Chapter Text
Everything is over.
Everything is said and done.
The police are gone, the FBI is gone. Even the man in the freshly pressed black suit named Agent Munroe is gone – and while he captivated Laura the most, because he had this strange glint in his eyes as if he knew exactly what happened, as if he himself had somehow gone through something quite similar – he had left.
So it should have all been wrapped up in a nice package, pretty bow on top.
The healing should have begun.
It didn't.
Laura isn’t surprised.
After all, it’s not as if they write books about this, offer programs.
Sure, she could see a therapist and give some vague answers, look for a support group and be oblique, never truly touch upon what her trauma is, how it came to be. She could try and find some kind of peace or closure or help. But honestly, nothing would really work because her trauma wasn't well explored or documented.
How could it be? Fucking werewolves caused it.
Werewolves and a man who kept her and her boyfriend hostage for two months. A man that she should have tried to kill every chance she got. And she did, sometimes, regret that. Not killing Trav…Hackett. Officer Hackett.
After everything he’d put her and Max through, after all his dismissiveness and vague responses. After all his all-encompassing nothing. He’d given them nothing. For days, for weeks. Nothing. And when he’d finally managed to open up a little, well she’d still been mad. Furious. But also…confused.
Confused because there was clearly something hidden beneath the surface, something she couldn’t see. Something she couldn’t easily ferret out and with the vast quantities of time she’d had in his captivity she wasn’t sure what had infuriated her more – her capture or her inability to suss out what exactly was going on behind the eyes of her captor.
Those eyes…so dark and cool, but with such a strange depth to them. A depth that danced between pain and despair and hopelessness. A depth that held banked fires, frozen beneath layer after layer of repression. Repression of what?
Laura had heard the things his mother had said to him, his father – there wasn’t much of a loving tone between any of them and yet they were the ones peddling the ‘family is the most important thing in the world’ line as if it was their motto, emblazoned on their family crest as they went about their day to day lives or some bullshit.
And everything Tr…Jesus, why can’t she just think of him as Officer fucking Hackett!? Given the circumstances, that’s all she should think of him as (if she even thinks of him at all) and yet it’s as if, from the moment she learned his name, she could think of him as nothing else. As Travis. Travis was such a normal name. Such a nice name.
It wasn’t the name of someone who trapped you in a jail cell, the name of someone who shouted at you to ‘shoot, you stupid girl!’ it wasn’t the name of someone…
But then, any name can take on an edge under the right circumstances.
At one point she looked into it – the whole Stockholm syndrome thing. That’s what some of all of this – this mess in her head was, right? A dash of that, of survivor’s guilt, of taking a life – more than one, all truth be told – because while she had killed Kaylee, she’d also killed Silas.
Killed him while he curled up in his horror show of a ‘nest.’
So anticlimactic.
His death.
Just one quick shot to the back and the curse was lifted.
The horror over.
Or so Laura had thought.
And her other victim, Kaylee...
Kaylee had wanted to help him, help Silas, and her and her brother’s actions had started the domino effect of what led to Laura's own wreck of a life.
Laura had been like that too. Once. She had wanted to help people. Animals, in particular.
Time passed, unaffected by everything that had taken place within it. She’d gone back to vet school. She’d done her best. But every time she’d tried to study, every time she’d tried to focus, she’d been lost in the haze of her newfound existence.
It was as if she had died in Hackett’s Quarry. Died and been reborn. Reborn into someone who couldn’t even stand the sight of a dog, much less help one.
Their teeth, their claws…they weren’t even that much like the werewolves she’d confronted, but somehow the similarities between the two had overlapped and between that and her general malaise when it came to her existence, she’d dropped out of school. She'd given up on her dreams of being a vet.
Laura was just as successful when it came to Max.
They’d been through so much, relied on one another, loved one another. Without him, she would have truly lost her mind in the North Kill jail cells they’d found themselves trapped in.
Max had been her supporter, her sweetheart, her one golden lining in the Hell they’d tumbled into. Keeping him safe, doing what she could to help him – it kept her afloat through those two months, through that last horrible night.
Once it was over, it should have been them riding off into the sunset, shouldn’t it? After all, they had gone through together, after sharing an experience like that together - one no one else could understand. It should have united them, made them an unstoppable force. Instead it led to them breaking apart.
Somehow it seemed…easier for Max. Strange, considering he was the one who'd been infected, the one who became a monster when the full moon rose. But it seemed to Laura that he somehow came out of it less scathed.
Maybe it was because he hadn’t taken a life. Maybe it was because his mind worked on a different wavelength than hers. Maybe it was because he was stronger, better as compartmentalizing, at healing, at-!
