Chapter Text
“Does it hurt?”
Jonas turned away from the fire, looking at his nephew, flames heating his cheek as he inquired for a bit more detail with a curious eyebrow, “Does what hurt, Tim?”
Timothy craned his neck, hands a nervous knot in his knees. Jonas smiled at the sight of him searching for his mother, and imagined for a silly moment that they were out camping without her permission, and not on the run for his life. In the morning they’d fish for their breakfast, not squeeze into the van filled with chains - designs intricate enough to even put medieval equipment to shame - at first light driving to only God knows where.
Satisfied with the absence of his mother, Timothy leaned closer, and Jonas helpfully leaned down, amusing him by offering him his ear.
“When you’re transforming ,” he whispered, “it hurts, doesn’t it?”
Jonas’ smile faltered. He cleared his throat, trying to save face. “Why… Do you think it hurts?”
Timothy rolled his eyes, “I can tell, uncle. I’m almost thirteen, you know,” he declared, like it ought to be some proof.
“Oh, yeah?” Jonas teased, “you sure about that?” The kid didn't bite.
Timothy pushed a stick into the fire, the tip turning ashy and black, as he pouted. Shoved it to the dirt, and suffocated the embers with the excessive force.
Jonas could hear him open his mouth, the quickening of his little heart beating in his chest.
“Can you make it hurt less?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper. The stick broke in the middle, stuck in the earth and pointing to the sky, like the cross for a small animal.
In a rare moment of truth, Jonas sighed, “It hurts worse when you fight it,” he stared into the dying fire, thinking of his brother, “that’s why so many of us turn out bad.”
Small hands grabbed his shirt, and Jonas reached back, holding onto him like he was his own. “Okay,” Timothy said, “then I’ll be ready.”
He wished he could tell him he didn’t have to be, but the big, bad wolf would still rear its ugly head no matter what he wanted to promise, so instead.
“You’ll have us there with you,” Jonas said.
Timothy pursed his lips in dismay. It wasn't a great consolation.
“What are you boys talking about?” Rachel asked, bringing a thick, blue blanket around Timothy’s shoulder. Her son stared at her like he’d just been caught smoking a cig.
Jonas smiled at her, this woman thrown into this life without her consent, sticking to it for her son. He pointed toward the lake.
“Just about fish.”
***
"He'll be completely alone."
"No, he won't be"- Rachel pressed the barrel of the shotgun forward through the fence, making her point abundantly clear as she aimed it in the middle of his face -"he'll have me."
Varek laughed, guttural but short. It made her heart sink to the pit of her stomach, coiling around her guts together with the anger.
"What are you going to do to him, hm? String him up like a piece of meat once every month? No. That," he pointed a sharp claw towards the trembling boy on the floor, "isn't a life," looked her coldly in the eye beyond the shotgun, "that'd be murder too."
She swallowed down the tears, didn't allow herself to feel anything but contempt for the man before her - if you could even still call him that.
It wouldn't be murder, Timothy would still be alive.
If he were to die, all those people who had sacrificed themselves for him, for the hope he represented; it would be for nothing.
And she would be the one completely alone. A childless mother.
Rachel wouldn't have that, couldn't. Being a widow had been horrible enough.
So she repeated it, "He will have me," voice even and words true even though it somehow felt like a lie, sounding more like a naive child than the grown mother she was as Timothy suddenly screamed out loud behind her.
"Fuck," she dropped the gun to her side, reconsidered turning her back towards Varek, in the same second as she did it. Sunk to her knees besides her son instead, among wooden crates and metal wires.
He whimpered as she caressed his face, burning hot under the tips of her fingers.
He mustered a weak, "Mommy…"
"I'm here," she hushed him. Kept her finger on the trigger just in case. Caught his hand as it propelled outwards from his body, barely stopping him from shattering its small bones on the stone wall.
"I got you," she promised, bit it out through clenched teeth to not scream as he squeezed her hand in return, much harder than he should be physically able to.
"Mom," Timothy said again, began to cry, "it hurts."
The man she once loved, thought she still loved until just a few days ago, roared loudly somewhere far away.
It is an animalistic noise filled with anger; filthy frustration at his own inability to act, as his last ever moon as a Skinwalker approached, as the woman refused to bend and snap.
"Rachel..." His voice was like poison, but still as calm as she remembered it to always have been, a breathy whisper right by her ear again.
He speaks but her focus lay elsewhere, desperately she tried to convince herself that the bones in her son's hand weren't shifting beneath her touch. That the painful noises coming from his burning body weren't leading up to what she knew they were.
"Rachel." He slammed his hand against the fence and Timothy startled at the sound of the metal rattling loudly. "He's been destined to die from the moment he was born," he said, reclaiming her attention even though she refused to turn back around, "I'd wished to have killed him before you grew attached," he kissed his teeth, "but my sordid family had other plans," breathed deeply through his nose.
