Midway/Loki/3168 words/Draft
"I am not an extremist," he declared for the world to hear.
His companion, an almost too-young girl trying to make herself look too-old with her piercings and hair dye and leather and ink tittered into her hands. Well, she likely would have murdered anyone -- imagined murdering them, at least -- who claimed she had tittered because of course she'd done something more dignified. Like snorting. Made an amused sound. Something like that. She followed up the not-tittering with rolling her eyes and raising her eyebrows in a sardonic gesture she certainly must have learned from him, "and I'm Mother Teresa," she drawled.
Loki smiled at her, the sort of smile with too many teeth and more than a hint of danger behind the faux geniality. "Is that what you think, Jynx?" Her real name wasn't Jynx, had never been anything remotely like it. She had been born with a rather long, staid, traditional Catholic kind of name. Mary Margaret Agnes something or other. Naturally, as soon as she had left the nest, the girl had dropped that name like a hot poker and went with something more succinct. Jynx. She thought it made her sound daring. He thought it made her sound desperate. Sometimes.
She blinked at him, not for the first time in his presence a little uncertain, a little off-balance. After a moment, he could almost visibly see her draw all of her teenaged confidence (arrogance) around her, spine straightening, chin lifting before she answered him. "You're the very definition of extreme," she insisted. He had to be. She needed him to be.
Rolling his eyes now in a mirror of her gesture, Loki leaned back against the brick wall behind them. Still standing, he managed to make the position look as comfortable as if he were reclining in a hammock. "Extreme. Adjective. Of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average. Or utmost or exceedingly great in degree. Or farthest from the center or middle; outermost; endmost. Or farthest, utmost, or very far in any direction. Or exceeding the bounds of moderation. Or going to the utmost or very great lengths in action, habit, opinion, et cetera. Or last or final. In sports: extremely dangerous or difficult." He flashed Jynx a grin that was more amusement and less danger now, "I haven't even gotten to the noun definitions."
The girl muttered sullenly, "I'll add 'annoying walking dictionary' to your abilities." He smirked before she continued, "and you think none of that applies to you?"
He waved a hand for her response.
She got more sullen, "vague gestures are not on today's menu."
Which only led him to laugh at her. Perhaps he shouldn't, since it would only cause her to close down more but he never claimed to be entirely sensitive to other people's feelings. Or well, he was, he just never claimed to care all the time. "On the surface, yes, one could say they apply. I am supposely a rather liminal figure, am I not? And the threshold is generally considered an extreme, the furthest edge of something. So yes, there is that. And as an associate of mine once had said about him, I am 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know'. So there is that, as well."
Jynx made something of an impatient face at him, "you're monologuing."
"You got me started, darling-child."
Her impatient face screwed up into one of disgust, "you know I hate that."
Loki beamed gleefully at her, "precisely!"
She stared at him, her wide eyes lined and smudged with far too much makeup. "I don't understand." And it was only with him that she was ever known to utter those words. At least since she had gotten out of pigtails and braids.
He moved from his slouch against the wall, stepping close to her, too close for comfort with his lips hovering over hers, his breath warm on her face, his voice a trifle too husky and full of promises of things a girl her age shouldn't yet have any idea about -- and she didn't, entirely, but she wanted to, terribly --, "as I said: precisely." And then he was kissing her forehead like she was only a child, back in pigtails and braids. Probably to him, she was, a mere infant. She wasn't yet ready to admit she was a child to the world at large as well. Not when she was so grown up and on her own and the thought of him seeing her as a baby just made her angry. Most adults made her angry. And he was nothing if not a very old adult, wasn't he?
This wasn't the way things were supposed to have become, between them. Hadn't she found him, called him for an entirely different purpose? Everything she'd ever read about him had led her to like him, feel drawn to him, and when she'd become old enough to have those sorts of thoughts, she fantasized about him. Well, even before she had become old enough for those sorts of thoughts, though the fantasies were distinctly different. Most little girls imagined the prince on the white horse coming to take her away from mundaneity. Jynx (or Margaret Mary Agnes whatever) had dreamed of him. Red hair and laughing green eyes. The ultimate bad boy in the leather jacket on the motorcycle -- with no helmet! -- that every girl's parents were afraid she'd bring home.
