name with such fear that it would rock him to his very core for the rest of his eternal life.
"They..They…" Her brother shifts under her, setting his book down next to them, stroking the side of her cheek lightly. "Aba, that's enough." It was worse to relive it, Akriel made her, better to share it, to get it off her chest, then to hold on to it. But it was best to share it in a safe environment, tucked safely away in her room, under her warm blankets, tucked safely in the side of one of her brothers, the mental specialist sitting in a chair on the side of her bed, and they worked through it slowly, taking as many breaks as she needed. The last one to sit with her had been Puriel, he'd locked himself up in his room for days afterwards, a self-quarantine lest he go in search of those men who defiled their baby sister, lest he reign a suffering they've never seen before down on them. He was a Power now, but he was raised as a healer, he knew how to harm just as much as he knew how to heal. He knew how to torture people with barely a touch.
He was a gentle soul who could be as fearsome as they come in the next moment. It wasn't a side to him that they say often and for good reason.
She shakes her head, wiping the back of his hand over her eyes, collecting the tears as they slipped out.
"No, Abe…No…He deserves to know what he did." She turns back to their archangel. "They tied me to the bed, two, three of them, and they'd take turns. Laughing when I screamed. Laughing when I cried. Mocking when I'd beg." She inhales a shaky breath. "They'd lock me in that closet for days. No food. No water. Until I was putty in their hands. Willing to do anything for a piece bread, a bowl of broth, a bottle of water." He feels his insides shattering at every word. "Their 'training' room. Where they did things. Things that I'll never forget. Things that give me nightmares. The pain would linger for weeks. Like there was a hole cut deep in me. They made sure we knew what we were supposed to do." He buries his face in his hands again, falling forward onto his knees, disgusted with himself. This was his fault. She would never have had to face that, his innocent little monkey, a nickname given for her constant riding on her brothers shoulders, piggyback rides, climbing them when she was a small fledgling to settle herself on their hip, their shoulders, their backs, their arms. He was the reason his beloved little monkey had suffered so.
"They made me do it for profit. I was worth fifty, one hundred, a few hundred bucks to them. With different men, rich, poor, homeless, it didn't matter. If you could pay you got it."
He's going to kill them, allow his men to have their way with them, see that they suffered the same way they made his little monkey suffer. Nothing would stop him, not even Father, he would rebel if he had to. This was a personal affront on one of his own, when you poke the bull, you get the horns. And in this case, the bull was the oldest Archangel in existence and his elite legion, and the horns being their fury mixed with their knowledge and sprinkled with the power they held in their very finger tips.
"I wanted to die." He looks up at her, his fingers covering the lower half of his face, her eyes are red from the tears gathering in them, her breathing noisy from the stuffy nose, clutching so tight to her brothers hand that her fingers paled in color. "I couldn't escape. I tried. I tried to escape, and they punished me. So, I thought the only way out was to die. I begged them all to kill me, they laughed, the others refused, I wanted to die, Micha." She wipes her eyes with the back of her brothers hand, pressing it down against her lips for a moment, sucking in a deep shaky breath. Abraxos is still stroking her cheek, glaring at him silently over top of her, daring him to come any closer. "And then, then one day, I wasn't alone in that closet anymore. The door opened, and he stood there, all tall and muscular and fearsome. He knelt and reached out to caress my cheek and I flinched, but I knew him, I knew him, and I started to cry because I knew I was safe again. Nis was there. He was there and he was there for me." She chokes on her words softly. "He helped me out of the closet, he pulled me into his arms, lifted me off the dirty floor. He tore the chain from the wall. He melted the cuff off my ankle. I was free. After years and years of being alone and suffering on my own, I was finally free." Her older brother strokes through her hair comfortingly. "Nis was there, and they all stood back, I don't know what he did to them, what he said to them, I didn't care. I held on to him like my life depended on it, like it was all a dream and if I let go again I'd wake up and be locked in that closet again, but he was warm and he was solid and his arms held me up so securely and I knew he was really there. He didn't know what happened there, what they did, but seeing me locked in that closet was enough. He promised to be back. It was the first time I'd seen fear flash in their eyes." Abraxos bends slightly to kiss the side of her forehead.
Abraxas inhales again, a shaky breath, a struggle with her stuffy nose, tears streaming from her eyes.
"He told me we were going home, and I started crying harder and he brought me home. I made the healers promise not to tell anyone after they looked me over, and they agreed, against their better judgement. Confidentiality is something they take very seriously. Nis helped them wash me up, sponging me down in that bed in the Infirmary, and then he brought me home. I was home. Abe, Puri, Tus, Hani, Mal, they were all there, they were waiting for me, and when I saw them, I started crying again and I couldn't stop and we all curled up in the Lounge again, like old times, and I just cried. I cried well into the night. Years and years of tears held back. Pain and suffering and terror. It all crashed down at the safety that they gave me again. We slept in the Lounge for days, never moving, only to use the facilities or to get food for us or drink. And then I moved in with Nis for a time, I didn't want to be alone, they all came back when I was alone, so I stayed with Nis. He was my safety. He was my freer. He was the only one I wanted. And, all the while, I hated you. For letting me suffer. For causing it. For allowing it to happen. For ignoring my cries for help. I hated you." She falls silent for a moment. Chest heaving from such a long winded statement on only one breath. "But…But I don't hate you anymore. It makes me too tired. I'm not strong enough to hate you anymore."
