I must be the devil’s daughter (Teagan, Kenzie, Liverpool)

[theholyduality.insanejournal.com]

Teagan lay on the ground, her cheek pressed against the concrete, arm outstretched like she was reaching for Kenzie to come back. Kenzie was supposed to stay with her. Kenzie was supposed to protect her. There were too many ghosts in this city, too many had followed them here and she could feel them watching her or watching Kenzie.

Had Kenzie really killed Leon?

Had Kenzie really slashed open Merry’s arm?

Had Kenzie really shattered every window in the motel?

Had Kenzie really left her?

Was she, Teagan, dying?

She felt like she was dying. Any painkillers from the hospital had started to wear off. Her body was a mess, her head worse. Something smelled of rotting meat. The streetlights burned into her eyes as painfully as her broken ribs.

Had they really killed that security guard?

Had they really destroyed the bog man?

Teagan lay on the ground, her eyes shifting in and out of focus on the white stripe painted to tell people where to park. There was a streak of blood across it, near her face. It looked black in the bad light.

A stirring kind of motion followed by a warmth and a whisper made her close her eyes, block out all the other stimuli so she could hear it, and it whispered her name. A tiny frown crossed Teagan’s face – the best she could do at asking a question. I’m here said a dead voice, soft but sure. Your friend didn’t cast us all out.

Teagan groaned. Her friend. Her Kenzie. Her cousin, her blood. They were closer than sisters now, closer than Teagan had ever been to anyone. Her friend. The sweet spirit in her head couldn’t come close to understanding how little the word friend did to cover everything Kenzie was.

Open your eyes said the voice. You’ve lost her. She’s going to destroy everything. My home. Your friends.

That’s Kenzie, Teagan thought to herself. Yup.

My home repeated the voice, with greater strength than before. It was bound to this place, it was this place.

Home, thought Teagan, and faintly smiled. All she wanted right now was her bed in her own house, the door closed, sounds of her family arguing over the football downstairs. She wanted to be free of pain. She wanted to stop running. She wanted home. Yes. Home. Teagan opened her eyes, looked across the carpark, along the unfamiliar motel, up into the sky. She was very very far from home. “Make it be over,” Teagan croaked.

You’re a key, Teagan said the voice, the single sweet voice that remained. Reach out and open the door.

Teagan groaned as a sob tugged at her chest, so painful like the sob was tied to her broken ribs. Hollow pain echoed through her but she followed the spirit, and reached out. She was guided, but the action was all her own. It did not seem like a door; more, she did something, changed something, and another part of the fabric of reality came into focus, and she could see her aunt Jasmine beside her, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You’re doing well, Teagan said her dead aunt Jasmine, reaching through to stand by her side. Keep breathing, there’s a girl. Let’s have no more Llewellyn’s dying tonight.

“Please, Jas… make it be over.”

It’s up to you, said the spirit in her head. Are you stronger than Kenzie?

Teagan’s hope died in her chest and leaked out onto the concrete. “No.”

~

It seemed as if the world was coming crashing down around Leon’s ears, Joss was shattered and clinging to his t-shirt, Merry was on her knees, doubled over, her arms wrapped around herself, rocking and bleeding. There were shouts from everywhere, there was broken glass and some vicious electric hum from the darkened welcome sign above them, and the feeling that they were all this close from ending. He couldn’t lie there any more, maybe through the rest of it but certainly not through Joss’s grief, if they were all going to end then he was going to end with his arms around his brother. Leon grabbed Joss and wrapped him up in his arms and Joss hiccupped and gasped and clung.

Joss was way past caring or even understanding that Leon and Merry had lied, it didn’t matter – there was only life and death, only Leon. The single thing that mattered right now was that Leon was breathing, that Leon was alive. Joss buried his face in Leon’s shoulder, clung, and wept.

Merry’s eyes were wide open, and she could see them holding onto each other and a pang went through her as she longed for one of her sisters – any sister – or Neil. She wanted her dad to wrap his arms around her like Leon was doing. She wanted him to tell her she was alright and she was safe. She just wanted to be safe and Neil was safe but he was also on the other side of the country, and part of her knew there was a chance she wasn’t going to see him again.

Even her phone was inside. She couldn’t even call him. Dad I love you she thought, frantically, squeezing her eyes shut. Dad I love you I love you I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m scared please please.

Inside the motel Ellie and Geordie were holding each other too, crouched under the windowsill on the area of carpet not covered in broken glass. Ellie was trying to call Matt again, as Geordie said “Maybe I can reason with her.”

“Maybe you’re crazy,” Ellie hissed, terrified by the idea.

“I talked to her in hospital,” Geordie said, giving Ellie’s arm a squeeze and standing up.

“Maybe?”

“Geordie please don’t!” Ellie called, but Geordie was already climbing out the empty window, careful not to touch the shards of broken glass. Ellie pressed her hand against her face and whimpered.

