My heart still pounding wildly, I got out of the bathtub, dried myself off and got dressed. I trotted down the stairs to join my brother in the living room. He was holding onto his cell phone with a white-knocked grip. When he looked up at me, it was with wide, empty eyes.

"That was Dad," he told me. "I just got off the phone with him."

"What did he say?" I asked, the hairs on my neck standing on end.

"Okay, so… he picked up the third time I called and I told him I was here. With you." Casimir let out a deep sigh, raking a slender hand through his hair. "I think he kind of got an idea about what was going on then already. He went all quiet and then I said, we know what you did, and he said he wanted to come over. He'll be here in a few days."

I swallowed thickly. "He will?"

"Yeah." Cas lightly kicked the wooden floorboards. "That's okay with you, right?"

"I guess so. But this isn't gonna end well. He's gonna… I-I'll have to…" My voice faltered. "I mean, he killed people. He wanted to kill the woods." Probably even me, I added in my mind.

"Yeah. I know. And whatever you're gonna do, I'll have your back."

I stepped forward and wrapped him into a hug. He sighed into my shoulder.

Little brother.

I don't know why, but those two words have never felt this wonderful up until now.

"I love you." My voice was low and brittle.

"I love you, too, Fi."

Warm, peaceful silence. Casimir's heated cheek pressing against mine as snowflakes started raining from the steel-gray sky outside, the wind gluing them to the windowpanes. And then, all of a sudden, a choked sob.

"Fiona, I need to tell you something."

It came out as a shaky plea whispered against the side of my head. Cas didn't untangle himself from our embrace.

"Alright," I answered, holding him a little tighter.

"I-I can't. I don't…" He faltered and trailed off. "I need you to know but it feels too strange to say."

"Is it a big thing?"

"Yes."

"Do you maybe wanna tell me bit by bit?"

"Okay. Yeah, uh, that might work." He straightened up, raising his head. "You know how I said I took time off to come here? That wasn't entirely true. I quit."

"You quit?" I repeated, perplexed but making an effort to keep my tone steady and gentle. I didn't want to pry too much. Cas nodded, and I narrowed my eyes at him. "I thought you loved your job."

"I did. But that's not how I want to spend my time anymore." He squared his shoulders. "That's all I wanna say at the moment. I don't wanna be weird or rude or whatever, I just… need to get my head straight. It's really nice to be here with you, though—I want you to know that."

Ominous. I still forced a smile. "That's fine. And you can stay for however long you like." I meant it. The money wasn't a problem. Actually, something occurred to me—with the property obscured from the eyes of outsiders, perhaps I could let some of the workers go in the near future. It'd be sad and probably cause me some more headaches down the line, but that way, I could easily afford to entertain multiple people at the estate with a little more financial security and peace of mind. Then again, that would mean I'd have to uphold my dealings with Nick… not the most pleasant prospect. Whatever the case, I would do anything to keep my brother around.

"Thanks for having me. There's no place I'd rather be." He cleared his throat. "The guards made it through the earthquake okay, by the way. It was a shock, obviously, but nobody's hurt."

I nodded slowly. "I'll send them home for the next couple days. Shit is gonna go down hard soon and I don't want to have them around for it. We don't really need any help right now, and keeping them around would only be putting them into unnecessary danger."

"Okay. Yeah, that's sensible, I guess."

I went about making the necessary calls, seeing each of the employees out as they passed by the house on their way off the property. Most of them didn't really question my unexplained decision. Gus was the only one who showed definitive concern. He tried to ask me if something was wrong, but I blew him off as gently as I could. I did think he deserved an explanation, but it was for the best. He gave in eventually and left, but not before throwing a glance back at me with that trusting yet reproachful look that kind of reminded me of an old, grumpy dog.

"So what now?" Cas asked as I shut the door behind the senior employee.

"I guess we wait."

First, I went upstairs. My father coming back was definitely a grave occasion, so I figured I'd have to look the part the next couple days. I can't say why exactly I cared—Lord knows I don't have any regard for the man. But I did want him to see me as a serious head of the house, someone who knows what she's doing. So I ended up picking the simplest and least flashy dress I owned; the kind of thing I normally only wear on dates.

Yup, I've done dates like this. I go out with normal people! It's not like I'm a total freak. Most folks were pretty taken aback by the whole wedding gown-thing, but not enough not to look past it for at least a little while.

Casimir and I spent the rest of the day watching movies. That was actually pretty nice, and while I couldn't dispel the thoughts of emotionally distant fathers and intrusive Devils showing up around the house, I rather enjoyed myself. It helped that the sweaters Cas had taken to wearing around the house are incredibly soft, so I could rest my head on him like a pillow. The evening brought more snow and calming reprieve. It felt weird looking out at the treeline and knowing that for the first time in ages, there wasn't a single human back there. I couldn't help but wonder how many corpses would show up once it would begin to thaw. For now, they'd lie in silence, slowly getting covered up in layers and layers of white. The thought made me shiver, despite striking me as oddly poetic.

