Chapter Text
Abaddon
They took Katherine away.
Abaddon tried to scream, tried to beg her to not leave him here alone again with these strange people, but they forced her away. He started screaming as nurses tried to calm him down and, with all my hysteria, all he was able to make out was "Increase the ketamine” before his mind went foggy again.
Suddenly, Abaddon was barely even able to lift his head.
What have they done to him? Why does he feel so sluggish? Why is the world spinning?
This isn’t right. Where’s Katherine needed that’s so important? He wants to go home and see Esther.
The nurses have eased back now that he’s not actively fighting them, and he notices an odd suited worker sits near the foot of the bed with a clipboard, watching him like a puzzle she is determined to solve.
“Hi, sweetheart,” the woman coaxes gently. “Can you tell us your name?”
Abaddon blinks. Confused. Irritated. His tongue feels too heavy in his mouth.
“I wish for Katherine to come back.”
The CPS worker exhales sharply, the gentleness cracking.
“How about you answer these questions and then you can possibly see her again, yeah? Now your name?”
Why do they care about his name?
Why can’t he just see Katherine now?
But his thoughts are drifting away from him again.
He’s too tired to argue. If answering these ridiculous questions brings Katherine back faster…
Fine.
“…Caleb,” he murmurs, remembering the made up name Katherine uses for him when he’s outside of the hotel.
The nurse shares a subtle look with the CPS worker, probably surprised he’s complying.
“And where do you live, Caleb?” the woman asks softly.
“In… the hotel.” His voice drags like he’s pulling it through water.
“Do you feel safe there?”
His brow scrunches. “Why wouldn’t I?” he slurs, annoyed.
They are asking him such idiotic questions
The CPS worker leans forward. “Can you tell us about the people you lived with before Katherine?”
His foggy gaze lifts. “Before…?”
“The cult,” she says gently.
Abaddon stares at her.
“…Cult?” he echoes, bewildered. He tries to sit up, loses the battle with gravity, and slumps back. “I don’t understand?”
The adults exchange a look.
It’s not a good one.
The nurse tries again. “Katherine said some people hurt you. Do you remember them?”
He squints, thinking… far too literally.
“Hurt me…?” His eyes flicker down to his wrists, bandaged and raw. “Iron hurts me.” A woozy shrug. “It…burns.”
The two women freeze.
The nurse clears her throat. “Does Katherine ever…restrain you with iron?”
“Mm...” His head tips. “I…suppose.”
Another shared glance — this time sharper.
“What about the scar on your chest?” the suited worker asks. “Who did that to you?”
“Priest,” he mumbles, as if stating something obvious. “He was attempting to sever me.” A sluggish blink. “It…did not work.”
The nurse’s face goes pale. “S-sever you from what?”
He seems confused again. “From… myself.”
The CPS worker steadies her voice. “And Katherine… does she ever hurt you other than the iron?”
“No.” His answer is immediate, softened by exhaustion. “She is… irritating. And loud. And she scolds too much.” He lifts a hand only halfway before it flops back down. “…But she is not cruel.”
The tension in the room loosens until—
“She gets angry at me,” he adds drowsily, as if he’s naming his favorite snack. “But only when I am being… unmanageable. It is fine. She tells me to go into the vents until I calm down.”
The CPS worker shoots bolt upright.
“What do you mean… into the vents?”
Abaddon’s brow knits, like he doesn’t know why they’re making a fuss.
“My bones are there.”
The nurse's pen stops writing altogether.
He can feel himself fading more by the second.
Another voice speaks up, voice tight. “Caleb…can you repeat that? Did you say Katherine tells you to go into the vents of your house? Do you sleep there?”
He considers. “I don’t sleep.
A stunned beat.
“But the vents are…convenient. Quiet. Warm. Dark. Esther does not prefer it but—”
“Why would you be in vents, Caleb?” she presses, horrified.
“I like them.” He answers simply.
“Does Katherine force you to stay there?”
He tries to answer.
Really tries.
But the sedation pulls his head to the side, dragging his mind down with it.
The world dissolves into a heavy blur.
“Mhm…she likes…when I’m there…”
His words fade into nothing. “’cause I don’t… bother…her work…”
The nurse mutters a sharp curse.
The CPS worker stands abruptly, face hardening.
“We need to speak with the attending physician immediately.”
Abaddon hears none of it.
His eyes slide shut, the world slipping away again.
