EDITED: 02/21/2015

Chapter Nine

"I'm off," Greyback said, stepping outside of the tent into the chilled air. Olive only nodded in return, not looking up from her knees. The stump she sat cross-legged on all morning was beginning to make her body go numb. But, out in the snow, she could breathe. Inside the tent, the tension was suffocating. All pride Scabior had put in her for finding the necklace the night before had faded with the rising sun. It wasn't enough to keep his full moon moodiness at bay.

"Don't worry, ain't like he's gonna kill ya, you're the meal ticket."

Olive stayed silent. This day was inevitable, but she'd hoped the necklace might help. As the morning wore on, Scabior thought less and less of the jewelry and more about yesterday's fuck up. She knew he was inside listening to them, seething. Despite not being an actual werewolf, one of the unfortunate downsides of Greyback's scratch was the even worse mood swings and violence Scabior projected during the full moon. He would thrash out on even the smallest things. Before, it wasn't so bad. The other men always did something stupid and so his wrath was aimed their way. But, now - now it was different. Greyback would go out, hunting on his own far from any Snatchers, and Olive would be left as Scabior's only distraction.

There was nothing left to say between the two of them and, realizing she wouldn't even look up at him, Greyback gave an irritated grunt and disappeared with a sharp crack.

And so her day began. Knowing it irritated him beyond belief to have his crew sit around and do nothing, Olive stretched out her aching legs, standing from the stump. Now that she was the only crew, she'd have a lot of work. Bright snow covered everything in sight, except for the tent and a few tree trunks here and there that stuck out in stark contrast. Months with Snatchers had engrained the duties into her brain - first she had to gather wood. They were running low, since neither Scabior nor Greyback were the sort to do the hard work, so she pulled the wand from her jacket and started off in search of the driest limbs she could find. Olive thought she would be safe using magic since this was technically a Snatcher duty and not against her Vow, but some dark cynical part in her hoped it would just kill her so she could be done with all this.

The memory of last night, his lips on her forehead, made a shiver run down her spine. How someone could turn so quick from happy to livid, she couldn't comprehend. Olive shook the thought off with a disgusted grunt, trying to shake the dream it reminded her of as well. In the muggle world, he would have been slapped with a mental illness diagnosis.

Not far from the tent she stopped, looking around for a direction to start in when she heard a frustrated growl and glass being thrown. Those poor plates had been mended so many times that the cracks were beyond magical help. The crashing of glass continued from the tent and she jumped, taking off in the opposite direction. Anywhere away from him.

There was no need to set wards since they had no reason to hide, so she walked far enough that the tent was out of sight before she started eying the trees. Here and there, after a half hour or so, she'd found two decent trees to choose from. Only a few dry limbs were in her arms when she heard his crunching steps coming after her in the snow. As she turned, he smacked the branches from her arms, shoving into her chest so hard that she toppled over into the snow.

"What the fuck is your problem?" she said once she regained her breath. From down in the snow, he towered over her, pupils dilated as they always did during the full moon.

"Did I tell you to get wood?" he spat, face twisted in a cruel, menacing glare.

"You would have flipped out if I just sat there and did nothing," she said in retort. For the smallest fraction of a second, the darkness of his eyes seemed to shift in the light and Olive's breath left her in a single huff of fear.

"I'm the one who gives the orders," he said, voice even in an eerie way that frightened her more, "You don't do nothin' without me tellin' you first."

A sick aura seemed to be rolling from him, filling the void between them and ensnaring Olive. It was like nothing she'd ever felt before. She gave a wide-eyed nod, not trusting her voice. With her current disadvantage in this entire situation, she would have to pick her battles wisely. And full moon Scabior was even darker, even more twisted, even more temperamental than usual.

"Good, now pick the wood back up," he said, crossing his arms to supervise. Olive only nodded again, picking herself up and dusting the snow from her clothes. There were a hundred nasty things she wanted to spit at him that second, but she held her tongue, still feeling his sick aura around her. Instead, she focused on grabbing the scattered limbs.

"We're gonna be down here all night if you don't hurry it up," he prodded, glare never once leaving her. Olive drew a deep breath, trying to calm the fury and fear that were building inside. Even so, she worked a bit more quick, gathering the limbs and then staring at him.

