Dream of memory

Who: Nic(Sera), NPCs Diego and Ricardo (D.J., Ricky)
Where: in dreams
When: late at night

She'd tried to avoid this, she really had. Exhaustion was her best hope, a whittling of the night hours to leave only a handful, a scant few to sleep in just to let her mother think she'd been here all night. But even those few? Well, they were enough room for the dreams to come. Curled in bed with her sheets knotted tight in her grip, Nic shook and trembled on the mattress, a thin sheen of sweat on her face as she dreamed of fire.

~*~

In her dreams, there was no Nicole. There never had been. There was only Sera Portillo, grim beyond her fourteen years in the endless repeat of a single night, the night that marked the endless divide between those two lives. She was in her home again, surrounded by shrouded mirrors with an axe resting across her legs. It had been her father's until two days earlier, and despite how short a time she had owned it? It had been dusty and unused for much longer. Neither parent had been laid to rest, a choice she and her two brothers had agreed on. There could be no rest, not while the murders went unavenged.

She was tired of waiting, of watching D.J., the eldest Portillo son, pace endlessly with a machete in hand as it bounced off the side of his hip. She couldn't stand hearing Ricky murmur one more prayer, or the near-inaudible click of rosary beads resounding off each other as he did. She wanted blood, blood she and her brothers were owed for what had happened. They knew the reason, they knew the killer's identity, and now? Now the three of them were going to track the man down. "Ricardo, enough," she insisted in a soft growl, rising from the sofa and hefting the axe up to one shoulder. "The saints know we beg forgiveness, now we have to do something that needs forgiving."

D.J. stopped his pacing, testing the edge of his blade with a thumb as he nodded his agreement. He was taller than his siblings, solid and angular, blessed with a shock of silky-dark hair, and had been a handsome young man before tragedy had come to them. He still was, aside from the haunted and hungry look that had been on him for days now. "Sera's right, hermano," he added, "Papa would want us to atone later. To mourn later." Their words seemed to draw a shiver from the middle sibling, his head twisting from where he knelt in front of a picture of their parents and a solitary prayer candle. Ricardo was the waif of the three; thin and scrawny, his hair buzzed to the scalp, his cheeks pockmarked, and his eyes always seeming on the verge of tears. Especially lately.

He took a deep breath, looking between his older and younger siblings as he rose from a kneel, kissing the rosary and coiling it next to the picture of his parents, then cleared his throat before speaking. "I just... I didn't pray to be forgiven. I asked for wisdom for us all. If we find him? If? It won't bring them back, will it? And how would we? We aren't dad, Sera. We've never hunted. We've never done what he did." He took a deep breath, eyes troubled as he looked at both of them in turns. "And suppose we do... what happens when we find him? Are you going to die killing him? Are you, Diego? Will... will I have to bury you with them?"

Sera looked away with a scowl, catching D.J. doing the same as both exchanged a knowing look. It was their curse, their heritage; take the life of a human, and give up your own in the process. Ricardo didn't have that penalty, the gift had skipped him, but so had the will to fight despite their father's best efforts. "Yes," she answered grimly, nodding and dropping the axe to boucne the haft in her free hand, "For what he did to mom, to dad? To aunt Karen? I want to watch him die." She'd had enough of her brother's arguments, and Sera shook her head as she walked away from them both, moving for the front door. "Stay if you want, Ricky. Wait for an angel to set this right. I'll be in the car, D.J... I want what was taken from me."

She twisted open the front door, nearly screaming in surprise as she revealed a man standing passively there with a dangerous smile curling his lips. "You and I both," he said, "I think we have more in common than genes, girl." He was an ugly man; short and rotund with an old scar running from one temple, leering at Sera, and she knew him. She'd seen him two days earlier, watching in shock as he twisted her parents apart like dolls without ever lifting a hand. Her great uncle. Her enemy. "Bastard!" she snapped in stunned fury, getting her axe halfway up before the man flicked a hand and flung her away effortlessly on a wave of force. Sera hit the stairs to the second floor with an anguished cry, rebounding off the railing and collapsing as her weapon slid away.

