Disclaimer: Unfortunately, none of these characters belong to me. And to add unfairness to poetic injustice, neither does the shows or the books. However, I still intend to pull the characters' strings and make them dance, all while having a ball upsetting canon plot line!

Bonnie glimpsed the passing scenery as it zipped by the passenger window of Damon's pussy-mobile. The cluster fuck she'd left behind in Mystic Falls flashed by her mind's eye on repeat. Scene one, her trip to a thousand years into the past…inconvenient, but not completely unfortunate. Scene two, almost having her throat ripped out by her 'stepson'…she got it, she may not be his mother, but she wasn't a fucking chew toy either. Scene three, saving her man's main witch only to realize she, Bonnie Bennett, was nothing more than the side bitch…damn, he'd vowed to never put another witch before her but there she sat stuck in second place.

But did it end there? Hell—to the—nah! Scene four, she nearly had her cakes baked by a five-hundred-year-old tween and the former QB…it's an iced-out day in hell when weedheads take shots at their pushers. Its home grown what the fuck did they expect a hydro high?

Last but definitely the most fucked up of them all…scene five, her deal with the devil. What in the shit break had Rudy Hopkins found himself in? How the hell had he landed on Damon Salvatore's radar? Then there was Tyler. This beating by his father had to be the worse one yet. Had she not known any better, she would've thought he'd gone ten rounds with Mayweather. The memory of his swollen face flooded her gut with rage and acid. Twisted ideas bombarded her skull with all the ways she could make the good Mayor pay. She'd first begin with the bones in his hand…

"That expression on your face, it's all Carrie like and broody," Damon said, while chancing glances at her from the cut of his eye. "Should I remind you we have a deal? No one's twisting your little Bennett arm to be here. Between you and me, I'm not interested in finding out what other part of my anatomy you can set on fire."

She blinked once, then twice, before her focusing gaze landed on him. "What?"

"Homicide," he answered.

Confusion snatched her eyebrows together. "Homicide?"

"You look like you have it on the brain and my vampy senses has me on red alert protocol over here," this time his unnatural blue stare remained trained on the road.

She inhaled, and then exhaled a peeved saturated sigh. When the hell did silence become a hot commodity?

"We've got hours of highway ahead of us, if you'd like to…" his shoulders rose and fell, "I don't know-,"

"Talk?" A dry cough of a laugh burst from her lips. "To whom? You?" The thought doubled her over and allowed chortles to have its way with her poor unsuspecting body. "Of all the people on this over-populated Earth, why the hell would I put you in my business? I don't even like you like that."

His thin lips pinched, and his eyes became even squinter than they already were. "Look, Bennett. I'm not asking we braid each other's hair while we discuss which Mikaelson pounds it best. All I'm suggesting is you take the edge off whatever has you about to turn us into emerald hell fire on wheels." He pointedly glanced down at her hands which glimmered forest jade green in the dark interior of the car.

"Shit!"

She shoved her hands in the pockets of her hoodie to smother the glow. Her heart punched her sternum in thunderous successions. Each beat pounded her eardrums until she thought she'd go deaf. Mystical energy swelled inside of her almost to the point of suffocation. Threads of emotions tangled around her awareness, threatening her with mental asphyxiation.

When the car swerved to a stop on the side of the road, she yanked on the handle. Shoving open the passenger door, she half jumped and fell from the car. She staggered a couple of feet away from the vehicle before falling to her hands and knees in a patch of grass. Gasps of air burst from her drooling mouth at the same time she sucked the oxygen up her flaring nostrils.

Through the swirling mists of madness, Bonnie attempted to gather her thoughts, but one notion refused to have anything to do with the other. She was thrown and for the sake of her mental sanity she didn't see a fucking catcher in sight. A moment before she gave into the hopelessness of her situation, a pair of strong arms snatched her from her crouched position. Her head and back struck something hard and ungiving. Where she expected pain, she discovered only warmth and comfort.

