CALANDRA

The mage would have given her a sedation solution if she knew what was in that wretched concoction. Instead she was forced to watch Aza struggle and cry as she twisted herself into her sheets. A fever had the girl sweating and gasping as well. Using the old fashioned way, with a cool cloth on the forehead was most certainly not enough, but it's all Calandra could think of, and that pissed her off.

"Is there nothing you can do?"

Calandra ground her teeth and turned to see Faux leaning against the door frame, his arms crossed.

"Don't you think I would be doing something if I could?" She snapped.

Faux was staring at Aza's sobbing form as her hands curled an uncurled around the blankets. "P-Please... Please no." She whispered as tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. They had washed away the dried blood and bandaged the girl's head where she had hit her head at least, but that wasn't anything really.

"What do you know about it? The drug she gave her, I mean." Faux's expression was unreadable.

Calandra stared at him. He was actually being completely serious. There were no attempts to lighten the mood. Something was wrong. "I know that there are elements of memordin and fovodroga in it. That means that she's seeing her most feared memories."

It was almost imperceptible, but the mage saw his hands tighten around his arms.

"Are you going to show me my room or not?" A rough voice spoke as Raoul poked his head around the corner, sliding behind the Anahalian.

Faux turned, his abnormally dead eyes glared up at large man. "Can't you see that she's busy?" He said softly.

Raoul grinned. "You aren't still angry about us leavin' you with those wolves, are you?"

Back at Bacardi Hole, they had decided to slip out the back, so Raoul could avoid running into Kenneth's pack. Calandra had sent a telepathic signal to the Anahalian, which was something that wasn't technically legal for mages either unless they were conversing with those at the gates of their sanctuaries so they could decide to lower the spells and allow them to enter. So Faux, being the Anahalian that he was, managed to fight off the drunk werewolves fairly easily, but he had surprisingly been in a bad mood since then.

Faux took a deep breath. "I know you see me as one of those cowardly Anahalians who ran away from Earth, but you were the one avoiding the fight there, now weren't you?"

Calandra stood, stopping this before it went further. Faux had been trained to fight just like all Anahalians were, but he was still part human. Plus, Raoul was nearly four times his size in muscle mass and he wasn't one of those stoned beasts back at the bar. He was far more capable. "I can't do anything more here, anyway." She said.

Faux whirled back. "But..."

"If you want to take care of her, you can." Calandra waved her hand and murmured the spell to allow Faux to enter the room, and then she tossed him the cloth. She walked over to them and faced Faux, who was staring past her again to the squirming girl on the bed. "Don't worry, this'll pass. It's temporary, that much I know. She wasn't poisoned, it's just a-"

Faux's green eyes snapped onto her hers. "It's not just an anything." He hissed, nearly knocking the wind out of the mage. "Our memories can destroy us." He shook his head. "But I suppose you're right, Calandra. That sister of yours didn't poison her, she just woke up the poison that's already poisoned her a thousand times before. Etheldreda's just sent the venom of Aza's nightmares flooding through her mind, when she's done everything she can to forget it. Don't tell me that it was just a temporary memory drug or anything like that." He jabbed a finger at Aza's shaking form, still his gaze piercing Calandra's wide eyes. "That's far worse than any poison I know, because those kind of memories are never temporary. They are forever. That witch called it the worst kind of torture, and that's exactly what it is."

Calandra was speechless. She couldn't believe it. There were several times when this Anahalian had surprised her, which was not small feat, with the way he could go from lighthearted and distant from the problem to deadly serious and saying things that proved he was far wiser than he let on. The look in those dark eyes at that moment, though, made the mage begin to realize that there might just be a reason he never let himself get so involved and acted the way he did. What was going on in his head? What had him this way? This wasn't him at all. It couldn't just because he was forced to fight off those werewolves. There was something more.

Raoul gave an annoyed huff. "Domestic disputes. If this is the way your place is all the time, I'll make sure my stay is brief."

Calandra tore her gaze away from Faux and glared at Raoul, quickly regaining her composure. "Alright, alright let's go." She quipped and began to lead him further down the hall.

Guardedly, she glanced back to see Faux still standing in the doorway. He was pinching the bridge of his nose, eyes closed tight, muttering under his breath.

A high, agonized, broken scream burst suddenly from Aza's room made all three of them freeze.

Calandra whipped her head away, facing forward and swallowing hard. Had this human girl truly been through so much? What memories did she have that were destroying her?

"Humans go through hell, just like the rest of us." Said the low gruff voice of the man beside her as though he had read her mind.

Calandra glanced up at him, but that dark scarred face was blank as he stared ahead. Then she turned back for one last look at Faux, but the Anahalian was gone.

