THE THIRD DAY OF GOING WITHOUT sleep, and, subsequently, more fear and worry about not being able to find Harry, is one of the worst days of her life.
It's as if her body knows the urgency of the situation, of her need to fall asleep and call out to him from a dream, and refuses to aid her in any way. She knows that isn't true. She knows that her lack of sleep is a result of acute anxiety, but, fuck, her body could not have picked a less opportune time to deprive her of rest. Headaches pounded within her head all day long, she moved with a sluggish pace, and the circles beneath her eyes could almost rival the ones that were there when she woke up after the attack in Harry's guest bedroom.
The first half of the day was mostly spent trying to keep busy. Jo was no longer trying to run from her feelings, but boredom instead.
Niall and Mitch tried everything they could to help while simultaneously orchestrating an effort to find him through other methods on their end, yet they couldn't come up with much for her to do. She couldn't clean compulsively as she usually does when bored or contemplating something too stressful to handle because she was too fatigued, nor could she get a night's sleep to think on the situation with a clear head in the morning. All there was left to do was wallow in the misery and find smaller, menial tasks to fill her time.
It started with that, with trying to read books despite not having the focus and taking walks around the property while talking to Mitch, then shifted into something else.
On one of her short-lived walks, Mitch gave her an idea: try to fatigue her body as much as possible until it cannot do anything but sleep. For such a simple concept, one would think that it'd be easy, but it wasn't. She could only walk outside with Mitch for a few minutes before being ushered back inside out of fear of being spotted, so exercising outside was out. She resorted to doing as much as she could in the living room, finding the strength to push herself through her exhaustion until she almost felt sick.
It wasn't until late in the afternoon that she laid her head down on the pillow and finally succumbed to her body's severe state of exhaustion. For someone who has been yearning for rest for days straight, she thought she might be too excited at being tired enough to sleep after waiting so long, but it wasn't like that at all. It felt so normal, like she was tired after a day of training in the gym with Harry and fell asleep after wanting to 'rest for a minute'—He always teased her about how she says she isn't falling asleep, then is snoring into one of the couch pillows two minutes later.
As she drifted away, there was no thought of what's happening around her or the fact that the man she loves is missing. In fact, she could almost feel him with her when she began losing consciousness. The arms that are always wrapped around her were felt in a phantom's embrace, and she could have sworn that she felt the familiar presence of his face buried in her neck the closer she came to going under.
Now, she has entered a pleasant dreamscape that might as well exist in a separate universe.
Sunlight beats down on her from overhead. It shines so brightly, she has to squint to see the beautiful scenery surrounding her from all sides. Beneath her, a silk blanket is spread out to keep a barrier between her and the unruly blades of grass sticking up from the ground that makes up the small clearing in the woods. Everything around is a portrait of beauty and warmth, so unlike the gloomy world she has grown to love since she was brought there by—
The feeling of a familiar hand grasping hers jolts her out of her thoughts, and she's about to punch blindly without regard for who is trying to get her attention until the sound of his voice graces her presence. Though she realizes it's a dream the second she turns to see him, the sound of his deep voice and sight of that beautiful face are enough to settle the unending fear she feels.
If he's here visiting her, it means he's alive. Well, she's known he's been alive for days because she has had yet to feel the telltale, unbearable pain that apparently ensues when the other half of the blood bond dies, but this confirms it. This brings tears of relief to her eyes.
"We don't have a lot of time," Harry says, guiding her up from her spot atop the picnic blanket, "I can't explain everything, y'just have to come with me."
The sunshine does not phase him in this dream world as it does in the real one. It's the only thing that proves to her that this isn't real, he doesn't shift in discomfort at the painful heat like he did the other day as she walked up to him seconds before he was taken.
She can hardly pay attention to what he's saying as he drags her away from the scenic meadow, back through the trees, and in the direction of the city beyond because she recognizes this place. This is the city she has spent countless time traipsing through on her way to and from the hospital to the train station—wherever it is he's taking her, it isn't too far.
"They're feeding me small doses of wolfsbane to keep my power weak enough to subdue me."
Part of her wishes he would turn around and let her see his face one more time. He walks ahead and pulls her along behind him, footsteps tapping quietly on the sidewalk. The back of his head is the only brief glimpse she is allowed of him. But once his words sink into her mind, she isn't thinking about spending these precious moments memorizing his face in case she never sees it again, she's thinking about the poison he's being fed.
In the back of her mind, she faintly recalls the gardening day camp she once attended as a child. They spent most of the time walking around the landscape of the garden park the camp took place in, but some of it was educational.
Aconitum lycoctonum, otherwise known as wolfsbane, is fatal if eaten, and, apparently, weakening in small doses given to creatures as strong as he is. If she were to eat it, it would kill her. When he is fed a dose of the plant, it lessens the effect of his powers and often renders him unconscious, which, for a species that never sleeps, must scare him shitless if she were to guess.
His voice fades back to her through her sudden memory of the poisonous plant, "The knife they stabbed me with was coated in a decoction of it—"
She stops short in her tracks.
