Sqaure -9

Jack strode down Knockturn Alley, deciding maybe to chance a stop to Satan's. Not for any reason but to make sure that Vito was still functioning and alive. Usually, she would not bother to check because she was sure it would only be bad news for her and that was usually the last thing she needed. But there was something different lately, something that gave her a chance to have these pleasant sort of urges. Something that had never really had happened before.

Jack was happy.

The Triwizard tournament was done with, but she had done exceedingly well in the first task, almost getting perfect scores on certain portions of it. The Quidditch team was finally beginning to shape up a little bit. She was not dreadful in her classes. Chase had sent her Christmas gifts so she did not hate her. Andrew was alive and well. Potter's Army was not failing. She had almost been killed by werewolves but she had found Ariel really cared... and had been surprised (and almost scared) to find she really cared back.

She felt happy. It was weird. For most of her life she had been disgruntled, irritated, left out, unhappy, and alone. Now that her happiness sort of outweighed all of those feelings, she was not sure what to do with herself. Maybe a visit to Vito could prove useful. If she was in a good mood, maybe she could be more on top of her game and actually do something right.

But Vito wasn't there. That's what the doorman said anyhow. And she did not have much money on her. She did not want to waste it to find out that the doorman had not been lying to her. That would be simply wasteful. Instead, she sighed and turned around, though her spirit was not dampened too badly. She decided maybe a trip to Zonko's would not be so bad. So she left Satan's and began down the street back towards Diagon Alley.

Jack knew when people were following her. It was obvious. Footsteps that eventually began to line up with her own, that followed her, a shadow that touched her at every turn. She finally slowed and heard the steps slow too. She stopped in her tracks and there was two more steps before the steps followed her too. She put on a scoffing look and turned around, opening her mouth.

A fist caught her on the chin.

She let out a grunt and felt her hand fly for her pocket, pulling out her wand as she tumbled towards an alley between two shops. But the figure was already approaching. She felt something grip her wrist, hard- so bad that the nails holding it broke skin- and she heard a voice. “Gary. There's no need for that now, I got her.”

She whipped around, yanking away, but all that she got in return was the nails sliding against her wrist even more, blood beginning to trickle. She saw the figure, still bathed in the shadows of the alley, that was attached to her wrist. She turned her head the other way and saw a hulking, familiar looking man. Jack scrunched her eyebrows and then looked back towards the alley, where the figure was stepping out.

She had seen this man in Satan's before, she knew that. She scowled and said, “This really isn't a wise career choice, you know. You might want to reconsider being an asshole and let me go.”

He chuckled, “Cruel words for a stranger.”

“You're one to talk!” she spat back. She tried to twist from his grip but the larger man strode forward and gave her another knock to the head that would have made her fall if the other man did not have such a good grip. Again, he shouted, “Gary! I said enough!”

Jack blinked away all of the stars that were swimming in her vision and steadied herself, feeling sticky blood on the side of her head beginning to trickle towards her ear. She felt her wand get wrenched from her grip and she felt a little dizzy, though she kept herself standing as she let out a string of profanities aimed at the men.

“Tim... I've seen this girl before... She was at the shack when we found the boy.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“So there may be a price on her yet...”

Jack focused her eyes on the hulking man and realized he was a werewolf, one of the ones that had attacked Ariel and herself at the Shrieking Shack. She licked her lips and said, “Now I remember you... I almost didn't recognize you without your tail tucked between your legs...”

Gary made a threatening move forward and since the other man- Tim- had just stolen Jack's wand he made a motion with it towards Gary. Jack's beautiful, beautiful wand... It made a noise like a bang and threw both men back, though Jack went flying with Tim. She turned midair and landed on top of him and when they hit the ground she gave him a quick punch to the cheek and snatched her wand. She tripped over him and ran a few feet, turning and sending a stunning shot for him, that he deflected with his own. Suddenly, something hit her legs and she flew forward, her head hitting the pavement. Gary had bowled over her and tumbled off of her, but she could not breathe now. She turned over and felt her diaphragm open for air and her lungs seize and she gasped a gulp of air. She began to get up to make a break for it-

A foot came down on her arm and pinned it against the ground. She felt her bones creak and crack but her fingers stubbornly remained around her wand. She tipped it upward and croaked, “Bombardo!” but the man from the alley deflected it and then tore her wand from her hand, practically ripping her fingers from their sockets.

Gary seized her by the scruff of her neck and yanked her up so that her feet were dangling and she was facing the other man. He had his share of bumps and bruises, but he was leering at her nevertheless. “They were right, weren't they? You were not going to be a fun little plaything. You were going to act like a big kid, try to act tough, and not let us do what we wanted. I could respect that... But you're a filthy mudblood that needs to learns its place.”

“And you're a petty criminal desperately seeking attention, nice to meet you,” she said back.

He smiled. “That's not a proper introduction. My name is Tim Collins, and this is my associate Gary, whom you already seem to know. You see, nowadays, some bad guys are supposed to do some bad things, you know. We're supposed to hurt students. And mudbloods. And guys who are on the side of the Order. Or Potter's Army. Or who might be missed.” He smirked. “And from what our sources tell us, Miss Dyllan, that does not leave you in a favorable position, does it?”