Oh, he'd looked exactly as she thought he would, red hair, laughing green eyes, leather jacket and all. Sometimes she wondered if he appeared that way for her own benefit, playing to her image of him. Sometimes, mostly when he did or said something that reminded, hinted to her of the darkness and razor edges beneath his skin, some part of her deep down inside gibbered in the sort of terror she had to imagine a fieldmouse must feel with the owl or hawk swooping down on them with extended talons. Predator and prey. She was not the one in control here. He'd remind her of that and then be all smiles and oozing charm once more and she'd forget. Or pretend to. And it helped he gave her the illusion of control. Let her pretend she was calling the shots because she had invoked him that first time. But that part of her that was wise enough to be afraid of him knew this was no genie she could return to his bottle. He would only truly leave her life when he was damn good and ready to. Maybe not until she was dead.
He didn't grant wishes, anyway.
Well, not the ones you'd expect. Not the way you'd expect them. He hadn't taken her away from mundaneity. She had done that herself and he had found her, after. And now she was desperately treading water against a different, colder, swifter current out here on the streets that she'd never truly understood when she made the decision to leave home. Still, he didn't offer to take her away from all this. Still, he didn't fulfill any of her other fantasies. He was just there. Someone to talk to. To rage against, at, when she knew he, at least, wouldn't take anything she screamed at him seriously, wouldn't be mortally offended. Which was funny. Mortally offended. On occasion, he took her places and showed her things and they had fun and for a while she'd forget about...everything. But he always brought her back. Each time the pain of having to return would slice her up inside, right to ribbons. She got to where she'd beg him to just stay with her and talk, they didn't have to go anywhere, it was stupid, anyway, those places.
He'd cocked his head at her, rather like a confused dog, but acquiesced. Jynx still wasn't certain if he'd ever understood what he'd done to her. Part of her suspected he was all too aware of it. Worried that he didn't care even a little. Bristled about it. Shuddered. Wondered why he was still here.
Still there. Right in front of her. Looking at her in a way she imagined was expectant. For the sort of response he usually got when he treated her as a child. But she'd been too caught up in her own thoughts and the moment had passed and her righteous indignation gone. So she smiled sweetly at him, an expression that didn't belong on a face with its chin and eyebrow piercings, its dark lipstick and pale cheeks, "having fun being cryptic?"
For just a moment, she thought she'd actually managed to nonpluss him. And then he shrugged and returned to his position against the wall, "I usually do."
"Usually?"
"You looking for another definition?"
She scowled at him, a much more habitual expression than her smile of earlier, "you never did finish explaining how you're not extreme."
"Not an extremist. A slight difference. And I didn't finish because you interrupted me, my dear one."
Loki was rewarded by seeing the flush the girl couldn't stop creep up her neck and tinge her ears at the sound of that endearment. "Stop teasing me." Which could be taken oh-so-many ways and she also knew was the one request of hers unlikely to ever, ever be granted.
He spread his hands in a gesture of acceptance and continued where he'd left off at being interrupted earlier, "as I was saying. There are certainly certain facets of my being that one could take at face value and claim I am therefore extreme and my methods are extremist. Thresholds and so on." He didn't wait for her encouraging nod as he went on, "and I will admit that I have been known to resort to extreme methods in order to gain my ends. I believe you have read of some of them. Thievery, kidnapping, lying, murder and so on. As this is hardly 'Storytime with Uncle Loki' I'll refrain from giving specific examples. But in the end, my ends are hardly about bringing people, places, things, whatever to extremes. I am more about balance." Here, he gave Jynx a gimlet-eyed stare, daring her to laugh again, but she managed to keep a reign on any mirth that might have thought about emerging and he continued.