Abraxos finally has enough, tapping a finger to her lips, his expression a pained expression. She turns to look up at him, at his silent plea for her attention, and he smiles down at her as he rubs his thumb over her forehead. "No more, duckling, it's upsetting you." Aba nods, brushing the back of his hand against his cheek, smiling as he wipes away the tears with gentle fingers.
"Aba, my little monkey, there are no words I can use in existence to express how remorseful I am."
She sits up, her older brother curling his arm around her waist to pull her into his side, and she leans her head against his shoulder. "Did you hear me? Did you hear me calling to you?" He flinches, harshly, and folds in on himself. She inhales, ducking closer to her older brother, it was the only reaction she needed to make that confirmation. "You did."
Michael nods. "I heard you. I heard every cry. Every plea." He shakes his head miserably. "But I couldn't come."
"Couldn't?" She sniffs softly. "Or, wouldn't?"
"No, no, couldn't. I couldn't come. My heart said to, but my mind would not allow it. I was torn in two."
"I don't understand what that means?" She looks confused, of course she would not know what transpired while she was exiled, she wouldn't know of the second war, of the Mindbreakers plot, of the attempt at usurping the thrones of Heaven, she was too busy suffering through her own war, and looks up at her older brother for assistance. "Abe, what does that mean?"
He kisses her forehead. "The Mindbreaker. She managed to get into his mind, she poisoned him, and broke his mind. She controlled everything he did. There was a second war because of it, her and her kind tried to usurp the thrones, she was a puppet master."
"She…She brainwashed him?"
The Power nods lightly. "She controlled his every thought. Everything he did."
"How…How did you fix him?"
The toned man shrugs nonchalantly. "We poisoned him."
"What!"
"I said, we pois—"
"No, I heard you!" She leans away from him to look up at him more fully. "You poisoned him?"
"Yep. It worked too. Broke him out of his spell. There was a lot of work to be done."
"If…If you were fixed," she turns back to the archangel. "Why didn't you come for me?"
"I was going to, believe me, I was going to." Michael looks down to his hands, still sitting on his knees, he folds his fingers together. "But you had stopped calling to me, instead Nisroc said he heard you call for him. I sent him because I was ashamed, Abraxas, ashamed that I had let you suffer a fate I didn't know. I was too ashamed to face you after what I had done. So, I sent Nisroc." He shakes his head softly. "I was weak."
She tugs at her brothers wrist, and he moves his arm, unwittingly, and she slides away from his side. Crossing the floor, the short distance that is between her and the one who's care she had been put under, they could never be what they were, not anymore, but she still loved him. She stood before him, looking down at him, his face buried in his hands. Slowly, carefully, she kneels before him, reaching out for his hands. Her little fingers curl around his big ones, pulling his hands away, he looks up at her with bright blue eyes, she folds his hands against her chest.
"We can't ever be what we were, Micha, I can't do that again." She exhales softly. "But I miss you, I miss my big, strong protector. I stopped calling you because I thought you were still mad at me, and that's why you never came, I never would have guessed that happened." He unfolds his hands, reaching up to caress her cheeks softly, they stare at each other for a long minute. "I missed being called your little monkey. I miss riding on your shoulders and playing games and joking around with you. I miss your hugs. I miss you holding me. I miss you."
"I wanted to come for you, I truly did, the mistake I ever did was cast you down." He rubs her cheeks with his thumbs. "I was too angry to see that at the time. And then I was too weak to come get you again. And then…then everything went down."
"I was so mad at you, for the longest time, I hated you." Aba smiles at him softly. "But it's so hard to hate. It's so tiring. I can't do it anymore."
The archangel smiles at her. "I missed you, my little monkey."
"Promise never to let go, again."
"I'll hold on tight and long and never let go."
She smiles, leaning forward, letting go of his wrists as she folds herself against his chest, her arms winding around him tightly. He looks down at her for a moment, eyes wide in surprise, but he comes to his senses after the moment passes, a smile slowly spreading over his features as he carefully curls his arms around her too.
Michael kisses the top of her head. "I'm so sorry, little monkey, there is nothing I can do to make it up to you. Nothing"
"Will you kill them?"
He shares a look with Abraxos over her head. "With great pleasure." Now typically he's a very passive archangel, looking to protect mankind from the evils in the world, and he'd made the exception. He was still protecting mankind in ridding them of those men.
