Chapter 45

He stood there beside her his mind whirling, her voice urging him to move, but something deep inside revolted against the urgings coursing through his mind. He shook his head, trying to clear the rampant white noise that was making it so hard to think. He didn’t do what he just did, did he? To be sure he didn’t just stick a dagger through the chest of his best friend. Glancing down at his hands he saw the blood and his heart began to pound in an abnormal rhythm, as reality settled onto his shoulders like molten lead. He had done it as assuredly as the sun would rise again on the morrow. He had put an end to an innocent life but it wasn’t his fault and the one who had
managed to make him do it needed to pay.

Somewhere deep within him a roar began to build, a roar steeped in agony and rage that built as it raced its way from deep within his belly to his throat. As the roar reached his throat and bellowed from his lips his hands snaked out and wrapped around the throat of the woman next to him. “What the fuck do you think your doing?”

Cassandra’s eyes widened as she felt the effects of the voice fade. As she scrambled for a thought she whispered in that husky vibrato. “Let me go pretty boy.”

Hands tightened around her neck as crystal blue fire blazed from his eyes to hers. “Not on your fucking life. I don’t know what you did, I don’t know HOW you did it, but you WILL explain WHY you felt a need to have me kill the most decent guy I know. What had he ever done to you huh? What vast crime against you did HE supposedly commit? Why did you have me kill him huh?” He got face to face with her, his breath whispering white hot across her cheek. “You say Adam is bad for all he did to you, but in this day and time he hasn’t hurt a pure innocent. You whine about something the man did three fucking thousand years ago as if it were yesterday. Well lady times are different now aren’t they? You don’t just kill someone to achieve and aim. Hell when that psycho stalker had Amelia all he did was grab her and hold her for the police. Jesus you’re a piece of work, you bitch about what he did to you, but YOU have me kill a man whose ONLY FUCKING CRIME was to love his music, his daughter and his brothers. Lady you take the cake.”

As Jon railed against her she slowly worked her hand to her hip and unsheathed the dagger there. With one fluid move she went to put the dagger to his neck only to have Jon’s hand flash out and grab the dagger with speed born of years of exercise from dancing from stage right to left. “Oh look at that, your next answer is to hurt the one finally daring to speak a bit of truth eh? Well lady I might have been a foundling, but I was raised in Jersey, and you don’t pull a fucking knife on a Jersey man!”

“Now answer me Dammit. Why did you have me kill Richie? He was tied up and helpless and you did away with him without a thought. The only murdering piece of shit I’ve seen lately is you. NOW EXPLAIN IT!”

Cassandra gasped, tears filtering from her eyes as she realized that all he said was true. She was worse than Adam, had let her entire life be warped by something that was only a flash in the pan of her life. She gasped until she started to laugh, her murky gaze brightening as she blinked away the tears. “Oh hell, you idiot pretty boy. How many folks STAY DEAD around our kind?”

Jon blistered out at her, his rage growing by leaps and bounds, “My fucking God, now you’re trying to play a game? Had he been like us Duncan or Adam would have realized that.”

Cassandra’s voice was soft as she replied, “Sometimes immortals can catch it sometimes they can’t. Maybe I was more in tune to that man’s baby signature than Adam or Duncan.”

Whipping around behind her Jon began to manhandle her back to the doorway. “Well you better hope your right Bitch, because if you aren’t, so help me God Adam and Duncan be damned I’ll saw your head off inch by fucking inch, so slowly you’ll be screaming even after I’ve removed it.”

Cassandra allowed for the treatment and let him push her back towards the other immortal hums. Her mind swirling with all the words that he had spat at her as she let her life run before her eyes. So many decisions, all based in hate, how could she have been so blind, so wrong to what she had done? Even the night when Duncan had screamed “I want him to LIVE,” she hadn’t gotten it then either. She was blindly stupid to anything but her need for revenge. It was true, times were so different then, she had changed over the millennia, why couldn’t he have changed? He probably had, just as she had to survive.

As they entered the door, her eyes fell upon the sobbing woman, and then slowly moved up to the two men standing over her. Jesus, she never thought of how her actions could affect anyone else. She whispered a soft ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t think,” as Jon reached the three people standing watch over Richie and shoved Cassandra into Duncan’s hands. His hands jammed into his pockets and fisted as his blue eyes took in Amelia’s tormented sobs. Dammit, he hoped she wasn’t lying, because if she wasn’t he’d never be able to live with himself. What was he without his best friend? He vaguely realized that Duncan and Adam were moving Cassandra off to the side as he slowly knelt and took Amelia into his arms, his tears starting as he allowed himself to grieve over the sight before him. He was still finding it hard to believe that he had done it. Richie might make him nuts sometimes with his goofiness and child-like exuberance, and sure he might have even muttered a death threat or two, but he couldn’t have ever harmed the man who was closer than a brother to him. “Oh God Bro, I’m so sorry, so sorry, just so damned sorry,” he sobbed as the tears began to fall in earnest.