Katherine
Katherine sits in the hard plastic chair in the hallway, foot tapping so fast it squeaks against the linoleum. Her arms are crossed tight, jaw locked. Every time the door opens she jerks her head up, praying it’s him—awake, calling for her, needing her.
But instead it’s another nurse.
A nurse who refuses to look her in the eye.
“Ma’am,” the woman says cautiously, “you need to stay seated. CPS is conducting an interview. You can’t go in there.”
Katherine almost laughs.
“He’s sedated,” she snaps. “He barely knows where he is. Why the hell would you interview a child who’s drugged out of his mind? He needs me, not strangers interrogating him!”
The nurse gives the same rehearsed line she’s already said three times: “We need to ensure his safety.”
“Safety?” Katherine hisses. “I am his family—the only stable one he’s had. If you want to ensure his safety, maybe stop pumping him full of tranquilizers and grilling him like he’s on trial!”
“Ma’am—”
“No. No more ‘ma’am.’ Just Let me see him!”
The nurse’s face hardens. “You’re escalating. I’m going to ask you to calm down.”
Katherine stands. “Open the door.”
“You need to sit—”
A door further down the hallway swings open. A paramedic pokes his head out and gestures urgently.
“Officers are here to talk to you,” he calls.
Officers?
Katherine’s stomach plunges so violently she has to grip the chair to steady herself.
Of course.
CPS gets spooked—hospital calls the police—now she’s the villain.
They’re going to take him.
“Wait here,” the nurse instructs coldly, walking over to the two cops who are busy making talk with the front desk.
Her pulse spikes. She looks sideways at Ben, who has been silently gripping her sleeve this whole time, eyes wide and terrified.
“Mom?” he whispers.
She squeezes his hand once. “Stay close.”
“What?” He breathes.
“Just trust me.”
The police begin talking with the charge nurse at the front desk. Everyone’s attention shifts. Nurses leave their posts. Doors open and shut. Someone wheels a cart around the corner.
Katherine’s mind clicks.
A plan.
Risky. Stupid. Possibly insane.
But she’s out of time.
“Ben,” she murmurs under her breath, “when I move, you move. Fast. Don’t look back.”
He gives an apprehensive nod.
She waits.
The rain outside slams harder against the windows, thunder rolling overhead like an omen.
Katherine watches the CPS worker leave Abaddon’s room. She goes straight to the officers, voice low and tense. They start nodding, taking notes.
Everyone is busy.
Katherine stands slowly, quietly.
She rounds the corner towards Abaddon’s door like she belongs there—steady, natural, invisible.
She slips inside.
Abaddon is half-slumped sideways on the bed, pupils unfocused, breathing thick and uneven. His hair is damp with sweat. His wristband hangs loose. He’s murmuring something under his breath—maybe her name, maybe nothing at all. His eyelids flutter but never open.
Katherine’s chest cracks open with grief and fury.
“Abby,” she whispers, brushing his cheek. “We’re getting you out, okay?”
He doesn’t respond beyond a faint hum.
Ben hurries in behind her and helps untangle the monitor wires. His hands shake violently but he doesn’t let that stop him.
“Mom, he’s really out of it—”
“I know. We’ll carry him. Grab his things.”
She slips her arms under Abaddon’s back and lifts him, his limp weight folding into her like a toddler’s. His head drops heavily onto her shoulder.
Then—
“HEY!”
A nurse shouts behind them.
Katherine spins around, heart lurching.
The older nurse who’d been arguing with her is in the doorway, eyes wide, already reaching for the emergency button clipped to her shirt.
“Shit,” Katherine breathes.
She bolts.
The nurse lunges and grabs the back of Katherine’s hood, yanking her so hard she stumbles backward.
“Security! SHE’S TAKING THE BO—”
But before the woman can finish, Ben slams his whole thirteen-year-old body into her.
Not strong, but strong enough to give them time.
She goes stumbling into the wall with a sharp cry.
“BEN, GO!” Katherine shouts.
They sprint into the hall.
Nurses scream.
Radios crackle.
The officers whip around at the commotion.
“There! STOP!” one yells.
“Ma’am, put the child down!”
Katherine runs harder, clutching Abaddon tighter to her chest. He groans weakly, head bouncing against her shoulder with each step. He murmurs something about yogurt.
Rain hammers the windows.
Thunder shakes the walls.
Ben runs ahead, shoving open the door to the stairwell. “Mom, come on!”
The officers are already coming after them, heavy boots pounding the tile.