Jack stared at him, her blood running cold. She blinked slowly, her eyes closing to give her time to digest this fact. She hoped there was someone nearby, someone who knew her, who would fight them, or kill her. Kill her before these men could use her, could take her as a hostage or something. She would not be bait. She would not be used. She would not be harmless, hopeless, helpless. She would rather be dead.

She spun and felt her foot connect with his shin. He doubled over and Gary lumbered forward, but she kicked out and hit the area between his legs. He immediately fell forward and she darted away so that he was falling on Collins. She began to sprint towards Satan's, thinking maybe she could disappear in the thick of people dancing, something...

Something closed around her ankle and she was sent sprawling forward, gashing her jaw as she tried to pull herself away, kicking her leg, though the strong hand remained there. She turned and decided she was sick of being on the defensive. Gary was still clinging to her ankle so she pounced forward, letting forth a flurry of fists on Gary's back and neck, pinning him with her knees. He flung his arm around and his fist caught her cheek, sending her flying onto the pavement.

She was on her hands and knees, one of her eyes closing from the swelling. Suddenly, she felt something connect with her ribs. She jerked and it hit her again. She felt as though her lung was collapsing. She coughed up some blood and fell over, curling up slightly before rolling back up, pushing herself up. She was smacked across the face and she bit her lip, refusing- as she always did- to cry out in pain. Collins grabbed her by the forearm and yanked Jack up, bruising her arm. He twisted her arm and breathed hot breath on her face.

“You know... I'm not having fun with this. You're tempting to kill.”

“So I've been told,” she wheezed as fiercely as possible.

“Hmmm, by a certain poltergeist, per chance?” he said. Jack's blood ran cold and Collins chuckled. “You think we're petty, huh? No, no... We're clever. We do our research. I've seen you myself around Satan's. Vito's little arm candy, aren't you? But something happened. You left your poltergeist boyfriend for a werewolf. Bad taste in my opinion-”

Jack pulled her knee up, but he drew up his own, blocking his groin. She dropped her foot and landed squarely on his. He grunted and pushed her, seizing her by the shoulders and forcing her to the ground. Gary placed a foot on the square of her back and Collins settled on his knees next to her, whispering to her. “Yes, bad taste. A little self destructive for my own style. Stupid, really. It's sad really. People say you were trying to fix Vito. Newsflash... nothing was ever broken. He's just an asshole. You just encouraged him.”

Jack squirmed and Gary forced her head down, her chin scraping across the ground. Collins continued on, “And quite a few people saw that little summer fiasco. I know I may not be the best champion of friends, but even I know you choose friends over murderers-” Jack flailed her elbow and Gary pinned it down, twisting it. “And it seems like that was in vain. Because I've seen Vito around. Still drinking, still violent, still has a certain fixation on getting as many redheads upstairs as he can... Hmm, how many times did he get you up there?”

Jack let out a furious yell, kicking out her leg and connecting somewhere. However, Gary pounded on it and her knee collapsed limply, resting on the ground. She felt her heart pumping overtime, her lungs taking in desperate, short gulps of air as her stomach and chest rose quickly before collapsing, over and over again. Sweat gathered do the exertion it took just to stay conscious.

“Or did he not even bother. You've taken enough shots to my groin to tell me you're not exactly the nicest bed ornament. He probably never even bothered. Is that why you're all sore over him, huh? Unrequited love-”

“I swear, I'll f***ing kill you!” she screamed. It seemed no one was on Knockturn Alley anymore. She was alone and Collins was laughing at her.

“Will you? This coming from the girl who couldn't save her life from the big bad bar owner? So, how are your friends, sweetie? Huh? How are they?” She bellowed her frustration and rolled over, thrusting her shoulder forward, but he kept her pinned. “What about your filthy muggle family, eh? What'd they think about him, if they even care what's going on in your pathetic little life. Who would-”

She spat up at him and in a flash, he hit her across the face. And then hit her. And hit her. Collins had outdone his patience. He was tired of her trying to defend herself. Gary looked surprised at his partner's brutality and backed away slowly, while Collins beat Jack. She flailed and hit back, but he seemed content to beat her to death.

It was maybe two minutes of constant flogging, but it was enough to knock the breath from Jack. The world was slowly shrinking and the men seemed to see something that convinced them it was not worth it to stick around. She heard a snap of wood and felt a part of her die inside. She reached out a boot landed on her hand, breaking a finger. She cursed him and heard their retreat, her fingers inching towards her wand. She picked it up, but it was lighter than usual. She felt the top and immediately received splinters...

If Jack were ever to break down and weep, it would be for the loss of her wand. Instead, she let out a piteous little noise, something unlike anything that had ever escaped the redhead's mouth. She panted like a dog, her light fading, and rolled over, her arms reaching out as though to pull her along, instead searching for the fragments of her wand. She gathered the two halves and her hands shook like crazy as she wrapped a fist around them.

She rolled over again and tumbled into the gutter, shaking from spasms and tremors she could not control. Jack had never felt this before, this fear, this weakness. She felt as though one of her lungs may have been collapsing, but she could not be sure... The world was shrinking, she was falling into a pit of endless horror and despair, she felt a tear boil up that she forced back... Never cry. Never ever cry...



