Hi guys! I know, outrageous waiting times, but my excuse is rock solid – I was in New York! The whole thing was such an amazing and intense experience and I'm still completely jet lagged, so I'm sleeping (and eating – oops) at awkward hours and my writing abilities sort of spiraled downward for a bit. I seem to be back, though I'm not sure how long the current inspiration would last me. Hopefully I manage to juggle writing OHAM and doing my math homework – which is apparently a challenge.

Let me just quickly thank you all so so much for all the ongoing support – we're officially over 60 followers now, and for the small amount of chapters I think that's incredible and I couldn't be thankful enough. That being said, the reviews you guys leave really tend to make my day every time, so if you wouldn't mind sparing a minute or two to do that, remember I'm probably a happier person over it.

"You're doing it all wrong, you know."

Loki glanced at Jess, who was leaning on one of the walls with her arms crossed over her midsection. He sighed and rolled his eyes. "How so?" he asked anyway.

"You let the drama tempt you," said Jess. "You come up with plenty of ideas that might be good in certain circumstances, think they sound cool and just use all of them together, with absolutely no sense of elegance. It's the classic literary trap."

Loki frowned. "It's nothing literary, it's an extortion video," he said impatiently.

"Don't be so shallow, of course it's literary!" Jess insisted.

"Define literary."

"Something that involves literary choices, decisions and/or devices," answered Jess easily. "Which an extortion video is. Not to mention it's not even extortion, because extortion means you want something for yourself, and you made no demands."

"Maybe if you weren't so busy criticizing my abilities you would have noticed that I did clearly mention demands," said Loki.

"That was not demands," Jess stated. "That was you grasping at straws. You told them not to try and find you, which I heard, and made threats concerning what happens if they do, but these threats are useless unless you can deliver. You have nothing here on Earth except your magic and a teenager. The only possible way for you to know at all times if they're looking for you or not is by constantly using your magic to check, which is impractical and unrealistic. The only thing you have to rely on is their fear."

"And just what is wrong with that? Fear is the most powerful incentive in the universe."

Jess shook her head. "Whatever," she mumbled. "It's a pointless argument anyway. I assume you want me back in my cell now, yes?" She parted from the wall, limping slightly as she walked.

"What's wrong with your leg?" asked Loki, effectively stopping her.

Jess glanced at the slowly healing flesh of her calf. "It was scratched when you blew up that car the night you kidnapped me," she said. "It's not self-inflicted if that's what you were worried about. Not that I had anything with which to hurt myself."

Loki sent her a quick glare before looking back at the wound. It seemed deep, he noted, and probably caused his hostage quite a bit of pain. He stepped closer almost automatically, not even thinking about it, stopping right in front of Jess. She looked up at him wide-eyed, surprised at the sudden proximity. "Sit," Loki ordered.

"What? Why?" asked Jess immediately, a frown of suspicion on her face.

Loki rolled his eyes. "So I can get a better look. Now sit down and let me look at the wound."

Tentatively, Jess obediently followed his instructions, pushing her injured leg out and placing her hands behind her back to lean on them. Loki crouched in front of her unceremoniously and looked the deep scratch over. The hairs on Jess's arms stood under his piercing gaze and she had to suppress the urge to shiver. When Loki reached out as if to touch the wound, Jess instinctively pulled her leg closer and away from him. Loki glared.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said in an annoyed tone. "Not right now, at any rate."

Jess set her jaw and clenched her fists, but pushed her leg back out. Loki carefully placed his hand above the wound, only about an inch away from Jess's skin. Jess kept her eyes fixed on him, ready to kick if he tried anything she didn't like. And yet when the green light started flowing out of Loki's hand and into Jess's wound, she was transfixed.

Jess could never describe what it felt like when Loki healed her. She could feel the sparks of his magic in her veins, and that realization made her heart beat faster. The thought of something so foreign, especially something that belonged to Loki, being inside her body… even setting all innuendo aside, the idea was at the very least difficult to grasp.

It did hurt, for lack of a better word for it. It wasn't any kind of pain Jess was accustomed to, and she wasn't entirely sure it was pain. She supposed it was possible that this was simply how human tissue knitting itself back together felt like when done so fast.