Katherine barrels through the stairwell door. They thunder down two flights, her legs screaming from both the weight and the panic.
At the bottom, Ben bursts outside first into the freezing downpour. The parking lot is a sheet of rain. Their old car sits under the flickering streetlight like salvation.
“Hey! STOP!” an officer’s voice echoes from above.
She doesn’t.
She can’t.
They sprint through the rain, Katherine shielding Abaddon’s limp body with her own. Her shoes slip on the pavement. Cold water splashes up her legs. Lightning flashes—white and blinding.
Ben jerks open the back door.
“Put him in!”
She lays Abaddon across the seats. His head rolls toward her, eyelids fluttering, breath shallow but steady.
“K’t’rine…” he slurs.
The police spill out the doors behind them.
Katherine slams the door, jumps into the driver’s seat, and throws the car into reverse.
A nurse runs out, pointing and shouting, “STOP THEM! THEY’RE KIDNAPPING HIM!”
Katherine floors it.
Tires screech through the rain.
They tear out of the parking lot as blue lights flick on behind them.
Abaddon moans weakly in the back, half-conscious.
Ben is panting, crying silently, gripping the door handle as he sits in the backseat next to Abaddon.
Katherine’s knuckles are white around the steering wheel as the car hums down the wet highway, the wipers whining against mist.
“Ben—“ she starts, trying to come up with an explanation for what the hell just happened.
“What the fuck was that, Mom?”
His voice snaps through the air like a whip.
Katherine’s heart lurches.
I kidnapped him. Oh God. I really—
But she shoves that thought down, reaching for the only control she has left.
“Ben, don’t swear at me.”
He lets out a disbelieving laugh. “That’s your problem right now? Really? Mom, you grabbed him and ran—”
“I was protecting him.”
“It looked like you were stealing him!”
“I’m his guardian,” she shoots back. “I’m allowed to take him.”
Ben throws his hands up. “Are you? Because it sure didn’t look like you believed that when you ran from those nurses!”
Katherine can feel the panic rising in her throat, mixing with anger, fear, instinct.
“He’s sick. He isn’t breathing right. They sedated him for no reason! I’m not waiting for a committee meeting while he suffocates.”
“You made it look like a kidnapping!” Ben fires back.
“They would’ve taken him,” she says through clenched teeth. “CPS, the hospital, the state—someone would have taken him from us.”
“You can’t just break the rules!”
Katherine’s voice bursts out, sharp and raw:
“THE RULES DON’T APPLY TO ABBADON!”
Ben freezes.
Katherine goes on, breath shaking, eyes burning.
“He’s a child demon, Ben. A literal demon. The system isn’t built for him. The rules aren’t made for him. They don’t know what he is or how to treat him or what he needs. They’d find out he doesn’t age, doesn’t get hurt, and put him in some white room, poke him with needles, call the government, call God-knows-who—”
She swallows hard.
“I couldn’t let that happen.”
Ben’s jaw opens…but nothing comes out.
Because what argument is there?
What handbook covers child demons?
What rulebook explains that?
He looks away, breathing unsteady, the reality of it hitting him all over again.
Katherine softens, the defensive fire flickering out into guilt.
“Ben…I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drag you into this. I just—”
Her voice cracks.
“—I couldn’t lose him.”
He doesn’t answer.
But he doesn’t ask any more questions, either.
—
Katherine ends up pulling into a run down gas station that looks like it would feature in a horror movie.
“What are we doing here?” Ben asks, finally speaking to her for the first time in a half hour.
“We need supplies.” She answers, unbuckling her seatbelt.
“Stay here with Abbadon. I’ll be back.”
Ben crosses his arms, but doesn’t complain. Which she appreciates.
Katherine pushes through the gas station door like she’d been spat out of a hurricane.
Her hood was soaked, her hair plastered to her cheeks, her hands still trembling with leftover adrenaline. She barely spared the cashier a glance — just threw a brittle “Hey” in their direction before walking stiffly toward the snack aisle.
She grabs things without seeing them: ramen cups, pretzels, gummy worms, whatever her hands landed on. Then medical supplies— antiseptic spray, gauze, ibuprofen, anything that looked like it belonged in a “my-kid-is-bleeding-but-I-can’t-go-to-a-hospital” kit.
Her chest is tight. Her pulse wild. She felt like she was gonna puke.
By the time she reaches the bathroom door, she couldn't breathe.