Jack opened her eyes but was not rewarded with vision. She felt herself spin but whether it was actual spinning or just the sensation, she did not know. She swallowed and immediately regretted it- blood ran down her throat. She shivered and almost vomited but she managed to right herself. She began to stumble up and closed her hand around the pieces of her wand...

She fell over again and moaned her agony. Both physical and emotional... The toll her body took against them men who seemed to think they had left her for dead... The toll of the loss of her wand. It was just a piece of wood, a stick... Why should it matter so much? Why should it seem like they had taken her heart from her, rather than her magic...

She pushed herself up with her knuckles, feeling blood prickle on them. She pushed herself up and almost collapsed. Her elbow was screaming in pain- it was displaced. Her knee groaned under her weight- it was cracked. Her ribs felt bruised, her lungs were weak and her heart barely holding on. She blinked but no sight came. She reached up. Her eyes were not swollen... but she could not see. She wiped her left eye and felt a crust of some sort dislodge itself. Light poured into her eye and she cringed. Her other eye had no outward reason for lacking sight, for the green was moving rapidly, but it was seeing nothing. Her other eye was barely taking in anything, but she could see impressions...

Satan's...

She stumbled forward but did not get close to the club. Her shoulder crashed into a wall and she lie panting against it. She let out a strangled noise and slid down it, gasping for air and shuddering, trembling. She made herself calm down and she felt a shadow fall over her. Her eyes frantically tried to see what it was but there was nothing. It passed over her and she slumped further against the wall, calming her tremors and feeling herself overtaken by a shadow of her own...

“So you like playing rough then, doll?” A man with slicked back, dark brown hair spoke while he adjusted the cufflinks that clung to his tailored sleeves, as though he were not being dragged across the street by a slightly unattractive woman in uniform. Though he had to admit that he found the enchanted one-link handcuff that she had locked around both of his wrists was rather hard to ignore, it certainly was not the worst he had had experienced. At the most, the thing was wrinkling his favorite suit and clashed horribly with the sleek black watch that also occupied his wrist.

“Shut your mouth, ghostie,” the woman replied bitterly, giving his arm a good tug, one which had caused a painful electrical volt to shoot up through Vito’s veins when a small group of his mock-veins had been pinched in-between a fake pair of bones, “It is poltergeist, not ghost, sweetheart… though I would not expect someone of your intelligence to be able to comprehend such matters,” the arrogant man hissed, spitting venom in her face, a venom with surely would have poisoned the lass had he more accurate aim.

She honestly did not interest Vito- irritation was not to be confused with interest unless Jack Dyllan was involved- for he was not a fan of snooty blondes, and found himself feeling rather indifferent towards her, despite the fact that she was gripping his life in the palm of her hands at that very moment. The rectangular badge that she wore pinned to her chest claimed that her name was Rasmus Hale- a name which Vito could have sworn had been intended for a male- but it was always hard to tell what about an Auror was true.

Vito’s thoughts were not of the fair-hared ministry kiss-ass, however; there were far more pressing matters at hand. The Ministry of Magic knew not of Satan’s, for it was well hidden within Knockturn Alley, a portion of the wizarding world which the such authorities, on most occasions, turned a blind eye to. It was for that reason that Vito could safely assume his best pal Mr. Prick -the Minister, of course- had been tipped off by one of Vito's many other "friends"…

Instinctively, the first person to come to mind was not someone who he had "befriended" in the past, rather, was a young teenage redhead who was snuggled up close to a group of crime fighters within Hogwarts. Jack was the leader of that marching band, after all- but did she really have what it took to ship him off to Azkaban? Would Jack Dyllan really put everything that she claimed she had “done” for him in jeopardy to show off in front of her peers?

She had never seemed like the sort to care for her peers to Vito, and yet yet, he found himself considering the possibility.

Rasmus had begun speaking once more in that airy tone of hers- insulting him, no doubt- but the well dressed poltergeist that she was hauling a few feet behind her throughout the dark alley did not know what sort of position she had put herself in.Vito had not yet made any attempt to resist the women- oh but when he had. Such a notion brought a viscous smile to Vito Dee Symon’s lips. “Ms. Hale?” he asked, his voice so incredibly quiet- as though he refused to put effort into speaking, though it was quite the opposite- that it was difficult to hear underneath the sound of Rasmus’ shoes scraping along the pavement as she pulled Vito forward. “Mr. Symons?” she replied, speaking in a low, man-like tone; surprise, she was mocking him again. Did she honestly trust the makers of that handcuff as much as she seemed to? “Has anyone told you that you would look far better with red hair?” That seemed to have become teh most expected sentence to fall from Vito’s lips, as though he had decided that it made a good catch phrase- one which he put to use before having a bit of fun…

It took only a fraction of a second for Vito’s entire being to flicker into transparency, and judging by the face expression that had flashed across Rasmus’ face during that short moment proved that Vito had been correct about his earlier words; she was, indeed too ignorant to imagine the possibilities that were created when one could vanished at will… “How unfortunate, I was wrong about your short; I always assumed that stereotype about blondes was just that, a stereotype. But hey, we can't always be right."

