"Oh Hell"

Chapter 3: "Babakazamadoodle"

It had taken way too long for backup to arrive and for Chloe to follow Trixie to hospital, and the news she had gotten hadn't been good. Amenadiel had driven her here and had stayed as long as dared before he decided to return to the scene and see what he could learn. Chloe doubted it was much but he had yet to return. Chloe looked over at her daughter. The doctors had been very quick to inform of Trixie's list of injuries, and Chloe's heart had been left broken when she'd heard them. A broken leg, three broken ribs, severe blunt force trauma, concussion, a badly bruised spine that risked paralysis, deep cuts that were very likely to scar. She'd asked for Ballantyne's record and found him having a lot of driving infraction and drug possession charges and even belonged to hate groups. The guy was notorious for hating immigrants. The guy had used to be a cop before his son had come forward dealing physical, verbal and emotional abuse, leading to him being fired from the force and thrown in jail for a few years. Evidently he'd chosen to lay low after getting out, the kid had wanted nothing to do with him and Chloe wasn't surprised. Ballantyne had seemingly remained silent after being dragged to the station and so far the evidence was slim. Chloe's gut was saying that Ella had the right of way, and Chloe would have never trusted her with Trixie if she wasn't a safe driver. Her current theory was that Ballantyne had been drunk or high, or this was a hate crime. Either way he was going back to prison. The truck had been clean of any illegal cargo. No drugs, no guns. Ballantyne had been working as a delivery driver since he got out of prison and had been by all accounts an employee who kept his head down and got on with his job. Whatever hateful bullshit he believed in he was smart enough not to broadcast publicly. It was also impossible to tell if this was a hate crime because there was no way he could have known that Ella, who had Mexican heritage, was in the car. If it was a hate crime Chloe intended to push for the hardest sentence imaginable for this, and whatever other crimes she could uncover. So far there was no detective investigating, and while she was detailed to Homicide but was more than able to be objective about this. She forced her thoughts back to Trixie. Her little girl was in a medically induced coma to try and help her heal faster and Chloe was forcing herself not to let her tears fall. Trixie's leg had been broken so badly that she'd had to have surgery to set the bones. There were plates inside her daughter so make sure she healed properly because of some asshole who had at the very least driven recklessly. Chloe had been forced to wait alone, but she didn't know how much longer she could do this alone. Maze was off bounty hunting, Linda had taken Charlie to meet her parents, Dan was on vacation and Lucifer was in Hell. Amenadiel was around but probably helping search for Ella who was still missing, and Chloe couldn't in good faith ask him to stop searching for their friend. She had considered calling Eve but neither she nor Chloe were particularly close and Chloe somehow doubted the first woman had a cell phone and even Eve did, Chloe didn't have her number. She hadn't dared tell Penelope because if she had her mother would come storming right here and cause more trouble and make the doctors and nurses more anxious than they already were. She had tried to call Dan but the timezone difference meant he was asleep or doing something else, and Chloe didn't have the money to pay the international rates. She didn't expect him to drop everything and come rushing home, and even if she did there was no way of knowing when Dan could get on a flight at such short notice. As a result, Chloe was alone, though she had sent maze a text letting her know what had happened, and if she didn't hear from Amenadiel soon she was going to have to call him. At the very least he could get word to Lucifer or ask one of his siblings for help provided he was allowed to do such a thing. The biggest mystery was Ella. No one knew where she was or if she was ok and that was extremely concerning after a car wreck. She hardly needed to lecture Ella about such a thing considering the younger woman's history. Ella was alive, Chloe knew it in her gut, she just didn't know where Ella was. She'd heard of Dante's Inferno but that was just a story, or at least she suspected it to be. Lucifer had been a little cagey about how much of humanity's myths and legends were real or fake. In part it was because he didn't like to talk about his celestial life and the other part was because Chloe hadn't cared to ask as many questions as she probably should have. He had explained a few things such as what dragged a person down to hell when they died, and Amenadiel had told her that Lucifer going back to hell wasn't just because of Charlie being kidnapped. Demons were forbidden from possessing humans and a number of them had done so despite his instructions. It didn't matter that they were recently deceased, possessed humans were serious and dangerous and had clearly been enough of a threat that Lucifer had been forced to return to the place he hated most, or one of them. Trixie had been hurt, and Chloe knew Lucifer would come if she asked him to, that he would have helped find Ella if she asked but she hadn't been able to bring herself to try. She had asked Amenadiel about angels receiving prayers in the first days after Lucifer had left and he had told her everything. It was an option, but Lucifer wasn't easy to reach, which meant that if she tried it needed to be an emergency. The problem was she had no idea how things had been going down in Hell. Amenadiel hadn't checked, which Chloe was silently pissed about, but she had decided not to yell at him until she knew a bit more about why. Celestial politics were tricky, and although Chloe wasn't the smartest when it came to the subject but she could deduce a few things. She speculated that Lucifer was omnipotent when it came to hell, and in terms of raw power and potential he was second only to his father himself. If that theory was correct, it meant that even God himself would have had a hard time getting into Hell. It also meant that as hard as Amenadiel tried he would likely only have a small window of opportunity and that was assuming Lucifer was in the mood for visitors. It wasn't to say that Lucifer couldn't leave for a few days, but that was assuming the state of his realm was at a place where all his hard work wasn't going to implode the second that he left. Chloe ground her teeth. She wasn't angry with him but was angry about how helpless she was. She couldn't do anything despite wanting to and even if she could she was either going to have to abandon her daughter or abandon her friend and surrogate sister. No matter which way she tried to cut it there were no good options. She could try to find Ella. The LAPD took care of its own, and she had the authority to use resources when she needed to. She was going to get in trouble for it later but she didn't care. She wanted to find her friend and make sure she survived. Ella didn't deserve whatever she was going through right now. She was just reaching for her phone when the doors opened, and Amenadiel stepped through, a woman with a spear at his side. Chloe sighed and knew she was about to be neck deep in Celestial bullshit yet again. She needed a vacation, and when all was said and done, she was going to take a few million dollars' worth of Lucifer's money and get herself an extended stay in Dubai or something. If he had anything to say against that then she was going to kick his ass, and maybe even get Maze to join in.