Cordelia's skin stung. She had gotten so used to Misty healing up her cuts almost immediately after they were made, that feeling them rub against the fabric of her skirt felt almost odd. Strange and unusual. But Misty was too busy with the voice in her head. The hum, she called it. As if it was just the knowledge of someone there, instead of an actual voice. Cordelia tried to imagine it and found it much too easy. Only Misty wouldn't acknowledge that. She would rather hide herself away in the greenhouse than let Cordelia help. She said it was to keep from hurting her, but there was something else. Misty was scared and she was holding something in, something big. Cordelia could see it throb within her, like a malignant pulse under her skin, a shadow in her eyes. And she couldn't force Misty to tell. God knew she had tried, even if she had no right to. She thought maybe they had come closer to patching up what Cordelia had wrecked, but every time Misty stopped talking, Cordelia felt unsure. And the whispers bashed her.
The front door opened and Cordelia heard Zoe make her way in with the groceries. She had been a great help in the past few weeks, stepping in to do most of the duties that was usually Misty's. She did so without being asked, said she was happy to, but Cordelia still felt like she was using her. And watching the once so cheerful young woman move through the house with a dull expression on her face and anger bursting out of nowhere, she felt even more as though she was stealing Zoe's youth away.
She went to the kitchen to find Zoe stuffing the foods away. She didn't look up when Cordelia entered.
"I can do that, if you want to go read your book or look to Kyle", she offered, but Zoe only gave her a stiff shake of her head. Cordelia stepped a little closer.
"Your classes start again at the university soon, don't they? I don't want you to feel like you helping me out gets in the way of your studies."
"I'm not going back this semester", Zoe said, eyes fixated on the shelves in the fridge.
Cordelia felt a knot of worry tighten in her chest. Zoe's constant presence had started to make Cordelia feel like she was more than just a babysitter. Zoe was close to Cage in a way that wasn't just duties of a job, she was a friend to Misty and she had become something of a pseudo-daughter to Cordelia. It was the feeling of a worried mother that gnawed in her chest. "Honey, are you sure you want to do that? If you're worried about Kyle-"
"Kyle's fine!" Zoe interrupted and finally looked Cordelia's way. Her eyes flashed with that boiling frustration, which had overtaken Zoe insidiously throughout the past week. She looked away again. "It's not Kyle, it's not you guys either, I just… I need a longer break."
"Have you talked to your parents about this?"
"They have nothing to say."
This worried Cordelia more than all the rest. Zoe had always spoken of her family as a comforting, reassuring one. Her parents were supportive and hearing her talk like this, like a scared, lonely child made Cordelia's heart ache.
"Did something happen between you? You know you can talk to me, don't you? Hey…" She reached out to make Zoe stop her robot-like routine of stuffing the fridge, but when she touched Zoe's arm, the girl flinched and jumped away.
"I'm fine, okay? Just leave me alone." She almost threw the last thing in there and left the kitchen. Cordelia stood back, feeling like a failure.
No one needs you. You can't help anyone. What makes you think she wants your meddling, any of them? Pathetic.
She shook her head and rubbed her temple, took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind.
What would your mother say? Turning in her grave. They hate you.
She grasped the table for support, because she felt dizzy now. She felt the ground open, the colors fading to black. God, this was the wrong time to get caught in a hole, but slipping would be so easy…
"Mommy?" Cage's gentle voice cut through the whispers and the black and when she opened her eyes, he was standing right in front of her, holding a children's book. She breathed a sigh of relief and praised her little boy for knowing just when he needed to be her anchor to sanity.
She crouched down in front of him. "Yes, baby?"
"Read this to me?" He held up the book and let her take it. For a moment, they just looked at each other and Cage stroked the side of her face with his little hand. He touched her temple with a finger, as if he knew the monsters in her head had a soft spot right there. Cordelia had the sudden urge to sweep her son into the tightest embrace and just cry.
"Of course I will. Where do you want to sit?"
They read books until Cage couldn't sit still anymore and Cordelia felt stable again. Which occurred around the same time. She didn't see more to Zoe that day, but she could stand it now. Cage had somehow managed to dissipate the shadows enough for her to think clearly again.