AZA

When the door slammed like that, Aza knew he was angry. Slowly, she closed her coloring book that she had snuck up to her bedroom, and slid off her bed to creep over to her door and press her ear against it. The small girl flinched as his voice rang up the stairs like a hammer slamming against her eardrums.

"We're finished! We're ruined!" He thundered across the main level and Aza tensed as she heard something being shoved off of one of her mother's side tables in their living room, and crash to the floor.

The voice of Aza's mother, soft and gentle spoke with a bit of effort on her strained lungs from her illness. "Mel, take a deep breath, sit down with me, and tell me what happened."

But Mel Vogel did not do the first two things she asked of him and just shouted in reply. "The car! Those bastards took it and have it impounded off somewhere!"

Aza shuffled nervously. She could normally tell when her father was drunk and when he wasn't. When he was angry and shouting, his words slurred and often incomprehensible, that usually meant he'd been out drinking. And when he was sober, he was worse. He was calm and terrifying in a completely different fashion. However, it was usually the same things he always said. This time, though, something was off. He was angry and shouting, but his words were crisp, clear and as always, terrible.

On the other side of things, Laura Kendall Vogel's soft breathy tones contrasted highly from her husband's. "Please, I've asked you not to curse in the house. I-"

"Like I give a damn about your religious values!" Mel scoffed and Aza curled her hands into fists. "I hear it all the time but no! I'm not taking it anymore! Don't you get it Laur? No one believes in God or they're aware that he's not on our side at least! Even your good for nothing brother had the good sense to out of this hellish place and go to a place with some openness!"

Several wheezy gasps came from Aza's mother. The girl was aware that her mother was doing her best to stay calm. Her religion was very important to her and the fact that her own brother had essentially left them and it for the Big Apple was still a bit of a sore spot. "Then will you at least try to keep your voice down. I just got Aza to bed and-"

"THAT GIRL!" Mel bellowed making Aza push off of the door and stumbled back, but it didn't matter she couldn't shut out the conversation now.

"She has to go! I've straightened out everything else! She's the last piece-"

"No!" Laura broke through his rant, her voice shaking, and Aza knew that her mother had gotten to her feet. "You never make any sense when you say these things! You blame her for all of your mistakes and it makes me sick! It's not this disease that's killing me, it's the way you treat our daughter and how you put all the fault on her for everything that goes wrong that are literally impossible for her to have done! Don't you know how impressionable a child as young as her is? So stop blaming her for your screw-ups! Do you hear me, Mel? You are the one who lost your job! You are the one who hasn't been able to get a new one! You are the one who got the car impou-" She was cut off with the harsh sound of a slap across the face.

Aza leapt to her own feet, flung the door open, and dashed to the stairs only to freeze at the top.

The image in front of the eight-year-old child was one that she would never forget. She knew it the moment she saw it.

Her father had never been a large man. He was quite short and had a slimmer build, that had been somewhat ruined by the several mugs of beer he had almost every day. His blond hair was frayed and had gone gray at a rather young age. His eyes were two different colors, one green and one brown, something that Aza had once thought was cool, but had grown to fear whenever those unique irises fell on her.

Now those deadly eyes were on her mother's gray ones as his boney white fingers wrapped themselves around the frail women's neck, lifting her from the ground as she weakly struggled in his grip. "Don't you get it, Laura?" He said in a whisper that was far more terrifying than his shouting. "You're sick because of that girl. The moment that child came into our lives, it's been on a downward spiral. I told you I didn't want children and look where you are now. I told you. I told you that I didn't want any children. I knew they would be cursed."

Aza stood shaking at the top of the stairs, willing her legs to move. Willing her mouth to move. Willing anything to move.

"I-I've m-made some m-m-mista-" Mel shook his head. "But that doesn't matter because I've fixed it. It was all fixed until you decided to keep that baby. She's torn it apart, but I'll fix it, Laurie. You can count on me." He seemed completely unaware of how he held his wife or that the woman had gone limp and had been so for some time. Laura was already so weak, but still Mel held her for several moments more before his eyes widened and the woman slipped from his hold and fell to the ground with a painful thud.

That was when Aza's primary functions returned to her. She ran down the stairs without even registering it as her mouth moved and vibrations in her throat told her that she was speaking, screaming maybe, but for some reason she couldn't hear her own voice. All she saw was the mop of brown hair drooped over bloodless the face of the only woman who had truly loved her for so long.