It didn’t matter. Not really. The fact was, they broke apart and it was perfectly amicable. A bloodless transaction. It was as if they’d never been in love at all, and her heart ached with that sometimes.
She caught herself suddenly sobbing, crying herself dry at the thought. But that’s just how it was. They broke up and went their separate ways and that was that.
Last she’d heard, he managed to get into a school and was dating some nice girl. Someone not tainted by what they went through. With all her heart, she hoped it brought him comfort.
She hoped this nameless, faceless girl loved him from the top of his head to the bottom of his toes. Laura wished him nothing but the best, even as her own life continued to unravel.
No school, no boyfriend, no friends. It was hard to connect with new people to make them, it was hard to reconnect with the old ones before…well, before. Her parents looked on with disappointment, confused, wondering what happened to their daughter.
Where did she go? Where did the bright, friendly, fun-loving Laura Kearney wander off too? Who was this solemn stranger that took her place? The one with the haunted eyes who woke them up sometimes, screaming from nightmares she could never explain - would never explain.
She lived in their basement, she wasted away. Laura gave into the usual vices to try and crawl out of it – liquor, drugs, mindless entertainments. She found a job at a local retail store – got fired. Tried her hand at an office internship – quit. She managed to hold on as a waitress at her cousin’s pizzeria and frankly, it was probably only pity that kept her employed in the first place.
Laura hauled in a couple of bills a week, nothing worth writing home about and her home wasn’t even that anymore. Her parents let her live with them, but it was clear they weren’t happy about it. She was a burden, a walking/talking waste of potential. Laura is days away from the one year anniversary of the event – alone and unable to feel the insides of her life.
Maybe that’s how she ends up back in Hackett’s Quarry.
It’s a Tuesday and she’s supposed to be driving to the pizzeria for her night shift.
Instead, she keeps driving.
This has happened before.
She’s driven away from work and gone to the mall to wander around listlessly or gone to the park to sit and just stare at the water. But that’s not what she’s doing this time.
She has her music playing and she’s turning onto the interstate. She’s driving and while she knows where she’s going, she’s doing her best not to think about it.
Laura passes several exits and thinks about turning off at some of them.
She’s done that before too.
Just…explored.
A wandering soul who happens to have a vehicle and enough gas to take random trips to nowhere of consequence. Gas stations, fast food restaurants, quirky shops – none of them bringing her any insight. But this time, this time, she drives past those and continues onward.
Because, again, she knows exactly where she’s going.
Even if she doesn’t want to acknowledge it.
She drives and drives and nothing happens until she’s…there.
Laura’s breath catches, becomes reedy as she begins to recognize where she is. It looks exactly the same. Route 919. A dark, endlessly curving road – brightly painted double yellow lines, tall trees to either side of her, caging her in, keeping her on the road even as she feels herself tumble back into her memories.
Begins with ‘L’? Like the ‘L’ word?
Lesbians?
Lost, Max. We’re lost.
Laura’s eyes glaze over, hot with unshed tears, chin trembling even as she hears herself whisper, “Lost…I'm lost…”
Anger strikes hard, grips her heart in a tight vice and squeezes, because she’s stupid. She’s stupid and childish and she needs to grow the fuck up! She needs to be strong! She was strong! She was strong and then she left and then she lost that and everyone and everything rose up around her, past her…
She needs to climb up over whatever fucking hill is in front her. She needs-!
My family…is down at the bottom of a well…
Travis’s words float to mind and she chokes, practically gags, and the car lists from side to side. The bottom of a well. That’s it. It's not a hill, but a well. That's what she needs to crawl out of. She needs to crawl out, because…because…
…hangin’ on the end of a rope. How can one person be expected to pull ‘em all back out? You can’t! Once you pull on that rope, you’re just gonna fall right down the bottom of the well with the rest of ‘em…
…there’s no one there. No one’s holding a rope for me…
Between the thoughts and her overall emotional state, Laura jerks the wheel hard. The tires of the car let out an unholy screech as she veers harshly to the left. The vehicle tumbles off into the woods, into the trees – hitting stumps and shrubs – just as it did back then, and her feet slam hard on the breaks. It’s a bit of an angled trajectory but, unlike then, the car responds beautifully.
It doesn’t impact with anything; it doesn’t get stuck – it just stops. It stops with a lurch and Laura puts it in park and she thrusts the driver’s side car door open just in time for her to vomit onto the earth. It’s a weak splash - her diet of late wanting. She was rail thin to begin with, but now she looks sickly, bones beneath her skin jutting out with too much pronunciation.
This recent expulsion will no doubt only add to her less than attractive countenance. I was pretty once, she thinks dumbly as she wipes at her mouth, as she closes the door and falls back into the car, her head cushioned by the driver’s seat.