When Cage was put to bed, it usually didn't take long before Cordelia turned in herself. The house was too quiet. She hadn't realized how much her mother's presence – despite her spending more than half her nights at Cometh's – had filled the house. It was her house and every room screamed of her missing. Every piece of furniture started to look like a coffin and every color turned to the pallor of her face in death. So Cordelia went to bed and hoped she could sleep the waking nightmare away.
Misty came in this night and crawled into bed next to Cordelia. She never said much, she only needed to be held and Cordelia did so gladly. Sometimes they would talk, not about the deaths or the infidelity, and never about Marie Laveau, but about regular everyday issues. They needed just an hour of normalcy to keep level with all the insanity brewing around them.
"I'm worried for Zoe", Cordelia said, while sifting her fingers through Misty's wild curls.
"What'd she do?" Misty asked. There was space enough between that they could see each other's faces and Misty's forehead creased.
"She just… She told me she won't go back to college this semester and that's not like her. And she seems agitated. Sad. I'm worried this house, this whole situation is taking too much of a toll on her."
"I think everyone's exhausted right now. Maybe she needs a break. College will still be there next year, right?"
"Right", Cordelia said. "I'm just worried it's something more. And I wish I could help her."
"I think she knows that. But she gotta come to you. Don't push her." There was a whole second load to Misty's words, Cordelia knew that. She agreed with a sad smile and they didn't say more that night. Slowly, they drifted off to sleep, wrapped in a loose embrace.
Cordelia found Zoe in the upstairs bathroom a few days later. She rarely went in there, because it was connected to the master bedroom and was therefore private to Cordelia and Misty. So when Cordelia saw the lights on in there, knowing Misty was in the greenhouse, she was alert even before she heard the crying.
She thanked every god she knew that Zoe hadn't think to lock the door, before she burst in. She didn't possess the same grace Misty had when dealing with this and she gasped. She had never been on this end before.
Zoe sat on the edge of the bathtub, trembling, and held on convulsively to a scissor, the sharp end of which poked into the skin of her left forearm. Three bloodied lines ran across her skin. Cordelia stood shocked for a moment and watched the scene. In those few seconds, time rushed past her in reverse until it was the teenage shape of herself sitting there at that same edge. Then as time hurled back to the present she saw herself grow older, but still chained to this habit, until time stopped at just a few days ago, when she had last been sitting there, the scissor swapped for a new razor. The vision was so powerful that tears came to her eyes and the mother's love that had started to grow for Zoe blended with the harsh realization of just what kind of role she portrayed for this girl.
"Zoe, darling…" She went to her and sat down in front of her. Despite being shaken to the very core just seconds ago, she found a way to make her voice come out even, comforting and secure. "I'm so sorry you feel this way. Here." She reached for the scissor and with some reluctance, Zoe let her take it. Her eyes were watered up, but hard and fixated on a spot behind Cordelia. She looked both ashamed, desperate and lost at the same time. Cordelia reached up until she was at eye level and put a hand under Zoe's wet chin.
"This doesn't solve anything."
"How do you know?" She said through clenched teeth, her voice shaking but with an undertone of defiance.
"Because…" Cordelia hesitated for a moment, debating if peeling this layer off herself would make her an even less suited role model or a better one. She found it would at least make her an honest one. "Because where you sit, I sat two days ago. I have been where you are now since I was seventeen and I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is an addiction that is almost impossible to fight and one that will never truly offer the release you seek."
Zoe's eyes widened as Cordelia spoke and now she stared in shock, until her emotions caught up. Her bottom lip started quivering, her eyes watered up anew and then she burst into tears. Cordelia got up and sat beside Zoe on the bathtub edge, pulled her close and let the girl cry.
When the sobs subsided, Cordelia wetted a paper towel and started to clean off Zoe's arm. Zoe looked at her doing it, sniffled once in a while and Cordelia tried to focus on the fact that she might have caught Zoe in time. She needed to believe that she could save this girl, because all she could hear was the whispers telling her she was a fool not to see this happen. That Zoe was truly becoming her and what a shame that was.
"But your arms are so clean", Zoe said after a while, and she dragged a hesitant finger over Cordelia's forearm as if to check.
"That's because I didn't cut where anyone would see. I wanted to keep it secret. I don't even think my mother knew until years later."