His voice seeped into her grief, and something inside of her recognized his pain. Bolting upwards she wrapped her arms around him, her head burrowing into his chest. “Oh God Jersey, what we gonna do now?”

He held her tight his throat too tight with tears to even answer. Hell he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to talk again considering. He could only pray that the night ended better than it had began. He rocked Amelia, trying to get as much comfort as he could give, his pain and guilt racing through him as his eyes drifted back down to Richie, his pain threatening to overwhelm him. He was too still; for twenty five years he had never seen him that still, not even in sleep. What would he do now; he couldn’t answer her because for the first time he just didn’t know.

~~~~~~

Murky grey eyes flooded with regret reached out to Duncan. “I never thought about the results, never thought about anything but revenge, and I was so wrong, so wrong about it all.” She glanced at Adam momentarily, “I never gave you credit for changing because I was so swept up in hating. How could I live so many years and not realize that if I could change so could you? I won’t ask for forgiveness, I doubt there is any to be had for me, but I am even worse than you. At least there was an excuse for the Horsemen, that’s how those days were, but me? Look at what I’ve caused in a day and time where it’s not excusable.” She reached behind her and lifted her sword from its sheath and offered it to Adam. “Just take me out back somewhere and take my head, I deserve worse, but it’s all I have to give in apology.”

Adam shook his head, as words he never thought he’d verbalize began to pour from his lips. “I couldn’t kill you three thousand years ago, and I couldn’t kill you when Kronos reappeared. Haven’t you figured that out yet? I couldn’t stop Kronos back then; he would have had both our heads. The only way to save you, to keep you alive was to let him take you. I was helpless against him then, just as I was when he wanted to reform the horsemen. All I could do was strategize and plan and hope you’d survive it.”

He sighed softly as he watched Duncan’s eyes widen. “You changed my life Cassandra. Sure you were a slave, and I had done that too you, but you changed my life, made me see what else could be out there. You made me realize there was more to life than death and war. I could have recaptured you after you stabbed Kronos, hell I followed you for days, but I let you go, I let you live.”

She gasped softly, “just like you let me live in Paris.”

He nodded wearily, “just like Paris, even though you nearly cost me my best friend.”

She went to reach out to him, confusion painting her eyes a luminous grey. “You cared about me.”

Before he had a chance to respond they both heard a screech of rage and turned towards the sound.

~~~~

Amelia shot to her feet, her scream of rage echoing throughout the building. She raced towards Cassandra hands curled into claws as she went for the woman. “YOU BITCH! I’ll rip your head off with my bare hands!”

Jon bolted up and after Amelia, grabbing her around the waist. “No baby, stop, you can’t do it”

Amelia looked at him wild-eyed, grief and rage shimmering from every pore. “You’re protecting her? The woman who bewitched you into killing Richie? His last words were to take care of you and Ava and you protect the one who caused his death? You may have been the one to use her dagger, but it was HER that caused it.” Her voice dropped into a deathly whisper, “Or do you protect what you fucked?”

He held tightly too her knowing her pain and grief was talking more than her reasoning. “Baby, I’m protecting you not her. You’ll regret it if you do anything before you hear the entire story.”

She twisted in his arms her eyes centering on Cassandra, her need to reach out and snap her neck shining brightly in her eyes. “They want me to listen to you, I can see it in Adam’s eyes and Jon’s and even Duncan’s. All I want to do is give to you what you arranged for Richie. My god what made you think it was ok to cause the death of such a sweet man?” She began to struggle, to get free of Jon’s arms when Cassandra just stood there unable to reply. She wanted so badly to just shake the woman, to make her feel the pain and grief she felt inside, that she knew Jon felt inside.

Jon's entire being was intent upon holding Amelia tight. He knew that if she got loose there would be hell to pay. Adam and Duncan were both intent upon taking Cassandra and stepping back a few paces. They knew if Amelia reached her she would be one short one head. As for Amelia her entire being was centered upon the woman who had started this whole mess.

Each person, in his own space and mind were so intent upon what they were doing that they missed the slight sounds behind them. Soft coughs began to wheeze through a throat that had for 2 hours had been dry and set. Slowly fingers began to twitch as blue fire raced through a body too long on a cold hard surface. Eyelashes fluttered and slowly opened as quizzical brown eyes took in the fact he wasn’t tied anymore, but he ached all over was cold and was still flat out on the floor. With a soft cough he turned his head to the sounds to his left and groaned.

“FUCCCCCCCCCCK, what truck hit me?”

To a person five stunned bodies turned and 5 pairs of eyes took in the personage of Richie Sambora.

“Whaaaaaa?” he started to ask, just as a blistering mind numbing headache struck.