Fuck.
What is she even doing out here? What was she thinking?
Laura draws in a breath through her nose, breathes out again. She shakes her head to herself. Travis had been right. She is a stupid girl. A stupid girl, making stupid choices, living a stupid life.
She has all the power in the world to take the reins, to right the sinking ship. She needs to stop feeling sorry for herself. She needs to find her strength again, her power again.
But did I lose that here or did I find it here? Her mind whispers.
And in that, Laura faces one of her greatest fears.
The girl she was before Hackett’s Quarry is gone and, from what she hazily recalls, that one hadn’t been particularly hardy.
The girl she was after Hackett’s Quarry needs no mention. She’s weak and as brittle as the ashes that form after campfires.
The girl she could be…the woman she could be…the one here, right now, in the driver’s seat of this car...
Can she reconnect her with the one who was here in Hackett’s Quarry? The one who seemed to find strength in it, power in it? Perhaps this is where she actually belongs?
Perhaps this place is the source of who she is, who she should be, who she wants to be and then she hears it. The softest of sounds coming from her backseat.
Silas.
Laura slowly turns and she’s there.
Eliza Vorez. The Hag of Hackett’s Quarry.
Ghostly white, glowing, ephemeral save for the cool eyes full of sheer hatred.
Laura’s mouth drops and she just…stares.
The woman holds up a tarot card and her words slice through Laura’s mind.
The Knight of Swords. That’s you.
The card is lowered, another held.
The King of Swords. That’s him.
The card vanishes.
The eyes take on a sharpness, a hungriness that finally loosens a tear from Laura, her body breaking into a full-bodied quake as icy fear floods her.
YOU killed my boy. My sweet Silas. My white wolf. You want to be a Knight to his King.
A harsh breath, a demented laugh, it caresses Laura’s cheeks, the base of her spine, it draws up a bubbled sob of terror.
Think you’re so smart, that you know everything. Think you got it all figured out. Well, I’ll show you. I’ll show you what you need to see. You think you’re hurting now? (another huff, a shake of her head, a smile that cuts to the bone) You’re going to be turned inside out. Torn apart. And I can’t wait for it. Can’t wait to reveal the truth to you.
You’ll pay for my boy (a firm nod) Oh yes, you’ll pay for him. This one will show you.
The last card she holds up is the Judgement card and Laura screams
+
Her lungs fill with water.
Laura wakes up and she’s…drowning?
Murky water is all around her, tugging her downward and she startles at it, instinctively fighting to draw herself upwards. How in the hell did she end up here? The last thing she remembers-?
It doesn’t matter, getting to the surface is what matters and just as she starts to draw herself up the water around her moves as if something (someone?) has just jumped in beside her.
A form? A person? One swimming towards her? Laura thinks to struggle against whoever it is, but their grip is strong, arms wiry but muscled as they close around her waist and help her to ascend upwards. Her head breaks the water, and she lets out a loud gasp, coughing up water even as the other swimmer draws her backwards.
Her sense of movement is completely off kilter, and she can’t even seem to make out anything around her, much less the person who is pulling her towards the shore.
Once they're closer to it, once she gets the feeling of ground beneath her, some of her anxiety lessens and some of her senses return. The other swimmer (her savior?) is quick to speak, asking, “What the heck didja think you were doin’, girl?”
…the words…the tone?
Laura wipes water out of her eyes and from her face and turns to see Travis.
But not Travis.
Because this Travis is so…young.
There are no lines under his eyes, no weight-of-the-world-on-my-shoulders look about him. He’s…bright. He’s…smiling. Oh shit, he’s smiling at her and Laura backs away, “Travis?”
He rears back his head, looking from side to side, clearly uncomfortable, “Uhhh? Yeah?”
Laura just stares at him. This can’t be Travis. Even though he’s just confirmed it, it can’t be him, because he’s…her age? At most? But then he just shakes his head, “Look, um, I don’t know you and I don’t know why you took that leap off the dock, but camp hasn’t even opened yet. There’s no unauthorized swimming until my unc-! I mean, Mr. Hackett says so.”
“Mister…Hackett?” she manages, and Travis shakes his head again, “You know, I figured my uncle vetted all the counselors before hiring ‘em. Mean, not me, bein’ family and all, but the others…” he just lets out a puff of breath that she recognizes as a laugh (Travis laughs?!), “Let me guess, you teaching art?”
“I…I don’t-?” there’s so much she wants to add, but then a kid comes into view. He’s probably about thirteen, maybe older (it's hard to tell in the fading light of the day) with spiky dark hair and very loud red board shorts on. His blue tank top is also distractingly patterned. It’s not very fashionable.