"You have certainly heard it said that there can be no dark without light, one cannot appreciate peace without chaos, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And, lest we forget, moderation in everything. Something good for you can be harmful if one has too much of it, an extreme amount, shall we say? You need water to function, but too much of it and you drown. Those little cartoon-character vitamins are good for children but, since they taste and look a bit like candy, have to be kept out of their reach lest they eat too many and poison themselves. Too much joy and you take it for granted, you forget how to deal with pain. Too much pain and you can't accept joy. Too much peace and you become complacent. Too much war and you become jaded. If I make you lose something, you will never take it for granted again. If I play merry havoc with your life, you'll appreciate it that much more when I do not. If I murder someone you love, that," he paused and then there was that far too toothy smile again, "well, that might merely be retribution."
Jynx stared up at him and perhaps she'd backed away from him a step or two. "You forgot something else 'they' say," she responded quietly.
Her response from him was an inquiringly raised eyebrow, and a curious, "oh?"
"The ends don't justify the means. Extreme means. Extreme ends."
Now it was Loki's turn to scowl and his was rather more fierce than the girl's before him, "I didn't expect you'd understand."
But she really thought she did so she shook her head, multicolored hair swinging, "I really think I do."
Once more, he pushed away from the wall but this time he stalked toward her rather slowly. Predator. Prey. And that little part of her was gibbering incoherently again. Somehow, she found it was her back now against the rough bricks and she knew her position against it could look hardly as comfortable as his had. His hands were planted on the wall to either side of her, blocking her in, his body was suffocatingly close, and he was leaning down, hot breath on her neck, words in her ear. "No." His voice was harsh. "You don't. You understand nothing. And especially not me." He let out a low chuckle that chilled her to the core. "But I understand you, dearling." She felt him press a kiss to her neck, just below her earlobe. "You've wanted something like this for such a long time. Wondered what it would be like. You. Me. A wall."
She tried to say something but words froze in her throat and came out in an incoherent mewl of protest. She should push him away but she couldn't seem to convince her limbs to cooperate. And he was strong, anyway, much stronger than her. And all she could think about was of the other stories she'd read. The ones where the god took what he wanted from the mortal girl whether she was amenable or not.
"Don't look so shocked, sweeting," he was looking her in the eyes now as he brushed her too-long bangs out of her face in a deceptively gentle motion, "did you think I couldn't tell?"
Her head moved a little, side to side, her lips mouthing the word over and over again, pleading. This wasn't how it was supposed to be! How he was supposed to be! This wasn't what she'd imagined or wanted. Not ever. Please, no.
His hand was on her hip, under her barely-covering-everything-anyway skirt, his thumb lightly stroking the skin of her leg through a far too thin layer of tights. "You're speechless. Overcome with gratitude, no doubt." His voice was mocking, dripping in sarcasm. He knew that it was hardly anything of the sort. He was under no illusion as to the cause of her speechlessness. "And overcome with other...feelings...as well, I'm sure." Then he was kissing her in a derisive parody of the sort she'd always imagined having with him. Hard and brutal, possessive and fierce. In that moment, any image she may have still held of him being a sort of wild beast she'd tamed to her hand shattered. Lies. It had all been a lie. Her face was wet and hot with tears. He pulled back from the kiss just enough to look her in the eyes again, to see the runnels of mascara spilling down her cheeks where her tears had fallen. Just enough that she could see no echo of the kindness he'd shown her before, the teacher and companion he'd been, the infuriating jokester, the nearly harmless trickster. His eyes were cold and hard as green glass and there was no soul in them that she could see.
She knew without any doubt then he'd do anything to her he pleased. Anything at all and there was nothing she could do but squeeze her eyes closed so at least she didn't have to see him. He laughed at her, laughter without any life in it. "Go home, child. I don't want you anymore. Come back when you're worthy." He let her go and her knees went out from under her leaving her in a crumpled heap on the grass.
Grass? They'd been on concrete, just inside an alleyway. Tentatively, still without opening her eyes, she reached behind her to feel for that cold, brick wall she'd been pinned against and felt only air. She repeated the gesture in all directions around her and still felt nothing but air surrounding her and grass below. She only heard the sound of a dog barking in the distance, a breeze ruffling leaves, the faraway sound of traffic on a highway somewhere behind her. None of the omnipresent sounds of the city. For one brief, terrifying instant, she thought he'd dropped her in the middle of a field on someone's farm out in nowhereseville before comforting herself with the thought that even that would be better than if she'd stayed with him. Not if he'd continued to do...whatever he'd been going to do to her. Carefully, she opened her eyes and couldn't stop the sob that welled up in her. A quiet, suburban house stared back at her, its profile so familiar she didn't have to look at the mailbox to know where she was.