Vito broke free from her grasp with one rapid twist and a violent tug- despite the open shot that he had created, however, the ‘young man’ did not feel that the Auror before him was worth his time, “Run along; go tell your big-bad-boss that you let me go,” he ordered, his voice sounding from a completely different portion of the parking lot than where he had been standing only moments before. “OH, and tell him to send me a pretty girlie next time.” with that, Mr. Symons began to walk aimlessly through the shadows of Knockturn Alley, fiddling with the bind on his wrist as he went.

That was a piece of the puzzle that he hadn’t considered….


-slight time lapse-


The air was still, and was chilled in a way that was almost cold enough to send Vito into a fit of shivers, but these two factors caught his attention far later than the key piece of information that he had gathered; no one- there was no one other than himself for what seemed like miles. There were slow days in Knockturn Alley, and there were days when the place was so busy that Vito had to slide against the brick walls of near buildings in order to make it through the thicket of people, but something was not right. He had seen the Alley at its best and its worse, but this was something entirely different, and it Vito had begun to feel incredibly suspicious.

He was not, however, left to his thoughts and the silent night for long; he had just been considering the option of whistling all of the inappropriate songs that he could think of to fill the gap that the lack of noise had created, when a pair of voices had spit the universe in two. “There is no such thing as silence,” Vito declared, and though his words revealed nothing of what was going on within his blackened mind, his voice so cruelly betrayed his curiosity; from where he stood, the words being spoken by two mysterious beings were nothing to his ears but the crackling of a bowl of Rice Crispies, and yet he had somehow picked up his own name as it was hissed in the darkness.

It had always amazed Vito how expertly his ears were trained to detect the use of his name. The snake-like sound that a loose tongue and a pair of flapping lips made when spoken was quite a simple sound to tune his brain into, it seemed.

“Admirers? How lovely…” or so he had assumed before he had neared the voices that ran through the air like the quick wings of a dragon fly.

“Vito's little arm candy, aren't you? But something happened. You left your poltergeist boyfriend for a werewolf. Bad taste in my opinion”. Such words told the story that Vito had been so determined to hear that evening; there were men, he was not certain of how many, but it was quite clear by the words that were being spoken that the mouth belonged to a man- and one with a hideously scratchy voice at that. Oh, and Jack was hanging out around the corner with the group; no other human being had been referred to as Vito’s “arm candy” before, he was certain of that, for he had become quite found of date-slaughter as of late. None of the others were ever seen with him more than once.

“People say you were trying to fix Vito. Newsflash... nothing was ever broken. He's just an asshole. You just encouraged him.”

Was everyone determined to set Vito off that evening? Or was this confident bastard simply as ignorant as the Auror who Vito had encountered only a moment or so prior.

“And it seems like that was in vain. Because I've seen Vito around. Still drinking, still violent, still has a certain fixation on getting as many redheads upstairs as he can... Hmm, how many times did he get you up there?” He continued, dancing along that thin wire that Vito had nailed up in-between two very different moods that would determine whether or not the person in question would die a painful death… like a “danger” sign at the very tip of a treacherous mountain. Oh how close that man was to throwing himself off of that peak...

Vito could see him clearly, despite the shadows that had painted that icy corner of Knockturn Alley; he was another of those irritating pups who scampered about the wizarding world bearing their teeth, making tiny little gurgling noises in their throats, as if to threaten their pray, who, this time around, just happened to be someone Vito Dee Symons was familiar with. The beasts had been spreading about London like wildfire over the past year. He had turned his back to the drawl-covered creatures when they had been biting off the heads of little children in Diagon Alley with ease, but they were on his turf this time around, and they had pounced upon his expensive shoes one too many times.

Slowly, the poltergeist brought ten chilled fingertips to either side of his face, a smirk flickering across his face as he became a part of the human race once more. He watched with dark eyes as a bulky fist collided with Jack Dyllan’s head once, twice, three times… Her blood had begun to slide from her skin and dance about the pavement she was lying upon, and though Vito resisted, a torturous shiver ran up his spine.

As though he had spoken the secret code word for “put your claws away, beasties”, as Vito took a simple step towards the pair- he came to realize now that he was near enough to put his eyes to use that there were only two men littering up his street that evening- in order to get grab their attention. His perfection was just that powerful. “Here boy, fetch the poltergeist- fetch!” he muttered darkly, his own teeth peaking out from underneath his upper lip in a rather animalistic fashion.

“You don’t pass the gates of Hell without speaking to its ruler first,” he spoke, his cuffed wrists held out in front of him; oh what a weapon they would make. "Oh, and guess what? I'm stil drinking"- the first of two skulls met enchanted metal - "and I'm still violent". Now, was that amusment in dear ol' Vito Dee Symon's eyes as he sent that cocky wearwolf to the ground?

-

Vito wore the blood that soaked his skin as proudly as if it were a “best villain of the year” badge pinned to his suit as he sat near two damaged figures in the dark, who had lost their shape entirely, “Look at you two; don’t you both look pretty,” he cooed sarcastically, twirling each man’s wand in a hand as though he were drawing pictures in the air with them. In the end, Vito had been quite thankful that Knockturn Alley had been abandoned for the evening, for he knew that even though its inhabitants would pay no mind to the bit of fun that Vito had permitted himself to have, there was always that irritating one among the pack that lingered around the scene of the crime as though the twisted bastard wanted to join in on the fun.

