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lunabee34Pairing: Ava-centric gen
Rating: PG-13ish for violence
Warnings: Spoilers through 2.21
Summary: What happens after Ava is taken from her home in Peoria?
686 words
And You Will Know Her By the Trail of Dead
1
The first dead body Ava ever sees is Brady’s. He is fragile, much more so than she ever suspected; blood beads up through his chest like condensation, sluices off his torso and onto the mattress. Ava thinks, as she’s immobilized against the wall (a beetle flailing on a pin, a thumbtack stuck in a map, a body trapped by air and the heavy force of emptiness), she thinks what she hears cannot be real. The wet shallowness of Brady’s breath, the sudden squelch of his bones breaking through his skin.
The man in their room (the man with the yellow eyes, the man who smells of eggs and ozone and Stetson) takes her hand. He takes her ring and drops it, grinds it into the carpet (a cigarette butt, that beetle again). He takes Brady’s life.
2
She wakes the next morning face down in the street, dirt in her mouth and a sunburn on her neck between her ponytail and her collar. She is not alone; three guys watch her from the porch of an abandoned store. They look her age, and they look scared.
Ava sleeps that first night against the wall between Carl and Lee. The yellow-eyed man comes to her while she’s sleeping. “You’re not my first choice, Ava. Seem a little soft to me. But all my kids deserve their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Don’t screw it up, Princess. The curtain call’s final.”
At first, Ava thinks she’s the one screaming, but she’s not. Carl is dead beside her, his throat leaking into his flannel, and Robby is levitating a knife across the room at Lee. Lee screams again, his voice drowning and bubbling under when the knife finds its mark. Later, Ava will not remember exactly how Robby died (murder, self-defense, destiny), but she will remember washing her hands in icy well water until the blood on her knuckles was no longer his but her own.
3
“We’re supposed to kill each other,” Ava says. “That’s what it wants. But if we work together, we can get out of here.”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Amy says.
“You don’t.”
Scarlett scuffs her boots in the dusty street. “That’s not good enough.” Her hands begin to glow and the air around them turns sharp and full of static. Ava runs, knocking Scarlett into Amy as she goes. Amy’s clothes burn first, and then her hair and then her skin. As she dies, she keeps her grip on Scarlett, so that they burn together.
In her dreams, the man with the yellow eyes says, “You know, I’ve always been partial to fire.” He grins. “Not quite what I’m looking for yet, Princess, but it’s a start.”
4
When Ava finally gives in, she feels something fracture inside her (a seam ripping, a switch flipping) and all this power rushes in to fill the broken places.
Sarah melts underneath her hands, and Greg bleeds for hours before he dies. Kyle cries for his Mommy, his fricking Mommy, and Krystal. Well. She twitches (that beetle again) long after she’s gone.
“That’s my girl,” the yellow eyed man says. “That’s my champ.”
5
She calls Brady’s spirit to her once. He is indistinct (smudged ink, paper degrading in water, a time elapsed photograph) and he is angry. His voice does not synch with his lips and at first his hands pass through her where he touches. He gets better at that. She keeps him longer than she intends because even his anger is welcome. Ava lets Brady hit her, again and again, her eyes purpling under his fists, because this pain is the first thing she’s felt in weeks that seems real to her. Ava doesn’t need a corpse or salt and fire, and so she banishes Brady (lays him to rest, erases the distraction, keeps living).
6
In the beginning, Ava thinks that Sam and his brother will come for her, will save her (knights on white horses). Later she thinks they will come to stop her (a dunking in the river, the cross, an iron round, their kindness).
Rating: PG-13ish for violence
Warnings: Spoilers through 2.21
Summary: What happens after Ava is taken from her home in Peoria?
686 words
And You Will Know Her By the Trail of Dead
1
The first dead body Ava ever sees is Brady’s. He is fragile, much more so than she ever suspected; blood beads up through his chest like condensation, sluices off his torso and onto the mattress. Ava thinks, as she’s immobilized against the wall (a beetle flailing on a pin, a thumbtack stuck in a map, a body trapped by air and the heavy force of emptiness), she thinks what she hears cannot be real. The wet shallowness of Brady’s breath, the sudden squelch of his bones breaking through his skin.
The man in their room (the man with the yellow eyes, the man who smells of eggs and ozone and Stetson) takes her hand. He takes her ring and drops it, grinds it into the carpet (a cigarette butt, that beetle again). He takes Brady’s life.
2
She wakes the next morning face down in the street, dirt in her mouth and a sunburn on her neck between her ponytail and her collar. She is not alone; three guys watch her from the porch of an abandoned store. They look her age, and they look scared.
Ava sleeps that first night against the wall between Carl and Lee. The yellow-eyed man comes to her while she’s sleeping. “You’re not my first choice, Ava. Seem a little soft to me. But all my kids deserve their fifteen minutes in the spotlight. Don’t screw it up, Princess. The curtain call’s final.”
At first, Ava thinks she’s the one screaming, but she’s not. Carl is dead beside her, his throat leaking into his flannel, and Robby is levitating a knife across the room at Lee. Lee screams again, his voice drowning and bubbling under when the knife finds its mark. Later, Ava will not remember exactly how Robby died (murder, self-defense, destiny), but she will remember washing her hands in icy well water until the blood on her knuckles was no longer his but her own.
3
“We’re supposed to kill each other,” Ava says. “That’s what it wants. But if we work together, we can get out of here.”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Amy says.
“You don’t.”
Scarlett scuffs her boots in the dusty street. “That’s not good enough.” Her hands begin to glow and the air around them turns sharp and full of static. Ava runs, knocking Scarlett into Amy as she goes. Amy’s clothes burn first, and then her hair and then her skin. As she dies, she keeps her grip on Scarlett, so that they burn together.
In her dreams, the man with the yellow eyes says, “You know, I’ve always been partial to fire.” He grins. “Not quite what I’m looking for yet, Princess, but it’s a start.”
4
When Ava finally gives in, she feels something fracture inside her (a seam ripping, a switch flipping) and all this power rushes in to fill the broken places.
Sarah melts underneath her hands, and Greg bleeds for hours before he dies. Kyle cries for his Mommy, his fricking Mommy, and Krystal. Well. She twitches (that beetle again) long after she’s gone.
“That’s my girl,” the yellow eyed man says. “That’s my champ.”
5
She calls Brady’s spirit to her once. He is indistinct (smudged ink, paper degrading in water, a time elapsed photograph) and he is angry. His voice does not synch with his lips and at first his hands pass through her where he touches. He gets better at that. She keeps him longer than she intends because even his anger is welcome. Ava lets Brady hit her, again and again, her eyes purpling under his fists, because this pain is the first thing she’s felt in weeks that seems real to her. Ava doesn’t need a corpse or salt and fire, and so she banishes Brady (lays him to rest, erases the distraction, keeps living).
6
In the beginning, Ava thinks that Sam and his brother will come for her, will save her (knights on white horses). Later she thinks they will come to stop her (a dunking in the river, the cross, an iron round, their kindness).