Home. She was home.
She didn't even realize when she stood and went half running, half stumbling the rest of the way across the lawn, up the steps, to the door. She still had her key, had never thrown it away, never gotten rid of it, and with shaking hands she went to put it in the lock.
It didn't turn. No matter how hard she twisted it, this way and that, she almost broke it in the lock. The key didn't work. They'd changed the locks. The realization hit her with an icy sense of betrayal. She started pounding on the door, crying a child's cry for her parents. "Mommy! Daddy! Let me in! It's Maggie, your daughter!" She hit at the door until her knuckles split and bled, screamed for them until she was growing hoarse, until lights came on in houses nearby, neighbors came out to see who was making the noise.
"Poor kid," she heard someone murmur.
Someone else said, "she doesn't know."
"Doesn't know what?" she tried to mumble as someone she was pretty sure was Sarah Jackman's mom wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. As she looked around at the adults surrounding her, she saw only pity and awkwardness. As she looked back at the house, she saw only now that there was no sign of life in it. No welcome mat at the door, no furniture within, the grass too long, no car in the driveway. Lifeless. And a sign in the yard.
Mrs. Jackman started leading her carefully across the street murmuring nonsense to her about how everyone had thought she was gone even if her parents, the dears, hadn't given up hope for her, and of course they'd manage to figure things out in the morning someone still had her grandparents' number somewhere she was certain and wouldn't Maggie like to stay with them?
Maggie turned to look at the woman with wide, uncomprehending eyes, "what happened to my parents?" And when the woman didn't answer right away, she found herself screaming, "what happened to my PARENTS?"
No one answered her and in the deafening silence, she thought she heard a too-familiar voice whisper, "think of this as yet another lesson, dearling."
His companion, an almost too-young girl trying to make herself look too-old with her piercings and hair dye and leather and ink tittered into her hands. Well, she likely would have murdered anyone -- imagined murdering them, at least -- who claimed she had tittered because of course she'd done something more dignified. Like snorting. Made an amused sound. Something like that. She followed up the not-tittering with rolling her eyes and raising her eyebrows in a sardonic gesture she certainly must have learned from him, "and I'm Mother Teresa," she drawled.
Loki smiled at her, the sort of smile with too many teeth and more than a hint of danger behind the faux geniality. "Is that what you think, Jynx?" Her real name wasn't Jynx, had never been anything remotely like it. She had been born with a rather long, staid, traditional Catholic kind of name. Mary Margaret Agnes something or other. Naturally, as soon as she had left the nest, the girl had dropped that name like a hot poker and went with something more succinct. Jynx. She thought it made her sound daring. He thought it made her sound desperate. Sometimes.
She blinked at him, not for the first time in his presence a little uncertain, a little off-balance. After a moment, he could almost visibly see her draw all of her teenaged confidence (arrogance) around her, spine straightening, chin lifting before she answered him. "You're the very definition of extreme," she insisted. He had to be. She needed him to be.
Rolling his eyes now in a mirror of her gesture, Loki leaned back against the brick wall behind them. Still standing, he managed to make the position look as comfortable as if he were reclining in a hammock. "Extreme. Adjective. Of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average. Or utmost or exceedingly great in degree. Or farthest from the center or middle; outermost; endmost. Or farthest, utmost, or very far in any direction. Or exceeding the bounds of moderation. Or going to the utmost or very great lengths in action, habit, opinion, et cetera. Or last or final. In sports: extremely dangerous or difficult." He flashed Jynx a grin that was more amusement and less danger now, "I haven't even gotten to the noun definitions."
The girl muttered sullenly, "I'll add 'annoying walking dictionary' to your abilities." He smirked before she continued, "and you think none of that applies to you?"
He waved a hand for her response.
