Blanket of Fear

“No. Absolutely fucking not.” Matt shook his head, crossing his arms as he looked down at his wife, who was just as stubborn as he was. And right now, she was beginning to become just as pissed off as he sounded as well. Val put her hands on her hips, glowering at him.

“Matthew Sanders, she’s not a war criminal. She could help us. She knows his ins and outs better than any of us do. The least we can do is treat her a little more like she’s one—”

“Don’t you even finish that sentence, Valery. “Leigh is not one of us. If anything, she’s one of them even if she doesn’t know it. We don’t know the kinds of experiments he performed on her. For all we know, that’s how he found the Complex in the first place.”

“She doesn’t deserve to be shackled to the goddamn wall, Matt! I’m not saying we have to put her in a huge, comfortable bedroom, but can’t you at least unchain her?” Val sighed, pushing a hand through her blonde hair.

“No.”

“Matt, how would you feel if they chained me to the wall?” She shot back, using a different approach. Maybe if she could see things from Johnny’s perspective, she could persuade him to let her down off the wall, at least for a little while. Instead of answering her how she’d expected him to, however, his words shocked the hell out of her and pissed her off more than she’d been at him in a long time.

“If you were in the position Leigh was? If you’d been experimented on? I’d chain you to the goddamn wall myself, Val.” He said simply. When he saw her eyes widen in shock and anger, his own hazel eyes softened, and he realized that perhaps he’d been a little too brash with his honesty. “Look, I know she’s probably a decent person. That’s the only thing she has going for her right now. She hasn’t complained once.”

“Could it be because Tobin and Jacoby keep shooting threats at her, maybe?” Val shot back, anger blazing in her eyes. At the sound of their names being spoken, the two men looked over and gave her a friendly smile before turning away.

“They’re doing what Zack told them to do, Eliza. We all are. He has a helluva lot more riding on this whole thing with Sean than the rest of us do. He knows what makes him tick. That’s why he’s in charge of everything Sean Castro-related.”

“Then why don’t we fucking send her back to him?” She asked Matt, her voice low. A part of her, quite a large part, felt bad for even thinking that they should just let Sean have Eliza back. “Wouldn’t that be the best thing for Bat Country?”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Jimmy’s voice said, walking over to the two of them and inserting himself into the conversation as if he’d been there all along. “If we gave Eliza back to him now, it would only provoke him into attacking with stronger force. We’d look weak. And besides, it’s not just Eliza he’s out for now. He wants revenge for Michelle’s death.”

“Don’t say her name.” Val hissed at the taller man, glowering at him the same way she’d glared at Matt. Instead of shrinking at her anger, he rolled his eyes. Was every female in the house PMSing or something? Leana wasn’t feeling right, and he remembered only too well his conversation with a moody Eliza. And now Val was distressed. He missed when everything had been calm and everybody was chill, but he knew that until everything was cleared over with Sean, it would most likely remain like this—the five of them getting all the shit thrown at them from the women because they were doing their job.

“You know as well as I do that she was a traitor, Val. Snap out of it. Can’t you see that everything you’re loyal to and love is in jeopardy?” Jimmy asked her pointedly, keeping his voice calm.

Val didn’t reply to him, but instead made a frustrated sound that was somewhere between a growl and a scream as she stormed away from the two of them, not wanting to be around them at the moment. She was extremely upset, not only at the fact that she’d walked in to what had been Johnny’s bedroom only to see that Leigh had been chained to the wall so that she couldn’t move, but also the fact that she knew Jimmy was right.

Everything she loved was changing. It seemed like only a few weeks ago that life was going smoothly. They hadn’t needed to worry about Sean Castro, and everyone had been happy. Sure, Zacky had been a little depressed because he didn’t have a ‘bonding partner,’ as he called herself and Leanna, but he’d made it through okay with different girls that lasted a few weeks or so before he got tired of them.

In a way, she both loved and hated the fact that he had Eliza. She was happy because the feisty redhead gave Zack a run for his money, with her hot temper and quick mouth. She was happy because Eliza gave him something worth fighting for; someone to love, someone to keep the humanity in him in check. But she also hated the fact that Eliza had changed him so much seemingly overnight. Zack had gone from a strong leader who thought only with his brain to someone who let his emotions fuel his actions, and it had proven over the course of the last few weeks that it didn’t work so well. And a part of her blamed Eliza for what had happened with Michelle, too. She knew that her sister had been betraying Avenged much longer than since Eliza had joined their ranks, but it had been Eliza who had helped to expose that.