"Don't lose your shit on me, Witchy," soothing hands smoothed her hair from her sweat dampened forehead. She relaxed into Damon's arms without a wince to the first. Surprising, even the press of his lips at her temple didn't elicit a cringe. "How stupid am I?" He whispered next to her ear.

"W-what do you mean?" The dry itch at the back of her throat caused her voice to slither from her lips in a dehydrated rasp.

"Tonight, a comet will pass over Mystic Fall," his arms tightened around her as he murmured into her hair.

His words provoked her malfunctioning brain to reboot, and then go back online. "Fucking, fuckety, fuckery. Tonight's the damn Comet Festival. I promised Rebekah I'd go-,"

"Forget about the original Barbie," he said, while locking her down with a stare too blue for her unstable frame of mind, "she rates a, who gives a fuck, on the scale of what the fuck matters. This comet makes an appearance once every, one hundred and forty-five years. It's a celestial event."

She gulped down a shit ton of oxygen. His eyes were truly fucking her up and she couldn't even pretend to know what to do about it. "And! Why the fuckery should that rate on the scale of what matters?"

"Has your magic peeked yet? No of course not, because it's seeping from your pores. I can practically taste it on my tongue," his hands roamed beneath her t-shirt, up her stomach and the searching tips grazed the underwire of her bra.

Her vision tunneled, her hearing diminished, and her breathing left her barely parted mouth in shallow pants. The power that fueled those senses dedicated itself to a singular faculty, touch. And fuck if it didn't burn so good.

"The impending celestial event is triggering your quickening, and I gotta admit, Bonster…I'm catching holy hell. Do you know how hard it is for me to not rip your clothes from your body? To not spread you open…" he cleared his throat as his nose nuzzled the back of her neck. Fireworks shook the walls of her pop rocker, "I'm damn near desiccating to fuck you in every hole in your body. Especially the filthiest hole of all."

Her head jerked back, "My ass?"

"Your mouth," his words merged with hers in unison.

Her what now? She blinked her way back to good sense. When the hell had she entered, a Bitch had Lost her Mind, town? It must've been around the same time she'd tossed deuces to the Welcome to Mystic Falls sign. Somebody, please press pause on the madness! She tore herself from his hold and tried to stand despite the unbearable load of mystical pressure weighing down on her.

Once on her feet, she swayed dizzier than a sorority bitch blitzed out on tequila and ecstasy. Damon reached out to help stabilize her, but she slapped his hands away. Last thing she needed was for their perverted brand of crazy to continue.

"You need to give me at least five feet of move around room." She backed away until the backs of her legs collided with the bumper of the car. He eyed her before taking two hesitant steps backwards. The sight of his retreat prompted her sneakers to involuntarily stumbled in place. Damn, she wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them. What in the Freddie Mercury? Disbelief swung her head from left to right. "I don't know what type of vamp whoodo you're trying to pull on me but all that needs to come to an end right now."

"Me?" An inky brow cocked. "You're the one with the magical bag of tricks. Besides, today's Thursday, and you know what that means."

"Let me guess, you're DTF."

"What? No, I'm faithful, Bennett," his lust ridden squinted stare said the complete opposite. The foolishness of it all provoked her eyes to do somersaults in her sockets.

Right. "To whom, Damon?" The corner of her top lip quirked.

Ignoring her, he waved a hand over the front of his slim but cut to perfection rocked out frame, "All of this is taken."

"By whom…Caroline?" The thought pissed her way past the borders of pissivity. When did her control creep away, and exactly where did she lose the fucks to care? Who the shit break was she kidding? She'd never in her short life had two fucks to give.

A scoff set the poetic lines of his features into motion. "The reincarnation of Jan Brady? Please. Nauseating insecurities doesn't make the Rock stand. No, my girl may not be physically one of a kind, but there'll never be another bad bitch like her. Truth is, she's the reason why I made that deal with you and Emily. She's been killing time in a cave for over a century and only a Bennett Witch can free her."