She got more sullen, "vague gestures are not on today's menu."
Which only led him to laugh at her. Perhaps he shouldn't, since it would only cause her to close down more but he never claimed to be entirely sensitive to other people's feelings. Or well, he was, he just never claimed to care all the time. "On the surface, yes, one could say they apply. I am supposely a rather liminal figure, am I not? And the threshold is generally considered an extreme, the furthest edge of something. So yes, there is that. And as an associate of mine once had said about him, I am 'mad, bad, and dangerous to know'. So there is that, as well."
Jynx made something of an impatient face at him, "you're monologuing."
"You got me started, darling-child."
Her impatient face screwed up into one of disgust, "you know I hate that."
Loki beamed gleefully at her, "precisely!"
She stared at him, her wide eyes lined and smudged with far too much makeup. "I don't understand." And it was only with him that she was ever known to utter those words. At least since she had gotten out of pigtails and braids.
He moved from his slouch against the wall, stepping close to her, too close for comfort with his lips hovering over hers, his breath warm on her face, his voice a trifle too husky and full of promises of things a girl her age shouldn't yet have any idea about -- and she didn't, entirely, but she wanted to, terribly --, "as I said: precisely." And then he was kissing her forehead like she was only a child, back in pigtails and braids. Probably to him, she was, a mere infant. She wasn't yet ready to admit she was a child to the world at large as well. Not when she was so grown up and on her own and the thought of him seeing her as a baby just made her angry. Most adults made her angry. And he was nothing if not a very old adult, wasn't he?
This wasn't the way things were supposed to have become, between them. Hadn't she found him, called him for an entirely different purpose? Everything she'd ever read about him had led her to like him, feel drawn to him, and when she'd become old enough to have those sorts of thoughts, she fantasized about him. Well, even before she had become old enough for those sorts of thoughts, though the fantasies were distinctly different. Most little girls imagined the prince on the white horse coming to take her away from mundaneity. Jynx (or Margaret Mary Agnes whatever) had dreamed of him. Red hair and laughing green eyes. The ultimate bad boy in the leather jacket on the motorcycle -- with no helmet! -- that every girl's parents were afraid she'd bring home.
Oh, he'd looked exactly as she thought he would, red hair, laughing green eyes, leather jacket and all. Sometimes she wondered if he appeared that way for her own benefit, playing to her image of him. Sometimes, mostly when he did or said something that reminded, hinted to her of the darkness and razor edges beneath his skin, some part of her deep down inside gibbered in the sort of terror she had to imagine a fieldmouse must feel with the owl or hawk swooping down on them with extended talons. Predator and prey. She was not the one in control here. He'd remind her of that and then be all smiles and oozing charm once more and she'd forget. Or pretend to. And it helped he gave her the illusion of control. Let her pretend she was calling the shots because she had invoked him that first time. But that part of her that was wise enough to be afraid of him knew this was no genie she could return to his bottle. He would only truly leave her life when he was damn good and ready to. Maybe not until she was dead.
He didn't grant wishes, anyway.
Well, not the ones you'd expect. Not the way you'd expect them. He hadn't taken her away from mundaneity. She had done that herself and he had found her, after. And now she was desperately treading water against a different, colder, swifter current out here on the streets that she'd never truly understood when she made the decision to leave home. Still, he didn't offer to take her away from all this. Still, he didn't fulfill any of her other fantasies. He was just there. Someone to talk to. To rage against, at, when she knew he, at least, wouldn't take anything she screamed at him seriously, wouldn't be mortally offended. Which was funny. Mortally offended. On occasion, he took her places and showed her things and they had fun and for a while she'd forget about...everything. But he always brought her back. Each time the pain of having to return would slice her up inside, right to ribbons. She got to where she'd beg him to just stay with her and talk, they didn't have to go anywhere, it was stupid, anyway, those places.
He'd cocked his head at her, rather like a confused dog, but acquiesced. Jynx still wasn't certain if he'd ever understood what he'd done to her. Part of her suspected he was all too aware of it. Worried that he didn't care even a little. Bristled about it. Shuddered. Wondered why he was still here.