The result was instantaneous. Jess stared hard at the spot where just a few seconds ago there was a dark red tear, trying to find a flaw in the perfectly sealed skin. It was like the scratch never even happened; there wasn't so much as a scar.

Jess blinked in shock and turned her head to look at Loki, who already had the time to pull away and stand back up. "Thanks," she said suspiciously.

"Don't thank me, I didn't do it for you," said Loki emotionlessly. "I have no use for you if you're dead due to an easily preventable infection." He turned away from her, starting to walk away.

Jess watched Loki curiously as he walked, trying with an unexplainable determination to understand his behavior. "You know," she said loudly, stopping Loki after several steps, "I get the feeling you do this more than you realize."

Loki turned around and looked down at her. "Do what?"

"Force it," answered Jess easily. "You do something nice and then you say something that spoils it, efficiently destroying any possible doubt of your indecency." Loki narrowed his eyes at her. "The question is which one of these actions is a choice and which is an instinct."

"Take a guess," Loki sarcastically suggested. "But please do keep in mind my last visit to Earth."

"I don't need to guess," said Jess, looking Loki straight in the eye as always. "I already know."

"Well?" said Loki with a small, insincere smile. "Won't you share your diagnosis?"

Jess chuckled. "I don't think you're quite ready to hear me say it," she admitted with a lopsided grin.

Loki's smile vanished, replacing by a cold, angry scowl. "Return to your cell," he growled. "I expect I don't have to drag you there by force."

Jess calmly got to her feet, wordlessly walking back to the cell with Loki following her. Her still intact smile did not escape Loki's notice. When he locked the cell's door, Jess stood right behind it, piercing him with her bright eyes. As Loki turned away from her and left her alone and isolated, he couldn't stop the nagging feeling Jess's words had left.

Emmett would've been proud, thought Jess as she lay on her bed staring at the ceiling.

That wasn't even half true, of course, and Jess knew that. Emmett had been eleven years old in his death, and male. He hadn't quite developed the ability to feel pride yet then. The bitter realization that Emmett would never feel truly proud of anything in his whole life dawned upon Jess then, and she scowled to herself and turned to face the wall.

She then supposed he wouldn't have been proud even if he could, as there wasn't really anything to be proud of in her foolish, arrogant behavior.

The reason for this inner mental debate about pride and dead children was that Jess had found similarities in her brother's reaction to Lawrence's abduction and her own ways with Loki.

Emmett wasn't sassy a day in his life while their mother was alive, but the kid had unveiled some serious, breathtaking skills of back talking with Lawrence. Jess was always the pathetically submissive one when it came to his abuse. But now…

She didn't know where she even found the courage to speak to Loki like that. How dared she? The man terrified her, even when she did her best to act as though he didn't. Hell, she was shaking through their last verbal exchange. Did he really not notice? Did her smile hide that much?

Ridiculous.

Insane.

Impossible.

Jess knew there was no way, no way in hell Loki didn't see right through her. So why didn't he let her know?

Why not use knowing her fear against her, displaying it as a sign of Loki's superiority? It should have been one of Loki's main interests, and she'd given him a practically foolproof tool to do just that. So why not? It wasn't like he suddenly grew a conscience.

Jess didn't suppose she could come up with a satisfying answer without more information. She found it easier to drown herself in memories and self-pity.

Not for the first time, Jess considered making an exception and using her powers on Loki. If she was successful, if she could kill him or even just knock him out, she could escape. And not for the first time, she discarded the thought. Even with the element of surprise by her side, Loki's powers were stronger than hers, and better controlled. Not to mention Jess had no idea how to attack people without causing more harm to herself than to the subject of her assault. And she didn't think she particularly felt like adding homicide to the list of things that kept her up at night.

Did it even count as homicide with an inhuman victim?

Now that was something more worth thinking about than things she couldn't understand anyhow.

She couldn't remember if she was still thinking about that when she fell asleep.

Jess had no access to clocks or even windows, and she had just enough pride left to avoid asking Loki the time, so she had completely lost sense of time. There wasn't much for her to do in her cell except for sleeping, and when she did she couldn't tell how long she slept. When she woke up in the middle of the night, she was never quite sure of it. The lights in the room remained the same; she thought it could realistically drive her insane.