"Look," her shoulders hunched, before she rested her palms on the car's hood, "I don't know what to tell you. If you need help with picking a lock or moving some shit out of the way to open a door to get your girl out, then I'm all in. But if you're looking for magical intervention," she gave her head a slow shake, "then I'm not the one. I strongly suggest you find yourself another Bennett Witch."

He vamp flashed over to invade her personal space. "No take backs, Bon-Bon. We had a deal."

"Yeah, and you should've told me what your issue was before driving us into the middle of Deliverance," she said, looking around at the dense woods that lined both sides of the pitiful single lane road. "That would've saved me time and a shit ton of aggravation."

"Don't chuck this up as a blank mission," Damon said, moving so close the toes of his boots pressed into the tips of her sneakers, "I'm not the only one who's benefiting from this little partnership, witchy. Let's not forget you have something to gain too. Keep your word to free my girl and I'll show you shit about Rudy you never thought to question."

Her bottom lip wedged itself between her teeth. Dropping her head back, she allowed her gaze to clash with his. Uneasiness devoured her feigned indifference to her lack of parental supervision, leaving her with a truth she was too chicken shit to deal with. She had—big shit, pole riding—daddy issues. Fear of being abandoned had turned loneliness into an intimate companion. And for that, she resented the hell out of Rudy Hopkins. Yet the fact remained, she loved her dad and if trouble were after him then it would find them. "How bad is it, Damon?"

"No bullshit?" He reached up to caress the nape of her neck.

She bobbed her head once. "No bullshit."

"You're probably gonna need therapy."

"My favored son, is that skepticism which lingers in your contemplation? I assure you all I have revealed is true. It matters not how illogical it may appear."

Elijah's fingers created a temple beneath his chin. He eyed the slash of dust upon the knee of his mother's wool skirt as the absurdity of her claims pricked at his doubts. How could it not? For even magic had its limitations. The manipulation of time most assuredly being among them. "Mother unlike my siblings and I, your form is quite fragile. Are you certain you didn't injure your brain during your tumble?"

She scoffed, and then hauled her rear to the edge of her favorite wing chair to regard him from a closer proximity. "I am quite certain. I assure you I am still very much in possession of my wits, Elijah!"

"It's just, the manipulation of time-," he began.

She waved his words away with a fluttering of a hand. "Is such a fete unprecedented? Yes, however, we've always known the magical constraints placed on other witches would not apply to the prophesied Bennett. Bonnie is the prophesied Bennett; what I witnessed in my vision only strengthens my beliefs."

"And my hesitation is not meant to question those beliefs, Mother. Yet to say Bonnie has been at our side for over a thousand years is…" his words slipped away as he attempted to adjust his mind to the gravity of such claims. Frustration, however, clenched his jaw when the notion failed to compute. "I have no recollection of her. Why do I have no memory of her? Especially, if she stood at my side throughout the worse eve of my existence."

A haphazard shrug raised and plummeted his mother's shoulders. "Perhaps she bound our memories to prevent the alteration of time." She relinquished her seat in favor of pacing the carpeted floor in front of her desk. "Were it I, a memory suppression spell is the means I would have employed," she twirled to face him, "and I would not have ceased with only your mental retention."

Tension stiffened his body and crept to seize the muscles in his face. "Are you implying she may have taken her own memories as well?" He allowed himself precisely thirty seconds to digest the information before returning his unwavering gaze to his mother. "Her ignorance of all things supernatural does appear to be rather genuine. I'll concede, your musings may hold a few merits, mother."

Esther hoisted a blonde brow. "Only a few?"

Ignoring his mother's injured pride, Elijah forged on in an attempt to facilitate a resolution. "Are you in possession of an enchantment that will reverse the spell?"