Two mornings later, our doorbell rang.

It was so weird that the man whose arrival I had been dreading so much would simply come up to the house and ring the doorbell. I would have expected him to make an entrance like the ones Nick had been treating me to. Of course I'd known that wasn't actually going to happen, but it still made me feel sort of underwhelmed.

I sat down at the head of the kitchen table, back straight, hands in my lap. "Do I look serious?" I asked Cas, nervously fiddling with the lace sleeve of my dress.

"Sure. Just stop shaking and you're good to go. Should I open?"

"Please do," I said softly.

Cas nodded grimly, wiping his sweat-laced palms on his pants. "R-right," he breathed, looking this way and that before turning on his heel and heading for the door. I heard him pulling it open and exchanging awkward words of greeting with a rugged-voiced man.

I tried to focus on my breathing to soothe my nerves.

In. Out. In. Out.

Heavy footsteps in the hallway.

In. Out. In. Out.

I clenched my fingers into fists to stop them from trembling. Why was I afraid of him?

In. Out. In. Out.

Floorboards creaking under his weight.

In. Out. In. Out.

My brother's voice, introducing us like we didn't know each other. "So, Dad… remember your eldest? You guys haven't spoken in how long again?"

No response.

In. Out. In. Out.

I turned to face him.

My father had changed since I'd last seen him. His large, once handsome face had gained an abundance of wrinkles and two extra chins. His pale green eyes were bloodshot with deep bags beneath them and his reddened face told a story of someone who'd been to the bottoms of far too many bottles. How strange, for a man of his faith.

It had been a long time since I'd last attempted to focus on somebody's aura, but this time, I did. Mostly, it just made me feel weird. My father's energy bore a slight trace of the supernatural, though not in the way I was used to seeing. He must have been dabbling with witchcraft, though it was hard to tell what kind.

"Maxwell. Please take a seat," I said coldly, gesturing at the chair across from me.

The response was a mere grunt as he moved over, slowly letting himself sink into the cushion. We locked eyes. There was no love in his gaze, not even a hint of affection. No surprises there.

"Good to see you, girl," he said tonelessly.

I let out a bitter laugh. "Of course. So, Daddy, you've been busy. Care to tell me what the fuck your game is?"

"Nothing you could understand."

"Then why are you here, if not to explain yourself?"

"I've come to end this."

"Well, go right ahead. I'd very much like for you to cease your attempts at undermining me, wholly unsuccessful though they've been so far."

Maxwell leaned forward on his elbows. "Will you hear me out, then?"

"I certainly will. And I have a ton of questions."

Dad shrugged. "Might actually be easier that way. Go ahead."

I swallowed thickly. "Why do you look fifteen minutes away from dying?"

"I have high blood pressure, digestive problems and my heart seems to be in some kind of trouble as well. As you may have guessed from my looks, that all happened due to severe use of alcohol. I'm past saving at this point; I know I'll be drinking myself to death. Sooner rather than later, I believe."

"Oh." That was the only sound I could produce as I regarded my father with raised brows. The clarity with which he spoke was nothing short of determined. "Wh… how? Why are you doing that to yourself?"

Maxwell shrugged. "That's just how it is. It's been going on for a long time now. I'm well aware I won't be there to see the good that my work will do, and I know that I, too, live sinfully, but I know that it will be worth it."

"What will be worth it?"

"There's a power struggle going on at the moment. Chaos and order. They're at an imbalance, for reasons greater than your comprehension. And whether you like it or not, you happen to be a part of it. Your woods, to be exact."

"Ah. You're about to go on about that whole unclaimed territory-thing, aren't you? I've heard it before." I stapled my fingers, tilting my head at him. "Your adversary's filled me in."

"So it's true. Don't get me wrong, I knew you had dealings with the Devil, but it's something else to hear you say it." He exhaled, leaning back in his chair. "I'm not even all that surprised. My daughter, hell's whore."

"What did you just call her?" Cas growled, his voice deeper and angrier than I'd ever heard before. He was still standing beside the table, almost as if he expected the situation to escalate at any second and didn't trust the momentary calm enough to sit down.

"I will not have you speak to me like that under my roof," I said sternly. "You've got no authority here anymore. You're a guest, at best, and not even a beloved one. If you want to leave here in one piece, you should watch your mouth."

"Don't you get it? I don't care what you're gonna do to me. It doesn't matter. I have literally nothing to lose."

"I'll make you eat those words," I promised somberly.

Dad merely chuckled. He was definitely not the easiest person to intimidate. "You're just like your mom, you know that? A self-serving, stupid little cu—"

Before he could finish that sentence, Cas had slapped his square across the face. Our father let out a low groan as he slowly reached up to rub his jaw. "You've got a… a strong right arm there, son," he muttered, seemingly making an effort to sound relaxed.