Still there. Right in front of her. Looking at her in a way she imagined was expectant. For the sort of response he usually got when he treated her as a child. But she'd been too caught up in her own thoughts and the moment had passed and her righteous indignation gone. So she smiled sweetly at him, an expression that didn't belong on a face with its chin and eyebrow piercings, its dark lipstick and pale cheeks, "having fun being cryptic?"
For just a moment, she thought she'd actually managed to nonpluss him. And then he shrugged and returned to his position against the wall, "I usually do."
"Usually?"
"You looking for another definition?"
She scowled at him, a much more habitual expression than her smile of earlier, "you never did finish explaining how you're not extreme."
"Not an extremist. A slight difference. And I didn't finish because you interrupted me, my dear one."
Loki was rewarded by seeing the flush the girl couldn't stop creep up her neck and tinge her ears at the sound of that endearment. "Stop teasing me." Which could be taken oh-so-many ways and she also knew was the one request of hers unlikely to ever, ever be granted.
He spread his hands in a gesture of acceptance and continued where he'd left off at being interrupted earlier, "as I was saying. There are certainly certain facets of my being that one could take at face value and claim I am therefore extreme and my methods are extremist. Thresholds and so on." He didn't wait for her encouraging nod as he went on, "and I will admit that I have been known to resort to extreme methods in order to gain my ends. I believe you have read of some of them. Thievery, kidnapping, lying, murder and so on. As this is hardly 'Storytime with Uncle Loki' I'll refrain from giving specific examples. But in the end, my ends are hardly about bringing people, places, things, whatever to extremes. I am more about balance." Here, he gave Jynx a gimlet-eyed stare, daring her to laugh again, but she managed to keep a reign on any mirth that might have thought about emerging and he continued.
"You have certainly heard it said that there can be no dark without light, one cannot appreciate peace without chaos, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And, lest we forget, moderation in everything. Something good for you can be harmful if one has too much of it, an extreme amount, shall we say? You need water to function, but too much of it and you drown. Those little cartoon-character vitamins are good for children but, since they taste and look a bit like candy, have to be kept out of their reach lest they eat too many and poison themselves. Too much joy and you take it for granted, you forget how to deal with pain. Too much pain and you can't accept joy. Too much peace and you become complacent. Too much war and you become jaded. If I make you lose something, you will never take it for granted again. If I play merry havoc with your life, you'll appreciate it that much more when I do not. If I murder someone you love, that," he paused and then there was that far too toothy smile again, "well, that might merely be retribution."
Jynx stared up at him and perhaps she'd backed away from him a step or two. "You forgot something else 'they' say," she responded quietly.
Her response from him was an inquiringly raised eyebrow, and a curious, "oh?"
"The ends don't justify the means. Extreme means. Extreme ends."
Now it was Loki's turn to scowl and his was rather more fierce than the girl's before him, "I didn't expect you'd understand."
But she really thought she did so she shook her head, multicolored hair swinging, "I really think I do."
Once more, he pushed away from the wall but this time he stalked toward her rather slowly. Predator. Prey. And that little part of her was gibbering incoherently again. Somehow, she found it was her back now against the rough bricks and she knew her position against it could look hardly as comfortable as his had. His hands were planted on the wall to either side of her, blocking her in, his body was suffocatingly close, and he was leaning down, hot breath on her neck, words in her ear. "No." His voice was harsh. "You don't. You understand nothing. And especially not me." He let out a low chuckle that chilled her to the core. "But I understand you, dearling." She felt him press a kiss to her neck, just below her earlobe. "You've wanted something like this for such a long time. Wondered what it would be like. You. Me. A wall."
She tried to say something but words froze in her throat and came out in an incoherent mewl of protest. She should push him away but she couldn't seem to convince her limbs to cooperate. And he was strong, anyway, much stronger than her. And all she could think about was of the other stories she'd read. The ones where the god took what he wanted from the mortal girl whether she was amenable or not.
"Don't look so shocked, sweeting," he was looking her in the eyes now as he brushed her too-long bangs out of her face in a deceptively gentle motion, "did you think I couldn't tell?"
