For the Hopeless

"Talon, maybe you should go upstairs," Dameon told the boy gently, watching him from his spot by the doorway. He sat on a chair, the chair that Tawny usually used during her silent vigils, and his dull, empty gray eyes wouldn't leave Bailey's pale face. "You know your presence can't be good for her."

"It saved her life, didn't it?" the boy retorted, though his tone lacked any form of real argument.

"It did, it did," Dameon said, nodding in spite of the fact that Talon couldn't even see him, focused on Bailey as he was. "But it's not helping her now. The threat is gone, and all you're doing by staying with her is giving her sad dreams." It sounded so childish, so unlike him, but it had the desired effect.

Talon turned from Bailey, eyes wide with guilt and worry. It was the first show of real emotion Dameon had seen from him in...well, a long time. "Sad dreams?" he said, voice raspy and growing raspier. "I'm giving her sad dreams?"

Dameon nodded wisely, crossing his arms over his chest and looking very serious. "Yes, sad dreams. She won't sleep well with you here."

"I never meant to give her sad dreams," the boy said solemnly, and the legs of the chair scraped against the floor as he got to his feet. "I only wanted to keep her safe." He paused, looking down at her with that same solemn look. "Like she kept me safe."

"Like she kept all of us safe," Dameon whispered, and the boy nodded. He reached out to touch her cheek, but he thought better of it and turned away.

"Like she kept all of us safe," he repeated in a fragile whisper of his own, then walked past Dameon and out the door. The door to the attic creaked open, then squeaked shut, and Talon was gone. With him went that air of sadness, of suicidal sorrow, and Dameon felt like he could breathe again. He loved the kid in his own way, they all did, but he was just too much.

"I wonder how he feels," Tawny's small voice asked from the door a few moments later. "He and Hayden were sort of close. He...He liked her. He liked her a lot." Dameon turned to find her delicate face peeking around the edge of the doorway, her fingers gripping the frame as if she were scared to be here and had to hold herself in place.

He smiled. He had to. "Did he, now?" he said in the same gentle voice he'd been using with Talon, as if they were both skittish animals that needed to be brought out of hiding. "Did he think about her a lot?"

"More than I thought about Bailey," she whispered, staring past Dameon to the woman lying on the bed, her face all pale and bandaged, "and that's saying something."

"Did she like him?" he asked, genuinely curious, though he was careful to maintain his sweet tone.

"Sort of," she answered as she stepped through the doorway and into the room, a frown of concentration on her face. "She liked him more than she liked the rest of us, but not by much. She didn't really feel for him like he felt for her."

"Understandable, considering what he is and what it's done to him," Dameon remarked, eying her curiously. She crept closer and closer to the bed, almost like a gazelle tiptoeing to the water hole, and her intense focus on Bailey wouldn't wane. "How did she feel about Bailey?" he asked slowly, hesitantly. "Did she harbor any ill will toward her?"

At that, tears sprang to Tawny's eyes as if out of nowhere, and she collapsed onto the chair beside the bed, her rightful place. "Not that I noticed," she said, but she was already sobbing, and the words were nearly unintelligible. "I didn't notice." She buried her face in her hands, her tiny body rocked by sobs in a way that looked incredibly painful, and Dameon frowned.

"It's not your fault," he whispered. "It's nobody's fault." She shook her head violently, body still jerking painfully, and Dameon left the room without another word, simply closing the door behind him. She doesn't need me right now, he thought. They don't need me right now.

Silently, he headed down the hall, pausing beside Madeleine's closed door as the muffled sounds of a hushed conversation drifted through. He leaned closer to listen.

"I still don't understand," he heard Madeleine whisper, and her voice rasped in such a way that he thought she'd been crying. "I don't understand why Hayden would do this. She didn't really like Bailey, but she didn't...she didn't seem like she hated her, either."

"These are tough times we live in," Samara said wisely, and Dameon could imagine her sagely nodding through the door. "Nonhumans have to do what we can to survive. She probably had to betray Bailey for some reason. It wasn't her choice."

"But Bailey saved her life!" Madeleine cried, but she quickly hushed herself. "She saved her life. How could she ever betray her?"

"A better question would be, why was she stupid enough to try?" Samara said thoughtfully. "She should've known that she wouldn't get away with it. Bailey's too strong to go down so easily, and there were other people in the house to stop her."

