How strange, when an illusion dies...

Perhaps if Vito had foreseen the physical contact he could have done something to prevent it. If he had expected Jack to grab hold of his hand and shake it firmly, Vito most certainly would have remained on the opposite side of the room, gazing absently at his extensive collection of Tom Ford clothing. Dodging Jack’s quick hand may have been an option as well; a simple step backward would have easily put enough distance between the pair to render Jack incapable of curling her fingers around his open palm. Once again, however, Vito was reminded of his luck. It seemed some higher force was determined to use every opportunity that it was presented with in order to do so, and Vito’s frustration towards said energy had only increased with each stroke of misfortune. Vito’s jaw became slack, and as a result, the tight-lipped smirk that he’d previously worn became nothing more than a pair of parted lips. This sudden change in expression made the torturous combination of surprise and betrayal that had overwhelmed him quite evident.

His mask needed a bit of fixing.

Vito would have sworn that the dead flesh that he hid behind had caught fire as it had come into contract with Jack’s calloused fingertips, hadn’t he looked downward at his hand to inspect it. He hastily retracted his arm, drawing it close to his satin-glad chest. The sensation of human touch had never been something that he'd been capable of adjusting to; no matter the amount of time that he spent in bed with the creatures, the shock of having been relieved of the cold that plagued him never quite wore off. It was even more so with Jack – something which Vito hadn’t understood until that evening. He slid his hand down his chest and returned his arm to its proper place at his side, recovering from his bout of poltergeist behavior.

“It seems I am your crossroad demon. You’ve summoned me, created the terms of an agreement, and ultimately have sold your soul,” Vito mused, filling the silence – or what was to be considered silence in a nightclub - once more in order to avoid paying his frenzied thoughts any more attention than was necessary. Vito’s cat eyes narrowed on his command and one of his finely plucked eyebrows jumped upward to meet the middle of his forehead. “I didn’t think the day would come – but then again…” he spoke quietly, almost reaching a whisper, “I didn’t exactly expect anything that has occurred tonight.”

He paused, and for a moment his mind became visible, framed by the rims of his eyelids. He was thinking over his next action after having fallen a bit behind; a result of the exhaustion that the evening's events had inflicted upon him.

“Now, as I said earlier” – Vito stepped to the left of Jack slowly in an almost animalistic manner, and took hold of the collar of her shirt from behind just as abruptly as she had shaken his hand – “Get out.” He ripped his bedroom door open and pulled Jack into the hallway. “You have put me through enough for the time being.” It almost amusing; how easily Vito had forgotten of the fact that he had been the one who’d attempted to murder her. Twice. He spoke of the supposed torment that Jack had put him through as though he had done nothing that could ever compare to her actions. As though she were him.

She had caught him off guard- oh, yes she had. This small victory was enough to instill Jack with the belief that she had still had reason to fight, that it would not all be in vain, that regardless of what Vito thought, that he did not always win one hundred percent of the time. She won every now and then- she had to just make all of those small victories really count from now on out. There was no room for extra failure. Her very existence- and his- depended on it.

Because even if he wanted her gone, she could not say the same.

He began musing and she watched him, revealing nothing with her expression, simply looking up at him as though waiting for him to direct her to the next place, tell her where to go from here. Jack should have had the answers- she was the creator, right? But he had dealt with this more times than her, had had more creators than she had creations. He was the expert. Not her.

He began to speak softly and shwe wondered, almost, if the vengeful spirit had been crushed out of him. Her mind sputtered into laughter and a second later she was grabbed by the collar and the door was opened. She was yanked out into the brighter hallway and he informed her she had done enough. She rolled her eyes and sighed, saying, "Right." She turned and looked at him. "Good night, Vito."

“F*** off,” Vito growled through two rows of gritting teeth, in response to Jack’s indifference. So straight and unreadable an expression she wore upon her face, that she had all but convinced Vito that, upon discovering the truth, Jack’s capability to experience human emotions had been revoked.

And it pissed Vito off.

Such an Earth-shattering truth the pair had mistakenly stumbled across, and what was it that Jack had to say on the matter? Evidently, nothing more than a halfhearted apology, paired with her suddenly unresponsive facial features.

Vito curled every digit upon his left hand, around the door’s handle once more. He was in need of something to grip tightly in the form of anything other than his tongue, which he’d pinned between his teeth and had begun to bite in to. No longer would Jack serve as his punching bag; if Vito wished to prevent any more scars from being etched into his skin, he would keep the promise that he had made to keep his hands to himself.

Oh, but how he wished to tear her flesh from her every bone.

When he had been presented with the opportunity to do so, it had become such a difficult task - but, being denied the right to inflect pain upon her, Vito found that the desire had returned once more.