"Can I see?" Zoe lifted her head from Cordelia's shoulder and looked at her. The thought of showing her legs made her self-conscious, scared even. It was highly inappropriate. Even so, she pulled up her skirt just over the right knee, where the newest one was carved into her skin. Zoe's eyes widened again, as if she hadn't really believed it until now.
"Misty has helped me a lot, healed away most of them, but despite that, some are still visible. And even if they're gone, Zoe, I still see them every time I look at myself. Cutting goes beyond skin damage and I think you know that already."
Zoe nodded, wiped a tear away with her finger.
"Will you tell me what has made you do this?"
For a moment, it looked like she really wanted to, but then she shook her head.
"I will have to call your parents about this."
"Don't bother. No one's home." She got up then and went for the door. At the doorstep she stopped and turned around again. Her soul lay bared in her eyes for just a moment. "But thanks for the talk. I really mean that."
Then she left and Cordelia sat back with the almost unshakable urge to pick her razor out from the shelf again.
O0O
Misty tried her best to stay inside the house. She was quick to retreat to the greenhouse and turn on her Stevie whenever she felt the hum too present, but as long as it remained a docile threat she forced herself to stay in. She wanted to be there for Cage and for Cordelia in the extend that she still could. Especially Cage, because smart as he was, she couldn't explain to him what was happening. He simply didn't understand.
She thought of him often like this, used him as a reason to keep fighting to stay sane under the pressure of Laveau's presence in her head.
Sometimes she blacked out for a few minutes at a time – and she knew it was only minutes because she kept checking the clock – and it made her want to crawl under one of the tables in the greenhouse, even if it was just a short glitch. She couldn't stand not knowing what had happened during that time. She had done something terrible at that funeral and Cordelia wouldn't tell her what. She knew she hadn't physically hurt anyone, but she figured she had spited Fiona in some way and she was sure it had hurt Cordelia.
She sat in the living room with Cage, when suddenly the air felt dustier and an ominous kind of pressure began weighing down on her brain. The hum in the back of her mind went from a quieted noise to a roar and she held her hands to her ears, because she thought it would burst through them in a minute. She tried to back away, to turn away because she knew it was the compelling and she wasn't supposed to be around anyone when that happened.
Cage looked up from his train track and stared at her with worry.
"Mama are you okay?"
She tried to nod, but her body didn't work right. She wasn't the only one giving it commands now and someone – and she knew who – was trying to take over. She ran a hand through her hair, clawed at her scalp in hopes the pain would distract her or in some way hurt Laveau.
Then came the command.
Grab the boy.
It came in a foreign language, but somehow Misty understood anyway. She felt her hand loosen from her scalp and reach out towards her son.
But she couldn't let her have him. She wouldn't.
The hum thundered, vibrated against her inner ear and her head hurt like hell. The nausea rolled up from her stomach into her throat. Her arm trembled from muscle cramps, as it was stuck in between two opposing actions.
Grab him!
"No", Misty hissed through clenched teeth. She felt frustration and a rage, which wasn't hers, pound in her mind before it started to fade. And as soon as the hum fainted just a fraction, she got to her feet and ran out onto the porch, towards the greenhouse. Away from Cage.
The fresh air hit her face and undid just a bit of the nausea, enough that the urge to turn herself inside out subsided. She stumbled forward on feet that didn't entirely belong to her and fought to capture the sounds of nature instead of the angry roar in her mind. Anything to keep it from taking over.
Halfway there it lessened enough that she could think again. She stopped, kept track of the compelling turning back to the ever present hum in the back of her mind. She waited for the pain to come, because more often than not, pain followed a failed command. That seemed to work just fine over distance. But today her compeller left her with the warning.
It didn't feel like triumph though. It only made Misty more scared, more hopelessly set on the prospect that she would never be herself again. She couldn't fight this voice away with Delia's medication. This was not a broken psyche, it was the black mirror to her own abilities and those had never responded to any manmade remedy.
Misty didn't go back into the house. She saw the shadow of Cordelia stepping into the living room and knew Cage was in good hands. And she couldn't be near him now. Instead, she went to the only one she thought might have a clue.
Zoe had left the key to the lock on a creak in the wood. No use hiding it, when she was usually the only one up here. Misty took it and unlocked the door.
Kyle sat in the middle of the room, dazed eyes focused on the door from the moment she opened it. The guilty joy in his face made her think he had expected Zoe – and why wouldn't he? – but as soon as he realized who his visitor was, the smile turned to a sneer. He started growling and raised his shoulders the same way she would have done if an enemy approached.
