Chapter Text
Anacostia
Anacostia Quartermaine barely bit back the flinch as the glass shattered against the wall. Years of training was the only thing that kept it at bay.
That had been some of her mothers favorite crystal…any other circumstances and she would worry Sarah Alder would blow the entirety of Fort Salem to nothing over the broken glass.
But that was the problem wasn’t it? This wasn’t any other circumstance. No matter how much she wished it to be it wasn’t. And she could hear her mothers pleading apologies through the phone hanging off the desk currently occupied by Petra.
Another glass shattered against the far wall, another scream, another half-heard apology through the receiver. Fuck she was going to puke and her body ached and her friend…her friend was…
The woman in front of her screamed again, a broken thing before falling to her knees. It was that moment, that change from anger to grief that shattered Anacostia’s resolve.
Ana moved, ignoring the wave of discomfort, the overwhelming grief and the worry and that absolute and terrifying fury and urge to throw her own glass at the wall…all of it. Every utterly terrible thing that thrummed throughout the whole of her body, she ignored it all.
“General…” There was no response, nothing outside of the gasping breaths. Ana laid a hand gently on the shaking shoulder, kneeling until she could look into the dark eyes.
“General… Nessa. You need to breathe. ”
Nessa Clary gasped a breath, then another, and on the third gasp a single word escaped her.
“Melody.”
Melody. Her friend.
She could still hear her mother, the frantic apologies coming from the phone. It was strange, hearing an apology in that voice. That voice that she once knew better than her own and now it was different and younger and everything had changed and her mother was apologizing.
And the reason for those apologies? General Sarah Alder was apologizing because the Camarilla had taken Melody Clary. The first time she’s heard her mothers voice in months and this was the news she was given.
She held Nessa’s gaze as Petra picked up the fallen phone, and began saying something in hushed tones that Ana couldn’t make out over the roaring in her ears.
Oh- oh Goddess.
Genevieve.
+++
Tally
It had been 12 days, 7 hours, 29 minutes since Melody had been taken by their enemy. Since she had lost her friend.
12 days since Sarah had called Fort Salem to inform them of her failure.
12 days since Nicte had taken the children Melody had sacrificed herself for to a group of dodgers nearby. They had promised to return the children to their homes.
12 days since Petra had told Sarah to finish the mission.
12 days of red. Because she hadn’t stopped. She hadn’t stopped moving, she had dragged Sarah and Batan to the next Camarilla base and she had slaughtered them like the pigs they were.
But Melody wasn’t there.
And she wasn’t at the next one, or the one after that. Sarah was exhausted, Batan too. It was the only reason she stopped at all, to let them rest. To let her Sarah rest, when her utterly human body began too slow and her beautiful blue eyes became heavy.
Tallulah didn’t rest.
She wondered if that made her inhuman, beyond what she already knew.
12 days. So much death and killing and she was reveling in it.
It was almost odd, the way she felt. Tallulah had become a type of vengeful she didn’t truly know was possible until now, as her sword slid cleanly through a young woman's torso. She could taste the blood splattering into her grimly smiling mouth as the woman fell in two.
This was the last of the bases they had been given months ago. The last one that they knew about. And unlike many of the others, these Camarilla soldiers seemed to be ready for them…or at least for witches to attack.
Nothing could prepare them for the bottomless well of hate and anger and chaos that Tallulah gladly threw their way.
Her chaos tore through the ranks of black clothed men, as if taking the form of a wild beast. She didn’t even seem to need to direct it, her anger and fury fueling the Chaos far beyond anything she had deemed possible since her fall. She couldn’t seem to care though, not when all she wanted was to save her sister.
The knife in her left hand found its home in the skull of an approaching soldier just as Nicte Batan’s scream reached her ears.
“ Lets go Red!”
30 minutes of this blood bath and that was the first sound she had heard from her companions that wasn’t Sarah’s song to collapse the building. Her charges song had silenced,
Melody wasn’t here, in this final place. So she would raze it to hell, and all those within it.
She could feel their weapons opening new wounds on her own body. Fatigue from the lack of sleep weighed her limbs, but she didn’t stop. Why would she stop? She had failed her friend. She would at the least avenge her.
She swung the deadly blade again, happily letting the head it took fall gracelessly to the ground. Over and over she moved, ignoring the calls of Batan, the screams of anger from the camarilla, ignored the shaking of the ground.
Until a hand found her left hand, a touch that would have found the person limbless and lifeless except-
Desperate blue eyes met her own. She hadn’t even realized Sarah had moved, let alone approached her.
Her blind spot.
The Chaos delivering death throughout the forces was the only part of her that didn’t freeze.
“Tallulah please.”
Please. Tals run, please.
“We need to go Lulah, now.”