Her brothers were quick to react, each in their own way as they moved to see the commotion. D.J.'s blade was already up as he shoved past Ricardo, snarling a promise of death for a handful of seconds. Then the other hand came up, and in an instant he was separated from his machete. D.J. flew backwards over the sofa, smashing into one of the covered mirrors with a muted crash as his machete drifted the other way, towards the intruder. He laughed richly, twirling a finger to make it spiral end over end and suddenly dart towards Ricardo in neat time with the panic that blossomed in the younger man's eyes. Ricardo turned to run, getting barely three steps before the blade dipped and spun, slicing through the joint of his ankle easily and sending him towards the floor with a scream of agony.

He was caught inches away, hanging there aloft in the same telekinetic grip that had felled his brother and sister, and Sera watched in a daze from her prone spot on the bottom stairs. "Your mother... did she ever tell you I existed?" the man asked the room, as if any of them was fit to answer. "Did you know my name? What they did to me? The insult your father committed?" He twitched a hand, snapping Ricardo upright as blood pumped from the severed joint of his leg and pooled across the floor. "Did your father ever tell you how he divided my family? My flesh and blood? Or..." he trailed, smiling delightedly as Ricardo sobbed in agony, "...how I promised to return the favor?"

At first, she could only assume it was the sheer pain of his leg that was making Ricardo cry worse and worse. She looked up groggily, propped on one hand as her head twisted to see her brother, and she wished she hadn't. One of Ricardo's arms was stretched out, mimicked by the deft twist of one of her uncle's hands, and she felt her stomach roil as he looped a finger in the air. The gesture brought a slow, sick popping with it as Ricardo's arm twisted in the socket, flesh stretching thin and bone popping free, then suddenly disconnecting from the socket of his arm entirely. His scream was something she knew she'd never forget, if she survived this night.

Their great-uncle laughed again as Ricardo's scream choked and trailed, too overloaded with pain to continue. He flicked his wrist, tossing what was left of her brother back into the table he'd prayed at with a crash. She couldn't look at the man she knew was going to kill her, staring off with unfocused eyes at the twitch of her brother's remaining arm, the lit prayer candle rolling away, the shattered glass and ruined frame of her parents' photo... and beyond it all, Diego rising from behind the sofa, blood masking one side of his face, and a fire poker clenched in one hand. If she could see him? So could this monster. But she had to hope, to buy time for her brother to finish this. If one of them survived this night and this man didn't? It would be worth it.

"You're going to die!," she shrieked at her would-be assassin in a thick voice, head spinning as Sera rushed him in an off-balance stagger. Her great uncle smirked as she came, raising his free hand and curling the fingers in. Sera stopped like she'd been clothes-lined, caught tight in a feeling of indescribable pressure that squeezed around her ribs and waist, her hands flailing just shy of his face. "You know, you look like your mother," the man purred, studying her intently. "She and her sister? I loved them. They were my private joys... I taught them a great many things before your father came. Your brothers... they remind me of him." He wiggled his other hand, causing a sharp ringing as the machete he'd held on pure thought burst apart, the handle falling away to leave five deadly shards hanging in it's wake.

"I will take my time with them," he promised, fingers dancing lightly to manipulate the shards of metal, guiding them towards Sera. "For now... indulge me, girl. Cry for me like your mother did. Nothing would make me... happier," he cooed in a voice that was far too gentle for what he was talking about. One shard angled towards Sera, flickering in the dim lights of the house as it dipped and pushed through the fabric of her shirt, parting the skin beneath and letting blood run free. She couldn't quite hold back a choked cry of pain, struggling with her other hand to grab at the metal. She didn't reach it before another punched into one side of her waist, a third puncturing just above the elbow of her questing hand. Every flail and struggle felt like it tightened the pressure, keeping her breath short and shallow as Sera's lungs compressed. "Diego!" she wheezed, shuddering as pain jolted through her from what felt like everywhere at once.