"I just wanna talk, Kyle. Okay?"
He growled again, backed away when she took a step. His eyes had narrowed and his face shone with loathing.
"We used to be good friends, Kyle", Misty tried. "You remember that? You only hate me because she does. And that's why I wanna talk to you." If he registered her words, he didn't show it. Misty crouched down to his eye level, then sat on the dusty floor. Kept her hands away, so he wouldn't take offence.
He wrinkled his nose and crawled forward, cautiously so. He kept a good distance, but it got Misty's hopes up. Maybe he could help. Maybe he knew how to process it.
"Kyle, is she in your head too? If she is, you gotta tell me, please…" Her voice grew thick and it stung in her throat but she kept talking. "Please tell me how you deal with it. I can't stand it. I don't know who else to ask, 'cause it's not like Delia and her voices. You know 'bout that, don't you?"
He cocked his head to the side, gave her a long, seemingly thoughtless stare. But Misty believed something was still going on behind his dull exterior.
Then his face twisted, he hissed and lunged forward. Before Misty could get her hands up, he knocked her back into the wall. He whined like scared animal now and so did Misty, as she fought to get him off. She finally found a way through his violently thrashing arms and put a hand to his chest. But nothing happened. For a second she had forgotten that she was compelled not to use her ability. Misty felt the first ounce of panic spreading in her body instead of the nausea she had expected. Her head spun, the hum blazed now and she barely registered the hasty steps on the stairs or a figure appearing, before she heard her:
"Kyle! Get off her!"
Kyle drew back instantly, still growling. He didn't want to let go, even if he obeyed Zoe without hesitation. Misty felt that in the scratches he had made on her arms and the dull pain from her back of her head, which he had slammed into the wall.
Zoe sat down in front of her, her eyes worried when they came into Misty's focus.
"Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
"Yeah", she groaned in response and rubbed the back of her head. On the bright side, the hum was momentarily outmatched by headache.
Zoe drew a relieved sigh. "Good. What happened? You know he acts this way with you."
"Yeah I know. Just wanted to talk to him-" She wanted to say more, but then Zoe's arm caught her attention. She hadn't realized she had developed a radar for this, but the second Zoe's sleeves drew away, Misty's eyes caught the long, thin cuts. She knew what they were without second thought and she gave Zoe a sad look. "You too?"
"What- Oh." She looked down at her damaged arm and then away. Exactly like Cordelia would have. "Yeah, that's…"
"I know", Misty said. She didn't know this about Zoe, but the pattern was unmistakable, even if the canvas used to be Cordelia's milky skin instead of Zoe's. Misty felt the poking of the trance, heard the siren's call, begging her to heal, but she could do nothing. She felt weirdly empty.
Zoe gave her an insecure look and said: "Cordelia told me you used to… um, help her?"
Misty nodded solemnly. "I did. But I can't help you now, Zoe. My abilities… She took 'em. Can't use 'em with her in my head. That's why I came up here to talk to Kyle. Maybe he…" She trailed off. Kyle started growling again at the mention of his name, but Zoe shushed him. Her eyes were full of tears, but her face said anger. As if she couldn't decide which emotion to rely on.
"I don't think it's the same for him. He doesn't act like you do anyway."
Misty shrugged. "I know. Figured it was worth a shot."
"Does Cordelia know? About your abilities I mean?"
Misty shook her head. She wanted to tell her, about the abilities, about the urges Marie tried to force on her, but if she was to tell the one important secret, she couldn't add these. She couldn't keep adding little stones to Cordelia's load, just to drop a house on it afterwards.
Zoe stood up. "You have to tell her. We have to stop that… that cruel bitch!"
Misty considered telling her that no one had the resource, because they were all too busy picking pieces of themselves up from the last blow, but it made her feel too guilty. Zoe had lost everything. She was the first to take the blow and now that she was ready to fight, the rest of them were on the ground.
Misty left the attic and went back into the house, when she was sure the hum was back at a bearable level. She needed to make sure Cage was okay. He shouldn't have to see her scared like that, but if she couldn't prevent it, she could at least make sure he knew she was okay now. As okay as she could pretend to be. When he was smiling again she could retreat to safety and think about what Zoe had said. They should fight. But there were so many open wounds in their own house that she had to attend before she could declare war on another. It seemed an impossible job, because most of the wounds were in herself and what used to be the easiest fix was now the hardest.
