Hallows: Den of Serpents

All of You

Pierce The Veil- Flawless Execution

B.B.:

After washing up, Damien and I began to run tests on Ray. I sigh heavily as I take a blood sample. Damien holds up the medicine I've been working on for Ray. I point at my journal in front of him. There is nothing I can do for this man. Gliomatosis Cerebri and it's infused with whatever makes us what we are. It's adapting to the medicine I made already. Mutating to counter it. If I have any chance at fixing it, I have to stop it from evolving or terminate it all at once.

"That bad, huh?" Ray smiles. I take my glasses off to rub my eyes. I expected something bad but not something this aggressive.

"I could take care of it if you weren't a hallow," I sit on the table next to him. "But like our bodies, it's adaptable. It's changing to feed off what is trying to kill it,"

"We can flood his body with this s**t," Damien holds up my notes.

"No, the dosage I'm giving him now would be lethal to a normal human," I shake my head.

"You made sixteen different medications. How did you land on this one?" he asks pointing at the only one I turned into strips.

"Based on the medications he was already taking,"

"How do you know what medications he was taking?"

"I was in his house," I say going over the scans he gave me the other night. The ones I'm taking now are a lot worse and they're only months apart.

"You were in my house?" he asks. I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation already, but I say nothing. "When?"

"You mean when did I start breaking into your house?" I counter.

"Wha-Was I ever there when you were in my house?"

"Sometimes," I nod.

"I could have killed you," he shakes his head. I laugh. "Who taught you that?"

"Lucien,"

"Of course he did," he sighs and holds up a key.

"What's that?" I ask knowing damn well it's a key to his house. I have one.

"A house key. Stop breaking into my house,"

"This is going to be awkward. I have keys to all the locks in your house," I admit. Damien starts laughing when he sees Ray's expression. "Dec was almost murdered by f*****g white supremacists. What was I supposed to do?"

"Not break into my f*****g home, Belladonna Blackstone. Ain't nothin happening to my son in his house,"

"I mean it was super easy for me to get in," I shrug.

"You are crazy as f**k," he shakes his head.

"This means a lot to me though," I gesture the key. "Would you like a key to my house?"

"No, I don't want a key to your f*****g creepy ass house, B.B.," he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry, Ray. I didn't-" I pause.

"You didn't what?"

"You're scary and it was obvious from the start that you hate my dad so I didn't want to get Dec in unnecessary trouble. I also didn't want to come off as super creepy,"

"Girl," he shakes his head. "Trust me when I say that ship has sailed. All you kids are creepy as f**k,"

"It's true," Damien agrees. "Can I have some samples?"

"Not if you're going to use them on regular people,"

"I'd like to tamper with them to help regular people," he shrugs.

"Not two and six. Those killed rats I was using with a single drop. I'm not sure what they are yet,"

"I'm taking drugs from a seventeen-year-old with a chem set," Ray mumbles to himself.

"Hey, you can see straight and move around a lot easier because of my chem set and my chem set costs ten times more than everything in your house. Also, I'm eighteen now," I scoff.

"Have you ever been tested for smart people s**t?" he asks.

"No, Ashley didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to me. She kept me preoccupied with lots of pageant bullshit,"

"Sure, why would she let you cure cancer when you can be paraded around like a cute little princess," he scoffs. "Are we done?"

"Yes, sir," I hand him the box with the freshly cut strips. "One every eight hours,"

"Not ten?"

"No, not ten. In a couple of weeks, we'll do six hours. I've got everything I need to see if there's a way for me to help you but I'm not making any promises,"

"I'm not asking you to," he places his huge hand on my head. "Thank you,"

"I'm going to try and do more,"

"I know you are. I'll talk to Dec tonight. Is he staying?"

"No, the guys are mad at us,"

"Only thing I don't like about you," he says. "Wachu gon do when all this stops being exciting and you got six grown ass men demanding a real mate?"

"You really think we're all going to make it that far?" I smile. He returns it.

"Look, B.B. All I'm saying is, think about it. This isn't about them. It's you. You're going to be the only one that gets hurt,"

I let him out of my lab. He's greeted by James and some of the other demons. Damien is leaning against the table across from me.

"Don't listen to him. He's old," he points at the door. I laugh. "I'm sorry about earlier,"

"You mean f*****g my sister in my room or being a d**k out in the hallway?"