"What now?" she asked in a dry tone, knowing she was pushing it. But, if he was going to make it miserable for her, she would annoy him senseless and ask for orders on every little thing.

"Go back to camp and start a bloody fire, you stupid cunt," he said, muttering, "Merlin help me, I'll kill her," under his breath. The last bit made Olive's stomach squirm, but she pretended she didn't hear. The snow sunk deep with each step, but they trudged back to camp and after a few minutes she had the fire going.

Coins clanked as Scabior ruffled through his shirt pocket. "Go buy some fuckin' lunch," he said, flicking the galleons her way and hitting her in the face with them. Olive swallowed, trying to keep her temper in check. "Well, pick them up!" he said, eyes flashing with a dangerous flare before he stalked back into the tent. It was difficult to pick up the coins with her fingers trembling, but she managed after a few tries and apparated as soon as she did, wanting as far away from him as possible.

The streets of Diagon Alley were empty and uninviting. She'd thought they were empty last time she was there because it was a holiday, but it was clear now that the storefronts were dark because they were out of business. When she stepped inside the Leaky Cauldron, there were only three other people there - two people talking in hushed voices from a corner booth and the bartender Tom. The little bell over the door jingled as she entered and all three turned, giving her a long look. In the darkness of the pub, she felt like her red armband was glowing, branding her the enemy.

Tom didn't hide his look of disdain when she approached the bar, but said nothing while he wrote down her order.

"The loo?" she asked when the last of her order was written down. Tom jabbed a finger toward a doorway in the corner. "Thanks," she muttered, keeping her eyes glued to the ground as she walked, but noticed the two hushed voices stopped when she walked by.

The bathroom was just as dimly lit as the rest of the pub, but well enough that she could see her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Locking the heavy door behind her, she turned to the sink, running the taps to wash her shaking hands. The dread of going back to Scabior was rolling in her stomach and she was trying to swallow the bile in the back of her throat. Olive wet her hands again and bent to wash her face, pressing fingers along her eyes to hide the redness that was growing. It was no use, though. When she looked back up to the mirror and took in her reflection for a long moment, the tears came spilling out anyway. One shaking hand covered her mouth, trying to muffle her gasping sobs.

Though the swelling in her eye had disappeared, it was still a dark purple, skirted with a sickly yellow that covered half her face. It was also the first time she really got to inspect her splinch wound, as she avoided the mirror in their tent, and it was fully healed now. The skin bubbled out and twisted, snaking over her from neck to cheek like some river run wild. There was a new bruise, too, across the front of her neck where Scabior had tried to choke her before they went to Malfoy Manor. When she saw that one of the coins he'd thrown earlier left a small cut above her eye, it was all she could handle. Her hand flew from her mouth to the wall for balance and she emptied her stomach into the toilet. Oh Merlin, she hoped no one heard. Just the thought of another two days alone with him made her spill over into the toilet again, the image of his face making her stomach roll with nausea and worry. "Dad, I'm in trouble," she whispered, spitting the bitter taste from her mouth with another sob.

After what seemed an eternity, Olive finally stood with shaking hands and managed to wash out her mouth and clean her swollen eyes. Halfway presentable, she made her way back out to the bar, noting the two in the corner booth had left and saw that her order was waiting on the bar. She paid the man, wondering which coin had been the one to cut her face, and took the brown paper sack with a hurry. Back in the alley, she allowed herself a moment to walk the length of stores. If anything, it was to stall going back, though she told herself she needed the fresh air. What a joke, as if she didn't get enough fresh air on the job.

Flourish and Blott's was dark, books and shelves turned over and ripped apart as if they'd been looted. Ollivander's front window was smashed in and Olive wondered if she should snag a few wands for an emergency, but extinguished the idea when she remembered she couldn't do magic for something like that. And what was the point in grabbing the wands if she wasn't sure they would work for her or not?

The only shop that looked lively enough to get her mind off of things was the Weasley twins joke shop, all bright and colorful on the corner. In one slick movement, she untied her armband and slid it into her pocket. Everyone knew where the Weasley's stood in the war and she couldn't handle another person giving her a disgusted look.