Aza slammed hard onto her knees and pushed the hair out of her mother's face to reveal those eyes that matched her own, staring ahead without seeing anything at all. Aza's mind couldn't process this. Her mother's eyes were always tired and the light in them was always dim, but it always burned. A steady enduring flame. But now that fire was out. Blank, empty, cold. Not her mother at all. Aza couldn't take it. Couldn't accept it.

"Mom! Mom, wake up!" Aza's small body began to tremble as her voice rose. "MOM! P-PLEASE!" She grabbed her mother's slim shoulders and shook her just as one of the monster's skeletal hand's curled around Aza's upper arm and flung her aside where she crashed against the dresser where her mother kept her beading projects. Pain exploded under her chin as her father's words burst through her clouded brain.

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP YOU DEVIL CHILD!" He was shaking too. From head to toe, he quaked as if the Earth beneath him was falling out from under his feet. His face was red and his eyes wide and crazed. Aza swallowed hard, her hand pressed against the gash under her jaw, as her father took a wobbly step toward her. "You. You've taken my life away from me." He murmured in that cruel whisper again, freezing the young girl's blood. "I've tried to make myself a peaceful, good life, but then you had to come and ruin it all." He shook his head, taking another few steps. "My life has always been screwed up, I know that, but I fixed it. It was all fixed, then you had to come and shatter everything that I love!" Having finally reached the silent, wide-eyed child, Mel Vogel snatched the front of her night shirt and hoisted her into the air, all too easily. "Laura is dead because of you!" He spit in her face. Just as Aza suspected his breath did not stink of alcohol. But there was the faint smell of smoke on him. It wasn't cigarette smoke. It was a sort of campfire smell. "I've warned you so many times! I told you that I would make my life perfect! But you just had to kill her!" Mel began to jerk Aza back and forth as if she were a mere doll. The girl's small hands shook as she did her best to pry off those stone-cold fingers, shaking her head, her heart beating in her throat so she couldn't speak.

Mel gave her another harsh shake causing Aza's head to whip back sending a throbbing pain down her neck. "You don't believe me? You think I did it, don't you? DON'T YOU!" He snarled. "But you are wrong! I loved Laura! I loved her! But you got her sick! You are the fiend that was sent to curse me! I know it! It's your fault! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

Aza stared into the brown and green eyes that swirled with things that Aza had never understood, and she doubted she ever would. Those eyes would be the last thing she would ever see, just like her mother. And that was the moment that she let her hands fall to her side, letting herself go limp in her father's grasp. Her mother had told her there was a heaven. Maybe they would see each other in just a moment.

However, it was not that easy. Flashing red and blue lights reflected off of those broken, wild eyes, and the hand that held Aza up opened in shock, causing the girl to fall hard to the ground. Stunned, Aza stared up at Mel as he leaned out and cracked the blinds a bit more. At first he looked angry, but then an expression, Aza had never seen on his face, replaced it. Then the man dashed out of the room with Aza staring after him.

A voice, loud and amplified, made Aza jump and turn her head toward the front door. "Mel Vogel. This is the police. Come out of your house with your hands up. We have been informed that you possess a firearm. We highly suggest, you leave it and come with us, quietly."

Suddenly, Aza's father was back in the room, a black object shaking in his white fingers. It was his gun. Aza had seen it many times before. He had threatened her, when her mother had been sleeping, but even the young girl was aware that the weapon was not loaded.

Mel slowly placed his hand on the doorknob, but gave one last look to the dead woman on the ground before squeezing his eyes shut, whipping his head back around, and flinging the door open. Aza heard him shouting as he ran across their lawn, she saw his form wildly raise the gun to the man with the megaphone, before she heard the order. "Fire!" There was a single shot that seemed to freeze time. One shot that felt as though it had gone through Aza's own brain. One shot that brought the man that had tormented his own daughter for years, down.

Aza saw him fall.

She became dimly aware of voices and people around her. A blanket was put around her shoulders. A woman's voice that was not her mother was murmuring words in her ear that never broke the surface of the wall of numb that had formed around Aza's mind. It was only when someone began to lift her to her feet did she come to.

"NOOOO!" She screamed. "NOOOO! I'M NOT LEAVING HER!" Aza yanked herself away from the paramedic and fell back to her mother's side. She just caught a glimpse of the deep purple and black marks that ringed around the woman's neck before her vision went blurry as tears began to flow relentlessly down her blood-stained cheeks. "YOU HAVE TO HELP HER!" Aza quavered and wrapped her arms around her mother. "YOU HAVE TO HELP HER F-F-FIRST!"

Strong, dark arms scooped up Aza as if she were a baby and began to take her away. Aza fought. She kicked and yelled and punched and cried, but the stupid adult didn't let her go. "I'm sorry babe," said the woman softly. "I'm sorry babe, but she's gone."