“Let’s hope this will send a message to your boss too,” Vito spoke, leaning forward so to allow the deaf ears of the man who had spoken ill of him moments prior to hear what was being said. Even the dead needed to pay Vito attention…

There was a soft thud from behind Vito abruptly, which caused him to get to his feet instinctively; his play things had momentarily distracted him from his favorite half-dead redhead, whom he had heroically saved from the Grim Reaper- a notion which caused him to cringe slightly, a bitter expression within his eyes.

“Don’t try to move, you idiot” - oh but what a greeting the sentence was.

He had a feeling it was going to be another long night...

Jack licked her lips. She had heard the vagueness of voices as she had blacked out, but she had been much too focused on trying to get somewhere- anywhere- to think too much on it. She did not know how long she had been out, but she could only assume it had not been too terribly long seeing as one of the voices she had heard as she had drifted off was still present, though she could tell it was not one that belonged to one of her attackers.

A terrible, rasping cough racked her sides, making her convulse slightly, though she tried to stop it from looking so bad. She swallowed, as though swallowing the coughs down, pushing them away. She reached up to her face again and touched her eyelids, her left ring finger screaming in pain, having been broken.. When had it been? Was her abuse so bad that she could not distinctify when each horror had happened, when each blow had landed and what damage it had done?

When she stumbled against the wall, a voice- the voice- stopped her, as it was obviously directed right towards her. She blinked and her sightless eyes moved, catching a shadow. She digested the voice and realized just who it was... Hmm... Had she made it closer to Satan's that she thought she had. She felt a shiver rack her body and she said in a quiet voice, "V-vito?"

Jack never stuttered, never sounded weak, and it would have shocked and horrified her to realize she had done both in a single word. But the pain that seemed to course through her veins, traveling from place to place and yet remain everywhere at once. She felt like an empty shell... full of lead, and that lead was throbbing, overheated, prickling, shooting, cringing... And that shell was cracked, breaking, and all of its contents was falling out...

Basically, Jack was in agony. But she straightened up, a shaky hand reaching behind her to push against the wall, to keep her propped up and prevent her from falling over. She backed up slightly, so her back was against the wall. She swallowed and her eyes sought to see the form of the poltergeist in vain... They could not see anything.

"I..." She coughed again. "I don't know where they came from, I was just going to go by Satan's, you weren't there so I was going to Zonko's, and I- I can't see," she conceded, a real note of fear in her voice now. She was fearing that she may have somehow become blind... That would ruin her life. There was no getting around the fact that her life as it was now would be absolutely ruined without her sight. She put an inquiring hand into the air slightly and said, "I don't like this."

It took a moment for Jack to realize that Vito had joined her in that dark, bloodied corner of the world, but she had come around far faster than Vito expected after having watched the man who now resembled a heap of ketchup-covered mashed potatoes at his feet bring his fist down on her repetitively. “Do not”- Vito turned one of his crimson-painted finger on her for effect, an eyebrow raised in an almost comical way – “make me come over there, and I swear I will if you don’t shut the f*ck up and lie down,” he warned her. Judging by the gruesome noise of cracking bone that Vito had picked up while watching Jack’s attacker, something had broken, and the soggy sound to her cough was a good hint; it was quite possible that she had fractured one of her ribs, and a slit lung was the last thing either of them needed to happen to her.

Vito brought his hands upward so that he could examine them, only to realize that his wrists were still tightly bound by the metal that lovely Ms. Rasmus Hale had trapped him in. He still held two splintering wands in each hand, his fingers wound around them, but Vito could do nothing with them- or, at least he could not put the pair of wands to use in the way that their creator had intended. Vito released his grip on the lighter colored twig, allowing it to join its owner on the pavement before he began to slip the other wand in-between his wrists; though there was no real chance of any attempted escape working, he began to use the wand as a crowbar, pulling it back and forth. He did not have much room to move his fingers, and so the task of keeping hold of the wand was rather difficult, but Vito had skilled fingers- something which does not need to be gone over in detail- and managed, somehow, to prevent the stick from slipping from his drenched hands.

Snap! “You wizards, you are so cheap. Why not make these things out of metal? Then yours”- Vito nodded in Jack’s direction, for this time around he did not have any free fingers to jab in her direction, unless he wanted to tear one away from the man that was cuddled up to Vito’s shoes- "would not have broken." Needless to say, the poltergeist was not having the most enjoyable day, and though Jack’s had been far worse, it made up for nothing. “Enough of that then,” Vito growled, slowly grinding his molars against each other out of irritation.

“I suppose I’ll just have to feel you up with this stupid thing around my wrists,” he stated, tossing each half of the wand that he had destroyed behind him in a rather odd two-arms-over-the-should move that would have, had he not been forced to hold his arms together, looked far cooler. He closed in on the redheaded zombie, stopping once he stood beside her; before any immediate trip to some sort of hospital could be taken- a trip which Vito would not be joining in on- it would be wise to determine just how bad the damage that had been done was.