Inside, there were a few parents giving wary glances around at everything and close to a dozen kids running rampant, excited over this or that. One of the red-haired twins noticed her, which one she couldn't say, and offered her a smile, though she could tell his eyes flicked back over to her bruises in curiosity when she'd looked away.

"Anything I can help you with?" he said, noting her lost expression.

"Do you…do you have any sweets that aren't pranks?" she asked. Maybe a lolly would settle her stomach.

The boy grinned. "Do I have any sweets that aren't pranks?" he asked in a perfect salesman voice, leading her toward another section of the store. "The only people interested in the joke stuff are the kids and do you think Georgie and I bank on their allowances? Nah, the money is with the parents and parents like normal things. Here we are."

The wall held such a huge assortment of sweets that Olive didn't know where to look first. There were Bertie Bott's, chocolate frogs, jelly wands, cauldron cakes, each as colorful as the shop around them. The lolly stand boasted over 77 flavors, from green apple to rhubarb and blueberry to cantaloupe. She thanked the boy and dug her free hand into a pocket, grasping some loose change and pulling it out to count. Scabior had taken her money from her as soon as they received it from the Ministry, so he could dictate what she spent it on, but she still had the leftover change from the ornaments she'd bought. Still, with Scabior in such a nasty mood, she played it safe and grabbed two - pineapple for herself and cherry for him, since she knew that was the flavor of cigarettes he smoked. There were just enough sickles for both.

When the twin rang her up, he insisted on giving her a receipt, though she said she didn't need one. When she stepped through the door and noticed a smudge of ink on her finger, she opened up the receipt to see if it was the source. In smudged ink it read:

Safe house - 82 Diagon Alley - Ask for Elizabeth, destroy after reading

Bloody fucking fantastic.

Olive wasn't sure if he knew she was muggleborn or if he thought she was in an abusive situation, or even if he knew that both were true. Whichever it was, it was embarrassing, though she was curious to see this safe house and happy to have another reason to stall a few minutes. The address of the Weasley shop read 93 and the one to the right was 95, so she took off across the alley in the opposite direction, pausing for a moment to readjust the sack from Leaky Cauldron, put Scabior's lolly in her pocket, and unwrap her own to try and settle her stomach. About another half-block down, she counted 86, 84, and 80. There in the middle, the building began to quiver, eventually revealing the hidden building to Olive.

'Well, that was fun,' she thought. There was no point in going in, she knew the Unbreakable Vow would kill her if she tried to run or hide.

Olive's stomach rolled again, knowing it was time to go back. Since she couldn't destroy the paper with magic, she shoved it in her pocket for burning later. With that, she apparated back to camp. Her surroundings had barely stopped spinning before Scabior was on her, gripping the front of her jacket and lifting her onto her toes to be level with him.

"What the fuck took you so long?" he demanded and then, noticing the lolly in her mouth, ripped it from her with an accusing glare. "I tell you to go and get lunch an' you go off spending all my money on yourself?" he asked, danger in every word.

"N-no," she said, eyes wide, "I bought -"

"Liar!" he screamed, tossing her down on the ground. With a yell of fury, he threw her lolly at the base of a nearby tree, where it exploded into a million little pieces. Before she could get another word in, she was screaming out in agony, begging him to stop the Crucio that was coursing through her. It was the longest he'd ever held the curse on her, so long and strong that her body twitched and jerked when he finally dropped his wand.

"I-bought-it-with-my-own-money," she blurted, wanting to get that out before he gave her another round of the curse. When he said nothing, she added, "With the money left from the ornament."

She risked looking up at him and swore she saw black waves of rage rolling off him, but after a few blinks it had disappeared. He'd lowered his wand, though the look of anger remained on his face.

"Grab your lunch and get out of my sight," he said, but his voice was more resigned than earlier. With shaking limbs, she stood, refusing to look at him anymore.

"You can have mine," she muttered, taking a step away from the tent, but stopping when her hand felt into her pockets. "Here," she said, pulling out the lolly, "It's cherry, like your cigarettes."

The air seemed to shift between them and she knew that Scabior would never feel remorse, but right that second was the closest he would ever come.