They say people dream every night and don't remember most, but Jess remembered just about every single dream she had since Loki took her – every single nightmare. And that night's dream made no exception for her sake. Sometimes she wondered if her own mind had changed alliances at some point and was now plotting against Jess.

Which was paranoid, of course. Jess thought paranoid thoughts nowadays, apparently.

Stupid mental state.

Anyway.

She dreamed up a memory. It wasn't even a special memory, not really. Not one she was likely to come across by accident. She had a thousand memories like this one.

Except she didn't. Not exactly.

It was Jess's mother's birthday. Jess remembered it quite well, all things considered. Jess had been thirteen years old – and it was the last birthday her mother ever got to celebrate.

There were no birthdays for her after this one. Only memorial days.

They didn't have many guests over, but that was how they always celebrated things. They never needed many people, Jess and her family. There were only Jess, Emmett, their mother and their grandmother.

Their grandmother was killed a few months later when she was hit by a car crossing the street. It was an accident; no one's fault.

But she was alive and well that day, and happy. As were everybody else. Jess's grandmother had made salad – lettuce, walnuts and cranberry, her specialty and the only tasty dish she could make – and Jess's mother had made chicken and salmon and things Jess didn't know the names of and didn't much care for. They had chocolate cake, because it was the only type of cake Emmett liked. It was delicious.

"Jess, won't you play something for your mom?" her grandmother had said, a wide smile on her lips.

"No," said Jess hesitantly. "I'm not any good."

"Come on," said Jess's mom in a practically challenging tone.

"Only a little," added her grandmother.

Jess looked at Emmett. Emmett was still looking at the cake, possibly unaware of the situation. "Fine," she said. "A little bit."

She brought her guitar from her room – the classic one, not electric. The memory of it wasn't perfect, but enough to preserve the important parts in the dream. The shade of the wood, the smoothness of its surfaces, the way it felt like an old friend when Jess touched it.

Jess sang, God knows which song. The music got jumbled up in the dream, with no distinct lyrics or melody, but somehow the dream made it sound beautiful, probably more beautiful than it really was when the memory wasn't a memory yet. Her voice and her guitar became on in the dream, and Jess felt herself – the herself that was still living the memory – slipping away into it.

There was clapping when she finished, and even Emmett failed to hide a smile, even though he was the little brother and wasn't supposed to show any signs of affection. There was praise. There was blushing on Jess's part, and she helped herself to some more cake to clear her head.

As easily as it started, the dream ended, and Jess was suddenly wide awake.

She pulled herself up into a sitting position and leaned her back against the wall on the side of the bed, her knees held together just under her chin. She couldn't know, but as she slept, she cried out for her mom.

It was a minute or two before the tears came.

Usually when Jess cried after dreaming it was tears of fear triggered by the nightmares.

Not this time.

Jess cried tears of grief, of sorrow. Of a deep understanding that surpassed her fifteen years of living of the absolute and irreversible loss. All that human potential her mother and brother once had, wiped out in a second, just because. She cried quietly, and she looked like nothing more than a scared child. At the moment, that was all she was, temporarily stripped away from everything that might have someday made her unique.

If she hadn't been crying this quietly, she probably wouldn't have heard the barely noticeable sound of the surveillance camera focusing.

She looked up suddenly. Her eyes were big and wet, but she wasn't crying anymore, shaken out of whatever state she'd been in by the surprise of sound in the silent cell. A soft line crossed the space between her eyebrows as her brain worked to understand, to solve. The frown vanished when realization hit, replaced by a cold, blank stare.

She wiped her face with the palms of her hands and stood up in slow motions, as if she didn't even notice she was doing it. She crossed the room quickly and efficiently, wasting no time for small strides. The camera was too high up for her to reach, and she stood tall right in front of it, completely aware Loki was watching.

She wondered how long he was doing that.

Then she decided she really didn't give a single shit.

Her lips pressed together in a new rage and her jaw set, body shaking with anger, Jess raised her fist and pulled out her middle finger, firm and strong for Loki to get a good, long look at.

She wasn't only pretending to be defiant this time.

She was pissed off.

Not tearing her eyes from the camera, Jess lowered her hand. Then, giving the camera a final, parting look she turned around, hair flying, and got back in her bed. Jess wasted no time falling back into sleep.

Jess didn't know what time it was when Loki showed up. Frankly, she could hardly care less.