"She didn't expect Talon to help," Madeleine explained softly. "None of us really did."

"What's his story, anyway?" the older girl asked, and Dameon now imagined her gazing ponderously toward the bedroom door, through which the attic door lay. "What is he? Why is he all...like that? Why does he have such a thing for Bailey?"

"Why do any of us have such a thing for her?" Madeleine asked in response, and the phrase sounded odd coming from her mouth in that tiny little voice of hers. "She saved us. All of us. She's risked her life for us so many times."

"She saved my life, but I don't feel anything for her," Samara said simply. Dameon glared at the door. "I mean, I appreciate it and all, but I don't think I'm going to become one of her many slaves. Don't you think it's odd that you're all so dedicated to her? Don't you think she might have some kind of power over you?"

"She didn't really save your life," Madeleine snapped, likely giving the girl the same glare that Dameon held steady on the door. "Not like she saved ours. You were fine on your own; we needed her. And no, she doesn't have some kind of power over us. If she did, Hayden wouldn't have done what she did, now, would she?" She sounded so adult for her age, and it brought a small smile to Dameon's lips in spite of his anger at Samara.

"Okay, okay," Samara said, sounding heckled. "She doesn't have any power over you. She's just an impossibly amazing person."

"It's because she's a devil, isn't it?" Madeleine plowed on, her voice growing in volume as more and more rage continued to fill it. "You don't like her because she's a devil!"

"No!" Samara cried, and she sounded sincere. "That's not it at all! It's just...she's...she's too...perfect, almost. Especially for a devil."

Madeleine didn't reply for a moment, and Dameon wondered what was going through her mind. He wished he could see her face to decide. "She might be," the girl finally conceded, and a jolt of surprise spiked through him. "But that's just how she is. That's how she's always been. There's nothing wrong with her."

"Well, technically," Samara started, "there is something wrong with her. If she were a normal devil, she wouldn't give a damn about you or the rest of the nonhumans getting caught up in this war."

"You know what I mean," Madeleine said with an exasperated sigh. "She's not trying to control us, and she's not planning to hurt us or anything."

"That you know of," Samara countered, tone laden with suspicion. Madeleine fell silent, and Dameon pictured her face paling at the thought. "Relax," the older girl laughed. "I was just kidding. I don't think she's planning anything bad. I just think she's odd for her species."

"Oh," Madeleine whispered, sounding guilty, and Dameon continued quietly down the hall and down the stairs.

"Where would Hayden have gone?" he wondered aloud just before reaching the living room, which was still filled to the brim with unconscious people and people just now stirring into wakefulness. "Does she even have anywhere else to go?" If she was working for someone, trying to save herself as Samara had suggested, maybe they had a hideout somewhere. If he could just find it...

"Sir, where am I?" an older man asked from his new-found seat upon the chair by the door. His voice was raspy, his throat raw, and he winced with every word he spoke. "Not that I'm not grateful for being out of that hellhole; I'd just like to know."

"You're in a safe place," was all Dameon could say to explain. "You're still in the city, but no one will be hurting you again any time soon. Are you feeling all right? Do you need anything?" he asked, kneeling beside the man to get a closer look at his face and bodily condition. His skin was sallow, his cheeks dipped in to make dark little hollows, but that was how they all looked: malnutritioned and weak. He had dirty-blonde hair, short and greasy and unkempt, and a pair of honey-brown eyes to match. Dameon had assumed that he was older, but as he looked more closely, he discovered that the man was likely not much older than him, in his late-twenties at the latest. It was amazing what a few weeks in captivity could do to a man.

"Some...some food would be nice," the man stammered, unaccustomed to having such a choice. "And...and may I have your name? I'd like to know the man who saved my life."

Dameon smiled. "My name is Dameon, but I'm not the one who saved you. It was two women who fought for your freedom, Bailey and Tawny."

"Thank them for me," the man said, a small smile curving his thin lips. "My name is Carl, by the way, in case you ever have need of it."

"Well, Carl, hello," Dameon said as he straightened from his crouch, continuing to smile down at the man. "I'll be right back with a bit of food for you." He started for the doorway, but before he could make it much farther, a small, feminine voice from behind him asked hesitantly, "Some for me, too? If it's not too much trouble?" He turned to find another old-looking, sallow-faced individual, limbs bony and body slim from malnutrition. She had grimy flaxen hair that fell nearly to her waist and bright, bright blue eyes. Dameon's smile grew.