She slips inside, locks it, and braces her hands on the sink. The fluorescent lights were too bright. The air too cold. Her reflection looks like someone fleeing a crime scene.
Her phone buzzes in her shaking grip as she hits the hotel’s contact.
One ring.
Two.
Three—
“Mom?” Esther’s small voice answers.
Katherine’s eyes snap shut, tears spilling immediately. “Baby—Esther, sweetie, put Nathan on the phone.”
“You sound weird,” Esther says, wary. “Is Abaddon okay? Where are—”
“Honey,” Katherine rasps, her voice cracking. “Get your uncle. Please. And—and go into another room, okay? I need to talk to him.”
A beat. Then a frustrated huff. “Fine.”
Footsteps. A muffled door closing. Esther shouting, “Uncle Nathan! Mom’s on the phone!”
More footsteps. A switch of voices.
“Katherine.” Nathan sounds breathless. Angry already. “What happened? It’s been hours you can’t just—”
“His heart stopped.”
The words rip out of her before she could soften them.
Silence.
“…What.”
Katherine clutches the sink like it was the only solid thing in the world. “It stopped, Nathan. They—they were shocking him. And I—I couldn’t get to him, they wouldn’t let me see him, they kept dragging me out, and then CPS was questioning him alone, and—”
Her breath hitches violently. Her hand slaps over her mouth. She paces a tight circle, struggling to hold herself together.
“Katherine,” Nathan says, voice low, furious, “Where is he now?”
She hesitates.
The pause says everything.
“Katherine.” Sharper. “Where. Is. He.”
She swallows hard. “He’s… in the car.”
A crash comes through the phone on Nathan’s end — something heavy hitting a table or wall. “You took him?! Katherine, what the hell were you thinking?! They’re gonna come here! What about Esther and Ben?!”
“I KNOW!” she snaps, voice breaking. “I know, Nathan! I didn’t mean to—I wasn’t going to—but the cops were there and the nurses were accusing me of—of hurting him and they wouldn’t let me in and he was drugged out of his mind and terrified and—”
Her breath trembles dangerously.
“I couldn’t leave him.”
A choked, distant voice pipes through the phone.
“The police are coming?!”
“Esther—” Katherine says, instantly softening, “Keep out of the office. Listen to your uncle, please. You’ll see us soon. I promise.”
“No,” Esther argues stubbornly, voice cracking. “This isn’t fair! I wanna help.”
“Esther,” Nathan’s voice snaps in the background. “Out. Now.”
A small sniffle. Then the sound of retreating footsteps.
Nathan comes back on the line, seething. “Where are you?”
“A gas station off Highway 19,” she whispers.. “I’m—Nathan, I can’t go back to the hotel. Not yet. They’ll be looking for us. They probably already are.”
“So what, you’re just going to run?” Nathan demands. “With a sedated child in the backseat and the police actively searching for you?! Brilliant, Katherine. Brilliant.”
She presses her fist to her forehead, tears streaking hot down her cheeks.
“I’m getting a motel,” she manages. “Just for the night. I need time to think. To—to figure out what comes next. Maybe they won’t even find us? I gave a fake name...”
Nathan exhales like he was about to combust. “And how is Abaddon right now?”
She hesitates again.
Images flashed behind her eyelids:
Abaddon slumped sideways in the backseat, half-conscious, breathing shallow, Ben trying to keep his head from lolling.
“Katherine,” Nathan warns, low and dangerous.
“He’s…breathing,” she whispers. “And that’s all I can say.”
A long, heavy silence.
“…okay,” Nathan sighs. “But you call me if he stops breathing again. Immediately. Katherine, I swear— if he deteriorates and you don’t call me—”
“I will,” she whispers. “I promise.”
She ends the call before she can hear anything else he has to say.
Her legs feel like wet string as she buys the snacks, the ramen cups, the bandages, antiseptic wipes. Her hands shake so badly the cashier asks if she’s okay.
She lies. She nods. She leaves.
The rain has eased to a mist by the time she pushes back into the car, dropping into the driver’s seat like she’s fallen from a roof. She passes Ben the gummy worms—his favorite—but he doesn’t even look at them.
He’s pale, hunched in the backseat beside the limp boy leaning against his shoulder.
“Where are we going?” Ben asks, voice thin, worn.
“A motel,” Katherine says, staring straight ahead as she puts the key in the ignition. “Just for tonight.”
A beat of silence.
Then Ben explodes.