Her head moved a little, side to side, her lips mouthing the word over and over again, pleading. This wasn't how it was supposed to be! How he was supposed to be! This wasn't what she'd imagined or wanted. Not ever. Please, no.
His hand was on her hip, under her barely-covering-everything-anyway skirt, his thumb lightly stroking the skin of her leg through a far too thin layer of tights. "You're speechless. Overcome with gratitude, no doubt." His voice was mocking, dripping in sarcasm. He knew that it was hardly anything of the sort. He was under no illusion as to the cause of her speechlessness. "And overcome with other...feelings...as well, I'm sure." Then he was kissing her in a derisive parody of the sort she'd always imagined having with him. Hard and brutal, possessive and fierce. In that moment, any image she may have still held of him being a sort of wild beast she'd tamed to her hand shattered. Lies. It had all been a lie. Her face was wet and hot with tears. He pulled back from the kiss just enough to look her in the eyes again, to see the runnels of mascara spilling down her cheeks where her tears had fallen. Just enough that she could see no echo of the kindness he'd shown her before, the teacher and companion he'd been, the infuriating jokester, the nearly harmless trickster. His eyes were cold and hard as green glass and there was no soul in them that she could see.
She knew without any doubt then he'd do anything to her he pleased. Anything at all and there was nothing she could do but squeeze her eyes closed so at least she didn't have to see him. He laughed at her, laughter without any life in it. "Go home, child. I don't want you anymore. Come back when you're worthy." He let her go and her knees went out from under her leaving her in a crumpled heap on the grass.
Grass? They'd been on concrete, just inside an alleyway. Tentatively, still without opening her eyes, she reached behind her to feel for that cold, brick wall she'd been pinned against and felt only air. She repeated the gesture in all directions around her and still felt nothing but air surrounding her and grass below. She only heard the sound of a dog barking in the distance, a breeze ruffling leaves, the faraway sound of traffic on a highway somewhere behind her. None of the omnipresent sounds of the city. For one brief, terrifying instant, she thought he'd dropped her in the middle of a field on someone's farm out in nowhereseville before comforting herself with the thought that even that would be better than if she'd stayed with him. Not if he'd continued to do...whatever he'd been going to do to her. Carefully, she opened her eyes and couldn't stop the sob that welled up in her. A quiet, suburban house stared back at her, its profile so familiar she didn't have to look at the mailbox to know where she was.
Home. She was home.
She didn't even realize when she stood and went half running, half stumbling the rest of the way across the lawn, up the steps, to the door. She still had her key, had never thrown it away, never gotten rid of it, and with shaking hands she went to put it in the lock.
It didn't turn. No matter how hard she twisted it, this way and that, she almost broke it in the lock. The key didn't work. They'd changed the locks. The realization hit her with an icy sense of betrayal. She started pounding on the door, crying a child's cry for her parents. "Mommy! Daddy! Let me in! It's Maggie, your daughter!" She hit at the door until her knuckles split and bled, screamed for them until she was growing hoarse, until lights came on in houses nearby, neighbors came out to see who was making the noise.
"Poor kid," she heard someone murmur.
Someone else said, "she doesn't know."
"Doesn't know what?" she tried to mumble as someone she was pretty sure was Sarah Jackman's mom wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. As she looked around at the adults surrounding her, she saw only pity and awkwardness. As she looked back at the house, she saw only now that there was no sign of life in it. No welcome mat at the door, no furniture within, the grass too long, no car in the driveway. Lifeless. And a sign in the yard.
Mrs. Jackman started leading her carefully across the street murmuring nonsense to her about how everyone had thought she was gone even if her parents, the dears, hadn't given up hope for her, and of course they'd manage to figure things out in the morning someone still had her grandparents' number somewhere she was certain and wouldn't Maggie like to stay with them?
Maggie turned to look at the woman with wide, uncomprehending eyes, "what happened to my parents?" And when the woman didn't answer right away, she found herself screaming, "what happened to my PARENTS?"
No one answered her and in the deafening silence, she thought she heard a too-familiar voice whisper, "think of this as yet another lesson, dearling."