THE PURSUIT OF RETRIBUTION
CHAPTER TEN

Olivia strolled into the ambiently lit dining room of The Claw. She brushed her wet hands against her clothes– merely another stain on her designer dress for her father to get angry about. Between Ace's blood, the mud from the grass, and the dust from the dirty storage room floor she'd sat on, the once enchanting silk dress was dull and wrinkled, unsalvageable. However, after the events of the night, it was the last thing Olivia cared about.

As she slipped into the stool beside him, she couldn't help her eyes flickering toward him. She smiled shyly and stared down at her hands in her lap when he glanced back at her through knowing eyes.

"Um, excuse me, what was that?" Bess uttered through a suspicious, breathy laugh. Her eyes shifted from the pair sitting awkwardly and raised her eyebrows in disbelief when neither of them said anything.

"Any news from Nancy?" Liv said in an attempt to change the subject. She watched closely as the British woman dabbed Ace's arm with a disinfected cotton pad. Olivia grimaced to see that it was stained with fresh blood from his injury.

"I tried calling but she didn't pick up," Ace replied raspily.

Olivia's eyelids drooped and she stared at the bar table as fearful realization took over her. "You don't think..."

"No, no– it couldn't have. George and Nick were the first to see the Aglaeca and they beat her," Bess rushed, her head angling toward George as she entered the room. "Right, George?"

"Yeah, Drew always shows up," George assured certainly. She walked past the bar toward Nick who was sitting on a lower table, recomposing himself from the long night they'd had. "Have you done that before?" She grimaced as Bess placed a bandaid carefully across the wound on Ace's arm through the large cut in his shirt sleeve.

"It's not my first patch-up, but that is a story for another time." Bess patted her fingers over the plaster to straighten it on Ace's shoulder.

The door creaked quietly and closed with a soft bump. Olivia spun her head to see Nancy climbing into the restaurant with a tired grin. "Glad we'll all be around to hear it." Her hand was gripped onto her leather messenger bag, almost as a form of stabilizing herself. She stepped further into the restaurant with bowed legs, barely able to walk without trembling.

"Hey, you're okay," Ace cheered with a smile.

"Yeah. Who did the honors?" she asked, glancing between her friends.

Nick glanced at George while he raised his hand. "We did." Nancy smiled gratefully, too tired to come up with words of gratitude to say. The room was filled with silence while everyone's eyes shifted from one another, relishing the fact that they were all okay and alive.

Bess stepped forward, her slightly annoyed voice piercing through the peaceful quietness. "People, we should be celebrating."

"There's sparkling cider behind the bar," Ace suggested, turning to face Bess who grinned eagerly.

"That'll do nicely. I will grab it." She spun around in her stool to slide off. The smile didn't leave her face until a loud gasp flew out of her mouth and her hand clasped against her mouth right as she sprung out of the seat. Olivia's heart plummeted against her chest at the unexpected noise, and she turned to look at the corner where Bess and everyone else stared at with wide eyes.

As their eyes met with the far left corner of The Claw, the room had suddenly darkened. All the ceiling lights were off and the only form of light in the room was the heavily striking lightning through the shuttered windows. The once organized dining room was trashed; all of AJ's papers about the dybbuk box and the Aglaeca were sprawled over the floor messily, much like the chairs and tables that were knocked over onto the ground.

Nancy's breath hitched when her own lifeless body came into view, lying limp and wide-eyed on the ground like Bess, Nick, George, and Ace's. "Are you guys seeing this?"

"Godfather style," Ace murmured, his eyes never leaving his dead body.

"She's coming for us at midnight!" Bess cried, clutching her chest in terror.

"W-we didn't... we didn't kill the Aglaeca."

"We just pissed her off."

"It's nine p.m now. That means we have three hours left."

The entire time the five friends spoke, Olivia's attention had remained attached to the mortifying vision. She couldn't bring herself to look away– the pale, perished bodies on the floor, wide-eyed as though they'd just seen ghosts. As much as the sight pained and frightened her, sending tremors all through her body and a harsh pounding in her heart, she couldn't tear her gaze. Much like how she felt that she couldn't tear herself away from reality anymore. As desperately as she desired to– this, the Aglaeca, was real life, the truth. And it seemed now that there was no way of departing with it.

"Liv." Olivia gasped as a cold hand grasped her shoulder. She snapped her head to see Bess staring down at her in concern. "You saw that too?" Gulping, Olivia nodded and blinked several times to try and blur the memory out of her mind while the rest continued to speak. "Nancy, what are we gonna do?"

Olivia managed to turn her attention to Nancy, whose back was turned to them. The redhead stared at the wall blankly, her eyes lost and pooled with tears. "I don't know."

"Hey, it's okay," Olivia slid out of her seat to gain everyone's attention. "We can come up with a plan." Her eyes were bright and hopeful, trying to rebuild the energy in the room. The dull looks on everyone's faces, however, ensured to her that hope and faith were long gone.

"We've tried everything, Liv, nothing works."

"She's right- I mean what more can we do?" Bess agreed, frowning softly.

Nick shared a painful look with George and nodded. "I guess all we can do right now is make our last few hours meaningful."

Olivia gaped in disbelief, barely able to keep her jaw from dropping. "So you're just going to give up?"

The room was filled with an awful silence and Olivia's head snapped to each of her friends for any sign of agreement or willingness to try harder to survive. Even Ace tore his eyes away from her when she looked to him for support, only making her sighed with disappointment and take a step back.

"I'm going to go see my dad," Nancy spoke quickly as though trying to hold back a sob.

George nodded before placing her hand on teary-eyed Bess' back to lead her to the locker room. "I'll meet you in the car," she told Nick, who nodded in compliance and followed Nancy out of the front door.