“A motel?!” he snaps, throwing the gummy worms onto the floor. “I wanna go home! I don’t wanna hide in some nasty motel with— with— cops looking for us! Mom, what the hell are you doing?!”
She flinches like he slapped her.
“Ben, I’m trying—”
“No!” he barks, voice breaking. “You’re not! You’re— you’re just—”
Tears shine in his furious eyes.
“This is your fault,” he chokes. “All of this! If you had just left him there like you were supposed to—like any normal person— we wouldn’t be running, and the cops wouldn’t be looking for us, and we could just go home!”
Katherine’s breath stutters.
For a second, she can’t breathe at all.
Abaddon stirs faintly at the sound of yelling, but doesn’t wake.
Her voice, when it comes, is barely above a whisper.
“I know,” she says, staring at the wet windshield as if waiting for it to swallow her whole. “I know, Ben. I know it’s my fault.”
Her hands tighten on the steering wheel until her knuckles blanch.
“But we can’t go home.”
Another shaky breath.
“Because if we do… they’ll take him away, and possibly me away too.”
Silence.
She turns the key in the ignition with trembling hands.
Ben looks down at Abaddon, who is half-awake, eyes glassy and unfocused, cheek pressed against Ben’s jacket. He’s breathing, but shallowly. Still lethargic from the sedatives.
Ben doesn’t answer.
He just pulls Abaddon closer, eyes glued to the window as the rain streaks down the glass, the gas station lights blurring into smears of gold and red.
—
The rest of the drive is almost silent.
Only the hiss of tires on wet pavement, the occasional shudder of the wipers, and Abaddon’s faint, uneven breathing from the back seat fill the car. Katherine’s knuckles are bone-white on the wheel. Ben sits rigid beside his cousin, glaring out the window, cheeks blotchy with leftover tears and fury.
He hasn’t said a word since snapping “It’s your fault.”
She hasn’t said a word since her voice cracked, answering,“I know.”
The air is tight. Stale. It feels like they’re all holding their breath.
Katherine turns off the highway, following a flickering roadside sign: VACANCY — WEEKLY RATES — NO REFUNDS.
It’s the best she can do under the circumstances. The neon buzzes like an insect as she pulls into the lot.
The motel looks like it’s given up long ago—paint peeling, puddles forming in potholes, half the rooms dark. The rain hasn’t stopped, sheeted across the windshield like static.
She parks under the awning. For a moment, she just sits there, forehead pressed to the wheel, her breath fogging the plastic. Then she inhales hard, pushes the door open, and steps out into the cold.
Ben climbs out more slowly. He’s still seething, but the way he keeps one steadying hand on Abaddon’s shoulder as Katherine lifts him shows his fear more clearly than anything he could say.
Abaddon is limp, heavy with sedation—dead weight in her arms. His head rests on her shoulder, hair damp with sweat. He doesn’t stir.
Inside, the front desk smells like mildew and stale cigarettes. A TV somewhere plays a game show too loudly. A woman in her fifties, stringy hair and expression carved out of annoyance, looks up only when she has to.
“What?” she snaps, not bothering to hide her irritation.
Katherine forces a smile that comes out brittle and shaky. “One room. Two beds. Just for the night.”
The woman eyes Abaddon slumped in her arms as if he’s an inconvenience, not a child unconscious and barely breathing.
“No parties,” she says flatly, sliding a keycard across the counter. “No pets. And if he throws up on the sheets, it’s a fifty-dollar fee.
Ben glares at her with the barely restrained fury of a thirteen-year-old whose whole world is collapsing. Katherine squeezes his shoulder gently as if to say not now and takes the card.
They trudge down the corridor, the carpet darkened by water leaks and footsteps. The room smells like bleach that’s losing a battle with mold. The lights buzz faintly.
Katherine lays Abaddon carefully on one of the beds. He doesn’t respond, his breath shallow, his face too pale.
Ben hovers a step behind her, arms crossed tight, voice small for the first time.
“He’s gonna wake up…right?”
Katherine freezes.
Her throat works before sound comes out.
“I—I don’t know, Ben.”
He looks at her sharply, fear slipping out from behind the anger. “…What do you mean you don’t know?”
“He’s heavily sedated,” she murmurs, brushing sweaty curls from Abaddon’s forehead. “His mortal body’s been pushed past his limits even for him…” Her voice breaks, and she swallows it. “He just needs time.”
Ben doesn’t answer. He turns away, shoulders hunched, blinking fast.