"Yes, of course," he told her. "It'll be no trouble at all." His eyes scanned the room for more open eyes and pleading faces, and he asked, "Does anyone else need anything?"

Another tiny voice squeaked, "Some food for me, too, please." And another grated, "Over here." No one else spoke, so Dameon nodded and continued on to the kitchen.

He paused in the doorway, blinking slowly as he looked around the vacant space. He'd forgotten that he didn't know how to cook...

-?-

"I'm so sorry," Tawny whispered, rocking back and forth on her chair, her arms wrapped tightly around herself in the gesture of comfort she knew she didn't deserve. "I'm so, so sorry." Bailey lay motionless on the bed before her, pale, bandaged face the only thing peeking out from beneath a thick black comforter. Part of Tawny wanted the woman to wake up; another part wanted her to sleep forever so she never had to face the rage she was sure was hiding away inside her silent mind.

She was silent for a moment, just rocking in her chair and staring at Bailey's face, at the eye that was covered by a bloodied bandage. "If Talon hadn't come down," she started to say, but she cut herself off with a soft sob and buried her face in her hands. When Bailey woke up, Tawny hoped she would punish her, would scream at her or hit her or something, anything to make her feel like she'd gotten what she'd deserved for this heinous act. It didn't matter that it was all Hayden's doing; it only mattered that it was Tawny's hands that did it.

A quiet knock sounded on the door, and Tawny immediately quashed her sobs. "Who...Who is it?" she stammered with a soft, pitiful sniffle.

It's me, a voice echoed in Tawny's mind, a voice she recognized as Aven's after a moment of thought. Is she crying? she heard the woman think in a puzzled whisper; then, more surely, I've come to heal Bailey, if there's anything left for me to do.

Of course I'm crying, you idiot, Tawny thought to herself in the bitterest tone she'd ever heard herself think, but aloud, she said softly, "Her eye...Her eye is still..." She broke off again, burying her face in her hands as she tried to make the thoughts and the tears and the helplessness go away.

The door squeaked open, a sound Tawny heard only in Aven's mind, and the woman's slender, fair-skinned face appeared. I can come back another time, she thought, and Tawny turned to look at her, finding that her green eyes held a hint of sympathy that made Tawny want to blacken them. I'm sure she'll be all right until later.

"No, no," she rasped, and it sounded ugly in Aven's mind. "It's all right. Please, do what you can for her."

Aven stepped forward, offering Tawny a soft smile that carried with it the same sympathy as the look to her eyes. I will, she said in her mind, her pale pink lips moving with the words in a way that was almost hypnotic to Tawny's exhausted, grief-addled mind. She strode past Tawny and her chair, perching herself delicately on the edge of the bed. Her smile faded into a serious frown as she gazed down at Bailey's still face. Who knew such a little girl could do so much damage, she thought, and Tawny glared, especially to a devil. She gently peeled the bandages away from the woman's wounded eye, and though her face carefully held its serious frown, Tawny could hear her reeling in her mind. Oh, God! That's disgusting. But she continued on, holding a hand over the bloody eye, and a soft, golden glow began to emanate from her palm. The wound began to mend itself before Tawny's eyes, and she couldn't keep her glare from becoming a frown of fascination.

It took almost a full minute, but the injury healed without a hitch, becoming only a shallow cut across Bailey's eyelid beneath a layer of dried blood. Aven's forehead was glistening with sweat, though she smiled triumphantly down at her handiwork.

There, she thought in a victorious tone, turning her smile to Tawny. All fixed. Are there any other particularly bad injuries that she has? She turned her attention to gently pulling the bandages away from Bailey's face, and her mind remained quiet as she waited for Tawny's response.

"Uh...No," she said, looking from Aven to the healed wound and back again in what was almost awe. "Nothing nearly as bad as that."

All right, then, Aven thought, her lips moving in that hypnotic way, as she got to her feet, crumpling the bandages into a tight little ball in her hand. Poor girl. I can't imagine how terrible she feels about all this, she went on solely in her mind, even as she smiled right in Tawny's face. I'll throw these away and see how Dameon's doing downstairs, she thought, and her lips were moving again. I'll leave you to clean her up a bit, if you'd like.