“Kenzie?” Geordie called, looking up at the sky, trying to work out where she was. How did you talk to a ghost when you couldn’t see her? You didn’t hesitate, Geordie told himself. This was just like a phone call, right? A phone call in the middle of a car park with one of your best friends bleeding from a wound that should have healed months ago. A phone call when the other party couldn’t reply but could shatter windows and chests. “Kenzie it’s okay! I understand you’re freaking! Remember me? Remember Geordie? I lost my baby sister to Patrick, I nearly lost my Mona and my Merry, and I’m sorry you lost your life, I’m so sorry, but don’t turn into something like him? Please, please don’t turn into something like him.”

“I could never be like him.”

Geordie spun around and came face to face with Joss who was standing ready for a fight, fists clenched. “Kenzie,” Geordie said softly. “No, you could never be like him, could you? You’re better than that, you’re beautiful and you’re good and-” Joss punched him square in the jaw and Geordie went over, grazing his hands against the concrete when he caught himself.

“DON’T TELL ME WHAT I FUCKING AM!” Kenzie yelled from Joss’s throat. This was not an easy body to drive, not like Teagan who fit her perfect; Joss was alien to her but she was desperate and Joss was too worn down to fight too hard and this seemed to be the only way she could be with him. He struggled, she could feel him struggling but she could also feel that he’d stopped when she clenched his wounded hand into a fist and the muscles of his arm pulled and strained against his burst stitches and the wave of pain shut him up and made him stop.

Kenzie spun Joss around and faced Leon – the FUCKING LIAR – and she twisted Joss’s face into an expression of disgust and growled “if you follow me I will kill him.”

Leon’s hands went up, fingers gently curled. “Don’t do that,” he said, his voice unsteady.

“You’re hurt – he’s hurt – look at his wrist.”

“If you give a damn about his wrist,” Kenzie snarled. “Then don’t follow me.”

Geordie had pulled himself and up and crawled across the carpark to be closer to Merry, who was losing the fight within herself. His hands stung but they didn’t hurt as bad as his face – Kenzie hadn’t held back. But he was still here, and Merry had her face pressed against her knees and her forehead almost on the ground, curled up like a turtle. He put one arm across her back and she shuddered and leaned into him.

Leon stood next to him. “She might really kill him if I try and stop her, might she?”

“Yes,” rasped Merry. She raised her chin and looked up at Joss, this boy of blood and shadows she couldn’t stand to lose but couldn’t fathom how to save. Joss didn’t look at her before he turned – before Kenzie turned – and began to leave. Geordie tightened his arm around her waist.

“What’d we do?” Leon whispered to no one in particular. “What do we do?”

“Oh shit,” Geordie said, his eyes on Teagan as she pulled herself to her feet. She looked like a zombie, which struck a wave of surreal fear through Geordie – through all of them.

~

Teagan was on her feet, unsteady, and paler than ever. She stood with a soft spirit giving strength to her spine, and her aunt Jasmine nearby, reaching through from the other side. She stepped closer to Joss and Kenzie allowed it, because Teagan had never been a threat. Teagan slid her hands around the back to Joss’s neck, and touched her forehead to his. “I always came in second next to you, Kenzie,” she whispered, her pale bloody eyes searching Joss’s bruised dark eyes and seeing Kenzie there, as clear as a bright moon.

Teagan kissed Joss, as passionately as she had ever kissed anyone – more so, because Teagan had experienced a very limited and timid number of kisses in her life. She kissed his mouth, with her cousin inside, she pressed her broken body up against his broken body and felt the bang bang bang of life between them, hot and bleeding and vital.

It was a simple thing, then, to feel where his life ended and where Kenzie’s death began, but it was less simple a thing to separate them, because Kenzie’s death was everywhere, and Kenzie’s death clung, and Kenzie’s death lashed back at her but Teagan was protected by an old, old motel spirit and Teagan was protected by Kenzie’s mother, who pulled her daughter toward her as Teagan pried her from Joss.

Always second to Kenzie.

Always the least of the cousins.

But bang bang bang went her heart, each beat stabbing her throat, bang bang bang her heart beat on and she knew – as she had always known – that she was not stronger than Mackenzie Llewellyn.

She was not stronger. She was only still alive. That was it. That was the only thing she had.

Bang bang bang – she kissed Joss as the pain grew so vivid, so dark, she could no longer see through it. The pain of being alive was claiming her now, at the last.

“That’s it,” she whispered against Joss’s mouth, as she tore the last of Kenzie from him and thrust her into Jasmine’s waiting arms, as she felt Jasmine leave her, as the world regained its old focus and she could no longer see through the fabric of reality to that realm of the dead. “That’s all I have,” Teagan rasped. Her legs gave out, her body gave out, and she collapsed against Joss.

Joss, his body under his own control again, shoved her away from him in revulsion, panicking at the temporary loss of control and the sudden touch of being so close to death and everything – just everything else.

Teagan crumbled, and Joss went backward till he hit Leon and spun and buried his face once more in Leon’s shirt.

Geordie left Merry’s side, approaching Teagan slowly, scared of what he was going to find or what Kenzie was going to do to him, but as he got closer her body was suddenly bathed in light. The welcome sign was back on, and the alarming electric buzz had stopped. Geordie looked up at it, and felt a touch of warmth against his cheek.