"Unbelievable," Olivia whispered, watching them all branch off. She turned away from the empty space to return her attention back to Ace, sitting quietly on the stool. "What are you going to do?"

"There's this thing I've been meaning to do for a while," he said in a low mumble, almost afraid. She looked at him closely in silence, her eyes soft and glimmering under the light, encouraging him to elaborate. "I just haven't been brave enough."

"What is it?"

"I, uh, I think I have a brother... in witness protection. And I think I'm going to call him." Olivia stared in utter shock once the words left his mouth, but she pursed her lips and act normal to try and ease Ace's anxiety. "Do you think... Do you think you could stare at me?" He looked up at her, his shoulders slumped and eyes glassy and pained. It was the first time Olivia had ever seen him so small and vulnerable, almost like a puppy who'd lost its owner.

Without hesitating, she nodded, her eyes still latched onto Ace's, unable to let go. She slowly dropped her hand onto his knee and trailed it upward until it met with the dry skin of his hand. Shakily, she slid her hand into his, entwining their fingers together. With their hands tangled together, she dropped into the wooden stool beside him and watched him reach for his phone on the bar counter.

Her eyes lingered on his face, watching every anxious blink or lick of his lips as he dialed the number onto his phone with shaky hands. He'd always been there to help her, protect her. And now she wanted nothing more than to make him feel okay in this horrible, unfair ordeal he and his friends had been thrown in.

He placed the phone on speaker, and within seconds, it went to voicemail. Ace's wide eyes suddenly loosened, tainted with sadness and disappointment as he listened to the operator speak. "Please leave a message at the end of the tone. Beep." He glanced at Olivia, almost for reassurance and Olivia nodded wholeheartedly, squeezing his hand softly.

Ace took the phone off speaker before raising it to his ear. "Hello, um... You don't know me but I think that I'm your..." He let out a shaky breath, his eyes brimming with hot tears. "I think that I'm your brother. And I wanted you to know who I am, um, before it's too late. Please call me back." He drew his hand down, clicking the red button to end the call. The moment another beep sounded, confirming the call had ended, he closed his eyes and let out a slight shudder.

Olivia jumped out of her seat and stepped in front of Ace. He looked at her through sad, wan eyes before she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face between her arm and his hot neck. He closed his eyes and sunk into her embrace, relishing in the warmth and comfort that he hadn't been shown in quite a while.

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Olivia stared through narrow eyes at the stack of crumpled, old letters in Nancy's hand. The redhead stood behind the counter, taking the lead as always. One by one, she passed the letters to her friends, and Olivia watched closely, tempted to reach her hand out and take one. She wanted to be a part of this, to help her friends. They were all in this together, one way or another– they had all been able to help her, now it was her turn.

"And Liv..." Nancy mumbled to herself, licking the tip of her thumb to help her flick between two letters. She pulled it out of the stack and handed it to the brunette who accepted the letter without hesitation, only an appreciative smile on her face. "So Odette became the Aglaeca because she died in a state of fear, rage, and suffering. All we have to do is remind her who she was." She waved the letter in her hand in the air as she spoke. "These letters– she wrote them on her voyage across the Atlantic. They're to an Englishwoman that she loved."

Bess furrowed her brows as she processed the explanation. "So lonesome ghost Agnes must have found these in Odette's possessions before they locked her in a cellar."

"So that's your big play, Drew?" George waved her letter aggressively in the air, her forehead creased with wrinkles and skin hot with anger. "You suddenly realize that love is the most human thing that humans can ever human, and now we're reading letters to a ghost?"

"Love is fundamental," Ace replied softly, grasping Olivia's attention. She glanced at the back of his head briefly before returning her gaze to the others.

"And desperate," Nick added with a shrug.

"And the one weapon we haven't tried."

Olivia nodded, her eyes deep and focussed with the letter firmly held in her hand. "Okay, so let's quit wasting time then and start learning."

Nancy nodded before flicking the letter in her hand to straighten it out. She climbed out from behind the counter, her eyes stitched onto the cursive words on the paper. "Odette and the Englishwoman met in London," she read, beginning to pace back and forth in the spaces between tables. Olivia nodded, eyes darting from the words in the letter in her hand and Nancy as she spoke.

"Odette made the voyage to come build a life for them," George added, sitting in a chair at a window table.

"Even though the ocean scared her," Bess cooed, propping her chin onto the palm of her hand as she leaned into the table, gushing.

"So we can appeal to Odette by talking about the Englishwoman," Olivia suggested, though it was more like a thought she put to words to process everything that was being said.

Intently, Nancy furrowed her eyebrows and hovered over Bess' shoulder, scanning over her page. "But the Englishwoman loved the sea, especially the beach, and Odette said once she landed in America that she would send her bottles of sand."

Olivia's head snapped up and she stared at Ace as a foreign sound filled her ears. A sinister humming filled the room like a ghostly whisper. She shivered, inching closer to Ace as a form of comfort. Her frantic movements drew Ace's attention and he watched her narrow her eyes and tilt her head as though she was trying to listen to something. He frowned to try and focus his hearing and was met with a familiar sound.

"Do you hear that?" Bess' eyes flickered from corner to corner of the room. In response, everyone silenced to channel their hearing.

"She's here," George whispered, her words coming out in a shaky breath.

Olivia gritted her teeth to stop them from clattering, unable to relax her muscles as the voice got louder. It was sinister, threatening. It made her want to back up into a corner where they could have a full view of the space before her. She couldn't fathom how everyone else stood so brave and tall, ready to battle the Aglaeca, when all she could do was tremble with growing fear.

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double update!! i hope you enjoyed