“Hmh,” he replied as Jack began to explain the evening’s events, “I had a rather interesting run-in with an Auror. The funny thing was, she seemed to know everything about Satan’s… as though she had talked to someone who spent a decent amount of time there.” Vito had never known how to pick his moments when it came to such delicate situations; he could have chosen to save such accusations for a later time, perhaps when Jack Dyllan wasn’t spitting blood, and yet, without giving it any consideration at all, Vito had spoken his mind.

He paused, however, his blood slowly chilling as it ran through his veins, when Jack next spoke, “You- you can’t see me?” There was nothing more frightening to Vito Dee Symons that the idea of going unseen- see I got you all figured out; you need every one's eyes just to feel seen –and Jack was no exception. Vito extended his bloodied fingers and tugged open both of the pale girl’s eyelids, as though he expected to find nothing but a pair of empty sockets beneath them if she opened them a bit wider. How many times had he watched that mutt crash his fist into her skull, again- and how many blows to the head did it take to cause a short in the wiring between the eyes and the brain? Vito knew enough information about the human body to keep himself alive and to stitch his own injuries, but this was an area of the medical world that Vito was completely foreign to him. He moved his hands away from Jack’s face, allowing her eyelids to droop over her green eyes once more, “Come on!” he shouted, as though she could will herself to see him once more, “I saved you, you can’t betray me now!”

Vito ordered her to lie down and she started when there was suddenly a horrendous pain in her side. Doubled over, she gasped in pain and began to sweat. It felt as though something was stabbing her gut once she had started to lower herself. No... That movement was completely out of the question. She would not be able to hold back tears if she forced herself to lie down, and she refused to cry.

She slowly straightened up, the muscles working on her face as she tried to look as unharmed as possible, but pained expressions flickered across her pale face. She leaned all of her weight against the wall and mumbled, "I'm not moving, I'm not moving..." There was no way she was getting on the ground without rupturing something, however... No way in hell...

Vito referenced her wand and she winced, closing her fingers more tightly around the splintered fragments of the only thing she had been able to trust and depend on for the past seven years. She fumbled with the pocket of her jeans and slipped the pieces inside, her breath becoming more and more shallow. She was defenseless without a wand... More hopeless than ever...

He mentioned some sort of run in and Jack's eyes blankly scanned the darkness, gasping, "Auror? Did you do something...?" She could here the accusation in his voice and she opened her mouth to clear it up, when there was another shooting pain in her side, extending all the way down her leg and she winced something terrible. She sucked in a breath and said, "Ever think your barman might get tired of getting hit with bottles? I wouldn't turn you in... You could just as easily have me committed." She smirked faintly. "I-"

She let out a cry of pain. Okay. Excessive talking was a no go. She bit her lip ferociously and heard Vito repeat her statement. She shook her head; no, she could not see him. She felt a touch and she jerked, smacking into the wall, but he lifted her eyelids. She strained and could make out an outline, a shadow, but nothing more. Suddenly he released her and was screaming. She flinched and blundered forward, knocking into him and saying, "I can't!" She pulled away and shook, feeling tiny. "I... I..." She forced her eyes open wide and blurred colors made their way into her vision. Nothing more. "I can't..."

“Damn it!” Vito hissed, tossing his arms downward as he spun away from her; he did not wish to stare into those vacant eyes of hers, knowing that he was not in her sight.

“You…” he spoke, his voice so ice-cold that it was a wonder his tongue had not been frozen to his teeth. He had returned to his earlier position near the pair of fallen werewolves and had arched his back so that his face hovered over the body whom he had dedicated most of his rage towards. “You are just so eager to be my best friend, aren’t you?” Vito spoke bitterly while he dropped his arms the few inches that remained in-between himself and the mess to who he was speaking to. “You son of a b!tch,” he continued, digging his fingernails into the thing’s bloodied scalp, taking a good fistful of hair in one of his hands, the other pressed forcefully against the cracked skull that said hair was sprouting from.

With each of Vito’s shoes atop a leg, pinning the lower part of the body to the ground, he allowed a feirce roar to rip through his chest- one which was made up of the purest form of hatred- and pulled that patch of long, dark hair with as much force as he could possibly build up. There was a loud, shudder-inducing tearing noise, and a patch of skin was ripped clean from that shattered skull, but even that did not releive Vito of that heavy feeling within his chest.

There was no one within a good walk from where Vito and Jack had pitched camp, and due to the man whom he was torturing in order to rid him of his rage, Jack was unable to provide him with the pair of eyes that he so desperately needed on him at all times. There was a terrible longing within him, one that had begun to eat away at his insides as quickly as spilt acid, one which pained him every so much.

Breathing slowly, Vito slid his hands along his suit, tainting its pure white with a deep crimson colored paint. His wrists had begun to ache from the forceful movements that he had commanded his hands to carry out; the metal cuff had begun to tighten, having been created to do so in order to prevent someone like Vito Dee Symons from breaking free from them. The first layer skin upon his wrists had already been penetrated, and it did not take much effort for Vito to realize that he had only limited time before the bind was snug against his veins and cut off his blood flow.

Sure, poltergeists did not age, for they did not physically live, but there were no such restrictions against death by mortals, and Vito did not get another go once he’d lost that good luck charm.

