A/N: I think everyone will love this chapter. One or two more to go. Review Review Review I'm hungry.
Dustfinger finally snapped out of it when he saw Meggie collapse to the ground, bloody and beaten. Farid moved Brianna up to a room, wanting to shield his distraught love.
Dustfinger shoved Roxanne off and helped Meggie to a sitting position.
"What's going on?" he asked, as he helped her stand, backing her away from Roxanne who was snarling, looking like she was going to start attacking any minute.
"Where is everyone?"
"She's not herself! We forgot one little detail. Orpheus brought her back so he has control over her!" Dustfinger looked to Roxanne, his heart panging in complete sadness as he saw what his wife had become, and not by choice.
"Mo and Brandon are asleep, but you have to talk to Roxanne, I have to end this and I have to do it now. Night time is falling, and it's perfect." Meggie said, nodding towards Roxanne who was nearing them.
"I love you." Dustfinger dropped a kiss on her forehead, and Meggie wrapped her arms around him tightly before they both let go. Dustfinger grabbed Roxanne, slamming her into a wall, while Meggie dove for the couch, grabbing the papers. In her haste she dropped them on the floor.
Cursing under her breath she reached for them, only for a foot to step on the last one she had written, one of the most important ones. She looked up only to scream in horror as she saw who it was.
"You ruined my plan you little brat." He spat, lust all gone as he ripped the paper with his foot.
"You love Roxanne now." Meggie fully understood.
Orpheus shrugged.
"Jealous?"
"Never, I would rather die." Meggie hissed.
"Wish granted."
He went to punch her, but someone grabbed his arm, yanking it back and turning him around.
"No our wish granted," Farid spat as his fist planted itself into the other man's. Meggie crawled away, running to the table. She sat down and grabbed a pen, turning over the papers, and started to write a different ending.
"Roxanne this is NOT you. Fight it, Roxanne. FIGHT IT!" Dustfinger was repeating the same things over and over again, and each time more of Roxanne would flash.
"Dustfinger!" she gasped.
"That's it." Dustfinger said, breathless.
"Keep going."
"And then Roxanne remembered who her master was, and she was bound to him, bound like a bond that can never break." Dustfinger watched in horror as Roxanne's body jerked, and she let out a yell, as Orpheus let out a hiss of his own. Dustfinger and Farid looked to each other, shocked and confused.
Dustfinger was then flying from just one of Roxanne's fists.
"How did he do that? Just with words and no paper? You need paper, it's the other half!"
"Which means it can't be undone."
"You saw what happened." Dustfinger snapped back as he picked himself up. He hesitated before sending a kick to Roxanne's stomach. She doubled over but sent a kick to herself, which Dustfinger managed to dodge.
"You fools I killed the writer, I am now in control!"
Meggie had stopped as she had witnessed and heard all of this. She gaped, and then forced herself to focus on the ending. What a responsibility in such a young person. To save this world and to save themselves.
Meggie heard Farid's scream before she heard the thud of a body. The telling that they were losing this battle, and hope now remained in Meggie
"Did you kill him?"
"Nah but my beautiful creation will." She heard Orpheus's voice growing, and she looked up just as his arms enclosed around her waist. Meggie let out a scream, as she grabbed for the table but missed by inches. Orpheus pulled her away and dropped her into the table. She shattered it, bending it in and gasped out loud as wood spiked into her back.
Dustfinger turned around, only for him to fall beside her as Roxanne punched him in that direction.
Dustfinger winced as he shakily got to his feet, wrapping a hand around Meggie's arm and pulling her up too.
"You know at first I wanted to hurt you Dustfinger as much as you hurt me. So I toyed with Meggie. I even thought I fell for her, because then I wanted you out...and now? I just want you both dead inside my own creation, living in hell and seeing what I'm doing." The words haunted Meggie, and her fingers found Dustfinger's.
Dustfinger gripped her hand, lending her his strength as he too stared at the man. Unbeknownst to them Brianna had her head out, listening and she pulled back with a small gasp. She was going to be raising a child and she knew she could not raise one with Orpheus ruling. So she ran up to the stairs, where she knew Mo was, trying to be as quiet as she could.
She went to open the door to find it was locked. She knocked, keeping her head around as she watched for any danger. When no response was heard she kicked down the door. A surprised Mo shot up, his eyes wide and he opened his mouth but Brianna shook her head.
"Listen to me and listen to me good!"
Meanwhile downstairs, Roxanne's head cocked as she heard the distant sound upstairs. Orpheus looked at her strangely.
"I heard something." Roxanne said, voice almost floating.