"They stabbed you?" she asks, eyes wild with a fit of protective anger he feels flaring up secondhand from her.
Why hadn't she thought of something like this sooner? That was how they knocked him out cold in the forest within a matter of seconds. In her memory, she sees the look on his face when he was grabbed by the two masked vampires, and it all makes sense now. If they shot Niall, why wouldn't they stab Harry too? As long as it isn't a stake or silver knife driven through his heart, he'll always heal from it eventually, even if it's dipped in a mid-level dose of poison.
Harry spares a look back at her, then to the sidewalk ahead, then back to her. The way he calms her from a mere look in her direction is something no sleeping aid or valerian root tea could ever match. But, though anger and worry may not show as much when he's staring at her, it is still there.
"I promise I'm okay." The hand at his side flexes, as if he wants to slow everything down and act on the urge in his mind that screams to tuck that stray, billowing piece of hair back behind her ear. "But we can't stop, I have no clue when she'll be back, and if she knows I'm using my power..."
The words left unspoken shake her to the core, but she cannot allow it to bother her.
He's right.
This whole situation is bigger than any of them as individuals, it's bigger than a poison-laced stab wound, it's about protecting the humans these sick bastards prey on in the same of some natural circle of life. How can she claim to care about the cause if she can't put her feelings aside for one second to find him and put an end to this once and for all?
They continue on for some time in an urgent quiet that neither of them protests before something he said sticks out. This time, she doesn't stop but speeds up to match his strides.
"She?"
The sidelong glance he cuts her way does not ease a single one of her nerves.
"It's Adeline."
Adeline Monroe.
Her recollection of their first interaction will be forever engraved into her mind: tear-filled eyes, sharp features of stunning immortal beauty, and a lonely corner inside the townhouse library with multiple empty glasses of champagne littering the end table. Though she hasn't seen the woman in over a month, none of it has faded, not the dinner party, their visits together, or the failed break-in that led to the demise of their short-lived friendship.
They turn down an eerily familiar alley, and she has to force herself to not turn away from it as they pass the same cobblestone wall her head was once bashed into. In this dream, the stain from her blood is not visible, but she is willing to bet that it would be in the real world. Though the drops of blood sitting in the snow as a stark reminder likely melted and her scarf was likely stolen by someone passing by, that dark reminder of what occurred here is still there.
"So, she's kidnapping you to get back at us for what we did? I don't understand how she even knew where we live, you said no one knows—"
"Someone who knows must have told her, that's the only way she could've found out," he says, then his voice drops to a lower volume as if he fears that his absent captors will somehow hear inside of her head, "And it isn't just to get back at us. Adeline is Benjamin. Most of the stuff we found at her house was hers, not her husband's."
The wheels start spinning in her head as she realizes what he means and connects everything she has seen along the way. Between her violent switch in behavior once she caught them breaking into the stash of sensitive, confidential Sacrosanct documents they found hidden behind the bookcase room in her house—it was in front of them the whole time. It explains why her schedule was so busy, only leaving a single Saturday open for Jo to come visit.
How had she ever dismissed her as nothing more than a grieving wife of a criminal? Harry saw the danger in her, he saw it and that's why he was so upset when she befriended her in the library, but she didn't. If she were honest, after meeting with her a few times, she could've seen a real friendship between them if nothing bad proceeded to happen.
There are no words for what she feels right now. She can't even find her voice to say anything in response, and she doesn't need to, because they come to a stop in front of an unsuspecting warehouse.
She looks between him and the building.
"I know this place."
Though she only began working at the hospital in autumn, the terrifying morning walks to the hospital from the train station are something she will never forget, even more so after what happened to her on her last one. Down at the end of the dark alleyway she was attacked in on Christmas, a street lamp illuminated the same rundown warehouse that always gave her the creeps.
"You do?"
"Yeah. I mean, not only did I pass it walking to work every day, but there was a fire here not too long ago. It was all over local news websites," she explains, now pulling him along behind her in pursuit of the windows lining the outside walls to get a glimpse inside.
She wants to actually get inside of the building itself, but the door is boarded up to ward off unwanted visitors.
Sensing her eagerness to track them down, he pulls her away and turns her to face him, warning her, "I'm only showing you this so Niall and Mitch will find me. She'll kill you if you come with them, so promise me y'won't."
Though she always wants to make him happy, she knows she can't promise him what he wants because their plans ensure that the opposite will happen. Now that she knows where he is, nothing can stop her from finding and killing every last one of the people involved in his kidnapping.
It's clear that their time together is running out based on how panicked his body language is and how much quicker he speaks. The hands cupping her face tremble, just a little, and it makes her want to kiss them until the shaking settles into steadiness. Instead, she settles for reaching up and holding her hand over one of them and allowing the warmth of her skin to calm him as it always does.
The city around them is disintegrating. The image he crafted so carefully fades and fades, making bricks that compose the abandoned warehouse fall and crack like thunder on the sidewalk.
As she is being ushered away into reality, back to consciousness, she only says, "No matter what happens, I love you," but does not promise him anything.