He had a tray in his hand made of ugly, yellowish plastic containing her lunch. Or dinner. It could've been either and Jess would have had no idea. She fixated her eyes on Loki as usual when he entered her field of vision, handing over the tray through the bars of the cell. Jess took it and sat with her legs crossed on her bed, eyes shifting from Loki to her meal and back to Loki, as if she was trying to ensure she knew where both were at all times.

She thought Loki would leave once she had the food.

He didn't.

Is he just going to watch me eat? Jess wondered.

"Are you enjoying your stay?" asked Loki with a small smirk and a playful brightness in his eyes.

Jess shrugged. "Meh," she said eloquently. "It's not that bad compared to last time."

Loki raised an eyebrow.

"I mean, yeah, the entertainment sums up to nothing," Jess admitted. "And the ventilation systems could be better keeping in mind the lack of freaking oxygen. But I don't have that much to complain about, all things considered. At least this time I have a bed. Last time I slept on bare floor tiles." She stabbed a fish stick with her fork and bit, chewing on the slightly rubbery substance. "And I have to say, the food's a lot better."

"The food?" repeated Loki, now both eyebrows arched. "How so?"

"It's more frequent."

Loki narrowed his eyes. "Your sense of time must have gone inaccurate," he said calmly. "I only feed you twice a day."

"Oh," said Jess, blinking. "Truth be told, that's more than I thought. Huh."

Loki's frown intensified. His eyes quickly scanned Jess's skinny body. It didn't look underfed, exactly, but he figured she'd been out of captivity for a while. Definitely enough time for her to regain at least some of the weight she'd lost.

"Hey," said Jess, snapping him out of his thoughts. "My eyes are up here, asshole."

Loki blinked, meeting her eyes. She didn't look angry, not even annoyed. She seemed oddly calm. Not like in the last few times, when she was pretending. There wasn't a frightened bone in her, not at the moment.

Loki decided he should change the subject.

"I suppose you feel quite satisfied with your little show last night," he said coolly, referring to Jess's outburst with the surveillance camera. "I nearly expected you to try damage the camera."

Jess shrugged. "It was out of reach. Though you deserve a bit of property damage after watching me, you creep. You do realize you're literally millennia older than me, right?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "Don't flatter yourself."

"Define flattery," said Jess incredulously. She shook her head. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Thor mentioned you had it going with the ladies before, well, you know."

Loki's change of behavior was immediate. "Do not speak to me of my brother," he growled, leaning in, his face nearly scratching the cell's bars.

"Then don't. Piss me. Off." Jess's tone matched Loki's nearly perfectly in rawness and aggressiveness. Her jaw was set, and if looks could kill…

Loki straightened up, mouth slightly agape. She knows exactly what she's doing, he realized. Jess was pushing his buttons as easily as she did to a remote control – swiftly, expertly. Loki refused to let her.

"You're hardly the one to make demands in the current situation," he said, regaining his composure. "I've barely even scratched the surface of my magic with you. You still know nothing of what I'm capable of."

"I know plenty," snapped Jess harshly. "It's you who still has mountains of information to discover. Things aren't always what they look and you of all people should know that." She let her muscles relax. "Maybe you should be more careful with your precious cameras," she said calmly. "You never know what might happen in unfamiliar territories."

"What's so unfamiliar about this territory?" asked Loki with a smile.

Jess didn't smile back. Her glare and scowl made her look animalistic. Her fists tightened hard enough to make her knuckles white, and Loki could have sworn he saw a purple gleam cross her raging eyes.

"Me."

Jess kept in mind that she explicitly told the Avengers not to do anything stupid.

And she didn't seem to be in any immediate danger. Loki never touched her except for that first slap. As a matter of fact her biggest problem seemed to be the boredom.

But she had to wonder if it would really have killed them to show up and help.

She still hadn't asked Loki, but her estimate was that it's been a little over a week since the night he took her. Every day, twice a day, he'd appear with a plastic tray. Every day, twice a day, he didn't leave until she was finished. Jess still wondered why.

"I want a pen," she'd told him a few days in. "And scrap paper if you can find any. And for God's sake, a book."

He'd raised his eyebrows at her again, but she still got what she asked for; a pen, some paper, and not one but three books that weren't half bad, even though she couldn't imagine herself picking them out in a store or a library.