In fact, it looks like something someone would’ve worn a few decades ago. Still, he doesn’t seem to notice as he chirps, “Did you save her?! Did you save her, Travis?!”
Travis gives that weird (not at all cute) laugh again, “Whatta ya think, egghead? She’s right here.”
He gestures to Laura and the boy grins, “Hi! I’m Chris! I’m Travis’s brother!”
“…Chris…Hackett?” she manages, still completely floored and wondering if she’s died and gone to Hell or if she’s finally lost her mind.
Chris, undeterred, continues, “Yeah! See, me and Travis was out lookin’ for more fireflies-!” he proudly holds up a jar with a couple of glowing bugs inside, “-when we saw you out on the dock and it was weird, ‘cause no one’s supposed to be here yet, ‘cept us and my Great Uncle and, I mean, there ARE a coupla of other counselors already and-!”
“Jeez, take a breath, pencil neck.” Travis says, but it’s with warm familial love. The kind of love a sibling has when he recognizes one of his brother’s exasperating qualities and Laura is sure she’s dead as Chris takes said breath before concluding with, “And anyway, Travis jumped in and saved you when you fell in ‘cause he’s super brave like that!”
“I’m not brave,” Travis counters, “I’m watching out for Uncle Zach. Doesn’t need a lawsuit on his hands.”
Travis brushes dirt off from his wet knees and rises and…okay, he’s soaking wet. Laura tries to look anywhere else, because his clothes are sticking to him, outlining things she shouldn't want to notice and now she’s back into her ‘lost my mind’ theory because he holds out a hand to her.
She doesn’t take it, instead looking up at him and his brown floppy hair is a drenched mess that he knocks back with his free hand, the other one open and still waiting for her, “C’mon, I ain’t gonna bitecha.”
The laugh that escapes her is slightly hysterical even, as she takes his hand and lets him haul her up. His hand is…big. And warm. And while he releases her hand, he’s looking at her now and his face is so different.
His eyes too and Chris is still a bottle of energy next to them, “Travis, Travis! I have your glasses!"
"Oh, yeah, thanks." Travis holds out one hand and Chris gives him a pair of round spectacles. Once Travis pushes them up his nose he looks at Laura and...sort of freezes.
As if he hadn't really seen her before now. Suddenly he looks a little skittish and Laura still feels like she's in the same boat, because Travis wore...or wears glasses?
Chris, not at all rattled, continues, "I still don’t know why you call him ‘Uncle Zach’ when he’s really our Great Uncle Zach, because he’s our Grandpa’s brother and that’s how you should say it at least according to my history teacher, Miss Hooper, and Miss Hooper also told me, she told me, that if you ever get married than you’ll be an uncle to my kids and then if my kids have kids than you’ll be-!”
“Chris,” Travis chides, even though he’s still looking at Laura, “There’s something to be said for the sound of silence.”
Chris just rolls his eyes, “Aw, whatever. You’re just too caught up in checking out the hot chick you saved because she looks kinda like one of the girls in the magazines you hide under your be-!”
Travis turns to Chris quickly, voice pitching up slightly, “Hey! What I tell you about snooping in my room!”
“You told me not-!”
Travis reaches out, taking both of Chris’s shoulders in his hands, giving him a good shake, “Did you show-?! Did Ma-?!”
The way he says ‘Ma’ borders on panic, but Chris only shakes his head adamantly, “No! No, Travis! I didn’t! I swear!”
Laura, somehow finding herself within this moment, reaches out and taps at one of Travis’s wrists, “Don’t hurt him!”
Travis immediately releases Chris and looks at Laura with wide eyes, “What? I’d never hurt him. He’s my brother! I…”
He looks from Laura to Chris and then back again. He takes in a deep breath and rests him hands on his hips. The action is so starkly Travis (Office Hackett) that Laura relaxes. Relaxes.
Which is just a whole world of fucked up. More so as he chews on the inside of one cheek as he looks to her, “Looks like we got off on some crazy foot, huh?”
“Yeah. Crazy.” She says, because clearly that’s what she is and what she’s experiencing. Craziness. Travis turns to her and holds out his hand once more, “Let’s try this again. I’m Travis Hackett.”
Laura looks at his hand and then at him. He licks his lips and it’s clear he’s fighting off a grin even as he leans a bit towards her, hand still extended for a shake as he asks, “And you arrrrrre?”
“I’m L…” she looks at the hand and then at him once more before deciding she might as well keep tumbling down the rabbit hole of her sanity as she finally accepts the shake, “I’m Laura.”
“Laura,” Travis repeats and gives her hand a good shake, “Nice to meet you.”
She's not so sure of that. Not sure at all.