"Of course not, Elijah. Only a Bennett Witch can unravel another Bennett Witch's spell…and well you know." The swell in her chest deflated a bit before she rounded the desk and snatched open the top right drawer. She continued speaking as she rifled through the contents, "but, with the approach of her quickening the magic she now holds is diverging. The purpose of its descension is to prepare her body and soul for the acceptance of Niklaus' essence. All incantations she has evoked to date will undoubtedly begin to wane. Hence the recouping of my recollections and the authentication of our history," she growled, her frustration apparent as she began to toss miscellaneous items from the drawer. "Bonnie's talisman is somehow a conduit of sorts. It is the deciding factor of when, where, what, how, or to who her magic is shunted."

"Then Kol's precise in his assumptions. Bonnie's well-being is indeed, in jeopardy." Tepid blood slithered to a halt in his dehydrated veins.

His mother snatched a jumbo pack of chewing gum from the desk drawer. Chewing gum? "Before the dawn of eternal life will she be most susceptible to a mortal's existence. She will be at her weakest, before she reaches the pinnacle of her power." Esther finished before shoving four strips of gum in her mouth.

"She's vulnerable…please forgive me, mother, but I must take my leave. I have to locate…" The exact moment the words fled his lips, the bond he shared with his transplanted heart stretched until the thread which bound, he and Bonnie together became almost intangible. Unnecessary oxygen flooded his nostrils and proceeded to overfill his under-worked lungs. Bonnie had departed from Mystic Falls.

Niklaus eyed his adoptive son as he slumbered upon the frilly adorned mattress in the guest room of his family's home. Although peeved by the shenanigans of his boy, Marcel's still form was not the forefront of his regard. No, the little witch who'd blown out of his undead life in the same fashion of fierceness she'd whipped in it, monopolized his consideration. The anger and pain awash in her verdant hued eyes flayed him to the inner reaches of his soul and that undeniable truth incited his simmering fury to blaze hell fire hot. In the entire sum and total of his existence he'd never suffered treachery, charlatans, usurpers, or betrayers. So why entertain guilt over someone who could eventually don the title of them all?

Movement upon the mattress wrenched his attention from his prophesied mate, to his prodigal son. Marcel snatched himself in an upright position before his gaze ricocheted over the four corners of the room. When Marcel's eyes collided with him, they doubled in size and nearly leapt from his sockets.

"Klaus!" His gaze slitted, "Why am I not surprised? Let me guess, you hijacked my body to punish me."

A smirk seized possession of his mouth. "Punish? Pray tell, why would I discipline one such as you. A true friend so near and dear to my heart I treasure him as a father would a son."

Marcel's body contorted as if he struggled not to retch on outrage. "Like your father treasured you?"

"Careful, Marcel. Persevere upon this course and you'll be met with my reprisal instead of my ever-forbearing nature." He utilized original speed to carry him to his progeny's bedside. There he towered, hands clenching and releasing at his sides.

Marcel's lips assaulted his teeth in an audible affair. "Ever-forbearing nature? Is that what you were slipping to the tiny nightmare I had the bad luck of waking up to? She's a bit classless for your usual tastes, isn't she?"

"Never you mind the little witch. My mate is not your concern."

"Your mate?" Incredulity colored Marcel's tone.

Ignoring his adoptive son's outburst, he posed the question which had cavorted with the edges of his mind since he'd learned Marcel was still counted among the undead. "Why not sought me out when you were at liberty to do so? Why leave my family and I to suffer through mourning you all these years? Does our family vow hold any meaning for you?"

"Always and forever never included me," anger twisted his son's features until it became almost impossible to look upon him without the fear of being consumed by unresolved issues he'd allowed long ago to fester. "I'm not a Mikaelson, a fact Kol and Elijah never failed to toss in my face. So, you may call me son," Marcel's palm slammed into his chest as his voice swelled in the closed quarters of his room, "but I call you warden."

"Marcellus," the name crept from Klaus' lips burdened by the sheer weight of his warning.