Take the kids and go Tals, I’m right behind ya.
“Please!”
She moved, letting Sarah pull her away from the seemingly unending stream of camarilla soldiers pouring from within the bowels of the base.
She let Sarah pull her until they were far from the base, Batan already throwing their spare weapons into the lockbox in the SUV. Tallulah took a moment, the first time in nearly two weeks, to look at her companion…at Nicte. Bloodied, angry, and tired. The womans constant.
“How fuckin’ dare you?”
“Nic-“
“No. Just no Sarah. For once just shut the hell up. Stop defending her like she needs it. She isn’t a fucking child but here she is acting like it. I don’t give a damn what her skills are. What I care about is Clary going missing, you being so fucking tired you collapsed without her noticing and her dragging us into fight after fight only to practically abandon us, so Red- what the fuck were you thinking?!”
“Nicte stop it, she…”
The argument faded, maybe she was ignoring it maybe it was the fatigue but all she could think was…12 days.
12 days without knowing if Melody was alive.
12 days letting her anger fuel every inch of her.
12 days of slaughter and blood and death and they hadn’t found Melody.
12 days dragging Sarah and Nicte across the cession, forcing them to fight beside her.
Her Sarah had collapsed. Nicte said Sarah had collapsed.
And she hadn’t noticed. She couldn’t even say when it had happened.
Mother, what had she become.
“You…you collapsed?”
The arguing faltered at her words.
“Tallulah, I am fine. I swear. I just-“
“You collapsed Sarah. Stop handling her with fucking kiddie gloves.”
Sarah glanced at her, and there was a guilt in the blue eyes that Tallulah didn’t recognize.
“I am fine Tallulah. I was tired, but we made it out and I am fine.”
“When?”
Sarah didn’t answer.
“Three days ago, at the New York base.”
She had left them, had abandoned them in the belly of that underground base in the northernmost part of New York. Left them to search the building for Melody.
For someone to take her vengeance out on. She had found someone, multiple someones…and she had reveled in each kill.
But Sarah…she hadn’t touched Sarah, hadn’t been touched by Sarah since before. That hand on her wrist, those pleading eyes, that had been the most she had allowed in nearly two weeks.
“I am so sorry.”
It tore her throat, exhausted from work that seemed to have been unending over the past days.
“I am sorry. You’re right. I was selfish, because of my own failure. I failed. Sarah I have failed.”
She wondered if she should be crying at the admission, Sarah looked to be on the edge. But all Tallulah felt was emptiness.
Maybe Sarah deserved better. Maybe everyone did.
“I failed. I am sorry.”
She had failed Sarah.
She had failed Melody. She had failed Nessa and Genni and Sarah and…goddess she had failed Theli. Melody had been his and she had lost her.
She had failed.
+++
The ride away from what remained of that final base was silent. Utterly completely silent. She didn’t even ask where Nicte was taking them, not at first.
She had just climbed into the back of their dark SUV, bloodied and beaten, leaving the front open for Sarah.
Her charge didn’t take it. She slid into the seat beside Tallulah instead. Maybe it was the fact that this final base had been her last hope at finding Melody…whatever it was the red haze that had led her through the last 12 days was fading with every minute they drove farther away. And she was exhausted.
The sun was beginning to rise, it had been just past midnight when they had entered the base. She moved, curling into the waiting comfort beside her. And for the first time in 12- no…13 now…13 days, she felt herself fade to sleep.
+++
‘My sister. You are still so young. You have so very much to learn. Are you sure this is the path you wish to choose? For a mortal no less?’
Simiel’s deep voice thrummed through her ears, he was the last of her siblings to come convince her not to do this, not to fall. Neriah had been first, the others quick to follow. But Simiel had waited until now, this moment to find her at the northernmost tip of the human earth.
‘You can stay, perhaps you and I could even find a way to bring your little human pet here hm? Theliel would no doubt be more than willing to help.’
She had sighed as she looked at him, her hands not pausing their work until her armor falling to the ice underneath her feet.
‘That working is dark…too dark. Besides, I have made my choice Simi. I want to be with her, I need to protect her. My brother, let this choice be mine. Please.’
He had looked at her then, with eyes darkened with something Tallulah couldn’t place. He was always the hardest to read, even Tahariel was easier to read than Simiel at times.
‘Well, you will likely be needing this then.’ Her brow raised at the words, eyes widening as she saw what it was he was handing her.
Her sword.
The last piece.
‘Good luck sister.’
He whispered them softly, before he was gone in a single breeze leaving her alone on ice laden earth with a blade in her hand and her chocolate wings unfurled behind her.
And she moved the blade behind her back and took her time as she lined it against her target. She breathed in as she lifted it high, and as that breath loosed she swung.
And all she knew was pain.