Prepare yourselves! This is one of the more intense chapters I've ever written. Let me know what you think!
Amelia slept away the time at Bobby's, drinking heavily to dull the nightmares that had gotten so much worse. Sam disapproved, hell, even Bobby with all his drinking disapproved. She didn't have it in her to care. Mainly she passed the time playing poker with Dean, trying to learn the game better. He at least didn't treat her differently. Sure, maybe a few half-sympathetic glances when he thought she wasn't looking, but he didn't act like she was going to shatter. Out of all of them, Dean understood her method of coping. Bury it. Cover it with a few gallons of alcohol. Never talk about it, and think about it as little as possible.
One of the brothers told Bobby about burning the house (almost certainly Sam) and he tried to bring the topic up once. She gave him such a vitriolic look he immediately dropped the subject and never brought it up again.
The next day she packed up the Firebird. She wouldn't sleep as well since she couldn't nap in the backseat while someone else drove, but she needed to get out of the house and away from the pitying, disapproving looks. For whatever reason, the headaches had finally started improving, and she wanted to start practicing with fire again. The ease with which she had torched the house disturbed her; she had to continue to practice putting out fires. Not to mention less headaches meant more opportunities to run, and she certainly couldn't do that in snow-bound South Dakota.
Bobby wasn't happy when she left, he frowned deep into his beard, but he didn't try to persuade her to stay. He knew her well enough not to try.
So she drove off again, bucking a few snow drifts on the rural road until she reached the highway. Turning south, Amelia drove until she left the snow behind, and kept driving. Texas sounded nice, and she had found a couple of half-marathons she could start training for.
She started in Texas, drifted over to California for a few marathons in February, and ended up in Georgia on a ghost case with Garth in March. It ended successfully, which meant that she hadn't strangled him and they were both alive. A few days later she found a university library with an entire section of Latin and Greek books on mythology. She took a break from active hunting for a while after that, holing up reading for hours on end.
Her ability with fire had improved over the months, and while she still got headaches when she used the fire, to Amelia's immense relief her other headaches had almost disappeared. The nightmares had also steadily gotten better, to the point where she could get three or four consecutive hours of sleep. She relished the sleep, and since she didn't go out on hunts, gradually relaxed.
Which would explain why, when she occupied her favorite corner of the library, nose deep in a book, she didn't notice the demons enter. She whistled along quietly to the music playing in her headphones, taking careful notes on her computer.
Suddenly her computer screen flickered for a second, and went black. Snatching her earbuds from her ears, Amelia reached for her holy water, but the demon already had her wrist in its strong grasp.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis-" the demon slammed her head against the wall, and she blacked out a second later.
Amelia woke up with cold irons holding her wrists high above her head, pressing sharply on the bruises that ringed her arms. She had a tight gag in her mouth that made it hard to breathe, and her head pounded. The back of her head throbbed where the demon had slammed her into the wall. She tried to swallow around the gag, to make her breathing easier, and almost choked. It took her a few minutes to breathe right again, and she let herself hang quietly after that. She was in some sort of run down, empty room, maybe an apartment building, maybe an abandoned warehouse.
She had a few consolations, as she stood alone for hours, muscles aching, wheezing around the gag in her mouth. Whenever she moved on to a new town, she always emailed Bobby the information, and once she had found the library, she kept up an almost daily correspondence with the hunter of material she had gleaned from the mythology books. He would soon realize she had stopped emailing, and would know something had happened. She just had to hold herself together until he sent help.
After a long time, she heard footsteps echo down the hall, slowly coming closer. The suspense was agony. An eternity of hovering on the edge of a panic attack, and a demon strolled through the door. But not just any demon. The demon. The one who had infected Amelia with her blood, and haunted her dreams almost every night.
"Hello," the demon said, cheerfully, and walked over to Amelia. "Long time no see, how's the hunting going?"
She studied Amelia for a few seconds, then laughed. "Silly me, I forgot to take off your gag."
The demon reached up and removed the spit soaked piece of cloth.
"There, that better?"
She patted Amelia on the cheek with a kind smile. Amelia shuddered, and tried to move away but the chains held her tight.
"Oh, honey," the demon reproved her. "Tired of me so quickly? We haven't even gotten started."
"Go back to hell, bitch," Amelia growled, doing her best Dean impression.
The demon clucked. "You shouldn't spend so much time around the Winchesters, your manners are awful."
"What do you want from me?" Amelia asked. Seeing the demon in her dreams every night had desensitized her to the demon in real life, apparently. After the initial shock, her heart beat only a touch faster than normal.
"I thought you knew?" the demon looked confused. "I want your soul. I want it to burn in hell, until you're refined into something more pure."
Amelia knew that from her first conversation with the demon. "So what's with the blood? My soul's still mine. Case you haven't noticed, I haven't sold it off."
The demon laughed loudly at that, casting her head back, and Amelia's heart beat faster.
"Oh, sweetie, do you really think you're going to heaven with demon blood running through you veins? Especially when you've embraced it, oh yes I've been watching you. Marvelous progress. The way you can make fire..." She smiled. "It's beautiful. Inspired."