Aza choked, her flailing slowed, and she allowed herself droop against the woman. Instead of hitting and punching, Aza's hands grabbed handfuls of lady's shirt and buried her face into it. "I d-didn't do it." The little girl whispered. "Y-you have t-to believe me. I didn't d-do it."

Aza's mind floated in and out of the nightmare. It was a vicious game. Her consciousness was temporarily sliding back into the present allowing her to hear soft voices that weren't cops or nurses. But it would only last long enough for her to just make out what the mage or Anahalian was saying before the drug sucked her back under the waves of her darkened childhood.

It wasn't always that precise memory, but it was almost always those eyes of two different colors that bore into her as his voice told her that one day he would kill her. She felt herself falling as he flung her down the hill that resided in their backyard, when he had saw her playing back there. She felt the sting as his hand swiped across her face. She saw the bored gray eyes of her uncle when shut her in her room when she had gone hysterical about losing her charm. But still the memory where she stood and watched her mother die and her father run with an empty gun into the arms of death was the memory that surfaced most. It was the memory that continued to play over and over again, each time as if it were the first time.

"P-please..." Aza finally croaked, momentarily seeing a dark Victorian room as she lie on a four-poster bed. She tried to lift her arms, reaching out just as the corners of her vision darkened again. Tears had soaked the pillow and her was matted and wet as well. But all of that was falling away again. Brown and green began to replace it. "NOOO!" She gave a desperate sob. "I can't...I didn't do it...p-please..."

Aza felt hands slide under neck and under her knees, lifting her off the bed. It wasn't the paramedic woman. These arms pulled her against his rather thin chest, feeling his ribs against her own small body, and for a terrifying moment Aza thought it was the monster who had her, but his breathing on her face didn't smell of alcohol or cigarette smoke. It was warm, smelling faintly of cinnamon, and soft especially when she felt his lip press against her forehead. His voice wasn't cold, but it did have a painful broken sound as he said merely two words. "I know."

Aza's sobbing turned to sniffling as she curled against the man who whispered those simple words again. "I know."

Those words weren't saying that he knew that she hadn't done it. They weren't saying that they knew what exactly her father had done. They were saying that they knew exactly the pain that was tearing her apart from the inside because they had that same pain ripping through their insides as well. He was saying that the two of them were the same.

Aza had never had the proper care after her parent's deaths. She had been sent to her uncle in New York where initially he had been most distraught from his sister's death and he had seemed to be there for her at first. However it hadn't lasted long. Aza wasn't sure if it was the pain or if it was just his nature to shut himself away with his weird obsessions. Regardless, a severing traumatized girl was left to fend for herself. There were no professional therapists, but Aza did have her doubts in them. She did end up visiting with several school counselors that would tell her that it would be okay, that the pain would fade. They were all lies. Nothing was okay and the pain was always as strong as it always was. But still the biggest lie they told her was that they knew it was hard that they knew what she was going through. Those words always made her angry. These stupid people knew nothing! They knew it was hard? That wasn't even remotely close to what she was going through! And they didn't come light-years close to what was going on in her head. They didn't understand. And no one ever really would.

"I know."

But these arms, this lean frame, this voice did. It was the first time that Aza actually believed those words. She wasn't alone. She wasn't alone.

"I know."

Every time he said it, those heterochromia stained eyes faded further and further beyond her vision. Aza finally began to breathe easily and she pressed herself harder against his chest, listening to his heartbeat almost in tune with her own. His hands cleared away her tears from her cheeks and pushed her hair up to give her one last kiss on the forehead. And Aza finally sank into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.

"I know."

~(A/N: Hello my friends! I'm so so so so so so so so so sorry for not updating in forever!!! And this chapter isn't even that long! I just really needed so time. Hopefully, I'll try to be on a better schedule again. I'm not making promises, because things happen, but I promise I will try!

So what did you think? Was it emotionally packed enough for you? Do you think that this feels unnecessary and that I shouldn't include the detailed torturous past of Aza's life? I love hearing people's thoughts!

Also I would love to hear what you're thinking about Faux right now! Oh, yeah Faus is that fun-loving, laid back, flirty guy! PSYCH!! I'd say he might have a few emotional issues that he's not addressing. Your thoughts?

Now for the Challenge! Sometimes I do challenges that can inspire me or allows me to see what you see my characters or story as. Sometimes I do them to get you to think. And sometimes I just do goofy ones when I just can't think... Sorry I'm still in a bit of a slow time. Anyway, I know it's not Halloween anymore, but if you were to choose what each character would dress up as, what would you choose for each one and why?? I'm excited to see what costumes you pick! XD)~