"No, fuck that! All you ever wanted was to control me under the bullshit guise of parenting me. The day your daddy came to run you out of my town is the day I began to-,"

The crush of Marcel's neck and vocal cords slaughtered the conclusion of his sentence. Niklaus allowed his son's body to collapse back on the pillows. A remote ringing from his pocket wrenched his attention from his progeny's blatant impertinence.

Snatching the phone from his pocket, he answered without scrutinizing the number on the flashing screen. "What?" He snarled into the phone.

Silence greeted him for several seconds before Greta spoke. "Does this greeting have anything to do with your Bennett witch?"

"Don't bore me with such a ridiculous human trait as jealousy, Greta. You are the only witch who has ever warranted my concern." Lies!

"Then why the hell are you allowing her to dictate your moods?"

Refusing to legitimize her question with an answer, he pressed his own inquiry. "What is the reason for this summons?"

"We've located your moon stone," derisiveness tainted her sultry tone. "In case you're still interested in unraveling the sun and moon curse."

Undiluted pettiness on her part forced his eyes to roll. The ungratefulness of it all! "Oh, come now, surely my perceived behavior has not warranted doubts in my established course of action?"

"Of course, it has." She railed into the phone. "Lately your behavior has given me quite a few doubts. Tables are turning and that's got me feeling a little played out of my position, Niklaus."

"Love," His grip on the phone tightened as he released a sigh in hopes of apprehending a much-desired tranquil state of mind. "It's unfathomable to me why you would feel this way."

"Well, maybe it's because I'm in jeopardy of being demoted to side chick status and I was here first," she uttered in a tone devoid of inflection.

Well maybe not first. "Greta-,"

"No, don't Greta me! You have a whole prophesied Bennett Witch waiting to come off the bench trying to win my game," her voice rose in octaves, swiftly approaching heights which threatened to make his ears bleed. "Why wouldn't you choose easy over complicated and superior?"

He opened his mouth to bring about the end of this nonsensical conversation, but something feral deep within him shifted and devolved his refined psyche to a baser nature. Apprehension gathered the skin at the nape of his neck. His lifeline tore from his center, and then vibrated under a tension which could only be evoked by the leave-taking of a mate. Blast her to hell! His bloody witch had once again sallied off without a by your leave.

Bonnie: On a mission. Feel free to stay at my crib as long as you need to get your shit together. I won't be long.

Tyler Lockwood pocketed his phone. A growl seeped through the slits of his teeth. He'd read that damn text at least twelve times since he'd awakened in her room alone. Each time he'd hope to discover a deeper meaning in the message.

During the entire time they'd been close, Bonnie had never ditched him during bad times. So, what was the damn deal? Was she with one of the Mikaelsons? Was she with them all? That thought pissed him to dust. Hell, that f-ed up thought ran him home! The last fucking place he wanted to be.

Air rushed from his mouth once he reached the second floor of his parents' mansion, he turned in the direction of his room. However, the sound of raised voices forced his steps on the path to his father's study. Once in front of the partially opened door, his face balled in on itself. Why the hell was his uncle Mason in town? It'd been years since his last visit.

"Please, get control of your anger before you do something you'll regret, Richie," Mason's even tone contradicted his tension stiffened features. "Is what Carol say true? Please tell me you haven't been hurting Tyler."

"Fuck you!" The scarlet red in his father's face leveled up to purple passion. Without even a fraction of a minute for second thought, he launched the tumbler in his grasp across the room at Mason. The crystal missile slammed into the wall only inches from Mason's head and exploded on impact. Shards of glass and brown liquor rocketed in different directions. "My family is not your got damned business. In what hippy-trippy language do you need to hear it for you to understand it?"

Mason's hands fisted at his sides as he gulped several ragged breaths and released fifty-eleven shaky exhales. "Well…Carol believes differently."