…
"Are you sure you want to come?" Nisroc sounded unsure, his hand pressed to the top of her head, gazing down at her with great concern. Personally, he was against the idea, but she had asked their Archangel and he had granted her request. "You don't have to."
Abraxas nods carefully, part of her was terrified of seeing them all again, being back in that place. But she wasn't going back alone, she was going back surrounded by her family, her big brothers wouldn't let anything happen to her, and Michael was downright terrifying when he was this angry. He was rearing to go dish out some holy retribution. "I'm sure. I'm safe with you guys there. I want to see the life leave their eyes."
"You're just a bit terrifying when your being vindictive."
"Thanks. I learned it from my brothers."
"Point."
Michael raises his hand and they turn to give him their attention. "Are we ready?"
…
She arrives alone, appearing in the middle of their living space, they jump at her sudden being there. Smiling that smile that sends chills running down her spine, she's not alone, her brothers are there, though out of sight, she's not powerless this time, she can feel the warmth of Michael at her left shoulder and the warmth of Nisroc at her right. Abe's right behind her. The others circling around. She's far from alone this time.
The other girls gasp at her appearance, clean and well taken care of, her blonde hair done up in a slight bun, her blue eyes piercing. She smiles at them, waving slightly, and they shrink back as their boss saunters forward, that creepy smile she remembers her greeting from the dark past.
"I knew you'd come back, baby doll, can't stay away from papa, can you?"
"I'm not here for you." She lifts her chin defiantly, and his jaw sets, he's not used to females asserting their power over him. "I'm here for me."
"Are you going to fight me, baby doll?"
He's a slimy small little man, a pimp at it's finest, thinks he owns the world. Woman are just objects to him, tools to be used, a means to an end.
"All on your own?"
She smirks, a bit smugly, this guys gonna meet a terrible end. "I'm far from alone."
He looks about him, raising his hands, laughing that laugh of his. Uppity asshole. "Where's your army, baby doll?" He raises his hand, his trainers rise to their feet, her eyes jump from him to them. They're all going to die today. Except the girls. They promised to help the girls. "You're mine, I own you, you're my best girl." He waves for his trainers to take her. "Everyone wants a piece of you." He smirks as she steps back, she can feel metaphysical hands curl over her shoulders, solid and warm, unseen to the naked human eye. The hand on her right shoulder squeezes softly, Nisroc's heard enough, he wants a piece of his own.
The Captain falls out of formation first.
The tall man appears just as suddenly as the girl did, out of thin air, at her right shoulder. The girls all gasp in surprise, huddling together in fright, watching with wide frightened eyes. The two trainers back away a step, they recognize him, they remember him from the last time.
Abraxas breaths a sigh of relief as her older brother steps around her, stalking forward fearlessly, and takes hold of the man's neck. He lifts him cleanly off his feet.
Damn, her brothers are strong.
Nisroc smiles at the man, it's a biting smile, a sharks smile, one that assures that pain is sure to follow. "I told you I'd be back, Johnny."
"W-Who are you?"
"I'm her older brother." He squeezes tighter. "Look me in the eyes." Johnny gags, choking for a breath, porky little legs kicking frantically for purchase. "I said look me in the eyes." His eyes jump to those of the man holding him captive. "I don't take prisoners. I intend to play with my food before I eat it."
She watches them all jump into the fray that begins around them. A smile, a tad cruel in it's appearance, crosses her features.
She watches as Hasmal melts one of the trainers faces.
Puriel isn't even touching the other one and he's curled on the floor screaming.
Titus is beating one of the men. His face is unrecognizable. He's going to beat him until he stops thrashing.
Abe has a whip. It looks like Thaddeus's whip. Nisroc holds him pinned, Johnny can't move an inch, the whip biting into his back again and again.
Haniel taps Nisroc on the shoulder, and his Captain looks over at him curiously, nodding when he gestures for him to turn around. He pulls his fist back, packed tight, and plows it into Johnny's face. She flinches, instinctively, at the echoing crack that fills the room, his jaw shifts completely.
Michael squeezes her shoulder tightly and she turns to look up at him. "Would you like to partake?"
"I want to take a piece of Johnny."
He nods, guiding her forward, hovering just behind her. "Nisroc, turn him here."
Johnny's eyes are nearly swollen shut, his jaw snapped cleanly out of place, his back torn to shreds with the borrowed whip. "'ab' 'ol?"
She curls her fist tight. "My names not 'baby doll' you egotistical, tyrannical, bitch." And with all the training she's learned under all her years being raised by Heaven's most fearsome legion, she swings her fist around, punching him so hard that it sweeps him off his feet, his jaw shifting again, unaligned completely and hanging open of its own accord. "Are you ready to die?"
Michael rolls his sleeves up slowly, it's a nice shirt, he doesn't want to ruin it. "I do believe it's my turn."
Johnny's head rolls over. "'o 'u'?"
"I'm her guardian."