Katherine forces herself to move, to act, because stopping means thinking, and thinking means falling apart.
She finds the grimy microwave on the dresser, tears open two cups of ramen, fills them from the bathroom tap, and sets the first one inside. The machine rattles like it might come apart.
Ben sits at the tiny round table, staring at the gummy worms she bought him earlier. He hasn’t opened the bag.
He finally asks, without looking up, “What if he doesn’t?”
Katherine’s heart twists.
“Don’t think things like that. He’s fine.”
The microwave dings.
The storm outside only gets louder.
And Abaddon still doesn’t move.
—
Ben pokes at his noodles more than he eats them as the motel TV flickers with washed-out colors, playing some ancient Disney movie with crackling audio.
The screen is too bright for the dim, stale-smelling room, but neither Katherine nor Ben reache for the remote. They sit cross-legged on the end of one of the beds, eating ramen from flimsy Styrofoam cups.
Every slurp of Katherine’s feels too loud in the thick, exhausted silence. Outside, rain hits the railing in uneven taps.
Katherine keeps glancing sideways at Abaddon.
He hasn’t moved once since she carried him in—dead weight in her arms, head against her shoulder, breath shallow and milky from the drugs.
Now he lies on the other bed, curled slightly on his side, tubes taped to his cheek, bandages on his wrists bright white against the faded motel bedding.
Ben swallows hard. “You think he told them anything?”
Katherine stops mid-chew. Her stomach twists around her answer.
“…I don’t know, honey.” Her voice cracks more than she wants it to.
Ben stares at the kid. His face softens the way it always does when he forgets to be angry. But he says nothing. Just goes back to picking apart ramen that’s already falling apart.
The air stays thick, humming with the tension of everything unsaid.
After a minute, Katherine sets her cup aside, wipes her hands on her jeans, and digs into the first aid kit she grabbed at the gas station. Alcohol wipes. Gauze. Ointment. Bandage scissors.
She carries it over to Abaddon’s bed and sits at the edge.
Up close, he looks even smaller. Even paler. His lashes rest heavy against his cheeks, stuck together from dried tears and hospital grime.
Katherine breathes in slowly. Then she gets to work.
She checks the IV sites—angry red punctures that look worse under the motel lamp. She wipes them gently, her hands shaking. Ben turns on the mattress, watching her with wide, uncertain eyes.
The feeding tube bothers her the most.
It snakes down from his nostril, taped hastily to his cheek by a nurse who probably thought he’d be there overnight. It looks wrong on him. Violating. Like another stranger who touched him without permission.
She slides her fingers along the tape, takes a breath, and starts peeling.
Abaddon flinches.
Not awake, but that tiny jolt shoots panic right through her.
“Ah sorry,” she whispers. “I’m almost done.”
She removes the tape and slowly draws the tube out. It makes a faint wet sound as it leaves him. His throat works weakly.
Then—
His eyelids flutter.
Barely open, glassy and disoriented. His gaze doesn’t quite land on anything, drifting like he’s underwater.
“Katherine…?” His voice is grainy, barely there.
“Abaddon?” she gasps, smoothing his hair. “Can you hear me?”
He blinks slowly, pupils unfocused.
“…Yogurt?” he breathes, the request so small it almost isn’t a word.
Ben lets out a stunned, anxious huff, like he can’t believe that’s what this kid is worried about.
Katherine’s throat burns. She’s about to ask him how he’s feeling and if he can try to down some water but his eyes slip shut again, drifting instantly back into a drugged sleep.
Katherine keeps her hand on his hair long after he’s gone still.
Ben sets his ramen aside completely, appetite gone. His knee bounces restlessly.
“Mom… is he—”
“Eat your food, Ben,” she says softly, too softly, because any louder and she’ll break. She can’t take another question from him right now.
The motel TV plays on, oblivious, animated characters laughing brightly while the room around them sits drenched in fear, the smell of ramen, and rain.
Abaddon sleeps.
Ben watches.
Katherine doesn’t blink.
—
Katherine waits until Ben finally claims he’s tired enough for bed before she excuses herself to go “downstairs for ice and stuff.” Really, she just needed air—something cold, something that wouldn’t burn going down her throat.
The motel lobby smells like mildew and instant coffee, and the front desk woman barely looks up from her phone as Katherine wanders toward the little shelf of “souvenirs,” which were really just overpriced basics for travelers who forgot real luggage.