Richard's eyes bulged from their sockets. "Carol? You think I give two sloppy wet shits about what that tramp believes? That bitch's Jimmy Choo's are puncturing my last fucking nerve. I swear to god she has one more time to run a foul on the plans I have for my son and it's back to the pole she goes!" Saliva frothed from the corners of his mouth while he screwed Mason with a—fuck you—glare.

"Tyler, what are you doing? Come away from there," his mother's voice drifted from behind him. She rested a palm on his shoulder to pull him away from the door.

"Ha! Speak of Herpes and the genital sores will appear. Get your ass in here, you conniving whore! Why don't you come catch us up on all the schemes your trifling ass is plotting now," Richard roared once his blood tinged eyes crash landed on Carol.

"You motherfucker!" The low growl of something not quite human erupted from Mason's direction. With flashing animalistic eyes and superman speed his uncle leaped over Richard's desk and pinned him to the office wall by the neck. What the hell?! "You don't get to talk to her like that!"

"Mason, no!" Carol screeched.

His mom rushed pass him into the room and he followed to give a half-ass attempt in prying his uncle off his father.

A gasping choke of a laugh escaped his father's mouth. "You always were a dumb pussy for some wore out pussy. And you wonder why the old man called you 'the disappointment'."

Mason's grip tightened around Richard's neck. His mom's pleas rose in pitch, while his mental stepped away from his physical. What the hell was he doing trying to stop his uncle? All bullshit to the left, he should be helping to send his waste of an ejaculation father to the most rankest part of hell.

With Richard Lockwood gone, things would be easier for all involved. His mother would finally have a reason to stop pill popping and vodka diving, Mason could finally move back to Mystic Falls without the fear of being cock blocked by his lame dick older brother every time he had the mind to scratch his balls, and he and Bonnie could finally go public without all the, good ol' boy, back lash kicked up by dear old dad. He could be free, finally. They all could! That thought alone forced him to take a step back from his tussling uncle and father.

His mom's eyes nearly kissed the carpet. "Tyler, what are you doing? Stop him before-,"

"Is this the Mayor's mansion, because I'm receiving strong Jerry Springer vibes," demanded a chick he'd never laid eyes on before.

The caramel covered girl came to a stop in the middle of his father's study, followed by a douchey blonde guy who he hated on sight and a bulkier brunette man who could've easily been mistaken for a brick wall. Although the girl was the outspoken one of their trio, something told him the guy with the Charles Manson smirk was the one running shit.

"Who the hell are you people and which one of my staff allowed you to traipse into my house unannounced?" His mother commanded, stumbling around the desk to stand at his side.

The blonde guy broke away from the other two and began to wander around the study. Without giving two shits to anyone in the room he appraised various paintings on the wall, before coming to a stop in front of a model of Mystic Falls. The model rested on a slightly raised six by six platform. The replica of the town was created to showcase the new bell tower which was to be built next Fall. The damn thing reminded him of an over-sized dildo, which was appropriate since Richard got major wood every time he talked about the useless project. Like anyone gave a shit about an old pile of bricks that predated the Civil War.

Mason released his father to give the guy his attention, while Richard loosened the top two buttons on his shirt to massage the reddened skin at his neck. After a couple ahem's he stumbled forward to snatch the receiver from his desk phone, before nailing the blonde guy with his signature—king of the douches—glare.

"You all may want to leave before the sheriff arrives," Richard rasped as he stabbed the buttons on the phone with a finger.

"Greta," the blonde guy said without looking up from the model.

"Of course."

The girl muttered something under her breath. Seconds after that, the office phone in his father's hand launched itself across the room. Moments later it crashed through the study window. The clinging of broken glass gave a bat shit soundtrack to the colossal crazy unfolding in the room.

His mother gasped and Mason stepped forward with his hand raised palms out. "Look, we don't want any trouble."

"Then remain in your lane and there won't be none," the girl replied with a shit ton of attitude and a face full of challenge.

