So this has been sitting on my computer for well years now and I can finally say it has been fully completed now. Took me long enough...

I don't own anything

Chapter 9 –Epilogue

Jace leveled his on Crissy. Pure hatred rang through them. It was exactly twenty three days since he had been put in this position. It had been simple, he thought. He forced Riley to try and stab Crissy and get the others blamed for it. The one thing he hadn't counted on was Jean and Kris interfering. They did and once he got out of here, they were going to pay.

"Jace," called Crissy and she snapped her fingers.

He sighed and moved from his place where he sat on the floor, where he would be ready to serve. "Yes ma'am?"

"I'm thirsty."

Jace turned and hobbled towards the kitchens. The casino was booming. Fresh food and cantaloupe liquor was always on the menu. Girls bustled about. Bouncers guarded the doors. Jace started to pour a glass of the liquor as he rubbed his wrists. They had taken off the plastic zip ties they used as handcuffs on him just two days before. They had extended them slowly over time. They still had the chain and locks on his ankles though so he clattered everywhere he went.

Crissy had made him her personal slave, she thought about getting a few more but saved the position as personal slave just for him.

He went back out into the main, Marshall nodded towards the office. Jace followed his directions.

Crissy was sitting at her desk legs crossed as she took the drink. "I bet you wish you could be out there playing with the girls huh?" she demanded and stood up. "You should've known not to cross me." She kissed the corner of his mouth. "You shouldn't have screwed around on me."

Jace glared.

"I'm done with you for tonight."

Jace's shoulders slumped and he rubbed at the thick scars stretching across his face where Athene hit him. He couldn't believe she was still going to do this. Every night, when she was done with him she would take him to the closet in her office. In there, Marshall had placed a hook into the wall. They used a thin chain that they wrapped around each wrist and and locked them tight with a small bike locks. The chain was long enough that it wrapped through hook in the wall and locked there.

Then they shut him in the dark and left him until morning. He had nothing to do but wait, and plot. The time would come when they would let their guard down, just long enough, and he would be gone and he would get his revenge.

Aerik. Athene. Nikki. Will. Kris. Jean. Dwight. Marshall. And Crissy.

He promised his himself every night he would get his revenge. That was his personal bed time story.

Aerik. Athene. Nikki. Will. Kris. Jean. Dwight. Marshall. And Crissy.

He wouldn't be a slave. He would turn his luck around yet.

Aerik. Athene. Nikki. Will. Kris. Jean. Dwight. Marshall. And Crissy.

He just couldn't give up.

~x~X~x~

Will sat on the floor of another random house. He lost all track of time as he ran around, looking for his next relief. The accusing green eyes glared at him in his sleep. Blaming him for the little boy's death. Demanding him suffer. Demanding he suffer.

He felt like he was being watched, that's why he ran so often. The eerie feeling of someone…something watching him, reaching out to get him, was tearing at his mind.

Will couldn't take it anymore. He didn't want to see anybody he knew.

He was hiding from Kris and Jean and everybody else. He just wanted to be ignored. To be left alone so he could suffer or die in peace. Whichever the world gave him.

He tried starving to death but he couldn't take it, he stole food and ate it.

Then chastised himself, he was supposed to be suffering for letting the little boy die.

Then he thought of another way he could die.

Back and forth, constantly. He was standing on the edge of a blade, suffer or die. Those were the options he gave himself. He just couldn't decide which he should take.

He found the knife in the kitchen drawer, he took a big breath out of his wood stain can and brought the knife up to his arm.

Just one swift motion and it could be done. A second of pain, just a moment and he would be done. No more suffering. No stopping it. Just a black oblivion.

The metal wasn't cold like he was expecting, it was warm as he started to press it into his flesh. He just couldn't go on.

~x~X~x~

Kris grabbed a hold of Jean as the trudged back to their house. She leaned against him.

"I don't know where he could be," admitted the boy, his greasy hair falling in front of his sad face.

Jean held him tightly to her. "We've been looking everyday as soon as we come in from the fields. We're doing what we can. Then we can tell him about Demi."