"Go look my dear, I have these two." Orpheus smiled at them as he continued his story.
"And I got Roxanne. Perfect ending right? Just like my own story." He purred.
"A beginning, sadness and complications at the start, the messy bit, the battle and the victory."
"It wouldn't be a victory it would be a loss." Meggie spat. Dustfinger squeezed her hand, and she looked to him as he shook his head.
"No it would not." Orpheus spat.
"Because the lonely boy who got nothing finally gets something," Orpheus explained. This time Meggie bit her lip.
"So I guess this is goodbye Dustfinger." Orpheus said, looking at him with a blank expression.
"Bye?" Dustfinger said, and Meggie had to laugh at his mocking and dumbstruck tone.
Meggie's eyebrows rose as she saw the tear roll down Orpheus's face. Dustfinger even sobered up.
"You already dug your grave," Dustfinger said quietly,
"Actually it's yours, and now you have to lay in it." Orpheus looked confused, whose expression was mirrored by Meggie's. Dustfinger smiled over to the table, where Mo was holding up the paper, smiling.
"She's not herself!" Brianna finished in a pleading voice, needing Mo to understand. He nodded quickly, confirming he did, and Brianna let out a breath until she realized her mother was standing right behind her.
"I've come back from the dead, I'm a little supernatural." She said, and suddenly Brianna was against the wall.
All three of them looked shocked.
"I didn't know I could do that." Roxanne said, sounding pleased with herself. Mo stared, completely horrified and fascinated.
"Mum please!" Brianna whimpered, holding onto her stomach.
"You're in there and I know he's bounded you but you are the strongest person I know. Concentrate on my voice, listen to my-"
"Stop it Brianna I am your mother."
"No you're not." Brianna said. Mo closed his eyes, relying on his last faith.
The bond was broken by Orpheus's unfaithfulness to Roxanne in the past, for only a bond could hold if it was true love from the very beginning.
Roxanne gasped and slumped to the floor, and Brianna slid down too, falling beside her mum.
"Mum." Brianna lifted her mother's face and gasped at the blood running down her face.
"I'm so sorry." Roxanne whimpered, and Brianna responded by throwing her arms around her. Mo looked at his sleeping son, glad he wasn't aware.
"Please watch over Brandon."
"We will." Roxanne choked,
"It's the least I could do."
The promise said in those words, Mo flew out of the room, though he stopped down the hall as he heard talking.
He stopped at the hall, the scene he saw causing an inhuman rage to possess him. He clenched his fist and his body shook at the effort to just remain where he was, only taking steps when he saw it to be fit.
He then crossed to table, seeing Meggie's papers and the ending she had just begun to rewrite. Picking it up he began to whisper it out, loosing himself in it, giving everything. For if he could get this out and get it to work, and he died in the process then he would die a happy man.
"You already dug your grave." Mo looked up and smirked.
"Actually it's yours, and now you have to lay in it."
He felt Orpheus's gaze on him, and it weighed him down with the emotions blended in it.
"NO!"
Mo read louder, and heard Dustfinger's laugh and could feel Meggie's smile shouting at him from across the room.
There was a roar, and Mo raised his voice to meet it.
"It's coming!" he yelled in warning.
Dustfinger grabbed Meggie and ran them to the cupboard. He shoved them in, standing in front of Meggie protectively in the small space provided.
Meggie curled up in a ball, and Dustfinger bent down, wrapping his arms around her.
"It's coming!" he yelled again, hoping his yell reached upstairs.
Orpheus stopped in mid run, screaming as he saw his own creation. His ugly creation, which was a reflection of himself.
A blackening yet blinding white light appeared as Mo began to scream the words.
"And as his own creation-a reflection of himself-swallowed him hole, in it he swallowed everything else evil Orpheus had ever created either by words or through something else. As it swallowed Orpheus, every thing to do with Orpheus and the monster was undone. Lives were restored, happiness brought back to the weeping, husbands, children, wives...whatever innocence was lost was returned. Everything was restored back.
Mo watched in awestruck horror as the monster seemed to float up to Orpheus who screamed, pleading and begging, and Mo closed his eyes as another blinding light flashed, sending Mo backwards and into the wall. The force made him dint it, and he slid to the ground, eyes open as he watched another shattering light roll across, and he knew it was rolling all over Inkheart as everything returned.
And then all was still.
Mo breathed, and waited a moment before he stood up, chest heaving as he waited for what exactly he was not sure.
Until he heard a voice, that was like bell chimes, that was a song to his heart, and lifted him on a high, a high that no drugs could not beat.
It captivated him.
Even if it only spoke one word.
"Mo."
"Resa."