"On that, my word is yours to have and hold," The blonde guy co-signed, finally looking up to run his gaze over each of them. When the d-bag's stare landed on him, he took two deep breaths like he'd snorted a couple of lines of China's best, and then his pupils dilated before the whites of his eyes bled red.

The fuck!

"Oh my god, Mason!" His mother shrieked, "Tyler come here."

The blonde preened. "We only mean to inconvenience you a bit before we search out our leave."

Shit, a British accent? Another fucking Mikaelson! Motherfucker! How many of those shit bags are there?

"We don't keep anything of value in the house," his mom informed as she peeked around Mason's arm. "All my jewelry is costume, the paintings are nothing more than prints, each of our credit cards holds more debt than credit and you can forget about cash-,"

"Carol!" Richard seethed.

The smirk on the blonde's face blossomed into a joker like grin. "Compose yourself, love. What I seek may be of no consequence to you, however it is exceedingly valued by me. So, if you'll suffer our intrusion for a bit longer, then all will be well upon our departure. Now that we have that spot of business in hand," he clasped his hands behind his back as he spun away to regard his group, "Greta, sweetheart, proceed."

The girl raised her hands, closed her eyes and began muttering a chant, he couldn't quite make out. The oxygen in the room thickened and static electricity pricked the goose pimpled surface of his skin.

"You wait a damn min-," Richard began, stalking pass Mason.

Before his father could leave the protection of their circle, Mason grabbed the back of Richard's collar and snatched him backwards. He collided with the front edge of the solid oak desk. "Don't move and for the sake of your family, shut the fuck up," Mason's hushed whisper left the corner of his mouth through the slits of his teeth.

"Are you serious, Mason," Tyler countered, "There's two of them and a hundred-pound girl. The odds are team—fucking—Lockwood."

Mason squashed his rush attack plan with a, don't be an idiot, hate-maker.

"Please be careful. That piece is on loan from the historical museum," his mother slipped by his uncle to grab hold of the verbally incompetent giant.

A sneer twisted the big guys mouth as he placed a hand on Carol's forehead. His mother's body crumpled to the centuries old rug. With zero fucks for warnings or consequences, Tyler rushed the man's hulking center and Bobby Boucher-ed his ass like he stood in the way of a Hail Mary win. The guy's feet left the ground as the force of Tyler's blow propelled him backwards. In the end however, gravity had its way and dropped him on the model replica of Mystic Falls. The piercing point of the model bell tower ripped through the giant's chest as deep red seeped around the crevices of the wound.

"It's there," the girl said. Her eyes fluttered, and then she waved her hand at the area rug that concealed his father's floor safe.

"Brilliant, love," blondie said, barely sparing his dying squad member a glance. He then waved a hand at the giant of a man gurgling on his last breath. "See to Maddox." Greta whirled around in time to see Maddox take his last rattling breath. Genuine pain rippled through the dark brown depths of her eyes.

Searing agony carved Tyler from skull to the balls of his feet. A vomit of oxygen spewed from his lungs and jetted from his body by way of his nostrils and mouth. He gasped in an attempt to hang on to his air supply, even as Freddy Krueger blades of anguish played slice and dice with his intestines. Moans and shrieks, suffocated the stunned silence of the room, stomping out any plea for help he'd hope to make. The scorching burn of rage licked every piece and part of him.

Who the fuck was whimpering like a premenstrual bitch? Vibrations shook his chest as the groans swelled in volume. Realization repeatedly hoe slapped him in the skull and hammered awareness in his brain. Were those wounded animal sounds coming from him? Was he the simp sounding like a PMS'ing bitch?

Tyler's vision tunneled; his knees buckled. Tenths of a second later, his popped and locked frame slammed the ground. Pain devoured all his senses but two, feel and sound.

"Well, well, well! How serendipitous," the British drenched accent pierced the sound barrier of Tyler's whimpers to penetrate his ears. "It would seem Fate is still a willing mistress of mine. I do believe he will make quite the adequate lupine sacrifice."