"All right," Tawny said, now leveling the woman with a cold, hard glare. This was beginning to get on her nerves. "But you might want to be careful what you think. I can hear you, you know."

At that, Aven's smile vanished, replaced by a look of open-mouthed, wide-eyed horror that brought Tawny way more satisfaction than it probably should have. Oh, uh... But that was all she had to say, and she hurried out the door without another thought. Her Oh, shit reached Tawny from down the hall, however, and the telepath laughed softly to herself.

Maybe I should explain to her how this works sometime, she thought, only to laugh again at the absurdity of the notion. No. It's funnier this way. Her gaze landed on Bailey, and she wanted to slap herself. The love of her life lay on the bed, suffering because of her, and she was laughing, cracking jokes in her mind?

"I'm so sorry, Bailey," she murmured, and dropped her face into her hands once more. "I'm so, so sorry."

-?-

"What's going on in here?" Aven called over the array of clatters and clangs emerging from the kitchen as she stepped through the doorway. Her blush of embarrassment vanished when she saw Dameon rooting through a lower cupboard, pots and pans strewn about before and beside him. "What are you doing?"

"What do you use to make eggs?" the werewolf asked, whipping around to give her a wide-eyed look of confusion.

"Er...What kind of eggs?" she asked, taking a step closer to him.

"I don't know," he answered, a slight panic to his tone. "I...What do you think they'd like?"

"I don't know," she said as she stopped beside him, eying him confusedly. "Why don't you ask them?"

"I don't want to bother them with more questions," he said, lurching to his feet, his hazel eyes wild like those of a madman. "Just tell me what to make. Or – or better yet, make something for me." He gripped her shoulders tightly, but not so tightly that it would hurt her, though the fright in his eyes was enough to startle her. "Please, help me out here."

"I...uh...How about we make scrambled eggs?" she suggested, gently taking hold of his wrists and pulling his hands from her shoulders. A sigh of relief slipped from him to shift the strands of flaxen hair that had escaped from her low ponytail to hang about her face, and she smiled. "That should be easy enough, shouldn't it?" She crouched before the cupboard he'd been digging through and stood almost instantly with a large, black skillet.

"Thank you so much for this, Aven," Dameon said, catching Aven's face as she turned to face him and placing a hard kiss on her lips. "Thank you!"

She laughed, ignoring the roughness of his scraggly facial hair against her delicate skin. "It's no problem, really. I like to help, and I like to cook, so why wouldn't I help you cook?" She smiled up at him, he smiled down at her, and she went on to say, "As nice as this is, would you be a dear and get the eggs and milk? Those people in there looked like they were starving."

"Oh, yeah," he said, quickly releasing her cheeks. "Of course." He rushed to the fridge, and she placed the skillet on the stove, though she watched him rummage about over her shoulder.

"You should shave," she told him, a soft smile adding a much gentler curve to her lips. "But then again, maybe not. You look good that way." He smiled at her, but said nothing as he continued his search through the refrigerator.

It was like the day's events hadn't occurred, like Bailey didn't even matter. It was just Aven and Dameon, alone in the kitchen, and she liked it that way.

-?-

Tawny was on her knees beside the bed, head resting on the mattress and arms dangling at her sides. She was nearly asleep by now, worn out as she was by her incessant crying and emotional exhaustion. The more she dwelt on what had happened, the more she just wanted to lie down and die; but she couldn't die yet, not before Bailey awoke, not while Bailey still needed her; so she settled with sleeping, the bony nubs of Bailey's knuckle against her cheek through the blanket a great comfort to her.

But just as she finally drifted off, finally escaped the numb prison that was her body, a sharp spike in Bailey's brain activity jerked her into full wakefulness. She sat bolt upright, her head leaving the comfort of Bailey's fingers, and turned a frightened gaze to the woman's face. It had been still before, hadn't moved since the incident, but now, it was contorted in a look of pain. She began to writhe beneath the blankets, too, twisting and kicking with her legs until the blanket covered nothing and left all of her bare body exposed but for her feet and ankles. The wounds glared at Tawny from beneath the red-tinged bandages around Bailey's torso, but even the guilt their appearance brought with them wasn't enough to distract Tawny from the woman's sudden discomfort.