"Let me kill him."
She ignored him, released the shotgun and crawled closer to Timothy, embracing his shifting body in her arms. Careful not to disturb the bleeding cut on her arm but painting his clothes with the liquid nonetheless as she cradled his neck, wiping his tears away with her other hand.
"Don't you get it yet?" Varek asked in disbelief, "he won't recognize you. He'll turn thirteen and rip Mommy dearest to pieces between his teeth."
He growled as she seemed to not listen, Rachel heard his claws trailing the chains of the fence as Timothy buried his fingers in the fabric of her top.
"He'll paint the floor red with your innards," it didn't take, "Rach-"
He shut his mouth, hard against her name, she could even hear his teeth slamming together, a hurried attempt to hide what almost seemed like concern.
“No,” Timothy sobbed, “I-I won’t,” he pressed his face in her stomach, “I won’t," he huffed like he'd just refused to wear rubber shoes even though it was positively pouring outside.
She smiled toward her son, leaned down and placed her lips on his forehead. Made a silent promise that he would not, that she would not allow it. She raised her head and Timothy stared back at her with wide, fearful eyes.
Varek pushed against the fence, “Rachel, get out of there.”
His apparent worry felt funny in her bones.
"Will you lock the gate behind me, baby?"
Timothy’s mouth turned into the shape of a small 'o' at the question, and she just managed to catch a heart wrenching glimpse of sharp canines and bloodied gums before he closed it again. Clenched his teeth through a new wave of pain.
"Can you do that?"
Her voice shuddered as she thought about the torn flesh on the inside of his mouth. Her breath hitched at a sharpness that nicked her at her back from where his growing claws trailed her spine.
He nodded his head, confirmed it without being able to form any coherent words. She quickly lifted him to his feet in response, reaching down for the shotgun before she turned around to look at the beast on the other side of the cage.
She aimed the loaded shotgun at Varek again.
"Step back," she ordered him like the dog he was.
He licked his lips, "You can't save him,” he said, but not as certain.
"I already am. Now, move ," she felt the weight of Timothy at the back of her shirt, how he desperately hung onto her to not fall down to stone, "I know exactly how many bullets it'll take to kill you with this."
The shredded body of the woman by her feet, awfully human again, proved it.
“You’re a bitch.” Varek declared with a pointed finger, but obeyed the demand in spite of his colorful language as she trusted the weapon forward, taking a few reluctant steps backwards at the threat.
Satisfied with the newly obtained distance between them, Rachel reached for the lock, held the shotgun trained on his head as she unlocked the gate and pushed it open.
Varek stepped forward, raising his arms slightly. “Rach.”
She jerked forward with dread at the nickname, pressed the muzzle against his cheek to make him stop as a thousand memories washed over her, threatening to drown her. Voiced yet another simple demand, “Don’t,” as the safe distance between them was nullified within a moment.
For a moment, Rachel thought she saw him.
Her husband, and not the monster.
He pushed forward despite the cold metal against his skin, despite the mere millisecond he was away from having his brains blown out, to being splattered all over the floor by the pull of a trigger.
She heard Timothy slowly closing the gate behind her back, Varek made one last effort.
"You’ll be turned inside out. Your bones will break, expand and grow bigger until they rip your skin apart"-
The spell broke, Rachel swallowed bile, “I swear to God-"
-"but I can make the pain go away,” he stretched his arm out at the offer, “you just need to die."
And he said it like he shouldn't be scared of it, that great nothing. Like a father, meant to guide his son through life, instead intending to do it through death.
You got this, bud.
Timothy had already made his decision by a fire, in the nook of Jonas' arm; his uncle now laying cold, emptied of blood somewhere on the factory floor.
He didn't whisper sorry, even though he almost felt he ought to. The gate locked in his small hand.
Varek pushed, and Rachel fired.
The bullet rang loud.
Her hair caught, pulling painfully at her scalp as she fell forward into his arms. He grabbed the back of her head, crashing together with her to the floor.
A mass of two bodies as one, opened up slowly like a cacoon.
Varek whined, the hot blood from the splitter drenching his shirt, “You sure raised him stubborn,” he said, laughing in his daze.
Rachel buried her hands in his jacket, wrists aching from the kickback, a cutting whine in her ears loud enough to convince; she had shattered her eardrums completely.
She could still hear the chaos in the cage behind her. A throb in her scalp where strands of hairs had been ripped straight out by a beast of a hand, forced her back to reality.
She intended to move, but Varek's heavy hand on the back of her head kept her immobile.
"Don't look," he whispered with mercy, "Rach?"
Tears soaked into his shirt, blood blood blood, the smell of dirt and woods filled her nostrils.
"Shouldn't we wish him a happy birthday?"
Timothy howled. Rachel allowed herself to sob, wailing in his arms at the distasteful joke.