"And they gave me this on the house," she added, pulling the receipt out and handing it to him, as well, before walking out into the forest. Each step pained her from the curse, but she continued until she found a patch of grass near the base of a tree that was safe from snow. If she had to sleep out there with no lunch or dinner, then so be it, but at least she got to make him feel like shit for it.

Scabior read over the receipt again, then crumpled it in his fist and tossed it into the fire. It was unmarked, so he couldn't be sure where it had come from, but if he ever found out, he would kill them. Nobody tried to hide away what belonged to him.

For hours, he sat and brooded. Night had already fallen by the time he remembered the lolly and pulled it from the wrapper, sticking in in his mouth. Stupid bitch, a pack of cigarettes would have been better. Still, though, when he looked over to the shattered remains of her lolly, spread out in pieces beneath the tree, the corners of his mouth tugged down. He waited for a while longer, but she never came back.

By the time he decided to go get her, night stretched out in every direction, darkness covering everything like black ink. Something about her out in the woods where he couldn't see twisted his stomach the wrong way, making him think maybe she'd run off and was laying out there dead somewhere. He knew that was ridiculous, he only heard her walk so far earlier and when she stopped she was definitely within earshot. Still, he stood with a grimace and headed out in the direction she'd gone. Even with his heightened vision, he could hardly see in the dark that had fallen. Overgrown roots were making the trek near impossible, so he honed his hearing and caught sound of her breathing. He followed his ears and with each step the smell of honeysuckle grew. Maybe a hundred feet out from camp he found her, balled up, fast asleep and shivering on the grass.

With an irritated growl, he scooped her up, Olive barely stirring, and began a slow pace back to the tent, mindful of the roots that had grown up through the ground. The chill ran through him and even inside the tent, it clung to his bones, so he left her in her coat when he laid her in bed, throwing the covers over her. When he crawled into his own bed, he even left his boots on to ward off the cold.

The next day was the worst. The second day of the full moon moodiness was always more violent than the other two. Whatever semi-guilt Olive had managed to bring up in Scabior the night before was gone when the sun rose.

"You're so stupid," he said in the afternoon when she suggested checking an area of forest they'd never gone into before. "If there were someone there, I'd hear 'em, you cunt."

Olive had dubbed these days the middle-moon and there was just no talking to him on a middle-moon. By dinner, they'd progressed to physical fighting, though it was one-sided as Olive couldn't fight back, and as the moon was rising he finally lost it and delivered a series of Crucios.

Each one grew in intensity until Olive thought she would die from the pain, screaming out, begging him to stop. He didn't.

Olive wasn't sure how long the curses lasted or how long he gave her to rest before delivering the next. She wasn't even sure why he had started cursing her in the first place.

But, she did know that she was laying in her own vomit and that the moon was high in the sky by the time she stopped screaming. She would lay there and twitch while she waited for the next dose, the curses only making her twitch more, no longer screaming out in agony. Everything hurt so bad that she couldn't differentiate between the curse and resting.

When he got bored, he apparated off to vent his steam on some other unfortunate soul.

Late the next day, when the sun was setting, Scabior returned in a vastly better mood. He'd managed to lure a girl away from her friends at the pub with promises of taking her to his flat. Once he had her in an alley and began to rip the coat off of her, she was all for it until his iron fist clamped on her throat. The last bit of life left her eyes as he spilled inside her, then he left the body to be found in the morning and continued the prowl from someone new.

But that next day, back inside the tent, Scabior couldn't find Olive anywhere - not in the kitchen, not in the bathroom, not in the bedroom. And he was irritated and tired. The third day was always the most exhausting. When he stepped back outside with a scowl, the first thing he noticed was that the dumb bitch let the fire go out before he noticed her. Still crumpled, still where he left her, staring up at the sky. For a moment his stomach clenched, thinking he'd killed her until he saw her chest rise and fall.

When he walked and stood over her, she stared up at the sky with unfocused eyes.

"Get up, Olive," he said, trying to sound angry with her.

No answer.

"I said get up."

Nothing.

After a few more prompts, she finally moved her eyes to his, but it was like there was nobody there. She said nothing, giving only the occasional twitch.

The rest of the evening was spent in the tent, after he'd managed to get her inside and cleaned up. The hours passed while she stared up at the ceiling, body jerking every few minutes while Scabior laid next to her and watched, hoping she would snap out of it.