A voice rang through the woman's mind, masculine and unintelligible, accompanied by a presence heavy and ominous. It was nothing Tawny had ever felt before, and it terrified her that such a thing had entered Bailey's mind so easily.

Tawny leaped to her feet and grabbed a hold of Bailey's shoulders, trying to pin her down as her body convulsed in an almost seizure-like fashion. "Bailey?" she asked, and the woman's eyes snapped open, both of them glowing red though the right one had an odd white slash down the middle from where it had been stabbed. "Bailey!" A sweep of the devil's arm knocked Tawny clear across the room, and she slammed into the door with a loud thud. She watched as Bailey sat up, hunched over and clutching her head. She was trembling all over, a red tint creeping down her hands from the tips of her fingers, and Tawny could still hear that foreign voice in her mind, mean and powerful, cold and mocking. "Bailey!" she cried again, but the woman let out a wordless shriek that covered every other sound in the room, loud enough that it even hurt Tawny's ears, and she could only hear it as an echo in her mind.

Tawny rushed to her knees and turned to the door, gripping the doorknob in a trembling hand; but when she tried to open it, it wouldn't budge. A presence soon appeared beside her, and only now did Bailey fall silent, falling back against her pillows and gasping for air. A hand appeared over Tawny's on the door handle, abnormally large and crimson red. A muscled red arm accompanied it, and a broad red torso, as well as a pair of long red legs and a handsome, smirking red face. Tawny gasped; it was the devil from earlier, the one who had nearly killed Bailey but had decided to leave her alive for some reason. Had he come to finish her off?

"Dameon!" Tawny screamed, beating helplessly at the door. "Dameon!" But the devil did nothing, merely letting her continue her fear-induced flailing as he turned his attention to the woman on the bed.

You're quite the strong-willed woman, if I do say so myself, the devil thought, his words calm and concise in Tawny's mind. It took me quite some time to get into your head.

"Dameon!" Tawny shrieked one more time, and the sound of a body slamming against the other side of the door responded. The noise came over and over, but the door never budged, never buckled, never flinched. The devil must have been doing something to it.

What do you want? Bailey asked, and the sound of her voice, full-bodied and strong in Tawny's mind, made the girl want to cry. She was okay.

Tawny! Dameon's voice echoed through her mind. Bailey! What's going on?

The devil stepped away from the door and appeared beside Bailey in a flash, leaning over the bed and taking her hand in a most gentlemanly way. I merely wanted to see how you were doing after our little clash earlier, he answered, placing a slow kiss upon her palm, then another on the inside of her wrist. It looks like you've been busy without me, Bailey girl.

There was the sound of two bodies against the door now, and Tawny vaguely wondered who had joined in. Talon? Aven? One of the children? But her eyes lingered on Bailey, who didn't refuse the devil's touch, who didn't show the slightest hint of disgust or aggression. What was she doing?

Those bandages make you look quite lovely, the devil went on when Bailey said nothing, merely gazing up at him in wonder, but the whiteness of your skin – it doesn't suit you. Both of her hands were red-skinned now, and the color was creeping up her arms. Her eyes, too, still glowed crimson. Was he forcing her to turn?

Tawny! came Dameon's voice again. Tawny, what's going on?

Oh, God, was Aven's voice beneath that, and she sounded like she was hyperventilating even in her thoughts. Oh, God!

The bodies hit the door again, and again, then just one last time, and the door finally came open, surprisingly without the splintering of wood Tawny had expected. It came open cleanly, as if someone had twisted the knob and opened it for them, those two bodies assaulting it from the other side. Dameon and another man, one of the rescues who had been unconscious downstairs, stumbled into the room, both of them looking mildly surprised at their sudden success; but Dameon's mind turned to Bailey almost instantly, and he lunged at the male devil with no other thought in his mind but her name.

The devil reached for him with a clawed hand, lips pulled back in a fang-baring snarl, but Bailey caught his wrist before he could touch Dameon. No, the woman growled in her mind, and the ferocity to her voice frightened Tawny, not Dameon. Not any of them. Not now. A red haze enveloped the pair, spilling from Bailey in a rush, and suddenly, they were gone.

Dameon struck only air with a tightly clenched fist, lips already parting in an angry scream. "No! Give her back!" But there was nothing that he could do now; there was nothing that any of them could do.