"So do you want it, too? The sleeping entity?" I asked impatiently.

"You really are well informed. Yes, I do. So, do you happen to know where to find it?"

"Yup. Not gonna tell you, though. I guess I could, but you aren't making a sound argument by calling me names."

"You're saying you'd refuse to give up such important information purely out of spite?"

"Yeah, pretty much. But I also really don't think this is a good decision. There has always been a balance between chaos and order, why rock the boat now?"

My father let out a long-suffering sigh. "Because the situation is more volatile than it used to be."

"Since you're not going to explain yourself further, I stand by what I said. I have a responsibility towards the woodland denizens. Removing the sleeper from these grounds could be dangerous. I don't think an entity that powerful will take lightly to being roused. I happen to have made it stir in its sleep not too long ago, and it ended up being a mild natural catastrophe. I don't want to imagine what it could do if it lashed out. Especially since a trusted source has told me that it is, in fact, probably highly intelligent. It's made people go insane in the past. It can appear anywhere, anytime, if it so pleases. This thing waking up and wreaking havoc… that's not something I wanna risk." I straightened my back, fixing my father with a resolute gaze. "I'll protect my land at all costs."

Maxwell scoffed. "You and your land, it's always the fucking land… Why would you even care about this place? I never understood that. It was like that when you were a kid, too. One moment you were chewing my ear off about wanting to go and be a movie star, or make a career in fashion, and the next you'd go spouting all that same nonsense your mother did when I first met her! Old family duties and all that crap… Fiona, the world is not a big fucking forest anymore! These creatures who live here might seem powerful to you, but they're some of the last of their kind—and good riddance, too. The world belongs to us now."

"Not this part of the world," I said, not missing a beat. I flinched when the large man brought his hand down on the table with a slam.

"I knew it! I fucking knew you'd be that way! That's why I pulled all this off. I figured, maybe, with a couple good blows to your little system, you'd realize how vulnerable you are, but no, my daughter is as hard-headed as she is slutty."

"Why the fuck are you talking to her like this?" Cas barked, fire in his eyes.

"Why aren't you?" Dad shot back. "All this woman has ever done is hog your mother's attention, making her forget about the rest of us by crawling up her ass!"

"I didn't crawl up— What the hell are you even on about?" I snapped.

"You did! You know why your mother liked you best? You know why you were her little princess? She wanted you to live the life she'd planned for herself, before—"

"Before you got in the way," I interrupted him, voice low with sudden understanding.

My father rose from his chair. "I tried… I tried to change her. Do you think I was happy, having to live here? Taking on her last name? That's not how it was supposed to be… When I met her, I thought she needed a firm hand, you know, just to guide her to the right path. And she seemed open to it. And then she got pregnant with you, and we got married, and I had to come live in this den of freaks, and she… she…"

"She regretted it," I finished his sentence for him.

My father let out a sharp scream as he hurled himself across the table, the wood screaming in protest, but he didn't quite reach me. For a moment, he flopped around helplessly, trying to grab me as I jumped up and scurried away from him.

"What are you doing?" Casimir yelled, gripping the back of the older man's shirt and forcibly dragging him to the floor in a display of surprising strength. I'd forgotten how fit my little brother actually was. He was still rather clumsy when it came to hand-to-hand, though, and it showed when my father pulled him down with him and struck him square across the face. I instantly lunged forward, flinging myself on top of my father as well, but he pushed me right off, sending me rolling aside. My head connected with the floorboards with a dull pain, and it took me some effort to push myself back up, my vision blurry.

I screamed in horror when I saw that Dad had climbed on top of Casimir and was viciously slamming his upper body down onto the floor, meaty hands clutching his shoulders. Cas fell limp before I could reach him. Maxwell slowly rose to his feet, breathing heavily as he removed the handgun from my brother's waistband. "That boy… shoulda shot me when he had the chance," he pressed out, breathing heavily.

I choked out a sob as my eyes darted between Cas and him. I didn't have time to form any clear thoughts. I just kept repeating the word no in my head over and over again, like a mantra. Dad raised the gun, proceeding towards me as he faced me with an icy calm. His mouth lifted into a cruel smile, his swollen lips reminding me of twin caterpillars. "Tell me where it is, Fiona."

"You're insane."

How was this man my Dad? How in the world was he pointing a weapon at me?

This was not how this was going to end. Throwing one last look at my unconscious brother, I sent a prayer to… I didn't even know who. I didn't care. Let him be okay. For fuck's sake, let him be okay, or I'll turn the world upside down. Then, I took off running.