"Both," he shrugs going over to the glass box Miles is in. Miles is just sitting there while Damien taps the glass the way people do at the zoo. "About Thompson,"

"You have to get over her,"

"You ever getting over Shane?" he shoots back. That was a low blow. Fucker. "It's not love obviously. It's the idea of what could be. How easy it would be with them. How human," he looks back at me. "There's nothing wrong with wanting normal, B,"

"You can't exactly compare Shane to her,"

"She wasn't always like that. You're fighting to keep Shane the sweet guy you wanted to adore you for the person you once were. You more than most know that we can never go back to the way things were. Somethings are just not in the cards for us,"

"I don't know what to do about any of this," I admit. He nods coming over to me. He makes me look up at him.

"I'll stay for a while. Help you with all this while you're doing your princess s**t,"

"Mostly because you want to keep f*****g my sister," I scoff.

"Yeah, but I also miss you. You're the only person who makes me laugh,"

"Aside from yourself," I nod. He laughs.

"Right. Also, Vic's loft is big as hell and I hate being alone,"

"You can share his room with him when Delilah kicks you out of her room,"

"I don't get my own?"

"No, with the extra staff, we're fully booked. We're eating in the ballroom tonight,"

"You have a ballroom?"

"This place is huge. Del loves giving history tours. Loves the sound of her voice," I pull at his collar. There are angry bruises around his throat.

"She got a little carried away," he explains with a shrug.

"And nearly choked you to death?"

"I almost came from how hard she squeezed, yeah," he grins. "You're not aggressive. She gets that from your dad, huh?"

"Yeah,"

"You get his emo charm but she gets the real nasty s**t. That control thing that's your mom,"

"Mhm,"

"You make your parents seem a lot nicer than they were. You make everyone who is a piece of s**t seem a lot nicer than they are. Why is that?"

"My mom. She only ever loved things that were bad,"

"Del said being owned is better than falling in love," he holds up a beaker.

The statement is strange to me. Isn't being owned and loved almost the same thing?

"What's the difference?"

"You can let go of someone you love. If it's the right thing for them. Once you own something it's completely yours until you don't want it anymore,"

"It sounds like the same thing,"

"It's not. When you own something. You're loyal to it so as long as it's useful to you. This lab for instance. This is your lab. You trust it, you take care of it, and you come back to it no matter what. Even if it infuriates you. Even if it feels like a cage at times. It's yours,"

"That sounds like love,"

"If I burned this place down. You can replace it. All of it. You can't do that with something you truly love. This one is yours but if it breaks you get a new one. You can't just get a new Lucien or a new Carson. If they die a part of you will die with them. It doesn't hurt as much as losing something you own,"

"Are you okay?" I ask.

"Mariah told me she never loved me," he sighs. "She said I was useful until I wasn't. She owned me. I've only ever been owned. Like some kind of reaper puppy,"

"She never deserved you," I take his hand. He looks down at me. His glasses are fogged up from how upset he is. He takes them off and sets them down on the table.

"What's it like to be loved the way you are?"

"It sucks. It hurts more than it doesn't. Not just me either. I hurt them a lot. It's messy and there's a lot of arguing,"

"Would you change it? If you could have anything in the world in exchange for it?"

"No, I wouldn't," I give his hand a squeeze. "I love you. All of you. Not because you're useful. You're funny, smart, and caring, and you look like Edward f*****g Cullen with glasses. You're my best friend. The only person who gets me the way I am. And we've never even f****d. Never will,"

"Never will," he agrees. "I really did miss you, B.B.,"

"Delilah is being mean to me,"

"I know. We just f****d on your bed. It was her first time,"

"I know that. What did you say to her? She's always been into girls. Since we were kids,"

"I simply expressed my feelings for Ray,"

"Oh, yeah. She likes weird hateful s**t like that. There's going to be a showing of Human Centipede at the drive-in on Sunday. Take her. It's one of her favorites,"

"That's one of my favorite movies as well. House of a thousand corpses fan?"

"Oh, my god," I shake my head. "Is this what that feels like?"

"What?" he laughs.

"When people find out Lucien and I are together?"

"Complete fear?" he asks. I nod. "Yeah, I take that as a compliment by the way,"

"Me too. I just didn't understand until now. We should clean and head up. James will be pissed if we're late to dinner,"