With a sharp movement of the hand in which he held the door before him, Vito threw the slab of wood towards its frame. And like a crack of thunder, the door connected with the wall. “-and go to Hell. You will fit in perfectly,” he ordered Jack through the barrier that he had placed between them.

She was holding on, her expression was sticking, she was holding herself together, refusing anything to spill out from her. Her heart thumped in an awkwardly over-heavy way, as though it were too full of blood, and was about to either burst or just grind to a halt altogether. The muscles in her face were strained and her blood was freezing and she managed to keep her green eyes dull of any revelations.

Vito slammed the door and she turned around. She heard him speak through the door, and though there was a physical barrier between them, she could very easily hear his words, they were incredibly clear. And there it was, the thing that she had been thinking to herself as well. She belonged in hell, she really did, and she had tried so hard to be good, but she just wasn't.

She stumbled backwards against the door and burst into tears. Real tears. Not quiet, not subdued, not a single one rolling down her face. Leaking-eyes, uncontrollable, tears. Her mouth opened silently with the sob and she clutched and scratched at the door, her eyes tightly shut as she moaned out. Jack had thought Vito had broken her before? She had never been more broken than in this moment...

And it was because of her own problems. She was her own worst enemy. Forget Vito. His painful inflictions were nothing to what she brought on herself.

A strangled sob fell from her mouth as she slowly slid down the length of the door. Chase's family. Her fault. The unruly customers. Her fault. Her Knockturn attackers. Her fault. Those at the battle. Her fault. No matter how much she fought against Vito, it did not make up for the fact that it was because of her that he was even out and about, killing people.

Jack had never wanted to let anyone die. And she had supplied the world with a terrible weapon.

She collapsed onto the ground, crumpling and curling into herself, her back against the frame of the door, her face wet with tears. She shook terribly, her nails digging into her thighs, knowing she would never live a peaceful moment again. Her dreams would never be carefree, they would always be plagued by nightmares. One thing kept running through her mind.

Her life was over.

And one thing began to fill her. One terrible thing. Something that, once it consumed you, could destroy you. Guilt. She sucked in a breath and moaned out the words, "I'm sorry." Her shirt was wet with tears. "I'm so sorry." She saw the faces of Chase, of random people she imagined to be those she had helped murder. "I'm sorry!" She heard Vito's growling words and she remembered all of the times she had cursed his creator for leaving him with such a hellish existense. She felt her entire body seize and she croaked, "I'm sorry."

The door acted as a shield. A shield that falsely reassured Vito that he would not be seen, if he chose to break down. That he would not be heard, if he came to decision that he could no longer contain the screams that he’d attempted to bite back when in the presence of his rival. When under the scrutiny of his redheaded companion, Vito would not allow himself to crumble any further than he previously had. While he could not have prevented himself from falling as far as he had; screaming aloud, and struggling with the sobs that had so desperately attempted to escape his lips, after having gained control over himself, he had refused to display any further emotion before Jack’s blank gaze. But as he burned a hole through the door that he had only just slammed shut, the opportunity to release the last of his self control from his crumbled fist was far too tempting for Vito to resist.

A tortured scream cut its way free from Vito’s throat, and rang throughout the room. It was an unnatural noise; a sound that could not have been produced by any human throat, and a human pair of lungs. Once more, it seemed that the poltergeist that Vito had locked within the meatsuit that he so proudly flaunted, day in and day out, had torn itself free. The scream rang against the reflective glass of the mirror to Vito’s left, as well as the empty bottle of wine that he had carried to his bedside table the evening prior. It rapped against every windowpane within Vito’s bedroom, and slid down every wall like several fingernails being dragged across a chalkboard. Never before had any noise that Vito had ever made been so honest. Never had Vito so sincerely expressed the pain that he experienced, for not a single event in his past had been capable of drawing such a reaction outward from his core. When the Ministry’s handcuffs had nearly killed Vito’s host, he had screamed. He had screamed a few moments prior, when the truth behind his recent creation had occurred to him. But not on one of these occasions had he let go so completely.

Having exhausted his rage, Vito fell. With one shoulder pressed firmly against the door, Vito crumbled to the chilled floor beneath his feet. His logical thoughts had abandoned him. The desire to murder Jack, fizzled as he leaned his upper body heavily against the door. There was nothing left to feel but sorrow; a deep-rooted misery that felt far too human for Vito to understand. He could not explain the reason behind the feeling of betrayal that he had experienced upon learning that Jack was his creator. And as much as he wished to banish the unwanted, negative emotions that she had inflicted upon him, Vito found that he could do nothing of the sort.

By whom was Vito being forced to feel so much like a mortal? Jack?

Or was his own mind truly that sadistic as to inflict such turmoil upon itself?