My only chance. My father wouldn't shoot me dead; I'd be useless to him that way, but I wasn't going to give him the chance to incapacitate me. I sprinted towards the front door, tearing it open and bursting outside. The snow crunched beneath my boots as I raced across the frozen ground. The fabric of my dress stretched wider, groaning with every leap that I took, until the tight long skirt finally ripped along the side, leaving it fluttering around my legs in the wind. Aleksei. Please don't be far. If I could just reach him in time, he'd be able to help me. I turned my head to find my father following behind me. His face was bright red and he was already gasping for air. He might have been stronger than me, but goddamn, was he slow.

I was approaching the Twin Lakes rapidly, the abandoned black mill looming overhead like a specter. No time to slow down. I ran right onto the ice, only to instantly lose my footing and skitter across the frozen surface. My fall was humiliatingly unceremonious and extremely painful. I landed on my chest, the impact knocking the air out of my body, leaving me gasping for breath in desperation. My arms were shaking too much to push me back up, and I cursed my own stupidity as I realized I had literally no strength left within me.

That's when I heard a sharp yell.

My father had reached me, stumbling after me onto the ice. But he wasn't able to keep his balance any longer than I had. He howled in shock as he tripped and fell, the gun slipping from his fingers and sliding across the lake, coming to a halt out of our reach. I glanced at it for a second, then back at the struggling man before lunging for the weapon.

I would have liked to, at least.

As it was, all I could do in my state was to hastily crawl towards it. My father appeared to have been struck with the same idea—I heard him wheezing and choking as he crept up the slippery surface. I was just relieved that the layer of ice was thick enough to support our joint weight.

"You bitch," he gritted out. "You're gonna doom us all!"

I looked back at him, meeting a bloodshot gaze amidst a contorted expression. His mouth hung open, blood gushing from his nose and lower lip—he seemed to have fallen onto his face. He made for a dreadful sight. He somehow managed to draw himself up, staggering over to me and throwing his entire weight onto my already aching body. I let out a cry of agony, feeling a crack somewhere inside of me, though I couldn't tell where. I had been reduced to a squirming heap of pain. He rolled off of me again, then made for the gun, and this time, he got a hold of it. I flopped over onto my back, staring at the cold gray sky as my chest rose and fell unsteadily. Once more, I couldn't seem to take in enough air. I whimpered as my father pushed himself into my field of vision, the muzzle of the gun pointed at my head.

At that moment, he reminded me of Jeremy. Those same milky, crazed eyes that seemed to pierce my own with their glare; the way every crease in his face appeared to exude hatred…

"This is so fucked up," I whispered, desperately searching his features for some semblance of mercy.

"Where is it, Fiona?"

I couldn't seem to focus. "You're supposed to be my Dad… You stupid piece of shit…"

"Where is it?" He leveled the gun at my kneecap, bending down to touch its end to the exposed skin. "This is gonna hurt, you know."

"I know," I said softly, closing my eyes.

"So where is it?"

I stayed silent.

He sighed, I heard him cock the gun and then scream in shock.

My eyes flew open to see that he had let go of the gun which was now resting right beside my leg. He'd jumped to his feet and was furiously patting at his jacket sleeve as smoke rose from the fabric. Out of nowhere, it lit up into a large flame, searing his flesh and drawing howls of agony and raw, deadly fear from his throat. The horror of the sight had me paralyzed for just a moment, frozen to the spot before snapping out of it. I reached for the firearm, hurrying to put the safety back on as I stumbled away from my dad. His cries cut through the silence of the woods, each one shaking me to my very core as I watched on in complete bewilderment.

"You fucking witch! What did you do to me?" he bellowed, throwing himself onto the ground to try and smother the flames that were slowly but deliberately lapping away at his arm.

Afraid the ice was going to give in, I backed off onto dry land, still unable to tear my eyes off the writhing man. My heart was racing, my head reeling—I had no idea what was happening. And then, all of a sudden, I felt something I can only describe as a "disturbance in the force". A ripple of energy, or perhaps just an instinct compelled me to turn and look over at the black gristmill. There was a figure standing just outside of the old building. A short, broad one, dressed in all black, staring intently at my father.

I couldn't contain myself. Before I even knew what I was doing, a sharp cry of joy had left my lips, and I found myself stumbling over to the other person on wobbly legs. Every step hurt, straining muscles I didn't even know I had. I stopped a few feet ahead of the newcomer. The gun dropped from my trembling hands, sinking into the snow, and I followed shortly after. Before my upper body could hit the ground though, I felt strong arms wrap around me, holding me up.

This was like a fairy tale. Sure, I was bleeding and aching all over, and the tongue that moved to lick the warm tears off my face was rough and forked, but still. This was like a fucking fairy tale.

Jacek pulled back, tilting his head at me with a lopsided smile.

I mirrored the movement before everything turned black.

X

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

Part 18

Part 19

Part 20

Part 21

Part 22

Part 23

Part 25