Naturally, as though the thing had worked its magic on his eyes, Vito’s gaze shifted towards the last remainining wand in that dark alley, which was lying a few feet away from Jack; he may not have had any sort of chance at freeing himself, but Jack certainly did. “Can you see anything at all?” He asked breathlessly, despite the large amount of oxygen that he had swallowed. “There is a wand there at your feet, and I need you..." Vito paused, slowly dragging his eyes upward to meet Jack's face, which looked as though it had been through a shredder, "you need to use it."

But Jack couldn’t move… Vito had observed the way that she had squirmed when she had been at the proper angle to allow her ribs to become nearer to her lungs. Vito had been correct for the second time that evening; she had broken one of the most critical bones in her body, and if he had her prancing about the place with a wand in her hand, there was a good chance that his act of heroism would be wasted. Nothing Vito did would ever be wasted if he had a say. “Jack, this is important,” he began once more, though he was not quite sure how to reveal the situation the small, broken girl; there was a good chance only one of them would be returning home after the night’s events.

“Typical, fate. aren't you getting board?” Vito muttered to himself, followed by a tradition roll of his eyes.

Vito yelled, and though Jack usually managed to passively stand through such outbursts, there was absolutely no way of being able to prepare herself without seeing the emotions boil onto his place, taking forms of different expressions. She relied on her eyes a lot more than she thought. It had always enabled her to prepare for Vito's outbursts. Now, she had nothing. She jumped at his yell.

She heard him hissing to someone and her eyes desperately searched in the darkness. She heard disgusting noises and she screwed her face up, glancing up. When she did, a flash of light penetrated the darkness and she closed her eyes tightly. She timidly began to open them. Again, her right eye saw nothing. But flashes of color and light were beginning to penetrate the darkness in her left. She strained her eyes and sighed. She had not recovered her full vision, still. And it seemed to be frustrating Vito.

There was silence and Jack squeezed her eyes shut, her stomach rising and falling quickly, her diaphragm having to make up for the work her lungs did not seem capable of doing, causing her to pant slightly. She swallowed and forced herself to calm down, even though a pink bean of sweat and blood was beginning to make its way down her forehead. She wiped it away and listened back to Vito.

"Colors and shadows and little bits of light in my left eye," she said in a hardened voice, trying to keep all pain from her voice. He explained that he had a wand for her and he needed help. She felt her eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Wh.." she began before letting out a cry as a throbbing, shooting pain ran through her leg and into her abdomen. She sucked in a breath.

He reaffirmed that this was important and she nodded, her eyes still closed tight against the pain as she reached out a flat palm, asking for the wand and experimentally letting her hand leave the wall and venturing a step forward, wobbling slightly. She swallowed and took a step closer and bit her lip, true pain going across her face. "Give it to me."

Only on special occasions had Vito been able to see such an expression upon Jack Dyllan’s face; she was in pain, and it took a good deal for such an emotion to make it past her defense mechanisms. He did not, however, enjoy those fallen lips or scrunched eyebrows when he himself had not been the one behind them. In fact, he was surprised to find that it had heightened his anger towards the men who had been sent to stuff her in a body bag. With each step she took- and she was only able to make it a few inches forward before something within her had given way- it became more apparent to Vito that he would have to find a way to get to that wand…

But that thick, metal bracelet of his worked like quicksand when he attempted to push himself upward off of the ground, twisting and tighten against his skin like a snake with a poltergeist fetish, “I was so certain that she had run because I”- a sudden groan leapt from Vito as pain slithered its way up his arm, interrupting him impolitely- “could have killed her…” he explained, as though he expected his audience to understand the events of which he spoke of, “Oh that clever, ugly little thing”. His lips had twisted slowly into a c'est la vie smirk as he had curled into himself, folding his chest into his arms until he was on his knees, inches from the pavement. The pain had almost become enough to render him completely motionless.

“Trust me, my little damsel in distress, I would love to,” His voice was, having been low and quiet to begin with, nearly impossible to hear with his face so low to the ground, “but there is always a catch”. Vito knew the rules to this game, despite the fact that he hadn’t plaid this version before; in order to keep himself alive, he needed to get that wand in Jack’s hands so that she could kill the device that was mercilessly attacking him, but he would have to keep hand movement minimal in order to do so.

After a few moments of recovery, and a second or two put towards strategizing, Vito began to lift his head, straightening his spine. The situation reminded Vito of a game of Operation; one false move and the buzzer would go off, killing the poor sap on the table- which was rather deliciously morbid for a kid’s game, Vito notice. With a sharp inhale, the man heaved himself up off of the ground, his forearms nailed to his stomach. Small bursts of electricity had begun to zip throughout Vito’s arms, a minute’s gap in-between each volt, giving him just enough time to return his breathing to normal before his next dosage. One of those fake blue-green veins of his had been pinned roughly between flesh and bone, and the pressure was slowly being increased.

“Do you know what bothers me most about this entire situation?” Vito asked, though it was clear that he was going to answer his own question. He had managed to get up from the ground, and stand straight once more, but it was moving forward that was to be the challenge, what with his arms being so close to his legs and all. “It is as if those two shit-for-brains(s) planned this all out,” he explained, and though it went against his very existence, a laugh escaped his mouth, as though he truly found the irony of the situation amusing, though such an assumption could not have been further from the truth.