She grabs three plain T-shirts—one black, one navy, one a washed-out green. They were thin, stiff, the kind that smelled like cardboard and bleach, but they were clean and dry. She reaches for a pack of toothbrushes and toothpaste along with a pack of cigerettes—which she claims to Esther she quit. She pays for them with shaky hands.
When she returns to the room, Ben had finally settled, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside Abaddon, silently watching the motel TV flicker through static. Some animated Pixar movie was playing, the colors oversaturated, the audio warped when characters spoke too loud.
“Got us shirts,” Katherine whispers, setting the small plastic bag on the dresser.
Ben nods but doesn’t answer.
She hands him the navy one; she keeps the green. And for Abaddon, she lays the black one aside—he’d need something fresh to wear for when he wakes up.
Katherine changes in the small bathroom, staring at her reflection in the spotted mirror. Her hair was frizzy from the rain, and her mascara was smudged in bruised shadows beneath her eyes.
She looks like someone who hasn't slept in three days. Someone who had just kidnapped a child from a hospital.
Someone CPS would take one look at and call unfit.
Her throat tightens. She splashes cold water on her face and tugs the cheap shirt down over her hips.
When she steps back into the room, Ben has already changed. His hair was damp from his own attempt to clean up in the sink. He looks so small suddenly—thirteen, but hunched, shoulders pulled inward, eyes swollen from the crying he’d pretend he didn’t do.
Abaddon lays next to them on the bed, still deadweight unconscious, his chest rising shallowly, bandages at his wrists. He looks younger like this. Helpless. Sedated. Sick.
It makes her queasy to see him this way.
Ben slowly curls up beside him, tucking one leg under Abaddon’s blanket as if making sure his body heat keeps him warm. Katherine watches him lean carefully—not touching the bandages, not jarring the IV marks—just close enough to guard him.
He wasn’t angry now. Not the way he had been in the car.
He just looks scared.
Katherine sits on the edge of the other bed and watches the two boys breathe—one steady, one uneven—and something sharp twists beneath her ribs. One wrong move. One wrong word. One wrong assumption from a stranger…and CPS wouldn’t just come for Abaddon.
They’d come for Ben, too.
Her son. Her actual child. Her responsibility.
Her failure, if this went badly.
A cold pulse shoots through her stomach.
If they’re tracking them… If the hospital reported a kidnapping… If the police had Ben’s name… If CPS claimed she was unstable…
What if this wasn’t just about Abaddon anymore?
What if she’d put both kids in danger?
Ben shifts closer to Abaddon, protective even in his exhaustion, and lays his head lightly against the pillow near Abaddon’s shoulder. His eyes flutter shut, lashes wet.
Katherine wants to pull both of them into her arms, hold them safe against her, swear she’d fix this—but she doesn't know how. Not yet. Maybe not at all.
She sits awake instead—staring at the peeling paint, the dusty lamp, the motel curtains that barely closed—while the TV casts trembling light over the boys’ sleeping faces.
At some point she grabs the pack of cigarettes and lighter she hid under her bag and goes out onto the balcony.
Katherine stands at the railing, forearms resting on the rusted metal, listening to the rain. The parking lot below glows dull and orange, puddles trembling every time a drop hits.
She lights the cigarette with shaking hands.
The first inhale burns. Good. Something sharp enough to cut through the fog in her chest. She exhales slowly, watching the smoke curl and vanish into the rain.
She promised Esther she quit.
She thinks of Esther’s small hand wrapped around her finger, the seriousness in her eyes when she made her swear.
Katherine squeezes her eyes shut and tells herself she’ll make it up to her later. That tonight doesn’t count.
A siren wails somewhere in the distance.
Katherine flinches hard, eyes snapping to the road like she expects headlights to swing into the lot. They don’t. The sound fades, leaving only rain and the low buzz of the motel sign.
They’re not coming for you, she tells herself.
You didn’t do anything wrong.
She presses her palms harder into the railing.
She thinks of Abaddon in the hospital bed — too pale, too warm, too quiet. The way his body went slack when they increased the meds. The way they took her hands off him like she was the dangerous one.
She swallows.
I was protecting him.
The thought doesn’t land right.
Her mind drifts backward to the weight of that crucifix in her hand. The cold iron. The way she hesitated — just a second — before hanging it over his chest.
Her stomach twists.
She shouldn’t have done that. She tells herself she panicked and did it for her own safety, for the hotel’s safety. But safety doesn’t leave burns on children.