She slept a lot less after that, which wasn't an unpleasant change. Less dreams equaled less nightmares, and she was alert a larger portion of the time, which she now came to realize could really come in handy considering she was held hostage by a mass murderer who probably didn't particularly like her. Or maybe he didn't mind her, she really couldn't tell. Not that it much mattered. Making friends with your mass murdering kidnapper was usually frowned upon, not to mention psychologically abnormal. Jess had no intentions of developing a Stockholm syndrome anytime soon.

Still. It must have taken Jess about ten minutes to eat her meals, fifteen if she was talking. Which meant that theoretically, Loki and Jess spent half an hour of each day talking. Or possibly arguing. It depended on the mood, really, and the paths their conversations took.

Which was conflicting.

Because sometimes they'd be at each other's throats with hatred in their eyes.

And sometimes they'd just… talk. Not even about anything meaningful. It just felt like… basic human contact.

Or not human. Whatever.

"I bet my friends wonder where I'm at," she said one day, out of the blue.

"Your friends?" Loki repeated.

Jess nodded. "Yeah. They're like family. I feel like it wouldn't be wise to tell you their names, though."

Loki shrugged. "Probably." It was quiet for a few moments. "Have you been friends a long time?"

"Years. Feels like forever." She swallowed some food down. "I miss them," she murmured.

Loki just looked at her.

"The last time you were kidnapped," said Loki another time. "When was that?"

"A little over a year ago, I guess."

"Who kidnapped you?"

Jess glanced up at him before looking back at her food. "I'm not telling you," she said calmly.

"That seems fair," Loki agreed. "How long were you out?"

"Just a few months," she said. "I think three. I'm not sure. It's been a bit of a blur."

"Why?"

"I've been busy."

"Doing what?"

"Picking up my grades," she explained. "They were shit before I got kidnapped for ten months, imagine the work it took to get good scores after missing so much stuff."

"If they were bad before, why did they suddenly seem important when you got back?"

Jess shrugged indifferently. "I dunno. I guess it became more important to make people proud of me. Maybe I wanted to feel like my existence mattered. Like I wasn't just a waste of space."

Loki stared at her. Jess stared back.

Then she looked back down. "Or maybe I just grew up," she said casually. "Maybe I secretly missed math."

It was like that sometimes. Nice. But sometimes it was painful.

"Really now," said Jess another time in a not entirely friendly tone. "Do you have no plan?"

"I thought you dropped the subject," Loki answered, his jaw set.

Jess noticed. "No," she said. "Come on, just tell me. It's not like anyone important can hear."

"It's none of your business."

"Seriously?" Jess scoffed, standing up and placing herself inches from the cell's wall. "Did you actually just say that? Look at me, I'm a prisoner! Again! Of course it's my goddamn business! Because right now it looks like I'm going to be stuck here until A) you figure out something else or B) SHIELD finds you, and I do not want to become the only one who was killed in the downfall of the great and powerful Loki who couldn't even figure out one move that would get him closer to his goal. Which is… what again? World domination? A throne? Revenge against your more successful brother? Or was it showing Daddy you're good enough to deserve his love?"

"You would be wise to shut up about matters you do not understand," said Loki darkly.

"Yeah, I think you said something like that before. All I heard was 'you're getting kinda close to the truth so maybe you should stop right there'."

"I wonder, what is taking your precious little Avengers so long?" Loki pretended to contemplate aloud. "Maybe they're not trying very hard. Though I assume that is my fault – I should have picked someone they more care for as my captive. It would have given them more motivation."

"Oh, please," said Jess, rolling her eyes. "Is that all you've got?"

"In truth now, how long have they known you when they decided to take you in?" he asked. "A month? Two weeks? Longer than the amount of time I've known you? Well, I can't exactly blame them. It seems a large portion of your qualities are hidden at first. They could not have known the kind of mess they were getting themselves into. They could not have known that you are more trouble than you are worth."

Jess blinked twice. "Stop it."

"And those friends of yours," he continued. "The ones you've known for years. That are like family. Why do they stick around? Do they even see how big a catastrophe you are? How much do they even know about what's happening inside your head? How much do you hide? How much can you hide? And for how long?"

"Shut up," said Jess. Don't think about your fire. Don't think about purple. For God's sake, don't think about Dad.