Kris sighed. "Yeah, I know, but I wish I could just do more."

Jean smiled at him. "Me too."

"I was thinking…" Kris started. "What if we moved closer up by Aerik's place? We could help him with his wood business I haven't seen him working it much lately, I'm sure he needs some help. It would pay good. We would be farther away from trouble."

Jean shook her head. "Crissy and Nikki are tight, always have been. Now with Athene out of the picture, they'll be tighter and pull Aerik in too. Crissy thrives in trouble. She's one of those people that get in a jam and decides she wants toast. We're best if we just stay put. If anything, we should go to lake or up to Athene and Dwight's campsite."

"You think?" Kris rolled his neck before his clear eyes looked at her and he smiled. "Whereever you want to go. I'll follow."

She blushed. "Kris, don't."

"I mean it." He looked at his hands for moment. "You saved me. You fixed me and didn't give up on me. You're everything to me."

She couldn't think of anything to say to that. He had come so far in so little time and they had become more than she expected too. Jean grabbed his head and pulled him close as his arms wrapped around her. She kissed him, full on the mouth.

They had no intentions to stop anytime soon.

~x~X~x~

Aerik wiped his brow as he collapsed on the ground behind his house. His sister had been gone nearly a month, and this was only the second trailer he brought in. Food was short for him and Nikki. His girlfriend had been working at her friend's casino more often. That left him alone to work the wood gathering. That was a dangerous job.

He still wasn't done today. He had to take this load down, part to the grill and a few things to the casino.

"Aerik?" Nikki's voice cut through the panting in the air. "Aerik, that's enough for today."

He shook his head, forcing himself to his feet. "Nothing in the cupboards. I gotta sell this so we can eat tonight." He leaned against the trailer and his brows snapped together when he saw the three guys next to Crissy. The tall red head nodded at the trailer and the other two guys bent over to take it.

"They'll see to that. Marshall, I'll talk to you later." Crissy waved to the red head and faced Aerik. "No more work like that. I've talked to Crissy. Marshall has a place for another bouncer. You know your way around a gun, you're tall and buff." She grinned at him. "You'll be paid, we can live the good life."

"I don't know, Nik," Aerik said looking at his feet. "I mean, what would I do?"

"Make sure people don't steal, or hurt people, get people that took money to give it back." She shrugged. "That's it really."

They each packed a bag. Aerik locked up his house as tight as he could, and they left for the casino. Aerik followed Nikki as she led the way. Marshall explained the rules and had Aerik standing watching in no time as Nikki disappeared down the hall with Crissy. Jace was nowhere to be seen.

Aerik wasn't so sure about everything. That was until Marshall gave him his cut for the night and the bouncers gathered around a kitchen table drinking the cantaloupe liquor some kid named Sean made.

They were laughing and joking. Hanging out like the old days. Aerik would have done anything for a taste of this as often as he could.

Another guy came in and whispered to Marshall. The red head stood. "Jack, with me."

Aerik set his glass down and followed his boss into the garage. Inside two kids held a third on knees. Aerik didn't know what was about to happen.

"This guy took money and never gave it back." Marshall explained as the kid begged to be let go. "He should have known better. So now we teach him a lesson he won't forget." Marshall's foot raised before it slammed into the back of the kid's leg. The poor kid yelled and jerked.

Marshall nodded at Aerik and then the kid. "Get going, Jack. I'll let you know when to stop."

Aerik nodded and braced himself. He didn't like this, but he liked the life he had back in that kitchen. He wanted to keep it. He smashed his fist into the kid's mouth, side, ribs, arms. Everything. He tried to not pay attention to what he was doing so it didn't bother him as much. He pummeled on the poor boy until Marshall pulled him back and nodded at the door.

Aerik went back to the kitchen. The laughing had never stopped. The drinks poured, and girls were added to the mix. Aerik sat in his chair and grinned.

