10 Hours Later
By the time Chloe unlocks the front door to her house and stumbles inside, exhaustion has already sunk deep into her bones.
The flickering green light coming from the microwave blinks half past midnight, and she groans. She had stayed at the precinct far longer than she expected to, caught up in paperwork associated with the fallout of finding out that your boss was really a crime lord. To say the entire LAPD is shaken to the core is an understatement, and seeing as though she is a key witness to Pierce's murder, there is so much more she still has to do. But that is something to think about after a long, hot shower and some sleep.
If sleep would come at all without bringing crimson eyes with it.
Her phone had died sometime around her second round of questioning, the device coming back to life as soon as she hooks it up to the charger. Immediately, the screen lights up with notifications, assaulting her weary eyes. She has five missed calls from Linda and two voicemails. Instead of checking them, she simply shuts her phone back off. It's nothing that can't wait until tomorrow, and she has had her fill of chaos for the day.
A groan from the other side of the room draws Chloe's attention, her senses immediately going on high alert. Her hand automatically goes to the gun at her hip, and though she feels as though she is about to drop, another course of adrenaline rushes through her veins. She runs through a mental checklist, trying to recall any and every person granted access to her home in the last twenty-four hours.
Eyes darting down the hall, Chloe sees Trixie's door standing wide open, no one in bed.
"Trixie, baby, you up?" her voice echoes as she turns to face the living space.
Please, please don't be Lucifer, Chloe chants like a mantra. Out of all the times he chooses to ignore boundaries, this could not be one of them.
The intruder is not Lucifer, she discovers, but another otherworldly entity, one far more unexpected.
There, in all her glory, lies Maze sprawled out upon the sofa looking like she has been beaten within an inch of her life. If not for the shallow rise and fall of Maze's chest, Chloe would think that the woman is dead. Someone else has tended to her. The numerous cuts and scrapes along her arms and face are bandaged; the only gruesome injuries on display are the rainbow of bruises growing across every inch of her skin.
Chloe's first instinct is to rush to the woman and call 911. But then she remembers the crimson eyes, what they represent, and...holy shit, Maze is a demon.
A demon who is currently being coddled by a child.
In a panic, Chloe moves with every intention of pulling Trixie away from the demon in order to protect her. Trixie is too close to danger, her small frame sat on the floor, tiny hands grasping onto Maze's with a gentle yet firm grip. Despite the hurt Maze had caused Trixie not a few days earlier, and the young girl is all too ready to put bygones aside to make sure her friend is okay. Chloe would be proud if not so entirely freaked out.
Am I even okay with my daughter being attached to a demon? Chloe asks herself during what had to be her tenth mental breakdown of the hour.
It has been a nightmarish day, and yet the nightmare just refuses to end.
"She's been asleep since she got here," Trixie says with her eyes still trained on Maze, worry evident in those wide brown irises. "Who did this to her Mommy?"
Trixie sounds so upset that it is hard for Chloe to remain uncompassionate.
"I don't know Monkey."
Chloe kneels behind her daughter and scoops her up into a hug. Trixie buries her face into Chloe's neck while Chloe surveys the scene up close.
She reminds herself that Trixie does not know the truth, and like her father, cannot know. Chloe needs to protect Trixie from the dangers of the world, but since when did the line between friend and foe become so blurred? Despite all they'd been through, to Trixie, Maze is still her friend. But Maze is something otherworldly and dangerous, something that represents infinite terror and savagery.
But...hasn't Maze always been those things? Ever since she strode into Chloe's life in head to toe black leather, Maze had been nothing but a grouchy, irritable, loose canon who abided by zero social norms. Never once was she easy, but never once until recently did her roommate give Chloe chance to doubt her loyalty, especially to her daughter. This is the same woman who made Trixie glitter daggers out of pink cardboard and taught her how to bounty hunt! The same woman who cuddled up with Trixie on Halloween during a scary movie. The same woman who pretends to hate children but so warmly accepts Trixie's hugs and other forms of affection.
Or...so at least Chloe thought. She is not sure what she thinks now. Her head is still pounding out of her skull, the ebbing wave of adrenaline leaving her even more exhausted than before.
"Hey, why don't you go back to bed and I'll watch over Maze for a bit," Chloe suggests, knowing that Trixie shouldn't be up this late, especially not on a school night.
Trixie's bottom lip quivers in protest, but Chloe beats her daughter to the punch.
"Maze will still be here when you wake up."
It isn't exactly a comforting thought. Chloe would very much like Maze gone, but Trixie would not stand for it, and so Maze stays. For now. Until Chloe could come up with a better plan that she could explain to her daughter without being labeled the bad guy.
"And what about you, Mommy?"
"I'll be fine," Chloe assures her daughter. Sleep is just wishful thinking at this point. She is foolish for believing she could ever get any in the first place. But Trixie doesn't need to know that. "Now, off to bed."
Trixie begrudgingly obeys, tiny feet scuffling across the hardwood as they make their way to the bedroom. On the way in, Chloe notices the sign still taped on her door: No boys allowed except for Lucifer and Daddy. Chloe's fingers itch to rip it down. It had been funny at the time, so funny that Chloe remembers snorting milk out her nose at breakfast when Dan noticed he had come in second to her newfound, eccentric partner. Chloe doesn't know why Trixie is so amused by Lucifer, and for the first time, Chloe finds herself wishing the little girl isn't.
She wishes they all aren't so attached to Lucifer. It would make this whole situation so much easier.
"Mommy, is Maze going to be okay?"
Trixie has already pulled the sheets up to her neck, peering up from the bed with those large puppy dog eyes that normally get her whatever she wants. It hurts Chloe's heart that she cannot give her daughter the assurance she wants this time.
"You know Maze, she - " Chloe has to cut herself off, trying to find the right words. The safest words. "She's really tough. Nothing can take her down."
Trixie appears to mull this over, the worry lines smoothing over her forehead. Chloe lets out a breath she didn't know she had been holding.
"I love you," Trixie whispers into the fabric of Chloe's shirt, pulling her down into a tight hug. Chloe does not resist, burying her nose in her daughter's tangled brown hair, finding comfort in the scent of home. It drowns out the phantom smell of burning feathers, at least for a moment.
"I love you too Monkey."
Chloe gets up and flicks the lights off, bathing the room in darkness. She lingers in the doorway for a moment, content to simply watch Trixie sleep, safe and sound. The sight is a reprieve in the storm that rages around her. For the first time all night, Chloe doesn't feel like she's drowning, and it gives her the strength she needs to carry on.
Returning to the living room, Chloe is unsurprised to find that Maze has not moved a single muscle. Besides the steady rise and fall of her chest, Maze may as well be a corpse. The irony is not lost on Chloe that this is, perhaps, the most well behaved her roommate has ever been.
Her roommate...who is a demon...from Hell...which is apparently a real place and not the metaphoric creation of a mentally unstable nightclub owner.
Right.
She walks over to the kitchen and scoops some grounds into the coffee maker, turning it on and patiently waiting for it to squeeze out a cup of bitter black draught.
Chloe has a feeling she's going to need a lot more of it to survive until morning.