She came into the house again about the time she knew Cordelia went to bed. Sleeping in the greenhouse wasn't that awful for someone who's used to sleeping in the wild, but sleeping without Cordelia hurt, when she knew the alternative. And it seemed Marie didn't attack in her sleep. Maybe she needed Misty awake to compel her.
Misty came into the room determined to at least tell Cordelia that she couldn't use her ability – she needed to know if something should happen to Cage. She gently pushed the door open and then all thoughts fell from her mind, because the air tasted of Cordelia's tears. It was silent crying, but it didn't fool Misty for a second. She slipped into bed and pulled Cordelia close. Cordelia fitted herself into the embrace and her damp face rested in the hollow of Misty's throat.
"What's wrong, darlin'?" It seemed a silly question to ask at these times, but she did so anyway.
Cordelia sniffled and loosed a hand from the embrace. Misty knew that it was to wipe her tears, even though no one could see them in the dark.
"I miss my mother", she said with a shaking voice. "Mean as she was, I miss her. I feel like I can't hold it together anymore. It's too much."
It ached in Misty's chest, tightened with guilt, but she put it aside and moved to look into Cordelia's eyes. Their eyes had gotten used to the dark and she could see them in front of her, wet and pleading.
"But you're still here", Misty reminded her. "You're clear, they ain't got you in that hole. Don't you see how strong you've become?"
Cordelia didn't answer, but her gaze said everything. Gratitude and love shone through that sadness and none of them needed anything else for now. Misty allowed Cordelia back in her embrace, allowed her to feel weak for tonight. She could be strong tomorrow. And Misty needed her to be, because she wasn't sure she was anymore.
O0O
Zoe loved those few times where the whole family gathered in the living room for just an hour of normalcy. The family was fragmented, now that Fiona was gone, and the mourning hung in the air because of it. Even Spalding eluded the darkness of his silent suffering. Kyle haunted the attic like a ghost, and Marie Laveau haunted Misty like a disease, which spread to Cordelia and even Cage. Still, when they tried to overlook all that, there were happy times like these, when all three of them would sit on the floor and talk and play with Cage's toys. They would invite Zoe and she felt like a part of that family. She clung to it. It wasn't hard to catch all the change in the air, the wavering between the two lovers, once so safely rooted with each other, and the fear. The fear in Misty was the hardest of all, because nothing used to scare her. But in spite of that, she sat with them now, smiling and Zoe clung to that, because she had nothing else to cling to.
"Mama, you're hitting my train!" Cage chided Misty with his childish, cheerful voice. The boy was phenomenal at adapting to the atmosphere. He couldn't possibly not feel the shadow in the room, but he pushed it away with smiles. Just like his parents.
Misty grinned and stopped moving her train forward. "Well my train is bigger than yours, pup, so you better move."
"No, you move!"
"I'm gonna crash you", she said with a sing-song voice and Cage squealed and knocked over his own train, when the two met. Then he looked up at Cordelia, who sat behind him.
"Mommy, mama crashed my train!" He played the role of exasperated victim poorly with that grin and Cordelia couldn't help snickering at his face.
"I have space for you at my end, Cage", Zoe offered. The tracks took up the whole space from the floor length windows to the couch, stretching on for six square feet.
"Hear that, love? How about a trip over by Zoe?"
The boy nodded and started reassembling his crashed train. He placed it on the tracks in the opposite direction and started making his way to Zoe. He didn't notice that Misty had checked out of the conversation. Zoe didn't notice either, until Cordelia stiffened behind Cage, as she realized it herself.
Zoe watched Cordelia watch Misty and then they both watched her as she fought another internal battle. Her hand still gripped the train and it started to tremble.
"Delia, get me outta here."
Cordelia didn't hesitate, but got up and grabbed Misty by the arm. Misty's motions were stiff and robotic almost, but she allowed Cordelia to pull her up standing.
"Mama?" Cage had stopped, turned around and now looked up at them with worry.