"There you are. I couldn't find you." Nikki came up behind him and wrapped one arm around his neck. She put a glass of liquor in his hand. "Isn't this so much nicer than being locked away up there all alone?" She was careful not to mention his sister. She gave him a bite of the fruit slice she had in her other hand before she gave him a swift kiss on the lips.

He could live like this and be happy. He just couldn't let his conscience get to him.

~x~X~x~

"I have nothing to give, but my heart so full and…and these empty hands. Not empty now. She told him. And they lived happily ever after, until we start the next book. Now go to sleep, Demi." Athene patted the boy's neatly trimmed sandy hair as she pulled the blanket up around him in the tent trailer bed he slept in. "Good night."

"Athene?" Demi stopped her, his green eyes bright and healthy, so much better than they had been when they first arrived in their little campsite on Trotter's Ridge.

"Yes?" She paused by the door, book still in hand. "Do you think, Dwight is related to Professor Bhaer?"

She smiled and let out a small chuckle. "I don't know but I will ask him."

"Good night Athene." The boy turned over and curled up to go to sleep.

Athene shut the trailer door and looked around at the little camp site they had built together. It was right next to the little pond that the spring made. Demi played in the water sometimes and chased frogs that they would catch and she would cook. Dwight had learned to lay traps and made the rounds every day, bringing back squirrels or rabbits, anything really. They ate most of what they caught early on, but the rest of the meat they smoked in the smoker they had built. Athene would take the boys out and show them different edible plants like wild onions, or berries.

Solar panels worked hooked up to the top of the trailer, they charged an IPod and a few other little electronics mostly for entertainment. A fence wrapped around them at a wide distance with a large gate on one side that was locked. Right up against the fence was a little tent looking set up, inside was a camping porta-potty that Dwight took out of their compound and downhill about two hundred feet and dumped every day into a ditch. A little camp kitchen was set up next to a folding picnic table. Boxes and crates of lots of different tools and supplies were stacked neatly around their camp.

A small two person dome tent was set up next to the tent trailer and by the rain barrel and clothesline. Dwight slept in the tent on a twin mattress he retrieved so that Demi and Athene could each have their own bed in the trailer.

Athene let out a breath as she relaxed on the ground next to Dwight and across from their lawn chairs by the dying embers of the campfire they made to cook dinner earlier.

"He asleep?" Dwight asked, his dark eyes stared into the pale orange and black image in the rock ring. His hair was no longer falling into his face but cut close to his head.

Athene listened carefully for the easy breathing of the boy inside. "Yeah."

"Good."

Athene set the book she was reading, Little Women, to Demi down between them. "He wants to know if you're related to Professor Bhaer."

Dwight chuckled. "Sadly, I don't think I am I'm a B-A-E-R, no 'H'."

"I always like Fritz, such a shame," Athene teased.

Dwight, turned to look at her. "I'm happy here, Athene. I'm really happy I came with you."

She met his gaze, and she wasn't sure if it was the way he looked at her or the heat off the embers that made her cheeks heat up. "I'm glad you came, too."

They both glanced away from each other quickly; both afraid of what might and might not happen. The embers flickered in the fire pit and silence echoed through their campsite. It wasn't a bad silence. It was solitude among each other. It was so much better than the hustle and bustle of the casino, or the constant battles with Nikki and Aerik. They were safe with each other and didn't have to be afraid of getting beat up, or of someone being afraid of them. It was nice, and calm, and comforting.

The embers flickered again as one fell in and a spark floated up into the air before it died out midair.

Dwight's hand twitched, just enough to bump Athene's on the ground and they both froze. Carefully, like they were afraid the other would turn and run, they moved their hands together until their fingers were interlocked.

Neither of them said a word or looked at the other. Athene smiled and looked into the everlasting red embers, Dwight grinned as he glanced up at the reassuring blue night sky.

As the darkness came, they held onto the other, and for the first time, they didn't let go.

They held onto one another, and so long as they didn't let go and allow the fear to get them, they could make it with the anarchy and without the normality.

Hopefully you enjoyed this story, I'm pretty sure this is going to be the end of my Normality stuff because I don't see me going back to write anymore.