If it wasn't for the pain, Sera would've laughed in her great uncle's face as his eyes widened in neat time with D.J. charging, fire poker raised high. He lashed it across their attacker's face, sending the man sprawling to the ground and dropping Sera free as the force holding her fell apart. D.J. didn't hesitate, rushing in with the weapon pointed down, raising it up to stab. "You filth... you wretch!" the prone man spat, lashing a hand D.J.'s way and making the poker suddenly twist inward, stabbing into his side with the force of his impending strike. He gasped, staggering back with the fresh wound's force and closing both hands around the iron poker.

On the floor nearby, Sera lay prone, lost in a world of sharp pain as she looked on hazily, filtering what was going on just a few feet away through a layer or agony. She saw D.J. with his hands around the poker, muscles corded tight as he seemed to be fighting to keep it from pushing deeper. Her enemy wasn't far away, blood cresting along one side of his face and masking the ugly scar there as he kept a hand aimed at D.J., driving the fire poker forward with a thought. She raised one arm to her lips, whimpering as she tugged metal from her elbow with her teeth, then yanked another shard from her shoulder with a weak, shaky hand. She pushed up onto her knees and nearly fell, realizing another had been shoved into her thigh that she hadn't even realized in the torment of the other wounds. "Hang... on..." she growled, knuckling a sliver of metal between two fingers and lunging out with it.

Her aim was true, her weight carrying her to the prone psychic as Sera slashed it at the man's throat. She saw blood run, saw it stark and clear as the entryway grew brighter, lit by a fire that was spreading in the living room, fed by a single candle on the carpeting. Sera's head snapped to one side as an unseen force smashed into her in response, barely registering the sight of D.J. tugging the fire poker from his side and starting to rise. She felt heat, smelled acrid smoke filling her nostrils as she hit the floor, and white light flooded Sera's eyes as she fell back, never seeming to hit the floor beneath her.

~*~

"Mom!" Nic screamed, sitting up in bed as she gasped for air and scrambled on her mattress, flattening her back against the wall. She was shaking, damp with sweat and nauseous with the phantom odor of smoke in her nostrils. Her shoulder ached, and without thought Nic reached up to rub at the scar there. For that first moment of terror, she could almost remember the dream who had been there, what she'd been doing. But it was gone.

Nic dropped forward, burying her face in her knees as she sobbed helplessly and the door popped open. The lights flicked on to reveal her mother in the doorway, her face lined with familiar concern. "Nic, hon?" she asked worriedly, rushing to the bedside to sit, then slipping an arm across her daughter's shoulders. Nic leaned in without a word of protest, burying her face against Emily's arm and choking back a cry. "Had that dream again?" her mom went on, smoothing a hand across Nic's hair gently.

Nic didn't say anything for a long minute, just letting the tears and shudders work themselves out as she clung to her adoptive mother. When she did? She leaned back to wipe at her red-rimmed eyes and forced a deep breath. "I don't... I don't remember," she answered in a pleading voice, shaking her head. Emily sighed quietly, drawing her in again and holding her lightly. "I know, sweetie, I know," she soothed, "But it'll come back if it's meant to come back. And I'm always gonna be here." And just like it had for the past couple of years? That promise worked.

Nic took another deep breath, hugging Emily tightly as she murmured into her mother's nightshirt. "Can I stay home today? Please? I just... I can't do it today, mom. I can't," Nic begged, unable to look up as she asked. Emily smiled softly in response, stroking her daughter's hair in a slow repetition as she nodded. "Okay. This time, yeah," Emily agreed, frowning in thought. Either the dreams had been bad tonight? Or she just hadn't slept much anyway. But she didn't smell like liquor, and only as smoky as she ever did, so Nic could get a reprieve this time. "You just... go pick out a movie, curl up on the sofa. I'll call the school and get some breakfast going." She smiled sadly as Nic nodded, gathering blanket around her shoulders and slipping from the bedroom. "I had to get up soon anyway," Emily sighed in resignation, moving to follow, "Half an hour less won't kill me." And really, by now she could set her alarm early for this, once a week. She just hoped that one day she wouldn't have to.