"It's okay, baby", Cordelia assured him, even though everyone in the room knew it wasn't. Both women were on their feet now and Cordelia dragged Misty outside with rough determination. She had to be firm, because Misty was halfway resisting, even if her face pleaded Cordelia for help. Zoe sat frozen for a moment as she watched the shapes of the two becoming smaller as they went towards the greenhouse. The shape of Cordelia opened the door and pushed Misty inside.
The echo of a strained scream reached their ears. Cage recognized the voice before Zoe did and started to whimper. The sound made Zoe's muscles jump into action.
"Come on, Cage, let's go upstairs." She grabbed the boy and put him on her hip before he had time to escape her. But he was too shocked to resist. So much for adapting, Zoe thought, but she couldn't blame her, not with the sound of his mother's agony lingering in the air. "It's time for your nap soon, isn't it?" She kept talking to him, hoping she could somehow distract him. To no avail, it seemed, the boy's eyes were fixated on source of the cries, even as she carried him out.
The boy refused to fall asleep. He lay awake with wide-open eyes, called for his mothers once or twice.
"I'll stay here until your mom comes", Zoe promised, thinking it would be Cordelia. Misty was incapable now, even with Cordelia's support. It made Zoe think of Kyle in the attic and how she should be up there comforting him in equal fashion. She once thought they would be just like Cordelia and Misty, the two of them. Now she knew they would never be.
She looked at Cage in his crib again and a sudden, violent sadness struck her.
"Did you know your mama almost died for your mom once?" She asked in a low voice, not sure if she wanted him to hear or not. "That's supposed to be the most romantic thing ever. It is. But look now, both your moms are hearing voices, neither knows how to help the other, Hank is AWOL again and your grandmother is dead. And I'm just complaining because my boyfriend is the murderous zombie in your attic".
The pain of Cage's broken family mixed with her own and the scene she fought so hard to forget flashed in her mind's eye. She remembered blood. And that feeling of devastation in the air, Misty always caught before everyone else. She remembered how the world stopped turning just for a moment, when she found them. Her mom's face had been broken in, with one good, empty eye left to stare at her. She remembered the silence in her mind. A cold contrast to Kyle's frantic screaming. "No mom! No mom! No mom!" But it wasn't just her mom on the floor of the bathroom, like horrid déjà vu. He had broken her dad as well.
She should never have left him home alone.
He helped her bury them in the woods. He did everything she ordered him to and he apologized, even if he didn't understand her loss anymore. He hadn't stopped apologizing since. But it was just words, barely that coming out of his mouth. And he was no voodoo queen; words of his couldn't bring anyone back.
"I don't know if I would die for Kyle", Zoe whispered into her hands, as they rested on the bars of the crib. "Do you think your mama still would?"
The boy looked at her with worrisome eyes, but he didn't say anything. She hadn't expected him to. After a while in silence, Cordelia came in. Zoe turned and left the room before Cordelia could catch her tears. Better she focused on getting Cage to sleep. Sleep was his way of coping with it all, Zoe had realized and so she prayed this wouldn't ruin his nap.
The living room looked oddly deserted now, the game broken up so sudden. Something about it reminded Zoe of how suddenly her own life had been broken up. She sat down in the middle of it, picked her train up and all of a sudden the stream of tears became incontrollable. The room was full of that wrecked atmosphere of home and she had never felt so alone. She couldn't stand it. The abandonment of her old life, the constant fear that the cold trails, the police followed, stopped being cold – she knew Laveau had something to do with the lack of police interference and it only scared her more – and the twisted relief she'd felt when Kyle had come back to her after being sent to die, despite what he had done to her family.
She didn't even hear Cordelia come in. She was just abruptly there, kneeling down in front of Zoe and it made the girl flinch. She looked up with frightened eyes, knowing that there was a slim chance of lying her way out now. Cordelia gave her the saddest look and placed a gentle hand under Zoe's chin when she tried to look away.
"Zoe, please tell me," she pleaded with a tone of a caring mother, which made it so much harder to fight than the scared begging.
"I don't want to burden you more."
Cordelia smiled her sad smile at her. "You're just a child, sweet girl. I worry about you. Better I bear it with you than watching it drag you down like this."
She couldn't hold it in anymore. Not the tears, not the pain, not those heavy memories. She let it out.
O0O
It took Misty a while to recover from Laveau's last attempt at control. Her compelling seemed to come more often these days. More frequent, but less insistent. They were short jabs, followed by needles when Misty fought the voice off. It seemed like feeble attempts at control. But that didn't make it hurt less.