“Teagan?” he said, kneeling down beside her body. She did not respond, but when he dropped his face down near hers he heard the faint rasp of her breath. He looked back over his shoulder, saw Leon holding Joss, saw Merry still curled on the ground, saw Ellie standing up in the window as the power came back on in the room around her. “Ellie!” he yelled. “Forget Matt, okay? Call an ambulance! And get – anything we can use for bandages, and a blanket, and water!”

Teagan was breathing, which meant her heart was still beating, but Geordie didn’t think he could do anything else for her except make her comfortable, keep her warm. All her injuries were well past him, with his first aid certificate and first year of nursing school. All the blood on her seemed to be Joss’s but he checked her anyway, and came away with his own hands bloody. There’d be nightmares later, he knew. Oh, there’d be nightmares. He kept talking to her, barely aware of the things he was saying just platitudes, just reminding her she was alive, that she wasn’t alone.

Merry and Joss needed medical attention too, but Geordie had to rely on Leon and Ellie for that. He held Teagan’s hand in his, his fingers over her faint pulse. He couldn’t leave her.

Ellie bought him a blanket and a pillow, kissed his head and called him an idiot and hurried back to Merry, who Geordie could hear crying.

“Hello?” Geordie looked up at owner of the voice, a young woman with dreadlocks and glasses, wrapped in a dressing gown and looking as shellshocked at the rest of them. “Is she alright?”

“I don’t know. She’s alive.” Geordie said.

“Shit, the poor girl." The women knelt on Teagan's other side, staring at her face for a moment before raising her eyes to Geordie. "That was a ghost thing, wasn’t it?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” Geordie said, stroking the back of Teagan’s cold hand. “I’m… really sorry. It’s a mess. Do you work here?”

“My gramps is the owner,” she said, faintly. “He’s on holiday with Gran. It’s supposed to be my first summer of running the place on my own. Haha.”

“I’m Geordie,” he said, sympathetically. “I’ll help clean up. Uh, in the morning.”

“Thanks,” she shook her head, looking round at the broken glass and her clientele, some of them emerging from their rooms, others staying put inside with the lights on. “I’m Adara. Gramps told me about the ghosts here, but they’re supposed to be, you know. Nice ghosts.”

“Sorry,” Geordie said again. “They were nice. We just, um, brought in a bad one.”

“Oh Lord,” Adara groaned, getting to her feet. “Oh Loo-hoord, alright. Better see if I can talk some calm into the clientele. I called the police, and an ambulance for your friends, the hospital’s real close so… you’re alright?”

Geordie nodded. “Near enough.”

Adara huffed out a breath. “Alright,” she said, girding her loins. “Damage control time.”

~

Next time someone came over, it was Ellie with her arm around Merry’s waist. Merry had a pillowcase tied around her arm, though blood was still seeping through, Ellie had done the best she could without throwing up. Merry wasn’t crying any more, but the evidence of it was all over her face and she looked like she could start again at any time. They both sat down (Merry with a look of barely-bearable pain across her face as her knee protested) near Teagan’s head and Ellie reached over and grabbed Geordie’s free hand. They sat quietly in the middle of the car park (a number of cars were leaving, but drove carefully around them) till Matt showed up, minutes later.

Even then, they were quiet. “Was in the shower,” Matt said. “Bloody hell, this happened fast. Any casualties?”

“Fuck off,” said Merry faintly.

Ellie squeezed her gently, and Merry closed her eyes. “Is Kenzie still here, Matt? Things went quiet pretty suddenly…”

Matt looked down at Teagan, who looked like a battered, sleeping twelve year old. “She ain’t in there,” Matt said. “I’ll do a sweep of the premises.”

“You do a sweep,” Merry muttered, under her breath. “Fucking premises.”

“Thank you,” said Ellie, talking over Merry. Merry didn’t even shoot her a glare.

“Talk to Adara!” Geordie called out of him. “Dreadlocks! She knows, about stuff.”

Matt threw him a salute, and Ellie furrowed her brow at Geordie. “She knows about stuff?”

“We aren’t the only ones,” Geordie said, with half a smile. “Who knew?”

~

Leon sat with his arm around Joss and Joss’s head against his shoulder, on the bonnet of his car. He’d tried to convince Joss to lie down so he could raise his arm above his head but Joss was stubbornly refusing. “Don’t wanna sleep,” he muttered against Leon’s shoulder. “Stayin’ up.”

Leon didn’t want to fight him. The ambulance would be here soon, and his arm hadn’t bled through the pillowcase Ellie had found to stop the bleeding. Leon rested his head against Joss’s. “Thought you were dead,” Joss whispered.

"I’m sorry,” Leon said, closing his eyes. His own body ached with bruises from where he’d been thrown, but he was relatively whole compared to some of the others. Poor Teagan. “That was so fucked up, we didn’t know what to do.”

“Don’t be dead,” Joss had his eyes closed too. “Just don’t be dead.”

“I’m not,” Leon reassured him. “Alive as ever, and soon we can go home. Once we all stop bleeding, we can go home.”

Joss burst into exhausted tears on his shoulder.

~

This time, when the sound of sirens cut through the night, they were heading for them.