A sob reached Vito’s ears as he clutched his head in his trembling hands. That indifference, that robotic façade that Jack had hidden behind, had fallen. Just as Vito’s mask had slipped from his face, and had fallen to the floor. Two like reactions, occurring simultaneously - no; one reaction. Jack’s reaction was all that existed.

Vito tangled every finger in his slick, brown hair, and pulled it backwards roughly. The sharp sting at the base of each strand of hair provided Vito with a momentary distraction from the physiological pain that he’d been plagued with. But the moment of relief was far to brief too be enjoyed. “You did this to me. It is your fault. The pain - the hatred - the struggle. You were my distraction. The only moment of relief that I could find,” Vito whispered to Jack through the door, though he did not truly desire for his words to be heard. So broken was he, that, if Jack was to hear him, it would surely only worsen the situation. Vito gave his hair another tug, and pressed his forehead against his shield.

“You were supposed to fix me. But you were the one who created me to begin with.”

She was pale and shaking, her hands were clamming up and she was slowly losing focus, literally and metaphorically. Her vision was blurred with tears but, for whatever reason, the hallway in Vito's nightclub was spinning. She could not help but thinking desperately, Nightclubs aren't supposed to spin... Why is this nightclub spinning?!

The music was pounding, and somehow, the music was infeciting her bones, the pounding noises scratching from the inside, trying to take her apart, bit by bit. Trying to pry her bones from each other, snatch her heart from her chest. She was fighting a losing battle, but who was the nemesis. Not Vito. Was it herself? Or was it as simple as Truth, Truth being her worst villain, the one that was sure to end her forever and totally.

Her sobbing began to get under control, but her whimpering was looped, nonstop, unending, and she shook and quaked, fearing Truth. She knew, every second. Truth was going to further bmbard her, attack her even more viciously, and she knew, wventually, with so many constant attacks, Truth could overtake her and finnally end her.

She clamped her hand over her mouth, sobbing into her her hand, her eyes closed. And over her muffled cries, she heard a voice. His voice. The voice and the accusation she would never forget. “You did this to me. It is your fault. The pain - the hatred - the struggle. You were my distraction. The only moment of relief that I could find." This was the answer to Ari's questions, to Chase's. What Vito's intentions were. He had needed her to help him forget, just as she had needed him. Now, they were reminders.

“You were supposed to fix me. But you were the one who created me to begin with.” And it all broke, more tears sprang from her eyes and she moaned out the words, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She would never stop feeling sorry, she was sure.

Once more, the side of Vito's fist connected with the structure nearest to him. And as he slammed his crumbled hand against the door the wood rattled in its frame, as though Vito had made it angry.

He could not stomach the sobs that Jack had let free. In fact, her self pity had created within Vito such an overpowering urge to vomit, that his body had required of him a brief moment of breathing deeply, with his eyes fixed on the door's handle. It did not occur to Vito that Jack's repeated apologies may have held sincerity behind them. Vito had deemed Jack a threat, and ultimately the cause of every hardship that he had faced during the entirety of his reign as Vito Dee Symons, and as a result, it had been decided that no sympathy was to be felt towards the girl.

"I told you to leave!" Vito growled threateningly, and punished the door once more for being so dreadfully thin. Perhaps if it had been made of the same, thick wood as his wardrobe, the act of locking Jaquellene out of his bedroom would have been effective. But as it was, she could still be heard. She had not left his prescience, and Vito's new fear of her prevented him from simply ignoring that fact. For as long as Jack remained in Knockturn Alley, the goosebumps that had risen upon his arms and the shiver that had begun to rattle his spine, would remain as well.

Jack leaned forward, pressing her face hard against her legs, so her bones felt the pressure, her nose in the indent between her knews, her blood and grass soaked jeans now being splashed with tears, something the jeans had never had the misfortune to meet. Well, tears, meet jeans. Fear, meet mind. Lack of control, meet body. Destruction, meet heart.

She heard his voice and there was another collision against the door, sending a trail of after shocks in the impact's wake. She shook, her arms slipping completely out of her control as one went up to her face, fingers grabbing her cheek and indenting it with crevices, the other hand wrapping all the way around her legs, pulling them closer.

But Vito had given her an order. And what else could she do? Wait her, in his doorway, until he gave up and got rid of them both? Maybe that really was the best answer... But she could not do that to him. She shook, and let out a long breath before closing her eyes. She stood, her eyes opening and she faced the door. She swayed forward and her forehead touched the wood, tears slipping off her face onto the door. She breathed the word, "Sorry," and turned.

Mask... Engage. No. It wasn't working. Engage. Engage! ENGAGE.

She couldn't do it.

She pulled out her wand and conjured a long cloak that shw quickly slipped on. She pulled the hood on and realized if she had a scythe... She would look like a very short grim reaper. It almost made her decide against it... but she had always been about being yourself.

And she left her creation, because she did not know what else to do.