She woke from a groggy sort of slumber some hours after being left in the greenhouse. The pain made her black out sometimes and she was guiltily pleased to find that Cordelia was not with her. As much as she longed for the warmth of her embrace, she was glad her love didn't force herself to suffer through Misty's attacks. It would be just like her to do so. Instead it seemed she had gone for Cage.
The first step was to feel for silence. That was always her first step in these new days of this foreign kind of captivity. When she felt sure the hum was too low for an open connection to her compeller, she dared get up from the floor. She somehow always expected her body to ache from the fit of pain, but it never did. Only her head.
She made her way back to the house. The light had changed. She must have been passed out for a few hours. Cage would be taking his nap now and she would have room to see if everyone was still okay. That was the next part of the routine.
The house was silent. In the living room, the game of trains lay untouched on the floor. Her train was still in its track as if time had been frozen. She felt like that sometimes. This living she did now, it was a bubble of time, frozen out of life. It wasn't really living. But she couldn't make them start a war with Marie over this. The Voodoo Queen had too much of an upper hand. Fighting would only hurt her family more. Misty just needed to learn how to fight her on her own. She was on the right track; Marie's compelling was getting weaker. She could feel it in every frantic attempt. But it would still take a lot of needles before she was free.
Misty went upstairs, hoping she would run into someone soon. This ghostly atmosphere gave her a bad taste in her mouth. When she saw no sign of Zoe, she just figured she had gone to Kyle – he needed calming just as much as the rest of them. When she didn't find Cordelia by Cage's bedside, she went for their bedroom, worry pulsating through her veins. There was change in the air today.
She found Cordelia on the edge of their shared bed, face hidden in her hands. She wasn't crying, but devastation leaked off her like steam. When Misty came in, she slowly unmasked from her hands and looked up. She had been crying, even if she wasn't anymore. Misty's heart sank.
She couldn't talk first, but she asked the matter in the same non-verbal way she had always done as a child. Her face was cautious and wary. Cordelia had plenty of reason to cry, but the light in her eyes was different and that was what made Misty ask.
"Come sit with me", she said.
Misty obeyed, sat down on Cordelia's right side, a little space between them, so she could see her face properly.
"We need to get Kyle out of the house. Zoe just told me everything. Did you know he killed her parents?"
Misty's blood froze. And then the guilt came. She should have known he was capable.
"No", she admitted, reluctant to meet Cordelia's eyes. "God damn. Is she okay?"
Cordelia shook her head. She didn't look okay either. But she had known more than Misty, she had known something was wrong. Misty had been too caught up in her own possession to look over her nose and she felt awful for it. She used to be the one to feel things.
"At least now we know why she has been acting strange", Cordelia said, as if reading her mind. Misty wanted to take her hand, comfort her even if the pain wasn't really hers. But she didn't dare. There was that change in the air and it made her think twice about the gesture. Should these hands even touch Cordelia? After what she had committed with them. She remembered the pulse weakening under her grasp. She couldn't touch Cordelia with these hands.
"I'm so sorry I didn't see, Delia."
Cordelia shook her head as if to wipe away her words. Despite the drying tears and the red eyes, Cordelia didn't look sad anymore. She had determination in her eyes.
She said: "We have to deal with Kyle, but first…" She stopped, sighed. "First we have to deal with us."
Misty's heart sank further. She couldn't look away from Cordelia's eyes. Despite the pounding anxiety she didn't want to. This was too important, she sensed. She said nothing and Cordelia continued:
"We have tried in vain to keep too many secrets from each other in this last year. It has to stop or we won't sort this out. We won't make it."
Misty looked into Cordelia's face, read her expression and understood. This was not an ultimatum. It was a simple request, but one loaded with the knowing that this secret could destroy them. Maybe it was more certain to wreck them than the truth.
The atmosphere felt stripped somehow. Left was only them and the words Misty needed to get out. And there was nothing in between them, nothing to shield Cordelia from what she was about to learn. Misty felt her hands tremble, her throat close up the way she only remembered it doing once before in her life. She was a kid then, but equally afraid to lose everything.
Misty closed her eyes for a second, praying to nothing in particular.
When she looked again, it was with a pleading gaze.
"Please don't hate me", she said. Then she told Cordelia everything.