"What will you do when they find out?" asked Loki. "After they've uncovered enough of you to know they want nothing to do with you? And why would they? Why would they want to let you drag them down into the pit with you? What will you do then? Can you last on your own? How long before you end up just like me?"

How long before you end up just like Lawrence?

Jess gritted her teeth so hard it hurt. Tears prickled her eyes and she bit down on her lip to stop it from trembling. She couldn't bring herself to look at Loki, but she was sure a satisfied smile played on his cruel lips.

That day, when Loki came for the second time, Jess didn't move to take the tray, so he put it on the floor inside the cell. He was about to turn and leave when Jess asked him a question.

"Why do you do all this?"

Her voice was quiet. She sounded like there was no fight left in her. She was sitting on her bed with her back against the wall and her legs crossed, her vacant stare cast aimlessly downwards.

Loki didn't know how to react.

Jess looked up at him. She seemed tired. "You used to have everything," she said desperately. "Thor told me about what it was like before. It wasn't perfect, I understand, but… why would you throw it all away like that? What for?"

"Thor told you," Loki echoed bitterly. "Does Thor understand? What does Thor know? What can he know?"

"He's your brother."

"No, he's not."

"He seems to think that he is," said Jess, her voice gradually starting to regain something. "He seems to think you shunned him out."

"And why shouldn't I?"

"Because he's your brother."

"So what if he is?"

"I know if I got the chance to make things better for my younger brother I would. So would Thor. He cares about you, you know, even after everything."

Jess couldn't decipher the way Loki looked at her. "You have a younger brother?"

"I used to," said Jess. She looked down again. "He's gone now."

Loki stayed quiet for a while, thoughtful, before he talked again. "Tell me then," he said. "If your brother was alive, and he attempted genocide and killed hundreds of innocent people, would you really still care for him?"

"Yes," said Jess without hesitating. "I mean, I'm hardly the one to preach about unconditionally loving your family. You definitely don't have to. But it's different, I think, with siblings. Especially older siblings. I don't think it's possible to ever truly not care about your younger sibling, even if you don't love them, which Thor does. Loki, Thor would take you back if you asked. He'd do just about anything for you if you just let him. There's a way out of this darkness for you. You don't have to keep doing this."

"Yes, I do."

"No, you don't!" Jess insisted. "Why are you so afraid of admitting that?"

"Because I don't have another option," snapped Loki suddenly, startling Jess. "Not anymore." He took a deep breath and glanced in Jess's direction. She was watching him intently. "I used to have a different future," he said bitterly. "But that was before. Before I found out who I really was."

"A frost giant?" Jess completed. Loki flinched at her words, as if the name of his species was a curse. "Why -? Loki, that doesn't have to define you. Why did you let it?"

Loki said nothing. He stared hard at the floor.

"Loki," said Jess. "Please listen. You don't have to be just like the rest of your species, especially not when you have Thor. Why do you try so hard to be evil? Why don't you try and fight it?"

"Because I'm a monster!" Loki shouted suddenly, so wildly Jess instinctively jumped where she sat and pressed her back harder against the wall, her eyes widening. Loki looked away from her. The sight of her felt like too much to handle. "All frost giants are good for is destruction," he said. "And at first I tried, I tried to tell myself that I could be better than that. I tried to wipe them out, and I failed." He gave a humorless chuckle. "You should've seen Odin then. You should've heard him. You wouldn't have been sitting here talking to me about family if you have."

No, Loki.

"After that…" he said, biting the inside of his cheek for a moment, "I got sick of pretending. I know what I am. I am the nightmare that haunts children's dreams."

Loki didn't look at Jess. He didn't have to. He already knew what her face would look like. He could picture the horror and disgust just as easily without having to face it.

"Loki, you are not a monster."

Loki turned his head so fast he felt it in his neck muscles. "What?" he managed to spit out.

"I don't think you're a monster," said Jess clearly. "You are not a monster."

Funny. She looked like she actually believed it, with her eyes and her damn innocence and how skinny her arms were as she used them for support getting off the bed, as she half-hugged herself with one of them. She reached out and touched the floor with her leg, quickly crossing the room to meet Loki at the cell's wall.

"What can you know of monsters?" asked Loki. It came out a whisper.