“Val?” Eliza’s voice cut into her thoughts, causing the blonde to look up, forcing a smile on her face. Unlike her husband, she wasn’t going to treat someone like shit just because she had mixed feelings about them.

“What’s up?” She gave a halfhearted smile at the redhead, who looked like she’d had her own rough morning. Eliza sighed, pushing her hands through her hair before letting her gaze meet Val’s again.

“Can you, uh, show me where the library’s at? I haven’t really had a lot of time to get used to this place yet.” She said sheepishly. Val smiled at her and nodded, knowing that she was probably going to see Zacky. He’d locked himself in the library the day he’d gotten back from bringing Leigh and Johnny back, and he hadn’t left since.

She led Eliza up the stairs again and turned down a hall before she stopped in front of the stairwell that would lead to the attic.

“It’s just up those stairs.” She said before turning away. She had only gotten a few feet before Eliza called her name, and she stopped to turn and look at the redhead. “Yeah?”

“I…Uh, I know that you’re not happy with something, and that something is probably me. But I just wanted to say thanks, because you’ve been a good friend.”

Val nodded, a smile forming on her face as she walked away, leaving Eliza alone to walk up the stairs to the library in the attic.

-x-

The door at the top of the stairwell was locked when Eliza tried to open it, and she sighed in frustration as she shook the doorknob, trying in vain to get it to give. “Zack, please open the door.”

She heard someone shuffling around in the room before the door opened, exposing him to her. Even though it had only been four or so days since he’d last taken blood from her, he was already too pale to look reasonably healthy for a vampire, and the dark bags she remembered seeing at Papa Roach’s estate were beginning to form underneath his eyes.

“What do you want, Elizabeth?” He asked her, using her full name in a way that made her wince. She took a shaky breath, that feeling of intimidation she’d felt when she first met him beginning to come back.

“We need to talk.” She started, before Zack sighed under his breath.

“No, we don’t. You said everything that needed to be said a few nights ago.” He said to her, moving to close the door on her again. In an effort to stop him, she put her foot between the door and the frame, forgetting that she was currently standing on the landing and losing her balance. Just as she’d begun falling backwards, she felt Zack’s hand grab her wrist, stopping her from falling all the way down the staircase. In those few seconds, he had apparently changed his mind because he pulled her in to the library before closing the door behind himself.

“What do you want to say?” He asked her as he moved over to a chair that stood in front of a small window, not meeting her gaze as he crossed his arms over his chest. She made another small sigh, forcing herself to keep her anger and frustration in check. She hadn’t come here to fight with him.

“I’m sorry.” She told him, looking at the floor when she felt his gaze on her rather than the scenery outside of the window. “I…What I did was wrong, even if I thought it was right.”

She hated the fact that she was saying the words. She hadn’t really thought she was wrong until Jimmy had come to talk to her, and she had a feeling that somehow, he’d convinced her against her will that she was wrong and Zack was right. Either way, she felt bad for having upset the dark-haired, green-eyed man like she had.

“That’s not what you should apologize for, Eliza.” He told her, crossing his arms over his chest. “And I don’t want to hear it unless you really mean it, either.”

“What do you want me to say?” She asked in an exasperated tone. “That I love you? That it’s infuriating to me that you act the way you do sometimes? Do you want me to tell you that sometimes you piss me off so much that all I want to do is kick you where it hurts and then hug you?”

A smirk lit up Zacky’s face as she met her gaze, and he got up and walked over to her, looking down at her. His eyes had emotions in them that, once again, Eliza found herself unable to decipher, and she looked at the floor, feeling embarrassed for what she’d said.

“That’s exactly what I want you to say.” He whispered into her ear, pulling her into a hug and kissing the top of her head before stepping back from her, a small frown on his face. “But it doesn’t change the fact that you don’t want to be around me.”

“What are you talking about?” She asked him, crossing her own arms over her chest. “I’m here, aren’t I? I came to see you, didn’t I?”

“Jimmy is the one who told you where I was. You wouldn’t have known I was here if he hadn’t now, would you?” He retorted. Eliza sighed, feeling another fight coming on, and she decided that she could try to play it neutral so that that didn’t happen.

“I wanted to know where you were.” She whispered, meeting his gaze again. “I…Felt really bad about…thinking what you heard.” She added in a quieter voice. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me, Zack. I don’t know why I let myself think that.”

“Maybe you should figure it out before you decide you want to see me.” He said, his voice thick with the emotions that were in his eyes. “I’ll be in the bedroom tonight, like you’re thinking about asking me to be. Just go for now, please.”

With that, he turned away from her, and Eliza sighed as she walked out of the library, wondering what he’d meant and why he was all of a sudden agreeing to come to the bedroom.