"Did it work?" Talia Burns demands after allowing for only a few tense beats of quiet to pass after the vampire had finally had her fill enough to have lifted her head from its inclined place over her daughter's throat. The mother not even flinching at the protective hiss the hard question earns in answer when she gripped apparently too hard on the braced wrist of the monster, she'd just allowed to feed on her dying child stopping her when it looked like Juliette was attempting to somehow carry the yet to wake up Calliope to who knew where all on her own.
"We need to get her somewhere safe," Juliette says Cal's blood still warm against her mouth as she spoke managing with only a small amount of uneasy nerviness in her abilities as Cal's head lulls against her shoulder when she stands up from the bloodied and glass-littered ground.
"Get in, monster." Talia decides making a point of taking her daughter back into her arms as she inclined her head in the direction of her own waiting car. Seeing as the vampire had apparently run all the way from her own this was the closest means of transport available.
"You drive. I'll give you directions." Juliette says climbing at once into the backseat once more cradling Cal's head against her lap. Just by her tone, Talia was immediately on edge.
It was too…..defeated for her liking. But she shakes it off.
No this will work. The vampire might not believe it, but she did. This will work.
She wasn't losing another child tonight.
"Alright vampire. Where are we going?" the mother questions her knuckles white against the steering wheel as they reach the end of the street that had brought so much heartbreak for them both only a few short moments before.
She guessed she'd been told to stop before they'd reached the place the legacy in the backseat had been directing them towards, but Talia wasn't about to leave the car to find out. Sure, it went against every hunter's instinct she had but her instincts as a mother overshadowed her birthright.
And in no way was she even lightly swayed by the vamp's "Don't leave her alone" ask before she'd left the car.
More than once Talia's eyes move to the review mirror watching the unmoving figure of her daughter now covered quite tenderly in the vampire's jacket laid out across the back seats.
If it had worked surely there would have been some signs by now wouldn't there? The hunter questioned the longer she held the reflected image in the glass. Before she had longer to roll this over in her mind the vampire was back still with that look of failure slumping her already small frame on every step, she made back towards the idling car.
Fresh tracks of red run from the teenager's eyes in the low beams of the car's headlights betraying who she truly was when she lifts her chin enough to catch Talia's gaze through the windshield. "I need your help with something." At Talia's obvious hesitation she adds a soft "Please."
It only takes another heartbroken glance at the reflection of her daughter's still unmoving face in the mirror for the hunter's anger to return stronger than even seeing what the monster did to Theo sparked in her as she climbed from the car. "If you're looking for a staking vampire, I already know that won't work with your breed." The mother spat. then again even if it were possible to kill a legacy she was still hardly considering denying the request. let the vamp suffer with what she'd done.
At this Juliette smiles despite her blood-red tears. "A special kind of monster." She quotes in a low wistful tone. It was only then Talia noticed the small something the teenager was carrying wrapped in the scarf Juliette had been wearing when she'd first gotten out of the car.
"What is that?"
The still wrapped something was offered over without an explanation. The vampire's eyes were only for the could have been sleeping figure still laying in the back seat of the Burn's car.
"Only right you finish what Cal started," Juliette says as the stake was unwrapped. Even now she feels her instincts calling for her to recoil from what others would consider just another weapon in a hunter's arsenal. To run. To run as far and as fast as she was able from that innocent-looking strip of sharpened tree branch.
"Take your revenge." She shrugs when the weapon was smoothly weighed in the hunter's hand testing the balance "whatever you wanna call it afterward."
Talia's eyes widen once the pieces click together in her head. "Just like that?" she asked amazed.
Again, Juliette's eyes move towards Cal in the glare of the car's headlights. "Just like that."
The legacy hated that at the last second, she gave into her fears and let her eyes close tightly as she waited for the killing strike. She'd wanted to be like the Juliette of Shakespeare's play. Her last sight of the one she loved as that 'happy dagger' found its sheath in her chest, but she couldn't hold out quite that long.
A low growl like a jungle cat ready to pounce sounds at the same moment Talia's thrusting hand was caught at her wrist halting the motion of the oncoming stake.
The mother's breath left in a short gasp even as her wrist was twisted to the point, she let the weapon she was holding drop from her hand as she stared in awe at the daughter, she'd thought she'd lost.
"I made a promise to you once Jules," Cal says her eyes still locked untrusting on her mother's wide ones as her free hand reached back enough to intertwine her fingers with Jules's shaking ones. "I promised you that your heart would be safe with me."
"Forever." Juliette whispers
"Forever." Cal echoes catching the shorter vampire's eyes with a sly half smile.