Vito took his first step forward, sliding his polished dress shoes across the pavement slowly in order to prevent his body from moving much. It was not until he had made it a good foot or two towards Jack and that light-colored wand, however, that he realized that there would be no possible way for him to take hold of the wand, and it was the action of bending towards the ground that Jack needed to avoid most of all. Vito looked down his arms to glance at his wrists, and for that split second, he was relieved that Jack was unable to see his facial expressions, for he was positive that fear had flickered within his eyes.

He had never died, after all. That was a new one...

Jack shook her head, her eyes wide and somewhat lost looking as she tried to understand what- or perhaps the better question was who- Vito was talking back. He seemed to be in pain too and when he let out a pained sound, Jack's eyebrows scrunched in confusion. In a quiet voice, Jack inquired, "Vito?" her voice unusually small and soft. "What's wrong?"

He continued on with his "explanation" though, completely ignoring her and continuing to talk about whoever had wronged him. "Vito, I don't know what you're talking about..." He told her he could not hand her the wand and she opened her mouth, about to berate him for messing with her in her time of need, making everything into a game. But Jack's instincts told her that Vito was not messing around. Not now.

He was busy complaining bitterly about the men but Jack's ind was kicking into gear, working double time to make up for what her body could not do. She said, "The wand is on the ground right?" She had guessed that much, for Vito should have been able to toss it to her if he had it, and she did not think the men would still have it. She slowly leaned against the wall and began to work her shoes off by stepping on them.

Her muddy sneakers may have been a little too shabby, it made up for it now, because they came off with relative ease. She peeled her socks off with her heels and then her feet shuddered as they touched the rough stone of the street. She took a shaky step forward, clutching her side, and pausing for breath. She felt the darkness shrinking and expanding and felt as though her vision may be close to returning. She took another step.

It was slow going and progress came with pain in each step, shots and jolts racking her body as she kept herself from falling apart. If she could help Vito, maybe... just maybe... he would help her. She felt her feet get cut and scratched and roughed up from the pebbles and the glass on the street. "Lead me to it," she said. She moved towards Vito's voice had come from and tried to keep a wide stance when suddenly her foot touched wood. She curled her foot around it and she slowly curled her leg up to grab the wand, her knee shaking and quivering. She set it down and panted, then held out her hands again, blinking to try and recover her vision as splotches of color painted the black canvas in front of her. "Okay... Where are you? What do you need?"

“Whoa, now- hold it, Skippy,” Vito ordered, instinctively shooting his arms outward towards Jack in an attempt to hold her in place. Unfortunately for him, however, such an action was just what the deathtrap around his wrists had been anticipating; the metal began to tighten its grip around Vito’s skin, tearing away the flesh that had managed to continue clinging to the bone of each of his wrists. It was as though whoever this “Karma” women he always heard stories about had decided that it was high time Vito Dee Symons paid for the pain he had caused several others in the past, and so, he was being given a taste of it, one bite at a time…

And what a bitter taste it had.

He, for the second time that evening, stumbled to the blood-drenched pavement, his arms and knees the only barrier between his face and the street. He refused to give in to the pain, however, for he felt that being in such a position was already unbecoming enough without an added scream. “I’m not going out, not yet; I’m not finished here,” he spoke, his voice rather inconsistent due to the fact that he had to lock oxygen within his lungs simply to keep himself from releasing it in a loud howl.

Slowly, Vito drew his head upward, bursts of electricity running along his spine as though the handcuff had not only begun to squeeze the life out of a decent bundle of veins within his wrists, but had magically managed to get a good grip on every nerve in his system as well. His dark brown hair had wiggled its way free from the paste that he had slicked it back with, and was no longer pressed firmly against his skull, rather, hung loosely over his forehead, prickling his eyes in an irritating manor. “Not my hair...” he groaned, his voice low enough to be mistaken for a growl; if any of his personality traits were to be the end of him, it was certain to be his narcissistic obsession with maintaining perfection… and his hair had always been the worst of it.

Like an itch on one’s nose, Vito could not fight the urge to rake his fingernails along his skull, ripping his hair backward; it was inevitable so long as Vito had the free will to move in such a way, even if it would cost him his soul. With a distorted face expression, Vito prepared himself for the pain of a lifetime, ready to bring his hands from the ground to slick his hair back, when he was interrupted by the sight of a barefooted Jack Dyllan, holding that devious wand that had been just inches out of Vito’s reach...

"Okay... Where are you? What do you need?"

Jack was not a stupid girl, despite what Vito had stated in the past; she had made it quite obvious that she had more than her share of brain within her skull- but if that was honestly so, than she knew what sort of danger she had been in when she’d made a move for that wand. Such a revelation, silenced Vito’s obsessive thoughts as he eyed her skeptically from his kneeling position on the ground. “We’re even,” he told her, a genuine grin weaving its way across his face, one which he had intentionally allowed to become visible at the one moment Jack would be unable to see it.

“The Auror I encountered today”- Vito had to pause for a moment and lower his head against the ground in order to catch the scream that had begun to creep up his throat- “locked by wrists together with one of those nifty, enchanted cuffs the Ministry came up with, and it thinks I’m trying to escape. It is designed to continue tightening its grip until it has made its way through to the other side of my wrists,” he explained, providing Jack with his first thorough explanation that evening.