She drags another inhale, harsher this time, and coughs quietly into her sleeve. Tears sting her eyes. She scrubs at them angrily.
Another siren, closer.
She freezes again.
This wasn’t all your fault, she thinks, desperately.
He’s not human. The rules don’t work for him. You were improvising.
But improvising got him restrained. Drugged. Alone.
Her grip tightens until her hands hurt.
And then there’s Nathan.
The thought of him comes with heat — sharp, bitter, unfair.
He should be here! He should be standing beside her, taking half this weight. Instead, he chose his ending and left her with the aftermath. Left her with his son. His demon son.
And he has the right to be mad at her?!
She curses him under her breath, a quiet, ugly string of words she never let herself say before.
How dare he leave her with this
With him.
With the guilt.
With all of this responsibility.
The cigarette burns low. Ash drops onto the concrete near her bare feet.
She flicks it away and watches the ember die in the rain.
Inside the room, her children are sleeping — or trying to. One of them is miles away, surrounded by deranged ghosts, because she made the wrong call at the wrong time.
Katherine rests her forehead against the cool metal railing and lets herself breathe for a moment.
“God.” She mutters.
The rain keeps falling.
Her cigarette runs out.
—
A sharp knock shatters the thin motel silence.
Katherine jolts awake, Ben’s discarded ramen cup spilling off her bed and onto the carpet. The TV is still playing the same flickering Disney movie, throwing soft blue light over the room. Ben startles upright on the other bed beside Abaddon, who is still limp, breathing shallowly.
Another knock. Harder.
Katherine’s heart stops. Police. It finally happened. They found them.
She creeps toward the door, pulse thundering, gripping the motel chain lock like it’ll save her.
“Mom?”
A small, trembling voice on the other side.
She freezes.
“…Esther?”
She yanks the door open.
There, on the peeling concrete walkway, stands her ten-year-old daughter—soaking wet, hair plastered to her cheeks, backpack half-zipped, shoes muddy, and absolutely shaking.
Katherine’s stomach drops to her knees.
“Mom—” Esther chokes, and then she throws herself forward.
Katherine catches her, dropping to her knees right there in the doorway, arms locking around the tiny, freezing body. “What—Esther, what are you doing here? How did you—”
“I—I tracked Ben’s phone.” Her voice is a small, breathless gasp against Katherine’s shoulder. “You weren’t answering, Uncle Nathan kept yelling, and I—I thought—” She sucks in a wet, worried breath. “I thought you were in trouble.”
Ben stands behind Katherine, wide-eyed, disbelief crashing over his face. “You tracked my phone?!”
“How did you get here?” Katherine pulls back just enough to see Esther’s face.
“I took a bus.”
Katherine wipes wet hair off of Esther’s forehead. “Esther, you can’t—you can’t just run off like that. Someone could’ve—” Her chest tightens. “You could’ve been hurt.”
Esther huffs, stubborn even through her tears. “I can take care of myself.”
God, this child.
Behind her, Abaddon stirs, letting out a soft, pained sound. Esther’s head snaps up.
“Is that Abaddon? What happened to him?” Her voice wavers.
Katherine stands, scooping the girl inside and shutting the door quickly, scanning the parking lot to make sure no police cruisers followed her.
“We’ll explain,” she whispers, locking the deadbolt. “But you cannot do this again. Ever.”
Esther nods but looks past Katherine toward the bed. Abaddon is half-curled, an IV-taped arm bruised where she removed his line, feeding tube slightly tugged loose, breath rattling faintly.
Esther’s lip wobbles. “He looks worse…”
Katherine pulls her close. “I know. But we’re going to keep him safe, okay? Tonight… we just stay quiet. No one knows we’re here.”
Ben sinks onto the nearest chair, hands in his hair, whispering, “Oh my god… oh my god…”
Katherine swallows the rising panic and closes the curtains tighter.
Three kids. One unconscious, one furious, one soaked through from running away to find her.
And the cops are very likely looking for all of them.
The air in the tiny room feels suffocating.
Katherine forces herself to breathe.
“Everyone… everyone just sit down,” she whispers. “We’ll figure this out. But right now… we stick together.”
Esther slides into her mother’s side.
Ben keeps glancing at the door like it might burst open any second.
Abaddon shivers in his sleep.
And Katherine stands there, soaked child in her arms, rain pounding outside, realizing she has crossed a line she can never un-cross.