"Why don't you kill me, then?" Amelia spat. "I'm not turning into a demon when I'm still topside."
"I'm patient," the demon explained, matter-of-factly. "I've waited a long time for this, I've fought through hell and demons and angels for this." She touched Amelia's cheek reverently. "I'm not going to let it get messed up."
The demon took a knife out of her pocket, and slashed open her hand once more. Amelia clenched her jaw shut. She had seen the action a hundred times, a million times in her dreams, and her brave act was slipping away.
"I know this is your second time, but we'll still take it slow," the demon said, in a soft, soothing tone, reaching up to run her hand through Amelia's hair.
Amelia was gasping for air now, and her whole body shook. She screwed her eyes shut.
"Shhh," she felt the cold finger trail down her face. "Shhh, there."
Then the hand was over her mouth, and she could taste the blood on her tongue, and she was crying, oh god she was crying as the demon forced her to choke down the blood. And the whole time, she felt the demon run its hand over her face, through her hair, down her back, crooning comforts to her. Amelia gagged on the salty blood as it filled her mouth and trickled slowly down her throat, but the demon made her swallow every drop. As it caressed her. After a century, the demon finally took its hand away.
"Hush now," the demon wiped away her tears. "It gets better, darling."
Amelia hung limp from the chains, and she heard the demon walk away. Tears rinsed off some of the blood that was smeared over her face, but not all of it, and she could feel it as it dried, sticky and revolting.
She could still feel the touch of the demon's hand on her skin, the blood twisted her stomach into a tight knot, and Amelia would have burned her flesh off for the chance to feel clean again. She spat, again and again, until she ran out of spit, but she couldn't rinse the taste of blood from her mouth. The buzzing started in her mind, all too well remembered from her first experience with the demon blood.
Time seemed to slow, and her every sense became hypersensitive. She could hear water drip out in the hall, and every splash echoed like thunder. Phantom touches ran across her body, and smells assaulted her nose. She couldn't escape, couldn't even scratch her shoulder when it itched.
After a long time, Amelia raised her head, and studied the chains around her wrists. Thick iron bands. No way she could slip out of them, and she couldn't burn through them without burning off her hands as well. Before she went to that extreme, she would give Bobby and the other hunters a little more time. She let her head fall back down to her chest. Her bad shoulder started to hurt from being held in such an uncomfortable position. After a while, Amelia drifted off into numbness, helped by the drug-like quality of the demon blood.
She woke up to the demon forcing her to drink more blood.
"No room service here, Aim," the demon told her cheerfully.
"Don't call me that," she hissed through the blood, and kicked out at the demon, landing a foot in its stomach.
She jumped, grabbing the chain in her hand so she wouldn't hang by her wrists, and pulled herself up, spinning. Her foot connected to the demon's head, and it stumbled back a few steps. The blood gave her strength.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus," Amelia yelled, and lit the demon on fire, the flames easily coming to life with the power of the demon blood in her system. Its clothes blazed up in sudden flame, and the demon let out a scream as the exorcism started to take affect. "Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis-"
Amelia's mouth opened and closed without a sound coming from it, and with a flick of her wrist, the demon extinguished the fire that burned her clothes. It was breathing heavily, though, as it stalked back up to her, and savagely clamped its bleeding hand over her mouth.
"I give you power!" the demon roared, her eyes going black, blood pouring into Amelia's mouth, "people would kill for this power, stupid little girl. And you reject my gift!"
The demon didn't caress her this time. Instead, she abused Amelia. Slaps and sharp cuffs that left bruises on her skin, and drew blood in some places.
The demon left Amelia shaking uncontrollably, drooling blood, head dangling low as the horror of her situation crashed over her time and again. This was her personal hell. Bad enough when she could wake up from it and spend her emotion in a panic attack, but there was no waking up from this. No release from the terror. Only more fear. After a long time, her power of speech came back, but she swore off speaking entirely around the demon. It simply wasn't worth it.
Amelia lost track of time. Periodically, the demon would come and administer her dose of demon blood, either with abuses and slaps, or kind words and caresses that were somehow so much worse. Otherwise, they left her completely alone in the room, standing uncomfortably straight so she didn't strain her shoulder. No food or water. She slept when absolutely necessary, shoulders and wrists screaming in pain as she dangled, head nodding forward in uncomfortable, unrestful sleep. She never used fire, either on the chains or against the demon again. It was what they wanted, even if it nothing would have pleased her more than roasting the demons alive.
After an eternity of hanging there, the high from the blood never wore off. The humming in her brain never dimmed, and her senses were keyed up to the point of snapping. The demon woke her up once with a firecracker, and with her sensitive hearing the sudden sound made her scream for pain, trying to muffle her ears from the agony of pure sound piercing her mind.
She didn't know how much time had passed: hours, days, weeks. She couldn't remember if she had decided to wait until someone came, or wait until the demons killed her. Or if anyone would come for her. There was nothing in her mind but the throbbing of the demon blood.
Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry! Another cliff hanger, I know, don't chase after meee! I'll post again soon, don't shoot the author. :)