She hesitated before she spoke, but she did nonetheless. "Because I knew a monster," she said with a shrug. "I've seen one up-close, and you are nothing like that." The unspoken question must have rested on Loki's features, because Jess answered it. "My dad," she confessed, not quite meeting his eyes. "He killed my mom and held me hostage for almost a year. He had my brother too for a while before…" she trailed off.

Loki said nothing, though he was still staring at her, a soft frown on his face.

"It doesn't matter," said Jess softly. "My point is… you're fooling yourself. I know you think I don't know what I'm saying, but… I do. I know. I've seen monsters, Loki, and you're not one of them. You only try to be. And I think the reason for that, the real reason, is that you just don't know that you don't have to."

Loki swallowed and tried to clear his head. He failed. "Why are you saying all these things?" he asked. "Why are you trying to help me?"

Jess shook her head. "I don't know," she said honestly. "Maybe I think the world's dark enough without people trying to make it darker. Maybe I'm secretly an optimist. And maybe… maybe I see something in you. Light." Loki said nothing, so she continued. "Please," she said. "Let me help you."

"Help me how?"

"I don't know," she said sadly. "I don't care. Just… let me in, just a little bit. Work with me, give me something I can understand. Talk to me." She searched his eyes for understanding. "Please."

Loki hesitated.

"When you were watching," Jess persisted, "when you were watching me through that camera, it wasn't random, was it? It was because of the nightmares, and the crying. You cared, didn't you? I know you did. That means you're not gone, okay? That means you're still a person. And it means you can still feel something for somebody that isn't hate. Just… just let me see that. Let me see the side of you that means something."

The place was silent and still for a long time.

Then Loki spoke.

"It's getting late," he said softly, gently. "You should go to sleep." He didn't look at Jess before he turned around and left.

Jess sighed. She strongly felt like crying.

She glanced at the security camera.

She sat back down on her bed, and allowed her mind to wander.

She didn't know how long it's been when Loki came again.

He seemed different that time around. Numb, somehow. Jess didn't say anything as he stood in front of her cell's bars. He appeared to be deep in thoughts.

"Tell me about your family," he said suddenly, only just looking at her.

Jess swallowed. There was no room to argue. "It was just me, my mom and my brother for a long time. My dad ditched us as soon as my mom said it was us or the booze. I used to miss him when I was younger, which is every version of hilarious.

"My mom, she… she was young when she had me, and she was young as I was growing up. I don't have any aunts or sisters, so she played those roles as well." Jess chuckled. "When she tried to give me the Talk we were both giggling half the time. And in first grade when I had my first crush she was the one I talked to about it. She always wanted the best for me, and sometimes that was hard because I didn't necessarily want the best for myself. When we fought it was usually about that. We never apologized to each other. Things just sort of smoothed themselves out. Maybe that's not a good thing. Maybe it was unhealthy and maybe that's why I never learned how to properly say sorry. But it was how we did things, and it was how we liked it.

"She was still young when she died. She still had her whole life ahead of her. She was so smart, you should have met her… so much potential.

"Emmett was… different. He was a difficult child, always has been. He got frustrated easily, and didn't understand emotions enough to express them or deal with them. I didn't care about that. I loved him. I just wanted to help him through it, and for a while I could, when things were normal and we had Mom. I like to think I made things better. When my dad fucked everything up for us, he couldn't cope. Not that I blame him. I forced his head into my chest when he murdered our mother, you know, so that he wouldn't see. Didn't even think about it. It was reflex. He wasn't as obedient as I was. Lawrence didn't like that, and Emmett got the worst of his drunken anger. He was bruised and bloody a lot, not to mention burnt. Dad loved burning us, but Emmett in particular. And one day I guess it became too much and my little brother died at ten years old."

Jess blinked and wiped the stray tear that cascaded down her cheek away. "Is that what you wanted to know?" she asked quietly.

Loki said nothing.

Instead, he soundlessly raised his fist, which Jess now saw held a metallic key. He remained completely silent while he inserted the key into the cell's door and twisted. It opened with a loud creaking.

He left it wide open when he left.

Jess waited until he was out of earshot, until his footsteps had died down, before padding softly across the small cell, gingerly placing a hand on the door.

Carefully, as though every movement mattered, Jess Cory stepped outside her cell.